I don't quite agree with Richard's analysis (below). He is correct in
saying that none of the organized socialist organizations had a huge following
on the campuses, although some of them did command considerable respect on some
particular campuses.
But I do believe that the majority of students who were activists, and the
majority who came to protests, which is in the hundreds of thousands, were very
definitely "acting on behalf of the Vietnamese." What's my data? Well, first of
all, keep in mind that "The War at Home" is a useful film, but films reflect the
ideas of the producers and are not necessarily accurate, well-rounded history.
Neither are the books "A Generation Divided" nor even Kirkpatrick Sales'
encyclopedic "SDS." My data, which of course is limited, is based on having been
an activist at the University of Wisconsin from 1963-1967. From 1967 until 1970
I spent most of the time as a travelling organizer for SDS, with several
"routes" in New England, the Great Lakes states, and the South, that included,
at one time or another, perhaps about fifty schools. I was mainly trying to
convince unaffiliated, local "Committees against the War in Vietnam" to become
chapters of SDS. Many did, some didn't.
(The political differences within SDS were carefully exploited by
various police agencies who correctly sensed the danger of having a militant,
anti-capitalist student organization, and in combination with the capitalist
media which focused on the antics of the "Weather (men) (Underground) (I'd be
happy to discuss this in depth, for example, the time several of them ran,
semi-nude, through a working class high school in Pittsburgh in order to
"liberate" the students. The media LOVED situations like this, which caused
incaluable damage to the efforts of those of us who wanted to involve
steelworkers in the movement against the war). The combination of genuine
political splits, combined with police interference and media
involvement effectively destroyed (in July, 1969) the possibility that SDS
could become that national organization. It was a wise move on the
part of the police agencies, because a short 9 months later, there was a
spontaneous uprising sparked by the invasion of Cambodia and the killings at
Kent State and Jackson State. If SDS had had its previous organized strength and
been able to focus those rebellions, it would have been much worse for the U.S.
government. Allowing the campuses to be flooded with drugs also weakened that
movement as well as, especially, the tremendous fear created when the students
were killed at Kent State.)
In any case, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the primary
motivation for those who were involved in the protests was that they were
heartsick and then furious at the mass murder of the Vietnamese committed by the
U.S. government. It wasn't fear of being drafted. Perhaps that was a mass
SENTIMENT on campuses among hundreds of thousands of students who , but among
the protestors was a genuine sense of solidarity and concern for people (the
Vietnamese) who were being bombed from the sky and killed by the tens of
thousands each month. The remarkable brutality of the police against
protestors and the continual lying by the government also fueled the
anger.
Incidentally, another inaccurate stereotype is that the protestors were
almost all upper "middle class." The movement (speaking mainly about
the the "white" campuses) did primarily start among the children of
professionals at schools like Harvard and Columbia, but by 1968, the vast
majority of students were from working class, including "upper working class"
families (school teachers, etc.) The most militant schools like Ohio State, Kent
State, Ohio University, Wisconsin, San Francisco State, City College/University
of New York, Brooklyn College, even UC Berkeley were primarily public, working
class schools, and while many of the vocal leaders were not from blue collar
families, most of the participants were. Again, my evidence could
be inaccurate; I wasn't doing sociological surveys then. But I did speak,
face to face in small meetings with hundreds and hundreds of college
students, and that's how it looked to me; I didn't have any biased
predisposition towards that conclusion.
Many students had a lot of "respect" for the various socialist parties,
although it is clear that most students were not socialists by any means.
However, most of the protestors were motivated by solidarity with the
Vietnamese, not by some sort of vague "Holden Caufield/James Dean" mentality
(which was a part of the general climate, of course.)
Alan Spector
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 1:51 PM
Subject: what the masses do
> Alan, Louis and
all:
>
> Interesting discussion of anti-globalization movement and
anti-Vietnam War
> movement.
>
> I believe the movie "The War
At Home" captures something that tends to be
> missing from any account of
various leadership factions and the strategies
> they promoted. The
film shows the rapid radicalization of large numbers
> of Madison college
students following the use of civil disobedience by
> protesters and the
use of violent repression by the authorities. A mood
> of
quasi-revolutionary opposition arose, expressed not through political
>
groups for the most part, but by networks of friends in a
>
"counter-culture."
>
> The majority of these radicalized young
people were not primarily acting
> on behalf of the Vietnamese, or the
working class (and therefore could not
> be guilty of either Third
Worldist or workerist deviations!), but rather
> were just trying to live,
and came to see U.S. society (run by
> power-hungry politians and greedy
businessmen, and enforced by the
> pigs) as their enemy.
>
>
I don't think this points to any of the organized groups' strategies as
>
being the correct one. It simply points to the fact that "the masses"
> (including those shot down at Jackson and Kent State, for instance)
had
> their own views of the situation that did not correspond to the
views of
> any of the "politicos."
>
> I'm broad-minded
enough at this point to say that the SWP may have had a
> good point or
two in respect to tactics, but this fails to account for the
> role of
emotion at the high tide of movements, as well as the role of
>
culture. The youthful "masses" were not just isolated individuals in
some
> sort of herd, in other words, waiting to be organized by the
vanguard.
> They had organization, albeit of a loose decentralized
sort.
>
> RH
>
>