You have it pretty well sussed out I think, robomatic.

It is true that the majority of Americans support any 'police actions' by their imperial government, just as the majority of the British citizenry supported it's imperial government's policies. People love to be on the winning team, and often will align themselves with the team, even at a very high cost to them personally. You can always buy the middle class and sucker them into co-opting and destroying the progressive movements of the day.

Look how successfully the global corporate capitalists have effectively done that with nearly every progressive socialist movement in the world.

It is also interesting that you bring up Vietnam. The Village Voice is currently running this article which is a descendant of the above article I linked to from a 2002 Mother Jones issue. It's another pathetic "demonize the radical left" sort of thing, that blames Nixon's electoral victory on the anti-war protestors, especially the Weather Underground, which is just plain revisionist history. The Weather Underground had nothing to do with organizing mass protests. But hey, let's not confuse anyone with the facts.

I'm going to be very interested to see how the protests go in New York in the coming week. Every liberal mailing list I am on, is currently begging for money to buy protest ads in the NY Times. Now there is a blow against the empire, eh?