SDS 1969

This article is passed on as an item of historical interest to the radical movement. I would only comment that some of the analysis reads as though it could have been written today. Except today there is no mass radical youth movement to direct such sentiments toward. At that time radical youth, including radical black and white working class youth, were looking for ways to fundamentally change society and to fight against that generation’s war in Vietnam. In those days radicals, moreover, after the experiences of 1968, for the most part, stood point blank against the bourgeois parties and were out in the streets. Today those who are trying to ‘brain-trust’ a new SDS for this generation of youth seem to have regressed to a point early in the evolution of old SDS where the youth were directed toward 'going half-way with LBJ ( Lyndon Baines Johnson)' and the Democratic Party. We should, however, try to learn something from history. Read on.



Workers Vanguard No. 897 31 August 2007

"Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics"

Revolutionary Marxists at 1969 PL-SDS Conference {Young Spartacus pages)

Crystalizing out of student and youth struggles against segregation and, later, against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) became the iconic organization of the New Left radical student movement of the late 1960s. Originally the youth group of the Cold War "socialists" of the League for Industrial Democracy, under the impact of events, SDS was drawn increasingly to the left. In 1965, SDS dropped its anti-Communist exclusion clause and soon was separated from the League entirely. It grew rapidly, drawing in tens of thousands of young activists at its peak. However, after years of rejecting the history of the "old left" as sectarian, sterile and irrelevant, SDS found itself confronting the same questions, centrally: what force can bring about social change, what attitude should be taken toward the Soviet Union and other workers states, and how to combat racial oppression.

A broad span of tendencies began to gain followers within SDS, ranging from the Moscow-line Stalinists of the Communist Party to the revolutionary communist Spartacist League, as well as anarchists, Maoists and uncritical cheerleaders for Third World and black nationalism. Intense ideological struggles ensued in which spokesmen for various positions were able to compete for hegemony. Some of the petty-bourgeois radicals in SDS were able to overcome the oppressive weight of bourgeois ideology and re-learn lessons set forth in the Communist Manifesto regarding the working class as the modern agency of social revolution.

At the national SDS convention in the summer of 1969, a split took place between the National Collective, a bloc of groups that tailed national-liberation movements and dismissed the proletariat, and the crudely pro-working-class tendency of the Worker-Student Alliance (WSA) led by the left-Stalinist Progressive Labor Party (PL). The Revolutionary Marxist Caucus, supporter of Spartacist politics within SDS and forerunner of today's Spartacus Youth Clubs, worked within the WSA wing (known as PL-SDS), struggling to transform SDS into a socialist youth organization open to all political tendencies seeking revolutionary political change. It was in this context that "Racial Oppression and Working-Class Politics" was produced as a position paper presented for discussion at PL-SDS's December 1969 New Haven conference.

The National Collective degenerated rapidly on the one side into Weatherman-style anarcho-terrorist despair, and on the other into internecine Maoist factional squabbling driven by the twists and turns of the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy. (Today's Revolutionary Communist Party is one result.) Some, such as Bernardine Dohrn, have found their place braintrusting the "New SDS," a liberal talkshop whose main purpose so far seems to be drawing in youth to aid the Democrats' prospects in the 2008 elections.

The PL wing of SDS also degenerated, although not as rapidly, eventually retreating into campus parochialism and ordinary reformism, leading pointless and tepid campaigns against "racist textbooks." Today Progressive Labor, still Stalinist and now without the leftward pressure imparted by the radicalization of the 1960s, vacillates between increasingly hollow sectarian "revolution now" rhetoric and run-of-the-mill liberalism. Readers may also note that the position paper devotes some attention to the Labor Committee of Lyn Marcus, who is currently known as Lyndon LaRouche. While LaRouche today is a right-wing crackpot, at the time he was a left-wing crackpot. The Labor Committee was a tendency to be contended with in SDS, and served as a useful polemical foil for the exposition of our Marxist program.

Youth now are far more likely to encounter liberal hand-wringing over racism a la the "New SDS" than the distorted orientation to the working class that the RMC's main fire was directed against at the time. However, this position paper, written in a period of significantly higher consciousness and struggle, remains a powerful exposition of a genuine Marxist approach to black oppression, laying out a perspective in which the struggle for black freedom is bound up with the general struggle for the emancipation of the working class.

*************

It hardly needs saying that increasing black-white conflict is the dominant feature of the current American political scene. The polarization of U.S. society along racial lines has been reflected even within the left, which has become increasingly split between supporters of Black Nationalism and advocates of an oversimplified pro-working-class line, indifferent and sometimes hostile to the Black liberation movement. One effect of the increasing black-white hostility is that any struggle involving Black people is viewed as the same struggle. Everything, from demands for Black Studies departments to integrating the building trades, is seen as part of a larger Black liberation movement, and attitudes toward each particular struggle are determined by general theoretical outlook.

The position of this paper is that Marxists must aggressively fight against the oppression of the Black masses while rejecting Black Nationalist pseudo-solutions. This must be done in ways that are compatible with the over-all goals of socialism. This means making clear and careful distinctions between different demands and struggles of the Black movement and different facets of the race question generally. Our guiding concern must be to link up a pro-working-class political line with demands aimed at fighting the pervasive double oppression of Black workers.

Racism and Racial Oppression

One result of the ghetto uprisings in Watts, Detroit, Newark and elsewhere was that it was no longer possible to deny that Black people were deeply hostile to the state of American society. The liberals argued (e.g., in the Kerner Report) that the oppression of Black people was a result of the racism of the white population, rather than locating the source of oppression and hostility in the working of the economic system and the policies of the ruling class and deliberately obscuring the fact that some whites have qualitatively more social power than others. To blame the oppressed condition of Black people on pervasive racist attitudes is a variant of the classic reactionary argument that social ills stem from a flawed human nature. By placing the blame for racial oppression on the white population en masse, the liberal wing of the ruling class not only deny their own responsibility, but even pose as champions of the Black people against the ignorant and bigoted white workers. In some cases, blaming racist attitudes begs the question. Many liberal capitalist bosses do not believe any of the myths of racial inferiority, yet deliberately pursue oppressive policies aimed at dividing workers along ethnic lines.

The widespread acceptance on the left of the liberal myth that the oppression of Black people results from the racism of the white lower classes has been totally destructive of the left. Its most extreme exponents are, of course, the Weathermen, who regard the white working class as hopelessly corrupted by racism, and, therefore, "the enemy." However, even those who realize that racism is against the long-term interests of white workers, such as the Worker-Student Alliance caucus, see changing racial attitudes as the key to the problem.

It is essential to make a distinction between those actively responsible for racial oppression and the masses, who passively accept it. An analogy of the relation between national chauvinism and imperialism is useful here. National chauvinism is rampant in the U.S.—look at the recent proliferation of American flag decals. Yet, no one would contend that U.S. counter-revolutionary policy in Viet Nam is the result of the nationalist attitudes of the American workers! National chauvinism helps sustain U.S. imperialism, but is not the cause of it. In a like manner, the racist attitudes of the white working class help sustain the oppression and economic degradation of the Black masses, but do not cause it.

Most white workers are neither active racists nor thorough-going integrationists. Rather, their attitude toward Black people is contradictory and differs according to the context. Many white workers will treat Black workers on the job as equals. Many believe Blacks should have equal rights, yet maintain racist attitudes on social and sexual questions. (A white worker might vote for a Black as union official, yet, as the saying goes, wouldn't let his daughter marry him.) In general, there are many more white workers who will support the political and economic rights of Blacks and unite with them in struggle than there are who are really free of race prejudice. In addition, the level of racism is affected by the level of class struggle. Involvement in a militant strike action, for example, often combats backward consciousness on many levels.

The Southern Populist movement of the 1890s was the highest point of class struggle reached in the post-Reconstruction South. It not only united poor white and Black farmers around their shared economic interests, it also aggressively fought for the political rights of Black people. Yet, in deference to the white supremacist attitudes of most Southern farmers, the leaders of the Populist movement stressed that they were not in favor of social integration. Thus, by today's standards, the Populist movement would be considered racist, although it aggressively fought for the political rights of Blacks. Certainly we should make no concessions to racism. But this example shows that fighting racism and fighting racial oppression are not identical.

For a Materialist Approach

The practical conclusion to be drawn from making this distinction between racism and racial oppression is that SDS is more likely to gain the support of white workers if we oppose concrete acts of racial oppression in the name of democratic rights and class solidarity, than if we rant about "fighting racism" as a social attitude (which has a moralistic tone to it—like fighting sin). Again, an analogy with the fight against imperialism is useful. In fighting American imperialism, we make specific demands, such as the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Viet Nam and all other countries. We do not approach this struggle mainly by calling moralistically on the American working class to give up its national chauvinism and solidarize with the international proletariat. To be sure, the demand for immediate withdrawal from Viet Nam implies an attack on patriotic attitudes, just as the demand to integrate a union implies an attack on racist attitudes. But we attack these attitudes at their weakest point, where they come into conflict with other powerful social attitudes.

There is an important tactical reason for using the terminology of fighting racial oppression rather than fighting racism. To announce that we are fighting racism within the working class implies that the rank and file white worker is the target of our hostility. To say we are opposing the double oppression of Black workers puts the responsibility where it belongs—on the capitalists and trade union bureaucrats. Rather than saying we expect the mass of white workers to oppose us, we are calling on white workers, as potential comrades, to fight the oppressors of Black people, who are the oppressors of white workers as well.

Black Rights and Economic Insecurity

Within SDS, the Labor Committee is considered the main exponent of the view that the widespread hostility of white workers to the Black liberation movement stems from a belief that Black equality will be achieved at their economic expense. So far as this view goes it is substantially correct. However, the Labor Committee has drawn a fundamentally wrong conclusion which leads to de facto tolerance for most forms of racial discrimination—namely that equality for Blacks be made conditional on whites not suffering any loss.

Given the insecurity of white workers, it is necessary to combine demands for equal opportunity for Blacks with demands aimed at assuring white workers that the benefits accruing to Blacks will not come at their expense. Thus, in demanding that more Black workers be admitted into skilled jobs, we should also raise demands (such as a shorter work week with no loss in pay) aimed at expanding total employment. However, an end to discrimination should not be made conditional to these broader demands being realized.

Under normal conditions, demands aimed at improving the condition of the working class as a whole are less within the power of the presently constituted labor movement than demands for the upgrading of one section of the class. Socialists have traditionally contended—and rightly—that permanent full employment and a continuously rising standard of living are not possible under capitalism. We can and must raise demands which take the level of consciousness outside the framework of capitalism—transitional demands which workers will accept as necessary but which cannot be achieved under this social system. But it would be a cruel joke on the legitimate aspirations of Black workers involved in struggle for socialists to make struggling for their rights conditional on the acceptance of other demands. If the attack on the economic oppression of Black people is to be postponed until the eradication of economic insecurity on the part of whites, racial oppression would continue to exist until several decades after the victory of the socialist revolution.

Labor Committee Default

In practice, the Labor Committee's politics have meant toleration of racial oppression while posing ultimatistic solutions to the problem of the limited resources available to the working class under capitalism. A good example of this is the Labor Committee's opposition to the so-called CCNY solution. After considerable agitation by Blacks, the City University system officials agreed to replace the existing admissions selection— based on academic qualifications—with an ethnic quota system increasing Black admissions. (The city government later rejected the agreement.) The Labor Committee argued that this was no solution to the problem
and, correctly, called for open admissions for all working people. So far, so good. However, instead of critically supporting the CCNY solution against the present system, which is both class and race biased, while continuing to agitate for open admissions, the Labor Committee supported the status quo in effect, until the advent of free universal higher education. In other words, according to them the whites might as well have the lion's share of social services until these services become unlimited.

The Labor Committee's empathy for white workers worried about losing their jobs to Black militants causes them to blur an important distinction. It is the distinction between firing a white worker to replace him with a Black and eliminating discrimination in hiring. We should almost always oppose firing a white worker to replace him with a Black. On the other hand, we should always oppose discrimination in hiring even if this means (as it will in the building trades) that a larger percentage of the white labor force would be unemployed. The former would exacerbate racial antagonisms; the latter would tend to unite the working class in the fight against unemployment. The underlying principle is that Black workers should be treated as equals. We wouldn't expect any employed worker to give up his job to an unemployed worker regardless of color. In a like manner, an unemployed Black worker should have the same chance to find a job as a white worker, and vice versa.

If the Labor Committee's principle that the economic oppression of Blacks can be opposed only provided there is no re-distribution of income against whites is accepted, Blacks are slated to remain on the bottom of American society until socialism. If the desires of white workers must be substantially met before attacking the problem of racial discrimination, the benefits accruing to the Blacks will lag behind those of the class as a whole. In the Labor Committee schema, Blacks are given the role of residual claimants on the social and economic gains of the working class.

Black Rights as Class Demands

The Labor Committee's belief that racism is simply a result of economic insecurity and will disappear when that insecurity is alleviated is as naive and wrong as the Weathermen's view of racism as the radical equivalent of original sin. The Machinists and Shipbuilders unions attempted to maintain their white-only policies in shipyards and aircraft plants even in the middle of the World War II employment boom! On the other hand, some unions were established on an integrated basis during the Depression. The widespread racial oppression in the labor movement isn't going to be eliminated without a political fight in the trade unions. Economic prosperity makes that fight easier to win. It doesn't make it any less necessary.

The Labor Committee's propaganda presents the economic effects of racial equality as only negative— namely, that such gains come only at the expense of white workers. It appears the Labor Committee has taken the arguments of racist demagogues too much at face value or that, for all their pretensions to expertise, they know very little about the economic facts of life. The upgrading of Black workers provides a higher floor for general wages and strengthens the competitive position of all workers. From the integration of the Mine Workers in the 1890s, the main factor bringing Black workers into the trade unions has been a desire to eliminate cheap, non-union labor, not moralism. One doesn't have to be very sophisticated to see the connection between the systematic terrorization of the Black population and the maintenance of the South as a bastion of anti-unionism, low wages, and the runaway shop. If the indirect benefits of Black equality are not as obvious to white workers as the direct losses, part of our job is to make them obvious. Socialists have a responsibility to refute the lies of racist demagogues like [Alabama governor George] Wallace, that Black liberation means white workers will lose "their jobs, their money, and their women." SDS should present the economic case for combattmg racial oppression in the most attractive manner possible.

Black Liberation and Upward Mobility

An important aspect of the oppression of Blacks is the small size of the Black middle class. Not only are Black workers concentrated in lowest paid jobs, but there is a relatively small percentage of Black professionals, administrators and businessmen. Moreover, much of the Black middle class is restricted to the Black communities rather than being integrated into American corporate society.

Given the petty-bourgeois leadership of the Black movement, it is not surprising that many demands of that movement are aimed at increasing the upward mobility of the Black population. In its reaction against bourgeois aspirations in the Black movement, the WSA has made a major error—namely, it has refused to oppose those aspects of racial oppression expressly designed to keep Blacks out of the middle class. It is correct and necessary to denounce expanding the "Black bourgeoisie" as the solution to the problems of the Black masses. However, the WSA has taken the further step of refusing to fight discrimination against Blacks for middle-class positions. (Their position recalls a section of the French Marxists who thought they should be indifferent to the Dreyfus Case of anti-Semitism in the French officer corps. This sectarian disorientation actually facilitated their later collapse into opportunism.) The petty-bourgeois "hustlerist" aspect of the Black movement must be defeated politically, by being rejected by the Black masses. It will not and should not be defeated by erstwhile revolutionaries making a de facto alliance with the most reactionary sections of the ruling class to keep Blacks out of middle-class positions.

There is a parallel between the Labor Committee's reaction to white workers' fear of economic integration and the WSA's approach to bourgeois goals in the Black movement. Both begin with correct premises, but reach conclusions which mean tolerance for certain forms of racial oppression. Thus, the Labor Committee opposes the CCNY solution because they don't want educational resources redistributed against the white population, while the WSA opposes it because they don't want more black B.A.s. Of the two positions, the Labor Committee's is worse because it leads to acceptance of the worst forms of economic exploitation. However, the WSA's position is also fundamentally sectarian.

The Worse the Better?

The principle of not opposing racial discrimination to the extent equality would strengthen the upward mobility of the Black population is impossible to implement. This is so because any improvement in the condition of the Black masses provides a basis for upward mobility. If the quality of ghetto primary school education is improved, for example, Black youth will be better able to compete for college admission. If Black workers have access to better-paying jobs, more of them will send their children to college.

The WSA's position on this question is also incorrect at a higher theoretical level. Socialists have usually contended that racial oppression is inherent in capitalist society. The WSA, however, seems to be afraid that the ruling class is going to seriously ameliorate the oppression of Blacks. The whole line of argument has a "the worse, the better" flavor to it—Blacks should be kept down so they'll be more revolutionary. It is similar to the position one usually associates with the Socialist Labor Party—opposition to reforms for fear that they may work! Coming from people who consider themselves orthodox Leninists, this faith in the ability of reformism to dampen class struggle and change class structure is as surprising as it is false, to say the least.

Moreover, from the standpoint of proletarian socialists, the expansion of the Black middle class would not be an unmitigated disaster. To the extent that the social structure of the Black population resembles that of the white population, class rather than race consciousness will be strengthened among both Black and white workers. The split between those Black Nationalists who consider themselves revolutionary and the "pork chop" Nationalists occurred precisely because the government was successful in co-opting large sections of the Black liberation movement. A Black worker who slaves for a few years under a Black boss is much more likely to see class, not race, as the fundamental division in American society.

The converse is also true. A white worker striking with fellow Black workers against a company which had a significant percentage of Black executive and managerial personnel would develop a more class-conscious attitude toward the Black population. It is precisely the overwhelming concentration of the Black population at the lowest social levels that tends to cause white workers to view Blacks with feelings of fear and contempt. The integration of sections of the ruling class would be paralleled by increased Black-white unity in the working class.

Trade Unions and the State

One of the most difficult problems facing American radicals is the widespread racial discrimination in the trade unions. In dealing with this problem, there is considerable social pressure, particularly on a campus-based group, to follow the lead of the liberals and use government action against discriminatory unions. Thus, most of the California left, including the Independent Socialist Clubs (now called International Socialists [predecessor of the International Socialist Organization]), supported a suit against Harry Bridges' International Longshore and Warehouse Union under the Civil Rights Act. Likewise, there has been no significant left-wing opposition to the Nixon Administration's "Philadelphia Plan" for the construction industry [aimed at breaking union hiring halls by setting quotas for minority hiring].

That liberals should look to the state to enforce equal rights in the labor movement is understandable. The fundamental principle of liberalism (and all other forms of capitalist political philosophy) is the supreme authority of the state over all other social institutions. However, Marxists consider the state an instrument of class oppression and regard the labor movement as the legitimate source of all social authority. In calling upon the state to integrate the unions, radicals are calling upon the capitalists to fight their battles for them, in a movement radicals eventually intend (or should intend) to lead against that very state. This is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled. Any increase in state control over the unions, regardless of the ostensible reason, must strengthen capitalism politically and ideologically.

A section of the ruling class realizes that the civil rights issue is an effective way to weaken the unions by turning Black people and middle-class liberals against them. Thus, a recent issue of Fortune magazine—an authoritative organ of the liberal bourgeoisie—contained an attack on the monopolistic abuses of the building trades unions. It concluded with a ten-point program, addressed to construction companies, on how to break the power of the unions. One of the ten points was union de-certification for failing to comply with the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

As the above example shows, ruling-class efforts to control the unions in the name of "public good" are usually a cover for union busting. The Nixon Administration is openly wooing Southern racists and doesn't even pay lip service to civil rights. The only area of American society where Nixon is pushing civil rights is where unions are the target. This indicates that the motives behind the "Philadelphia Plan" are neither concern for the welfare of Black workers nor response to pressure from below. Rather, the only purpose is to discredit and weaken the labor movement.

When the ruling class seeks to weaken the power of the unions, they do not openly state they're out to gouge the working class. They look for an attractive-sounding pretext. We are all against organized crime and for internal democracy in the unions. But the Landrum-Griffin Act hasn't reduced gangsterism in the labor movement. Its principal effect has been to railroad Jimmy Hoffa, a tough and troublesome business unionist. And these laws would be used faster and harder against a communist union leadership than they will ever be used against the Mafia!

