Carl and I were suppose to go to Cuba. I couldn't raise the money but the group got isolated in Mexico City, many had to redo the trip later on.
I was very fond of Carl, for one reason he treated me warmly and has a friend. >Carl Oglesby - 60s Activist Remembered > >* Carl Davidson remembrance >* Forbes.com obituary - '60s activist Carl Oglesby dies in > NJ at age 76 > >========== > >Carl Oglesby sadly left this world this morning after a long >bout with cancer. > >Carl Davidson post on Facebook page - SDS & 60s Leftists >September 13, 2011 > >https://www.facebook.com/groups/203677943435/?notif_t=group_activity > >Carl Oglesby sadly left this world this morning after a long >bout with cancer. President of SDS from 1965-66, he was a >passionate American radical and one of the New Left's most >eloquent speakers and critical thinkers. I made several >trips to Antioch College in the 1960s just to pick his >brain. His main books then were 'Containment and Change' and >'the Yankee-Cowboy War', from which many of us learned to >look at our society in a deeper way, to be better able to >change it. I'll post more later... > >========== > >'60s activist Carl Oglesby dies in NJ at age 76 > >by Hillel Italie, >Associated Press > >Forbes.com >September 13, 2011 - 08:40 PM EDT > >http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/13/entertainment-us-obit-oglesby_8677036.html > >NEW YORK -- Carl Oglesby, a dynamic activist in the 1960s >who headed the campus organization Students for a Democratic >Society and gave an influential and frequently quoted speech >denouncing the Vietnam War and those who broke his "American >heart," has died at age 76. > >Oglesby died Tuesday at his home in Montclair, N.J. Todd >Gitlin, a friend and fellow activist who went on to write >several books, said Oglesby had been fighting lung cancer >that spread throughout his body. > >Born in 1935 and an undergraduate at Kent State University, >Oglesby was years older than Gitlin and other '60s student >radicals he befriended and was living a more conventional >life at the time he met them. He was married, with three >children, and was working for a defense contractor. But >while studying part time at the University of Michigan, in >Ann Arbor, he was so disgusted by the Vietnam War and so >taken with the then-emerging Students for a Democratic >Society (SDS), and the society with him, that he soon became >its president and most memorable orator. > >"The only other person who compared to him was Martin Luther >King," Gitlin says. "He had the mastery of vivid phrases and >also the power of mobilizing people." > >The SDS had been founded in 1960 at the University of >Michigan, and its early declaration, the Port Huron >Statement, helped embody the idealism of the early '60s. The >SDS supported civil rights and opposed the nuclear arms >race. It was strongly critical of the U.S. government and >called for greater efforts to fight poverty and big >business. By the mid-'60s, when Oglesby joined, the United >States had committed ground troops to Vietnam and the SDS >had expanded nationwide, with a more radical purpose, one >well captured by its new president. > >The earnest and bespectacled Oglesby helped organize teach- >ins and rallies, and his stature peaked in November 1965 at >an early, and massive, anti-war rally in Washington. In an >address titled "Let Us Shape the Future," Oglesby spoke as a >disillusioned patriot and liberal who rejected not just the >war, which liberals had escalated, but much of American >foreign policy since the end of World War II and the free >enterprise system he believed demanded endless conflict. He >was equally critical of Republican and Democratic presidents >as victims, and enablers, of the corporate state and >insisted the country's founders would have been on his side. > >"Our dead revolutionaries would soon wonder why their >country was fighting against what appeared to be a >revolution," he declared to ever growing applause > >In his most memorable phrase, he challenged those who called >him anti-American: "I say, don't blame me for that! Blame >those who mouthed my liberal values and broke my American >heart." > >Activist and fellow SDS leader Tom Hayden called Oglesby a >"radical individualist" in the tradition of Henry David >Thoreau. He remembered Oglesby as a "brainy," self-taught >man whose research into the Cold War and national security >had convinced him that Communism was not the enemy and that >change in the United States would have to reach far beyond >getting out of Vietnam. > >"He used to think you could argue with Pentagon >intellectuals like (Secretary of Defense) Robert McNamara >and get them to change their minds," Hayden told The >Associated Press. "But he later decided there would have to >be a fundamental power shift." > >Gitlin noted that part of Oglesby's appeal was his own >story, one millions of people could relate to. He wasn't an >Ivy Leaguer or angry rich kid. He grew up working class, >from the Midwest, in Akron, Ohio, and had far more >experience than his fellow activists. He had given up a >safe, comfortable life, much to his father's anger, to >change the world. He also knew how to communicate, having >briefly tried a career in New York in his 20s as an actor >and playwright and attempting to write a novel. > >But the '60s proved an unfulfilled dream from which he never >recovered, Gitlin says. By the end of the decade, King and >Robert F. Kennedy had been killed, the Vietnam War was still >on and Oglesby was being thrown out of the organization he >helped grow. Violent activists such as the Weathermen >dismissed Oglesby as a "hopeless bourgeois liberal." Oglesby >labeled the Weathermen's politics as "road rage and comic >book Marxism." > >"He suffered greatly from that, maybe more than anyone else >of the older crown, from being targeted by the Weathermen as >a bad guy," Gitlin said. "He used to say that the Weathermen >were like the children of his generation, dismantling what >had been achieved." > >In recent years, Oglesby became obsessed with the Nov. 22, >1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He wrote >the books "Who Killed JFK?" and "The JFK Assassination" and >contributed an afterword to Jim Garrison's "On the Trail of >the Assassins." In 2008, his memoir "Ravens in the Storm" >was published. He recorded music and taught at Dartmouth >College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He >also was featured in the 1991 television documentary "Making >Sense of the Sixties," which he didn't know how to do. > >"We had an experience, which I suppose is unique in American >history and which nobody who ever went through it will ever >forget, an experience filled with treasured moments and >nightmares alike," he said during the documentary. "The '60s >will never level out. It's a corkscrew. It's a tailspin. >It's a joy ride on a rollercoaster. It's a never-ending >mystery." > >___________________________________________ > >Portside aims to provide material of interest to people >on the left that will help them to interpret the world >and to change it. > >Submit via email: [email protected] > >Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3 > >Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq > >Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe > >Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive > >Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate John Johnson Change-Links Progressive Newspaper [email protected] http://change-links.org Subscribe to our list server. 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