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Anti-war activist stresses organization, awareness
Rudd reflects on Vietnam, ‘imperialist U.S.’
By Ryan Cardarella
“Nowadays, people feel like no matter what you do, you can’t make a difference. But I think that is starting to change. I mean look around this room.”
- Mark Rudd, anti-war organizer
Mark Rudd, a noted anti-war organizer and former member of the militant Weathermen Underground faction, spoke on U.S. imperialism and the importance of organization in developing movements Thursday before an ample crowd in the Fireside Lounge.
Rudd gained notoriety for his role in organizing anti-Vietnam war protests at Columbia University in the late 1960s. A split in the anti-war Students for a Democratic Society led to the creation of the Weathermen Underground, a group that utilized symbolic bombings as a means to agitate against the war in Vietnam. The group fractured in 1970 when a bomb Weathermen members were working on accidentally detonated in lower Manhattan, killing three representatives of the faction. The bomb was intended to be used in an attack on a noncommissioned military officers’ dance at Fort Dix. Though involved with bombings and attacks on buildings, Rudd said he is now against any form of violent protest.
“We are lucky we only killed our own people. We really would have killed the anti-war movement,” said Rudd, commenting on the impact that the Fort Dix bombing could have had, if not for the accident.
“The results of the Weathermen were terrible,” he added.
Melding contemporary issues with past conflicts, he spoke often of the notion of U.S. imperialism, referring to the wars in Vietnam, Central America in the 1980s, and the ongoing Iraq war as acts of an empire asserting its dominance.
“Noam Chomsky has said that the goal of the U.S. is global domination through violence. I’ve begun to believe he is right,” said Rudd.
According to Rudd, America has engaged in a series of wars to assert control and influence around the world, using morality as a basis for much of the action.
Rudd believes that role of morality in movements can be dangerous, noting that everyone from the Bush administration to anti-war activists feel that they are morally justified in their actions.
“People always convince themselves that what they are doing is moral,” said Rudd.
Rudd expressed regret in some of his approaches to the movement after years of reflection and thought, paying too little attention to organization and allowing ideology and morality to get carried away.
“We thought our courage would galvanize people, but it didn’t work,” Rudd said. “We went from really good organizing to bad organizing.”
Rudd said the Weathermen spawned from a non-violent, well-organized group before devolving into a militant organization that utilized bombings. Additionally, ideology within the organization continually tore apart the anti-war movement, with differing factions repeatedly breaking off from the group.
“Part of our problem as intellectuals is that we think all of our ideas are true,” said Rudd. “We believe our own shit too much.”
In a time of war and social trepidation among the younger generation, Rudd attempted to parallel contemporary issues with the highly tumultuous times of the 1960s and early ’70s.
Ideologically, our generation appears to be more cynical than the anti-Vietnam generation in terms of our capacity to impact change and challenge social and political norms, though Rudd notes this may be changing.
“The notion was, what an individual does can make a difference. That idea permeated the 1960s,” said Rudd. “Nowadays, people feel like no matter what you do, you can’t make a difference. But I think that is starting to change. I mean look around this room.”
The primary challenge in organizing youth today, according to Rudd, is yanking them out of the realm of the entertainment culture that is so much more invasive today. Rudd estimates that only a small percentage of youth has pulled away from popular culture to immerse themselves in the issues that face the country, but is optimistic that a small and educated minority can make a difference.
“I think the stuff with the war and New Orleans has started to shake people up,” said Rudd.
Ultimately, change and mass opposition to U.S. imperialism will come only through greater organization, and the ability to grow that small and educated minority among our pop-culture obsessed generation, Rudd believes.
“The main idea is to get people together to do what can’t be done alone,” said Rudd.
Rudd’s appearance was sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chapter of Students for a Democratic Society.
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