Permitting the government to determine the racial policies of unions gives the state a powerful weapon for union busting and influencing the selection of union leadership. And this weapon will not be used in the best interest of the working class. Whatever doubtful immediate gains Black workers get by the government opening up some jobs for them will be more than offset by the losses sustained by the entire working class due to the long-run effects of expanding state control over the labor movement. The only force on which we can rely is an organized, militant, class-conscious rank and file defending the gains of their unions against the bosses, the bureaucrats and the state.

Resolutions

I. In its propaganda and actions, SDS must concentrate on fighting concrete acts and practices of racial oppression, rather than simply opposing racism as a pervasive social attitude.

II. It may at times be necessary to support gains against Black oppression even if they imply short-term economic losses for sections of the white working class. However, our basic propagandistic thrust must be to keep gains for Blacks from being counterposed to white workers' interests by raising the appropriate demands, and to seek to unite Black and white workers in common struggles.

III. SDS must oppose all forms of racial inequality, including those that are specifically designed to limit the upward mobility of the Black population.

IV. Under all circumstances SDS must oppose the expansion of state control over the labor movement, even when this is done in the name of the rank and file (e.g., fighting corruption, securing racial justice).

*Films To While the Class Struggle By- What Is The Left?- “Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst”

Click on the title to link to the first part of a "YouTube" film clip of "Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst".

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst, Patty Hearst, Cinque, Bill and Emily Harris and other members of the SLA, directed by Robert Stone, 2004

Some films reviewed in this space are offered with the idea that viewing them will given the reader, especially the younger reader or those who are not familiar with the tumultuous events of the period, a fairly positive sense of what it was like to live through the turbulent 1960s and the early 1970s, the high water mark for the last time that we had the “monster” of American imperialism on the run or so we thought. A prime example of that type of review was one that I did a while back on the Black Panthers. Another more recent one was the animated/ documentary film footage provided in “Chicago 10”. Other film reviews are offered to be more thought-provoking or just plain provocative. The film under review, "Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst", is of the latter type.

This film does a good job of presenting the actual events around the kidnapping of the Hearst newspaper heiress, Patty Hearst, by the upstart and then unknown Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the waning days of the militant leftist movement after the practical (in American terms) withdrawal from Vietnam War, through archival film footage, interviews and commenting by surviving members of the organization, reporters who covered the event, officials who were involved in the investigation and others with something to say about the matter. The startling, and perhaps sometimes bizarre train of events is well documented: the inexplicable murder of the Oakland Superintendent Marcus Foster; the kidnapping of UC/Berkeley college student Hearst; the ransom demand of food for the hungry of Oakland in exchange for her release that in turn ran amok; the abrupt change in the case with the apparent adaptive conversion by Hearst to the SLA cause; a serious of robberies including one in which a teller was killed; the massive, seemingly never-ending, on-going hunt for the SLA in the aftermath of that action: the widely viewed 'real time' police assault on an SLA “safe-house” that netted the leader, Cinque: the subsequent off-handed capture of new leaders Bill and Emily Harris and Patty Hearst; and, the subsequent trials, including Patty’s commutation of sentence. All in all, if you want a refresher course on the case it is all there for you.

However, above I characterized this as a thought-provoking film, and for my purposes that means what are the lessons to be learned from the experience, if any. I have tried to telegraph that concern by the phrase in the title “What is the Left?” and by the way I presented the story line in the last paragraph. So what is my problem some thirty odd years after the dust has settled on the case, which also preoccupied me at the time as well. Just this. Was the defense of the SLA then a matter of a leftist's duty, an important question to those of us on the left who take such matters seriously.

Among the things that this reviewer stands for, in addition to adherent to the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky and their progeny can be summed up in the slogan of the old Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblies)- “an injury to one, is any injury to all”. I, thus, stand in that tradition, that of the old Communist Party-led International Labor Defense, and of later groups like the one I support today, the Partisan Defense Committee. The premise underlying that slogan is that it is very much in the interest of the international working class and of the left that we defend, and defend vigorously and with all the resources we are able to muster, every individual militant and group that falls under that umbrella. Going back to that period I defended, for example, such groups as the Weatherman (Weatherpeople?) and other guerilla-oriented organizations on the American left, whole-heartedly fought under the banner of the United Front Against Fascism to defend the Black Panthers against the governmental onslaught that they faced, and the brothers and sisters of what became known as the Ohio Seven. I did not defend, nor call for the defense, of the SLA.

Why? None of the leftist groups listed above were exactly popular in the broader population, including the left itself, so that is not the question. The serious question that I faced at that time was this- "Who are these people?" Weathermen I knew their politics and their left lineage, and some sympathizers personally. I knew their political history, where they came from and their foibles. Panthers, after the thaw of their 'go-it-alone' heavily black nationalist period, when whites could again talk to young blacks without having to watch their backs, stayed at the commune that I lived in back in those California days. And were gladly welcome. Believe me I knew who they were and where they came from. I could go on and on about the local collectives, communes, etc. that sprouted up like wheat in those days and that I helped defend.

But as the late Hunter S. Thompson noted toward the end of his drug-crazed saga of weirdness and blow back, “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas”, there was a point in the very late 1960s where one could sense that the victory that seemed so near, and so righteously fought for, was slipping away. I might have held onto the dream a little longer that others, and than I should have but there you have it. And that is the point. Others, who faced that same sense that we had “lost” or that ill-thought out exemplary actions or whatever would turn things around started to get a little crazy. To speak nothing of isolating themselves and staying isolated from the harsh realities of Nixon’s America. Some went to the country or the commune, others dropped away. Still others went back to the ancient tradition of nilihism.

That is the way that I looked at the actions of the SLA. The group had no known history, as a group. When it surfaced it had all the verbiage of anti-imperialism that many students and leftists spouted at the times. Hell, I had a girlfriend then who, in the end, was nothing but a garden-variety pacifist who had the whole lingo down better than I did at the time, a time when I was just turning to Marxism. Hell, in some towns in this country you couldn’t get anywhere on campus, even campaigning for some useless bourgeois candidate on the make without the obligatory “right on” or other gesture signifying the language of “youth nation”.

Moreover, on the senseless killing of the Oakland school superintendent, the Patty Hearst action and subsequent bank robberies seemed well beyond the pale. Especially the logic of kidnapping Patty on the basis of her biological relationship to her family. Left politics cannot work that way. If bourgeois, or their children, get in our way that is one thing, the Hearst kidnapping is another. Nothing was right here. I will not belabor the point but this organization seemed like nothing so much as one of those nihilistic groups that Dostoevsky castigated in the mid-19th century or like the remnants that turned bandit and lumpen after the defeat of the Russian Revolution of 1905. To finish up. Would I help the authorities in their manhunt for the group? Hell, no. Did I defend them, like some others did by hiding them out or raising monies for their defense? No. But let me tell you this. At that time I was not sure that I was right, I was queasy about placing them outside the left. Reviewing this film still makes me feel I made the right decision. But I am still queasy about it. You probably will be too.

