Last Sunday, 700 protesters were arrested when they tried to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. It’s difficult to know how long these protests will go on, and if they are having any effect.
The video of a police officer shooting pepper spray on law-abiding women was chilling: they dropped to their knees, screaming in agony, blinded by the spray, incredulous as to why someone would do that to them: they were peacefully assembled and were not breaking any law. The offending officer quickly turned and disappeared into the crowd, but the video of his dastardly deed went viral on YouTube, and people got the officer’s name: Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna.
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests are directed against the major financial firms which control much of the country’s wealth, along with unprecedented influence over political decisions. Many of Obama’s top financial advisors, including Treasury Secretary Geitner, all came from Goldman Sachs — perhaps the most influential financial firm in the United States. But the protests are primarily against the inequitable distribution of wealth: the have-nots are resentful of those who have, and they see Wall Street as a symbol of corrupt power and pervasive influence.
However, what fascinates me most is that large-scale protests just don’t work anymore, and yet the participants obviously think that they do. When one considers the vast numbers of demonstrations and Million-Man marches on Washington, DC, nothing much ever happened as a result of them.
The days of protest ended 36 years ago
Nationwide protests began in earnest in 1963 and lasted more than 10 years. There were three issues: civil rights, the selective service draft, and the war in Vietnam. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, that still left two pressing issues — even though the Civil Rights problem was far from settled.
By 1967, there were massive student demonstrations on almost every campus, huge rallies in Washington which attracted notables such as The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Peter, Paul and Mary. This was the birth of the peace movement, and it was multi-cultural. Protest songs filled the airwaves. Respected theologians, such as Thomas Merton, Bishop James Pike, and The Rev. William Sloan Coffin, talked of peace to wide, approving, audiences. Jesuit priests, Daniel and Philip Berrigan were given stiff jail sentences for pouring blood on the nose of a submarine. A lot of people went to jail for protesting the war, the draft, Presidents Johnson and Nixon and the military industrial complex. Conspicuous in many of the protests and demonstrations were Hippies with their “Make Love, Not War” message. And everyone sang, “We Shall Overcome.”
By 1969, many of the people of the United States began to realize that the protesters had a point: that lives were being lost in a jungle fight against communism, in a country far away. Country Joe MacDonald became famous for his song, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” which contained the memorable line: “Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box.” So, what began as a noble effort to free Southeast Asia from communism became a horrific quagmire for the nation. Six ex-combat veterans formed an anti-war group: Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Of course, most servicemen remained committed, but were demoralized that the U.S. military didn’t pull out all the stops to fight, and to win, the damned war, once and for all.
But, according to President Nixon, we didn’t lose the war. We achieved “Peace With Honor” because our military had supposedly trained the South Vietnamese troops to fight their own battles. However, once all U.S. personnel were evacuated in April, 1975, Saigon fell, and the People’s Army of Vietnam moved in. The capital was immediately renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the famous communist leader.
How protest figures into the fall of Vietnam is also of interest. Initially, those who protested the war, around 1963 — when John F. Kennedy was president—were derided as either being communist sympathizers or simply unpatriotic. We were at war (although undeclared) and it was one’s patriotic duty to support flag and country.
Meanwhile, due to the influence of the Beatles, young men began to wear their hair long, much to the dismay of their conservative parents. One song that came out in 1965 was, “Are You a Boy, or Are You a Girl?” by the Barbarians, a Boston band. Dylan’s anthem, “The Times They Are A-Changing” set the pace for protest songs and other musicians quickly followed with their own songs. To counter the protest songs, many country music artists sang songs defending the flag, the country, and the military — a trend which endures to this day. As well, SSgt. Barry Sadler wrote a popular song about the Green Berets, an elite fighting force.
A turning point in the protest movement occurred in 1970, at Kent State, a college in Ohio. Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. There is an award-winning photo of a grief-stricken college woman standing over the body of a dead coed, face-down on the sidewalk. She had been mortally, and she died on the spot.
There was an immediate national response to the shootings; four million students went on strike, and public opinion — once supportive of the war — now began to turn against it. If our young people were being killed at home because of a crazy war far away, was it worth it?
The war would linger on, for another five years; and by then the country, and many of its military personnel, were sick of it. The protests, with substantial coverage in the media, had played a significant role in changing the feelings of the country.
And that was the last time that any large-scale, national protests worked.
An educator, the author resides in Oleai, Saipan.
