movement news and reviews september 15,1970 ID F ERRATA L In our August issue we failed to note that we'd done some edi- 4 & ting of Gordon Yaswen's "Sunrise Hill: Post Mortem". The ful! text is available from Gordon at a cost of $1 per copy. His address is simply Star Route, Montague, Mass. 01351. ln our September 1 issue we HOME FOLKS Ofelia Alayeto Marilyn Albert Maris Cakars Susan Cakars Bruce Christianson Donna Christianson Diana J. Davies Ralph DiGia Karen Durbin Jen Elodie 16. mitter Apologies to all concerned. into 3: Marty Jezer Peter Kiger Dorothy Lane Marty Lauritsen Burton LeVitsky Jackson Maclow Mary Mayo David McReynolds Peter Merlin Don Mochon Jim Peck Lana Reeves (Photos) Paul Rilling lgal Roodenko IrYendy Schwartz Connie Sohodski Bonnie Stretch Mayer Vishner 4:. page Denis Adelsberger (Box 7477, Atlanta,Ga.) Ruth Dear (5429 S. Dorchester, Chicago, Ill.) Paul Encimer (c/o Venice Draft Resistance, 73 Market St. No, 11, Venice, Calif.) Seth Foldy (2232 Elandoa Dr., Cleveland Heights, Oh.) Jim Giddings (1028 E. 6th St.; Tucson, Ariz.) Erika Gottfried (4811 NE 107th, Seattle, Wash. 98125) Paul & Becky Johnson (Somewhere in New Mexico) Wayne Hayashi (1035 University Ave., Rm. 203, Honolulu, Hi.96822) Rose LaBelle (713 NE Adams, Minneapolis, Mn.) Timothy Lange (1045 14th St., Boulder, Co.) Mark Morris (3808 Hamilton St., Philadelphia, Pa.) Paul Obluda (544 Natoma, San Francisco, Ca. 94103) f{umber 15, 15 September, 1970 a Th ers si sters Salini ina,s the5, Sttall Not Be Mwed: in T 1 shoul farm NYC U More Blmd Spilled in NYC They tlemi stersl 8: The Soldiers page 9: Senryhore and SonB are Against page 10: The Fringe Benefits page 12'. Notes from ttrc Lindergnound of Petty Ginre of Canni resen raid Prison Salin pase page page told don'' forer 14:. A Wmld Wthqrt 15: Five Poens by Larry Eigrrer all fi 16: Irperialim for threi pagE n; C-over: IN THE PROVINCES Unite -Eds. pa$ page 21: page a): Linda Wood Mike tilood Ha Chages Squatters Hendrick Hertzberg VI, iforni natio page Leah Fritz Volume failed to credit Lowell Naeve for his art work which appeared on page 5 and Tom Lewis on page menu page Neil Haworth cAt hrton Prisons threi dran Begiryrers upi Grtmns F Revieun onS a ral I€tt€rs dres "y spiri ,,Hu tot Vall said wot peace and freedom UF\ through nonviolent action 339 Lafayette Street New York, New York 10012 Telephone 12121 228-A27 O resF ( asl ioni isio WIN is published twice-monthly (except July, August, and January when it is published monthly) by the War Resisters League in cooperation with the New York Workshop in Nonviolence. Subscriptions are $5.O0 per year. Second class postage paid at New York, N.Y. 1Oo01. lndividual writers are responsible for opinions expressed and accuracy of facts given. Sorry-manuscripts cannot be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Printed in U.S,A., WIN is a member of the Underground Syndicate and Liberation News Service, Press Blei nt( Fru I u itr thrr Fru Bas As part of the second stage, a CALIFO RNIA FARM WOBKERS PHEPABE NEXT MOVE Having settled their strike with California's grape tycoons, Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Organizing Com- mittee (tJFWOC) have been propelled into a new phase of their struggle. The same week that the graPe growers signed with the union, the Teamsters Union settled a strike in the rich Salinas Valley, source of most of the nation's lettuce and carrots. The Salina5 growers agreed that the Teamsters -Todd Gitlin/LNS farm workers for five years. UFWOC's response was immediate. They had what they thought was a gentleman's agreement with the Teamsters: the Teamsters would represent cannery workers, UFWOC would represent farm workers, and neither would raid the other. UFWOC rePorts that Salinas Valley farm workers have been told they will lose their jobs if they don't sign Teamster cards, and that the PHISON VISITORS' SEBVICE IN PENNSVLVANIA Prison provides not an altogether easy existence for those on the inside of one of those big wall iobs or any of the other type prisons; neither is it one of easy living for their families and lovers on the outside. And one of the big hassles for those on the outside, is usually scraping together the money needed for transportation, hotels, etc. foremen have been making to travel to their loved ones inside the these threats. UFWOC's idea about uniting all farm workers in a single union was dramatically undercut. The Teamster threat has now forced UFWOC to step up its organizing campaign. Four UFWOC marches converged pens and spend the meager time allotted to them each month by the offici- on Salinas on Sunday, August 2, where a rally of farm workers and supporters dres some 2.000 people. To shouts of "Huelga!"(Strike) Chavez brought the tentiary and the Allenwood spirit of Delano and the grape strike to this largest political gathering in the Valley town in anyone's memory. He ject called the Prison Visitors' would have to be brought to the UFWOC membership, but implied the t i'ir lc e. lew ";: pe. 'e9! cano, strongly prefer UFWOC representation over Teamster, and believe, with UFWOC, that the Teamster's contract is a sweetheart deal. lf UFWOC had been wondering how to proceed in the wake of the grape victory,.the question virtually answered itself. should represent the Valley's 5,000 said the question of strike and boycott l Chavez emphasized that all Teamsters were not the enemy, rather it was a few Teamster officials who had sabotaged the gentlemen's agreement. The evidence says that Salinas Valley farm workers, overwhelmingly Chi- response would be favorable. Chavez singled out two Valley firms as branches of national and international conglomerates: Fresh-Pic, a division of Purex Corp. (makers of purex Bleach and Brillo soap-pads), and lnter-Harvest, a division of the United Fruit Company. well known for Chiquita bananas and an exploiter of labor throughout the hemisphere. United Fruit also.owns A&W Root Beer and Baskin-Robbins I ce Cream. financial aid service would be set up to ,offset some of the transportation costs of those who cannot afford the expensive car, bus or plane trip to get to Lewisburg. And a miscellaneous fund would be available to meet any emergencies ahd unexpected expenses that may arise while visitors are in Lewisburg. Stage three consists of trying to rent or buy a house which would serve as office space and a hospitality house. Those visitors who would plan on staying overnight, would be able to stay there rather than having to pay for a hotel room. Until this part of the project becomes a reality, visitors would. be able to stay in the homes of people working with the project. Needless to say, money is in great need so that all three stages of the project can be fulf illed. lf you can help ip any way, want more information, or are a visitor to the prisons, please write: Prison Visitors' Service P.O. Box 663 Lewisburg, Pennsylvania Pass 1 7837 the word along-we are - here! Bruce Christianson MARYLAND DHAFT BOARD FIRE Beisterstown, Md., Aug. 20 An early morning fire damaged a draft board office in this suburb of Baltimore today. The Baltimore Coun- als. A group of people from the area around Lewisburg, Pa., which is inhabited by the Lewisburg Federal PeniFederal Prison camp, have realized some of the problems faced by visitors to the prisoners within, and have developed a proService to help alleviate these problems. Basically, there are three stages to the project. The first concerns itself with the transportation of the visitors from the bus depot and airport to the prisons. Rather than the visitors having to dole out money for the expensive taxi ride from these two points to the prisons and back,.free transportation would be arranged. Also, some visitors arrive a few hours before they are allowed into the prisons--facilities would be made available to them so they can rest and eat between the time of their arrival and the beginning of visiting hours. This part of the project has already been initiated on a limited basis. 3 ty police said the blaze was the work of arsonists. The fire did heavy damage to the office and most of its records. The police said that intruders appar- ently opened file drawers at random, with gasoline and set doused them them afire, - Reuters BLACK SIX ACOUITTED Two yearsago in May, Louwille had its long, hot summer. The West End, Louiwille's Black ghetto, erupted in rioting. When the violence ended, the state of Kentucky placed six under of conspiracy to destroy private property, Their case became a major cause among those who felt the Black Six were being used to hide the charges real causes of the anger. the appalling conditions in Louiwille's slums. With impetus from the Southern Conference Educational Fund and other groups many in Falls City rallied to the supp- ort of the Six. Because the Black Six had so much support in the Black compleare turn to paga 27 THEY SHAtt NOT BE MOVED llth Street looks like a normal New York Lower East Side tenement house on a fairly quiet block between 3rd and 4th Aves. lnside, the halls are clean and well lit. The apartments are large, in fairly good condition, with nice appliances. Recently, however, service has been decreased. The halls are no longer kept clean, and junkies and thieves are roaming u.ound the hallways. Tin has been put on the windows of the five vacant apartments, and the whole building is looking run-down. In addition, there are plans for this building to be demolished completely, so that a luxury unit can be erected. To try and improve conditions in the building, and put a stop to the demolition plans, six families moved into the vacant apartments on Friday, July 10, around 1l p.m. These people were squatters, part of a rapidly growing, exciting new move118 E. they must be in the proper zoning area (which refers to density ofpeople per square block.) E. llth St. is presently in R-7 zoning (450 families per square block) and the landlord is waiting for R-10 zoning to go into effect (2000 families per square block.) While waiting for this to go through, the landlord does not rent apartments as they become vacant. This results in buildings full of empty apartments-an open invitation for junkies, thieves and drunks to start hanging around the hallways and breaking into the houses. At 118 E. llth, at a time of severe housing short- land hous ed tr and o occu day morl lbrn him age, there were six large 4-room apartments, with rents Wedr from 55-85 dollars, unrented. On July 2, 1910, the tenants got together with Fran Goldin of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, and peo ple from the Third Avenue Tenants, Artists and Business- mon law r serve arms John by si landl to p1 poin fact, "kn( landl thou out at tl caus apar and dyv apar 118 rap r For sides ise v whe and o unti: e iatin X it H com t! m 6 ga Mon fron stay wou ment, dealing with the housing problern in New York City. Squatting originated in England. It grew out of a desperate need for housing, and people started to occupy abandoned buildings and castles throughout the country. The government responded by providing more housing; 65 to 80 percent of post-war housing in England was financed by the government. New York started picking up on it several months ago, first on the Upper West Side and then down on the Lower East Side. It is this area that I will discuss, since I was most directly involved in the actions. There are over 50,000 apartments in New York, in fairly decent condition, with reasonable rents, which are vacant. Many landlords want to tear down these buildings and build luxury housing on the same site, in which apartments would go as high as $150 per room. In order to do this, 4 mans' A.ssociation, and decided to move squatters into the building. The idea was to find families and single people, who needed a pTace to live, to move into the vacant apartments. The rent was to be collected and held in escrow for the landlord, if and when he decided to accept them as tenants. But it was more than j'ust an apartment that these people were moving into-it was a commitment to an ideal and a movement. Eight families are involved, and by and large there was a real feeling of collective involvement, and support for each other. They moved in on Friday night, with the help of supporters, tenants, and organizers of the movement. On Saturday afternoon a big rally was held on the block, to get support from the rest of the llth Street residents. There was a great deal of enthusiasm generated at the rally. The general theme was: we won't let the men secu refu marl seve to 1r dea< bet set I 1 East mor I 5t1 in, z are . buil landlords tear down our buildings in order to build luxury housing that we can't afford to move into. People responded to the call for support of the squatters with money and volunteers. Once the squatters were in, the apartments had to be occupied constantly. Supporters stayed in each apartment, day and night, replacing each other in shifts. On Monday morning we sent a telegram to the landlord, otticially inlbrming him that the squatters had moved in and asking him to grant them legal residence. Nothing happened until Wednesday, at which time the landlord sent a summons seryer to serve us with criminal trespass and burglary summons. We were instructed by our lawyers (from a radical law collective) not to open the door, but to just stick our arms ou.t and take the piece of paper. It was made out to John or Jane Doe, and read "known to the complainant by sight". When we appeared in court that Friday, the landlord and his lawyer were there. They asked the judge to place us all under arrest immediately, but our lawyer pointed out that they had to first prove that we were, in fact, the people to whom the summons had been served & "known by sight" to the landlord. Of course neither the landlord nor the summons server could identify us, although they tried to convince the judge that if we held out our arms he could identify us. Even the judge smiled at that inanity. Eventually, the case was thrown out because there was no proof of identity. We went back to the apartments, and that evening the landlord returned to try and serve the summons once again. This time we were ready with about 30 tenants, squatters and supporters in the apartments. The landlord was intercepted on the stoop of 118 E. llth Street, and the confrontation turned into a rap session between the landlord and his lawyer, and us. For an hour we talked, persuaded, cajoled, yelled-both sides trying to convince the other, and finally a compromise was decided upon-a moratorium for the weekend, The implications of the squatter movement can be very far reaching. There has been lots of publicity on them, and the city is realizing that they are not to be treated lightly. Eventually they will have to understand that if they can't provide decent housing for us, low rents, we will take the matters into our own hands. The struggle is a potent one. It deals with a basic human right-for each person to have a decent place to live. And it is growing. There are three other buildings that I know of with plans for squatters actions, and more in other areas. On July 24, the NY Times had an article announcing that the city was declaring a moratorium on eVictions for demolition purposes. They attributed their action directly to the squatters. That's nice, but it's not enough. Hopefully, the various squatters buildings will come together and draw up joint demands to the citythat there be an end to the demolition of habitable housing, that the 50,000 vacant apartments be opened up, and that the squatting be legalized. If we keep growing at the rate we have been, these demands will have to be dealt with. Sally Ann Goldin wave of squatting in empty New York City T. "rrr.nt had its pioneers this spring-I50 families who apartments occupied City-owned buildings on the west side and Mrs. Kinble who, with her 9 children,' moved into a building owned by Columbia University. Latest squatters include: -6 families that moved into vacant apartments in buildings owned by the NY Eye & Ear Infirmary on June 5. The apartments, in modern, sound buildings on 13 St. between 1st and 2nd Aves., were vacant because the hospital plans to tear the buildings down and build nurses'residences (at $70 a room) and a doctors parking lot. where we promised not to move in any more squatters The squatters got the support of tenants on the block, and they promised to remove the police and leave us alonewho were being forced out by the hospital's plans and who until Monday night. At that time, there was to be a negotwere worried sick about where they would go. Because iating meeting with the landlord. This was good for us, as some of the apartments were vacant, there had been robit gave us the weekend to get more contacts with the beries, drug addicts in hallways and on the roofs, and the community, and more press coverage for the movement. landlord's agent, RMA, had been cutting services to the Monday night's meeting resulted in the following proposal bone. He had even created leaks in the plumbinb, to make from the landlord: that the squatters would be allowed to it more difficult for the tenants to stay. stay until December, although not as legal tenants, and Higher morale on E. 13 St. would pay a lump sum of 80 dollars for the 4-room apartMove-ins by the squatters lifted the morale of the whole ments and 100 for the 5-room apartments, plus two months block and made the tenants feel they could change the hossecurity which would be returned when they left. If they pital's plans, if all the apartments were occupied and the refused to leave, the security would be used to pay for tenants were united. They suggested alternate sites to the on proposal was bad The evict them. marshalls to forcibly hospital-build over the doctor's parking lot & convert the several accounts-if it was agreed to, we would be agreeing old Eye & Ear hospital to nurses' quarters, and use the air to let the landlord throw us out of the apartments in the rights over the old hospital. The hospital has refused to dead of winter, with no place to go, and we would also these proposals. even discuss apartments, on those be paying more than the legal rent At a trial of the squatters July 15-21, attorneys for the set by the city. At this time, negotiations are still going