Psychedeli c Library www. psychedeli c- library . de isa project of Hanf Museum Berlin Muhlendamm 5 - 10178 Berlin-Mitte www.hanfmuseum.de jjMif @tm«$ TAKE THE TOKE HEARD ROUND THE WORLD MARCH TO DISBAND THE DEA TIPSTER TIMES |».0-B. *«e*«M.ST ST* **»■ «#*#*- W*» MM* Hippies In Poland Warsaw- The Polish daily paper Kultura has discovered what is be- lieved to be Poland's first hippie community, consisting of five men, three women, a donkey and a dog. Kultura's report is believed to be the first public acknowlegement of the existence of hippies in a communist country. Under the leadership of a thirty year old former T.V. mechanic identified as Witek, the community has dropped out in a homemade wooden hut on the edge of a forest in an undisclosed part of Poland. Witek, in an interview, said he was dropped out because he did not like " getting drunk on vodka and moonlighting". He explained his ideal was a col- lective where there was " joy, freedom, work, and the chance to do your own thing*." The hippies earn their bread by working on nearby farms and in forestry. The paper said the police had the community under observation. Age nee Prance Presse Georgia The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that school and college off- icials must be allowed to search students and their belongings " with- out hindrance or delay/* even in violation of their constitutional .'. rights. "The court also held that evidence gathered in such a school search can be used against stu- dents in court. Kent Again May 1 —The fifth anniversary of the May 4, 1 970 killing of four Kent State students by Ohio National Guard was commemorated by three programs: a radical rally Saturday, a candlelight ■ vigil Saturday night, and a KSU-sponcered memorial service Sunday. The modest Saturday rally pretty much stuck to the theme that with the fall of Saigon, the four hadn't died in vain. Chick Lorrimer, one of the 25 indicted afterwards, vividly recalled the shooting, while her brother Steve Lorrimer explained the pending civil suit against Governor Rhodes, the commanding general, and the guilty guardsmen. A Yippie, speaking out during a lull, asked what revolutionariesare going to do now that Vietnam no lon- ger exists as a unifying factor. Dan Berrigan came late and, after a few homilies, turned it over to Cathy Cohen, Maoist C&W singer, during a round on China, YIPs sang out " Anarcho-syndicalist devia- tionism.„.away with Mao Tse-Tung. That night 4000 participated in the candlelight march, presenting an eerie spectacle as they snaked across the campus. 'Torch-bearing Yippies entered the procession after being chased by irate campus fuzz who had smelled the paint thinner Continued P. 7 FBI Good Neighbors? from combined sources With all the hoopla about govern- ment spying-CIA, FBI, etc. -very little has been said about just who the victims of these crimes are. We read of 10,000 dossiers on Americans, yet these 10,000 have not even been notified of the violation of their rights. And yet, everyone knows that this systematic system of surveillance, harassment, and intimidation was car- ried out against none other than you and I. A pattern can perhaps be traced from the few cases that have come to light: Documents presented to the House Civil Liberties Sub-committee on Feb. 6th. revealed a concerted effort to " investigate" a house in Madison, Wisconsin, where a consi- derable amount of planning for the '72 Miami convention took place. The sur- veillance Wd.s a joint effort of the FBI. Secret Service, and local police. The documents in question are the official report of the SS agent who headed the investigation, one James D. Plichta, since dead of a heart attack. Accord- ing to Plichta's report, the investiga- tion centered around one Gary Kenneth Goodson, " alias Thomas King Forcade who was in daily contact with the activists at 7 Francis Court. These included Madison Yippies and staff members of the Madison underground Takeover. Plichta's report included a list of toll calls from Francis Court to New York, San Fransisco, Saint Louis, Chicago, and other cities. Plichta requested that agents in these cities be dispatched to investigate the rec- ipients of the calls. No mention is made of any court order for the wire- tap from which these numbers were taken. Plichta said the investigation began Feb. 8, 1 972 " when the Madison PD requested that I interview one of their informants "(unnamed). Plichta was assisted in the interview by MPD officer George Croal, at the time head of Madison's notorious " Affinity Squad' Croal and other Madison pigs were later brought to Miami by the Justice Department Law Enforcement Assis- tance Administration (LEAA) with the dual purpose of spying on parti* cipating Madison radicals and coaching the Miami pigs in surveill- ance and crowd control techniques pioneered by the Affinity Squad in the riots in Madison which followed Nixon' s mining of Haiphong harbor and renewal of the bombing of North Vietnam in the spring of '72 One of these Madison porkers took notes and conferred with CoL Katzen of the Miami Beach Police a few feet from where I was clubbed, gassed, _ and arrested at an otherwise peace- ful sit-in in front of the Doral Hotel the last night of the Repcon. Shortly after Plichta's report came out, Madison's " Capital Times'* revealed that William and Patricia Westby of 6 Francis Court (next door) had been paid by the FBI to spy on their neignbors as far back as 1 970. The CT learned of the couple* s involvment through three friends of the Westby's, to whom the couple had bragged about * getting paid to spy on the hippies* The couple reportedly were in instructed to keep a log of the comings and goings next door, and to main- tain close relationships with the targets of their surveillance. Mrs. Westby is a long-time Demo- . cratic Committee worker. Both the Westbys and the FBI have refused to comment on whether they are still paid informers of the federal government, Mike Fellner, one of the residents of 7 Francis Court, and editor of Take- over has filed suit under the Freedom of Information act, for more information on Federal spying in Madison against a wide variety of individuals and organizations. FBI director Clarence Kelly has agreed in principle to turn over some data, but says other info is not directly retrievable fron the FBI' s files. Stay tuned for further developments... Ho Chi in Madison Madison, Wis. June 14th The city council here turned down a resolution to rename a down- town street Ho Chi Minh Trail. Basset Street, named after con- stitutional congress member Richard Basset^uns through the heart of Madison's Mifflin district, and the name change was supported by many of the residents. Debate on the measure was heat- ed. One alderpig commented " Ho Chi Minh can rot in hell." The final council vote was 18 to 3 against the name change, but the next morning I was walking down the block and I saw this street sign.... Citizens Bandits Ever since the institution of the 55 mph speed limits long distance truckers have been using citizen's band radios to avoid being ticketed for speeding. They warn each other of the presence of state troopers, nicknamed Smokey the Bear. This system can be helpful to anyone traveling long distance, whether driv- ing or hitching. DRIV ING: Even if you don't have a CB you can still make time and avoid the cops. Just find a fast-moving semi and follow at a safe distance. The trucker will be warned of patrols through his radio, and if you brake to 55 when he does, you're safe. HITCHING: For this you need your own CB. Simply radio out that you need a ride and your destination. You should be on your way in no time, Fone Funnies " Hey, kid, don't play games with me!" ' ' Wanna play MONOPOLY?" In an apparent attempt to silence YT's perremal phone phreaking stor- ies, New York Bell security agent Tom " Duffy" Duffy -and his side- kick " Halucinatin' » Holl are trying to cut us off. They are trying to frame us for toll fraud. The first time Holl came over he sneaked in behind the coinbox collecter, and started raving about $764,25 worth of calls from our pay phone. We explained to him that there couldn't have been $764.25 worth of calls made, because there wasn't $764,25 in the box. Further- more, the box of a pay phone will only hold about $1 50. We even- tually got him out of the house, only to find our pay phone 21 2/228- 9897 cut off and Holl's boss on the residence lines saying he'd cut them off too if we didn't let Security back in. Since they have that legal right, we let BellTel's Dynamic Duo back in and showed them our lines (all in proper order, of course), Halucinatin' then claimed that he had seen additional Telco equip- ment on his previous visit. We sug- gested that he try methadone main- ta nance. After much hassle and many calls to the business office and the Public Service Commission, we were finally told what Duffy had tried to conceal from us: that the lines were not cut off because of fraud, but for simple non-payment of a bill. The bill is now paid , and yet our business phone and one of our resi- dence lines are out. As you know, a phone is essential to a newspaper. Will these ogres get away with their assault on the first ammend- ment? Will we ever hear the sound of your voice again? To find out, call Tom Duffy, 21 2-395-0527 YIPster Times, page 2 Why We're Marching on the DEA Whats exciting organizers about Insurrection City isn't just the dozens of jphone calls coming in here at 1404 M Street, or the crowd predictions (now topping 30,000 for the crowd smoking on the SLlipse. -lore important isthat this years get-together has the best potential for results since our impeachment action of July, 1 973- or since the anti-smack march in 1971 put the CIA's Vietnamese connection on CBS News. Our new demand for a moratorium on all pot persecution until the gov't cleans ud heroin, and demolition of the Drug Enforcement Agency, appeals to the gut instinct of all rank' n file Yippies everyw here: kick 'em while they're down. Confidence here in a march on the DEA stems from the feeling that the gov't is on the run because of the • new heroin pandemic, and people seem to feel the time is right for a good, fatal stomp— especially since the ■ bastards '11 be much too dangerous if we we let them get up again. Starting with testimony from former narc investigator Prank Peroff, that the DEA had blocked an investigation of international smack smuggling when it got too close to fugitive Nixon financier Robert Vesco, Senate invest- igators forced the administration -to sack DEA director John 3 arte Is. Bartels' assisstant, Vincent Promuto Promuto, had been spending too much time with " professional gamblers" and call girls suspected of doubling as international drug couriers. But other charged have prompted consideration of dismantling the DEA totally, including: * failure to investigate Mob connect- ions, especially a direct order last year to , drop" a major probe of New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas heroin ^affjrfirs. * Dubious arrangrments with Las Vegas casinos tk bust independent dealers in the area. * The recurrent pattern of illegal or misdirected raids, and the wounding, torture, or ^killing of innocent citizens. * Illegal trafficking in hard drugs by DEA agents so widespread as to throw suspicion on the role of 64 former CIA'ers now with the - DEA, and the function of CIA ' ' counter - esDiona^fv" training for other DEA'ers— * especially in view of the newly revealed CIA quashing of the bust of one of its own agents for importing 1 20 pounds of opium last year. We're dealing with government bv counter- ins urgency: system-wide consoiracy th mass-market heroin, to assassinate and cover it up. Abolishing the DEA won't change a thing. All the gestapo will be transfered to another agency (FBI, Customs), and they'll be dealing all the heroin, no matter what you call 'era. It doesn't matter which shell it*s under, as long as the pea is there. I f u i r^>J I -nJ _dLJc^ W- W£ T _ Against this panorama of big-shot feds — hanging out with international smack smug- glers, on March 31st ex -Gainesville Sight defendent and Viet vet Scott Camil was < shot in the back while ' ' trying to escape" by free-laneing DEA'ers who used an untracable gun and planted him with cocaine. But Camil just happened to live to tell his tale-living proof that political assasinations don't only happen outside im the USA, and fifteen years ago. i£5 Camil's case shows that unless they 3DD W*5 POTOMAC Demanding the administration stop busting pot and concentrate on smack is far more important. By law Ford &. Co can order the narcs to Quit mes- sm round and go after the big black market capitalists and corporations who control the hard stuff, so it kind of leaves them on the spot use. Wasting time en the "big sup- pliers ' of marijuana now, while her- oin pandemic is replacing a dre ought publicly credited to fed coordination, investigate the DEA for assasination'and the erine S f™ ■ aHHi!*5« Ven p L imaril ? cov " the CIA for smack, Congress will never "even thevM h«5* t« k.?J?? s and „ s Popk» guess what's going on, JHHLZ to bust to really sto P : But the American people tremble _ on the brink of seeing that the whole „ system of locking up pot-heads is nothing -but a calculated division from hard drugs. * Heroin, like assasination, is too valuable gfor counter-insurgency for the covert forces to abandon it because of some _ mis-directed congressional investigation. The only solution is to totally expose rand root out their covert infrastructure, which extends from the highest levels -through the CIA, DEA, FBI. IRS, and down to your local narx and red squad. _ The only way to accomplish this is » to indict fifty, sixty, a hundred times < as many Gestapo types as were re- amoved by Watergate. And even this vould only be the tip of the iceberg. smack. The way every upsurge or revolu- tionary and/or street gang activity since the early 50's has given way to a herein epidemic argues that the de- cision has already been made to let it happen again. Just like the late 60 's po t's drying . up again. In the