When the Rolling Stones came to Detroit, 14,000 kids gave Mike Quatro over $100,000. The Stones were great and the whole crowd was really into it.
Around 100 SDS Weathermen were digging the Stones too. Only they didn’t pay anything; neither did about 200 other kids.
They didn’t pay because they were fed up with the entire bullshit line about paying money to establishment pigs just so you can dig your own culture. So all the Weathermen got together and crashed the gates at Olympia.
It was really easy, they just pushed the ticket-takers out of the way and walked in.
Once they were inside they walked through the crowds and passed out leaflets that dealt with youth culture and struggle. They were talking about the contradiction between a “street fighting man” and the Olympia officials.
Not just the Weathermen, but all of the kids who crashed the gates have decided that they will no longer be forced to pay out that kind of money.
Later uniformed Detroit Pigs circulated around the floor and guarded the entrances making it clear that the “sponsors” of this event did not trust the kids. The pigs were called in to protect the property rights and money of those “sponsors”.
These quasi-establishment hustlers often pretend to be very hip and on the side of youth culture, but it was very obvious that night that they are just as willing as any other establishment business to drop that phony exterior and send the pigs in to beat heads to protect their investment.
Anyone who exploits youth culture for personal material gain is a total parasite and a pig. Although this understanding is common knowledge for much of the City’s youth, these same kids are quickly willing to fork out eight dollars to Mike Quatro to hear the Rolling Stones.
Quatro is a first-class parasite and even openly admits that he is only out to make money. He somehow feels that money will make him more free and that “it takes money to do free things.”
Aside from the obvious contradiction of this statement, and in fact, of Quatro’s entire personality, there exists the concrete fact that he is bleeding the Community.
This crap has got to stop. The Quatros and the Gibbs must be made to realize that youth will not forever continue to stand by and get robbed by any pigs who are trying to use the Movement. A capitalist who makes money from the movement is no better than a capitalist who makes money from the War, because they both sustain the System.
The Youth will refuse to pay. They will crash gates. They will reject these capitalists. They will back the culture that belongs to them.