Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin (born 1943) is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications.
New Left activist
Gitlin became a political activist in 1960, when he joined a Harvard group called Tocsin, against nuclear weapons. In 1963 and 1964, Gitlin was president of Students for a Democratic Society; he was elected, he writes, because "none of the other four candidates, each of whom was experienced, was willing to serve," since "we mistrusted power, including our own! Recruiting leaders was hard." He helped organize the first national demonstration against the Vietnam War, held in Washington, D. C., on April 17, 1965, with 25,000 participants, as well as the first civil disobedience directed against American corporate support for the apartheid regime in South Africa - a sit-in at the Manhattan headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank on March 19, 1965. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the mid-1980s, he was a leader of Berkeley's Faculty for Full Divestment and president of Harvard-Radcliffe Alumni/-ae Against Apartheid. In 2013, he became involved in the alumni wing of the Divest Harvard movement, seeking the university's exit from fossil fuel corporations.
Podcasts:
Famous quotes by Todd Gitlin:
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by Spunge
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by Philmore
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by Eidolon
Dotted Line
by: SpungeI really havnt got a clue,
i really dont know whats goin on.
But i know that in an hour or two,
i'll have done something that is wrong.
Weve reservations,
Yeah there are things we need to know, your conversations.
Dont mean a thing.
Perhaps im slow,
I'm out my depth, i cant get out.
And now i find it hard to breathe.
Think its best if you just leave.
[Chorus]
Man in the suit says it'll be fine,
just sign on the dotted line.
He says the whole damm world will be mine,
just sign on the dotted line. Yeah.
And everything will turn out fine. Yeah
Its something that weve all been through.
Something that we all know in some shape or form.
The fact that in a month or two,
theres gonna be wolves outside the door.
Weve all got restrictions,
yeah there are things that we wont do.
But your contradictions,
arent helping me, arent helping you.
Im out my depth, i cant get out.
And now i find it hard to breathe.
Think its best if you just leave.
[Chorus]
Man in the suit says it'll be fine,
just sign on the dotted line.
He says the whole damm world will be mine,
jus sign on the dotted line.Yeah.
And everything will turn out fine. Yeah
My minds been beaten black and blue.
Think im gonna have to scrape it off the floor.
No one seems to see our point of view.
Cant take that many more.
Dont mind rejection, we know were gonna take a few.
Weve dedication, when were broke down, we still put through.
Im out my depth, i cant get out.
And now i find it hard to breathe.
Think its best if you just leave.
[Chorus]
Man in the suit says it'll be fine,
just sign on the dotted line.
He says the whole damm world will be mine,
just sign on the dotted line.Yeah.
And everything will trune out fine. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.