next; year smack will I- become so cheap and popular today's resurgent street gangs, with their ' fierce prohibitions of it, will sue* cumb. I The contradictions between this racist, genocidal reality and official {policy may be old news to us. But if we can spotlight them this year by B marching on the DEA, we just may a lead Congress and the people on to I the covert forces who created and -i installed Ford to execute the real 'game plan, © V DC W} m YIPster Tims, pog* 4 Yipster Interviews Scott Camil was shot in the back by a federal Drug Enforcement Administration assassin named Dennis Fitzgerald- " accidentally*' '. accord- ing to agents Fitzgerald and William Porter, whose car he was struggling to get out of at the time Because Camil lived, it became necessary to charge him with " sale of cocaine' 1 — 2 l A ounces supposedly left with Camil by a mysterious unid- entifiable hitch-hiker the agents claim to have let leave the car unscathed before the shooting. Other agents " founa" $2300 after hanging around Camil' s house for fiv*> hours. Porter and Fitzgerald were posing as coke dealers starting a straight business front when they approached Camil to buy some business cards from his family office supply company. Camil served 20 months with the marines in Vietnam and came home thoroughly disillusioned with U.S. policy. One of the orig- inal coordinators of Vietnam Vet- erans Against the War, he was a target in Florida when eight vets were indicted in July of '72 for plotting to assault the 1972 Republican convention with sling- shots and bows and arrows. These charges were finally thrown out of court. After checking out this inter- view Scott allowed that, while there's nothing he'd rather leave unsaid, we should make it clear that our interviewer took the initiative in drawing out details of VVAW St0riCal d€velopment °f the He's very guarded in meeting and talking to people now. D.E.A. informer Barbara Bastile Ives, paid by the government to fuck Camil, said " Yeah, we set him up. That's our job." On His Bust Q. What do you think of the parallel of your case and Tim Leary's: DEA use of a government prostitute? A. It makes it really hard-it really does. I mean, you meet someone, they seem really nice. You come close to them, and they start spending weekends with you. Then they introduce you to a " close friend", the dude shoots you, and they turn out to be an agent. She made a statement to the press it was a set-up;that this was her job* She was assigned to come up here from Orlando and go out with me, Basically what it comes down to is that she de- ceived me. and she was being paid by the government to sleep with me That's the first time they ever pulled that one on me. f- Is it true that after the Gainesville ight trial the federal prosecutor came up to you and said, " We're going to get you yet."? A. No. He said it in front of a taxicab driver who took him to the airport The cabbie came back to us and told us -he said I " p We're still going to get Camil and two others* Q: What happened to you personally after the trial? A; I started working on a book on the Gainesville 8 trial and the other trials I had during that time, I was still speaking, but I limited my my speaking to the Gainesville 8 case, the abuse of force by the government, universal amnesty, (I prefer to call it repatriation), and the JFK assassin- ation, on which I've read just about everything written. I keep in active contact with the Assassination Information Bureau in Massachusetts. There's no doubt in my mind that the government killed the President. Q: Ever seen the pix of E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas? A; I believe they were involved- becaus e I believe (Connally was involved, 1 believe Mix on was in- volved, I believe Gerald Ford was involved, and that those people were all connected together- and I couldn't swear under oath those pictures were them, but I do believe those pictures are them. Now concerning current events, here you have Colby, who was head of the Phoenix Operation in Nam. Now he's head of the CIA, and what do you get? A whole bunch of supposed refugees, of whom I'm sure a good percentage are Project Phoenix assassins. And they owe their allegiance not to the American government or the American people, but to the ClA. I could see the next Watergate not being Cubans, but Vietnamese. Now they've got someone to do their dirty work who's had plenty of practice. 4J: What made tne government so upset that they did this number on you? YIP iter Times, page 4 A: I don't know if it was something I was doing then, or if it was some- thing I had done before and maybe had the potential to do again. I feel the main objective was to ston thejjook. and that feeling is -based en the fact that while agents Dennis Fitzgerald and William Porter were shooting me in the street, other agents were raid- ins my house with a search warrant that called for cocaine, hashish, and ax tract of cannabis sativa L, plus " photographs and documents pertain- ing -thereto". Now they found none of the things the warrant called for- no cocaine, no hashish, no extract of cannabis sativa- but they found lots of documents; my book. My lawyer and my landlord were in the house while they were -taking everything out of the house. The DEA left and- inventory of what they took, which I have a copy of, clearly shows that what they took was not on the warrant, was not drug related, and not illegal. They took rriy photographs of under-cover agents .they took my dossiers on under-cover narcs: they went through my manuscript page by page and took out what they wanted. Q. There-was a lot about agents in tne book? .*i. Sure. How could you wme ttiu.- thing of that type without telling about the agents; who they really were, what their method of oper- ation was, who they worked for? They took all the dossiers on the agents that I knew about. They also took the list of people who donated money to the Gaines- ville Eight. They took the supporter's list: people who worked with us. They took our list of press contacts: which people in particular were our contacts at all the newspapers and radio and TV stations. They took our list of prospective witnesses for the Gainesville Eight trial. We rested without ever putting on a case, since they hadn't proved anything, so we never had to put our witnesses on, and the government didn't know who they were. I also lost my personal notes on the trial, and files of all my other trials . Now if I'd died in the street, all it says on the inventory is things like-'- bottom drawer of-file cabinet" 4 ' U.S. Attorney-cases", file of - this, file of that— but people didn't k*ow what the hell was in that stuff. I^m the only one that knew. And now I'm not dead and I can talk about it. But the proof that they're not being legitimate is that they came into " the house without a search warrant, they had no -arrest warrant, they shot me with a gun that didn't belong to them,- and so far the Gainesville Police Department, which is investig- ating the shooting, has not been able to as certain e whom the gun belongs to. Nu-v i.ukv can they say the agents pick up a hitch-hiker, he sells me the drugs in front of them, they let him walk-away, and shoot me for fcnrfna to- escape? 