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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 1973)
YSA team visits University By LEE SIEGEL Of the Emerald Toby Emmerich is 23, and talks very quickly. She has a lot to say: “This is a very exciting time to be a radical. Events like Watergate have just opened up everything that government has been doing behind everyone’s back. It shows how the government uses all its power—the FBI, the CIA, the police—to try to squelch anyone who criticizes it.” Toby is a member of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA). She and her two companions, Joe Callahan and Emory Dietrich, comprise one of twelve regional teams whose purpose is to bring information about the YSA, socialism, and various social movements to as many different campuses as possible. The twelve teams each travel for eight weeks, doing what the northwest YSA team is doing on the EMU terrace this week: setting up information tables, selling The Militant, YSA’s newspaper, and other publications, and talking to as many people as they can to spread the word about socialism. The YSA is not comprised of your garden variety socialists. True, you can see the dedication and faith burning in their eyes, but they talk less of Marx and Trotsky than old line socialists, and more of the farmworkers, Allende. the women’s movement, racism, and the state of the economy. The eternal optimism is still there, though. “It is not true that the working people always are dumb and racist,” say Emory, “because there are those periods when they are brought into the struggle. The potential is there. People don’t stay lax forever.” The revolution is possible says Joe. “It is true that we are very optimistic, but our optimism is based on a materialistic analysis of society. We think capitalist society is in its death agony; it is destroying the environment and stockpiling nuclear weapons that can destroy the world. But we also see that people are not going to tolerate this forever.” Emory points to the ac complishments of the YSA and other radical groups, and sees hope for the future. The YSA helped to build the antiwar movement; it provided leader ship that no other radical group could. The YSA has suceeded where other groups failed because it is interested in a variety of people Oregon yja%Emeral<y mmmkm Emory Dietrich, Joe Callahan and Toby Emmerich Photo by Dick Schoonover with a variety of views. It has a unified program and goes into the community and publicizes it. The YSA, says Joe, wants to get “young people interested in socialist ideas by inviting them to come and talk with us and see what we’re about.” Has the movement died? No, insists Toby. Fewer people are demonstrating now, but more people have opened up to socialist views. YSA members believe in the possibility of revolution. “When it happens,” says Toby, “it will be something that will involve the majority of Americans; it will be when they decide that it is time for them to control the things that concern their own lives.” The war in Southeast Asia radicalized many Americans, Watergate radicalized more, and as more such events occur, Americans will become more involved, more willing to go into the streets and demonstrate. It is a dynamic process, Toby feels. Things are quiet now, but the trend is toward greater in volvement and participation, toward more concern. To Joe, “It is not only possible but inevitable that the American people will become so fed up with capitalist society that they will look around for other answers and move in a revolutionary direction.” He envisions massive strikes built around economic and political demands. Toby will speak on Monday evening at 8 p.m. on “Why America Needs Socialism” (room to be announced). Will there be a revolution? The undying belief in social progress leads Toby, Emory, and Joe to say yes. Others, more cynical, might not agree. But what is certain, is that without people who believe in it, and who push for it, it is only an illusion. 180 PLC Oct. 5th 6:30 & 9:00 The Idiot, directed by Ivan Piriev, is based on Part I of Dostoyevsky’s novel. Set in mid-19th century St. Peter sburg, it centers around Natasia, the fascinating, loose living mistress of a count. He has offered a large dowry to the man who will take her off his hands so he can marry. In Nastasia’s corrupt and brutish circle, two men are bidding for her. There is also a third suitor-Prince Myshkin with an unselfish purity which makes him both loved and scorned in his society. How will she decide? “Above all it is simultaneously true to Dostoyevsky and the Russian character...a classic reproduction of a classic novel...” New York Post Oct. 5 6:30, 9:00 p.m. sponsored by the Iranian Student Assoc. 180 PLC $1.00 THF UMI^RSITY FILM SoCI€TY k “My Night at Maud’s” Academy award nominee Best Foreign film 1969 Best screen play 1969 New York Film Critic’s Award- Best screenplay “Probably the nost mature film that has come to the screen in years.” Saturday Review “It’s appeal is intellectual, delighting in paradox, contradiction, dialectic and ‘mathematical expectation’ ” Arthur Knight FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5 150 Science <New Sound System!) 7 & 9 p.m., Admission $1 and SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 8 p.m. (with two short films) University Theater Admission $1 or Film Society membership
