Jump in more often
David Horowitz and his book Radical Son tells me that honest thought will lead most people out of the Liberal swamp...I never really went that far left in my 20s ....I just didnt question the thinking du jour enough.
I read Horowitze's book.Fascinating account of those times.To be honest,Horowitz never had as much crediblity with the radical left as he claimed. He was more of an armchair Marxist,comfortably ensconsed in his office at Ramparts Magazine while the Street Fighting Men on Telegraph Avenue were "smashing the State"and causing chaos in the most wildly anachistic ways possible.
For me,the moment I knew the New Left"communards"-especially the leaders-had played their followers for suckers was when Tom Hayden took the ten million dollar divorce settlement from Jane Fonda!This was the same Tom Hayden who conducted a workshop at the "People's Festival"in Berkeley in 1969 about how to use guns to"protect ourselves from pigs and right wingers".How paradoxical.
To be fair,I had qualms with many on the Right also,especially a particulary virulent JBS chapter head from Southern Califonia who used to try to fill my head with some obnoxious racist garbage,both anti-black and anti-Jewish.I used to walk out of his house at Lake Tahoe feeling dirty inside.Thankfully,the following year they sold the house and his ill vibe found someone else to haunt.