http://www.markrudd.com/? en-us Copyright 2017, madebyfrog.com Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:51:49 -0800 Tue, 07 Nov 2017 09:51:49 -0800 any Frog CMS New articles from MarkRudd.com http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Since the summer of 2003 I’ve crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, “Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference.” Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:39:56 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/how-to-build-a-movement.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/how-to-build-a-movement.html From the first moment I heard about Che, Ernesto Guevara, he was my man, or, rather, I was his. Brilliant, young, idealistic, a daring commander of rebels, willing to risk his life to free the people of the world, I wanted to be like him. Who wouldn’t fall for this rifle-toting poet who wrote, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.” Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:59:26 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/che-and-me.html http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/che-and-me.html Mark Rudd was the leader of the strike, and he became "The Student Radical," a certified "Star," in the eyes of Time and David Susskind and Walter Kronkite. Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:44:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/good-description-of-mark-rudd-at-columbia-1968.html http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/good-description-of-mark-rudd-at-columbia-1968.html The Nation, Jan. 22, 2009 A great summary of the five crises simultaneously facing this country: the bubbles of the economy, energy, the environment, weapons of mass destruction, and the limits of the American empire. Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:15:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?anti-imperialism/obama-and-the-return-of-the-real-2009.html http://www.markrudd.com/?anti-imperialism/obama-and-the-return-of-the-real-2009.html Somewhere very far away there’s an American war raging, but you wouldn’t know it in my classroom. Isolated even from the demands of their complicated lives—jobs, kids, financial worries—my students dedicate themselves to learning or not learning how to solve linear equations. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:31:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/the-kids-are-all-right-2005.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/the-kids-are-all-right-2005.html It’s probably not a great idea to pursue an hallucination all the way to the end. Most likely the results will not be what you thought they would be, but 35 years ago we weren’t playing the probabilities. There was this beautiful hallucination back then, roughly 1967-1970, that the world was about to be remade; that this monster of militarism and injustice was about to fall; that young people in this country would join with people all over the world to end imperialism and make a new world. I get shivers just writing these words. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:28:37 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/the-death-of-sds.html http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/the-death-of-sds.html The violence of the Weathermen is evidence of two things: first that they saw their nation and its evils clearly, and, secondly, that they had no adequate response to what they saw, and so were driven to ends which partook perhaps too much of the evils they discovered. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:25:14 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/the-best-thing-ever-written-about-the-weathermen.html http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/the-best-thing-ever-written-about-the-weathermen.html I JOINED THE anti-Vietnam War movement as an 18-year-old college student, a freshman at Columbia University. It was the fall of 1965, just months after the U.S. began sending ground combat troops to Southeast Asia. [I originally wrote “just months after the U.S. attacked Vietnam,” but the editor changed it. I accepted the euphemism because I didn’t want the fight over it to kill the piece.] Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:20:32 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/pemby-mark-rudd-mark-rudd-who-led-the-student-uprising-at-columbia-university-in-1968-and-then-becam.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/pemby-mark-rudd-mark-rudd-who-led-the-student-uprising-at-columbia-university-in-1968-and-then-becam.html By 1969, the annual convention of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the largest student group in America, was a national media spectacle. During the conference that year, a group of radical leftists, calling themselves the Weatherman, including a fresh-faced Mark Rudd (who had lead the strike and occupation of Columbia University in 1968), took control of the organization. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:11:10 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?anti-imperialism/anti-imperialism-and-its-discontents-an-interview-with-mark-rudd-founding-member-of-the-weather-unde.html http://www.markrudd.com/?anti-imperialism/anti-imperialism-and-its-discontents-an-interview-with-mark-rudd-founding-member-of-the-weather-unde.html In a moment of classic confrontation, the Jewish mother of one of America’s most prominent 1960s political radicals challenged her son before a packed auditorium, asking him to explain why he took part in violent protests, lived underground to avoid arrest, and didn’t call home for seven years. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:04:48 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/notes-from-the-underground.html http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/notes-from-the-underground.html You likely don’t remember me, but during the seven years you were underground, I’d have turned you in to the FBI in a heartbeat for your crimes against the movement. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:48:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/still-angry-after-38-years-a-pissed-off-sds-member-gets-in-his-licks.html http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/still-angry-after-38-years-a-pissed-off-sds-member-gets-in-his-licks.html What I’d like to offer today is a little bit of history that’s been forgotten or suppressed: Once upon a time there was a mass movement in this country that helped end an American war of aggression against a foreign country. Millions of Americans rose up against our government, and that included soldiers in uniform and returning veterans. I am proud to have been a part of that movement. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:42:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/speech-for-the-million-worker-march-2004.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/speech-for-the-million-worker-march-2004.html Sometime in the summer of 2002 Sam Green came to Albuquerque to show me and Marla, my wife, an advance VHS version of the Weather Underground documentary. Among his other qualities, Sam is a very polite guy. Maybe he felt I had some sort of right to see how I was portrayed in advance. He certainly wanted our reaction. Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:10:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/thinking-about-the-weather-underground-documentary.html http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/thinking-about-the-weather-underground-documentary.html Last November, in a radio interview [WLUW 88.7, “Live From the Heartland] with Mike James of the Heartland Café in Rogers Park, Chicago, I mentioned that the Weather Underground documentary “changed my life.” Mike’s wife Paige, the editor of Heartland Journal, was watching critically, as spouses and editors do, and afterward asked me the logical follow-up question, “How?” I promised her I would write a reply for the Journal. Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:37:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/how-a-movie-changed-my-life.html http://www.markrudd.com/?sds-and-weather/how-a-movie-changed-my-life.html Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn't blow it. He used community organizing methods to mobilize a base consisting of many people who had never voted before or who regularly don't vote. Few other candidates in my lifetime have taken this road, which is contrary to conventional political wisdom. Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:50:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/lets-get-smart-about-obama-nov-2008.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/lets-get-smart-about-obama-nov-2008.html I come before you this morning as one of the principle authors, almost forty years ago, of a totally failed strategy. In the course of things, my little faction seized control of the SDS national office and several of the regional offices. We then made the tragic decision—in 1969, at the height of the war—to kill off SDS because it wasn’t revolutionary enough for us. I am not proud of this history. Sat, 17 Feb 2007 22:42:35 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/talk-given-to-first-national-mds-meeting.html http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/talk-given-to-first-national-mds-meeting.html I want to thank the organizers of this conference for inviting me to speak, especially my friend Jeremy Varon. Jeremy, as I’m sure you know, wrote the brilliant study of the Weather Underground and the German Red Army Faction, Bringing the War Home. Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:31:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/1968-organizing-vs-activism.html http://www.markrudd.com/?organizing-and-activism-now/1968-organizing-vs-activism.html Early last summer, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from an instructor at the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia, inviting me to speak to a terrorism class at the academy. This was a thing of great wonder to me. To put it mildly, I was gob-struck. For seven and a half years of my life, from 1970 to 1977, I was hunted by the FBI. Fri, 18 Nov 2005 10:15:40 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/mark-goes-to-the-darkside-my-talk-to-the-fbi-training-academy-quantico-va-.html http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/mark-goes-to-the-darkside-my-talk-to-the-fbi-training-academy-quantico-va-.html I first spoke publicly about the question in 1988 at the twentieth anniversary celebration of the Columbia strike. In a rambling 45 minute monologue I touched on a lot of subjects, but the only one people seemed to respond to was my recognition of our Jewish backgrounds as relevant to our opposition to the war and racism. Sat, 12 Nov 2005 10:24:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/why-were-there-so-many-jews-in-sds-or-the-ordeal-of-civility.html http://www.markrudd.com/?about-mark-rudd/why-were-there-so-many-jews-in-sds-or-the-ordeal-of-civility.html Marla and I just returned from eight days in Israel and Palestine. This is a quick description of our trip for family and friends. Oy vey iss mir!!! Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:59:00 -0700 http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/report-from-israelpalestine-family-trip-2005.html http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/report-from-israelpalestine-family-trip-2005.html I’m interested in what your life was like when you were a federal fugitive for seven years. Are you willing to share this with Satya readers? Fri, 05 Mar 2004 10:36:00 -0800 http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/satya-interview-with-mark.html http://www.markrudd.com/?violence-and-non-violence/satya-interview-with-mark.html