“Prolier than thou” bullshit, 1967…

Two quotes from the excellent book “Dreams Die Hard” by David Harris… He’d co-founded a draft resistance outfit (called “The Resistance” and within a year it was being outflanked by groups wanting/needing to edge-lord it.

Steve, holding the fort in Berkeley, favoured the latter. Before leaving for the Northwest, we had agreed with him to postpone any decision until we returned.
Instead, he had ignored the agreement and had already held a first planning session that had been dominated by Berkeley SDS types, who badmouthed The Resistance as sacrificial “lambs” and “hopelessly middle class.” 

(Harris, 1982:190)

and

One claimed he planned to bring his “piece” to “defend” himself from “the Man.”

All that talk was duly noted by the Oakland police department informer in the room, and reported immediately to his superiors.
The Resistance, for its part, argued that the SDS plan sounded like nothing more than a way to get a lot of unsuspecting people attacked by the police. The answer to that, we were told, was that the experience would “educate” its victims to “American realities” and “radicalise” them.

In Resistance terms, that kind of usurpation of an individual’s right to decide his own course was considered manipulation, and both Dennis Sweeney and I denounced it as such. In addition, we labelled all the “working-class” jargon bullshit. Everyone involved in the discussion was white, middle class, and educated, I said, and trying to pretend they had to “impress” black people was just another version of “liberal guilt,” a bunch of students trying to act like Black Panthers.

(Harris, 1982:197)

Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