STUDENTS FOR A DEMENTED SOCIETY
Macomber, Shawn
The $1D$ attempted a comeback this summer, only to f o i l victim to its obsessions with ~ender and white skin orivilefle. by Shown ~accmber T TOURS BEFORE HIS 1915 EXECUTION at the hands of a ]...
...The lack of engagement outside the circle, in other words, was profound...
...I don't know how many times I've heard people say, 'My brothers and sisters...,' and that leaves out a whole group of us who don't view ourselves as brothers or sisters" Alas, so few fingers, so many leaks in the dike and true amelioration ever farther away...
...The one panel I attended NOVEMBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 25 STUDENTS FOR A DEMENTED SOCIETY that dealt explicitly with Iraq, "Resisting Empire dleoftheseendlessarguments, anexasperatedtwentyFrom Within," encouraged attendees to look at resist- something young man finally stood up and said, "Just a ance in Iraq as part of'global resistance to American thought: I'm trying to overthrow the capitalist system hegemony and empire" and to "not be afraid to open- and I don't have a lot oftime to argue over who is going ly support parts of the resistance...
...Okay, maybe some nerds here care, but I don't...
...The answer wasn't clear, and not just to me...
...Chicago attorney Melinda Power was explaining that young middleclass left-wing activists who decide to go to jail for a few hours for a bit of civil disobedience should be considerate of their proletarian cellmates...
...Obviously you can't use that one again, but I always thought that was a good chant" T HE WHITE PRIVILEGE CONTROVERSY continued into the final day's plenary...
...I don't know how things feel from a minority perspective, but from a queer/trans perspective, I know how many queers feel," a dreadlocked young man with a lazy eye said...
...The very first question, post-adopting Robert's Rules of Order, was, "Can we run down exactlywhat are Robert's Rules of Order...
...The people who make me most angry are not even the oppressors, but white liberals because they think advocating against racism and being down with the cause means they're not guilty of racism" a self-described "strong female Asian separatist" barked at the mostly white audience during the NOVEMBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 23 STUDENTS FOR A DEMENTED SOCIETY White Privilege workshop...
...has left them free from superstition...
...Sometimes I think it's not the best of the New Left that's been preserved," Albert said, pointing out that the SDS enlarged its ranks when it did the less romantic work of going out, talking to people, organizing students and workers...
...Michael Albert, SDS veteran and founder of Z Magazine, who expressed little patience for those who claim to be organizers and revolutionaries, but then create a clique that ostracizes the working class-you know, that group of people who are the exact opposite of the pampered kids who work for revolution between classes...
...Is the demise of the SDS into a revolutionary faction more romantic to this generation than the organizing work Michael Albert is talking about...
...Did the majority here actually have a will or not...
...Don't come to our home looking like the big white idiot come to save the poor black or Chicano or Asian victim" Not to be outdone, Separatist Asian-spunky and foul-mouthed in low-cut tank top and ready-for-revolt bandanna-turned her fire on one particular sellout Asian...
...There is no shortage of newly minted SDS affiliated pages linking to this essay and those linking no doubt believe declaring "No Gods, No Masters...
...We keep fighting over Trotsky or Stalin, Trotsky or Stalin, Trotsky or Stalin," one exasperated young revolutionary said during a discussion of left-wing primary texts...
...Instead, the torrent of abuse from the minority members in the room continued as if theywere lecturing a roomful of Triumph of the Will extras...
...Movement for a Democratic Society...
...Well, consensus does become increasingly easy to reach when the dissenters stop voting and start leaving...
...someone asked, but the group was running low on people of color and apparently those remaining were smart enough to realize.., note taking is no fun...
...No one answered with a motion to add an "Indecisiveness" plank to the SDS constitution, so the group was reassured enough to vote to accept Robert's Rules of Order after more than an hour of bickering...
...Bruce Rubenstein might not get an advisory position on John Edwards's campaign, but should collect the Honest Lawyer of the Year award for his description of how after emerging from the revolutionary underground in the late'70s-doingwhat, who knows-he found his life calling...
...To quote Kropotkin again, this time from The Spirit of Revolt, "To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents...
