OSAWATOMIEAUTUMN 1975 NO. 3WEATHER UNDERGROUND ORGANIZATION

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CONTENTS3 WHERE WE STAND

7 PRISON: BREAK THE CHAINS

14 REVIEW: Three Books about Women

16 Fighting For Our Film

18 WUO Bombs Kennecott

19 Defend the Portuguese Revolution

22 TOOLBOX: Socialism

23 Boston: The Battle Rages

26 FIREWORKS. Korea: The First Defeat

28 THE TRAILMore Stories from a Truck Stop

30 Country Music

We urge all people's organizations,publications and presses to reprintOSAWATOMIE. (See Pucho, p. 31.) Allphotos are 100 line screen, for re-production by "instant print" process,

OSAWATOMIEIn 1856, at the Battle of Osawatomie,Kansas, John Brown and 30 other aboli-tionists, using guerrilla tactics, beatback an armed attack by 250 slaverysupporters, who were trying to makeKansas a slave state. This was a turn-ing point in the fight against slavery.For this, John Brown was given the name"Osawatomie" by his comrades.

WHO WE AREThe Weather Underground Organization (WUO) is a revolutionary organization of communist women and men.

We grow from the civil rights, anti-war and youth movements of the 1960's, in particular Students for aDemocratic Society (SDS), the group which called the first national protest against the Vietnam War in1965, and became the largest radical youth organization of our time. The name of the organization comesfrom a line in "Subterranean Homesick Blues", a popular song in the last decade"; "You don't need a weather-man to know which way the wind blows". In 1970 we made the decision to begin armed struggle and developedan underground organization. For five years the clandestine WUO has been hated and hunted by the imperial-ist state.

In July 1974, we published Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Aiiti-imperialism. To the bestof our knowledge there are currently 30,000 copies of the book in circulation.

The Weather Underground Organization is responsible for over 25 armed actions again9t' the enemy.Eight of these were bombings directed against imperialist war and in support of the people of Indochina.This includes the attack on the Capitol in 1971, on the Pentagon in 1972 and on the State Department in1975. Ten actions were directed against the repressive apparatus: courts,prisons, police, and in supportof Black liberation. This includes attacks on N.Y. City Police Headquarters in 1970 and the CaliforniaDepartment of Corrections following the assassination of George Jackson at San O.uentin in 1971. One was abombing of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, an action which was part of the freedom strug-gle of women. One was a bombing of the New York City branch of the Banco de Ponce, in militant support ofstriking cement workers in Puerto Rico. These actions were carried out in harmony with the demonstrations,marches and political activity of millions of people. Together they have resulted in approximately $10million damage to the imperialists and a significant blow to their arrogance. This is a bee sting againstsuch a powerful enemy, but a bee sting whose strength is multiplied many times by the fact that these actionsrepresent the early stages of sustained armed struggle led by a political organization.

Osawatomie, the revolutionary voice of the WUO, is guided by a committment to struggle, a determinationto fight the enemy, the certainty that we will see revolution in our lifetime, and. a spirit of love for theexploited people of the world. In order to build a successful struggle, the people need strong organiza-tion and a revolutionary psriry.

The program of the Weather Underground Organization is:

— US imperialism out of the Third World.— Peace. Oppose imperialist war and US intervention.— Fight racism. Build an anti-racist base within the working class.

Support self-determination for oppressed peoples.— Struggle against sexism and for the freedom of women.— Organize the working class. Fight for socialism,• Power to the people.

In a single sentence, the program means this: Mobilize the exploited and oppressed people to wage theclass struggle against US imperialism, the common enemy.

WHERE WE STAND

OUR CLASS STAND

by Bernardine Dohrn

This is a speech given by Bernardine Dohrn to a national meeting of cadresof the WHO on September 2, 1975, the 30th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh'sdeclaration of the independence of Vietnam.

I am happy to welcome you to this meeting. You reflect, as a group, thesignificant growth of our organization. Cadres are the heart and soul of or-ganization, the motor, the essence. Without good cadres, revolutionary organ-ization cannot grow, cannot make revolution. This meeting is dedicated toyou — to your questions, to your concerns, to your development.

How many people here believe that there will be a revolution in theUnited States, a socialist revolution? And how many think that thisrevolution will be in our lifetime?

I ask, not because it is an article of faith to believe that the revo-lution will happen soon, nor because it is a personal question about one'sown lifetime. I ask because the answer profoundly affects the type of organ-ization we build and how we define our tasks. Let me tell a story aboutLenin.

"In June, 1917, during a meeting, of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets,the Menshevik Tsereteli, trying to defend the Provisional Government inwhich he held a cabinet post and fully aware that this government waspowerless to check the spreading chaos, challenged his critics to putup or shut up. 'At the present moment,1 he said, 'there, is no politicalparty which would say — Give the power into our hands; go away, we willtake your place. — There is no such party in Russia.' From the audiencea voice rang out. 'There is.' It was Lenin, ready to assume the responsi-bilities of power at the head of the Bolshevik party."

from Evolution and Revolutionby Grace Lee and James Boggs

We are building a communist organization to be -part of the forces whichbuild a revolutionary communist party to lead the working class to seize pow-er and build socialism. This involves taking responsibility for every aspectof the struggle. This is our direction.

Today I will focus on two subjects: the role of Marxism-Leninism in ourorganizational growth, and a self-criticism of our class stand.

We must further the study of Marxism-Leninism in the WUO. The strugglefor Marxism-Leninism is the most significant development in our recent his-tory. Two years ago, when we began organization-wide study of Marxism-Lenin-ism, we were attempting to reorganize after a long period of disp.ersal andfragmentation. We were debilitated, like many forces in the movement, by an

ideology of pragmatism — looking only at the forces in motion at a giventime; by vacillation between optimism at high tides and pessimism at ebbs inthe struggle; and by failing to give full weight to all the basic conflictswithin society. We found that in order to lead out of the chaos and to re-build a united organization, we had to deepen our ideological foundation. Theorganization adopted three slogans: Organize Ourselves, Educate Ourselves,and Activate Ourselves Around a Written Program (Prairie Fire).

There were many objections to studying Marxism-Leninism, as well asgreat suspicion. Some members argued that Marxism would push us to the right,that most Marxists in the US ended up opportunist. Others called Marxism a"white European ideology". Others felt it didn't apply to women. When thestudy finally started, we realized that most members had never studied Marx-ism-Leninism. And our study has liberated a new spirit in us, a hunger forknowledge and ideology. We have embraced a world view in which human beingsare at the center of history, for it is the unique quality of people to re-flect on their experience, to learn from the past and to project into the fu-ture. It is this consciousness and self-consciousness — this social and po-litical responsibility — which gives to human beings the ability to changethe world.

The study furthered the unity of the WUO, and enabled us to push for-ward and write Prairie Fire. We discovered thru our own experiences what rev-olutionaries all over the world have found — that Marxism-Leninism is thescience of revolution, the revolutionary ideology of the working class, ourguide to the struggle. We live in a time when there is the rich experience ofmany successful revolutions to draw on. To become a revolutionary todaymeans to begin with the resources and lessons from the triumph of proletarianrevolution in many countries and with the great victories of national libera-tion. Not only is Marxism-Leninism a body of thought, it has been applied inpractice — grasped and brought to life by millions of people, people whohave stood up, taken history into their hands and transformed their lives.Within the last year alone, victory has been achieved by the revolutionaryliberation forces in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mozambique and Guine-Bissau.Each successful revolution has drawn on common lessons, and each is uniqueand innovative.

Marxism-Leninism is not a dogma, or a set of static precepts; it is aliving science which has to be applied creatively to our own situation. Weshould study the stand, method and world outlook of Marxism-Leninism and be-gin to apply it to the pressing tasks of class analysis and the building ofcommunist organization in the US.

It is necessary to examine our political line and strategy. The publi-cation of Prairie Fire was a qualitative leap in our commitment to full poli-tical struggle over our line and our practice. Honest struggle and clear re-cognition of errors is the only way a revolutionary organization can moveforward. In evaluating Prairie Fire one year after its publication, we thinkit has proven to be a great book — a strong and beautiful statement of ourpolitics — and we have received excellent and comradely criticism of itsweaknesses which must be taken very seriously. These major weaknesses willcontinue to be debated and discussed among us.

In particular, we must look at our class stand. We rely on our strengthsto help us overcome our weaknesses. To summarize our strengths: we have de-fined US imperialism as the common enemy, we have a strong consistent record

of internationalist practice, of militant support for the right of self-de-termination for the Black nation and Third World nations within the US, andof fighting racism. We are recognized for our strong commitment to the de-cisive importance of the revolution to women and of women to the revolution.We have understood the central role of national liberation in the fight a-gainst imperialism, best expressed by our practice in support of "All forVietnam." We have undertaken armed struggle and are developing the militarystruggle with politics in command. These are strengths we can stand on as wedeepen our class analysis of the US.

Yet we have to recognize that we have also historically downplayed therole and potential of the US working class; frozen our view of the workingclass in a period when its struggle was weak and imperialism achieved hegemo-ny; stereotyped the working class as the pro-war, white hardhat, assigningthe working class a permanent secondary front in the struggle. Perhaps mostof all, we have viewed with suspicion any emphasis on class struggle, seeingit as a potential downplaying of the great uprisings of the Third World, apotential liquidation of the role of the Black struggle. In seeing only po-tential errors, we have ignored the historic mission of the working class andfailed to energetically pursue our task of forging it into a conscious class,prepared to fight for the interests of the class as a whole. This cautious,one-sided and incorrect view of class struggle is a major weakness. It iswrong.

Within the US, the fundamental contradiction is between the workingclass — all those forced to sell their labor power to the capitalists inorder to survive — and the imperialist ruling class. This is the contradic-tion which defines capitalism: it arises with the very beginnings of capital-ism and continues thru its entire development. This contradiction will onlybe resolved when US imperialism is overthrown and the working class takespower and begins to build socialism.

