Screed 24: A CREDO OF TEKO
Screeds 24, 25, 26, and 27 were delivered together, first as tapes, then as carbon-copy typescnpts. With them was Screed 28, the strangest one of all, the final message of Patricia Hearst before her enlistment as a soldier of the SLA. This time the lucky first recipient was Radio Station KSAN, in San Francisco. There had been a gradual movement of the SLA emphasis from Berkeley to the central city. Many observers had begun to think that the central headquarters of the SLA was in the Haight-Ashbury of Western Addition, and it was often speculated that Miss Hearst herself was imprisoned there.
The astonishing new message fell into a fragile and troubled situation. Escrow arrangements for the four million new dollars had just been completed. The FBI and local police agencies were still refusing to take any positive action. Some police officers were visiting people and asking questions, but no warrants were issued and no premises searched. The Alameda County grand jury had completed its work and was ready to indict Little and Remiro for the murder of Dr. Foster, a matter which was held to be independent and unconnected to the Hearst kidnapping. Though unable to procure their national television show, Little and Remiro had begun to send their own regular communiques to favored radio stations. Meanwhile the pundits, technical experts, and old associates of SLA members ever more swiftly followed one another through the publicity system of the mass media. To all this, the hinted half-promise of the April 1st communique, and the feverish misinterpreta. tions of its text, had added piquant new excitements. That something new and great would happen was expected everywhere.
The introductory speaker of the new packet, a soldier named Teko, led off rather gently. His contribution amounts to a general credo in which the dialectics of the Symbionese are summarized. As did earlier screeds, his communication envisages an open rising or rebellion, perhaps on the order of the race riots of the earlier 1960's, but this time directed against the whole social and economic system, not merely against inequalities. The fantasy of a real revolt by significant numbers of "the poor" and "the people" had never been abandoned by the Symbionese. At the same time, Teko's credo has a valedictory sound. It is boastful enough, and maintains the assurance of earlier communications. But it speaks very much in the past tense, of deeds already accomplished.
Greetings to the People
My name is Teko. I am a white revolutionary and a soldier in the Symbionese Liberation Army. I have a message for all my white brothers who have not yet come forward to fight for the freedom of all the oppressed people.
Contrary to what many of us may think, the special privileges white men as a group have gained for themselves through the oppression of all other people has never secured for us the freedom we desire. White men must understand that they will live under the threat of death as long as they continue to oppress the members of any class or group who have the strength and determination to fight back. White men themselves have only one avenue to freedom and that is to join in fighting to the death those who are and those who aspire to be the slave masters of the world.
Many of us have been bold enough to intellectualize about revolution, but far too chickenshit to get down and help make it. Most of us have been nearly fatally stricken with the vile sickness of racism. Again, most of us have been immobilized by our sexist egos and have watched and done nothing as our sisters have rushed by us into battle. We have fooled ourselves into believing that Madison Avenue piggery will bring us eternal bourgeoise happiness. If we haven't bought into the racist, sexist, capitalist, imperialist program, we have "greened-out" in Mendocino and New Hampshire. To Black people, who lead our struggle to freedom, we have proved to be the racist punks of the world when we kick-back and live off the blood and lives of the people.
However many of us have seen through this sham, and are fighting beside comrades from all races and classes, women and men, old and young. We know we have a long way to go to purify our minds of the many bourgeoise poisons but we also know that this isn't done through bullshitting and ego tripping, it is done by fighting and, as the Comrade has taught us by stalking the pig, seizing him by the tusks and riding his pig ass into his grave. It is done by unleashing the most devastating revolutionary violence ever imagined, by proving that all races and groups of people can unite and fight together for the true freedom of us all.
When we call on the people to join us in the fight for freedom many of you wonder how you can join the Symbionese Liberation Army, feeling that joining materially with those who are already fighting will provide the security you need to justify risking your lives. But we soldiers in the SLA say to this mistaken reasoning that you must read again our declaration of Revolutionary War and Terms of Military Political Alliance. The SLA came into being because many people refused to wait for so-called revolutionary groups and organizations to lead them into a revolution which would, therefore, never come. We grew tired of waiting for mythological North American revolutionaries with the necessary expertise and skills we lacked to teach us.
We have learned much from many brave revolutionary women and men, but in reality we are fighting today because we ourselves have seized the moment, taught ourselves, developed incredible strength, determination and committed ourselves to never compromise with the enemy. As anyone with the most primitive of revolutionary mentalities knows, the people will not be given their freedom, they will have to seize it. Wait for no one my brothers.
DEATH TO THE FASCIST INSECT THAT PREYS UPON THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE
