The New SDS

I Liked this part:

Maurice Isserman, who joined SDS at Reed College in 1968, recently published a sharply critical piece about the new SDS in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In an interview, he said of the group’s revival, “As a historian, I found it a little offensive…”

Right, ‘as a historian’… So that’s a completely experty-academic response that isn’t tied to your completely personal interest here? Makes sense I suppose. As a historian, I find mayonnaise a little offensive, so I use mustard instead.

That was a half way decent documentary I thought, it certainly wasn’t celebratin’ the Weathermen or anything.

But “democratic society” just sounds like a good a name for what they want—and they know better than to think they are living in one now.

Now, unless you have a different definition of ‘democracy’ then I do, that’s a pretty goofy thing to say. It was true when the original SDS formed though (for reasons, which if you read the Port Huron statement, are obvious)

Anyway. You shouldn’t have the right to vote unless you own at least two heads of cattle.

Only if you can pass a literacy test… in Esperanto!!!!!!

That last comment, in English, means, “Dig it, they stuck a fork in that pig.”

“There’s nothing more embarrasing than youth with a political opinion.” Sorry to spoil it, but it’s not all that often I get to use my Esperanto.

With all due respect, I feel that the “crazy moonbats ruin it for everybody” line is getting a bit overplayed here.

It takes all kinds.

Yes, the Weatherman faction and Weather Underground people ought to apologize– to the left. First they organized the “Days of Rage” in 1969 which made the left look like certifiable adventurist lunatics, as Fred Hampton, the Black Panther Chicago leader, said at the time. Then they forced everyone in SDS to swear fealty to North Korea, among other states. Then they wrecked SDS (they were the ones in power and made the call to close up shop, without consulting the other 99,000 members). Then they went on a tear, bombing various targets, again a self-defeating strategy. The idea that they have nothing to apologize for stems from fuzzy notions, a hangover from McCarthyism, that criticism of such practices implies a criticism of the whole left or the objective of social transformation. But it’s precisely because they made that social transformation harder to achieve that Weather ought to apologize and should not be seen in remotely favorable terms.

Scott: “But “democratic society” just sounds like a good a name for what they want—and they know better than to think they are living in one now.”

Radek: “Now, unless you have a different definition of ‘democracy’ then I do, that’s a pretty goofy thing to say. It was true when the original SDS formed though (for reasons, which if you read the Port Huron statement, are obvious)”

A couple of weeks ago, one of the three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination for the presidency announced that she’ll keep troops in Iraq indefinitely, IIRC.

The past few years have seen Dem politicians defy the will of the majority of their constituents, screw things up, and get away with it.

In the USA today, we definitely take our democracy with a *lot* of ice, and a gallon or two of mixer.

Never trust anyone under 30, that’s what I say.

As Ash said:

Left, Right? I’m the guy with the gun.

“The Left” needs to take a mature, principled stand. Violence and war can never be conscionable means to progressive ends, unless they are carried out by USAF.

Yes, it’s probably best that the left hold itself to the standards of J. Edgar Hoover, John Mitchell, and Richard Nixon.

Or conceivably those of Robert McNamara.

The US left have an awful lot of killing to do before they catch up with the Democrats.

They’re probably ahead on apologies though.

“The Left” needs to take a mature, principled stand. Violence and war can never be conscionable means to progressive ends, unless they are carried out by USAF.

Curses! My Decent designs have been foiled again. For as somebody or other argues in Left Hook, the people who now believe that Weatherman and Weather Underground were disasters for the left are the same people who supported the war in Vietnam and complained that Martin Luther King was eroding the moral credibility of the antiwar movement.

As far as the Decents go, I think it’s quite easy to argue that government controlled by madmen burning hundreds of peasants alive with napalm on a daily basis and poisoning their crops with agent orange constitutes exactly a humanitarian emergency the Decents worry about so much.

And so, if (as engels alluded above) it’s typically OK to send a bunch of contracted psychopaths armed with hightech weapons to protect the peasants, I don’t see why a bunch of volunteered psychopaths doing the same with home-made bombs should be so shocking. It’s certainly much cheaper.

That’s from the Decents’ point of view, of course. I’m probably missing something here.

Oh, ejh, I can’t compete with you for moral seriousness. You know that. I just lie about people ‘cuz it’s kinda fun. Also because I love me some US Air Force!

