• some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    5 months ago

    Iraq was sorta, but that was also playing on the damaged psyches of people who had been attacked in a way never thought possible. It was obviously lies and a lot of us could see it from the start. But we were told to luv it err leave it by people who don’t know the meaning of “free speech.” I wasn’t around for Vietnam, but the difference there was that people were being drafted to go and die.

    So this is the first mass movement of the sort where Americans don’t directly have skin in the game, other than Apartheid. And I don’t think that was anywhere on the scale of these other three, but I was a little kid and will defer to those who have more perspective on the matter.

    • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz
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      5 months ago

      Yeah, what you say about Iraq makes sense, but I don’t remember mentions of extreme violence against specifically young protesters like we’re seeing with the university encampments. I was also very young at the time, so I was definitely being sheltered from a lot of it.

      That’s why the comparisons to Vietnam sticks out more in my head, because that’s probably the only other time historically I have been taught that there has been pointed aggression toward the younger generation about anti-war protesting.

      But my perception may also be skewed because it is my peer group that is being targeted. Quite a few of my friends may or will have police records because they were at pro-Palestine protests and were unlucky enough to get caught by the police, and we still don’t know how it’ll impact them in the future.