SDS new left notes

All power to the people

“We must rid our ranks of impotent thinking” – Mao Tse-tung

The packed and reactionary nature of the Chicago convention was immediately apparent to all true SDS members. Accordingly, SDS has purged itself of this travesty, and annulled all actions taken there, pending the outcome of an emergency NC, which was held August 16, 1969. Only true SDS members were notified, and, since we are true revolutionaries, the media were excluded. Since all SDS members have been advised of the results, it is now possible to publicly release information about the NC.

The first task on the agenda was to investigate the various factions competing for control of our organization. This was done in a debate rife with sharp ideological struggle, resulting in agreement that all such factions are running-dog cliques of counterrevolutionary deviationists, animated by political lines which are without exception revisionist and defective in gross particulars. The inevitable consequence was deliberation upon compatibility of membership in these factions with continued membership in SDS: because of the negative vote of the NC, by a two-thirds majority, the following factions are purged from SDS –

n The “Weatherman” faction;

n The Progressive Labor Party;

n The “Worker/Student Alliance” faction;

n The “Revolutionary Youth Movement II” faction;

n All other factions not included in the above;

KNOW YOUR ENEMIES!

WE are SDS; they are purveyors of revisionist distortions of the true SDS line. None of the above, nor any member of such factions, are SDS any longer. Don’t be misled by their false claims to be SDS.

The next order of business was deciding what the true SDS Line is. After more sharp struggle, the NC adopted the resolution YOU DON’T NEED A METEOROLOGIST TO KNOW THAT HOT AIR RISES. This resolution provides that:

n SDS unswervingly adheres to the Plimsoll Line of Marx, as set forth in the Greedle Manifesto, which calculates the exact role of the masses in every situation to the last decimal place, thereby providing The Answer to Every Burning Social Question, universally applicable and relevant for all time, past, present, future, and on other time lines.

n The Plimsoll Line cannot be altered, erased tampered with, or only partially accepted or in any way compromised.

n Whoever alters, tampers with, or retains reservations about this Line, or does not accept it at all, is not a member of SDS, regardless of credentials or record of past services rendered to SDS. (This last validates the expulsions done earlier in this NC.)

The next-to-last order of business was identifying the revolutionary vanguard in the USA. (This was interrupted by procedural acrimony: the NC stopped for a red light, the chairman wanted to turn right, but was overruled by two thirds; the NC thereupon took a sharp left turn.) The result was a unanimous vote identifying Heads Against War & Fascism as the leading element of the revolutionary oppressed.

The NC was then recessed, subject to call. The question of leadership was held pending the next plenary session. Questioning of leadership is grounds for summary purge.

CREATE 2, 3, MANY SDS’s!

COMMENTARY: The transcription into the computer loses much of the flavor of the original in particular of its strikeovers, line-outs, and blurred print.