From The-Archives Berkeley 2009, This Is Not Your Parents' Berkeley 1969

Commentary

A couple of months ago(see archives for November 13, 2008) I did a review of the film documentary “Berkeley in the Sixties” that took an, on the whole, positive look at the social activism that drove some members of my political generation, “the generation of ’68". My purpose in that review, as is the general purpose of this blog, was to highlight for this generation coming of political age in the Obamiad the kinds of struggles that were necessary then in order to have any kind of shot at creating a more just society. We, as everyone is painfully aware today, failed. However, as I pointed out it was no accident that when things got heated up, particularly around opposition to the Vietnam War, Berkeley was until 1969, at least, at the epicenter of radical student opposition to those running this society.

Certain towns, mainly college towns or their environs, have historically acted as “sanctuaries” for the offbeat, the marginal, the radical, the left out and, frankly, the tired and burned out. One thinks of Ann Arbor, Madison, the University of Chicago, Harvard Square, Greenwich Village at various times and today additionally places like Durham, North Carolina and Austin, Texas. Moreover, in tough times like we have just been through with the Bush Administration those oases are necessary against the onslaught of the main culture. In its time Berkeley was the epitome of all that was fresh, strong, articulate and thoughtful about the way forward politically. Alas, as the article below gleaned from a local Boston newspaper makes abundantly clear today’s Berkeley is a very different place.

I made a point in the above-mentioned film review to note that after the People’s Park defeat in 1969 Berkeley kind of fell off the political map. Partially that was due to an ellipse of the student movement as the center of political struggle, as the whole society seemed to come unglued. But mainly it was due to an unorganized and messy political retreat of activists, once they realized how hard it was going to defeat this imperialist “monster”, going off to their own sectoral "sandbox" politics. And waiting in those enclaves for that “someday” in order to join up the various struggles. They are apparently, at last check, still waiting. But enough of that for now. As the comments by some of the interviewees in this article indicate that point that I made earlier about “sanctuaries” applies to the tired and burned out as well as those with fresh idea. Well, even an old leftie like I can read the writing on the wall- for now- and recognize that today’s Berkeley is obviously not your parents’ Berkeley. But, I still have this nagging question after reading this article- After Obama fizzles, what are you going to do?

“Something New Brews In Berkeley: Patriotic Pride", Sasha Issenberg, Boston Globe, Sunday January 4, 2009


BERKELEY, Calif. - The hundreds who massed at the University of California on election night responded to Barack Obama's victory by heading off on a route that has been for a generation the sacred way for the activist left: out the campus gates, through Sproul Plaza, and down Telegraph Avenue toward People's Park.
By the time they arrived at the intersection of Telegraph and Durant avenues, where a tie-dyed vendor occupies one corner, it became clear they did not come to challenge the system now preparing to consecrate a new regime in Washington. At one point, a man scaled a lamppost and unfurled the Stars and Stripes. The crowd broke out in the national anthem.

"People finally felt like our generation had reclaimed patriotism," said Haley Fagan, 24, a Berkeley paralegal who got stuck in a car trying to cross the street as the crowd surged. "It was a moment that we felt comfortable with it."

After generations of finding their voice in dissidence, some on America's left wing are adjusting not only to a new, post election comfort with patriotic symbols, but the political reality they represent. Believing in Obama after inauguration day will mean identifying with the machinery of American power.

"There's a left-wing tradition of being systematically opposed to the US government, knee-jerk reactionary - most of our presidents have made it fairly easy to do," said Jo Freeman, author of "At Berkeley in the Sixties," a memoir of her student activism. "Those who view everything the US does as automatically suspect already have a problem doing that with Obama."

At Berkeley, the university has, quite deliberately, chosen to host its first-ever large-scale observance of a presidential inauguration in a spot most closely identified with its radicalism, said Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau. At Sproul Plaza, site of the self-described Free Speech Movement protests beginning in 1964 - now commemorated with a monument declaring "this soil and the air space above it should not be part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity's jurisdiction" - students will gather around giant television screens to take in the nation's most solemn ritual.

"It will be a patriotic celebration," Birgeneau said in an interview. "That small circle will now be surrounded by a lot of students who are happy to be members of a nation that just elected its first African-American president."

Not since Franklin Roosevelt turned the federal government into an aggressive agent of liberalism - pushing the New Deal at home and confronting fascism abroad - has the left felt such a deep attachment and invested such hopes in a head of state.

"People in the '30s felt that for once the government was on their side," Pulitzer Prize-winning Berkeley historian Leon F. Litwack said in an interview. "They had never had that kind of relationship to a president before."

Disagreements with American foreign policy, particularly in Vietnam, fueled a cynicism about American might and its trappings, said Litwack. He has written in praise of Free Speech Movement leaders for "eschewing the conventional flag-waving, mindless, orchestrated patriotism. . . . They defined loyalty to one's country as disloyalty to its pretenses, a willingness to unmask its leaders, and a calling to subject its institutions, government, and wars to critical examination, not only the decisions made by rulers but often their indecision."

Such a view of patriotism was so hardened in Berkeley - where, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Fire Department removed flags from its trucks for fear that they could become targets of antiwar demonstrators - that a gathering of College Republicans made the front page of the Los Angeles Times in 2003 for walking down Telegraph waving flags and singing "America the Beautiful" as a sardonic provocation.

A similar, if earnest, display on election night "did strike me as funny and ironic," said Mark Rudd, who organized campus protests in the 1960s as a national leader of Students for a Democratic Society. "For the last eight years - and probably for much longer - most radicals have been mourning for our country. . . . Obviously the empire is not going to fall overnight, but at least there's been a popular vote that changes the direction of the last 40 years."

The Star Market, a small Berkeley grocery with a robust selection of legumes, recently posted next to its cash register a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle imploring readers to fly the Stars and Stripes on the day of Obama's inauguration. "In recent times, our flag has been displayed more by one side of the political spectrum than the other," wrote Paul Templeton of Berkeley. "Let's rescue it from unreflective, knee-jerk patriotism."

Such spontaneous patriotism was the reaction to Obama's victory for many in neighborhoods where displays of Tibetan nationalism had been more common than its American equivalent. Election-night revelers in Harvard Square sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Those in West Philadelphia chanted "USA.!" A celebrating mob in Manhattan's Union Square screamed, "This is what democracy looks like," emptied of the sarcasm that made it a favorite refrain of anti-globalization protestors.

"I think part of the new patriotism of the left is a function of folks recognizing how much certain things mattered to them - the Constitution, due process, separation of powers, basic legal and human rights - once they have been taken away, or at least radically threatened," said Jeremy Varon, a Drew University historian and editor of "The Sixties," a scholarly journal.

