Win Magazine Volume 12 Number 19

.$

Ilave you mentioned the group

a

t

of

Indians (welcoming others) who are following the Bicenteñnial wagon train?
Theirþlan is to arrive in Washington,
DC on July 4. They want, among other
things, the Bureau of Indian Affãirs to
be abolished; surely a legitimate cause.
A lot of people are undèr the belief
that they are part of the wagon train,
which is amply funded. Of course they
aren't.lAnd all alongthe way they need
food, money and clothing. Also, folks
are welcome to talk to them about the
movement, life and all those little

:lrr

l,.J'

etceteras.

It's the disgrace and disgusting activities of the Vietnam war right here at

our

anti-Zionist" their own school
books a-nd newspapers tell a different
story. Norman Lear reports in the Mãv
1976 issue of The Progresslve, the
results of an investigation of Arab publications. To report just a few exaniples
of what he found: An Egyptian (semioflicial) newspaper said, in 1971, "the
world is now ãwàre that Hitler was right
and that cremation ovens were the appropriate means of punishing such
;'onJV

contempt.forhuman values,þrinciples
and law-." A Syrian elementaiy scliool
text with a copyrisht reservedio the
Syrian Ministry oFEducation and In-

struction says, "the Jews are scattered

to tlte ends of the earth where they

exiled and despised since by their
nature they are vile, greedy and
-ANONYMOTIS
OnahojNeb. enemies of mankind;..."

home, folks. These people nèed
hearts and our helpl

,"*:i:::Tilî,'"Tå*ì,:lil"i $i: *iå:

't'

:f,"fiï',råi itr{,iïi |l"jÍ,yåä*,X|, *"
to exterminate"' such a statement
Last fall, I wrote
of the Joan :it-î
ought not re-assure either non.Zionist
Baez_Bob Dvlan ","ui"* ñ;iíiiJ*"
or non-Jews who oppoge-genocide.
"orrcei
ihñí"; R"i,iäiilüi'iÑ,äTäirr"n
r at*" *:y-s
By contrast, Lear reports, whilè the
f.ürîåã-ir,Ëlii*;;i"r'ñ;r-Ë;ä"'
government and.news media
Ë;;-riì ä;;ä"iä:)ïiöiä,
ìTN"r" Israeli
frequentlv criticize Arab governments,
Yoik aity;ip;".ir"d ;"Ë"iíiüä;"they never urge Israelis to hate Arabs

-urprised, delighted, and very honored
that my poem written anonymously for
mass dislribution at the Central Park

Celebration last year, was reprintedand next to that of Ho Chi Minh's
famous poem. It is rare that the anonymous leafleteer is given credit but,
since it was done, and that issue of WIN
now enters libraries, with my name attached to the poem, I have to ask you
note for the reìord that the line "Rocky
tumbles alongl' should have read
:'lRôcky tumbles coming." A small, but
prophetic point, since "Rocky tumbles
õoming/Fõrds to cross/Kissinger

soodbv" is now two-thirds true, with
and Kissinger in dis-

[ockyïumped

,grace (though for the wrong reasonsl).
'- Thanks to Joanne Sheehan for cotrecting the embarrassing report [WIN'
5/20/761. that "30fi) cathered" to hear
me talk in Los AnseleË. It was only 300'
it was the end of tfe ten mile hike, they
,,were'there because they-weall-were
gave a politica! rqp?ttired and I simply
^-n-^lvm[fcnEYNO-ü)S

theend.

2

WIN

.lune 3, 1976

review

oiinð.on."rt.

*i*:I."fukr"*tîgt"lL'tru*"-ï,tiË,tr*r:9rvj*i11înddi* t"
üü,iil;;î"";-"' 9i':*1i"-1¡,'"b^{
¿lonlsm' nelrner ä",:Tiïli:Ilgt
ls lt monoDollzed by

onty cîowo)."so to nili
Grãnt and ihe Human Condition.

Traum, Mario Giacalonä"üå'rliä'
amram, an¿ p;t" $råiiT+;ä,
singing and playing for us alhr*

Haoov
".P"t the.Arabs' Several Black African

ro,

ffi#:i,ì,::iffiïJffåil:Ílï;ich

piägt*a

--offi ;","ni,i;ï'f
"o*a

-"ny

:Th."liîi:T1ï:,J*

Moving to other continen'Ís, I need only
mention the forcible incorÞoration of

ä",i1:iil,:,1?å',iå1,"!1,î,1î"",ïå,JJ"
Rabbi Axeliad's recent defense

of

Zionism IWIN,2/26/761 has prompted
a large number of letters listing anã de,.racisú' sins
noun-cine lsrael's many
While I agree
&4/8/i6].
IWIN,4/l/76
that Israel does follow policy whichgives preferential treafmeni to Jews,
israelìs no more racist than most
socièties and considerably less so than

many.

non-Russian srouos in tñe USSR.
The fact thãt other societies ensase in
racial and ethnið disoimination dões"
not make it-right for_Isr-ael to do so. Too
many people on the Left however, are
now-directing all their criticism and
condemnation at Istael and little, if any,
at Israel's enemies. Refusing to allow
Jews the same human failings which are
readily ignored and tolerated elsewhere
is hardly a principled anti-racist
position.
KAPLO\trllrUL

While the Arab nations proclaim to
NewYork, IYY the West that they are not anti-Jewish,

;;;-;

Eu"' onwaid.'; Hãre'

s

paft or it:

Ever Onward. Ever Onward,
Thatts the spirll that h88 brought us fame'
We're blg but blgger we wlll be'
We c¡n't-fail for ill ean see

È"-""tty ñ

ä;t"

been our aim'

¡ß**'

WIN Maeazine' Inc. has subscribers in all 50 states and ovet 12

covers 1600 sq' ft' It is
f"r"ü;ñ'";.-i"*'lttirõã;p;¿ti" Brooklvn
públicatigns in-the countrv'
o"njlïf iË !-ãüãtiu-ut tno.t'perseverins
tòompanfsõng" to thèse Brooklvn
to ä{
ih; ;;ilöáinÃìlor"tï
;w"i.o*"
Baôk Kotterl' \{IN emP-lovs five.
irit'i"å'Ïir-óTåîãuiy
salaries' 60% oJits staffis female'
modest
p"opt"
on
iliñi*"
^-îr ;tãff
i'ftlt-it.,iðwds going to press' ? woPal at IBM's collection d-9¡l'-r* u. a call. She w-as wõndèring if we had plans to pay. our Novemþer
ãnd December rent on the IBM composer' Our outstancllng balance
changed to our new
;ì:ålBiil;ñ¿s ai s¡¡4. to, all accr^ued before wenature
and hiring
;Ë;tii;iltsiem. uespité their multinational
Jr''actices._we have to PaY them.
many creditors clamoring.for theit
"'iBiù-r"'";"*ãi. ii*iõi"
"rour
their money

i--"äiat"Û.

I Vol. Xll,

No;

I

4. What is Socialist Femini¡m?

Barbara Ehrenreich
Middle East Conflict Turns
lnward / Allan Solomonow
11. Remembering Phil Ochs
Chip Berlet, Stew Albert,
Wendy'Schwartz
B. The

";;t"
ìf :::H'x.'.:î1i#,"Ë1"9ï'",'á"iy#îlÏåli,Yiil:*'ïi:iì€iil:l'hu
il;{fi;pänõã.initièt *ould ce$ainlv quçstion that last line'

_ålåî.îñãlÀfi-hdvé

f une 3, 1976

one thing in conimon-they_want

We can only put them off so long betôre they stan

climbine
-'ö;lif down our necks.

printer (withwhom we
il;;,i"iiun¿ appeals goes tothe
agreed.to nlint jhg
Thev
úeekthis
balanö
h";;;;tttãnãing
only way-theif blll golng lo Deaooeal because theÍ knew it was the
lt wilt be weeks befofe we see any signiticant fetutnson mar

"äl¿.

'15. Heads and Tales

Barbara Carson
16. Changes

19. Reviews

Cover: Cartoon bY Eileen Whalen/
LNS

STAFF

Dwight Ernest o Ruthann Evanoff
Mary Mayo o Susan Pines
Murray Rosenblith
\

UNINDICTED
CO.CONSPIRATORS

t'"":l:g"l'r'1li:'":ffi H:i3åll:åi'ål'"åi"?'-"i':i1"'äåäöt.
neeo wlrn
next few weeËs. Mány of ygu have recently responded to our
;;;l;r .óntiitotioñt. Éoi that we are giateful' can more of vou
íollow
*ö; their lead?
about $17,000' If each of our 5'000 or so
ä;îi ;;rèntlv

has

nracf ìätiãns ïs ais_

åTå:;ç","ifi ffi

The Internationâl Business Machines Corporation (IBM) markets.ijs
products in over 100 countries. Its plantsfand laboratories in the UJ
ã""ãiii-.g.illion sq. ft. in 25 citieô. Overseas, the company': Tglg'
facturing and develópment fdcilities take up 11.5 million ry: fr' lTY
employp"over 275,00ö people; men have 92Vo olthe professional jobs'
tt ii orié of the world's lárlest multinational corporations.
upon a rah'rah
n T.J. Watson, Sr', IBú's first president, insístedCompany
rt-o.oi"t" at IBM, particularly ai s¿les meetings'
oather^inss often inclilded company fight songs' :I'he *company-s most
n

as
äJäiåiËñäi"¿ u
such a good time, and the musical ex41o-l'l:..^-^
¿L:-r¿Lrr
^_¿:
Lest anyone think that anti-Jewish
-'
perienöano eip;;;i;;;.]ff^
It"":tjiã1"1ü{ifî**"""ti*SmË!il:i,Tåti,f.',1'åt'i",å'¿:"Ynä",..
srood that while the Arabs didnot equal
lv wanted to exoress ;;;;.iiliï'i"h;;Ëãi.i;;ãffiäËffitr;;ä: !*9!:i:tT,.l1l"
pgrsecution of Jews, lï,":'!lortheic
neither was the lot
formers who have uioi¿'"¿iírä"ãä_
in Arab counhies the happy one
gjJ.ews
, ,ne.õiai.uiú;ü;;nä;r,äïiri r*r
"fielders." -BRAXTONSIIITIEII) ñ't-ñd-ãËipãiñt"i'ir'äìiäiäi'i"ti,ä |lifi:|
P.'^"1"FÍli3-c,:T.:Trrvamrrlllor Tex' media complétèlv ienoräìîåil;fïffi'- describes it as.. Throughout most of
incruding,
e-ntire
þis.to.v,
lhe
iîä-åi"-à'tìäiv. si,;Ëiî;äüi#^r
f¡.1!
twentiethcentury, Jelvq jn {rab
somethins about BaezTTä'öiñ:,
:.
second
;ñ.üiiy'r"lt-ñ;;¡;;;;itJ;;uì"* ctass
:Pjltll.',:P_""-b,"^".n^1i'IilglY
citizens. That Arab.persecutions of
abãut finä musicians ;il^".|j ¡,,,|;ili
not celebrities. weli, tïãñà-nì'il;ïiá lPl_1Tb- "i[''""glpq._': loj the rault
I was on tour for the Continental \{alk
bv,¿¡ãi
õ of Israel can be fufiher seen from the
eon"
when the 10th Anniversary issue ap";ü'f;;;ä'ih;ii."
peared or I'd have written sooner. I was
Li,lH*i*ül¡åt",:ïg$:itåå;ääåTÏilfl 'ifl"îå3:c"ï,:îí'i,:,ì"".

rounding the .hticle l4/t5/761.
As far as my experience with the
Walk organization itself goes, I have
had no hlgh commands from any "National lYalk Office," although "they" in
their Lafayette Street ofücehave sent
up-to-date itineraries, names, news.
letters and leaflets. Seems like "they"
are working pretty hard for us

Oorporilfo lDrofilos

F;;;;i;;

between Jews and Zionists, the

.

