What We Need Is A

The Right Said, [barack Obama] Is Lying, He's A Socialist Who Pals Around With Terrorists, He's A Secret Muslim And Blah Blah Blah. That Was Their Line. The Liberals All Said, He's Winking At Me, I Can Feel Him Winking In My Direction. He Wasn't Winking. He Said Exactly Who He Was And He's Lived That Out Perfectly.

That's Where We All Kind Of Were In The Mid-1960s. Students For A Democratic Society Grew From A Small Group Of Socialists At The University Of Michigan Into A National Organization, And In Many Ways, Its Growth Was Driven By The Vietnam War.

I Was Arrested 1965. I Had Come Back From The Merchant Marines, Got Into Conversations About The War. I Had Never Heard Of Vietnam Until I Was In The Merchant Marines In Constitution Square In Athens, And I Picked Up The New York Herald Or The International Herald Tribune And There Was My First Introduction Of The Word Vietnam.

I Don't Know Why There's Not More Activism Today. I Do Think That Your Generation Is Twenty Times Smarter Than Our Generation Ever Was, But The Problem With Being Smart Like You Guys Is That It Can Lead You Really Easily To Being Cynical, And Cynicism Is Actually A Pacifying Attitude.

I Thought In 1965 That My Job Was To Convince Most Americans To Be Against The War. So I Spent Summers Knocking On Doors, Handing Out Literature, Trying To Talk To People Who Didn't Agree With Me, Trying To Get Them To See The War Was Wrong. And By 1968 A Majority Of Americans Did Oppose The War.