Within the proletariat, the primary contradiction is racism. Of all thecontradictions within the working class, it is racism which has plagued andbroken the development of class struggle and revolution; without repudiatingall"forms of white supremacy, the working class cannot triumph in its strug-gle against the bourgeoisie.

The working class must build the closest alliance with the Black liber-ation movement and with national liberation movements here and around theworld. These struggles have been dealing the heaviest blows against imperial-ism and intensifying all other contradictions. This intimate alliance is thepolitical basis for defeating imperialism; it must be forged at every step ofthe struggle; it contains the forces which will sweep away the suffering andhumiliation imposed by imperialism. The power and unity of this alliance isembodied in the Black worker — who expresses the completely intertwined na-ture of national liberation and working class struggles, and who gives lead-ership to both. It is this consciousness which Black and other Third Worldworkers are bringing to the working class, and joining to the new militancyof masses of women and youth in the work force.

Look around at the realities of US life right now. The US working classis a multi-national class, including in its key sectors millions of Black,Puerto Rican, Chicano, Native American and Asian people. 41.5% of the employedwork force is women. The working class includes the unemployed, people on wel-fare, prisoners, housewives, children and the old.

In the depression which stalks the country, the working class is bear-ing the brunt. Over nine million Americans are officially out of work andthis deceptive statistic excludes millions more who have stopped looking forjobs that aren't there. Over 25% of Black men offically counted as part ofthe labor force are out of work, and in the big cities this figure jumps toover 40%. These are the hard facts of misery and suffering. On the job work-ers face killing speedups and unsafe conditions and the bosses squeeze outevery last bit of profit. Real wages continue to fall, food and housing costszoom up.

The result is that the great majority of US workers can't earn enoughto support a family of four even at government-calculated levels of subsis-tance. In a recent article in Monthly Review. Harry Braverman reported that80% of service workers, 75% of clerical workers and laborers, 70% of factoryoperatives and 40% of all craft workers make less than a subsistence levelwage. These statistics are based on 1971 figures — the situation is worsetoday. Only with two breadwinners working full-time do most working classfamilies scrape by.

The seeds of massive resistance and protest are visible and growing. Inthe coal fields of Appalachia and the South, thousands of miners are wildcat-ting against dangerous work conditions, the refusal of the bosses to negoti-ate over local grievances and the go-slow compromises and sell-outs of theunion leadership. Demonstrators in New York City have fought back against thebank takeover — protesting the thousands of layoffs, the cutbacks in necces-sary social services in the Black and Puerto Rican communities, and the risein subway fares to 50<?. Welfare mothers and tenant groups stormed the StateHouse in Massachusetts demanding a restoration of welfare funds eliminatedin recent budget cuts. As the crisis gets worse, police attacks on the mostoppressed communities have increased. Puerto Ricans in Springfield, Mass,have mobilized against the police murders of two young men in the community.Hard times are fighting times.

With hard times gripping the people and crises everywhere, now isthe time to re-examine our political line and shatter some of the stereo-types which still hold us back from organizing the working class to fulfillits historic mission — the total destruction of US imperialism, the seizureof power, and the building of socialism. The task of revolutionaries is toforge a conscious working class — militant, dedicated to eradicating racismfrom its ranks, internationalist, conscious of its own responsibility andpower. Organizers must examine their base and their practice. This is a heal-thy and necessary development. Organizers must be based in the working classand join the people's struggles to get the depression off our backs.

As we fight back, we should bring our passion for the cause of the Viet-namese people — now celebrating their first anniversary in the last 30 yearswithout enemy guns on their soil — and our absolute dedication to indepen-dence for Puerto Rico into our working class organizing.

The splendor of Vietnamese victory, culminating in the 55 day campaignof offensive and uprising has upset the global strategy of US imperialism.In a joyful celebration in Hanoi in May, Le Duan said: "...the victory ofViet Nam has opened a new stage of development, extremely favorable for theworld revolutionary movement." It is our responsibility to continue the of-fensive, to rouse the working class and join wholeheartedly in all of itsstruggles against US imperialism.

BREAK THE CHAINS

In 1959 a 16-year old Black man landedin an Alabama juvenile home accused of rap-ing a white woman — a friend of his. In-side he rated 75 on an IQ test and was la-belled "moron" for life. In 1963 aftermoving to Los Angeles to live with relativeshe was arrested for a ten dollar robberycoming out of an argument with his cousin.A kidnap charge was added to make it stickbecause during the young men 's disputethey had driven miles around the city. Thecourt-appointed lawyer insisted on coppinga plea of guilty by virtue of insanityover his client's objections. The man wassentenced to one year to life, working at306 a day, his release entirely condition-al on complete cooperation with the prisonsystem.

The man is Ruchell Cinque Magee,determined fighter, jailhouse lawyer,survivor of the 1970 San Rafael court-house rebellion in which Jonathan Jacksonattempted to free his brother George andseveral other prisoners, now locked up inSan Quentin's Adjustment Center.

The story is a common one.

These peoples in this judicial system, theirintention is not for justice of the peoples,as they claim. That is what they come in dis-guise of, to strip a people of everything.When I say strip, I mean rob, murder, exploit,intimidate, harrass, persecute, everything todestroy the mind and the body. They seek totake a peoples and make them a complete veg-etable. They seek to do what they cannot do.

Ruchell Cinque Magee — 1974

The US sets up repressive prisonsystems all around the world — it builtthe tiger cages in South Vietnam andtrained torturers in Chile and Brazil.In the US, prisons are an instrument ofclass rule: the function of laws in acapitalist society is to protect thosewho have from those who have nothing, toprotect things as they are from those whowould overturn the established order ofthings. The prison system touches mostpeople outside of the ruling class atsome point in their lives. Last yeareight million people were arrested. Thisyear, more than two million people willspend some time behind bars, subject to

beatings and humiliations of all sorts.(1)On any given day, 350,000 people arelocked up in local jails, state and feder-al prisons.(2) As everyone knows who hasbeen in jail or has a friend or relativeinside, once you're sentenced to a prisonterm the whole legal and social systemworks to keep you coming back.

Prisons exist not to protect us orto make our streets safe, but to terrorizeus. This terror is particularly directedagainst the Black community: 42% of pri-soners are Black people.(3) The absolutepower which prisons represent is usedagainst the Black community; when theAttica massacre took place the governmentheld back the identities of the murderedprisoners from their families so no oneknew if their sons, husbands or brotherswere alive or dead. Schools, welfare, themilitary and other institutions reach intothe daily lives of the people and shapeour thinking and actions to conform to the

8

needs of capitalism. Prisons representthe ultimate institution of control, un-equalled except by police or court-orderedmurder, without which the other controlswould fail. Prison is the big stickbehind the rest of the capitalist system,critical to its functioning.

Prison regulates the working class.The myth that most prisoners are dangerousanti-social elements or murderous crimin-als is a convenient lie. Less than onepercent of all arrests are for homicideand rape.(4) The vast majority of thepeople behind bars are in for crimesagainst property, not people. Mostprisoners are working people. Beforethey were arrested they worked canningpeaches, installing electric lines,waiting on tables, sharecropping, on theassembly line.

A continuous result of capitalistproduction is the creation of a relativesurplus of the working population, who arereadily and cheaply available in times ofwar and economic expansion, whose presencein the workforce helps the capitalistskeep wages low and profits high. Prison-ers form a key part of this reserve armyof labor which also includes housewives,people on welfare, the officially-countedunemployed and the partially employed.During World War II when labor was scarcethe prison population fell dramatically,then rose again with the end of the war.

Prisoners are part of the workingclass; prisons function to control thereserve army of labor and help allowcapitalism to function. The theory thatprisoners are "lumpen" elements, entirelyoutside the process of production, is apopular one in much of the left today,but does not fit the facts.

HISTORY

Prisons as human warehouses werestarted as a Quaker reform that came intouse in the US at the time of the Americanrevolution. Labor was scarce and theQuakers argued persuasively that if offen-ders were isolated from society, able todo penance, they could eventually reformand rejoin the work force. This is wherethe word penitentiary comes from. Isola-tion was the key to repentance: individualcells, no talking allowed, not even afleeting glimpse of another prisoner.

Soon after the first penitentiarywas built in Pennsylvania, New York statebuilt one in Auburn. But in addition toisolating and reforming, the architectsof Auburn saw the rich possibilities forprofitting off the work of the prisonerlabor force. They designed the prison sothat inmates had to work seven days a weekfrom sun-up to sun-down on the stateprison farm and adjoining workshops. In-mates worked together, often chained toeach other, but were still not permitted

to talk - a 24-hour rule in most USprisons until struggles in the 1930'sabolished it.

During the next hundred years manyprisons were built. The Pennsylvaniamodel died out in its extreme form becausesuch a high percentage of prisoners weredriven insane or died. The prison offi-cials determined that the prison workerwas too valuable a commodity to waste.

In 1870 the importance of the prisonsystem to a rapidly growing US monopolycapitalism was formalized by the foundingof the National Prison Association. Nowthe American Correctional Association, in1973 it awarded its biannual meritoriousservice award to Russell Oswald, New YorkState Commissioner of Corrections at thetime of the Attica uprising.

WHO ARE PRISONERS?

"I have heard people refer to the'criminal countenance.' I never sawone. Any man or woman looks like acriminal behind bars."

Eugene Debs, 1927from Walls and Bars

Prisoners are in the working class.60% of people in jail awaiting trial —the first stop on the road to prison --were working at the time of their arrest,according to a Law Enforcement AssistanceAdministration (LEAA) survey in 1972.Only 30% had been unemployed for over ayear. These statistics cover only thosearrested who couldn't make bail. The per-centage of those employed among the peoplewho made bail must be far higher.

The income of all those arrested in-dicates that people worked at low-payingjobs, and that employment was part time oroccasional. People inside are poor. Atthe time of arrest 44% of those arrestedwere earning less than $1,999 a year.Only 11% earned more than $7,500. (5)

Half of prisoners are Black and otherThird World people. The legal system isimposed on Third World communities likecolonial rule. Third World people arejailed with little chance to get a fairtrial, to get a good lawyer, to get bailedout.

Prisoners are rebels. The criminalinjustice system hunts the rebellious kidson the block and the organizers in thecommunity. This is a generalized methodof control of the Black community in par-ticular, and the resisters in all communi-ties. Although the US denies that thereare any political prisoners here, thereare many thousands locked up for theirpolitical beliefs and actions. Laws likethe Rap Brown Interstate Travel Act andthe Washington, D. C. Preventive Detentionlaw have been put into effect in the lastfive years in a government effort to con-trol political activists, organizers and

revolutionaries. Along with the thousandsof people who become politicized by theexperience of prison and join the strugglewhile inside, they constitute a large andgrowing body of political prisoners.

INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE

"Neither slavery nor involuntary ser-vitude, EXCEPT AS A PUNISHMENT FORCRIME WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVEBEEN DULY CONVICTED, shall exist with-in the United States or any place sub-ject to their jurisdiction."

13th Amendment to theUS Constitution, 1865

Prison is big business. In the firsthundred years of the US prison system manyprisoner-workers were contracted out toprivate employers who paid the prison fortheir use. Under this slave-like contract(prison chain gangs and slaves sometimesworked side by side) all forms of exploit-ation and brutality were permitted.

In the 1930's the trade union movementprotested the use of prisoners as competi-tion with "free labor" and the frequentcompany tactic of using prisoners to breakstrikes. Sellout labor leaders made adeal: contract prison labor would be out-lawed and instead the prisons themselveswould set up industrial and agriculturalfacilities whose products could only besold to the government. In exchange theunions agreed to stay away from the pris-ons, to cut ties with workers behind barsand to remain deaf and blind to the ex-ploitation perpetrated inside. Today ex-prisoners are not admitted into most laborunions. The worst of the union leadershipitself became a sponsor of the prison sys-tem. George Meany is one of six men whosit on the Board of Prison Industries, Inc.,a government-owned corporation which runsprison labor in the federal prisons.

Inmates today perform about70% of the jobs of institutionalmaintenance. Except for a fewsupervisory personnel, inmatesrun the launderies, the kitchensthe offices, repair shops, justabout everything that keeps theprisons functioning. In addition25% of federal prisoners and ahigher percentage of state pris-oners (up to 70% in some states)work in prison industries wherethey produce furniture, cloth-ing, shoes, canned goods, elec-trical equipment to sell to thegovernment. (6)

In 1970 the federal prisonindustries cleared $11 millionin profits. (7) These profitsare hidden: the figure is se-cret for most state prison sys-tems. A clue to the scale ofprofit comes from the 1966

Arkansas figure: gains from prison indus-tries exceeded the entire prison budget by$300,000. (8)

The source of these profits is super-exploited human labor. Most institutionalmaintanance jobs don't pay anything, andjobs in prison industries pay from theusual 2<; to 6£ an hour to 25C for federalprisoners.

Prison administrators hush up theprofit aspect of inmate labor with the liethat prison work reforms the prisoner,teaches good work habits and trains and re-habilitates prisoners for jobs on the out-side. Prison industries, guaranteed a mar-ket for their products by the government,have equipment which is outdated, ineffic-ient and unsafe. Some prison products,like license plates which are produced inalmost every men's prison, are a prisonmonopoly. Prison-taught skills are oftenuseless. You won't find work making li-cense plates on the outside.

BREAKING THE SPIRIT/ REPRESSION INSIDE

Sensational media and self-servinggovernment statements exaggerate the vio-lence of prisoner against prisoner. Pris-oners are people — the system inside isinhuman. Basic necessities are treatedas privileges to be granted at the discre-tion of the administration. Overcrowdingis standard procedure. Nothing can betaken for granted -- decent food, visitors,receiving books or mail, exercise andshowers -- or the right to defend oneselfor another prisoner against attacks byguards. Parole or graduation to a minimumsecurity prison depends on submission,while 24-hour lock-up, the adjustmentcenter and the hole (24-hour a day darkstrip cells) are punishment for any sparkof resistance.

10

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The spectre of masses of prisonersuniting against the handful of guards whocontrol them haunts the prison system.The prison administration uses every trickin the book to divide prisoners -- competi-tion, racism, sexism. Good time for onemeans revocation of privileges for another;a job for one means the hole for a brother;they tell a white prisoner to inform on aBlack prisoner or lose her own visitingprivileges for a month, then throw theBlack prisoner in the hole for fightingback. Rebellion has a high cost — gassing,beatings, lock-ups. Hundreds of inmatesdie in prison every year, and no one diesfrom old age. (9)

As prisoners fight back and organize,tha prison system retaliates by seekingmore elaborate and effective methods forcrushing rebellious prisoners. Adjustmentcenters, where prisoners are locked up 23%hours a day and fed small tasteless ra-tions, special prisons like the federalprison in Marion, Illinois and the new$13.5 million state prison in Butner, N.C.specialize in behavior modification. Youenter the institution, usually involuntar-ily, but sometimes on the promise of spe-cial privileges -- minimum security or a

TV. You enter at the lowest of many lev-els: no privileges, special isolation cell,tranquilizers. Your behavior and attitudeare watched and tested, especially yourresponse to random gassing and beating. Ifthe officials find you sufficiently cooper-ative in time you can move to a higher lev-el: a better cell, maybe an hour a day out-side, but still a few levels away fromreceiving visitors or mail. Prisoners whoreach higher levels can get knocked down,and are subject to more drugs, and deniedeven food and water. These methods areused in women's prisons with an emphasison the use of drugs. Women in CaliforniaInstitution for Women have been fightingthe use of prolixin, which slowly destroysbrain cells -- "to increase passivity" —and drugs which relax muscles to the pointwhere the victim stops breathing for twoor three minutes, experiencing the sensa-tion of total suffocation. In 1973 womenin CIW successfully forced prison officialsto abandon a new behavior modificationprogram that would have subjected "problemwomen" to "attack therapy" — forced snitch-ing on other women — two or three timesa day.

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WOMEN LOCKED UP

There are more than 15,000 women in state and federal prison.iWomen comprise only 5% of sentenced state and federal prisoners. Notincluded in these statistics are the thousands of women thrown into:local and county jails for prostitution, vagrancy or drunkenness.Other less obvious but equally destructive controls are used againstwomen; women make up approximately 50% of patients hospitalized on theAwards of State mental asylums. (US census) Moreover, judges are nov;tending to sentence women to prison more and more, and new prisonsare being built for women inmates.

Women who are arrested risk having their children incarceratedin state institutions for days and weeks, and often lose their child-ren to these institutions permanently. Women locked up have no saywhere their children will go. Last summer Black Liberation Army pris-oner Assata Shakur gave birth to a daughter in prison. Only underpressure from Assata and women's demonstrations outside was she al-lowed a non-prison doctor whom she could trust. The day after shegave birth her baby was taken from her and she was severely beaten

by guards. Marilyn Buck is being held in solitary confinement at Alderson, W. Va. fed-eral prison. Women political prisoners are isolated from the prison population and fromcommunication outside.

Women prisoners have even less access than men to paying jobs and education. Booksare hard to get but contraband drugs can be purchased at any time from the guards. Womenare humiliated by body searches and are prey to racist and sexual assaults as JoannLittle's case demonstrates.

Women's prisons are systematically depoliticized and defused by tranquilizers andinsulation from the outside. But women at Bedford Hills, N.Y., California Institute for/Jomen and Alderson, W. Va. federal women's prison have organized and taken action toimprove their conditions. One woman in CIW writes: "We are in prison now. There are manyof us who are becoming stronger every day and more conscious. And more each day."

PAROLE

Full cooperation — "good time" —can get a prisoner out on parole before hisor her time is served. A bad report byguards can keep a prisoner in for extrayears. In states like California whichgive "indeterminate sentences", prisonerscan be sentenced to six months to ten yearsor one year to life. George Jackson gotone to life for a $70 robbery. He had beenin for 11 years when he was murdered byprison guards in 1971. The majority ofprisoners of California are serving inde-terminate sentences, completely at themercy of prison administrations, and onlythe active counter-offensive by the prisonmovement is braking the trend toward inde-terminate sentences nation-wide.

An estimated 300,000 people were on

parole in 1972. (10) Parole is the systemof close supervision of a released pris-oner for the remainder of the prisoner'ssentence — it may be for life. Any vio-lation returns you to prison — and betwe<50% and 75% of all prisoners return.(11)When the guards say goodbye they assure y<they will see you again. Many parolees a:returned to prison on technical violationswhich include anything the overwhelminglywhite, male parole board officers don'tapprove of — less than 2% of those whocome back are returned for crimes involviiviolence. (12) These violations range frortrivial things like driving an improperlyregistered car to the exercising of civilrights such as interracial relationshipsand marriages, different lifestyles, allforms of radical political activity and aipublic criticism of the prison system.

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The prison movement has devised manymilitant forms of resistance, from individ-ual non-collaboration to escape, from burn-ing down and occupying prisons to seizingguards. The ideological contribution ofprisoners — internationalism, uncompro-mising militancy, the understanding thatthere can be no successful revolution with-out armed struggle — has challenged thewhole movement.

Only organization reaching across thebars can enable released prison activiststo fully enter the revolutionary movementon the outside. For the good of the move-ment inside and for the good of the move-ment outside, we need to develop politicalstruggle and mutual support that breaksthrough prison barriers. The prisonstruggle is our struggle. Attica is allof us.

