From L'Inferno

There is supposed to be an ancient curse: "May you live in interesting times." Since coming back to the States, I have been feeling that this curse is being fulfilled. I thought I would summarize a little of the interesting times for you here, as a contribution, perhaps, to lessening New Zealand's brain drain.

Let's start with April 30. After the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate had been holding hearings critically examining the Vietnam war, the deceptions of the former President in promoting large-scale US intervention, after Secretary of State Rogers had testified that the Senate would be properly consulted in future—after all that, Nixon threw negotiation out the window, invaded Cambodia, bombed Northern Vietnam, and has acted with an arrogance more criminal than even that of LBJ.

There are people in this country opposed to these events, some university students for example. Strikes have been called at most, or at least most well-known, colleges and universities. For reasons which I will get to later, I am not sure that this is the best tactic, though I support the strike at the University of Minnesota. These strikes range from the completely 'effective' at Kent State—where four students were murdered by National Guard and the campus is now completely closed—to partial strikes with perhaps half the students continuing to attend classes, but with teach-ins and community education programs under way, and with widespread and sympathetically received picketing.

I said that I am not sure the student strike is a good idea, because the fear, the hatred, and the consequent viciousness found amongst the United States' ordinary citizenry are widespread beyond belief. One recognizes that it is hard for a brainwashed citizenry to direct its fear and hatred at the proper target-the lies and malfeasance of our officials—but it is still surprising that 'middle Americans' so hate those who protest the war and its incessant escalation, and are content to follow the criminals and bunglers responsible for the war.

I have just now come from ringing doorbells in a middle class neighbourhood, and—here I should add that I was dressed very 'straight' and was not at all provocative—and heard good people spontaneously say that "those student bastards should be stood up against the wall and shot."

Full-fledged Nazusm is not in power here, yet. However, there can be little doubt that repression and domestic butchery will increase unless the war can be stopped. I for one am not going to shut up about how the US has destroyed and is destroying Vietnam (etc) all because we do not like the way its civil war is turning out. It's your world too, even you in God's own backwater where you have to cultivate your state police at second-hand. If you don't want to see your world destroyed in a never-ending war, or in the repression needed to keep the War never-ending, I suggest you get to work. Get your 500 soldiers who prostitute New Zealand's good name for an American pat on the back out of Vietnam. Let the US Embassy know your opinions. Write directly to American newspapers and magazines. Express yourselves to American tourists. Boycott. If you would have said No! to the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the German invasion of Poland, the Japanese invasion of Singapore—then say No! to the American invasion and destruction of Vietnam.