If not for John... - Arnold Springer
For anyone planning to write a community history
of contemporary Venice (1945-2005), a political overview would need to be
prepared. Any political sketch of this period could not be written with
addressing the role of John Haag. If not for John, elements of Prairie Fire,
several corp of resident property owners in North Venice (both 'right' and
'left'), and Werner Shaarf and Associates, the political history of Venice would
not have developed the way that it did.
It is not my intention to elaborate on the
above history in this letter, but simply to acknowledge the debt of gratitude
that all politically conscious people in today's Venice community owe to John.
John helped change the course of contemporary Venice history and helped make
Venice what it is today.
I arrived in
Venice politically in 1968, just after taking a teaching position at CSULB. I
had lived in North Beach since 1964, but graduate school at UCLA, dissertation,
marriage and settling down occupied my time. The Santa Monica Evening Outlook
newspaper, and then The Beachhead, kept me as up to date as I cared to be about
Venice politics. At that time it seemed everything was about - North Venice
re-development, nude beach, beats and poseurs, rock and roll, and street people.
Prior to 1972 that's about what I knew of Venice
politics.
I first encountered John Haag
in the pages of both the Venice Beachhead and in the Outlook, not at the Venice
West. Then, after 1972, I heard him speak at meetings, heard him present at the
Beachhead collective, and witnessed his inspired and tireless work in the
formation of the Peace and Freedom party.
John actually was one of the lead
activists who helped build the national party from a very energetic base in
Venice. In fact the Venice Organizing Committee, led by John, coordinated the
founding of P & F chapters all over the country. John lit the spark and
'carried a load' in this campaign.
Over
the course of several decades I watched John do political work in Venice. He was
an inspiration and I, along with many others understood that and were drawn into
political life here as a result of John's work. He worked closely then with
Benjamin Spock.
In the long run, I
suppose what captured me for John was his politics. He was an anarchist....,
sometimes he could be libertarian, and often a liberal. He was never C.P., never
Progressive Labor, never Revolutionary Communist Party. John was not a
stereotypical Anarchist, not cut from the caricatures painted by some academics
or by op ed writers, or for that matter by the popular culture. John believed in
order, in discipline, and in intense collective work. He didn't believe that
there was a real contradiction between the 'ideas' of self defining and
determining community and the strategy to realize the same. He was very
practical in that sense at least. Very practical for a poet, for an
anarchist.
He was that kind of
anarchist. Perhaps it's best to call him an anarcho-syndicalist, or a
communitarian. He didn't ever grow misty eyed over 'class struggle' or 'workers
of the world unite'. He was very much taken with acting and organizing locally.
John was an organizer first and foremost, a principled organizer, a
communitarian, and an anarchist.
This
type of politics led him into conflict with other local Venice political
activists, not just from the 'chamber of commerce and petty bourgeois right',
but from the hard liners and doctrinaires on the left. I distinctly recall that
John stood up to them - at The Beachhead; at the Town Council; in meetings of
community activists in Venice; he stood up to their rhetoric and ideological
blandishments. Much of the disagreement was aired at meetings in the Venice
canals, and in confrontations at meetings of the Free Venice organization and at
the Beachhead. These became legend among the Venice activists and I'm certain
that many can still recount those' delicious' tales to this
day.
I admired John for his courage and
for his independence. Without John and his political posture and prominence, I
probably never would have become as deeply committed to Venice political
activism as I did.
John was an
inspiration. My hat is off to him and to his
memory.
If anyone would like to donate
any materials associated with John...essays, letters, poetry, photos...., I
would be glad to accept such and put that away for safe keeping in the Venice
Archives, Special Collections, CSULB. Here it will be safe until Venice gets its
own archive. Meanwhile John will be in the good company of another great
Southern California political activist and organizer, Dorothy Healy, whose
papers are also housed at CSULB. The archives are professionally maintained and
open to the public.
I can be reached
at:
ulanbator@venice-ca.com
–Arnold
Springer
Posted: Mon - May 1, 2006 at 01:53 PM