But a freshman year awakening, including a few weeks working in Mississippi at the end of Freedom Summer in 1964, persuaded him that his generation had a moral obligation to fight injustice, including what he saw as the unfolding disaster in Vietnam. Over the next several years, he used his establishment standing to rise to national prominence, calling on his fellow students and other young people to confront the draft head on....
February 8, 2023
"We’d go around, do this dog and pony show, and I would open up for him, singing, and people would all get together to hear David Harris talking about how we’re going to change the world."
Said Joan Baez, quoted in "David Harris, Leader of Vietnam Draft Resistance Movement, Dies at 76/An activist who went to jail for refusing to serve in the military, he teamed with and married Joan Baez and later became a journalist" (NYT).
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34 comments:
Draft-Dodger Divorced from Dylan-Ex Dead at Age 76.
It's notable how these asshole protestors never once protested what happened in South Vietnam after they managed to cut off military aid. Not a one of them ever stood up to take ownership for the rampant and flagrant abuse of human rights undertaken by their pet regime in Hanoi.
Makes you wonder what the world would look like if any of them hadn't been utter hypocrites concerned only with their own convenience and well-being. Their activities warped US foreign policy for decades, extended the Cold War, and put millions of people under the yoke of Communist charlatans who turned out to be no better than the crooks who were running their nations in the first place. Can anyone tell a difference between the current Vietnamese regime and the people who would have been running it if the Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh had never been elevated to international heroes of the left?
Whole thing was a self-serving exercise in moralistic preening. Anti-war, my ass; the only war they were against was the one they might have to fight in. Precisely none of these people ever stood up and protested a war led by their vaunted sociopathic heroes like Bill Clinton or Barak Obama; show me the "vigorous protests" lodged for Bosnia or Kosovo, and against the "intervention" in Libya. Which was probably the single most destructive thing ever done by anyone against the nuclear non-proliferation movement.
A pox on all these people. They were frauds from the beginning, willing enemies of the best interests of people around the world, not least in their own nations. The millions of so-called "Boat People" escaping Vietnam speak volumes about how wrong these assclowns were. Ever note how little they did, to help those refugees? Anywhere?
Odds are David Harris denounced opponents of sending money to Ukraine as Putin puppets.
Almost every person supporting the war in Ukraine supported Harris and the Vietnam anti-war movement.
And they all do it with absolutely no self awareness.
"So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game"
The draft was wrong. He was right about that.
The Great Spring... The Serbian Spring... The Obama/Biden Spring series. Bennies for war.
I started Stanford in 1970. When older students talked about student leaders or anti-war protests, they'd reminisce about "the golden days of David Harris," the age of purity. I've never forgotten that phrase.
It's never too late for an "awakening."
They did change the world. Now it's Democrats running the weapons sales and setting the Doomsday Clock at 1 minute to midnight.
Nice going, idiots.
Harris went on write a lot for the NYT's. Harris was NOT "an unlikely face" for the antiwar movement. He was the sort of guy they wanted to be poster boy for the movement.
A fair-haired boy from Fresno. Not from NYC. Not a Limosine Liberal. Not a Commie. Not explicitly Jewish. Not Black. Its not a coincidence he got married and quickly divorced from Joan Baez or that Rolling stone hired him and then he moved on the NTY's.
There were people controlling the Antiwar movement and picking "the faces".
The Vietnam era was not black and white, but a continuum from one extreme to the other, and the lessons that should have been learned, weren't.
BTW, the reason Harris only spent a couple years in Jail, and never suffered (in fact benefited) for his draft dodging, is the liberal establishment had turned against the Vietnam war. In fact, their support was always lukewarm, and after Tet they were mostly against it. And then Nixon got elected, and their disgust at "Nixon's War" was off the chart.
How would a draft dodger be treated today? It just depends on how much liberal power elite supported the war. If they were lukewarm, they'd be treated like Antifa or two lefties who tried to throw a Molotov cocktail in the police van during the BLM riot. If the power elite were all for the war, well any dissenters would face harsh penalties. Perhaps excecution. Look at what they did the J6 protestors for just tresspassing and stealing Pelosi's gavel!
