This is interesting, especially in light of recent discussions about "what next?" and "what to do?"

A little late, but here Rudd is reconsidering the approach he took back in the day, and commenting on the shift in the movement that happened back then and about which I have talked, and about how the effects of that have persisted through the decades with negative consequence.

Beyond Magical Thinking: How to Really Make Change Happen

Since the summer of 2003, I've crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, "Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference."

The words still sound strange: it's a phrase I never once heard forty years ago, a sentiment obviously false on its surface. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I - and the rest of the country - knew about the civil rights movement in the South, and what was most evident was that individuals, joining with others, actually were making a difference. The labor movement of the Thirties to the Sixties had improved the lives of millions; the anti-war movement had brought down a sitting president - LBJ, March 1968 - and was actively engaged in stopping the Vietnam War. In the forty years since, the women's movement, gay rights, disability rights, animal rights, and environmental movements have all registered enormous social and political gains. To old new lefties, such as myself, this is all self-evident.

So, why the defeatism? In the absence of knowledge of how these historical movements were built, young people assume that they arose spontaneously, or, perhaps, charismatic leaders suddenly called them into existence. On the third Monday of every January we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. having had a dream; knowledge of the movement itself is lost.

The current anti-war movement's weakness, however, is very much alive in young people's experience. They cite the fact that millions turned out in the streets in the early spring of 2003 to oppose the pending U.S. attack on Iraq, but that these demonstrations had no effect. "We demonstrated, and they didn't listen to us." Even the activists among them became demoralized as numbers at demonstrations dropped off very quickly, street demonstrations becoming cliches, and, despite a big shift in public opinion in 2006, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan droned on to today. The very success of the spontaneous early mobilization seems to have contributed to the anti-war movement's long-term weakness.

Something's missing. I first got an insight into articulating what it is when I picked up Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out, edited by Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin and Kenyon Farrow (Nation Books, 2005). Andy Cornell, in a letter to the movement that first radicalized him, "Dear Punk Rock Activism," criticizes the conflation of the terms "activism" and "organizing." He writes, "activists are individuals who dedicate their time and energy to various efforts they hope will contribute to social, political, or economic change. Organizers are activists who, in addition to their own participation, work to move other people to take action and help them develop skills, political analysis and confidence within the context of organizations. Organizing is a process - creating long-term campaigns that mobilize a certain constituency to press for specific demands from a particular target, using a defined strategy and escalating tactics." In other words, it's not enough for punks to continually express their contempt for mainstream values through their alternate identity; they've got to move toward "organizing masses of people."

Aha! Activism = self-expression; organizing = movement-building.

Until recently, I'd rarely heard young people call themselves "organizers." The common term for years has been "activists." Organizing was reduced to the behind the scenes nuts-and-bolts work needed to pull off a specific event, such as a concert or demonstration. But forty years ago, we only used the word "activist" to mock our enemies' view of us, as when a university administrator or newspaper editorial writer would call us "mindless activists." We were organizers, our work was building a mass movement, and that took constant discussion of goals, strategy and tactics (and, later, contributing to our downfall ideology).

Thinking back over my own experience, I realized that I had inherited this organizer's identity from the red diaper babies I fell in with at the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, SDS. Raised by parents in the labor and civil rights and communist or socialist movements, they had naturally learned the organizing method as other kids learned how to throw footballs or bake pineapple upside-down cakes. "Build the base!" was the constant strategy of Columbia SDS for years.

Yet, young activists I met were surprised to learn that major events, such as the Columbia rebellion of April 1968, did not happen spontaneously, that they took years of prior education, relationship building, reconsideration on the part of individuals of their role in the institution. I.e., organizing. It seemed to me that they believed that movements happen as a sort of dramatic or spectator sport: after a small group of people express themselves, large numbers of bystanders see the truth in what they're saying and join in. The mass anti-war mobilization of the Spring 2003, which failed to stop the war, was the only model they knew.

