> The membership of such organizations consisted mostly of liberal arts majors.
Do we have some plausible source for this, or is it just an assumption? I'm guessing that most people in universities are liberal arts majors, so is it even relevant?
Take it out. RickK 02:08, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)
- The fact that liberal arts majors formed the core constituency of SDS is well-documented in most college history textbooks. (See, e.g., Boyer, Paul S., et al., The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume II From 1865 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), p. 868.) Most baby boomers followed conventional paths, and majored in business, engineering, etc. In striking contrast, the members of SDS were a vocal minority of intellectuals who idolized the mavericks of the 1950s, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
Is new SDS for real?
What is the new manifestation of SDS acheiving? If someone knows they should add it too the article. If not . . .
--LegCircus 22:23, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)
A small group of people (primarily lead by one person) are trying to start a group called SDS. At first I didn't think they were going to amount to anything, but now they appear to have at least chapters-in-formation at four (or more) schools. That is actually fairly impressive for a multi-issue progressive student network.
I think somebody tried to start a SDS group aproximately six years ago or so. I remember being on the email list. I suspect someone tries to restart SDS every five to ten years, but that's just a hunch.
Aaron Kreider, Nov. 14, 2004
The new SDS appears to have chapters at Dartmouth College and the New School University in NYC. They've published a statement called the Dartmouth Manifesto which probably ought to be referenced in Wikipedia at some point. Should we start including info on the "new" SDS here or have a separate article linked to/from this one? My thought is that unless some of the principals of the original organization are involved, it's essentially a new organization, a new generation has rediscovered the Port Huron Statement and is using it as the basis for a new movement, which is not necessarily a continuation of the original movement.
By the way I added an article on Robert Alan Haber; one less "red link" in the SDS article. Please expand on it if you have more or better info on Haber.
Mark Dixon 21:49, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced the new organizaiton is really notable enough for an article. Moreover, it's not even clear to me from the external links that these chapters still exist, just that they did a year or so ago. In the extremely fluid world of leftist campus organizing, a couple of chapters and a document doesn't really amount to much. RadicalSubversiv E 23:55, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Drugs and SDS
Did some SDS members use drugs? Probably. Ditto for the Young Americans for Freedom, I'm sure. SDS was not, in and of itself, a counterculture organization that advocated drug use. So unless someone can find something sourced and relevant to organizatoin's activities to say about this, it doesn't belong in the article. Also using drug abuse to refer generically to drug use generically is POV. RadicalSubversiv E 14:21, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There are ample sources for this. SDS members were particularly focused on using LSD and other psychedelic drugs. It is important historical context to the activities of the group and its splinter groups. Using the expression POV in the manner some do could be seen as being POV also. Ollieplatt 18:39, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Given how prevalent drug use was in the youth culture of the time, I don't think drug use by members of the SDS would be remarkable enough to merit mention, any more than underage alcohol use by members of a student group would be remarkable today. The point could be made that many SDS members had long hair, but in the context of the times, that's not significant. I don't see that it would help one better understand the organization or its contributions, unless our intent was to use drug abuse pejoratively to discredit or discount the group or its members. Mark Dixon 22:52, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It's not meant to be pejorative, it just explains what was happening. SDS was I believe financed from the proceeds of LSD sales, I couldn't find a source for that so didn't put it in the article. An accurate account of SDS necessarily includes a reference to drugs and the activities of splinter groups. Ollieplatt 06:15, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Your citations are completely bogus. One is merely a list of dates pertaining to LSD, which for no particular reason seems to include a number of political events in the 1960s. Another looks like a school paper by a high school student, which makes passing reference to SDS and to drugs, but does not connect the two. A third deals with a single obscure individual who is stated to have been involved in a specific SDS action. And the final one says nothing about drugs and is about the Weather Underground, a separate organization which has its own article which is already discussed and linked to from here. RadicalSubversiv E 08:49, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- My references are entirely valid. Why does a list pertaining to LSD just happen to also list SDS? A coincidence I don't think. A school paper or a paper from an experimental college or whatever, I don't know what it is but it's a clear source in support of the ties between SDS and LSD. References to SDS splinter groups of the kind of Weather Underground are entirely valid. I reject your accusations and those of your sockpuppets.Ollieplatt 09:30, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Let me get the logic for this straight: 1) Some guy on the internet with a list of dates which includes both stuff about SDS and stuff about LSD demonstrates a connection between the two? 2) Because I attend a nontraditional liberal arts college, a high-school paper may be cited in support of a claim which it doesn't actually make? RadicalSubversiv E 09:39, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Ollieplatt's previous citations, which he has now reverted back to three times, continue to be bogus. Now he has added a new one, a document which discusses the FBI's suspicions that drugs were used by many in the "New Left", but contains no information whatsoever concerning drug use in SDS specifically. RadicalSubversiv E 10:05, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I invite others to read the references, which make it very clear that the SDS was closely associated with the drug culture of the 1960's. The most recent reference names individual SDS leaders as being associated with this activity. Denying drug use in these student groups has all the intellectual validity of holocaust denial and flat earth advocacy. How many more sources can be listed? There are dozens more available for all to see on Google. Ollieplatt 11:00, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I have read the references and they suggest no such thing. Ignoring for the moment the fact that all these references are of uncertain provenance. In the first source, the SDS march on Washington and "SDS unravels" appear in an anonymous timeline that contains drug references not specifically related to SDS. Nothing in that timeline suggests any connection between drugs and SDS. In the second source, a semi-anonymous student essay, drug involvement is attributed to "hippies" and "young Americans"; the only references to SDS are political with regard to leftist beliefs, opposition to the war in Vietnam and tactics of mass demonstration. Nothing linking the SDS to drugs. The third source documents Yippie Dana Beal's drug use but the only mention of SDS is that Beal was a leader of the joint Zippies/SDS takeover of the McGovern headquarters...guilt by association? Hardly supports the claim that "many SDS leaders became involved in drug taking." In Beal's own bio (http://www.legalizace.cz/index.php?clanekid=235) he doesn't mention any involvement with SDS. The fourth source involves crimes by the Weather Underground after they split from the SDS, and we have a separate article on the Weather Underground. The fifth source discusses certain COINTELPRO efforts to politically undermine or discredit SDS, but nowhere indicates that the FBI was "aware of SDS drug use" or even discusses drugs in connection with SDS. Mark Dixon 15:30, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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