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The Accidental Rebel - The New York Times. IT was the year of years, the year of craziness, the year of fire, blood and death. I had just turned 2. I was as crazy as everyone else. There were half a million American soldiers in Vietnam, Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, cities were burning across America, and the world seemed headed for an apocalyptic breakdown. Being crazy struck me as a perfectly sane response to the hand I had been dealt . The instant I graduated from college, I would be drafted to fight in a war I despised to the depths of my being, and because I had already made up my mind to refuse to fight in that war, I knew that my future held only two options: prison or exile. I was not a violent person. Looking back on those days now, I see myself as a quiet, bookish young man, struggling to teach myself how to become a writer, immersed in my courses in literature and philosophy at Columbia. I had marched in demonstrations against the war, but I was not an active member of any political organization on campus. I felt sympathetic to the aims of S. D. S. I wanted to read my books, write my poems and drink with my friends at the West End bar. Photo. Credit. Paul Hoppe Forty years ago today, a protest rally was held on the Columbia campus. The issue had nothing to do with the war, but rather a gymnasium the university was about to build in Morningside Park. The park was public property, and because Columbia intended to create a separate entrance for the local residents (mostly black), the building plan was deemed to be both unjust and racist. I was in accord with this assessment, but I didn. GoBindas Movies 736,652 views. With Rod Steiger, Lee Remick, George Segal, Eileen Heckart. A crafty serial killer plays a game of cat-and-mouse with a harried police detective trying to track him down. The crowd thought that was an excellent idea, and so off it went, a throng of crazy, shouting students charging off the Columbia campus toward Morningside Park. Much to my astonishment, I was with them. What had happened to the gentle boy who planned to spend the rest of his life sitting alone in a room writing books? He was helping to tear down the fence. He tugged and pulled and pushed along with several dozen others and, truth be told, found much satisfaction in this crazy, destructive act. After the outburst in the park, campus buildings were stormed, occupied and held for a week. I wound up in Mathematics Hall and stayed for the duration of the sit- in. The students of Columbia were on strike. As we calmly held our meetings indoors, the campus was roiling with belligerent shouting matches and slugfests as those for and against the strike went at one another with abandon. By the night of April 3. Columbia administration had had enough, and the police were called in. Along with more than 7. I was arrested . I was proud to have done my bit for the cause. Both crazy and proud. What did we accomplish? When French students erupted in May of that year of years, they were directly confronting the national government . We at Columbia were powerless, and our little revolution was no more than a symbolic gesture. But symbolic gestures are not empty gestures, and given the nature of those times, we did what we could. I hesitate to draw any comparisons with the present.
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