MARK RUDD TELLS WHERE HE WENT WRONG & WHAT TODAY'S YOUTH COULD DO BETTER

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TE-PING CHEN, CAMPUS PROGRESS - Today's youth are "just stuck in their
countercultural niches," Rudd said: "I'm hardcore punk, I'm west-coast
hip-hop, I'm nouveau punk, and so on." Rudd argues that clinging to such
identities - what he calls, quoting Freud, the "narcissism of small
differences" - keeps youth voices trapped in the entertainment world and
invisible in the political realm.

"The students today are barely starting [to organize] and they need
models," Rudd said. "The advantage at Columbia was, we were red-diaper
babies and many of us had been involved in the civil rights movement.".
. .

Fear of failure, Rudd believes, isn't license to look away. "This
country is like a giant aircraft carrier, and you're trying to change
the direction, and it'll take generations, but you've got to start!" he
said. "[It's] nearly impossible, but. . . has to be done."

Looking back after 40 years, Rudd said that they only thing he is
"really proud" about "is having been a part of the anti-war movement, in
which millions were involved." He added: "To the extent that anything I
did worked against the student left, or destroyed SDS - those are some
of my biggest shames."

But Rudd acknowledges that his generation's time is over. These days,
Rudd said, he's a liberal Democrat, not a radical. "I think being a
radical's a lot better than being liberal," he told me. "I just don't
have the energy anymore."

"I had my heart broken by this country," he said, "and so could you."

http://campusprogress.org/fieldreport/2450/the-lessons-of-the-weather-underground


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