Carl Oglesby

[John Simkin]

Godfrey Hodgson points out that in his 1967 essay Vietnamese Crucible, Oglesby rejected the "socialist radical, the corporatist conservative, and the welfare-state liberal" and "challenged the new left to embrace American democratic populism and the American libertarian right." Hodgson adds: "Oglesby was essentially an autodidact and developed a hybrid political philosophy of his own. He made himself unpopular with some by insisting that the men who led the US into the war were not bad people as individuals, and that the war was the product of systemic faults in American society. He came under the influence of the libertarian thinker Murray Rothbard and even aspired to a kind of fusion between the old right, in which he included such conservative figures as General Douglas MacArthur and Senator Robert Taft, and the new left." Did he ever reject this strange philosophy?

[Douglas Caddy]

September 19, 2011

For Carl Oglesby

From SDS to SSDP (We are Devo)

by FRED GARDNER

www.counterpunch.org

“Carl Oglesby dies at 76; led Students for a Democratic Society,” was the headline on the obit in the LA Times. The description of SDS seems accurate (although nobody ever called it “the SDS”):

”The SDS had been founded in 1960 at the University of Michigan, and its early declaration, the Port Huron Statement, helped embody the idealism of the early ’60s. The SDS supported civil rights and opposed the nuclear arms race. It was strongly critical of the U.S. government, and called for greater efforts to fight poverty and big business. By the mid-’60s, when Oglesby joined, the U.S. had committed ground troops to Vietnam and the SDS had expanded nationwide, with a more radical purpose.”

During Carl’s time as president (the 1965-’66 academic year), SDSers helped organize “teach-ins” on U.S. campuses —an innovative tactic that he promoted and participated in to the hilt. A teach-in is basically a set of talks on a political subject, with ample time for questions and discussion. For a good account of the seminal March ’65 teach-in at UMich, click here.

Carl was eloquent and persuasive. In high school in Ohio he had been a state-champion debater. Todd Gitlin correctly described him to the obit writers as “the great orator of the white new left.” Both the LA Times obit and Margalit Fox’s in the New York Times acknowledge the impact of Carl’s speech at an antiwar rally in Washington in the fall of ’65. Fox wrote, “He condemned the ‘corporate liberalism’ -American economic interests disguised as anti-Communist benevolence- that, he argued, underpinned the Vietnam War.” Backstage that day Carl had suggested to Judy Collins that she speak and he sing. “She almost went for it,” he said.

1965-66 was when millions of young, white Americans began smoking pot. “For the first time at an SDS meeting people smoked marijuana,” Kirk Sale wrote about ’65 in his history of the organization. Almost nobody regarded it as medicine or knew that extracts of the herb had been widely used in that way, legally.

Carl Oglesby was the first person I knew who used marijuana consciously for medical effect. He had mild epilepsy, and dreaded the prospect of having a petit-mal episode while giving a speech. When he first smoked marijuana in the mid-’60s, he realized it would fend off seizures, and his confidence soared. When I knew him he also used mj for disinhibition, inspiration, improved mood, etc. When we talked c. 1990 he told me he had given it up, but I can’t remember why and I don’t know if he started using in later years when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s, and then lung cancer.

Although our expressions of dissent grew louder and stronger, Lyndon Johnson kept ordering more and more GIs to Vietnam and escalated the bombing. A generation that had grown up in the aftermath of World War II -when all the other industrial economies were in ruins and the our role as Americans, supposedly, was to help heal and rebuild the world along just, rational lines- was ashamed to realize that “we” had taken over where the British and French and Dutch left off as imperial powers. We were humiliated by pictures of huts with thatched roofs on fire and peasant women fleeing with babies in their arms. “Who made us the cops of the world?” was a question that more and more Americans were asking.

The heavier U.S. military involvement in Vietnam became, the higher the death toll, the more our shame turned to outrage. In many cases, the outrage turned to desperation and madness. In 1968 a group known as “the Weathermen” took over SDS and expelled Carl and others who dissed their efforts to initiate “armed struggle” in the U.S.