Our program must be to organize for thedemands of the prison movement -- to endbehavior modification, fascist practicesand overcrowding, to make the judicial sys-tem answerable to the community, to win theright to organize, to win decent livingconditions, the right to books, mail andvisitors, the right to raise children. Wemust build a movement that includes pris-

oners — whether it is a rank and fileunion movement across prison bars or awomen's movement that includes imprisonedsisters. We must build a movement to freeall political prisoners and abolish theprison system.

FOOTNOTES

(1) Uniform Crime Reports for the US, Dept.of Justice, 1974. US Census 1970', ,Sub-ject Report: Inmates of Institutions.

(2) US Census 1970, op cit, P. 36.(3) Ibid.(4) Uniform Crime Reports, op cit, p.116-117.(5) Advanced Surrey Report on Jails, LEAA,

US Dept. of Justice, 1973, p.16.US Census 1970, op cit, p.41.

(6) Kind and UsuaT Punishment, JessicaMitford, Chap. 11 ~

(7) Federal Prison Industries, Ind., AnnualReport to Congress by the Board ofDirectors, 1970.

(8) State study quoted by Goldfarb andSinger in After Conviction, 1973, p.393.

(9) US Census 1970, op cit.(10) American Correctional Assoc., 103rd

Congress, 1972, p.43.(11) Mitford, op cit; Crime in America,

Ramsey Clark, 9 1972.(12) Mitford, op cit.

WE m MEN! WE ARE NOTBEASTS AMD DO NOT INTENP TO BEBEATEN OR DRIVEN AS SUCH...WHATm HAPPENED HERE IS &UT THESOUND BEFORE THE FURY OFTHOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED.,

WE CALL UPON AIL THECONOTIOUS CITIZENS OF AMER-ICA TO ASSIST WS IN PUTTINGAN END TO THIS SITUATION THATTHREATENS THE LIVES OF MOT flNllUS m EM.H AND EVERY ONEOF MS AS WEIL.

-FROM THE FIVE DEMANDSOF THE INMATES OF ATTICA

14

REVIEW: THREE BOOKS ABOUT WOMEN

GORILLA, MY LOVE by Ton! Cade BambaraPocket Books, 1973, $1.25

These short stories about women —about Black women— will take your breathaway: hard-hitting, no-nonsense blaststhat explode in your brain and your stomachand capture your heart. They crawl insideHazel Peoples, 60, getting dressed down byher three kids in the kitchen at a benefitparty for belly-rubbing with the neighbor-hood blind man who fixes skates and toast-ers and bicycles. Or Squeaky, aka Mercury,young girl runner catching her competitor'seye at the end of the May Day 50-yard dash:

"We stand there with this big smile ofrespect between us. It's about asreal a smile as girls can do for eachother, considering we don't practicereal smiling every day, you know,cause maybe we too busy being flowersor fairies or strawberries instead ofsomething honest and worthy of re-spect. . . "

Just when you're feeling comfortablewith the tough warmth and the humor ofthese stories, along comes The Survivor orthe Johnson Girls to put you on notice thatBlackwomenpeople dream and go mad, losethemselves in childbirth and are trying toget straight with one another -- and thatToni Cade Bambara is a master writer.

WOMEN OF VIETNAM by Arlene Eisen BergmanPeoples Press, 1974,$2.65

Minh Khai grew up in Vietnam with theConfucian teaching: "One hundred women arenot worth a single testicle." In 1930,she and other young women who were found-ing members of the Indochinese CommunistParty formed the Vietnam Women's Union.Their demands were:

Reduce rents and interest rates!Equal wages for equal work!No dangerous work for women!Two months fully paid maternity leave!Down with forced marriage!Down with polygamy!Abolish the habit of holding women incontempt!

Today the descendants of the Unionfounded by Minh Khai are the Vietnam Wom-en's Union with millions of active membersin the North and the Union of Women forthe Liberation of South Vietnam with sev-eral million members in the South. Womenof Vietnam includes a study of the violenceunleashed against the women of Vietnam byUS imperialism: systematic rape, attackson future generations, the torture of wom-en. It is also a book of rebellion: beat-ing the drums to build up courage, "speak-ing bitterness" against cruel landlords,the internal fight against centuries ofpassivity and humiliation as the "slave ofa slave", the long-haired army and thefight against the French and then the Amer-ican aggressors.

The force that occupied the fortress-like US embassy in Saigon during the TetOffensive was a women's commando group.They occupied five floors, killed 200 USpersonnel and forced Ambassador Bunker toflee in a helicopter. The group was ledby Le Thi Rien, a vice-president of theUnion of Women for the Liberation of South

15

Vietnam, and a member of the Central Com-mittee of the National Liberation Front.She was executed in the early morning ofFebruary 1st, 1968. With the convictionthat their production served to strengthenthe anti-US war effort, women in one North-ern province alone worked 44,392 extrawork days to avenge her murder.

Women of Vietnam is lovingly written,illustrated and produced -- full of poemsand folksongs, faces and stories of Viet-namese women and their struggle for lib-eration. It is a challenge to revolution-aries about the importance of the emanci-pation of women to the struggle for revo-lution. It is a challenge to women aboutthe integral relationship between social-ism and the equality of women. "Revolutionis our way of liberation." It is a bookfor everyone to read — to be used inteaching, to be read out loud, read toyoung girls and given to old women. It isanother gift from the Vietnamese, beauti-fully woven together by the author. Ex-pect the new post-liberation edition soon.

DAUGHTER OF EARTH by Agnes SmedleyFeminist Press,1973,$2.50

This is a book to treasure; a bookrescued from the past. The life and workof Agnes Smedley has suffered an enforcedoblivion like many of her class and sex,and perhaps especially because of her rolein support of the Chinese revolution since1938. Thanks to the Feminist Press reprintof this strongly autobiographical novel ofher youth, we now have a story of her work-ing-class roots and the stifling oppressionof ceaseless poverty.

It is a desperate book: determined toescape her mother's destiny, she steelsherself against love and family. Breakingthrough the barriers that confine and en-slave her leads her from miner's daughter,washerwoman, cigar-maker, writer, to revo-lutionary activist. This is a piece ofAmerican history and of the left — andits ill-treatment of women — told like itis by a woman who refused to be betrayed.It is haunting. "I write of the joys andsorrows of the lowly. Of loneliness. Ofpain. And of love... I belong to thosewho die... exhausted by poverty, victimsof wealth and power, fighters in a greatcause."

PONCE CEMENT STRIKERS NEED YOUR SUPPORTFor eight months the 500 workers and their families at Puerto Rican

Cement in Ponce have been waging a courageous and important strike. TheOperators and Cement Workers Union went on strike in January after the com-pany cut hard-won pension payments and a medical plan. The strikers demandrestoration of the cuts, higher wages, an end to forced overtime (up to 80hours a week), a cost of living clause and better working conditions. Thegigantic Ferre Enterprises, the company of former colonial governor LuisFerre, which owns Puerto Rican Cement, has answered with arrests and beat-ings of union members, AFL-CIO strike breakers and thugs, FBI intimidationand redbaiting. Now the bosses hope to starve out the workers.

For all of us who are dedicated to creating a fighting workers move-ment, and for all of us who have rallied for the independence of PuertoRico, now is the time to support this militant union struggle. Victoryfor the Puerto Rican cement strike will strengthen the non-US controlledPuerto Rican trade union movement. Eight months on strike has used upthe economic resources of the union. Efrain Fernandez, union president,said in an open letter, "We need economic help from the workers in theUnited States. We want all the workers to know about our struggle whichis the same as theirs. After all, we are fighting only to get a smallpart of the product of our work."

Ten dollars a week will sustain one worker on strike. Contributeand raise money for the strikers and send it to:

Cement Workers Unionc/o MOUAve. Fernandez Juncos 1407Pda. 20Santurce, Puerto Rico

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17

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by women in theund Organization,of the film madenio, Mary Lamp-Wexler with andin May 29th the>enaed the three:he film before a.d Jury. The three:rate in any way:ed by many film-• people. The'orced to drop the:ilm is now beingsoon be completed.

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18

WEATHER UNDERGROUND ORGANIZATIONBOMBS KENNECOTT CORPORATION

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAHSeptember 4, 1975 Venturelll

On the second anniversary of the fascist coup in Chile, we attacked the nationalheadquarters of Kennecott Corporation in Salt Lake City, Utah, in solidarity with theheroic resistance of the Chilean people. We attacked Kennecott for all the years it hasrobbed the Chilean people of their copper and wealth, for its role in the overthrow ofthe Popular Unity government and the murder of Salvador Allende, and for its oppressionand exploitation of working people in the US.

Kennecott, Anaconda and ITT share responsibility with Kissinger and the CIA for theoverthrow of the democratically-elected Popular Unity government. Kennecott and Anacondaorganized for an international boycott of Chile's copper and simultaneously forced theprice of copper down 20%, bringing crisis and suffering to the people of Chile and under-mining the economy. Kennecott continues to drain wealth from the Chilean people. Ken-necott is now receiving $68 million from the military dictatorship in "compensation" forthe nationalization of its mines. This on top of more than $4 billion in copper profitswhich Kennecott and Anaconda together mined out over a 40-year period.

Dictatorship in Chile could not survive without aid from the United States. Thisyear the Ford administration is giving Chile $165 million in aid. This aid goes to ajunta which rules by force and terror. Over 40,000 people have been murdered by thecounter-revolution, including Miguel Enriquez, the leader of the underground revolution-ary party MIR. A former Nazi SS colonel, Walter Rauf, advises the junta's secret police.The working class has been the most strongly repressed. The junta abolished the workers'Central Labor Federation, wages are strictly controlled, and the right to strike has beenoutlawed. Many labor leaders have been killed or imprisoned, including the militant minersfrom the El Teniente copper mine.

