Screed 21: THREE LAST WORDS, FOR WAR
Sent in with the two previous screeds, and obviously meant as an inspirational peroration suitable for closing out the series, was a three-part chant or recitativo. Two of the voices were those of unidentified SLA officers, both young females. The concluding passage featured the well-known voice of Field Marshal Cinque, otherwise DeFreeze. The readin~ were from scripts, and were done with a conscious projection of emotional tones. The women counterfeited Black accents.
It is impossible to say when the screed was composed. Its great generalization, and its failure to mention the Hearsts, the food program, or the imprisoned SLA soldiers, suggest that it was an old production put together when the SLA was still in its oratorical Berkeley Left stage of development. One can surmise that as they broke off their negotiations and began the new period of silence, the Symbionese went through the files for a suitable last word, or parting shot.
Voice of a Woman Soldier
A warning to the fascist military corporate state:
We have declared revolutionary war upon you, the enemy of the people, and our seriousness and determination will not be swayed by any number of your U.S. government-inspected super-pigs. For those that you have hunted are now hunting you.
Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people.
Voice of a Second Woman Soldier
Comrade sisters, resistance fighters, we greet you and call you to arms in the struggle to free all the people.
Today our daughters and our sons, our mothers and our fathers, stand with the people in the fight for true freedom for all people. No people are free until we are all free.
We women know the truth as it has been revealed in our own lives. We turn our rage toward the enemy in a direct line, down the sights of our guns. We must turn our anger towards those who profit off our suffering, and have our anger be reflected in military tactics that utilize people's violence against the men and women who are the monsters of capitalist violence.
Until we meet in the streets may we have a strong back, like that of the grave digger.
The Closing, by Cinque
This is General Field Marshal Cinque in command. I would like to take the opportunity to speak to my people and all the people, and to those who I fight against who prey upon the lives of our children.
Black people must come together and stop robbing and oppressing each other and all oppressed people. It is time that black people understand that the enemy is not white, brown or black people.
The oppressor is not a particular color. The oppressor is a system and the corporate ruling class that preys upon the lives of all people.
I call upon oppressed people of all colors to arm themselves in defense of their own freedom while they still have the chance.
I call upon the robbers, pimps, the drug addicts, the prostitutes, and all those who have been used as pawns against the people, to turn their rage and violence toward the true enemy of the people, the corporate ruling class.
I call upon the people to shed no more blood of the innocent but rather bring death to the makers of fear, and those that deceive us into fighting amongst ourselves because of our different colors.
I call upon our mothers and fathers to hear the voice that rings in our hearts for freedom.
I call upon them to hear the cries of our children being murdered in the streets, and to understand that there is no compromise for freedom.
I call upon the people to join the Federation. And that only means one thing: that is, by answering this call to arms with the sounds of your guns and your commitment to save the children.
