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

Fri May 11 22:33:27 UTC 2018

On Fri, 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.
>

Dellinger was by a couple of decades the oldest of the "Chicago Seven".
He's worth reading about.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Dellinger
He was a pacifist and a socialist dating back to the Depression, the
organizer of all sorts of things.  He was the real deal, an old-school
organizer who wore a coat and tie and went to prison many times for various
acts of civil disobedience.

Abbie Hoffman was more of a "superstar", in that he was in large-part
ego-driven, someone who just wanted to have fun throwing monkey wrenches
into the gears.  "Revolution for the Hell of It" is probably his best-known
book.  He and Jerry Rubin were self-styled leaders of the Yippies, and as
such did manage to capture the imaginations of a hell of a lot of
impressionable and rebellious youth.  It turned out that Abbie was bipolar,
and apparently his mania contributed to his form of "activism".

The rest of the Chicago Seven - Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and
Lee Weiner - were somewhere in between but more like Dellinger.  They were
young, but leaders of various student "movement" groups of the era.  They
were all thought to have been organizers of the protesters at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968.  As I'm
sure you know, they were all found not guilty of various conspiracies after
a tumultuous trial.

So yes, Dellinger and Hoffman were about as different as two people could
be.  They were both "anti-establishment", but in entirely different ways.

Thanks for asking.

John W, whoever he is

> On May 11, 2018, at 15:02, John W. <jbw292002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:14 PM, Karen Aram <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> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Mildred O'brien <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>
>>> To: Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com>
>>> Cc: Brussel, Morton K <brussel at illinois.edu>; Peace-discuss List (
>>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net) <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> w
>>> rote:
>>>
>>> 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>
>>> 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>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 9, 2018, at 5:02 PM, John W. via Peace-discuss <
>>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:52 PM, Karen Aram <karenaram at hotmail.com> w
>>> rote:
>>>
>>> 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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>>
>
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