Fifty Years Ago Today…

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.