The Chilean people are part of the struggle against the same imperialists who oppressmineworkers and other workers here in the US. In 1967 a strike at all four US divisionsof Kennecott was maintained for 8*5 months. Kennecott fought the strike by increasing theproduction and import of copper from Chile. The striking workers understood how Kenne-cott 's international holdings weakened their own struggle. When Kennecott's mines werenationalized by the Allende government, it actually strengthened the workers in theirstruggle here and helped build international class solidarity. There have been sevenstrikes in the US against Kennecott in the last 25 years. This summer Kennecott laidoff 2100 of its 12,500 workers and closed many of its mines. In the fall it plans to re-open at only 60% capacity. This is Kennecott's strategy both to keep prices and profitshigh by limiting supply and to intimidate labor militancy by threatening workers' jobs.

In Chile the resistance to the junta continues. Clandestine committees organizesabotage, lead strikes, distribute propaganda, share news and information. The struggleof the Chilean people and the international solidarity movement will determine the out-come in Chile.

STOP US AID TO THE JUNTA!THE RESISTANCE IN CHILE WILL WIN!LA RESISTENCIA CHILENA TRIUNFARA!

19

DEFEND THE PORTUGUESE REVOLUTION

There is a war going on in Portugal between the forces of revolu-tion and counter-revolution. Freed from the chains of x50 years offascism, the Portuguese people have mobilized. The working class istaking history into its own hands, fighting to transform Portugueselife and confronting all the reactionary forces — the old fascists,the rising capitalists, the Catholic Church, the CIA and the SocialistParty. Power struggles now taking place in Lisbon reflect the classstruggle in the country as a whole. Defending the revolutionaryprocess is the central task in Portugal today; the memory of theChilean coup is fresh in people's minds.

The US is trying to destroy the Portu-guese revolution. As in Chile during thePopular Unity government, the strategy isto "destabilize" the situation and financecoup attempts. Multinational corporationslike ITT, Hertz, and Timex have closed downor cut back, causing unemployment. US Am-bassador Frank Carlucci is an old CIA hand,a specialist in counter-insurgency. He wasin the Congo when Lumumba was murdered andin Brazil from 1965-69 when the militarydictatorship carried out vicious repressionof leftists.

CIA activity has ranged from subvert-ing trade unions, to working with thePortuguese Liberation Army, a terroristgroup which led recent anti-communist riotsand sabotage. The CIA is using its pre-coup contacts in the military to promoteright-wing elements and isolate the leftwithin the Armed Forces Movement (AFM).It is also sponsoring a pro-US independencemovement in the Portuguese Azores, aidingrightist forces in Angola (the FNLA), andfinancing the Portuguese Socialist Party,a leading anti-communist force.

Fascist Portugal, the poorest countryin Europe, was dominated by England andother West European countries, kept under-developed as a source of cheap labor andagricultural products for multinationalcorporations. Portugal's ruling class wasa feudal alliance of landed aristocracyand the Catholic Church, kept in power bya fascist regime as terrifying as Hitler'sGermany or Pinochet's Chile. Portugal'saverage per capita income was $720; 40% ofadults could not read. Although Portugalcontrolled three colonies in Africa —Guine-Bissau, Mozambique and Angola — thecolonies' richest resources were exploitedby more advanced imperialist countries.Portugal got its share from cash crops,forced labor and protected markets. As theAfrican struggles advanced, Portugal wasforced to spend half its budget on the mil-itary. This drain on Portugal's resourceswas a factor pushing the AFM to depose the

Caetano dictatorship.The African liberation struggles

against Portuguese rule created the condi-tions for the successful overthrow ofPortuguese fascism. Blood spilled by Af-rican liberation fighters was part of theprice of freedom in Portugal. The AFMbrought the wars home when it toppledCaetano on April 25, 1974.

The middle-level officers who made upthe core of the AFM knew that Portugal waslosing the wars in Africa. Four days be-fore the coup, FRELIMO had cut the mainroad linking Mozambique's capital and mainport. The soldiers were asking why.

Many of them saw that they were fight-ing against truly popular struggles.Portuguese soldiers taken prisoner by theliberation movements were introduced to theachievements in the liberated zones andtaught the movements' goals. African pris-oners often gave a first political educa-tion to their Portuguese captors, many ofwhom saw the similarities between condi-tions in Portugal and in the colonies. The

CAPTURED PORTUGUESE SOLDIERS IN MOZAMBIQUEA/?E MARCHED TO A FRELIMO BASE

20

THE CIA IN PORTUGAL

Philip Agee, a former CIA agent whoexposed CIA activities in his book CIADiary, wrote an "open letter to the Portu-guese people." Here are some excerpts:

"I see the signs daily. These counter-revolutionary activities are similar towhat I did in the CIA for more than tenyears. I send this as part of a continu-ing effort by many Americans to end impe-rialist intervention and support to rep-ression by the US government."

"The size of the overall US govern-ment mission in Portugal is shocking, es-pecially its heavy dominance by militarypersonnel. Of the (160) Americans, 105are military personnel... Of the approx-imately 50 American civilians in themission, about ten, I believe, are employ-ees of the CIA. No less than ten addi-tional CIA functionaries are probably work-ing in Lisbon and other cities, having beenassigned ostensibly for temporary duties..."

"The US military schools have trainedover 3000 Portuguese military personnelsince 1950. Detailed files have beenaccumulated on every one of them — theirpersonalities, politics, likes and dislikes,strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.Many of these will have already been sel-ected as contacts to be developed withinthe Portuguese military establishment..."

"The CIA may have intervened in therecent electoral campaign to assure thatthe results would "prove" that the major-ity of Portuguese favor a more "moderate"pace for the revolution. James Lawler, theCIA deputy chief in Lisbon, engaged in justsuch operations in Brazil (in 1962) and inChile (in 1964) where many millions ofdollars were spent by the CIA to promotethe election of US-approved "moderates".

"The CIA is also using the RomanCatholic Church for its ends. Recently areliable source in Washington told me thatlarge amounts of money are going from theUS to the Catholic Church for combating therevolution in Portugal."

"Propaganda campaigns are central forall important CIA political operations...the CIA must continue to aid — in everypossible way — the efforts of "moderate"political forces to establish and maintainmedia outlets that the CIA can use forplacing its materials."

" Private investment credits can befrozen, trading contracts delayed andcancelled and unemployment increased,while imperialist propaganda will place theblame on workers' demands and the govern-ment 's weakness rather than on lendinginstitutions and their deliberate policiesof credit retention. The effects of theseprograms in Chile during the Allendeadministration are known to all."

officer corps — once the reserve of thechildren of the aristocracy — was depletedin battle and was filled out with draftedstudents who were resentful of the draftand familiar with radical ideas. All theseconditions combined to produce the fewhundred officers who first formed the AFM.Their original goals were to overthrowCaetano in order to free the colonies, re-store democratic freedoms and end fascistrule.

At first, the AFM formed an uneasyalliance with General Antonio Spinola —who became Portugal's new President. Spi-nola, known as "The Butcher of GuinS-Bissau" for his role commanding Portugueseforces there, had written a book attackingthe colonial wars and proposing a neocolo-nial solution in Africa. He representedthe rising capitalist class who challengedthe ruling aristocracy in order to createroom for capitalist expansion and modern-ization.

But the revolution quickly pushedSpinola aside. Workers began to exercisethe new freedoms guaranteed by the AFM.Red carnations — the symbol of Portugal'srevolution — bloomed all over the country.Mass movements began to purge fascistsfrom positions of power. Only three daysafter the coup 700 sailors met to oust 82fascist officers. The unity of the workersand the AFM grew stronger as the strugglemoved forward.

IN A STEEL PLANT: THE SLOGAN SlkYS "OUT WITH THE FASCISTS"

Spinola fought back, calling a rallyfor September 28th, timed to coincide witha coup by fascists from the old regime.Armed workers and left groups set up road-blocks to stop the fascists and theirweapons from entering Lisbon. Pushed bythe workers and the militant left, the AFMbanned the right-wing rally and arresteddozens of plotters. The defeat of thefascist coup attempt was a lesson in theclass struggle for the masses of people:capitalists won't give up a shred of

21

power without a fight.Another coup attempt on March llth

was also crushed quickly, producing amighty tide of workers' action. Bankclerks seized the banks to prevent with-drawals by the fleeing rightists, and thendemanded and won nationalization of thebanks. Unoccupied villas were taken overfor the people's use and great estatesbecame new housing for poor workers andpeasants.

The working class became the motor ofthe Portuguese revolution — defending therevolution from all capitalist attempts toundermine it. The cooperation of the AFM,the workers movement and organized leftgroups increased after March, and theslogan AFM-POVO, POVO-AFM (Povo means"common people") took on new meaning. Onthe first anniversary of the overthrow offascism, the AFM announced that Portugalwas on the road to socialism.

WORKERS OCCUPY LAR&F B/WK, DEMANDING NATIONALIZATION

The class struggle continues in Portu-gal, with the outcome undecided. The larg-est force opposing the revolution is theSocialist Party, led by Mario Scares. Itis a social-democratic party, not reallyfor socialism, and has close ties to WillyBrandt and Helmut Schmidt in West Germanyand Harold Wilson in England. The Social-ist Party is the agent of the class ofcapitalists who hope for a bourgeois democ-racy like those in Western Europe. It hasallied with the right-wing parties and has

supported the violent attacks on the Por-tuguese left.