I began looking for a literature that would show how successful historical movements were built. Not the outcomes or triumphs, such as the great civil rights March on Washington in 1963, but the many streams that eventually created the floods. I wanted to know who said what to whom and how did they respond. One book was recommended to me repeatedly by friends, I've Got the Light of Freedom: the Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle by Charles M. Payne (University of California Press, 1995). Payne, an African-American sociologist, now at the University of Chicago, asked the question how young student organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, had successfully organized voter registration and related campaigns in one town, Greenwood, Mississippi, in the years 1961-1964. The Mississippi Delta region was one of the most benighted areas of the South, with conditions for black cotton sharecroppers and plantation workers not much above the level of slavery. Despite the fact that illiteracy and economic dependency were the norm among black people in the Delta, and that they were the target of years of violent terror tactics, including murder, SNCC miraculously organized these same people to take the steps toward their own freedom, through attaining voting rights and education. How did they do it?

What Payne uncovers through his investigation into SNCC in Greenwood is an organizing method that has no name but is solidly rooted in the traditions of church women of the rural South. Black churches usually had charismatic male ministers, who, as a consequence of their positions, led in an authoritarian manner. The work of the congregations themselves, however, the social events and education and mutual aid were organized at the base level by women, who were democratic and relational in style. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Council, SCLC, used the ministerial model in their mobilizing for events, while the young people of SNCC - informed by the teaching and examples of freedom movement veterans Ella Baker and Septima Clark - concentrated on building relationships with local people and helping them develop into leaders within democratic structures. SNCC's central organizing principle, "participatory democracy," was a direct inheritance from Ella Baker.

Payne writes, "SNCC preached a gospel of individual efficacy. What you do matters. In order to move politically, people had to believe that. In Greenwood, the movement was able to exploit communal and familial traditions that encouraged people to believe in their own light."

The features of the method, sometimes called "developmental" or "transformational organizing," involve long-term strategy, patient base-building, personal engagement between people, full democratic participation, education and the development of people's leadership capabilities, and coalition-building. The developmental method is often juxtaposed to Alinsky-style organizing, which is usually characterized as top-down and manipulative.

For a first-hand view of Alinsky organizing - though it's never named as such - by a trained and seasoned practitioner, see Barack Obama's book, Dreams from My Father (Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004). In the middle section of the book, "Chicago," Obama describes his three years organizing on the streets and housing projects of South Chicago. He beautifully invokes his motives - improving young people's lives - but at the same time draws a murky picture of organizing. Questions abound: Who trained him? What was his training? Who paid him? What is the guiding ideology? What is his relationship to the people he calls "my leaders?" Are they above him or are they manipulated by him? Who are calling whose shots? What are the long-term consequences? It's a great piece to start a discussion with young organizers.

While reading I've Got the Light of Freedom, I realized that much of what we had practiced in SDS was derived from SNCC and this developmental organizing tradition, up to and including the vision of "participatory democracy," which was incorporated in the 1962 SDS founding document, "The Port Huron Statement." Columbia SDS's work was patient, strategic, base-building, using both confrontation and education. I, myself, had been nurtured and developed into a leadership position through years of close friendship with older organizers.

However, my clique's downfall came post-1968, when, under the spell of the illusion of revolution, we abandoned organizing, first for militant confrontation (Weatherman and the Days of Rage, Oct. 1969) and then armed urban guerilla warfare (the Weather Underground, 1970-1976). We had, in effect, moved backward from organizing to self-expression, believing, ridiculously, that that would build the movement. At the moment when more organizing was needed to build a permanent anti-imperialist mass movement, we abandoned organizing.

This is the story I tell in my book, Underground. It's about good organizing (Columbia), leading to worse (Weatherman), leading to horrible (the Weather Underground). I hope it's useful to contemporary organizers, as they contemplate how to build the coming mass movement(s).

This is interesting, especially in light of recent discussions about "what next?" and "what to do?"

A little late, but here Rudd is reconsidering the approach he took back in the day, and commenting on the shift in the movement that happened back then and about which I have talked, and about how the effects of that have persisted through the decades with negative consequence.

Beyond Magical Thinking: How to Really Make Change Happen

Since the summer of 2003, I've crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, "Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference."