"We are used to alienation, but Bush has engendered an alienation so profound it has nearly shattered many of us and called us to defend core aspects of our polity that we thought were sacrosanct," Varon said. "Election night was the cathartic undoing of all that: a way to say, in Whitman-esque communion with our national identity, 'We too sing America!' "

In a photo now on the front of his website, folk singer Richie Havens stands before a large flag outside his New Jersey polling place, giving a thumbs-up after voting. Havens, 67, said he is excited to see Obama sworn in, but that the change in government is merely catching up with the democracy of popular culture.

"We are probably the first country in the world getting the chance to formalize our change," Havens said.

There are signs that Obama's success not only increased voter turnout, but has made citizens more interested in being part of government. His transition office has reported that more than 300,000 people have submitted their resumes via the Internet for federal jobs. A study this year by Harvard's Institute of Politics showed that about one-third of those between 18 and 24 were interested in joining a national, state, or local bureaucracy.

"These students are optimists," said Tufts President Lawrence S. Bacow, who on election night watched students march by his house on campus singing "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful." "They don't have an idealistic view of the country. At the same time, I don't think they're cynical in the way prior generations were cynical."

As opposed to the largely upper-middle-class white students who propelled the 1960s counterculture, leftist students today are more likely to come from working-class and immigrant backgrounds and see college as a route into the middle class, according to Birgeneau.

"They don't come here as radicals who are going to overturn the system," said the UC-Berkeley chancellor. "These students want to be successful. They seem to have realized that working within the system is the way to do so. The Obama victory is evidence to them that that works."

At Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, many who have, in the past, used such occasions to rambunctiously question American power are likely to be silently saluting its transfer.

"They've already got the permits," said Freeman, who joined anti-Bush protests at his 2004 inauguration but expects to be in Washington this time as merely a spectator. "But I'm going to be looking forward to seeing what the signs say."

*The Latest From The "SteveLendmanBlog"-Obama's Gulf Commission: Distortion, Obstruction and Whitewash Assured - A Guest Commentary

Click on the headline to link to the latest from the "SteveLendmanBlog"-"Obama's Gulf Commission: Distortion, Obstruction and Whitewash Assured."

Markin comment:

This blog is indispensable for those who need hard information about the subjects of pressing subjects of the day. Moreover, brother Lendman covers material that I either don't know much about or don't want to deal with, especially the perfidies of bourgeois politics here in America (and in Israel). Thanks.

*Once Again From The Late Professor Howard Zinn- An Interview On Anarchism

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry that reviewed a film documentary about the late Professor Zinn without forgetting that, in the end, we were political opponents on the left.

Howard Zinn: Anarchism Shouldn't Be a Dirty Word

By Ziga Vodovnik, CounterPunch
Posted on May 17, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/85427/

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the "American Dream", that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that -- a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the "European Theatre." This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few.

Although Zinn spent his youthful years helping his parents support the family by working in the shipyards, he started with studies at Columbia University after WWII, where he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in 1958. Later he was appointed as a chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College, an all-black women's college in Atlanta, GA, where he actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement.

From the onset of the Vietnam War he was active within the emerging anti-war movement, and in the following years only stepped up his involvement in movements aspiring towards another, better world. Zinn is the author of more than 20 books, including A People's History of the United States that is "a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories" (Library Journal).

Zinn's most recent book is entitled A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, and is a fascinating collection of essays that Zinn wrote in the last couple of years. Beloved radical historian is still lecturing across the US and around the world, and is, with active participation and support of various progressive social movements continuing his struggle for free and just society.

Ziga Vodovnik: From the 1980s onwards we are witnessing the process of economic globalization getting stronger day after day. Many on the Left are now caught between a "dilemma" -- either to work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital; or to strive towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization and that is equally global. What's your opinion about this?

Howard Zinn: I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization -- it is nothing wrong with idea of globalization -- in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world.

Ziga Vodovnik: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once wrote that: "Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order." Where do you see life after or beyond (nation) states?

Howard Zinn: Beyond the nation states? (laughter) I think what lies beyond the nation states is a world without national boundaries, but also with people organized. But not organized as nations, but people organized as groups, as collectives, without national and any kind of boundaries. Without any kind of borders, passports, visas. None of that! Of collectives of different sizes, depending on the function of the collective, having contacts with one another. You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.

Ziga Vodovnik: Do you think that a change can be achieved through institutionalized party politics, or only through alternative means -- with disobedience, building parallel frameworks, establishing alternative media, etc.

Howard Zinn: If you work through the existing structures you are going to be corrupted. By working through political system that poisons the atmosphere, even the progressive organizations, you can see it even now in the US, where people on the "Left" are all caught in the electoral campaign and get into fierce arguments about should we support this third party candidate or that third party candidate. This is a sort of little piece of evidence that suggests that when you get into working through electoral politics you begin to corrupt your ideals. So I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over -- first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.

Ziga Vodovnik: One personal question. Do you go to the polls? Do you vote?

Howard Zinn: I do. Sometimes, not always. It depends. But I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system. Sometimes the difference between two candidates is an important one in the immediate sense, and then I believe trying to get somebody into office, who is a little better, who is less dangerous, is understandable. But never forgetting that no matter who gets into office, the crucial question is not who is in office, but what kind of social movement do you have. Because we have seen historically that if you have a powerful social movement, it doesn't matter who is in office. Whoever is in office, they could be Republican or Democrat, if you have a powerful social movement, the person in office will have to yield, will have to in some ways respect the power of social movements.

We saw this in the 1960s. Richard Nixon was not the lesser evil, he was the greater evil, but in his administration the war was finally brought to an end, because he had to deal with the power of the anti-war movement as well as the power of the Vietnamese movement. I will vote, but always with a caution that voting is not crucial, and organizing is the important thing.

When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: "I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing electoral campaign."

Ziga Vodovnik: Anarchism is in this respect rightly opposing representative democracy since it is still form of tyranny -- tyranny of majority. They object to the notion of majority vote, noting that the views of the majority do not always coincide with the morally right one. Thoreau once wrote that we have an obligation to act according to the dictates of our conscience, even if the latter goes against the majority opinion or the laws of the society. Do you agree with this?

Howard Zinn: Absolutely. Rousseau once said, if I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority? No, majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is OK. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things -- proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. And also has to take into account that majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. So yes, people have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.

Ziga Vodovnik: Where do you see the historical origins of anarchism in the United States?

Howard Zinn: One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists. The word was first used by Proudhon in the middle of the 19th century, but actually there were anarchist ideas that proceeded Proudhon, those in Europe and also in the United States. For instance, there are some ideas of Thomas Paine, who was not an anarchist, who would not call himself an anarchist, but he was suspicious of government. Also Henry David Thoreau. He does not know the word anarchism, and does not use the word anarchism, but Thoreau's ideas are very close to anarchism. He is very hostile to all forms of government. If we trace origins of anarchism in the United States, then probably Thoreau is the closest you can come to an early American anarchist. You do not really encounter anarchism until after the Civil War, when you have European anarchists, especially German anarchists, coming to the United States. They actually begin to organize. The first time that anarchism has an organized force and becomes publicly known in the United States is in Chicago at the time of Haymarket Affair.