The fascists and the Catholic Churchhave organized anti-communist mobs to at-tack Communist Party headquarters in north-ern Portugal. After 50 years of fascismand the educational guidance of a Churchwhich taught the peasants that "communistseat children", there is a base for opposi-tion to the revolution. In addition, theeconomic difficulties accompanying theenormous transformation of Portuguese lifehave made it particularly hard for thesmall farmers of the north. High costsfor farm materials and unreformed market-ing practices have meant much sufferingfor the small farmers, and increased theiropenness to anti-communist propaganda.The counter-revolution is able to prey onthese difficulties.

Many left groups have shown solidaritywith the Communist Party in the face of theattacks. An anti-fascist front formedwhich included the Proletarian Revolution-ary Party (PRP) and the League of Revolu-tionary Unity and Action (LUAR), groupswhich helped mobilize recent workers'struggles and which waged armed struggleagainst the fascist dictatorship. TheSocialist Party stood aside, allying withthe fascist upsurge, hoping to inherit thereigns of power.

Portugal's revolution has alreadyresulted in great achievements: grantingindependence to the African colonies, na-tionalizing over half of the Portugueseeconomy, beginning agrarian reform, dou-bling the minimum wage, granting open ad-mission to all universities.

The revolutionary forces in Portugalare now under steady and growing attack.Reactionaries are moving fast to turnback the clock, reverse the socialistdirection, and crush the hopeful possi-bilities of the future. This is a timeto expose US subversion, counter medialies with the truth and show full sup-port for the continuing struggle of thePortuguese workers, soldiers and popu-lar movement.

1VOM WITH THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS"

22TOOLBOX:

Socialism is what the people need. Lookaround. Lousy housing, food too expen-sive to buy, health services beyond thereach of most of us. This is no way tolive. Capitalism has outlived its use-fulness. While hard times grip everycapitalist country, the socialist nationsare moving forward: there is no unemploy-

ment in the socialist world, there is housingand health care and food for everyone, and prices

are moving steadily down. There's hunger and starva-tion in the US, but not in Cuba or China. Socialism means

an end to the system of private wealth and public poverty.

When the US becomes a socialist country, power will be inthe hands of the working class, the overwhelming majority of peo-

ple. The working people will own and manage the factories, hospitals, schools andfood stores — everything — for the benefit of the whole community. Instead ofhaving our labor stolen from us, the work we do will produce a decent and humanesociety. And productive work will exist for all.

The working class will no longer be thrown into terrible imperialist warswaged for the sake of profits. The steel used to make bomber planes and enginesof war will be used to construct bridges or to create public transportation inour cities. Workers will finally work in safe conditions because the god of prof-it will at last be dethroned.

Revolution is the path to socialism. The capitalists are fighting to stay ontop, and the working class will have to organize to topple them.

Socialism puts human beings — their needs and hopes and dreams — at thecenter of things. Socialist values are collective and communal. Socialism is therejection of the old and rotten values: individualism, elitism, sexism. Socialismrequires the rejection of racism. Socialism means social responsibility, love foreach sister or brother in the whole of humanity, the realization of self in rela-tion to others.

Socialism will unleash amazing human creativity. Our cities will become hu-man gardens. The competitiveness, fear and anxiety holding people back from be-coming new women and men is a result of capitalism, not human nature. Look at thefaces of the children of Vietnam and you will see the promise of the future.

In a society ruled by the exploiting classonly the individual interests of a few peo.-ple belonging to this class are met, where-as those of the toiling masses are trampledunderfoot. But in the socialist and commun-ist systems, of which the laboring peopleare the masters, each man is a part of thecollective, plays a definite role in it andcontributes his part to society. That iswhy the interests of the individual lieswithin those of the collective and are partof them. Only when the latter are securedcan the former be satisfied.

Ho Chi MinhRevolutionary Morality

23

BOSTON: THE BATTLE RAGES

More on ROARby Joe Reed

This article, a sequel to The Battleof Boston in the first issue of Osawato-mie, was written on September 7th, theday before schools opened in Boston.

The Cradle of Liberty: Boston — Where It All Began. Bicentennialbillboards designed to numb the reality of depression and crisis, ofwelfare cuts and hunger, of layoffs and rent increases. Patriotic slo-gans of a war against the British aimed at disguising the ugly waragainst Black people in Boston, 1975.

A few steps off the Freedom Trailputs you in East Boston, where over thesummer Black and Puerto Rican familieshave been attacked and firebombed intheir homes by racist youths lobbingmolotovs and cheering while the apart-ments burned. Or into Hyde Park, where aBlack family's home is spray-painted withswastikas and KKK signs and a cross isleft burning on their lawn. Or to CarsonBeach in South Boston where Black peoplehave been physically attacked by crowdsof whites for trying to swim at a publicbeach.

Spearheading the attacks is ROAR (Re-store Our Alienated Rights), the leaderof the Boston "anti-busing" movement. Inthe first issue of Osawatomie, we revealedthat members of the Weather UndergroundOrganization had secretly attended weeklyROAR meetings in the chambers of Boston'sCity Council. We showed that racism isthe core of ROAR's organizing. Not oncein all the meetings we attended did ROARmembers discuss ways to improve Boston'sterrible schools. Not once did ROAR lea-ders , who include most members of theSchool Committee and the City Council andmany landlords, propose any plans to fightagainst the depression. ROAR has only onegoal: building a racist movement to ter-rorize Black people, to keep the schoolsand communities segregated and under theircontrol, and to divert the anger of work-ing-class whites away from their classenemies and toward Black and other ThirdWorld people.

ROAR's racism has been exposed bythe Black community, by the left and bytheir own practice. ROAR vigilante groups,which train regularly in South Boston'sMarine Park and in Charlestown, have par-ticipated in some of the worst attacks onBlacks. The Charlestown group is led by

Tommy Johnson, a member of the ROARgoon squad at the meetings we attended.

Open racism and violence have causedsplits in ROAR's own ranks. In the lastsix months, 70 anti-busers left Dorches-ter's ROAR branch and 21 members of ROAR'sEast Boston Information Center also quit.

At the same time, ROAR has estab-lished itself as a national organization,headed by Boston City Councillor LouiseDay Hicks. It has put forward a fascistprogram called the ABC's: anti-abortion,anti-busing, and anti-communism. ROAR dis-rupted Boston women's meetings called tosupport passage of the Equal Rights Amend-ment. It beat up anti-racist community or-ganizers on Boston's streets. When cam-paign aides of George Wallace came to Bos-ton looking for allies, ROAR leaders werethere to greet them. As another schoolyear opens, with ROAR once again posingas the guardian of the "neighborhoodschool" and "quality education," activ-ists should continue to expose ROAR ter-ror and prepare to fight back hard thisfall.

ATTACKED ROAR'S IN THEBOSTON cm COUNCIL.

24

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Two Cities, One Racist Strategy

In Boston, ROAR has conducted an all-out war this summer against the Black andPuerto Rican communities. A few incidents,like the attacks on Black people at CarsonBeach, received national publicity. Most,like the violence in East Boston, went un-heard and unnoticed outside Boston.

East Boston is one of ROAR's strong-holds, an impoverished Italian working-class community. Elvira "Pixie" Palladino,who said at one ROAR meeting that shewould gladly ally with the Nazis to op-pose busing, heads ROAR's East Boston In-formation Center. In opposition to ROAR,many community organizers have carried onanti-racist work in the area.

This summer, ROAR organized youth,gangs to attempt to drive out the fewBlack and Puerto Rican families who livein East Boston's Maverick Street housingprojects. In late June, attacks began onMrs. Annie Mae Lewis, a Black resident.Mrs. Lewis had attended a local schoolboard meeting and challenged the racismof some ROAR speakers. Soon after, herchildren were threatened in the neighbor-hood and her home was firebombed. Mrs.Lewis refused to move out, calling infriends and community activists who stoodguard at her house day and night for aweek. More than 100 people from all overBoston took part in this defense.

On the night of August 25th, a gangof white youth stormed through the pro-jects beating up two Black people whowere sitting in a playground, then smash-ing the windows of another Black family'sapartment. As the youths marauded throughthe streets, Black families inside theprojects called up friends and relativesasking for assistance. Soon 30 people ar-rived, including some white neighbors.After a confrontation outside, in which

police arrested one Black man,the Black families and theirsupporters regrouped in Mrs.Lewis' home. The gang attackedagain, busting the screen doorand menacing the group with arifle. Finally the police tookaction -- invading the Lewis'home and arresting seven people,including Mrs. Lewis! None ofthe racist gang was arrested.

The battle of East Bostonis still raging. ROAR and thepolice have joined forces toterrorize Black and PuertoRican residents. But a people'sresistance, based in the com-munity and drawing on organ-izers from all over the city,has fought back with greatcourage -- refusing to bowto the racist pressure.

In New York, ROAR calls itself Re-store Our American Rights. It has cen-tered its attacks on Ormistan Spencer,his wife Gloria, and their three sons --a Black family who moved into Rosedale,Queens in July, 1974.

On New Year's Eve the Spencers'home was bombed. A note was left whichsaid, "Nigger be warned. We have time. Wewill get you. Your first born first." Itwas signed, "Vive Boston KKK." ROAR ap-peared on the scene on March 29th, dem-onstrating outside the Spencer home de-manding the removal of their 24-hour po-lice protection. That protection waslifted this summer. Cars began to cruiseby the house with unidentified men shout-ing racist slurs and throwing garbage onthe front lawn. Mr. Spencer bought a gunfor self-defense. One August night. Spen-cer and his wife came out of their hometo confront a mob of 40 ROAR people whohad gathered on their lawn. In the scufflewhich followed, Spencer's gun went off,injuring him and his wife. The police ar-rested Spencer, charging him with poses-sion of a dangerous weapon. No ROAR peoplewere arrested.

Rosedale ROAR puts its racism rightout front. Here is an excerpt from a ROARleaflet passed out in Rosedale this sum-mer:

A word to the wise: ROAR located the home oftwo former Rosedale residents who sold theirhomes to blacks. We alerted their new neigh-bors of their selfish actions. If a neighborof yours sells their home to blacks in apredominantly white area, let us know im-mediately.

