Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Figures
- Map
- Introduction: The Culture and Politics of Space
- 1 The Culture Wars and the Sixties
- 2 Go West!
- 3 Free Space, Free Speech
- 4 SDS Goes West
- 5 Genesis of a Counterculture
- 6 The Contradictions of Cultural Radicalism
- 7 Liberated Territory
- 8 Revolutionary Dreams, Provincial Politics
- 9 Soulful Socialism and Felicitous Space
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
8 - Revolutionary Dreams, Provincial Politics
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Figures
- Map
- Introduction: The Culture and Politics of Space
- 1 The Culture Wars and the Sixties
- 2 Go West!
- 3 Free Space, Free Speech
- 4 SDS Goes West
- 5 Genesis of a Counterculture
- 6 The Contradictions of Cultural Radicalism
- 7 Liberated Territory
- 8 Revolutionary Dreams, Provincial Politics
- 9 Soulful Socialism and Felicitous Space
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
By late 1968, revolutionary ideology and strategy permeated Movement politics. In 1969, the national office of SDS effectively collapsed as two warring factions, centred around Weatherman and Progressive Labor (PL), fought over the correct line on revolution. The high points of struggle in the Bay Area were student protests at Berkeley and San Francisco State, and the People's Park (see Figure 8.1) battle in Berkeley. The student struggles revolved around demands for community access to and control of education. The ideological framework within which student leaders operated was borrowed, to a large extent, from the Black Panthers. While such campus conflict raised community issues directly related to the politics of space and further cemented the Bay Area's vanguard role, it was the explosive People's Park episode that captured the essence of spatial conflict in the 1960s. It brought into focus key questions regarding the ownership, control and purpose of space. It also helped reinforce parochial or provincial tendencies. The Berkeley Liberation Program placed spatial politics at the top of the revolutionary agenda and projected a strategy that would make Berkeley a self-contained enclave. Not only was Berkeley different from America, not only was it at the forefront of radical politics nationally, not only was it the base for revolution, but it was also destined to be an island of socialism in the belly of the beast.
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- Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014