New Left Views on Vietnam

Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book and the New Left Views

A group of five dozen college students, who were passionate about politics, gathered in late spring 1962 at Port Huron, Michigan. There they discussed politics, such as civil rights, foreign policy and quality of American life, and developed a document on political views; known as the Port Huron Statement.(Berkin, 2008) The goals of this statement were to create a new political movement in the United States that rejected hierarchy and bureaucracy. The movement came to be known as the New Left; (Mintz, 2007) they gained support from non-traditional foundations, such as labor unions, but rather from the young, especially college students.(Cochran, 2007)

The comic Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book was written by Julian Bond after his circus of elections to the Georgia House of Representatives for his opposing views on the war in Vietnam. (Bond, 1967)(The NAACP, 2009) The comic focuses on specific persons or groups who also oppose America's involvement in Vietnam, primarily civil rights leaders and groups. Initial opposition is African-American soldiers in the war, specifically how they're fighting a war led by a country that hasn't supported them and treats them like second class citizens.(Bond, 1967)

History and politics are also discussed, illustrating how Vietnam's determination to remain a free and self-governing country by mentioning conflicts with France, Japan and America. Also focusing on America's support to South Vietnam, after the Geneva Accords, helping get a U.S. approved leader elected and how America sent soldiers to help diffuse the New Liberation Front; who America saw as communists. The New Liberation Front was working to expel outside forces from Vietnam and give the Vietnamese people the freedom to elect their leader.(Bond, 1967)

The New Left ideals of morals toward civil rights and "participatory democracy" were major contributions to the opposition of the Vietnam War.(Berkin, 2008) Through determination to remain a free country under their own rule and fighting to expel outside interferences, the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Min, along with numerous other communist leaders, became a hero in the eyes of the New Left. (Mintz, 2007)

References:

Berkin, C. (2008). Making America, A History of the United States. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Bond, J. (1967). Retrieved February 17, 2010, from Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book: http://empire1.esc.edu/library/intresourcesv2.nsf/bykeyredirect/9434?opendocument

Cochran, D. (2007, August 23). Wiley Interscience. Retrieved February 17, 2010, from I.F. Stone and the New Left; Protesting U.S. Policy in Vietnam: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119343596/abstract

Mintz,

...