As to Steve's letter [\{IN, 5/20/76],1
have nothing to add or rebutt, not
knowing all of the circumstances sur-

lived

:

-STAI\[
East Innslng, Mtch.

.oõr.riU"rrwouta

stands at
sän¿ Sg/to WIN in the next month, we'd have room
òeek new

to bteathe while we orgiÃoéour promotion campaign'
ar
sources for srants, send out our regular fund appeal ano worK'
oI
us
aneao
tar
so
run
don,t
out
debts
so
flow
cash
stabilizins o-ur
*ilt help our finances, but thev take time to get
tõ[ins. Your contiibutions will give us that time' lt you.San anoro
go a
moreiplease send whatever you can: $10,_$25, even S5U wou.lo
now'
you
right
of
every
one
froni
help
wtneed
iàit-*ã".
voo
Iisenäing money to WIN to pav IBM seems unapp€tl?ll,€I9,v-11
(lw w) prlnter
can earmar[ your contribution to pay our movement

ä"ï:-ä?;initut

oui misc. work), our mäilêr, our magazlle printer'.our
people
òomouter service, our envelope supplier' back staft salarles' lne
promotional
current
maii
ihe
tã
;ü'rñ Ë;d ;; ñ;tage

r*tlo

¿oes

packages..'

peace,

Dwight' MarY' Susan' MutraY' Ruthann
* This and other IBM information is taken from "The People's
-"nã.;'by Wallichensky & Wallàce, Doubleday' 1975'

Al'

*Memberof WIN Editorial Board

'

Atla,ntic Ave. lsth Fl.
Brooklyn, NY 11217

503

I

Tef'ephone: (212)624-8337, 624.85î¡
WIN is oublished everv Thursday €xcept for the first
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*ãek in Mav. thô last two weeks in Außust, the firtl two
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June 3,':1976 WIN 3

¡

,i

l

lvhat is socialist Rminism?
Women in,a workshop at the J uly, 1925
Socialist-Fem inist Co¡f erence in Yellow
Springs, Ohio. Photos bY LNS Womens
Craphics.

to try to cut through some of the mystery
.whtch,has
,-1,*.ull,
grown up around socialist feminism. À
tog¡cal

BARBARA EHRENREICH

,

way to start is to look at socialism and
teminism separately..How does a socialist, more
precisely, ar\4arxist, look at the world? How does
a teminist? To begin with, Marxism and feminism
ha.yg al impor:fant.thing in common: they are
criticalways of looking at the world. BotÉ rip away
popular mytþolQgy and ,,common sense,, w¡s¿om
and torce ús to look at experience in a new way.
Both seek to uîderstand i1.," *oil¿-iäi¡n terms
oJ static balances, symmetries etc.
tai ¡n .onuän-_
tional social science)-but in terms of
antagonisftìS'. They lead to conclusi-ons which are
¡arring and disturbing at the same time that they
arelliberating. Thereìs no way to have a Marxisí
or a femin'istoutlook and remáin u ,pu.tutoi. T;"
undersrand the reality laid bare ¡v thãiu ånáryi"r.
. is to move into action to change it.
Marxism addresses itself to the class dynamics
.
of capitalist society. Every social sciãni¡it kno¡vs
that cqpitalist societies are characterized by more
or tess severe, systemic inequality. Marxism
understands this inequality to ariie from
.
procèsses which are.i'ntrinéicto capitalism ag an r!
'
economic system. A minority of people lthe
capitalist class) own all the fâctor¡eíen"rgy
sources/resources etc. which everyone elË'
depends on in order to live. The gräat majority
(the working class) must work, oüt of sheéi ndces_
'
sity, under conditions set by the capitalists, for thé
wages the capitalists pay. Since the capitalísts ' : i,
make their prof its by paying less in wa'ges than
the value of what the workers actually õroAu¡", .
the relatignship between these two clãsses is I
necessarily one of irreconciliable antagonism.'The
capitalist class owes its very existence-to the continued exploitatíon Of the w'orking class. What
maintains this system of class rule is, in the last
analysis, forçe. The capitalist class cóntrols
(directly or indirectly) ihe means of organized
viole¡ce rgpresenteá by the State-polr:ce, jails,
etc. Only by waging a revolutionary'struggie
armed at the seizure of state power can the
working class free itself , and, ultimately, all
,

\

A lot of us came to socialist féminism
in just that,for
kind of w1y..We were reach ing
a wor¿ltirm /,phrase which would begin to express a// òi our '
concerns, all of our principles, in a way that
, ' neither "socialist" nor "feminist,, seémed to. I
have to admit that most socialist feminists I know
are not too happy with the term ,,socialist
feminist" either. On the one hand it is too long (l
havg no hopes for a hyphenated mass move.ãnì¡;
on the other hand it is much too short for what is, '
after all, really socialist internationalist anti-raciit
anti-heterosexist femin ism.
The trouble with taking a new labelbf any kind
is that it creates an instañt uuru oi rãitãrianism.
"Socialist feminism" beconies a challenge, a
mystery, an issue in and of itself . We have
speakers, conferences, articles on,lsocialist
feminism"-though we know perfectly wellthat
both "socialism" and "feminism,, arè too huge
and too inclusive to be subjàcti fó. inv sensibïe
speech, conference¡ articlé, etc. Èeãóíe, lnãirA¡ng
avowed socialist feminists, ask themselies
anxiously, "What is socialist feminism?,, There is
a kind of expectation that it is (or is about to be at
any moment, maybe in the next speech, conterence, or article) a brilliant synthesis of world
historical proportions-an evoiutionary leap
beyond Marx, Freud and Wollstonecráft. Or that
it will turn out !o be a nothing, a fad seized on by a
few
disgruntleó feminists añd fem;iã;¿¡ãlìsti'a
,
,
temporary distraction.
Ba rbara Ehrenreich

WIN

J

:

people.

is active in thé New American

Movement(NAM). This article is revised fromÌher
given at the National Socialist/Feminist
, speech
Conference in July, 1925.
4

,

,

Feminism addresses itself to another familiar
inequa.lity. All human societies are marked by-'
to*9 degree of inequality between the sexes, lf
,

'

.

operate most of the time-as
pushing our feminism in soci
socialism in fèminist circles.
leaying things like that, though, is that it keeps
peoplðwondering "Well, what is she really?" ot
demanding of us "What is the principal contradiction?" Thõse kinils of questioné, which sound so
compelling and authoritative, often stop us in our
tracÈs: "Make a choice!" "Be one or another!"
But we know that there is a political consistency to
socialist feminism. We are not hybrids or fence-

we survey hurñan sqcieties at a llance, sweeping
through history and across continents, we see that
iüuy ft"uuu commonty been characterized by: the
iub'iueat¡on of women to male authority, both
*iãÉitiif,e familv and in the community in general; '
thé obiectif icatión of women as a form of property;
a sexuãl division of labor in which women are
süãh activities as childraiéing, periórm¡ng personal services for adult males, and
specifiãci (usually low prestige) forms of
.productive labor.
Feminists, struck by the near-universality of
these thines, haue looked for explanatigns in the
bioto!ical7'givens" which underlie all human
iotiàiex¡steTrce. Men are physically stronger than
women on the average, especially compared to
oresnant women or women who are nursing
bables. Furthermore, men have the power to
make women pregnant. Thus, the forms that
sexual ¡nequaiity take-however various they may
Uã tiorn cuÍture to culture-rest, in the last analyjis, on what is clearly a physical advantage males
hoÍd over females. That is to say, they rest ultimately on violence, or the threat of vidlence.
The ancient, biological root of male
suoremaev-the fact of male violence- is commónlv obstured bv the laws and conventions
whicÉ regulate the relations between the sexes in
anv oartiiular culture. But it is there, according to
à tår¡n¡tt analysis. The possibility of male assault
stands as a constant warning to "bad" (rebelliäus, aggressive) women, and drives "good"
womänJñto complicity with male supremacy. The
reward for being " good" ("p¡etty,l' submissive)
is protection from rãndom male violence and, in

ãÑiñã¿i"

some cases, economic seçuritY.

Marxism rips away the mYths about
"democracy" and "pluralism".to reveal a.system
of class ruld that rests on forcible exploitation.
Feminism cuts through myths about "instinct"
and romantic love to expoée male rule as a rule of
iorce. Both analyses compel us to look at a fundamental injustice. The choice is to reach for the
comfort oi the myths or, as Marx put it, to work for
a social order which does not require myths to
sustain it.
It is possible to add up Marxism and'feminism
and call the sum "socialist feminism." ln fact,
this is probably how most socialist feminists

sitters.
To set to that political consistency we have to
differõntiate ouiselves, as feminists, from other
kinds of feminists, and, as Marxists, from other
kinds of Marxists, We have to stake out a (pardon
the terminology here) socialist feminist kind of
feminism andã socialist feminist kind of
socialism. Only then is there a possibility that
things will "add up" to something more than an
uneasy juxtaPosition.
Ithínk most radicai feminists and socialidt
feminists would agree with my capsule
charact'erization oÍ feminism as far as it goes. The
trouble with radical feminism, from a socialist
feminist point of view; is that it doesn't go any
farther. li remains transf ixed with the universality
of male supremacy-things have never really
changed; àll soc¡al systems are "patriarchies";
impeiialism, militarism and capitalism are all
simply expressions of innate male aggressiveness.
-

'

An.d so on.

