Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I found an excellent essay, Vietnam War Retrospective that discusses photojournalism’s effects on the Vietnam protest movement. Among some of the events recalled by the author, Frank Cossa, is the following:
We saw a callow, fair young man slip a flower into the rifle barrel of a helmeted MP standing guard in front of the Pentagon; a literal demonstration of “flower power” in a gesture of perfect absurdist grace. (We never did see the Pentagon “levitate” as the Yippies promised it would on that occasion, but some of us are convinced that it gave a slight shimmy).
I remember these images very well — flower children, eyes glazed by love and peace (and liberal doses of grass), gently putting daisies and carnations into the rifles of very young guardsmen, most of whom hadn’t a clue how to respond to such action. The image was very powerful, and an effective companion to other photojournalist efforts that showed dead Vietnamese children and women and dead American soldiers as well as injured or dead protestors.
After all, without love, what were we fighting for?
Peace Bloggers speak out:
AKMA – BTW, thanks for trying in Doc’s comments, Rev
Jonathon – who really shouldn’t eat sardines and vegemite, followed by lamb and potatoes when sick
Eric – Off to jury duty next week, poor boy
Chris – My favorite chicken who clucks most elegantly
Kath – Who suggests we should send the current Middle East leaders to Pluto
Mike Golby who introduces us to a new South African, Nithia Govender as both discuss the choice South Africa made for peace. Gives hope.
Elaine – who has taken to peace blogging most passionately
Steve who, like Jonathon, specializes in the delicately subtle as compared to the clamorously loud (the latter being my own particular approach).
Rogi — who pointed out this interesting new bug that really looks like a bug and gets 1 litre/100 km.
And Karl – Who wrote the peace bloggers creed:
Read both sides. Get to the truth. Form your own opinions. And if you can – be courageous and speak them. But make sure you read both sides to the story. Don’t trust writers that do not declare their biases.
Don’t add to the data smog people – help cut thru it.