The words still sound strange: it's a phrase I never once heard forty years ago, a sentiment obviously false on its surface. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I - and the rest of the country - knew about the civil rights movement in the South, and what was most evident was that individuals, joining with others, actually were making a difference. The labor movement of the Thirties to the Sixties had improved the lives of millions; the anti-war movement had brought down a sitting president - LBJ, March 1968 - and was actively engaged in stopping the Vietnam War. In the forty years since, the women's movement, gay rights, disability rights, animal rights, and environmental movements have all registered enormous social and political gains. To old new lefties, such as myself, this is all self-evident.

So, why the defeatism? In the absence of knowledge of how these historical movements were built, young people assume that they arose spontaneously, or, perhaps, charismatic leaders suddenly called them into existence. On the third Monday of every January we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. having had a dream; knowledge of the movement itself is lost.

The current anti-war movement's weakness, however, is very much alive in young people's experience. They cite the fact that millions turned out in the streets in the early spring of 2003 to oppose the pending U.S. attack on Iraq, but that these demonstrations had no effect. "We demonstrated, and they didn't listen to us." Even the activists among them became demoralized as numbers at demonstrations dropped off very quickly, street demonstrations becoming cliches, and, despite a big shift in public opinion in 2006, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan droned on to today. The very success of the spontaneous early mobilization seems to have contributed to the anti-war movement's long-term weakness.

Something's missing. I first got an insight into articulating what it is when I picked up Letters from Young Activists: Today's Rebels Speak Out, edited by Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin and Kenyon Farrow (Nation Books, 2005). Andy Cornell, in a letter to the movement that first radicalized him, "Dear Punk Rock Activism," criticizes the conflation of the terms "activism" and "organizing." He writes, "activists are individuals who dedicate their time and energy to various efforts they hope will contribute to social, political, or economic change. Organizers are activists who, in addition to their own participation, work to move other people to take action and help them develop skills, political analysis and confidence within the context of organizations. Organizing is a process - creating long-term campaigns that mobilize a certain constituency to press for specific demands from a particular target, using a defined strategy and escalating tactics." In other words, it's not enough for punks to continually express their contempt for mainstream values through their alternate identity; they've got to move toward "organizing masses of people."

Aha! Activism = self-expression; organizing = movement-building.

Until recently, I'd rarely heard young people call themselves "organizers." The common term for years has been "activists." Organizing was reduced to the behind the scenes nuts-and-bolts work needed to pull off a specific event, such as a concert or demonstration. But forty years ago, we only used the word "activist" to mock our enemies' view of us, as when a university administrator or newspaper editorial writer would call us "mindless activists." We were organizers, our work was building a mass movement, and that took constant discussion of goals, strategy and tactics (and, later, contributing to our downfall ideology).

Thinking back over my own experience, I realized that I had inherited this organizer's identity from the red diaper babies I fell in with at the Columbia chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, SDS. Raised by parents in the labor and civil rights and communist or socialist movements, they had naturally learned the organizing method as other kids learned how to throw footballs or bake pineapple upside-down cakes. "Build the base!" was the constant strategy of Columbia SDS for years.

Yet, young activists I met were surprised to learn that major events, such as the Columbia rebellion of April 1968, did not happen spontaneously, that they took years of prior education, relationship building, reconsideration on the part of individuals of their role in the institution. I.e., organizing. It seemed to me that they believed that movements happen as a sort of dramatic or spectator sport: after a small group of people express themselves, large numbers of bystanders see the truth in what they're saying and join in. The mass anti-war mobilization of the Spring 2003, which failed to stop the war, was the only model they knew.

