University of Virginia Library

Paranoid Caricature

In the sunlight of Harvard
Square, Easy Rider seemed, not
only a paranoid caricature, but a
laughably implausible one, for danger
was far away. Out of ten thousand
freaks in the streets, a cautious
city government, and good channels
of communication grew feelings of
invulnerability.

Feeling the vibrations of a Cambridge
street hegemony, old-style
leftists thought of the case and
theoretical order of a general worker-student
strike, accompanied by a
militant seizure of power led by a
fighting party armed with socialist
ideas.