tffr

MOLent futiollt

Jaoh 6co&.E ort
Women in Spont9

a?ril 15, 1972

30f

WW

MarlrrJeaer on

the'Naflonat blo*,
J*'n Stnctair on
€vcry,thing

Recently WIN carriecl trvo shorts on thc
subject of desertir:n. The 6rst stated that the
rate tbr desertion is lar highcr than last year.
Last year there were 89,088 desertions from
the armcd forces.
The seconcl short said that WRI has
"launched an international comapign to persuade governments to give refugee status to
US deserters." The short also stated that
Canada, France anrl Srveden give asylum to
deserters.

For the past year and a haif, the immigration and political organizations dcaling
rvith clraft resisters and desetters in Quebec
and Canada lrave follorveil the policies that
rnl:n and women can bcttcr resist the war
within the US. Our rvork has centered arounri co;lnselling to gct peoplc out of the
nrilitnry scrvice and advocation of organizing
n,ithin the rnilitary to bring a quicker end
to thc war.
Norv we find tewcr and fewer clraft resisters an.l deserters corning to our centcrs.
ilris dcspite the fact that more and more
lnen are deserting and refusing nrilitary conscription. Wc lay this to increased consoiousncss about the war and rviilingness of brothers
and sisters to break the "larv" by sheltcring

"fugitives."
At thc samc time, morc and morc cxiles,
mcn and women, deserters and draft resisters, are returning to tire horneland. In addition, the announce.l ard unannounced
presidential candidates are starting to make
statements on the qucstion of amnesty. Wc
think that these are att€rmpts to buy votcs
on en)otional issues and attempt to break
exile solidarity betwecn draft resisters and
cleserters. Many exiles think that any kind of
amrlesty from a presirlent ivill be filled with
conditions, especially against thc dcserters.
In any case, undcr the Nurentburg Rulings,
exiles have done nothirrg wrong, and thereforc have nothing to be forgiven for.
Canada and France do not provide asylum
for deserters. In Canacla, cleserters have to go
through the immigratiorl process, a process
mosr cannot pass because they are from
rvorking class background, young, and have
l'ew job skills. Descrters in firance must
renerv their work permits every few months.
We lecl it would be more in keeping
with political realitics if the WI{I began to
promote the rcpatriation of all exiles among
the people of the US without any conclitions
attached. This would have thc advantage of
uniting with the dcsires of the exiles themselves, of raising the consciousness of the
people of the world and tlie US of how the

exiles t'eel about the war and the US, and gives
people a chance to make more principled
actions against thc war.
We are trying to move under the slogan
REPATRIATE ALL EXILES _ FREE ALL
POLITICAL PRISONERS. Wc wish to unite
with all active duty GIs against the war, vets
and other movements who wish all political
exiles to return among the peoples of the LrS
to continue the struggle. We think we can
thereby further unite people around the 7
Point Peace Program of the Provisional
Revolutionary Government of the Republic
of South Vietnam, and further expose the
nature of the war, holv it has affected the
lives of the people of the US and who the
real prisoners of the war are.
In closing, tlo Chi N{inh often told the
Vietr.ramese people: I-inity, unity, more unity;
succoss, success, greatgr success.

LAURENCE M. SVIRCHEV

A\{ERICAN EXILE COUNSELLING
CENTER

MONTREAL, QUE.

It seems to have become the custom
among many radicals to call any poor or
minority group person in prison a "politi-

cal prisoner." I would like to suggest that
this way of thinking and speaking is unwise
and confusing, and will only get in the way
of what radicals want to do.
It is true, and has been for a long time,

are criminals? Or are you saying that since
there ought to be no such thing as property,
there ought to be no such "crime" as "stea!
ing", and that anybody should be able to
take from anybody else whatever he wants,
whenever he wants?

Your use of "political prisoner" often
to inrply, whether you mean it or not,
that it is OK tbr poor peopie to commit
what the law calls "crimes", that they are so
much victirns of an unjust society that nothing they do can be wrong. But the effect
ctf this is going to be, as it already has been,
to increase what we have far too much of,
namely, crimes by the poor against the poor.
seems

Beyond this, radicals have never made it
clear, at least not to me, what they beiieve
in the matter of crime and prisons. Are they
talking, like some Anarchists, about a society
without laws, a society in which there would
be no such thing as "crime"? I suspect not.
What, then, would be crinte in their society?
Are they talking about a society without
prisons, in which whatever the law calls
"crimes" would be dealt with in another
way? If so, in what ways? Where, if anywhere, are there models of such a society?
Certainly ail the governments in the world of
which radicals seem to approve have prisons,
many of these no better than ours and otlen
much worse.
A1l this is not just idle picking at words.
Words are important. We who arc trying, in
whatever ways, to make a viable, just, peaceful, decent, and human society and world
are tirst and above all teachers, makers and
sharers of a vision. We must take care always
to use words so that they make as clear as
possible what we believe and what we want.
Otherwise, we confuse, divide, and weaken
our allies and ourselves'

that poor people who steal cars or otherwise bqeak the law are much more likely to
be put in jail than rich people who do exactly the same thing. But they still have to
break the law to get put in jail. Except in the
case of vagrancy laws, which ought to be and
could be overturned as un-Constitutional,
Here's a healthy, muncl.ry, organic snack
poor people rarely get put in jailjusl for beor dessert.
ing poor. If norv and then some of them do,
Mix: (gobs of each, no special amounts)
it is enormously important to keep a sharp
unsweetened coconut, chopped nuts (almoncis,
distinction between them and the poor peowalnuts), wheat germ, sesame seeds, purnpple who get put in jail because they stole a
kin seeds, raisins (Thompkins are good), any
car or robbed a store. Some injustices, like
thing else that's around.
some crimes, are worse than others, and rve
should save our highest indignation for the
Mix it all up in a bowl, cement together
worst.
with lots of honey and eat with a spoon. It's
The trouble with using important words
really good.
-CARRIE HEMENWAY
to describe things less important is that when
WILLIAMSBURG, N,IA.
the important thing comes along we no longer have words to talk about it. We ought to
save the name "political prisoner" for the
person who is in jail for what he believes,
and for no other reason The trouble with
A friend and rne rvent halfs on ordering
calling an imprisoned car thief a political prisvour publication and l'm not sorrv about the
oner is that someday, when we want to cry
dea[ since I eujoy it very ntuch. l-also find it
out that someone is a true political prisoner
very enlightening (i especially dig your book
in jail only because of his political beliefs,
reviervs since I'rn able to get on to books not
everyone is going to think, "Oh, they're only otherwise
revierved by other sources Wow!
talking about another car thief."
to "Bringing it All Back" {12-1-71)
Furthermore, this use of "political prisonJAMES E. SZULCZEWSKI
er" does not make clear rvhat you are opposSTATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
ing and what you want instead. When a thief,
AT PITTSUBRGH
poor or black, is put in prison, you iue angry.
Is it because rich white thieves are not put
there in prison with him? Or because the
poor thief was put in prison at all? Are you
saylng that everyone, rich and poor, who
steals a car should be put in prison? Or that
no one, rich or poor, who steals a car should
While it was good to see, that J.P. pays
be put in prison? Or are you saying that only
attention to a draft resister in Israel, probabrich white thieves should be put in prison,
ly he is unaware of Israeli problems. The case
and that no poor or black person should ever of Biora Newman, is not a case of conscientious objection, it is a matter of political perbe, no matter what he does? Or are you say'
ing that all rich white people whould be put
secution. He suffers the fate of being a memin prison whether they steal or not, that sim- ber of a socialist group, which opposes the
ply by virtue of being rich and white they
political aims of the state.

"";'r'dll#llJ

The appeal for money is peculiar. They
cannot uie any money to further their cause.
All is locked against them. Then if you will
take the effori to examine the archives of
the WRL, you will find that the Israeli comrades refused money. The lrague was willing
to equip them with office machinery-they
refused it, and depended on a church in Hai.
fa to do their lettering. We offered to pay
for a hired secretary; they declined on the
basis that it would be an uncomfortable way
to be paid by a foreign body. The money we
them was turned over to the WRI.
"savelsrael
is governed by the palace Jews of
the White House. The destroying of Arab
houses is done after consultation with these
palace Jews, so every problem in Israel is decided in New York and Washington. Our
American Jewish Community is the colonial
power of Isael.
What we could do is ring the Israeli Consulate with a picket line. The Israeli Consulate is located at 800 Second Ave. which is a
busy thoroughfare, and close to the United
Nations. To bring help to our friends in Israel
the only method is our picket line in this

_DAVID BERKINGOFF

city.

BRONX, N.Y.

We are looking for other PeoPle who
want to leave behind the city but not the
Vietnamese, who want to be less dependent
on a brutal greedy system without deserting
less mobile victims. ln short, we are looking
for people rvho want to live in a country
farm community without the usual apolitical
withdrawal of such communities.
We envision: buying a farm on matginal
land near a small town which hosts a university or state college-raising most of our own
food, grains, meat, fruit-breaking down sexbased roles in sharing all the work-several
family unit living quarters (owrrer built) for
privacy with a big lodge (or the original farm
building) for community activities-remaining connected to political realities by opening a bookstore or underground newspaper
in the small-college town-setting up a school
for our own children and others who would
want an alternative.
If you share a vision of a farm cofiimunity that's politically relevant, please contact

PEGGY & CHRIS ELMS
1 282 Chittenden Rd.
San Juan Bautista

I have tried so hard to be sympathetic to
and supportive of your magaztne. I agree
with the basic philosophies, and I have
worked for 25 years in the areas ofCivil
Rights and peace. As you may realue,l
have been Medical Dlector of most of the
youth festivals, and have been working for
many yezrs to attempt to aileviate both the
health problems of our young, the alienation
of our young, and the buldens of war and
prison imposed upon them for either philosophical, political or drug crimes. However,
I was dismayed by a recent article in your
magazine entitled "Kicking It: Methadone,
Therapv or Revolution". The article is filled
with either downright misinformation, or
with absolute falsities. I would prefer to believe the former, but some of the information is so bad, that I can only conclude that
your magazine is allowing people to write
for it who are basically unobjective and/or
dishonest. I think you should contemplate
providing a worthwhile answer to this terri-'
bly misleading and errotreous article'
WM. ABRUZZI N{.D,
WAPPINGERS FALLS, N.Y.

Calif.95045

men

HOME FOLKS
marilyn albert
beth arnold
lance belville
diana davies

ralph di gia
jen elodie
leah

fritz

neil haworth
marty jezer
craig karpel
peter kiger

dorothy lane
elliot linzer

jackson maclow
dick margulis
david mcreynolds

jim peck

tad richards

igal roodenko

fred rosen

nancy rosen

STAFF
maris cakars
susan cakars

paul johnson

@@@@

4:

How to Deflate the National
Bloat

9:

Some Notes on Work

13:

People's Garage

14:

Free at Last: An Interview
with John Sinclair

2

nels johnson

mary mayo
brian wester

IN THE NURSERY
janis kent cakars
born march 15,1972

he weighed 6 lbs., 1O oz.

IN-THE PROVINCES
ruth dear (5429 s. dorchester, chicago,
iil 6061s)
paul encimer (7!2 w. 3rd st., duluth,
minn 55806)
seth foldy (2322 elandon dr., cleveland
heights, ohio 44106)
jim gehres (box 7477, atlanta, 9a 30309)
wayne hayashi (102O kuqpohqku e4.,
honolulu, hi 96819)
becky and paul (somewhere in 6914/

mex ico)
alex knopp (3609 baring, philadelphia,
pa 19104)
john kyper (240 kelton st., apt. 8, alston,
mass 02134)
paul obluda (544 natoma, san francisco,
cal 94103)
lana reeves (lOl bradford st,, charleston,
west virginia 25301)

CL'IT!

'r1

.

Women in Sports

peaoe and freedom

throrgh nonviolent action

Ash of Death: H-Bomb Victims
in M icronesia

box 547

rifton, new yotk 12471
telephone 91 4-339-4585

Poems
Changes

WIN is published twice-monthlY

except July, August, and January

when it is published monthly by
the WIN Publishins Empire with
the support of the War Resisters
League. subscriptions are $5,oO
per year. Second class Postage

paid at New York, N.Y. 1O0O1.
lndividual writers are responsible

for opinions expressed and accuracy of facts given. Sorry-manu-

scripts cannot be returned unless

accompanied by a self-addressed,
stamped envelope. Printed in
U.S.A., WIN is a member of the

Underground Press Syndicate and
Liberation News Service.

Nam Vets "Confer" with VFW

31

:

Reviews

Front Cover: Nina Klymowska
Back Cover: WIN Magazine, the
Jack Anderson of the underground,
presents yet another ripped off doc-

umeni. This one courtsey of IRS.
Remember! File early!l

April15,1972
Volume

Vlll,

Number 7

3

I

,W

ArtoNAI
NAfl
I-otpng

Btt

The Gross National Product of the United States is
rapidly approaching one trillion dollars per year. This
sum represents the total monetary value of all the services and products the country produces. lt is a basic
statistic by which we measure our economic prowess
and the state of our economic growth. For people who
worship statistics, it's the measure of our country's
greatness.

lncluded in the GNP is money we spend for basic
necessit.ies such as

food, clothing, transportation and

shelter. But in terms of social utility it is a non-discriminatory statistic. The GNP signifies the value of
all financial transactions without consideration for
their social purpose. The money you spend for the
evening meal, for a tjcket to a baseball game, for a stay
at a vacatjon resort, for the price of an electric canopener and a second or third car are all entered in the
ledger of the GNP. So, too, are the pennies you lay
out for this journal.
The GNP has long been used as a means of compar-

ing,our economic system with those of the socialist
and communist nations. We take pride in the fact that
our GNP is far greater than theirs. I remember in grade
school this was in the late forties and early fift.ies at
the height of the "Cold War"-learning from a chart
about the comparatlve economic strength of our country and ihe Soviet Union. We were first in most everything and for a while, at least, it made me proud of
this system. But pride always involves a certain
amount of blindness. lt was many years before I began
to question some of the major assumptions on which
our economic system, with its hlgh growth rate and
impressive statistics, is based.
The economy runs on the premise that the more
people spend, the more we can produce; and the more
productive the industry, the more jobs there are available and the higher the average wage. The bigger our
paychecks the more money we can spend. The cycle
continously renews itself. On paper it seems the best
of all conceivable economic ideas.
Yet, there are just so many products and services
that a person or a family can use to live a comfortable
and a happy life; however, if people spent money on-

ly on necessities the economy would fail. A decrease
in demand would mean a cutback in production. lndustries would slow down, workers would be laid off,
wages would drop, and money would become tight.
Thus, the health of our economy is dependent on a
free-spending public. Spending money has become
our national duty. The role of the consumer is as patriotjc as that of a soldier. Our primary function in na-

tional life is simply to buy, buy, buy.
Because there is a limit to the products we need to
buy, all kinds of schemes have been developed to "persuade" us to spend our money. Advertising is probably
the most important. lf any industry is basic to the
economy, this is it. Not only does it support much of
the informational media (radio, television, magazines,
newspapers, all of which would be out of business
without advertising revenue), but it is the essential tool
by which the system leads us blindly into the marketplace.
Some of the most creative minds in the nation are
occupied devision ways to cajole us into spending our
money for items that we, in our dim-wittedness,
would never think of buying otherwise. The technique
they use is often subtle and sophisticated, employing
the most advanced techniques of psychology and soci-

ology. Few advertisements offer information. How
many ads do you know of that tell anything factual
about their products? Advertisers deal in creating salable images, in wish-fulfillment, and in appealing to
our irrational selves. Advertising is designed to exploit
our weaknesses and to cause us to spend money on
products we rationally know we do not need.
The credit system is also necessary to keep the
economy going. Even with our high incomes we do
not have enough spending money to keep the growth
rate accelerat.ing at a desirable level. Credit cards, easy
payment plans, schemes like Bank-Americard all make
our designated role as consumers easier. Even if we
have no cash we can still function usefully in the economic system. Of course, we all pay dearly at the end.
The corporations who sponsor credit schemes all assure themselves of a profit from this service. Credit is
made to look like a boon to the consumer. But the
person who uses it pays double in the end, first for the
convenience of buying on credit and.second for the
product bought. Both transactions are included in the
GNP, as are the revenues generated through the media
by advertising.
lf our economy functioned independent of everything else, even its absurdity would be tolerable. But
our economic system forms the basis for our politics,
our attitude towards the environment, and the quality
of our individual and collective life styles. lt is.destructive to all three.
Our trillion dollar GNP comes at the expense of the
people and resources of the world; as well as our own
individual happiness. With only about6% of the
world's population, the United States consumes approximately two thirds of the world's'wealth. This
means that most of the people of the world are working in order to keep us at the level of affluence that
we have come to expect as our due. Our domination
of the world's economy (which, of course, leads to politjcal domination as well) puts us at odds with the aspiratjons of the maiority of the world's people, who,
quite rightly, want to control their economies and use
their resources for their own purposes. Anti-Americanism is so rampant throughout the world because usually it is our corporate interests (and governmental support of those interests) that prevent the different
countries from attaining economic independence.
Fortunately, this is changing. The Vietnam War is a
turning point in modern history, because a small thirdrate power (Vietnam) has managed (at tremendous
cost to itself) to keep at bay the most powerful military machine ever assembled. ln so doing they have
made it unlikely that an American President will ever
again find willing conscripts to march
ialist venture in some foreign land.

