To many modern Americans, the assumed perspective on the people of Vietnam, and the U.S. involvement in Vietnam is that they were the enemy, we the hero. Essentially, this is the basic foundation for any war effort. However, there is an obvious wrong within this very perspective. In it, a presumption is made upon a people as a whole. The Vietnamese were depicted as uncivilized, war-mongering, anti-American sadists. They were depicted through the media fog as an enemy to be corrected, to be policed. They were to be found guilty by the American people of violating a way of life beyond our own.

This sentiment does not extend itself only to the people of Vietnam; but equally of the American public. The media depicted anti-Vietnam War protesters as hippies. College-aged students with tattered jeans attempting to bring down their own leaders. Anarchists. Useless to the American ideal and a danger to the civility of the American dream. This is incorrect at its most basic. If it wasn't only these kids with beat attire and hygiene, who was it? Then begs the question - Where then did resistance begin?

Recently, while researching this subject, I came upon an article published by the University of Massachusetts Press in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" in 2000 by H. Bruce Franklin (a professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University at Newark). It poses frankly with the title, "The Antiwar Movement We Are Supposed To Forget". The essay centers around the root of resistance to the Vietnam War - which began as soon as the very turning of the war wheel was set in motion.

The essay also outlines the founded outcomes of the war. A desire for our country to divide and conquer a "known enemy", and at best, dividing only our own country around it. The propaganda teaming at the American public to acknowledge Vietnam as the enemy, the evil, without any simple foundation for such a belief.

"THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FORGET" By H. Bruce Franklin

For any remotely interested in the history of the American war resistance, or merely in the history of Vietnam - this is a mandatory read. One of critical analysis both in the world of politics, and the heart of philosophical inquiry.


Michael