Firstly, the Vietnam war was undoubtedly a very significant factor in the increased protests during the 60's. For example, the excessive bombing of North Vietnam lead in 1965 lead to many student protests, as so many civilians including women and children were being purposefully killed in order to ultimately, win the was by flattening Vietnam. This caused outrage amongst the student rebels. In particular, the student rebel group called Students for Democratic Society (SDS) used the Vietnam war to suggest that the US government was corrupt. The cause struck a chord with those at university more so than other groups of people due to the immense number of students that were made to go and fight.
The images that were broadcasted all over America did not please the public and before long riots and protests were being held in the streets to end the war. This was because hundreds of American soldiers had died in a war they thought was coming to an end. The Tet Offensive proved otherwise and caused a major disagreement between the public and the American government. Many people believe that this almost forced the government to end the war because without the moral support from their own country there would be no chance in another. On the other hand, the Americans actually won the fight and in doing so managed to kill thousands of Vietcong’s, unmasked Vietcong’s, which they had not been able to do very well until this point.
Protest at first started in Berkeley, California in 1965. These were massive anti-Vietnam war marches, protest, sit-ins and student strikes in major colleges and cities universities cross the country. In fact the Ohio National Guardsmen murdered four peaceful students from Kent state University in Ohio during a noontime campus anti-war rally. Nine other students were shot or injured. Anti-war protests became increasingly violent in tone.
The war began due to North Vietnam being a communist country, while the US wanted to prevent a communist country taking over the south part of Vietnam. The media played an important role in the war, as the media brought the war into the American’s homes, showing the Americans all the realities of warfare. Many things were showed to the Americans. The coverage that the media showed to the Americans horrified them in many ways: wounded civilians, children who had lost their parents, many villages destroyed, search and destroy missions etc. The war was pointless in the American’s eyes and they thought that America had no right to impose its views on Vietnam.
Martin Luther King gave many speeches about racism and how people should not be judged by the colour of their skin, but on the basis of their character. Days later after he presented some of his speeches, his relatives’ houses were lit on fire and were completely destroyed by rebellions. His relatives begged him to stop but he did not listen but continued and kept persevering. Since Louis Riel had given the Provisional Government permission to arrest and kill Thomas Scott, he was labelled as a criminal and was issued a warrant
There was the incident at the Gulf of Tonkin, North Vietnamese torpedo boats supposedly attacked the USS. There were Escalation and finally the US pulls out. Most people, found this event senseless. A form of protest to the war came through pop culture and songs. “War” was first recorded with The Temptations.
Attica Prison Riot Assignment After reading about the riot at Attica Prison I knew that it was a terrible riot where many inmates and guards were injured and over 40 were killed. I pictured the riot as one from a movie or television show where there was an uprising, a short stand still, then the police force ending it in a massacre. What the movie showed me was that this was not a movie or TV show and all the people involved, both inmate and guard, were a part of a civil war. These casualties I read about in the book weren’t just numbers but real people that if treated better could have avoided the riot all together. The Attica Prison is an old maximum security prison located in New York and housed mainly African American (54%) and Hispanic (9%) inmates that grew up in the inner cities and poorer parts of the state.
Between May and early June 1989, more than 200,000 soldiers from the Government’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were stationed around Beijing. During this time, the party split over how to deal with the demonstrators. A hardline faction led by Deng Xiaoping proposed martial law, while a reform faction led by Zhao Ziyang attempted to convince the students to cease their protesting peacefully. The days between the 3rd and 4th of June became the climax of the protests, gaining widespread publicity. When the crowd had refused to disperse by the 4am deadline, troops began to fire on the protesters in order to clear the square for the impending visit of USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
This evidence shows that the way people saw the war was changing. The people didn’t want to see their husbands, kids, friends, or their neighbors fighting in such a horrifying war. The media coverage changed the way people saw the war because it made them realize that there were thousands of Americans dying overseas in a war that they didn’t need to be involved in. The Vietnam changed people’s view about the war, “The Vietnam War was the most extensively covered war in history. This coverage was thought to have had a powerful influence on public opinion and therefore on political decision making”.
These events sparked a domino effect of riots, beatings, bombings and violence centered in Northern Ireland, which occurred over the next thirty years and claimed the lives of more than three thousand civilians and military personnel. But in 1968, violence was occurring all over the globe! In Mexico, student protests were violently put down by the government, resulting in the death of many innocent people . In Prague, Czechoslovakia, a new wave of free thought amongst students led Soviet officials to send troops and tanks into the city streets that put down what they considered “anti-Communist” behavior. Whether it was in these countries or China, France, Argentina, or Germany, people stood up for their rights and were brutally put down by authoritative figures.