[Marxism] SDS miscellany

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Counterpunch, April 5, 2007
Convergence Not Division
The New and Old SDS

By BERNADINE DOHRN

Christopher Phelps has written a timely but 
ultimately disappointing article in The Nation 
about the vibrant and growing student movement. 
[The New SDS (April 16, 2007)] He transforms the 
tough challenges of movement-building into a set 
of tepid formulas about what not to do. The new 
wave of student activism in America and around 
the world is a hopeful development worthy of our 
active participation and respect.

Yet Phelps focuses on the sectarian divides of 
the MDS generation rehearsing old political 
grudges or offering simplistic "lessons" from the 
New Left, rather than highlighting the steps 
forward and the common ground between radical organizers.

Our points of convergence (young and old, 
organizers and activists) are numerous, including 
the need to strive for participatory democracy 
and non-exclusion, resist the savage US wars and 
occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, fight brutal 
poverty and gluttonous wealth here and globally, 
act to end catastrophic climate change, racial 
injustice and patriarchal power, and reject the 
permanent so-called war on "terror" in toto.

Phelps would have benefited from more attention 
to what led to coordinated anti-war actions on 60 
campuses last month, and to the new SDS diverse 
political campaigns ranging from getting military 
recruiters out of high schools and off campuses 
to anti-sweatshop coordination, from opposition 
to police violence against the community to 
protest when war criminals speak, from support 
for Assata Shakur and the new Panther 8 
defendants to fights for universal health 
care--radical youth organizing is broad and deep. 
This is the power and the inspiration of a vast, 
left umbrella network with variety and vigor.

Phelps stereotypically characterizes me as a 
"celebrity" while the male ideologues are 
described by what they say about politics. I 
object. Who knows why any speech or article is well received?

At the SDS conference at Brown University in 
Spring 2006, it seemed that the political 
substance of my talk was what generated the 
positive response from students: the urgent needs 
to reject the framework of US military and 
economic empire, to forge active opposition to 
white supremacy and grapple with the issue of 
multiracial organization, and to reckon with the 
importance of direct action to organizing and 
educating. I intentionally ignored the challenge 
to debate the issue of what killed SDS 38 years 
ago and who was right when, in favor of exploring 
what we all can do, in solidarity, now. Building 
bridges between issues, finding points of 
convergence, and creating an independent radical 
movement resonates across generations. The last 
thing the new SDS needs is patronizing elders 
wagging their fingers with cautionary tales.

Bernardine Dohrn, Clinical Associate Professor of 
Law and Director and founder of the Children and 
Family Justice Center at the Northwestern 
University School of Law, is a child advocate who 
teaches, lectures and writes about children's law 
and justice, the needs and rights of children and 
youth, and international human rights.

===
Columbia Daily Spectator, April 5, 2007
SDS Returns to CU Campus
Organization Sponsored 1968 Protests, Defunct for About 40 Years
By: Alex Peacocke

A student activist group that spearheaded the 
takeover of Hamilton Hall in April 1968 has been resurrected on campus.

Revived on the national stage in January 2006, 
Students for a Democratic Society boasts 247 
chapters nationwide but has opted to remain 
decentralized, without a national hierarchy or president.

Columbia's chapter held its inaugural meeting 
last night in Kent, attracting any with prior 
involvement in left-wing organizations.

SDS, which supported an actively democratic 
society with power in the hands of the people, 
sponsored the takeover of Hamilton. The protest 
was launched after the administration refused to 
end its affiliation with weapons research think 
tank the Institute for Defense Analyses and was 
partly in response to the University's plan to build a gym in Morningside Park.

After the administration failed to sever ties 
with the IDA and expressed its intent to go ahead 
with building plans for the gym that included 
separate entrances for members of the University 
and for Harlem residents, the situation devolved.

Members of the SDS joined forces with other 
student and local activist groups to hold a 
sit-in in Hamilton. As the protest garnered 
national media attention, activists from SDS and 
affiliated organizations formed human chains 
around four other campus buildings-including Low 
Library-shutting University administrators out of their offices.

After seven days of demonstrations and 
negotiations between protesters and the 
administration, University President Grayson Kirk 
asked the police to remove the demonstrators.

At 2:30 in the morning the following day, about 
1,000 police officers responded to Kirk's 
request, and using what many consider excessive 
force, disbanded the protests, with nearly 700 
arrests and 100 injuries. The subsequent fallout 
from the violence led to the resignation of Kirk 
and exacerbated an already tenuous relationship between activists and the NYPD.

After the incident, the SDS and the leader of 
Columbia's chapter, Mark Rudd-who was expelled 
from the University for his involvement-gained national notoriety.

Political infighting and leadership struggles 
shook the national structure of the SDS, which 
began to crumble in 1969 and slowly declined into 
obscurity. The organization disappeared completely by 1972.

According to its Web site, the new SDS is "an 
education and social action organization 
dedicated to increasing democracy in all phases 
of our common life. It seeks to promote the 
active participation of young people in the 
formation of a movement to build a society free 
from poverty, ignorance, war, exploitation, racism and sexism."

Similar ideologies were expressed during last night's meeting.

The SDS "needs intellectual and moral clarity" 
said Lane Sell, GS, who had expressed interest in 
joining the organization, but who left the meeting long before its conclusion.

Alex Cline, New School '10 and a member of that 
University's chapter of SDS, who played and 
active role in the meeting, explaining some of 
the group's previous activities, countered Sell's 
claim by saying it was "much better to get a core 
group of committed people" working together on specific actions.

Cline did not elaborate the specific goals of the core group.

Journalism school professor Todd Gitlin and 
national president of the SDS from 1963-64 said 
that the ideological haze currently engulfing the 
organization was not always present.

"When I was involved in SDS, we were rather 
clear. We could have given you an analysis of 
what was going on," he said. "The message of a 
student organization is whether or not it is 
creative. ? It [the revival] seems like an odd way to start."

--

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