Protest and Hope: The 1960's - Assignment Example

There was little middle ground and extremists on both sides of the aisle had drowned out the voice of moderation. This divide was splitting friendships, relationships, and families in ways that would take a generation to mend 2) LB.J.-Lyndon Baines Johnson, a charming bully, a later day F.D.R. or Political Savant? You fill it in. Explain. By watching him work, or hearing his rhetoric, it would be hard to recognize the political genius that was underneath the crude exterior of LBJ. He had a simplistic view of the world, and that view is what made his vision of the world so progressive.

LBJ believed that all men would act and react the same way regardless of culture, ethnicity, or creed. He never could account for these, yet it was this almost idiot like the simplicity that gave him his pure sense of equality and justice. The loss of 50,000 American soldiers and countless others maimed or left to a life of failed relationships, drug addiction, unemployment, and alcoholism can not be viewed as anything other than a tragic error in political judgment. General Haig claims that we did not lose the war, we had simply quit.

The tragedy was that we did not quit sooner. After all, what did we expect to win? Thirty years after our withdrawal, Vietnam has one of the most progressive and fastest-growing free markets in the world. If we were looking to beat communism, our withdrawal certainly helped.