Win Magazine Volume 11 Number 29

I

August 14, 1975 I

*

PEACE & FREEDOM THRU Ì'IONVIOL'ENT ACTION

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IIcREYNOLD,S

HARD
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LYND *

LENDLE(TBARRETT

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that his remark that "second ratc
minds are often the fruit of fìrst rate egos"
might more aptly apply to Mr. Berrigan,
himself, and that hc should look into it
with somc humility.
Strangely, Mr. Berrigan's obsession with
the middle-east hasn't led him to concern
himself about tho othcr half of the Arab

guess is

'

population-the slavery of women therc.
Israel's patriarchal aggression in that area'
will in no wise improve their lot, but it

I wcnt bananas today rcading Dan Berrigan's rcmarks [-WlN, 7/24175] about Rose

mary Reüthcr in his Middlc liast piecc. His
statcmsnt about "sccond ratc minds with
ñrst ratc cgos" rcveals a snide, petty attitudc that has no placc in Movemcnt politics. What is painfully clea¡ is that Dan is in
'thc classic "no man's land" in regard to thc
womcn's movcment-othcrwise he would
havc dispcnscd with thc lst rate, 2nd rate
hicrarchical shit & thc consciousness that
produccd that statcment.
l;cminisnr providcs cveryono with equal
acccss to criticism & scholarship, One does
not have to bc ¿ "saint or a scholar" to
comb ovcr the New Tcstament and come
to ce¡tain conclusions. For that matter, one
tlocsn't havc to value what those saints &
scholars have or have failed to discover in
their study. \ryitness how ncgligent these
samc saints

t

&

scholars have been about

womcn's rolc all these thousands of yearó.
The absolutc zinger has to be the
phrase, "learned lady." Please, Brother,
get it togethcr. As a woman in a move
¡nent we once shared I wondcr if you're
still runnirig with mè or any of my sisters
or if rve are on diflcrcnt tracks? Even batþ
rooms arc changing from "Ladies" to
"Womcn"-so stop the feudal, paternalistic,
bclittling bit & the accompanying attitude.
It degradcs nre, Rosemary Reuther & yourself. lt breeds the kind of divisivness that
brings joy to Guy Goodwin & gentlemen
of the
-ANNE WALSH

rvould bc comforting to have sor¡e indication that Mr. Berrigan is not the total
misogynist he appears to bc.
As for rabbis sitting doWn to talk to
priests, this is no real surprisu they're boih
in the same business, as Lenny Bruce ob
sewed, Perhaps it would be wise for M¡.
Berrigan to consider a consciousnessF
raising session rvith Ms, Reuther and Mary
Daly as well. I mean, not all the ¡abbis he's
communed with have "first rate mintls,"
do they?
Oh heresy, oh witchcraft, oh Jesus. . .
wh¡, ¿orru', Mr. Berrigan devote some of
his worthy pacifist attentions to the problcms in lreland? Let the Jewish and Arab
.women work together on the problems of
Palestine, . .wouldn't that be a treat for a
change? Shouldn't we encourage that?
(They speak virtually the same language).
As I said above, I don't think Mr. Berii
gan has demonst¡ated antisemitism, but
since he is aware that his wo¡ds have inflamed it in some Catholics, he has a rEsponsibility to speak to these people and
cool their ardo¡. To ignore the consequences
of his words here, whilc dabbling in the
niiddleeast, wdtld indicate antisemitic in-

tent.

-LEAH FRITZ

(the undead)
New York, NY

night.

Stoughton,

MasS.

I must indeed be a witch, because reading
Daniel Berrigan's interview IV'llN, 1 12417 5l
I felt the flames licking at my heels, How
he managed to includc an attack on Rose'
mary Reuther's analysis ofJhe ncw testament and the proabortion movement
within the confines of a discussion on thc
middleeast is a feat of Jesuitical virtuosity
awesome to contemplate!

Nq I don't

consider Mr. Berrigan responsible for the
inquisition, nor do I think he is especially
antisemitic, but I do remember that, in
addition to tewg millions of witches were
liquidated by Catholics during the middle
ages. I have not yet re¿d Ms Reuthe¡'s
boo( but intend to now that.Mn Berrigan
so kindly called my attention to it. My

I am hêsitant âbout adding anothervoice

to the controversy on abortion but feel
,

uneasy alrout the animosity this issue is
causing bctween people who should be
friends and allies. The¡e is more to this
than the question of when'a human life begins, There is the questlon of power, and
the rights of women ove¡ their own bodies.
I know ofno woman who woutd not consider abortion a serious matter, but to asse¡t
that human lit'e begins at conce ption is
conceptually to reach within her body and
hold he¡ captive to that life in her womb. '
He¡ freedom is rest¡icted in a most drastic
way, and in a way that men have historically
claimed rights over wornen, In a very rcal
and practical sense the freedom ofwomen
to make this thei¡ own moral decision is not
assured today. Abortion is not always easy

or available, and neither is it so secure that
political and social actions could nor re
strict it furdher.
The angcr that comes from women is
not that they do not value that life within
them,.but that they resent being told or being limited in what they can do, in their
ability to exercise their own individuality
and make their own moral decisions.
We should always be extremely careful
of defining or linriting the individual moral
choices of other people, especially when
we nevet have, or could be, in the same
position, Our concern should always try to.

be with the real human needs of the people
we
-DAVID Þ:. WHITIT
Somervillc, Mass.

meet.

Re: Chuck F'ager's hopes for,.a serious
reexamination" of abo¡tion (what he calls
"that area") on the left IWIN,5/221751 and
his assertion thât "the definite outlincs of: .
a liberal-left aiti.abortion stancc are beginning to cmergc, and. . .we will be hearing more about it." [WtN, 7/24l?51
I think that Clruck Fager is accurate in
reporting on a ncw casc of nerves on thc
maledominated left. Whereas not too long
ago, male lefties could advocate liberalizing
or rcpealing abortion laws, sincc thcre was
an immediate benefit that would aocrue to
them (they could fuck aìound ånd not risk
nasty paternity suits, shotgun marriagcs,
child support payments, etc.), now it seems.
that some of these nlen are having second
thoughts. And beneath the acadentic ethics,
the (male) logii and objectivity, herc is
what I think some of those sccond thoughts
really are: "lf it truly is a woman's right to
decide when and whethcr to birth a cliild
(i.c,, to makc the decisions in a rnatter
which most directly conce¡ns her), I might
not gct to'have' nry son, my on-going self,
mf imitation me. Worse yet, if nty niothe"r
.had had that right,1 nright never havc been
born. But worst of all, if women kecp'
claiming more and rnore rights to selfdetermination, who will be left to reassure
nre that I am a man (i.e., onc whosc rights
to self-detcrmination are privileged, by
cultu¡al definition and social and legal

sanction)?"

-JOHN STOLTI'INBItRG

Those refìecting on the recent events in
Vietnam mifnt nnA helpful the ageless wis
dom of the Tao Te Ching Chapter Thirtyone statcs in part:
Good wøpons ore ínstruments ol lear: all
cleLtutres h^te thenl
Therefore followers oÍ Tao never use thenL
The wise ûan prefers the kft,
The man of war prefers the rtght.

i1

of fear; they are
not a wise man's tools

Weapons are instruments

He uses thern only when he has no choice.
Peace ønd quiet are dear to his heart,
And vìctory øo cause for re¡oicing.
If you reioice in victory, th¿n you delight

in killíng;

Ifyou delight in killíns; you cannot Îulfrll
yourselÍ,.,,.
llthen nuny people are beíng killed,
They sltould be mourned in heortfelt sor-

fow.
That ís why a víctory must be obsened lllæ,
a

funeroL

-LEo B,RKE

GarY, Ind.

CORRECTIONS
Joffre Stewart wrote us po¡nting out these
arrors i¡r Leslle Ann Brownriggls att¡cle

aboùt ritm twtN, 6/19/751:
1. ". . ,the author fUses several poetry
r€adlngs wlth one wh¡ch dicl.rove ¡from
berth to berth'and whlch I did not atways
head

up,"

2, Stewart learned about CORE durlng an
earller detention while be¡ng processed at
C€ntral Poilce Station for having refused to
respond to induction notlces. He had no
cèllmate in D cage.
3, "Persons who destroy€d draft flles ¡n
Evanston & Berwyn eventually werê aF
prehênded.

"

4. Stewart was arrested on Lincoln, six
blocks from Fullerton and HalstGd in the

L¡ncoln árrest.

refusal leaflet was already hanctwritten
prior to the afternoon ¡t was qu¡ckprlntecl.
6. ln re; the North Atlant¡c in 1944-45,
depth charges, not ..death,' charges.
7. I was sent back from Europe dlrectly
to hospltals in the South before later þe¡ng
shipped.to one in the Chlcago area (not
Chlcaqo).
8. ln re: g€ttin9 a ha¡rcut: integration ¡s
not the iivord I wd use, I regard mys€lf as
attemptlng to desogregate that barbershop
1949, Raclsm belng as peÌsistent as ¡t is
:¡n
rln Ch¡iago, I don't know whether that
barbershop €v€r became dèsegrêgated or
integrated.
9. Regarding the Student Peace Unlon,
the sentence structure can be migtèading ¡f
It leads one to thlnk that there was an
SPU ofganization at Roosevelt U, Ther€
were SPU lnd¡vlduals tike Tor Fa6gre.
10. lt is important to note that F¡nke &
Chêrnow regard themselves as 2/4 of the
pfêsent Omega printlng operation, not
2l2t as lmplled by the artlcl6. They thlnk
of ono of thelr partners, Bob Freeston,.as
being more ldentlfled wlth CAORE and its
past than the name "Om€ga" whlch derlves

from that past,

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

SUMMER BREAK

we'll be taking our regular summer break, ln addition to dig-

gingup the electric lines, we'l'í use thi-s time ts catch up on office work as üell
little rest. Some of us will be travelling out to Parkville, Missouri for
WRL's national conference. Hope to see you therel The next issue of WIN
will have a cover date of September 18, copy deadline September 5.
as get a

-The WIN

$30,000

4. Why Labor / Stoughton Lynd .
7. The AFL-CIO and'the ñew Depression I Ernest Lendler
9. MovingToward Revolution !
David McReynolds .
14. Hard Times-Some lnternational
Aspects I Ddbid Barrett
17. Who Were the Luddites? An Open
Letter to Sam Lovejoy I lohn Lam-

pert¡

18. Changes

Cover: Pot¿to print by Mark Morris

STAFF
Maris Cakars'Susan Cakars. Chuck Faier

Mary Mayo. Mark Morris . Susan Pines
Fred Rosen Murray Rosenblith

.

UNINDICTED
CO.CONSPIRATORS
Jan Barry ' Lance Bolville .Tom Brucl(ar
Jerry Coffln ' Lynne Coffln . Ann Davldon
D¡ana Davles. Ruth Dear . Ralph OlGla
Br¡an Doh€rty ' Wlll¡am Douthard. Karen Durbln
Seth Foldy. Jlm Forest ' Leah Ftltz' Larry êara
Joan Llbby Hawk. Ne¡l Haworth r Ed HÇdemann
crace Hedemann. Hendrlk Hertzberg. Karla Jay
Marty Jezer. Becky Johnson . Nancy Jbhnson
Paul Johnson ¡Alllion Karpel .Cralg Kafp.6l
John Kyper. Elllot Llnzer.. Jackson Mäc Lo$,
Davld McReynolds, Dav¡d Morrls. Jlm Pecli
Tad Richards. lgal Roodonko. Nancy Flosen ¡t.
Ed Sand€rs. Wendy Schwartz. Mârtha Thomas6.
ArtWaskow. Allen Youngr Bêverly Woodwârd

Box 547

/ Rifton i

New York 12471

Telephone: 91 4-339-4585

$35,000

$40,000

.;+Íir;

@

August 14,1975 / Vol. Xl, No. 29

20. Revi,ews'

$29,66'.t.28
$5,000

ÌI t,

He also adds: "DAY 3 lN MY 30 DAY
HIROSHIMA FAST FROM TAXED AL.
COHOLTC DRINK IN THE YEAR OF
THE BOMB-XXX. The language you sug.
gested is OK for the errors attented to
but mole.errors n6ed correct¡on.
' 5. The handwrltten draft for a WRL tax-

Madison, Wisconsin
issue

(

..

With three friends who also work with Movement for a New Sóciety, I ar'
rived July 31st for a visit at the WIN farm to find the electricity out in the
barn/offðe/living quarters. This meant no typesetting machine as well as no
fan for the 95o heat. The next day we helped dig a trench to uncover the
cahf e the electrician felt may have been damaged. No luck' A new cable may
have to be strung, a new pole put'ûp. Or else the WlNners migQt be in for a'
lot of digging. Then they'll have to do something about the refrigerator whose
moter seems to have burnt out due to low voltage.
All this happened on the day WIN was going to try to do something about
the overdue phone bill, overdue printing.þill, overdue salar¡es-everything
overdue. (lt was also the day Murray and Susan P. went into Kingston to get
Susgn's car repa¡red, only to have the r4diator in Murray's van burst. But
that's another story.)
Despite all this-plus lightening knocking out the telephones the next
night (fixed in 18 hours)-this WIN is comiñg to you on schedule, to enlighten and amuse you, as WIN does every week. lf where you are life has not
been quite so complicated recently, won't you share your good fortune with
those hard-work¡ng fol ks at WlN.
-George Carns

Aftcr this

\l

$45,000

$50,000

WIN ls published weekly exèept for the flrst
two weeks ln January, the last we€k ln March,
the ñrst week ¡n June, th€ last two we€ks in
August, and the flrst two weeks ln Septcmb€r
by the WIN Publlsh¡ng Empirewith the iupport
of the war Reslsters League. Subscrlpiions ar€

$11,00 pef yeaf. Second class postage pald at
New York, NY lO0Ol. lndlvldual wrlt€rs afr
respons¡ble for opinlons expressed and âccuracy

of facts given. Sorry-manuscrlpts cannot bc rc.
turned unless accompanied by a s€lf-addrossed
stamp€cl 6nvelope,

2.WrN

WIN 3

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Lenjnist sect, but his experience while at work convinced him to leave it. Summing up, Steve writes:
I think the deepest needs of my friends here, the
needs thqt require radicol chonges, ore those some un'
cleor thìngs that brought me into the Moveryent long
ogo. t felt then thot history wos.ready for the development of o whole new kind of perSon. Somehow things
like community, ort, sex roles, iust¡ce' porticipotory, ,
democrocy, creotivity-somehow things like this were-almost remolded into o new vision,
Around 1970 I begon to forget or obondon those
politics, But that newer, free-er, wider, higher vision
is whot the overoge people need. lt's the only thìng
that Billy ond my other friends could really throw
their lives into.4

?o

.

