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bad, but now vulnerable. Che Guevara's call for "two, three, many
Vietnams," the diffusion of Mao Tse-Tung's assertions that American
imperialism was a "paper tiger," and the willingness in the New Left to
publicly chant "Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win"-all tes–
tified to this belief that the wind indeed was blowing in the direction of
revolution.
In spring 1968, many of us in the New Left moved from anti-anti–
communism to active support for the other side, or what we called support
for national liberation struggles around the globe and at home. In 1968 and
1969, the Black Panther Party became a leading point of reference for
white radicals thinking about race and racism. The Panthers spoke the lan–
guage of Marxism-Leninism, adopted an authoritarian organization,
denounced the police as "pigs" and non-violence as a bourgeois hang-up
of "jive-assed intellectuals." They had a profound influence on the will–
ingness of the white New Left to turn away from its anarchic,
anti-authoritarian legacies, though it is important to remember that we felt
common cause with them, and ever more so as prominent members of the
Panther Party were killed, wounded, and imprisoned in confrontations
with the police. Political activity in Madison in the spring was dense on all
fronts, from organizing radical caucuses in the humanities and social sci–
ences to running for student council on a platform of "student power,"
demonstrating at countless rallies against the war, and nurturing a counter–
culture in the Millin Street neighborhood of off-campus apartments. By
the time we veterans of the Dow demonstration came to demonstrate at
the Democratic convention in Chicago in August 1968, "tear gas" and
"affinity group" had become familiar parts of our vocabulary.
Following Tet, Columbia 1968, the assassinations of Martin Luther
King,Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and then the urban riots of spring and sum–
mer 1968, the division of labor between intellectuals and activists became
increasingly tense both between different people and as conflicts within
each of us seeking to balance thought and action. In the fall of 1968 I
opposed the proposal of some newly arrived veterans from Columbia SDS
to reproduce the Columbia strike in Madison by seizing buildings on or
shortly before the presidential elections. The advocates of the takeover sug–
gested the actual reason for my position was that I didn't want "to put my
balls on the line." (This sexist discourse of masculine aggression and
authenticity, along with attacks on us "jive-assed intellectuals"-historians
of gender discourse should have, perhaps they already have had, a field day
with the later New Left-became frequent as, in this new and harder time,
political disagreement gave way to abuse.) As the revolutionary vanguard
was obviously correct, disagreement was due to one reason above all:
cowardice. The proposal to seize buildings was defeated. On election eve,
