Word: shapiros
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...well they might have been--except that I never made any such speech. Shapiro invented this "recollection" to make the worker-student alliance politics behind the anit-ROTC campaign in '69 look unreal. The Workers Student Alliance Caucus (WSA) won many to transcend a narrowly student-centered approach, to take on broad problems (war and ROTC, racism and Harvard expansion) from a consciously proworker, anti-big-business vantage point. Instead of fighting ROTC because "militarism sullies an otherwise neutral university," we said fight ROTC because it serves the giant financial interests which control Harvard (among other things) and use ROTC...
Sample Distortion No. 2: Early in "We" Shapiro quotes me claiming I was ahead of my time, that I originated student activism, and so on: that is he makes me sound like a real jerk. This is the "communists are megelomaniacs" bait. However a little later on, Shapiro does a complete flip-flop and, as if he'd never hinted I was so self-centered, says: "Jared strongly dislikes talking about himself." Shapiro then goes on to attack me for this, saying I've dissolved my personality into the party, that I give "we" answers to "me" questions...
...event, Shapiro is lying both times so why fuss over contradictions? I answered his questions like my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Wynertzky, taught me, politely, using "I" or "we" depending on whemher the singular or plural seemed appropriate. For example, I said that "we" (in this instance, the May 2nd movement), rather than me personally (as Shapiro reports it) initiated the Harvard anti-war movement in '64. Unlike Shapiro's other case studies, me and others in the WSA didn't drop off into a private world after '69. Since "we" have done much political organizing and much discussing things...
Sample Distortion No. 3: Shapiro claims I said: "We expected to get our asses kicked through a tree, and we did. It was one of the most moving [?!] experiences of my life. We expected to get killed. It was like watching the dogs go after the foxes." This really wins the prize. I never said this insane garbage, if I had I'd deserve the Masochist of the Year award. What did inspire me was the tremendous spirit of people during the bust. Unlike foxes being chased by hounds, it was a tremendous, collective sort of heroism, with everyone much...
...Shapiro paints a different picture of our opponents at the time, the "new left" caucus, one of whose leaders, Mike Kazin, is treated especially kindly--expecially now that he's coming on even less radical than he did back in '69. (Kazin always talked about how he'd been radical when younger but now knew better, so maybe he hasn't changed). Shapiro presents Kazin as a leader of the "small group" which planned the University Hall takeover. In fact the plan was first worked out in the WSA caucus. We then presented it to a mammoth SDS meeting which...