off on an imper-

During the sixties, we invaded Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Vietnam to protect our economic
interests. ln the early seventies we added Cambodia
and Laos to that list. But when Chile began natlonalizing American-owned copper mines, we could do nothing. lndeed, many Americans have come to support
actjons like that taken by Chile. For years we have
robbed these countries of their resources. They are
now only taking what has long been theirs by right.
American corporations at last are beginning to learn
that they are on their own. American youth will no
longer march off to die to protect their profits.
Our economy is as dangerous to the environment
as it is politically disastrous. We consume the world's
resources with a carelessness and arrogance unknown

5

in history. The result, of course, is a polluted environment of which we are increasingly becoming aware.
But even in this area we have refusQd to face the hard
facts of ecological life. The resources of the world are
not infinite. We cannot keep the economy going at the
accustomed rate indefinitely. To continue to live at
our present affluence means that we will soon exhaust
many of the planet's basic resources and make the
earth unfit for our children to live.
Americans are becoming ecologically conscious.
Th_e growing protesl against nuclear power plants
reflects this interest. But even if an aroused public forces the electric utilities to conform to stringent safety
procedures, the problem of our depleting resources
will not be settled. Quite simply, we Will have to cut
down on our rate of consumption and learn to lead
ecolqgical ly-oriented I ives.
Our preoccupation with the GNp has also had a disastrous effect on the quality of our lives. The emphasis on money (which equals status) and material accumulations has caused many Americans to abandon
their humanity to the rnarket place. We thrive on overtime, hold down two jobs, and are in tonstant quest
of that extra dollar. Making money becomes our primary goal in life. lt is the most patriotic thing we can
do. The more we earn, the more we spend, the greater
the den';and for goods, the more jobs become available, the more we earn. ln this closed cycle of economic
values, the meaning of life is often lost sight of.
Th. Organization Man, the symbol of the 1950,s,
is still very much in evidence in the large corporations.
These people, who personify the economic bind that
most working Americans find themselves in, are at the
constant beck and call of their corporate employers,
who exercise an overwhelming social control of their
lives. Alvin Toffler, in Future Shock, calls corporate
executives "life-sized chessmen on a continent-sized
board." Executives move about the country at the
whim of their employers. (lBM is known among its
employees as

"l've

Been Moved"). ln this is reflected

the rootlessness that is characteristjcally American.
According to Toffler, one out of five Americans has
changed address every year since 1 948.
The suburbs have been created to serve this highly
mobile population. They are known for blandnesi and
homogeneity. A suburb on the West Coast is indistinguishable from a suburb in the East, the North, the
Mid-West, or the South. Even the natural setting is reduced to a common sameness. When the bulldozers
come in to clear land for a suburban development, all
the trees, shrubs, and bushes are removed. The land is
made completely barren and natural contours are leveled.

The suburbs, like our economy, are an efficient and
profitable way of settling people on the land. But,
again like our economy, they are a social disaster. No
wonder the first generation to come out of the suburbs has been a generation of revolutionaries who in
many ways reject everything from the past. The consequences of suburban life cannot be measured by statistics. They can, however, be measured by the breakdown of family life and community.
The nuclear family, which is as old as the suburbs,
is perfect for the consumer life our society has carved
out for us. ln olden days, when most people lived in
extended families, in big noisy homes full of relatjves
and friends, people were able to rely on each other
for entertainment. ln the nuclear family, where wife,
husband, and kids live isolated from friends, neighbors,

b

and relations, the family must seek artificial means of
spending leisure time. Alone and bored, they are ripe
for the message of the advertisers. Consumerism becomes a way of life. There is no other social use for
their money but.to spend it on the accumulation of
material wealth.
This is the way we live, then; our normil situation.
Only a plague, a blackout, a disaster like a fire, an
earthquake or a flood can blast us out of our separateness and bring us together. We savor those few brief
moments when we are together and cherish them forever, but as soon as they pass we go back to our lonely and isolated lives.
Out of habit, out of conditioning, because it,s expected.of us, because it's what we've been taught, be-

cause that's the way it is, we expect nothing bitter.
We guard our lives as we guard our houses, wfrich is to
say we do not live in our houses as much as we stand

guard within. Our doors are locked; in the larger cities
people even place iron bars across their windows and
double and triple locks on their doors so that each a
apartment resembles a cell.

lf we relate to one another, it

is as competitors,
rarely as friends and neighbors. We are aware of each
other's po5sessions, but we dare not inquire into each
other's hearts. We are very separate from one another,
very lonely, and very much afraid.
"All the lonely people,
where do they oll come.from,
All the lonely people,
where do they oll belong?"
The feeling of community is alien to contemporary
American life. We measure our greatness by our economic and military prowesss, never on the cohesiveness of our community. The striving for community,

is a primary motivational force among human beings. But it is a force
that has been driven from our lives. People thrilling in
community do not need Madison Avenue to tell them
what they need for the good life. They,do not need
television seti and the thousand and one products that
help them pass the time during the hours between the

for a closeness with one's neighbors,

goods and services that they once thought were necessities. Community makes consumerism obsolete.
What is happening among the young and on the
communes is beginning to occur in all areas of American life. People are wakening to the fact that their material well-being has not made them any happier for

their efforts. The phenomenon of "dropping out"

has

become commonplace. People are abandoning careers
and highpaying jobs to lead more simple lives. The
more people who drop out, the more people there are
who realize that their old way of living, as serfs to the
economic system and consumer fodder for the ever-increasing GNP, has been a costly folly. This discovery
is spreading through the country like a shock w.ave.
The liberatlon of the consumer spells ultimate disas.ter
for the economy.
Photo: Diana Davies

iob.

People are the basic resource in community, and
relationship between people is free for the asking. The
quality of one's friendships and love of one's neighbors are not statistics that get entered in the ledgers of
the GNP. Community is subversive to the American
way of life. lt is the only way worthwhile to live'
Possibly the most encouraging change in recent
years is the awareness of our lack of community and
our conscious effort to recreate it in our lives. As this
occurs, our dependence on the economy breaks down.
The culrent depression can properly be seen as a natural corrective to an over-productive, socially destructive economic system. The depression is a result of an
awareness on the part of a growing number of people
that our society is sick and that in their role as consumers they contribute to the sickness. Traditionally,
the heaviest consumers have been people in their twenties, fresh out of school, in new f obs, recently married,
establishlng new households. These are the people who
buy new cars, new furnishings, new refrigerators, new
television.sets, all of the ltems Americans think they
need to get along.

This is no longer happening. Young people are no
longer the consumers they used to be. Though they
continue to spend money on specialized items like
phonograph records, stereo sets and cigarette rolling
papers, they are learning to live without many other
things. Even more important is the return to the con..piot the extended family and a refusal to accept the
isolated tenants of the nuclear family on which they
were brought up. People are learning that if two can
live as cheaply as one, so can four, five, six, ten, and
twenty. Cars, food, income, redords all become communal propertY.
At one community I am familiar with, 14 people
live rather comfortably on a yearly income of about
$8,000. Though they grow most of their own food,
they are in the process of paying off a heavy mortgage.
This kind of economic arrangement is becoming more
and more common. The few identifiable communes
around the state represent the tip of an iceberg that
goes deep into American society. People are learning
Io pool their resources, make do with second hand
items and recycle their waste products. Living together

ttiliiiffi
lillEliii$ilffi
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tii

makes it less necessary for them to rely on expensive
entertainments to fill their time. They are able to lead
a rich and rewarding life without spending money on

7

What we are moving towards, then, is a No-Growth
economy, an economy with a stagnant rate of economic growth and spiraling downward trend in the bloated
standard of Iiving. The economic statistics that once
defined the nation's health have become irrelevant.
The current Depression which describes the faltering
economy becomes, in No-Growth terms, a desirablelevelling-off.
, So far, the idea of a No-Growth economy has come
from the grass-roots, out of a million and more individual,decisions to abandon normal affluence and boycott un_necessary products. This is how it should be,
for basic change such as this cannot be imposed by'
governmen[ authority. lt must result, instead, from
the changing consciousness of people who begin, without co-ercion, to restructure their lives. Certainly, the
idea of a No-Growth economy has ramifications ihat
touch on every aspect of our lives. Some to these are:
* A redefinition of work. With the economy slowed
down and'only necessary items being produced, work
can become the pursuit of what is useful and enjoyable. People are freed from the dictatorship of the
time clock and psychic tyranny of the assembly line.
Crafts become important. Working people take pride
in what they do and relate to their products on a personal. level.

* An end to specialization. Efficiency is no longer the
criterion for doing things. Human values become important in how we work. Freed of the necessity of

striving for maximum earning power, people can indulge their fantasies. Jacks of all trades replace the
narrow interests of the specialists.
This trend has already become apparent. Doctors
coming out of medical school are abandoning the lucrative rewards of specialized medicine (treating the
hypochondria of the rich) to treat the people who
really need medical help regardless of their income.
Lawyers, too, are moving away from serving the corporate interests for the less financially rewarding work
of legal aid, environmental law, and serving the radical
political movement. On a more informal level, people
are spending less and less on expert and professional
help. They are learning to flx their own cars, build
their owri houses, and do for themselves whatever
they once depended upon experts to do for them.
x A lowered standard of living. A stagnant GNP
means a deflation of the standard of living because
population is growing, so people have to share smaller
slices of the pie. This, too, is already happening on
communes and in more informally based households.
People are learning to live with less, depending on.

their own human resources for more.
* Rural Reconstruction. For the first time in our modern history, farm population has dropped below ten
million. This is due, in part, to agri-business which
does not take into consideration the social value of
life on the farm. Economic factors have driven small
farmers off the land to compete for jobs in the evercrowded cities.
A no-Growth economy would reverse this trend.
People would begin moving back to the land to develop subsistence-level homesteads in marginal agricultural areas that cannot sustain competitive agriculture
on an economically profitable basis. This would revitalize rural areas (the brightest young people would
stay on the farm rather than run off to the cities because rural life would become as exciting as the cities
used to be) and create a class of small, independent
yeoman farmers who would live pretty much independ-

a

ent of the system. lt would also ease population pressure, as groups of people would be living on farms
that once housed just a family or two. Finally, a repopulation of rural America would contribute to a better
environment. Fields would get moved, forests would
be taken care of, the land would be improved. people
would be present to assume responsibility for the care
of the land.
* Political democracy. lt goes without saying that a
No-Growth economy would destroy the hold that the
large corporatjons have on society. Many of them
would be forced out of business (no one would buy
their products), others would be iut back to manageable size. Big money would no longer control our [oli

tics.

*

Peace-oriented politics. ln a NoGrowth economy
we would use only our own natural resources or those
controlled by other countries on a fair trade basis.
Without the need to keep our economy going at a high
level, we would no longer have to exploit the economic wealth of the world. This would free us from the
burden of being a powerful military nation. Such psychological needs as maintaining our self-image as ,,the
most powerful nation on earth" would become unnecessary. We would be too busy tending our own gardens,
rebuilding our cities, and creating community in our
lives to worry about such absurd things as trying to

control the world.

The trend towards a No-Growth economy has, as I
have said, started on its own momentum. Now it is
time to make it into a political issue. (Even radicals refuse to accept that a revolution will mean a cut-back
in everybody's level of consumption.) lt is deceptive
to talk about a peaceful world or abodt ecology without acknowledging that progress in either requires an
end to our worship of the GNP. Unless we reduce our
consumption and stabilize the economy, peace and
environmental safety are out of our reach. But standard of living is merely a state of mind. Once we learn
that life can be better living on less, and that our economic system is socially destructive to our own lives
and the lives of others, we can begin looking at a less
affluent economic state as something desirable and

worth working for actlvely and hopeTully

-Marty

Jezer

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otes on
,

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'*

I iiilrii,

out my relationship with myself. Sometimes I sit
for a week by myself, thinking, feeling, sometimes
writing like this. Some people see this sitting as laziness, but I know that when l'm sitting I can be being
lazy or I can be working very hard. lt's hard for other
people to see the difference, but to me the feelings are
as different as being asleep and being awake, as forest
ing

,i,

li;r:a:ii'

,[

and desert.

lf I sit ind perform the same job twice a minute,
20 times an hour, 5,000 times a week, am I working?
I can be almost asleep, repeat myself endlessly, and be
paid well. Or perhaps my mind will wander awake,
and then it will work while my hands earn money.
'I

o
I o^"* when l'm working from the feeling I get,
the work feeling. A coming alive, involvement, energy
flow. Getting in tune with myself, feeling all the different parts of me coming together. Moving ahead together.
For a,lawnrnower, the opposite of working is being
broken. And for a part of me that's also true. My
work isasign of where I am. When l'm broken I don't

work.

lf I confuse working with making money l'm letting
other people decide when l'm working and when l'm
not. When other people like my work, they buy it.
Their money expresses their sense of me. But my own
sense of work has no particular relationship to money
or outside approval.
Often my best work is with and for'myself. Like
working out relationships with other people, or work-

Working and growing stand very close together.
Perhaps they are completely synonymous. At least

I

can't think now of how to do one without the other.
Learning also is the same. So is change.

I have held different jobs for as long as I had the
feeling that I was working, and left them when the
work feeling was gone and there was only an empty
shell. With the work feeling gone I have felt my alive
self retreat and shrivel, coming out only "after work."
Sometimes I have held on to dead jobs from habit and
inertia, but l've always come to where I feel a deathly
emptiness coming over me, forcing me to choose between changing and withering away.
'There is a notion called career. lt says that a person should do the same basic thing for a very long
time. lt feels very alien to me, not fitting my rhythm
of growth and change. I have had several jobs that
have been both difficult and involving, but even the
most interesting and difficult jobs, like editing my own
magazine,lost their sense of real growing work after a
while. I once stayed at one job for two and a half

3

years, but that was only because I could change
what

I was doing as I went along.

Sometimes I wonder if l'm just running away, drifting, always staying close to the surface. B"ut I know
that as long as I continue to change I will move from
job to job in order to stay in tune with my changing
sense of work. Work each job to the limit, and when
the limit becomes restrictive, move to where there are
new limits. Ulitmately there are no limits save those
we set for ourselves.

My work grows out of my sense of myself, not the
other way around. Sometimes I want to sayi,l am a
writer" or "l am aleacher," but I feel best when I say
"l write" or "l teach."
When I look for work I look for a way to express
my existence. lf there is no fixed job that lets me do
that then I have to create my own. That's how we decided to start our own school. Creating a job is not
easy, but I want to be me, not someone else's idea of
what I should or might be.

How rnany regular jobs are there that let me add to
my own energy without stealing it from the people
around me? I don't see many. But in the work I create, my energy adds to the energy of others, and theirs
energizes me.

When I come to the most trying and difficult work,
be working with people who add to my
enerSy and strength. I feel their support and acceptance, and both help me face the difficulties without
being consumed by the fear of failing.

it helps me to

lf my work atmosphere adds to my fear of failure,
I will only attempt safe work. Whatever energy I invest in being afraid of failure is energy diverted from
working. I work best when all my energy flows into
my work and not into negating side channels.

tact with others, then I know that ljudge my work
competitively.
I ask myself this question: When people around me
are le-aping ahead in their work much better than I am,
do I feel glad or resentful? lf l'm resentful then I
know l'm being competitive.

Often I compete not with others, but with some
expectation I have of myself. A neutral work ehvironment does nothing to help me overcome this. I am so
used to setting myself off against others that I can only cure myself of this disease by careful and ccinscious

effort.

for

Working against my inner habits of competition is,
me, very good, strong, rewarding work.

