The virtual vacuum that has been left in the wake of SDS’s floundering may be filled by the New Youth International Party. With repression growing and the need for a national organization crucial, YIP looks promising as a junction for the vast but disparate political energy the movement is developing.
At this early stage—the first YIP meeting took place in New York on Dec. 6-7—the exact position (hard line?) of YIP is still evolving, but then YIP is conceived as a “national umbrella group.”
At this first meeting, held in New York City at the Underground Press Syndicate loft, about thirty people spent the weekend laying out the framework within which the politically dispossessed might be recruited. Representatives from such groups as the White Panthers, the Crazies, and the old Yippies were there—with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin bringing it all home when things got a little slow.
From Michigan, Magdalene Sinclair was there, along with Ken Kelley of the Ann Arbor Argus. She urged that YIP be organize in a way that it can relate to the Black Panther Party, Latin liberation groups and Third World revolutionary nations and movements.
In addition, she read excerpts of letters from her politically imprisoned husband, John Sinclair. Sinclair has encouraged the formation of YIP in order to combine revolutionary/hip culture, militant internationalism and anti-capitalism in a single organization.
The White Panthers are now part of YIP and John hopes to use the organizational ideas of Lenin (whose works he’s reading in Marquette Prison) and fit them to the cultural/social mood of the New Left and the 1960s.
The question of YIP’s relationship to the women’s liberation struggle was raised.
Many people would like to maintain the old White Panther/Yippie rhetoric ’bout “fucking, sucking, gobbling, nibbling and other arts and crafts.”
All present spoke out for sexual freedom, but it was added that conscious effort on the part of both men and women would be needed to destroy the oft-found domination with which “hip men” relate to “their chicks.”
A Chicago office for YIP will be open soon—temporary mailing address c/o The Conspiracy, 28 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, Ill. 60604. In Michigan the address is 1520 Hill Street, Ann Arbor 48104.
Planned activities include a John Sinclair Day, Jan. 24. People in local communities will demand freedom for John who is jailed for ten years for giving a narc two joints, to demand an end to marijuana prohibition, and freedom for all political prisoners.
Also planned is a Chicago Conspiracy trial finale to be held in a month or so while the jury is out. People discussed a Woodstock to Washington march and July 4 Smoke-in for freedom and peace but made no definite plans.
Editors’ Note: Messages of holiday greeting may be sent to John Sinclair, 123507 at Box 779, Marquette MI 49855.