HIST 2112 Lecture 20 Outline of Last Lecture I Vietnam a short history A A scrappy little country B The French and the landochina colony C The Viet Minh a Nationalists b Very Popular progressive policies II Enter the US A Vietnam containment and monolithic communism a The Domino Theory b Funding the French Indochina War c Geneva Settlement 1 Divides Vietnam north and south 2 No elections war erupts III Entering the Quagmire B Support for Diem and the ARVN C JFK and military advisors D LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 1964 E Direct US involvement begins IV Fighting the War A The ineffectiveness of air power B The ineffectiveness of the ground war a search and destroy and body counts b Frustration My Lai massacre V Tet Offensive January 1968 A Where d all these VC come from B The credibility gap and growing antiwar sentiment at home C The pullout begins VI Reaction A Vietnam the end of liberal dominance and the rise of conservatism Outline of Current Lecture I The Sixties Protest Movements Two Phases II III IV A Hope reformists positive B Rage Bitter cynical sometimes violent Civil Rights From We Shall Overcome to Black Power A Starts out tame and non radical a Legal phase Brown v Board etc b Nonviolent Protest Phase B The turn toward radicalism born of frustration and white violence a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC Black Panthers The New Lef A A broad coalition of social change groups B The New Lef s Loose set of ideals C Students for a Democratic Society and critiques of American society culture politics a Racism poverty inauthentic suburbia b The Establishment 1 Government military corporation universities all working together to get and keep power i The falseness of Liberalism 2 The unity of all problems ii Vietnam War the ultimate symbol and expression of The Establishment s corruption D Protecting Vietnam a Marches teach ins etc b Fighting the Draf E The turn towards radicalism a Democratic Convention Chicago 1968 b The Weathermen 1969 1 Violent revolutionary at least rhetorically The counterculture and the Hippies A Not the same as the New Lef B Protested corrupt America by refusing to take part Dropping Out a Life as Politics dress drugs sex as protest b Communes hippie utopia c Yippies cynical version of hippies fighting the system through mockery Current Lecture Days of Hope Days of Rage Panthers Lefists and Hippies in the 1960s 50s v 60s You can see the 60s coming a mile away I The Sixties Protest Movements Two Phases A Hope reformists positive o Hope Rage o The early 60s protest movements were reform movements o Not revolutionary but reform early 60s activists looked at America and said despite all of our progress we still have extreme un equality and we need to fix this problem same with poverty o Let s make America work for all Americans They aren t arguing that America cannot be fixed B Rage Bitter cynical sometimes violent o Maybe America is too far gone to be saved o We re basically screwed we don t need to reform we need to tear down and rebuild o Born out of frustration o By 1970 a lot of these movements are on their way out Hope to Rage Three groups II Civil Rights From We Shall Overcome to Black Power A Starts out tame and non radical a Legal phase Brown v Board etc Equal access to education public facilities etc Modern main stream goals Win on paper Not very radical b Nonviolent Protest Phase Marches sit ins boycotting SNCC March on Selma B The turn toward radicalism born of frustration and white violence o Things are a little tougher than you thought o Massive resistance just keeps going on and on and on are we ever going to see any change o You can only get beaten up so many times before your attitude changes a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC Black Panthers SNCC multi racial group until 1966 You start to get mixed tensions about white people in the group because of all of the violence maybe white people are not reformable in the end III 1966 whites asked to leave SNCC why are you here You kind of act like you own the place and don t appreciate the sacrifices we make You need to leave this is about ending Black violence and anti segregation this needs to be a movement by us and for us BLACK POWER rejection of non violence a lot of this is theatre Black Panthers not passive hit us and we ll hit back Big black coats eventually fall apart The New Lef A A broad coalition of social change groups o The New Lef is mainly a group of people with the same ideals o Van Gos Historian expert on New Lef Seven Criteria of New Lef Civil Rights Movement not segregated Voting Rights Right not to be intimidated or molested by violence Right not to be labeled as a subversive Equal access to jobs and employment The right to love who you want The right to be lef alone All of these groups put together make up the new lef feminists gays blacks etc B The New Lef s Loose set of ideals o The old lef is the labor unions communists radicals etc People that got caught up in the Red Scare o The new lef means that Marx is much less important o Stalin is a dictator and evil rejects Marx and Stalin o There guru is C Wright Mills C Students for a Democratic Society SDS and critiques of American society culture politics If you had to put New Lef into a category of one group it would be SDS o Middle class college kids normally white is the main SDS person o Pretty hopeful reform group who are horrified by racism and poverty o Join civil rights movement as a start learn how to do activism o Started in MI a Racism poverty inauthentic suburbia SDS believed that there was something deeply wrong with America Even the middle class whites are raised in the suburbs the same as everyone else then you go to the university eventually become Babbitt All problems are linked Decided that the problem is America is essentially run by this group THE ESTABLISHMENT b The Establishment 1 Government military corporation universities all working together to get and keep power o All the bad things exist because the powers that be wanted them to exist they serve their purpose to organize society so things could stay the same vaguely Marxist o The Power Elite The Establishment o Partisan Distinctions pretty much mean nothing because they are both establishment groups i The falseness of Liberalism o Corporate Liberalism LBJ JFK Roosevelt etc o First Critics of Liberalism from the lef nothing ever seems to get fixed because Liberalism is a Band Aid o Biggest Critics of Liberalism come