The pr.oblem with this, from a socialist feminist
ooint of view, is not only that it leaves out men
iand the oossibility of reconciliation with them on
à truly human and egalitarian basis) but that it ,,
leaves out an awf ul lot about women. For
example, to discount a socialist country such as
Chiná as'a "patriarchy" -as I have heard radical
feminists do- is to ignore the real strudgles and
achievements of m'illions of women' Socialist
feminists, while agreeing that there is something
,timeless and universal about women's oppress-ion,
have insisted that it takes different forms in different settings, and that the diÍferences are of
vital importance. There is a difference betweqn a
societv in which sexism is expressed in the form of
female infanticide and a society in which sexism
takes the form of unequal representation on the

une 3, 1976
J

une 3, 1976

ÛlN

5

Central'Committee. And the difference is worth
dying for.
One of the historical variations on the theme of
sexism which ought to concern all feminists is the
set of changes that came with the transitiorrfrom
an agrarian society to industrial capitalism. This is
no academic issue. The social sy,stem which industrial capitalism replaced was in fact a patriarchalone, and I am using that term now in its
original sense¡ to mean a system in which production is centered in the household and is presided
ovêr by the oldest male, The fact is that industrial
capitalism came along and tore the rug out from
under patriarchy. Production went into the factories and individuals broke off from the family to
become "free" wage earners. To say that
capitalism disrupted the patriarchal orgarrization
of production and family life is not, of course, to
say that capitalism abolished male supremacy!
But ít is to say that the particular forms of sex op-

people, the only " real" and important things that
go on in capitalist society are those things that
relate to thq.productive process or the conventional political sphere. From such a point of view,
every other part of experience and social existence-things having to do with education,
sexuality, recreation, the family, art, music,
housewoik (you name it)-is peripheralto the
.bentral dynamics of social chánge; it is part of the
"superstructure" or "culture. "
Socialist feminis-ts are in a very different camp
from whEt I am calling "mechanícalMarxists."
We (alonþ with many, many Marxists who are not
feminists) see capitalism as a social ãnd cultural
totality. We understand that, in its search for
markèts; capitalism is driven to penetrate eveiy
nook and cranny of social existence. Especially in
the phase of monopoly capitalism, the realm of
consumption is every bit as important, just from
pn economic point of view, as the realm of produc-

of course housewives are members of the working
¿i"ts-;äb¿ãáut" (" have some elabilrate proof
thàtì¡rev reallv do prbduce surplus value-but
Ë;;;;*; uí¿érstan¿ a class'as being composed
ál ieople, and as having a socialexistence quite
;;ãiron.-ihã capital isï-dominated realm of
ðFoOüctlon. Wheñ we think of class in this way,.
who seemed
ih;;;;;" thai in,fact the womenare
at th.e velv
housewives,
trie
il;iñr¡óhã/ã1,

I
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.

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*
'.1

I

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It

!
i

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,

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,
:
Songs to keep women's spirits h¡gh at Yellow Springs
I

!

pression we dxperience today are, to a significanï
degree, recent developments. A huge historical
discontinuity lies between us and true patriarchy.
lf we are to understand our experience as women
today, we must move to a consideration of capitalism as a system
There are obviously other ways I could have.
gotten to the same point. I could have simply said
that, as feminists, we are most interested in'the
most oppressed women - poor and working class
¡womgn, third world women, etc., and Íor that
reason we are led to a need to comprehend and
confront capitalism. I could have sãid that we need
to address ourselves to the class system simply
because wbmen aÍe members of ciasses..Bui l-am
trying to bring out something else about our perspective as feminists: there is no way to understand sexism as it acts on our lives without putting
ít ¡n the'historical context of capitalism. I
I think most socialist feminists would also agree
with the capsule summary of Marxist theory al far
as it goes. And the trouble again is that there are a
lot of people (l'll call them "mechanical
Marxists") who do not go any further. To these
6

WIN

.lune 3, 1976

tion. So v{,e cannot understand class struggle as
something confined to issues of wages and hours,
or confined only to workplace issues. Class
str.uggle occurs in every arena where the interests
of classes conflict, and that includes education,
health, art, music, etc. We aim to transform not
only the ownership of the means of productíon,
but the totality of social existence.
As Marxists, we come to feminism from a completely different place than the mechanical '
Marxists. Because we see monopoly capitalism as
a political/economic/cultural totality, we have
room within our Marxist framework for feminist
issues which have nothing ostensibly to do with
production or "politics," issues that have to do
with the family, health care, "private" life.
Furthermore, in our brand of Marxism, there is
no "woman question" because we never
comparlmentalized women off to the "superstructuie" or somewhere in the first place.
Marxists of a mechanical bent continually ponder
the issue of the unwaged woman (the housewife):
ls she really a member of the working class? That
'is, does she really produce surplus value? We say,

I

Workine class neighborhoods have been
ààiiió"Ë¿ánd ur"ãllo*ed to decav; life has beðã-"-¡ i'cr"as i n g ly privatized and i nward-looki n g;
ik¡llr oo." possédsäd by the wor.king.class have
the capitalist class; and
b""n e*probriated bvi'mass
culture" has edged
ãaoitaliit cóntrolled
ãui átmost all indigenous working class culture '
and institutions. lñstead of collectivity and selfiÀtiun." as a class, there is mutual isolation and
dependéncy on the capitalìst class'
cãllective
-- j.
women, in the ways which
suËiugation'of
ÍÀ"
are charactei¡s[¡c, of late capital'ist society, has
U"ãn t"v to this process of class atomization' To
ãri ¡t anbtfrer wäv, the forces which have.
ãti-iåà workinÉ'class life and promoted cul*
class
iriäürãtär¡al ãeipendence on the capitalistperpetuäi"ir,à iãme forcäs which have served to
who
;i; ä subiugat¡on of women' lt is women
increasan
become
has
what
in
isólãted
most
ãre
¡"ãtu pi¡"ãt¡zei iamily existence (even when they
wõrk òutside the homô too). lt is, in many key
jnitãncut, women's skills (productive. skills,.
heating, mid*ifery, etc.) which h-ave been disã*A¡t"î or banneáio make way for commodities'
it is, above all, women who are'encouraged to be
utterly pass ivè/uncritical/dependent ( i .e
"feminine") in the face of the pervasiv".åiit"litt
oenetration¡of private life. Historically, late
tapitalist penetration of working class life has
singled out women as prime targets of pacificaiioñ/"fem inization" - because women are the
culture-bearers of their class.
--¿.
it tõtio*t that there is a fundamental interis
- connectioribetween women's struggle.and what
i-ã¡t¡onully conceived as class strug.gle. Not all
women's itiuggles have an inherently anti.uóitãtist thru"sí(particularlv not those which seek
;;Ïr io advance the po*er and wealth of special
niolot of women), but all those which build coliect¡iity and collective confidençe amgn€ women
are vitálly important to the building of class
ãònt.iouénusi. conversely, not all class struggles
h"u" un inherentlv ant¡-seiist thrust (especially
ifrótà which cline to pre-industrial patriarchal
"ãi
all those-whi'ch seek to build the social ;
rãiuËriu"t
'j
und .uitrtul autonomy of the working class are '
necessarily linked to the struggle for women's
.

i'tåã.tãt their class-raising children, holding .
ibãéifr"t families, maintaining the cultural and
social networks of the communitY.
We are coming out of a kjnd of feminism and a
kind of Marxism-whose interests quite naturally
flow together. I think we are in a position now to
see wh!. it is that socialist feminism. hês been so
mvstifiôd. The idea of socialist feminism is a great
r¡itt"ru. or a paradox, so long ag what you mean
bv soc¡áíism íi reallv what I have called
;l";ch;;i.;l Marxiim" and what vou mean bv
feminism is an ahistorical kind pf radical feminiir. fnut" things just don't add up; they have
nothing in common.
But if vou put together another kind òf socialism
anã ãnother kinA oi feminism, as I have tried to
ãäfinðift"tn, you do get some com-mon ground and
;i ir'" *o&l'.ñ;i""t lñì
tr'äf i'
"àiáuout
from
ióãiaL¡st feminism today. lt ii a space-free
of'feminism
kind
a
truncated
of
the constrictions
ãnããtruncated version of Marxism-jn which we
ãán ãàüulop the kind of politics that addresses'the
óãlìtiial Zeèonom c/cu ltu r al total i ty of monopoly
ãàoitãiií tocietv. Wo could go only so far with the
;ãii;bi" kinds óf feminism, the conventional kind
of Marxism, and then we had to break out to
soreit ¡ng that is not so réstrictive and incomplete
in its view of thè world. We had to take a new
name, "socialist feminism," in.order to assert our
dãtérminat¡on to comprehend the whole of our exóerience and to forge'a politics that reflects the
totalitv of that comPrehension.
I don't want to leave socialist feminist
" Ho*"ue.,i'space"
or acommon ground' Things
theorv as a
grow
in that "ground.'" We are
to
are béginnihg
iloretio a syñthe!is in our undeistanding of sex
ãnd.lutt, cápitalism and male domination, than
we=wJã á few years ago. Here I wiil indicate only
verv sketchilv one such line trf thinking:
t. fhe Maixist/feminist understanding that
class and sex domination rest ultimately on force
is corieit, and this remains the most devastating
.iitiou" oî sexist/capitalist society' But there is a
lot to that "ultimately." ln a day to day sense,
most oeoole acquiesce to sex and class domination
*ñfrori being häld in line by the threat of
'
' u¡õi"-nä, ánd'ofte.n without'even the threat of
material deprivation
2. lt is very important, tþen, to figure out what
it is, if not thê diiect application of force,.that
keeþs things going. In the caseof class, a grqqq
deai has beiñwr¡tten already about why the US
working class lacks militant class consciqusness. ''
Certain-iv ethnic divis.ions, especially the
black/white division, are a key part of the answer'
But, iwould argue, in addition to being divided,
the working ãtuis hut been sociallY atomized.

:

*;

i

,

I

,

liberation.