Carl and I were close friends in this period as the ’60s came crashing down and our wives left us and our allies rejected our advice and we tried to find consolation in marijuana and guitars. Carl, whose dad had worked at an Akron tire plant, described his relationship to the “new left” in a song that began

They called him the working-class stranger

And he turned to the people just to have him a little fun

Saying “What will you do my good buddies

When the bosses get through telling you that you’ve won?”

In the winter of 1970-71 he summed up the movement’s achievement in four words: “Cultural victory, political defeat.” I moved back to San Francisco in the fall of ’71 and we drifted apart. We would talk on the phone once in a blue moon, and stayed connected on a level deeper than ideology.

In the’70s Carl did original research exposing the extent to which Nazis had been recruited as U.S. government operatives after World War Two. He wrote two books challenging the official version of the JFK assassination, and contributed to another by Jim Garrison, the ex-DA of New Orleans. He entertainingly (but incorrectly, I thought) espoused a theory about capital being split between Northeastern (“Yankee”) and Southwestern (“Cowboy”) factions. A play he’d written about the Hatfield and McCoys was produced in Boston and had a short run. It was great, but never made it to Broadway.

He cut two records for Vanguard, and I gather they’ve been brought out as one CD, “Sailing to Damascus,” the title of the second record. If you want to hear that clear, intelligent voice, check out this.

In 2008 Scribner’s published Ravens in the Storm, the book about SDS he’d been revising over the years. Last time we talked he said he had crossed paths with Weatherman leader Bernardine Dohrn, a key figure in the book. Bernardine had told him, quietly and seriously, the words he’d been longing to hear from her: “I’m sorry.”

That was Then, This is Now

Compare the names “Students for a Democratic Society” and “Students for a Sensible Drug Policy” and you see what became of the movement of the 1960s: it splintered into a thousand single-interest groups and sub-groups, each pursuing its own “issue” rather than fundamental social change.

Carl Oglesby and the early SDS leaders understood and carried the message that the U.S. is controlled by corporate elites and that students have a key role to play turning it into an actual democracy. “Students for a Sensible Drug Policy” implies that America is a functioning democracy and that students can effectively pursue their interests by legislative means.

SSDP has been funded since its inception in 1998 by the Drug Policy Alliance. DPA leader Ethan Nadelmann receives millions of dollars annually from George Soros to allocate as he thinks Mr. Soros would see fit. SSDP’s focus has been opposition to provisions in the Higher Education Act of ’98, which denied Pell Grants and other federally backed loans to students convicted on drug charges. This is a very laudable goal, but it’s also a tactical constraint, as if lobbying legislators was the pinnacle of activism.

The appeal of a small, legislative reform like amending the Higher Education Act is that it seems achievable. But the elites are most likely to grant small, finite reforms when we, the people are making heavier demands —in other words, they throw us reforms as a sop. In early August Dale Gieringer of California NORML observed that the Israeli government led by the rightwinger Netenyahu had authorized a medical-marijuana distribution program, while the U.S. government led by the liberal Obama was cracking down on previously tolerated mmj distribution. Dale didn’t note the context in which Netenyahu acted: more than a quarter million Israelis, led by students, were camped out in “tent cities” in parks and public squares through the country to protest the cost of living and the extreme disparity of wealth and power. A rough equivalent would be 8 or 10 million young Americans camping out to demand forgiveness of their student loans —a thousand Burning Mans.

Perhaps SSDP should organize teach-ins focused on the unfairness and cruelty of being made to start life with a huge burden of debt. If that would be too “off-topic” for their funders, how about teach-ins on medical marijuana, demanding that Student Health Services approve its use instead of pushing Wellbutrin, et al? The SHS director at each campus could be invited to speak… along with doctors from the Society of Cannabis Clinicians who actually understand the subject. Just an idea…

‘Bye Carl… Bleeding with whiskey I dream of my old Cherokee.

