Word: sds
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...believe the American economy is in no way like the European economy of the 19th century? Or do you think that the war in Vietnam is a defense of the liberty of a small nation against an invasion by the aggressing agents of a world conspiracy? Or that SDS is run by a handful of students "including two or three sons of active Communists"? Or, do you believe, as one professor said to us that day in Paine Hall at about 12:30, that Harvard SDS probably takes orders from German SDS...
...system," by destroying it. They are the ones who "think it is enough just to wreck, not to rebuild." Despite the fact that Dean Ford here speaks "not without sympathy," the vagueness and inaccuracy of this statement verge on the incompetent. It is inaccurate, because many of us in SDS do rather well in school, even in Dean Ford's terms. We make the Dean's List, win fellowships, go on to graduate school, and even write books. But it is really not crucial to try to do sociological studies (though people like Kenneth Keniston are doing them) to show...
Finally, the members of Progressive Labor are not, as Dean Ford implies, the only "politically doctrinaire revolutionaries" at Harvard. In fact, they are perhaps the least likely group within SDS to think it enough to destroy without rebuilding. For their position on this point (and so far as I understand it I agree with it) is precisely that you cannot destroy something unless you already have the potential to build in its place. (This, I take it, is something akin to what Marx means when he talks of the maturation of socialist forces of production within the womb of capitalism...
When one of our leaders in SDS said (during the Dow demonstration) that "we are going to bring this university to an end, as you know it," liberals frequently ignored the qualifying phrase "as you know it." Our position will seem purely destructive, only if you feel that what Dean Ford calls the present "fundamental distribution of roles and responsibilities in the University" is sacrosanct. For it is true that if we had our way that distribution of roles and responsibilities (not to mention power) would be destroyed. We do desire (at least) a "fundamental alteration" -- as Ford puts...
...When he talks of "responding to sensible proposals for change," I am very much afraid he means to exclude not only any of our suggestions--that much I would have expected -- but also most proposals from those he calls "doctrinaire advocates of 'student power.'" Since very few people in SDS are interested in student power any more as a question of doctrine, I presume Dean Ford is referring to those liberals, particularly in student government, who are frustrated by their inability to implement their reforms, and outraged by the secret dealings of faculty and administration committees. The committees...