"l

This, in verv rough outline, ii one direction
which socialist feminist analysis is taking. No one
is exoectine a svnthesis to emerge which will collaosé sociaist ahd feminist struggle into the same
thing. The capsule summaries I gave ea.rlier retäin
it'rãii; 'ritiraie'' truth : there are crucial aspects i5f'-'caoitalist domination (such as racial oppression):
*fr¡.t a purely feminist perspective simply cannot
account ior or deal with-without bizarrq distortions. that is. There are crucial aspects of sex op-

or"tt¡on (such as male violence within the family)
i"nicfr socialist thought has little insight intoasain. not without alot of stretching and distorti"on. Hence the need to continue to be socialists
ãnd fem¡n¡sts. But there is enough of a synthesis,
both in what we think and what we do' for us to
ñä;; ió h*e Jseli-confident identitv as socia/ist
feminists.

SV

{

June3' 1e76 tfl¡N

7

o

IE EAST

T h E lvll

coNfllcr
o

TURNS IN\[/A
ALLAN SOLOMONOW

"d

At a recent Middle East seminar in Washington,
DC, two military experts elaborated on some of
the implications of the new levels of armaments in
the Middle East. The.ir prediction was dire:
cäsualt¡es in any future conflict w,il,l be geometrically higher than the appalling levels of
1973, andthis time the civilian sector will be a
sizeable portion of the statistic. The "algierianization" of the Middle East conflict thesb last two
months, marked by riots in lsrael and the oçcupied
West Bânk and the deaths of 16 Palestinians is the
most feared step towards this kind of instability.
For years the conflict has been an "Arab-lsraeli" one, that is the Arab nations versus the
State of tsrael . Except for some terrorism of
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
constituent groups, the Palestinian people have
provided a relatively passive backdrop to this conilict. lsraelis have pointed to the low level of terrorism on the part of Palestinians. After all, here
is a majority of the world's Palestinia-ns, a million
in the lsraeii-occupied territories of the West Bank
and Caza and another half million in lsrael itself
. and Jerusalem. Certainly, lsrael was no Algeria
nor the PLO a popularly-baséd FLN.
The Sinai and Colan agreements on ly underng hope that peacê could still be
scored the lin
Allan Solomongw'is Director of the Fellowship of
Reconciliationts Middle East Peace Proiect and
leil a tour to lsrael and the Arab countries /ast
Year.

made between the Arab and J ewish states. The
developments of 1976 have rendered such a
"peace" unlikely if not impossible. lsrael's chal'
lenge has turned inward, reluctantly, ambiguously, þerhaps too late, to cope with the fundamental
conflict between two peoples, the lsraeli J.ew¡ and
the Palestinian Arabs.
The Straws that Broke the Camel's Back
For whatever motives or culpability, lsraeli actions have reinforced its imáge as an occupieroppressor. Since the 1967 war lsraeli policy has
been in a race between making a peace with its
Arab neighbors and what might be better called
the "palestinianization" of the conflict. First,
lsraeiassur¡ed the role Jordan had held, shifting'
domination of the Palestinians from Arab to
J ewish control and continuing many cooperative'
relationships with Jordan. The elections in occupied areas were rituals, town leaders were conservative, older, and pro-Hussein. A mercantilist
policy abgorbed many into the benef its of the lsraeli ecoriomy. Censorship and the deportation of
the more obstreporous (and often younger)
leadership helped to maintain the status quo.
The same older leadership that pined away for
King'Hussein drifted towards the PLO along witli
the awakening political consciousness of
Palestinian youth. lnevitably, the military gÒvernment helped to crystallize that consciousness. One
incident was the deportation of Hana Nasser,
Dean of Bir Zeit College and a leading moderate
on the West Bank, the kind' of leader to whom
lsrael might have turned.

The future of the Palestinians has'been the
greatest amÙiguity of lsraeli policy. On'the one '
ñunJihã Þáleít¡n¡ãns in lsrael and the occupied
territories are certain eventually to become a
rnälriiv r¡less some alteration of the te/ritgrial..
riãiut .iuo takes place- On the otherhand, lsrael's
oersistént investment in and settlement of the
ieiritories is easily interpreted ab a desire to in. àorpo.ut" most of tli'e territories, perhaps leaving
óôckets of Palestinians in non-strategic areas sul'rounded by strategically placed Jewish
réttlément's. This þrosp'eðt ¡s eúén more chilling
than what has been experienced so far.
The lsraeli Covernment not only has been-p-urchasing land in the territories but worse, yielded
io iiehí-*¡ng demands to permit a private qettlemeni of relifious zealots in an area near.Sebastia'
hãs split the lsraeli cáldnet which at
is ieeking a way out of the imbroglio'
moment
this

lh¡s ¡ttr"

lf the government rules against the settlement,
the Na'tional Religious ftarty will leave the
government coalñion, qnd if the government
the settlement, the papeÈ-progressive
f"uuort
"
Vuou. Þartv mav leave. Either wayÉhe Eisenf'ouü"r-tiü" leaderihip of Prime Minister Rabin will
orobabiv have to face an election. The issue
lvrnU¿l¡tea by this one settlement underlines the
Pãlestinian concern. lsra"eli Ceneral (Reserves)
bãn Lun"r" put it more aptly: ' ' Settling is bteppin g
õn rot"onä's toes. So what?" Those steps led to
the first killings.
The Pita is

.

Rising

,',',

',,

As frustration mounted, Palestinians seeking '.
,o-" rn"uns of expressíng their angertook to the
streets. Like so many other nations before, a scene

iËo¿ated ¡tself: dembnstrations. "over-reaction
frdm the authorities. . anger, shouts, stones ' ' '
guns. Those guns and the inrioceht killed by![em,
ñrark the birth of a consciousness even the PLO

could not arouse. J ust

a weqk before

the f irst

Rab¡n had said "lwish
iinàÃráu demonstrations) were. my only problem'
ftr"." is restlessness here and there, (but) l don't
take it seriouslv. lt's a by-product of the basic
issue. which isîhe Arab-lsraeli conflict'"
Thä two months of April and May have transformé¿ the situation. The Palestiniâns now have
their cãuse: freedom; their martyrs and their
Íäã¿utt; and their tools of struggle-thus far
shunn¡ág violence-in the form of demonstra-

Ëîii;s;;Þ;lte ùínistet

tions.
-'-lhortlv

after the riots on the West Bank, six.
were killed in Northern lsrael in the
"rïñlãns between the Jewish State and its
bËáãri'.ìãth
ã¡tii"nt in 28 years. The issue was again a
Ëil;fi"i;":clåim to land for their own' The
p"f

hãt tìaditionallv been oneof lsrael's areas
ÈalÀst¡n¡an concentration' The Israeli
"t
ã.í"iñtént had enacted a hiehly controversial
ãlan to " ludaize" the Calilee by expropriating
iãñã ãn¿ ih"n developing it for J ewish settlements
to increase thb number of J ews in the area'
Àtulluh ManSour, a well-known:Arab journaligt
expre¡;sed the di lemma:
And what bothers the Arabs in Israel mìost: why
shautd the government expropriatp lands from
Arab privale owners and iownships to turn them
oìu"l io tii¡sn sett/ers? An Aràb'in Nazareth who
loit n¡s1ãna in the mid-l950's and cannot todav
ourchase an apartment built on it in the new
j"i¡tntto*n óftNazareth-Et¡t cannot help but feel
deep fury.
The insecurity of Arabs within lsrael'serves in .
turn to ratify úhe worst of the fears of those in the
territories.
occupied
- -Ârãìãsrtf'ese
clashes, the Palestinians of the ),
West Bank elected their municipal leaders' Ort ¿inãi¡lv these are not highly political ventures and
these elections were exflected to return to office a

ãìiiö

grããt"ü

1'
1i

ri

I

..

'15 was an lnternational ì
Dav of Soldiarity with the

May

Palestinian People. Thousands
demonstrated in New York, San
Francisco, Chicago and other
c¡ties to mark the day. Over 700
people marched and rallied in a

predominantly Arab

neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY.
ReDresentatives from the Union
of Þalestinian Women, the Red
Crescent Soc¡ety, the Palest¡ne
Action Coal¡tion, and a Jewish,
anti-Z¡on ist cont¡ngent part¡c¡pated in the day's events.
l
Photos by LNS.

J

I WIN

J

une 3, 1976

,.,.¡-

une 3, 1976 WIN 9

greât number of older "Uncle R¿shids," with the
PlO advising the more radical community to 9it
this o¡le out. This time the result was "a new
deneratlon of younger and more educated
pèople. . . one which does not depend,on the traditlonal clans." "Young Turks" and fresh faces
cáfne ¡nto office in a firm show that "the Palestlniân maiority on the West Bank sees itself as a
Part of the Palestinian entity led by the PLO" in
the words of an editorial from Haaretz, a leading
l¡raeli paper. Most of the towns on the West
Bank, anil even one in lsrael, now have governmenti that cànnot accept current lsraeli nonpol¡cy.
C-rn lsrael Survive tsrael?

The circumstances in which lsrael now finds itself
are largely of lsraeli making. lt has taken over a
quårtei centurv for lsrael to change its references fiom an amorphous concept of "refugees" to
Palestinians. Perhaps the recent electio¡s will
now make it possible to talk explicitly of "the
Palestinian people." Whatever the semantics of
politics, the State of lsrael's integrity demands
that it seek out formulas that will insure justice
and self-determination for the very people with
whom lsraeli Jews are destined to live. Anything
short of this wiil lead to a dangerous gamble in
whlch political alternativelgive way to an increasingly pàlestin ian ized þopulace. There are

understandable reàsons for lsraeli fears. But there
i,s even more for.lsrael to fear from a policy that
continues to settle in Palestinian areas without
'formally
¡ecognizing either the Palestiniarls or
territories that might be negotiated with them'
Both lsrael and the PLO must face their
albatross. The lsraeli right may well force a showdown. The rejection f roñt, on tire other hand, has
alrgady attacked and badly divided the PLO; !þe
adámancy of lsraeli policy is itself an excelleñt
proof by which the rejectionists illustrate the
futility in trying to bring about a pblitical agreement. Any FLO initiative, such as a clear delineation of an independent Palestinian state or setting
up of government-in-exile, woçld have an enormous potential to break the stalemate. Civen The
division of the PLO and the internecine struggle in
Lebanon, this too seerns unlikely.
!sraelis and Palestinians are so fenced in there
is little chance of any fresh peace initiatives without strong international support. lt will no longer
do for Americans to express their love of lsrael by
keeping silent over the compounding tragedies.
Nor will progress be made by proofs that lsrael is
racist or ought not exist.
-A year frõmfiow the impact of events on the
v{esi gank willhave chanþed the complexion of
Middle East alternatives. the only question is the
difficulty of the road for both Palestini4ns and
lsraelis f rorn now until then.

