◆ SpookStack

ae 5s ei he Se a ad oe Pie ‘sath Vie joined the SLA separately, not knowing each other at the time, but for similar reasons, as we later discovered, namely, that we could no longer tolerate the .quality and conditions of our private and public lives -- — a repressive education that was no more than an assembly line for maling obedient slaves, boring and humiliating jobs, declining "standards of living", and a polluted, ugly environ- ment. And, as far as we could see, things were getting worse. All the reforms we fought for in the ‘60's had failed, or been taken back, and were inadequate to start with. All of us were frustrated with the dividedfactions of the so-called. revolutionary left. That movement was based on guilt, on always making the revolution for somebody |else, in the name of somebody else's oppression, supposedly 'dreater than our own. It was dominated by egotistical leader-bureaucrats and leader~stars who cared only about their "revolutionary" _ Careers. They led a mass of, follower~lackeys who Provet: their own decrepitude by tolerating and in fact creating such leaders. The confusion of anti-war groups, sexual liberation- groups and national liberation groups were all presenting the ~. image of militant opposition, but -we wanted to do more than : merely talk back to the PV screen. ‘We were looking -for br6thers and sisters who felt as urgently as we did that the time to seize back our lives was now. The Symbionese people we contacted were self-disciplined, serious and efficient revolutionary cadres, willing to risk anything -in order to gain everythina. When we joined in the first founding conference of the Symbionese Federation last June, we thought we had found a place for ourselves in a revolutionary organization that was on its way beyond the Left, old and “néew". We joined in August. . Mee Bt During the early stage ofthe writing of the original Declaration of the Symbionese Federation -- not the same one that the SLA had published in the papers -- basic contradictions had already bequn to emerge among the memhber- ship. Although some of the brothers and sisters asserted that to create a positive vision of a new society required ferious thinking -- a clear and comprehensive theory and . strategy -- others insisted that all that was necessary was to put yourself into situations where vour ass would get — kicked and armed bravery would do the rest. Some of the - brothers and sisters were complaining about the lack of democracy within the organization. The justification for’ this, was always that we were in a “state of war." : be It increasingly became apparent to us that the # Symbionese Federation was not fundamentally opposed to the. «