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Running as soon as we could; one night, we were in a car that was caught in the middle of the crowd on Michigan Ave; we only got a chance to run when the cops got to us, and they shoved my ex with a nightstick to "encourage" us. I was too busy, and it happened too fast, to take pictures like the one in my memory of the pig (as distinguished from the regular cops, these were in baby blue riot gear) who knowcked someone down to the street, then swung his riot baton like an axe...I do, though, have some slides....
Do you remember the crowds shouting, "the world is watching" as the police charged on the demonstraters? How did you feel at that moment?
Shouting, angry, and trying to not get killed. I was one of those chanting.
How did the polices' behavior make you feel about being an American?
Well, as a red diaper baby, who grew up in North Philly, I had never been exactly Proud to be an Amurkan (tm). This was more of "what did you expect?"
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*****
I'd like to skip ahead to 1968 now. It was a watershed year in the history of the world. The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and the Democratic Convention occurred within a few weeksÕ time of each other. What did the year look like for you?
Up through the summer of '68 I somehow balanced my hippie activities (and school--couldn't drop out, though I wanted to, lest I be drafted) with a sense of responsibility I still don't understand how I mustered. I joined Julian Bond's New Democratic Coalition. I campaigned very hard for McCarthy-- lots of long bus rides to Milwaukee and surrounding suburbs for their April primary. The guy I was usually working with had a good friend highly placed in the Michigan McCarthy team. He was sure if we went to Chicago we'd be able to get into the hotel and hobnob with the honchos, maybe even Gene himself. And besides, we could stay with his folks in Lincoln Park. So off we went--although we were delayed for a day while he repaired his car-- to see democracy in action. Well, we saw it but good. By the time we got there, most of the convention locations had been completely sealed off by the cops and the National Guard. We wound up watching the proceedings on his folks' TV, in sensurround and smell-o-vision as we heard the continual sirens and breathed in the wafting tear gas. And on Saturday Aug 31 when it was all over--and I shaved for what would be the last time to this day-- we drove back to Michigan. I joined SDS the following week. John--I lost track of him. I had heard in succeeding months that he had dropped out. Flash forward 24 years. It was late April 1992 when I got sent to a conference in DC, I decided to take one beautiful, warm afternoon off and go check out the sites. And in roaming around I stumbled across The [Vietnam Memorial] Wall. And there among the 50,000 others was his name.
You remembered from high school civics classes that democracy depends upon an informed, involved citizenry. You supported Gene McCarthy in '68. You went to Chicago to see democracy in action. However, Chicago was nuthin' like you learned in school. That was when you got a firsthand taste of repression, and entenched powers protecting themselves. America in '68 didn't look much different from any other totalitarian country. Is that the way you felt about the American society then?
Some demonstrators' signs out in Grant Park said "Welcome to Czechago". The meaning was not lost. And it became very clear that in the US we usually got the more benign fascism-with-a-smiley-face, as with meaningless electoral choices, but that the system would not hesitate to use the old methods if we refused to accept the new ones.
And the demonstrations that followed 1968... did they get nastier?
Things definitely got nastier after '68--but that's when it became clear that they were out to get us, and to exterminate those who were not perceived as having previous class privilege, like the Black Panthers. I don't think the rhetoric changed much, except that the splintering of SDS created several fringe groups that were intent on themselves waging total war.
You came home from Chicago and immediately joined the SDS. Most people think of the SDS in terms of rabid revolutionaries in the Weathermen/Weather Underground. I don't think the SDS had evolved to that point by '68. Am I wrong? What were your reasons for joining up with them?
Weathermen split off in 1969, I think. But PLP had already split, and the Yippies had a commanding presence. Anyway, I joined SDS because they understood what America was and what had to be done about it. I had a lot of sympathy with--and friends in--the Yippies, because I felt that a cultural war had a far better chance of success than a physical one. Remember that we--and the Yippies in particular--having been the first generation to grow up with TV, had an instinctual understanding of modern media that the mainstream would not figure out until Reagan. And this put the cultural revolutionaries completely at odds with the classical leftist dogmatists, who soberly intoned that "The revolution will NOT be televised". Well of course it would! The media WERE the revolution. Well, they would have been if we had ever been straight enough for long enough to make some strategic investments and plans.
The SDS continued to evolve as time went by. It took a more extreme stance. You were well-prepared to accomodate the changes. After all, you had seen American repression firsthand -- and you probably knew a whole lot of others who did, too. Is this an accurate summation of the changes you went through? Is this a fair picture of the way you viewed American society?
Yes sir, Senator.At the point I joined [the SDS] there were already 2 factions, RYM and PLP. And then RYM split to form RYM II and Weatherman. We all advocated revolution, but the RYM factions stayed pretty concentrated on the war. The PLers all cut their hair, abandoned their tofu for Kraft macaroni and cheese, and moved to Chicago or St. Louis to work alongside the masses. And Weatherman (later the androgynous "Weather Underground") took to the battlefront then and there.
I wanted to overthrow the government, and felt that Jefferson--not so much in the [Declaration of Independence] but in his "A little rebellion now and then..." quote--presented a clear American precedent for it. I didn't think it would or could happen through armed struggle, but I felt it was inevitable culturally due to the mass defection of the country's youth. We used to say, especially when we were good and stoned, "You know, in 20 years we're going to run this country." And of course we all knew we'd have smoothed over some of our rough edges, but I never expected an entire generation to suddenly turn around and spit on the axioms it held so dear. I expected Rep. Tom Hayden; I never expected Sen. Dan Quayle. Of course, I never *ever* expected Congressman Bobby Rush--that's still too absurd for words.
We were all pretty exuberant, but we knew we'd settle down somehow. Become respectable. But we'd always have our ideals. Well, the joke was on me. I turned around one day in, oh, 1977 or so, to find that there was no community any more, that one by one my comrades had sneaked off to become middle managers in multinational corporations and drive VW rabbits. Apparently it was for the most part just one big party. I dunno--the revolution sure made a lot of sense to me. We said that capitalism was a culture of death--and we were right. I never had an easy time in the movement. I read the Wall Street Journal (and still do). I figured that if we were really going to smash the state it behoved us to understand how it worked, and then maybe play with it a little bit first. I was a planner (and still am). And as I traveled around to various communes, all invariably in advanced stages of decay and despair, it became clear to me that just having your head in a really good place and watching the sun set was not what anyone could call a sustainable economy. I liked motorcycles, and computers, and modern medicine. I did not really want to relegate myself--and my entire generation--to eking out a subsistence living tilling a gravelly garden with a stone adze. And that seemed to be the only alternative proposed--or else the Stalinist solution of simply take over the factories and run them just like the pigs did. My alienation was not just from the status quo.
Do you think there was any sound rationale then for a revolution?
Of course. There still is. And if the working people of this country ever wake up from the hypnotic trance into which they have been placed by corporate media, their righteous wrath will yet bring their oppressors to justice. You think interests are really different now than then?
I'm thinking about alienation of youth now. Did anyone ever harass you? Did the police ever give you any grief -- drug searches and the like...
Harrassment--Never busted for drugs, though I did deal occasionally in pot and hash (and by being very scrupulous in my use of equipment in the chem lab where I worked acquired a well-deserved reputation for honest weights). I wasn't often called an anarchist, which in retrospect is surprising, because I was one. And still am, by the way.
How did you feel about the police, the National Guard, the FBI and other people in power?
In Ann Arbor, where I was, the cops were pigs. They were the enemy. Sure, they were human beings, with spouses and kids and a mortgage. But they also--voluntarily and proudly-- wore uniforms and guns and obeyed orders to deprive us of our civil liberties. Friends who were busted were tortured and had their hair cut off. So fuck 'em! And dammit, when I get pulled over for speeding even now I *still* have the same feeling in my gut. I hate cops, though I now do know a few, and I do respect their sense of purpose there.
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