Skip to content
The World Can't Wait
Menu
  • Home
  • Events
  • About
    • About World Can’t Wait
      • History of World Can’t Wait
  • Projects
    • War Criminals Watch
    • We Are Not Your Soldiers!
    • Fire John Yoo
    • Sudan’s Struggle
  • Media
    • Audio
      • Video
    • Public Svc. Announcements
    • Press & Press Releases
      • Press Releases
      • Press Coverage
    • Photos
  • Take Action
    • Materials in English
    • Materials in Spanish
    • What You Can Do Now
    • Donate
    • More Resources
      • News & Analysis
        • Alternet
        • Antiwar.com
        • Black Agenda Report
        • Common Dreams
        • CounterPunch
        • Dissident Voice
        • Media Matters
        • Next Left Notes
        • OpEd News
        • Project Censored
        • Raw Story
        • Revolution Newspaper
        • Truthdig
        • Truthout
      • Anti-War
        • Afghans for Peace
        • Courage to Resist
        • Drone Warfare Awareness
        • Iraq Vets Against the War
        • Peace of the Action
        • Veterans for Peace
        • Voices for Creative Non-Violence
        • War is a Crime
      • Anti-Torture/Detention
        • Andy Worthington
        • Close Guantanamo
        • Free Detainees
        • Int’l Justice Network
        • No More Guantánamos
        • Religious Campaign Against Torture
        • Witness Against Torture
      • Political Repression
        • Bill of Rights Defense Committee
        • Center for Constitutional Rights
        • Committee to Stop FBI Repression
        • Drop the Charges on Gregory!
        • National Lawyers Guild
        • No Separate Justice
        • Project Salam
        • Stop Mass Incarceration
      • Women’s Rights/Theocracy
        • Defend Science
        • Feministing
        • RH Reality Check
        • Stop Patriarchy
        • Talk 2 Action
        • Theocracy Watch
        • Walk for Choice
      • Environment
        • Bill McKibben
        • Climate Connections
        • Enviros Against War
        • Grist
        • Tar Sands Action
  • En Español
Menu

Your thoughts on what our movement can do

Posted on April 20, 2023
Share:
Debra Sweet | April 19, 2023

When “The Movement and the Madman” premiered last month, I asked for comments:

“We’re interested in hearing from anyone who watched the new documentary, ‘The Movement and the Madman,’ streaming now on PBS.org. It premiered last week and pulled together the largely unknown and shocking story that Nixon and Kissinger activated the military in fall 1969 to use nuclear weapons on what was then North Vietnam. The film shows evidence that the anti-war Mobilization to stop the war, with huge protests on October 15 and November 15, curbed their plans.”

It was good to hear from you and others who are working on stopping the U.S. imperialists from making war on the world.

A reader who wished not to be named wrote:
 “It was nice to see the pictures from days long ago and to listen to the music in their context. As to the message, it gave me hope that a civic movement had influence on decisions of politicians, and I hope the anti-war movement referring to Ukraine will increase in the same way and stop it.”  Right on to that, my friend.

Luther Norman wrote: “The work WCW does must be more pronounced to drive home that today’s youth are not their soldiers, and nuclear war is not any kind of answer to conflict anywhere on the planet. Your job, should you decide to accept it, is to convince the American people otherwise.”

Paul Ryder, who graduated a year ahead of me at Madison (WI) West High School, and was an accomplished role model for me in working for justice, thinks the film went too far in asserting that the mass protests were what stopped Nixon from using nuclear weapons. In this article, he contends the (North) Vietnamese leadership didn’t fall for Nixon’s fake nuclear threats:

 A new documentary film on PBS, ‘The Movement and the Madman,’ spotlights the 1969 Moratorium demonstrations for peace in Vietnam. These events marked the passage of the peace movement from the groundbreaking stage (1965-1969) to the stage of great expansion, flooding into the American heartland (1970-1975).

While I recommend the new film, it goes one step too far by asserting the demonstrations actually prevented a U.S. nuclear attack on Vietnam. It would be fair to say the Moratorium demonstrations helped delay other forms of military escalation, such as the mining of Haiphong harbor. But the nuclear attack was just a weak bluff.” Read Paul’s full piece here

My friend Clark Kissinger, the first national secretary of Students for a Democratic Society in the 60’s and long-time revolutionary, wrote: 

“The mass mobilizations were very important, and it is unfortunate that SDS pulled back from organizing them. But we should not forget all four factors that actually brought the war to an end:

First, and most important, the Vietnamese would not capitulate. Second, the U.S. Army in Vietnam became increasingly dysfunctional as a good section of the soldiers turned against the war. Third, anti-war actions (together with the Black liberation movement) threatened the stability of society at home. And fourth, Scoop Jackson and the Committee on the Present Danger argued within the ruling class that the real danger was the Soviet Union and Vietnam was a waste of time and resources.

While giving the mass mobilizations their due, I would like to have seen a fuller recounting of the intensity of domestic opposition to the war, including draft resistance, trips to meet with ‘the other side,’ the burning of ROTC buildings, Kent State, driving recruiters off campus, support for the NLF, the 1968 Democratic Party Convention, and mass civil disobedience like the 1971 May Day action in Washington.

The film put a lot of emphasis on keeping opposition to war ‘comfortable.’ I’m afraid that stopping the slide toward world war we are currently in will require a lot of people getting out of their comfort zone.”

This is the kind of discussion we need to have. History matters, as does what we take from it, in meeting the challenge today of how to save humanity and the planet. But clearly, this is not only a historical problem: the urgency is of the moment, on every front. Let’s stay in touch!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Because humanity & the planet come first...
store
Don’t stop… Don’t conciliate... Don’t accommodate... Don’t collaborate... and support World Can't Wait.

Sign up for email

Stop FBI Repression
Know your rights
If An Agent Knocks

About

World Can't Wait mobilizes people living in the United States to stand up and stop war on the world, repression and torture carried out by the US government. We take action, regardless of which political party holds power, to expose the crimes of our government, from war crimes to systematic mass incarceration, and to put humanity and the planet first.

Read More

Subscribe to E-Newsletter

Contact World Can't Wait

TOPICS

  • Afghanistan & Pakistan
  • Covert Drone War
  • Crimes are Crimes
  • Culture of Bigotry
  • Environment
  • G.I. Resistance
  • Haiti
  • Immigrants
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Libya
  • Mass Incarceration
  • Obama
  • Occupy
  • Palestine
  • Police State Repression
  • Real History Lessons
  • Reproductive Rights
  • Reports on Protest & Resistance
  • Theocracy
  • Torture
  • Wikileaks
  • Calls to Action
  • The Expanding War on the World

Projects

  • War Criminals Watch
  • We Are Not Your Soldiers
  • Get Involved

  • Donate
  • Download filters, stickers and posters
  • More ways to get involved
  • ©2025 The World Can't Wait | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme