How many here would have supported Johnson's Vietnam policy because he was an incumbent Democrat?

and then I supported Gene McCarthy when he ran against Johnson, and after Johnson dropped out, I supported Bobby Kennedy.

Although I don't think it's good policy or good politics to trade Medicare for Vietnam.

later. I loathe that war like you can't know. My cousin died from agent orange poisoning.

Even though he was the incumbent, the policy was wrong, and I had always been against that war.

And now, we trade with them.

I have clothes that were made there.

So much useless death, and now we trade. That war made me sick.

I can't even watch movies or docos about it. I experienced shame reading the combat narratives in Brinkley's Tour of Duty, thinking there was Kerry risking his life while I was roller skating with my friends! His story hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a bullshit war, just as Lt. Kerry said. Dana ; )

And Johnson would have ben put out had he not quit....I am convinced of that.

I guess I should be weirdly grateful that the current administration does not present me with the same dilemma

instead of a health insurance boondoggle. Or if they had given bailouts to small mortgagees instead of the puppets of Goldman. Or if they had actually started us on the path to alternative energy. Or...

If Obama is the nominee in 2012 (and why wouldn't he be? I foresee no successful Primarying), I'll do like I did with Slick Willie: Hold my nose & vote for him.

depending on who he had as his running mate. Might especially consider it if a tea party candidate comes to run against the Republicans to split their vote too. That would be interesting if we had a four way race for a change with each party getting their votes split. Might be a chance to finally get a real progressive in office!

turns my stomach. In all honesty, I don't think I could do it. Like in 2000--philosophically I was much closer to Nader than to Gore (at least as he presented himself then). But of course I knew Gore would be a far better President, and never considered a protest vote.

(Besides which, Nader was pissing me off with his self-righteousness by then).

Every time a President chooses guns over butter, the people lose!

Which was often.

:sarcasm:

and none of us would be alive today!

from surgery. It was a stunning eye-opener. Unbelievable what JFK did. And yes, I know the book came out a few years after JFK was killed and was probably too generous with him. But he undertook a great plan to line up support all over Europe, Latin and South America so that we could get their support. It was good work by good people...

By whipping up public hysteria about weapons being deployed.

At least his excuse was that it was a close election.

:shrug:

I wouldn't even say that about LBJ.

He made a massive, tragic mistake... which ended up costing millions of lives.

But I wasn't old enough to vote (21 at the time) until after Nixon was in office. Didn't approve of his policy either.

...seeing as I was only 2 years old in 1968. :evilgrin:

Edited to say that times are different. First of all the draft still existed and that is what we wanted changed. Secondly, the media had not been tamed back then. We saw pictures of real war scenes and many of them were horrible. I will never forget the naked woman running along the road of fire from napalm. Today we hardly get a picture of a casket - the war is much easier to forget today. So we go right on supporting our leaders regardless if they stop the wars they promised to stop or not.

:dem:

-Laelth

About a dozen very vocal DU'ers.

I was a teenager and worked for Gene McCarthy in 68.

I was too young to vote till 1972.

I was confused as hell !

And then I moved to California.....:rofl:

Seriously though, I was truly conflicted about my feelings toward Johnson. For all the good he did, Vietnam and it's horror, cast a cloud on it all. In retrospect, I can see that all great social progress has come during times of great turmoil and conflict in societies. It's happening right now.

Those here who know the rest of that chant can answer your question. .

Still the question.

Being born in the 1975, I can have the perspective of saying what the hell was Johnson thinking back then? His Great Society programs were very good, his other policies left a lot to be desired.

Ignoring the benefits of hindsight, I doubt anyone here would've supported Johnson's Vietnam simply policy because he was an incumbent Democrat.

But you're suggesting that some number here are supporting Obama's Afghanistan policy, if they do, because he's the presumed incumbent Democrat, right? I doubt there are very many here, if any, that arrive at their support that way. It's a pretty thoughtful bunch, by and large.

I can't speak to everyone, of course, but for myself, I support Obama's Afghanistan policy because I believe it's sound policy, and irrespective of who chose to implement it, I believe the moves being made are the right ones. If I had the President's ear, it's about what I'd be telling him to do.

In fact, it makes me more supporting of Obama's presidency than I was before, and would be otherwise, given my misgivings on DADT and a number of economic and privacy issues.

Asking the question as you have, however, has the clever rhetorical effect of attempting to pigeonhole anyone who supports the current actions in AfPak as simply doing so because it was Obama's policy, implying -- I believe unfairly -- that only very simplistic thinkers would do so.

(Or, if you're talking about Iraq, I mean good God, no one here supports that.)

Vietnam, there are also major differences as well.

While both Presidents inherited their wars, America had a reason to go into Afghanistan,but the rationale to go into and then escalate (Johnson) based on outright falsehoods (Gulf of Tonkin) in Vietnam is/was another story.

It's easy to try and conflate the 2 wars, but one needs to look at the complete picture before drawing a parallel between them.

However, I supported the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda when Bush launched it. But I never supported the illegal war in Iraq.

If Bush had implemented these same policies in Afghanistan, would you be more supporting (or less critical) of Bush's presidency than you were before?

In order to fully appreciate what Obama's team is doing in AfPak, Bush et al really had to fuck it up in the first place. I don't think I could've grasped the gravity and necessity for what's been done lately had things not gone as pear-shaped as they did in Central Asia first.

For example, I fully support this administration's move to ramp up tempo in Pakistan; but had the previous administration not dropped the ball in the first place, that acceleration wouldn't even have been warranted. The Quetta Shura should've been taken care of in Kandahar, and never had the opportunity to migrate.

A better way to put it would be if McCain had won, and was implementing Obama's AfPak policy to the letter, would I have supported it? And the answer would be yes.

...I would, however, not spend a lot of time letting people know about it. It would be the least of our worries, eh? ;)

Not too many people would admit to voting for Humphrey either. :)

I supported Eldridge Cleaver on the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968. Look what happened to him.

Have we defeated the Taliban yet? Told Karzai to take a hike? Are the warlords any better than the Taliban when it comes to women's rights, and just basic civil rights?

Seriously, what the hell do you think is going to happen in Afghanistan in the next year, 2 years, 10 years?

nothing but the destruction of another empire- Afghanistan has brought down quite a few.

but his other programs were great. Nixon had some ideas for social programs, too, but the good ones never got anywhere-probably never were intended to- while the crazy GOP shit became federal law.

LBJ was pretty similar to Obama in some respects-lots of inherited problems, war and social unrest, but that on the left. The extreme right at the time was blowing up churches and shooting people, and becoming the elected representatives of various states...
Of course, the left was investigated by the FBI, and the right was not...

Not that great a time despite the "Great Society", but we had real news programming...

mark

I went to IU and during one year - I think 1970, they had a referendum where students voted. This was done at the request of the chancellor, who had been asked "IU's" opinion. He felt that it would be better to have something to point to rather than giving his own opinion. It was in the neighborhood of 95% against. (Take with a grain of salt - I have a decent memory, but this was about 40 years ago.)

... remain in office. He was wrong about the Vietnam war and he was lied to by the generals, but he would have gotten out before Nixon did.

We got Nixon, remember?

Edited to add: That war tore us to shreds. I'm not sorry I worked for the peace candidate.

But I am older, the country is in worse shape than I ever imagined THANKS TO REPUBLICANS, and I will be dipped in shit before I work against Barack Obama.

Hekate

I was very vocal against LBJ's Vietnam policies. That was a stupid, stupid war.