I began looking for a literature that would show how successful historical movements were built. Not the outcomes or triumphs, such as the great civil rights March on Washington in 1963, but the many streams that eventually created the floods. I wanted to know who said what to whom and how did they respond. One book was recommended to me repeatedly by friends, I've Got the Light of Freedom: the Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle by Charles M. Payne (University of California Press, 1995). Payne, an African-American sociologist, now at the University of Chicago, asked the question how young student organizers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, SNCC, had successfully organized voter registration and related campaigns in one town, Greenwood, Mississippi, in the years 1961-1964. The Mississippi Delta region was one of the most benighted areas of the South, with conditions for black cotton sharecroppers and plantation workers not much above the level of slavery. Despite the fact that illiteracy and economic dependency were the norm among black people in the Delta, and that they were the target of years of violent terror tactics, including murder, SNCC miraculously organized these same people to take the steps toward their own freedom, through attaining voting rights and education. How did they do it?

What Payne uncovers through his investigation into SNCC in Greenwood is an organizing method that has no name but is solidly rooted in the traditions of church women of the rural South. Black churches usually had charismatic male ministers, who, as a consequence of their positions, led in an authoritarian manner. The work of the congregations themselves, however, the social events and education and mutual aid were organized at the base level by women, who were democratic and relational in style. Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Council, SCLC, used the ministerial model in their mobilizing for events, while the young people of SNCC - informed by the teaching and examples of freedom movement veterans Ella Baker and Septima Clark - concentrated on building relationships with local people and helping them develop into leaders within democratic structures. SNCC's central organizing principle, "participatory democracy," was a direct inheritance from Ella Baker.

Payne writes, "SNCC preached a gospel of individual efficacy. What you do matters. In order to move politically, people had to believe that. In Greenwood, the movement was able to exploit communal and familial traditions that encouraged people to believe in their own light."

The features of the method, sometimes called "developmental" or "transformational organizing," involve long-term strategy, patient base-building, personal engagement between people, full democratic participation, education and the development of people's leadership capabilities, and coalition-building. The developmental method is often juxtaposed to Alinsky-style organizing, which is usually characterized as top-down and manipulative.

For a first-hand view of Alinsky organizing - though it's never named as such - by a trained and seasoned practitioner, see Barack Obama's book, Dreams from My Father (Three Rivers Press, 1995 and 2004). In the middle section of the book, "Chicago," Obama describes his three years organizing on the streets and housing projects of South Chicago. He beautifully invokes his motives - improving young people's lives - but at the same time draws a murky picture of organizing. Questions abound: Who trained him? What was his training? Who paid him? What is the guiding ideology? What is his relationship to the people he calls "my leaders?" Are they above him or are they manipulated by him? Who are calling whose shots? What are the long-term consequences? It's a great piece to start a discussion with young organizers.

While reading I've Got the Light of Freedom, I realized that much of what we had practiced in SDS was derived from SNCC and this developmental organizing tradition, up to and including the vision of "participatory democracy," which was incorporated in the 1962 SDS founding document, "The Port Huron Statement." Columbia SDS's work was patient, strategic, base-building, using both confrontation and education. I, myself, had been nurtured and developed into a leadership position through years of close friendship with older organizers.

However, my clique's downfall came post-1968, when, under the spell of the illusion of revolution, we abandoned organizing, first for militant confrontation (Weatherman and the Days of Rage, Oct. 1969) and then armed urban guerilla warfare (the Weather Underground, 1970-1976). We had, in effect, moved backward from organizing to self-expression, believing, ridiculously, that that would build the movement. At the moment when more organizing was needed to build a permanent anti-imperialist mass movement, we abandoned organizing.

This is the story I tell in my book, Underground. It's about good organizing (Columbia), leading to worse (Weatherman), leading to horrible (the Weather Underground). I hope it's useful to contemporary organizers, as they contemplate how to build the coming mass movement(s).

http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/how-to-build-a-movement.html

Its a pretty simple observation he makes but those are sometimes the best kind (keen eye for the obvious and all that) and they're in short supply right now

EDIT: also, just a guess but I'd bet that black woman who were such movers behind the scenes were called "authoritarian" more than a few times in their own right ;)

EDIT2: Oh man, I was poking around his website and got to his article about Obama. Even given that it was written in the "euphoria" of Nov 2008, its pretty sad. There is a pragmatic side that is pretty good compared to others who were (are?) swinging by Obamas nuts, but still..

http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/how-to-build-a-movement.html

Its a pretty simple observation he makes but those are sometimes the best kind (keen eye for the obvious and all that) and they're in short supply right now

EDIT: also, just a guess but I'd bet that black woman who were such movers behind the scenes were called "authoritarian" more than a few times in their own right ;)

EDIT2: Oh man, I was poking around his website and got to his article about Obama. Even given that it was written in the "euphoria" of Nov 2008, its pretty sad. There is a pragmatic side that is pretty good compared to others who were (are?) swinging by Obamas nuts, but still..

