The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 3, 1977 Page: 2 of 16
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Students organize to fight 'legacy of oppression'
The Bakke decision;
cutbacks in federal funding of
student loan programs;
unemployment of youth 22%
and rising; repression of
dissent and curtailment of
constitutional liberties on
campuses nationwide—the
legacy of Fall '77 is that of
attack by the ruling class on
the masses of students and
youth. In response, however,
this semester has seen the
growth of determined
resistance among those
against whom these attacks
are directed. Instead of sitting
back and taking it, youth and
students are militantly
organizing, not just to fight
the attacks and abuses that
are continuously thrown at us,
but to carry the battle back to
the source of these problems,
to join with the forces that are
arising nationwide to declare
war on a social system that
can justly be called the most
insidious and thorough tool of
enslavement in the history of
mankind. A key rallying point
in this fight has been and
continues to be the battle
around the gym construction
at Kent State University.
Against attempts by the
ruling class to bury history
under tons of concrete, the
people have risen to defend our
heritage of just struggle.
Since September, several
key actions by the May 4th
Coalition and the Revolu-
tionary Student Brigade have
directly challenged the
authority of the state and
university administrations
while effectively halting the
construction. Shaken to the
foundations of its rule, the
state has in desperation
instituted successively
harsher means of repression.
On Sept. 11th, the day before
classes began, 450 students
rallied to show what they
thought of court orders
allowing construction to
begin: marching to the site,
they tore down sections of a
fence around the site. Five
WILLY
days later, the administration
called in the bulldozers.
Caught by surprise, hundreds
of students nevertheless
gathered around the site to
protest. Construction crews
were able to scrape the site
only through the presence of
pigs in full riot gear who
maintained the rebuilt fence
perimeter.
In response to this outrage,
the Coalition called a national
demonstration at Kent for
Sept. 24th. The local rulers and
their lackey, KSU Pres. Braje
Golding (who in the late '60's
taught "police methods" to the
Brazilian DOPS (secret
police) for the CIA and who in
1970 came out publicly for the
murders), retaliated by
obtaining arrest warrants
against Coalition leaders,
getting an injunction against
"interfering" with construc-
tion, and by decreeing that
anyone involved in the protest
would be immediately
suspended for a year. In spite
of this, 1000 masked KSU
students joined 2000 others
from around the country in a
militant rally. Following the
rally, 2500 marched to four
previously unnamed build-
ings, dedicated them to each of
the students shot down in
1970, and proceeded in closed
ranks to the gym site. The
cops, confronted by a spirited
and disciplined expression of
the people's anger, did not
even try to hold the fence, but
retreated to isolated positions
by the gate and on building
rooftops. The students
retaking the site tore down the
8 foot fence and uprooted the
posts, many of which are now
dispersed across the country
as concrete symbols of the
power the people can exert
when they stand united
against their oppressors.
Though dozens of reporters
were present at this dem-
onstration, a national
blackout was maintained by
both press and electronic
media. This action really
exposes the nature of who we
are fighting in the Kent
struggle—not just a few KSU
administrators, but the U.S.
ruling class, the owner class
which controls not only the
government, but the mass
media of this nation, and
which reports only the news
that is favorable to its own
interests. A victory by the
people over the armed goons of
the state is certainly not that
type of news.
In October, Golding and his
compatriots further escalated
the situation: a permanent
state injunction (a federal
judge refused to touch the
case) against assembly—7
people were later arrested for
reading the bill of rights at the
site; outlawing the Brigade at
KSU; introduction of an
informer network among the
students; construction of a
$30,000, 15 foot cyclone fence
around the site; armed
occupation of the campus and
arrest of many Coalition
members. These actions show
that the ruling class, now as in
1970, will stop at nothing to
squash dissent.
But the people, just as they
rose up to oppose an unjust
war in 1970, are rising to
oppose their own oppression
today. In answer to the police
state tactics of Golding, et al,
the Brigade called for another
demo on Oct. 22. 2,000 people,
half of them KSU students
who defied name-taking
"monitors" to participate, held
a rally in spite of 2 attempts by
cavalry-led cops to disperse
them. The pigs went all out
this time, using horses, gas,
cowprods and clay shrapnel
grenades, trying to run people
down with their vans, and
firing gas cannisters directly
at people. In the face of these
attacks, however, the students
stood strong, refusing to be
split up and fighting back with
whatever was at hand.
Because of the people's unity,
the pigs were only able to
arrest two, and the demonstra-
tion, though failing to retake
the site, served notice to
Golding and his class that
the people, in militant unity,
by Jeff Kerr
could be defeated neither by
his court injunctions nor by
his brand of state terrorism.
Again, in this case, the role
of the media was completely
reactionary: the Chronicle
portrayed the demo as a small
action of 300 that was quickly
broken up by the pigs! The
reason behind this slander is
evident: to make people think
that the struggle is dead, that
you can't oppose the
government. There is also a
flaw in this tactic—the people
know the defeatist line for
what is, pure bullshit.
The struggle at Kent
develops and sharpens, not
simply for its own sake, but as
a direct example of the main
contradiction in American
society today, the conflict
between the people and their
rulers, the owning class, or
bourgeoisie. The key issues in
people's lives today are
determined by this contradic-
tion. This is the importance of
the Kent struggle, that it
provides a focus for the major
problems we face: the threat of
a new imperialist war, the
struggle for jobs, the fight
against national oppression,
and the increasingly repres-
sive nature of the bourgeois
state.
In the 60's and early 70's, the
people's movement, led by the
Black liberation and anti-war
struggles, struck potent blows
against the imperialist rulers
of this country which forced
them to make some conces-
sions to the people. Yet, by
several years ago, this
massive movement had
disintegrated while the basic
repressive nature of the
system survived intact—the
Panthers had been crushed,
student leaders either sold out
or went underground. Why?
Because the diffuse struggle
of the '60's, except in a few
cases, did not have an
integrated ideology and
strategy for revolution, and
because it was no led by the
social class most able to carry
out social change: the working
class. In order for any
fundamental change to be
wrought in the system, society
must be completely reorgan-
ized, and only the working
class is capable of this. The
ideology of the working class
is Marxism-Leninism, and its
strategy for revolution is the
United Front Against
Imperialism. It is in this vein,
to carry forward the spirit of
the '60's, the desire to create a
more just society, but to avoid
its mistakes, that students and
youth must organize today. In
the spirit of Kent and Jackson
State, on November 19, at
Ohio State University,
students and youth will meet
to do just that—form a
revolutionary communist
youth organization.
We invite anyone who would
like to see some change in the
social system of this country,
is interested in what Marxism-
Leninism really is, or who
wants to talk about the
specific problems we face
today, to come to a discussion
this Friday at noon, in the
Pacific Room at U of H. For
further information, or to
discuss questions around this
letter, call 528-1238, or
641-6486.
Hiram A. Berry
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mmmm PHILIP PARKER
THp KIPP Editor
* steve setser
Thresher Butces£zrr
.Advertising Manager
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Debbie Gronke, Karen Barrett, Rawslyn Ruffin,
Don Rosato, Cathy Egan, and bozos: mcl, rbep, g
Circulation Department Bill Barron, Martha Espinosa
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1 Copyright 1977, The Rice Thresher. All rights reserved.
rbep and mcl are not cousins or brothers, that i know of. -m l.
the rice thresher, november 3, 1977—page 2
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Parker, Philip. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 13, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 3, 1977, newspaper, November 3, 1977; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245350/m1/2/: accessed June 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.