In the meantime, I've been reading the history of how the Weatherman came to be, which necessitates a lot of discussion about the SDS and the sectarian disputes that broke out. Very interesting.
As I said, I have been blissfully ignorant of understanding the history of such disputes or of encountering adherents of certain factions, so I have no idea how to 'read' them -- to see signs of such adherence when I read someone or interact with them IRL.
Berger does a nice job of illustrating something Carrol has often mentioned: the way "the 60s" felt to people at the time. It just seemed to sneak up on them, this vortex of world events and reaction, where it seems like so much is going on, it's taking years when in reality the events span a few months.
I'm reading Berger's description of the 1969 national convention, with "SDS claiming approximately 100,000 members." 1500-2000 showed up for the convention, with the Maoist faction, the PL (Progressive Labor Party) attempting to influence the convention by packing it with 500 attendees, skewing its representation there. And they came prepared to rumble! They all did, but dayum, PL was _really_ organized.
I bring up this part because it reminded me about recent discussion of Carrol's use of Maoist thought. It's interesting. If PL is indicative of Maoist thought, then Carrol would be a poor example of what they appeared to support: namely, that the action was with the workers; that students should give up their educations and go into the factories to organize; that anti-imperialism, anti-racism, and women's liberation were nothing but bourgeois, divisive distrations.
At the convention, the PL was at war with the dominant RYM faction (Revolutionary YOuth Movement). The factions warred with each other over minor procedural issues such as whether to allow reporters or let a member of the Red Guard in China speak at the convention.
Apparently, the PL had a reputation for being dogmatic quoters of all things Mao, which led to a point at which RYM decided to score some points by mocking them. When the PL opposed the REd Guard talk
"fifty people from the Michigan and Ohio collectives stood up, waving copies of the "little red book," ... and began chanting, "Mao Mao, Mao Tse-Tung, Dare to STruggle, Dare to Win!" ... and "Ho Ho HO Chi Minh, the NLF is Gonna Win!".... The chanting continued until the SDSers collapsed "in riotous self-applause." (p 83)
The next night, June 19, the evening ended in fisticuffs.
June 20, though, the PL lived up to its reputation when they challenged the Panthers, Brown Berets, and Young Lords. The resistance movements, PL argued, were just dividing the movement. The real issue was organizing the working class; the anti-racist, anti-imperialist tendencies of The Panthers, "whom many in SDS viewed as their inspiration," was a form of bourgeois nationalism and had to be snuffed out. Thus, whenever leaders of movements for liberation from racism, colonialism, and imperialism made demands, the PL would try to shut them down. In this case, when The Panthers, Brown Berets, and Young Lords insisted that the PL back off in their opposition, and when they demanded that SDS basically dump the PL faction, the maoist PL "tried to drown them out with cries of "Read Mao!," "Power to the Workers!" ... and "Smash Redbaiting!"
All of which resulted in more fist fights.
RYM walked out at that point, and this was the rift that meant that SDS decisively borke with the white supremacist tendencies and "allied themselves with people of color and national liberation struggles."
By the way, I did not know that there'd been such a thing as the "Port Authority Statement" which mocked the Port Huron Statement, which the SDS thought was too oriented to 'corporate liberalism" -- the man, the establishment.
Well, that's enough for me. More later.
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws