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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! From Nixon to Sarah Palin
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
From Nixon to Sarah Palin
What’s happened to the Republican Party? What’s happened to populism? Read Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair on the life and death of Nixonland, and the class politics of the war over Sarah Palin. ALSO in our new subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter, read Serge Halimi on how Russia gave Georgia and the U.S.a well-deserved black eye. PLUS Carrie Dann’s wonderful first-hand account of the fight of the Western Shoshone to reclaim their land. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories September 6 / 7, 2008 Linn Washington, Jr. September 5, 2008 Elizabeth Walters Bill Quigley Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Ira Glunts Peter Morici Deepak Tripathi Manuel Garcia, Jr. Michael Donnelly Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day September 4, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Andy Worthington Osama Dawoud Stephen Lendman Fidel Castro Website of the Day September 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sen. Mike Gravel Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Ralph Nader Howard Lisnoff Steve Early / Cal Winslow Shepherd Bliss Bill Quigley Website of the Day
September 2, 2008 Marjorie Cohn Jonathan Cook Robert Weitzel Corey D. B. Walker John Ross Eric Walberg Judith Scherr Richard Morse B. R. Gowani Michael Greenberg Website of the Day September 1, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff C. G. Estabrook Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Macaray B. R. Gowani Saul Landau Charles Orloski Gloria La Riva Website of the Day August 30 / 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Andy Worthington Deepak Tripathi Stanley Howard Dave Lindorff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Josh Schlossberg Benjamin Dangl Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Suzan Mazur Rev. Jim Rigby David Yearsely Serge Quadruppani B.R. Gowani Richard Rhames Poets' Basement Website of the Day
August 29, 2008 Mike Whitney Brian Cloughley David Ker Thomson Joanne Mariner Neve Gordon Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Michael Donnelly August 28, 2008 Judy Gumbo Albert Paul Cantor Saul Landau / Andy Worthington Ben Terrall Leonard Peltier Niranjan Ramakrishnan Donna J. Volatile Website of the Day
August 27, 2008 Anthony DiMaggio Jordan Flaherty Ralph Nader Melissa Checker Bob Sommer Cynthia McKinney Ali Khan M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Dave Lindorff David Macaray Website of the Day
August 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Michael D. Yates Paul Craig Roberts Andy Worthington Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Huwaida Arraf Joseph Grosso Sheldon Richman Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day August 25, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook James McEnteer Uri Avnery Will Potter Robert Jensen Stephen Lendman Wajahat Ali Carl Finamore Website of the Day August 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patty O'Grady Nicole Colson Steve Conn Deepak Trapathi Robert Fantina Jonathan M. Feldman Joshua Frank Osama Qashoo Howard Lisnoff David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Alan Farago Michael Winship Richard Rhames David Rosen Patrick B. Barr Jamie Newlin Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 22, 2008 Boris Kagarlitsky Laura Carlsen Bob Barr Marwan Bishara Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. Charles Mostoller Sumbul Ali-Karamali Keith Rosenthal John F. Miglio Website of the Day August 21, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It Ralph Nader Joanne Mariner Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Rostam Purzal Anthony Papa Website of the Day August 20, 2008 Michael Neumann Ray McGovern Eric Walberg Fidaa Abed Daniel Haack Mike Whitney Website of the Day August 19, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Deepak Tripathi Marwan Bishara Saul Landau William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg James Brittain Pratyush Chandra David Macaray Website of the Day August 18, 2008 Tariq Ali Gary Leupp Uri Avnery John Ross Farooq Sulehria Luis Rodriguez Manuel Garcia, Jr. Noah Baker Merrill Charles Thomson Website of the Day August 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Deepak Tripathi Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Ray McGovern Nicole Colson Fatima Bhutto Jean-Luis Rocca David Michael Green Ramzi Kysia Dave Lindorff Lisa Martinovic Richard Rhames Don Santina Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud John Stanton Howard Lisnoff Ron Jacobs Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
