By Marc Eliot Stein, World BEYOND War, October 28, 2024
“Out demons out!” On October 21, 1967, poet, activist, singer and DIY publisher Ed Sanders led an exorcism of the Pentagon in USA’s capital city to protest the disaster in Vietnam. Purely by coincidence, or perhaps due to the contrivance of mysterious spirits, we were honored to be joined by Ed Sanders from his home in Woodstock for a conversation on the World BEYOND War podcast on the same morning 57 years later.
How much has changed between 1967 and 2024? We talked about nuclear madness and humanity’s self-destructive nihilism, Sanders’s youthful protests and arrest for attacking a nuclear submarine, Herman Kahn’s depressing 1960 book “On Thermonuclear War” and how President Lyndon B. Johnson’s hopes for a progressive presidency were destroyed by war. We talked about the deep state, the absurdities of USA’s looming Harris vs. Trump election, Africom, Chernobyl, Elon Musk, the current disasters in Ukraine and Gaza. “It all leads in one direction: World War Three”.
Ed Sanders is a hero and inspiration to me and many others for his joyful and eclectic spirit of protest, and for his brilliant early innovations as a do-it-yourself publisher who used a mimeograph machine to self-produce a groundbreaking poetry journal that could not be censored and ended up publishing some of the best poets of the 1960s. “When in doubt, publish!” Sanders says. He found his first mimeograph machine while volunteering at Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker in New York City, and tells the story of how he eventually made up with Dorothy Day for once using her machine without permission.
A lot of today’s interview is about other great pacifist souls like Dorothy Day who influenced and inspired Ed Sanders (and, still, many of us today): Allen Ginsberg, Bradford Lyttle, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Abbie Hoffman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso and Judith Malina.
For me as a podcast host and member of the confused generation that came after the hippie era, it was an absolute thrill to talk to a cultural figure who inspired me tremendously in my own formative years. The most moving parts of this interview for me were when we talked about the need for humor, balance and moderation in a lifetime of furious protest.
As our conversation ranged from William F. Buckley to Jack Kerouac to Caryl Chessman to Muammar Gaddafi to Vladimir Putin, I only regret that we forgot to shout out Sanders’s fellow Fug Tuli Kupferberg, even though the episode begins with the 1968 song “Dover Beach” by the Fugs, featuring the final verse of Matthew Arnold’s poem. The episode ends with a recording of the 1967 exorcism and attempted levitation of USA’s military headquarters from the Fugs album “Tenderness Junction”. Thanks to Ed Sanders for talking to us on the World BEYOND War podcast!
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One Response
Thank you! And I thank WBW Members, Journalists and Peace Activists every day. Theirin lies hope, understanding and Peace Actions both l9cal and World-Wide, to participate in and celebrate.