The article is not that strong, and the Obama stuff is bothersome, but it does illustrate that liberalism is in disarray and people are asking questions. It is all liberalism, too, the whole stinking mess no matter how people try to define and re-define themselves. I was surprised but should not have been to see Webb talking like a liberal, and the Willamette Reds spending time and energy on that important issue of eliminating tobacco use. Can't have a revolution so long as people are going to smoke, I guess. Why would people think that was tied into left wing politics? The answer to that is what Rudd is groping for, the transition of politics from building movements to obsessing over self-expression. If politics is seen as being about self-expression, then we get odd things like self-proclaimed Communists thinking that eliminating smoking is somehow a blow against the ruling class.

Kid, I was criticizing the direction Rudd and others were taking things back in the day in person, and for the last however many years have been talking about this and there has never been a hint of "give" on this until now. There work within the system approach (for self-expression) as the alternative to their blow things up approach (for self-expression) was by God going to work eventually, was nor to be questioned, they have been saying all this time, and anyone saying otherwise was a lunatic, or stuck in the past or whatever. All this time we have watched as everyone approached politics as though it were about their personal journey or some shit, which is exactly the direction Rudd and Hayden et all forced on us. They didn't have a clue then (insufferable arrogant egotists and control freaks and self-promoters is how they came off back then in person, by the way) may still not have much of a clue, but at least it is starting to dawn on people that they don't have a clue.

There was a brief period of time back in the late 60's when a big change happened, that has resulted in all sorts of mischief and nuttiness, and Rudd was right at the center of that. There was strong resistance to talking about that change at the time - people denied it was happening and got angry if you talked about it - and it has gone unexamined ever since. I remember it as happening practically overnight. All of a sudden people were talking about who was "more radical than thou," as evidenced by their personal life choices - supposedly a barometer of their level of commitment. What better way to prove that you were personally more radical than others than to go out and blow things up? Then we had people making personal choices rather than organizing - getting off the grid as one alternative, working within the system as another, starting counter-cultural entrepreneurial activities was another "choice" - much praised and admired. Hobby and check book activism started then. New Age spiritual directions and pursuits started.

Blowing things up would get you arrested, of course, and did nothing to enhance your lifestyle, and so all resistance was therefore discredited. What people did and what they believed needed to be divorced from one another. They "believed" the same things that the radicals believed supposedly - we still continuously hear "don't get me wrong I agree with you, but...." - while they were making the smarter choice of getting their law degree rather than blowing up buildings. Then, once they were personally successful, they could be better radicals because they would have more resources and freedom to act.

Conversations about all of this were suddenly going on in the late 60's everywhere - every intellectual in the country from age 15 to age 40 was engaging in them. You could hardly go a day without it coming up. The self-expression crowd - "be true to yourself" and "be the change you wish to see" and "social conditions are no more than the aggregate result of all of our individual personal decisions" - won out, and that set the pattern for the Left every since. By the early 70's, talk about organizing and resistance were not "cool" and would be met with armchair psychoanalysis of the poor misguided soul trying to talk about those things. "Hey the 60's are over!" was common, and "yes, but what are you personally going to do?"

The article is not that strong, and the Obama stuff is bothersome, but it does illustrate that liberalism is in disarray and people are asking questions. It is all liberalism, too, the whole stinking mess no matter how people try to define and re-define themselves. I was surprised but should not have been to see Webb talking like a liberal, and the Willamette Reds spending time and energy on that important issue of eliminating tobacco use. Can't have a revolution so long as people are going to smoke, I guess. Why would people think that was tied into left wing politics? The answer to that is what Rudd is groping for, the transition of politics from building movements to obsessing over self-expression. If politics is seen as being about self-expression, then we get odd things like self-proclaimed Communists thinking that eliminating smoking is somehow a blow against the ruling class.