...Afterwards it got even worse, with one new SDSer writing on the group's e-mail discussion list, "I simply do not believe that SDS is the place for refried Sixties' leftovers and movement vets who have been doing this stufftwice as long as I've been alive" H OW INSPIRING COULD THIS gathering possibly have been for these "refried Sixties' leftovers...
...Dutifully, a few Caucasian SDSers verbally flogged themselves, describing their difficulty in knowing their own intentions and relaying an honest-to-goodness To quote Kropotkin again, this time from The Spirit of Revolt, "To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents...
...When you go out into a minority community, you are a guest in their house;' ayoung black man said, voice high, visibly angry...
...If you read the Daily News you're an idiot...
...Yet a devil does haunt them...
...Of all the proposals the proletariat might conceivably unite behind, Gender Neutral bathrooms probably isn't one ofthem...
...q~hile attempts have been made to challenge these realities, we recognize at this convention the domination of whiteness and everything that comes along with that social construct:' The solution...
...Outside the University of Chicago building where most of the workshops and panels were held in early August, the 150 or so twenty-something proto-revolutionaries practiced simultaneously sneering and smoking their American Spirit cigarettes, clogging up stairwells and doorways, impervious to a kind word or a polite "Excuse me...
...Gothic Sex Worker narrowed her eyes, staring at Power as she fielded another question, then got up, loudly announcing to another similarly mascara festooned woman, "This is g--damn motherf---ing bulls--t" and stormed out of the room...
...In 1946 the godfather of the modern rabble-rousing left, Saul Alinsky, defined a "radical" in Reveille for Radicals as "a staunch defender ofminorityrights" who would nonetheless "combat any minority which tries to use the club of minority rights to bludgeon into unconsciousness the will of the majority...
...cool:' "With the old SDS we used to say, 'Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam is going to win'" one of the gray-hairs said to a young activist as the panel broke up...
...Some of these mini-speeches were heartwrenchingly earnest, yet none were acknowledged or praised...
...Surprisingly enough, the war in Iraq-arguably creating the ferment from which SDS could again rise-was not as an immediate concern as the witch hunt for racists and sexists...
...The Vermont delegation talked about ending war by seceding from the U.S...
...Eat at McDonald's, you're an assh--e...
...Oh, they'll march against gentrification and raft against homogeneity, but Albert is right: In practice, it is not racial divides that threaten their cause, but stylistic ones...
...I want to organize now and not have the same conversation at every single meeting about some esoteric bulls--t that happened in Russia a hundred years ago...
...And the worst vitriol was saved for white activists who had come to the convention and signed on to that mission statement en masse...
...I N THE PROLOGUE to his 1880 essayAn Appeal to the Young, anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin wrote, "I take it for granted you have a mind free from the superstition which your teachers have sought to force upon you...
...Perhaps it's more how he carries himself: "Judge comes in and everybody stands up" Rubenstein said...
...The crowd snickered...
...All white people should feel guilty all the time...
...I'm the one lawyer to never f--king stand up...
...No one cares...
...the younger asked...
...So the group had to settle for a female note-taker...
...A poverty stricken prostitute, Power said, doesn't want to hear some cheeky anthem or chant...
...There were moments when it seemed it might be necessary to present a 50-signature petition just to be granted passage...
...How can you pos siblywrite that off...
...that you do not fear the devil, and that you do not go to hear parsons and ministers rant...
...At the closing meeting a new SDSer called a motion that would force a'60s SDSer to sit down, because his standing up was creating an aura of authority...
...This is so much like 1968," the older member said...
...Occasionally a summer student would stumble into this milieu ofblackj eans and political buttons and quickly retrace his steps, an implied rebuff that amused some of the SDSers to no end...
...As happy as old school SDSers clearly were to see their old organization so revered, a number of attendees were somewhat less than reverent when it came to the old guard...
...Really...
...He scoffed, but took his seat, avoiding a vote...
...Doing its best approximation of the Farrakhan Strut, the group marched into the "National Structure" workshop and announced "with respect and revolutionary love" that for "people of color" the convention was "an alienating experience...
...When he looks himself in the mirror he knows what he is" T HE NEXT DAY the People of Color Caucus hammered away at this racial fissure...