on. squatters turned.the trial into a full-fledged attack on City There were two other squatter actions on the Lower poiicy which allows decent apartments to be kept housing East Side. The 13th Street actions got a civil court sumthe market and which allows demolition of sound housoff jury, The appealing. it, and are lost mons, had a trial by ing during a time of the worst housing shortage in the city's 15th St. squatters got busted two days after they moved history. in, and after negotiations with the landlord and the city, The squatters lost in court but the deeision will be app are living in another house while the original squatter ealed. into. back them to move for building is being renovated Squatters on E. Ilth St. Then, on July I l, 8 familiei moved into empty spacious four and five-room apartments at 120 and 118 East 1l St. Here, the landlord has 20 vacancies out of 60 apartments in four buildings. He is waiting for the City to raise the zon- ing limit to R-10 along this 3rd. Ave. strip. This would innumber of apartments he could put in a new buil,ding and make it profitable for him to tear the old buildings down. The new apartments would rent at $ 150 a room a month or more. Tenants still in the buildings formed a committee and selected their squatters whom they call "Refugees in Residence." The families included a young couple with a 3-month son and a woman with 5 kids-blacks, whites and Puerto Ricans. This was the first squatting in a privately-owned building and tenants all over the city are watching with great interest. crease the Squatters on West 1Sth On July 17, a group of tenants moved into an empty builfing on W. 15th St. The building is being'renovated' into luxury apartments. Three days later, they were evicted, roughly and abruptly, and arrested. The next day, the tenants and their supporters, including MCH and the Chelsea Save-Our-Homes Committee, went to City officials and demanded that the City take over the building. After the visits and picketing of the landlord's home, the City agreed to buy the building for low-rent public housing after the owner renovates it. Squatters in Morningside Heights On Saturday, July 25, another move-in took place, and by the next day 53 families had occupied two buildings, 500 W. I 1th St. and 1046 Amsterdam Ave., which Morningside House planned to tear down to build a home for affluent white elderly people. Within a week over 200 prorninent individuals and organizations from the area came out in support of the squatters and negotiations were taking Martin zurlalstudio 7O place between Morningside House and the squatters. An agreement was reached to relocate all the squatters into good housing in the area if the supporting organizations would move no more squatters into the buildings. At a public rally called to announce this victory twenty-five families, carried away by their desperate need for decent housing and the strength of the movement, dashed into the buildings and took over 25 more apartments. Evictions are now being threatened but the spontaneity of the movement is obvious! What it all means With the help of the Metropolitan Council on Housing's Squatters Committee and a good deal of spontaneous movement, groups from throughout the city are getting help moving in squatters. People are desperate for apartments. Yet, at the same time, apartments are torn down for* City-sponsored "urban renewal" * Expansion by hospitals & colleges * Luxury housing * Office buildings, parking lots * Luxury rehabilitation & renovation The squatters are breaking this scandal wide open for everyone to see. The squatters are taking matters into their own hands. If this movement grows, it can reverse the demolition policy and stop it and also force the building of low and genuine middle-income housing on vacant or badly used commercial land. We are demanfing city take-over of ALL buildings in which squatters are living and conversion to public ownership with tenant control. A united squatters movement can provide the clout to force such a radical and meaningful approach on the city. JOIN IT! Call Met Council (W[1-6027) if you want to welcome squatters into empty apartments in your building. Or if you have found it impossible to find a place to live, call and sign up as a squatter. Frances Goldin TI passe it rea SEVET hyw ition onstr anacl an, br tinua unre( Cr bloor to th Cour tippe \&i# snmli rltr hp thick over towa to vi, le ha ing g came did r arou I test, MfiVTN bloor migh gerly taste tasti r clinic som€ ainly togra mon( :$ry.31i5i* ' :-. i *F;-il ".::i*:il:.{l.1; MORE SPII.iT BIOM The most common question from passers-by as well as the press was "ls it real blood?" Thursday, August 13th, seven persons expressed their sympathy with Dan Berrigan and their opposition to our inhuman society in a dem- N NEW IONK The marshalls ordered photographers off the steps and took one slow moving photographer into custody. Though I thought it pointed out the hypocrisy of the system until I realized that the system was being he was released, onstration which may very well be an anachronism but which was also human, beautiful, political, good and a continuation of struggle in these times so completely honest but that I was being innocent, They're outto get us because we are unnecess.try for their business unreceptive to opposition. for their Carrying two gallon jugs of steer's blood each in paper bags, they walked to the top of the Foley Square Federal Courthouse, uncovered their jugs and tipped them over releasing a stream of thick red blood which moved slowly over the steps out onto the sidewalk, toward the people who had gathered to view the spectacle. After four people had been quickly arrested by building guards, a score of federal marshalls came out to stand on the portico. They did not arrest anybody but just stood around grinning, raping us and the protest, laughing because it was not their blood on the steps and they knew it might soon be ours. One of them gingerly dunked a f inger in the blood and tasted it. Soon several marshalls were tasting the blood probably to provide clinical. definite macabre evidence at some later trial that, by God!, it certainly was blood spilt on the steps. Photographers and sight-seers walked among the remaining demonstrators. and unwilling to prostitute ourselves pleasure. Merely our existence antagonizes them, It was taking so long to get arrested Henry Gordillo as planned that one demonstrator wondered out loud,"What are we waiting for? We can all go home for all it matters". Finally, tired of tasting our blood and refusing to accept the seri- ousness of the protest, the marshalls walked over to the last demonstrators, asked them if they had spilt the blood, and upon receiving a positive answer, the marshalls good naturedly placed their arms around the demonstrators' shoulders and, like some scene out of a big brother commercial, led them inside the building. Other spectators walked by, marveled at the scene and then whispered, awe-struck, "They all got caught; none of them got away." This time the protesters agreed to get arrested; maybe next time we ought to "get-away" so that we don't build up the imageof the omnipotent state. We were too nice. Berrigan jumped bail to build the resistance; the gentle people of lndochina steeped in Buddhist tolerance and pacifism have begun political struggle. Here, we've all objected to the system in various ways, the point now is to change it. On the portico, a black maintenance man in an antiseptic white uniform was ordered out onto the steps to hose the blood off under the direction of a white marshall. The streets f lowed with diluted blood-Pontius Pilate attempting to wash his hands. Henry Gordillo 7 T1 Alder of tl Dsar THE SOLDIERS wear Part I: Part II: Part The Men For what comfort numbers can afford, we huddle together, mute, frowning, appearing neither fearful nor bored over the quick loss of our freedom. No longer will we.live at random, for now our simple lives have meaning although we don't matter. Some things are more important, the noncoms tell us. The world crawls like our trucks, destined for a resolution of those things. "Draftee soldiers, we ain't unkind," one says, then laughs. "But war is hell!" It's just a game now, but tomorrow a tougher game begins. Intuit what we may, we are not soldiers yet. A killer's knowledge can't be borrowed. We must learn what soldiers can't forget: To learn properly, we must do it. Thb Place The barracks are roofs and barren walls, no more. All else is in addition to their blankness. "Everybody's pals in this outfit," the Sergeant says. "A11 equal. I don't want no pissin' and moanin', neither The Man nor me. If you got problems, the chaplain's hour is yours, not mine. I got no problems but you, and you ain't no problems. My job is to make killers of you, and I will. Please do not misconstrue what I have said. And take your showers." So we are assembled; numbered first then named, society's unseasoned green youths, bound for an object lesson in an art that never was an art. But who's to say, if worst comes to worst, that numbers are bad? They set us apart and give us an identity we couldn't feel 'in a battery of similar names. Unfamiliar as our numbers are, less familiar are the shaven faces and shaven heads bordering us in camphorized beds. III: lette t' or The Training B Late spring finds us inhaling the green smell of leaves from behind spaded earth. Each raw trench, fresher than a new grave, openi in mock-warfare and gives birth to yelling trainees, while a lean tanned Medic looks on, impassive, suave. But uncertainty matches resolve. We are never allowed to forget impassive, foreign, yellow faces that wait with Oriental patience. They are the problem we must solve: We practice harder with our bayonets. The burning days engender sufllmer and summer brings tanks. In earthern pits reinforced with logs, we crouch and wait. Fifty tons of armor eclipses the worlds we occupy: we shiver, inhale dust, and spit it out as mud. Our training ends. Now our final end focuses on a paper command that means more than God to most of its u L lier time I I us. Those who study war from high places deploy us now, individualized rats to individual races. Part IY: The l4lar From the dark immobilization of earth bunkers, our probing patrols infiltrate jungles. A cold moonlight is smothered by the trees, and we mold purselves to dark brush, hoping to sight &n unseen enemy. And they will come. $s soldiers, we forget tomorfow, Lth and taine ing n rebor ping. "MaI ablisl tremr and finally, nothing matters as much as it should. We have today, and by the grace of Generals, a stay of execution. Our lives narrow around living's uncertain center. ina from most ft isn't likely a solution to human problems will come of this, but soldiers can't be human and be soldiers. Patrols end. Bodies are placed CCS C life a phet: sing i in blank graves. There, past human praise, they lie in stiffened resolution. -llilliam ( It signal Childress tical, Witcl "Witr accus ions, The ( stery the s SEmap*RE ond SOME ARE AGAINST The now famous peace symbol, adopted in l95g at the Aldermaston Peace Marches in England is a stylization of the semaphore signal letters "N" and "D" for Nuclear Disarmament. Many libertarian and radical pacifists began wearing, it reversed tn 1961, signifying the semaphore signal letters, "IJ" and "D" for either Unilateral Dsarmament or "Universal Disarmament." But the symbol does have a history which long antedates its use by the peace movement. In 1960 research was undertaken to ascertain actual earlier use of the Peace Symbol. What was uncoyered at that time follows: I In the ancient Runic writing, common to the Scandinavian and Celtic lands, the symbol Con_ f Signifies ..Man Dying,,. tained within a circle, O the symbol signitiei ..Man Dying in harmony with the established forces of Nature, to be reborn." Likewise, the symbol f signifies ..Man Worshipping." Contained within a circle, @ the symbol signifies "Man affirming Life in harmony with the Cosmos, the establistred forces of Nature." In both cases, the symbol is extremely positive, an affirmation of the place of the person in a creative Cosmos, and from this ancient use as well as from its later derivation from the Semaphore letter, it is most appropriate to signify the fact that surrounded by forces of hatred, death, and destruction we must choose love, life and creativity. In the words of the Old Testament prophet:"I have set before you this day life and death, a bles sing and a curse. Therefore, choose life !" It is quite true that certain Medieval writers chose to designate a symbol similar to the Peace symbol but not identical, va: rI as being a "Devi]'s Foot," and "Sign of Witchcraft." If one investigates the history of the Medieval "Witchcraft" trials, one firtds that in most cases the persons accused were merely following one of the old Nature religions, and were persecuted for primarily political reasons. The Church, in other cases, borrowed heavily from the Mystery religions and the so-called Pagan Nature religions, in the symbolism of the Mass, the Vestments, the adoration of the Blessed Vlrgrr, the pults of the Saints, etc. and which had maintained that all religions found their perfect fulfillment and culmination in the Christ Event, the person of Jesus and the Mystery of Golgotha, saying with St. August_ irle "The True Religion has always existed, even from the foundations of the worlds, until the coming of Christ Jesus, from which time on that same True Religion has been called Christian." That same Church, when it desired to persrecute persons to achieve their property and or when persons persons persisted in carrying on the practice of their Old Religion, maligned them and accused them of being in league with the Devil and seryants of the Antichrist, etc. Of course, prior to the reign of Constantine, when the Church both became legitimized and began blessing violence it was possible for a person to be both a practicing Christian and still remain an initiate in the Mysteries or in the old Nature religion. It was tlre first Council of Nicea, which alsoviolated the Gospel by allowing Christians to bear arms, which laid the groundwork for these later charges of "paganism" and "witchcraft." If, as is said by many even within the Churches today, the Movement is that which presents the sole possibility of recalling Christianity to its revolutionary roots and dedicating it anew to the struggle for peace, freedom and human dignity, then it is indeed appropriate that it is that same Peace Movement which has, as it were, "baptised" the ancient Runic writing of the Nature religions and made it a part of that rebirth of the radical Faith. Rt. Rev. Michael Francis ltkin, B.L.C. the frfiVofrensl tbt ol fttsoy1 =; There are many good reasons for avoiding jail and only one bad one: being afraid of it. In our white middle-class America this fear of jail is widespread and a voluntary going to jail is beyond comprehension. We can understand Russian revolutionaries being jailed by the Czar, and Gandhians by the British Raj. And we understand (and denounce) the jailing of blacks here and in South Africa, Jews in Hitler's Germany, anarchists and Catalonian separatists in Spain, Nazarenes (and other pacifist Christians) in Yugoslavia, rightwing deviationists in Peking, leftwing deviationists in Czechslovakia, gypsies in Britain, antifascists in Greece-it all feels ngnr everywhere but here. But political prisoners in America? We don't really believe it. If we did, we wouldn't act so surprised. Our minds know better! We see through Washington's denials just as we see through the denials of Lisbon, Moscow and Saigon. But our reactions of surprise and outrage are possible only if we still believe the great American myth of political i!ir .):iti freedom. My political assumptions are that there is a great chunk of middle-America which has been moved and can still be moved by genuine humanitarian concerns; that we critics and activists have, by and large, been more involved in displaying our disgust than in creating dialogue with middleAmerica; and that one of the most direct ways of doing this is by going to jail. Since, to them, the American myth is still valid, they can explain middle-class whites voluntarily going to jail only in terms of personal integrity-a very rare commodity in American politics. At that point many will listen. But my concern here is not so much whether jailings do move the public, but how truly is jail a totally bad experience? It's bad enough, but I would like to list some of the mitigating elements. '' t/1, l. Particularly if you are a citydweller, jail might give you the first adult chance for a prolonged facing of yourself. Here we are so constantly surrounded by escapes from ourselves that we rarely get to that time and place of quiet to examine ourseives and our values and assumptions. (Not that jail isn't mainly life in a fishbowl, but in federal prisons there is often a fair chance of getting the kind of work assignment that carries with it a private cell. At first it can be frightening. After the fever of arrest and trial, transportation, arrival, examinations, fingerprinting, showers, prison clothes-you are led down a corridor, shown into a cell, and the door is locked. There you are: four walls, a cot, table, chair, sink, toilet, a door and a window-and you. You say, Day One-999 to go, and how am I going to do them? You try to answer the question all at once, but the total change in environment makes it easier for you to discover that there are no deadlines. Busy exploring your new like;there you have to learn to deal with them. Here the beguilements are almqst infinite in number and variety; there, much more limited. Since we were always locked in during bad weather, I soon began to yearn for the feel of rain on my face-and still relish it. In a life full of pastries, one forgets the taste of good bread. 2. For the first time you might find yourself free of world, you give yourself tentative answers, knowing that doubts and guilt feelings about whether you're doing enyou can change them. Life slows down, horizons shrink-not ough against the war and the draft, for the revolution, or all bad, anymore than the tiny world under a microscope however you express your goals. Now the record reads is "worse" than the "normal" world or that of the teleclear, for yourself as well as for the world to see. Or, at scope. Out here you can avoid people and situations you don't t0 least, more clearly than before. 