Roz's post on the War Is Over march in NYC, unfortunately forces me to
recall a somewhat similar protest that took place in Berkeley in 1975. I
was a college freshman, having chosen U.C. partly due to its activist
reputation. ON the night that the war officially ended (I think),
students and Berkeley residents poured out into the streets with cheers of
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong have won. Whether they did so
spontaneously or not I do not know. Unfortunately, the street
demonstration soon degenerated into a trashing of stores and cars as at
least some of those present chose to express themselves by breaking
windows and overturning cars. This, for me, was a rude introduction to
some of the realities of the sixties, suggesting that some had lost touch
with the ideals that had originally given rise to the antiwar movement.
In retrospect, it also leads me to believe that conservative backlash was
not the only cause of the rapid decline of the left. RAther, many new
leftists had abdicated their role of recruiting younger, still idealistic
students into the movement. I, myself, went on to work for Gene
McCarthy's independent campaing in 1976, much to the chagrin of Berkeley
Spartacists who called McCarthy an imperialist.
Peter Levy
York College
On Thu, 3 Aug 2000 RozNews@aol.com wrote:
> I was part of a demonstration in which Phil Ochs was one of the organizers
> , it was called "The War is Over" It was kinda a Yippie action. (
> We met in Washington Square Park and had a celebration that the war in
> vietnam was over. We marched in Greenwich Village and I can't remember where
> else. I remember women in Beauty shops (now called hair dressers ),
> running out of the salon with their hair wet and in rollers joining us. We
> had noise makers and were joyful. ( the war was not over) I have a
> small leaflet that was passed out in my archives. It has the famous WWII
> shot of the soldier kissing the girl in Times Square.
>
> In regard to music about marijuana
> How about Dave Peel
> He sang with a guitar in washington square park and at various events.
> The only song that I can remember that he sang was called Marijuana
> and went like this:
> " Mariiiii marijuana
> Mariiiii marijuana
> I like marijuana, you like marijuana, everybody likes marijuana. "
> Repeat
>
>
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