When I had been working for the National Student
Association for about a year, I began to feel a growing
restlessness. I searched for the source in the content
of my work, but nothing there matched the intensity
of my feelings. Finally I realized that my uneasiness
stemmed from the context: an office full of people behind closed doors, in isolated cubicles, working on unrelated programs, not helping or caring about each
other, sharing no sense of common purpose or common work. Several other people felt the same way,
and we came together around a racism project, trying
to mold the beginnings of a cooperative work group.
We felt the power of our.new energy, and tried to extend our community of cooperative work, but in the
wider staff group nothing changed. Finally we g,ave
up and moved to San Francisco. I believe that the
structure of the work there at NSA and the prevailing
work concepts ruled out any possibility for significanl
change.

My experience at NSA taught me that there is no
easy way to decide to be cooperative. Working togeth-

People who see our school often treat us as magical
giants, to have been able to do such a thing. They

look at themselves as independent, isolated individuals

and can't imagine doing what we've done. ln fact, a
good deal of strength and courage comes from the
sense of community we share. Before we staited the
school, we spent five months living together as four
people, building a sense of trust and support, growing
together into a.real family. Other people may be
strengthened by other supportive contexts; this is ours.
We tend to think too little about the environment
in which we work. We pretend that our energy is unrelhted to the inputs that surround us. When I think
of work now, I look at the work environment and context as much as I do at the substance. I measure my
work as much by the process as by the result.

Competition can be a form of work, brit it doesn't
suit the parts of me that I like best.
Work that seems cooperative on the surface is often
quite competitive underneath. I have felt competitive
in my work even when there was no scale of output
or system of promotions. When I find myself defensive against the people I work with, creating walls and
distances, isolating myself from meaningful work con-

10

Photos: THE FOXFIRE BOOK. See review on p.32.

7- ri

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I

:

I

I

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I
er is so contrary to American culture, so contrary to
much of what we have adopted asbur own natures,
that we can only slowly and gradually begin to understand what real cooperation means. I see lhat I have
begun to overcome my individualistic, competitive,
defensive, isolating reflexes. But I also recognize that
the reflexes are very deep and that changing them is
very difficult. lf I remember this, I won't be disappointed at how slowly I change.
Hierarchy says that I should give others the power
to judge my work. I see now that giving away this
power weakens me, that I feel best when I judge for
myself what I do. I am working to take back that
judgmental power I have given away and to reject
that power over others when they push it at me.

At the school there is no sense of one staff person
over another, of a person who is in charge. This has
not resulted in chaos, but rather in a shared sense of
everybody's worth and everybody's help in making

difficult

decisions.

ln my relationship with students this has been harder and slower, but I feel myself moving ahead. I find

!.
:

myself acting less and less as an authority, and the students expect less and less for me to ludge, criticize,
validate, and direct them.
I see rejecting work hierarchies as just one facet of rejecting all forms of master-slave, top-down, dominantsubmissive relationships. I find this pattern stifling
whenever I experience it. ln its place, mutual relationships give me new strength and freedom, and uncover
possibilities that I had never even considered before.
This goes for employer/employee, teacher/student,
male/female, older/younger, parent/ch ild.
Developing new work patterns helps me become
more aware of the other patterns in my life. lf I don't
change them too, I feel myself splitting in half. This
is also true when other changing patterns in my life
make me aware of contradictions which I resolve by
changing my work forms.

I have turned almost full circle from the notion
that earning money is a sign of doing good work.
Now when l'see that someone earns lots of money, I
assume that his work can't be worth very much. I do
know a few people who are paid well for doing good
11

work, but my over-all experience has been that the
better I feel about what l'm doing, the less I get paid
for it.

lf I have to choose between work and money, I will
choose work and learn how not to need so much money. This although l'm married and expect a baby in
the next two weeks. I find that the more "family responsibility" I gain, the less I want to sacrifice myself
to a need for money. I see that as I have had less and
less money I have been happier with my work and
with myself. I think of my relationship with my

par-

l'm not lazy. I like doing good hard work. I\4y
most basic instincts lead me to good work. Whatever
resistance I feel to these ideas comes fronr having done
other people's work for too long.
When l'm at school, everthing I do is part of my
be whole, not pulled apart by the
conflict between work and the rest of my life. But
this fusion can also become too strong. When the four
of us were Iiving and working together, it felt like the
school had taken over our lives altogether. The school
is important, but not the only important work I do.
When one part takes over the whole, everything falls

work. I feel glad to

ents and resolve even more strongly to give my kids an
open, loving father, even if that should mean fewer
clothes and toys.

out of balance.

Neither I nor Susan believes that it is the man's responsibility to work and earn money. We take equal
responsibility for providing for our collective needs.

It is possible to see all work as art,and as an expression of who I am. The Balinese have a saying: "We do
not have any art; we do everything as well as possible."
I like that saying. I am what I do.

It's not that I have anything against money. I en-

joy discovering what I can do -wiihout, but I don,t enjoy being poor. lt's just that when I think of what
would have to give up in order to have more money,
I

I

decide that it's not worth it.

At the school, we pay

salaries not according

to how

much each person produces, or how useful others find
him, but according to what he needs. Money is a real
need, and the staff community resolves to take care
of the needs of its members. I express my feelings
about other people's work, and they give me their perspective on what I do, but this is not done through
the medium of money.

Right now, Susan and I together bring in about
$29O a month. Recently we have managed to save
about $30 a month. We've found that we can get
along quite well without a car, and that stroganoff is
as good made with hamburger as it is with round steak.

It hurts me to hear people say "l work for this company" or "l work for that person." I know that when
I'm working best and not just attend ing a job, l'm
working only for myself.
ln the end, I work for the enjoyment of working.
Not that work is happy fun every minute, but when I
lose that basic enjoyment of the work l'm doing, l'm
best off if I stop and do something else.

The best way for me to release work energy is to
find my work and begin doing it. This means first not
doing other people's work, and so there's a middle
period of no work that is very disconcerting. My best
tool for surviving this vacuum has been trusting the validity of my existence.
Sometimes I find that I begin working for someone
else's benefit and neglect my own enjoyment. Then
my work moves under the power of some external
"should." I feel my resentment growing, but unless I
acknowledge my own needs, I can't find the source of
the negative energy. My resentment becomes a wall
between me and my work.

My needs and my work are not in conflict with
each other if l'm doing good work. lf I take care of
myself I will be able to do my best work.

\

Often when my friends or parents aik me what
work l've been doing, I become uneasy. I want to answer: "working out some good things with Susan," or
"feeling closer to Walt," or "becoming more aware of
my sexual feelings." But I still have part of me that
says this is not real work.

\

The better the sense I have of my own work values,
the more completely I can shed the values of others
that don't suit me and my life.

I

I
1

rl

lf I have high energy all day, sleep short nights, and
wake rested, I know l'm working. lf my energy is low
and I sleep long, I know l'm resting. Both work and
rest are necessary. I know friends who work without
resting, and they seem as unfulfilled as those who rest

I

i
I

JT

t

without working.

fl

I have more trouble getting myself to rest than I do
getting myself to work. America teaches that we are
basically lazy, and I still have some parts of that in me.
It makes me call rest escape, and keeps me from trusting that when I relax I work best.

6f

E
:F

f

A culture that draws a strict dichotomy between
work and play will have tedious jobs and trivial, unrewarding leisure.
Sometimes when I ask myself what work l've been
doing, I find myself looking for products. But work
is a process and only the final stage is rewarded with a
product. The work I do to overcome my fear of writing, the work of thinking in bed, the work of abortive
attempts, all these are as real as the one time when I
produce some writing that I like.
When l'm concerned with producing l'm trying to
prove.to others that I am working. I know that the
entire process gives me the feeling of good work, but
the product is all I can show someone else.
When I go for days teaching at the school ond doing things I enjoy ond getting paid for itond being
with people I likeond getting admiration for myself
and the school, I know that this is why l've been
working so hard to organize my life and my work
around my real needs. Then I get a big surge of energy, and strength to begin moving forward again.
-David Steinberg

IA

garage
\

ln our travels on the Berkeley Life Alternatives Bus,
we have encountered innumerable examples of "alter-

\

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=

natjve" institutions that are different in style but not
in fundamental relationships-free clinics with traditional doctor/patient roles, free schools with traditional teacher/student roles, health and natural food stores
with traditjonal buyer/seller roles. There are, of course,
rare exceptions which are true alternatives.
ln Fayetteville, Arkansas, there are two mechanics,
named Mike and Jim, who run the People's Garage.
Both are experienced mechanics. Jim has completed a
full course of schooling as an auto mechanic. Mike has
worked as a mechanic for 12 years-working on various kinds of engines in the Navy, on automobile and
diesel engines in various garages, and also as a machinist for five years. Both have been deeply involved in
the Movement in Fayetteville, helping with political
activities, establishing a local switchboard, an underground newspaper, and a natural foods restaurant'
- People's Garage began originally in their home and
back yard. When authorities recently kicked them out
over zoning hassles, they acquired a barn-like shelter
that now serves as a garage. Both work incredibly long
hours, more often than not all night in sub-freezing

winter weather, keeping themselves going with stimu-

lants and occasional nips of Jim Beam. I asked Mike
why they work so hard, and he answered by telling me
how this car was needed so the owner's wife and child
would not have to walk in the cold, how that truck
was needed to keep a farm collective going and to
transport an old invalid man, and how that VW van
must be fixed so a friend could get to Colorado.
Their involvement is not with fixing engines; it is
with the people. We were not customers; we became
friends. ln fact, if someone brings in a car in the impersonal manner characteristic of establishment Sarages,
their work will most likely be put off to last.
Charges for parts are at wholesale price plus 50lo (to
cover thl incredible hassle running to parts stores).
Whereas establishment garages charge about $9.50 an
hour for labor, their standard rate is only $3.50 an
hour. Only rarely do they charge for labor, however.

As a friend tells it, "They don't charge for labor if
they get to know you; I guess they regard friendship
as adequate payment." The preferred form of payment
is the tiading of skills. As Mike put it late one night
when the cold wind leaked particularly badly into the

I

N
poorly ventilated building, "l sure could dig overhauling an engine for a carpenter right now." Financially,
the garage is losing money. Presently, they keep:going
bedause their women work in factories, but Mike is
optimistic that the Movement will eventually support
itself and, in the process, the garage.
Traditional mechanic-customer roles are broken
down not only by friendship and the sharing of skills,
but more importantly by the de-myst.ificatjon of mechanical knowledge itself. People's Garage prefers that
people work on their own cars, with their supervision
and using their tools if necessary, rather than being
dependent on expensive specialists. People are encouraged to work there on an apprentice-type basis. Jim
says that their women are becomini quite accom-

plished mechanics, and women's classes will soon be
initjated. Those of us on the bus gained invaluable
learning by rebuilding the carburetor, fixing the fovernor, ietting the valves, and packing the wheel bearings ourselves under watchful supervision. By helping
to de-mystify such knowledge, they brought us another step closer to self-sufficiency.
Ecologically, the garage also provides a good alternative model. When possible, all parts are saved for later use. lf this is not practical, they are recycled as
scrap metal. Utilizing their knowledge of local iunkyards and Mike's experience as a machiniit, they can
ieach people how to cheaply convert their vehicles to
the use of butane or propane, which combusts with
91% ef frciency as compare d to 27% efficiency for gasoline. They even provided us with literature on how
to convert our bus to the use of methane, which can
best be produced from chicken and hog dung. lmagine
pulling up to a farm and asking to fill up the gas tank

with chicken shit!

To my mind, People's Garage in Fayetteville is not
an example merely of an alternative garage. Other institutions would have other approaches and problems,

but the fundamental principles should apply to all alternative institutions. lf our free clinics, free schools,
and cooperatives would emphasize friendships over
goal-oriented roles like "doctor," or "teacher," if they
would learn to trade skills rather than currency, and if
they would work to de-mystify their specialized knowledge, then we would all be more competent.as individuils and more self-sufficient as communities'

-BillGraY

lt

pending appeal of his
oi two marijuana cigarettes, John is free after almost 29 months
of confinement, the last 14 months of which he has
spent in isolation. Now he is back among his family,
the.Rainbow People's paity. As Chairmin, john is _
anxious to get back to the street and to the-serious
work of organizing.
The culminating event of the campaign to free
John
was a Rally held in Ann Arbor and attended by over
15,000 people on December 10. Entertainment was
provided by-among others-John Lennon and Yoko
Ono, Phil Ochs, Archie Shepp, Allen Ginsberg, Com_
mander Cody and the UP. Speakers included Rennie
Davis, Dave Dellinger, Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin,
Father James Groppi. ln addition to john,s mother
and wife, Marge Tabankin (president of the National
S^,r9:1, Asso_ciation), Sheila Murphy (Labor Defense
Loattfion tn uetroit) and .fonnie Lee Tillman (National
Welfare Rights Organization) also spo(e. Lasting for
more than eight hours, it will be long remembeied as
a unique occasion in the history of Michigan.
' Perhaps the song which John Lennon a-nd yoko
wrote.and sang f-or John at the Rally captures the spir_
it of those who fought so long and hard for his freedom.
John is out of prison.
^ .Itoinally,
10 year'sentence

for

9%

possession

It ain't fair /ohn Sincloir
ln the stir for breothing air
ll/on't you core for /ohn Sincloir?
ln the stir for breothing oir
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me.
(Chorus)

gotta gotto gottq gotta
gotto gotta gottq gotto
gotto set him free!

lf he'd

been o soldier mon

in

Vietnam

lf he was the C.l.A.
Selling dope and making hoy
l7e'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing olr like you and me.
(repeat Chorus)

Was he joiled for what he does?
Or representing everyone ?
Free /ohn NOW! lf we cqn

From the clutches of the mon
Let him free, lift the lid,
Bring him to his wife ond kids.
(Chorus)
They gove him ten

for two!

ond they got PUN PLAMONDON too!

gotto gotto gotto gotto
gotto gotto gotto gotto
gotto gotto gotto gotto
gottq set him freel
F. R. E. E. Freeeeeeeeeeee ! ! !
We

11

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They gove him ten for twol
llhot else con /udge Colombo do?
We gotta gotto gottct gotta

Shooting gooks

/

2.

''1

On New Year's eve, I interviewed John (and his
wife Leni and daughter Sunny) at the headquarters of
the Rainbow People's Party in Ann Arbor. Mostly, the
discussion is John's personal rap about where he's
been, where he hopes to go and what it means.

JE: How does it feel to be out of prison?
jOHN: Well, it feels wonderful. lt's such a shock
though, that it's gonna take me a few weeks even to
get used to it, right?
fE: Leni, how does it feel to have John out?
LENI: lt's a whole different world for us. Before he
got out-for two and a half years-all the people who
live here at the Rainbow People's Party house spent
most of their time on the campaign to free John, and
it's taken a lot of orlanizing over a long tirne to bring
this about. And so having John back is, like the possibilities of what we can do are just so much greater
and it is just so much fun trying to work things out
together, instead of having to wait for an answer for
two weeks with no guarantee that the letter will ever
get there. You know, whenever an idea just pops into
our heads we can just talk to John about it. And it's
just beautiful.

jE: Has it helped to bring the people in the Party together, to be part of this campaign?
LENI: That's part of it, yes. There's a lot of people
who live in this house who had never met John before,
and they got as involved in the campaign as the people
who have known him, as.l, for seven years. And now
people know who he is.
LENI to SUNNY (their four year old daughter): What
is it like for you to have fohn out?
SUNNY: Good.
LENI:

the people are carrying on ln other states and just in
general the way that the marijuana laws have become
an issue, .iust because there are so many people who
smoke weed and who are being victimized by this stuff.
What is it, Leni, twenty-nine or thirty states that are
changing the laws?
LENI: There are twenty-nine now.
jOHN: The Federal Government is trying to make it a
misdemeanor. There will still be a push on for legalization, both on a national and local level. So they'll get
this as a culmination of one stage of that, you know,
and a thrust into the next stage which would involve
legalization of marijuana for everybody.
JE: Do you think that some of the people that have
been involved in the campaign for legalization of marijuana are going to be involved in other political activity
as a result of their experience?
JOHN: Oh, definitely! I think for one thing that the
whole marijuana issue has brought a lot of people into a consciousness of the character of our culture and
the character of the things we do that threaten
Capitalist civilizatjon. ln other words, this has made
them see that people being arrested and imprisoned
and hasseled all the time for smoking weed are being
attacked as cultural criminals. lt's a political thing
rather than anything having to do with crime. And
people really, I think, really dig that-are really hip to
it. lt makes them more aware of other aspects of government. You see, it leads into.the vote, for example.
When you say to people, "Well the way they get these
laws, the way they lock us up, is that they make these
laws as they send these people to Lansing (the State

Why?

