Students for a Democratic Society

[Comrade B]

So, it looks like I am joining this group... anyone know anything about it before I join up? It sounds like a pretty mixed group of communists, socialists, and anarchists.

[h0m0revolutionary]

Make it your first duty to tell them to change their name.

Other than that i've heard ok things about them, but as far as I know, they have their roots in the New Left, there shouldn't be any anarcho inveolement surely?

[Durruti's Ghost]

I wouldn't say there shouldn't be any anarchist involvement...


Some in the U.S. New Left argued that since the Soviet Union could no longer be considered the world center for proletarian revolution, new revolutionary Communist thinkers had to be substituted in its place — Mao Zedong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong), Ho Chi Minh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh) and Fidel Castro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro) were identified as key contributors to this new framework. Other elements of the U.S. New Left were anarchist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist) and looked to libertarian socialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism) traditions of American radicalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Left), and investigated the Industrial Workers of the World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World) and previous union militancy. This group coalesced around the historical journal Radical America and in grouplets. American Autonomist Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomist_Marxism) was also a child of this stream the U.S. New Left, for instance in the thought of Harry Cleaver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Cleaver). Murray Bookchin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin) and Noam Chomsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky) were also part of the anarchist stream of the New Left, as were the Yippies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yippies).
The U.S. New Left both influenced and drew inspiration from black radicalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Black_radicalism&action=edit&redlink=1), particularly the Black Power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Power) movement and the more explicitly left-wing Black Panther Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party). The Panthers in turn influenced other similar militant groups, like the Young Lords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Lords), the Brown Berets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Berets) and the American Indian Movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement).

[Comrade B]

Mostly it seems like a good way to hitch rides to Seattle protests and meet some good people in a new environment. The girl that told me I should join was an anarchist, but I have heard that they are made up of a variety of different views.