April 17, 1965 is a date likely not on so many people’s radar. For me it’s
always had great significance. It was the date of the first large national
demonstration against the War in Vietnam in Washington, DC, sponsored
by SDS (Students for a Democratic Society).
For me it was that major “there’s something happening here” moment in the
Sixties, signaling an outburst of sudden, rapid change and a feeling that
anything was possible. It was also the moment that SDS emerged as the
center of the Antiwar movement and was first noticed by the national
media. I had been “organizing” with others in Detroit for months
beforehand, mostly talking to anyone who who would (or wouldn’t) listen
about the importance of attending this event.
I participated in a number of activities far outside my comfort zone,
speaking to a couple of church groups, engaging in an absurd “debate”
billed as “art vs. politics” with John Sinclair, then main founder of the Artists’
Workshop, later to be manager of the band the MC5 and founder of the
White Panther Party. At the time, some of the local poets were asserting
that participating in Antiwar activities was just “playing the Man’s game”, an
early version of “Tune Out” and this in 1965!
Dominating a sense of urgency at the time was my confronting a possible
life and death decision, the specter of the draft facing me and all young
males. The War presented a moral and personal crisis comparable to few
events in my life .
I had no ambivalence about my absolute opposition to this insane and
criminal war. I had been around the Civiil Rights and Antiwar movements
since 1960. The challenges to racism, early civil rights demonstrations, a
bit of contact with SNCC organizers passing trough Ann Arbor generated
for many of us the first intense re-examination of everything taught in
school and the media. The War in Vietnam crystalized what I had always
suspected, that something was fundamentally wrong and crazy about the
US political and economic system. Vietnam was so clear-cut to so many of
us that it created an atmosphere in which all beliefs about the US could be
challenged and re-evaluated. I’d also had lots of exposure to Old Left ideas
of every variety from my paternal grandparents and many Red Diaper Baby
friends. Also Detroit was filled with every variety of Left political sects. Many
of the esoteric Marxist and Anarchist micro-factions had sent their most
advanced cadres to Detroit, the city many regarded as the Petrograd of the revo-
lution. Growing up in a Jewish tradition of secular humanism
also instilled a strong obligation of citizenship and commitment to social
justice.
The April 17 event was successful beyond our dreams. There were
25,000-40,000 people there, which at the time was a huge number
compared to earlier demonstrations. Previously we had been a marginal
minority, vilified and jeered by right-wing war supporters. There was a
euphoric realization that we were not so isolated. Staughton Lynd spoke
and was fired from his job teaching at Yale. Paul Potter, president of SDS
said “we must name that system” and many shouted out “Capitalism”. Phil
Ochs performed “Love me, I’m a liberal” a perfect time and setting for that
song if there ever was one. On the chartered bus ride back to Detroit, I
happened to sit next to a Wayne State University Professor David
Herreshoff , one of the rare academics willing to engage in high-profile
opposition to the War. David had had a long history in the Trotskyist Old
Left, but was looking for a New left. Over the next few years he was to be
the most important among my several informal mentors in Marxist-oriented
Left history and and political theory.
For me, this weekend fifty years ago marked that brief opening of a window
in American society which let in fresh air, where everything was up for
grabs, when millions started to question everything they believed. The
reversing of opinion about the war was head-spinning fast for the next few
years to the great climactic point when the soldiers turned against it. In my
estimation the war generated the huge cultural revolution in drugs, sex, and
music. I was not invulnerable to its seductions. Even I increased my
proportion of non-jazz listening for a few years. My sister has indicated that
I was mired in the “Serious side of the Sixties, rather than the Fun side of
the Sixties”. No doubt. These two “tendencies” didn’t diverge so much
until a few years later.
SDS grew from hundreds to hundreds of thousands seemingly overnight,
reflecting only identification with a vague program, since “membership”
was completely undefined and anyone could call themselves SDS.
The SDS slogan for this event was “End the War in Vietnam”. It may seem
incomprehensible to anyone looking at that history now that there was a
huge struggle over that slogan. The Trotskyist cadres within the local
Antiwar committees insisted on the slogan “Bring the Troops home Now!”.
This became a prolonged contest between these two slogans which pitted
the New Left groupings around SDS against the Old Left Trotskyist
groupings (SWP-YSA). Many hours were spent arguing over these
slogans, the impetus often being competition for control of the local Antiwar
committees. My own perspective resolved when my friend Peter Werbe,
founder of the Underground Paper the Fifth Estate, observed something to
the effect: “somehow these cultist fools have stumbled on the better
slogan”. The SDS slogan was pretty wimpy and could easily be co-opted by
politicians who translated it to “win the war in Vietnam”. Of course a few
years later, “Bring the Troops Home Now!” became vulnerable to those who
wanted to replace US troops with puppet troops and substitute genocidal
bombing for ground war. I remember a prophetic sign in 1968: “Nixon’s
Secret Peace Plan: It’s a bomb”.
I actually believe that slogans are important and sometimes crystalize a
moment of awareness or draw a line that needs to be drawn.. The recent
Occupy 99% vs the 1% rhetoric successfully changed the national
discussion about income inequality and made it an issue which had not
previously entered what passes for public dialogue.