Fred Gardner was once a political organizer. He can be reached at fredgardner@projectcbd.org

[Dawn Meredith]

I am really surprised that there is not more more commentary on this page than there is. Strange circumstances in my life today are causing me to really miss my dear friend. Carl and I literally had the most complicated relationship of anyone in my life. But the most important piece was that we were true family in every sense of the word. I still remember with awe the first time I was invited to his Cambridge MA apartment, in 1973.. Hearing him sing and play guitar, seeing his wonderful drawings, this on top of his incredible writings. The bounds to his talent were endless. His oldest daughter Aron would become my then young daughter's baby sitter and her life long "Fairy God mother". Divorced from the mother of his three kids, Carl and Beth and kids always had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner together. Christa and I were always invited. Since my entire bio family was in Canada, those family dinners meant the world to me, as well as to Christa.

I don't think I have ever heard a better speaker than was Carl. He spoke just like he wrote: a brilliance and talent shared by few. His passion for this case burned as deeply as did mine. Other times we just enjoyed jamming together. I loved adding harmony to his beautiful tribute to Beth: "Lemon Light". So many wonderful memories spanning four decades.

I am feeling your spirit and voice today Carl and having a most difficult time believing that I cannot just hear your actual voice at the other end of the phone.

All my love forever.

Dawn..

Edited June 27, 2015 by Dawn Meredith

[Paul Brancato]

I didn't know Carl, but I believe he wrote to my trading card publisher expressing appreciation for the Coup D'Etat cards. I think he had it right in Yankee and Cowboy wars.

[Martin Blank]

I didn't know Carl, but I believe he wrote to my trading card publisher expressing appreciation for the Coup D'Etat cards. I think he had it right in Yankee and Cowboy wars.

i've got a set of those; they're actually quite good.

as for oglesby, he is one of those people who should ultimately have occupied a leadership position in this country but took too hard a swat from the powers that be in the 1960s.

i especially liked his essay that linked the assassination to the closing of the frontier.

Rest in Peace

Edited June 18, 2013 by Martin Blank

[Dawn Meredith]

Bumping this.....

Dawn

[Glenn Nall]

September 14, 2011

Man on Fire

Remembering Carl Oglesby

by MIKE DAVIS

www.counterpunch.org

In my lifetime I’ve heard two speakers whose unadorned eloquence and moral clarity pulled my heart right out of my chest.

One was Bernadette Devlin (nee McAlliskey), speaking from the roof of the Busy Bee Market in Andersonstown in Belfast the apocalyptic day that Bobby Sands died.

The other was Carl Oglesby, president of SDS in 1965. He was ten years older than most of us, had just resigned from Bendix corporation where he had worked as a technical writer, and wore a beard because his face was cratered from a poor-white childhood. His father was a rubber worker in Akron and his people came from the mountains.

I’m not capable of accurately describing the kindness, intensity and melancholy that were alloyed in Carl’s character, or the profound role he played in deepening our commitment to the anti-war movement. He literally moved the hearts of thousands of people.

He was also for many young SDSers – like myself and the wonderful Ross Altman (original UCLA SDSer and Carl’s close friend, whom I salute) – both a beloved mentor but also leader of the wild bunch. At a crucial moment in the tragic history of this desert country, he precisely and unwaveringly defined our duty. He was a man on fire.

To those who knew him, I send my deepest love and solidarity – as I do to those yet to discover this great, tormented and most-old-fashionedly American radical.

Mike Davis is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Are these Doug's words or Mike Davis'? just curious.

How eloquent the words themselves about such an eloquent writer - and so much more, obviously.

[Glenn Nall]

the entire piece by Fred Gardner is terrific - i liked this line.

"When I knew him he also used mj for disinhibition, inspiration, improved mood, etc."

hey! that's what we used it for!!

in all seriousness, Carl was obviously one of those destined to change things but squelched by the bosses. I agree with Paul that he got Yankee/Cowboy right, and someone else who said that it's still happening - As technical and intricate as Yankee/Cowboy is, it's surely a terrific way to start ones research journey. You don't have to agree with it, just read it.