3" The clear record stays with you. When I stand up be- fore as on civil I r hav, this i much Vietn Ur ment withi: jail se withir Gerr the war in Vietnam. (Look at the growing number of confessions by former LBJ cronies.) 4. Jarl may be as close as you will ever get to a situation of identity with that 90% of humanity which is not white, middle-class and comfortable. Our Southern black brothers were right when they asked us to leave the South, saying that no matter how concerned and committed we were, no matter how much we put up with, we could always go home. In prison you can't. lt is still not the same for us as for the broken, the black, the unschooled. But we begin to feel in our bones the misery, the anguish, the hopelessness of the suppressed. This is important ior two reasons: Personally, our jailmates become individual human be_ ings to us instead of the neat stereotypes and statistics we pick up in sociology classes. You begin to lose the condescension for "our poor, unfortunate brethren.,, In its place you discover men of flesh and blood with that variety of and rotten qualities that people have everywlrere-. ]gva-ble To learn how to relate to people and their problerns more on their terms and less on ours-this alone ii almost worth the price of admission. Politically, this brings us close to what may well be the major human conflict now and for the next few decades: the growing rebellion of those many who have nothing_ within the nation and around the world- against the few who are fat and comfortable. your lifespan is apt to be more full of that polarization than less, and-whether or not you like being white, middle-class, American_building a more decent world will in part depend on how many hu_ man bridges there are between the questionable lucky few and the many. 5. Some fringe benefits: In some states, a felon is denied the right to vote. This is particularly useful when the choice is between Blah and. ffi K ffi Blah-blah. Not only. did I have enough time to read all of the New York Times every day and come out extraordinarily well_ informed, but-discovering with Thoreau how much every newspaper is like every other except for minor details* I've hardly read any papers in the lwenty years since then. This has saved me time and money, and has saved ecolog_ ically important chunks of good timberland for mankind. I know several men who started work on the Great American Novel while in prison. I don,t know of any completed work, but you, too, can try. In twenty months in prison (half of them with extra free time beiause of a work strike) I did not exhaust the Sandstone prison lib. tary' fore a group of stran_gers, youngsters, and am intioduced as one who has done time-and some of the anti-war and civil rights offenses are mentioned--three-fourths of what I have to say is already said before I open my mouth. If this is true for one who resisted the anti-Hitler war, how much more is it, and will it be, true for resisters to the Vietnam war? Unless you are not really divorced from the establishment-and dream of ultimately finding a comfortable niche within its structure-you needn't feai that a principled jail sentence will ruin your future. I even expect that within a few years after the end of the war, many .,good Germans" will start claiming that they, too, had opposed *** if you can, but if what is most beautiful in you-most important, most holy-says that you must go, then go with a somewhat lighter tread. Read E.E. Cummings' The Enovmous Room (Modern Library) where_ in he describes his few months in a French prison during the first World War. More important than the descriptioi (as magnificent as that is) is his attitude, one almost of ad_ Avoid prison yenture. I've met no healthier, more self-assured, more buoyant approach than his! - Jail, like many other things around us, was not designed for your joy, edification, and growth. But if you approach it aware of its potentials, you will change some of lis dross into your own pure.gold. Igal Roodenko lt too( anol deal have byl I T{OTES FROM in tr resF THE UNDERGR()UNI} I r.u.t ofreading, writing, and discussion in a short-term county prison. The men in the group are mostly black, mostly drug addicts and almost all many-time repeaters. In general they like talking and reading, but many mistrust writing for a variety of reasons. When I asked them to write about prison and themselves, the writing poured in. This should not have surprised me. because I haye learned that there is a large and complex literary culture strared by prisoners in all institutions, but unknown outside. One of my first students presented me with a ten-page ballad, sentimental and obscene, called "The Fall", about the perfect prostitute, the poet's abandonment ofher and her revenge* his fall (or conviction). A sort of epic with many local variants, the poem is a communal endeavor (to which different prisoners lend personal touches. "The Fall" is one ofa genre of poems called "toasts", all highly inflected poems which celebrate, rationalize, and laugh at the life they know and the special arts of the professional prisoner. "The Signifying Monkey" incites, amorig other things, the lion to fight the elephant; "Mexicali Rose", I'm told "is about a pimp who becomes a simp." There is a lot of individual poetry written as well, some about the fabulous lies and dreams spun in stir. a class Writing about oneself in prison without the comforting support of these familiar forms may be more painful, but it is as natural. Whatever else is true, prison, for men who live in the streets, provides a rare and isolated opportunity for reflection. I suggested that they describe prison life and attempt to define its functions in society. Many made the point that for them the prison isn't so different from the streets. "Busted again and back in the slams! Man, this is a bitch. I thought I was getting over pretty alright, but here it is, the fall is for real. The same with the 90 days the iudge gove me. All the fellas put me on the pan when I returned and I took it good-naturedly, outwardly that is. Inside I wos one angry stud. Back in the stinking ass Penitentiary. 90 damn days to spend just surviving, waiting till it's over and I'm out again. No way to make time serve me because here they haue nothing really thot a man can improve himself by. You come in, get processed and receive the khaki pants snd shirt. Then you get in population and into the bid. Thut is, if you're not kicking the "Jones" and need medical attention. In that case, ifyou perform long enough and loud enough you might get it. As for the food, the quulity is passable most times but the quantity is nearly always insufficient. The cats working in the kitchen make nice money selling sandwiches on the side and there is no lack of customers. A lot of the dudes take up OT PETTYCRIME the same hustles they had in the street. The gambling, the dope-selling and shooting, pimping on JAggots, taking oll other inmates' cells, conning the police. It's almost the same ghetto thing here as most of the dudes were confronted with on the street. A bit more conftned but no less sovage. The man knows what is going on but as long as his rules are outwardly obeyed, as long as he can maintain a surface calm, then these things are seen and not seen, so to speak. I found out through my numerous vlsils back and forth to different sites oI tncarceration that there's really a lot of intelligent cats in jail. I think too what a strong force we could be against the evils of the System if we could motivate.our energies to that end in a unifted way. The man tries to couse conflicts in our rsnks, by such petty means as coddling the cooperative ones and downing the cats who express their disapproval . . . I can truthfully only define pison in one woy and that is, as a place where the society hides away those who are mast qualified to point out to it the mistakes and iniustices inhe' rent within the. System. " Others emphasize the stagnation they see at the heart of the Corrections system. One said, "Corrections isn't geared to change you, but to arrest your gowth and make you repeat." Another wtites, "The institutions are set up to keep the prisoners quiet and out of trouble while he is a resident there. No thought is given to the inmate as a man, an individual with problems, And no measures are taken to prepare the man to face these problems upon release." The jail program aims only at running a smooth show. After work, you have Ping Pong, T.V., movies, and other assorted amusements to help you pass your spare time in idle abandon. As long as you are content, you are happf and quiet. This pleases the prison officials, because this is running a good show. Just is being done to rehabilitate or prepare a man for taking a responsible position in society is quite beyond me. I can see no difference in the man when he leaves, except he's a little older, he's full of good intentions, false hopes, and future fears. And the fear is well justified, for what hope of a future does he really have, how is he any different than from when he came in? The most he could possibly have attained while he was here is a high school equivalency diploma. And the beneficial value of that is overshadowed and nullified by the conviction record he now bears. "Time has stood still for the inmate, worse, it has regressed for him, he has to run twice as fast to get half as far . . .Many of the other skills available lead nowhere, because they are all union-held positions. And the union will not have you. You are scarred for life as surely as if you wore a number ta- the wril ture tenl of rr SWei my lovi love conr largr som timt pail t we'l Tha 1 onel begr my' son. Anyt upt Elm mys first A$€ t littlr ing r area atio, aba 1 prol I ing derl. fron judi, favo ple t than fullt in tl the t poss l to tl sent, last shot heqt gtrVe) attel siste tooed on your forehead." In a discussion ofprison conditions, alother prisoner used a curious expression: .-.I possess a great deal of larceny". I asked him to explain, and he said ..Thly have me in a position where I have to steal my manhood or by force have it accepted.,, I asked the men to write about why they were there, not in terms of charges and convictions, but in a larger sense. In response, a couple of the white prisoners have touched on the Oriental philosophy which ii their main interest. One writes about self-denial and resolves ..to remember and nur_ ture the memories of unpleasantness, thereby foiling the in_ tent and purposes of the incarceration system. The iystem of rewards, of pleasures and punishments. For all thit is sweet is not good, and all that is bitter is not bad. By taking my punishment and embracing it all the more fervently and lovingly because it is my chosen companion. An exercise in love." Another white prisoner hints in a different way that conviction served a psychological need: ..Curiosity played a large part in my coming to iail since this is my firit arrest and somehow I knew this would be the best thing for me at this time. But most of all I was tired. Tired ot cariyrng a lunch pail every day, tired of rules, war, and the semi-fa-scist society we're living in, so I turned to drugs and crime to obtain them. That's why I'm here." The sense that external factors are as decisive as internal ones goes deeper with the black prisoners, even when they begin by denying it. "If I was to tell you I'm here becausi of my environment, I would be lying to you and me. The reason I'm here and most other people is because we don't have anything useful to do and because we are trying to be or live up to someone else's idea. For the time that I have spent in Elmira Reformatory I have gotten o more open mind about myself and other* I have looked the situation head on. But first, let me point out to you, being young and living in an age of machines brings a whole lot of problems. l, there,s little to do with your time; 2, you hsve too many drugs flying around; and, 3, there's too many stores and shopping' areos to steal. This is iust an outline of mine and others' situ_ ation. To try to understand this more would for me to write a book. That I do not have in mind for another year or two.,' Ten years older than this writer, a repeater sees the double problem in a more political light: . I can't really see why it is I am in jail again. I'm not refer_ ring to the crime of which I wos ajudged but to the real inderlying reason as to why I got into the position to be confronted by the commercialized workings of this country's judicial system. I feel as though I had a lot of things in my favor when I was outside qnd I realize there were a lot of people willing to help me, with no thought of personal gain other than the satisfaction of seeing me intelligently and successfully applying myself. Yet the foct remains I am again here in the penitentiary serving 90 days. It's a prime example of the type of injustice a person like myself, black, poor and possessmg a past criminal record, can expect. I'm reJ'erring to the fact that on the same charge for which I this time wos s-entenced to 90 days, I received o one yeor sentence on my last bust. A comparison of my circumstonces then and now shows that then I was out of a job, using drugs and stealing heavily. Circumstances now were identical qnd yet I was given a lesser sentence, possibly due to the fact that I was attending college but still, this tells me a lot about the consistency of iustice in Ameica If my attending coilege did influence the judge's decision, I ask myself, then suppose I had been a little moie prominent a personage or naa a bale of cosh? Chances are that I would have made bail and not ever seen isil. So, to what some would consider abstract reasoning, score another point, in that no argument con persuade me to ever believe that the "double standard of justice for some and pseudo-justice for others" is not a blunt fact. My major problem, I believe, is that I compulsively continue to commit individuql acts of rebellion that seem to get me nowhere but back in joiL l have been jailing and living the lift of the streets for a long time and I mention this because I believe thut I am the sum total of my expeience. The fact that I am motivated by this and tend to identify with what I have been doing for most of my lift, I know is unfortunate for me, but also it is very hard to avoid. Like Pavlov's dogs, I have been conditioned to o way of life and when the bell rings, I unthinkingly respond to it. I struggle daily to break this pattern." Another tries to explain why freedom didn't work for him. Last yeor it was my disodvantage to be released on parole. I had no meaningful program to help motivate staying free. "Upon leaving this prison. I didn't have anv reol strong feelings about anything, except I was going to see my daughter, which at the time was my only real enjoyment, also the reason I had motivated myself to learning as much as I can about the people in the country, as well as myself, "l|hen I did arrive home, I was picked up by the police, who stated they had a warrant Jbr my arrest. Ilhen checked out, il was found to have been dismissed. My feeling at the time was to get a job, so I could be left olone. "lhe.very next day, after picking up my clothes from my mother's, my father and I were on our way home. He was aslling me what my plans were. I had none except finding a job, which I told him. I was ogain stopped by the poticeind asked what I had in my bagt I wanted to grab his gun and kill him right there, but I merely said I didn,t think it was his business to which he replied that I was to occompany him to the station. I wqs about to reluse since t Jelt he hod no reoson to stop me. Everything perverted that I believe possible, I wish on him. To me he was every white person in the world, whom I had learned to dislike in the last yeor or so. My father asked me to go aheacl and he would come along. I knew he was disturbed. (Not at any time has my father been involved with the police, and although he knows I am not an angel of any kind, the police are no better. He feels I should have never gotten involved with the police from the start. I guess every father feels his son should know better and if he's black that's a fact.) I guess this was my real reason for being as angry as I was ot thot moment. "The next morning I went to the State employment. After pulling my lile, a great revelation took place. *you are a drug addict," she told me, to which I replied I had iust retumed from iail, also my problem wqs now I needed a job. She in turn told me she would have to get a statement from igil, st-atinq I was off drugs.-I said to myself, ,,Amazing!,' She then informed me in the meantime shU would haie me tested to see what I was best able to do. She then made a call, and told me I would be tested in two weeks. Two weeks and nothing to do but be on the street to on addict is like putting a match to fuse with dynamite at the other end. At that very moment I sow my path leading to where I am now writing this." t? aworld wlthout After the revolution, let us hope, prisons simply would not exist-if by prisons we mean places that could be experienced by the men and women in them at all as every place that goes by that name now is- bound to be experienced. lJi priions that have exiiied in our society to date put people away as no human being should ever be put away. I tried to write about this in PRISO// NOTES. They attempt a kind of insane magic-attempt to wish the "criminal" out of existence, because he is a problem to society. This not only commits an outrage (casts prisoners out of the human race) but is absurd of course, because the prisoners-unless they are in for life-return to society. And they return, after this.experience-unless they are particularly hardy of spirit, which happily, some men and women are-not "rehabilitated" but wounded in their selfhood. Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they tryby punishing the troublesome-to deter others' No doubt in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously. There is one more thing that they can be said to attempt-that is, to Before she had been given adequate medical attention or even allowed the rest that she needed, she was forced to go down to the police station for questioning. There she told the police that she doubted that she could identify her assailants, and was reluctant to try, as she fidn't believe in punishment.'But they would not let her leave. And so she had to endure now a prolonged second violation-their bullying questioning. No concern for the one who has been hurt. Only the one obsessive concern-to find someone to punish. After the revolution, it might well renrain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to oth- ers. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible. There should be no censorship of mail. Family and friends should be allowed to visit at will-in fact, to move in with the prisoners if they wished. And if safety permitted, the prisoner should be allowed to make visits outside. He-or she-should be allowed to live as happy and productive a life as possible. The point would be to seek how to mend hiJ relationship to socie$2. These non-prisons ( \l/--- ,)o z---'\ i/ )r'v7 ,\ 1/r: place people who are doing harm to others where they cannot do that harm. Though more often they put people who are doing harm to themselves-for example, drug addicts and alcoholics (those without money, that is)-where still more harm will come to them. After the revolution, surely the only good reason for institutions that could still be called prisons-because they take people and place them under restraint-is this reason: wanting to keep people from harming others. But if institutions of restraint might still be necessary, they should no longer be institutions of punishment at the same time. Punishment cannot heal spirits, can only break them. What would these mstitutions of restraint be like? A prefacory note: After the revolution, when one person injures another, society would concern itself most immediately to give help to the person who has been injured. Present-day Justice" is carel'ess of both the "criminal" and the victim-wears its blindfold when either one stands befor'e it and asks to be seen. (This "justice" has ,always been pictured as a woman, so I know that I am supposed to write not "it" but "her", but I find that I balk at this.) I recall, just for example, the experience of a young woman who was raped by a group of youths. a4 prisons ^_2) in depth-with the help of the prisquestion: why did he act as he did? See the oner-the book about Chinese prisons (by the Ricketts, I think; was it called PRISONERS OF I'IBERATION?) which describes methods of group discussion about prisoners' should investigate antisocial behavior. But I would add emphatically: one question should always be raised very seriously in such discussions: Does the "antisocial" act perhaps reveal that society needs it frustrating or oppressing its citizens some unbearable way? For the act might have been one stemming from selfishness (counter-revolutionary)and so the prisoner is the one to be helped to see this and to change-or it might have been one stemming very naturally from a response to some felt injustice. These non-prisons, then, should above a1l be schoolsin the most deep sense. And they should not be places that are.considered, as prisons now ate, beyond the paleplaces fiom which "good citizens" (except for occasional grey ladies)keep away. They should be continually entered, as scholars, !y those who are the most seriouS citizens-for here their society can be studied at its weak- more changing-is in est Point' -Baybara Deming. fivepoems by Jamyeigner Feb 23 69 number 291 oil at st .a barbara grass-roots sky-high violence earth mined Feb 16 69 number 288 one number 251 Oct 13 68 little increase the bombing thin saturn along the road spiritual rin g quite a cigar in the big life circus the lights sin to burn when dusi< comes on dig down the wires some other planets beyond the pale underground where the water seeps miraculous the distance what speeds number 243 Sept. 16 68 should we take the sound behind sweeping walls the horizon wherever it's a Plane there going horseback riding what ways the streets what clouds rabble are cries it reads horses and pe.ople fish landing on the it its own wind on the fields rnakes dirt blows hills waters the level forces number 269 Dec.3 68 why should there be death over that hill how bofily do you travel years maybe without a scratch on a finger mt who reside within the boundaries of the United States. But since I think there are many jine economtsts outside the U.S. I have to inehtde in mv own survev economists the world over, Controry to you I find that IMPERIALISM THD BASS-C()FFIN NEP()RT wrN, In his review of Scott Nedling's and Joseph Freeman's Dollar Diplomacy in the Jult of imp I think there is a tremendous amount of confusion and disagreement over imperialism. In particular, lots of people parrot the same old -1\{arxist-Leninist cliches that the overwhelming majority of economists-radical, liberal, or conservative-reject. In fact, even Marxist economists who are more than party hacks frequently present such elaborate qtalifications to the traditional Marxist-Leninist the ory of imperialism that I would argue that they have basically conceded the point. A1though, for sentimental reasons, there is lots of the old theory in their text, most of it is taken out in the footnotes and qualifying phrases. There is a romantic notion that the Vietnam war is being fought over tungsten. Since most people don't know what tungsten is. much less its industrial uses and market sources, it is very easy. for people to believe even the most outlandish fantasies about it. Those who read the financial page are aware that those Americans who control the companies that are dependent on foreign raw materials or markets are among the strongest opponents of the war. As intelligent businessmen, they realize that is far cheaper to buy tungsten from the Soviet Union or anyone elsc than to fight the Vietnam war for even a few days. Imperialism is far older than capitalism. to Alexander the Great wanting to conquer the world to give it the blessings of Greek culture-and even earlier. It includes the wars unleashed by Muslims to give the world the blessings of Islam and those unleashed by the Church to convert the Infidel. Economics has sometines been important if only because countries imagined that colonies would bring greater riches than they did. More often than not colonies have brbught their mother oountry closer to bankruptcy than anything else. Partly because the eighteenth century English ruling class believcd colonies were profitable they struggled relentlessly against American independence. To practically everyone's surprise the profits of English business on its trade with America increased fantastically after the revolution. In fact, the growth of America unleashed by It goes back l6 r- the revolution was one of the rnost glorious things that ever happened to English Business" Liberal English economists like Huskisson argued on the basis that England should let all its colonies go. However, the glory of empire evidently moved stronget than strictly economic motives and so England held on to its colonies. The most important motive of imperialism has bcen the persistent urge of nation-states and religions when they control nation-states to remake the world in their own image. As has afflicted not just capitalist states socialist states, kingdoms, theocracies, such but it and what not. For literally thousands of yeius men have heard the call: "From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's ooral strand... They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain" We will be afflicted with thc ravaging and devastating effects of this call until we elther do away with nation-states or nation-states le arn to let other nations work out thcir own destinies. The former seems more likely to me. Henry Bass Atlanta, Georgia ll"o, lTlat fits unl world's economists dejine themselves as Marxists. These Marxist economists to be certain have not limited themselves to the rote use of Marx's 19th century witing on economics. They would be poor Marxists if they did! No, instead they have continued to develop and refine the economic theories and BDGINNDRS: issue of WIN, Jerry Coffin claims: "Most us know what imperialism was and what erialism is." I disagree. As an economist, / iali at least a majority (and probably an overwhelming maiority though I'm not so incautious as to state it as a llat fact) oJ'the for f)ear Mt Hrnry' My thanks for the constructiNe criticism, One of my failinTs is the ossumpt' ion that others have the same information I have. In my writing, especially, I'm prone to "thror*away" statements that simply assume the reader agrees, understands, etc. Such was the case with "Most oJ us know what imperialism is. . . ." It seems, as Henry coftectly points out, most of us don't know what imoeralism is about- At least, that is, if most llIN readers reflect your viewpoint since he either doesn't understand imper' ialism or rejects the dialectic which causes many of us in the movement to refer to the IJ.S. as an imPerialist Power. I'm sorry you weren't able to spend more time on your letter. I'm really interested in seeing some sources and supporting evidence for a few ol'the rather sweeping statements you make. Specifically your lbeling that the maiority o!'economists have reiected Marxian economics as relined by Lenin. This statement certainly Jlics in the lace of evidence available to me unless ofcourse, one limits the title "economist" to those findings of Marx in lisht of the continuing development of capitalism. The understand' ing of imperialism has as a result gone be' yond the initial writings of Marx. As for Lenin, he was responsible for a great step forward in the understanding of impeialism. In his classic Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism he laid the theoretical base for our understanding of current American imperialism. For our purposes here, a simple defin' ition of contemporary imperialism would be the export of capital from a capitalist nation-state to another nation-state and the import of profits (surplus value) accompanied by the political and military machinery necessary to make the process work. Many people make the mistake of labeling as "imperialism" things which quite clearllt are noL This mislobeling is then used as "evidence" that the United States is not an imp' erialist nation-state. You did this by confusing the empire-building of Alexander tlrc Great and the early expansionism of the Muslim religion with imperialism. Alexander (and we might add Atilla, the Greeks, the Romans, the Phoenicians, ad in' finitum) was involved in an entirely difJerent pre-capitalist process. That was simpl.y the military capture and tbrcible exprop- riation of the accumulated resource of ano ther nation-state andfor peoples. No effort was made to tum the expropriatcd resources into production. It was ripped-ofl-and usetl and that was that. There was sotne re- finement of course including the earliest protcctio,l racket where the powerful told the less powerJul to pay tribute or face get' ting trashed. Another re linement was to ex- propriate a natural resource and import the product to the conquering natiott stute. These were exception, ltowever, the rule \)as rape, rip-off, and run. The ll[uslims were in a slightly different bag, Their expansionism was largely Iircd by religious fervor. Thcy were an early day Billy Sunday and they overran land and people in order to ge t to more people .for lha purposc ol conrersion. To be surc. lhcy were engaged in territorial expansion ond resource expropriation. They key difl-erence was in their sprcading what they had (religion, cultur<:, etc.) through this expansion. There wos very little if any carting back to the home place the resources oJ'other pec> ples since their goal wos to buikl a prosperous Muslim world not iust to inctease the weolth oJ a particular area. Alsc.t there wos almost none of the wholesale enslavement of conquercd populations since once people converted they were needed to work and lll€t At um wht neu Ini t8t, outl grea Bay The ofc waf ures imp ,{ I ,l cern ital. and The duct l mat I side inve plus erial the ers i impr so tl peol I brolt alisn new were reint reaci poin the tr beca ital : coml prott was grapl them portt A ther t ment than coun e lse.'' hove leodi, time lbw . arSul forct in th prim for p ize E thot port. Engl hold make prosperous the additions Muslim world. to the new Acapitalist country becomes an imperialist country when it has completecl iis pri_ the war hdd devastated and impoverished both- countries and every bit of capital wos needed tbr domestic investment. A costlv e,rror (though not bankruptingl compouided by_the power bf the indigent peoplis o!.the colonies who waged nonviolent and violent mary accumulation; capital is invested, prr> wars of national liberation. These instances fits are taken and resultant capital reiniested support the Marxist-Leninist analysis of imp_ until the full investment potential (invest_ erialism rather than yours. ment in "profitable" ventures) is realized. You madc a good point when you At that point either capital is simply accbrought up th( pr;cilcei oJ the Soviet [Jrtumulated and the primary law oJ capitolism ion. It's quite obvious that the Soviet {Jn_ which is profit maximization-is broken or ion is behaving similarly to, say, the United new outlets for capitol investment are found. Stotes which is on imperialist nation. It In the rudimentary copitalism of the late doesn't necessarily follow, however. that the lSth and early 19th centuries these new Soviet Union is an imperialisr nailon. Con_ outlets lbr capital investment were the fusing? Yes, but let's use o little of that gleat mercantile companies such as Hudson,s Marxism that some are fond of regarding as Bay Company ond the East India Company. a collection of cliches and see if we canThese companies uied tremendou, o*ouri, work our way out of the confusion. oJ capital since they had to hire armies ond war ships to protect their mercantile ventwrote inThe lSth Brumaire or ures, These ventures coucln,t be considered Lous Bonaparte that "men make their own imperialism, however, since thev were conhistory, but they do not make it just as cerned.with lhe export o/goods ancl not cap_ they please; they do not make it under cirital. Tle goods were produced domestically cumstances directly found, gi,en and transarid sold, bortered or traded in other areai mitted Jrom the past." Historically Russia The difference between the cost of the pro was not ready economically or politically duct and_its selling price was the,profit. It for a sociolist revolution when it occured. mattered not that the goods were sold out_ Lcnin knew this as dict Trotskv. Thev knetv that if the sicialist revolution in Russia was lide the producing country. The capital was invested domestically. This means ih, ,urto sun)ive it needed the economic and polplus value (the diflbrence between the mat_ itical help of the western working closs. For etial cost ol-production plus lobor cosr and Russia to survive as a workers state it needthe selling price) was credted bv the worked to be wrrounded by other cooperating ers in the producing country. ,ihe essence of workers states- Thus they spent their enerimperialism is exporting capital other areas gies working for revolution in the areas to so the surplus value is taken from another the west. peoples. Stalin, being low man on the totem I.n thc pole, and a damned smart bureaucrat of the .broke .l,9th rcntury the inclustrial age and brought in contemporary c.apit Machievellian school, spent his time organalism for domestic capital investmint. These izing and consolidating the Russian bureaunew avenues for domesfic capital investment cracy. At Lenin's death Stalin, acting in the were able to use the generated copital in historic role ofa new tsdr articulated his reinvestment until the safiiration point was 'socialism in every country' theory, chased reached in the late lgth centurv. At that out his one rival, Trotsky, (and was able to point Ihc weight ol'uninvestcd capital caused because Trotsky hacl no real Russian power the great surge of copitol exportation that base-though his popularity prevented Stabecame the classic age of imperialism. Caplin lrom killing him-then) and trashed the ital wos invested in other oreas by the griat remaining Bolsheviks. And then, datnn poor companies, the militory was soon needed to Marxist that he was, he tried to turn o peaprotect investments, political control soon sant economy into a socialist economy. Well. was needed to eJJiciently manage the gec> we're all familiar with the rest oj' the story. graphical areas of investment and protect Pyimgry capital accumulation come out ol' them.from competition by other cipitat_ex_ the hides of the small Russian working ciass porting countries and colonies resrlttecl. artd the large peasantry. Tltcre w<,n. ll,,,a At this point I haye to disaxree with ano capitalists to expropriatc so eyeryone wos ther ot your sweeping unsupportcd staleexpropriated. Thus was "socialism" built i. ments. That is your feeling that "More often one country,. Only because of thc way it tlton ilol colonies havc hrougltt thcir mother was done whal wos crcotL'd was not ;o(ial_ country closer to bankruDtcv thon dnything ism, not a workers state but what Trotsky else." Agoin, I'm sure that you wouldn't colled o "degenerote workers state.', Theie horte mode such an obviouslv Ialse anrl miswere no capitalists, true, but there was in leading statemt.nt as this had .ro, ,p"nt *or" their place a top-down dictatorial hicrarchv time on his letter. The statement takes a that nndc tht decisions thc workcrs shouid Jcw Jatts and sceks to weov( a convincing have been making. argument by ignoring the complax historic ln Russia by thc eve of llll II the pri_ mary capital accumulotion had occured ancl forces at work on capitalist nations. Italy in the 19th century hact barely completed the industrializotion which mokes possible primqry capitol accumulation when her king socialism wos well under way. And then for prestige sako alonc attempted tp coloncame