SUNNY: Because I missed him for a long time.
,l E: What have you been doing with him?
SUNNY: Nothing. Just messing around and playing.
JE: Would you like to say anything about the gigantic
freedom rally held in the (University of Michigan's)
Chrysler Arena just before you were released?
JOHN: Well, yes I would. I just feel'that the Rally was

like the decisive thing that brought about the release.
It was a culmination of the campaign that had gone on
for two and a half years, overall actually five years. lt
goes back five years when this originally came down.
You know, we've been fighting it ever since then. And
the Rally and the thing that happened the day before,
which was the change in the Michigan mariiuana statutes, we feel that the change in the laws was brought
about by the struggle of people around the issue-especially this case. You know, like this case is a fulcrum
that we feel helped change the laws and the Rally was
the thing that on top of that just moved the Michigan
Supreme Court and the polit.ical structure in the State
of Michigan. They could see that there was this much
mass support for the issue, you know, and for me personally as an embodiment of the issue. ln other words
the whole Free John campaign was never like, couched
in terms of just a personal thing, that we have to get
this person out, but rather we structured the whole
thing in terms of dealing with the marijuana laws and
the oppressive ways in which these laws are used to
single out people. And we characterized the whole
thing as what it was; in fact, an attack on a whole way
of life and the whole way a people live and get high
and shit like that.
JE: Do you think this will bring about a change in the
laws in a number of other states?
John Sinclair and Dr. John
JOHN: Well not this particular thing, but the struggle

backstage at Cobo Hall

Photo: David Fenton

capitol), and so these people in Lansing have to do as
we say." Look what we did when we all went out to
Chrysler Arena and did this thing. See, they had to respond to that. We made them respond. We made them
change the laws. Now if we keep putt.ing pressure on
them; the more pressure, you see, we can bring about
more change.
lE: Are you going to be doing political work in that
direction over the next few months?
JOHN: Hopefully, yes. Hopefully we'll be involved in
the community here. This is our main focus of attention, organizing a Rainbow Community in Ann Arbor
and organizing in the Detroit area and throughout the
state by the end of the year. Hopefully by summer
we'll be able to start moving into some of those areas.
So the main focus of our work is to organize people
along the lines of the Tribal Council and The People,s
Service Organ izatio n, creati n g al ternatj ve i n sti tu tions :
the Food Co-op, the People's Ballroom.
JE: Can you say a little bit more about how the Food
Co-op works, the kinds of things that are going on
there

the social order along with it. There is a mass movement of people that don't have any direction, and if
there !s a so-called Radical Movement, it doesn,t seem
to have many ties with the people. You know, they
seem to be caught in their own thing pretty much.
JE: A lot of young people that we talk to who are
really into Rock, when you ask them about politics
they just turn off.

?

LENII The way the Food Co-op works is relatively
simple. lt's in the beginning stages right now. lt started
just about a year ago in January, 1970. There were
seven different communes and all of our friends
around town, they got together and put four dollars
each together and took a van and went to the Eastern
Market in Detroit and bought food and vegetables in
q.uantity. And just by word of mouth the riext week,
the next Saturday, there were about twenty familiei
or tribes or communes. The week after that is was almost doubled. lt just grew organically. And then after

a while we thought of systematizing, we thought of
having meetjngs every week to involve more people of

the community in the work, actually going down there
t9 get the food and distribute it. Later it got so big we
had to rent a van, big huge trucks to go down there.
lnstead of one, there are two locations where the food
gets separated and bagged and picked up. And the people always came over to the Rainbow People's Party
House every week to pay their money, to pay their
four dollars in advance. All kinds of people, not just
freaks, you know, straight- families, students, and even
the Mayor of Ann Arbor came and got his food from
the Food Co-op. For that much money, four dollars,
you get two bags of stuff, and the equivalent at the
A&P is about fourteen dollars, and it would be as
good ! So now, it's up to about four hundred orders
each week and the Food Co-op is really ready to expand as soon as we get the money and some resgurces
accumulated so we can open up a Erocery store. ln
fact, the students at the University, the Student Government Council is now talking about setting ui their
own grocery store because the prices in Ann Arbor
are just so ridiculous. And it wouldn't be just open to
the students, you know, it would be open to the whole
community. Yes, there will be a big celebration on the
19th of )anuary to celebrate the first anniversary of
the Food Co-op.
JE: There's been a lot written about the Rock Culture
and about the broad movement to transform this
country. Do you think there's a chance they can be
brought together?
JOHN: Well, I think definitely that is whar the Rock
and Roll Culture is about, transforming this country. I
think that what we have is a mass movement of people who are seeking to and who are actually transforming themselves and transforming the nature of
15

I

John Sinclair registering to vote at the Union Ballroom
Registration Boogie
-photo: David Fenton

fOHN: Rightl Rightl lt isn't that they don't want
things to change. lt isn't that they aren't prepared to
do things to change the situation, but it's a matter of
the way they've been approached by so-called political
people or by radicals. lt has been done from a standpoint where the radicals don't know where the people
are at and so they approach them in such a way as to
piss them off, and make them very, very leery of having anything to do with that kind of stuff. But that
doesn't mean that. . . I mean that the Movement interprets this to say, well, the Movement is dead and
the People are apathetic and don't want to do anything.
Well, I think what we were saying is that there is
just a mass movement of people, that there is more
and more what we call Rainbow People. . .
J E: Do they see themselves as Rainbow People? lsn't
that maybe, part of what you're trying to do, to help
them see themselves thal way?
JOHN: We're trying to give them a consciousness of
what they actually are. ln,other words, our thing for
a number of years, you know, that we've been doing
has been to try to clarify for people what they, in fact,
are. To educate the people to their possibilities in
terms of what they are, not in terms of transforming
them into something different, just consciously being
what they are. So in other words, our thing has been
all along that there is a mass movement of people that

getting bigger and bigger all the time who are a revolutionary force, whether they see themselves as this or
not.
jE: Can they transform themselves?
JOHN: They are in the process of transforming themselves and they're transforming themselves not only
individually, but also collectively. And in the process
of that, they're having a transformation effect on the
whole social order, which is bringing more and more
people; like straight people are getting farther out all
the time. You see this doesn't mean that the revolution
is accomplished or that this is the revolution, or anything like that What it means is that this is a potential
revolutionary force. This is a force of people who want
want change, who want thlngs to be different, and who
who want a revolutionary movement which is vital and
and which is supported by the people, and which has
won the support of the people. When such a phenomenon occurs we believe that the people will support it
en mass and the people will create a revolutionary situ-

of consciousness, the same kind of openness and love
for each other.
People on the street who are not involved in communes, who are just people on the street, who are going to thrust out all this weirdness, have a high level
of communal consciousness. lt's a whole new way of
looking at the world and relating to things. lt's a communalist way of relating to things. lt's unconscious
and a lot of people are not able to practice it, you
know, like people rip off other people for stuff. That's

is

antjthetical you would think. But that's a condition of
their oppression. What they would like to be is in love.
That's what we'd all like to be.
JE: So you are talking more about the way people are
trying to relate to each other than what kind of labels
they give to the movements that they are a part of.
Would you say that the kind of movements that I mentioned before and that you were talking about, many
of them are really pointing in the same direction?
Many of them are working for the same kind of love?
jOHN: Rightl Right! Certainly! They're going through
a lot of weird changes, you know, to get there. That's
where radicals start, with that thing of loving people
and iust wanting things to be different. But they get
caught up in their thing and get to a point where they
aren't talking the same language as the people on the
street. So the people on the street don't recognize
that they're part of the same thing. That's what our
work has been about for the last three or four years.
We've been trying to get people on the street to relate
to the fact that the revolutionary movement for
change, Black Liberatjon struggle, the Chicano struggle, and all the other struggles, are all apart of the same
thing. There isn't any contradict.ion between our culture and. the political struggle. ln fact, if we want to
survive as a people, then we're going to have.to relate
to struggle. Because our culture is antithetical to the
lmperialist Culture, or what we call the Death Culture,
and is an absolute threat to it, they aren't going to let
us survive in any kind of form in which we need to

ation.
see the Rainbow movement with the
Black movement, the Chicano movement, the movement of the Native Americans, for example?
JOHN: Well that's a part of it. There are two ways to
corlsider the term, Rainbow People. Right now it is
freaks that are Rainbow People. As the develppment
of humanity progresses and it is progressing very rapid:
ly now, more and more people are becoming Rainbow
People. We think in the end that all people will be
Rainbow People. All people will have the same kind

JE: How do you

survive. So we're going to have to resist.
E: So you're expecting more repression than we've
seen before, and certainly we've seen a good deal in
the recent past. Do you expect to see more people
like yourself thrown in jail on whatever kind of charges can be trumped up?
JOHN: You're going to see attempts to do that on the
one hand, and you're going to see, as the level of the
people's consciousness raises and as everyone who is
involved with this begins to see that we're all apart of
the same thing and when they snatch people off and
throw them in the penitentiary, more people realize it
could just as well be them. This was our whole point
throughout the campaign. lf they could take me and
charge me with possession two joints and give me nineand-a-half to ten, they could do it to anybody. That
was the point behind that-for people to understand
that it isn't about individualism, it isn't about doing
your own thing. You can't do your own thing because
the police will come and knock your door down and
drag you out of there.
We were only doing our own thing five years ago.
We didn't want to bother anybody. We were completely dropped out. We were trying to build an alternative
scene, but we certainly didn't want to bother anybody.
And the police came down and sent agents in and
came to communal dinners, came to help produce
pamphlets, call for the legalizatlon of marijuana, you
dig? And produce books of poetry, and just play on
J

LNS

17

the openness and the most human qualities of people
really trying to develop their humanity. And these
snakes came in there-and that's where we get our political education. Our politics came from working with
Rock and Roll bands and going around getting beat
up by police. Every time we were going to play, the

police would cause sorne kind of scene to try to keep
it from going on because they didn't want people having a good time like that. And that's where our politics
came from.
JE: Does that suggest that some of the work is going
to have to be done by cadres as well as some of it being done out in the open with as many people aspossible a part of it?
jOHN: Yeah. You have to develop cadres that are skilled and can deal with these things. We developed a cadre during the time that I was locked up. They were
forced to develop, to deal with these things. We stjll
have three brothers in the penitentiary. And this is just
a small organization.

protection against infiltratjon
f E: lt sounds like for
you almost have to have a cadre set-up.
JOHN: Oh, certainly. I mean we live this way anyway,
you see. That's the thing about a communal organizational unit, you know, we live together. Leni and I
have lived together for seven years. Grimshaw has been

with us for five years. Frank Bach has been around
since '66, you know. My brothers, people like Fenton, who were the latest to .ioin us, have been here a
year already. You see, so there's that kind of thing. To
start with we're just freaks. We're freaks, but we're
conscious. That's the only difference that we feel-the
only difference between us and the people on the
street who are freaks, is that we're conscious of what
we're doing. And that they aren't yet conscious. But
we aren't weird in terms of what people are on the
street. We aren't different or we're not radicals, or
strange, we're just freaks, you know.
JE: Maybe we can talk about the consciousness in the
context of a local situation. Now a new third party,
the Human Rights Party, has been set up in the State
is a Radical lndependent Party
here in Ann Arbor which has coalesced with the Human Rights Party, and I .iust wondered how you saw
the Rainbow effort fitting together with an actjve third

of Michigan. There

party movement here locally?
JOHN: (Zoltan Ferenczy, incidently, was on the committee to free John Sinclair. He organized the Human

Rights Party.) Well, we don't have a position. We're
still trying to work out our posit.ion on it. We will definitely be involved in registering voters and we'll definitely be participating in elections, as we have in the
past. See, last spring when the Radical lndependent
Party made its first effort, they weren't organized
rvell enough to get themselves on the ballot. They had
just organized themselves. The elections were in April
and they organized themselves in January. So we
worked with them, but when it came down to the election, they ran write-in candidates. But we had a very
serious Mayoral election here, as you know and there
was a dinosaur running against a liberal Democrat.
The dinosaur would, if he had been elected, with one
swat of his tail, have run us out of town.
And again, this was a time when I was at the penitentiary and we had three other people in the penitentiary and they're scuffling out here trying to pay the
rent, and like that. So this was a very serious issue to
us and the Radical lndependent Party said, "Well, let's
run a write-in candid,rte." They ran a typical radical

l8

line. There was no difference between the candidates.
They all stand for big business and property and this
and that. And we said that you could look at it in the
abstract like that, both the Republicans and the Democrats are part of one party called the Property Party.
And we don't propose to say that by supporting a
Democratic candidate, we're going to get everything
that we want and that everything is going to be hunky
dory, and the war is going to end and everything else.
But that we live here and we try to organize in this
community and our people are here and we're struggling. We need room to breathe. The Democrats have
been responsive to pressure we've brought to bear on
them and we organized elements of our community,
the Rainbow Community. We went to the City Council and asked for free concerts in the parks, asked them
to iighten up on people smoking weed and to stop
busting doors down. They responded to that and in
the light of all that, we supported Robert Harris for
Mayor. We issued a statement through the Tribal Council that we supported the Mayor. The Radical lndependent Party was mad about this. But the Mayor and the
Democratic Party feel that this was a decisive factor in
their victory. They let us have free concerts and responded by lowering the penalty for marijuana possession to ninety days in Ann Arbor. Now we're going
to force them to enforce the local law. Also, Mayor
Harris sent an incredible statement of support to the
Rally. They have done stuff like that, so there are
things you can do. That's why we don't know about
the Human Rights Party. lt depends on their strength,
JE: You wanted to say a bit more about the Rally?
JOHN: Talking about the Rilly, in one sense, it was a
demonstration. I think it was also really a breakthrough
in terms of some of the things we've been talking
about: the essential unity of culture and politics, particularly music and politics. Here you had a situation
where two of the prominent Rock and Roll persons,
John and Yoko, came out here. lt was their first appearance in a long time. lt was their fir'st appearance in
America where they performed at a rally for a political
prisoner. They took a stand on this and they made it
clear that,they were going to take their economic power and put it in the service of the People's cause. This
is a tremendous breakthrough.
We've always had that scene

around here, Ann Ar-

bor, Detroit and in Michigan. This is something the
people outside of here don't understand. The bands
have always been completely integrated into the community. The bands have played benefits and free concerts. There's a close knit community here anyway.
Musicians all know each other and have all come up
through the same scenes with them. We were into music for two solid years before I got locked up. We were
in the music business with the MC5, we were playing
jobs just like other bands. So there's always been a
real strong thing and that's why throughout the two
and a half years that I was locked up, every time we
had benefits or any kind of drives to raise money for
a righteous cauib, the bands from this area have consistently participated in all this stuff. There's a real
unity between music and politics.
You could take the Commander, which people
could say is a nonpolitical band, but the Commander
always plays benefits and free concerts. The people in
his band go back to the beginning of that unity in
1967. Billy C had a band called Billy C and the Sunshine, and Billy Kerchan was in a band called the Seventh Seal, and those two bands and the MC5 were the

I

.I

three Trans-Love bands when we originally started.
Those two brothers are now in the Commander,s band.
The John and Yoko Rally was a culmination of about

I
\

I

I

six months involving all the bands from this area. We
that expanding, but we see it on a national leyel
and on a big money level. This was a tremendous breakthrough, and a lot of other bands are going to be participating in this when they can deal with people who
know what they're doing in terms of producing music.
We can produce concerts and we can produce benefits.
We know how to do it because that's our productive
work. That is how we support ourselves. We aren't supported by Liberals. We're supported by our economic
work in the Rock and Roll business. We have a band
now, The Up, and they work just like other bands. lt
isn't a weird collectjon of politicos who happen to play
guitars, but this is a Rock and Roll band. These are
krds who grew up and who are now members of our
party, who are politically conscious Rock and Roll
musicians. They're into that and are really aware of
what they are doing. We see the John and Yoko concert fitting into that context and being a fulcrum to
move from one stage to the next.
JE: Let me ask a question about those stages. ls it possible that one of them may focus on getting Nixon out
of the White House? Do you see a specific campaign
with music being part of the fund raising effort?
see

JOHN: This is another th.ing that we really can'r say
anything about because our position isn't clear yet. We
haven't had a chance to talk before. We've been meeting all week. Before I went in it was just an idea. The
party didn't have any organization at all. And now
through this two and a half years of struggle to get me
out, an organizatjon has formed by people working
around those specific issues. They had to organize
themselves in order to survive. And now we have a political organization with a political consciousness.
JE: Well, maybe you could say how you personally
feel about the campaign as it stands now and the call
that's going out to young people all over the country
to make the scene in San Diego?
IOHN: Well, l'm still making an investigation on that.
l'm not excited about it. That's as much as I can say.
JE: Are there any other kinds of current political questions, for example, the renewed bombing of North
Vietnam, that you'd like to relate to?
JOHN: l'm more interested right now in the wider
scope, in the way things are going to develop in this
next period. I think we've reached a turning point as
people. I think that 1912 is going to start a new stage
in our development. To me, 1972 relates back not to
1 968, but back to 1 965 and 1 966 when that huge cataclysmic change occurred. I think we're Soing to 8o
through another one of those and this will thrust us
farther forward. Things will get a lot farther out next
year. I think you'll see that congregating or manifesting
itself around the big Nixon issue. I think you'll see a
lot of strange mass movements start to develop that
are really conscious and have a direction.
E: Are there any other particular areas in which you
expect some mass movement activity where we haven't
J

seen

it before?

