The Begatting of the President

 

In 1970, Orson Welles released a spoken word album titled The Begatting of the President, a satirical recitation in Bible-speak of LBJ's fall and the rise of Nixon. (The recording is on YouTube.)

The script, which is available on Wikipedia, was written by Myron Roberts, Lincoln Haynes and Sasha Gillien. Listening to the 28-minutes recording of the political machinations between and among Democrats and Republicans shows, once again, that there is nothing new under the sun. 

We've been a hot mess for quite a while.

This ad for the album ran in an August edition of the Los Angeles Free Press.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRZZSFv83jI

Peace and Freedom Party

This ad for a PFP conference in the Los Angeles Free Press might seem naive to modern readers but contains the crucial elements of community organizing -- communication, strategizing and resource development. 

Woodstock film boycott

 

In an ironic display, a group of Yippies staged a boycott in 1970 of the film Woodstock, which took what was originally a three-day, genial, youth-oriented, peace and anti-war festival the year before and, according to protesters, turned it into crass commerce.

As the article in Los Angeles Free Press reads: "A big company (Warner Bros.) takes the life-style, love, feeling and thoughts of the youth culture and sells it back for many bucks."

Cost of tickets at the Warners theater on Wilshire in Los Angeles was $4, or about $31 in 2023.

Fort Jackson 8

 

I came across this anti-war rally promotion in a May 1970 issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. I took special interest in the reference to the Fort Jackson 8.

Further exploration revealed them to be anti-war protestors, mostly Black and Brown soldiers, stationed at Fort Jackson who were jailed from January to May of that year for calling for an end to the killing.

One might also note references to Jackson, Mississippi, and Augusta, Georgia, the sites of police actions against black demonstrators that resulted in the deaths of several protestors.

The more things change ...

Father Blase Bonpane

 

 

 

Interesting item in an April 1970 issue of Los Angeles Free Press.

Father Bonpane served as a missionary in Guatemala for years before being expelled by the American ambassador was criticizing U.S. activities there.

He was expelled from his religious order, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, for refusing to obey an order not to speak about the United States' activities in Central America and Vietnam.

No longer a priest, Bonpane would later marry and found with his wife, Theresa, the Office of the Americas, which functioned as a watchdog of U.S. involvement in foreign nations.

He ran unsuccessfully for public office more than once.

The Bonpanes' motto was "Don't moan, organize."

Say Uncle

 

 

This is a 1970 Los Angeles Free Press ad for a benefit theater piece and speech to help war resisters. Lester Cole, the author of the work, was one of the founders of the Screen Writers Guild, the group that recently held a work stoppage to get a new contract with Hollywood producers.

Howard Levy was an Army medical officer and early Vietnam War resister who was court-martialed in 1967 at Fort Jackson for saying U.S. military actions in Southeast Asia were unjust and medics were being used to mollify the Vietnamese even as bombing continued.

In 2002, he told the New York Times he stood by his position that led to his imprisonment and felt a kinship with Israeli army reservists "who have said they would refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of Israeli treatment of the Palestinians."

Everything old is new

 

This front page from the L.A. Express has the ring of deja vu!

Medical Exemption to the Draft

 There's more than one way to skin a draft board.

League of Revolutionary Black Workers

In 1969, the marxist League of Revolutionary Black Workers was formed and in 1970 made these demands of the United Auto Workes union and auto manufacturers:

1.      Fifty percent representation for black workers on the international executive board and international staffs

2.      Grievances be settled immediate by plant workers

3.      Elimination of all safety and health hazards.

4.      Fight speed ups and double workforce to meet workload.

5.      Five-hour work day and four-day work week.

6.      Doubling of wages.

7.      Cut in union dues.

8.      End of dues checkoff.

9.      UAW invest in black community development.

10.   End relationship with United Foundation

11.   Political contributions be given to League of Revolutionary Black Workers and Black United Front

12.   End collusion with CIA, FBI and other white racist spy institutions

13.   End interference in political, economic, social and cultural life of the black community

14.   End harassment of black revolutionaries

15.   UAW call general strike to demand – end to Vietnam war and withdrawal of troops, end taxes imposed on workers, increase industrial, property and profit taxes, reallocation of Federal monies to meet the needs of the black and poor populations of America

 The League was dissolved a year later.