+ +.4

Sv:"

Phil Ochs. Phóto bY ChiP Berlet.

'TFt{

a
This Friday evening, May 28, friends an! 2d'
mirers of Phil Ochs will gather 4t the Felt Forum
in Madison Square Carden to honor his memory.

PhilOch'ssongs set the marching bgqt-for a
nascent anti-wàr movement in the'l960is' To
coincide with the memorial concert, WlN offers
these thoughts on Phil.

REMEMTBERING
, ril,,,
ii.rl,,.r ,-,1
1

PHILOCHS

-\

I

Arab children carryirig red, black, white and green Pales't¡niãn flags at thê Palesline day rally in Brooklyn '

-

CHIP BERLET
It's always the old who lead us to the war,
Always the young, who fall . .
.

-l

-PhilOchs

Ain't Marching AnYmore

Phil Ochs once said he could never decide whether' ;
he wanted to be a journalist, an organizer, or a
oerformer; so he became all three-a radical

reporter si'ngiñg his dispatches from the barricades. His music was strong and moralistic, not
dogmatic, but firm, wilih clear beliefs shaded with
i ntrospective n uances.
"';i"linoî i"vlìrì.outd never be as moral as my
sonss." he wrote in the liner notes for I Ain't
'j
|./aícit¡ne Anvmore, but he did measure himself .
against tñe yardstick of his music. ln recent years
he became increasingly depressed over his
estransement from American radical movements,
a sensõ of personal isolation, and his inability to
find wordsor music to express himself . On Friday
morning, April 9, Phil Ochs ended his own life at
the end of a rope.
Mornings were often a time of brooding for
Phil. He wãs a re5tless sleeper and when he
crashed on my couch during Washington visits, he
would often wake at dawn and pace the early
Juñe3, 197ó WIN

iowl¡

)une3,'tgfa

-

11

Hrr.rs to tb. St¡t.,of Elohrril ll¡ol
( thr rllrr 'l¡ ovrr )

Cancelling the rest of a scheduled tour, Phil began a five-year odyssey across several continents.
His companion on several trips was a mutual
friend, Dave lfshin, a Washingtonian who gained
fame while National Student Association
president by travelling to Saigon and Hanoi in
197Oto sign the "People's Peace Treaty." Phil
and Dave were thrown out of several Latin American countries for their political activities but in
Allende's Chile, Phil was welcomed by folksinger
Victor J ara and sang for the workers ahd miners.
"l was tremendously excited by Chile in 1971,"
said Ochs, "l saw what I thought was the government of the future, an actual democratic sociãlist
country.

"

Back in the US, Phil found the radical movement had turned inward, sectarianism was
growing and there was no clear direction. For
many it was a time for study and development of
theory. Philfelt isqlated and was confused by,the
feminist and gay movements. There was no place
for Phil Ochs, the quintessence of 1960/s radicalism, in the'movement he helped create. A can
of beer soon joined his battered guitar as a

constant coñlpânion.
ln the fall o11973, after touring Africa with
lfshin, Phil started a round of nightclubs, drawing
large and appreciative audiences. He called me
one day to find Dave lfshin's new phone number
and, upon hearing about an upcoming lmpeachment Ball, offered to come to DC and sing his
anti-Nixon song. I met him at Union Station and
we spent several days running around publicizing
the event. When Phil was organizing, he was inexhaustible. lt gave his life meaning and.his¡songs
grew out of his restlessness and participátioñ in
social change. Back in New York, Phil organized a
massive benefit at Madison Square Carden for
Chilean refugees, and managed to coax Bob Dylan
out of political exile along with Pete Seeger and

\È

morning streets around DuPont Circle, sometimes
strolling over to Sixteenth Street to stare at the
White House. The troubled skinny kid pictured on
early albums had added a few pounds and
wrinkles over the years, þut failed to shed the
mantle of anxiety and concern which infused his
life arrd rnusic. He reported and ref lected the
movernent of the sixties and gained a reputation
as ohe balladeer not willing to court the comlnercial market at the expense of his progressive
politics.
After the civil rights and antiwar struggles, Phil
lamented the diffusion of politica! activity that
ushered in the 1970's. He decided to attempt
reaching the working class by merging his politics
with "a çornbination of Rock and Roll, Country
and Western, and Rhythm and Blues; allvery
lumpen proletariat and handled in a carnival
fashion." Unfortunately when Phil walked onstage at Carnegie Hall wearing a gold larne suit he
was gréetqd with catcalls. While he eventually
won over the audience, the image of the buffoon
selling out politics became his a-lbatross,
12

WlÑ

I

une 3, 1976

r

chorug.

Íorcrc to the lrrs of B. Nirôn ? '
fhcro tha rcts are lought in !âcret .fe.rl trrbor cvcry dry
h. puDilhe! rith incooc t¿x th.t he do¡rt hrve to ¡rry
bcre trppiag his or¡ brothsr jult to h.ar-rh¡t be rorrlil rty,
ob corruption can be cl¡s¡ic in the pich¡ril Nixol rry
Cho.

Eercrg to the cburchcr of B. ili¡on (.oå fftfy Orrbu)
:t:

lhlre tha cro!! orc. o¡d' oi cilrar ¡or i¡ cr!¡d dth ruat
aad thà Sunilry norning rerobna p.ÃdG¡ to th.ii lurt
oh thc Ρllcn f¡cr ol Jêru! ir chokiag i¡:!àc ò¡.¡t
¡nd bc¡v¡¡ only kno¡a i¡ rhich toal ü¡cJ¡ c¡¡,l,ru¡t

8¡r¡.¡ to thc ¡ovcrulrat of B. lllron
Io the rrer¡ of thcir bourocrrcy thcyrrr rlrryr üog3la¡ ôora
¡ad cririarl¡ rrc poring ta edvffort to tbâ crorÂ
tby bope th.t ao onr r..t th. .igbtt ¡¡d ¡o o¡c h¡rrr thr ¡ou¡d¡
¡¡d tho .l..ch. of th. Prcrido¡¡t rr. th. r.vilgl of I cllr¡
;

Ilcrcrs to thc l¡¡d

atG.

co¡)/riaùb

Chip Berlet is a f reelance writer. This article
originally appeared in Washington Newsworks

Ochs typed out this, the only wr¡tten
copy of "Here's to the State of Richard
Nixon" in Washington several days be-

_C**J")

þ*,

obo,

forethe lmpeachment Ball in January,

.jt11+

ûWoJi

1974. The song was later recorded as a
single, his last record. lt's based on an
earlier Ochs civil rights song called
" Here's to the State of Mississippi.
Page provided by Chip Berlet/Wash-

"

ington Newsworks.

¡lthtr 8r¡rll¡dr l¡¡lc
or tlt¡rrct.ta¡¡lc

Arlo Cuthrie.
For some reason Phil couldn't sustain his
musicalor politicalçomeback'. An illness in Africa
sapped his strength ànd even after its cure he
lacked the energy to begin rebuilding his life.
Perhaps the biggest frustratiôn was that the words
no longer flowed from his mind into music. The
poetry was gone. His drinking became heavier
'and his depression grew. I lost tr.ack of Phil last
fall after he checked out of the Chelsea Hotel in
Creenwich Village. There was no forwarding address and messages left at favorite hangouts like
Folk City were never answered.
His music remains a vital force and has been
redíscovered by several Washington performers;
his lessons will continue to be taught at concerts
and rallies. Yet that hardly mitigätes the loss of a
friend, and my sadness grows as I rummage,
through my apartment finding old þhotographs,
typed songs, and in the closet, a forgotten pair of
shoes that will never be reclaimed.

.

ff.t.r. to th. .t,.to of Blcb.rd Nl,¡o¡
For ü¡dor¡r¡th h¡r bolal.re tb. ilÊyil a¡'drt ao ftar
It you ilrrS bfr ruildy rlvrr¡ ¡¡nlr¡¡ bodio¡ yo¡ illl li.Dd
¡¡d tho trt t¡crr of tùa lorrrt Urvr h{ ¡ tbor¡¡¡d orlr¡
tho c¡h¡il¡r ir lyin¡ rb¡n it rcrd¡ thc t)r.rrot tf¡.
Hlror¡ to lrad yourvo.torn out tbc h¡rrt of
tbo
Rlch¡rd tllior-fi¡il yourrolf e¡ðtb¡¡ cou¡tllr to
grrt of.
tlorrr¡ to thc lchoolr of Richard lff¡o¡
rborc tboyrre tceching ¡ll thc chllilro¡ th¡t tba¡r alonrt hsïù to c¡r.
¡ll thc' ¡uilioent¡ ol hat¡ed ¡rt prer.nt cvrryrhrro
rad tvcry rlagl,e clrrrroo¡ i¡ ¡ fretory of ibr¡ralr
thc¡ot¡ aobody lcer¡ing ruch r torcita roril ¡¡ llir

Phil's ability as an artist. His final albums were
STEW ALBERT
Phil Ochs taught me to trust my own instinct for
dignity, This is a hard thing to explain but in the
1960s mad rush to media exposure, where even
the þest of us, would sometimes grab headlines by
calculated vulgarity, Phil insisted on earning his
place on the dais. He sought his fame through a
vigorous craftsmanship and a moral, sometimes
elegant, vision -through the brilliance of songs
like "Cþanges," "Pleasures of the Harbor," and
"Chordd of Fame." Ochs, as a good friend encouraged my own efforts to stay true to an
authentic political philosophy, honestly
expressed. A word of praise from Phil, even when
alcohol deranged his mind beyond comprehension, gave me hope that my activities meant
something ín this world.
Some say Phil ran out of songs when the political movement ran out of energy. This view,
although well intended, completely underrates

his best. Ochs went beyond the immediacy of the

daily press, for his inspiration, reaching through
and beyond Los Angeles decadence, for some
larger than life goodness which he never quite
found. "A Tape From California" tells the tale of
Phil's last great effort to discover if there really is
an American

soul.

:

Phil's talent was not mechanically dependent on
mass politics but, like all artists, he needed ap- ., j,,,.','
preciation and encouragement. lt really broke him
when his best fans proclaimed his best work inferior and declared for the lively, but more superficial lyrics of earlier "protest songs." He fell
apart because his vision went begging alone,
down these mean concert halls.
It should be noted that in the last years of his
life Phil's politics evolved from social-democrat to
communist. He went that way because of the
Chilean fascist bloodbath, ¡n which his friend
fol k-artist Victor J ara was brutal ly m urdered . I
remember seeing Phil and Victor share a microphone in an impromptu concert given before
:

l

:

J

une 3, 1926 rWlN 13

.