Kid, I was criticizing the direction Rudd and others were taking things back in the day in person, and for the last however many years have been talking about this and there has never been a hint of "give" on this until now. There work within the system approach (for self-expression) as the alternative to their blow things up approach (for self-expression) was by God going to work eventually, was nor to be questioned, they have been saying all this time, and anyone saying otherwise was a lunatic, or stuck in the past or whatever. All this time we have watched as everyone approached politics as though it were about their personal journey or some shit, which is exactly the direction Rudd and Hayden et all forced on us. They didn't have a clue then (insufferable arrogant egotists and control freaks and self-promoters is how they came off back then in person, by the way) may still not have much of a clue, but at least it is starting to dawn on people that they don't have a clue.

There was a brief period of time back in the late 60's when a big change happened, that has resulted in all sorts of mischief and nuttiness, and Rudd was right at the center of that. There was strong resistance to talking about that change at the time - people denied it was happening and got angry if you talked about it - and it has gone unexamined ever since. I remember it as happening practically overnight. All of a sudden people were talking about who was "more radical than thou," as evidenced by their personal life choices - supposedly a barometer of their level of commitment. What better way to prove that you were personally more radical than others than to go out and blow things up? Then we had people making personal choices rather than organizing - getting off the grid as one alternative, working within the system as another, starting counter-cultural entrepreneurial activities was another "choice" - much praised and admired. Hobby and check book activism started then. New Age spiritual directions and pursuits started.

Blowing things up would get you arrested, of course, and did nothing to enhance your lifestyle, and so all resistance was therefore discredited. What people did and what they believed needed to be divorced from one another. They "believed" the same things that the radicals believed supposedly - we still continuously hear "don't get me wrong I agree with you, but...." - while they were making the smarter choice of getting their law degree rather than blowing up buildings. Then, once they were personally successful, they could be better radicals because they would have more resources and freedom to act.

Conversations about all of this were suddenly going on in the late 60's everywhere - every intellectual in the country from age 15 to age 40 was engaging in them. You could hardly go a day without it coming up. The self-expression crowd - "be true to yourself" and "be the change you wish to see" and "social conditions are no more than the aggregate result of all of our individual personal decisions" - won out, and that set the pattern for the Left every since. By the early 70's, talk about organizing and resistance were not "cool" and would be met with armchair psychoanalysis of the poor misguided soul trying to talk about those things. "Hey the 60's are over!" was common, and "yes, but what are you personally going to do?"

It is some kind of monolithic edifice..but there sure as hell are some cracks showing now..

It is some kind of monolithic edifice..but there sure as hell are some cracks showing now..

I realized that as I was writing it. Can you imagine never having heard any of these asinine liberal arguments we hear now, and then suddenly hearing them everywhere? Little did we know at the time that we would be hearing them incessantly for the next 40 years.

What happened back then? Suddenly gentrified suburban whites got interested in the movement and descended on it. They were the first of the "potential friends and allies" who we are now being told we must be careful not to "chase away." We were to see ourselves as blessed and fortunate to have them arrive - now we had the attention of the movers and shakers, and they were going to get things done and move everything forward, by virtue of their superior breeding, I suppose. Within a couple of years they had destroyed the movement from within.

I realized that as I was writing it. Can you imagine never having heard any of these asinine liberal arguments we hear now, and then suddenly hearing them everywhere? Little did we know at the time that we would be hearing them incessantly for the next 40 years.

What happened back then? Suddenly gentrified suburban whites got interested in the movement and descended on it. They were the first of the "potential friends and allies" who we are now being told we must be careful not to "chase away." We were to see ourselves as blessed and fortunate to have them arrive - now we had the attention of the movers and shakers, and they were going to get things done and move everything forward, by virtue of their superior breeding, I suppose. Within a couple of years they had destroyed the movement from within.

