= -M * 9 ,34 Robert Williams on revolution .,.. Continued from Page 7 himself, he is able to start trying to transform society. ** * Talking about the ruling classes and the workers in organizing won't ring a bell. That's old hat. That's all right in some foreign countries but here. peonle are not much concarned about the ruling classes exploiting. For example, you, can say, "Look what the Ford family's got, and look at the Rockefeller's." This hasn't got a ring to people because a man will say, "Well, what's wrong with the Rockefellers?" Americans have been taught that Rockefeller came to this country with only a dime in his pocket. and with hard work and talent became a great man in this society. Most people don't want to destroy what they consider to be the nath thev're dreaming trot nral +-- 'inr't wgnt to close down that path because they're basically selfish and egotistical: they would like to be Rocke- fellers themselves. And they'll come back to down, people will listen to you. Because these are real problems. Primarily, our problems stem from the lack of morality in America. Because when you have morality, you don't have oppression. When you have morality you don't have tyranny. When you have morality you have fair and just government. This is why America could tolerate a slave so- ciety: because there was a lack of morality. This is why now Americans can't eradicate in- justice, and miscarriage of justice in the courts: it's because of the lack of morality. Changing the moral attitude should have priority in America, because this country is not poor. And although we have poor people in this country, they are not as poor as some of the people in some other countries. In those nations, it was necessary under some conditions for the people to make very drastic changes in the whole social structure to eliminate waste, to take out the wealth which was concentrated in just a few Suppose tomorrow there were an uprising and the government were destroyed? What would we have to substitute for it? Henry Ford f'nd th"y'll talk about how poor Henry Ford worked in a iimkvard and scraped parts together and horrow-d 105 and got started. This is still in the minds ^f nonple. That is why thev don't see the'e Ynne as Qreat vultures. You also get rod-exls +alking about the work- ers, the workers The Communist Party in the United States has been preaching for half a century about the Plass struggle and about work- ers being exploited. and this tactic has failed. I don't know what tv-e of (?eneral would go into the field and keen uvinQ the same theory of warfare that has failed otherc. Rt we've L'ot a new crop of voth. and they've 'niney haPk to that same kind of nonsen-e thea s n slnfans. the same ap- peals Thie is why v',1onalr hove fyot to come up with cmnethino no- 'l-,p"'ve failed to woo the. worknrnrs. nd thov've failed to attract the black neople. Real problems You've got to go to the nroblems the people understand. You try to find oilt what's on their minds, what is revally fae'ing them. Then you start trvin' to +in +1h nrls toe+her - that gives people the fplinAg that tnhv're nart of something beinz formed. not something that's already formed. For exampie: talk ahout the basic problems a man's having at home with his children, with his debts and the fpelin. of insemlrity. the every- day conmunitv affairg that are afflicting him and maino m 1 ra Ijnhaorohleg Or the nrohlm of women in the sunermark- ets, with the hiQ'h .ost of food. This is a prob- lem they one ev~ery day-they know it's there, it's not a matter they have to imagine. Focus on the high cost of livineg crime. and the fact the nation is turnino to done Why is this taking place? I don't moo,, tono on the 50m mitch as the law and ordejr nl~orle hilt on the matter of anplving soei'll -ne e You've also pfrt pnl,+in on eNreday prob- lem " n oo --" ' ' nore ho'in- nin- -- -' - " n o o aiit. Oro"nni; inr has o+t to ho -n iai +inal nro_ gram M'riel1 n-+ntin. "t-h ; eimnct im {si'- ble for nmo ne*1n nm'b h ne--n of fod. infitnion, pollution --ll of +l e aro n nhlomn, hut if you put them in ev+romiQt rhotorir Ptht's not roing to helm. Tf voj on o)t ond ay "The a pitalist dogs are suckin your hlood. that is why food prices are so high", pponle will say "What a bunch of Communists. trying to stir un trouble." But if you just go in a nice way and say-"This food is too high, we need to get organized to get prices hands, so that even children could have medical attention and get an elementary education. In most cases in this country, you'll find that an elementary education is already available to most children. And you'll find that some form of medical attention is already available to most people. So the question now is, how can people have an adequate supply of the things they need in life? This is a question also in American of a lack of morality on the part of government of- ficials, who don't consider the welfare of the peonle who are suffering. Whether moral change must come about through revolution depends on the intelligence and sensibilities of the power structure. People who suffer and are oppressed eventually seek change. And what causes the explosion is when the nower structure tries to nrevent this change from coming about. Now, when the power struc- ture is smart, and is rational and moral, it joins in to help bring about the conditions that would make a better society. Whether or not America is capable-of doing this under the present system is a question to be considered-because the government can do it. It is within its means and capabilities. But I don't think the administration that is there now is willing, and I don't see any politician on the scene who is much different. The problem is that you don't need a politician now, you need a morilist to lead America. As long as there is corrupt politics the way there is now, this country is not going to be able to make a peaceful transition. The country is go- ing further right, which brings about a state of renrescion - and repression creates resistance and eventually evolves to revolution, unless you have somohodv in power who is sensitive to the vn WTm of the oppressed. Changing -America You can't have change unless you know what to change to. Now, the big thing is saving the ponle. e.ming evervhodv from getting wiped out. You could save thousands, millions of people by iust stonning the war in Vietnam. Then, by getting all the money that has been used for the war, for the ABM, for the military and using it on social problems--like building housing, cleaning up pollution, improving education and medical care-you could improve the life of millions of people here. If you get these things done now, it's not so necessary for a revolu- tion. You only want to change a system to im- prove the quality of life, and first in ways other than outright revolution, which is OK only as a last resort when all other remedies have been exhausted. Because once you take up that gun, it's an all or nothing proposition. It's not a mat- ter any more of winning some concessions-it's do or die. Don't make revolution just for the sake of revolution. It's not enough to be an anarchist- you've got to have some form of order, a plan for what comes afterward. But we haven't gone that far yet. Some people are ahead of themselves. Suppose tomor- row there were an uprising and the government were destroyed in 14 days. What would we have to substitute for it? We wouldn't have anything. There are minor parties who have minor plans, but they're not well organized, they aren't exper- ienced, and they don't have the consent of the people. This is a stage of struggle not too many people have thought of._ The plans for what America should evolve to are still to be designed. I'd like to see an American society wherein the people would con- trol and ascertain what is best for them. The type of political structure will have to be worked out. I don't think that you can create a new government now if you expect it to last and to be really effective, without its being some form of socialist government. Socialism is more hu- mane. It may not be the type known to Marxist- Leninism; I don't think we can go to the Marxist- Leninist textbook and say "This is what the American people must have." The plans much come from within the American mind, and the American condition. You've got to consider the fact that the American mind has been molded by the so-called Affluent Society, which is really a corrupt and degenerate society. Americans d.on't have the same outlook at foreigners, as the people in, the books, as Lenin. Look at the Russia he created his theory around-oh man, that is a long time ago. This is a new world, a new people. There are university students that are bril- liant in this country. Why are they searching around for something old and already worn? Why don't American students set out to de- sign the type of theory that will meet this coun- ry's conditions? What America should evolve to is still to be designed. We need some plan to go by-but don't look for someone else's plan. Black nationalism The racial struggle should be given prior- ity in American radicalmovements. When radicals speak of white oppression, they're talking about working conditions and ma- terial gain-this type of thing. They're not talk- ing about police brutality, as far as white people go in general. But the fact is that whites on the whole are about as well off as any people any place else in the world, no matter what system they work under. Now there's a lot of unemploy- ment developing which constitutes a s o c i a l problem-but on the whole these things could be taken care of even without a drastic change in the system, if the government wanted to. This government, even under capitalism, could provide fair