Where it started - 35 years of the Free Venice Beachhead
By John
Haag
The California Peace and Freedom
Party qualified for the ballot in time for the 1968 elections. Three P&F
candidates ran: Bob Nieman for State Senate, myself for Assembly and Sherman
Pearl for U.S. Congress.
Venice members of the party formed a united
campaign to support and publicize all three
candidates.
Campaign committees vanish once
the election is over. The Venice Peace and Freedom campaign committee resolved
not to do this. We intended to continue as a group, working on some project to
be decided after the November
elections.
Immediately after the
election, the campaign committee met to decide its project. Among several
suggestions, community radio station and a community newspaper were the most
popular. The absence of media coverage of our candidates pointed up the absence
or distortion in coverage of other
issues.
The final decision was for a
community newspaper to be called th Free Venice Beachhead. The first issue came
out in December 1968, a 4-page paper printed on green newsprint. Among the
members were Carol Fondiller, Jane Gordon, Rick Davidson and myself. At one
time or another, almost every leftist Venice activist has been a member of th
Beachhead collective.
It was possible
to get our the first issue in less than a month because the Beachhead collective
consisted of the prior campaign committee, P&F members who knew each other
well and were used to working together. In my opinion, the structure of the
Beachhead collective has much to do with the paper’s effectiveness and
longevity. All members of the collective are volunteers. None are paid: all
members of the collective are equal. There is no editor or other officer. Anyone
who works on a given issue is entitled to vote on the business of that issue.
There is no requirement to be registered in th Peace and Freedom Party.
If this be anarchy, let’s make
the most of it
Posted: Mon - December
1, 2003 at 03:37 PM