the war. In the course of' the wor ihe ize Ethiopia. It was o costly failure since at Russian peoplc fought on Ruisian soil abthat time ltaly dirln't have any capital to exout twicc the numbcr oJ'Germans as all the port. At the end of llll II both F'rance and othcr allies combine:d Jbught in North AJEngland tbr tradition's sake attempted to rica, Italy, and Europe. By wor's enci Stalin hold th<:ir colonies in spite oJ-the fact that was in Berlin but Russia was ruincd. The illoru capital accumulated at such terrible human cost was dissipated by the tuar. The indust- ry so painfully built was ruined. The Russ- people could not, would not, go through the process ogain. So Stalin rippei off easi ern ELrrope. l-actories, tools, everyth'ig portable in eastern Europe was used to re_ build RLtssia. At the same time the economies o.l'eastern Ettropean countries were integrated into the Russian economy. Their aconomic li{e btood was used to revive tlte economy oJ'Russia. Outside the economic sphere the military and social needs of Russia dictated the credtion of a nei strategic situation in Europe, Invoders could not again be allowed to enter the Russian homeland so Eastern Europe became the bulfer between her and the Germanv that ia-n devastated Russia. .. This history then is for the most part dicto dictating the current Russian relationship yith 91st9rn Europe. Eastern Europe is'still Russrak buffer and stilt integroted into the Russian economy. It,s not imperialism becouse Russia did not export capitol to east_ ern Europe. But ot the same time it's damn similar because while the men who rule Russia didn't consciottsly set up the conditions that enabled the theft of iabor value they ;ure as hell are stealing it. The Chinese call it "Social Imperialism,'. That means in crude Jbrm that while Russia isn,t imper_ ialist because it doesn't foilow lhe model and isn't capitalist it sure as hell behaves lke an imperialist. Antl I'll go along with lha t. Erotty. I don't know anv whose thinkrespect that says the Il.S. war against Vietnom is imperiolist because the U-5. wonts tungstefi. The war is imperialist bebecause the people of Indochina decided ing I they want to better their lives by utilizing all the value ol'their labor. This precluded outside capital which expects to return prc Jits (surplus value) to another countr),. Tlle IJ.S. wagcs tht' war beruusc it must ieep thot area-ond all areas it possibly can open for the tremend.ous omount ol iapital tie U.S. must export- Just in passing I'll add that the U.S. would Jight Europe iJ' U.S. capital were prevented lrom entering- But that's not likely sinca the gross product resulting Jiom U.S. capital investment in Europe amounts to what would be the third largest GNP in th<: world. - I hope this rather lengthlt reply tct your lett<:r clariJ'ies the conlilsion oboit imp erialism wltich I ncglectctl to adclress my- to in the rt:view ol'Dollar Diplomacy. Lthilc this is long as a reply to a letter, it is, nonetheless, by necessity a very incomplete and simplistic over-vit:w oJ'a complex subiect. Impr:rialism is the driving Jbrce behind tlte Juggarnaut we conliont in this country and we'll neyer oyercome thc iuggcrnaut unless wc kttotp ond undcrstand imperialism. Unfortunotely my own understanding of economics is not as it should be. Perhaps we cal all contribute to greater common understanding oJ this complcx subject iJ lilIN readers would share their insights using the pages and lctter columns oJ WIN as our st:lJ mcdium. Jerry CoJlin l7 ,i EESEF$ g*eg$s i S;-'$.X ! I ! B"$ .E '::'. | ' ::,',, ,t1 ,,.| ';:: 4 : "" , llt'* i.;t,/r' % #' ,,, * ;.:- ,+,1,.1 t.t -i ,ll I tt i I rf..3 )' * *f" !lt G r ""#, tt6 "* s\ + . .,n ''^. " **&&r d *; #'- t .* ,-,bt,&., ht. Tne SrotY 5o ffAR r'r-r- gE mCK -lHE nq Nor So Nof oFA5TI ANDto,. rFrE Nexr pAY / , t @r Em j r6oli\ \! rI€N {rtoW\ND ll/+tA.n,aRl .-.SAIU Pr6l -, fHF tAWt Qur16 CLEAR orl ! .[fue SlerrAnrRes.' uqqd; ), BrucRav{roRD FAfr,gr{ . \ 'f,g$gs3g-Y, IrH EI^EJeNTY- RApl(AL Re ffruE ... 1ls: "!*t atltgau; xld"s:r{Nu yhlq 8L1* '(i6il,n€.,ort' "m \rF /t /L viz.) p@ffiondauid TI {L[sr 5o HAPPENS 1 666oNE oN ME ! ? 'eE r--1 Htv\Ivtt{,"' u:E; N-- -^ ?of! .li,\ \ FL AVORII becar first r and l the b the c sis. S in so is tht !?..*t*fsseE tr{ AMH.HUNI and s out tl longe deal oilCrcm O.I YFAI{? TAKE THA:T usal the b Now the r readl Ju J SrOr!^2; caller state exist idenl indet Red, man) the , root depa Ir the ( Hrvl \.-/ ) r TLloUt6Hf \ Yoq weRE \ -:r-- A \ PAc{ F tST ! ,,; I IOiu L'5il1\ ,L / (/' J U..r q61 /qL,\ //' /UU\ /t" t(J/L)[l lJ ' irrefi not {"Sr \cAttl6 can l'M A PActrrsr l is to "gov minc c Ar.l,T ASSE, MYSeus J t I H the r perfr wltr the prop its the but l, p t mear Dave debates because he acknowledges no previous thoughts on of these matters. We will return to this point.) Another example: In a chapter called "The Myth of any GOLIATH David Harris A Sidereal Press Book New York 1970 $4.95 t The front flap of Dave Harris'new book Goliath promises us a political alternative to "Spiro Agnew on the one hand and screaming street revolutionaries on the other." It turns out that the front flap is the most Right On part of the book because what we get inside is a collection of notes for Dave's first novel. Some of the notes are in the form of short stories and fantasies, some in the form of metaphysical raps ("In the beginning there is man"), some are good descriptions of the countryside, and some take the form of politicai analysis. Some of the stories could make it as parts of some longer narrative. Most of the metaphysics tells us a great deal about the metaphysician, so it too could find its place in some biographical (or autobiographical) narrative. But it is the political analysis which is supposed to be the crux of the book and therefore on which the book should be judged. Now Dave has the right ideas, he's given yeoman service to the inovement, and I love him, but his book is just not ready for the publisher. Just a few examples: He keeps rapping about something called "the state" but he never really tells us what "the state" is. He tells us, that "to achieve the assurance of existence in the practice of America is only possible through identification with the state." Now many Americans do indeed affirm their humanity by identifying with the old Red, White and Blue, but many of these same people and many others identify first with the company they work for, the conglomerate they hold stock in, the ball team they root for, the soap opera they watch, or the local fire department. In a certain sense all these things are manifestations of the "state", or the state of America, and the statement is irrefutable. But in another sense, you can love the Mets and not care who wins the war, or who gets elected, and you can love the flag and not know who the governor is. Which is to say that the "state" may not be the same thing as the "government", but Dave never tells us just what he has in mind so we cannot go anywhere with the discussion. He also tells us tirat a "social elite exists as a function of the state...serving as its priests, embodying its virtues, and performing its public rituals." Now I've heard it said that the state exists as a function of a social elite, (or more properly a socio-economic elite,) supplying the elite with its priests, embodying the .elites' virtues and performing the elite's public rituals. Again, there's a good debate here, but we can't get into it until Dave tells us just what he means by "the state." (Of course it would be preferable if Dave himself got into the debate, but Dave gets into no Power" he debunks the myth that human societies must always contain elements of "power" (meaning "power over,' or oppression) and states that any change within this myth is a "realignment" and not a "reformation." Fair enough, this is an old anarchist idea and was the substance of the split between Bakunin and Marx that led to the dissolution of the lst International a century ago. Surely any new discussion of the matter should go beyond the substance of these debates. Bakunin found the state (the army, police, national boundaries, protection of capital) inherently oppressive and felt that state power should be dissolved as a necessary precondition for the building of the good society. Marx felt that the objective interests of the old ruling class would never a1low it to accept the institutions created and imposed by the revolution. He thought these institutions had to be protected by a temporary "dictatorship of the proletariat," a new state power. Bakunin thought this would slowly but irretrievably turn the revolution away from the goal of creating a good and just society. He further thought that the revolution must be lived, that ends and means were identical, that a revolutionary organization had to mirror the society it Marx believed wished to create or be hopelessly corrupted. in sacrificing these principles to revolution- ary efficiency. David Harris believes that the state is inheiently oppthat state power must be dissolved (albeit nonviolently) as a precondition for the building of the good society. He further believes that the revolution must be lived, that ends and means are identical, that a revolutionary organization has to mirror the society it wishes to create or be hopelessly corrupted. I believe it too, but I haven't written a book about it. And I haven't written a book about ressive and it because the Marxists have some pretty convincing arguments on their side (in theory and in practice) which I am not sure I can answer (though I can answer them better having read Murray Bookchin's terse pamphlet "Listen Marxist.") Dave has no trouble with these arguments because he doesn't acknowledge their existence. His scenario for the revolution involves conversion through example. People'come over to the revolution because they are shown that the revolution offers them a better way of life. "It is not the statement," he says, "but the practice of a reality that makes it available. People must repossess their lives by forming new communities based upon cooperation and sharing. "A community is organized: it is arranged. As it grows it becomes an alternative to the state. Its processes make it an alternative." So far so good: the old anarchist principle of exemplary action. But I have certain questions; like who does this exemplary action appeal to? When Kropotkin wrote of the "propaganda of the dead" he had in mind the, mobilization of the working class in the struggle against the capitalists. Dave seems to want to mobilize everybody. Will Richard Nixon give up his wealth and power to join a new community? Henry Ford? Roger Blough? Maxwell Taylor? Teddy Kennedy? And what happens when they don't? Dave mentions sorle non-violent "tools" (he rejects "weapons") which center around noncooperation. In the conflict with the state, we have a number of 2t tools. The conflict takes place around-the resource ot' authority. Both the state and the new politics need to be participated in if they are to exist, but they can't be participated in at the samq time. Thus the Ohoice of participation is a choice of realities. As the people deny the state's authority for the sake of new-reaiity, and, and self com the belit thL state loses power. A new reality can deny the state the lives it feeds off. This process continues until the orders of the state are ignored, and it splits apart like the shell of an egg, exposing a new reality. At the edges of this process, where the conflict is engaged in, it takes the form of noncooperation, occupaiion, boycott, strike, and organized disobedience. As these tools are used to establish a reality, the politics extends itself. America will not function without people to do it. As those lives do different, America atrophies. We engage in the con- notl use ntze statt wro. bear 2d,: F aske flict in an attempt to extend the expeiience of the politics to all involved. We organize the conflict as an experience. At each point of it, we come forward with an alternative reality to that of the police, the bankers, the functionaries, the frightened and the lonely. Our success is that reality's concrete existence. (page 132.) But he never deals with the real problems. How for example does the new culture avoid being swallowed up by the old, as happened with the old utopian communities of the l9th and early 20th centuries, so many of which are now small Republican towns. (Nirvana, Michigan went for Nixon in '68...and the revolution records for Vanguardright?) And if we avoid that, how do we defend our communities should that necessity arise? There were some great collectives going in Spain during the Civil War which got smashed, first by the Communists and then by Franco. Will we 'have to deal with that danger? Or are conditions different here? Dave doesn't mention that problem. And then if we get past that, what is the alternative reality to police, bankers, functionaries, lonely people and frightened people? Is it dope? Rock and Roll? Fucking in the streets? I mean what kinds of unalienating work can people do? How can we humanize (and ecologize) the great techno. logical apparatus at our disposal? Or do we do away with it? How does production get organized? Dstribution of goods and services? Sexual relations, family relations, child rearing, education, individual conflicts, etc. etc. etc.? And how do these communities relate to one another? Are they all self-sufficient, or do they compliment one another?.We certainly don't expect a blueprint, but we don't even get any hints. Indeed, like all other problems, these remain simply unacknowledged. And I have still a heavier complaint. There is a line in an Italian anarchist poem that goes, "Give flowers to the rebels failed." The greatest objection I have to Dave's book is that he doesn't even give them footnotes. He plunks himself down in the middle of the anarchist-pacifist tradition without once mentioning the words "anarchism" or "pacifism," or giving us even the slightest hint that such a tradition exists. There is not one word about any of the great rebels failed, or for that matter, the great rebelssucceeded. Not a mention ofProudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Gandhi, Tom Paine, M.L. King et. al. or even Marx and Engels, all of whose ideas he is constantly elaborating, debating or simply restating. Not a mention of the Paris Commune, the Barcelona Collectives, the lndian Revolution, the nonviolent civil rights movement, etc., etc. whose examples he is implicitly exhorting us to follow. Dave should acknowledge his ancestral debts because that's only honest. 22 thin forc you thel he' coul Furthermore, he should avow the tradition he speaksfrom, because the tradition makes all of us strong. Commrinities make us stronger than we could ever be alone and the revolutionary tradition (or any branch of that tradition) is a great historical community that can give us the hope and sustenance to carry on. Indeed, if it is "not the statement but the practice of a reality that makes it available" then it is all the more important that revolutionary history be in the foremost parts of our conscjousness. Well, Dave has the beginnings of all the right ideas, but he hasn't decided what kind of book to write. As it is, Goliath at best is a kind of statement of faith to be used as not, mac tow imp forc betr tact funr forc 1 a rough framework for the analysis that still has to be done, clair and stra for the revolution that still has to be effe made' - b.red Rosen star ASSU ADVICE FOR CONSCIENT!OUS OBJECTOBS IN THE ARMED FORCES parl By Mike Wittels Central Committee for Conscientious 0hjectors, lst Edition, April, 1970 The Pentagon reports that in Calendar Year 1969 over 2,300 applications for C.O. status were received at depart- thal lnar doa mental headquarters. In the Defense Department's usual manner of reporting statistics, this number is accepted by military counselors and lawyers as much lower than the acttral figure. ln 1970 this figure may well double, especially in light of the recent Supreme Court rulings in belialf of moral and philosophical objectors. The need for a comprehensive handbook for C.O.'s in the armed forces and their counselors has been the reason for the failure of many applications. There was just no information other than the bits and pieces counselors could manage to collect from a wide variety of sources. At long last, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors has printed a thorough and sensitivc handbook for C.O.'s in the armed forces written by CCCO's Western regional secretary Mike Wittels, a military counselor whcr was himself discharged from the Army as a CO. Mr. Wittels' treatment of thinking through the CO position and answering the questions on the application is very human the it tl shar awa witl Ii finer facil the r char wide brut then Glr inter and com othe ons loca Con wirl and, at the same time, practical. He outlines many thoughts and questions that should be considered and asked of oneself in order to fully express one's beliefs, sincerity and commitment. Particularly impressive is the section handling the question, "Under what circumstances, if any, do you believe in the use of force?" Mr. Wittels says, "There's nothing in the law that requires a man to refrain from the use of force at each and every level before he can be recognized as a CO. In fact, a recent Court of Appeals decision stated that: "Agreement that force can be used to restrain wrongdoing, especially as the last alternative, has little bearing on an attitude toward war." I U.S. v Purvis, 403 F. 2d sss, I SSLR (2d Cir. 1968).1 " He writes further, "One question that COs are often asked in personal interviews-and one that some people think is implied in the written question on the use of force is: What would you do if someone were to attack your mother? Very few individuals could say for sure what they would do in such a situation, but one could say what he would try to do, what his ideal would be. And one could certainly say what he would not do. Most COs would not, for instance, drop napalm on the attacker. Or grab a machine gun and mbw down his family. Or burn down the town in which he lived." These last few sentences are very important to this section of the book as Witlels tries to put force and violence into a rational perspective differentiating between individual force (of a restraining nature or the tactics of non-violent force), police force (whose ideal function is to restrain and prevent violence) and military force (whose purpose is not restraint but destruction). The book also includes the procedure for filing the CO claim and what happens while the claim is being processed and after the claim has been ruled on. It dea.ls with administrative and court remedies for the denied claim and, in effect, the whole system (with all of the possibilities) from start to finish. At times, the book seems rather naive in assuming that procedures will be followed because they are part of the law. I feel that Wittels deals inadequately with the problems that Gls face with harassment and the fact that the military doesn't aiways follow the rules. In fact, many counselors work on the theory that the military will do anything it can get away with and only backs down when it thinks it may be exposed (via Congress, the courts or a sharp counselor, lawyer, or brave GI). The GI should be aware that he should seek counseling if anything goes wrong with his application. My only other disappointment is the chapter on "Confinement". In this chapter, Wittels says, "Most confinement facilities are reasonably clean, some even scrupulously so, as the military preoccupation with cleanliness extends to those with operating confinement facilities. Despite widely publicized exceptions, the incidence of physical brutality in most stockades and brigs is considerably less then in the rest of American society." My experience as a GI counselor and the reports of many GIs whom I have charged interviewed after being in confinement in various stockades and brigs across the country contradicts Wittels' statement completely" Many of them are not fit for animals and most others are sub-human. The large Federal-type miJitary prisons (Leavenworth and Portsmouth) are exceptions, but the local confinement facilities are nothing short of nightmarish. Confinement is nothing like the romantic martyrdom that Wittels portrays. As an overall guide andresource book, Wittels'handbook is a must for the GI thinking through or applying for discharge or non-combatant status. Counselori CO andhilitary lawyers will find it an excellent guide for counselling COs and preparing CO applications. As a military counselor, I am very happy and relieved to see this handbook. Copies are $1.00 with special discounts for bulk orders and counseling agencies. To order Advice for Conscientious Objectors in the Armed Forces, write.. East coast: CCCO 2016 Walnut Street Philadelphia, Pa. 19103 Mid-west: MCDC 71 I South Dearborn Street Chicago, Il1. 60605 West coast: CCCO-Western Region 437 Market Street San Francisco, Calif. 94105 - Jerry Wingate RADICAL LIBERTABIANISM: A BIGHT WING ALTEHNATIVE by Jerome Tuccille, (lndianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 109 pp. $5.00. It should be said at the outset that Jerome Tuccille is He is not even a fair writer. But his book has importance since its author is one of the major warriors on the battlefield that the political Right-wing in America has become in recent years;it is the first book to document the breakaway from Conservatism made by many capitalists in the 1960's and the first document of the emerging Left-zught Coalition politics. The American Right-wing has been schizophrenic since not a good writer. World War II, divided between a faction that prized "rugged individualism" and "free enterprise".and a larger segment that sought tradition, law-and-order, and victory over "international Communism." The larger segment, reP resented by the John Birch Society and William F. Buckley, succeeded in ruling the individualistic, libertarian faction by appealing to their shared fear of communism. But in recent years the lessening of that fear, combined with a recognition that America is becoming a police state, has led most of the individualists on the Right to break with Buckley and with his junior auxiliary, the conservative Young Americans for Freedom. Tuccille has been a major activist in the breakaway movement, and it was largely through his etforts that an adamant group of libertarians split apart the Y.A.F. National Convention in August, 1969. RADICAL LIBERTARIANISM gives a dramatic account of that convention, and of the reasons and actions that have led to an apparently permanent schism on the Right. It also explains how the views of those breakaway individualists are compatible with New Left radicalism and calls.for LeftRight cooperation in limiting the state. Like many laissez-faire capitalists these days, Tuccille is an anarchist. He favors replacing the government with means of free enterprise and voluntary social order and cooperation. He believes that, without government, capitalism could become the most honest and efficient way of serving the,people. He seems to want community control 23 of communities and participatory democracy, goals that S.D.S. was advocating in 1961, and from the way he talks trft-Right Coalition seem almost plausible. His immediate hopes are that Right and Left can work together in tax and draft resistance, in support of Black Liberation and rafical government decentralization, and in he makes opposition to "foreign imperialism" and "domestic fascism." If Tuccille is indeed a "Rightist", then the Rightwing stereotype is shot all to hell. The book has many weaknesses. Its explanations of how government would be replaced by capitalism are vague, imprecise, and raise more questions than they answer. Tuccille answers many obvious weaknesses with pat, dubious responses, often more emotional than factual: e.g., "Small towns outside the cities manage their police and keep them relatively honest with little or no effort." One wonders what was the last time Mr. Tuccille was in a Southern town, or what "honest" in such contexts means. In another in- stance, he assumes that if and when all schools are private even the poor will be able to afford them;as with miny other examples, he reasons here that when taxes cease everybody will have more money, a belief that overlooks the rjl- ativity of buying power and the question of how our society can make the transition into Mr. Tuccille,s world. Tuccille doesn't seem too sure about getting from here to there. He speaks of the need for ..revolution,,, but the actions he speaks of are more along the lines of tax resistance and such, of boycotts and not bombs. As has been the trouble with most anarchists, his indictments of the government are valid, his schemes are interesting if vague-but his answer seems incomplete. Still, it seems very hopeful that Tuccille and many of his fellow radical capitalists can bed down with the New Left, and perhaps the movement spawned by their mating will come up with solutions. His book makes interesting reading; now, maybe Tuccille and company will make interestiing activists. Lowell Ponte u1 of pt with- legen ment drew other WAI I inten exiles raider selors war . coura port. T1 AND No\A/... of i\aovlE EErr8 ,r hr devel bea I self a tofl r1_ rage goYer ,\ ties, book CARBY IT ON Produced hy Christopher G. Knight Directed by Robert Jones and Christopher G. Knight United Productions of America Carry It On, the cinema-verite documentary about the lives and work of Joan Baez and her husband David Harris, spans a four-month period last year during which Harris began serving his three-year prison sentence for refusing induction. There's not much to be said for the style of the film, which seems to have been designed to obfuscate rather than illuminate its subjects. No attempt has been made to impose an orderly sequence on the various episodes; without explanation, the ciunera simply cuts in on a situation and then just as suddenly cuts out again. An early sequence showing Harris conferring with authorities on his way from an evidently aborted speech at a school is photographed, for no apparent good reason (a tracking shot would have been not only clearer but more feasible), with a spastically hand-held carnera. Later on, one of Miss Baez'concert performances is visually destroyed by frenzied jump cutting. In fact, Christopher G. Knight and Robert Jones have directed much of Carry It On as if any letup in pyrotechnics would result in boredom with their material. Their assumption may have been correct. The first fifteen minutes or so, prior to Harris' incar- devoted mainly to speeches before various groups. Harris, who has a strong, clear voice and knows how to bring home a point, would be a good speaker if content could match means. Unfortunately, he speaks as if teaclr-ing kindergarten, is content to state and then restate the obvious, and underlines every remark with a little ceration, 24 is of self-satisfaction. Even so, he is quici< to-poi'n\ out that the Movement should not give rise to attentionsnicker seeking leaders, thereby forgetting for a moment his partici_ pation in the movie. His letters from prison, addreised to his wife but written for all the world tb hear, as indeed we do, are given to poeticizing with all the facility of a greeting card versifier. I began to wonder what Miss Baez ever saw in him. Her husband having been hauled away (one of the film's two good moments shows the "Resist the Draft" sticker that someone pasted on the Feds' rear bumper as they drove off with their prisoner), Joan vows to "continue the revo- lution" with her. songs, and the cameras follow her on a U.S. and Canadian concert tour. Stopping off in New York, she appears on the Joey Bishop TV show, somehow not realizrng how impertinent he would be ("My parents came to this great country to escape repression", etc.), and enjoys herself backstage, as on other occasions, by asserting her moral superiority. (At one point the film-makers chide her for having browbeaten the TV program's assistant pro ducer into having doubts about liking her job.) Joan Baez sings eleven songs in Carry It On, so there's something to be thankful for. Her compositions and her singing, of course, remairl remarkably simple and, yes, disarming. But for those of her fans who would rather she be heard and not seen, the film is a disappointment. The other good moment, by the way, comes at a concert when she spontaneously joins a group of black women to sing "Oh Happy Day". The result is inspiring. But I suggest to you go instead to see Ely Landau's magnificent King: Mont- gomery to Memphis, which is inspiring from beginning to end. * Martin Mitchell resist the resist tanc€ thost aidec day menl tanc( mittt tion In call : resisr who is cor toda, toh in sr this thosr petit mucl ardu a stoq threr the r ing t drafi have caser broa UP AGAINST THE WAR Norma Woodstone Tower, $.95 Up Against the War tells the stories of people WIN readers will be familiar with*some of whom have become legends of sorts in the anti-war move- ment, Peter Kiger, Howard Levy, Andrew Pull6y, Dave Zimmerman and others. Norma Woodstone chronicles war resistance of recent years through interviews with several draft resisters, exiles, GI's against the war, draft board raiders, and draft and military counselors-attempting to demonstrate that war resisters are decent, thoughtful, courageous people who deserve sup port. The author gives a lengthY account of her own background and political development. She makes no claims to be a revolutionary, but describes herself as a "weekend radical" who came to that position through moral outrage about the Vietnam war and the government's perverse economic priorities, and this comes through in the book. This is clearly a picture of the resistance movement bY someone on the outside looking in. She defines resistance exclusively in terms of resistance to the draft. She characterizes those who have destroyed draft files, aided deserters, or who do the daY to day work of keeping the peace move- ment rolling as "supporters of resistance," as if they are any less com- mitted than a man who refuses induction into the armY. Indeed, the entire book seems not a cail for stronger and more responsible resistance, but for support for those who have already resisted. Such a tone is counter-productive to the movement today, because what is necessary is not to have more people signing petitions in support of draft resisters (though this is certainly desireable) but to have those who up til now have on /y signed petitions to respond to the war in a much more active, perhaps more jeoP ardizing way: Up Against the War is reallY the story of the anti-war movement of three years ago. Woodstone talks about the resisters who reacted to the emerging horror of Vietnam by burning their draft cards or refusing induction-who have by now either won or lost their cases and moved on. Now we have a broader war and a more sophisticated consciousness, and we have a radical resistance of a different character than we had three years ago. Howard Levy says in Up Against the Wa4 "The idea our energies ineffectually. At the end of the book, Woodstone gives a factual and non-rhetorical run- arrest is not applicable to a government drawing the logical conclusions (or the conclusions that seem so logicai from a down of exactly what is wrong with of making a moral point by inviting this country. But she barely misses to not moral suasion." A amenable conclusion that willing'arrestees of the past are only recently coming to. Correct or not, Levy's observation is typi- radical vantage point). She does not call for a bottom-to-top overhaul of the economic system, she does not call cal of definitive changes in the resis- for revolution. However, in that, Up tance movement oYer the Past few Against the War may be a good book years. Up Against the lilar sheds light for middle America to read, since it on where we are now only insofar as it appears they cannot relate to the shows where we were before, and is of "revolutionary" manifestos movement little help in understanding 1970 radi- mimeographs are currently spewing forth, cals. - M.A. Norma Woodstone falls victim to the subtle machopolitics of the Resistance movement that many of us-particularly the "chicks who said yes to the guys who said no"-did a few years back. She idealizes resisters and they receive from her the unqualified praise of someone who doesn't work with them every day and therefoie recogruze lhat even the most conscientious among us have faults. The book does not reveal any of the internal problems the movement faces-male supremacy, class prejudice, ego tripping, etc. and so presents a rather dishonest picture of movement life. Norma Woodstone makes the mis- take of characterizing the resistance movement as almost exclusively pro pelled by youth. It is dangerous to categorize a movement this way-as so many of us do-because it may cause us to lose sight of why people become radical. There are plenty of older people who have been fighting for years and who don't stop and there are more I care to count of young peoPle who have never been involved in social movements or who have dropped out, than fisillusioned or burnt out, after a couple of years. The point is that the factor of being young is not what makes one act (though youth's natural questioning, energy, and willingness to risk a bit more certainly helps). What makes people radical is the awareness of contradictions between the power structure's rhetoric and the reality of life in this country. We must be careful not to fall into the same kind of trap the psychologists who study rebellious students do by attributing the will to act politically to youthfulness rather than political consciousness, lest we alienate potential allies and channel MOVING THROUGH HEBE Don McNeill Knopf, $5.95 The movement has Produced a lot ofverbiage but few really good writers. Marvin Garson, Julius Lester, Carl Og- lesby, Ray Mungo, Frank Bardacke, our own Paul Johnson, and one or two others have been consistently able to a sense of balance, humor and humanity without getting carried away by the political and cultural rhet- maintain oric to which it is so easy to descend. Don McNeill, who died in the summer of 1968 at the age of 23, belongs in the above group. Moving Through Here is a collection of his Village Voice articles during 1961-68 when the alter- native or counter-culture was just getting itself together. McNeill's beat was the Lower East Side and the articles begin with the Be-In in the spring of 1967 and end with the Grand Central Yipln of spring 1968 when the coPs ran wild and McNeill wrote that "it to be a prophecy of Chicago." It covers the Diggers, the smoke-ins, the summer of love, and the creation seemed of Yippie. The.underground media has come a long way since the first underground papers were started in 1965 and'66. The influence has been great, even among established journalists. Few young newspapermen on straight newspapers accept the myth that they are "objective" reporters. There is no such thing as objective news. In a confiontation between the movement and the establishment a reporter has the choice of taking his stand behind the police lines or with the people. A war corfespondent can report the war behind 25 NLF lines or by accompanying enemy troops. If the N.Y. Times was object- it claims, it would have a reporter stationed in Hanoi and with the IN THE SEBVICE OF THEIR G0UNTRY: WAB HESISTEBS lN ive, as PHISON no bones about being objective. We took our stand and we took it openly. At the Pentagon we got busted, at Chicago we got beaten and at the Yipln at Grand Central Don McNeill got tossed through a plate glass door by New York's finest. Our reports of these events were biased and subjective. We were with the people against the government. We never claimed to be objective. But within this subjective framework there is room for objective reporting, for honesty and for a critical eye. It is not an easy thing to do, to be objective and part of the movement because to be critical is to criticize the only hope (at times) for civfization. It to Gaylin a loss of motivation, creativity, value-connection and energy-though probably the Willard Gaylin, M.D. guerrillas. The underground press made viewed indicated Viking Dr. Gaylin, a shrink analyst at Columbia, was asked by a friend to evaluate the various alternatives to the draft-prison, expatriation, etc.