JOHN: We're certainly going to be trying to get people
involved in the prison situation. Like our people, the
freaks.
JE: What kind of issues related to prisons?
JOHN: Again, we haven't firmed our position on this.
Just under the general slogan of "Open Up The Prisons." Let people see what's going on. ln Michigan par-

ticularly, that would be a slogan because the people
who run the penitentiaries refuse to let anybody from
19

the outside in to see what it's about. They are just vile.
There are a lot of prisoners who have a lot to say and
they aren't going to let them say anything. The mail is
photocopied. lt's a real creepo scene. A Czarist-Russia
scene. lt's disgraceful, dehumanizing, degrading, and
we don't like it. We don't feel that people on the ,
streets, any of whom may be going to the penitentiary
at any given moment because they are all outlaws and
criminals, are going to like it when they start hearing
about the penitentiary and seeing what it's all about
and witnessing the attitudes of these people.
JE: Along with the activity going on outside to deal
with prisons, do you expect more organizing to be going on with the prisons?
JOHN: ln the State of Michigan, at least, the amount
of organizing that goes on inside of prisons will be di-

rectly proportionate to the amount of support that
they get from people on the street. lf they have no
support, it is impossible to organize because they just
get locked up and get sent to Marquette and thrown
in the dungeon. You don't hear from them again. Or
shot, as George Jackson was shot.
You can't organize in prison unless you've got some
support from the people on the outside. I mean, organized support with a financial base, with lawyers
who can come to the assistance of those who are
moved against for doing any kind of educatjonal work
inside the penitentiary. By doing this a lot of publicity

will bring attention to the situation. And this will

give

a lot of prisoners the inspiration they need, the support they need, and the security they need to organize
themselves pol itical ly.

It's almost impossible to educate yourself politically
in the penitentiary because they ban books and they
take them away from you. They declare them contraband. The Red Book is contraband. I mean, you just
don't have them. People were smuggling them in, at
one time, through guards. So there is all that interest,
but the penitentiary is so tight that they don't let the
prisoners get what they need. And that can only come
through the support from the outside. We have a lot
of plans but that is something else, the specifics of
which won't be released until we get it all worked out.
I E: Are you optimistic about the future?
JOHN: ln terms of saying something to the people,
the people l've been talking to when I see them on the
streets, or in Rock and Roll ioints that we've been
going to, is that we all have to realize that the outlook
is bright. There's reason to be optimistic, to be excited
about our possibilities. The outlook isn't dark. lt's
dark when you look at it from an idealistic position.
But if you look at it in terms of where we've come
from in the last five years, the outlook is incredibly
bright. And I'm just killer optimistic. l'm iust as excited as could be.
-John Erlich

LNS

The men who fought in world war two were assured
of the nation's gratitude, and they were rewarded for
their service. Veterans of Vietnam have received no
such appreciation, as they re-entered a society still debating the value of their sacrifice. They discovered
that their existence was an embarrassment, even to
the war's proponents. At a time when their friends
were still dying, they were expected to forget their
combat nightmares and resume their lives as if nothing
had happened.
Many of these veterans have realized their common
consciousness as participants in an unpopular war.
They have found the established veterans' organiza-

tions unresponsive to their needs. Thus the Vietnam
Veterans Against the War, which includes an active
drug treatment program for returning veterans. Unlike the members of the Legion and the VFW, they do
not cherish their wartime experiences. lnstead, they
have expressed their anguish over what they have seen
and done, at numerous Mnter Soldier lnvestigations.
Conflict was inevitable, and it finally surfaced,
with particular irony, in an issue as characteristic as
any: amnesty. To protest hearings being conducted
by Senator Kennedy, the Massachusetts VFW called a

"wide open" press conference for the first of March
in Fitchburg. lt invited all of the Presidential candidates and members of other veterans' groups-including the VVAW.
Participants began to arrive at the Cleghorn American Legion Post early Wednesday afternoon. There
were intermittent rumors that Sam Yorty and Henry
Jackson would appear. Older veterans were noticeably
apprehensive about the surprising turnout of Vietnam
veterans, many of them dressed in faded combat fatigues. A sign by the door read: "Anyone wearing
dungarees

will

be asked

to

leave the

hall." lt

was not

enforced. By the time the press conference began,
there were fifty VVAW members and supporters, a
third of the audience.
Homer Ford, the moderator and a VFW of-ficial,
delivered a fiery welcoming address. The iciea of amnesty was "an affront to all self-respdcting Americans,"
and the estimated 75,000 exiles were lumped together
with Benedict Arnold, Alger Hiss, and the Rosenbergs.
Letting them return would be "a stab in the back" to
the men who had fought in Vietnam. He castigated
the supporters of amnesty as "bleeding hearts" and
condemned their influence upon the impressionable
young.
And so on. Representatives of other veterans' organizations echoed the same themes with monotonous regularity. At last Ford introduced Dennis Randall of the VVAW, who received a standing ovation
from his contingent. The moderator gingerly lauded
the unity of purpose of the "allied veterans' organizations," but added that he recognized dissent as "part
of the democratic process."
challenged the glorification of those who
. Randall
had given their lives in battle, evoking the agony which
the veterans had inflicted and suffered: "You speak
-Ihere
is ni.i h,:;rc; .:
of honor and patriotism. , . .

gunning down women and children, and there is no

patriotism in bombing defenseless villages from supersonic aircraft. As for the dead? They were our brothers and comrades. We would rather have them alive in

in Canada than buried in Arlington."
At this point there was long and heavy applause.
He continued: "We are veterans of Vietnam! We do
not oppose amnesty for our brothers in exile. We only wish that some power could grant us amnesty for
what we have seen and done half a world away. The

memory of Vietnam will haunt us for the rest of our
I

ives.

"

Randall completed his statement and urged the cooperation of the other organizations in programs relevant to returning veterans. Rehabilitation of the soldiers who had become addicted in lndochina was more
important than debating amnesty. The older veterans
did not appear sympathetic.
By now moderator Ford was clearly unhappy. Abruptly, he announced that 5,000 more American
troops were being withdrawn from Vietnam, leaving
American strength at less than 130,000 men. "How
many B-52's were pulled out?" someone shot back.
Ford angrily called for order. A little later when the
television crews began packin!, he interjected that
there would be a "dramatic announcement" at the
end of the press conference. The crews continued
pack ing.

Ford then introduced Billy .f oe Clegg, an independent candidate for the Presidency-who claimed that
the Lord was his campaign manager. He started by
singing "God Bless America," and the VVAW joined
in, immediately. After a startled pause, the older veterans began to sing, too. The affair had become a circus. Clegg launched into a ten minute harangue, ac-

cusing the VVAW of being brainwashed by the Communists. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Even the
officers at the podium were smiling with embarrassment.
Following Clegg's performance, Ford called for
unanimous support of the conference's stand against
amnesty. The older veterans voted predictably; Randall dissented for the VVAW. James Owens, a retired
Navy veteran, was recognized from the floor as a
member of the Veterans for Freedom from Future
Wars. He, too, voted against "unanimous support."
Pvt. Richard Rowe, an active-duty Gl, identified
himself as a member of the Fort Devens United Front
and demanded a vote. After a brief argument this was
denied, and a VFW commander shouted that he would
would not impugn the dignity of his organization by
continuing the meeting.
The event was a disaster for the VFW and its allies,
and neighboring newspapers gave the Vietnam veterans sympathetic coverage. These established organizations have traditionally claimed to represent the interests of all veterans. Now it was evident that they had
lost their most vital constituency to a bunch of upstarts who had gleefully taken advantage of an unexpected invitation to rnak e l'hcqi ? nntar rid iculous and

:i:,,,. ,

l

:,;nans

"l

r

'i,

ir, ,f,. old wisdom suggests, on the playing fields

of America where young boys are made into men. lt
never happens that way, of course, but

it

is supposed

to. But sinqe athletic competition serves as a masculinity rite, it is not surprising that women who partici-

pate in competitive sports are faced with a degree of
discrimination and oppression that probably surpasses
that which women encounter in any other area of
American society. The woman athlete, no matter how
high her level of athletic skill may be, is never fully accepted in this milieu with all its male mythology. Nothing could be more devastating for a male athlete
than to be defeated by a woman; and at the same time,
the qualities of aggressivity and muscularity required
for athletic success result in women athletes often being ostracized by other women. Because she is perceived as a threat by both men and women, the woman athlete is often a lonely, marginal person, never
fully accepted by either group.
Marie Hart, a prominent woman physical educator,
succinctly describes tliis dilemma: "American society
cuts the penis off the male who enters dance and
places it on the woman who participates in competitive
athletics." Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, de'
scribed by Paul Gallico, one of America's most distinguished sports writers, as "probably the most talented
athlete, male or female, ever developed in our country"
encountered the difficulties suggested by Dr. Hart on
an almost daily basis throughout her athletic career
that lasted from the early 1930s to shortly before her
death from cancer in 1955. Mrs. Zaharias won national and international titles in nearly gvery sport open to
women during her 25-year career as a competitive athlete. Before turning to golf during the later years of
her career where she v/on every amateur and profes'
sional title available to a woman, she was a star in track
and field at the 1932 Olympic Games and was a perennial All-American in basketball. Though she stood onIy 5 feet, 6% inches and weighed no more than 125
pounds, she was constantly portrayed by the male
sportswriters of the time as having a boyish appearance.
She wore her hair short for convenience, but she was
an extremely attractive woman. Despite this, she was
always referred to as a tomboy, and according to Gallico, one of the favorite iokes of the male sportswriters was that athletic promoters never knew whether to
assign her to the men's or women's locker room when
she showed up for a competition.
It is of course true that there are some women athletes whose size and appearance qualify them as being

"unfeminine" according to traditional Western standards, but, as was the case with Mrs. Zaharias, most athletes are treated the same regardless of their actual
physical appearance or behavior. (The exceptions to
this occur in sports that are characterized by graceful
movements and little physical exertion, such as ice
skating, diving, gymnastics, skiing and similar activities,
where a woman can part.icipate without being typed

"masculine.")
Not surprisingly, most women who participate in
competitive athletics are extremely conscious about
looking "feminine." Vicki Foltz, a27-year-old married
woman who is probably America's finest woman long
distance runner, was asked in a recent interview whether she had any "feminine hang-ups about running."
She responded, "Yes, I have lots of hiong-ups. You
wouldn't believe it. I olwoys worry obout looking nice
as

22

e S
\----

IIJ

IrntI

lI spInril
in o roce. I worry about my colf muscles getting big.
But mostly I worry qbout my hoir. The morning before my lost big roce it wos hoiling ond blowing, but
there I was in the hotel with rollers in my hoir. I knew
the roin would ruin my hairdo, but I fixed it onyway.
I suppose it's becquse so mony people hove soid women athletes look mosculine. So o lot of us try, subconsciously moybe, to look os feminine os possible in
o roce. There's olwoys lots of hoir ribbons in the roces!"

lf an attractive, mature married woman with children like Vicki Foltz feels this pressure, one can only
imagine what it must be like for younger women athletes such as the female swimmers who often participate in the Olympics while still in their early teens.
Marion Lay, for instance, participated in the Tokyo
Olympic Games when she was only 14 years old. By
1967 she had developed into one of the finest female
swimmers in the world, and she won four silver medals
at the Pan American Games that year. She won a medal at the 1968 Olympic Games and also served as captain of the Canadian Olympic women's swimming
team despite being only 18. But in many ways her career was frustrated. The only coaches available to her
were men, since in swimming, as in nearly all other
sports, it is next to impossible for a woman to advance
in the coaching profession. Marion found that nearly
all the male coaches and officials she met refused to

the men in America. What she obviously does do

dive correctly.

is

Another myth that the male-dominated athletic
world works to perpetuate about women, especially
the.female teenage swimming sensations who began

their careers at the age of 12 or so, is that they i"nvari_
ably retire when they get to be about l7 because they
Decome tnterested in boys and no longer have
tjme for

competitjve athletics. Conveniently igriored is the fact

that most male athletes are not knorin for their sex_
ual abstinence. lf male athletes have time for girl
friends, there is obviously no reason why femile ath-

letes could not also continue to participate in sports
while dating, The shortness of their ."ir..rs is due to
other circumstances: the tremendous social pressures
l've mentioned, and also the fact that only a handful
of colleges in the entire United States givei even partial
athletic sc.holarships to women. CompiieJ io-men, the
oportunities for women to be supported while competing in athletics after high school are almost non_ex_
istant. Additionally, most women college physical ed_
ucators attempt to steer women students awav from

ly competitive ath letics
lf a woman does survive all this,

h igh

she faces a double
standard even after achieving a sufficient skill level to
participate in national or international level competi_
tion. This past track season the AAU barred one of
our most prominent female track stars from international competition because of ,,unladylike,, behavior
gl q.f.orgigl rour the previous summer. Her ,,unladylike" behavior involved a member of the U.S. men,s
international team that was touring atong wiih ti,e women's team, but this individual was not even repri-

manded.

accept the fact that she was as dedicated to swimming
of the male athletes. The attitude of male coaclhes and officials seems to be that worflen are somehow
incapable of being as dedicated to sports as men,
whereas.in reality the opposite is oiten true. Being a
marginal person, as I pointed out earlier, the female
- athlete
often dedicates herself to sport with a fervor
unmatched by male athletes since athletic success is
one of the few satisfactions available to her. Unlike
the case for male athletes, athletic prowess does not
assure a woman of social status. The final step in the
Catch 22 of women's sports is that those women athletes who do totally dedicate themselves to sport are
invariably labeled as being rhasculine by the male-control led sports establ ish ment.
. !ince sport functions as a masculinity rite, all the
desirable qualities athletes rnust possess if they want
to achieve a high level of success have been made synonymous with our cardboard concept of masculinity.
This point was brought home to me when in a recent
Sports lllustroted article, the male diving coach of
Micki King, America's and perhaps the world,s finest
woman diver, attempted to compliment Miss King by
saying he knew early in her career that she was go-ing
to b.e great because, "She dives like a man.,, Vty im-"
mediate reaction on reading that statement was that
as any

she sure as

hell doesn'tdive like me or any other man

I ever met. ln fact, she doesn't dive like 99 percent of

Because of the limited opportunity women have to
participate in sport at all levels, a New york State court
recently ruled that girls can participate against boys on
the high school level in non-contact sporis. Some women and many men hailed this ruling as a major breakthrough in the attempt to end the discrimination women encounter in sport. However, since there will only
be a very fewgirls who will be able to make the,,boys,
team," this ruling could exacerbate rather than attenuate the discrimination against women if people see
this as the end of the struggle. Women are not so desirous of competing against men-although there is of
course no reason they should not have that opportunity if they want it-as they are in having the same opportunity to participate in sports that men have. This
means providing women with the same facilities and
coaching skills men have.
The frustration of the woman athlete is further
compounded by her inability, because of basic differences in speed and strength, to ever achieve success according to male standards. Hopefully, our society will
come to the point where women will not only be given
equal opportunity to partlcipate in sport, butwill not
be made to feel that they are somehow inferior athletes because they run 1 00 yards in I 0.5 rather than
9.5. Simone de Beauvior best sums it up in The Second
-Sex where she writes, ", . ,ln sports the end in view is
not success independent of physicol equipment; it is
rather the ottzinment of perfection within the limitotions of eoch physicol type: the feotherweight boxing
champion is os much of o chompion as is the heavyweight; the womon skiing chompion is not the inferior
of the faster mole champion; they belong to two different closses.
jack Scott

23

u't
,?