'I

ll

So far, all I've'said is that working people are like
other,Americans, wanting the same things and natural'

ly using the same words.
Wìy, then, a special importance for labor?
A cardinal feature of the civil'rights and anti-war
movements was the ability to isolate and focus on the
simple relationship at the heart of the larger social is5Ue.

Thus "civil rights," an abstraction, became the
human act of walking to tþe registrar's office and asking to register tci vote,
ln the same way, the war þecame the draft. The
war, we said;13 the draft. "Unless you can draft people, you can't run your obscene war. And we're going
to stop you from drafting people."
ln both cases there was an over-simplification, as
there always is in singling out part of a whole. The

i
¡,

things the movement believed in the early '60's.
A strange thing has been happening. Movement
survivors, scorning participatory democracy as a pettybourgeois ideology long outgrown, have taken iobs in
factories to preach Marxism-Leninism to the'workers.

For their part, the workers want to talk about participatory democracy. Needless to say the conversa'
tion has been halting.
What do I mean, they want to lalk about participatory democracy? For instance:
Our union wos created from the'top down. lle've
been soddled with o "Big Daddy will take care of you,
we'll moke the decisions, pie in the sky" sort of thing,
It sticks in our crow not having the right to ratify
contracts.
lile have to |eorn how to soy "No." The average
guy in the mitl thinks he con't say "No," he's got to
go along wìth the big shot, The compony hos a boss
over him, The union hqs a boss over him. , .So where
do the people show any fìght ony more? They've got
to learn how to do this all over agoin.3
The best articulation of the conclusion that working people want what the movement talked about in
the early '60's is in a lust-published article by Stevtr
Packard. Steve worked in a steel mill for six months.
When he went to work he was a member of a Marxist-

draft was not the whole of the war. Nixon was able

to run the war with air power alone for several years
after we had more or less closed off the option of es'
calated draft calls.
Yet, in neither case were we essentially wrong' We
had hold of the gist of the pituation. By concentrat'
ing on the essential movin$ part, we were able to have
leverage on the whole machine.
Now there is a consensus that a new or regrouped
movement must go beyond single issues and confront
the capitalist scheme of institutions as a whole. But
the "cap¡tal¡st scheme of institutions" is an abstraction. How to get at it? How to begin?
ln the same way that civil rights was the right to
vote, and the war wos the draft, I think capitalism is

the employer-employee relationship.
The vision of what is and what can be that I would
like to see broadcast by a new moúement-would comtrast our society's democratic ideology with the un'
democratic, arbitrary powpr which private employers
have over those who work for them.
For instance, the American Revolution happened
because the British Parliament declared:

"

That the King's Majesty, by and with the advice and
consent of the Lords spiritualpnd temporal ond Com'
mons of Greøt Britain in porliàment.ossembled, hod,.
hqth, ond of right ought to hove, full power and
authority to make laws ond statutes of suffìcient force
and validity to bind the colonies and the people of
:
America, subjects of the crown of Greot Britoin' in
qll cases whatsoever,S
Naturally, you say. That's intolerable! No American would stand for it!
WIN

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Why, then, do so many Americans stand, and indeed run, bow, and scrape, for the following:
The.compo,ny retaihs the exclusive right to monlge
the business ond plants ond to direct the working
forces, The rights to manoge the business ond plonts
ond to direct the working forces ìnclude the right to
hire, suspend or discharge for proper cause, or transfer, ond the right t,o relieve emplolees from duty becaus.e of lqck of work or for other legitimate reasons.6,

ln a word, they can fire us, but we can't f¡re them. ls
this democratic? Of courle not. But Americans are'so
'deeply habituated to thinking of the employer's power
as "management," something quite different from
"government," that it takes much patient conversation,
experimental action, painful learning-all those things
which a social movement should do and be-before the
dollar signs drop from our eyes, and we see the arbitrary power of the boss as a systematic insult to
demoiracy and to us,
The power of the boss means that when we leave
the parking lot and punch in we leave behind us most
of our rights as citizens.
On the outside, you are innocent till proven guilty.
On the inside, you are fired first, and then have the
burden of showing why you sh'ould not have been.
On the outside, even high school students can
(thanks to the movement of the '60's) wear.political
buttons and arm bands while "at work." Try doing
this ôn the\assembly line, and according to the law and
tþe National Labor Relations Board, you can be
cânned.

The point I am'trying to make is, not that workers.
are special, but that the employer-employee relationship is the heart and essence of the problem a new
movement must try to solve.
Every time an employee straightens his or her back
and says "No" at the risk of being fired, capitalism is
that much weaker.
Every time a worker ceases to seek gratification and
promotion from the boss, and seeks approval instead
from his or her fellow-workers, a bribk in the new
society has been laid.
Life the song says:

ln our hands there

is o power greater

thon their

hoarde1 god,
Greoter thon the power of ormies mognified a

'

It is true that white-collar workers, feachers, law
clerks, laboratory technicians, nurses, and (save for
the absence of a boss) the editoríal staff of WlN, are
workers.
It is not true that this recognition relieves us of the
responsibility of beginníng and sustaining a conversation with other workers.
It should make the conversation easier to know
that our employment scars-the humiliating job applications, the firings, the blacklistings, the ti,mes when
we swallowed our dignity and obeyed, the times when
we didn't-are as real as anyone else's.
But the conversation should be,carried on in an
awareness that, while all Americans use the same
political language (and in this sense have no class culture), yet there are profound cultural differences be
tween different'groups of American workers which
must be translated-across, if not overcome, if a
genuinely, mass movement is to be born.
- How óan anyone learn those cultural nuances?
There is no need to "learn" them in a sense different
than the other person is learning your sub-culture. The
real poin!, in my opinion, is dramatically simple:
The seed groups o(a new movement should not be
befun by first bringing together a nucleus of survivors
of the movement of the r60's, and then, as a second .
step, reaching out to "the others."
Rather, each of us should plant that seed-with one
or more others who were not part of fhe movement
òf thé '60's, but who, through working (or studying,
or living) together, we have come to feel/share the

The AFL-CIO
andúhe

I\ew

:

-fN ç\
0t}ß

lf a group is begun by calling together one's old
movement friends, a dynamic is set up which makes it
harder and harder for new people to join in.
. From the very first meeting, most of those in the
room should be the kind of person whom one hopes
to be a majority of the movement when it is fully

built.

t

lf this simple rule

rigorously observed, problems
of sub-culture translation will take care of themselves.
"Organizing," in this context, is a natural and
human, rather than a strained and artificial, undertaking.8 14¡" seek to sólve common problems that arise
on the job. As we do so, it becomes clear that the
' only sensible way to solve the problems is to run
is

I

Ernest lendler

The first incident is related by Liêutenant Will¡am Barton
of the Flrst New Jersey Regiment, and retold ln REBELS
AND REDCOATS, ed, Scheer and Rankln,-pp. 405-06, The
second Inê¡dent w¡ll be found ln Joseph Plum Martln, A
NARRATIVE OF THE ADVENTVRES, DANGERS AND
SUFFERINGS OF A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER.

l

near future, have to work for íboss to make a living
I will be surprised (and that person'is fortunate).
Surely, this is what it means that we have ceased to
be a student movement: we too are workers.
To repeat, âny one who sells his or her labor power
for a time to another, giving that other more-or-less
arbitrary power to order, for that time, his or her
I
labor-is a

worker.

This discovery has often been misunderstood,
I
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6 WIN
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think. Sometimes people say: "Right on! And now
that we know we too are workers, we neþd no lònger
worry about the labor movement, and can return,
guilt-freé, to doing our thing."

2, Al¡ce ancl Staughton Lynd, ed,, RANK AND FILE¡
PERSONAL HISTORIES BY WORKING.CLASS OR.
GANIZERS, Beacon Pr€ss, $3.95 (paperl.
3. RANK AND FILE, pp. 267-68 (condensed sl¡ghtly).
4. Steve Packard, "Steel
1975.
5. The Declaratoty

Mill Blues," LIBERATION, May

Act of 1766.

6. Managemeht prerogative clause, Baslc gteel Contract.
Most union contracts have a slmilar clause.
7. '¡solidarity Forever," I believe the song orlginally sa¡cl,
makes us strong." Presumably this referred
to the "One Blg Unlon" wh¡ch the IWW was try¡ng to build
and to,be. I th¡nk lt is falthful to the or¡ginal lntent to say
"our union" (small "u"), mean¡ng, our unity.

"For the Union

8. The same lssue of Ll BERATION which contains Stevo
Packard's artlcle ¡ncludes some modest ancl hetpfut thoughts

about on-th+job organiz¡ng.

I

BY

l.

il¡

,J

same values.

thousondfold,

Surprise! You too are a worker.
lf there is any reader of these remarks who does
not now, has not in the recent past, or will not in the

,,,

9TÊ

things ourselves.

lile can bring to birth a new world from the oshes
of the old,
For our unión mokes us stronq.T

\¡.

t

i
I

!'

ú.u

The economic cl'isis of the last few years-a combination of recession, inflation and high corporate profits,
,an impossibility according to traditional economic
thinking-þ¿5 confusçd most of us. Only six years ago
the unemployment rate was3.3%, the inflation rate
was 4.20/0, and the gross national product was constantly climbing. Today, the natlonal unemployment
rate is almost 10%, inflation is over '10%, and the
gross national product dropped 9.30/oin the last three
months of 1974 and continues to fall. Six years ago,
in 1969, Richard Nixon, taking the advice of conservative economists led by Arthur Burns, decided
the 4.2o/o annual inflation.rate was too high, and
while business approved and labor watched, he took
appropriate action.
'fhe goal was to reduce inflation by slowing down
the economy through "tight money and high interest
rates." Quickly unemployment began to rise (accord'
ing to plan),,but higher lnterest rates only increased
inflatidn, businessmen passed on the higher cost of
'money
to consumers, and corþorate profits rose. ln
"197'l a patch was placed on the cracking economy
,
Erneçt Lendler is ø free lonce wrlter ond consultont
to.o New :Yorþ Clty bosed trqde union,)

with the so-called controls on wages and prices. Wages
increases were held down, but profits and prices soared.
During all this the organized labor movement wäs
essentially silent except for an occasional loud noise
and protest resolutioís. Part of the reason for this
silence and lack of affirmative actior¡ is that there is
not a unified labor movement, and qrganized labor is
not as strong as we are constaritly led to believe. Less
then250/o of the non-managerial workforce belongs to
labor unions, and only approximately 18% to AFL'
CIO unions. The remainder of the organized work'
force belongs to independent unions such as the
United Mine Workers, United Automobile Workers,
lnternational Brotherhood of Teamsters, lnternational'
Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU),
United Electr¡cal Workers, Locomotive Engineers
and Distributive Workers. Even within the AFL-ClO
theref is opposition to the policies and non-action of
the federation and its president, Georgê Meany. At
best, Georgg Meany and the ofücial AFL'CIO statements actually represent less than half of organized

labor (about 10%of the total workforce). Although
George Meany hardly represents the labor movement,
he and the AFL-ClO'receive all the attent¡on.
wrN

I

ì

i

i
I

/

7

The AFL-ClO finally began to take some action
in
lanuary, 1975 when ít'releãsed its,,erogramloïäc_"

_

However the AFL-CIO cannot be expected
to
the program, direcrion o.
arul
.l_.tf,ql1
wtrn rne economic crisis.. Their only activity prior

i"tiàniî

tion.'The official program

is basicaliyiiãnasn of tne
New Deat which fiited-the cracks ¿ri¡í.,g
iñ. tasr depl::rjT. The program. inctudes u iiitlè åi'ru.ryrhing:
I ax cuts for individuals and cuts
in corporah îaxes"

to stimulate inveirment. R reductionìn-i-nàr.rt

*rìnËiãîìil;ril;.

r.ut"S.