August 15, 2008 Steve Niva David Remington Michael Winship Paul Craig Roberts Farzana Versey Harvey Wasserman Felice Pace Julian Critchley Website of the Day August 14, 2008 Saul Landau / Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Reza Fiyouzat Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China Jack Bradigan Spula Patrick Irelan John Walsh Dan Bacher Website of the Day
August 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts David Remington Brian Cloughley Glen Ford Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Tom Lewis Stan Cox Alan Farago Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day August 12, 2008 Uri Avnery Anthony DiMaggio Bill Christison Eric Walberg Kate Connolly Diane Farsetta Peter Morici Thom Rutledge Lee Patton Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day August 11, 2008 Ishmael Reed Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Douglas Kammen William Willers Greg Moses Jeff Leys Cynthia McKinney Alan Farago Website of the Day August 9 / 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Bruce Jackson Kevin Young Chris Floyd Joshua Frank Robert Fantina Brendan Cooney Mark Almond Lois Gibbs Rev. William Alberts Kathy Kelly John Ross David Michael Green Bill Moyers / Ron Jacobs Richard Rhames David Yearsley Lee Sustar Brenda Norrell Ben Terrall Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 8, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Manuel Garcia, Jr. M. Shahid Alam Andy Worthington Lawrence J. Korb David Model Alan Farago Diop Olugbala Firmin DeBrabander Website of the Day August 7, 2008 Dr. Trudy Bond William Blum Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Robert Weitzel Jacob G. Hornberger Binoy Kampmark David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Website of the Day August 6, 2008 Marc Herold Greg Moses Sheldon Rampton Kevin Young Michael Estrada Robert Weissman Dr. Susan Block Cindy Sheehan Ace Hoffman Website of the Day August 5, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Jeff Halper Patrick Cockburn Nancy Welch Peter Morici Sousan Hammad Eamon Martin Shepherd Bliss Tim Matson Website of the Day August 4, 2008 Uri Avnery Saul Landau David W. Remington Rev. Jesse Jackson Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Ramzy Baroud Christian Wright Website of the Day August 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler James Abourezk Andy Worthington Brian Cloughley Robert Fantina Benjamin Dangl Marlene Martin David Yearsley Fatemeh Keshavarz David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis Harvey Wasserman Jason Hribal Phyllis Pollack Laray Polk Ron Jacobs David Macaray David Rosen Dan Bacher Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 1, 2008 Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff Rannie Amiri Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli M. K. Bhadrakumar Patrick Cockburn James J. Brittain Dan Bacher Website of the Day
July 31, 2008 Michael Hudson Carl Finamore Mike Whitney Joshua Frank Andy Worthington Ralph Nader Bill Moyers / Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day July 30, 2008 Brian M. Downing Chuck Spinney William S. Lind David Ker Thomson Karl Grossman Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg James Murren Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Website of the Day July 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair John Ross Peter Morici Alison Weir Gary Leupp David Macaray Brenda Norrell Marjorie Cohn Eric Ruder Website of the Day July 28, 2008 Dr. Bryant Welch Kathy Kelly Mike Whitney Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli Clifton Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
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Weekend Edition Memories of the 1968 Democratic ConventionCHI-town LowdownBy NANCY KURSHAN I am writing this during the presidential nomination of Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Because this is 40 years after 1968, there are references by mass media personalities and others to what happened in the streets of Chicago during that historic time. Much of what has been written is often inaccurate, superficial or misleading. I know this because I was one of the people who initiated the call for the demonstrations and planned them. But the story behind these events, the political issues that we dealt with and the state repression that we faced are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago. What then follows is my attempt to explain what happened and why. I hope these words will help clarify some historical reality and provide some helpful observations for those of us who continue to organize against U.S. injustice today. On the 35th anniversary of the sentencing in the Chicago Conspiracy Trial (February of 2005) I was interviewed by a public television reporter for a retrospective piece on the Chicago 8. As he and his cameraman entered my house, he quipped, “I just interviewed Richard Schultz (Assistant Prosecuting Attorney). He insists that you came to Chicago to overthrow the American government. He knows it sounds silly but that’s what he believes to this day.” Without missing a beat, I retorted, “It doesn’t sound silly at all. That was in