Vietnam and the Rise of the New Left

As part of CCA III: The Sixties, Peter Collier, Author of Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties, gives a lecture at Hillsdale College on the Vietnam War.
The 1960s stand out as a decade of transformation in American politics and culture. This third CCA of the 2017-2018 academic year provided a retrospective evaluation.

[@e.paulwileyto5574]

This jives completely with what I recall from Jr. High and High School, that one minute, it's 1968, teachers are relatively patriotic, civics tests are required to graduate, and the next minute, it's 1971, civics tests are gone, and US history is being taught with the perspective that America is bad.

[@markpower9081]

You think maybe some things happened between 68 and 71 that influenced people? My Lai, the Pentagon Papers, assassinations. You can see it in westerns too, by the late 60s the heroic story of settlement from 30s, 40s, and 50s westerns was replaced by much darker stories around the experience of native-Americans. The treatment of native-Americans wasn't invented in the 60s, but that's when people started to take it seriously.

[@normbabbitt4325]

Peter Collier has thankfully helped to put another nail on the coffin, burying my misinformed Leftist leanings and delusions. I am so happy to be able, after many decades of my life, to say, that I love this country of mine and its Founders and the beauty and wisdom of its original principles.

[@kimobrien.]

You probably got a lot of nice things for being a deserter. Than again maybe you haven't got the slightest idea as to what you are talking about. Some of us had our lives ruined by that war and the only thing this guy talks about how he was such an idiot. Fifty thousand GI's lost their lives others returned as broken men yet all he does is a smear job against all the honest people who marched against the war and who wanted the GI's brought home. The had to draft soldiers because the pay and conditions were lousy to say the least. They didn't have a no good job economy that would generate volunteers. There was no Democracy in Mississippi and Alabama never mind the later years of racist mobs in Boston. So why would a Black or Chicano Soldier believe he was fighting for Democracy thousands of miles away.

[@mikeoveli1028]

Hating America is no way a requirement of being on the left, in fact the only reason anyone would be a leftist today is to save America. January, 6 2021 is a perfect example of how the right today is the enemy of America. I would say the entire Trump presidency is a call to all leftist that we have been correct. Bill Barr's actions should frighten all Americans. Barr used the doj to stop 4 corrupt Trump administration officials from prosecution.

[@larrylinn8589]

Peter Collier is just another right wing chickenhawk. Why didn’t he go serve in Vietnam?

[@joetyndall3382]

I graduated high school in 1971 with, as I recall, number 283 in the draft lottery. I went on to study at MIT during the tail end of the 60s where I watched the left settle into its "Long March." Now having been disowned by the left, fighting these idiots have become the core purpose of my life. Thank you for making this talk available.

[@kimobrien.]

Disowned by who? Somehow I don't remember you were you one of the students arrested in the ROTC occupation? Middle class hypocrisy is what turned me off from "movement people" like this guy. Now that he has clearly put himself into the conservatism movement I can only laugh. I heard of Ramparts but never remember reading a single copy of that magazine. This guy is living proof that intellectual losers and leaders like him are a waste of minerals and water.

[@elzoog]

Question for you (since I was only 6 years old in 1971 so even though I remember those days I only had a 6-year-old level of understanding) didn't the parents from the great generation sort of suck? That they had a lot of stifling rules that the people from your generation rebelled against?

[@kimobrien.]

@@elzoog Mine weren't happy but I would classify myself as conservative but antiracist before Kent State my HS graduation year. For me it wasn't rebellion against parental authority as much as it felt like finding yourself cut adrift with nothing to guide you. You had a government, President and social system doing stuff that no longer made much sense. We all wanted more freedom but weren't sure what to do with it.

[@elzoog]

@@kimobrien. Most conservatives aren't racist as far as I can tell. They simply think the different races should be hard working and have decent jobs.

[@elzoog]

@@kimobrien. Yeah, it does seem like conservatives from the 1950s and 60s were racists. It seems like the 1960s was a very important time in US history (more so than say, the 1980s) and that we still haven't totally ironed out what really happened then and what it's good and bad aspects were.

[@johndeagle4389]

The girl says to Brando, "Hey Johnny what are you rebelling against?" Brando says, "What do ya got?"

[@teapot5530]

Where are the young college students in these Hillsdale videos? I love these talks, but I want the young people to love them too.

[@ghostofcoolidge245]

@Tea Pot I'm a 20 year old college student and I'm a big fan of the Hoover Institution, Hillsdale, Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson, all that jazz.

[@garyk.nedrow8302]

Neo-Marxism evolved from the communist groups of the Great Depression and was largely ignored as a political force, except in academic circles, where it had a few adherents among professors in the social sciences and humanities. College students became converts after 1964, primarily because of the fear of being drafted to serve in Vietnam. Thousands fled to Canada. The rest became hippies, anti-war agitators, and draft dodgers. The anti-war ideology quickly expanded to include an anti-authority ideology to justify the use of illegal drugs and opposition to discipline of all kinds, including laws deemed "repressive" or inimicable to "social justice." It is this same anti-establishment ideology we see today in the neo-Marxists who have hijacked the Democratic Party. America's involvement in the war itself began with the noblest of motives: the French withdrew from Indochina and the South Vietnamese government requested our assistance in defending democracy against the communist rulers of North Vietam, supported by China. JFK committed military advisors for this purpose, relying on CIA reports that the government of South Vietnam had broad popular support. In fact, that intelligence was faulty, and the government in Saigon was corrupt. When that government was toppled in a military coup, the subsequent government was no better. Nonetheless, after JFK's death, President Johnson decided to escalate our involvement in Vietnam to secure democracy in Southeast Asia. That decision was also based on flawed intelligence and a mistaken view of the Vietnamese people, its culture, and its politics. I voluntarily served in Vietnam, giving up a "deferment" to do so. I was an officer and in a strategic position to know the views of official Washington, of the military brass and their differing views of the conflict, of the combat veterans returning from tours in Vietnam, and of the anti-war protestors. I saw the war in its many facets. The popular belief that the US "lost the war in Vietnam" is mistaken. We could have won it easily. In fact, we never tried to win it. Pres. Johnson opted to fight a "limited war" -- not attacking or bombing North Vietnam -- for fear that China would enter the conflict. In fact, China provided North Vietnam with all of its military supplies and with military advisors. Ultimately, it was simply not possible to defend South Vietnam through the government in Saigon by fighting a "limited war," and the US reduced its troops and finally withdrew. Saigon fell within days, and Vietnam, as feared and predicted, became a communist country. During the war and afterward, the Left, with the help of the US media. distorted the facts to aggrandize its own role in ending the war and its own self-righteousness. The university took on a decidedly liberal complexion thereafter, and Neo-Marxists on campus began to indoctrinate students in earnest. Those graduates, proselytized on campus, are now the leading Democrats in Washington today. And the socialist ideology they champion is no more moral, just, or justified today than it was in 1963.

[@kimobrien.]

The Establishment is behind the Democratic Party. Biden and Pelosi are ancient war horses of the Imperialist Capitalist Empire. The US doesn't care about Democracy its all about bigger profits for do nothing investors who collude with hedge fund bosses in plots to rob each other blind in a betting game where the house is the federal Reserve bank printing monopoly money. You lost the war when you realized you were spending yourself into a world economic and world crisis. Just like you fools did in afghanistan. You never learn because you think a war for Democracy means fight for a few big company CEO's. You idea of human rights is cutting off ears, taking scalps, and helo rides. The Americalley Division. A massacre a day keeps the shrink away.

[@drivesmecrazy1000]

It’s amazing that he was able to leave the Left. I left the Left, too. There but for the grace of God go I.

[@kimobrien.]

You should meet up for one last game of Kissy Poo.

[@ManInTheBigHat]

Metoo. I ordered the book, too.

[@mikeoveli1028]

Drivesme The left is not the mafia. There are no rules about staying for life.

[@jamesberlo4298]

He was fascinating people wanted to talk to him all day.

[@clairerobsin]

Thank you Peter!

[@lauraschroeder8177]

Excellent lecture

[@mzk1489]

I was in grade school during the worst part of the sixties (68-72) and recall looking on in horror at the actions of my elders - your generation. I didn't want to admit being a teenager until I was nineteen. I grew up excepting to fight in VietNam, had no problem with the idea, and still don't see why it was wrong to defend the personal liberties of people who don't look like us.

