Sorry if you think that I am harsh, but folks like Susan (and yes, David Horowitz too) destroyed my town (Berkeley) and my University and forced my family to flee -- first to neighboring Piedmont, CA and then to Texas -- to protect my children from this kind of dreadful influence.
Side note: I actually encountered David Horowitz in front of my neighborhood hardware store during the period he is writing about in his ode to Susan when I asked him to sign a petition to save our schools. He was rude and obnoxious to me, a mother with a baby in a stroller and two children under 4 hanging on to her skirt. (The kindergartner was in school at the time.
I was wearing my best and most stylish Italian knit suit and heels, and he looked me up and down and declared, with the greatest contempt, that he wouldn't sign the innocuous petition I was circulating asking that the teachers be consulted in any plan that the school board imposed on our schools because he could tell BY THE WAY I WAS DRESSED that I probably wouldn't sign HIS petition against the Viet Nam War. I stared him hard in the eye and said, "Try me." Of course he was bluffing, and he had no petition. He and his Communist friends were more attuned to violence than petitioning.
I spent uncounted hours of precious family time (as did my husband) working with various groups to counter propaganda from these "free thinkers" in our schools and in the neighborhood in general. They destroyed the city, and finally my home state -- California.
Of course, I became a conservative Republican along the way. Would I do anything different today? Probably not, but sometimes I wish I had that time back so that I could have taken better care of other things in my life.
It was really meant as more of a joke - holding back and all (which I've not known you to do). I hope you didn't take it personally, it wasn't meant that way.
I didn't realize you had a history like that and I'm sorry for dredging it up - your story was as moving as his (and MUCH shorter and easier to read). Thanks for the perspective - it's always helpful and insightful.