fact what we wanted to do. And in hindsight, it appears even more compelling today then it did at the time. Who wouldn’t want to overthrow a government that was in the process of murdering 2 to 3 million Vietnamese and 60,000 US troops? Who wouldn’t want to overthrow a government that had launched a joint FBI/police force campaign to destroy the Black Liberation Movement which resulted in scores of dead black revolutionaries and many others imprisoned for life?” Back Story To understand those events and what motivated us, you have to know something about the extraordinary times preceding them. Our small circle of friends, the Yippies, had come together around the October 1967 anti-war demonstration where we first successfully levitated the Pentagon. That is, we encircled the building and with drums, incense and incantations we caused it to rise, allowing the evil spirits to flee. My friend Abbie Hoffman, one of the original Yippies, would later complain that we only managed to get it ten feet off the ground. The levitation was followed by about 1000 arrests of people trying to shut it down altogether. It was the first time I had been arrested but far from the last. We came together to shut down the Pentagon in particular but more generally in response to everything that was going on around us. We had by now been marching and demonstrating and participating in teach-ins for several years and felt our efforts fell on deaf ears. In 1967 the U.S. pounded the Vietnamese people from the air in what was called Operation Rolling Thunder. In response the Vietnamese people continued to down American planes with anti-aircraft artillery. In fact it was during Operation Rolling Thunder that John McCain was shot down over North Vietnam. Perhaps it was by the group of young women I later met in 1970 who were operating anti-aircraft artillery out in a field in order to defend their small village in Thanh Hoa province. But on January 30, 1968, at the time of the lunar new year, the Vietnamese launched an enormous and completely undetected popular uprising in South Vietnam known as the Tet offensive. The whole world was amazed by their ability to mobilize their entire nation right under the noses of the American military. A small country challenging Goliath, the most powerful military force in the world.
Anita Hoffman and Nancy Kurshan, Chicago 1968. In February hundreds of people protesting a segregated bowling alley in Orangeburg near South Carolina State University were fired upon by the police. Three young men were killed and 27 people wounded. There was little of the publicity that later surrounded the Kent State shootings because most, if not all, of the people involved were Black. This was known as the Orangeburg Massacre. On March 21st we experienced a small taste of that violence directly. The Yippies went on WBAI New York radio and called for a Yip-In at Grand Central Station. It was to be a peaceful gathering complete with costumes, music and incense. 10,000 hippies and yippies showed up. The police over-reacted and it turned into a police riot. Abbie Hoffman was shoved through a glass door after I threw myself on top of him in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the police. On April 4th the King of Peace, Martin Luther King, was assassinated in Memphis and urban centers around the U.S. went up in flames. There had already been major rebellions in Detroit, Newark, LA and Cleveland. It was at that time that the “Rap Brown bill” became law. Rap Brown was the fiery leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, an extremely popular organization that was becoming more militant in response to the times. The U.S. passed this law stating that it was now a “crime to cross state lines with the intent to riot.” It would carry a five-year prison sentence with conviction. Also in April students at Columbia University in New York occupied several buildings in opposition to war and racism. I joined them and when the cops cleared the buildings, that was my second arrest. In May French students triggered a national strike of students and workers. In Mexico City a huge protest ended with the murder by police of probably hundreds of unarmed students. The world was in turmoil and it seemed like people were resisting everywhere. In June Robert Kennedy was assassinated. But honestly, that month preoccupied us in more personal ways since the New York Police Department broke into our tiny apartment and ransacked it. Upon finding 3 ounces of marijuana, they arrested my partner, Jerry Rubin, for “felonious possession with intent to sell.” Additionally, the cops had thrown him around and he fractured his coccyx. I was tricked into coming down to the station and detained in an unsuccessful attempt to get me to testify against him, and then later released when I refused to comply. Those were just some of the influences that were fueling our anger and commitment. Small Circle of Friends First let me tell you a bit about the Yippie cast of characters: Stew Albert, from Brooklyn, New York, had