Select this to read [the Whole Story].
Yeah. I remember all of the above. I thought different things about each of the above. I hadn't yet read Marx in '68. By then, I had come to define myself as an anarchist; but I didn't know what exactly I meant by it. I was also contradictory. As I said, I began that year supporting McCarthy and ended it wanting to vote for the Peace and Freedom Party. The assassinations just seemed to stem naturally from a society going bonkers. The Chicago Democratic Convention appalled me. The USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia didn't come as a surprise; after all there had been Hungary.
And the demonstrations... did they seem more innocent and peaceful in the beginning?
Yes. The participants were more innocent. Those opposing the demonstrations were nastier. They tended to crawl back in to the woodwork as flower power gave way to self-defense classes and steel toed boots.
When did they get nastier? After Chicago in '68? After the Cambodian Invasion in '70? How did they get nastier?
I'd say after Chicago in '68. People knew that they'd better start protecting themselves. At least some people knew. The analysis of the police began to take shape and develop then.
I wonder if you could send some specific anecdotes, do give those who read your remarks a flavor of what antiwar demonstrations were like. Is that possible?
I'll try. There were two types of demo: the planned and the spontaneous. The planned ones took weeks and even months to prepare for--leaflets, posters, publicity in the counter cultural press and so on. Then we we did it on whateve level, local, statewide or national. Most local ones were gatherings of 10 to 20 thousand people which would start in East Lansing and go to the State Capitol building in Lansing. It was a stroll about 5 miles down the main drag, Grand River Avenue. People would be encouraging others to speak some slogan in unison e.g. "One, two, three, four, we don't want your fucking war." or some such thing. Sometimes we would be attacked by onlookers; but most people were sort of tentatively curious, sometimes even supportive. The longer the war went on, the more supportive they got. You would usually be with some of your friends and stick with them throughout the demo. Sometimes you carried signs, sometimes flags. Many people smoked marijuanna and passed joints around. It all went with the counter culture.At the end of the parade, we'd party. Some would seriously listen to the speeches given by politicians trying to latch on to the popular sentiment or to organizers from mostly lennists sects, who attempted to lead the masses to something or another. Most of us didn't give a damn about the politicians. We wanted the killing to stop, the death culture to die and for enjoyment to take over.
Spontaneous demos, like the one in 1972 over the Christmas bombing of Hanoi, were much more volatile. We ended up taking over the main arteries of the town of East Lansing during it. Without warning, people just started gathering in the streets. People were worried that this action by our government would provoke a nuclear response from the USSR and/or China. Lives were on the line. Serious statements needed to be made and they were. Shutting down business as usual was a form of forced general strike. The cops went crazy, using tear gas on the multitudes and lining the roofs of department stores with men armed with shotguns. But we held our ground. Well, at least for that first and the next night.
You also spoke of the tension that existed between protesters and "rednecks." Were "rednecks supporters of the government? Why were protesters so cautious? What kinds of troubles were likely to occur between protesters and "rednecks"? Would they take place in public or in private? Specific examples would be good for giving readers a flavor of the time.
Red necks would beat protestors up. Protestors did not usually fight back on an individual level. If crowds were plowed in to by cars of rednecks, there would be a violent response.They would happen both in public and private. At that time, having hair which was long was considered an act of anti-war activity. You were a target, if you had long hair.
When I mentioned Agnew's excoriation of protesters and Nixon's call for the silent majority, I recognize their remarks had little affect on you. Do you think they had any affect on the silent majority who came out to contend with you during your demonstrations?
Yes. We were questioning all authority which came from the Establishment.On the other hand, the people who supported the Establishment saw their ideals and dogmas under attack. Being conservative of those dogmas and ideals, they saw Nixon people as giving voice to their frustrations. Disinformation by the major media plus bourgeois politicians=what democracy we had at that time.
You told me about burning your hand on a teargas canister. That implies you must have felt outraged by the powers that be (at least once or twice). Can you share any anecdotes of how you felt at public demonstrations?
I've got too many and not much more time to tell them now.
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
*****
And the demonstrations... did they seem more innocent and peaceful in the beginning? When did they get nastier? After Chicago in '68? After the Cambodian Invasion?
After 68, when those that came realized that this society could and would eat its children. When they saw that everything they'd learned in school was 90% bullshit, propoganda, about the democracy, and an informed citizenry, etc.
And the demonstrations, when did they get nastier?
After Cambodia, and Kent State? What do you think?.
How do you recall the proponents of the war behaving at antiwar rallies?
Trying to start fights, as usual.
I'm thinking about alienation of youth now. Did anyone ever harass you?
Harass me? Is the bear Catholic? Does a Pope shit in the woods?
Were you harassed by the police - drug searches and the like? Did you feel alienated from the American culture?
Absolutely de rigeur.
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
*****
Q: When did they (the demonstrations) get nastier?
In 1969, Nixon was President, Reagan was Governor, Sam Yorty was Mayor of Los Angeles. Chicago had shown what the "Establishment" thought of us. From then on, political demonstrations began to get more confrontational. The People's Park episode in Berkeley led to sympathy strikes across the state; we at UCLA, after all, were part of the same university system as Cal. In early May, following a very moving speech by someone I knew as a history teaching assistant for Western Civilization, a large number of us marched to the Administration Building and "occupied" it. We sat in the hallways and refused to leave. We held small group discussions on tactics all night. We were given the names and phone numbers of a couple of lawyers and told to write them in pen someplace on our skin, in case of arrest. Rumors of police being sent circulated all night, but none came. The next day, we left the Adminstration Building and marched throughout the campus to try to attract more supporters. We ended up in the Student Union and proceeded to occupy that (our own building). For the next several days, we heard speeches, canvassed for support in the neighboring community, and wondered what to do next.In the second week of the demonstrations at UCLA in support of People's Park, I began participation in a hunger strike. Actually, it was more like a fruit juice strike, twenty-some students who vowed to take no food until the National Guard left the Berkeley campus. That, at any rate, is what I think was our chief demand. And we did allow ourselves to drink juice. We encamped in the center of campus, in front of Royce Hall and became a focus for continued rallies that second week. I lasted four full days, while most of the group went on through the sixth before breaking fast at a vegetarian restaurant on Sunset Blvd. My involvement was marginal, but for a while, at least, it helped make me feel a little less powerless. And it put me into close contact with a sector of the movement with which I had previously had little contact. This was the consciously pacifist wing, which stressed non-violent action, but also pulled in vegetarianism, mysticism (e.g. the I-ching) and meditation.
1969 also saw the coming of the draft lottery, which did much to undercut the support of the student protests. Up to this time I, along with most men my age, faced great uncertainty over the possibility of being drafted. As luck had it, a high number- -300--was drawn for men with my birthdate, and so I was pretty much assurred of never having to face the draft. Lucky in one respect, but for the prior couple of years, at least, I had lived with a constant inner struggle over what my personal approach to draft resistance should be. I knew I would not flee to Canada: the choice for me would be the military or prison. I still do not know what I would have done; the lottery removed the need but also the chance for me to resolve that critical life decision.
The invasion of Cambodia in 1970 reinvigorated the movement in a big way. The entire country, in early May, erupted with strikes, occupations, marches and, ultimately, violence. The LAPD rioted at UCLA, busting heads, arresting people randomly, chasing and attacking even people who were not involved in demonstrations on campus. I, along with many others, dropped our classes and became fulltime protesters for the remainder of the spring quarter. I did remain in one class, an undergraduate seminar on the Chinese Cultural Revolution which we collectively agreed to turn around to address the issues of the day.
In September 1971, I began a year of study in Hong Kong, studying Chinese and Chinese history. During most of the year, I was largely withdrawn from political demonstrations until the mining of Haiphong harbor, etc. in the spring of 1972. The prospect of the US Navy confronting Soviet ships coming to resupply North Vietnam had many people worried about a newly widened war. Several of us American students went to participate in a demonstration in front of the US Consulate.
A month or so after that, I returned home. It was only at the point of reentering the country that I realized what a contrast in the level of tension there was between the US and abroad. Almost immediately I felt the polarization anew and realized what a relaxed year I had had. A couple of weeks later, came the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Therein was born the beginning of the end of the American part of the war.
Q: Did you feel alienated from the American culture?
The antiwar movement, and the 1968 election especially, left me greatly disillusioned with American politics. I had nothing but contempt for Nixon & Agnew. I felt myself moving steadily to the left. By 1971/72, I had become interested in anarchism, ie ways of organizing society without resort to the state. I was seeking ways of working towards a democratic socialism, as opposed to the authoritarianism of Stalinist states. This led me next to the Trotskyism of the Socialist Workers Party. I started subscribing to the Militant and reworking my thinking in more and more radical ways. Mostly, this was on an intellectual level. To this day, I have never registered in any political party, though I never miss a chance to vote. "Culturally," though, I did not feel so alienated. I rejected many of the trappings of a "counter-culture": I never took drugs, never radically changed my dress or my hair length, I never got caught up in the nonsense about a "generation gap." But I did decide, largely as a result of trying to come to grips with the War and the attendant politics, to get into the study of history--Chinese history--and this pretty much shaped the direction of my life.
Select this to read [the Whole Story].
