david harris
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intro’d to David here.. via Joan
Joan Baez.David Harris.Carry It On
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVp2GzGTvdY]
9 min – if the people of this country decide that they aren’t going to be part of that army.. then there’s not going to be an army
10 min – the point is.. everybody has to do it themselves..
32 min – joan: the thing we need is revolution.. that man has never made.. he’s turned that sphere upside down a hundred thousand times.. and the bottom kept rising to the top.. the one thing we need .. is to recognize that human life is sacred.. and then you change everything
34 min – joan: the worst disease in the world today is that men are killing each other.. and that’s what we are going out to stop..
57 min – joan: i think everybody could be creative.. but what society does is spend 98% of its energy squelching.. all of that creativity.. and then.. that success word wouldn’t be so much in your mind to drive you..t
1:00 – joan: and is there such a thing as security.. i don’t think there is.. in the end.. what does security mean (girl w her: the search is over)
1:16 – beyond all things.. the life of a man is that man’s.. every man has an indigenous right to live..
1:17 – there’s only one way for you and i to see the things we want to see .. and that’s to build them.. and some may not be pleasant.. but it must be done.. for the simple reason that life is sacred
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may 2009
David Harris served 20 months in prison as a Viet Nam war, draft resister. He was also student body president at Stanford University. He gave the keynote address at the 40th anniversary of the “April 3rd Movement” – a student anti-war protest group that took over the Applied Electronics building for 9 days in 1969. Here are Harris’ reflections of the 60’s activism and its political and personal significance.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AH87HdcGps]
the 60’s:
1\ we purged the residues of slavery
11 min – the movement began for me when i was an incoming freshman here (stanford) in 63.. 3 months in heard about black in mississippi fighting jim crow and they wanted white students to come down and help them.. from that point on for me.. there was no looking back ..until 10 yrs later
the town i grew up in.. not a black person.. fresno.. et al.. there were no rights for blacks.. and all that enforced by lynchings and poverty.. and there was no challenging.. ie: my first contact w fbi.. he called me ‘nigger lover’
14 min – set tone for whole decade.. that relentless insistence (ie: older lady went to register to vote.. got arrested.. tortured w cattle prod in jail.. got out.. went and registered to vote) and the merger of a bunch of students who had never experienced anything close to oppression with people who had never experienced anything but oppression.. that alliance made the final push that killed jim crow and struck.. that if it didn’t kill it (racism) .. it certainly set it back
2\ we managed to vitalize stanford uni
forced it closer to being a genuine community of scholard
21 min –
3\ the transformation we brought to the larger culture of america
the america i grew up in in the 50s.. was mono.. choices were to be.. john wayne or john wayne.. there was a religious ferocity to the normalcy of america.. and to step outside.. was looked down on.. a kind of narrow minded ness that ran the store
we intro’d to america.. that id’s were something you could choose rather than having them issued to you.. as a consequence of that counter culture.. sex, drugs, rock and roll.. be-ins.. americans became more tolerant/creative/spontaneous/multicultural/independent/aware.. the paradigm of uniformity died
26 min –
4\ the war
i still can’t say those words w/o a tremor.. goes right to the place in my chest where my outrage lives
this was not a question of policy.. this was a crime who’s enormity was stunning.. a struggle over the very soul of the us.. pitting us.. a bunch of 19-22 yr olds.. who didn’t know any better.. against the most powerful institution in the world.. the us govt.. and ..that we struggled w/them.. was heroic
27 min – this war started w a lie.. was pursued w colossal arrogance.. in violation of everything the us was supposed to stand for .. from day 1 to day 4850.. it was a violation of all the precedents that had been set at the nuremburg war crimes trials.. every one of them.. there was torture.. carpet bombing.. forcible relocation of civilian populations.. chemical weapons.. concentration camps.. pillage as a matter of policy/strategy.. generating millions upon millions of refugees.. defending a govt that had no claim to existence other than american fiat.. and none of us would have accepted for 15 seconds.. when it ended.. 2 million people.. were dead.. for no good reason.. this is not something anybody gets to forget… there is no good side to it..
30 min – we re intro’d conscience to american politics
i wish..
about process
1\ evil is banal.. it is the well intentioned that are the greatest dangers..
2\ no one is powerless.. societies are participatory.. so an opening for everybody
3\ responsibility is both universal and unavoidable.. there is no neutral.. and it always endorses the status quo
4\ politics is personal.. making a decision about who you want to be.. and carrying that decision out.. you don’t lose by being real
self-talk as data.. to eudaimoniative surplus
5\ people change.. it really happens.. that whole decade we say it.. a message of hope
6\ you get what you do.. you don’t get what you talk about.. ideology/rhetoric.. what you get it what you do.. by doing things.. we bring them into existence..
38 min – the one that worries me.. by virtue of what we have done to the atmosphere.. we’re facing a level of disruption that will kill civilization as we know it.. what we’re faced with is a necessity to transform beyond anything any of us did in 1960s.. everybody on planet has to make drastic changes in the way they live.. there’s no mystery to what those changes are: consume less, share more, stop fighting and help each other..
thurman interconnectedness law
unless we are able to become our better selves.. we cannot survive..
42 min – we have to act together.. i mean all together.. the entire planet has got to be in on this or it doesn’t work.. and we can’t wait..t
as it could be.. for (blank)’s sake…
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
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find/follow David:
his site:
http://www.davidharriswriter.com/bio.html
David Victor Harris (born February 28, 1946 in Fresno, California) is an American journalist and author. He is known chiefly for his role as an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War era, most notably as a leading opponent of the Draft.
[..]
In 1967, Harris founded an organization called The Resistance, which persuaded young men of draft age to refuse to cooperate with the Selective Service System—to return all draft cards, including exemptions and deferments, and refuse to be drafted; and to work together to end the Vietnam War. Within a few years, the Selective Service System discovered that only about half of the men sent draft notices actually showed up for their draft physicals. The number of casual no-shows was too great to prosecute them all—some of them might have made a simple mistake—so the authorities only prosecuted a few leaders of The Resistance. When Harris received his draft notice, he chose neither to report nor to flee to Canada, as draft evaders had frequently done.
Harris was arrested in July 1969, and convicted of draft evasion, a federal felony. He was sentenced to a term in Federal Prison. He served about 15 months in various minimum- to medium-security prisons, where he led several hunger strikes: this provided an occasion for transfer to another prison. He was released on parole in October 1970. After his release, he gave talks about the experience. He said: “In prison, I lost my ideals, but not my principles.”
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be you. 