Chilean cÒpper mines in1971, a,yqar when both.
men could'still hope for peaceful change through
the electoral process. After the coup Phil knew it
would take more than winning an election to win
liberation; but like most of us he couldn't figure.
out "just what" and "just how." Cood-bye Phil
and Vaya con Victor.
Stew Albertwas
He is cur:rently s
a homing device

':

¡l-¡

i

¡
i
ll

SCHWARTZ
WE
There was a time, when my friends and I were
very young, that we believed ouf poetry and passiori were Þolitics enough for revolution. lf we
were at first too unsophisticated to turn to the past
masters of political theory for insight, we were
genteel enough to want our ideas expressed as
.pop opera.
Phii Ochs was ambng the best of the musical
poets who inspired our protests and gave validity
to our discontènt. Through his songs we came to
understand the true extent of America's
despotism-its imperialism, militarism, religious
' hypocrisy, irrational anti-Commuriism, race murders, prisons and electric chairs, class antagonisms, ad infinitum.
He provided music we weie ripe to hear,
and w'e eratefullv moved to ¡t. Phil Ochs gave us
our anthiem - "The Power and the Clory, " our
hymn-'lThere But for Fortune," and our battle
cry " 1 ,{in 't March ing Any More . " More than
that, however; he gave inspiration and gentle
feadership to a movement terribly wary of Jeaders.
Phil Ochs didn't send us his music olr a öisc-he
brought it personally to demonstration after
dèmonstration, sharing the exhaltation and the
tear gas, the triumphs and the iail cells. He continually offered us respite from our growing in, fatuation with rhetoric.
At some time-it's hard to pinpoint when
exactly-the movement decided it preferred
slogans to songs. Phil Ochs could no longer meet
' our needs. He drifted off : to travel, to write and
perform different kinds of music, to agonize over
being unable to recapture past glories. When we
t¡ied to get together again, it just didn't work: we
óemanded Marx-to-music, and he couldn't
deliver.
Those of us who learned politics at Phil Ochs
knee still get chills and a warm glow at once from
his music, and still let it nourish us when we're
tired of struggling. Somehow though, Phil Ochs
stopped hearing our hands clapping to his
rhythms, seeing our smiles at "Draft Dodger
Rag" and our tears over "Celia" and "Lou
Marsh." He thought he'd lost his small circle of
friends. I wish he'd given us one more chance to
show we still care.

\

ri

I

Photo by Chuck Pulin
Seven Days,zLNS.

14

WIN

/

Wendy Schwartz is on the War Resisters League '
executive committee.

I
I

i¡ne 3, 1976
J

une 3, 1976 WIN 15

J

SOUTHERN CONTINENTAI-

WALK BUSTED AGAIN!
fhe Mississippi Stare Highway
Patrof arrestèà 22oÍtheõa paiticipants in the southern roúte of

the Continental Walk outside the
town of Laurel late Monday afternoon. The walkers were charged

'

with "obstruct¡ng the flow. of traffic" and "failure to obey a lawful
command." The arrested walkers

include three J apanese Sangha
monks; 9ne Japanese nun; Rev.
_James Orange, executive staff
member of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC)
and Mississippi coordinator for
the Walk; Tyrone Brooks, SCLC
communications director and 18
other members of the Walk.
The walkers had taken shelter
from a thundér shower. When the
first22 returned to the roadsidè
and resumed walking, they were
arrested immediately. Baii has
been set at $150 apiece. The
walkers carry with them a letter
from W.O. Willard, Mississippi
Commissioner of Public Safety,
assuring the Department's
cooperation with the Walk.
' Twenty-five walkers had been
arrested on April 26 in West
Feliciano Parish, Louisiana and
were released several, hours later.
At press time, the 22 Walkers arrested in Laurel languish in jail,
refusing bail while SCLC anä
Walk reprèsentatives negotiate
r

,

r

'ú'

,

walki:ts.descendon tie Los Alamos (New Mexico) Sc¡entific Laboratories (birthplace
9:1,,.rl:l*l
of
nucrear
Þombs] to prêsent a list of,,suggestionþ,, to lab administrators. fhotoi
by Êã Hedemann.
.l'

'

their

release.

-

COTORADO ROUTE MEETS
MAIN ROUTE

,

16WlN June3,

1976

forìefu'sing to answer questions
before the jury last month. The
contempt hearing, originally
scheduled for May 6, has been indefinitely postponed. J ulio and
Joan Lois Rosado and Martha

and he finally agreed to come
down and meet with the walkers.
Discussion was curt, however.

ALPERT AND HUGHEY
FACE CONTEMPT CHARGES

Walkers presented him with the
Hiroshima appeal and the Walk
Call.
Earlier in the day, some walkers
leafleted Los Alamos people a9 i
they went to work. Also the monks
and walkers visited several local
school clásses to speak and show
the Hiroshima film. About 50
people walked from the municipal
center of Los Alamos to the labs.
The series of events which
climaxed with the'Los Alamos
actions began on May I as the
Continental Walk ciossed the
Rio Grande and entered
Albuquerque. The Walk entered
Robinson Park joining a rally

Hughey will be arraigned Thursday, May 27 , in US District Court
in Manhattan for criminal contempt of court charges stemming
from their refusals to testify at the
trial of Shoshana Rihn (Pat Swinton).
The US Attorney's.office in New
York issued indictments against
them late Friday afternoon, May
21. Hughey, currently in North
Carolina, indicated to the.J ustice
Department through his lawyèr
that he will appear as scheduled.

several PRSC proiects, is
scheduled to appear orr Friday af'
ternoon, May 28, at the FoleY
Square Courthouse in Manhattan.

I

Left-to-right: walkers J ud.y. Danielson and Alison Metcalf present copies of the H¡roshima appeal
''
and Walk Call to Dr. Harcild Agnew, Direaor of thà iÀiìlã-i,
lubr.

cluded in that list was the

sugges-

tion that the "Hiroshima" fir*ri

shown to the
tyffl
"nd
puþttc":-"9
at the
museum tg give a

u".'

nucrear weapors). However, onry

it pìut¡c relatioír.un *ãs
"
à"áir"ulé;iÉ,*J;i
iñä oä¡.¡ul,

gave us a run around for three

de- ñðrir.
sirabilíty oJ thegg weapons, acWhen it was clea.r that any
ceptance of the Hiroshlm.a
audienie w¡th officíais in Ëf*".
í.ppeat
'
(calline for elimination of ail'
ü; ú"c ;""iâé¿,
better balanced view of tñe

if," äiüi A¡r_

vüas

Jane Alpert and John David

No warrant was issued for, him.
ane Alpert is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan CorrecJ

tion Center in New York City.
Hughey and AIpert were both
convicted, along with Sam Melville, of a series of anti-war bombings in the late 1960's. Hughey
completed a two and a half year
prison term; Alpert is presintly
serving a 27 month sentence on
her charges after living underground for several years.
Shoshana Rihn was acquitted on
similar charges last September
26.

totaling 120 people and one
"Mi I itary- I ndustrial Complex
Monsterr" a paper-mache combination of B-1, Trident, etc., all
rolled into one. After the rally, 50
people walked two miles to the
University of New Mexico.
On Sunday, May 9, a community pot luck dinner drew B0 ';
peaple including Reis Tiierina, a
leader in the Chicano movement.
Monday about 60 people walked
from the University to Kirtland
Air Force Base. That evening
GRAND JURYSUBPOENAS
films were shown and a.letter of
PUERTO RICAN
solidarity from the anti-nuclear
INDEPENDENCE ACTIVISTS .
weapons ship FRlwas read. On
A New York grand jury impaneled
Tuesdav Dick Cregory's run for
to inve3tigate a series of
hunger passed through Albuquerque. With the aid of Muhambombings allegedly conducted by
the militant underground Puerto
med Ali running alongsidethe
' Rican independence group FALN
rally drew a large crowd.
has subpoenaed members of
At the rally Rev. Sato and long
aboveground, legal groups ordistance walker Tom Maclean
ganizing around Puerto Rican inpresented the Hiroshima appeal
dependence. People active in the
to Dick Cregory. Later that daY
Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP)
the Walk car caravaned off the
and the Puerto Rican Solidarity
route up to Santa Fe for a community meeting, to make Plans for Committee (PRSC) have been
- called before the gr.and jury to
the Los Alamos action, and join
answer questions about their orthe Colorado branch. The daY
before the Walk left Albuquerque, ganizations, acquaintances and
political activities.
the mayor of Albuquerque welPSP member Lureida Torres
comed the Buddhist monks and
faces a contempt of court hearíng
received the Hiroshima apþeal,
.

News Desf<

With a civil disobedience action
imntinênt, Dr. Harold Agnew,
Director of Los Atamos Sî¡entíf¡c
Laboratories (where the bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were born) agreed to meel
with the walkers.
' Waf kers gnd organizers from
both thê Colorado and main routes
planned the night before to
' present a list of demands
and requests to a meeting of
Los Alamos administratois. ln-

but refused to sign it. The Mayor
reported to have said that
he's been to Hiroshima and "thèy
have a thing about the bomb over
there." The pace of ¡he Walk is
currently 1B miles a day as it
leaves Nêw Mexico.
-Ed Hedemann

obedience actioi waE planned.
Dorie Bunting from Albuquerque
and J udy D4nielson from Denver
were to lead a contingent of about
10 into the civil disobedience action, with the rest of the walkers
support¡ng.
After Harold Agnew was
spotted entering the building, a
phone call was made to his office

Schwartz have beön subpoenaed
recently to testify. Schwartz, 4
member of the Mass Party Organizing Committee who assisted

'

-News Deslt
GUNS AND KILOWATTS
For the second consecutive year,
one-third of the federal Energy
Research and Development
Agency (ERDA) budget wlil actually reprepent military
spending.
Of ERDA's iiscal1977 budget
of $5.2 billion, about $1.7 billion is
set aside for research on nuclear
weapons, atomic reactors fÒf
naval vessels, and space nuclear
systems.
Evên some of the tinv 3o/o oÍ
the ERDA budget devoted to solar
and wind energy goes to the m¡l¡tary. ERDA has just announced
plans to foot the bill for solar
heating and cooling facilities at
two new Air Force bdse shopping
centers in the Southwest.

