Demonstrations and Electoral Politics

From late 1965 to 1968 we demonstrated and spread the message that our military involvement in Vietnam was a mistake, and there were those who demonstrated against the draft. Some of us worked for the Eugene McCarthy campaign. No matter: in 1968 Richard Nixon was elected, and the war continued. In 1970 came Nixon's Cambodia expansion and the Kent State shootings. Universities shut down a day or two or three, and on the Berkeley campus instead of organizing street demonstrations we thought we were wiser to organize a door to door campaign into nearby neighborhoods. I don't know how well we did, but I stand by the idea that in a democracy it is electoral politics that matters most.

We shut down Oakland city center one morning in 1967, and, if I'm not mistaken, campus radicals joined the People's Park demonstration in defiance of the police and national guard. But inconveniencing the public was not something we liked to do. Our demonstrations were at times massive enough that traffic had to be diverted and was done by the police. There were people who joined the demonstrations who enjoyed breaking glass or maybe burned trash. Every protest has its people working much on emotions and little with their heads.

We can see such persons today, who deny that we still have the freedom to express our views on the street, and that limits to what we can do within local laws is not equal to a police state, and the police working at what they are ordered to do are not evil storm troopers. .