'Why uiu iiicj ^uinw to Gainesville when they were not Gainesville DEA igentb? All the locals-city, county, Gainesville DEA— say they were not informed. If they were trying to cover . up for these people, they'd say " Yeah, we knew what was eoming down/' But they said " We don't -even know what the -he 11 is going on." These agents came in from Orlando without a search warrant, without an arrest warrant. They shot me. They got an arrest warrant and a search warrant after I was shot and after they went through my house. The D&A people threw my friends out of the house. My landlord, who lives across the street, -and my lawyer came and-said '" Let's see your warrant." They refused. My landlord called the police. When the police came, the landlord told them that the agents were tresspassing on his property f and to make them get out. The GPD said they had no authority over the federal government, even though there was no warrent* Three hours later, a warrant came. I have government documentation to all of this. They didn't do anything legitimate at all, q, You seem to imply there's some para-military, para-police organ- ization at work here. A. Certainly! Not only that, the information we have on the agents involved, which I can't disclose until the trial, will clearly show that the guy who shot me, his record, which has been buried pretty deep and covered over pretty well, will clearly show, if what we've been able to dig out so far— C_. In other words, it was the same guys you had the infor- mation on who shot you? A. No, but we have that information now. Q: Any relation to that pair in- Miami; " Salt" and " Pepper"? A. "Pepper" (Harry Crenshaw )- was killed on my birthday, May 1 9t ti- the same as Ho Chi Minh, Lmight-add. The one that's still alive, " Salt" (Jerry Rudolph) just gave a^talk to tne NUautt police caaeis-on - Drug usage and hippies" But Fitzgerald, the guy who snot me, was a friend of Crenshaw's, I recieved a newspaper clipping in the-roail, sent anonymously, that said " Undercover Agent Killed in Miami Street". Someone had-written across it * Happy birthday" When they came into my house and took my files, that was- one of the things they took. But I'm not ashamed that people want me to know a pig is dead. <4: Hope they don't shoot > U u again! What about joing to Congress— the Senate sub-committee u « & overnmeht operations mat » m verruga ting the DEA? A. We re working on that, but for us to disclose everything we know to the government before the trial would be harmful to the outcome. So, until the trial comes off, I'm not going to mail that stuff to Washington. They've requested it. There are people in touch with Congressmen. Concerning- getting shot again, in the Marine Corps i learned a saying:— Paybacks is a mother- fucker." I believe-that very much, and also-" Fool me once, shame on yoUr-Feol me twice, shame on me." The next time. Scott Camil Wi*1*h 0e*tif tem*tei* WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? a)Agent Hugh Winfield was in CamiVs house three hours before warrent came. b) Here DEA confiscated shotguns, scales, and files containing material for CamiVs book, c} Scale resembles kitchen type and not micro-accurate coke dealer's equipment d) All of the above _ — one of those fuckers pulls a gun, I'll make him eat it. I'm well armed. I have a lot of experience blowing people away. They're the ones who made the rules, and I'm willing to play the game. If they come looking for me, l can blow many more of them away before they get me. I'm notgoing to be intimidated. I don't fear them.-I was wounded twice in ■ Viet Nam-this is the third time I've been wounded-and while it's not exactly something you-get used to, on-the other hand they're pigs, and I'm not going to worry about them at all. O* &aigon s owners... A; They're stupid. Just the fact of which side they're on shows where their fucking intelligence is. When those dudes jumped me in the car and put the gun on me, I could have taken the gun away from him and shot him, but here's Scott Camil- shoots two dudes in a car with a gun that d cesnt belong to the two dudes, and Scott Camil is in trouble, I didn't even know those two, except that they were friends of the woman l was going out with. They didn't tell me who they were. They had a gun to my headr and told me that if I moved, they'd blow my head off. I felt that if I just went peaceably with them wherever they wanted me to go, they could take me to a woods and do me in and I wouldn't have a chance, but in the middle of the city, I figured I could just open a door and jump-out,. The car was moving but-I didn't give a shit, because I didn't think they would try to off me in traffic, and expose themselves to that kind of risk. So, even though they had the gun to me, I tried getting out of the car. And they did shoot me. Then they stopped the car and got out, and I thought- they were coming to finish me off. I couldn't figure out why they didn't just hit the gas and haul ass. Then they showed me their badges. Q: Sounds backwards... A: The bullet entered my eleventh rib in the rear-, two inches to the left of my spine. It went through my lung through my diaphragm, into my kidney, and lodged in my abdomen about 3 inches to the left of my gall bladder. I had two units of blood pumped out of my stomach, two out ef my lungs, and a chest tube in. The govern- ment picked ucHthe tab for everything. Right now I'm somewhat under- weight, my blood count is back to normal, and I'm physically able to do about what I want to. My lung is a little fucked up- not as much power for sneezing and coughing. Q: What did the community think? A. The initial reaction of the Gainesville police was resentment* these people come in from out of town, shoot somebody, and then drop all fc he-problems into the lap of the GPD. The DEA goes back to Orlando, leaving them to handle all the repercussions. Like— they were under the impres- sion that a bunch of crazies were going te blow the town apart or some- thing. That just shows that they still don't know who we are or where we're coming from. But when I had a relapse-my ung filled with fMd again-and wat> ent back to the VA hospital to have it pumped out, everybody was really friendly to me. Foe, one of the informers against the Gainesville Eight, works at that hospital, Nooody talks to him. Who the hell's going to be friends with someone who's- .decietful, who's known as a spy? He's-got a^very miserable life. There's been a lot of support from the community. Of course, one of the tactics the government used in this one was cocaine. Marijuana- does n't tarns the-community off. Cocaine does.* Not only does it turn the commun- ity off, but a- lot of the movement sup- porters who've been burned by Abbie say ■ Oh, no, we're not-fucking going to buy This kind of shit," Last time, we raised 5150,000 cash in eight days. This time, we had to borrow $5000 for the bail, and the due-date to repay it is very soon-. We've only been able to raise $2000 Unless we raise the additional $3000 very soon, I go back to jail, The whole thing is that people don't want to get burned, and cocaine turns them off. & the Fall of VVAW t Q. What's this about the Revolutionary Union saying they have proof that von did it? A. That's the VVAW. People have called VVAW and asked why they weren't helping, and they said " Because we believe he's guilty." WSO/RU, as I call them, is very vindictive because they lost all the intelligent people in the organization when they made their coup. Like— the organization has no real 'credibility any more. It does nothing of national prominence. It has nothing in common with what it started out to be. J. I'm interested in knowing how that was done. A. Basically, VVAW was an organization in a few states— New ; York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey— until the Winter Soldier Investigation. They'd done a few marches and demonstrations, nothing more. Originally we testified in the Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit, January 30th-Pebruary 3rd, 1971 For a lot of us, that was our first contact with the. Movement. Jane Fonda had spoken at the University of Florida, saying that veterans were getting it together to testify and show documentation that would prove that what happened in My Lai was not an isolated incident or an a"bberation, but part of official U.S. policy, i agreed 1 00% with her statement and I had.a lot of pictures taken in Vietnam, so I decided to go up and testify, and to contact VVAW as it existed then. There wbi^ a lot or oiijci people who, like me, had had no Movement contact before. We sat down and Mike OHverand Al Continued Next Page YIP iter Tim**, pag* a Camil I Continued From Pago 5 HubDard saidto us: ' ' Listen, you guys, you think you've been fucked over, now you want to do something about it? Let's make this into a national organization, 'and let's make the purpose of this organ- ization to educate people to the truth/' We wrote a constitution and set up objectives, with which I still agree completely. We were a veteran's organization run by veterans for veterans, concerned with things veterans had credibility to speak about, like the Vietnam war and amnesty. Q. How was the VVAW originally structured? A. We all went home and started contacting other people. I returned to Florida and started getting hold of vets, telling them what had happened in Detroit. We put on our own Winter Soldier Investigation here in Florida. It organized like that in other states. Then we had chapters— Q. How were chanters set ud? A: Popple w culd join. I would set up a speaking gig at, say, a school in Miami. After speaking, I'd ask any- one interested in joining to come up. Five or six vets would come up. I'd explain what the organization was about and what the objectives were, and that if they'd like to set up a chapter, I'd help them . They'd say yes, they wanted to start a chapter, ahttT'd *;ive' them a list of five hundred^ets in Miami. Their job was to contact those people, educate them to what they were trying to do, and enlist their help if interested. That's how chapters were started in Florida. Q. Then how well the organization did depended on how well the coordinator did his job. A. Exactly. Some regions were never organized: places like Nebraska and the Dakotas. We divided the country into twenty- six parts, with one coordinator per part, whose job it was to organize the veterans in that area. If you had an urban center, you had a much better chance than if you had three members three hundred miles apart. Once an area was organized, the veterans in that area would democratically elect who they wanted to represent them at the national steering committee meet- ings, and that person would be the area coordinator. But the most important thing about the organization as it was started Is that the members/iip had tke final say. We'd have a national steering committee meeting and decide what we thought was a good idea for a demonstration, like going to Washing- ton and throwing the medals away. I'd come back to Florida, and we'd hold a regional meeting. I'd explain to the chapter representatives what the plans were, and they would decide, to 'change it, amend it, ratify it. or deny Jt. Yhese ideas went back to the steering committee, were counted un. and the final version sent back to the chapters to be ratified. One of the key things was that no one ever had to participate in anytning they couldn't conscientiously agree to. There was no peer pressure saying " Everyone else agreed to it— you should too." If the member- ship didn't agree to it, we didn't do it. There came a time when a Washington demonstration was plan- ned for Christmas. It was decided that Christmas trees had to be burned. This was to take place in five different parts of the country, and in three of those Darts, the membership went against it. The national office came down saying " We ordered you to do it, and you have to do it." 5- How could they be ordered to do that? A. Well, as the organization grew to approximately 30, 000 members, things started changing. There were a number of people who felt that it was not really good to be just a veteran's organization; that it was elitist and that there was no room in the Movement for that sort of bull- snit. I was one who felt that we should remain VVAW. I was against the concept of the Winter Soldier Organization. Actually, when the vote came down the WSO part didn't pass. It was decided that the regions would decide whether they wanted to be VVAW or WSO or both. Then the Gainesville bust came down. A lot of us had all our energy pulled into the Gainesville' Eight trial, and the National Office decided that we were now VVAW/WSO. Non-vets were now able to hold national office. What those of nb who wrote the constitution felt was that, as vets, we had a certain special credibility about the war. The liberals couldn't discredit us by saying we weren't willing to serve our country, because we were the ones who carried out the policies. We were there, we knew what we did, and when we came home and found the government saying something else was going on, we began to wonder how come the government was lying about it. But once the organization opened up to non— veterans ., r V When did it happen? A: It started in late 71 , But the National Office, which was supposed to be an administrative office that rated things based on the decisions of the membership- well, the N.O. just wouldn't let it drop. They would just keep pushing it and pushing it. They put pressure on each place that voted against it one at a time, until it was a majority, and then declared it policy. They called Texas and Louisiana saying that Florida supported it. Those people would vote for it; I would get to those people and they would say " Well didn't you vote for it?" I'd say no, and they'd say " We voted for it because the N-O. said Florida was behind it. x nere was a w hole lot of tr ouole like that, where the people of the N.O. who were sunnosed to be co-ordinating around the country were uexiig ui»- honest with the regions, and causing people to vote the way they wouldn't normally vote. People got control of the N.O. who made it the top of VVAW, rather than it being the servant of the membership. It was no longer run by the grass roots. It was run b_y_ people at the national unite, wno eventually became nothing but a bunch of Dseudo-Marxist Maoist intellectuals. I talked to several ex-coordinators who are no longer with the organiz- ation and we've all agreed that the organization is nothing more than an R.U. study group. Q: you're telescoping a lot of histor- ical development there.,. A: Basically, the N.O. sent people down to the regions to disrupt them. Regions which were opposed suddenly started having intra-regional hassles spurred by the national office. It happened here, and I was able to get one of the people involved to confess that it was a plot. I got it on tape and brought it to one of the regional steering committee meetings to tell people what was going on. The regional group listened to the tape admitting planned disruption, and decided that since the person who confessed didn't know that it was being taped until afterwords, that we were using the same tactics as the pigs, so they decided not to use it. The chapters that wanted to listen to it, I let hear it anyway. The chapters that didn't want to listen to it were the ones run by people who were friends of Barry Romo. I think Barry Romo was one of the key people who led to the downfall of VVAW. Q: Didn't Barry Romo come down and take over the whole action for the Miami Conventions? A: Romo was from the National Office in New York at the time. People were elected to the N.O. from all over the country, He was elected from Calif- ornia. But he was elected by the co-ordinators, who would make all the nominations for national co-ordinators. W hat it boiled down to, though, in effect was that if you wanted to be a national officer you had to give up your job., family, and ever.vthing_else and move to New York for six months or a year. So we didn't simply nominate people we felt were best qualified to run the N.O. First we had to find out who was willing- to go to the N.O. Q: Sounds very familiar... A: Well, who would want to quit school, split their job, and say goodbye to their girlfriend for a year? Only a fool. So what would happen is we'd have three chairs to be fitled, and we'd have four people who volunteered to take them. Then we'd vote on mree of the four we wanted. Co the National Office was not made up of. people the co-ordinators felt were best qualified; it was made up of the people we thought were best qualified out of the people who were willing to do it in the first place. That's how people like Barry Romo got into the N.O. It was never that we felt that they were the best qualified. Now all the co-ordination for the Country goes through the National Office. Now the N.O. could make a phone call to Florida, and say " What io you want to do about X?". We'd petition the membership, and they'd say no. But the N.O. could then call up Texas and say " Florida's for it. This happened often. Q: Didn't you have any lateral commun- ications? A: Sure we did. But with 26 regions and no money, it's hard to call 26 people to find out how they feel about it. Thats That's why you have a National Office. Everybody was supposed to call in with their input,, anu me N.O. was supposed to send out a newsletter with the inform- ation. But they were cheating. When we found out that those tactics were being used by the N.O., we weren't going to stand for it. We were ready to dump all those people there. Then the Gainesville bust came down, and we got locked into something else, and the National Office sent people down into the reeions. Like here i was tied up in legal hassles, and they sent people down here from New York who completely destroyed Florida as a region. No chapters are left in Florida. They may claim there are, but they 're-full oi onit. mere's nothing here; no wsu, no VVAW. The N.O. did it just like the FBI does. They sent provocateurs to disrupt us with lies and bullshit. Q. Doesn't it seem that rather than " just like the FBI", in view of the way the bust removed people from the scene who might* ve prevented this takeover, that it was done with deli- berate federal assistance? A. I have no documentation. I would say it's a definite possibility. With any dirty trick, you've got to suspect the government first. Those of us who had the strength to prevent the kind of bullshit that was coming down, like John Niffen and myself, were removed from the picture, tied up in our trials. Q What do you think of the idea of government management of the Move- ment; taking some people out and let- ting others operate freely? A. That's their politics, their tactics. If you're up against the government, they feel they have to get rid of you. They can do this by discrediting the organization: by putting infiltrators and provocateurs into it to give you a b'trt name and destroying your cred- ibility, and by taking out your key people(either by throwing them into fail, killing them, or causing them so many problems they just drop out). A lot of people dropped out just oecau&e of harassment by the FBI. All those tactics were used against us. Q. Was any attempt ever made to rescue the refugees after it became clear what RU was trying to do? . A. From the time I was arrest eu as one of the Gainesville Eight, all my ener- gies were directed toward the trial. N ot only that. After they dumped the people that they wanted to get rid of, so that they could run things from the National Office instead of from the bottom up like we were trying to keep it, they started putting out bad infor- mation on myself and almost every other coordinator who doesn't back them and will speak up as to why. They've done propaganda campaigns against us. I don't think that the organization now known as VVAW/WSO has the right to use the credibility of those of us who busted our asses to gain it, for bullshit. What I'm saying is that I had already given up on VVAW because of the way people from New York were sent down to Miami to disrupt the organization. The key people who dia it were Barry Homo's girl- friend and one of her girlfriends. They came down to Florida and seduced people here to try and turn the tide which they did a very good job of. Labor March Trims Fat Washington DC April 26 Yip- It was AFL— CI A at RFK stadium today, folks. Time to play " Can you guess who controls your job?