What could be more self expressive?

Not speaking so much of those who 'walked the walk' at Seattle and such though I think it plays there too, but at least they put their asses on the line. Still,the organizational aspect is mostly ignored except for specific actions, radical chic without the work or having to answer for Stalin. The clowns on the net, forgetaboutit.

I still have great respect for Bakunin as a revolutionary but that just ain't gonna get things done.

Mea culpa.

What could be more self expressive?

Not speaking so much of those who 'walked the walk' at Seattle and such though I think it plays there too, but at least they put their asses on the line. Still,the organizational aspect is mostly ignored except for specific actions, radical chic without the work or having to answer for Stalin. The clowns on the net, forgetaboutit.

I still have great respect for Bakunin as a revolutionary but that just ain't gonna get things done.

Mea culpa.

having been born in '56, I turned 14 in 1970, very good Catholic small town girl, but kind of aware from tv news of a lot of "stuff" going on regarding the war protests, etc. By the time I turned 18 in '74, I remember wondering why nothing was "going on" anymore...except the drugs...

having been born in '56, I turned 14 in 1970, very good Catholic small town girl, but kind of aware from tv news of a lot of "stuff" going on regarding the war protests, etc. By the time I turned 18 in '74, I remember wondering why nothing was "going on" anymore...except the drugs...

How was English Democracy "actualized", except for Cromwell? How did the French Revolution - and the Continental - bear fruit, except through the Montagne, through the Directory, and eventually through Bonaparte his-self? Where is the Bozo who claims that Capitalist Democracy cannot exist because it was born in "dictatorship"?

Revolutions and hurricanes have a lot in common. Not only is it impossible to dictate their paths but wishing them into or out of existence is equally futile.

How was English Democracy "actualized", except for Cromwell? How did the French Revolution - and the Continental - bear fruit, except through the Montagne, through the Directory, and eventually through Bonaparte his-self? Where is the Bozo who claims that Capitalist Democracy cannot exist because it was born in "dictatorship"?

Revolutions and hurricanes have a lot in common. Not only is it impossible to dictate their paths but wishing them into or out of existence is equally futile.

The change was so fast and so thorough, that I think people who were becoming aware of politics after 1970 would know nothing else. There was a conspiracy theory back then that was popular, especially in the Black community, that the feds had introduced drugs to cripple the movement.

Rudd is doing a Rip Van Winkle thing here, like he is snapping out of a dream or a long sleep. He remembers back to what the movement was like, sees that everything dramatically and quickly changed and is (finally) starting to ask what the Hell happened. I think he is right - organizing was replaced by self-expression.

As late as the early winter of '68 the meetings, and I was at hundreds of them, were as they had always been - plodding, methodical, broad-based, ethnic, blue collar, focused on organizing and building the movement. It was in the coordinating meetings for the Chicago protests that the new wave of white suburban activists - as opposed to organizers - took over. Brilliant and charismatic people, by the way, like Rudd. It was alarming to us old timers, because the newcomers advocated all sorts of bizarre tactics and provocations and flamboyant stuff and were impatient with any discussion of strategy and tactics and organizing. They wanted to get in the faces of the "bad" folks, insult them, piss them off, embarrass and confront them. The more chaos, the better. The more polarization, the better. The worse everything went, the better it would be. They were loud and domineering. "We're right, they're wrong, we are the better people, the wave of the future, and let's rub their noses in that."

In early '68 there were 5 hippies in Detroit, John Sinclair and friends - we used to joke about that - and a strong left wing political movement. By 1970 everyone was a hippy and the movement was in collapse.

I saw all of the plans for Chicago as being for spoiled children from backgrounds of relative ease and comfort acting up to get attention from Mommy and Daddy - using the movement for that, for self-expression, and damn the consequences. That set the pattern for all political thinking and action ever since. After that, there was always a child-like quality to all of the political causes - "hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?" became "war is not healthy for children and other living things." The environmental movement in particular became really childish and all of the slogans and ideas were geared for kindergarteners (still are.) If you look at many of the headlines today at Common Dreams, et al, they all sound like ad slogans geared for little children, or they sound like the petulant whining and pleading of children to parental figures.