housing for everybody, could provide full em- ployment for everybody, and it couldprovide full medical care. But our problem, the problem of the black people, is deeper than that. A white man may be exploited, but he's still 'got more privileges than the black man. Now, the white man's son can be born into the poorest family in America and there is still the possibility that he could be- come president of the United States. But some things are closed down to blacks forever. An integrated society is an ideal society. It's only logical that people should be able to live together and not judge each other on the basis of skin pigmentation. People should be judged upon their own individual worth, their own per- sonality, and their own capacity and talent. But in America, because we have racism, this is not true. So we must be realistic and we must face fact. Th fact is, whites and blacks are already separated. I think it should be more formal. Now we do have de facto separation, but I think blacks should be given the opportunity for true self-determination. Because America is immoral and degenerate, and because we are a minority and can't expect to outvote white America Continued on Page 22 psychiatrists in great num- ber who are cheerfully candling heads by the thousands at military in- duction centers, and a host of others who are throwing their weight on the side of the police, the prosecutor and his bountiful staff, and the People (about 5,000,- 000) of the Sovereign State of Michigan - and all against one penniless and solitary defendant w h o with a fair share of luck may get a court appointed attorney to speak up in his behalf. Well-meaning, "liberal" Ann Arbor parents are bust- ing their own kids to the police for minor infractions of laws so blatantly, uncon- stitutionally despotic that they never should have been there in the first place - but how many decades (a n d man-centuries of fraudulent imprisonment) would pass before they could make it to a Supreme Court test? No, it will take more and better courts and a new breed of judge and lawmakers to handle t h a t job - if its many victims are to be spared the obliga- tion of taking the task upon themselves. Whatever else the courts may need, a basic minimum requirement is that the judges get rid of those absurd black robes (send them the way of the powdered periwigs) a n d come out from behind the high benches and do their job as fellow citizens. Re- spect for legal process is not to be found in a ritual of public ass-kissing. The kids are being denied the most obvious of their Constitutional guarantees right in their own homes. They are badgered and beaten ("under duress" is the technical term for this) to testify against them- selves, then "grounded" in- terminably, or dragged off to their friendly neighbor- hood shrink for a protract- ed head job, and the out- come is the same whether they confess or tell t h e i r tormenters the lies t h e y want to hear. Hence the popular parental complaint: j e c t e d to unwarranted searches and seizures. When a few "dirty" contraband mags are turned up from Sonny's private desk draw- er ("dirty" being mommy's and daddy's personal pro- nouncement on pictures of beautiful naked people, es- pecially if they happen to be verging on or actually doing what mommy a n d daddy did to beget Sonny) then a favorite punishment of our time and place is compulsory church attend- ance for umpteen months. here in liberal little o 1 d Ann Arbor town, right? Af- ter the Chicago Ten-minus- one debacle, where a hand- ful of mad idealists .w e r e remanded to prison for fool- ishly insisting on their right to participate in represen- tational government, a n d their defense counsel pun- ished accordingly for trying to do his job and for being publicly contemptuous of the conspicuously contemp- tible, some of our students sought to march in orderly protest. They voted against The officer who arrests you, the judge who sentences you and the warden who imprisons you may well be the criminal offenders under Constitutional law, and your resistance against their illegal actions an act of courageous patriotism. 4 '1 "He's a chronic, pathologi- cal liar.", The young are denied the right to face their accusers "I know you've b e e n smoking dope. Never mind who told me"-and the right to a hearing before a jury of their peers. We may not know exactly what a "peer"~ is, but a 15 year old kid standing along before a black-robed, 60 year o 1 d judge with a big wooden hammer in his hand and a spine-chilling smile on his face is roughly as peerless (sic) as a'raggedy old black man on trial before a pros- perols. all white jury and a chartreuse magistrate. Kids are routinely sub- Anyone for freedom of reli- gion? Or how about freedom of the local press? The A n n Arbor Argus was learned on so heavily by our hometown freedom lovers (freedom for our kind of paper, not that