**. The selling of the muddled class, so to speak. We get to hear more boring talk about make— work programs and other fascist idealogical deception techniques which are used to fatten already obese industrialists, (yowsa, yowsa!) The whole program started with a march from the capitol to the stadium to hear trade union presidents from different locales, George (Blue) Meany, and of course, the wonder- ful rhetoric redundancies of Hubert : Humphrey Due to a shortage that weekend only a few yippies showed, but like LSD a few Yippies will go a long way. Armed with black flag and several hundred leaflets demanding full unemployment for alir. we desperately searched for like- mi ndedcrazie^_tolink_up_witjifor^ day's festivities, and finally came upon a group of anarchists from New York and Pittsburgh. Upon reaching trie stadium we were met by officials sporting AFL- CIA badges, who told us we couldn't bring our flags and banners in because " someone might get hurt*. Yeah, no fooling, Jackson, Guess that's why all those signs reading- " More Schools and Public Works'* are going in, right? I'm hip to who might get hurt. No matter. Around the corner flags are rolled up and stashed under coats, and in we go. The rally began on schedule with the same lame rerun: the Star- Spangled Banner and a prayer {prob- ably that they can keep the lie operable). A few trade union presi- dents did their act fo' de boss man, when suddenly a woman dashed out, on the field and was unmediatplv siezed by rent-a-pigs. As she was grabbed, more people ran from the .stands'and jumped the fence. The rent-a-goons had their hands full, and started to swing away. Don McClean flashes through my head: The players tried to take the field The marching bands refused to yield Do you know what was the deal The day the music died? And here comes Hubert the Hump with a commercial announ- cement about how his new pro- duct, " The Hubie Screw", is for the betterment of the workers. Guarenteed to remove stains from the dirtiest polititians, and leave them sparkling white and sweet-smelling. At this point the entire lower level swept onto the field . I guess they decided they'd been HUMPed long enough. The secur- ity crew retired to the dugout. Erd of game. The Hump made one last ef- fort to speak, to no avail. The people were obviously tired of hearing the same old shit. The new product just couldn't clean all those hard-to-get-at spots in people's memories. Torrents of insults poured at the Hump, to meet with a smile and a thank you. The cameras roll and the show must go on. After half an hour the rally began to break up and people drifted outside, to be met with some really exellent theatre by the Radical Action collective of the Living Theatre. The message from the people to the AFL— CIA was clear. We are tired of hearing the people who helped start this mess get up there and tell us about getting out of it. fl Here comes the new boss Same as the old boss.., We won't be fooled again'" YlPster Times, pog* 6 /iba guardsman,, . its a Kent) f S~ *-* " - i just scanned the March YIPster flafh^T / Continued From Page 2 Times and Was Sent for a Innn Rifrhf ™*\ ^Sv. _ liberation Ine obvious* gets left unsaid so often that I want to say some of it in this article. Liberal repression demands that connections not be made: it's too dangerous to author- ity to really begin to put it all together in a thorough wayi One important dynamic involves connections between sexism and ageism. Those in the left who claim to be anti-authoritarian must con- front the dominance of male and . adult authority in cornerstones in the prevailing culture. The cult- ural/policital power structures oper- ate to sanctify macho male author- ity over women, and macho adult authority over children. Systematic assaults on women typify " normal*' (warped 1} American life. Rape is a fixture of the culture, as powerful and pervasive in its ways as the Pentagon. Contracep- tives pushed on w omen are attacks on their bodies: the Pill increases chances of cancer and clots, the DES morning-after pills have been causing cancer (they are still being administered to women despite the mounting cancer evidence, and the fact that they were first tried out on cattle but were banned for use on livestock because they were judged too harmful), lUDs mean danger of serious infections, some so grave that certain brands are being forced off the market. These particular government- industry-AMA assaults on women come from the same bastion of capitalist, male-dominated power that brought napalm and fragment- ation bombs to the Vietnammese, and enforce misery on poor and imprisoned people every day. Radicals tend to agree in theory with such statements, much as liberals say they support " equal opportunity "etc. etc. But bring women's liberation closer to home , and males of the left often close ranks, and (suddenly) can't hear too good. The shouts of " Right on!* for an oppressed group tend to grow softer and sof- ter when it means giving up power we'd rather cling to. Smashing sex roles means equal responsibility for housework, cooking, and children, and struggling against power trips trnu wtrve oeen brainwashed to think of as sexuality, when in fact they are ways that men manipulate women. left over from making the torches in the dorm. We later came back there to find ourselves evicted. The official memorial Sunday, moved indoors because of rain, featured Gene McCarthy and dis- spirited heckling from yips and a few VC flag bearers in the audience. Afterwards the stage was turned over to the Revolutionary Student Brigade hacks, whose tedious Maoist rhetoric drove most people away before anybody else could speak. Finally, it was the Yippies' turn to address the remnants. We got that only by stationing ourselves near the electric outlet to the sound system to overcome RSB's objections. Over-all we created a good presence even if we were a bit isolated in feel- ing that the war is not over, but has moved to the electronic battlefields of Amerikkka. i and was sent for a loop. Right in the paper was a letter sent in by a lellow student on the Kent campus Cliff Burns. I've known this guy informally for a little while .and even had a class WitrThim lasc q*iart~- H ere's a Yippie! in my own back' vard.. and I didn't even know it. The paper itself was good, with infor mat ion everyone can use . The letters sent in had a lot of criticism for earlier papers that I haven't seen, but from what I saw the YT is a damn sight better than RSB's * ' Fight Back' to read. Oh, and speaking of J he Revolution- ary Siuaent Brigade .since I was seen with the New York Yippies here on May 4th, and since I took a stand against the RSR fnertaining to possible stage take-over whne the RSB was speaking) I have been ' formally ostracized from the It was crazy enough Now, that made me ffeel can't wait until the next RSB meeting, so I can scare 'em with a YIPPIE! sign. I'd like to get those straights off campus. They scare people away with their long wordy leaflets, and people cannot become involved. No culture, no getting stoned— just leaflets and a leadership ego. They are recognized by the university administration as a valid organi- zation, and as such recieve money una a nice fancy office (cleaned" by a maid every night) from the school. What revolutionaries! They are supported by the very system they claim they want to overthrow! Well, YIPs, please send me the Yipster Times and whatever other information you have. Love. ^ Gary Bachman Men, * radicals* included, are