There was also resistance within the US Civil Rights Movement that this involvement would dilute the focus of the US Civil Rights Movement. This failure to collaborate in a meaningful way left in place the very same societal structures and priorities which perpetrated the occupation of Vietnam in that era, and which have risen again to directly occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. Further, to the extent that the nominal anti-war movement failed and fails to integrate the interests of the population most harmed by warfare as a geo-political strategy, both domestically and within the targeted nation of the day, it chooses to limit its base to a population of “activists.” This choice was difficult to justify under the name of  “Peace activism,” then or now. There often  are times when reason and declared values are over-ruled by the extension of familiar patterns and ignorance.

It was during the fall of 1967 that the US Civil Rights Movement by Martin Luther King Jr.'s initiative attempted to include  a “poor people's movement.”  It was then that Martin Luther King Jr. came to be considered to be very dangerous to the established elites and the divisions within the US society. To the extent that the US Civil Rights Movement was dependent upon the leadership and oratory of a single individual, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and others the cohesion of the US Civil Rights Movement was challenged and intimidated beyond the capacity of its culture.

The militarists and global strategists acting to extend U.S. interests abroad were happy to give undue credit to the US anti-Vietnam war movement because it deflected scrutiny from their responsibility for the failure of their military strategies to accomplish the  conquest and “pacification” of the Vietnamese people. Blaming the anti-war movement and the “liberal” media, allowed for the designers of this foreign policy to continue with their same basic strategies and to continue pressure for the growth and influence of the defense industries. In large part by using their version of the retreat from Vietnam they escape accountability for the use and ill conceived management of the military occupation and campaigns, including the funding of the French occupation and the convenience of the Gulf of Tonkin “incident.” To the extent that the former leaders of the US Anti Vietnam War Movement also prefer to assume undue credit, the second interpretation goes unchallenged. As this second version goes, it also sets the stage for the return of the suppression  and containment of dissent to these policies right into present times in the name of  “patriotism,” “US strategic interests,” and “National Security.”

There is credible evidence that the most effective resistance to the Vietnam War was from within the US military itself, both at bases in the US and in Vietnam itself.3 It can also be argued that what was perpetrated  in Vietnam was a limited success allowing for the final US withdrawal. To this day the Vietnamese economy remains seriously damaged and the Vietnamese people still suffer from the toxic and mutative effects of the US use of Agent Orange and other forms chemical warfare. Reparations for this collateral damage has been repeatedly refused although the use of these materials against the land and civilian population was in violation of the Geneva Accords as crimes against humanity.

From the supposition that the US Anti-Vietnam War Movement was successful, it is also assumed that despite probable historical and contextual differences it should be used as a template.  One major difference in the historical periods is the current greater degree of corporate control of public media. To satisfy the inflated importance of the 1960-73 US Anti-Vietnam War Movement, we are investing in an externalized perspective, upon  the possibility of unbiased and occasionally sympathetic media coverage , upon the supposed effectiveness of celebrity leadership over effective organization and education, and upon a disinterest in placing front and center the very real effects of warfare both domestically and upon the people of the invaded nations of the moment.

For lack of the nail of an honest assessment of the history of both presumed and successful social movements we  accept  ideological paralysis and the opportunity for societal change is lost. This is not to diminish the importance of good intentions or substantial ignorance. Much like the adage about Generals always being well prepared to fight the previous war, the current US anti-war movement is committing the same errors again because they are repeating a pattern that they have accepted as successful even though what it actually produces seems to be very limited. The militarist and global strategist version also taught the value of controlling the public media through corporate consolidation and executive intimidation. This adaptation has also made these perpetrators better equipped to control public opinion and legislative initiatives. Even so, in believing their own deflection they have proven themselves to be equally ill-prepared to actually win at a similar colonial strategy.

The prevailing paradigms of social science have also contributed to the falsification of social movements. Science  as a “modern” world view has a long association with the perspective and theoretical fabrications of gentlemen and elites. The embedded elitist prejudices within the corporate media and in corporatized academia is more strongly subversive in the study of social and societal patterns and in the formulation of public policies than in its influence within the fields of mathematics and physics. When this perspective is naively transferred into social and psychological scientific discourse  the subjective perspective of those who are harmed by the related policies and practices tend to be excluded and the conclusions rarely seem to be toward an expansion of the democratic commons.