American Dissent from 1950-1975

This research paper discusses three different topics relating to the activities of the New Left during the period 1950-1975: 1. main concerns shared by dissident organizations and movements. All these movements protested their denial and exclusion from political participation, legal equality and a fair economic share in postwar America and also shared a common aversion to many of the values of mainstream American society; 2. accounting for the emergence and impact of these movements. The rise of affluence made the Old Left's causes largely irrelevant to the postwar period. That affluence and the dislocations generated by World War II and its aftermath produced a new generation less prone to accept the status quo and which yearned for rapid political, social and economic change. The divisions, frustration and resistance arising out of the Vietnam War helped unify the New Left and provided its disparate groups with opportunities to gain support in mainstream American society just as the ending of that war contributed to the eventual declining influence of New Left movements; and 3. contributions made by these movements for social change. These movements made major contributions toward lessening various forms of discrimination and injustice against particular groups but they also contributed toward the polarization of political conflict in America. Some of those movements such as the civil rights movement and the women

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placed men in defense plants only to find themselves unemployed when male GIs returned to claim their old jobs. Full employment during the war and the postwar boom improved the standard of living of millions of Americans, including members of minorities who benefitted somewhat. This state of affairs undercut the appeal of the Marxist Old Left, many of whose members lost influence as they became viewed as subversive influences during the onset of the Cold War. The development of nuclear weapons gave an increased intensity to the peace movement whose members saw themselves as the last bulwark preventing the world from blowing itself up. The GI Bill provided opportunities for millions of veterans to educate themselves and qualify for new economic opportunities. At the same time as more and more affluent sons and daughters of America's rising middle class attended institutions of higher learning, they formed a restless younger generation dissatisfied with what appeared to many of them to be a materialistic and immoral way of life. They were drawn to the civil rights movement first and then to the antiwar movement. As Paul Potter, SDS leader, put it in a speech in April 1965: "The incredible war in Vietnam has provided the razor, t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Vietnam War, Van Gosse, War II, Statement Purpose, POSTWAR GENERATION, Movement Berkeley, GI Bill, Republican Party, Organization Women, Robert Kennedy, left movements, van gosse, civil rights, vietnam war, statement purpose, american society, antiwar movement, rights movement, civil rights movement, democratic society, civil rights cause, coordinating committee, committee sane nuclear, purpose 14 1960, forms discrimination injustice,
Approximate Word count = 2555
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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