Back on topic: I read Phelps’ essay yesterday, and I agree with Scott: I can’t imagine anything more fair to the young people who are being radicalized by the war. The MDS Follies weren’t ignored, but weren’t given undue prominence, either. And the debate over tactics at the Jan 27 demo was handled with a deft touch, too. So, kudos to Phelps on a fine piece, and thanks to Scott for his take on it here.

Ditto (excuse my profanity). Humor is nice, as is irony and sarcasm, much in the same way that sweeteners are. And in a similar fashion, too mucy of the former is like trying to eat a meal covered in corn syrup.

The current SDS is learning from the failures of the old. The weatherman faction was not solely responsible for the destruction of the “old” SDS. Rather, it was the leadership hierarchies of the old organization and its peculiar power structure that led enabled a “fringe” group like the weather undergrounds to take control. The current SDS, perhaps due to the influence of its anarchist members, has done its best to avoid hierarchies and “vanguardism” which I think is a promising sign for the organization. As the article points out, this can generate problems when organizing events, and it will be interesting to see what forms the organization takes as time goes on.

How is the SDS interested in democracy? An admittedly small minority are interested in autocratic rule, the more contemporary majority are into consensus government, really.

Do you see any examples of consensus governments existing in our times? No, and it’s not for not having been tried. The reason is that there’s at least one voter who votes against war or military funding even in cases of imminent invasion. It’s a success from the antiwar perspective, I guess, but hardly for the people.

Have democracies done stupid and intolerant things? Have they done those things to minorities? Of course.

Democracies have also overruled minorities to extend voter franchise, end slavery, end institutional racism, vote for the Persian, Revolutionary, and Second World Wars, install transport, etc..

Yes, elected leaders have even done things against the wills of majorities. Lincoln’s election is an excellent example. He was elected on a plank of limiting slavery in time and place, which was unpopular (Southerners opposed it, others feared rupture of the Union). He succeeded beyond his hopes because 2/3 of the majority in question left the Union.

“Haters” in post 32 is a bit much…

I know I’m voicing the sentiment of the overwhelming majority of posters, readers and commenters here when I say: those who don’t recognize the utmost necessity of defending our dear comrade Michael against nasty, malicious hatred-filled attacks by moonbats and wingnuts alike are not welcome here. Yes, that’s you, Donald Johnson, if that’s your real name.

Max: an early pre-marxist vintage, maybe 1963. Think kids putting flowers into National Guard rifles.

Which event was considerably post-1963, and not done by SDS-ers. But I quibble, as Max’s assessment seems a lot calmer and more realistic than that in the main post.

It’s absolutely crucial, can’t be stressed too often or too much, that we all remember to keep in mind that in spite of the fact that there was a sudden and total drop-off in leadership of any left or even leftish resistance in the US after 1969 and its covert assassinations and neutralizations, and no one emerged after ever again who wasn’t remnant and on the run or turned, so that it looks like some kind of profiling and consequent custodial engineering may have taken place, run on those born in the US after about 1946 or so – possibly through the great catalogs of teh educational system, begun in earnest in the 1950’s – although there may be some other explanation for that complete and total void of charismatic and radical leadership figures in a population at the time numbering around 200 million of which many were among the rising tide of the so-called “baby-boom” and yet none, no one, rose up as visibly resistant to anything political between the years of say 1975 and pretty close to right now today – it’s vital that we remember that that’s okay, it’s alright, nothing happened, nothing serious, Fred Hampton was a victim of a procedural error or set of errors, total anomaly, Angela Davis is/was some kind of sado/maochistic Maoist freak, the cartoonishness of most of the public figures on the visible radical left was a direct outgrowth of the cartoonish nature of radical leftists and leftism generally, when they aren’t being scary and feral they’re just plain comically stupid. So forget about anything that smacks of deeper covert action domestically from a government and its semi-rogue agents and agencies that’s documented, substantiated, witnessed, testified to as willing to go the extra dark covert mile in every other country on the planet that fits its self-assigned mandate – they would never have moved against their own people, not even to protect them from the scourge of communist infiltration, not in a million years, and if they had we’d know about it.
Although…
As to the incessant triangulation of Berube and his erstwhile liberal cohort in their avid push to gain the comfort and safety of the middle of the herd – the explications of that process, so precisely and eloquently delivered by the still-greatly-missed Turbulent Velvet in many an other venue, will have to suffice, I’ve run out of steam.

And I laughed out loud when I came to “It’s absolutely crucial, can’t be stressed too often or too much, that we all remember to keep in mind that in spite of the fact that.”