David Harris wasn't really a draft dodger, he just had bad bone spurs. Or was it anal warts?
"The draft was wrong. He was right about that."
The war was wrong, the only wars we should ever fight are wars where it would be right to draft people, you know, wars where we are attacked. If the army had draftees of all walks of life, rich men's kids along with the poor, maybe draft evaders like Joe Biden, (turribul asthma, doncha know) wouldn't start them so easily.
I agree with takirks
all those intellectuals who see themselves as heroes for opposing the Viet Nam war ignored the massive ethnic cleansing of Chinese ethnic groups, the jailing of Catholics, the reeducation camps, and the boat people. Not to mention the Cambodian holocaust by communist Pol Pot.
Although I believe Joan Baez was one of the few anti war activists who did protest the post war atrocties for which she was criticized by the elites.
https://www.colorado.edu/libraries/2018/05/30/archives-humanitas-international
"The draft was wrong. He was right about that."
Yes, if the Japs had won we would be their slaves today. Drafting Jody the grinder was OK. In Nam it was not urgent. The Volunteer military was the fix. Tech war requires less volunteers, it requires vendor employed operators.
In my circles there are Vietnam veterans and draft dodgers/avoiders--and they get along fine. One of my late friends (a helicopter door gunner) used to say that he admired Bill Clinton for being smart enough to see through the fraud.
I only had to take 1H or 1S status for a couple of semesters until the lottery was held, but some of the older guys spent years dodging or avoiding. (Some of them joined as soon as the shooting stopped, of course--the politically ambitious especially.)
Lying Bird Johnson took us into that unnecessary tragedy, and neither he nor the brass had any strategy at all, except more of the same. If he had been more frankly racist and agreed with the majority of the American people that who ruled SEA wasn't all that important in the big picture, how different things might be today.
Mutaman said...
"David Harris wasn't really a draft dodger, he just had bad bone spurs. Or was it anal warts?"
At least Harris had the courage of his convictions and went to jail for them. You're just some big mouthed pussy who voted for the war in Ukraine but without the balls to go there. Typical.
I only know about Harris from reading his NYT obit. Zero chance it would detail any of his deficits. Still, he seems a decent person. He wasn't following the North Star, but whatever star he was following, he remained true to its course. The obit says that he wasn't a draft dodger but rather a draft protester. That's true. He did, after all go to prison rather than submit to the draft. That wasn't the easiest path.....Besides the twenty month prison stint, he doesn't seem to have had an onerous life, but neither do I see any messy divorces or stays in rehab.....I served in the military during Vietnam. I wasn't in any hurry to obtain a CIB or go anywhere near combat so I can't claim to have been an enthusiastic supporter. Some war protesters were self righteous twats, but he seems to have protested the war in an honorable way. In the end most wars are pointless and futile. The war was probably more pointless and futile for the Vietnamese than us, but that's another argument. Anyway RIP.
Vietnam didn't end up like North Korea or Cambodia, but it could have. The Commies upon taking power certainly engaged in a lot of murderous reprisals and failed policies. The obit doesn't mention the Harris reaction to any of this. I suppose he expressed some high minded criticisms of their excesses. He was probably always very high minded all of his life.
Rusty said...
" At least Harris had the courage of his convictions and went to jail for them. You're just some big mouthed pussy who voted for the war in Ukraine but without the balls to go there. Typical."
Don't you want to meet my parents,Rusty? I can't go to the Ukraine, I have bone spurs.
People who mention how awful Pol Pot was should recall that his regime had a powerful ally against the Vietnamese, a country that bombed the shit out of Cambodia and contributed mightily to turning a backward, relatively peaceful place into Killing Fields.
The US of A, reacting like an empire humiliated by a third-rate, pissant country.