Missionaries of the New Truth

Ads for sketchy ministerial certification appeared to be targeting young men seeking creative ways to avoid the draft.

MISSIONARIES OF THE NEW TRUTH

WE WANT YOU TO JOIN OUR FAITH AS AN ORDAINED MINISTER

with a rank of DOCTOR OF DIVINITY

And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free 

– John 8:32

We want men and women of all ages, who believe as we do, to join us in the holy search for Truth. We believe that all men should seek Truth by all just means. As one of our ministers you can:

1.      Ordain others in our name.

2.      Set up your own church and apply for exemption from property and other taxes.

3.      Perform marriages and exercise all other ecclesiastic powers.

4.      Get sizeable cash grants for doing our missionary work.

5.      Seek draft exemption as one of our working missionaries. We can tell you how.

6.      Some transportation companies, hotels, theaters, etc. give reduced rates to ministers.

GET THE WHOLE PACKAGE FOR $10.

 Along with your Ordination Certificate, Doctor of Divinity and I.D. card we’ll send blank forms to use when you wish to ordain others. Your ordination is completely legal and valid anywhere in this country. Your money back without question if your package isn’t everything you expect it to be. For an additional $10 we will send your Ordination and D.D. Certificates beautifully framed and glassed.

Send to: MISSIONARIES OF THE NEW TURTH

Box 1393, Dept. RB, Evanston, Illinois, 60204

Name

Address

City                         State                                Zip

$10 encl., (no frames)

$20 encl. (deluxe frames)

Great Speckled Bird

The Great Speckled Bird was the communication outlet and organizer for the radical underground movement in Atlanta from 1968 to 1976.

HIGH SCHOOL CONFERENCE against the war in VIETNAM

SAT. & SUN., JANUARY 24 & 25

EMORY UNIVERSITY

Speakers, Workshops, Films, on:

The High School Movement 

US Imperialism 

ROTC 

White Supremacy   

Black Panthers  

Women’s Liberation  

GE Strike   

Freedom to Organize  etc.

Plan Winter - Spring Anti-War Offensive

A meal (small cost) & a band (absolutely free) Saturday Night.

Out-of-towner’s(sic) Welcome

Send me: 

_____ information on High School Conference

_____ information on High School Mobilization Against the War in Vietnam

_____ enclosed is $  ____ as a donation

Name 

Address

Send to: High School Mobilization Against the War in Vietnam, 18 Yonge St., NE, Atlanta, Ga, 30312, Telephone: 525-9810

Dead Vietnam Babies

 

The Radical Left in the Bay Area did not pull punches.

Revolution's Convention

 

As it happened, the convention never came together, and the move to rewrite the Constitution 

was abandoned. 

So You Want a Revolution?

 

Chairman Mao was a "hero" of many 

in the Radical Left.

Outlaws of Amerika

 

Chicago Seed was one of the underground papers in the '70s to run this series of "trading cards" about the radical threat.

White Makes Right!!

 

Nixon, Agnew Impeachment Petition

 

Every Miami hippie worth their sandals signed the petition to impeach Nixon and Agnew in 1970.

Maryjane

 

From the origins of the war on drugs? Maryjane was released in 1967. Still playing in Coconut Grove in July 1970, probably midnight showings.

Communes

 

According to a Forbes article from 2021, there are about 1,300 "intentional communities" (communes) in the U.S. today. Down from roughly 3,000 in the '60s and '70s.

Reasons for the initial decline of the communes varied but among them was the increase in the cost of living and hippies finding it impossible to live on nearly nothing. They discovered they couldn't make dropping out work as the price of gasoline skyrocketed and never came down, which drove up the costs of nearly every other commodity.

So, they dropped back in.

I wonder as social order deteriorates, if young people will once again try to drop out just to be away from the "politics, pollution and general hassle."

Republic of New Afrika

 

While exploring the 1970s underground, I stumbled upon a reference to the Republic of New Afrika, which was to consolidate the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana into a separate Black nation.

It's not clear from the items I've found if the organizers ever agreed on form of government, but the nation would be created using $400 billion in reparations for chattel slavery and institutional discrimination. The map shows the new republic and its constituent states.

Though the actual nation was never formed, the ideals that inspired it in 1968 are still present.