Federat funds for n..* t
Revitati-,
zation of mass transit an¿ moäerniiätir"
äf
the rail_
roads. Some, bur nor extensive,
Federái
loans ro ciries and srates. exteí¿lnÈ t-f.,Jiirc
r.r. .

tiiièlãir.

im

ptementation of

env i ron

,

oetng..rnetr

only criteria. The AFL-ClOis current
iUãri';loùs fo,
; Att" no marter how ,r"r, iäñrã"irä
J|"Àgr",
muddled efforrs wilt nor bring

might make.
Onq has to look not to the AFL-CIO
head_
guarters in Washington but to
ináiui¿ual ,nion,

r""tãl Ëräi."iiànr. n

guorl9n oit imporrs wirh no

irp"iiiäã,

a.nd tocals, both

,,program

for Action,, looks
, As far as it goes, the
on. paper but, excepr for the pubtic
l]:T:I1-:"g"gh
serytce employment^sectio_n, is

essentially to b.e ignored. The AFL-CIO itself is spending tìíne
only"on
.the. concept of t'pubtic service jó0, ã, iir,åriìons
and
-l

" fi qhtþq stoga n

/oås ør.A t t :ndlcaie.

il'ìtra¡

gn

t

out of the New Deal, with referencei tó
tt WorL
Projecr Adm in istrarioq (weA) an J iirniur' "
ñr, o.ul
ms fi I I i n g A F
pf o!
pu O t icaiiãn r."ûn hàn, n"t.!._C lO
ry tr^sla
ls n.olonger 1935 and FDR isn,t thê president.

l.

Ar

L_C|O program and actions have all
the at-

^_,,-!
utoures.oï running.in place. There appears
to be acluon.and an expenditure of energy,
btit there is no

morion, No campaign is being oirlii"J.iir,.i
,t tt
memÞers ot organízed labor or the general public "
in
support of the limited program. No"effãrì
lías ueen
made ro d-evetop n.* unrruià á. ff;;i
åia'onu, ¡n
the.face of the new realities. fn"r. ìi
n"uttimpr to

of the progra; ä;,üåi"r"nt,,,
srress on bringing rhe unorganiz ed
7 S% of ihe
llo
19
raoor rorce tnto trade unions (ofganizing
the unorg1k:j[_b-.-rr_T

t

parts

ganized). Local program, or aàiõns
ai.îåi ,ponror.o
and.those pursued by local unions ur" nåiãsiisiC¿. -"
And no one in AFL_CIO officialdom seems
to be iaking a hard look at who owns and
contróts Âm"r¡ca
and why there is the current economic
crisis, or at, as
the recen r I LWU convent¡on statàã,"t'ñe-;
uãåp"n ing
de pression I that] has.sev"*t
t ;h; [ä;' il" iià'ü ir ity or
capitalist economies,,'

-!l

..

Ever since a losing battte against the
Taft-Hart_
tey Law ín the lare ig¿oï"ì?ãîårå"lu¡#
rl"rn,,

Nationat. Union of s"sp¡tåi
oyees (A F L.cto). rru,'i"¿

;h;;;;rric

;;-;Ë;rriä'ii^""ìil;ilrr];ä¿

ib urive Wor ke r5f Am¿i¡ r.n
;
ã¿ãiur,:o n' or
)rate, uounty and Municipal Employees (AfLcto); and Dístrict rtggli, rè"å¡';J'r;ii;;¡"
gl1idne drives; and a growing nuníoåi
ro."r"r_
(D istr

untons are using strikes

,

onty

lo1.u'o
rngton and

have

IJ

\)

JJ

+r
a)
FT\

(â

I

WrN

3
cù
ñ

(i

BY David À/cReynolds

its presiden.t, George Meäny, iãntinrãiy

I

1i

Photo by Davld FentonfLNS,

h;äq;;;;;;s in wasr¡.

s.

.r

only sotutioiitJ-Ãr"¡ät
.economic ailments.,, and. urgedrun¡ãn- -¿;-;i:"'
rLä¡î" to
"write their^ Senarors and ,RãpresË--

the AFL-ct-o

e+l

"f"ñ;r;';"duiî o.

srated in an árticte Lni¡írfi-.{ãor.
Carries Fight for Jobs to public;;:-;;L;oöïà"
sage-expressed in hard-hitting Congresionãl't'esti_
mony by AFL-C|O president-Ge"rsö fvluãnî
and in
newspaper adverrisements in eight
Ë¡t¡äi_*å,
ttår'
,rhe
jobs represenr

ol

to wait.

:

9f tYuyJT

fi

reinforcing in the pubtic mind the irug,
oì u ,.cumbent
movement. The AFL-ClO
-stultified'labor
will tesrify in fronr of more Congirrrionåi
,ä1n. ,
mittees, conrinue buyíng
;Ji;täinil'pi"'r, ,on_
to promóre a"d,
new New oéui iãbr.
I::i...:
:tlcannot
- program
they
begin to implement. Móie
formidable. direcr acrion, bri";í;; ;h;',
;;;;"
-iri.îr*J"ir.¿
sented 7S% of the workforr""inio
tabor movemenr and rù besin;in;r'åi
äii*' l"uo,
approach ro rhe econom¡c rãat¡tl¿ï-"i
nráirc, *¡li

Congress, electing,,friends
ganizing, and thul not growing. - --'

À.Èt'-,-ðiò N"w,

to

prevent lavoffs.
Atthough signifìcant, these actions by'unions
both. within rhe AFL-Cto,an¿ in¿ìpeñúr,ìi'
not been coordinated an¿ have uóãñ-fuñr,rr.tru.
¡rodenied impacr U.cuuie áî'u'nläiiotul
l19u
1na
racK of medaa attention.. TIe- media
almost atways

üri;i"u;;;,

i;

e m_

isr,",

utility rates in New ¡ersey and has held a
çonfe¡91ce of union stewardi on
crisis.
wh ich supported narionat iritioi
ãiüäïä-in¿uo
try and curs in military spending.'t-À.
úäri Court
Longshoremen (tLWu)'rohu"niìfi
;;ñ"á' ;ä,
'oit,
tionatizarion of
añ
"r_ ,
evaders" and to ,,úsing "nd
US
mif itãrv'mrr"l, ìo
make rhe wortd ,safe':fo, Us
u¡condirional amnesty. Sucn unìoïs-år'o¡lir¡rt"urn
Os
-Ë

:n the-1950,s,'tras spent-inË
oeçomtng a ïtxture in. Washington, busy
lob.bying

Besides the near disaste.rous April
26 Rally for
Jobs, rhe AFL-cto i3 continuìng''ii;
uàär,
non-acrion and
tnã låiãersfr i p
.
.proposi ng sot utiõni
has remembered for 40 years. -rn"

ãnJ"Heii;d'äre

piåäiräåiifi

pt

attempred to lead or even iatõ püilnãîational
politicat campaign of a¡y.nature.
fh. nFläö,''
after p.urging as many leit¡sts as rh;y .orlã
¿¡"

fy:r

añtiateã-r"lh;'äËiäid'.n¿

dependenr, tg find direct airiäni,'n.i,"ri,îtlng ¡nand
even some criricism of capitalism.
o¡lritï riéb, '-

rhe

Arab
counrtes. tmport quotas to protect
iobs and US
rnoustnes trom unfair foreign compétition. And,
most imporrantly, a full ,"it" prog;* ;¡;rbi;;;".

vtce employment.

j;!,ll!'"ipr'¿#*';:,5,:;i;,#ljÉ'.ïi;H;,i;:il.

t

o

F*\

Hard ti'mes surround us. A'mi"iräerous foreign policy
weighs upon the conscience of every informed radical. We are not searching for evils wíth.a microscopethey loom under us, in front of us, and over us. The
problem is not seeing the problem, b{lt finding ways
of dealing with it.

Let me begin where môst of us began. White and
middle class. I write'that not as a put dowñ but
simply as a statement of fact, a starting point which
helps to explain something of our strength, and of
our weakness. We are not, with few exceptions, sons
and daughters of workers. We may live in poverty but
we were not raised in it. Our childhood and early
youth were suffciently secure and affiuent that we
can turn our backs on the affiuent society. But that
decision, which leads some of us to commune3 and
some of us to slums in the various cities of the nation,
does not m¡ke proletarians of us. Even in our poverty
we know the weapons available for oui survival:
clinics and how to use them, friendly'lawyers and
legal defense associations, parents or friends in the
middle and upper classes who will come forward on
our behalf when needed or shelter us if qe want a
respite from our commúnes and slums.
I may occupy an apartment in a slum, but what
marks me out as diferent from th.e men and'women
who share my building with me, ànd who live in
David McReynolds is on the stoff of the lüar Resisters
Leogue, o frequent contributor to WlN, ond one of
the editors of thesé Hord Times issues, The second
port of this orticle will be printed in September.

apartments identical to my own, is that while their
windows open onto grimy air shafts, and their doors
open uBon a grimy street and their day stretches out
to welfare ofüces or hard and alienating labor or to
the task of tending childrên, from my window you
can see Paris, and when I walk out the door it may be
to step forth on a street in San Francisco or Philadelphia or Tokyo. Let us, therefore, have no illusions
about the situation in which we have placed ourselves:
for us there is always hope, options, inner realities of
education and training, and'these things mark us off
from those among whom we movê and with whom
we may make the error of ionfusing ourselves. We
may workfor a living but yet are not "workers." We
may have no money but yét 4r:e not "poor" in the
sense of that poverty which riddles the lives of thoSe
on our blocks.
How and why each of us found ourselves in the
radical movemdnt is something only a series of autobibgraphies could answer. But in part we have found
ourselves where we áre because we believed the values
society taught us, and rebelled against a society which
violated the values it worked so hard to instill. Or,
more accurately, something in us, some stroke of
lucK or fact of health (or neurosis-you can take your
pick) gave us the willingness to choose among the
values offered us, and to choose those values that

a.

made rebels of us.
Let me spell out how our movem1ent toward iadical social change differs from thatjfor example, of

Southern blacks. We were'not born into a class of
oppressed people. (Even the most forceful advocate
of women's liberation, or the Ínost militant of gay
WIN 9

.n

liberationists, was born into a situation of substantial
privilege if contrasted to women or homosexuals born
inro rhe working ciass). We did not view the p"iicããi
enemies but as employees, as protectors. The B¡ll of
Rights was written foi øs, and when we found the
State ín violation of it, our,response was less fear than
anger. Contrast this with the position of a Southern
black born into the Jim Crow structure that existed

i

.
,

intact only twenty years ago. That young man or

woman grew up in a situation where it was taken for
granted that the police were agents to enforce the
laws agoinst the black commuãity. The Bill of nilnts
(and the whole of the Constitutión) was never in-tended for blacks. The tumulr of the civil Rights
movement was centered entirely on the strugãle of
.Southern blacks tb gain for themselves c€rta¡; rights
, (voting¡
pubhc accorñodatloñ)-iË;r;; au tomaricat.,
ly enjoyed by the rest of us.
Ou-r actions flowed from a sense of moral outrase.
not of .class necessity. We fought to extend t, ãit eË

:

ll . r:glllyg

:
,
: :
'.

'.

oursetúes atreadf had. Thii'was

trrè

oi

rne Llvtf Ktghts movement and equally true of the
Vietnam movementr lt was always a fi!_a itJp¡¿'ãn¿
.,easily disproven lie-that the cad'rã of-ãr.it ,"r¡si*, .
segfins their own way out of military ,uiu¡ré.
¡tgJg
Ë.ach of the young men who risked prison-had
aÞundant resources by which legal exempt¡ons could
.havg been æcured. rÉe .tro¡i,
*usa
l-l1j ;.I.1il"l a necessary survivat r..rponj.. W. op.

Jir.r¡äí..

poseo the vietnam.war because we
bec¿use we would die fighting in it.

felt it wrong_not

Our actions often haã mas-sive blind spots. We

'' ,.:
.....''

fr,onted us on tv every night) an¿ i¿rniifv'wíth the
i'Jü;üiänis wr,o
demonstrated in ch¡cago, iá wasiinsion,äna ¡n a
thousand spots around-tÉ. .ornìrv,'r*i¿ norr"ã tf,.
olacKs tn their own slums and ghettoes because
those
of reatiry were nor iiluñrinated eactr nigtriãl
ïpg:!:
tetevtslon.

' Vietnamese. yer ofteir thi

t.,.'
I

dtil

We made
9gr way forward very slowly. Our educa.
patct.to.r largely by others_the Vietnamese,
Ir_*
Tas
tor example.
lt is a characteristic of the middle clasó

..

I

t'

l

that when firsr confronred by criminál ulüiv-¡or on
the part of the State (or any'of the agenciei the State
represents-corporations, church, etå\, itdãnies the
behavior is criminal. We could not at frrst really be_
lieve the evits with which we we* ãå"i-"t.a. lf
black youth was shot to death in tfre ghetto iurety"
the blame must rest w¡th the youth_[olice officeis
would not fire without reason. lf bombs killed soine
civilians in Vietnam thar was unfortJnãt"-Uui ttre
real problem rested wirh agents of disordei iiained in
Moscow. lf the unemployrient rate.is high, ii ¡, U._
: causg many people do not really want to work. That
murder shou.[d actually be plonned, that unãmployment might be policy ãeteimined by powerful ece
nomac torces, would be unthinkable.
When it became clear to us that in fact some police
did shoot withour cause, thar ror.'*ri, i.,ãã
basis,t' our response waj that somethins had iome
riomentar¡ly unhinged in the system_ñot that the
fystem itself needed to be changed. lf we were unItuqqy wirh events in Chile, Rrekisinger. if we naa
had bad luck with Presidents, elect a lüoman. lf local
cop.s were bruhl,_get a new chief of police. Because
each ot these notions has merit, they are hard to
argue.with.. One must, in fact, agree with ttemruen
tfiow¡ng they fail to touch the basic problem.

.

;;Iúr;

to wlN

raising groups, women'5 consciousness raising groups'
eav liberation workshops, human sensitivity sessions.
Ãlí vali¿. All having merit. And all essentially middle
class and, in profound ways, deflections from the strug'

T_h. last thing we want.to take up on our agenda
is
.,
the need to transform social and

economic insiitutions. We think first of cha-nging ttre etites iÅ cnarge
"meñ

of rhe apparatus. Firing evil

ana rejla"ing thõm

sle to overturn the basic structure'
Since I am attacking some of the ðurrent sacred '
ro*i ottl't. mouet.nf(it has become almqst an act
of courage to raise questions aböut women's and gay
liberatioñ movements), let me sêy I accept the merit
.bf these movements, I recognize they are dealing with
'real problems, and no reJolution would be authentic
that denied the issues these movemenJs are raising. To

with.good men or womln. We w¡ll ¿umþ LélIWe
witt impeach Nixon. We wiil uoyioäScirtTr-Âfrican
diamonds. We have an atmost ¡nrtlnitlü i'toir rrortion agalnst revolutìonary change. t iãm"mOår u"ry

"

peace, movóment ãame momå nàrilv
l,nI:l,ll1,r!:
srucK and certa¡n elements withdrew_such

as Róbert
Pincus and the World Without Wuierorpl;S:;;;ù;
ly at the point it was clear many
trãä'Ërgrn to

orîi

point ouf that the Civil Rights.movement in the '50's
and '60's or the Vietnamese lilieration struggle gave
little time to these isuses, or that that United Farm
Workers give little time to them now, is not an

move toward chaltengìng the systen wüiri
eunurut ¿
the war in Viernam, ánã not iímjiy';h;;;;;F;;;;å;"
wor. That momentary confusion anA ¿i"¡lion
*tlütr
took place in the early ,60's was mæke¿ lütr issues
such as anri-Communism,
nega tó oppáiä u¡olãnce,
gtc. (t9,, how coutd any of-rhe
us calt ioi ùõTiti¿ruru.l
from Vietnam when thât meanr a
and when such a withdrawal would mean a vi"tory

.answer at

Cóñ";íst;ñ;i

v iolen

t revolutionary

^^I,|;f:f,a

þy

forces? )

generally pointless efforr ro find any

'
posslþte middle ground in which the
war misht be
endect w¡thout revolutionary change. Varioris
radicals
from the '30's looked and sáw ttreî¡rect¡oïín which

the youth were.marching and insteid oirrggårjinË-"
ways to make the march easier, swifter, anð-morelertain, placed themselves in opposition to it. They were
otr by the drugs, the sex, the music. Oniy a'few,
?rrt
such as the late Sam Coleman, could find the politiéal
and psychological insight to relate their own ,lold
Lett" posit¡ons with the an_gry voices on the campus
and. keep ope¡ a dialogue. Generally the,movement
American.social i n s-ti tu tions deeply frightened
$1'1rr
peopte who ha9 thought of themselves ås
radiðals. As
events of the '50's and '60,s generated r.uotrtionãiyajt¡tlggl among younger pedple, so it drove many ih
the Old Lefr roward vðry conieriative

a statement.that these tbree movg

frontatiqnal response of the '60's. This, too, was a
response'shaped by the middle class nature of our

'

movement. lt was spasmodic, founded on certain il'
lusions, and when it failed it too swiftly gave way to
the more individual respqnses discussed above..We be'
gan with Teach-lns, because we honestly believed that
lf only people could be tåught what we knew-if only
the government itself could b-q ihformed of the facts
in äüi pori.rt¡on-foticv woùld b" changed. Su.rely
Kennedv and Rusk and Rostow would not deliberate'
ly murd'er people in Vietnam. lf onty peopte knew the
iacts! Surely workers would not build instruments of
death if they knew the facts. Surely'troops would
desert rather than kill innocent people. lf only people

foliticï.

B,lt the "movement,, itself was typicallv rn,*,, ,
9la¡s.i1 the way if finany .ng'gãã1ñäi;;;;;'i;
bat. we had begun by assuming the sysiem couid""r.
be
retormed. As it became clear the structure itself was
thesource of the problem, and ttrat chine¡nãi'he
leadership resolved nothing_that LB.l wai as"murderous as Goldwater, and J F K the creatór of the êreen
6erets-w€ s9ught either personal salvation from
the
cnaos and evil in which we seemed engulfed, or
we

.

sought "instant revolurion." Keep in ñ,i"ã

all-only

ments overlooked important pioblems w¡th which
they should have been concerned. ts{rt I would main'
tain these are secondary movements, not a substitute
for a serious thrust at the bas¡c structure of society.
One can salute the formation of communes and
food collectives and stil,l suggest these are not a sub'
st¡tute for revolution-ónly, at their best, an aspect of
a serious revolutionary movement. These all-cöm'
munes, collectives, consciousness raising religious
groupings, drug experiments-were forms of individu'
al response to the social crisis.
There was the other response, the organized con'

knew the facts. But there are facts and then there are
other facts. Workers, for example, were not able to
pick and choose their iobs. To refuse military con'
iracts meant the mortage would go unpaid. For
workers to make a morãl responie to the rather (to
them) abstract issues involving death in a distant
would have quite immediate and (t9 them)
"ouniry
devastating results in their own lives-loss of work.
For troopito desert meant p¡ison. For a blackyouth
. to refuse conscription meant a fêlon's record.wilh.far
t
áìr.r"n i i mpl icaiions on iu tu t" employmerit än¿'ËÒ*
sible success than such a record would mean for a''
middle class white youth.
This left us often with a certain contèmpt, a cer'
tain sense of elitism, and with a tendency to act as if
we had power rather than as if our task was how to
build a genuine base of power. Three examples:
(1) During the Chicago trial there was a mass
. student anti'war conference in Cleveland, in tþe
course of which one of the young men working on
the Chicago trial came and reported to us, and observed how uniust it was that the fate of our leaders,
eÍceptional 'men such as Dellinger and Hoffman and
Rubin, rested in the hands of a iury of "mere" ¡vhite
workers, of reactionary, racist,,rank and file American
citizens. What the young man was saying wùs that our
leaders ought not to be iudged by the very American
public for which we so often claimed to speak' I sus-

pect he was astonished when that-and other-iuries
baffled the government by refusing to bring in the
string of coñvictions on which Mitchell had counted.
(i) ngáin, during the '60's we had the "Assembly
of Unreplesented Pèoples" in Washington, which
produced the dramatic photograph of Staughton
Lynd and Dave Dellinger getting splashed with red
páint. The original title of that project was cute-and
iymbolic of where our collective heads were at. lt
was C.O.U.P.-Congress of Unrepreserited People. The
objections of some of us to the implications of the
titÍe "COUP" resulted in it being called an Assembly.
Now, if we had sVid we are not represented by Congress, and small as we may be, were in Washington to
ie4ind the American people that Congress does not

thii ii,,

very àature of our response to th; syst;m *iipr*unal, that we were driven by values, not necessity;
and it.
is.not so_surprising that
many sought.s.ap" in Lsìi.
lo
like my friend pet'èr Stafford, oire;f th;;;ãitirs or
the drug culture, who could íeriously teap'ovei tne fact
of rats in Harlem buildings and urge LSO'r, tfi, uni- --"
versal solvenr in which ali problemi woul¿ uinisñ.'ilt
is an ínreresting sociologicàt note tñuiit;,;;ind
cnangtng." drugs were not popular with ghètt-o youth,
who preferred the nirvana of smack to tÉe ris'kí of
seeing even.more of rheiruearity wiirr-r_sDi."iil,
no,
surprising that Rennie Davis enãed up a foltowár
of
that.youth fled inro gare fristrna,åntrur,
{",ql11
or became Children of God. Nor is it surprising that
so.fa.r as I know most of those involve¿ i'n ttlesi
nðw
religious group.s are middle class and nãt i¡,å'ð-1l-¡t¿rrn
01 workers. lt is not even surprising that the women
in the movement turned on t'he ,jn-a s"rãnOãiy
target.but one more easily at hand-rather than upon
tne
oasrc soc¡al structure. We had men's consciousness

i

¡
I

l

That clramatic .photo of Dave Delllnger, Staughton
Lynd and Bob Moses splashed w¡th palnt.

¡

wrN

ll

spea.k

for

us, that would have been legitimate.

tended with unconsc.ious elitism ìá u-r?rrä*. But we'
in fact speak for al
"orl¿
lmeric;:'i;;;ö;;i"orrr",
white racisrs, Uncle Tom
blacks, ,ãripí"ãå"t youth,
old peopte, an¿ ttre cuituiañv facrwar¿
l9311jon?ry
mtddte ctass_i,e., the majority of Ameriia).
The un-

nappy ïact was that Congress, corrupt as it
was,

re_

u,gliql,urv as ir was, reprelentód rnorã-p.oô1,
rhan
did. We were an Assembly ot some iníiJlrr"ntr¿ we
people. We were a very long *ay
from Uãirìi able to
as o w-hote'orcuèn ioi'uny
'::?!-fZ:!!,
malor segment of them.
{3) We burned our people out with illusions of
potenc.y we,did not possess. Each
,,ul_

i

immediately after the invasion of Cambodia limited
Ntxon's options. The inner councils of the government
trembled at our numbers. We might have bõen ãiffrr"
and often in error, we made corñil.ss ,irt"tär,
Urt

expected than had been possible. That Rennie,Davis
turned to a guru was somehow logical, part pf the mid'
dle class search for instant solutions and salfations, of
spasmodic involvement in struggle.
Let me contrast our actions, which used thb
rhetoric of revolution and thereby disillusioned our
peopfe, With the tactics of Ba'iard Rustin during the
CiVil Rights peribd. Rustin is now sitting l'infhe camp
of the enemy" and it,is risky to suggest we exâmine
the merits of what he did in the-t50's and earllr '60's'
But he acted with the advice and support.of A.J.

teast we. were ín motion and moving with a
foróe and"t

power.that curbed the power
of ttrõgovernmãnt.
Fo.r those of us who were
within äre movement to
examine olr misrakes is in oràei.
Foitf.,ärã *Ëä stood

offat

a safe disrance ano

¡uiiinä inJti iñiJtiä" ov---

se¡i¡s 9¡lv our errors trave lesi trrãn án hõnoiuLle
,.nr".
of rhe history through *t ¡"r, ïrrJ
i"iîä".¿.

l*!.t:

"åiu"

action was the

!.1vo.uld succeed simply uecauie ii ñaã io ,ur."r¿.
This is a rheme that ìan through ouiãitìáñi
an the
way from the submarine jirmping i" ñ;*
lãñ;on;"
the Maydays in Washingtôn. it w"us_oishoulã
been-obvious that the
çourageous assaults on the
Polaris subma rine coul d' o n
ù'n"i, oã
oo
en t isr 6 roade, prAtií,r pport
ry.o,sru.r,.ro
-.J 1rncidentally,
happened.) But people oïten felt
lyl'9h,
rna[ Dy thetr act¡ons, by their willingness to
take the

* iï,

liil

total risk of drowning ¡n tne cn¡ti.wa'iàir-Jfrr.*

coutd octuaily sr-ç,p tú Þ;t;iii progrurn
ano wnen they found outthe fish of death
were
rereased to patrol the seas there was a
feeline of
Again, the Maydays .gyra ñ"i pãiii'trv nuu.
,l1,ilTl:.
"ctosed down_the government.,,
ln fact.they didn,t
evdn slow rraffic. We.llrrls{ 30,000 iourigéous youth

L"lj:l-rl:t

apain_sr.the

:

f

might of Nixon',

góurrnr"ni8i-tt u'u"ri,

rnar rnts acilon would really work: lf you
don,t close
down rhe war, we wil ctoie'dówn'ir,Ë
ËõüuLirrnt.
lne war conilnued. The government fu-nctioned.
Many of our oèoote *"r.]ãÞiilrriã,iååî"är,
tr,.v
had been oveisotä. Rennie ó'avll,Ëiäiäu
äì.
the mosr charismaric or tne yôuih Ë;ã;;;:
"r
ä'n¿.¿

Tl! *.rtt march., each demonstrarion, in¿îf,ãnnal
convutston of the Maydays, as if thai
action would

to

end the war.
We acted because we had a certain
illusion oi
power. We came from.the same class
ai th-oiä wno ran
the machinery of dearh. We often weii
iä"t-È, ,ur.
coleges rhey had attended. We acted
on the assump.
tion that these men of power *;;;;""h;i;iulàitner
m.orally or because rhe weighr otori
¡ürn6"r,rv"üi¿
frigh.ten them. When we faiïed, or,l.un[i'iñinil.ïi_
ter rhe Maydays rhey disintegi"trã. fál
tf," ,ori p.rt
we sought to confront power"as it*à
rr.ä p"*er. our
demonstrarions were oigan izeà
;; ;; i;irecte¿
at.the convenrions of thã major "rou
purii.r,ìlì äi estab_
I ish i ng. som e pot i tical base
of'ou i ã;;.'W.eï
very differe¡t from rhe-Childieñ of Iriuuiv-flo
i"rched
rhe,wails of Jericho, thinkinjthæ årirort
lgr.nd
mustc would cause the walls of power
to tumble?
Let me make certain ttrat mv ãommeinüärän"r
wrenched out of conrexl'.This í, nót,in
ïüi"iu *iùt.n
to be detivered inro rhe händs of tf.,ã.nlmiå,
ãr tne
movement and used against us. lf I am critical
of what
wq d id-what. t, at on g
th oirrrir,'¿iä_iåilrüi *r¡o
ren nere should detractfrom the power we
did-possess.
I recenrty read Michael Harringtoñl iãriäi*åu¡re_
raphy and found he coutd disciss iñ¿;ãAränä"r"rly

;; ;-

îi

I
r.ì
i

'70's withour ever realizinsrh;i1i;
;o*er"äiiäLungu .
was in our hands-nor ¡n tñe rrinãi oi-tüãiöño
,tooa
above.rhe batte. I have suggesié¿ in, liä¡i,
åiir,ut
yl.9¡dt bur.wirh¡n those ti"rñits
lid
ø

*.

;;;;lyî"i

rnan our detractors. The demonstration
in Washington

.

yolvement in Vietnam. We could not sav,e Allelde;'bnly protest against his murder. And now, at the poirf
of the deepest economic crisis since thè Great Depression, the movement of the '60's is shattered, finding
refqge in communes, in consciousness raising.groups,
and in odd little Marxist sects that sþeak and think

Múste in a limited way for
sold each action as the final action. He knew that
there was then no hope. of revoluticjn. The objective
Was simple: Ío create sufficient political force to compel federal intervention on behalf of the Southern
blacks. All the way flom the Madison Square Garden
rallies, to the Washington Prayer Pilgrimages, to the
final massive'March on Washington in'1963, Rustin's
target was creating a political force that would compel
federal protection for blacks. He was perfectly aware
such action was hopelessly limited-that it would not
provide iobs, would not deal w¡th the economic basís
of racism, etc. But w¡th¡n the infintely repressive context of American rac¡sm, Rustin set specific targets
that coúld be achieved, mobilized his forces for a long
march, ànd in alliance with Martin Luther King gaine.l
those limited targets. The point Rusin understoodand that in a sense we diil not understand-was that

3äi''itïxiiJff li;i[iî"
,,!ïätii.i,î,iiäi'fi
losr, wirh vicrpry far disranr. Ea;h e;cd;;;
*u, o"r,

oT a process,

not some puritanical struggle betwéen
good and evit in which the good lãür¿'ünlä,irr."¿
for att time. Why did we, cõmmineU tå nä,iuiål"nrr,
not better understand how comptei
,"ur,
how,distant our goaf, ano how many battles
we must
lose before we could hope ro w¡n

ihu'iiiffi
áirì;rui;i'-

,

With¡n the context that we operated,
the Maydays
were.an ex rraordi nary victory. Thii
ñL, g
people felt it was a defear suggesrs

;;;;i'

ttrat mãiå Éi¿ ur.n.

revolution was not immediately possible, only reform

â

,

'
solution, üas port of the problem. (Not the "main
'enemy"-simply part of the problem.) We set out in
1955 to reform our structures. We looked to Ralph

Photo bY Nell Pablo.
limited gains. He never

My crucial poìnt is not at all to suggest the
Maydays
were wrong. Only to suggest that õur trdops
would
no[.nave bqen so demoralized if they had been
trained
in the knowledgc thar thís wis
n"rrr_
";iír;;;iwiirroui'any
fhey enrered combar
^åny iri.Tl!*l?r:,td
tuston that v¡ctory would be ours in that hour.
The

\

Today even Rustin's old allies, such as Michael
l-Jarrington, haye deserted him, and I think h¡s
present positio¡ is one where he ended up trapped by
the structure rather than able to effect further change.
But for that period he met his targets and reached
them. We reached our targetalmost by aðcidentpreaching revolutionary chanþe, we managed only to
reform American policy enouþh to end the direct.in-

and write with such remarkable dogma that one knowó
they exist outside of social reality.
But I believe we are, hopefully, only pausing before
''
the next step. And that step is, very broadly define{,
revolutíon. I do not mean the planting of bombs, the
seizure of tv stations, sudden insurrection. But I do
m.ean fundamental change in the social and econqmic
insiitutions that make uþ America. I db not think we
could have taken on this task unless we had first been
bro(en. We would not have been vüilling to contemplate a seríous struggle for socialism until we had tried
the path of reform. We would not have learned of our
failings and our errors if we had not lived through
them.
When the movement began, so long ago now, when
Rosa Parlssat in.the "wrong" seçtion of a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama and started the chain of
events from which a new Left emerged, our responses
were typical of our class. We wero born as a movement into a time when there was no longer a viable
Left from which we could learn, no militant labor
movement with which we could ally. ourselves. Our
errors are natural. They were inevitable. f,reedom'
rides. Teach-ins. Confrontations. Mass rallies, Draft
card burnings. Sit-downs, sit-ins, be-ins. Yellow sub'
marines and terror bombing.
But I believe that from all that has gone down we
have learned. We learned it is not enough to give
blacks the right to bat in the best restaurant in Atlanta if they don't have the money to pay for the
meal. We learned racísm is at least as deeply rooted in
the North as in the Soûth. We learned that.the Peace
Corps is nôt enough. That liberalism, far from being-a

ñ;"
ii_

I

be

changed.

I

timare" action. Each action *u, ioi¿-on'tü! basis
that

,

within a structure that ultimately needed to

Nader and'Eugene McCarthy and Bobby-.Kennedyand Eldridge Cleaver, B .

Twenty years have past and if the-agony of those twd
decades teaches us anything it should not be to retreat, but to regroup for much'more fundamental
change than we had thougþt necessary.
It is with that question I want to deal in the second

párt bf this article. To take up the question of whether
a serious American Left can be creatgd, and, if só,
what steps must now be taken and what role those of
us who are pacifists have in helping to create a rnd've
ment that would be able to do more than protest
against Rockefeller-that úould be able to confiscate

the wealth and power of his class 4nd lay the foundations for a'new America.

.

TO BE CONTINUED IN SEPTEMBER

12 WtN

wtN

i

13

,

.-,j . ;"'
To the extent that a discussion of hard ti,¡.e!:focuses
narrowly.on the situation of peoplç in thiiiountry,
an essential aspect of what has_been ocðurring is loít.
It means that rhe full effects of hard times_iñcluJin?
the interrrefation between economic conditiãns and
world conflict-are not recognized.

D
lnreRnRTþnRL

pressures from opposition groups

Developed.nations, expressing concern aböUt the
poverty of'third world countries, have, over thq years,
discussed how more aid might be given to them-in'
cluding aid aimed at building up their productivity.
But where increased productivity has centered on ex'
panded output of raw materials-and it usually hasthere has not been an increase in returns to the peoples of those countries.
, ,.
lncreasingly the developing countries are making
the point that if they were receiving somethitlg near

It's appar_ent Americans have little recognition
how
much the US economy. is part of an interdËóen¿ent
world.economy-. O nce in a wh il e ._ometh i n g'håppens
to.makethe point, like the effect in"rrasur'¡nih"
price of imporred oil is h.aving on the operaïion
of the
economy. But that merely hiñts at tt¡e ä¡meîi¡ons
of
the situatíon.

.

to an appropriate amount for what they contribute to
world industrial production, and if thQy did ¡ot have
to pay such high'prices for what they ñeeded to buy
from the industrialized parts of the world, they could
do much more for themselves, and would not need aid.
¿'Trade-Not-Aid" is widely used.
The slogan
Theänalogy is made to the situatibn of farmers in
this country whose economic condition was quite
bad until the US government stepped in to assure that
the prices they received for their contribution to pro-

At-the same tìme that recession has occurred here

there have been hard times all over the *orlã.
õoiuinthird world countries,have been particularly nar¿ïii;
and.it has taken especially painfui forms,iuån as tne
ramtnes tn central Africa-and Bangladesh. Developing
count.ries have been in a frustrating position b."rrr"
many aredependent on their relati-ons with the
..leveloped nationi ând thus
have little strensîh in

nègotiation. lt is that kind of economic frusätion
that causes-is causing-conflict. Beçaus" oiii,, int"r.
retattons between economies in today's world. these
conflicts constantly threaren to escalâte. OfiËå ra¿¡cal
requ i red to. solve economic problems,
:oJ.ul9n:.are.
but it ¡s the frustration that causes changô to take innecessarily violent forms

At the United Nations these days-and in a number
oflJN speciatized agencies (especiáily iË üN í;;;ï;-

t

rl

BYDovld BonEtt

,?l

i

at D*evelopment Organization and the UN Conference
on lrade and Development), and UN sponsored con_
ferences-the directic¡n of discussion on economic and
"-'
social issues has taken a revolutionarv trin.
!
Analysis of the antecedents of the current situåtion can be paraphrased: The vast maiority ofiurient
member nations were formerly coloníes. Íhev w.re
treated primarily as supplíers of low-cost raw materiaJs,
_and as markets for surpluses of a number of relatively deleloped nations. With their independence
since World War ll, they have achieved uütonornow
governments, but their economies frequently con-

tinued to serve the same functionsfor'dèveláped
nations that they had before-sometimes shífiing
dependence from one developed nation to anothîer.
The re-sult is that they continue to receíve a low portion of the income that results from their contributions to world production, both for the raw materials
obtained from them and for the servíces of the
workers from these countries.

The chronic poverty in third world countries is
attribute-d.primarily to this situation, and the governments of these nations (despite earlier concerñabout '
antagonizing the develôped nations on which there is
heavy. dependence) are increasingly making the point.
I nat rs ln part because increasingly they are feeling

Dwid Borett currently teoches economics at SUNy
New Paltz. He has hod IJN ossignments in New york
and overseqs,
Cartoon f¡om NACLA.

countnes, both in productivity and in purchasing
power, would be of value to the world economy.
There has been an urgent effort to do something
.through the UN about the situ4tion. The oil countriês,
and tñeir'campaign for oil pricôs at levels much greater than they have received over past years, are inte- l'
grated into that effort. Other developing countries see
them as making the first breakthrough in a cãmpaign
focused on higher prices for raw materials, a just price
determined'by the relative þrices of ¡n6tls1¡¡¿ll goods.
The prioes of manufactured goods determines both
the needs for foreign exchange of raw material, and
the capacity of manufacturers to pay for raw mater-

within their own

cou ntries.

i

I

I
I

I

duction was commensurate with the prices they had
to pay for the goods they needed to buy. This required government controlled parity-pricing. Whereas
before US farmers had constantly to be helped, they
are now able to tâke care of themselves well. lndeed
théy are in a position to add to demand for manufactured goods, and thus to strengthen the industrial
part of th-e economy. Further, US farmers have developed a capacity to produce, which is an invaluable
asset to the US, and indee{, the world economy-due
particularly to their high incoriìè, and thus, their high
investment levels. ln the past, US agricultural prices
were among the few prices determined by market
forces, whereas industrial goods were priced by
oligopolistic groups in a position to m&nage prices.ln
effect, ¿gricultural prices were now also taken out of
the market category, whenever they dropped below
specified levels-and thus monopolistic factors were
introduced in that sector as well. There are serious
shortcomings to tlìis solution: many farmers who
have not been in need of government supp.ort have
profited from this legisaltion. And in the case of
labor, wage determination was also taken out of the
market place, and monopolistic forces were introduced as a union bargained for all workers in an industry. The wage situation improved greatly. However profiteering has gone on. And the worker tends
to look at his narrow interests, not that of needy
deserving people in general-neither his unemployed,
of non-union colleagues, nor the workeis of other na'
tions.

ln effect, the developed pa¡ts of the world have
been able to achieve high levels of growth and prosperity by keeping down to low levels the share that '
those in develcping countries received. lt comes as a
surprise to most Americans to discover the cxtent to
which the success of our economy is a result of the
low compensation we have given to our partners in
the production process-and it is important to underl
stand the point well, in order to define the dimensions
of the problem and the kinds of remedies that are
needed. Stlcngthening the economies of developing

ials.

'i:

4

:.

A maior element in the situation is the part played
by multinational corporations. Discussions of maior .
economic issues iñ the US have tended to focus on
thg'econorhic (and political) power centered in the
great conglomerates,. and their disregard for the efiects theii policies were having on inflation (their
tendency to pass on, ãnd exaggerate increases Tn
costs-retaining and expanding large profits), the co
ex¡stence of high profits and unemployment, their
contribution to pollution and to waòting natural re
sources, and their effects on distribution of income¡
The term "multinational" suggests the dirnensions
of the problems that should Ue ãA¿e¿ to the above list.
These firms shift the locus of their production to
where they can obtain cheaper labor, good tax benefits, etc. Another, basis for attack on the multinationals has been their involvement in production and sale
of military equipment to developing countries, This
has political overtones, linked to accusations that developed countries have assured that those in power in
such countries were those friendly to them.
Critics of the role of developed countries in third
world nations over recent years assert that the whole
population of developed nations share in the benefits
from exploitation ofthe pooîer developing nations.
Thus workers in US firms will argue for protection'of
their firms from thé competition of foreign firms using
cheap labor, and also will try to protect their firms in
an effort to augment the incomes of the deyeloped nation at the cost of the third world.
The problems of unemployment in this countrythe special problems of blacks, women, youth, Puerto
Ricans and Chic4nos, etc., in the labor market, the
problems of infladon, polf qtion, waste, etc.-are seen
as problems of a country which'i3 oarning a higþly r
disproportionate part of the income resulting from
world production, but which has not even worked
through the problem of fair distribution within the
nation. The problems of food shortage, of population
growth, of widespread deep chronic poverty, are
primarily the problems of the developing nation.
Workers in both developed and third-world nations
have had certain parallels in their attacks on multi4ational corporations. ln both instances they see themselves regarded as disposable, as an input cost that
should be kept at a minimum f gure. The multinational itself feels the pressure to keep costs down and to
avoid employment of people when production does
not justify it. Some in the labor movement believe
that they cannot fornrulate adequate union policíes. if

14 WtN

wi¡¡ rs

they do not take into consideration the situation of
workers in poorer countries who both compete with
them, and share their.problems.
The multinationals have pointed out the role they
play in introducing industry into countries and regions
in which industrialization was lagging and that only
'
such resources as the multinationals pr:ovide were
capable of getting things underway. The result is that
opportunities open for the impoverished in those
countries-opportunit¡es which might not otherw¡se
appear for many years ahead. ln response, the critic
of the multinat¡onals asks whpther the well.being of
people of these countries cannot be better serveä.
Should they not have more say in what is occurring
to and for them? ls the multinational truly the molt
effective way of achieving what they are accompliih.
ing? Don't thçy introduce negative features that could

I
r,
I

WHO WERE THE LUDDITES

An Open.Letter to Sam Loveioy

I

,

a

i
l
t,

i,
Ir

i
l;

ir'

successfully be avoided?
lf something is done to deal with the problems of
the developing nations;¡t can mean more lnflationary
pressures in the US and elsewhere in the developed
world, it may mean more danger of rece¡sipn aj firms
respond to higher input prices, some raising the prices
of their products (thus reducing consurnpti-on), others
moving out of .the US to less developed nat¡ons. Yet
the target can and should be channelling production
toward meeting both the immediate food needs and
the developmental needs of developlng countriesand thìs can have a highl.y stimulating effect on the
economies of developed land, if efiectively managed.
A switch from military to economlc spending can be
an enormous boost to the development of developing
countries and a great reduction of waste; the,point is
often made but intense effort is needed to accomplish

ir
I

I

l,

I
L

steps ¡n that direction.
There is one major addendum reguired to the above:
if the situation of developing nations changes and
they receive more for their products and pãy less for
what they must buy, that does not automatically re.