"It's notable how these asshole protestors never once protested what happened in South Vietnam after they managed to cut off military aid"
Then, like now, prog concern about war and foreign intervention is strictly a matter of domestic politics and beating the greater enemy at home.
"Almost every person supporting the war in Ukraine supported Harris and the Vietnam anti-war movement.
And they all do it with absolutely no self awareness."
I supported Harris and the Vietnam anti-war movement and now support Ukraine but I'm still struggling with both positions - not self-aware, whatever that may be, and not simply a supporter of or opponent of the Viet Nam war. I went to college at 17 in 1961 so that the Sixties and my Twenties coincided, Basically I feel that the history of that time has never yet been written. For instance, my attitude toward Vietnam fluctuated and I think that was more common than people seem to think. I had two brothers who were soldiers there. One came back while I was supporting the war and the other died there and I turned against the war at his funeral because I could see that no else in our parish had allowed their sons to go and yet they claimed to support the war. My returned soldier brother defended both me and my youngest brother who became a conscientious objector, telling me and my parents that we were not getting the whole story in the news. So there was a period when I supported Harris and listened to Joan Baez and Country Joe and the Fish. But then my leftist friends told me laughing stories about how drugs were being smuggled in the coffins of the returning soldiers (like my brother) which they thought was just so funny. I never forgave the left for that - doing it and laughing. It was a basic insight into what s...s they are though it took a long time to become embodied.
One thing was, I became aware of the Boat People and so I became certain that the Viet Nam war had been resisting a Communist takeover and that the Viet Cong victory had led to despotism and atrocities in Viet Nam and in Cambodia as had been said at the start would happen, And so my brother's death which happened because he was resisting despotism had some meaning. But I also felt that both parties deliberately lost the war for some reason I could not understand. I was never been able to read anything about that war ever again after the early Seventies.
In the case of the Ukraine I can see that Ukrainian people are resisting Russian despotism and building a civil society in place of their corrupt playground for Hunter Biden. All that society is making sacrifices together: soldiers, the voluntieri who are supporting the soldiers, the civilians, including government officials, who are being bombed in their homes at night. Children are being kidnapped into Russia. Consequently I support that war. I hope, I hope, that the mysterious force that made this country's leaders decide to lose in Viet Nam will not become active again in the Ukraine.
There's things I've never understood about the Sixties and there's things I don't understand right now about this country, my own, and I think it's all one thing, coming out of the Sixties. But what it is, I've never known.
To sum it all up, thank God for Richard M. Nixon. He got us out of LBJ’s Viet Nam War, ended the Draft and saved the Jewish State from being annihilated and the Jews slaughtered.
Looking back, as someone who entered college in 1969, there were two key problems vis a vis the war. First, it was obvious that I didn't have access to the truth. I was being bombarded by propaganda. Second, I was going to be a pariah if I supported the war.
So I kept my mouth shut. It was, as it turned out, a stupid war, for reasons unrelated to the great thoughts of Mr Harris and Ms Baez, useful idiots both.
Many are the things people like me are still fearful about saying in public. The heirs to David Harris continue to do a great job of frightening regular people into keeping their mouth shut. That's how corporate America went woke.
I hope the David Harris's of the world had a moment of self awareness at some point on their journey.
Nancy Reyes--I did not know that Joan Baez set up Humanitas International to focus on the plight of the Vietnamese under the Hanoi regime after 1975. That took real guts and principle. It changes how I think of her. (Of course the fact that I didn't know that says a lot about our media).
Wildswan--Thank you for telling your story. Things are never as simple as clear as we would like to believe.
They changed the world, alright. Trillions in debt for their grandchildren, crime, drugs, fatherless homes and STDs. Hippies, what are they good for? Nuthin...
Mutaman said...
Rusty said...
"" At least Harris had the courage of his convictions and went to jail for them. You're just some big mouthed pussy who voted for the war in Ukraine but without the balls to go there. Typical."
Don't you want to meet my parents,Rusty? I can't go to the Ukraine, I have bone spurs."
