Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Jungle: People Went to Canada a Lot in the 1960s, Counterculture, Communities


People went to Canada a lot in the 1960s and the early 70s, to escape the draft, and avoid going to Vietnam. These young people, a lot of whom were students, saw the system as out of control, with no redress. And not only was the American war in Vietnam unjust, and perpetrated by America, it also seemed out of control in the U.S., and a lot of people were coming home in body bags.

So Canada, as a haven for political exiles from an unjust country and system, took on a new role.

Canada received many of these draft resisters, and conscientious objectors, some of whom were Quakers, found a haven.


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Maintaining contacts with Canada - networking - has merit.


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What happens when a system (i.e. the U.S. military-industrial complex - a government, its agencies, and a set of corporations - as a culture, as a 'register,') goes out of control? (About 59,000 Americans died in Vietnam, and Vietnam veterans were treated awfully by the U.S. government. And about 2-3 million Vietnamese died, some atrociously).

Counterculture emerged ... and the 1960s swept the country and transformed minds in very far-reaching ways, significantly due to the Vietnam War, {as well as protesting against, and redressing, racial injustice which also focused the 1960s).

See, for example, Democracynow.org.


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When a system goes out of control, one resorts to local contacts and networks ... and now the internet makes new networks possible, remarkably. New registers ...






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