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Originally Posted by bermuDa
...and just to play devil's advocate: in the quote about the draft, i think you were highlighting the wrong part of the quote... the meaning i got out of it was that he thought that forcing a draft to supply bodies for an unpopular war only fueled the fire of the war protests. The victory in question had nothing to do with casualities or military advances, but rather advancements in civil disobedience. There was a draft during the world wars but back then there were no antiwar protests (aside from the isolationists)... because the war effort had the public's support. He was drawing a parallel between two unpopular wars; vietnam and iraq.
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Exactly. If you study history and political science (of which I do not claim to be an expert), you see that it's not until a government does something so unpopular that the people can't stand it anymore that they get motivated to do something about it and speak up. Once the people become aware, change happens. Many who witnessed the Vietnam era are well aware of his phenomenon. You can even stretch the point and say that, in some ways, we all have the Vietnam War to thank for a great many of the social freedoms we enjoy today. If it weren't for people like Hunter Thompson who were willing to take risks and present fresh viewpoints, we could all be placidly anticipating our next serving of USDA Grade A pre-digested news. Not that a lot of us aren't anyway...