[Glenn Nall]

Godfrey Hodgson points out that in his 1967 essay Vietnamese Crucible, Oglesby rejected the "socialist radical, the corporatist conservative, and the welfare-state liberal" and "challenged the new left to embrace American democratic populism and the American libertarian right." Hodgson adds: "Oglesby was essentially an autodidact and developed a hybrid political philosophy of his own. He made himself unpopular with some by insisting that the men who led the US into the war were not bad people as individuals, and that the war was the product of systemic faults in American society. He came under the influence of the libertarian thinker Murray Rothbard and even aspired to a kind of fusion between the old right, in which he included such conservative figures as General Douglas MacArthur and Senator Robert Taft, and the new left." Did he ever reject this strange philosophy?

wow. how clarifying this is. what an original person he must have been...

rejected the "socialist radical, the corporatist conservative, and the welfare-state liberal". wow. and so few were listening...

Edited June 27, 2015 by Glenn Nall

[Dawn Meredith]

September 14, 2011

Man on Fire

Remembering Carl Oglesby

by MIKE DAVIS

www.counterpunch.org

In my lifetime I’ve heard two speakers whose unadorned eloquence and moral clarity pulled my heart right out of my chest.

One was Bernadette Devlin (nee McAlliskey), speaking from the roof of the Busy Bee Market in Andersonstown in Belfast the apocalyptic day that Bobby Sands died.

The other was Carl Oglesby, president of SDS in 1965. He was ten years older than most of us, had just resigned from Bendix corporation where he had worked as a technical writer, and wore a beard because his face was cratered from a poor-white childhood. His father was a rubber worker in Akron and his people came from the mountains.

I’m not capable of accurately describing the kindness, intensity and melancholy that were alloyed in Carl’s character, or the profound role he played in deepening our commitment to the anti-war movement. He literally moved the hearts of thousands of people.

He was also for many young SDSers – like myself and the wonderful Ross Altman (original UCLA SDSer and Carl’s close friend, whom I salute) – both a beloved mentor but also leader of the wild bunch. At a crucial moment in the tragic history of this desert country, he precisely and unwaveringly defined our duty. He was a man on fire.

To those who knew him, I send my deepest love and solidarity – as I do to those yet to discover this great, tormented and most-old-fashionedly American radical.

Mike Davis is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Are these Doug's words or Mike Davis'? just curious.

How eloquent the words themselves about such an eloquent writer - and so much more, obviously.

They are Mike Davis' words about Carl. Doug was kind enough to post the article. Also the pic of Carl and Hillary when she visited him in 94. Thanks Doug.

Glen: You asked me- in your email- to tell you more about my long friendship with Carl. I will post a bit of how it began here. In 1973 I was having a conversation with my next door neighbor and friend David Skinner about our political views. Of course Watergate was THE big issue at the time. When I expressed my opinion to David that Watergate was a set up, that McCord was trying to get caught, and that E. Howard Hunt's wife was murdered, David responded by saying I "must be reading Carl Oglesby". I had no clue who Carl was and was not reading his work. A few weeks later David informed me that Carl would be speaking at Boston U and would I be interested in joining him to hear the talk. I agreed that it sounded like fun. Carl was not speaking about Watergate or JFK, but his topic was "the state of being lonely". So he spoke of how he felt the day SDS spit into two factions and his friends embracing violence. This was something Carl would not ever condone. After the talk we struck up a conversation and he ended up giving me a ride to class. We discovered that our thinking was quite similar on the events of the day as well as the assassination of JFK. He told me that he was part of a group called "The Assassination Information Bureau" and that they gave talks at colleges around the nation. (I would later become the "token" female member of AIB and dated another member- Harvey Yazijian- for two years. Harv and I are still great pals. ) Thus begun a friendship that would encompass not just intellectual interests, but the sharing of music, our families, our commitment to justice for JFK and social justice in general. Carl was a mentor, a father figure, a brother, and so much more. I got to "be there" for the writing of Yankee/ Cowboy, seeing articles and letters spread all over his living room floor, hearing for the first time about Col F. Prouty, with whom Carl was corresponding. That was huge for me, to discover that someone as high up as a former US Col. not only knew the truth but was sharing it with a researcher. It gave me hope. The AIB continued their work and moved their operation to DC during the HSCA. By this time I had begun law school and could only learn about the hearings via phone and the AIB newsletter. After the hearings ended AIB disbanded and the other guys- Bob Katz, Harv, David Williams, and Jim Kostman, moved on to other pursuits. Carl continued to write about and research the assassination. And we remained in very close touch until his untimely passing.

