Foxy,

Have you noticed from the TV coverages of the protestors that they are generally quite young and seem to be in the 20-40 years age range?

That's interesting and I don't think it is the fear of catching the WuFlu that is keeping the over 40s away.

So what's going on? Maybe we're seeing another cultural revolution like the one in the 1960/70s where younger groups had a hankering to be part of some social movement for change.

Mr O,

It's usually the young that lead the way.
As they did with the anti-Vietnam protests
where the changed the course of the war.

Foxy,

Yes, I understand. But the point I was trying to make is that this protest against the brutality of police against George Floyd and others is probably a bigger movement calling for wider social change. If it is it could gain momentum and we could see protracted demonstrations. If not it will just peter out.

Mr O,

The point that I was making was that the Vietnam war
came to an end largely as a result of the antiwar
movement, a social movement that consisted disproportionately
of young people, including many college students.

When the antiwar movement first challenged the war, it
received little support from politicians or the press, and its
goals seemed almost hopeless. But the tide of public opinion
gradually began to shift.

In the 1968 presidential primaries history tells us that
an antiwar candidate backed by student volunteers did
unexpectedly well and President Johnson decided not to
run for re-election. From that point on, political debate
on the war focused not on how to stay in it, but on how to
get out of it.

Through collective action, ordinary
people with few resources other than their own
determination had changed a national
consensus for war to a national consensus for peace.

A fundamental insight of sociology is that once people no
longer take their world for granted, but instead understand
the social authorship of their lives and futures, they can
become an irresistible force in history.

So it is with the current protest movement which has now
gained world-wide support around the globe and
of much of the media. Interesting times ahead.

Foxy,

With regards the Vietnam War you need to also take into account that it had become a war that the power elite in America realised could not be won because they were fighting a guerrilla war in which they could not find the enemy and the enemy just would not come out to fight in the open. It was not WW2 stuff and the powers to be in the US had no choice but to capitulate to the demands of it's citizens expressed through the younger generation that the war had to be concluded otherwise it would just go on forever with South Vietnam being another contested piece of land that never sees peace. Just like Kosovo and Kashmir are today, just waiting for another spark to ignite them.

Mr O,

It took the US a long time to realise that the Vietnam
war was unwinnable - but the final realisation came as
a result of the antiwar movement and the tide of public
opinion shifting.