Ziga Vodovnik: Where do you see the main inspiration of contemporary anarchism in the United States? What is your opinion about the Transcendentalism -- i.e., Henry D. Thoreau, Ralph W. Emerson, Walt Whitman, Margaret Fuller, et al. -- as an inspiration in this perspective?

Howard Zinn: Well, the Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. In many ways Herman Melville shows some of those anarchist ideas. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government. Unfortunately, today there is no real organized anarchist movement in the United States. There are many important groups or collectives that call themselves anarchist, but they are small. I remember that in 1960s there was an anarchist collective here in Boston that consisted of fifteen (sic!) people, but then they split. But in 1960s the idea of anarchism became more important in connection with the movements of 1960s.

Ziga Vodovnik: Most of the creative energy for radical politics is nowadays coming from anarchism, but only few of the people involved in the movement actually call themselves "anarchists." Where do you see the main reason for this? Are activists ashamed to identify themselves with this intellectual tradition, or rather they are true to the commitment that real emancipation needs emancipation from any label?

Howard Zinn: The term anarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchists don't want to associate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other hand no rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That is why there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism. But actually the ideas of anarchism are incorporated in the way the movements of the 1960s began to think.

I think that probably the best manifestation of that was in the civil rights movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- SNCC. SNCC without knowing about anarchism as philosophy embodied the characteristics of anarchism. They were decentralized. Other civil rights organizations, for example Seven Christian Leadership Conference, were centralized organizations with a leader -- Martin Luther King. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) were based in New York, and also had some kind of centralized organization. SNCC, on the other hand, was totally decentralized. It had what they called field secretaries, who worked in little towns all over the South, with great deal of autonomy. They had an office in Atlanta, Georgia, but the office was not a strong centralized authority. The people who were working out in the field -- in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi -- they were very much on their own. They were working together with local people, with grassroots people. And so there is no one leader for SNCC, and also great suspicion of government.

They could not depend on government to help them, to support them, even though the government of the time, in the early 1960s, was considered to be progressive, liberal. John F. Kennedy especially. But they looked at John F. Kennedy, they saw how he behaved. John F. Kennedy was not supporting the Southern movement for equal rights for Black people. He was appointing the segregationists judges in the South, he was allowing southern segregationists to do whatever they wanted to do. So SNCC was decentralized, anti-government, without leadership, but they did not have a vision of a future society like the anarchists. They were not thinking long term, they were not asking what kind of society shall we have in the future. They were really concentrated on immediate problem of racial segregation. But their attitude, the way they worked, the way they were organized, was along, you might say, anarchist lines.

Ziga Vodovnik: Do you thing that pejorative (mis)usage of the word anarchism is direct consequence of the fact that the ideas that people can be free, was and is very frightening to those in power?

Howard Zinn: No doubt! No doubt that anarchist ideas are frightening to those in power. People in power can tolerate liberal ideas. They can tolerate ideas that call for reforms, but they cannot tolerate the idea that there will be no state, no central authority. So it is very important for them to ridicule the idea of anarchism to create this impression of anarchism as violent and chaotic. It is useful for them, yes.

Ziga Vodovnik: In theoretical political science we can analytically identify two main conceptions of anarchism -- a so-called collectivist anarchism limited to Europe, and on another hand individualist anarchism limited to US. Do you agree with this analytical separation?

Howard Zinn: To me this is an artificial separation. As so often happens analysts can make things easier for themselves, like to create categories and fit movements into categories, but I don't think you can do that. Here in the United States, sure there have been people who believed in individualist anarchism, but in the United States have also been organized anarchists of Chicago in 1880s or SNCC. I guess in both instances, in Europe and in the United States, you find both manifestations, except that maybe in Europe the idea of anarcho-syndicalism become stronger in Europe than in the US. While in the US you have the IWW, which is an anarcho-syndicalist organization and certainly not in keeping with individualist anarchism.

Ziga Vodovnik: What is your opinion about the "dilemma" of means -- revolution versus social and cultural evolution?

Howard Zinn: I think here are several different questions. One of them is the issue of violence, and I think here anarchists have disagreed. Here in the US you find a disagreement, and you can find this disagreement within one person. Emma Goldman, you might say she brought anarchism, after she was dead, to the forefront in the US in the 1960s, when she suddenly became an important figure. But Emma Goldman was in favor of the assassination of Henry Clay Frick, but then she decided that this is not the way. Her friend and comrade, Alexander Berkman, he did not give up totally the idea of violence. On the other hand, you have people who were anarchistic in way like Tolstoy and also Gandhi, who believed in nonviolence.

There is one central characteristic of anarchism on the matter of means, and that central principle is a principle of direct action -- of not going through the forms that the society offers you, of representative government, of voting, of legislation, but directly taking power. In case of trade unions, in case of anarcho-syndicalism, it means workers going on strike, and not just that, but actually also taking hold of industries in which they work and managing them. What is direct action? In the South when black people were organizing against racial segregation, they did not wait for the government to give them a signal, or to go through the courts, to file lawsuits, wait for Congress to pass the legislation. They took direct action; they went into restaurants, were sitting down there and wouldn't move. They got on those buses and acted out the situation that they wanted to exist.

Of course, strike is always a form of direct action. With the strike, too, you are not asking government to make things easier for you by passing legislation, you are taking a direct action against the employer. I would say, as far as means go, the idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas, anarchist movements. I still think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. And that is, if your end is egalitarian society you have to use egalitarian means, if your end is non-violent society without war, you cannot use war to achieve your end. I think anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism.

Ziga Vodovnik: On one occasion Noam Chomsky has been asked about his specific vision of anarchist society and about his very detailed plan to get there. He answered that "we can not figure out what problems are going to arise unless you experiment with them." Do you also have a feeling that many left intellectuals are loosing too much energy with their theoretical disputes about the proper means and ends, to even start "experimenting" in practice?

Howard Zinn: I think it is worth presenting ideas, like Michael Albert did with Parecon for instance, even though if you maintain flexibility. We cannot create blueprint for future society now, but I think it is good to think about that. I think it is good to have in mind a goal. It is constructive, it is helpful, it is healthy, to think about what future society might be like, because then it guides you somewhat what you are doing today, but only so long as this discussions about future society don't become obstacles to working towards this future society. Otherwise you can spend discussing this utopian possibility versus that utopian possibility, and in the mean time you are not acting in a way that would bring you closer to that.

Ziga Vodovnik: In your People's History of the United States you show us that our freedom, rights, environmental standards, etc., have never been given to us from the wealthy and influential few, but have always been fought out by ordinary people -- with civil disobedience. What should be in this respect our first steps toward another, better world?

Howard Zinn: I think our first step is to organize ourselves and protest against existing order -- against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralize authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society. So that even if you don't win some victory tomorrow or next year in the meantime you have created a model. You have acted out how future society should be and you created immediate satisfaction, even if you have not achieved your ultimate goal.