ê

ìú

bound to the benefit ofthe ordinary man in those
countries. We are familiar with the widespread existence of leadèrs who channel new benefts to the few,
including themselves. A significant step has Ueén tateh
if the foreign exploiters leãve the sce¡e, and attention
can focus on domestic figures in leadership positions.
A complication ís that those who are domeitic ex.
ploiters may feel the need to take advantage of the
fact that they control natural resources próduction¡
labor, and perhaps some initial processing industries.
This is merely to suggest how important it is to keep
the full dimension of the problem in mind.
The problem can be put th¡s way: There is worldwide sharíng of these hard times, with heavier impact

t

r

lwas glad to hear your talk some time ago at Dartmouth College where I teach, and I agreed with much
of what you had to say. Of course I had already
heard about your feat ín bringing down the weather
tower that was put up to help plan for an atomic
power station in your town. And I knew that you
turned yourself in to the police afterwards, that you
-'
were tried on felony charges for destruction of
property and that you were acquitted on a tqçhnicality. You must have done a finê educational job on
the judge, the jury and the communi,try. Congptulations

,

Sam:

Dear

.

.

I

?

!

But there was one thing you said which saddened
'
me. (l wanted to tell you about it at the time, but it
was pretty hard to get in a word.) That was when
someone asked if you thought the right approach
was to get rid of technology itself; to live without usìng any eleðtric power at all, for example. Your answer, as best I can remember, was about like this:
"Hell no-l'm no Lucldite!"
Sam, I th¡nk that a Luddite is just what you really
vre. That is not meant to be a put-down; on the con¡
trary. The Luddites have gotten a bad press over the
years (mostly written by their enemies), but the fact
is they were far from being a.bunch of fools blindly
opposed to progress. Thefwere workers who fought
.¡ against 0 certain kind of technology, one that wal be. ing introduced in an antihtrman w3y. They went so
' .."
far as to destroy property which wäs contributing to
.:
. ' ' the oppression of their class. Nöt a few of them were
- executed for this crime. They. may have been misgtuided in theiT strategy, and they qertainly made
. , .mañy mistakes. But there is no valid reason for'prer
.l :ent-day radicals to be so quick to denytany sympathy

' '. , for them. knows for sure
, ¡No,one
iust who the fabulous "Ned
' Ludd" really was, but the name "Luddite" goes back
'. J úo the period from 81 1 to about 816 in the English
1

:

'

'

1

Midlands. This was a very hard time for workers in

to foreign wars), wages were low when work could be
fou¡d at all, and food prices were sky high. The suffering of working-class families was apparent even to
the authorities of the day. Moreover, almost any form
of Workers' organization or trade union activity was illegal and the penalties were severe. On top of all this
came the elimination of many jobs when unscrupulous
manufacturers tried to cut costs even further by introducing new "labor-saving" machiner.y into their
mills.
Some sort of rebellion was inevitable-and was

blocked by the government, the movement had to be
an illegal one. Breaking up some of the new machinery was one of the forms the rebellion took; it is only
this feature which is commonly remembered.
What did the'Luddites want? Some historians thirk
their goals were limited to irnrnediate relief: nrore
work, decent pay and lower prices. Their rebellion, in

16 WIN

other words,,Wa5'a form of trade-union activity; it
was "cólleçtive bargaining by riot." But others believe that àt least some.of the Luddites had really
revolu(i¡rnary aims. (Many contemporaries on the establishriibnt'side believed in a revolutionary con-

spiracy-even going so far as to ölaim it was all financed with French gold!) ln any case, without question the Luddite movement had the support of nearly
all wprking-class people in the affeoted areas. There
are many stories showing how magistrates and army
officers sent to suppress the outbreaks were regarded
as enemies-in mu.ch the same way as Americans in
South Vietnam. One notorious owner (no,t a little
one) was often driven into frenzies by imall children
who would run after his horse calling "l'm General

I

Ludd! I'm General Ludd!"

. There were very many troops stationed through;'
out the countryside during this period; the soldiers;
had to be frequently changed and their offcers constantly on the alert in order to prevent them from becoming sympathetic to the people's cause. One particular case stands out. On April 1 'l , 1812, Luddites
attempted a major attack on a mill at Rawfolds in
Yorkshire, seeking to desfroy some of its.new
machinery and to intimidate other manufacturers.
The attack failed, for the mill was strongly defénded
by its owner and a body of soldiers; two of the attackers_yere killed and others wounded. During the
battle, one of the defenders was seen to be not firing
his weapon. The owner, Cartwright, asked him whyl
"Because I míght hit some of my brgthers!" was the
proud answer
The price of such defiance was not cheap. The
soldier who refused to shoot his class brothers was
sentenced by court martial to 300 lashes; that is, to
be flogged tqdeath. (ln fact, the sentence was not
carried out to its finish, for the sympathy of the
populace and a plea for clemency by Cartwright himself combined to save his life.) Surely that nameless
private has a claim on our respect and admiration for
his example of decency and courage; he too was a

Luddite.
ln 1812, Parliament acted decisívely to solve the
problem: a Bill was passed providing the death penalty for machine-breaking. One of the few to oppose
this exemplary measure was the poet Lord Byron. His
speech to the House of Lords against the Bill makps
good reading today.
Well, Sam, there is a lot more that could be said,
bu,t I'm sure you see my point. The Luddites ivere
defeated, bottr by a bloody repression and by improved post-war conditions for the textile trade which
relieved the general sufferingand desperation. Whether
they achieved anything cohcrete is debatable. Resisting the inhumane use of teçhnology was an important
feature of their movement, but it was not its goal. flnd
of course the introduction'of the new machinãry was
not stopped; it war hardly even delayed for long.
And yet there ís a lot we can leatn from them. I
think it is clear that they have their.plaee-and un, i '
honorable one-in our revolutionary heritage. When
you destroyed that tower, you werenit opposing
"þrogréss" or "science" as such-you were acting
against the misuse of science for short-term advãnhge,
counter to the real needs of most people. That's jusl
what the Luddites were doing.
Your kinship to the original Luddites is for real,
whether you recognize it or not, I think if you take
the time to get better acquainted with your brothers,
you may find that the relationship is one of which
you can be proud.
With best wishes,

)ohn Lamperti
PS.

lf you do want to know more,

a good place to

look is in E.P. Thompsonls monumental book The
,l968).
Moking
(pelican,

of the Engl¡sh ltlorkìng

C/øss

wtN l7

c
h

,oAN LTTTLE
TRIAL RESUMES

Sff

The tr.ial of.Joan Ljttle resumed
todav
wtth the acceþtance of what muy oroí"
. to-be key prosecution
evidence óon_
tained. in wrirings ana marginai nãils
made_by Miss Little while in rhe Beaulort County.iail before the slaying of

the.nighr jailer, Clarence T. Aliis;od.
Later, the prosecution laid tñe
groundwork for presentation of evidence by the state crime laboratorv
technicians about the sites of sáb '
wounds in the chest of Mr. AllieÒod
and corresponding bloodsta¡ni õn n¡,
outer shirt and undershirL
. Both matters are considered impor-

A

llil

tr

rhe prosecurion, rhe writingi
because they are believed to indicaie
lfrut Y.t Litrle expected ro be our of
me Jatt soon and the laboratory evid.ence because ít may help to dimon-

strate. the positìon of Mr.'Alligood,s
ctothing when he was stabbed:

s

prosecution will argue that Ms.
. ..Thç
Lrtile tured the 62-year_old jailer into

fr,ffr,r,f"

vernon Jordan Jr., a member

orzt-

exrtut"

amnesty."

nor
onlyto the Society, but significant in
rharhisnew_posi.,-]"tdll..Iptained
iiöririgrttingonerineof division in
tron on this issue is "rhe resurr
irrr.
experience on rhe presid.ni¡"r- -'
oi*t,o ir-r,
furure.
clemency board. an ex.perience
immediate point of contehtion
brought home ro
tr,, rll¡
*"r;¡,ãä-b;î_ñ!-ä;'lìeide,
ness of the treatment accor¿e¿
p.esånuy Vice president of the
9ifferent categories or p"opt" ca-ulni- [ryãñ.n', coalítion for rhe Third
rn the snares of our svstem
of r"rrrrsr
miräaiv cenrury, *no poìntää ori ti,ut

orirï
"'' Àriliä;sï;i;i;""rlü;i''rhu
b;ì;;;ö;irhe
that
ïtr
,niäirio'ine

r.

/
He concluded: "presidenr Ford,
who was compassionate enough
tJ
pardon Richard N¡xon..shouiå'årrã
u.
enough'ro
justice."

i'üåän or the speakers rt,or"n'fi'it
"il
öåI,¡ãy to addl.esi ih, ir,'r*'pr.nurv."
ruriiån, were white, mare, Amerrcans,

paraon-tr,ãie

.::J?3::¡on.lq
wno were r¡ght

about
waranã-those whose service for.th.eir
"n.euir
has resulted in rhe unfair,rifer;;;''

.oi'tri
'

ãnã'ihrr" were onty a relarivelysmalt
pffi rtion
änääinor¡tv

"¡;;;; among the paner
;r;üpt represented
ti'r"rã"". caucusing went on that day

aiscrrir!ã.;i fiäg
in

-men

.. WIN correspondent Nick DiSpoldo.
drsturbed by the unscientific references
--to.the sperm

gåïilr:n.

rir,"¿uËãï;h; få'i;iing

qr9u1d to loon Lìttle's case, Her trial
ß b.eing.conducted in Roleigh, orrty iO

yjl.gs_from,Du

ol

(om, ond tt'is'o,ii¡iri

¡ntense local controversy.

Dr. Peny, Cracker ExtiaordinoÌre.

rgluctontly conflrmed thot sperm in
the anterior urethro ¡ùeons ihat Att¡good hod on orgasm in that cell,

"But,"

he odded¡ ,,yoiu know, øh oot

mcit own theory. Ah think he lieen'

fuckin'thot

forat leost a
stabbed him,',

nìggoh gal

tew nìghts afore she
I pressed Perry os to whot mokes
him. thinþ that but he shrugged, ,,lest
moh own theory,"
_News Desk

li'i#i{ifil¡fr;tiiffi

t¡llN 17l24l75l carríed

a brief in

notified th.e Fund that the rulíng ,,has
t¡een recalled by the national ofiçe for

further consideration. " That means
Mai Hospirat
It'1!9tt'
Rllief Fund

Emergcniy

remains øx dedüitibíe.
The original IRS ruling had been de

discriminatorr.,t-¡i, p".k

,

SOSTRE SUES THE STATE
Political prisoner, Martin Sostre, was
recently transferred to the fedeial de-

tention cender in New York City since
the federäl courrs considered hii life
to be endangered by the officials in
the New York state prison system.
Sostre is suing parts'òf the siate prison
system for reilress ánd release on the
basis of their past trearmenr

"t

16 WIN

Ifr.r"

.!r'lnç,i;nixj[";,¿"¡::'

iîîfi".o

many according to the values and
of the few. The second vision.
one which I believe was reflæteð6y
the majoríty of those attending ihe'
Assembly, sees the future as openended, democratic, pluralistic, creattve-not necessarily unplanned or unstructured, but flexibly planned with
full participation by peoples reoresenting a variety of national. rabial.
and sexual values. This vision doesînd
its place in the Society, esÞeciallv =
through the activities of its more than
20 local chapters in cities in tt¡is cãuntry and abroad, yet when it came time
qo piepare the Assembly, it was the
biases

CHANGES-stating thar IRS had with(lrawn tax exemption from Bach
Mai
Hospital Emergency Rglief Fund. On
luly 21, rhe Bosroñ office of IRS

nounced.as

a"y.

