[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord

Fri May 11 22:33:16 UTC 2018

Both were committed activists, for all their difference in style.

I remember someone writing, after Hoffman’s suicide, “Abbie was always full of surprises. I could have done without this last one.”

Requiescant in pace.  —CGE

> On May 11, 2018, at 5:05 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Were Abbie Hoffman and Dave Dellinger serious organizers, or were they just the “superstars.”
> 
> I was informed in the seventies, by some of the serious organizers that those two were the latter.
> 
>> On May 11, 2018, at 15:02, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com <mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:14 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com <mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Carl
>> 
>> Your statement: 
>> 
>> “What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community’s counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.” 
>> Makes sense and I believe this is what happened based upon what I have read, and what you have said stated many times.
>> 
>> I have also heard others discuss how many people turned to “personal pursuits” as a result of Edward Bernais propaganda. The turn on, navel gazing crowd, populating the west coast began a movement, in the sixties that dulled the senses of many of those who “participated in political activism of the 60’s and 70’s”, not the serious organizers, who often were older and continued the struggle.
>> 
>> In a word, Dave Dellinger vs. Abbie Hoffman.  Ironically, Abbie became a serious environmental activist years later in upstate New York, before committing suicide at age 53.  But he and Timothy Leary had turned a generation of college students into "yippies".
>> 
>>  
>> Just as today, its difficult with only small turn outs. 
>> 
>> Many of the groups such as the SWP regrouped under a new strategy, of taking individuals out of the cities, off of campuses, into more rural areas in order to organize unions, unfortunately many as a result, dropped out rather than uproot their lives. 
>> 
>> This is why I find it difficult to believe that the masses demonstrating against US interventions in Latin America were larger than that which took place during the Vietnam war. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On May 11, 2018, at 11:31, John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <moboct1 at aim.com <mailto:moboct1 at aim.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I suppose John W. (whoever he is) represents mainstream rural America, uninformed and unread, gullible patriots.
>>> 
>>> You replied only to me, Mildred/Midge, so you may as well just address me directly, whoever I am.  Anything else would be rude and boorish.  But here, I'll add us back in to the peace-discuss discussion.
>>> 
>>> I don't "represent" mainstream rural America, except insofar as I lived and worked in that environment for 20 long years, and know what their interests are and how they think.  I was a fish out of water, but it was water that I was forced to swim in for all those years, and I really didn't know how to find fresher, purer water such as the kind that YOU plainly have been privileged to swim in.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  
>>>   He no doubt represents more of the population than informed activists,
>>> 
>>> Again, I'm absolutely certain that that benighted population is far, far higher than the population of "informed activists", who as often as not can't even agree among themselves as to priorities, tactics, and strategies, and end up breaking into splinter groups and driving away those who might have been allies.
>>> 
>>> You see, I've now been an "informed activist" in THIS community for 20 long years, and I see how IT works too.  I have what might be termed by Noam Chomsky a "basis for comparison".
>>> 
>>>  
>>> but to say there was no opposition in those days is not accurate at least in this area.
>>> 
>>> I at least didn't assert that in any way, shape, or form.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> Midge
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
>>> To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com <mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>>
>>> Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu <mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>>; Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>) <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>>
>>> Sent: Fri, May 11, 2018 1:09 pm
>>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 8:41 AM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com <mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> It’s good to know that more Americans were protesting the USG Central American wars in the late 70’s and 80’s than even those protesting the Vietnam war in the 60”s. I had no idea, until you made the statement, below. I have the excuse of being in Asia from Spring 1977 on through the next 22 to 28 years, with brief visits to the US at times. However, I’m wondering if most Americans even knew of the opposition at the time, due to limited media coverage?
>>> 
>>> No, most Americans had no idea.  Our "boys" weren't fighting and dying there, so most Americans outside of university communities had no particular awareness of what was going on in Central America, and no interest in finding out.  There was very little mainstream media coverage.  Living in a small blue-collar Illinois town back then, I never did figure out the difference between the Sandinistas and the Contras, just as an example.  And didn't really care.  Nor did I understand what the whole Ollie North scandal was all about.  There was no internet in those days, remember, and I personally didn't even read a daily newspaper.
>>> 
>>> I think academics and "progressives" and "revolutionaries" absolutely, dramatically overestimate the amount of support they have in middle America for their various causes.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 15:32, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> You’re both forgetting the organizing in this country against the US government's Central American wars of the 1970s and ‘80s - arguably involving more Americans than the Vietnam protests of the ‘60s.
>>> 
>>> A decorated (indicted) hero of those wars, Oliver North, has just become head of the NRA.
>>> 
>>> What happened after 1975 was the construction of a vicious counter-narrative, neo-conservatism, to join the business community's counter-attack on ’the Sixties,’ neoliberalism.
>>> 
>>> Beginning in the Carter* administration, neolib and neocon lies dominated US politics. 
>>> 
>>> President Bush I celebrated the real success of the first Gulf War (1990-91): “...by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome [ = reluctance of Americans to engage in neo-colonial wars, after Vietnam] once and for all!”
>>> ______________________________
>>> 
>>> * "At one point, President Jimmy Carter actually said that the U.S. owed no reparations to Vietnam because 'the destruction was mutual.’” 
>>> <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes <http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=265&print=yes>>
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com <mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam war was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to California to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into the eighties, where greed was good.  So here we are on the brink of nuclear war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison. 
>>> 
>>> Right you are, Karen.  And more or less my point.  Every several decades there's a new generation of young idealists who are going to "straighten out" the mess their parents made.  And always, always, always with the same result.  Or, if not EXACTLY the same result, close enough that "it rhymes", as Carl is fond of quoting.
>>> 
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