...by Shown ~accmber T TOURS BEFORE HIS 1915 EXECUTION at the hands of a ] ~ S a l t Lake City firing squad, an IndustrialWorkers ~ . . . ~ . ~ of the World communist minstrel named Joe Hill ~ i ~ advised one of his comrades, "Don't waste any ] ~ time in mourning...
...That is the working class...
...The focus on race alone, however, was not without its discontents...
...to be the facilitator...
...Come with me to the vegan restaurant which costs a fortune and you're a genius...
...26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006...
...For all the snide comments about how the new SDS were going to avoid the mistakes of the '60s SDSers, most of those few talking any strategy more complex than what it would take to beat an eight-yearold at Candyland were the '60s radicals, particularly "Our movement embraces the idea that sports are bad," Albert said...
...Deplete recruiting finds by feigning interest in a military career to recruiters...
...What we're talking about is the peaceful dissolution of the United States," one fellow said, and a young woman marveled, "That...
...Is SDSjust a formality?Answers to these questions cannot yet be divined, but an exchange I overheard between an older SDS member and one of the less radical current organizers is instructive...
...Make the streets "ungovernable...
...and whose registration form had a box to check if you were willing to be arrested, the actuality was a bit underwhelming...
...Go ahead and mourn...
...Feel the inspiration...
...In a Z-Net interview, Brian Kelly, one of the main organizers of the four-daymeeting, said the convention would build an "SDS program that is anti-imperialist, anti-racist, queer-positive, pro-feminist and confronts the many injustices that people face in their daily lives...
...That's depressing...
...Come with me to the vegan restaurant which costs a fortune and you're a genius...
...The organization seems, to outsiders, like a madhouse...
...For a convention whose banner depicted a mob of students getting ready to throw down with the cops with the slogan "Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win...
...What about white privilege?Ayoungwoman stood up and gestured at the portraits of two dozen former University of Chicago officials and then demanded, "Look at these pictures on the wall...
...Rubenstein said...
...Albert shouted...
...Inside one could hear the delicious sound of someone asking how much Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book was ($15), but also notice a hardcore Stalinist table hawking Four Essays by Mad and Another View of Stalin...
...Organize" This was abbreviatJ ~ ] J k e d to, "Don't Mourn, Organize" a sentiment that tl r been a rallying cry ofthe activist left ever since...
...We've got bigger fish to fry...
...It was a great mistake...
...Yeah...
...In the middecisions were going to be made that day, only temporary decisions about how to make decisions in the future...
...My dad's idea of telling the world he's not a chink was to get a nice job and a nice car, and live a materialist life" she said...
...A brainstorming session came up with the following ideas: Disrupt and occupy offices that promote "militarismY Deplete recruiting finds by feigning interest in a military career to recruiters...
...All of these men masturbated the same way...
...Our role should be to raise the domestic cost of continuing this war" was a phrase batted around quite a bit...
...How could this be...
...Later an editor fretted on the SDS online discussion group that an In These Times story had focused on the concerns of "the [People of Color] caucus rather than the final plenary which was VERY productive and inspiring...
...to the Second Vermont Republic...
...It didn't happen...
...T HE PANEL CONTINUED...
...Yet sitting through the first national convention of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) since 1969when the massive radical anti-war collegiate group broke up amidst infighting and power politics into several smaller factions, including the Weather Underground domestic terror organization--it's easy to imagine a resurrected Joe Hill having second thoughts and telling this new cohort, "You know what...
...But the same old demon reared its ugly head, halting progress again: "Could we have a person of color as note-taker...
...If you read the Daily News you're an idiot...
...Not a personified Old Splitfoot, but rather in the form of a crude, counterproductive racial identity politics that paralyzed nearly every attempt at honest discourse, incited self-doubt in well-intentioned (if misguided) young hearts, and very likely destroyed the hopes and aspirations of a couple dozen pale, skinny young men dreaming of punk rock love with exotic revolutionary women at a far-off conference...
...With a mission statement like that, itwas a safe bet very few sexists, homophobes, or racists would be signing up to attend...
