dissentcontinues
Banned
Armageddon happened as it was foretold, on the battlefields of the Holy Land, on Yom Kippur of 1973 when the Yom Kippur War lead to a US against Soviet nuclear exchange. The religious among the survivors, such the the infamous Southern religious compound of Reverend Estus Pirkle, or Jonestown in Guyana which took over Guyana entirely after the war, said it was Biblical prophecy foretold. The residents of the uneasy alliance of twin barricaded radical city states of Berkeley and Oakland are not religious folks by and large, at least not in the traditional sense.
Before the war, I was a young man looking for a good time. I hitch hiked around to avoid getting drafted for 'Nam, experimented, went to some protests, saw the Rolling Stones, Hendrix and other greats live. That year I remember sitting on the gas lines in my Trans Am waiting for my number when the embargo happened and seeing The Godfather, or at least I had it on in the background making out with some girl.
Then...shit hit the fan with the Arabs and Israelis, the Israelis nuked the Egyptians, the Soviets and Americans came to blows over it and nuked each other and...that was it.
Nixon fled to the Greenbriar Hotel with his staff, barricaded himself in and declared martial law, suspended all the other branches of government, especially Watergate proceedings against him, and what remained of other state governments and National Guard and whoever told him to sit on it and things fell apart.
There was a lot of looting and fighting, but it was more like every part of the country became its own country. The AIM people at Wounded Knee took advantage of the Feds being called off to deal with the crisis to basically take over the area. In Berkeley and Oakland, as San Francisco was bombed by the Russians, the Black Panther Party and the Symbionese Liberation Army took over in each city and formed an uneasy alliance. It was uneasy because Field Marshall Cinque was not trusted by other radicals who thought he was a rat, and him and Stokely Carmichael and the others had somewhat different agenda. But firestorms and radiation poisoning and desperate people swarming in from the city looking for food and medicine will make which of you is the vanguard in the struggle against The Man seem kinda backburner when the Man is dead.
So, when I, starving, feeling kinda hazy and long since robbed of my Trans Am and everything else wandered into the Bay Area in 1975 and found my way to the barricades of Oakland and Berkeley, I didn't know what to expect.
I saw barbed wire makeshift walls around UC Berkeley and a flag with a seven headed hydra. I'd been told the SLA was more open to outside people than the Black Panther Party running Oakland and if I wanted food and safe passage, it was slightly less risky to approach them.
I walked up to the barricaded section of Telegraph Avenue from El Cerrito and it had taken me all damn day but I wanted to get past this toward Santa Barbara or Ventura or something which I heard got through better than most places.
A bullet whizzed past me. Guess they weren't into me after all.
"Hold it! What do you want?"
"Food and I wanna get through to the roads on the other side!"
"We don't want intruders in the Symbionese Nation. If you have supplies, we might reconsider."
"I got two iodine pills and a can of beer."
"Teko! Yolanda! Tania! Open the door for him."
I was greeted by some ragged and thin women, one of which was white and looked pretty unhappy and addled, the one called Tania. They pointed guns at me and I gave them my shit and they led me through.
I was taken to a cafe on University Avenue and a bunch of people that looked like a mixture of people from their guerilla army and stranded UC Berkeley students were eating rations.
They sat me down next to a scared looking young guy.
"You shouldn't have come around man. This shit's bad. I was just going to college and trying to party and then the bombs hit and I got stuck with these nutjobs."
"Do they let you leave?"
"Hell no. That chick Tania is Patty Hearst man."
"Really? No shit?"
"Yeah...they fried her brain or something. I dunno."
"Well, nobody makes newspapers anymore anyway now. She's a nobody in this crazed new world."
"They make newspapers but its just them tooting their own horn about how much better the Symbionese Nation and Field Marshall Cinque are in charge. They could use the leftover paper for toilet paper, but they said they'd shoot me if I brought it up again."
"Will they let me leave you think?"
"They don't like new people they haven't brainwashed yet. Maybe. But you'd have to go through Oakland and Field Marshall Cinque and the Black Panthers ain't getting along too well lately."
"How bad?"
"Panthers are saying Cinque was a rat for the LAPD and he's full of shit and they want Berkeley too."
As if on cue, I heard shouting and shots fired outside. I stood up with the other dude and we saw some Black Panther Party gunmen firing on the SLA guards outside. A man stormed up and raised his hands.
"That's Cinque."
"What the hell is going on, Jackson?!"
"The Party, in the name of the People is removing you from power here, Field Marshall Rat!"
"You know that was lies of the Establishment, propaganda of the pigs!"
"No, you ain't never got your shit together, and you have utilities and resources needed to Serve the People since society fell apart and we finally took down the Man! You are not a revolutionary comrade. You are an Uncle Tom, an LAPD narc. I, Samuel L Jackson of the Black Panther Party hereby remove you, Field Marshall Cinque of authority here and annex the Symbionese Nation of Berkeley for the Black Panther Party People's Republic of Oakland."
Cinque decked him and this Samuel L Jackson fellow slugged him in the jaw in response and Cinque was on the ground. The Panthers and SLA started firing on each other and a few quickly ran out of bullets and started fisticuffs. I ran for it.
