GOD'S COUNTRY - Part 5 of 9

GODS COUNTRY - Part 5 of 9

The story of "The Minnesota Eight"
http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/media/Minnesota-Monthly/February-2008/Patriot...

Patriot Acts
Recalling the countrys most notorious, and least likely, draft raiders
By Tim Gihring
Patriot Acts
Photo by Cheryl Walsh Bellville
The raiders, at the time of their trials in 1970.

(page 1 of 2)
AT THE TIME OF THEIR ARREST in 1970, about the only thing the Minnesota Eight agreed on was the value of raiding draft boards: Breaking into government offices and destroying draft cards so that young men might be spared from fighting in Vietnam. After serving their time, the activists went their separate ways.

Frank Kroncke, for instance, left Minnesota for a life in sales and marketing—for a time he was selling encyclopedias door to door. Bill Tilton became a St. Paul attorney and prominent Democratic supporter. Brad Beneke headed for Los Angeles and a career in rock music, but soon returned and is now in high-tech software sales. Don Olson helped launch the Minneapolis food co-op movement and hosts a weekly talk radio show, on KFAI, about politics.

But lately the Eight—or seven, actually, as the only member to plead guilty got out of jail time and didnt stay in touch—have been reunited, brought together by a play about their draft-raiding days, called Peace Crimes, staged this month by the History Theatre at the University of Minnesota.


Its a snowy evening in November, and five of the Eight have gathered at Tiltons home to swap war stories. Apart from Olson, who sports a bushy gray beard, the men have collectively shed about eight feet of hair since the raid that put them behind bars. Tilton, a garrulous outdoors type who recently spent six weeks kayaking around Greenland, sets out bottles of wine, and soon the group is excitedly discussing President Bush and Iraq as though working themselves up for another raid.

The culture of violence has only gotten stranger, says Pete Simmons, who now works with Peace in the Precincts, a political group advocating national security through nonviolent means. When people believe militarism is the same as patriotism, they give up their liberties in hope that the military will protect them. Everyone guffaws in agreement.

Its essentially American to dissent! cries Kroncke, and his fellow raiders hoist their glasses in solidarity. With a clarity they never had while burglarizing the government resisting illegitimate authority, says Kroncke, thats the American story!

In early 1970, before the Kent State killings, before Watergate, before the release of the Pentagon Papers detailing Americas conduct in Vietnam, it was much less obvious who was in the right.

** TEXT IS TOO LONG FOR YOUTUBE - GO TO THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE**

Category:

Education

Tags:

• GOD'S
• COUNTRY
• Malle
• Glencoe
• Minnesota
• 1979
• 1985
• Farming
• small
• town
• America
• economic
• crisis
• Brad
• Beneke
• VIETNAM
• WAR
• Minnesota eight
• draft
• card
• burning
• protest

[SeattleHistory]

@Scentless

It was an amazing find for me. I grew up in NW Minnesota (Hawley Class of 76) and when this was filmed I worked building Harvestores all around MN. All the farmers were being told to get big or get out, so many were building new barns and going deep in debt.

I came across the "7 Up - 49 Up" series from the UK and I wish they would do another follow-up to this documentary.

Now I work at UW in Seattle, and that is where I discovered this with no clue it was about Glencoe.

[Scentless]

This is priceless.