To the Editor:
The recent bust of the Artists’ Workshop and surrounding area is indeed a tragedy. [See Narco Agents Raid Artists’ Workshop, [FE #23, February 1-15, 1967.] It’s a sign of the times too, for we are presently living under a totalitarian police state system and it’s getting worse all of the time.
I just can’t quite condone the way in which the fuzz place more emphasis on absurd illogical “drug” laws which shouldn’t exist in the first place. They should spend more time on serious things that count, like murder. Just try to report an ominous killing some day to the Man and see how fast they get there.
Each year our boys in blue get on a new kick. They’re not content just to bust non-conformists when they see them. They have to play the game of cracking down on certain things they feel a trifle peeved with. Last year it was prostitution with the V-boys getting most of the action. This year, it’s psychedelics, ignorantly named “narcotics” by fa s [sic, as in original] who should know better.
Next year it will probably be something like spitting on the sidewalks or pissing in dark alleys, or possibly little kids buying nudist and sex magazines from legalized “pornography” shops on Woodward and Monroe.
The fuzz are a perfect example of man’s inhumanity to man. Their laws go against nature, and frankly don’t do any good if you condone what they’re trying to do. Prohibition doesn’t kill anything off. It just drags it into the underground, where the corruption is more likely to set in.
I say abolish all those evil laws that do nothing but hurt people, and let’s throw all the fuzz in jail.
Dave Szurek
Detroit
To the Editor:
Your article called Spare The Rod? [FE #21, January 1-15, 1967] is true enough on most counts, but at least one wrong concept came about. It said that high schools rarely hit their students because the students would hit back. I just graduated from a high school which used corporal punishment all the way through the twelfth grade!
The chastisements were always directed towards the rump, but they were chastisements just the same! I unfortunately had to submit to several fanny warmings, although I was never a particularly difficult student. I was fairly well behaved, but when I did misbehave, I’d always end up getting paddled.
Most of the lickings weren’t excessive. The victim’s butt stung afterward, but neither very long nor to an absolutely unbelievable degree. The embarrassment was the more distressing factor. Only five or so swats per paddling were administered, and most of the time they bore no erotic overtones.
My most severe spanking occurred because of my insistence on dressing Mod. I had been warned earlier not to wear my mini-skirt to school, so one day I was sent to the office where I received a blistering paddle—applied vigorously about thirty times. My tail was red and hot as hell when the principal was through. I was suspended for a week, and made certain to leave the skirt at home when I was allowed to return. However, the school officials thought I still dressed too Mod, so they sent me to the office again.
Not only were the swats sharper and more numerous (about fifty all counted), leaving my behind sore for a couple of days, but the main rub was that this spanking was given on my bare bottom—and the principal was a male! At the beginning he laid me across his lap (which was a far different method than he used originally—when he just had me bend over), and to my horror, raised my skirt, and lowered my panties!
This was just too much. I cried afterwards for the first time because of a spanking. I don’t believe that it left any definite kind of trauma, but it was a terrible experience for any young girl to have to go through. It was effective alright—I dressed very conservative the remainder of the year.
Sharon Acropolis
Detroit
To the Editor:
I take exception to Leary’s religion of “acid” not so much because it is “dangerous,” but that it seems to be an updated version of Christian Science.
Indeed, Christian Science is a pretty old venture: Aquinas tried it with the Summa, the Deists attempted to give the Devine a clock, and the Rationalists of the 20th century tried to scientize God.
They all failed just as Leary fails to put Religion on some sort of intellectual-emotional basis (the two get used in these systems). Religion is not something that can be successfully exorcized out of a systematic effort at knowledge, self knowledge, notwithstanding.
It is a relationship with the Cosmos that recognizes the chaotic, illusory nature of this world. It’s all been said before, but it’s true, the inner-space is no more immune to chaos and illusion as electronic technology.
Perhaps the Medieval theologians were correct when they ascribed a “sublunary” character of this world, which places them closer to primitive religions then they do to the Realist’s God.
It would seem, too, that Leary is attempting to become a saint, but he falls just as Ghandi and Tolstoy did many years ago—giving up this world does not ensure you a better one somewhere else (because there isn’t any other, real one that is, not illusory).
What is needed is not so much a realization of self, but a recognition of chaos and the illusory character of this world. It isn’t worth much, nor was it ever worth much, but there is no real escape from it. All you can do is accept it as best that can be realized in an intolerable situation. That’s religion—not any of this systematic nonsense.
Bill Dows
Detroit
To the Editor:
I was very glad to see an item about telephone tax refusal in your issue #21, January 1-15, 1967. The campaign to refuse this tax is an extremely significant aspect of peace action today. The refusal requires little effort and little risk, but it causes the government big problems.
Since the amounts involved are so small, it actually costs them far more to collect the tax from those who have refused than to let it go.
Also, the phone companies seem to be giving their tacit approval to the campaign since they don’t like the tax any better than we do.
But perhaps the most significant thing is that with actions such as this one the peace movement is beginning to move from protest to resistance. Protest is good and we need more of it. Still, it has failed to arouse the conscience of the country and change the government’s foreign policy.
The next step MUST be resistance to the government and this means noncooperation with the draft system, the tax system and any other agencies that depend on our cooperation.
Although we have the names of about three hundred people around the country who are refusing the tax, it is reasonable to assume that there are well over a thousand people participating.
Since CNVA is coordinating the campaign, it would be extremely helpful if any of your readers who are refusing to pay would send us their names so that our records can be up to date when we start getting the publicity ball rolling.
Maris Cakars
Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA)
5 Beekman St. NYC 10038