Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On May 11, 2004, at 6:23 PM, Marc James Small wrote: > Gerry > > This thread was not discussing the attitudes of Europeans or Canadians > toward the Viet-Nam War but the impact these pictures had on US > attitudes > and, bluntly, the Gallup and Harris polls through 1973 to 1975 show > that > the majority of the US populace support a "winning" strategy in > Viet-Nam -- > that is, the folks here didn't want a "limited" war but were willing to > support guerre a la outrance to drive the North Viet-Namese out of > business. These pictures were viewed by Middle America as the sort of > thing the distrusted "left-wing" media came up with and were not > viewed in > Peoria as being representative of the situation in South-East Asia. > > Marc I still can't find any polling data to support that conclusion. Everything from the late-'60s through '71 shows that the American were evenly split, with only a quarter supporting the Goldwater-esque "by any means necessary" approach and an equal number tending to support complete and immediate withdrawal. Assuming that public opinion had swung by that large a margin over three years, it tells me that for many people, it's easier to argue "do whatever it takes for victory," when you don't have family and friends in danger (as they weren't by 1974). (This explains some of the attitudes I've encountered about Iraq.) MP