Shortly after the April 17th March, my student deferment was taken away
and I was called up for an Army physical. The head of my Draft Board in
Detroit, one Mary Ann Modelski was known for punishing visible War
opponents by removing their student deferments, a national strategy
encouraged by General Hershey, head of Selective Services at the time. I
obviously would not appeal my status since we all regarded the student
deferments as an illegitimate class privilege.
Facing the draft gave an immediate intensity to my moral deliberations
about basic issues. I thought that probably the most noble path was to be
drafted and to organize against the war within the military. I had neither the
personality nor the courage for that decision. To this day I admire those
few who made that commitment. I thought the second best ethical choice
was to refuse induction and risk jail as a draft resister. Again, lack of
courage was a deal-breaker. Thousands did this or fled to Canada. I was
not a principled pacifist so I didn’t want to proclaim Conscientious Objector
status and discredit a choice I respected. I decided to take the lowly route
of draft-dodging, an “individual survival strategy” as Chomsky might call it.
I prepared mentally for the day by the obligatory ingestion of substances
starting days before. I handed out antiwar leaflets form the moment of my
arrival. I checked “homosexual, drug addict, and Communist” on the
questionnaire. Two out of three weren’t too much of a stretch. This may
have been overkill since, at the time any one of the three would have likely
been sufficient. In 1965 these weren’t such easy things to say, but I entered
the Draft Board that day with a firm conviction that I would say or do
absolutely anything required to make them conclude that they didn’t want
me. On the checklist of “subversive organizations” that one was required to
fill out, I wrote: “this list is a Fascist violation of my Civil Liberties and I
refuse to fill it out. However, I’ll make one exception: I’ll cop to being a
proud veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade”. Yes, this organization was
listed and I wondered whether anyone pondered that my “admission” of
membership would have been chronologically impossible.
I do (sort of) understand the modern gay achievement of equal status and
participation in the armed services. But in a sane (topsy-turvy) world,
heterosexuals would have sued for equal exemption from being cannonfodder
for Imperialism. In 1965, in many cases you only had to suggest that
you were gay to escape the draft, a most welcome benefit of homophobia.
I managed to get arrested and hand-cuffed during my physical, a long story
which I only have the energy to tell every few years. I was told by the
Commander of the base that they didn’t want me and not to return to the
induction center. (I violated our agreement a few weeks later, returning for a
demonstration against the draft board).
When I returned home from my adventure at the draft board, My mother
called. She said: “I don’t want to know any details. Did you get out?” I said
“yes”. She said “good”. It was never to be discussed again.
I was later to realize that I was very lucky to be called in 1965. My antics
were still a novelty at the Induction Center. Within a couple of years, the
need for troops was exploding and drug-fueled theatre during physicals
was so common that my strategy may have well resulted in being inducted.
I continued to be passionate about the war (and obviously still am), but
once I escaped from the draft, it never had quite the sense of personal
urgency that it had held. One of the most brilliant strategies of US
Imperialism was to abolish the draft. Of course there’s always been an
economic draft which no doubt, still produces difficult moral issues for
young men and now women, LGBT and straight.
I had been around SDS since its inception in Ann Arbor in the early sixties.
I was a curious and sympathetic observer and occasional fellow traveler. I
“joined” SDS in Detroit in 1965 after hearing an inspiring speech by Carl
Ogelsby at Wayne University. During the years of SDS prominence as
leaders of the Antiwar movement I was exposed to many brilliant, creative
minds and participated in a period of mass movement of intellectual growth
and questioning that I never experienced before or since. It was a period of
great revolution in mass consciousness in a shockingly short period of time,
convincing me for life, not that it will happen again, but that it is at least
possible. Each emergence of an “Occupy” or “Black lives matter”
movement gives me the tiniest amount of hope.
The completely open structure of SDS which allowed for its astronomical
growth lead to its disintegration into warring factions of cultist crazies and
no doubt, police agents. Sadly I thought that our home-grown assholes had
much greater impact than the agents who only could have dreamed of such
effective destructiveness.
Others assumed leadership of the mass anti-war movement. People like
Dave Dellinger, A.J. Mustee, and the Berrigans had incredible staying
power.
It’s hard to believe that 50 years have passed. I have a 14 year old
Vietnamese-American music student who is now learning about the war in
his Catholic school. It is ancient history for him as well as for his young
mother. By his account, he and his family have relatively little interest in
this history.
It struck me recently that just 3 months after our April event, Congress and
Johnson created Medicare, a key component of my current economic
survival. I barely took note of it at the time. Of course we all followed and
participated in Civil Rights activities. It’s now surprising that these 50th
anniversaries, Selma, etc. were so close together. Around that time SNCC
leaders came to SDS conventions, once bringing Bob Dylan who conferred
his blessings on us. A troubled camaraderie between the white New Left
and parts of the radical wing of the African-American civil rights movement
flourished briefly despite many contradictions.
In retrospect, the draft was much more of an agent of consciousness-raising
than I had understood at the time. The US has learned to wage
massive aggression in a mode that can be tuned out by most citizens.
In Lafayette, Ca., some folks have created a memorial, visible from some of
the freeway, to the dead American soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan
adventures. White crosses fill a hillside and some people regard it as a
shocking sight. My impression is that it’s shocking that the US could
generate so much death, suffering, and chaos with such a low cost of
American lives. There may very well be more homeless Vietnam veterans
on the streets of Los Angeles and other American cities than there are
crosses on the hillside in Lafayette.
I’ve never regretted my participation in this history of half a century ago. I
still agree with what MLK said in 1967. “The US government is the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today”. “Purveyor” was a particularly
appropriate word, since the US sells and supplies weapons to Israel, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and a huge list of others who inflict so much suffering and
create so much danger. Obama has presided over one of the greatest
increases in arms sales in modern history.
I’ve never wavered in the perception that was solidified in 1965 that virtually
everything is wrong about every aspect of our Capitalist world order and
that there needs to be a revolutionary transformation of our economic and
political system.
On some days I can muster Optimism of the Will. To those who say that
radical change is an extremely unlikely scenario, I can only agree. But I
add that the only more far-fetched scenario would be the survival of human
civilization if there is not a revolutionary transformation.
I don’t covet my small collection of political buttons and tchotchkes from
the Sixties too excessively. But I’ve always cherished this political button
from 4/17/65. It had gone missing for about twenty years and I was slightly
unsettled by this sentimental loss. About two months ago, it fell out of an April 17, 1965 is a date likely not on so many people’s radar. For me it’s
always had great significance. It was the date of the first large national
demonstration against the War in Vietnam in Washington, DC, sponsored
by SDS (Students for a Democratic Society).had been around SDS since its inception in Ann Arbor in the early sixties.
I was a curious and sympathetic observer and occasional fellow traveler. I
“joined” SDS in Detroit in 1965 after hearing an inspiring speech by Carl
Ogelsby at Wayne University. During the years of SDS prominence as
leaders of the Antiwar movement I was exposed to many brilliant, creative
minds and participated in a period of mass movement of intellectual growth
and questioning that I never experienced before or since. It was a period of
great revolution in mass consciousness in a shockingly short period of time,
convincing me for life, not that it will happen again, but that it is at least
possible. Each emergence of an “Occupy” or “Black lives matter”
movement gives me the tiniest amount of hope.
The completely open structure of SDS which allowed for its astronomical
growth lead to its disintegration into warring factions of cultist crazies and
no doubt, police agents. Sadly I thought that our home-grown assholes had
much greater impact than the agents who only could have dreamed of such
effective destructiveness.
Others assumed leadership of the mass anti-war movement. People like
Dave Dellinger, A.J. Mustee, and the Berrigans had incredible staying
power.
It’s hard to believe that 50 years have passed. I have a 14 year old
Vietnamese-American music student who is now learning about the war in
his Catholic school. It is ancient history for him as well as for his young
mother. By his account, he and his family have relatively little interest in
this history.
It struck me recently that just 3 months after our April event, Congress and
Johnson created Medicare, a key component of my current economic
survival. I barely took note of it at the time. Of course we all followed and
participated in Civil Rights activities. It’s now surprising that these 50th
anniversaries, Selma, etc. were so close together. Around that time SNCC
leaders came to SDS conventions, once bringing Bob Dylan who conferred
his blessings on us. A troubled camaraderie between the white New Left
and parts of the radical wing of the African-American civil rights movement
flourished briefly despite many contradictions.
In retrospect, the draft was much more of an agent of consciousnessraising
than I had understood at the time. The US has learned to wage
massive aggression in a mode that can be tuned out by most citizens.
In Lafayette, Ca., some folks have created a memorial, visible from some of
the freeway, to the dead American soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan
adventures. White crosses fill a hillside and some people regard it as a
shocking sight. My impression is that it’s shocking that the US could
generate so much death, suffering, and chaos with such a low cost of
American lives. There may very well be more homeless Vietnam veterans
on the streets of Los Angeles and other American cities than there are
crosses on the hillside in Lafayette.
I’ve never regretted my participation in this history of half a century ago. I
still agree with what MLK said in 1967. “The US government is the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today”. “Purveyor” was a particularly
appropriate word, since the US sells and supplies weapons to Israel, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and a huge list of others who inflict so much suffering and
create so much danger. Obama has presided over one of the greatest
increases in arms sales in modern history.
I’ve never wavered in the perception that was solidified in 1965 that virtually
everything is wrong about every aspect of our Capitalist world order and
that there needs to be a revolutionary transformation of our economic and
political system.
On some days I can muster Optimism of the Will. To those who say that
radical change is an extremely unlikely scenario, I can only agree. But I
add that the only more far-fetched scenario would be the survival of human
civilization if there is not a revolutionary transformation.
I don’t covet my small collection of political buttons and tchotchkes from
the Sixties too excessively. But I’ve always cherished this political button
from 4/17/65. It had gone missing for about twenty years and I was slightly
unsettled by this sentimental loss. About two months ago, it fell out of an
old book that I opened. I was happy for its return to wear it on just this one
day.
In Solidarity, Harvey