_

:Dollars and Sense

EVENTS

NYC-Friday, J une 4, picket

'

uan Carlos, the King of Spain; 7 .
pm at the Waldorf-Astoria, Park
Ave. ,& 49th St. Sponsored by the
Confederation of Spanish Soclalists.
J

NYC-Saturday, June 12, Sam
Dolgoff, author of The Spanrsh
Anarchist Col/ectives and Bak,nin
on Anarchy, speaks on "Revolu. ..!
tion vs. Counterrevolution." E '
pm, St. Marks Church,2nd Ave.
& 10th St. Sponsored by the tWW
Monthly Forum. For information,
:

call 477-3355.

PHILA-Monday, J une 14, KaY
Camp speaks on "Women and'
Militarism. 12 pm at the Bicentennial Women's Center,
Pennwalt Bldg.,'l7th St. & Benj.
Franklin Pkwy. Sponsored bythe
Northeast Phila. Wl LPF.

:

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J

une 3, 1976 WIN 17

Lorenzo

"Komboa" Ervin is a 28-

PRISON NOÌES

year-old black man, now servirlg a
life se¡tgnce for hijãcking a plañe
from Atlanta, Ceorgia to Cuba as
a protest against the war in Vietnam. He later went to Czechoslo- '
va_kia and East Cermany, where
US government agents kidnapped
him to West Cermany, and then
returned him to the United States
for a trial which was a travesty of

\d'.Ð

justice. He was beaten and
drugged with Thorazine while he
was in jail. A defense'committee,
in a petition asking for unconditional pardon or a new trial,
states: "Mr. Ervin was given a
most savage sentence of life imprisonment, though he was a
young first offender, with no
criminal record, though no one
was hurt during the incident, and
the political nature of the act was
recognized. Mr. Ervin has served
seven years of imprisonment,
since he was 2l years old, and has
suffered enough ! " Komboa
should certainly bê released from
prison now that the war is over'
Supporting his release in no way
implies approval of the action he
took. Letters of support can be
sent to him: Lorenzo Edward
Ervin, Jr., Box PMB:18759, US.
Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia
30315. For more information
contact: Lorenzo "Rombba" Ervin
Defense Corimittee, c/o Curtis
Reaves or Minnie Lou Ervin, 20'14
Citico Ave., Chattanooga, Tenn.
37404.

A series of recent Supreme
Court decisionS seriously erodes
the rights of prisoners and
persons accused of crimes. The
latest ones hold that trying a
defendant in prison garb is not
unconstitutional unless the person
being tried states an objection to
the trial judge at the time of the
trial, and a defendant may not
seek later relief on the basis of an
illegally composed grand jury unless an objection is entered at the
time of ¡ndictment. The implications of these are obvious. ln
earlier decisions the court ruled
that police may circulate arrest
records and mug shots of individuals never convicted of any
crime, brand them as "active
shoplifters" and not be accountable in federal court, and that
prosecutors may knowingly use
perjured testimony to convict an
innocent person withou.t being
liable for civil suit in federal còurt.
To deny the federal courts as a
place of possible redress for those
a-ccused of crimes amounts to removing a major source of prptecia i,vlt,t lune ¡,

19zo

direction, for once prisons are
built they will be occupied, and
the pressure to find creative alternatives will be considerably
lessened.
Two prisoners in the infamous

Holman Prison in Alabama, Wayland "Doc" Bryand, a/k/a
Senssia Cancanji Mafundi, and

William S. Turk, a/.k/a Sekon
tion for cit
rights. Professor
Paul A. Brest of the Stanford Law
School commented that the recent
decisions suggest an "indifference to the claims of

individuals, even those who can
prove they were victims of official
wrongdoing. At least there is a
feeling that their favorite forums,
the federal courts, need not be
made available to them.1'

On the brighter side, in Connecticut, Federal District J udge Jon
Newman granted new privileges,
for the inmates at the Danbury
Federal Correctional lnstitution
by expanding the list of privileged
mail (letters that may be opened
only in thep¡esence of the
prisoner to whom they are addressed) to include letters from
state court off icials, prosecutors'
off ices, state governors' offices,
foreign diplomatíc offices and
lawyers.'The ruling was a result of
a lawsuit filed by Watergate

prisoner C. Cordon Liddy.
A widely publicized article in the
April issue of Corrections Magazine reports that there are 249,716
persons in prisons in the United

.States, which is ten percent more
than a year ago. More than half of
those in prison are underthirty.
The overcrowded conditions in
state prisons have sometimes
forced prisoners "to sleep on
floors, in shower rooms and on
ledges above toilets.", ln Virginia
a number of judges have been

giving suspended sentencès
becau.se the jails are already overcrowded, and there is a nationwide hue and cry for building
more prisons. The Dayton (Ohio)
Daily News noted editorially that
"soon, and realistically, the
nation is going to have to face up
to a serious decision. Does it want
to go into a massive and.massively
expensive prison-building
program, or does it want to start
using probation and other
non-prison alternatives sensibly
and creatively'again?" Each of us
should do what we can to influence public opinion in the latter

-

.

Cinque KamBon, both active with
lnmates for Action, are asking
support for their program to
abolish all jails and prisons in
Alabama where even the officials
admit that imprisonment under
current conditions involves a violation of prisoners' constitutional
'rights. They have issued a
number of statements, including a
lengthy comment on the history of
oppression as it relates to the Bicentennial, and petitions of
support for their program.. For
more information, write William
S. Turk, PO Box 37, Holman
Station, Alabama 36505, or lnmates for Action Defense Com-

mittee, 802 6th st., North
Birmingham, Alabama.

Even in Prison is a book of poetry
and excerpts from letters written
by Chuck Spicer, who has been in
prison for 1B years. The letters
were written to Virginia Oldham
and Mildred Clapp, active
members of a prison visitation and
support committee in Kansas
City. Chuck settled on a positión

of nonviolence after having been
beaten several times and getting
"tired of all those bumps on my
head." He has been active in
many prison projects and índividual counseling in the New
Jersey maximum custody prison
where he is held. Those who favor
construction of more prisons
might ponder Chuck's words:
"lt has long been my opinion
that crime cannot be coped with
until the entire criminal justice
system has been changed. Until
the day comes when, for a person
being tried in court, all emphasis
is placed on why he committed a
crime, and not what crime was

committed. I know many men in
prison who can trace their
criminal life to one specific cause.
Yet, instead of this problem beine
resolved for X amount of dollars."
society has him spend his life in
and out of prison at a cost to the
taxpayer of around $'11,000 a
year.'t Copies of Even in Prison
cost $1.00 and can be obtained
from Oldham and Clapp, 5520
Virginia Ave., Kansas City, Missduri641'10
Larry Gara

C

I
I

UNDERGROUND
Filmed by Emile de Antonio, Mary Lampson and

HaskellWexler
/ Color
Films, NYC

88 minutes

/ Distributgd by New Yorker

I have been thinking about Underground since I saw
it over 24 hours ago- it's that kind of movie.

Underground is a political film, a documentary

made secretly underground a year ago with

weatherpeople Bernadine Dohrn, Katherine Boudin,
Kathy Wilkersen, J eff Jones and Bill Ayers. ,ft is a
thoughtful, important, gripping movie the left will be
discussing for the next few years- in fact, it may be
the most important f ilm produced b'y and about the
American left during this decade.
lnterspaced with excellent film footage of major
domestic and international struggles and events of
the past 50 or so years-the labor movement, Vietnam, student actions, civil rights marches, anti-war
rallies, the Days Of Rage, and recent acts of sabotage-the f ive underground revoltltionaries talk
about the Cevelopment of both the Weatherunderground and their own individual and collective
political cónsciousnesses. lt is fascinating and invigorating to see, via their discussion, the growth
and direction of individual and collective analysis
and action in the American left over the past ten to
fifteen years. Their commitment to revolution in this
country and elsewhere is obvious and explicit, and I
never doubted their sincerity and conviction.
ln addition to the content of the movie, it is a
political act in and of itself and should be viewed
with that recognition and appreciation. Five serious
radicals and their underground network, hunted by
our government in much the same way as we believe
happens only elsewhere, managed to make a
technically good political film (in color, no less). Both
the film makers and those filmed worked collectively
and trusted one another enormously, and both .
underwent great risk. The film makers have been
subpoenaed once by a grand jury änd expect a
second one soon , and members of their fam il ies have
been victims of FBI harassment. Those filmed risked

Carol Marsh, formerly a IJFW organizer, writes frequently on the farmworkers' struggle Íor WlN.
Robert Read /ives in Somerville, MA.

exposure and resulting imprisonment. All money
raised by the f ilm will go towards political work, as
here in Boston where proceeds from the premiere
will go to the Susan Saxe Defense Fund and the Bach
Mai Hospital Fund. (l was surprisedto hear that the
Weàtherunderground had sti pu lated that Boston
area proceeds [o to Bach Mai, and that local sponsors added the Saxe Defense Fund.)
Much more could be said of the positive aspects of
the f ilm, r4nging from its political content and
anaiysis (eg, treatment of feminism, admissions of
past'nristakes, perspectives gained from experience,
self-criticism, etc.), to the distinct down-to-earth'
sensitivity and humanism I felt from the five

weatherpeople. At this point, however, I would like
to spend a few sentences dealing with my major
criticism of the movie.
As a nonviolent activist, I found the underlying
current of violence to be the main drawback of the
film. The five weatherpeople never romanticize violence; they are serious and experienced in tlieir discussion of it. Nor are they uncaring or insensitive in
talking about violence. They have come to a studied
conclusion that violent struggle is the only way of
instrumenting radical change in the US (and elsewhere). ln one statement, one of the men levels
serious criticisms of nonviolent action, maintaining
that it draws energy away from serious, real political
work. I was saddened to see this gulf between nonviolent activists and themselves so firmly defined. I
found it similar to the present case of Susan Saxe,
where those of ús in a movement together seern inclined to push away real comrades rather,than
struggling to find common ground and points of
solidarity. Members of the Weatherunderground are.,
serioi.rs and studied in their conclusion that violent
struggle should be the revolutionary tactic; nonviolent revolutionaries are equally serious and

studied. I hope that we will f ind ways of uniting
against our common enemy of capitalism.
This is an'important film for all people in the left to
see. lt will remind us of what we have come through
in the past ten to fifteen years, and how we-are historically lelated to both a domestic and an international movement. For those of us who believe that
nonviolence is a powerful weapon for justice and
liberation¡ the film is a broadening challenge.
rt Read
J

une 3, 1976 WIN 19

lBOOKWEI4IS
On J uly 4th, agroup of Vietnam veterans will hold a
special celebration for the bicentennial. They will
publish Demilitarized Zones: Veterans After Vietnam (192 pp., $2.95 papeiback), an anthologyof
peems, piose poetry, art and photography dealing
with the veterans' experiences on their return from

lndochina.