[@anng.4542]

mzk1: It wasn't-- and still isn't-- wrong, but my self-centered, spoiled (postwar) generation had decided that "self-determination", not duty and responsibility, was the most important principle to live by. Many of them became "draft resistors" (their fancy term for draft dodgers). And sadly, many of them never grew out of their self-infatuation and utopian socialist idealism. They elected Barack Obama, lobby against the Second Amendment and Electoral College, support illegal aliens and jihadists, and many of their children and grandchildren are today's snowflakes and antifa. Although, thankfully, some of their millenial offspring have rebelled against their selfish older relatives and are amazingly bright, motivated, conservative and pro-life.

[@546cowboy8]

Yes Ann it is why America has been and can be great again. The Constitution has been under attack by the socialists since the 1960's and there are always youth who see the value of those who came before them as well as the mistakes they made. Americans are by nature independent and will never conform to the powers seeking to destroy this republic. Those who are the loudest voices are the ones to work against as they have no weapons to use against the truth.

[@kimobrien.]

I don't care what this guy says or didn't say. The US has no mandate to police the world. What right does the US have to set up all these world military commands and tell everyone how to govern themselves. Trump was elected a US President not a UN President.

[@markpower9081]

The US wasn't defending democracy in Vietnam, there was no democracy. Outside of (white) Europe, the US in the Cold War was a neo-colonial empire, preventing liberty, not defending it. Europeans should be grateful to the US. Africans, Latin Americans, Asians? Not so much.

[@jameseverett4976]

@@kimobrien. It's one of those issues with 2 sides [like everything else]. I don't want us policing the world either, but given the state of modern warfare, the entire world is a danger zone: a fact we can never more escape from. One way to look at the tragedy of WWII is that because we failed to police the world sooner, we had to end up paying at least the same cost in the end, probably more, not counting what the rest of the world had to pay. Few people today can understand the breadth of the loss & suffering in that war [not to mention WWI], and it's endless tragedies, including unintended consequences to people who wanted nothing to do with it, but had no choice. If I understand right, our purpose in policing the world after that war, was in the hopes of never having to pay such a price all at once again, as well as saving smaller weaker countries - not just for their sakes, but to keep their opponents from eventually acquiring enough might to be a direct threat to us. It was becoming ever-more clear that the choice was no longer a matter of whether we want to go to war anymore, but how big of a mess do we want to let it grow into, before we take on the terrible job of stopping it again. Because sooner or later the conflicts will make it to our doorstep. In fact, that is the whole point of the powers behind those wars: to gain power incrementally until they can easily challenge the United States. Japan had prepared 80 years to fight the USA, prior to that war, and were in the process of building their military might one conquest at a time, before their ultimate challenge, so that one day they would not have to negotiate with us, for raw materials or any other permissions. It was actually much worse than that, but I don't want to make this into a book. It's a sad situation, with nasty implications. Our own independence is continually on the line, and we can never live carefree while other nations do as they please, just because we are not the target...yet. Because there is no question that we will be, soon enough. Our biggest problem now is that we have enemies within, not just in other nations. And we can feign trust them to decide what wars we should be in, or not. They send our own tax money to other nations, but not really to help them. At this point I don't trust any of their decisions, or claims of what dangers we may in. We are pretty much screwed.

[@rmir2]

It would be interesting to see the political CVs of all university professors.

[@kimobrien.]

Why? So the government can conduct a purge of the universities like Hitler or Stalin?

[@jameseverett4976]

@@kimobrien. I would think of it a bit like wanting to see Trumps tax returns.

[@kimobrien.]

@@jameseverett4976 Sure liberals want to go after Trump's tax returns to set a president of going after tax returns of anyone who runs for office that they don't like, Then only those who satisfy the tax police will be able to run for office. Everyone knows that the tax laws are written to make the workers pay while the bosses have a whole armies of lawyers for purposes of dodging taxes.

[@WhizzingFish12]

​@@kimobrien.Interesting that you have for your picture a flag of one of the most evil nations and ideologies to ever exist. Wouldn't bring up the topic of purges if I were you.

[@kimobrien.]

@@WhizzingFish12 Hillsdale is a college for middle class toddlers. You don't know what it's about because you are afraid of words and ideas. This is why you think whole nations and ideologies are evil. Why not talk about purges? FDR began the second anti communist witch hunt with the Smith "gag" Act trial of 18 leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and Minneapolis Teamsters union. Senator Joe McCarthy lead a government purge of communists from the jobs with J.Edgar Hoover's Secret Police. Now go wash your hands and stop claiming virginity.

