[PEN-L:3922] Re: Re: Re: Re: The Vietnam War Era and the Sixties

[Peter Dorman <dormanp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A brief aside on "The War at Home": As someone who lived in Madison
during this time period and participated in these movements, knew the
people on the screen, etc., I'd like to say that caution should be
taken.  This is a distorted view of what happened there.  The biggest
single distortion -- and the one that is most important for students
today to be aware of -- is that the film leaves out the massive amount
of institution-building that made the movement possible and also the
grassroots folks (non-leaders) whose time and effort built those
institutions.

I often hear students lament the absence of big protest movements today,
compared to "the sixties".  Aside from questions of historical accuracy,
the most important thing they fail to realize is that movements are
*products* of peoples' actions, not simply circumstances they find
themselves in.

Peter Dorman

Peter Bohmer wrote:
snip
> "The War at Home" on Madison, WI.
snip