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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 1971)
3 C" 'Si r"a C1 r rX P I f"""""! KB WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1971 LINCOLN, NEBRASKA VOL. 95, NO. 38 Wh are they now? by Bart Becker Where are they now, the fiery political rhetoricians of the late Sixties? The Students for a Democratic Society, the Moratorium organizers, the Yippies and political activists? They existed on a national scale. The names of Mark Rudd, Bernadine Dohrn and the notorious Chicago Seven, Cantonsville Nine and Father Groppi bring back memories of newspaper headlines insisting a full-fledged revolution in progress. THE RADICAL activists existed on a local scale, too. A review of 1965 Daily Nebraskans showed the local SDS chapter found its way into the news throughout the year. Carl Davidson, local SDS president, is one of the radicals from the '60s who has continued his work in leftist politics. Davidson once served as a national officer of SDS, and is currently associated with The Guardian, a leftist "movement" newspaper in San Francisco. But few, if any, of the other political activists from those early days of NU activism have remained as prominent. IN 1969 the prominent local activists were Mike Shonsey and Alan Siporin, co-chairmen of the first Moratorium march. Shonsey is living in Eugene, Oregon now, according to Lincoln friends. He is not active in politics, they said. "He's mostly trying to keep body and soul together." Also living in Eugene is Phil Medcalf who was active in the '69-'70 movement. Medcalf has coordinated a Free School and has received a grant to keep the school in operation. MIKE BARRET, also active during the "old days", and one of three people arrested during a sit-in at the Chancellor's office last spring, has also dropped out of the activist spotlight. Barret is no longer in school. He is living quietly with his wife, Jackie, and their dog, Boogie, in Lincoln. Although he keeps abreast of political news he has neither taken any part in organizing protests nor taken part in the demonstrations themselves since that time. Mike Richardson, another of the students arrested with Barret, has also dropped from the local political scene. After his arrest last spring he was one of several individuals who tried to boost the Pershing School at Beatrice. When the innovative school folded, Richardson disappeared from the newspaper stories which had often carried his name. THERE ARE still activists in the Lincoln community. Nebraskans for Peace has organized some demonstrations against the war. The Coalition for Peace and Justice applies its energies in attempts to live up to its name. But many of the fiercest of the radicals have evolved to a quieter style of life. In another story on this page, Alan Siporin tells how his perspectives on life have altered his way of living and his outlook on political activism. Siporin: 'politics is a guilt trip' by Bart Becker Alan Siporin, Yippie candidate for ASUN president, said he doesn't have to vote Wednesday because he has "logically "already won the election. "The people who don't bother to vote Wednesday, " remarked Siporin, "are the people who agree with what I stand for. So everyone who doesn't vote will be voting for me. Since only about 3,000 students will vote, I figure I've already won the election by 15,000 votes. " If elected he said his policy would be "legalized euthanasia. " Daily Nebraskan; Monday, April 20, 1970 Fifteen days after the above item appeared, Alan Siporin was in a classroom of the UNL Military and Naval, Sciences Building negotiating a list of student demands with University officials. Siporin had led a group of students to the building which was occupied in protest of the U.S. military involvement in Cambodia. A year and a half later-November, 1 9 7 1 --Siporin has adopted a philosophy and life style which is definitely removed from his political activism of that May. "THE STRIKE taught me why I rejected political action," Siporin said, g Ill, LI .! . , , ,LI JWj Tjjy' I M f r o CT) (dT M Yfi 71' firm, -l ? iJ'X ,: ' ' r-,- , ,f " 5 '-"-ir-ifiMiniii niiiiirn iiiiiiiiniiiiiini i inr - - - n r itiiiiiii iinr- - - inrair rnmimnr Tirnnm 1 ' v Photo by Gail Folda Dan Ladely, Mike Burdick and Alan Siporin . . . "go through life with a style of entertaining their friends." lounging in a chair in the apartment of his friend and cohort, UNL student Dan Ladely. "Politics is a guilt trip. You relate to the world with things like, 'look at all the bad things you're doing to the world.' "I'm trying to relate to people not with 'You're messing up the world' but with 'You're part of society. Do something good for it.' Look inside your own head instead of fighting society. When you do that you begin to see how you can fit into the community and the life you live will be better." In the year and a half since the campus disruptions, Siporin's appearance has changed. His hair, relatively short in 1970, falls below his shoulders now. His beard hides his neck. BUT HE SAID he has been heading in the same direction for a long time. He explained the influences in his life-most of which involved semi-lengthly digressions from the subject directly at hand. As he talked to his audience, which included Ladely and Mike Burdick, a former football standout, he leaned back and enjoyed his elocutions. Burdick seemed to have heard many of the incidents before as he urged Siporin to relate particular anecdotes, but the group appeared far from bored with the tales. BURDICK ALSO told of the turning point in his life. A former high school football star at Omaha Westside, Burdick was also a member of the Nebraska football squad for a time. "I was at practice one day and I kept hearing this flute music," Burdick said. "It was Charles Lloyd. I took off my pads, dropped acid, saw God, and here I am." Amid the laughter, Siporin continued to captivate the room with his story. His skill at oratory was nurtured during his years at Omaha Central High School. AS HE RECALLS it, his debating record during his senior year was "about 41 wins and two losses. I think I won 27 in a row. "I also debated for the University once," he remembered. "They sent me to Columbus, Ohio with $100. I spent $10 on dope. I wonder if the University knows they bought me a lid of dope?" Then he brought the conversation back to the influences en his life. "EVER SINCE I was four years old I've been sick 80 to 100 days a year. I've got this disease, man, and my mother and I are the only two people to ever have it in the history of medicine. It's important to know this because something like this has to affect your life. "It's like having a third arm," he said. "You want to show people it's there, even though it's kind of hidden in the back." At the urging, and to the visible amusement of Burdick, Siporin told stories of his travels. Although some of the predicaments he told of are remarkably fantastic, Siporin told them with a straightface. "DIG IT, I hitchhiked about 50,00o miles while I was getting my education at this University," he laughed. The stories seem like simple amusing anecdotes initially, but Siporin ties them all together eventually, like a man weaving a rope from numerous strands of twine. After 15 minutes he had verbally traveled through California and the American Southwest to the Grand Canyon. On seeing the natural wonder for the first time, he realized "this was the halfway point in my life." AND THEN, dismissing the subject, he laughed, "Seeing my life was half over, I came back to Nebraska and became a famous Nebraska radical. But before that I became a drug guru. I was pretty flipped out in those days." Turn to page 3.
