About Veritas. ([Athens, Georgia]) 1970-1970 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1970)
Veritas Page 4 6®B sK^^ o^c^.. In the face of the many recent bombings around the country a lot of people in and out of the movement have denounced violent revolutionary tactics because they feel that they will only lead to government repres sion. They have pointed out the many new bills intended to curb crime, riots, and dem onstrations as proof of this ensuing repres sion. They also point out that revolutionary measures alienate people from what we want to accomplish. It's to these two arguments that I would like to offer my opinions. Repress ion of dissidents has al ways been available to the government and it has been used throughout American history. The Civil War was, in fact, an unprecedented act of federal power used to crush those who chose to disobey it. The struggle of I.W.W. workingmen saw a number of attempts by the government to destroy its effectiveness as labor organizers. The Colorado Coal Strike of 1914, for example, saw the I.W.W. seize over two hundred square miles of territory and the eventual intervention of federal troops. Sev enty-four people died before the strike was put down. In 1918 thru the early Twenties there was the Red Scare ano the notorious Palmer Raids which resulted in the arrest and deportation of important I.W.W. and "com munist" union organizers. And just a few years ago there was McCarthyism and Walter Reuther's purge of "communists" in the U.A.W. Finally, the transfer of Japanese- American citizens to "relocation centers" during World War Two is enough to show me that the U.S. government, like any other government in times of crisis, will go to any means necessary to insure its grip on political control. Such a crisis is now rapidly ap proaching our government, and a look at the new measures recently passed or pending in Congress will show the extent of government paranoia. The New York Times reported last week that while the Senate worked late to pass the newest anti-crime bill (HR 16196) ^.. there were emotional cries against 'crime in the streets' and 'terrorist bombings' and that Sen. John L. McClellan (D Ark.) was seen pacing around, waving his arms and denouncing 'the arsonists, the revolutionaries, the sabotagers (sic) running free in our coun try.' The bill allows for preventive detention of persons labeled "high risk" before they have a trial, no-knock powers for Washington police, authority to conduct night searches with or without a warrant, and takes away the right of a citizen to resist an illegal arrest. The bill was passed 59 to 0 and when Nixon signed it into law he told Mitchell and Hoover, "Gentlemen, I give you the tools. You do the job." Another bill, introduced by Sen. Eastland, head of the Senate Judiciary Com-' mittee, reads anyone ". . . whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States" would be guilty of "subversive action". Still another new bill, this one introduced by Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D Conn.) would ban any newspaper or mem bership in any group that "conducts some of its activities in secret, publishes or circulates propaganda which advocates revolution" and that participation in the above would be enough for committing the crime of "advoca tion urban terrorism". And then there is bill S3O which in effect alters the Fifth Amendment so that witnesses may be required to testify and that those who refuse to do so, although convicted of no crime, can be jailed without bail until they do testify. The bill also creates a nebulous "dangerous special offender" which is anybody taking part in what the bill calls a "conspiracy". The bill has passed the Senate and is now in the House. These new legislations are unpreci dented in their scope; while putting restric-. tions on the civil liberties of a political group that doesn't go by the rules of the game they are very vague as to the definition of who or what exactly fits the description of a "high risk" or a "subversive" or an "advocate of urban terrorism" or a "dangerous special offender". This vagueness on the part of the government gives me the impression that the wielders of power in this country are thrash ing out trying to fix the blame on anybody they think is against them. That's like killing the messenger who brings the emperor bad news, the emperor thinking that by doing away with the messenger the message will also disappear. Helen Keller once said, "The wise fools who sit in the high places of justice fail to see that in revolutionary times vital issues are not settled by statutes, decrees and authorities, but in spite of them." Tkrs Rare is TeNO^qtaz^^ BUTM@t 1 OfiA^q^^l @fr #£ Izrail LAWD OF THEF^E? ^ 9 Ol^M^ W '"""°' j6l /At Is rapping with your friends about radical change a crime? It must be that our very thoughts and what goes inside our heads is enough for the government and the police to look on us with suspicion and fear; it's our way of living and being that worries the state machine. During the recent annual convention of the Fraternal Order of Police one speaker urged police and veteran's organizations to "make this country what it used to be" and labeled rock festivals a "Communist plot to destroy our youth." I don't think it has been our alien ating of the government and "Middle Ameri ca' that has brought the inconsistencies of the American Way to the surface; quite the opposite—it is we who have been alienated by the government. We tried marches and peti tions to bring an end to the Vietnam war, yet instead of getting action we have been rebuk ed as "pusillanimous pussyfooters" or "naked nabobs of negativism". And it is the govern ment, not we, who have escalated the vio lence. Orangeburg, Jackson State, Kent State, and the countless times the police have harassed us with their busts, their murders of Black Panther Party members, the beating up of peace demonstrators by hard hatters (under which must lie some hard heads), and Nixon's ejaculating diatribes for "the great Silent Majority to stand up and be counted" smacks of nothing less that an Orwellian fascism. I think that more people in the movement ought to become aware of the politics of revolution when we worry about The Man coming in and busting you for dope or when we listen to what our "leaders" say about young people and students in general. If we want America to fulfill its capabilities as a nation of cooperators rather than a nation of the oppressor and the oppressed, we had better realize that ours is a struggle for liberation from those who now hold power. Malcolm X once said, "Power never takes a back step—only in the face of more power. Power doesn't back up in the face of a smile or in the face of a threat, or in the face of some kind of nonviolent loving action. It's not in the nature of power to back up in the face of anything but some more power. Power recognizes only power, and all of them who realize this have made gains." So keep this in mind when you see your next friend get busted or when Nixon tells us that he is going to give us "a generation of peace". As Wendell Phillips said in 1859, "Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms." Tree Frog 5%4/VZ> BE- S^E 44^^. A Radical's Guide to Economic Reality, Angus Black. One idea of the New Left that is being painfully confirmed in the minds of an increasing number of students is the concept of the university as an institution for the preservation of the existing social order. The systems of tenure, tracking, dogmatism, and compatability all serve the established at the exclusion of the radical. The state fashions the university which in turn fashions the leaders who in turn fashion the state. Perhaps the best illustration of the academy as servant of the state is the introductory economics course. Here the student becomes the helpless consumer in a monopoly market of ideas dominated by professors who work for the bank after class and textbooks which faithfully recite the canons of the Keynesian warfare-welfare state. If the student does not succumb completely, he usually finds uncertain refuge in obsolete communism. Now there is hope for the radical who is truly interested in an alternative to authoritarian economics. A major publisher has made available Angus Black's A Radical's Continued on poge 5. And Guide Her