No you don't. You're just a standard keyboard ninja. All mouth and no nunchucs. Yes I would. Although I suspect they're just older versions of you.
"takirks said...
It's notable how these asshole protestors never once protested what happened in South Vietnam after they managed to cut off military aid."
Nancy has it right.
Don't know about Harris, but Baez was very vocal about condemning the communists for the post takeover atrocities. Joan took out full page ads and was abused by her old cpmrades who showed their colors
I served
My take:
Joan was Antiwar
Jane was An Anti-American traitor
"It's notable how these asshole protestors never once protested what happened in South Vietnam after they managed to cut off military aid. Not a one of them ever stood up to take ownership for the rampant and flagrant abuse of human rights undertaken by their pet regime in Hanoi."
Why should we have involved ourselves in Vietnam in the first place? Our unwarranted interference in Vietnam exacerbated and prolonged the war, leading to greater environmental devastation, illness, devastating injuries and loss of lives, just as in Afghanistan and Iraq more recently.
Robert Cook
The answer is the Truman Doctrine from 1947. It's why we are member of NATO and SEATO. Look it up.
rcocean said:
"BTW, the reason Harris only spent a couple years in Jail, and never suffered (in fact benefited) for his draft dodging, is the liberal establishment had turned against the Vietnam war. In fact, their support was always lukewarm, and after Tet they were mostly against it. And then Nixon got elected, and their disgust at "Nixon's War" was off the chart."
See, here's the thing that just absolutely enrages me. The "liberal Democrats" were the ones who got us into the war in Vietnam back in the late 1950s, when Kennedy campaigned on the whole "Domino Theory" and "Missile Gap" line of bullshit. There was no missile gap, and the professional military all told Eisenhower that Vietnam was a lost cause; they wanted nothing to do with it. Having campaigned on those two major security issues, Kennedy felt like he had no choice in the matter, and had to put the pedal to the metal in the arms race, which led directly to the Cuban missile crisis (after the idiot gutted the CIA attempt to retake Cuba, which was likely doomed anyway), and the whole deal in Southeast Asia was basically the Democrats having to live with their ginned-up BS. Johnson effectively triple-downed on the whole thing, and there we were for ten f*cking wasted years... Years which saw 50,000 American lives lost, untold millions more damaged, and who knows how many Vietnamese killed or wounded. Only for those self-same Democrat pigf*ckers to turn around and throw it away when they cut aid in '75, aid which they'd signed on for with treaty obligations they just threw away like they were nothing.
The Democrats got us into Vietnam, no question about it. They then turned it into an issue that tore the country apart for over a decade and a half, profiting immensely from it, and pulled the same sort of flim-flam BS incessantly through the 1980s and 1990s, into the 2000s. 9/11 wasn't an "inside job", but without Democrat collusion, it would never have happened. Jamie Gorelick's erection of the wall between FBI criminal investigation and counterintelligence operations ensured that the 9/11 hijackers were never caught beforehand; same-same with the way she shut down Able Danger at the Pentagon. 9/11 should not have happened; absent the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Clinton machine, it likely wouldn't have. Sandy Berger was probably sneaking documentation on that out of the Archives, and the fact that Gorelick sat on the 9/11 Commission ensured that the right questions would never be asked.
Not a fan of the Democrats, with good reason. They're the party of traitors and crooks, always have been, always will be. There's a reason they were termed "Copperhead Democrats" back in the 1860s, and they've not changed a bit since. Not that the Republicans are really any better a choice, as inept and stupidly naive as most of them are.
"The answer is the Truman Doctrine from 1947. It's why we are member of NATO and SEATO. Look it up."
The Truman Doctrine is bullshit, a fancy way of giving ourselves the right to wage war anywhere in the world we decide it will be to our advantage. It is us giving ourselves carte blanche to behave as we please...or else. We're the Mafia "selling" "insurance" to all the other (weaker) businesses in our neighborhood, and our neighborhood is where we say it is. There's a price to be paid by our "neighbors," whether they go along or don't.
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