-with an eye to finding out which was least likely to have devastating psycological effects on the individual. On the way to discovering there is no winner, he managed to get the bureaucrats of the federal prison system to let him spend some time interviewing war resisters at lels between the resisters and the astro nauts. The heavy majority of those inter- Allenwood and Danbury; during an l&month period he interviewed 26, 6 of whom (in somewhat disguised fashion) appear at length in this book. He describes his experiences in chronological fashion, making is veiy easy for a movement writer to an effort to remain objective, but close his eyes to things which he would toward the end-happily-he begins to ordinarily criticize with the ralionaliz- function as something more feeling ation that movement solidarity dem- than a periscope. He realizes that ands silence, or, even worse, a report prisons aren't just lousy places for that accurately reflects the going ideo- nice, clean-cut war resisters-they're logy. There are few of us who have lousy places for humans trapped in an written about the movement who have institution, like war, tolerated only as. a consequence of seemingly ageless avoided this pitfall. The beauty of these brief news re- familiarity. ports is their honesty. Don McNeill In the process of evaluating the was part of what was happening on the interviews, the comfortable myth that Lower East Side during these crucial resisters are more or less masochist/ years, and there was never any doubt martyr sorts is laid to rest after a on which side he stood. But he saw thorough examination; Gaylin, in fact, things clearly and reported the good draws interesting psychological paralwith the bad. Sometimes he was wrong, ; for< resister experiences major inner erosion less frequently than is the .case with whr tria others who arrive at prison with little or no sense of motivation and whr self- lettr (all worth. There are good and bad reasons for having gripes about the book: The bad ones include the idea that supl trial tha tam resisters ought to be portrayed more or lpss as heros-no mental hang-ups, no deterministic factors in their personal up.l quit biographies, no storms of doubt, no ego problems. Personally, I prefer the truth, and I respect Gaylin for being conscientious in trying to tell servi Just the truth. So we're human. The good ones include the superficiality of insight Gaylin sometimes VI F exhibits (not having experienced prison himself, it is difficult for him to under- c stand how creative a response is frequently being made to the prison situation by the guys he's dealing with); also, until the end, he seems too much delet Viet Nati conl into the "good" guys in prisons and rather immune to the rest. Very likely he experienced a healthy flouristring of indignation about prisons as mar( shou Cater his writing of the book got beyond the polit resisters can and into the more general evaluation that makes the concluding chapters, voke especially the last, his best. of tl took jeepr .Iim Forest - Atr as with his report on WIN's Flower Power Day, which he failed to see as the experiment that it Sch< at tl was. But he was amazin$y open and able to take criticism from the people he wrote about. He learned. When he first began writing about the Lower East Side (which was my turf at the time) I wondered who this young upstart was who wrote such shitty things about my neighborhood. At his death I considered him the best writer in the movement. Re- reading his news stories it becomes clear that even those stories which I thought terrible were more often than not right. Don had the honest eye all along. l'm just learning to acknowledge that much of what happened in the movement should never have happened at all. This is a book worth reading. Marty lezer train the LET THE FEDS DO IT! Fill out this form. Have I'YIN delivered to your door by a uniformed representative of the United States government! r--------F I I I I ---n to Wlll I I l Zip- - - -- ?{'wvoct l(I'12 -----r-i-----J ------ SpLrfrvrtrst.' - - Wtn- Mtrlnr' r------ Saigr I wish to subccribe to WIN for one y€ar, 35. I I cnckose $3 for a six-month trial subccriptkn. I ,l I 1 | I encloca i-contribution tt l ilemo lt Addrotc I I I - ------- milit 0 I I mun decir tary and also 1 more ties, colleges and institutes in fordville, a small rural Kentucky town where "Liberal" is a dirty word. The trial was moved back to Louiwille when two supporters of thd Six sent Saigon to boycott military classes and training courses. On the morning of July 17, students of Can Tho University burned all the files in the Office of the Student Military Training. They organized sit-in and letters to all Mumfordville residents (all listed in the telephone directory) supporting the Six and opposing the demonstrations. On the satne day, Hguyen van Long, chairman of the Vietnamese Catholic Student Association, declared: Vietnamese Catholic Students cooperate with students all over the country in opposing the Student Military Training Program and boycotting all student mi I itary training courses. Also on the same day, at 10 am, at the end of a meeting held at the Spellhu nger-stri[:r.,' (These two, Mike Honey and Mar- tha Allen have been charged with jury tampering. Their trial has yet to come up.) On July 7, the Black Six were acquitted of the charges. Despite the con- servative repression in the Bluegrass, Justice has triumphed. Richard Chinn V!ETNAMESE STUDENTS BURN FILES OF STUDENT MILTTARY TBAINING PBOGRAM TO PROTEST WAR On the morning of July 1, student delegates from different universities in Vietnam met in Hue to elect a Student National Council. At the end of the conference, thousands of Hue students marched through Hue boulevards and shouted anti-war slogans. They confiscated two rolls of films which the police were taking of them. The American military police tried twice to provoke the students by letting military jeeps run into them and removed some of the placards from their hands and took out their guns to threaten them. At noon, the crowd stopped at the School of Pedagogy, took out all files at the office of the student military training program and burned them in the street, to denounce the student military training program. On the morning of July 6, the Saigon Student Union issued a communique decision in which they stated their to boycott all students mili- tary classes, all military examinations and all military training courses. They also decided: 1. To give . full support to the de- cision of Hue students to struggle for the abolishment of military courses and training programs. 2. To give full support to the cision of Dalat students cott all military devoted its July issue to, in the words of Execu_ Continued from page3 munity, the trial was moved to Mum- trial. ONE UNION'S SPECIAL ISSUE 1 I gg Drug & Hospital /r/etazs to de- boy- courses and training programs. 3. ,To call on students of all facul- man Auditorium, more than l,0OO Dalat University students went to the office of the Student Military Training, broke the door, entered the office, took out all files at the office and burned them in front of the office. - Vietnamese Buddhist peace Delegation to paris tive Editor Moe FonLr, "the war in SoutheastAsia and its impact on working people here at home." lt consists of some 20 beautiful, full-page, cap_ tioned photos showing the horrors of Vietnam and the deprivations on the home scene. _ ln addressing a special copy to WlN, Foner writes: "We have attempted to put together a simply written and dramatic piece of material, in the hope that it can help in bringing greater understanding to trade union members and their families." The final photo showing 1lg9ers demonstrating against the war, is captioned with a brief chronology of the union's peace activities since 1964. The final item is: "June 1g70: Local 1199 delegation to Retail Wholesale & Department Store Union fights for and helps. win passage of resolution calling for "early and orderly withdrawal oi all U.S. armed forces from lndochina,,, as more unions, including Amalgamated Clothing Workers, join ranks of those opposed to war." _ J.p. A COMPUTEBIZED VOTING INDEX NEW YORK MAY BECOME WAB TAX BESISTEB The city of New York will .ioin the war tax resistance movement, if a resolution proposed by four city councilmen is passed by the City Council. Announcement of the resolution was made by Councilman Donald Mames on August 1 1 at a press conference of the Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, which presently is campaigning to "take New York City out of the war-now." ln support of the resolution, the Com- ittee is conducting a citywide. petition campaign to climax with a mass demonm stration at City Hall October 15. The resolution commits the city to withholding the portion of federal taxes for war which it withholds from its employes. Another part of the resolution would require. the city to give legal counsel and sanctuary to draft resisters and calls for "total amnesty" for persons jailed for antiwar activities. The other three councilmen endorsing the resolution areArthur Katzman, Theodore Weiss and David _ Friedland. 27 - FOR HAWKS The American Security Council, a rightist organization whose letterhead J.P. includes top brasshats and businessmen, is presently computing a "security voting index" for the coming elections. "lt will serve as.a vehicle for attack on 'doves' and for defense of 'hawks'. supporting those who.voted for more military hardware and a hard line against Communism and opposing those who voted for military cutbacks and a more rapid withdrawal from Vietnam," explains Wallace Turner in a New york Times feature story. lllustrating the story is a photo of "William K. Lambie, Jr., a former FBI agent presiding over American Security Council's library and index of 'revolutionary' organizations." The Times ,story points out that "in l5years of activity the Council has acquired sufficient influence for president Nixon to write it a thank you letter last year and for General William Westmoreland, the Army Chief of Staff, to be willing to make speeches whenever it needs him. The men who run the Council and its affiliates have about $1 million a year to spend.,, * J.P. AMEBIKA_LOVE IT BUT DON'T BEAD ABOUT IT Do you ever notice that at these government supported demonstrations they never quote Thomas Jefferson or other founding fathers of America? Any one attempting to read the Declaration of lndePendence, at one of these "support Amerika" rallies, is lia- ble to be arrested or stoned bY the others present. lf you find this hard to believe then listen what happened to Miami Herald reporter Colin Dangaard. Only one per- son out of 50 aPProached on local streets by him agreed to sign a typed copy of the Declaration of lndependence (Dangaard did this on July 4th). Two called it "commie junk", one threatened to call the police and another red-neck warned: "Be careful who you show that kind of antigovernment stuff to, buddY." Again on JulY 4th, a questionnaire was circulated amO{g 3O0 Young adults attending a righ't-vling Youth for Christ gathering which showed that 28 percent thought an excerpt from the Declaration was written by Lenin! The right-wing youths were then asked to describe briefly what sort of person they thought would make such a state- ment, Among other things, the author of the Declaration of lndependence was called: "A communist Person, someone ag- ainst our country." "A person who does not have anY sense of responsibilitY." "A hippie." Next Dangaard tYPed uP the Declar- ation in petition form and stood several hours on a sidewalk, in a conservative part of town, and asked middle- aged passersby to read it and sign it. Only one man agreed*and he said it would cost the polister a quarter for his signature. Ninety (90%) percent of the people never got past the third paragraph without making such comments AS: "This is the work of a raver." "somebody ought to tell the F.B.l. about this sort of rubbish." (Some say the F.B.l. is seriouslY considering banning the Declaration as subversive material) Other comments were: "Meaningless" and "Sounds like something from the new Left to me." The most truthful comment was: "The 28 boss'll have to read this before I can let you put it in the shop window. But politically I can tell you he don't lean that way. He's a RePublican." TOM FLOWEB SENTENCEO TO 6 OF MOS. Tom Flower, Peace Education Secretary of the Texas-Oklahoma-Ar- Or mene kansas off ice of the American Friends Service Committee was found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail Youn TELL HANOI! Let's "tell it to Hanoi". Remember the Plan in ing li by th Ross Wheby SO trade American pilots for Hanoi to for Black Pan- thers imprisoned by Washington? Hanoi doesn't seem to be pushing the prisoner-swap very hard at the Paris talks. letter (for a mere 13c) to the Premier, democratic Republic of Vietnam, Hanoi, North Vietnam. Ask hin. to hurry up and free the Panthers by exchanging pilots. Get several of your friends to sign for You. Hopefully the DRV government unlike our own, might listen when we petition for "redress of grievances".So give "legitimate channels" one more So send an air try. Berkeley Barb DRAFT BOAHD SHOCKED A young organist who Pleaded homosexuality to avoid military service to avoid military service was f ined $250 today for sending explicit photographic proof of his sexual bent to his draft board. The f ine was levied in Federal Court against James Michael McClain, 20. after the prosecution charged that his pictures so shocked an unsuspecting female draft board clerk that she had to take five daYs' leave to recover' McClain Pleaded guiltY to a felonY charge of sending obscene material through the mails to his draft board in Baton Rouge, La. His draft status was still uncertain today. Meanwhile, mail reaching the Baton Rouge Board was being opened bY a man' Ny Daily News RIVAL RADIO MEN HURL JAM AT B.B.C. OFFICE IN REPRISAL Two Program directors from a PoP radio station were finedf25 ($60) each for tosslng bags of strawberry jam into the headquarters of the British Broadcasting CorPoration. "You ought to know better than to behave like children," the magistrate told Barry Everitt. 22 years old, and Hugh Nolan, 26. -l-he two were reported to have told the police: "The B.B.C' iams us, so we iammed them." Mr. Everitt and Mr. Nolan work for Radio Geronimo, a PoP station with headquarters in London. Ny Times San Antonio Municipal Court of charges of disturbing the peace stemming from a "sit-in" he staged in the offices of the l-112th Military lntelligence group on APril 20, 1970' Flower entered the offices of the l-'l 12th a{ter a series of articles in ExPress-News exposed the undercover surveillance of citizens and citizens groups by Military lntelligence units. The American the San Antonio Friends Service Committee was one of the organizations identified as being watched. The enclosed state- ment contains what transp,ired in the l-1 12th off ice that daY' ln Flower's trial. the Prosecution witnesses included Col. Robert Jones, the commander of the l-112th and Maior StePhen Weiss, the commander of the local intelligence grouP. An imPortant aspect of the defendants defense was the establishing of the fact that the l-112 did compile information on him and his orlower asked Major Weiss if he. or any of the agents of the I -1 1 2th had ever had Flower or the American Friends Service Committee under surveillance The Maior refused to answer, the pro' ganization, On cross examination F secution obiected to this question, and was uPheld bY the court. Col, Jones. in his testimonY forthe prosecution, exPlained how he had had told Flower that the l-112th had no information on him or the AFSC, and made the statement that Flower was irrational in persisting in his demand to see files or information which did not exist' Flower asked Col. Jones if the offices of the l-112th had at any time held files or information concerning him or the American Friends Service Committee. Col. Jones informed the Judge that he had no clearance from Washington to answer such a question, and it was dismissed' The case is being aPPealed to a On cross examination higher - court' San Antonio AFSC appe6 stemr vealer perso ing r that Cha are i ur Tt involr Over out c Cha ( the r vicior out ( 1 PU fou r You one was lum whc the Dalt itc peo ther ryi Hirr ists kint WE the wh bol abc the the al fi rs ing of lns BC thi Lit pensive housing CHA CHA JIMENEZ OF YOUNG LOBDS KIDNAPPED for the rich. During this meeting Cha Cha was singled out On Tuesday, August 1 1, Cha Cha Jimenez, former chairman of the young and arrested because he was the Chairman of the Young Lords Organization and opposed the racist policies of the stemming from an urban renewal meeting last year. Attempts to investigate city. During the last year, Cha Cha has been continually arrested and harassed for his political work. Numerous people in the community had planned to Young Lords Organization, failed to appear in court to be tried for actions by the Young Lords Organization re- vealed that two men had assaulted the person with whom Cha Cha was stay- ing at 3 AM that morning. When that person regained consciousness, Cha Cha was gone. His whereabouts are unknown. The case that Cha Cha was fighting involved urban renewal in Lincoln park Over 8,000 families have been moved out of the community in recent years. Cha Cha, along with other members of the community, protested the city's vicious attempts to push poor people out of the area in order to build ex- complexity of the Chicago police Department. Our overriding concern at this time is Brother Cha Cha's safety and well being. The Latin community and the Young Lords Organization hold the Chicago Police Department responsible for insuring that nothing happens to Cha Cha. Young Lords for his defense; they had been present when Cha Cha was serve as witnesses arrested on the trumped-up charges. Cha Cha has more charges pending than anyone else in Cook County. Cha Cha had made it clear that he intended to fight all his cases. There was a very good defense to show that the state was attempting to frame him through false evidence. Cha Cha is a revolutionary, and therefore an enemy of the state, Whoever took him had to have a very