<e.
o

l.xALtY

a

collrr'

(

rqu

rou

lou

l7l,

Micronesio is o group of 2,000 islonds in the Pocific
Oceon, east of the Phillipines and south of Jopon. Be-

cluse mony ore only tiny corol reefs, the totol lond

areo is merely 687 sq.

miles.

The populotion wos esti-

moted to be 92,000 in 1967.
The United Stotes hos governed the Pocific lsland
territory for 27 yeors under o U.N. trusteeship. The
islonds ore importont for strotegic U.S. defense interests in the Pocific and are olso the site of o big U.S.
missile testing ronge. klicronesia hos been waging a
struggle for independence from the U.S. for severol
ye0rs,

The Rongelop ond Utirik lslonds ore port of the
Morsholl lsland group. They ore withii 300 miles of

BikiniAtoll.

Early on the morning of Nrarch 1 ,1954, the people
saw a flash of light in the western sky and
an enormous pillar of fire rising up in the sky. Greatly
alarmed, many of them gathered on the beach, wondering what had happened. ln about two hours, it appeared as if.a storm was brewing. Presently, they feit
as if they were enveloped in mist and then "white
powder" began to fall on them. lt fell on the roofs of
the houses and on the vessels in which they saved rain-

of Rongelap

z1

f80

.170

I

water. The ash continued to fall for several hours.
The people,of Rongelap had no knowledge of radioactivity. The village chief said that he had been
drinking coffee then, and that he had drunk "ash of
death" together with the coffee. Toward evening, almost all people felt pain on their skin and began to
vomit. Then they suffered from diarrhea and felt very
tired.
The Trust Territory government of the United
States had notified the village chief of Rongelap that
a hydrogen bomb test was going to be carried out
shortly, but he was not informed of any preventive
measures. lt was two days after the explosion that an
American ship came and evacuated the people to

Kwajalein, where they were told to wash their bodies
with soap and water every day. Some were made to
drink a medicine'called "antidote". About that time,
their hair began to fall off veiy easily and some became completely bald. Two weeks later, the people
of Rongelap were moved-to Elit, in Maiuro Atoll. A
school and a church were built on the island, where
they spent three and a half years.
No "ash of death" fell on Utirik lsland, but the
people suffered from the same symptoms as the people of Rongelap. ln about six months, they were re-

l\

r

n

sl

I

p

/*

'og
held there pending visa clearance by the Trust Terri_

tory administration. This was denied, under a ruling
by the acting Attorney General Bowles, and the team
left December 16, after being able to see only a few
H-bomb victims in Majuro.
Balos suggested that the U.S. officials should be deported because "they are not interested in Micronesia.
. . I see the whole affair tainted with racism. The
United States choose to make guinea pigs out of our
people because they are not white. . . .,,Since the fallout, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
doctors visit Rongelap and Utirik every year, but as
Balos noted, "the object of their visits appears to be
the collection of medical data instead of the restoration of health to H-bomb victims who have developed
all kinds of diseases and abnormalities."
The medical team concluded that the victims of
the H-bomb are receiving inadequate medical treatment. The following are excerpts from their report:
After the exposed people of Rongelop were returned to their home islond, the omount of radioactive
moteriol in their bodies rapidly increosed, The strontium-89 ond iodine-| 31 (in their bodies) exceeded the
mox i m um perm issob le. leve ls.

The incidence of miscarrioge ond stillbirths in the
exposed women wos obout twice thot in the unexposed women during the first four yeors after exposure. The incidence of miscorrioge ond stillbirths in
the 32 exposed pregnant women wos 4l% (t 3 persons)
as ogainst 1 6% (8 persons) in the 49 unexposed preg-

nant women.
Thyroid obnormolities werB discovered in 1963 in
a 1 2-yeor-old girl and o l4year-old boy. ln the cose
of Rongelap, of the l9 children who were under l0
years when they were .exposed to rodiooctive follout,
as mony as l7 (89.5%) were found to suffer from'tiy-

roid obnormolities.

Early symptoms of rodiotion diseoses ore no longer
observed 0mong the exposed people-they ore now

turned from Kwajalein to their native island.
Eventually, hair began to grow on the heads of
those who had lost it. But this did not mean everything was over. On the contrary the damage due to
exposure to radiation showed itself in more serious
ways.

"l am now convinced that the U.S. knowingly and
consciously allowed the people of Rongelap and Utirik
to be exposed to the 1954 fallout. This was done to
the Rongelapese and Utirikese so that the U.S. could
use them as human guinea pigs in the development of
its medical treatment to treat its citizens who might
be exposed to radiation in the event of war with an
enemy country. This is a crime un.matched in peace-

time."

Congressman Atal i Balos, a representative of the
Marshall lslands, spoke these words before the Micronesian Congress. The U.S. offlcials who govern Micronesia had refused entry to Japanese who,wanted to
work with people affected by radioactive fallout.
Balos had arranged for the Japanese medical team,
sponsored by the Japan Congress Against the A and H
Bombs, to visit. The team arrived in Majuro, another
part of the Marshall lslands on Dec.,6, .l 971, and was

suffering in many coses from thyroid abnormalities os
lote effects of exposure. But this stage is not the end.
lle ore ofroid of diseases that moy be coused in the future due to the late effects of exposure to rodioactivity.

Rodiotibn moy cause lote effects in the exposed individuol with symptoms sometimes deloyed by 20
yeors or more. Their main monifestation is in the
form of cqncer: leukemio,'cancer of the bbne; of the
lung; of the thyroid; indeed, procticolly lny type of
concer known. There moy olso be other effects, such
os cltoroct or impoired fertility, qs well os generalized
effects which result in shortening of the lifespon and
qre sometimes interpreted os on occelerotion of the

noturol process of ogeing.
The Atomic Energy Commision has only recently
come under criticism in the U.S. for its "irresponsible"
.l
handling of nuclear experiments. Since 944, there
have been 142 recorded atomic science fatalities. This
figure does not include deaths associated with radioac-

tive pollution of the environment.
Charges that the Department of Defense has been
conducting experiments with the effects of radiation
on terminal cancer patients recently made a splash in
a number of magazines. These charges will be brought
before a Senate Committee headed by Senalor Edward Kennedy sometime this spring. The Committee
hasn't said anything about investigating the use of islands of Micronesia for the same purpose. -LNS

25

f

NEWSPOEM
33 CARS SMASHED
AT GUARD ARMORY
Vandals Attack in Brooklyn
While Unit Is at Camp
. . All had their windshields broken, antennas

off, side windows smashed and
several hundred dollars worth of property
stolen from various cars. In addition, obscenwere rioped

ities were scrawled across many of the cars,
written with paint or scratched into the cor's
surfaces.

Police Seek Motive

.

Lieut. Col. Raymond Joyce, chief information
ofllcer for the state guard, said in Albony that

this was the jirst time such an incident had
taken place on this scale.
"We've had one or two cars damaged occasionally,"
he said, 'but that's generally been interpreted
as the work of thieves or burglars."
He said he was at a loss to explain the Brooklyn
incidents. .
N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 9, 1970
.

Factory windows are always broken
Actiorls speak softer than words?
What can .these boyish planks betoken:

A puncture is worth a thousand swords?
Confusion's an illusion the just can afford
(Imagine the bled, biting the fist!)
& Slouching toward Zion, Greetings, Lord!
H ail t he-new

b

o

m

p acifis t s

!

-Tuli

Kupferberg

HARD HAT
Hard hat

Construction worker
Pourer of cement
Across leafing green
He stands a business street
Eating a hero sandwich
While guarding the cherry trees
ln a concrete tub

From litterers choking the life
Out of trees down the block
ln his corn-yellow hard-hat
He loosens the soil about the roots
Waters the tree

I

I

Brings it humus

And when all the trees are giving in to Autumn
His comes to second bloom
Nooners all around
Marveling at the miracle

a

(

5

t

-Emilie'Glenn

I

26

a

pong, China supplies most of the paper
used in Cuba and a large amount of cot-

ton and cotton goods. "At the end of
the friendly matches, the Chinese and
Cuban players chatted amiably and exchanged experiences for common progress." No report was given as to who
_NACLA
won the game.
REPRESSION IN THE PROVIT\ICES

During the planning of our Prisoners

for Peace demonstration (1 2-1-71 ) in
front of the Binghamton court house,

we assumed a permit would cost nothing or there might be a nominal fee.
Not so! We discovered there was an insurance requirement and could find on-

ly one company that would insure

us

for $56.00.

What made the insurance particularwas that our demonstration consisted of 20 people serving free
coffee from a table, handing out leaflets, and getting signatures for an antiwar petition. ln trying to get ACLU
help in challenging this price tag for
free speech and assembly, we got the
run-around from liberal lawyers who

ly intolerable

@-,.NI

kept. referring us to other liberal lawyers, ad infinitum. Not a single Broome
County lawyer would take the case. After a Cornell law professor, from neighboring Tomkins Co., expressed interest
and requested a copy of the County
law, we discovered that the insurance
rpquirenrent was an unwritten rule. We
finally met with three county legislators and the county attorney who were

responsible for demonstration permits.
The county attorney immediately
surprised us by declaringthat monda-

to ry insur ance was

unconstitutional.
The Chairman then asked the attorney
to write a law that would be constitutional, to be presented to the Legislature for consideration As of Feb. 1,
the County had not voted on the new
law.
We learned that neither the Girl
Scouts nor Rev. Carl Mclntyre had to
get demonstration insurance, having
been "exempted" by the County. Both
local papers reported our meeting with
the County, and gave us excellent covTHE WAY THE BALL BOUNCES erage; one paper even had their lead editorial critical of the County and supHsinhua, the Chinese news agency,
porting us.
-Michael Scrivener
reported recently that a Cuban pingpong team arrived in Peking to play
"friendly games" with the Chinese.
IRS CONFRONITATIOT{ IN BOSTOT{
"Most of the Cuban players played an

all-out attacking game with the loop
drive. Their fast forehand and backhand
smashes this evening gave the spectators a very good impression." There
were 20,000 spectators on hand for the
matchesl ln addition to playing ping-

z7

On Ash Wednesday, February 17,
the Harrisburg Pilgrimage Committee
and about 60 of Boston's war-tax resisters staged a nonviolent confrontation at the IRS office-an attempt to
confront the taxpayers with the reality

of what their docile obedience

is sup-

porting. While 50 people leafletted outside, about a dozen people rose from
their chairs inside the office and lay
down about the floor. Pat Farren, of
the Harrisburg Committee and a W-4
resister, began to speak to the patrons:
"Ladies and gentlemen, please do not
be alarmed. The people lying on the
floor do not mean to harm you or to
obstruct your business. We represent
the lndochinese dead. . . We choose
this way to bring to your attention the
use to which your tax dollars are being
put We urge you to join us in refusing
to finance America's crimes. . .,,The
federal police dragged the "dead,,out
of the office several times, but they
kept coming back. . .
When it was all over, six people were
under arrest: Pat, Denys Latimer of the
CNVA, Al Pignat, Michelle Hogan,
Steve Maurer, and Bill Schuellein, who
was in the office on business of his own
when the action started, and who joined
the demonstration on the spot.
Denys refused to cooperate with the
police altogether: she wouldn,t even
sign her own release. The Magistrate let

her out of jail anyway, but then he
changed his mind and set the FBl, I

think, after her: Denys spent the four
days before the trial in the Charles
Street Jail.
At the trial, which occupied all day
Marcfr 3rd, the six defended themselves
very well, and made eloquent statements about America's crimes in lndochina, the necessity for resisting them,
and the necessity for "disruptions,,
such as thatat the lRS. I don,t know
if the magistrate was impressed or not.

But out of a maximum penalty of 30
days and $50 fine, he handed down
sentences ranging from suspended sentences for Michelle and Bill to 20 days
for ht. Everyone decided to appeal,
and all are now out on bail that totaled
$800. And so the struggle goes on. . .

-Ed Agro
WAR TAX REFUSERS, UNIMPRES$
ED BY NIXON PEACE PI.AN, GIVE

$9M TO @MMUNITY

GROI.JPS

The Roxbury War Tax Scholarship
Fund announced its fifth semiannual
awards. They are: $233 to the DraftCounselor Training Project of the Roxbury Actjon Program (RAP), $250 to
the Child's World Day Care Centers of
Roxbury, and $450 to the Sickle-Cell
Anemia (SCA) Program of the Boston
Black Panther Party. These awards represent the accumulated interest on
taxes refused to the federal government
by the Roxbury Fund's members. The

"This decision affirms in mY mind
Fund n':embers deposit their refused "bloodied" to represent what ITT and
the impotency of Congress," Representaxes in the Fund account at the Unity the Air War does in lndochina.
The reception was excellent, we
tative Rosenthal commented on the
Bank of Roxbury.
The Draft-Counselor Training Pro- even got to bring our displays into the
day the State Department announced
cafeteria, march around it a few times
Nixon's decision on the arms sale
iect of RAP recently began to train
' black and other minority-group people while one of our people gave a brief
(March 3).
-I.P.
in the intricacies of the draft law. The speech about the Air War and the contradictions between ITT's feeding childChild's World Day Care Center was
THE KITTY HAWK NINE
formed in 1969 to train neighborhood ren and killing them overseas. We also
mothers in day care techniques through were able to involve a good number of
When the L)SS KinY Howk leftSan
parents in conversations and were highpartlcipation in the actual operation of
Diego Harbor on FebruarY 17 to fura center. Work at the center and com- ly gratified at the results. The ITT repther escalate the bombing of lndochina,
pletion of college courses in social work resentatives were clearly embarrassed.
it left nine men behind. Nine men reOri n.it'step is to be repiesented
fused to take part in the mission of
and child devel6pment prepares these
at the school board hearings (April 10)
their task force: to further anihilate
mothers to work as licensed day care
the people, culture and land of Southteachers. These mothers in turn open where we hope to testify against ITT
east Asia while permitting the war to
centers in their own neighborhoods, getting any more contracts on Staten
thus freeing more mothers to work who lsland.
-Van Zwisohn become less visible and more destructive. These nine took sanctuary in two
would othelwise be trapped on the wel'
San Diego churches.
fare rolls. The award to the Sickle-Cell
At present writing, there are four atAnemia Prolect has been instrumental
tack aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonin helping the Black Panther Party to
kin. Together theY wield more firecontinue screeni ng Roxbury children
power than at any previous time in the
for this dread disease.
the
of
The American people are becomcommittee
war.
membershiP
The
ing lulled by the impression that the
Roxbury Fund has noted an increase
war is winding down, that the killing is
in applicationsand inquiries since Presdecreasing. The crews of attack carident Nixon's latest peace plan was anriers know differently. They cannot
nounced. The 375 members of the
escape the head-splitting sound of the
Fund are estimated to be about onecatapults launching air strikes 24 hours
quarter of the war'tax resisters in the
7h^^.rr'*'t
, ,E ,rtw'\ "or rEamount ol
a day. They cannot go to the mess hall
tsoston area, lne [oral amourlt
without passing the constant rotation
rrtJ tu*"t now on deposit in the Fund 6l1,r^4fitAt< ry # f*ifrOe;67
- of tons and tons of bombs waiting for
now stands at some $50,000.
loading. They see the planes take off
For further information, call: I
n)- ^
fully loaded and return empty, day af '
ter day.
(Ot Z) AOS-OA'89; Roxburv Action
Men respond to that realitY in difa+ F^^llttw
fering ways. Most repress it, thinking
gram, Bob eer1r1, p,raj1 9ounselins Probufu
of the stereo equipment and motorcyi".t Dit..tot, (617) 445'9711; Child's
cles they can buy in Japan and counting
World Day Care Centers, Marie Dias,
the days till their return. A few organDirector, (617) 267'7956; Black Panize: talking with each other, writing letther Party.Headquarters, (617\ 442:-r
ters to Congressmen, and trYing to
Xit,n,,t
break through the colossal wall of fear
that the navy throws up around them.
And nine men chose the Public, nonviolent witness, which is Sanctuary.
",rt::;1i,1,:""i
r.r.r.
For their courage they were arrested,
511:H;,Tlll',il":::'#fr'#:r,f:.,'is flown
back to the ship and immediateMarch 1 1 ,1972,1.T.T. of $70 million worth before June 30.
on Saturday,
ly sentenced to 30 days in the brig;
,,Show and Taste" for Stat- The loophole is a provision that the
,oonror"J a
they are being treated like prisoners of
he
.-"-frl"J1.f,".l children and their par- President can waive the embargo. ifinterwai. They are frequently made to wear
that
"overriding"
the
determines
enti. This was a demonstratjon of the
handcuffs (where would they escape
itln
oroducts ITT-Contjnental Baking offers ests of national security require
to?); they have been forced to urinate
the
Soviet
cited
Nixon
instance,
plogram.
this
IrUr.riUlit t. iti rlnoot lunch
in their cells because they refused to
in the Mediterranean'
It was attended by about 2,00d people. nav.al build-up
'"
identify themselves by numbers only;
However, .Represenrativg-Beniamin
w; ba; our ictjon uy ,t.n.iting
_
when they began a hunger strike they
subforeign affairs
lfr'firr'on ihe sidewalk'in front oT Rosenthal, whose
or fruit iuices; they
committee hearings led to.the Congres- were denied milk
ihe entrances. We had two major disto send a letter
right
the
denied
were
action
Nixon's
pfi,r,'-Uriia"iregular pic[.i rigrr ana sional bqn, charged that

re-

E:il;;i.;:'?##;

4+.,*.
;?;:;ilt{,"t0.

