page four/the Journal/September 20, 1971
editorial
Aftermath of
violence
They were not students, but they were black, as they had been at
Jackson State, and they were young, as they had been at Kent. Another
national travesty of violence — this time within prison walls instead of
a campus.
How many times will we repeatedly murder in the name of ‘law and
order?’ How many deaths will it take ‘til we see that too many people
have died?
The words are from Peter, Paul, and Mary, written in the early 60’s.
We shouldn’t be surprised that no one heard those words — the
prophets of the young have been singing and chanting for years now,
singing to deaf ears.
Meet violence with violence. Overcome force with greater force. Beat
the hell out of the kid if he don’t straighten up. Bomb Hanoi. Napalm
Peking. Vaporize Moscow.
We’ve gotten nothing with violence except death — dead students,
dead soldiers, dead prisoners. And still we claim to the world that we’re
the most powerful nation in it. We do have power to kill.
Attica. Most of us never heard of it before the trouble began. We will
try very hard to forget it. It is, however, the type of incident that must
be remembered and remembered often.
Rockefeller will never forget it. On television, he visibly hung his
head in shame as he tried vainly to justify the murders. A powerful
figure. Rockefeller could have given the amnesty to the prisoners and
let them go to a “non-imperialistic country,” Cuba, for example. What
would have been the cost? Was that the only alternative?
Everyone conjured images of mass riots across the nation as
prisoners tried to follow Attica’s lead. No guard would be safe. The
entire prison system would be threatened with full-scale revolution.
Revolution — the word strikes terror into the hearts of men who
know there is something wrong, something horribly wrong, and one
day, it will erupt and consume them in its fiery flame. Their territory is
easily understood.
America is tragically stupid about violence. It is symptomatic, a
signpost of deeper, more crucial ills. The cause of violence is violence.
Frustration at being treated like dogs; anger at animalistic sadism;
gut-level hate for a racist institution like prison — these factors
sparked the Attica tragedy.
And our stupidity becomes self-deluding. It would have been
“weak” to let the prisoners leave the country, alive. It would have,
eventually, caused more riots, more deaths; we stopped ’em this time;
there won’t be anymore stupid riots at Attica.
No, Rockefeller, there won’t be any more riots at Attica. The
prisoners will go on living just as they have until maybe in a few years,
when it becomes unbearable to be dead in that prison, they will try
again to make America notice what’s being done in our prisons of Hell.
And what will we do that time, America? And when will we stop
murdering a man for wanting to live? And how many deaths will it take
‘til we see that too many people have died?
Charlie peek
At bob jones, it’s
already 1984
“This school will spend the first year ‘hosing you down,’ washing
you clean with the water of God’s Word, before dressing you in that
wisdom which comes from God.”
So spake the third in a somewhat threatening line of Bob Jones at
the official opening exercises of the 1971-72 academic year at Bob
Jones University. Bob Jones, for all you ignorant Radicalibs, is “a
non-denominational, co-educational, Christian, liberal arts university
standing. Without apology, for the ‘old-time religion’ and absolute
authority of the Bible.” Sounds like the beginning of a sermon or at
least an admonition.
It was established 44 years ago and took on the righteous
responsibility of providing for those students that are morally lost and
are wandering around bumping into things. In other words, they “come
with the defilement and pollution of a humanistic God-despising
society upon them.” Hence the hosing-down procedure. From reading
' things tike this you get the idea that they are already so lost that all the
hoses in the world aren’t going to stop them from burning.
But these words are not surprising. They really aren’t. Not coming
from an institution of higher learning which is surrounded by a 7-foot
fence topped with barbed wire. There is one gateguardedat all times.
Very little seems to pass in but some very frustrated and confused
people pass out of it. People who wonder why their children should
have to go to school with niggers, or why those flag-burning,
draft-dodging student demonstrators aren’t shot on sight. At BJ,
incidentally, they probably would be. Their campus cops are very
proud of their gun collection and their mace cans. They have a radio
station. The ONLY radio station, where national and international news
is carefully “edited” before it is presented to the students. You must
have a pass to leave the campus, alone or with a date, and you can only
leave at certain designated times. That’s what we like to see. Bob, a
university that takes an integral part in community affairs and whose
students are tuned to current events.