quit the Progressive Labor Party, a Maoist organization. Stew was an important part of the political movement in Berkeley, a full time activist and campus non-student “outside agitator” when he and Jerry Rubin became good friends. Judy Clavir aka Gumbo, Canadian born, left academia to be a fulltime organizer, and became the girlfriend and later wife of Stew Albert. She and Stew moved to New York to join the Yippie activities and lived in an underground cellar below Abbie’s Liberty House. Together they later published The Sixties Papers, a political anthology of the period. Abbie Hoffman had been active in the civil rights movement in the south and went on to establish Liberty House, on outlet for poor people in the south to sell their crafts. Abbie was incredibly comical, charming and intelligent with connections to a world of artists, poets, and musicians in New York. Anita Hoffman had a Masters in Psychology. She became politically involved when she met Abbie and they were married in Central Park in a hippie wedding. She later published several books, including a fictional account of their early days together. Paul Krassner was a standup comedian in the spirit of Lenny Bruce. He was an irreverent and raunchy satirist and the founder and editor of “The Realist” magazine. A little known fact is that early on he had also been involved in attempts to set up networks that would assist women in getting safe, illegal abortions. Nancy Kurshan had been involved with anti-nuclear, Northern civil rights organizations, and Students for a Democratic Society. She was a graduate student in psychology at Berkeley when she met Jerry Rubin and they moved in together. They moved to New York to help organize the Pentagon demonstration. Phil Ochs was one of the best-known folksingers of the era. He was a media junkie and many of his songs reflected actual events. His songs had a wide emotional range and included searing anti-war songs like “I Ain’t Marching Any More” and songs about the civil rights struggle such as “Too Many Martyrs.” They were full of anger, love and exquisite lyrics. At every political protest, there was Phil with his guitar. Jerry Rubin, son of a teamster, became a journalist, traveled to Cuba after the ’59 revolution and returned to the US to become a full-time political agitator. He was the leader of the Vietnam Day Committee in Berkeley, California which tried to physically obstruct troop trains, held enormous teach-ins and organized thousands of people to march several times on the Oakland Army Terminal. There were many others in our New York circle as well—Ed Saunders of the Fugs music group; Kate Coleman who worked for Newsweek; Robin Morgan before the male chauvinism drove her to quit; the pacifist Keith Lampe also known as Ponderosa Pine; Sharon Krebs who butt naked delivered an actual pig’s head on a plate to a meeting of U.S. senators; Wali and Sam Leff who became Yippie archivists and life-long friends of Abbie and Anita. Most of us had come together around the levitation and siege of the Pentagon, and on New Years Eve 1967 while sitting around stoned, some of us decided to form the Youth International Party (known familiarly as Yippie!!) and plan for protests at the Democratic Convention that coming August. Intent So what was our original intent for the 68 Democratic Convention? I know what my hopes were and also those of Jerry because during those years we beat with the same heart, politically at least. On New Years Day of 1968 we planned to organize an extravagant Festival of Life in the parks of Chicago as an alternative to what we saw as their Festival of Death. There would be an extravaganza of musicians, poets, guerrilla theater, a union of hippies and political activism. This kind of grand production was not completely new. It evolved out of all we’d experienced in the last two years. The Vietnam Day Committee teach-ins while very educational were also extremely theatrical, as was Black Power Day in the Berkeley Greek Theatre where many leaders of the Black liberation movement spoke, to the dismay of the Governor of California who tried to stop it. The Be-In in Golden Gate Park involved every major rock group of the day. And then there was Jerry’s response to a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ronnie Davis of the San Francisco Mime Troupe suggested that he go dressed as an American revolutionary war figure, tri-cornered hat and all, which Jerry enthusiastically did. HUAC refused to let him testify. Jerry was not known as the PT Barnum of the left for nothing. Yes, a Festival of Life would be good. But if that were not possible, then a confrontation on a scale that would capture the attention of the whole world would also be great. If it could not be a Festival of Life, so be it. But let it be. If the confrontation became physical that too was okay. Any traces of pacifist thinking were disappearing. After all, they were raining terror and violence down on the whole Vietnamese nation, and then the whole of Indochina. There was intense repression on the Black Liberation Movement. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Others had been arrested, beaten, killed. We were just drawing out the violence that was right under the surface and for the first time it would be directed at white U.S. citizens. We knew that in its most overt form such violence was usually reserved for people of color both here and abroad. Only if it were directed at white people would there be enough cognitive dissonance to get Americans thinking. Jerry later described himself as an “armchair guerrilla:” “I never shot a gun or planted a bomb, but I supported the Vietcong and selective violence here at home. Though I am a white middle class American who enjoys a good meal and the luxury of comfort, I nevertheless share the feelings of extremist revolutionaries. My country had brutalized the red race and the black race and now we were dropping bombs on brown and yellow people. I felt my position was morally right. Anything any of us could do to stop genocide was O.K. As a child of America I had been taught that the Good Germans who did nothing to stop Hitler were also morally responsible for his crimes. I felt anger at the gap between our ideals and the cold reality of our power system.” Those were my sentiments exactly. Still are. Before the Nightstick: Shoot to Kill, Maim or Cripple In response to the Black rebellion in Chicago that followed King’s assassination, Mayor Daley had earlier that year issued his infamous “shoot to kill, maim or cripple” order and those words were reiterated over and over again in the months leading up to the Convention. Then it was announced that 6000 National Guardsmen and 7500 members of the US Army would be there as well. The Commander of the Guard warned that his men would “shoot to kill… if there is not another way of preventing the commission of a forcible felony. The troops will be carrying . . . 30 caliber ball ammunition. This kind of ammunition is made to kill.” Those of us who were not planning on committing felonies did not feel comforted by those words. We had been negotiating for months for a permit to sleep in the park. We knew that young people would arrive from all over the country without money or resources and would need a place to stay. The city stalled and stalled. The Chicago Yippies, on the flower power end of the continuum, encouraged us to keep negotiating and assured us we’d get the permits in the end. They were wrong. Mayor Richard Daley refused to issue any permits to sleep in Lincoln Park and he waited until the last minute to let us know with certainty. Many movement people began to say it was crazy to go to Chicago. Eugene McCarthy, the peace candidate, warned people not to come. Even our fragile Yippie cabal was fracturing. The folks from the Chicago Seed, an alternative newspaper, were our Yippie allies in Chicago, but they became fearful of the consequences. They said, reasonably enough, that they would have to live with the aftermath of repression that Daley would rain down on the locals after the rest of us left for home. Up until the end, we were divided about whether we’d be allowed to sleep in the park. With or without permits, we thought that if enough of us arrived in Chicago, the city would relent, preferring us to sleep in the park, rather than be pushed into the streets and cause a major confrontation. At least each of us thought that some of the time. At other times we thought we might die in Chicago. I am sure that thousands of yippies and other antiwar people were frightened away. Of the scheduled Festival of Life performers, in the end only Phil Ochs and the MC5, a band out of the Ann Arbor/Detroit area associated with the White Panthers, actually made it to Chicago. It was rumored that Country Joe and the Fish showed up but that Joe had been threatened by some beefy Chicago police in an elevator, and headed out of town ASAP. Musicians were especially reluctant to bring all their expensive equipment to such an iffy scene. But our small circle of friends knew we all had to go no matter what. Otherwise we would be acquiescing in the implementation of a police state. It would have been a done deal and we were not ready to concede that kind of defeat. A Fractured Bunch On the opening days of the Convention, a few thousand stalwarts arrived at Lincoln Park. The personal experience left a lot to be desired. I am not talking here of the police presence. Not yet. Although all us hardcore Yippies were there, we weren’t speaking to each other. Jerry and Abbie had been feuding for a while, and although I can remember most political arguments for years afterwards, I can’t for the life of me reconstruct what they were fighting over. Through the years of their collaboration, they were often fiercely competitive with each other. Jerry always felt inferior to Abbie. He wasn’t as funny. He wasn’t as clever. He wasn’t as good a writer or as good a speaker. He wasn’t as charming. And he always felt neglected by Abbie. He obsessed over his approval. Abbie, for his part, was extremely