Michael Biggio, a member Of ROAR'sexecutive committee who was recently triedand acquitted in the bombing of the Spen-cer home, described the Rosedale issueclearly: "This is a white community. It'sgoing to stay that way. And we're goingto run it."

25

"Anti-busers" are also organizing inBensonhurst, Brooklyn to fight the busingof Black and Puerto Rican students intothe area's mostly white high schools.Community people and organizers have vig-orously confronted the racists, and wel-comed the new students. The slogan of theBensonhurst struggle is "No Boston inBrooklyn."

Boston: Fighting Back This Fall

The new school year brings Phase 2of the Boston busing plan. There are seri-ous differences with the plan within theBlack, Puerto Rican and Chinese communitiesand among antiracist whites. Some Black andPuerto Rican parents are now demanding con-trol of their own schools and expansion ofbilingual programs. At the same time, thereis a fundamental principle which unites allof us: full, unequivocal defense of theright of Black and other Third World peopleto attend any school in the city withoutfear, intimidation or attack.

We know ROAR. We know that its plansinclude vigilante terror as well as openprotest. We also know that ROAR's greatfear is exposure and widespread opposi-tion. Racist attacks have to be met withmilitant, visible citywide action. Blackpeople, who have borne the brunt of theattacks, have resisted in a life-and-death struggle for dignity and survival.Rallying to support Mrs. Annie Mae Lewis'defense of her home this summer was anexample of how to fight back.

Anti-racism has to be put into prac-tice organizing the working class in Bos-ton. The official unemployment rate inMassachusetts is 14%, and with food andenergy prices rising, many families willbe hard-pressed to make it through thewinter. ROAR offers racist violence asthe solution to this crisis. Organizersin working-class communities can isolateROAR by fighting racism in their day-to-day work, by mobilizing against the renthikes and budget cuts, by strugglingfor decent schools, by striking backagainst the depression. Racism must bechallenged and its fascist ROAR silenced.

When 600 people gathered at the Massachusetts State House to oppose thewelfare cutbacks, a white welfare mother spoke the truth about ROAR andracism:

"I guess you could call me a classic welfare case. I've been steril-ized and subjected to every degradation welfare's got to offer. Thereis one thing I've learned from coming here today. In Boston, they tellyou if you're poor white at least it's better than being Black. Buttoday, poor white and poor Black are up here telling the same poorstories. No difference -- just poor stories. So you remember in thefall when ROAR tells you to throw rocks at Black school kids the poorstories you heard here today."

26

FIREWORKS

KOREA: The First DefeatThe official US Bicentennial is a well-financed ad campaign paid for by the ruling

class. The tub-thumping is meant to cover up the real crisis in our society, stirringup feelings of tinny patriotism and nostalgia for a past that never was. People mustuncover the true history of this country and take it to our brothers and sisters. Therulers have set the time for the party. Let us bring the Fireworks.

UJ

1M A N C H U R I A

^.UJ

Antung

The US is still officially at war with NorthKorea. In the aftermath of the victorious Indo-china liberations and the total US defeat, USgovernmental leaders still have not learned theirlesson. They're ready to try it again. Now thekey to the elusive Asian victory is a short war.Brutal and overwhelming "first strike capacity"means nuclear weapons against North Korea.

The Vietnam War lasted an eternity. For thetwo million people who died during the three-yearKorean War, it too lasted an eternity. Before wesubmit to another re-run of these barbaric adven-tures, let's tell all the people about the firstdefeat.

The Koreans are an ancient and proud raceliving on a beautiful Asian peninsula. Korea hasbeen the victim of colonization and imperialistaggression since she was first invaded by theJapanese in the 19th century. The Korean peoplenever stopped their resistance, which from theearly 1930's was organized and led by Kim II Sungand the Korean Communist Party. Japanese ruleCv-er Korea ended on August 15, 1945, wher themain Japanese forces in Korea were encircled bythe Soviet armies. By the time MacArthur's UStroops got there on September 8, the Japanese

army had been rounded up. People's Committees had taken over the administration.South of the 38th Parallel, the area of US control, the US refused to work withPeople's Committees, and installed instead a regime which included Korean collab-orators with the Japanese, as well as the hated Japanese administrators themselves.

As would happen later in Vietnam, the US sabotaged the national elections, be-lieving that elections would end with an overwhelming communist victory. The UNTemporary Commission on Korea, completely under US control, organized elections inthe South which were held in May, 1948. These elections formalized, for the firsttime in Korean history, a political division into North Korea and South Korea. Tothis day, the Korean people are fighting to reunify their country. A NationalAssembly was elected which met the next month. It drafted a constitution andelected a President, Synghman Rhee, recently brought back from Washington, B.C.

Throughout the fall of 1949, Rhee threatened to invade North Korea. The Dem-ocratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) called for a "peaceful and democraticreunification" but at the same time prepared to defend herself against any invasion.

On May 30, 1950, South Korea held her second national elections, and Rhee'ssupporters were able to win only 20% of the seats. 25 days later, on the night of

0 20 40 60 80 100 Ch«ju Island

27

June 25, 1950, Republic of Korea (ROK) army units struck north across the 38thParallel and engaged North Korean forces. The North Koreans answered instantly,crushing the invading forces and then driving south, until six weeks later, theROK was reduced to a beachhead around Pusan on the southern tip of the peninsula.

On September 10, 1950, General MacArthur staged a Marine invasion at the Portof Inchon near the city of Seoul, behind North Korean lines. North Korean unitsfiltered back North and guerrilla war intensified in the South. MacArthur sweptnorth, taking US troops all the way to the Yalu River, staging bombing raids intoManchuria and the Soviet Union, hoping to create a pretext to launch atomic war

against China.

The Yalu River is the boundary between Korea and Manchuria, China. When UStroops began to move toward the Yalu, with obvious aggressive intentions towardChina, Chinese volunteers entered the war.

Now, side by side, the Chinese and North Korean armies drove the invading USforces south. In the months ahead, the war evolved into positional warfare foughtmainly from trenches along the 38th Parallel. Peace talks dragged on until anArmistice Agreement was signed in July, 1953. Recently the Supreme People'sAssembly of the DPRK addressed a letter to the US Congress asking that the Armisticebe replaced by a peace agreement. North Korea has never received a reply to this

letter.

In the US, resistance to the war was led by the Youth Labor League and theAmerican Peace Council. The YLL supported the North and held meetings on campuses.The American Peace Council heldmass demonstrations for an armi-stice. Paul Robeson, honorarychairman of the APC, spoke outcourageously against the war andwas known as "the tallest tree."

The Korean War cannot beviewed apart from the early stagesof the Cold War. Those who gainedthe most from it were the US mili-tarists and industrialists, andreactionary Asian leaders likeChiang Kai-shek, Synghman Rhee andthe Japanese monopoly capitalists.The Korean War brought to an endthe post-World War II reductions inthe US military budget; it solidi-fied the Cold War and arms race; itthrew a protective US umbrella overTaiwan, giving Chiang a formalalliance in the mutual defense pactof 1955 and postponing Taiwan'sliberation; it boosted Japan's in-dustrial production by 70% and re-sulted in the US rearming of Japan.

The pattern of US power inAsia is frightening to contemplate. p-.vj*;-->The same imperialist designs that BPmade Korea a US target 28 yearsago remain today.

US TR06Pb AY 1HE /Atll MVER

28 DICTION

THE TRAIL: More Stories from(Sparrow Hawk was the only North American to become ashort order cook at a truck stop on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.)

Ill

On my way to the Trail I spent some time in Cambodia,first in Phnom Penh and then in Siem Reap. Phnom Penh was abeautiful city but it made me sad. The more I got to know theCambodian people, the more it seemed to me that this city —with its Times Square neon movie houses and teen-aged prosti-tutes -- was not a truly Cambodian city, but an aberrationcreated by Western cultural and imperialistic influences.

Cambodia is a beautiful country, a rice growing, fertileland. It has dense jungles and rugged mountains. Looking acrosspaddies and fields, one can see rising peaks and pinnacles,covered in soft mists and framed by the people working withthe water buffalo.

I left Phnom Penh after several days and found a ride toSiem Reap. Five hundred years ago and a thousand years beforethen, the Khmer nation was centered here. Here can be found theamazing and exciting temples, Angkor Wat and the others.

Living among the temples of Angkor and immersed in thehistory of the Khmer people, I tried to conduct myself in ameditative and courteous way. Often I returned to an open roomnear the top of Angkor Wat where incense burned in the presenceof more than 60 different images of the Buddha. In the eveningsI watched the dancers from the Royal Cambodian Ballet.

I grew restless and bought a bicycle, outfitted myself fora long journey, and took off for Laos. I wanted to visit thePlain of Jars, a beautiful valley inhabited by many people andsurrounded by hundreds of large stone or clay jars, a treasureof the Laotian people that has now been obliterated by the car-pet bombing B-52's and lost for all time. Nixon's secret air-war rendered the valley uninhabitable for more than four years.Laotian families were forced by the bombs to live in caves inthe surrounding hillsides, and thousands and thousands werekilled and injured.

Southern Laos is hilly land, beginning as soon as you pullaway from the Mekong River valley. For two days I walked, push-ing my bike because it was too steep to ride. Shortly aftersunrise on my third day away from the river, two jets camescreaming over at about 500 feet. Their sound had almost diedout when a second series of sounds, recurring explosions,reached my ears. I was in Laos, 150 miles from the border, butI had stumbled into the Vietnam war.

I thought about the irony. Back home my draft notice wouldbe coming any day, and here I was, knocking on the back door ofVietnam.