But wait, a voice is crying in wilderness again, “Some way this
school is too authoritarian-th.. tudents’ liberties are restricted.
Authority does not restrict liberty, for there can be no true liberty
without the authority of law.” Hear that! There’s liberty here, as long
as you look like they want you too, and act like they want you too,
and THINK like they want you to. No halfway measures. Young girls’
dressess MUST NOT reach above the knee at BJ. Military haircuts and
white shirts are the vogue for men. Well-balanced, creative individuals
who are not afraid to reach new levels of understanding.
“You can be glad you’re in a school where the administration and
faculty think enou^ of you to put about this school an
authoritarianism that makes this place well-ordered, well-disciplened,
steadfast, and consistent.” Consistent may not be the right word. Bob,
try stagnant. So utterly stagnant and backward that a search of their
University Bookstore shows not a trace of Hemingway, Updike,
Salinger, et al. The raciest thing they have is “Leda and the Swan.”
Perhaps MY adjectives aren’t quite correct. This place isn’t
backward, it’s dangerous. Dangerous enough to waste four years of an
individual’s life while it completely stifles his mind. “Our tongue is not
black from licking the boots of potentates, be they clerical, political, or
educational,” said Jones. This is their idea of nonconformity. The
Federal Government is bad, bad, bad. But God is on our side, and
Democracy will prevail. All we have to do is educate ourselves (?).
Academia, you were never more perverted. I wonder if they have
George Orwell in their bookstore?
vicki hinson
We won’t get
fooled again
Last year, the Revolution was coming. The weary gathered at
political rallies chanting for the Third World. Hands groped out for each
other in a vacuum filled with hostility and misunderstanding — at
times finding a friend who understood.
Now a friend is hard to find — almost a rarity. There are no
dedicated leaders to give hope. Where hahave all the leaders gone? to
the same place where all the followers have found refuge —
everywhere; but, at the same time, they’re nowhere.
All over the nation college graduations were the same as they had
been in the past: the same array of noted notables speaking on
everything under the sun. Yet one wondered secretly: just how much
crap is this guy feeding me? Just because this man served in the State
Department doesn’t mean he knows that much or prove the validity of
his statements.
At the same time, one was focusing on the speaker at hand, one was
concentrating on himself. Four years of migrain headaches, of
cramming and beer blasts but what has it gotten anyone? A $2.50
diploma and no job. Back in high school, college was the big thing.
Anyone who didn’t go to an ivey-choked University would end up
being a garbage collector.
The world was yours: to do what you pleased. Most of all you
wanted to help your fellow man. But now you realized that you’ve
been fooled — it was all part of one big “brain game.” Someone
overestimated the need without subtracting for national pleasure
excursions in East Asian affairs, and dividing the total by an inflated
economy. But now that you have been educated enough to
comprehend the obvious writing on the walls, what good does it do?
But all this was hinted at before it had actually happened and,
besides, the Revolution would remedy all that. Once, the Revolution
was all around. Long-haired girls gently placing flowers in the barrels of
guns; equally long-haired guys going to prison over a war they felt was
too de-moralizing and unjust.
The Weathermen and the Panthers were all there decked out in their
symbolic gear. They worked for a common cause — a Third World
where everyqne was colorblind, no napalm in babies’ milk, or
politicians who screw you behind your back.
Everyone joined in: handing*
marches, pushing leaflets for
U.S. out of the mess that it
attempt to clog the toilets Ji ®
intelligent Panther who prods' f'l'r
not hide itself in toilet bowls. ^ i ^
Rock concerts that gave n
Establishment for the God-fors^(
building of tension broke ■7",
New Left mourned and cried
issued forth in the form of
Establishment began to take
various laws to alleviate cainp“
“freedom” of education that ha
The summer came and went j
None of the “higher-ups’ n^^^
done anything about the
memory now, disappearing ,
found a large group of the
prevailed. The harshness of t|j® 7
leaders were of the same breed
The road was bumpy no'**.
their mind together. Some
minds. Not everyone was deo*
those they criticized.
But those who really cared a j
What can one person do
killing to a society that does ''^j,i(e
you failed you tried, you
you didn’t let yourself be bod
of control.
You listen to the song’ j|i
boss” — and take small pn
fooled again.
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*The Who, from the album
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