from the archives

BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME

This article appeared in vol 1 no.2, please visit a copy of the issue here

Down By the lake a few weeks ago, we ran into a bunch of guys from out by Racine and the River - Bridgeport, where Fat Face Daley lives. They were drinking quarts of Hamms' (with the new labels) and listening to some tapes by the Iron Butterfly playing out of a beautiful black 1953 Buick convertible,. We got into a rap with one of the guys and he asked if we knew about any reefer. We told him things were pretty tight up on the North Side where we hang out. He said the same for the South Side. Then he said he figured he'd be getting some pretty heavy stuff soon. We asked him where from? 'Nam', he said, 'I'm leaving in two days'. The war's still going on. We know it every time

The war's still going on. We know it every time somebody's buddy goes. We know it every time somebody 's'boyfriend goes. We know it everytime somebody's mother back in the neighborhood puts up one of those gold stars in the window. We know it because a lot of us are fighting and dying in that war. But what's it all about? The cat in the song (whose wife Ruby takes her love to town every night) calls it 'that crazy Asian war'. What's he mean by that? A crazy war in Asia? Or, a war with crazy Asians? Maybe he means a little of both. Anything we don't know much about seems a little crazy to us at first. It's pretty hard to understand what and who we are fighting over there. The newspapers (with all their lies about kids, dope, gangs, and cops) can't be trusted. Same for TV. And the radio's not much better with a couple of words every half hour sandwiched in between Zit cream commercials and old bald-head Clark Weber telling you about looking up young girls' dresses during your lunch hour. So when guys go - they're not sure why they're going. Some don't go at all. There was a guy who hadn't been around the neighborhood for a long time. He went to one of the city junior colleges for a semester. And then he dropped out. We figured the Uncle got him. Uh-Uh. Somebody saw hinain Canada. He lives there now. Some go, but stand up against the army bullshit. (The stockades from Ft. Dix in N.J. to Ft. Ord in California and even in Saigon - are filled with guys who are fed up and willing to do something about it). But guys still go in. Why? A lot of them figure it's not worth the hassle not to. Some of them figure they're going to 'save America' from some big Red Monster or something. Some of them figure that if those Viet Cong are gonna be killing off guys we know - guys like us - then we've got to stop them from doing that. You can't let somebody shoot at you with out you shooting back. But why is America there in the first place? It's pretty obvious that if we didn't have troops in the Nam - none of our guys would be getting it. But that still doesn't say what the war is about. Some people say that if we don't win in Vietnam, well lose control of the rest of the 'free world'. Dig it. How come the American government is the cop of the world? How come they can use us to patrol the beat while they sit in the station house writing reports and making phone calls. They're safe in their fat-ass padded offices in the Pentagon Pig Station - we're the ones who get shot at. It's crazy. The same guys who get hassled for standing on a corner, for drinking a little beer in the park, for smoking in a high school John, guys who are yelling 'lay back, pig - this corner is ours, this street is ours, this park is ours - and we want you off it'! - these same guys put on a cop-of-the-world suit and go off to hassle the Vietnamese. And what is it the Vietnamese want? The same things. The Vietnamese are yelling at the United States - lay back, pig - this land is ours - and we want you off it'! The people of Vietnam must be against the United States. How else could the Cong not only surround, but get inside Saigon. Why else would tens of thousands of South Vietnamese soldiers desert, taking their guns with them? Why else would the US have to move people away from their homes and towns into 'strategic hamlets' with barbedwire fences and concentration camp rules and regulations. RISING UP ANGRY PAGE 3 Are they trying to keep the VC out or the people in? Why else did the US have to hold an election ('free' they call it) at gun point and only let people form big cities rote? Are they afraid of the poor and working people of Vietnam? Of course they are. Because the poor and working people of Vietnam are like the poor and working people of America. The presidents and generals and the chairmen of the board, not only own the regular people of America, they make their millions from us. And we don't complain (not to them at least). And we don't fight back (not a lot - yet). But the people of Vietnam are fighting back. The Viet Cong is made up of poor and working men and women. People Who want their country, their towns, their land[ and their houses back. A long time before the US got into Vietnam, France owned it like a colony. In WW2 the Japanese moved in. The people of Vietnam drove them out. After the war there was a deal with the French that the people could have their freedom. But France copped out and a war started. The Vietnamese drove them out in 1954. That's when the US got in. After a few years of the Americans juggling boundries, promising elections, and generally jiving the people, the Vietnamese started to fight back like they had before. They still wanted their houses, their land, their towns, their country. And they were still ready to fight for them. People fighting for space to live in, space to move in. And the cops-ofthe- world saying, 'Sure you can have space. But only this much. And I'll tell you how to move around in it. So, what's the crazy Asian war about? It's about people. It's about space. It's about people living thenlives in that space. It's a war we shouldn't be fighting. Not in Vietnam, at least. Or in Thailand. Or in Laos. Or in Africa. Or in South America. Those wars are peoples' wars - people rising up angry against the things that put them down. The Viet Cong should win. Not by killing more American soldiers - but by American soldiers leaving Vietnam for the Vietnamese and bringing their guns back home. That war about people and space is in the streets of America. Bring the war home.