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Here you go. Bob Scheer in all his glory!

The Managing Editor of Ramparts magazine, Bob Scheer.

Applause

Um…I don’t really understand the mood of this rally too much. I understand it less now. There seems to be something obscene or bizarre about seven kids being in jail for trying to stop the war and there’s music going on and the noise and this carnival atmosphere.

And my fear about the next few years in America is that people are going to be picked off and put in jail for long periods of time. Attempts will be made to crush the movement, and there are going to be very serious attempts. And most people in this society, even most people who think that they’re in opposition, will be able to go about their normal lives, maybe sign a few petitions.

I think this style of repression is a very modern one. It’s very selective. It’s very efficient. It’s aimed at intimidating people and shutting them up and allowing an illusion of freedom.

So, you have your great hippie revolt. That’s a fantastic thing. You see we’re all liberated. And we could go down there and enjoy ourselves on the other plaza. We could even have a little bit of free speech. As long as it doesn’t intrude on the society at all. And when it begins to intrude, then it’s going to be crushed. And it’s going to be crushed brutally. And it’s going to be crushed in the same style as the revolution of Vietnam or Cuba. It’s going to be crushed.

Because what we’re talking about in Vietnam, or here, is really a war of example. And what our society is saying to us is there are some things they will not tolerate abroad, or at home. And what our society is saying to us in Vietnam, and in the United States, is that we are going to make an example of those people who attempt to challenge our power.

And we now know, particularly because of the events of the last few weeks, that the war in Vietnam is clearly a war of example, aimed at crushing revolutions. Once the Hanoi Government said that it would negotiate if there was a halt in the bombing, once it gave it’s unconditional commitment to talks, and everyone knows that commitment was made, and the Administration continued it’s bombing, we knew that this was a war to the finish. This is a war for total victory. To establish the military supremacy of the United States Government, and to teach a lesson to people in the world that they cannot make the revolutions of their choice. That the only kind of peace that will be tolerated is the Roman peace.

And in this society, the only kind of freedom that we will have is the freedom of the Roman circus, of the carnival. And those people in this society who attempt to intrude, that attempt to prevent that war machine from functioning are going to be crushed, and crushed quite brutally. So the war of example in Vietnam has been brought home. And I think we should understand that and understand that very clearly.

And I think there’s something interesting about the fact that we used to think of Coakley as a right-winger. But what’s the difference between Coakley’s indictments and Johnson’s indictments? What’s the difference between the indictment of Mark Raskin and the indictment of Frank Barnakey (sp?)?

And now we’ve come to understand very clearly that the forces of hysteria and the forces of reaction in America do not exist just among the kooks of the right. They exist right at the center of our politics. And when Lyndon Johnson and Mark Raskin, very reasonable and respectable individuals…you know Mark Raskin who used to work on security affairs in the Kennedy Administration, he served notice to the Coakley’s in this Country that the time was at hand to crack down.

And we see in state after state now, there’s a very serious and very selective and very vicious repression. And the frightening thing is that most of our citizens don’t even know it’s going on. Most of our citizens are just quietly intimidated by it.

I thought that Professor Hirsch said something really honest yesterday when he said, “You know how intimidation works when you feel intimidated”. And he had to admit that he felt intimidated. And many people will be making that move from this part to that part. Because it’s a lot easier to revolt and be free over there than it is over here now days. And I think we ought to mark that. And what the government has done, (dog barking LOL), is put us all on the spot, and we have got to decide are we going to allow them to construct their Roman society? And are we going to allow them to let that stick in Vietnam, and are we going to allow them to make that example stick at home?

And I think the time is over when we can just talk about mild debate. You know, I’m carrying a magazine which I just happened to read, called, McLeans. It’s published in Canada. I guess it’s the white magazine of Canada. Only this week they had an issue on Vietnam, and I guess because they’re not as intimately involved, they can be more honest. And on page 14 they had a photograph of an American Marine…with his foot on the body of a Vietnamese peasant who was in a coma. And that Vietnamese peasant was just lying there and he had his foot on it and he had his hand held up with his gun in a trophy shot. The picture is in this magazine; it sells about a million copies. That man’s not going to go to jail. The people who send him there are not going to go to jail. But someone who attempts to intrude on what they’re doing there will go to jail. And I think the time is at hand where we have to challenge that notion of legality.

I don’t think we should deny the facts of what happened in Oakland. We should affirm their legitimacy. From a moral and political point of view of their having happened. I think we should argue that it is essential that dessent be taken off the campus and to the induction center. That dessent is not the luxury of intellectuals. That dessent is a charade unless it interferes with the society. Unless it stops people from going to Vietnam. Unless it stops the power in the society. And I think that the kind of struggle that we have to engage in is precisely the kind of struggle that intrudes.

And instead of being intimidated, we have to say that you were forced to arrest these people because they were effective. And we have learned a lesson from it. And we are going to shift our tactics more and more to those kind of tactics because they are effective. And were they not effective, you would not throw those people in jail. And I think that’s the lesson that has to be learned.

And we have to say that dissent cannot be a joke. Dissent cannot be a private matter. And dissent is unimportant in a society unless it forces a society to confront the enormity of its crimes. To consider in a deep sense what it is doing. And if it is true that our society is committed to preventing revolutions in the world, then we have to indicate our solidarity with those people that have resisted. And we have to act in the spirit of Jay Kavara (sp?), not because we were raised in the spirit of Jay Kavara, but because the times call for the spirit of Jay Kavara.

Applause

I say that not because it’s easy to sound revolutionary or romantic. Most of us were not born to be revolutionary or romantics. But I think again of a person like Mark Rask, or Koppell or Spock. These men. Mark Rask went to work in the White House with George Bundy because he thought he would bring peace to the world. He signed a complicity statement and he urged people not to go into the Army because he knew it was the only step a moral man could take at this time. People do not become Jay Kavara’s out of choice; they become Jay Kavara’s when the situation demands that they become Jay Kavara’s, if they have the personal integrity to meet that demand.

And what our society is saying to us at this time is that if your dissent is going to matter at all you are going to have to break with your lifestyle. And what I would urge is that we begin now to plan the next stop the draft week. And that all of us plan to be the leaders of that demonstration, not the followers. That we, all of us who have been speaking so long, and the teachings and writings that we step forward at this time and say we will lead the next stop the draft week. Be it professors, or be it journalists or what have you. (This dog doesn’t like him either. More barking).

And I think we have to take seriously the injunction of filling the jails. Not because it’s good to be in jail, not because we want to be martyrs. Not because we believe Washington is just, and when they see us in jail they’ll change. But because stop the draft weeks must continue. Because the Oakland injunction system just be closed down. And if the price of closing it down means you have to go to jail, then you have to go to jail.

And the lesson to be drawn from this experience is that Washington has upped the ante. They have said that the situation will be serious. That the game of dissent is over. And we are now in the spots. And we are now in the position of having to demonstrate to them that we will not accept their war of example anymore than the Vietnamese people accept it in their own country. And if we act in that spirit I know that we will win out. And if we don’t act in that spirit and we worry about our own personal happiness and our joy and our own personal liberation, then we have failed not only the people of Vietnam or Cuba, but we failed the people of the United States.

Applause

(Sheesh, can anybody say sanctimonious?)