New American Movement Newspaper

Soon after the hammerblows of 1968, the U.S. New Left virtually disappeared as a political force -- just as its ideas were beginning to reach its army of potential sympathizers. In 1969, leadership circles of the fast-growing, loosely-organized Students for a Democratic Society splintered into extremist factions which soon vanished -- leaving thousands of independent activists without a national organization. In March 1970, four leaders of the post-SDS "Weatherman" faction blew themselves up while making bombs for a coming "armed struggle." Things were never quite the same thereafter.

Not that everyone packed it in. Founded in 1971, the New American Movement (NAM) sought to carry on the New Left's work of movement-building, while avoiding its grievous mistakes. NAM's often-brilliant internal publications are still worth reading (if you can find them): Barbara Ehrenreich on pop psychology, Elayne Rapping on the media, etc. But the times weren't propitious, and in 1982 NAM merged with Michael Harrington's social democratic DSOC to form Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Unrepentant NAM members grew up into professors, trade unionists, social workers, and (me, for one) ink-stained writers and journalists.

-- Steve Badrich

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