"SDS a Graphic History" By Harvey Pekar et al.

The SDS - "Students for a Democratic Society" - was a leftist political group formed in the 1960's. Their legend looms large in every narrative about mid-century counter culture shenanigans. The endlessly blathered about "turbulence of the era" was mirrored by the organizational chaos of the SDS itself. It seems like they spent less time worrying about sticking it to The Man and more time fighting each other.

The SDS was a fractious group of well-meaning but self-absorbed hipsters. Too much time and effort were devoted to organizational messes that could have benefited from perusing "Robert's Rules of Order" and less time with Marx and Lenin. The SDS folks seem to put so much faith in some kind of reductive, all-inclusive, messy democracy that they never get anything done. Some folks get the anarchy they deserve - Yes, I'm talking to you Mr. Faux-hawked skater whining about the cops interfering with your right to drink malt-liquor and stencil your bad clip-art crap all over stop signs.

Hey, I want to eat the rich just as much as the next guy, but I'm not convinced that capitalism is the worst thing in the world. I'm all for the "workers controlling the means of production" - but if the workers can't even make a decent double-cheeseburger, I'm not holding out much hope that the trains are going to run on time.

As far as "redistribution of wealth" goes - and I'm someone who would benefit from the redistribution of change left under couch cushions - I'm not too convinced that stealing from the rich to pay the poor is going to do anyone much good.

I stopped by a local teachers union rally today and was rather surprised when a speaker trotted out the aforementioned "redistribution" rhetoric. The old-school radical left is still around. And apparently they have taken up residence in the waning Catholic schools of Northeast Pennsylvania. Who knew? Someone better tell Michael Savage how the pinko radicals have spread beyond the Ivy league.

The book is honest to a fault. Way too much ink is spent recounting infighting and tedious, talky posturing on the part of various SDS factions. It's amazing they got anything done with all the internal politics of an organization that was maybe a little too democratic for its own good.

Decentralized and node-based organizing principles - the stuff that brings us the wonderful collectivism of MySpace and Facebook - would have served the Sixties radical community well. I'm sure a lot of contemporary anarcho/activist/vegan/bike-messengers who spend their days screen-printing fliers for their own "Days of Rage" would disagree. But it's better to spend less time organizing and more time doing.

The text is largely the work of Harvey Pekar and most of the artwork was done by Gary Dumm. Dumm's work will be familiar to any reader of Harvey's splendid "American Splendor." I think Harvey's a genius but one thing I didn't anticipate was how much I enjoyed Dumm's work here. In American Splendor, Dumm has to compete against flashier stuff from name brand artists like Crumb etc. Dumm really shines here. Working with cranky old Harvey has taught him a few tricks about making talky, prosaic stuff visually interesting.

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