That means that I’ve seen, and taken part in the discussion about, both Vietnam and present day Iraq. I participated in neither, in the sense of being part of the U.S. military. When Vietnam was raging in 1970 I was in college. I could have been drafted, but wasn’t. I didn’t enlist but did nothing to avoid the draft other than apply for the student deferment to which I was entitled under the law. It was granted and by the time I was again eligible to be drafted, there was a lottery and I wasn’t called. All of this is important to say because I want it to be clear that I had no particular strong feelings about military service, one way or the other. I didn’t serve, but had circumstances been slightly different I would have served to the best of my ability without regret.

I did oppose the war in Vietnam as I oppose this war in Iraq. I see the similarities between the two conflicts. The biggest similarity is that both were/are an attempt to use the military to achieve what were essentially political ends. Didn’t work in the 60s and 70s. Isn’t working now.

The object of this post is to talk about the differences I see between Vietnam and Iraq. And the differences lie mainly in my experience of both and more particularly, of the opposition to both.

In the opposition to the war in Vietnam, it was mainly students and other young people who drove the movement, though there were outspoken adults and even some members of Congress. As students, we marched, wrote and sang songs of protest, held rallies, risked injury (and, alas, even death). We shut down universities and generally raised hell.

In the spring of 1970, when Nixon invaded Cambodia and four students were shot dead at Kent State University, I was attending classes just a hundred or so miles away at Ohio State. The National Guard soldiers who faced our protest were from the same organization, under the same governor as those who fired at Kent. Still we protested and closed the school in the process.

I see so little of that kind of action today, especially among young people, and I think I know why — at least partly.

We were starved for reliable information, then.

There were three television networks, a handfull of prominent newspapers, and little else. And these outlets reported what was going on from an establishment point of view, though with somewhat more skepticism than today. To find out more, to find out what was not being reported, I had to get out and get with people, attend rallies, march and talk and listen.

Today that’s not necessary. I can sit on a beach in North Carolina and learn more in a few minutes of reading on a computer screen that I ever knew about Vietnam, even with the personal contacts I developed that included returned veterans.

The 24-hours news cycle and cable news and such has helped change the flow of information, but this medium — the Internet and blogs, especially — have given me access to more information than any one person can hold or digest. That access also has removed one of the prime reasons for getting out and demonstrating against this war — simply to know what’s going on.

In essence, the argument goes…

I don’t care if the government listens to my phone calls or reads where I go on the internet. I personally don’t have anything to hide. And I doubt most of the people online do either. So sue me for not getting fired up over an issue that doesn’t matter to me.

But I’ve thought about it and this is why it should matter and does matter to all of us:

The men who wrote the Constitution and those who ratified it, had in the 15 years prior, endured the tyranny and oppression of a high-handed monarch, fought and won a difficult war for their independence and suffered through the problems of a dysfunctional confederation. When they met in Philadelphia, it was to fix the government and permanently protect themselves and their descendants from the possibility that another tyrant would rule over them.

When they restricted the government’s ability to search and seize (and spy) without a warrant, when they limited the ability to suspend habeas corpus, they were setting up the rules to make it possible for citizens to conspire and organize against a potential tyrant before he (or she) could assume absolute power.

They wrote these rules into the Constitution so they would not be easy to change, because they knew that in some legitimate emergency, the temptation to sacrifice them for a quick fix of security would be irresistible.

The problem is that once sacrificed, these rights are difficult to reclaim. And once these rights are sacrificed, the safeguards our forefathers put in place won’t be there when a real tyrant rears his head.

I’m not doing anything now that I wouldn’t want my government to observe. But if there ever comes a day when I need to do what the founders had to do, I’d hope the tyrant couldn’t watch or listen, thank you.

This era’s miniaturization of power in the hands of the individual favors destructive forces rather than creative ones at present. In their very different ways, devastating new military technologies and their wide availability, the Internet, and the greatly increased flow of money, goods, ideas and people across national borders have all wrought changes that defenders of the existing order struggle to comprehend and counter.

The most vindictive bloggers and many others eager to push the mainstream media, established politicians or other remnants of the status quo off a stage that they want to occupy smash reputations with abandon to call attention to themselves. What do they have to lose in the unpoliced badlands of the ether? They contribute to a general deepening of cynicism in the land at no perceived cost to themselves.

But deeply polarized nations that devote an inordinate amount of their time and energy to hunting and prosecuting both real villains and convenient scapegoats — at the expense of failing to recognize and respect heroes and helpers of the common good — do pay an enormous collective price. Such nations descend into easily manipulated despair and resentment that inevitably lead to ever greater destruction. Americans would do well to ponder that in a summer of doubt and division.

I would argue that a dozen years of Republlican control of Congress and the vicious partisanship it imposed, six years of a Republican presidency hell-bent on having its way even in defiance of the law, has done as much to polarize the nation — and bloggers — than any group of citizens has done.

Want to know why bloggers are criticizing manstream media? Read Hoagland.