Two days later I saw a military convoy coming down theroad. I pulled my bike into the bushes and watched a squad of30 men in three trucks with some heavy artillery, a machine gunand, sure enough, sitting in the lead jeep was an American. Icould see his Green Beret.

Instinct told me to lay low. I knew these were not myfriends. After the convoy had passed, I was struck by the loudsilence that remained. The birds whose song I had been enjoyingbefore stayed silent. Suddenly there was a small gust of windand I realized I was not alone. Out of the bush behind mestepped a young Laotian, with an AK-47.

I smiled.He smiled.Off we marched. I was a prisoner of the Pathet Lao.When we reached his base camp, it was like a small city.

To the US pilots flying above, it looked like any other dense

FICTION 29

a Truck Stop by Sparrow Hawk

river valley. I was questioned by a young man named Nghi whowas a political cadre in the North Vietnamese Army. He hadstudied for awhile in Paris, so we could communicate quite wellin French and soon became the best of friends.

Nghi sent a message to Hanoi suggesting I might come andwork for the radio, writing messages to the US troops that hadinvaded South Vietnam. It took a month for the message to arrivein Hanoi and another three weeks for an answer. "Wait", itsaid, "it's not safe to come now, we'll be in touch." By thenI had already landed a job as a short-order cook, and I spentthe next six years living in those hills.

IV

Chou En-Lai, the Premier of the People's Republic of China,)once sent a yacht as a gift of friendship to Cambodian Chief ofState Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The quickest and cheapest way ofdelivering it was down the Trail.

I was in the kitchen working at the grill when we firstrealized that something special was coming. I was getting betterat cooking all the time, and this day I had killed two of thecamp chickens and had fried them up in a wok with ginger andsome wild onions. For dessert I was frying up some bananas, ararity which had come down on a food supply convoy. I was get-ting very proud of my fried bananas and sometimes would evenserve them flambe.

A high level survey party had come into camp. They wouldcome through periodically, checking on developments and makingrecommendations as to what type of transport should use whatpart of the trails. For example, sometimes when a big truckconvoy would be building up for a run, there would be an evenlarger convoy of people pushing bicycles that would start offat the same time. The US pilots would concentrate all theirenergy on attacking the truck convoy. Meanwhile, supplies wouldbe pushed by hand on bicycles over smaller trails, covered overby jungle.

Three days after the team came through, we finally learnedthe purpose for their visit. Word spread that a boat was coming.It was taking the oldest, most well-known (and least used) partof the Trail. The US pilots were under orders to let it pass.On the ground, this was seen as a great victory. The boat wasa symbol of Asian unity. It meant that the US was unwilling toprovoke China. Besides, everyone thought it was hilarious andlaughed about it for months.

30

COUNTRY MUSICby A.M.

This article was sent to Osawatomie by a musician from the Deep South.

Take a drive. You can learn an awful lot about life in theseUnited States listening to the car radio. Turn off the top forty andturn the dial in from the suburbs, to the other side of the bypassjust this side of the Black ghetto, and listen for that steel guitar.Country music has city roots these days.

In its origins, as today, country mus-ic is the bittersweet song of people whohave been forced off the land. Forced outof England and Scotland by the enclosureof common lands; forced off the Virginiaand Carolina seaboard by the revived slaveeconomy and the commercial land grab un-leashed by the new Constitution. The poorwhites of the South were pushed west,through the gaps in the terrifying and mys-terious Blue Ridge, into a steep wildernessof high ridges and dark hollers. Some movedon to the rich flatlands of the KentuckyBluegrass and the Nashville Basin, only tofind that the land speculators had beatenthem there. Others stayed in the Smokiesand the Cumberlands , only to be forced outlater by the timber and coal interests.

The mountains were but the first stepin the 150-year Eviction the history bookspolitely call the Westward Expansion. Thepeople pushed west, pushing the Native A-mericans off the land as they went. It wasa violent and bitter struggle for land.We've heard the story from childhood. Butwe won't hear about the forces that causedthe whites to move, that un-settled thesettlers. The official myth of the "pioneerspirit" serves to hide the real history ofthe intricate legal land steals of the re-public's victorious commercial class, thepoverty and desperation of the small farm-er, the vast land monopoly held by theSouthern slaveholders, the stink of humanslavery.

The true seedbed of country musicstretches far west of the mountains and in-cludes all the broad belt of hilly (not of-ten mountainous), rocky or sandy marginalfarmland where slavery didn't pay. BillMonroe is from western Kentucky; Hank Wil-liams is from south central Alabama. Nash-ville sits near enough to dead center:north of the Black Belt, south of the CornBelt. The Tobacco Belt. The Bible Belt.It's no land of mansions and gracious la-dies and gentlemen in gray, but it is stilla land that slavery made. It's the land thatslavery made poor.

Cross this region today and you crossthe continent. The people of the South ten-ded to move south as well as west after the

Civil War — into east Texas and Oklahoma's"Little Dixie" (where Woody Guthrie was born)until they blew with the dust and the De-pression all the way to the Central Valleyof California.

The sound of country music made thissame journey. It changed with the timesfrom the gospel-oriented mountain style ofthe Upper South, as exemplified by the fa-mous Carter Family; through the infusionof Black music picked up by country music'stwo greatest innovators, Jimmie Rodgers andHank Williams, both from the Deep South; tomodern honky-tonk and western swing (elec-trified, with drums), which developed in theSouth's first industrialized area, the oilboom country of east Texas and Louisiana.But in all its diversity, country music re-mains of a piece, and it reflects its ori-gins in a remarkably homogeneous culture:overwhelmingly white, rural fundamentalist,overworked and undereducated,(and becauseof its peculiar relationship to the "pecu-liar ins ,itution" of slavery) profoundly

31

racist. The Okie from Muskogee is equallyat home in Bakersfield, California or Bris-tol, Tennessee.

In one generation the United Statescompleted the change from a rural to an ur-ban society, and the process was not a gen-tle one. The history books tell of the "o-pening of new opportunities in industry,"but the people's music tells a differentstory of broken homes, poverty, divorce,drinking and dead end jobs. By day I makethe cars and by night I make the bars.D-I-V-O-R-C-E. Stone walls and steel bars,alot on my mind.

Country music is city music. It's a-bout people with jobs, people in livery:waitress uniforms and blue shirts with FORDwrit large on the back and "Wayne" writsmall on the pocket. People who are sickof being put down; but are not quite readyto quit being used to put down others. Peo-ple who count for more than all the stinkingRockefellers and Kennedys put together; butwho aren't ready to believe it yet.

Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogee,"one of the most reactionary songs of the60's, points up many of the contradictionsin modern country music. The song was im-mensely popular, not strictly because of

its angry and threatened response to theNew Left and the hippie movement; but alsobecause its appeal was mainly negative (wedon't burn our draft cards, we don't smokemarijuana), that's because Haggard is aserious and thoughtful man in his way, andapparently could think of little that waspositive to say about the system he feltcalled on to defend.

But such contradictions are nothingnew to country music. Jimmie Rodgers was soproud when he was made an honorary TexasRanger that he gave a $1500 guitar to oneof those racist, strike-busting cops. Yetthe "Singing Brakeman" learned his famousyodeling style from a Wobbly. The jingois-tic patriotism, the shabby treatment of wo-men, the obligatory digs at welfare: thesethings are ugly and backward, and must bestruggled against. Country music is back-ward because it is the product of the mostbackward society in the world today; it isoften racist because of an unbroken 200-year history of racism. But it is not thevoice of the Enemy. It is the plaintive andoften beautiful voice of oppressed whiteworking people: the voice of a necessaryand long awaited ally.

PSSST, 1NO! NO LO DESTRUYAS,MI AMIGO. DESPUES DE LEERLO,PIENSA EN ALGUN AMIGO A QUIENINTERESARIA LEERLO... Y iDASELO!... Y DILE QUE EL TAMPOCO LODESTRUYA DESPUES DE HABERLOLEIDO; QUE SE LO DE A OTRO, YESTE, A OTRO, Y ASI.

MIRA, iSABES LO QUE/PASAHEMOS REALIZADO UN GRAN ESFUER-ZO PARA IMPRIMIR ESTE FOLLETO.NOCHES DE VIGILIA, CONSEGUIR ELDINERO, BURLAR A LOS PERROS DELA TIRANIA... Y TODO ESE SACRI-FICIOIDEBE SERVIR NO SOLO PARAQUE LO LEAS-TU, SINO PARA QUEPASE DE MANO EN MANO COMO INDICEACUSADOR DEL ODIOSO BATISTATOPRO-IMPERIALISTA.

PUCHO

PSSST, NO, DON'T THROW THISAWAY, MY FRIEND. AFTER YOU'VEREAD IT, THINK OF SOME FRIENDSWHO WOULD BE INTERESTED INREADING IT... AND GIVE IT TOTHEM! ALSO, TELL THEM NOT TOTHROW IT AWAY AFTER THEY READIT, SO THAT IT PASSES FROM ONETO ANOTHER AND THEN TO ANOTHER,AND SO ON.

LISTEN, DO YOU KNOW WHAT'SHAPPENING? IT TOOK A BIG EFFORTTO PRINT THIS. NIGHTS OF VIGIL-,ANCE, FUNDRAISING, OUTWITTINGTHE AGENTS OF REPRESSION... ANDALL THIS SACRIFICE SHOULD NOTONLY OBLIGE YOU TO READ IT YOUR-SELF, BUT TO PASS IT ON FROMHAND TO HAND AS A WEAPON IN THESTRUGGLE AGAINST THE ODIOUSIMPERIALISTS.

PUCHO

"Pucho" is a cartoon character developed during the Cuban Revolutionary War. Laura, agraphic artist, drew "Pucho" in her advertising agency, after hours. It appeared in 1958in Mella, a youth magazine which was part of the broad resistance to the dictatorship.