filthy radical rag), that it nearly went under. Hound- ed from one location to another as an undesirable element in the community, it was finally forced to put out another edition. Point counterpoint: Justice Douglas tells us that t h e "underground" newspaper is about the only vestige of a free press left in t h i s country today. Dissent? No problem "trashing," physically re- strained a few extremists (?) among them who mov- ed toward tossing r o c k s through the prexy's window, then strolled on down Hur- on Street toward the court house. Their mild manner- ed dissent was met with a clubswinging assault by the very long arm of the law. Speech and Political Pam- phleteering? Douglas points out that the political pam- phlet a la Thomas Paine is at the heart of the Ameri- can freedom tradition. And yet -one of our native pam- 'phleteers, who espouses a mind-staggering program for non-violent revolution (via rock and roll and ... l talitarianism, the attempt to bring the whole of life under authoritarian con- trol. We are bitterly fa- miliar w i t h totalitarian politics in the form of bru- tal regimes which achieve their integration by blud- geon and bayonet. But in the case of the technoc- r a c y, totalitarianism i s w h i c h science has given Us$ The alternative to the technocracy Roszak sees is not a historic radical move- ment w i t h international proportions, not the rising of people of color and w h i t e anti - imperialists around the world but a far- out youth movement with perfected because its tech- niques become progressive- ly m o r e subliminal. The distinctive feature of the r e g i m e of experts lies in the fact that, while pos- sessing a m p le power to coerce, it prefers to charm conformity from us by ex- poiting our d e e p seated commitment to the scien- tific w o r l d view and by manipulating t h e securi- ties and creature comforts of the industrial affluence Carl Oglesby .. liberated forms of expres- sion-a youth culture. It is not willingness to act and analytic skills which distinguish the youth c u 1- ture, but the cultivation of ecstasy: If there is to be an alter- native to the technocracy, there must be an appeal from this reductive ration- ality which objective con- sciousness dictates. This, so I have urged, is the pri- mary project of our coun- ter culture: to proclaim a new heaven and a new earth so vast, so marvel- ous t h a t the inordinate claims of technical exper- tise must of necessity withdraw in the presence of such splendor to a sub- ordinate a n d marginal status in the lives of men. This "proclamation" hearkens back to the role of the shaman in tribal life: The New Left that rebels against technocratic ma- nipulation in the name of participatory . democracy draws, often without real- izing it, upon an anarchist tradition which has always championed the virtues of the primitive b a n d, the tribe, the village. .. . Our beatniks and hippies press the critique even further. Their instinctive fascina- tion with magic and ritual, tribal lore, and psychedelic experience a t t e mp t to resuscitate the d e f u n c t shamanism of the distant past. It is not that Roszak's arguments are merely wrong; 'rather, his vision of mainstream c ult ur e and counter-culture is inadequ- ate, it embodies a bad per- spective. Roszak accents in his vision the powerfulness of the technocracy and neg- lects its capacity to bore and o p p r e s s and make massive blunders. He neg- lects the capacity of radi- cals to come together and by will and intellect and energy, not simply by imag- ination, to make a stand. Roszak's version of Mar- cuse is that individuals are powerless to resist the ab- sorption and neutralization of dissenting ideas and im- ages by the unfeeling tech- nocratic managers. A more realistic version is that the technocracy is starved for creative imagination a n d like a fungus absorbs the life of other forms without becoming g r e e n or san- guine. Radicals are not f o 1 e d by technocracy's psychedelic, tokenly - radi- cal types, its mis-digested re-formulations of radical thought. Yet even if the larger so- ciety is not so voracious, so c a p a b le of gulping down dissent and creative imagi- nation, it is quite capable of smothering it. Radicals who 1 i v e in conventional American and Western European environments are surrounded by monopoly capitalism's bad air, com- mercial values, technocra- tic forms of social organi- zation and insane, unfeel- ing modes of life. Radical actions, if they are not for- tuitously effective, are like single punches into a colos- sal pillow. The larger so- ciety, as deteriorating as it may seem, is capable of absorbing and i g n o r in g what seem to be head-on challenges. Roszak's appeal to primi- tive shamanism, to "make ..... .. t. .nm _ .,. i 1 1. /ti : t 4, t ice..,. .. .. ,.Mx. ._ ... ., Sunday, April 12, 19/0 Sunday, April 12, 1970 THE DAILY MAGAZINE