re: #217 Joe Bacon 🌹

William, I sure do remember the Harrington/Rustin split in the Socialist Party. I stayed in Social Dems and DSOC for several years. It got very acrimonious, lots of friction on both sides. I had to abandon Social Democrats when Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Gershman, Kemble and Puddington (SDUSA leaders) all went in with Reagan. The last nail in the coffin was Kemble writing in the New Republic supporting the Contras when we knew what was going on in South Central. I got in an argument with Jim Wood here in Los Angeles that siding with the Contras was the death warrant. Wood got to the point where we could no longer talk without him erupting. Anyway SDUSA collapsed and totally went into the GOP. Now there are a couple people trying to resurrect it and it’s interesting to see that it’s now centered in Pittsburgh by a couple folks that I had clashes with in the 70s…

I never could really get into the hyperpolitical types, not in Madison, not in San Francisco, not in New York. I met both Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin some time after the revolution was supposed to be won and disliked them both. They seemed to me to be on lunar ego trips. I still remember an antiwar rally in San Francisco where Tom Hayden was the featured speaker. My lady friend and I could see him on the stand before we could hear him. We stopped and watched his gestures. I said, “Jesus Christ, it’s Mussolini.” In New York i almost daily walked past the gaping hole that had been a Weathermen bombmaking den before they screwed up big time.

Fuck a revolution that can’t do minimum due diligence or get its prospective followers to like its supposed leaders.