Revolutionary Letter #80

GOOD CLEAN FUN

It's terrorism, isn't it, when you're afraid to answer the door for

lack of a Green Card

afraid to look for work, walk into the hospital when yr child

is sick,

and what else than terrorism cd you call those smallpox

blankets we gave the Indians

the trail of tears, the raids on Ghost Dancing tribes

It's terrorism when you're forbidden to speak yr language

paddled for it, made to run a hundred laps in the snow

in your thin & holey sneakers. What do you call it

when you're locked in yr high school classroom, armed

policemen

manning the halls? Isn't it terrorism to force a young woman

to talk to her parents abt her clandestine love

the child she will or will not carry? Is it terrorism

to shoot striking onion workers (1934), pick off AIM members

one by one?

What happened to the Hampton family in Chicago-

Fred Hampton blown away in his bed-

would you call that terrorism? Or the MOVE kids in

Philadelphia

bombed in their home. Or all the stories we

don't

know

buried in throats stuffed w/ socks, or pierced w/ bullets.

Wd you call it terrorism, what happened at Wounded Knee

or the Drug Wars picking off

the youth of our cities-as they already picked off

twenty years ago-or terrified into silence-the ones who shd

be leading us now-

you know the names.

What was COINTELPRO if not terrorism? What new initials

are they calling it today?

Is Leonard Peltier a victim of terrorism?

Is Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Is it terrorism if you are terrified

of the INS, the IRS, the landlord, yr boss, the man

who might do yr job for less?

if you're scared of yr health insurance

no health insurance

scared of yr street, yr hallway, scared every month

you might not get to the 1st and the next measly check?

Is it terrorism to take food from hungry school-kids?

To threaten teenagers who still have hope enough

have joy enough to bring babies into this mess?

How has terrorism touched you, shaped

your

life?

Are you afraid to go out, to walk in yr city, yr suburb, yr

countryside?

To read, to speak yr own language, wear yr tribe's clothes?

Afraid of the thin-shelled birds w/ twisted necks

poisoned by nitrates, by selenium?

Afraid that the dawn will be silent, the forests grey?

Is it terrorism to fill the Dnieper River w/ radiation?

or heat the ionosphere w/ magnetism "to see what will

happen"?

A wonderful weapon, they say, it will perturb

the weather pattern, disrupt communications

Who are the terrorists in the lumber wars?

(the water wars are coming)

And we haven't even talked about AIDS and cancer.

IS THE ASSAULT ON NATIVE INTELLIGENCE & GOOD WILL

THAT WE CALL THE EVENING NEWS

ANYTHING OTHER THAN AN ACT OF TERROR?

What was the Gulf War but terrorism

wearing the death mask of order?-one big car bomb it was

the guys who drove it dying now

one by one-ignored

Is acid rain a form of terrorism? (Think for yourself.)

Is GATT or NAFTA anything but a pact among brigands-

the World Bank, the IMF their back-up men?

How long before they fight over the spoils? Who'll do their

fighting for them?

Is Alan Greenspan perhaps the biggest

known & named

of our terrorist leaders,

here

, nurtured

here

,

trained

here

the dark design of whose hearts make

Hutu & Tutsi

Croat & Muslim & Serb

mere diversionary tactics before the onslaught