The Vietnam War's Effects on American Society

The Vietnam War's Effects on American Society

Abstract

The Vietnam War had a profound effect on American society.

It changed the way we viewed our government, the media, and

our Constitutional rights. Because of this shift in

perspective, the country was torn apart and yet still came

together in new and different ways. The Vietnam War's

contraversiality spurred a great many sources of protest,

against our government's use of power, how far we could

stretch the rights of free expression, and primarily against

the violence of the war itself. These changes in the

behavior of society have left a lasting mark on our

perception and the demand to be informed since that

influencial period of social turmoil.

The Vietnam War's Effects on American Society

The Vietnam War had a profound effect on American

society. It provided a contraversial issue that formed a

catalyst for a social structure just ready to be provoked.

When the American public became aware of the situation at

hand, through the recently unchained media, it was only a

matter of time before there was some form of action or

reaction. The media played a key role in the empowerment of

the sway of the people. With the addition of television

journelism, a whole new depth was added to how people

percieved what they were being told, because there was an

added truth to seeing it. People rising and uniting in

protest, and journelists bucking the government-imposed

censorship began stretching the limits to how far we would

take our rights to free expression.

There were said to be three stages of the antiwar

movements. "The first phase (1964-1965) was idealistic.

The second phase (1966-1968) was more pragmatic, a period

when young people characteristically protested not on

principal but out of a desire not to be drafted and killed.

The third phase (1969-1972) coincided with the de-

Americanization of the war"(Jeffreys-Jones, 43). In phase

one, people either supported the war or thought they had a

clear path on how to stop it. At this point, the issue at

hand appeared pretty black and white. As the years

progressed, into the second phase, the protest became a

little more frantic. The realization that the war was real

became more apparent, people were being killed and that was

that. This revealed several more shades of grey, bu...

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... objectors.

http://www.geocities.com/~104670/vietnam/authors/75AND4

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