Re: [sixties-l] request for help:past and present

From: M. Brody (mbrody@earthling.net)
Date: Tue Sep 12 2000 - 10:02:41 CUT

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    In the light of Country Joe's post about ranters and flamers destroying the
    list, maybe I should add my request for help, before you all leave...

    My problem is coming to grips with the present, in light of the past:

    the Past:
    organizing against the war [1966, Century City LA "hey hey LBJ, how many
    kids did you kill today?"]
    against the draft [Oakland Induction Center- meeting the kids being hustled
    off the buses, pleading/dragging them down to "last chance draft counseling"]
    helping to build People's Park in '69, and then patching up our wounded as
    a medic during the struggle against the combined Bay area police forces and
    the national guard.

    After I got my "1A", I asked the Berkeley draft board to accept me as a
    medical corpsman [unarmed], but they just laughed at me ["You can't be a
    conscientious objector boy, you're not religious!"].

    in Between:
    ten years Underground in the forests of New England till finally Jimmy
    Carter gives me a passport- and I leave Amerika behind.
    Getting to Israel, I work on a Kibbutz, learn Talmud, become a citizen,
    and... join the Army as a combat medic [even though already past age 30]
    and delude myself that maybe, just maybe I can finally kiss goodbye to
    Vietnam [where I wasn't] and all my friends [class of '68] that ended up on
    that long black wall...
    join a religious settlement, build a home, plant an organic vineyard, raise
    kids, do my annual army reserve duty, cross the age of 50 ...

    the Present:
    as I write this to all of you, I look out the window from my home on a hill
    overlooking the city of Nablus [Palestinian Autonomy] less than 5
    kilometers away. For the past few months every night is a super concert
    and light show-
    bursts of automatic weapons fire, tracers painting the sky, fireworks and
    occasional unidentified "BOOM". There's almost no fighting going on- this
    is just their preliminary enthusiasm...
    I'm very sure that sometime in the immediate future my Palestinian cousins
    from down below will stop shooting randomly into the air, and start to
    climb up this hill I am sitting on, and there I will stand with my
    neighbors to meet them, and blood will flow. Lots of blood...

    I have been downloading lots of 60's songs from the internet, songs I
    haven't heard for 30 years. Phil Ochs: "I ain't a marchin' anymore"...

    I have always thought that people really don't change, even as they
    mature, gain experience, learn the hard way, etc... the ideals remain. I
    also feel that I am on a fairly straight path that connects past with
    present without any reversals. But now I feel it is all coming to a head,
    all boiling down to that instant in time, very close to now when I raise my
    Amerikan made M-16, and carefully line up front and rear sights with the
    chest of he who is running towards me [holding his Russian made AK-47
    pointed straight at me], and decide if to squeeze the trigger...

    I would welcome your comments...

    Menachem Brody
    Elon Moreh
    Israel
    mbrody@earthling.net



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