I have always been sad that there was not a second printing of Yankee/Cowboy and that it is so difficult to obtain. I thank John Simkin for putting the first five (?) chapters on line here and recall that someone else has also scanned it online. Carl wanted this work to be a public as possible, and free.

Carl was a deeply complex man who could not be put into a box. Liberal on many issues, libertarian on others, radical in his anti war and anti fascist views, as well as a man of God. He never sold out, for anything or anyone.

[Vince Palamara]

Dawn- CALEB Oglesby posted these videos of his father:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohIEs9CZjtc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBNhtZIaZE

[Vince Palamara]

By the way, I enjoyed this little book by Carl. It succeeds in detailing the case for conspiracy in a very short and small book (to accommodate a sound bite, low attention span public turned off to lengthy works)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-JFK-Real-Story/dp/1878825100/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435424551&sr=1-3&keywords=carl+oglesby

Edited June 27, 2015 by Vince Palamara

[Glenn Nall]

I have another of his that I read, JFK, The Facts and The Theories, which contains mainly a synopsis of the various main theories and his notes and essays regarding his JFK projects, etc.

[Glenn Nall]

By the way, I enjoyed this little book by Carl. It succeeds in detailing the case for conspiracy in a very short and small book (to accommodate a sound bite, low attention span public turned off to lengthy works)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-JFK-Real-Story/dp/1878825100/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435424551&sr=1-3&keywords=carl+oglesby

re short and small book: This is the problem I'm noticing about the material that's available to the general public online today, and what my direction is with the website i'm putting together:

the material is plentiful, so much so that the organization of it is usually a disaster; that coupled with so much minutiae (that's often quite necessary, AND interesting to we "buffs") that the average interested party just doesn't need to weed through. It's tricky publishing a fact, or even conjecture, and keeping the tedium out while still supporting the assertion.

the average person who's somewhat interested in this thing but knows very little has NO idea what to click on at a site like History Matters, or in one of these forums. Mary Ferrell offers a starting point that gets tedious - (and now i'm reading about some controversy with that resource...?).

So I'm attempting a website that centers on the high points and is better organized visually - which matters when trying to keep a reader interested on your website. So many of the JFK websites are so old-fashioned looking today (or just downright ugly or cheap looking), primitive in layout and design such that some people will wonder how good or current the information can be.

The bottom line is that there are semi-interested parties out there who need to be given something readable and informative so that they might stay interested. I never finished Yankee/Cowboy my first go-round 'cause I was young and that's a complex book; i stayed interested because I already was sold on it (Mafia Kingfish by Douglas set the hook, i think, after Death of A President which didn't promote a Conspiracy of course, but told me something was wrong in there somewhere).

plus, I LOVE my work and if i'm not working for money then i'm working for play.

Edited June 27, 2015 by Glenn Nall

[Dawn Meredith]

Dawn- CALEB Oglesby posted these videos of his father:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohIEs9CZjtc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBNhtZIaZE

Thanks Vince. Have seen both of these many times. But not in awhile. What a trip down memory lane. I love the family shots. All three of Carl's kids inherited different gifts from him. Aron, his passion for justice, and a gift for writing, Shay has always and continues to act and sing, Caleb is an artist in many senses. I am also still close to his second wife Ann, who bought the huge white home in Cambridge, pictured here. What great times we enjoyed there. In his later years Carl re-connected with a lovely lady named Barbara from his anti war days and was with him til the end. RIP friend, see you on the other side.