The People of This Generation by Paul Lyons

Author:Paul Lyons [Lyons, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 20th Century, Political Science, Civil Rights
ISBN: 9780812202687
Google: yYkXAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2013-07-17T22:17:57+00:00

The Philadelphia Resistance

Such alliances were made most clearly manifest in the Philadelphia Resistance. The motley group that ultimately became the Philadelphia Resistance included Tony Avirgan and Martha Westover, as well as a number of Penn activists: Bob Brand, Dan Finnerty, Josh Markel, Eva Gold, Dina Portnoy, Mike Griecen, Candy Putter, Marty Goldensohn, and Paul Golden. Among the most important leaders within the group was Judy Chomsky, a college graduate, married with children, who had walked into the Germantown Vietnam Summer office and developed immediate rapport with Avirgan and Westover. Also central to the group was Lisa Schiller, a high school dropout from a working-class Catholic family, rebellious and wild, who, virtually adopted by Chomsky, quickly began to take over essential office operations—the ex-hippie as organizational whiz. There were also important older members and supporters like Episcopal Urban Missioner David Gracie, Haverford physics professor Bill Davidon, and Swarthmore Russian professor Thompson Bradley.26 At first Avirgan, Westover, Chomsky, and their developing circle assumed that they would continue Vietnam Summer, expanding it to include grass-roots electoral activities and a more multi-issue community organizing. They participated in the organization of the Philadelphia Area Draft Council, worked with the silent vigils many church-based activists were organizing, attended the National Conference of New Politics in Chicago, and, most of all, worked with the Philadelphia Mobilization Committee in planning the March on the Pentagon to “Confront the Warmakers.”27

Avirgan saw the emergence of the Philadelphia Resistance as a pragmatic decision for those who chose to focus their attention to the war. The Resistance was a national movement organized initially out of Stanford University by David Harris and other radical pacifists. It initiated antidraft actions, including the handing in and burning of draft cards at the March on the Pentagon. In an organizational pamphlet, “What Is Resistance?” it was described as “a national movement which aims to challenge the Selective Service System by taking the position of complete and open non-cooperation with the draft.” After national draft-resistance actions, including Philadelphia in October and December 1967, provided some visibility for the new organization, the Vietnam Summer project decided to become the Philadelphia Resistance in January 1968.28

The Philadelphia Resistance sought to integrate the direct action, antinomian emphasis on “individual acts of conscience” with “a movement [that] aims for political effectiveness … based on a radical critique of American society and foreign policy.” They focused on the draft

because it is an integral part of a system that pursues a brutal war in Southeast Asia, that actively opposes attempts at social revolution in the underdeveloped world, that exploits the black people of America, that maintains institutions over which ordinary citizens exercise virtually no control.

They framed the draft as an instrument of social control, based on a 1965 government document that stated:

One of the major products of the Selective Service classification process is the channeling of manpower into the many endeavors, occupations, and activities that are in the national interest … The process of channeling by not taking men from certain activities who are

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.