An argument I’ve read is that the US war against Vietnam was brought to an end by three things:
Determined, popular resistance by the people of Vietnam.
Mass popular protest against the war in the US.
The collapse of discipline within the US military, including troops negotiating or rejecting orders, assassination of officers, desertion, sabotage, and mutiny.
By that account, the mass protests by civilians were important for several reasons: because it made it clear to soldiers that many people did not support the war, and that many would support their refusal to fight; because the increasing size and militancy of demonstrations in the face of repression reinforced this; because there were often personal ties between protesters and soldiers, and veterans visibly played a major role in demonstrations against the war throughout.
(Incidentally, I was once told by an editor that he’d done a LEXIS/NEXIS search for any accounts of demonstrators spitting on soldiers in the US in the Vietnam era, and the only such account he could find was of a group of conservative protesters who were demonstrating against returning soldiers, accusing them of cowardice and of not fighting hard enough.)
I’m tempted to argue that therefore, the most important effect of civillian anti-war demonstrations was that it encouraged resistance to the war within the military. But, it’s hard to be certain of that. Politicians are generally careful to avoid admitting that popular demonstrations have any influence on them, but there’s evidence that they are:
CHARLES COLSON, Special Counsel to the President: It was like living in a bunker in the White House. I mean, we’d look out in the streets and see thousands of people protesting. You literally were afraid for your life. There were times when I can remember saying, “I can’t believe this is the United States of America, a free country,” and here we are in the White House with barricades up and buses around the White House and tear gas going off and thousands, hundreds of thousands of protesters out in the streets and troops sitting here. Nixon: The American Experience
Seems as if you have a deep, intellectual appreciation of Russell Brand - and you can’t help but share it! It’s a fact that not many of us have the time or the intuitive discipline to completely immerse oneself in another’s work and life (especially an immersion into the life of a stand-up comedian such as Brand) - Personally, I’ve always been a Tim Brooke-Taylor man myself
But, to reiterate - I feel that the Guy Fawkes masks should be dropped…
possibly in favor of Tim Brooke-Taylor masks or at the very least, Bill Oddie masks.
This is not the case… The problem is the prohibition of the “protection” in the case of the public exposition and in cases on “confrontation”. Progressive causes “always lose” because is hard to change old problems and accept some new things over “working” old things.
Well stated. While it is simplistic to say that the protests alone led to the end of that war, as one who lived through it, I think the protests were very significant in turning public perception against the continuation of the war. The early protesters were ridiculed, and then gradually the tide turned and suburbanites joined with the college age protesters, and attitudes changed.
Even though their numbers were small, the Occupy protesters changed the national perception of the financial meltdown and led to a larger discussion of the influence of the 1%, and the disproportionate influence of big money in politics.
But you do have time to dismiss what he says, just because it’s him saying it. So what you have to say about his political views and writings is just as shallow and pointless as what you accuse him of saying. Got it, thanks.
One thing that’s been on my mind lately is that there are a lot of complaints in broadcast media about how users of the Internet are trapped in “filter bubbles”, where they only see information that confirms their own biases. And that thought crossed paths with the memory of what happened with the socialist press in the US during World War I. Prior to WWI, the socialist movement in the US was mostly organized around hundreds of small, local newspapers; during the war, the right used the Socialist Party’s principled opposition to the war as justification to seize or physically destroy the printing presses and shut down many of those presses, which had a disastrous effect on the socialist movement in the US.
So as we all know, we had massive consolidation of broadcast media in the second half of the twentieth century. We also have had a history of communities of activists built around small-scale publications based on expressing particular political views. In fact, I’ve seen a lot of variations on the idea that the prerequisite for building any kind of activist organization is assembling like-minded activists so they can develop and refine their arguments together and formulate plans.
From that point of view, the widely condemned “filter bubble” is actually the development we’ve desperately needed for fifty years. And that’s where it starts to make sense to me just why Anonymous may be so important.
I don’t know anything about Russell Brand, other than he dated Katy Perry and that his LIVE stand-up comedy DVD “Doing Life” recorded at Hackney Empire theater wasn’t very good. In the DVD he crawls and roams incoherently throughout the audience and he wasn’t funny even when he crawled back up onstage. But, then again I’m picky when it comes to comedy
But you seem to know a lot about Russell Brand - and that’s OK…really, it’s OK
PS - Oh, and Russell Brand’s performance in the bad remake of “Arthur” was so bad. If Brand is such an astute and perceptive public figure, why would he accept such a bad role in such a bad movie? Probably the money, but perhaps he found the role to be intellectually stimulating and a way to express his social distrust with society as it currently manifests itself. But probably he took the role for the money.