Ziga Vodovnik: What is your opinion about different attempts to scientifically prove Bakunin's ontological assumption that human beings have "instinct for freedom," not just will but also biological need?

Howard Zinn: Actually I believe in this idea, but I think that you cannot have biological evidence for this. You would have to find a gene for freedom? No. I think the other possible way is to go by history of human behavior. History of human behavior shows this desire for freedom, shows that whenever people have been living under tyranny, people would rebel against that.

Ziga Vodovnik is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, where his teaching and research is focused on anarchist theory/praxis and social movements in the Americas. His new book Anarchy of Everyday Life -- Notes on Anarchism and its Forgotten Confluences will be released in late 2008.

© 2010 CounterPunch All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/85427/

*Memories Of The Late Radical Activist Howard Zinn From "The Oleo Strut" G.I. Coffeehouse Days At Fort Hood, Texas

Click on the title to link to an appreciation of the recently departed radical activist, Boston University Professor Howard Zinn, from a staff member of the old "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse at Fort Hood, Texas during the Vietnam War days.

Markin comment:

Listen up- read this one for the information given, and the inspiration imparted.

*Guest Commentary- Stephen Lendman On Radical Journalist Izzy Stone

Click on title to link to Stephen Lendman's blog entry for the late old time radical journalist (seemingly a long gone breed) I. F. (Izzy) Stone. More to come on this interesting journalist who tried to get it right.

*Radical Journalist's Corner- The Journalist As Gadfly- I. F. Stone

Click on title to link to radical journalist and all-around gadfly I. F. Stone's website. I will be reviewing his work, influence on later journalists and his checkered political career at a later date. No blog that seeks to inform about 20th century leftist history can omit Stone's work, especially the early investigative journalism.

*Sacco and Vanzetti- The Case That Will Not Die, Nor Should It

Click on the title to link to "Wikipedia"'s entry for the Sacco and Vanzetti case, provided ere as background. As always with this source and its collective editorial policy, especially with controversial political issues like the Sacco and Vanzetti case, be careful checking the accuracy of the information provided at any given time.


Commentary/Review

He or she who defends the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti is a kindred spirit whatever our other political differences might be. In the mist of time in my youth a couple of cases came early to my memory. The Rosenbergs and, in whispered tones, the Sacco and Vanzetti case. And in the year of the 80th Anniversary of their execution by the State of Massachusetts it is again worth reflecting on what that case means to a generation confronted with more than its share of abuses of justice and political hysteria. Below is a review of a documentary that came out in 2006 (2007 on DVD) that goes some way to explore and explain just what happened.

I also note that in the summer of 2007 yet another book has come out on the subject, Sacco and Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson. I have not read that book yet but I have read several reviews on it. A disturbing element in that book appears to be the author’s agnostic, if not antagonistic, position on Sacco and Vanzetti’s innocence. One of the reasons the case will never die, although not my reason that it should not, is the periodic attempt to ‘prove’ that one or more of the pair either did the murders or, in the alternative, that they received a fair trial. After I have read this book I will write more on this question. It is the duty of those who defend Sacco and Vanzetti to beat back these attempts to chip away at their legacy despite the overwhelming mountain of evidence in their favor. And to expose a new generation to an understanding of the raw legal and social attitudes of that time (and our time, as well). In the meantime- Honor the memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.

I am reposting that earlier review mentioned above.

SACCO AND VANZETTI- THE DOCUMENTARY

DVD REVIEW

SACCO AND VANZETTI, PETER MILLER, 2006

I have used some of the points mentioned here in previous reviews of books about the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

Those familiar with the radical movement know that at least once in every generation a political criminal case comes up that defines that era. One thinks of the Haymarket Martyrs in the 19th century, the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930's, the Rosenburgs in the post-World War II Cold War period and today Mumia Abu-Jamal. In America after World War I when the Attorney General Palmer-driven ‘red scare’ brought the federal government’s vendetta against foreigners, immigrants and militant labor fighters to a white heat that generation's case was probably the most famous of them all, Sacco and Vanzetti. The exposure of the tensions within American society that came to the surface as a result of that case is the subject of the film under review.

Using documentary footage, reenactment and ‘talking head’ commentary by interested historians, including the well-known author of popular America histories Boston University Professor (emeritus now, I believe)Howard Zinn, the director Peter Miller and his associates bring this case alive for a new generation to examine. In the year 2007 one of the important lessons for leftists to be taken from the case is the question of the most effective way to defend such working class cases. I will address that question further below but here I wish to point out that the one major shortcoming of this film is a lack of discussion on that issue. I might add that this is no mere academic issue as the current case of the death-row prisoner, militant journalist Mumia-Abu-Jamal, graphically illustrates. Notwithstanding that objection this documentary is a very satisfactory visual presentation of the case for those not familiar with it.

A case like that of Sacco and Vanzetti, accused, convicted and then executed in 1927 for a robbery and double murder committed in a holdup of a payroll delivery to a shoe factory in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1920, does not easily conform to any specific notion that the average citizen today has of either the state or federal legal system. Nevertheless, one does not need to buy into the director’s overall thesis that the two foreign-born Italian anarchists in 1920 were railroaded to know that the case against them 'stunk' to high heaven. And that is the rub. Even a cursory look at the evidence presented (taking the state of jurisprudence at that time into consideration) and the facts surrounding the case would force the most mildly liberal political type to know the “frame” was on.

Everyone agrees, or should agree, that in such political criminal cases as Sacco and Vanzetti every legal avenue including appeals, petitions and seeking grants of clemency should be used in order to secure the goal, the freedom of those imprisoned. This film does an adequate job of detailing the various appeals and other legal wrangling that only intensified as the execution neared. Nevertheless it does not adequately address a question that is implicit in its description of the fight to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. How does one organize and who does one appeal to in a radical working class political defense case?

The film spends some time on the liberal local Boston defense organizations and the 'grandees' and other celebrities who became involved in the case, and who were committed almost exclusively to a legal defense strategy. It does not, however, pay much attention to the other more radical elements of the campaign that fought for the pair’s freedom. It gives short shrift to the work of the Communists and their International Red Aid (the American affiliate was named the International Labor Defense and headed by Communist leader James P. Cannon, a man well-known in anarchist circles and a friend of Carlos Tresca, a central figure in the defense case) that organized meetings, conferences and yes, political labor strikes on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti, especially in Europe. The tension between those two conceptions of political defense work still confronts us to day as we fight the seemingly never-ending legal battles thrown up since 9/11 for today’s Sacco and Vanzetti’s- immigrants, foreigners and radicals (some things do not change with time). If you want plenty of information on the Sacco and Vanzetti case and an interesting thesis about it’s place in radical history, the legal history of Massachusetts and the social history of the United States this is not a bad place to stop. Hopefully it will draw the viewer to read one or more of the many books on the case. Honor the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti.