The Media IS the Revolution

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.

Select this to read [the Whole Story].