: Wffiw
bt
ahgr'

- he

['j#J#jlffi',:[;'Eigrng Pro-

-t ,ft{"AUi^*l"rrrlAiln,

0100.

"""1iw:rsr

t%%t?EE,

,J,#?i

;il:i:li:i:

K|LLS

l1l'

is a bid for a "home-port"-arrangement
i.ufl"tr about th-e air war and iTT's
with Greece under which 6600 persongenuine
a
wis
fn"ie
it.
with
,onn"ition
nel from the U.S. fleet and 3100 deUSnFl;iru"tife Bomb" iou.r.a'*itt
permitted to live

5
,ir"u"jy ,ttf;.dJi;di;ium fropionate added to retard iu"i;1. tn addiil"l'r6"***ii. iU.rt 7 U"dy a"lGifi-tontin.nral

Baking labels and a

ioot WonJ"rAread moJk-up that was
f

pendents would be
near the port

N

ru

Piraeus' The Navy is
seeking the home-port arrangement. in
an attempt to end a sharp drop in.the

of

reenlistment rate of key personnel'

to their lawyer because they used "air-

mail stamps on a non-airmail envelope,"
the Captain went on the ship's television and announced that theY had all
been "duped;" and theY have had to
spend many nights without shirts,
blankets or pillows, and the air conditioning left on.

LA

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These men need support desperateneed people from all over the
country to write and apply pressure in

ly. They

mation of a broadly based government
that would include all political parties
and would organize new elections.

Several of the group's proposals,
including the calls for hes. Thieu's
fense, Captain Oberg of the Kitty Howk, resignatjon and the withdrawal of all
the President, your congressmen. DeAmerican forces, are in agreement
with the seven-point peace package of
mand that they be discharged honorthe National Liberation Fro,nt.
ably. For up-to-date information,
write or call: San Diego Concerned MilThe Saigon government recently
itary,2143 Market St., San Diego, Cal. has been responding to its increasing92102, (714) 232-1238.
ly vocal opposition with a campaign
of
arrests. Scores of student leaders
Hqyter
S.
lV
-John
have been rounded up in the past
four months and many are still in prison awaiting trial.
The four-point peace proposal was
drawn up'by a taik force of opposition religious and labor groups, chaired
by lawyer Tran Ngoc Lieng, leader of
the Natjonal Progressive Forces. lt is
the most outspoken attack against the
Thieu government yet leveled by any
of Saigon's non-communist opposition.
The statement, which calls for a
"popular government" comprised of
"all religious,, political and social forces in South Vietnam," in effect advocates a coalition government, which is
outlawed by the South Vietnamese
constitution on the grounds of being
"neutralist." The government has yet

their behalf. Please write to the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of De-

to respond.

The statement, dated February 18
press until
now, criticizes President Nixon's eight-

but not distributed to the

^rt;A.l'e4',-

w p,x,k*{tr
nlr'O-D

ffil".,"H:?::

[::,'"?f

iI il,ilitF:
of "us-

posal constitutes a U.S. policy

ing Asians to kill fuians."
"By refusing to announce a date

for the total withdrawal of American
OPPOSITION LEADERS

INSAI@N

CALL FOR THIEU REMOVAL, U.S.

WTHDMWAL

forces from South Vietnam," the
statement continues, "President Nixon
is refusing to resolve the political issues according to the principles of

premier il,f;fl:H:,Tli1i:|,:j

flj

Foimer sourh Vietnamese
3?,?L'j'rilr.,
Duong Van Mjnh, who last year reof trying,,to maintain control of the
fused to run for Vietnam's Presidency politifal forces in lndochina,,, adding
I

i

The rally featured three Gls from
the base who came out to tell what.
they think of the air war. Those of us
with placards stood near the roadside
where they could be viewed by passing
motorists on the two highways which
converge at the gate.
After the rally we marched back to
the shopping center and proceeded to
\M'ightstown's Gl coffee house to rap
with Gls both from McGuire and Fort
Dix, which is nearby. The demonstratjon was initiated by Philadelphia Resistance.
-J. P.

SUPPORT PRISONERS STRI KE
On March 2, WRlers participated in
a picket demonstration at the federal

prison in Danbury, Conn., in support
of the prisoners who had gone on strike
four days earlier.
As this issue of WIN goes to press
there is, as Denise Banks expressed it
at a news conference: "complete solidarity" among the prisoners. Mrs.
Banks had visited her husband, Arthur,
one of three prisoners in solitary as a
consequence of the strike (two others
have been released). ln negotiations
with prison officials, the prisoners have
demanded release of all five from solitary as a prerequisite to settlement.
They are demanding higher pay in the
local prison industry (gloves and electric cables), expanded educational facil-

ities and recognitjon of a grievance committee chosen by the prisoners.
Arthur Banks is a black CO who was
sentenced in Atlanta to the legal maximum of five years. "They gave me five
years when they were giving white boys
six months for the same thing," Banks

pointed out in an interview with the
New York Post a couple of weeks before
his imprisonment.
-J.P.

against Pres. Thieu, has.launched a
ihat the Nixon proposals are-intended
sharp attack against Thieu's regime. only to ,,appease international and do-

"Big Minh" declaied in. Saigon.the mestic opinion and save face for pres.
first week in March that the principles Nixon.,, _Thomas C. Fox/DNil
of self-determination outlined in the

recent Nixon-Chou En-lai communique cannot be accomplished as long
as the American-backed Thieu governDEMONSTRATE
AT
-;';;,:.-;;;';;:ment remains in office.
AIR FoRcE BASE
Minh's veiled call for a new vietnamese regime came amidst a sudden Some 100 demonstrators from Philflurry of. statements by Thieu's non- adelphia ahd New York met at a Wrightscommunrst opposlflon.
town, New jersey, shopping center on
Leaders of ten South Vietnamese arainy Feb.26 and slogged a mile in
political fact.ions this month released deep mud to the main gate of McGuire

their own four-point peace proposal Air Force Base, where a rally was held.
calling for Thieu's immediate resigna- We were oonfined to the muddy shoultion, the total withdrawal of all Amer- ders by carloads of state troopers who
ican forces from Vietnam, and the for- barred us from the highway's pavement.
29

4
Tli,k

twrz.nL.l,A*

Ak4ol'*

furft

rwxaufek fu,,*,ul'

prEm

wrote the Governor of Kentucky on
her behalf received rather discouraging
answers from his officg. lt is impossible to determine whether letters from
Wl N readers and others contributed
to Suzi's release.
Kevin Towle, a nonregistrant imprisoned at Ashland, went on work
strike and began fasting December 1
of last year. He is a vegetarian and
asked for a mostly raw food diet,
which prison officials eventually agreed
to supply. After Kevin resumed eating,
however, officials went back on the
agre,ement and he then resumed his
fast. [:te word is that he has ended
his fast and requested a transfer to
Morgantown which has been granted.
The Penal Digest lnternational is well
well worth the $9 a year (12 issues)
subscription rate. lt is available by
writing Box 89, lowa City, lowa. The

Suzi Williams was released from

Boyd County .lail (Kentucky) on
ruary 17 after serving nearly five

November-December 1971 issue is 40
full of useful, wellpresented information. Among the
items is a description of the new National Prison Center "for coordinated
national action to change America's

pages, tabloid size,
Feb-

months on a six-month sentence for

"disorderly conduct." Those who

WTR: Chicago-lf we vote against war
appropriations on April 15, Karl Meyer'told over 500 supporters at a Feb.
27 welcome-back dinner, then we can
require congressmen to follow suit.
Karl intends to resume productive
work for society, to keep his income
$4800 or below, and to contjnue to
owe the government the $2000 for
which he went to jail. . . Steve Lewis,
WRL/West, 833 Haight St., SF, ast<S

that you send names of tax resisters
(with their permission, of course) for
a National Complicity List, promising
that "no one will get a fund aPPeal
or be snowed under by junk mail.". . .
War Tax Resister Mark T. Riley, a prof
at Sacramento State College who
claimed 14 exempt.ions, has been sentenced to 6 months in iail, 6 months
suspension, 3 yeais' probation plus a
$500 fine and payment of all court
costs. Vindictivel
OCULOAUDIGVISUAL: Northern
New England VVAW, 67 WinthroP St.,
Cambridge, has videotaPes on "The
Electronic Battlefield" and "The Air
War". .A program on Angola and
Mozambique is available from Liberation Support Movement lnformation
Center, Box 338, Richmond, B.C.,
Canada. . . The Front Line reports on
news and ideas of the Greek New

prison system from within" with an
ambitious and far-reaching program of
proposals including the guarantee of
prisoners' rights, a program of meaningful "rehabilitation," legal aid for
prisoners, making available a relavant
library, including law libraries, to prisoners, a national prisoner complaint
screening program, and an evaluation
of parole procedures.
lnmates of Green Haven Prison,
Stormville, New York, organized a

union which has been accepted as an
affiliate of Distributive Workers of
America and is requesting recognition

from New York's State Correct.ion
Commissioner. This is the first all-inmate union and it seeks to equalize
the rights of prison laborers with free
laborers and to further the "economic
social and cultural interests" of the
prisoners. An editorial in the Dayton
(Ohio) Daily News suggested that if
the union were recognized it might be
a first step in pulling down prison walls
walls everywhere, thus accomplishing

"what all the reformers in the world

-Larry Gara

haven't done."

Left-Pena, Box 5128, Clinton, N.J...
There's a tape of a program linking
those who went to war with those
who refused. "The remarkable fact. . .
is the unselfish sentiment expressed by
those Americans whom the war and

of group gripes and therapy. Yes, it
works, but early intentions to study
together-the Bible and Marxist Economics-didn't work out. . ." Sound
familiar?...lt's hard to envision but a
former munitions factory in Hamburg-

the military have scarred the most
deeply." ($Z.SO, Geo. Stein, PO Box
36, Belmont, Mass.)

Altona, Germany, is now an action

HERE & ABROAD: New England
CNVA (RFD 1, Box 430, Voluntown,
Conn.) is having weekend workshops
April 28-30 on Latin America and in
May on Alternative Life Styles, Arts &
Drama in the Movement, and the city
in society. . . Larry Gara in Wilmington, Ohio, writes that he hopes the
letters sent to officials on Suzy Williams',behalf helped to effect her release fiom Boyd Co. lail Feb. 17. . .
t-ast fall A Manchester (Eng.) Non
Violent Action Group campaigned for
free public transport and Manchester

University Union Community Action
organized a free bus service. "The

Blackheath Commune started with

a-

bout 8 friends mostly in and around
the Student Christian Movement who

wanted to stay together. . .Well, it
w4s intended to get into communitY
action. lts community life hangs on
the evening meal and a weekly session

of life")

t

t
t

t

t

and communicat.ions center for the
arts. Aduntusan (Cherokee for "expanded spirit

:

announces the

organization of Project Life, fhey
want 350,000 voting-age participants
to move late this summer to Alaska
to assume eventual political control of
that state. Write to 'em at Box 534,
Port Washington, NY. . . Safe Return
plans a national campaign in support,
of self-exiled soldiers who wish to
return. "Even those who'oppose' the
war are willing to lead the self-retired
vets, like sacriflcal lambs, into the
military courts."

I

u

0

d

rl

at

tl

EI

gr

lo

sp

oI

in

SOS: Robert Malecki in Youngstown's
Mahoning County Jail badly needs financial and moral support. He was to
come out

of prison Feb. 1 5 after ser-

ving time for destructjon of draft recordr in Silver Springs, Md., but he

faces a grand jury.indictment. "So the
possibilities of getting out slowly di-

minish." Contact Bob Begin, 1703 W.
32 St., Cleveland.
-Ruth Dear

30

1t

at
hi

hi

ar

er

to

wt
en

THE CUBAN FILM FESTIVAL IN NEW YORK
"Memories of Underdevelopment,,

Director

Tomas Guterrez Alear

New York's Cuban Film Festival has at this writing suf_
Igred some hairy problems with the U.S. State Oept."anJ
Cuban Exile groups. The Cubans celebrated the right to
demorcratic dialogue in their adopted homeland bf planting
two fire bo.mbs, one inside and one outside the Ofympia
Theater, where the festival was to be held-smashing ihe
theater's glass front doors-after it was announced t-he festi_
val would be held there. Earlier, State had barred two Cuban directors-probably among the hemisphere,s most interesting new cimema talents-and two othei Cuban filmmakers
from contaminating our shores with their presence at the
festival. And American Documentary Films, the mostly

sponsors of the festival, was so financially pressed andlor le_
gally hassled that I may be writing about a festival that never was. lf it happened , it ran 7 features and I 5 shorts and
documentaries at the Olympia twixt N4arch 24 and April 2.
ln the midst of all the bombs and bombast over the festi_
val one salient point went largely unnoticed-largely be_
cause critics and newsmen had managed to see only one of
the scheduled features and two documentaries at the time
of this writing the films come to us with impressive artistic
credentials. Discounting one program of g documentaries
that sound as if the propaganda pianut butter might be
abo-ut ankle deep-including such unpromising titTes as ,,Ev.
er Onward to Victory-a lyrical tribute to ChJGuevara,, and
"Death to the lnvader-Defeat of the CIA mercenaires at
the.Bay of Pigs" etc.-the festival films have piled up a stag_
gering total of 20 lnternational film festival prizes and twJ
honorable mentions. Not that festival medjls mean much,
but they do mean somebody liked the films which is some'_
thing to go on in these times, when movies are most definitely not "better than ever."
ln the last issue of WlN, I wrote about two excellent documentaries. At this writing, the press had been able to see
only one 19.!y1., "Memories of Underdevelopment,,, produced in 1968 by Cuban State Film productions. I never
thought I would see Latinos make a film about themselves
with such unflinching honesty. And I never thought such
an ope.nly critical film could be made in a social isistate,
much less a Lotin socialist state. The film is tough and hon_
est not just with the flabby Captiolistos but with-the whole
Srey panorama of life in a society which has had to scrap a
lot of old glamour for a new order of life, juster but un_
speakably
drabber as well.
'The fiim is episodic and very simple. lt follois rhe life
gf .11lln approaching middle age (is 3g stillopprooching or
in it?) in the turmoil and revolutionary excitement of t"he
1961 Bay of Pigs crisis. The film opens as he puts his wife
and parents on the plane for the U.S. Soon he is also seeing
his best friend off. But these airport partings do not cut
him off .from his past. He cannot escape it, of course. lt is
around him, mountains of memories that lie like piles of
emotional rubble on almost every corner of dreary Havana.
A man for whom, in his own words, ,,Everything came
too early or too late," he gave up his dreams of becoming a
writer after he received a furniture store from his rich paients for his 26th birthday. Now he sits among the stutfy

splendor of expensive-but-bad modern furniture, expensive
imported bric-a-brac and gringo .t..tri.ui up_
::tT^di.li9."s,
puances, ltvtng ott rents from half a dozen
apartment5 he
no longer legally owns and watching his island home in
turmoil around him. He was rich too ioon and now the revolu_
tion has come to late to free him from a tife tfiat he never
should have fallen into in the first place. He is sympathetic
to the new order but it is, to him, as,,underdeveloped,,as
the old.
Calmly, with as much love as candor, director Tomas Gu_
terrez Alear (the excellent screenplay is'also by him, based
on a book by Edmund,Desnoes) follows iris OUlomov_eique
character as he walks the streeti of Havana trying to
find'
meaning in a people whom he considers undeiOe"velopeJ
and a revolution he sees as equallv orimarv_
The protagonist casts his critical'ey..rln on that most
sacrosanct object of Latiri macho_dom: the women. ,.Cr.iOun
women are like wonderful fruit that goes rotten.with amazing speed."
Our Cuban Oblomov finds refuge in pursuing women and
manages
!o bed a pathetic little would-be actreis, trying to
fill the void left by a wife whom he loved, but not fierc"ely
enough to keep or follow, not little enough to completely
forget. His adventure ends in boredom aid ultimately in'a
court case on a statutory rape charge.
. Underdevelopment is what the hero sees around him,
whether watching the troops march off to defend the isiand
from the CIA or looking into his mirror past the imported
American shaving cream, And there are no easy answers to
this underdevelopment, neither for the film,s piincipal char_
acter nor for the viewer. The hero is himself a mirror for
the larger problems of a people caught between the great
ideals they pursue and their own veiy Latin limitatiJns, be_
tween the superficiality of Carribean comfortableness and
the deep-seat social and economic problems of the country
which demand solutions. The paralysis of the hero is born
out of an inability to take up great causes which seem out
of all proportion to the charaiter of the people fighting
them. These are very serious issues and the film offers-no
pat answer. I kept waiting for the revolutionary commercial
to come in somewhere at the end,'but it never came. lts
honesty must have set many Cubans to thinking very seriously.
I do not know how this film was allowed to be made in
Cuba, but I am immensely glad that it was. When anyone
manages to be honest, we are all able to be a little more
honest with ourselves. ln this spare, simple Cuban film
there is a big bell tolling for all of us.
-Lance Belville
SCOTT

N

EARI NG'S POLITICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY

THE MAKING OF A RADICAL
has lust come

308

pages

from the

Paperback

press

$2.45

Clothbound 96

Order from your local bookshop or

SOCIAL SCTENCE INSTITUTE
Harborside, Maine O 4642
3t

.