...I'd appreciate it if you'd use the term 'sex worker' rather than 'prostitute,'" a woman with a gothic sense of style who someone later told me was one of the "star presenters" at the "Sex Workers' Rights Are Human Rights" panel the next day, said...
...On the SDS electronic discussion board, one of the old school SDSers pleaded for an end to the "selffulfilling prophecy" of zealously embracing acrimonious splits when consensus could be found through a more reasoned dialogue...
...Concerns were voiced throughout the convention about old SDSers having undue influence over the new SDS, despite having their own newly minted organization, MDS...
...Instead of fomenting confrontations with the police, SDSers mostly bickered with one another over the most piddling rhetorical issues like members of a South Florida retirement home bridge club...
...And how...
...The work never gets done," Paul Buhle wrote...
...Doubtless, my dear shrinking violet...
...Well, I don't agree with the term 'sex worker,'" Power said, pausing for the rest of a question that never came...
...Is that the end result of resurrecting an organization with such a problematic history, especially in an era when the Weather Underground is being heralded in books and documentary films...
...Our movement embraces the idea that sports are bad," Albert said...
...Eat at McDonald's, you're an assh--e...
...I saw the effects of such insensitive misery tourism myself while jailed during the 2004 Republican National Convention and can testify to Powers point that it diminishes the ability of the activist left to build bridges to the poor, because the poor end up thinking they're a bunch of prissy jerks...
...That was, like, a hundred years ago, half a world away...
...Scatter fake body bags...
...If they didn't want to actually get down with the people, Albert said, they should "stop being a leftist and go to the beach...
...Shout recruiters down...
...Through the open door I saw her tearing up in the hallway, gesturing wildly...
...In that spirit, Albert asked if anyone had tried to organize people down at the local sports bar...
...The founding document of the original SDS, the Port Huron Statement of 1962, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pages of dense text, dealing with a larger (if more than a bit muddled) philosophy-i.e., "Ourworkis gnidedbythe sense thatwe maybe the last generation in the experiment with living"-as well as talking points on the minutiae of any number of domestic and foreign policy is sue s. It read, in part, "Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools...
...To enforce some sort of idiotic gender neutrality, ned-SDSers covered up the signs on the Men's and Women's rooms, which in practice meant every time I sidled up to the urinal in the Gender Neutral room, I had to do it with two or three girls gossiping behind me about who the cutest non-gender specific anarchists were...
...Contempt is not strictly relegated to courtrooms, however...
...SDS should engage in a cultural sensitivity that allows us to feel comfortable in this space" I waited for someone to tell them nobody feels comfortable in a roomful of strangers...
...One of the main organizers attempted to herd the rabA brainstorming session came up with bitsmoreefficientlybytellingthemthatnoreal the following ideas: Disrupt and occupy offices that promote "militarism...
...It fell apart, he said, when they decided to "go crazy" in the streets...
...Clearly, this had veered too far from the preferred narrative...
...Presumably not while feigning interest...
...Unsurprisingly, as the group dwindled in size with various delegations peeling offto head for airports and train stations, the smaller and smaller group began making decisions, such as they were, more easily...
...Yet such recriminations were par for the course...
...I realized I could be a lawyer and still f--- the system" According to Rubenstein's website, the practice areas ofyou-know-whating the system include personal 24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 SHAWN MACOMBER injury, malpractice, defective products as well as dog and animal bites, but nary a mention of anything movement related...
...Shawn Macomber isa2OO6PhillipsFoundationffournalism fellow...
...FYI: Stalinists don't take credit cards...
...Shout recruiters down...
...Compare that with the blandly predictable one and two page 2006 SDS communiques or the signage-THE WAR MACHINE EATS BABIES and IMPEACHMENT: IT'S NOT JUST FOR BLOW JOBS ANYMORE...
...After some cajoling someone agreed to take on the mirthless, thankless role of note-taker...
...The Legal Defense panel is a perfect example of how a stray word could derail dialogue...
...I asked myself, 'How could you make a living and still be a revolutionary...
...SDS and much of the progressive left has been historically, a white-male dominated, heterosexist movement;' the prepared statement went...
...desire to subvert their own privilege to the favor of the oppressed...
...And how...
Vol. 39 • November 2006 • No. 9