\
The veterans of East River Anthology, a
copperative small presi organized by J an Barry and
B¡ll f hrhart, have decided to issue the book on lndependencè Day to emphasize the contrast between
the current national rush to take credit fcir the
American Revblution and the ongoing refusal to
accept responsibility for the lndochina tragedy.
This new anthology will give ã voice to the
veterans who came back not just to "no victory
parades," national trauma and dramatic personal
problems, but as one New York Times writer put it,
"to help lead the American peace movement."
Written over the past decade, the selections in
Demilitarized Zones examine the changes in a war'
generation's attitudes which have begun to dispel

thq myths surrounding America's military
veterans,

"Thil contents will

ref lect the diversity of êx-

periences of three million veterans,"¡Ehrhart said.
East River Anthology, 114 N. 6th St., Perkasie,
PA, succeeds the late First Casualty Press, publisher of Winning Hearts and Minds (1972), acollection of war poetry by Vietnam veterans.

describing the transformation of soldiers into antiwar marchers.
- Readers bought more than 40,000 copies of the
book, which received public acclaim in publications
as diverse as the New York Times Book Review,
Newsweek, the Chicago Sun-fimes, the New York
Daily News, Rolling Stone and Scholastic's Young
Citizen.
Barry and Ehrhart contributed to Winning
Hearts and Minds, Barry as coeditor.
Like Winning Hearts ánd Minds, Demilitaiized
Zones will be self-published because of a decided
lack of interest on the part of commercial book publishers.
Until now, the editors have met almost all expenses out of their own pockets. But printing costs
will be covered by contributions from other individùals and private,foundations.

*.lt
cEsAR CHAVEZ, AUTOBTOGRAPHY OF LÁ
CAUSA
Jacques E. Levy
W.W.'Norton & Cq., NY / $f 2.95 I 546pp.
Cesar Chavez, Autobio.g-raphy of La Causà is a histpry of the United Farn'i Workers Union as the union
wañts its history remembered, told in the words of
the people who were part of it.

¡

An autobiography doesn't claim to be objective
history. The stiuggle to build a union for farmworkeis is far from over, and this book was intended
as useful progaganda-and will be, once it's out in
paperback atã price people can afford to pay.
' Most of the words are Cesar's, tape recorded over
six vears bv J acques Levy, a journalist who inevitabÍy got diawn into the struggle, traveling with
Cesár, sitting in on negotiations and strategy sessions, coveriñg strikes and handling press relations
for the UFW. Occasionally the words are Levy's own,
ànd many others, members of Cesar's family, union
erganizers, priests, officials of other unions, Califoinia Coväinor J erry Brown, and even an occasional
srower. tell in their own words their parts of the
ítory. [evy keeps these narratives specific to the details'of the unfolding history, presenting an easily
read, fascinating tale of a monumental struggle'
20WlN June3,

1976

Even Covernor Brown's contributions detail tbe
hour to hour nbgotiating which created the California
Farm labor Election Law. The book ends before the
funds for that dhort-lived election law ran dry.
The first quarter of the book is Cesar's personal
autobiography, starting with his grandfather's
escape from a feudal estate'in Mexico in 1888, and
the family's homestead in Arizona before Arizona
was a state. Cesar speaks of his childhood and his
family, tells how they were forced off their land and
what they experienced as migrant farmworkers.
He describes his years as an organizer for Saul
Alinsky's Community Service Organization in con-

siderable detail. After his resignation from the CSO
in 1962., the year he moved to Delano with his wife,
Helen, and eight children and started organizing a
farmworkers union, his personal history rnerges into
the history of the tlFW.
So much of the epic story is familiar, the book
reads like a fresh reworking of an old classic. Some
elements corne across with new emphasis-for
example, how thoroughly crippling Cesar's pginful
back condition was through many of those years. lt's
startling how much of the time Cesar is seen
directing the struggle from a bed, flat on his back.
The frequency and timing of his many, many fasts
is another jarring note. Many spokespeople are
called in to defend the spiritual and political productiveness of allthis fasting-but reading between the

lines it's clear that the fasts, on top of tþe bäck condition, pì.¡t a bewildering strain on the union staff .
His first responsç to most crises seemingly was to
fast. Speaking in Berkeley in March of this year,
annoudcing a new initiative drive to put the farmworker eleðtion law on the ballot and take it out of
the hands of the legislators, Cesar was on the sixth
day of yet another fast. lt's rather strange- "1 think
my biggest success'in life was being able to go without foód for twenty-five days," Cesar says. "l dbn't'
think I could top that."
The improvised, hi gh-pressure "organizi ng, " the
power plays that wcirked, make delightful reading,
. though you may want to add a grain of salt. From
beginning to end, the union survives each new
. catastrophe imaginatively. Eliseo N,!edina describes
a successf ul campaign in Florida, where the UFW
has citrus contracts with Coca-Cola, to defeat antifarmworker legislation. The legislatur:e of the "right
to work" (open shop) state decided to pass ân antilaw which, among other things) banned union
' labor
hiring halls.
First the unión got 20,000 letters sent to the chairmanof the committee to which the bill,was assigned,
many from farmworkers. "Tucker wasigett¡ng really
pissed off . . . Çverywhere he looked there was thisi
pile of letters,."' Then they took farmworkers to visit
almost every legislator. i
When a typhoid epidemic broke out in a labor
camp because of grossly polluted water¡ the union
took that on. ln the ensuing publicity, it turned out
the ryater of Miami Beach iläs polluiód, and public
off icials were forced to tell the Íolks in that tourist
town to boil their water. A Congressional investigaing team came down from Washington, DC and
' started
closing labor camps
Á; thãtt;iñof puuii[iti *u' dying down , andt
state off icials wondered whether legislation was
worth what they were going through on its behalf ,
union folks discovered a labor coritractor holding 26
men in unqualif ied slavery, at gunpoint. After the
slaves were freed, the UFW put a couple of them on
the radio and on the stand to testify for the
legislative committee considering the bill.
That campaign cost the UFW $500, killed a
destructive anti-labor law, made the UFW known to
a vastly increased number of Florida farmworkers,
and guaranteed that the union would be taken
seriously by the state the'reafter.
The Florida campaign was fairly typical in scope,
spirit and creative application of pressure, to the
various campaigns that have kept the union af loat to
'

date.
One disappointing flaw in the narrative is the-re.
curring sexist language, particularly Cesar's. ,
Women organizers are usually "girls," and farmworkers and organizers in general are referred to as
men, though half of them were women.
Cesar: "ln the case of other organizers, we later
lost some good men because of their wives. As we
found out, it's harder for the wife than it is for the
man, so we pay a lot of attention to wives in the
Movement. We can't be free ourselves if we don't
f rde our women . . . ".There were as many women as
men in thb fields and on the boycott, and Dolores
Huerta was the f irst to help Cesar oganize the unioR.

,

,

:

But ourse/ves are men, the propriêtori of our

women.

I

Not that he doesn't understanU the power of
language:
"Roberts (a grower). . . had a rough way of
talking. At different times he talked about those
'niggers' in the f ields and he called the Mexicans

,

'my boys.'
"l finally shook my head ánd said, 'That's all: Np
more!' I told him, 'These are grown men. Why do
you keep calling them boys?"'
The UFW is famous for single-minded pursuitof
its goal - un ion contracts for farmworkers- but hoq
rnrãh e*tra energy would it take-or add-to recognize women's struggle for dignity?
The union,is opeil1o criticilm ón other points also,
but none of those points get into this book, and it's
probably just as well. The UFW has made enormous
'
iains against incredible odds, and the fiþht's not
over yet. An objective, dispassionate analysis will
have to wait until the heat's off .
-Carol Marsh
,

I'

\

HEADS & IALES continued from page 15.

I remember all the Sundays I spent watching
public affairs televi'iion with my father, (He wäs
always well informed.) I would be hecklingJ avits
or Rockefeller or some other self confident con män.
facing the nation. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, monetary
crisis, hah ! lt all goes into his bank."
I was much more effective in the coffee house.
My father mostly just got mad at me. "What
makes you think you cöuld run things? How do
you know better than them?"
' He haieà mã u"Jrtiiiãòes for saying we
'
,
shouldn't let those guys shove us arouñd. We
shouldn't just take whatever they give us. (He also '
hates my mother for asking for a different table in
.

ì

'

a

restaurant). '

' simply (and
To explain our political differences
perhaps a little unfairly) I want to rouse my father
up. Patty wanted to shoot hers downPersonally I think Pattyls best defense would
haVe been that of the Puerto Rican frpm a broken

home accused of car theft. 'lLook at this child's
deprived background. Who told her her bedtime
story? Who tuèked her in? Who brought'her her
drink of water? And who in her home set an
'r.esponsibility
example of
and respect for the right.r,
,of

others?"

And pointing to her, the lawyer should have
madq a direct appgal to the jurors for sympathy.
"Look at thiS child. How should she know that if
she wants something; she doesn't have the right
to just take it? She knows how her parents gottheir money. She knows how their Íriends get their
money. So why shouldn't she just stop in any bank
to take some back. And when she pulls out a
machine gun, how in her confused state of mind
should she distinguish between a banker and a
,'
,

bank teller?',

"Ladies and gentlemen, take pity. The very rich

are not like you and

me."

J

une 3, 1976 WIN 21

'

,.J:"."
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:ii
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MOV| NG

rowARD A

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Brt['ut;n

,

Or.rút¡¡ EracEtlva aó¡tar

lì

oNLY eo wORÞ5r

lnternational
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ol the LI.S.

I

Le$tt

Mìrve'ine n t For A New Soc I ety
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PORTUGAL BULLETIN, analysis of revolutionary
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Philo. Po. 19143

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ïhts. . . collection of 10 vears' worthof essavs extends fram peace mar-ches to''
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iatrierchv I've ever read.... Leah Fritz is one o.t the most ¡mportant t iinkers
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,

vvn"i lnel ¡ouriney víouinQ through false consciousness (as in the ç4¡lie¡l
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ii net, *: n éh a r e i u ne r ab ly - anä co u r agæusl y - i ncl
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&

adults. Plav tosether not against each other. Freo
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