During
the last few years of the Vietnam War, I lived near the UCLA campus in
Westwood. On some days, driving by it, I could see gaggles of police
cars parked there.
That meant there were protests and riots on campus. UCLA was a hotbed for protests against the War.
Flash
forward a dozen years or so. I was looking for a possible story to
write for LA Weekly. I spoke to a Dean at UCLA about the War. This is
what he told me (I’m paraphrasing):
“The
day the military draft ended, all protests stopped. It was as if there
had never been a war. Instead, students started going into campus
counseling offices. They wanted to know about jobs that aligned with
their majors. They wanted to know what their prospects were after
graduation. These were the same ‘revolutionaries’ who had been railing
against the inequities of society.”
“Not
only that, conflicts broke out between black and white student groups
on campus. During the War, they’d been united. But now they were at
odds. Over money. Money that was allocated for student activities. Who
was going to get the lion’s share of that money?”
There are a few lessons to be learned there, if one cares to think about it...
~~~
(Episode
16 of Rappoport Podcasts -- "Destroying the Tyranny; Today’s Rebels,
Tomorrow’s Leaders" -- is now posted on my substack. It's a blockbuster.
To listen, click here. To learn more about This Episode of Rappoport Podcasts, click here.)
~~~
(The link to this article posted on my blog is here.)
(Follow me on Substack, Twitter, and Gab at @jonrappoport)
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