I walked out of the city into the hills and found the 13 and took that around Oakland, not wanting anymore trouble. I made my way to the deserted town of San Leandro by the next day and several times I passed the smoldering ruins of San Francisco. They looked like something from The Omega Man.
I camped in San Leandro for some time. Everyone else left this town. I got worried I might get sick from radiation and started further south.
The seventies were a wild time, man.
Before the war, I was a young man looking for a good time. I hitch hiked around to avoid getting drafted for 'Nam, experimented, went to some protests, saw the Rolling Stones, Hendrix and other greats live. That year I remember sitting on the gas lines in my Trans Am waiting for my number when the embargo happened and seeing The Godfather, or at least I had it on in the background making out with some girl.
Then...shit hit the fan with the Arabs and Israelis, the Israelis nuked the Egyptians, the Soviets and Americans came to blows over it and nuked each other and...that was it.
Nixon fled to the Greenbriar Hotel with his staff, barricaded himself in and declared martial law, suspended all the other branches of government, especially Watergate proceedings against him, and what remained of other state governments and National Guard and whoever told him to sit on it and things fell apart.
There was a lot of looting and fighting, but it was more like every part of the country became its own country. The AIM people at Wounded Knee took advantage of the Feds being called off to deal with the crisis to basically take over the area. In Berkeley and Oakland, as San Francisco was bombed by the Russians, the Black Panther Party and the Symbionese Liberation Army took over in each city and formed an uneasy alliance. It was uneasy because Field Marshall Cinque was not trusted by other radicals who thought he was a rat, and him and Stokely Carmichael and the others had somewhat different agenda. But firestorms and radiation poisoning and desperate people swarming in from the city looking for food and medicine will make which of you is the vanguard in the struggle against The Man seem kinda backburner when the Man is dead.
So, when I, starving, feeling kinda hazy and long since robbed of my Trans Am and everything else wandered into the Bay Area in 1975 and found my way to the barricades of Oakland and Berkeley, I didn't know what to expect.
I saw barbed wire makeshift walls around UC Berkeley and a flag with a seven headed hydra. I'd been told the SLA was more open to outside people than the Black Panther Party running Oakland and if I wanted food and safe passage, it was slightly less risky to approach them.
I walked up to the barricaded section of Telegraph Avenue from El Cerrito and it had taken me all damn day but I wanted to get past this toward Santa Barbara or Ventura or something which I heard got through better than most places.
A bullet whizzed past me. Guess they weren't into me after all.
"Hold it! What do you want?"
"Food and I wanna get through to the roads on the other side!"
"We don't want intruders in the Symbionese Nation. If you have supplies, we might reconsider."
"I got two iodine pills and a can of beer."
"Teko! Yolanda! Tania! Open the door for him."
I was greeted by some ragged and thin women, one of which was white and looked pretty unhappy and addled, the one called Tania. They pointed guns at me and I gave them my shit and they led me through.
I was taken to a cafe on University Avenue and a bunch of people that looked like a mixture of people from their guerilla army and stranded UC Berkeley students were eating rations.
They sat me down next to a scared looking young guy.
"You shouldn't have come around man. This shit's bad. I was just going to college and trying to party and then the bombs hit and I got stuck with these nutjobs."
"Do they let you leave?"
"Hell no. That chick Tania is Patty Hearst man."
"Really? No shit?"
"Yeah...they fried her brain or something. I dunno."
"Well, nobody makes newspapers anymore anyway now. She's a nobody in this crazed new world."
"They make newspapers but its just them tooting their own horn about how much better the Symbionese Nation and Field Marshall Cinque are in charge. They could use the leftover paper for toilet paper, but they said they'd shoot me if I brought it up again."
"Will they let me leave you think?"
"They don't like new people they haven't brainwashed yet. Maybe. But you'd have to go through Oakland and Field Marshall Cinque and the Black Panthers ain't getting along too well lately."
"How bad?"
"Panthers are saying Cinque was a rat for the LAPD and he's full of shit and they want Berkeley too."
As if on cue, I heard shouting and shots fired outside. I stood up with the other dude and we saw some Black Panther Party gunmen firing on the SLA guards outside. A man stormed up and raised his hands.
"That's Cinque."
"What the hell is going on, Jackson?!"
"The Party, in the name of the People is removing you from power here, Field Marshall Rat!"
"You know that was lies of the Establishment, propaganda of the pigs!"
"No, you ain't never got your shit together, and you have utilities and resources needed to Serve the People since society fell apart and we finally took down the Man! You are not a revolutionary comrade. You are an Uncle Tom, an LAPD narc. I, Samuel L Jackson of the Black Panther Party hereby remove you, Field Marshall Cinque of authority here and annex the Symbionese Nation of Berkeley for the Black Panther Party People's Republic of Oakland."
Cinque decked him and this Samuel L Jackson fellow slugged him in the jaw in response and Cinque was on the ground. The Panthers and SLA started firing on each other and a few quickly ran out of bullets and started fisticuffs. I ran for it.
I walked out of the city into the hills and found the 13 and took that around Oakland, not wanting anymore trouble. I made my way to the deserted town of San Leandro by the next day and several times I passed the smoldering ruins of San Francisco. They looked like something from The Omega Man.
I camped in San Leandro for some time. Everyone else left this town. I got worried I might get sick from radiation and started further south.
The seventies were a wild time, man.