$

liot Wgginton, editor,

Anchor/DoubledaY
3.95 softcover/$8.95 hardcover

Maybe you've seen Foxfire, amagazine written, edited,
and published by high school students at the Rabun GapNacoochee School in the southern Appalachian mountains
of western Georgia. I hadn't; just ads for it and raves about

it in places like the Whole Eorth Cotolog. lf you have seen
it, you don't need my review of this collection; if not, may-

be I should tell you that Eliot Wgginton is a high school
English teacher who managed to survive in that dubious-ifnoi-wholly-doomed profession by setting his kids loose with
cameras, tape-recorders, and typewriters. The kids went to
their grandparents, and the published results include a series
of really fascinating and instructive articles on:
hog dressing; log cobin building; mountoin crafts
ond foods; plonting by the signs; snake lore; hunting tales; faith heoling; moonshining; ond other

affoirs of ploin living
It's an absolutely first rate how-to-do-it volume. I liked
especially, and learned most from, the sections on "Tools
and Skills", "Soapmaking", "slaughtering Hogs", and
"Moonshining as a Fine Art". (That last-named is far and away the most complete and intelligent manual of its kind
l've found anywhere.) But this list tells you more about
where I happen to be at in the businessof ploin living right
nciw than it does of the relat.ive worth of anything in
here. Believe me, it's all great stuff, and I expect to be consulting this book for years to come-if friends and neighbors

don't read it to

pieces, that is.

But the real point of Foxfire, and The Foxfire Book, is
the ". . . pre-television, pre-outomobile, pre-flight individuals who endured and survived the incredible tosk of totol
self-sufficiency, lnd clme out of it all with o perspective on
ourselves 0s o country thot we ore not likely to see ogoin.
They hove something to tell us obout self-relionce, hylgn
interdependence, ond the humon spirit thot we would do

-"'+'f^!ff::ri3,

*rr,nron's inrroducrion,

and so is this:

"Daily our grondparents ore movihg out of our lives, to'
king with them, irreporobly, the kind of informotion contoin'
ed-in this book'. They ore taking it, not becouse they wont
to, but becouse they think we don't core. And it isn't happening
in Appalochio . . ."
' Whitjustmore
can I say, besides reod it. Whatever your reason-needing this scarce-as-hen's-teeth wisdom and knowas I do; historv lifestyle,
present
rrrVJLJ rv, gJ
elvrrL or future
yuul
own Pr
uwll
lul youl
how for
Iluw
.,^,,tll k^
^..-r^^ia,,
-be sure-as-sundown
",,.o-r"-.rtnrlnrvn
curiosity-you'll
or
sheer
ical interest;
glad you did.
-Paul Johnson

fl..^r

aa

6^rrr\a/fi\Lw

M^tlrL

New York: American Report Press, 1971
162 pages; pperback, $2.45

In light of the Pentagon Papers, My Lai and other atrocities in Metnam, why have the military chaplains-servants of
the God of love and mercy-been so silent? This is a painful

THE FOXFIRE BOOK
E

MILITARY CHAPLAINS:
FROM A REL!GIOUS MILITARY
TO A MILITARY RELIGION
edited by HarveY G. Cox, Jr.

.--

question for the American religious community, faced as it
is, with a crisis of mission and credibility and a constituency
that ranks social action the lesser of priorities in a world of
change, injustice, and morally disastrous public policies.
'
Military Chaplains opens with the most comprehensive
history of'the subject now in print. lt's a little heavy, but interesting. This is followed by two key sociological essays
that focus on the socialization and integration of the "man
of God" into the military establishment' These go a long
way toward explaining why chaplains are so often hostile or
indifferent to in-service CO's and other "non-conformists."

Peter Berger and Daniel Pinard contend thet religion in
the military has become military religion with each branch
being its own denomination. ln fact, chaplains come to look
at th;ir fellow religious brothers and sisters as outsiders.
Gordon Zahn quotes one as saying: "We don't want our
priests to be civilians working for the Army. . . The civilian
priest, no matter how well meaning he be, is not one of us.
ile is i stranger; he brings a message from the outside world."

Although there are few chaplains who foarn at the mouth
like Cardinal Spellman about "fighting for Christ," milltary
religion, "and the chaplaincy that servbs as its mediating
agency, function to legitimate the military enterprise." ln
their examination of educational materials disseminated by
chaplains, Berger and Pinard found great stress on authority
in all forms as being good and God-given. Nowhere was it
suggested "that religious conscience may be called at certain
times to resist the authority of the state and its military
arm."
A meditation entitled, "God's Boot Camp" ends with:
"Dear Lord, help meto stay in your boot camp until I have
developed moral muscle and wind for your prayer power. .
Amen.;i Another military cannibal writes: "Vietnam is a grim
reminder that the price of freedom is always high. However,
since the price has been paid, American Christians can enloy
a twofold freedom. We were born into a free society bought
with the blood of others. Then we were born again and delivered from the bondage of sin through faith in the blood
of Jesus Christ. . ."
Like his civilian counterpart, the chaplain tries to preserve
decencies in the midst of indecency' "The wholesome soldier is physically and morally healthy. He is clean-cut, dependable, honest. At the same time, he is tough." lt's
the old personal salvation bit, the hired holy man asked to
pray over public affairs but to stay out of politics and confine ministry to individuals' private needs for personal salvation.
Cordon Zahn points out that while Catholic chaplains
are overrepresented in the Air Force, they also appear to
have a high turnover rate apparently due to changes in Catholic theology. Vatican ll condemned "any act of war aimed
indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities or extensive areas along with their population" as "a crime against
God and man himself." Since "the Air Force is the service
most likely to be ordered to undertake the type of military
action so explicitly condemned, this could intensify and . .
make more salient the tension felt by the Air Force chaplain

t-

and lead to a higher rate of turnover. . .i'
Four chapters Qy chaplains are most revealing and anecdotal such as Chaplain Freyer being asked by another chaplain how to spell the word "clergyman." Rabbi Martin Siegel suggests a civilian chaplaincy both to free the chaplain
and put the soldier more at ease. ln his opinion "the congressman rather than the chaplain is the major escape for the
disaffected in the military."
Randolph .fonakait presents a legal argument that the
chaplaincy is unconstitutional and Harvey Cox,notes in the
introduction that "James Madison opposed paying of chaplains by public'funds as constituting a danger, not to the
state but to the freedom of religion."
In summation, Robert McAfee Brown presents the arguments for and against "military chaplaincy" and "chaplaincy
to the military" concluding with a plea to divest the military chaplain cy "of both the symbolic and actual accoutrements that render its ministry ambiguous, so that a genuine
chaplaincy to the military can emerge."
Missing are views from gung-ho career cliaplains and concrete proposals for implementing civilian ministries to the
military. There has already been some consideration of this

in the religious community and the Ecumenical Witness on
lndochina held in lanuary went further by urging allreligious
groups to withdraw their chaplains as both protest or"r ihe
war and prelude to establishing civilian ministries.
This has been misinterpreted by some as an abandonment of the military and condemnation of the chaplains.
But as Military Chaplains makes clear, it is really an effort
to liberate "the man of God" because the nature of present
arrangements is such as to make even the most conscientious
chaplain's prophetic ministry difficult. ln also proposing a
demilitarized chaplaincy the Episcopal peace Fellowship has
argued that it is the purpose of the Church to minister to all
people, saints and sinners, but not to pray over their affairs
and sprinkle Holy Water on jets bound for bombing raids.
Of course, structural changes in the ministry will not accomplish the desired ends as long as religion,s fundamental
values remain martial and nationalistic. lf religion in America
rea I ly beca me demi itarized, de-pro pertied, d e-ca pita i zed,
and de-nationalized, there wouldn't be any institutional religion left. Wouldn't that be nice? Clergy would have to be.

I

I

come tent-makers and congregations would have to worship
crossroads.
_John Kincaid

at public

omounts sufficient for both themselves ond their host . .
Evidence is accumulating thot this source of B vitomins
Imoy] be lorgely responsible for the vigor, long lives, ond
lock of baldness ond groy hoir among the Bulgarians . . .
"llhen heolth is below par, it is often odvisable to clrink
a1 much os a guort of yogurt doily, substituting,it entirely
for fresh milk. Snce the bocteria ore killed by heot, there is
no nutritional odvontage in using yogurt fi cooking."
ln the following recipe, contributed to the powell House
Cookbook by Cynthia.l . Fisher, note that the milk is first
repasteurized in order to kill any bacteria which might inhibit the yogurt bacteria. This is certainly the easiest, surest,
and least expensive recipe l've come across. lt d.oes require,
though, an accurate candy or dairy thermometer, a worthwhile investment if you don't have one.
2 qts. homogenized milk
/z c. starter (Dannon or Lacto Plain yogurt or your own
last batch)
1/3 c. non-fat dry milk
"Heat milk, stirring constantly, to 1750 F (SOo C). Adcl
non-fat milk solids and stir until dissolved. Cool . . . to I35o
F (S3o C). A cold-water bath (a sink or large por filled with
cold water) will speed up the cooling. Add some of the warm
milk to the starter. Mix well and then add this to the bowl
[or pot] of warm milk. Beat with an egg beater . . . until the
starter is well mixed with milk. Cover container with a Iid
and wrap entire container in a large, heavy towel which has
been folded in half. IWe use several towels and a blanket.]
Allow covered container to sit in a warm Ivery warm] room
for about four hours, until yogurt is the consistency of curtard. Refrigerate several hours before serving. And don't fbrget to save a half cup of this yogurt as starter for the next
.

F

o
o

0
YOGURT

I notice you run recipes now and then, but I haven,t seen
for yogurt. Here's one from the powell House
Cookbook (ask your friendly neighborhood Friend to get
a good one

)/ou one-it is a fund-raiser for Powell House, a
good place run by New York State Quakers) with some
,Melle Davis Quotes out of her 3/t pages on yogurt.
first, Adelle: "Yogurt con be prepared ot home by odding to worln milk. . . qlreoll prepared yogur.t, which contains the Ilive yog-urtJ baiterio. As tong ai thi: mitk is kept
worm, the bocteria grow, thriving on milk sugor ond breoking it down into lactic acid. As the ocid is formed, it causes
the milk to thicken ond become like junket or o soft custcird.
At this stoge the yogurt should be chilled immediately to
stop bacteriol growth; otherwise sa much acid will be liberoted thot the milk curds will become hard ond separote from
the whey, ond the product will be too sour to be polotable.
"Chilled yogurt is usuolly enjoyed when served with
sweetened fruit or with black molasses ond cinnomon , , .
"Yogurt is nutritionolly superior to sweet milk in many
ways. The milk protein in yogurt is portiolly broken down
by the bacterio;some of the colcium dissolves in locf c ocid.
lf digestion is below por, the protein and colcium from yogurt ore more ovoilable than in sweet milk. The bacterio in
yogurt thrive in the intestines, whereos bacterio found in ordinory sour milk ond buttermilk ore killed ot 9P F, or below body temperoture. The yogurt bacteria living in the lntestines break down milk sugor into loctic ocid; since the bacteria which form gas ond couse putrefoction cannot live in
loctic acid, they ore lorgely destroyed . . . The yogurt bacteria oppeor to synthesize . . . the entire group of B vitomins in

33

preparation.

"

lf the first time you make it this way, you think it's too
thin or not tangy enough, then the next time, let it sit for
4/zto 5 hours; but it may form small curds that look a bit
like sand. Also, don't leave it so long that it ccjols below 90o,
or it may sour before it is thoroughly chilled.
Blankets are easier to come by tharr yogurt makers or 214
qt. thermos bottles, and the latter don't allow for sufficient
cooling. Trust this recipe. And remember that if yogurt
doesn't form, you can just repasteurize it and add fresher
starter. (Check the date on the Dannon container.)

-Dick Margulis

classifteds
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SggA
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ryiili stnic+ trtioic, poefu, rcvicrts,

fitorrttr u

wft*'

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t,tL/ i,tsu.

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$

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Yes to life, to freedom, and to
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well as those involving an economics of sharing, educational al-

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eE:;
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de

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: io,i

Ue

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tidirfi sr: I!

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Write or call for a free brochure.

*t<:
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institute for the study of
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o€31"-J

i dlI iq
ae i_=d
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Read

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I enclose $5 for a full year subscription (2'l issues) to begin with the Media issue.

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THEY LOVE lT BUT LEAVE lT. Written by WRI Secretary Devi Prasad, this book covers all major aspects of desertion by U.S. servicemen and their situation in the coun-

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tries where they have taken refuge (paperback) 80pp. $t

AIN'T GONNA PAY FOR WAR NO MORE. Finally, every.
thing you'd want to know on war tax resistance under one
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tance. (paperback)

127pp.

$1

AN EYE FOR AN EYE impresses lessica Mitford, author

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WHAl lS CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS? This noted article
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MOVEMENT SECURITY KlT, lssued by RESIST, this kit
includcs RADICAL'S GUIDE TO GRAND JURIES,"ARE
YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER," NOTES ON SECUR.

oHlo

(1

lTY, etc

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WRL BROKEN RIFLE BUTTON $6/100,$1 112,10c1 each
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ln addition to the above groups, there are about

ro: WAR RESISTERS TEAGUE
339 leleyette Slrccl, New Yort, N.Y. ll[12

membership we will list them as local WRL's. lf you
would like to begin organizing a local WRL or would
like information on the local WRL program please
write to the National Office.

-a

items checkcd.
[ | I enclor $-for
I
cnclosc
S-contribution
lo the l{RL.
[ ]

a

dozen efforts to organize local WRL's going on
around the country. These are what we could call
embryo WRL's and when they reach the stage of
being able to organize and work outside the WRL

-E

;

Name

I

I
I
I

I
I

Addrcss

zip

-i

March 7, L972

to:

from:

subject:

A11

Office Branch Supenrisors, Reviewers, fnterviewers,

Assistant Chief, Office

and lSRt s

Branch

War Crime Deductions

advised that several taxpayers, protesting the War
in Vietnam, have filed their incoue tax returns showing a deduction
captioned, 'rWar Crime Deductlonrr. Some of these returns have been
processed through Servlce Center as Matheoatical Errors and TDAts
have been issued. fn response to the TDAts, some of these ta:payers
We have been

are filins Forrtrs 1040X while others are protesting the assessnent
on the grounds that there was no Mathernatical Eror and, therefore,
the assessment is inyalid.

If you encounter ary ta:cpay€rs or process ar5r &ssessments which
fa11 lnto the above category, please advlse me irrmediately since
the Department of Justice is curently studying the validity of

all

such assessulents.

ucca*ffiri
-ZZ*4*
sanu6i1.

editorrs note:
TDA--faxpayerrs
Delinquent Account

Internal Revenue Service