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"The goal of man and society should be humanindependence," theyinsisted. "Ask not what your country can do for you#ask what you can do for your country" "the University ofcalifornia at Berkeley was the single most important source of volunteers for the peace corps"
"The goal of man and society should be humanindependence," theyinsisted. "Ask not what your country can do for you#ask what you can do for your country" "the University ofcalifornia at Berkeley was the single most important source of volunteers for the peace corps"
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"The goal of man and society should be humanindependence," theyinsisted. "Ask not what your country can do for you#ask what you can do for your country" "the University ofcalifornia at Berkeley was the single most important source of volunteers for the peace corps"
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Formati disponibili
Scarica in formato TXT, TXT o leggi online su Scribd
The 1960s: Fascism Takes to the Streets�BUILDING A POLITICS OF
MEANING�180�rhePort�Huron Statement, the signature document of the New Left, was
for�all its overwrought verbiage a well-intentioned statement of democratic optimism�and admirable honesty. The authors#chief among�them Tom Hayden#conceded that they were in fact bourgeois radicals. "hred in at least�modest comfort." Driven by a sense of alienation from the American way of life, the�young radicals craved a�sense of unity and belonging, a rediscovery or personal meaning�through collective political endeavors. Life seemed out of balance.�1. Their aim was to create a political system that would restore "human meaning"�(whatever that�is). "The goal of man and society," they insisted, "should be human�independence: a concem not with image of popularity but with�finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic." This urge for�self-assertion should be translated into a politics that could unleash�the "unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self- direction, selfunderstanding,�and creativity"31�^""At the time, youth activists found a willing ear in mainstream�liberalism, which was preaching more and more about "national service," "sacrifice,"�and "action" John F. Kennedy#the youngest�E'riNliost famous line, "Ask not�what your country can do for you#ask what you can do for your�country," resonated with a generation desperate to find collective re'j"mn+1rm in�oeace the way their parents had in war.�March 1962, "Three out ofevery four students believe 'that what the�nation needs is a strong fearless leader in whom we can have faith.'"�The University of�Califomia at Berkeley#the home of the first campus revolt of the�960s#provided "the single most important source ofvolunteers for�the Peace Corps in the early 1960s." When the Student Peace Union,�QT SPU, protested in front of the White House in February 1962,�Kennedy ordered his kitchen to send the picketers coffee while the�SPU proudly distributed copies of a New York Times article which�claimed that the president was "listening" to them.32�And then there was the quest for community. The Red Diaper�Babies of the 1960s inherited from their parents the same drive to�create a new community organized around political aspirations.�^|hrase for liberals and leftists alike in the 1960s was "commu"*""" "community action,"�"community outreach," "communities o^�mutual respect"�As Alan Brinkley has noted, most of the protests and conflagrations of the 1960s�had their roots in a desire to preserve or create�communities. The ostensible issue that launched the takeover of�Columbia University in 1968 was the encroachment of the campus�into the black community. The administration's appeasement of�Black Nationalists was done in the name of welcoming blacks to the�Comell community, and the Black Nationalists took up arms because�they felt that assimilation into the Comell community, or the white�community generally, amounted to a negation of their own commuSubstitute the word "fascist" for "radical" in many of Alinsky's�statements and it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference: "Society�has good reason to fear the Radical... Vte h^s he hurts, he is dangerous. Conservative interests know that while Liberals�are most�adept at breaking their own necks with their tonsues, Radicals are�aaept ai oreaKing their own necks with their tongues, Mauicais ui^�Radicals are�most adept at breaking the necks of Conservatives." And: "The�Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled�""*^ hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates�these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or�interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people" In other words, they're not people but dehumanized symbols.�"Change means movement," Alinsky tells us. "Movement means�^/'tion. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract�world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction�worid can movei�) Saul Alinsky, whose�Rulesfor Radicals served as a bible for the New Left (and who later�became one of Hillary Clinton's mentors), shared the fascist contempt for liberals as comipted bourgeois prattlers: "Liberals in their