The liberals and whatever they call themselves with whom we have been arguing the last couple of years, are all moronically parroting the same ideas that we first heard back in '68 from Rudd and others like him. Be the change you want to see, change starts with you, what are you doing to help the environment, peace begins with each one of us, everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten...

The change was so fast and so thorough, that I think people who were becoming aware of politics after 1970 would know nothing else. There was a conspiracy theory back then that was popular, especially in the Black community, that the feds had introduced drugs to cripple the movement.

Rudd is doing a Rip Van Winkle thing here, like he is snapping out of a dream or a long sleep. He remembers back to what the movement was like, sees that everything dramatically and quickly changed and is (finally) starting to ask what the Hell happened. I think he is right - organizing was replaced by self-expression.

As late as the early winter of '68 the meetings, and I was at hundreds of them, were as they had always been - plodding, methodical, broad-based, ethnic, blue collar, focused on organizing and building the movement. It was in the coordinating meetings for the Chicago protests that the new wave of white suburban activists - as opposed to organizers - took over. Brilliant and charismatic people, by the way, like Rudd. It was alarming to us old timers, because the newcomers advocated all sorts of bizarre tactics and provocations and flamboyant stuff and were impatient with any discussion of strategy and tactics and organizing. They wanted to get in the faces of the "bad" folks, insult them, piss them off, embarrass and confront them. The more chaos, the better. The more polarization, the better. The worse everything went, the better it would be. They were loud and domineering. "We're right, they're wrong, we are the better people, the wave of the future, and let's rub their noses in that."

In early '68 there were 5 hippies in Detroit, John Sinclair and friends - we used to joke about that - and a strong left wing political movement. By 1970 everyone was a hippy and the movement was in collapse.

I saw all of the plans for Chicago as being for spoiled children from backgrounds of relative ease and comfort acting up to get attention from Mommy and Daddy - using the movement for that, for self-expression, and damn the consequences. That set the pattern for all political thinking and action ever since. After that, there was always a child-like quality to all of the political causes - "hey hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today?" became "war is not healthy for children and other living things." The environmental movement in particular became really childish and all of the slogans and ideas were geared for kindergarteners (still are.) If you look at many of the headlines today at Common Dreams, et al, they all sound like ad slogans geared for little children, or they sound like the petulant whining and pleading of children to parental figures.

The liberals and whatever they call themselves with whom we have been arguing the last couple of years, are all moronically parroting the same ideas that we first heard back in '68 from Rudd and others like him. Be the change you want to see, change starts with you, what are you doing to help the environment, peace begins with each one of us, everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten...

Watch the movie "Dazed and confused", I'm the girl puking all the time...actually have never been able to watch the movie to the end...my younger sister, born in 59 actually thinks its hysterical...she was too young to even be aware of the movements, I think,

For what its worth (2 cents?) I saw a study of people born from 54 to 57, those born in
56 and 57 exhibited pure apathy, the study said they were too young to be exposed to all the violence the news showed in the 60's... maybe, I really don't care ;)

Watch the movie "Dazed and confused", I'm the girl puking all the time...actually have never been able to watch the movie to the end...my younger sister, born in 59 actually thinks its hysterical...she was too young to even be aware of the movements, I think,

For what its worth (2 cents?) I saw a study of people born from 54 to 57, those born in
56 and 57 exhibited pure apathy, the study said they were too young to be exposed to all the violence the news showed in the 60's... maybe, I really don't care ;)

in two senses: the fear of the draft was removed in 1972, that removed the immediacy for a lot of people.

And then the government started shooting people, white people, on tv.(Orangeburg was hardly on the radar.) The rage dissipated but the fear remained.

in two senses: the fear of the draft was removed in 1972, that removed the immediacy for a lot of people.

And then the government started shooting people, white people, on tv.(Orangeburg was hardly on the radar.) The rage dissipated but the fear remained.