usually terrified of being gentle! Unless you accept some John Wayne/ Mick Jagger macho mentality, that makes men lousy lovers and insensi- tive people. Although we can see through the genocidal militarism of government propaganda, we've only begun to see through the sexual propaganda laid on us by male-domin- ated corporate America. For right- wingers. Readers Digest and TV. For you left-wingers and " hip" swingers, Rolling Stone and Playboy. When the left is willing to take the writings of Kate Millet and Germaine Greer and Shulamith Firestone as seriously as Marx and Engels and Lenin, we can move for- ward toward comprehensive liber- ation. Not before. At our best, we radicals are not transfixed with the specters of oppression because of any kind of * obsession with violence and cruelty. We're transfixed with oppression because we want to lessen and end human suffering, and because we be- lieve liberation and freedom are possible. Women's liberation means liber- ation, period. For everyone. Without women's liberation, men continue as part of a social group of oppresser robots. Through corporate death culture, though, men have been convinced that they have something going. T hev*re MEN. They can take advantage of certain privileges social inequality gives them. They can fuck, which is equated with sexuality. But what we need is not a " fuck* culture, _ defining sexuality as an image one^ performs with, and using that twisted image to sell cars, cigar- ettes, and other death devices. We v need\n erotic culture, in which everyone's autonomy and desires and sensuality are respected, phys- ical strength and affluence and violence have been so linked with sexuality that all men need to con- front themselves over the propaganda messages they have internalized. Maybe through confronting ourselves we can grow more sensitive-, more able to feel rather than imposing our media-fed pretentions on others. For men it is not ultimately a question of guilt, any more than is being an American during the Vietnam war. It* s a question of affermation of life and struggling against repressive anti-life forces- far away, and within our homes and ourselves. Gay liberation is central to sex role liberation. There can be no equivocation. The ■* tolerant* attitude toward homosexuality- heterosexual liberalism- is almost as sickening as the fascist mental- ity of those authorities who declare that gayness is an illness. We want to create cultural/personal life in which people freely choose to love each other. Freely, A statement from the Berkeley men's center says that * it should not be a revolutionary demand to be homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual.", and adds M We, as males , can very easily be a part of the hierarchy of oppression unless we are willing to give up the power we have inherant." In the hierarchy of the nuclear family males have authority over females, and older people have authority over younger people. The manipulation of young people usually occurs through a patriar- chal systemin which the oldest male is in the strongest power position and everyone else grabs what lever- age they can, so as not to be total- ly crushed. Just as, through social condition- ing, women are generally far more gentle and sensetive than men, so also are children far more beautiful and gentle than the adults trying to push them around. Children are oppressed for the simple reason that they are young and vunerable. We must ally ourselves with children, and all young people who are being victimized through adult chauvanism. All compulsory schools are pris- ons, where brainwashing by a repres- sive social order takes place. All families which. rely on adult power are instruments of oppression. Youth liberation and women's liberation challenge the basic sys- tems of power which turn impulses toward sensuality and freedom into de-sensualized. obedience and mili- tarism. Those forces presently in control of this country try to keep children, women, and gays " in their places"; those places being where they don't interfere with the class ist, sexist, ageist, racist, anti- sensual, genocidal social order which we must bring down through the pro- cess of funde mental liberation. U Free sisters, free young people, nor->M FREE OURSELVES! *©l«iw« R.I. Report Well folks, here's what we've been up to these past few months or so; our collective of six puts out a newsletter /street sheet cal- led Into the Streets! It deals with political prisoners and with local, inter&national news. We also print up various leaflets for our own use and for Students for Alternative Politics. We have most of our energy info prisoner support and problems dealing with students and student workers on campus. In the 75-76 skool year we hope to organize the student workers into the IWW. In October of 74 Abba Eban showed up in Cranston, Rhode Island, and Solidarity collective RI YIP, and SAP did a joint ac- tion outside the temple where he was speaking. Leaflets (3 page history of mid east struggle, not done from anarchist perspective tho tho) are still available at , i rj postage each. Spring semester our collective started the campaign to dump the University president. and Vp. Our president gets $40,000 a year, free house and car, servants, etc. In march he tried to retrench twelve teachers for " economic" reasons. These reasons turned out to be p cover for breaking the teacher's union and making the school into a total business col- lege. Of course, the student senate took no action, so we took tre lead in setting up a picket line every day for over six weeks. Thejjrez and h J s sunnorters were harasset^^he^azoiii^jiigadfi^^^ crazed yippies and friends armed with kazoos. The last action we did w as in April, twelve of us set up a mock graveyard outside the administration building with the names of twelve past teachers who were retrenched. We lay still all day except once when we rose from the dead and walked quietly into the administration building to stare and point our fingers at the prezident and vp. It was very effective We made both TV and the local papei (copies available from the providence Journal or rrom us. Send postage) On the 23rd of June both the prezident and the vp resigned. Other thing s ... our collective showed up at the march against racism in December with black flags and leaflets stating our position on the situation there (Boston), ___ We showed the film Attica and raised funds for the defense. Also had a benefit for the defense of Joann Little in con- junction tf ith the RWC Women's Center and the Rhode Island Femin- ist Theatre (RIFT). In future we hope to keep put- ting out Into the Streets , do other actions, and start the organizing drive. Some of us work in non- profit food co-ops both in New Bedford and in Fall River. If you live near them please try to sup- port them: they r re the only whole- sale coops and movement meeting places in the area. Our address is: Solidarity Collective/ RI Yipple_ c/o Roger Wunams College rm 346 Bristol. Rhode Island 02809 YIP. ••, | YIPPIE! More events July 5,6,7