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Page 4
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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."
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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