[@lauraschroeder8177]

This should have a million likes

[@steveradford7021]

Intellectual buffuan, to bad he could just speak from is heart, sure he might of wrote the speech stumble through it. Yes most of us felt strong about our new world. Really just ignorant of our parents past. I went to Viet Nan. Proud To serve my self , family and country. Being on the front line you find the truth. Step up !!!!

[@sonofode902]

My notes 48:30 Free speech is counter-productive and counter-revolution when it advances bad ideas. Gin,

[@ivannio4783]

"The Stormtroopers" :)))))) he nails them

[@springtrapstarwar5557]

This is interesting

[@johndeagle4389]

Churchill did not say that.

[@antoniod]

Imagine if college students in the 50s had chanted "Joe, Joe, Uncle Joe, America's the undertow" or something like that?

[@kimobrien.]

@Jeannie Seibert Joe McCarthy's real enemy wasn't Reds or Protestant ministers but demon rum. Back then even the Scientist (Robert Oppenheimer) who lead the team to develop the bomb had his security clearance yanked. He was deemed to liberal to even be allowed to discuss not using the bomb to save the world from Reds.

[@stephendenney7349]

I wish Peter were still alive so I could congratulate him for a great presentation. I knew him back when he was publisher of Encounter Books in San Francisco, although not well, as my partner worked for him, I also subscribed to the magazine he edited in his radical youth, Ramparts, when I was a teenager n the sixties. There were parts of the magazine that appealed to me, but I always felt they were one-sided and could not buy into their endorsement of Marxist revolutions. I am still liberal, but also anti-communist.

[@kimobrien.]

You were always an anti communist capitalist liberal like Pelosi and Biden.

[@JJAngleton]

Yes, that pretty much confirms what I have seen. We had defectors that predicted many of the things we observe today. And: I dare to say that 9/11 could only happen the way it did with the help of some leftists (or moles). After all, 9/11 is the B’day of Felix Dzherzinsky - founder of the Cheka-KGB).

[@marigoldmarigold5604]

It sure why people would come to see this guy read his paper.

[@ivannio4783]

Wow! P. Collier takes off shortly before Dylan, JFK-murder, The Beatles (and the possible creation of a controlled opposition).( Mark Devlin - for info.)

[@kimobrien.]

There were those who voted for George McGovern and those who voted for the Real Socialists Linda Jenness and Andrew Pulley. Its not unusual for a liberal Democrat to become a Republican or visa versa. Just ask Trump and Hillary Clinton. They were both at one time members of the other Party. The Clinton's attended Trump's last wedding.

[@florianporotti3194]

The Democrats Liberals become Republicans is The Neoconservatives like Bush Family.

[@dks13827]

January 2018.. things look very bad for the U.S.

[@tanujSE]

I fear it might become sex and fashion hub

[@davidrapalyea7727]

The 1960s sucked.

[@antoniod]

Especially if you had a manic-depressive and paranoid Father. OK, that had nothing to do with politics! But my Father DID blame all my emotional problems on the Kennedy assassination!

[@lessonstolivefor]

Anytime someone begins a speech about the 60s as a “kaleidoscope “ I know they will be parroting cia propaganda. So far, this is vídeo number 6, speaker number 4 that proves my hypothesis correct.

[@4y6857]

I’m 72 years old. I’m a Vietnam Vet, but I’m not a combat Vet. I didn’t earn that title, I won’t use it. That’s my perspective. From that perspective, I’ll share a few comments. (Continued below)...

[@kimobrien.]

This guy is the type who bought radical books so he could show them off on a bookshelf. Probably never even read the communist manifesto and if he did than he immediately concluded that the Frankfurt school provided some good hot dogs to snack on. This is why Marx said the working class would be the next revolutionary class and not some burned out radical college students.

[@ericterry4335]

You are a whiny child that only has the ability to exist because of the Western world. "You don't get it like I do!!!" "Even if you tried to get it you're too dumb!!!" "I'm going to personally insult you now instead of explaining radical and idiotic ideas that I hold" Got to love socialists. It's the same mantra 98% of the time haha