Only The Beginning

Helicopters flying at tree top level -- grotesque figures with bulb-like eyes and rubber faces, holding instruments of death to be used if necessary on the American People -- to defend. what? -- roads barricaded with barbed wire -- gas warf are used. upon the American people, a taste, although small, of the mechanical inhumanity shown toward the Vietnamese for so long.

And on the other end of the bayonets were thousands of peaceful civilians expressing their support for GI's who have lost their human freedoms, either through actual imprisonment or through enslavement to the will of the Military Machine.

With open spirit on the outside and tacit support on the inside, Fort Dix was under seige last Sunday. Not in the sense of actual physical attack but in the tightening of, the gaps among the potentially most effective force in America, the common people. We have always been conditioned to classify and separate people into ethnic, religious, political, social, and even occupational groups, but when a group of 8,000 people can all unite in one common cause (the cause = 4 demands: 1) Free the Fort Dix 38; 2) Abolish the stockade system; 3) Free all political prisoners in civilian and military jails, including Huey P. Newton, the NY Panther 21, the Chicago 8, etc. 4) Immediate withdrawal of U.S. occupation forces from Vietnam), you have to know changes are taking place. In a demonstration united around a meaningful cause, such as the one held at Fort Dix on October 12, all these conditioned barriers are broken down, and the immediate result is great rapport between people, real feeling. This is in itself a worthwhile end. But a demonstration in which a mass of people can be well-disciplined without a guillotine of some sort over their head is going even a step farther toward the radical changes that are needed

Other positive effects are: over 300 prisoners were releasd from the stockade that weekend; for the first time in American history, people coming onto an army base made front-page headlines across the nation and created an awareness of the feeling of solidarity with the American GI; the army couldn't even trust their own men to defend their own fort so they brought in the 519th MP Bn, a group of professional riot control pigs, from Fort Meade, while the 759th MP Bri were kept in their barracks because their loyalty was questionable; the army was put on the defensive and GI's have come to realize that power is in numberss; for the first time in Fort Dix history all members of SPD were given passes because it was feared that if they were restricted, they would rebel. Finally and most important of all, GI's were shown that they are not alone. GI's have been solidly bound to the to the movement of the People for control of their own lives.

This is only the beginning!

Shakedown, vol. 1, no. 11

Library - Reading Room

Only The Beginning