good intelligence network-one DBAFT BOAHD HEAD LOBBIES TO END DRAFT with Gerard Noonan, who heads a draft board in Dubuque, lowa, journeyed to Vy'ashington on August 18 to lobby for the l{atfield amendment which would {hake possible an end to the draft. After six years on the job, Noonan said he had reached the "unavoidable conclusion that you can't have a fair draft, so there shouldn't be a draft at all." -J.P. the movies around. Actually just lots of movies PUSHING ON The Chicago founder and former chairman of the Young Lords has been sentenced to one year in prison. Cha Cha Jimenez was accused of stealing $23 worth of lumber. A co-defendant in the case, who is not political, got 30 days on the same conviction. One thing about Daley-land, there's no guesswork when it comes to the movement . .Three people got arrested-l was one of them-at Riverside Research Laboratory in NYC where ABMs are made on Hiroshima Day. So far twelve scientists have quit and a few others are making rumblings in that direction since we blocked their doors. By the way, the judge who arraigned us was a groovy black man who was wearing a red, white, and blue tie with peace symbols on it. He asked a dozen questions about Riverside and seemed to note the address. HAPPENING . . . The lnstitute for the Study of Nonviolence has opened a branch in British Columbia. Their first session will be in October; a reading list will be supplied upon receipt of application. Write to Lyn Bowman, lnstitute . . ., Box 977. Lake Cowichan BC Canada . . .Also in Canada, Ottowa this time, the Committee for Peace and Liberation is selling greeting cards to raise money. They would like to deal in quantities so orders from groups are especially welcome. Write at to them Box 2382, Station D, Ottowa 4, Ontario Canada. Also, the Committee is sponsoring a talk by that famous peacenik male chauvinist Ben Spock on "Decent and lndecent, Our person and Political Behaviour (sic)". He'll be in Ottowa at Glebe lnstitute on Friday, Dec. 4. lN PRINT . . . WIN writers are get- ting ardund. ln the September issue of Esquire there are articles by Donald Newlove and Craig Karpel. But we know about Esquire and its relation_ ship to women so I won't suggest you buy it . . .And the Catholic Art Association put out a special magazinecalled The Prophetic Generation that's visu_ ally a welcome relief from some other and has some heavy articles too. There are pieces by Durbin, Jezer, Forest, and Schwartz (t finally get to plug my own thing). You can get a copy from Jane Garmey, 890 West End Ave., NyC for $3 . . .tfre WRL-West packet on nonviolence is ready. lt costs $1.50 and has many good articles in it and is pro- duced in a nicely slick package. you it from them at 833 Haight St.. can get San Francisco. ON SILVER . . . Lots of movement that Hollywood thinks are movement movies. Getting Straight is a super-hype on college radicals but there are a few good shots of policemen beating on students that might win us some sympathy from liberals. And the dialogue is so damned creative that it's almost possible not to be inzulted . .On the other hand, .Sfraryberry Statement stinks from the word go. lt presents college radicals as real assholes who don't know what they're protesting. Though actually James Ku- nen, who wrote the book from which the movie was taken, might just be such an asshole . . .The best film l've seen in ages isJoe, the story of a hardhat type person and how he relates to the hippie movement. lt's really powerful and does more for the love generation than any supposedly pro-movement movie l've seen. And unlike most newer pictures that just seem to end when everyone who's making it gets tired, Joe has a genuine bang-up endlng. FINAL REMINDER . ..Don'tforget to send material to Dovetales. This column's supposed to contain national bits and pieces but you people out there have been sluggish in passing the word East . . .Wave to a fireman soon; it gets very hot in those rubber jack- ers...Thinkpeace. !.Uendy 29 Ietters Dear WIN people, I just got your issue of "Schools and Better Places for Kids." It was great and about tirne a politically-oriented publication devoted time and spaoe to our future. I was also sorry there hadn't been some way for you to have known about a very beautiful school hete in the city. I am a parent and administrator at Beachbrook School in Brooklyn. Perhaps 25 years ago somc politically "old left" parents organtzed and formed a nursery school. It began with politically aware people and was racially integrated long befote it became fash- ionable. Arlo Guthrie spent two yeais there at ages four and five. We have always been a school that respected every child's individuality and provided an atmosphere of confidence and love. The individuality which is such a clichc lately is very much a reality here. Eight or nine years ago we began a policy which integrates kids with various "problems" into our basically "norrnal" school. Our kids now very successfully include yellow, black, and white kids and among those kids you will find mongolism, brain damage, physical handicaps, "retardation" and "normal" ranges. A free schooi should be for all kids to grow and love to develop. We have an atmosphere where dilTerences are respected and where some di- minish. No kid deserves a box with limited expectations-or restricted demands. We feel that everyone has the right to be who or what he can or wants to be. We've recently started a "primary school." So far we have kids up to cight. No group has rigid age restriction or a curriculum. Our "primary" group is of kids aged 5 8 together. We are desperate fot publicity (and money). There has nevet been money to afford publicity or professionals to help us get money. Our tuition is $450 a year for half days and $850 for full days. It is urgent for the continuation of our "primary" group to have another building or any kind of additional space. I guess we're not alone in our problems but we are unique in our school and the REAL alternative it ol'fers for kids and parents and staff to realize our humanity and value as people, not to be destroyed in a corrupt and manipulative society. I hope I've been abie to convey some of the excitement Beachbrook is. We would love to have you visit. If you have any help or advice or contacts for us-it would be out of sight! Joyce Friedman Beachbrook 2953 Auenue X Brooklyn NI-71 62 He said, "Only the city and its on-going functions has sufficient scope to be an educational environment." Does that mcan that there is insufficient scope out in suburbia, or out in the countrY,or in the mountains, or on the ocean? I think the only significant thing that can be lcarncd in most cities is that they are no longcr viable places to live; learn, or play, without paying too great a price to one's keeping one's self together... Bob Barnes Locust ValleY, N.Y. The only thing I would take isstte with is something in Paul Goodman's letter. 30 unity Esquire, of Montgomery, Aiabama sewing as his attorney. Here based soleiy on the record made by Mr. Dean in the statc court, Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. of thc U.S. District Court of the Middie District of Alabama issued an opinion and otder on July 15, 1970. Judge Johnson held that tlie oonvictions had bccn obtained as the result of an unconstitutional search and seizure and ordered that Mr. Piazzola and from his copetitioncr be immediatcly released from prison. Dear WIN, I am a kid. 14 years old. For the last 4 years I have gonc to a very progressive community school in Plainfield, Vermont, from which I "graduated" this year. Since I have absolutely no desire to go to a WIN Magazine solicited its readers to give Mrs. Piazzola "any contribution of information or he1p." We hope that this result obtained by thc Alabama Civil Liberties Union will bc sufficient "contribution." Charles Morgan, Jr. public high school and know of no private or progressive high schools that I would like, I am starting a school. Since I don't to spend oir sohool, and since one shouldn't have to pay to learn have much money anyway, there will be no tuition. The orily expenses will be for craft materials and that sort of stuff. THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO TEACHERS OR ADULTS INVOLVED EXCEPT INDIRECTLY OR WHERE THE KIDS DECIDE THEY ARE NEEDED because I believe that aftcr a certain age (about sixth grade age) kids can learn, even learn better, without adults Therefore, the minimum age has been set at sixth grade, the maximum at the twelfth. One idca, or plan for the school year is to spend a couple months living at my home in Vermont, some time living at other kids homes, at friends aird/or maybe communes. I'm sure that there are hundreds of kids interested in starting a school and who have ideas about it. We only need sir or seven. I think that the important thing is to meet as many people and expcrience as many things as possible. If you are interested in helping starting this school, and being a student, please contact me: t Fred Carlson Route I Box 75 A Llarshlield, Vr. Dear WIN, Our files show that you have written to (and about) us concerning the handling of the case of State of Alabama v. Frank Piazzola. Y our writings apparently stern from a widely distributed essay by Mrs. Piazzola on the trial and conviction of her husband' in the courts of Alabama. Mr. Piazzola was one of several people Dear Home Folks, Many thanks for the July issue and its attention to schools and better places for kids. I particularly enjoyed A Hard Reign Gonna Fall with that groovy checklist. Since I am in the process of helping to set up a free school on Long lsland, I shall read it several times and pass it along to my radical teacher associates. Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Piazzoia's case u,as taken to federal court with Morris Dees, arrested on marijuana charges at Troy State University. Somc resulting civil and criminal cases were handlcd by Attorney George W. Dean, Jr. with the Alabama Civil Liberties Union maintaining an interest in them. The criminal cases have been through the Alabama courts with the degree of nonsuccess that would be expected on constitutional issues in southern statc courts. Then, under the auspices of the Alabama ACLU ,Atlanta, Go. (e; lcarning Ne experien have gon We ar ways. Wr ion (Mar religion, plan to f much as Everyon, earn, in and take moving 1 lcss, doir at hand, r are great our best by our p children focus on are given Dear Irrionds, I am writing to you with a couple of tasks in rnind. First to tell you about our organization Connections, what we do, and what we are tryirlg to get togetl-rer riglit now. Connections is a group that rvas formed by ex-convicts and "prison widows" made aware of the {aults in the pend system by our experiences with it. Wc providc rides and housing for visitors of various prisons, and also help to prooure legal aid for those who did not receive a fair trial, or tue unable to attain counsel due to their inoarceration. And hopefully our goal is to educate the public about an archaic systen.r that necds rehabilitation fru more than the people it has victimized, both on the inside and the outside. .Icff Segal, a membet of the Oakland 7, is doing four years for refusing induction at the Fedcral Prison Camp outside of Safford, Arizona. He's been a one-man legal counseling service there, working particularly with Mexican nationals awaiting deportation. To do this work Jeff needs some verY expensive law books. These books are necessary for him to help our brothers who are being crucified by American justicc, We need your money. If you can contribute to the purchase of these books, please rnake out your check to Connections Guidance Center, making a notation that the money is for larv books. Your con- tributions will be acknorvledged. If you have law books available pleasc get in touch rvith us so we can send them where they are needed. Also, if you wish to know hore about Connections contacI please relations primary ments, \ but deal paying cJ than ther work-pla We ar importar 1. Ou have not nrajority many. N the life c revolve a 2. Ou drop of z basis of i cases goi cases inv together. we had s a group, cncount( and lots r of thc gr< session o involved explorinl 3. Th a success libertariz itarian e1 other iva in betbre courage giant i ste 4. All rvith usinl tapy apprc communa us. Connections of what u 330 Ellis Street to workin San I'-rancisco. Ca. 91102 (41s) 673-0295 change wi 5. Lik, ure repr.lg one to im Dear friends, Thanks for printing Gordon Yaswcn's fine account of his Sunrise Hill experience. I'd like WIN readers to know that, as the intentional community "movement" gathers strength, cumulativc learning does occur. We rvho have recently founded a small intentional comm- that doeir au thoritar highly lib to coordir and to de rerrain flt unity (expanded family, educational center, learning experience, whatever) some 2% hours lrom New York, have learned a lot from the expcrience s of the many Sunrise Hills that have gone before. We are like Sunrise Hill in some important ways. We have no especially-labelled persuasion (Marxism, vegetarianism, Walden-II-ism, religion, primitivism, or whatever), and no plan to fulfill. Finances are communal as much as people like-in practice virtually all. Everyone puts in what he earns (or what we earn, in our developing communal enterprises) and takes from the pot as he sees fit. We are moving toward a simpler life-way, spending less, doing more for ourselves with what is at hand, eating more healthily (and the meals are great!) gardening organically, and doing our best to be aware ofecology and do well by our planet. Increasingly, we are raising the children communally, though the pdmary focus on their parents remains. Similarly, we are given to non-exclusiveness and multiple relationships, while still tending to focus upon primary pairings. We don't have rules, assignments, work-rotations, schcdules, and such, but deal witli needs together as they arise, paying close attention to our feelings rather tl'ran theories, We value spontaneous-ritual, work-play, and joyful madness. We are unlike Sunrise Hill in some equally important ways: 1. Our land and initial operating funds have not come from one psrson, nor even a majority of it from one person, but from many. Not in this or in any other way does the lilb of thc community depend upon or revolve around any one or two persons. 2. Our group came together not at the drop of an inspirational moment, but on the basis ol intcrweaving relationships in somc cases going back many years, and in many cases involving previous living and working together. We did not move to our farm until we had spent a good deal of time together as a group, mostly on weekend work sessions, encounter and gestalt therapy sessions, play, and lots morc. Lots of self-selection in and out of the group took place before we took possession ol our 37 acrcs. Only half the people involved in those months of preparation and exploring actually came to settle our land. 3. The nuclerus of our group came out of a successful experience of operating a highly libertarian children's school, a more communitarian effort (economically and in many othcr ways) than any of us had bcen involvcd in before, and one that gave us much of the couragc and experience we needed to take the rh, giant step from that world to this one. 4. All ol'us have had previous experience rvith using encounter group and gestalt ther,apy approaches in dealing with personal and communal problems and growth. At the heart of what we're about is a strong commitment to working on radical personal and social change with the help of these approaohes. 5. Like Sunrise Hill, rve find lots of structure repugnant and resist any attcmpt by anyone to impose anything on anyone else. But that doesn't mean thcre are only two choices, authoritarian structurc and chaos. We are highly libertarian, but we do come together to coordinatc, to make consensual decisions, and to develop day-to-day struotures which remain flexible, personal, and experimental. Similarly with leadership. Despite our bad experiences with imposed pre-structures and en_ gineered leadership in our society generally we reject only that which is in fact unwanted, not that which emerges spontaneously, feels OK, and remains flexible, non-coercive, and our own. None of this, of course, means we will necessarily last any longer than Sunrise Hill did- It does mean. I think, that we,ve learned from past experiences a few things thri h;;" helped us make a mole solid beginning. In any case, longevity is not the main thing and certainly is not the measure of success. bur learning, quieting, and growing so far is al_ ready such that if our community were to close down tomorrow it would have to be judged, in the most important sense, a success-our lives (and perhaps this is true, too, for some of the dozens who already have vis- ited) are richer for it. One of the things we're excited about at the moment is a workshop we'll be offering in September for people interested in a coimunal alternative for their own lives A few of us have led gestalt and encounter groups else_ where since our community began, bui this will be our first workshop it our'piace, using all of us and the place itself as resources. Oui hope is that this workshop, planned for Sep tember 4-6, will be successful enough that it will be followed by others and become an important part of our outreach. There's much, much more to say about the origins, nature, and development of our community, and we're happy to shate it. Let us know if you'd like us to send along a more full-scale diary-type account. Meanwhile, all our best wishes to al1 of you in your good work and play. P.S. Any wrN readers *n" ^!:i7r"l:':r!!i::, reach us o/o Jerry Friedberg, 1 165 East 54th Street, Brooklyn, New York. Dear WIN, We thought some of your readers would like to hear about the collective growing out of our work with Jews for Urban Justice here in Washington. Six of our people are now living in two houses. Three of these people have recently quit prof'essional Jobs (lawyer, engineer, mathematician) to work on Jewish organizing and the possibility of a rural kibbutz-type collective built around a farming community. About a dozen other people are associate