Ford.boàrd's recent.delib-.
views of the futurè. The
-f im peck firsr_rhe way the nrirruiv'*r,
ranged_holds the future tó be in"rcon_
trol of those wh.o control the present;
the furure is to be pre-packagid, pie,
structured, and presented for the

ATTN. BACH MAI
CONTRIBUTORS

first viewpoinr which piédominateá.
The Society stresses that it is itself '

ñ3Hlb'È8f,il,To%,,,"
The. World Future Society, ,,An
Asso

crarlon f9r the Study of Alternative
¡uturesr" held its Second General
Asembly from June 2-5 in Washington, DC.9iven rhe rheme ,,fne ñéït
twenty-Five years: Crisis and Opfort-unit¡" the Assembly attracted over
2000 of its 16,000 mômbers ro rhe
Washington Hilton. The Assemblv was
carefully structured in advance acc.or¡l-

'The militant labor movement and
the left and left Peronist guerrilla

;;;;ñ.'ïË;;lure

sexual assault.

called Durham Coun'ty Medicai
Examiner Russell periy for an inter_
vtew with. the hope of getting an
ex_
perr oplnion about Alligood,s
orgasm.
urspoldo reports:
l.tool th9 autopsy report with me
anct gra.duolly steered the conversation

- -_ vi$tor to Brazil where a right-wing
FROM GOV'T, BUT HER RIG HT- military junta has been in þower s'ínce
WING FOLLOWERS REMAIN
1964.

ffi'Ä;;;;ù'r,ffi"î'äîffiier

women and
angered by
punishmenr ora bad
iñ-ir"i"""i, ;i;-d'ñ;-r;ïi;;ilå;'r,""
. - Jordan included this state-ment
wo.mefl were praced on ã pËnury ,r*
hrs kevnote speech to,the 65th
innuar rioir

thighi,

PERON DROPS LOPEZ REGA

ffiirir",iåi"rl"Jå"?i:i,:,..triïïïåli'

Ford's cremencv b'oard, oi juv
within
as a consequence of his firsthand
a aay ãi id;p;q"¡n; r"i"i'ir,, pressure
perience on thar uoar¿-isiüeã
u
ãrîoru dissatisfied with both its
ment saying: ',t cail for completq-¡m_ p;o;ur;;ã
or
mediate, universar un¿ unro'iái*inår'
irrü¿itrititnriiiå,i"ir'¡äpäîranr

the cell and killed him ín an'escape
at_
tempt. She contends that she kilied
him in self-defense in the course ofa

on Alligood,s

q

ñ?fig$$

,r

."
ii:ü?,:î: ijifl#:åffi:ï:,ff,

neutral 3n.d non-partisan regarding

futuristic issues, but it musibe señsitive tô the fact that the way it is

structured may alone.proclaim a
political stance in favor of,,safe,,
futures. ln short, it has now become
the "crisis and opportunity" of the
World Future Society to vísibly
demonstrate in the manner ¡n which
it conducts its business that it is truiv
committed to the díssemination of iiformation about alternative fytures.
-Dennis Livingston

.

.1

mgvements, have opposed Lopez Riga

.

for some time. But even the army
recently counseled Peron that her

Argentina's. President' l sabel Peron gave
in to enormous pressurè'July 11 from
organized labor, left-wing guerillas and
the army and dropped her top advisor,
Jose Lopez Rega, from her new
cabinet.
But the removal of Lopez Reja; an

extreme right-winger who served as
Social Welfare Minister and as Peron's
private secretary, appears to be nir
more than a symbolic gesture to apit
pease the
"
The new 8-man cabinet is dominated
by politicians close to Lopez Rega and
is expected'to follow his same rightwing policies, including,the economic
austeríty measures that sparked.the
current crisis in Argentina and forced
'the entire cabinet to resign on Sunday,
July 6.
These austerity measures, which
Rodrigo called a "shock treatment"
for the Argentine economy, have been
,denounced by the noramlly progovernment General Labor Confederation (CGT). Conservative union oficials
had their hands full throughout J une

visor was too controversial a figure to
safely keep on in a high government

post.

BOMBS IS DROPPED

000 in fiont of the presidential paíace
in Buenos Aíres on lune 27.
A general strike which paralyzed ,
the country was organized a week and '
a half later to dernand that Peron per.

mit negotiated wage increases which
she had previously said she would not
respect. Peron gave in to the strikers'
demands and agreed to the wage hikes,
but her decision to kêep the same
Minister. of the Economy is likely to
anger Militant workers once again.
Lopez Riga, who said he was step:
ping down as a "patriotic gesture to

help pacify the perturbed,spirits,"

has

been Peron's closcst advísof throughout her first year in offce, ànd has
wielded great power in the government.
Recent Argentine newSpaper reports,
and charges by legislators, have linked

him to a right-wing terrorist group
called the Argenti ne Anti-Communist

Alliance (AAA) which has assassinated
over 200 people in the last year.
The AAA has denounced those it
threatens with death as "marxists and
iudaizers.'r The press close'to Lopez
Riga has flaunted slightly altered
swastikas, and thq government television station has iun a series of Nazi
war,films. Lopez Riga is also a frequent

'

from the tBl.
Vernon ßellecourt announced that
AIM is declaring a 30-day amnesty for

lndian people working for the FBl.
-LNS 'lFor all who Öome back to their"

A PLAN TO MAKE
ELECTRICITY WITH H.

oppositíon.

trying t9 suppress wildcat strikes
against the new policies. PrBssured,by
. their militant rank and file. the GGT
finallv called a demonstration o150,-

ad-

:

graduating class of the lnter-Mountain
lndian School at Brigham City, Utah
are approached regularly, he said. He
also stated that FBI informants are
sometimes paid through BIA progràn¡s,
so that money doesn't appear to comè

T hë Federal Government has given
up a plan to creatq electricity by
exploding hydrogen bombs in abandoned salt mines in Mississippi,
Louisiana, Texas and the Gulf of
Mexico because the program wciuld
be too expensive, accordlng to representative Frederick W. Richmbnd.
The Brooklyn Democrat, who announced the plans by the Energy
Research and Devleopment Admlnistration last April 17, said that the
agençy had informed him by letter of
its intention to drop the plan.
He said that Maj. Ernest Grave.s,
director' of military application for
the agency, said "Due to funding
limitations, IERDAI has no plans ar
this time to continue its study of the
Pacer Fusion Energy Concept."
-WlN Nukes Bureau

'

AIM FBI

INFORM ER SURFACES

The identity of an FBI informer in the.

American.lndian Movement (AlM)
was revealed in mid-July. Bernie Morning Gun, recruited as an FBI informer
in '1973, spoke at a conference of In-

dian youth held at Caroll College in
Montana about his work for the FBI
añd warned lndian youth about FBI
methods of recruitment,
When hç was first recruited, he was
asked to identify lndians who had
provided support for the Trail of
Broken Treaties Caravan in the fall of .
1972.This spring he was told to go to
Sioux Falls and infiltrate the defense
committee of a particular case. He was
told to gather information on the
committee's strategy. and fu nding
sources, and to infiltrate natíonal AIM
to find out about European travel,
Dennis Banks and Ve,rnon Bellecourt's
sources of funds in Europe, and
whether AIM was getting guns in
Europe. He was also told, he said, to
provoke vitrlence when possible to dis.

credit AlM.
Morning fJun spoke of FBI recruitment proceciures for informants. The
top ten and other members of the

brothers and sisters and tell AlVl tne
cJetails of wha! they did and how they,
were recruited there is amnesty for

them.'i
"There will be no amnesty for those
who partiçipated in assassination attempts, shoótings and other physical
harms to lndian people," he said.

-LNS
CONGRESS APPROVES
BU ILDUP IN.

INDIANbCEAN

A five-year debaie in Congress ap,parently ended July 29 with a Senate
vote rejecting a resolution by Senate
majority leader Mike Mansfield that
would have blocked funds for expansion of US naval facilities on Diego
Garcia, the first US military base in the
lndian Ocean. The Navy is now free to
proceed with construction of port
facilities to handle an aircraft carrier
task force and nuclear submarínes, and
a 12,000-foot runway that could
handle B-52s.
The Pentagon contends that lhe .
Diego Garcia expansion is necdiiary to
maintain a military balance in the
lndian Ocean with the Soviet Union

:

,'
ti
Senate Armed Services Committee
chairman f ohn Stennis termed the base !
an t'absolute necessity," and the New .i¡ i
Yorþ Times said it was "worth the rela- 'i,'¡i
'r
tively modest expenditure."
Critics maint¿in, however, that the
$30 million in planned construction on
the island is only'the top of a $10 billion Pentagon iceberg Which will be
!
requested to build a permanent lñdian i
Ocean fleet. Thei, also warn that a US.
build-up in the highly volatile and unj
stable lndian Ocean region could lead '", '
to Vietnam-type interventions. Th

is

was given credence by the Pentagon itself, which told Congress last year that
the US has vital interests in oil and
other raw materials in that area, adding
that the US role would be "just like
the policeman oh'the beat who deters

.

crime just by being there." The "crimes"
to be deterred apparently include unfriendly changes of government in any
of th.e African, Middle Eastern, South
or Souttieast Asian nations bordering
on the lndian Ocean. -lnternews

WIN 19

_'

marks not only the story of the Arab intellectual Fouzi eþAsmar,
but also of the ill-treated Palestinian Arab community in lsShortly rael. Despite the numerous printing mistakes, the Uoot< is a
must by äny one concerned'with tñe question of peace and
15 war
in ihe Middle East.
-ñadav Katz
I
allowed

poems, certain lines, wordl and_even punctuation
were prohibited. Nevertheless, el-Asmar wenf along_and pub.
lished the material which the censor.didapprove.
after, as an obvious result of its publìcation, with no p_roper
reason, he was arrested and put in.jail where he spent
months. No charges have ever been brought against him, and
no trial has ever äken place. The authorlties úere
"legally" to do so by using the colônial British mandatory
emergency regulations which allow a military officer to iail
citizens fór uñlimited periods of time with no specific rea-

{

ù
-

Vr,C

sons.

While under arrest, el-Asmar learned nrhat beating and

torturing during interrogation in an lsraeli prison meant. A r
numberõf times he was offered passage to leave the country,
but he repeatedly refused to accept. Not even the kidnapping
of his sister and brother from Cyprus by the authorities, and
the evèntual arrest of his brother.brought his spirit to its
knees. lndeed, while in prison, he wEs one of the organizers
of a series of hunger strikes which toôk place simultaneously
among the political prisoners in different prisons throughout
the country and which were internationally publicized.

+

\

*

t'.

El-Asmar was later transferred to Lydda, although a resident of Tel-Avív by that time, and was not allowed to leave
the town without a proper permission obtained from the

TO BE AN ARAB IN ISRAEL
Fouzi el-Asmar / Frances Pinter, 161 West End Lane, London / Forward by l.F. Stone / lntroduction by Uri Davis /
208 pp.

To be an Arab in lsrael

is

to live deprived of the

basic hu-

man and civil rights, constantly humiliated and harassed.
This is the message revealed to the reader of Fouzi el-As- '
mar's outstandíng book,'To be an Arab in lsrael. ln his
shocking and depressi ng au tobiography, el-Asmar illustrates
in the most sincere and humane way the horr,ible experience which a Palestinian Arab faces in lsrael, while his, or
her, only "crime" has been to be born an Aiaþ in Palestine,
and to have remained there after the establishinent of the

É,

è
i
I
I

f
I

lÌ

I

1

l
I

L
I
I

Zionist state.
El-Asmar, is a well known Palestinian poet and journalist.
He was born in Haifa in 1938, to a family that hadbeep living in the country for at least 18 generations. He spent his

childhood in the cities of f affa and Lydda..From the age of
r 10, he started to experience the taste of living as an Arab
under lsraeli rule. As a young child, he saw his own people
brutally expelled from their homes by the Zionist aimed
forces, and become, what is known today as the Palestinian
refugees. El-Asmar's immediate family, like a number of
other Arab families in Lydda, was not expelled, but rather
remained living in the "Arab ghetto," due to his father's
job at that time as a railroad employe_e. But despite the
good feeling of not being forced to leave their home in occupied Palestine, remaining there could hafdly be considered a treat, Constant discrimination, humiliation and
terrorization was the price they,.and other Arabs, immediate-

ly had to pay.
Already as a young child, el-Asmar felt what it mean to
be caught committing an "illegal" action. . .picking figs
from the tree which used'to belsng to his family unt¡f the
Zionist invasion. ln school, being forced to sing the lsraeli
anthem, coupled with intentionally degrading Arab history
and heritage, reflected by the attitude of the new Hebrew
teachers as well as from the material provided by the
ministry of education, brought a tremendous agony and
anger to young el-Asmar. An addition to this feeling was
caused þV !!r constant searches in his family resi{ence by .
the authorities, the arrest of his parents, and the eventual
loss of his father's job for no proper reason other than vot20 wtN

ing for the "wrong" party-the Zionist left oriented Mapam
party. ln order to avoid troubles, he was required to chànge
his name to a Hebrew one, while working as a labourer oria

.

kibbutz, which just increased his conviction that"something
must be done..
. ln Haifa, where he later moved to continue his secondary
education, he discovered, among other things, that an ad in
the newspaper which announces an open employment position, does not really refer to Arabs. ñor doei an'ad announcing a flat fqrlent When.applying to the Technion (Haifa
lnstitute of Technology), he discovered that only in certain
departments is an Arab allowed to study, the other departments are exclusively for Jewish students.
, El-Asmar decided to resort to writing. He moved ro TeÊ
Aviv where he received a job in an Arablc newspaper. He was
quite successful in his new ¡ob, but his refuiat t'o join the
,fewish-Zionist party to which the paper belonged, cost him
the job. As a concerned lsraeli Arab, he ioined-with other
Arabs, and attempted to organize the party al-'Ard (the land)
-'
which would represent the Arab community in lsrael, and
deal with its social, economic and political difficulties. No
other Arab party has ever been in existence in lsrael, and
the only political party in which Arabs have been treated as
equàls has been the communist party. But this attempt failed,
after "legal" maneuvers on the part of the authorities, such
as ex.iling its,Supporters, and not allowíng the party to run in
the "de m oc ratic' I parl i ame nt4.r:y electio ns.
El-Asmar continued writing.in,attempt to voice his
people's cry for normal humane and civil treatment: the end
of confiscation of Arab land, the abolishment of the British
emergency regulations, etc. But the more concerned and de
voted he was for the cause of jqstice, the more troubles he
brought on himself. He even found it to,be true while working ai the editor of the Arabic weekly Hoda at-'Atam, alãng
with its mother paper, ho-'Qlam ho-:Ze, published by uri
Avneri. After establishing his own publishing house, he
found himself in a direct confrontation with the authorities,
which,resulted in the confiscation of his notes and other

material.
A new chapter in his life opened when he decided to publish his first poetry book, The Promised Lond.But poetry
can reVeal very important security secrets, or so at least
thought the censor. As a result, the publication of whole

local police, to which he was required to report daily. All,
without any charges or trial. After a year in Lydda he was
invited by friends to the US for a lecture tour from which
he has yet to return home.
As i result of his experience, one might expect to find in
'LOVEIOy,S
el-Asmar a greatamouñt of hatred towa"rds lsiaeli f ews and
NUCLEAR WAR
general. But this is ngl so-. lndeed, ? great number
lg*! !n
;"1";åtr:
.
ijri SO% ot grossreceiprs,.
his friends are Jews and lsraelis. People such
ioipúr"rr"iè. õontaci:
i,
h¡sh;;:;¡;",,r¡liu¡"
"t llt^it:
Davis, Haim Hanegbi,
õ;ä*
M"ñt"¡"n posi'Rims, Box 26e, irro,no. r, Monrague,
Tlil_gtl.l'.1-1Yl
for a long time, stood þehiqd his (their) s.t¡uæ!e,^r9¡jy11ce g.rå.'lrurott,01351, tel. ¿tS-aeã.¿iSi or'+tg-967-9374.
and humanity, and are highly praised by him. He e.ven de
votes a wholó chapter in ihe-bôok,to a iight wing parliament Sam Loveioy is the young organic farmer who toppled a
.member in tsrael, and despite th€ir maioi ideological
500 foot weather-tower in Montague, Massachusetts on
political differences, desciibes him as 'ia human being," afWashington's birthday ln 1974. Northeast Utilities had .
erectedlhe tower to help, plan a nuclear power plant an'd
i:er a long
No uñexpectedly, el-Asmar's experience would lead
Loveioy toppled it because he believes nuclear power plants
are dangerous. Dr. John Gorman, who once worked for the
to a search as to what is the cause, and,¡vhere are the
of the tragedy which his people, includíng himself,
Atomic Energy Commission, is one of a number of respected "
been exposed to. Rightly so, he arrives afthe conclusíon nuclear scieniists who have doubts about the safety of
that the problem is rooted in the exclusivist:racist
nuclear'power. ln the film Gorman argues tha( Lovejoy's ac'
;i
ideology, and its plantation in Palestine. By definition,
tion wai justified since a nuclear powãr plant is a "threat
rael as a f ewish state woul-d alwa¡ls be a racistone, and there. a man's personal life, to his family, to his land, and all that .'.':,
: ¡í
fore, the de-Zionization of the country is a
he
El-Asmar is lead to this conclusion throúgh a painful
Loveioy's Nuclcar War is a lively account of Sam Love "
perience of what Zionism is af l about Uri Davis arrives
ioy's personal struggle, of the reaction of the townspeople,
the same conclusion in his impressive introduction to
and of Loveioy's trial. At the same time the film explores
I
book. Davis, in an artistic presentation, completes the
the entire núciear power controversy in an interesting and
ture, and in analyzing some of the more important symbols
enlightening way. The thing that struck me most abo-ut the.
of the Jewish staîe, ile. the lsraeli anthem Hotikva (the hope), fitm*is the sönseiive way Lbiveioy deelt w¡th his neigtibors.
and the popular song lerusolem of Gold, illustrates the
Lovejoy is the radical equivalent of a good politician. Sò it
sential Zionist thinklng-an exclusivist-rãcist f ewish society comis ås no surprise whên the iudge lèts him 9ff on â tech'
in Palestine, with comþlete disregard for its Arab inhabitants. 'nicality or when the jurors interviewed after the trial tell us ',' .
they were leaning toward acquittal.
It is rather symbolic to find both, a Hebrew. (lsraeli f
Uri Davis and a Palestinian Arab, Fouzi el.Asmar, combining Another reason I liked the film was the absence of the
their efforts to produce this book. Both are strong believtrri &cowboy-movie mentality that mars P m.any radical films
in the eventual bi-ñational, i.e., Hebrew Palestiniai, soc¡ety and so much radical writing. Neither the Northeast Utilities
executives nor hostile townspeople are made to wear black
in Palestine as the solution to this tragic ilispute, a
whích can be achieved by the constant cooperation between hats lnstead, lhey are treated as respected opponents and
allowed to speak their minds.
the left oriented forces within both
Loveioy'i Nuclear War is an excelledt introduction to the
lncluding the fair forword by l.F. Stòne, oræ must
practice of civil disobedience and to the nuclear power con'
clude that el-Asmar's painful aùtobiographical account
more than iust an autóbiography. lt ¡s an importanr historic- troversy. One advantage of the film is that it shows that
civil disobedience is relevant to areas where it has hardly
socio-economic and politiðal chåpter and document of
been ûied. The film is well suited for either class.room use
whole segment of the Palestinian people who remained
or as a fund-raiær for movement groups. -Henry Bas
Palestine after the establishment of the state of lsrael lt

of- õï¡ni
il;'i;;;;
Y:i

I'll:llB!*il-q

úü¡ì

*

and

acquaintance

'
him
roots
have
Zionist
lsmust.
exat
the
pic.
ev

to

holds'dear.l'

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goal

peoples

conis
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in
is

wtN

2l

rHE BANKERS
It.4Tt¡! Meyer / New York / Weybright & Tailey I

ca. SSO pp.

$1s.00

Martin Meyer begins this racy tome with the observation
that since 1 960 a subsurface revolution has transformed
the world of banking and that bankers themselves have yet
to realize its nature. Whereupon, having hooked the innocent reader, Mayer tells the story of banking from its obscure beginnings among ltalian moneylenders (not gold.,

i

i

i

I
I

I

i

t

ruëerSc, onêweek conference:"4 Non.
vlolent Soc¡ety-lts Beginn¡ngs and lts Pos"
sib¡lit¡esr" e/25-9/l at Camp lnd¡anbrook,
Plymouth Un¡on, Vermont. Wrlte NOVA,
AFSC, 48 lnman St., Cambrldge, MA 02139.

FOOD

I

(6 I 7-864-3150).

Gay.radio ln Philly every Sunday, "Amazon
Country," l-2 pm; "Sunshlne Gaydream,"
2-3 pm. WXPN, 88,9 FM.

OPPORTUNITIES

smiths, he claims) down through the American Civi'i War.
Characteristic of Meyer's method of writing bestsellers
is that this S0-page résume of banking history is a minor
masterpiecc of condensation and clarity, but turns out to
bear no relation to the question it was billed to answer. The
"¡svqhj1i6¡" transforming banking turns out to be merely a
matter of banks now engaging directly in financial operations which heretofore were the province of shady characters,like loansharks and stockbrokers. Turns out, in short,
to be no revolution at all. As R.H. Tawney demonstrated'in
Relìgion and the Rise o:f Capitalism (1922), a purely mercenary motivation has become not only mó.ie reputable in
Western civilization with each passing generation, but more
the essense of that civilizâtion. What Martin Meyer demonstrates is that the process didntt stop in1922 but rather has

gay printing collect¡ve needs others to shaÍe
teach¡n g non-commerc¡al movêment prlnt¡ng. exper¡mental/9raph¡c enViron mentexper¡ence unnecessary-wof k¡n9/llv¡ng
212-675-3043.

].

*.

.1,

likely to bore outsiders to the banking world

.i:.

lnterested in land trusts? Vegetarian cook¡ng? Rad¡cal music? Gandh¡'s writings?
Anarch¡sm? Rad¡cal h¡story? The GoodBoox catalog has titles in all these areas, '
and more. lt's free from Box 437-W Boston,
MA 02102.

(anec-

dotes, old school ties, etc.) Meyer recaptured my flagging interest with a bold statement that the entire banking system
is heading for the rocks. Why? After sifting through 100
subsequent pages of technical innovations, the rocks which
threaten banking turn out merely to be the danger that sheer
paperwork volume, especially the number of checks to be
cleared, will overwhelm the pace of technical innovation and
swamp the system.
Up to this point (about page 350) the main attraction of
.the book is the ultra-clear exposition which Meyer performs
for many obscure banking functions-all expounded from
the viewpoint of the banker. There follows a long chapter
written. from the viewpoint of government agencies set up
to regulate the banking industry, another from the view-'
point of the multi-level Salomon Brothers brokerage codglomerate on Wall Street, and then one of the best explications of the Eurodollor glut to be found. (But without the
historical perspective provided by Rolfe and Burtle's The
Greot lAheel (1973) or, better, the works of Frenchman
facques Rueff.)
_ Martin Meyer pretty well shows what's dangerous about
the corner the banks have worked themselves into. His chapter on government regulation of the industry (and a separate
chapter on the Federal Reserve System) implies a more pessimistic conclusion than he cares to spell out. The government is on the horns of a dilemma because too strict an application of the law, er even of common sense in curbing inflation, might "hurt the economy" and thus be politicaliy
unacceptable
ln the end, The Bankers emerges as not so much a report
on the current state of the banking art as a how-tedo-it for
persons who'd like to break into the field. Reading between
the lines, one can discern the ¿ttitudes and prejudices which
are indispensable-the language one must speak and the as
sumptions one must not question. Only once or twice does
Martin Meyer allow himself open apologetics-as when he in.
serts an angry judgement against Allende of Chile: that AlIende inflated the Chilean currency in a deliberate effort f 'to
destroy society." The undercurrent of the book is profoundly, however, that of an apolôgetic for the mercenaiy world
it so well describes.
Paul Salstrom

1

Food consp¡racles, 165 w, Harv€y, Ph¡ladelphia, PA 19144' $l;5o. Also, "Nature
Centers: How To Survive ln The Face Of
Urban D¡sintegrat¡on"' $10-S14.95 for
cassette. For People Seek¡ng Alternatives.

especially since 960.
'accelerated,
Toward the middle of his tome, after a couple hundred
pages

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David Morris spent a weekend here at the WIN farm just before leaving on a trip to lndia. The last night he was here, he
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curry with beef. (lf you prefer a beef curry, substitute beef
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David grew up in Madras, thènsouthernmost state of lndia & thus the.bne with the hottest climate & as a consequence the hoitest food. He made.the curry so hot that
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EGGPLANT CURRY
1 onion, chopped

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BAR NONE: exposes hi¡rrors of prison and

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2T. butter

I ;;spl;;; r, t in 314" c¡rbes (skin'left on)
2 handfuls mushrooms, sliced
1 potato, diced

ECsTASY, a new non-sex¡st erotlc journal
needs fict¡on and graph¡cs. Wr¡te Box 92l,

Half Moon Bay, CA 94019.

¿4::.îiîïïrT#il,,o,u,,,
6 fresh hot peppers (or dried)-also to taste

603-868-5412 between J.uly 28 and August
6 froin 8:3o-12-or send resume to Little
People's centef, Box 542, Dufhafn, DlH. We
will be lntervlewlns Aus. 6j7 &.8.
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munlty Resources Coordlnatgr. PuOdlng;
(9

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SoURcE, a radlcal research collectlve, needs
full-time staff interested ¡n polltical change.
hard, meanlngful wprk, subsistênce lifestylê'
We especially need women now. Write Box

us.

Many

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l03

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ovemþnt
4)
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339-4585 or write Box 54'7, Rifton,
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Pf

publ¡c relat¡ons, adminlstrath¡€ iåsponsl''
b¡llt¡es. contact cralg Newby, The Alteina'
t¡ve School, 3950 Ra¡nbow, Kansas City,
Kansas 66

oi in movement

fund ra
porti

yourself..

21066, wash., OC 20OO9, (2O2) 387-1145.

JOB: Wðsh¡ngton DC-Staff person ¡s needed
for the Wash¡ngton Peace Center to help
plan and coordinate program and ¡nvolve
volunteerg. Opportunlty for creat¡ve development of peace eclucat¡on program. Pô¡d posi-

t¡on-full time.

Please

contact: V¡ctor Kauf'

man, 11402 Cam Court, Kens¡ngton, Maryland, 20795 (3Of ) 942-0584 (evenings).

coMMUNE seeks people of all ages and
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to new age of love and harmony. Call Art
at; Aguarian Research (2f5) 849-f259.

HELP!

n¡¡rHòlocv-wanted poenrs,
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Please send to Mark Kramrisch, 55.çåmber:
ANT t-wA R

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MOVING TH!S FALL?
Now is the time to tcll us, bccause the nexi time we cnter changcs ¡n
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WIN this fãll, please give us your new addrrlss in time. Love, Mary.
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Tyson, Meg Chr¡st¡an, The Human Condit¡on, V¡ctor Jara and others. We're an ant¡cap¡talist, collect¡vely ruF store. Bread and
R oses Com mun¡ty Mus¡c Center, .1.7 24
2oth Street NW, Dupont cirq.le, Columbia

1 stick cinnamon

GARNISHES
...,

We need someone

ì onion, chopped

.1

c. plain yogurt
4 bananas, chopped

(Dc) 20009.

3 tomatoes, chopped

Brown the onion in butter. (For beef curry also brown the
cubes of beef.) Put all the ingredients together in a large pan.
Simmer for at least two hours. Serve over rice, either white
rice or brown rice. The garnishes are all raw, of course, with

the onion in the yogurt.
"
David insists thái tne only'way to eat this iS with your
fingers. Preferably of the right hand. He also says that the
curry's even better heated up the next day. lf it gets too
hot, add some more buttermilk.
Mor¡is
. ¡Mark

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