individualistic, almost in essence. He would inadvertently slight or exclude Jerry. So there were constant estrangements and reunions. This period was one of estrangement. When Jerry and Abbie were estranged, so were Anita and I. We “stood by our men” in those days. Women’s liberation was just beginning to invade my consciousness. It would be over a year before Robin Morgan would unleash her “Goodbye to All That,” declaring her break with the male-dominated left, including of course the Yippies. In it she would shout, “Free Anita Hoffman! Free Nancy Kurshan! Free Gumbo!” And although it didn’t take the sting out of it, she in all fairness included herself--“Free Robin Morgan!” But that was later and in this August of 1968 we lined up with our men. Other Yippies were pulled into the fight as well. No matter how hard people tried to remain neutral, it was generally Stew, Judy and Phil that were Jerry’s pals with Krassner at Abbie’s side. Had it been different, the whole personal experience would have been a lot better. But we were a fractured bunch. In addition, there were police everywhere. Not just in uniform but also undercover. Everywhere we went we were followed by tails, cops whose job was to stick with us like glue. They made little attempt to camouflage their task. They followed us as we walked down the street. They followed us into restaurants. One time we went into a restaurant in Lincoln Park and three cops sat down at the counter. We waited for them to order, and when their meals arrived, we got up and walked out. They also got up and walked out, leaving all their food behind, uneaten. We got some satisfaction out of ruining their lunch. A tall, burly, dark-haired biker presented himself to us shortly after we arrived. He said he knew that Jerry would be a target and he was offering his services as a bodyguard. Why not, we thought. We were actually quite an open bunch since we didn’t feel we had anything to hide. We said pretty much what we believed and what we wanted to do. Anyway it never occurred to us that he was a cop. What sense would that make? We already had cops that followed us everywhere we went. We would later find out differently but we were still naïve in too many ways. By Light of Day From August 25th through 27th, Lincoln Park had one character in the light of day and another at night. During the day, the weather was hot and humid, typical Chicago summer. I wore a short sundress and two long pigtails to stay cool. The park was filled with a few thousand people doing their own things. Some were practicing a group activity that Japanese youth had been using when faced with belligerent lines of police. It involved rows of people, several deep, with arms linked, moving forward together and shouting “Washoi.” Our friend Wolf Lowenthal was teaching people tai chi. Jeff Shero, later known as Jeff Nightbyrd, the editor of the Rat, NYC’s underground newspaper, was there publishing a daily rag. Ramparts magazine was producing wall posters, newspapers that gave information about what was going on and were pasted up onto walls around the city. Scores of activists from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were there as well. They had criticized us (the Yippies) for various reasons—too frivolous, not really organizing on a local level, etc.—but were now full participants, even leaders, since the situation had changed. They were disenchanted with the standard civil disobedience of the peace movement and had formed small groups to engage in the newly popular “mobile tactics” that were springing up around the country. We were glad to see them there. They seemed more prepared than we were for the actual situation. There were small groups of medics with white armbands, carrying first aid supplies, on the ready. They were associated with the Medical Committee for Human Rights. There were legal observers with their armbands, attorneys and law students from the National Lawyers Guild. Some people were learning how to monitor police radios. Others were riding around on bicycles bringing news from one place to the next. People were reading, sharing food, hanging out. Both the days and the nights were free form in nature. If you couldn’t “go with the flow,” it would be rough. I ran around with Jerry most of the time, not quite sure what to do with myself, moving at different moments from exhilaration to fear to occasional boredom. I can’t remember why I decided to drop THC, but I did do that one of those days. It was bad enough to imbibe any “controlled substances” in such a chaotic scene but the stuff turned out to be really awful and I got quite sick for a half a day or so. Although no permit for sleeping was granted, we thought we had a permit for a concert. That turned out to be irrelevant. As the Motor City 5 started playing, a conflict with the police ensued over the flatbed stage, and the performance ended in confusion as the cops Well-known cultural figures who understood the importance of this historical moment were present. Celebrities like Norman Mai |
