What does buffalo springfields song for what its worth say about the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

First, it should be noted that this song was not originally written about the war in Vietnam. It was written in 1966 (and became a hit in early 1967) to protest police brutality against young people. In California, there had been cases of "the heat" (police) hassling young people just because they were hanging out or making too much noise or playing music too loudly. Stephen Stills wrote the song about those protests, to speak out about the unfair treatment he saw. Several years later, as the war in Vietnam escalated and students became more vocal about protesting it, the song was adopted by the anti-war movement and played on radio as an anti-war song. The second answer to this question refers to how the song related to anti-war protests, even though its original meaning was about an entirely different subject.

another answer:

During the Vietnam War in the US, women law enforcement personnel worked juvenile & vice, not the streets. The song by Buffalo Springfield is another Viet War protest song (or anti-war era song) and policemen back in those days (1960s) were called "the Heat", "the Man", and of course "Pigs", all at the time representing what was uniformally referred to as "the System" (any one working for the City, County, State, or Federal Government was the "system", which of course focused primarily on policemen & military men since they wore uniforms & were easily identified).

The song mentions "signs", "man carrying a gun", "the heat", "the man", "he'll take you away (if you step out of line)", etc. The songs about the typical Vietnam War protests of the day. They were all different; one song talked about "Flower Children in the streets of San Francisco", Country Joe and the Fish gets angry with "have your boy come home in a box", the "Yellow River song says the wars over!", Crosby Stills and Nash's "Ohio" sings about the 4 dead at Kent State University & Nixon's bombing (of North Vietnam), CCR's "Run Through the Jungle" talks about "smoke'n a village" even though they deny it. Bottom line, its just a song about protesting the Vietnam war & and the system thats pursuing it.