Throughout the Vietnam war many different groups used different tactics to oppose the war. Groups such as Yippies and SDS symbolized the Anti-War movement. The Yippies were a group of people, much like hippies, however they had a political side to them. Tom Hayden was one who followed the Yippie ways and was trialed for being one, but was never charged. Hayden had a militant approach to these issues, which helped give the SDS the tactics they used on college campuses. His theory was that these movements would either force the government to change policy in Vietnam or send troops to campuses to help keep the protestors at bay. Students would make permanent residence in buildings, made revolutionary committees, used civil disobedience, and human barricades in order to get their point across. Which I think was a good idea; this would make it so that they either pull out or they would have lower numbers of military personnel over there because they were being used on campuses.
Victorious NVA troops at the Presidential Palace, ...
Yippie!
English: Yippie Flag, the flag of the Youth Intern...However this was in my opinion a failure. Instead of the government using the Army or Marines, they used our at home military the National Guard, which rarely is used in 3rd world wars. Although the Yippies used a different approach, they wanted to sabotage the November elections. First they held many Anti-War movements in Chicago during the Democratic convention, causing a substantial amount of commotion. Not only were they trying to cause disorder for the convention, but I also think that they were trying to take control of the news coverage. Instead of the news covering the convention they would cover the Yippies, making America unaware of the issues that were being addressed at the convention. Then in November they wanted to have a voting strike, trying to get as many people not to vote as possible. They planned on blocking polling booths, hanging flags from every window so no one knew where to vote (I found this one hilarious), and much more, just to make it inconvenient for voters. I also found this tactic a failure; it would never work unless no one voted. I think they would have been better off they all just voted for McCarthy, causing a great increase of votes for him.
bibliography: Anderson, Terry. "The Sixties". New York: Pearson, 2007.
Bloom, Alexander., Breines, Wini, eds. "Takin it to the Streets". New York: Oxford Press, 2003
English: Photo of Tom Hayden addressing an anti-wa...
YIP poster advertising the 1968 Festival of Life
English: Activist and author Tom Hayden (left) wit...