#title Josh Newton #subtitle Letter #author Josh Newton #SORTauthors Josh Newton; #date 1969 #source [[https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/95-december-26-1969-january-7-1970/josh-newton]] #lang en #pubdate 2019-09-18 #notes Fifth Estate #95, December 26, 1969-January 7, 1970 Brothers & Sisters: After a long literary silence, I write again to the people of the planet. Joshua Newton, the phantom bomber, is still alive and carrying on the struggle. Are you? The sooner we unite to off the oppressor, the sooner we will be able to live free lives by our own principles and our own values. We are the victims of the greatest rip-off in history—a whole planet has been taken from it’s people by this rich, white ruling class in Amerika. And while we sit around playing sucker, the planet is being destroyed before our eyes. We must reclaim it—and create a new environment capable of breeding whole human beings. Since my last article in the Revolutionary press, I have been busy. I have devoted my time to attacking the institutions of oppression wherever they are found. I have been coast to coast bombing and burning and getting good and high. I have consistently been working in Berkeley, Calif. and at San Francisco State College. Over the past two years I have attacked university structures that don’t serve the people as well as hitting links of the worldwide Standard Oil pipeline and bombing across the street from the sty that was once People’s Park. The pier owned by the piggish, imperialist United Fruit Co. was trashed last July by none other than me. I did in the Midland Grace Bank, New York’s Federal Building and the Whitehall Induction Center. Last month I was busy in New York City bombing the Standard Oil offices, the General Motors Building, and Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. I escaped the pigs and made it away. I’ve attacked Amerikan imperialist interests and their lackeys in Montreal and Toronto, Canada. And it was my dynamite that destroyed electric substations in Seattle, Washington. In Michigan, I hit several recruiting buildings, and the draft board in Roseville. I hear this created quite a scandal in Detroit, but I didn’t stay to see. When the University of Michigan ROTC headquarters went down last spring, the pigs said I dynamited the place. Fuck them! I napalmed the infested place! Imagine that—napalm in our own country! I also got the CIA Building and the institute of Science & Technology (where the CIA developed the infra-red devices used to track down and kill Che) in Ann Arbor. To the pigs, I am everywhere and nowhere. And only my movement friends in the city I’m in know where I’m at at any given moment. But the pig has been repressing more and more of my innocent brothers and sisters because of my actions. I have listed my actions, which are crimes only in the eyes of the senile state. I, Joshua Newton—I alone am responsible for these acts. I call upon my brothers and sisters across the country to free those held under ransom bails to pay for these attacks! They are innocent! Free them! Free all political prisoners! I give warning now that I will kill any informers and liars who testify against any brothers and sisters accused of bombing or supposedly conspiring to bomb. These ass-licking lackeys are traitors to their people and deserve only execution. And let me also say this: I declare war on the ruling class and their jackal servants. You dug how hard it was for imperialist agent Nelson Rockefeller to travel around the rebellious colonies of Latin America—well I intend to make it-just as hard for him, Henry Ford, DuPont, Richard Nixon and any and all of the super-rich to travel and operate in this country. Little by little we shall gain confidence and strength until armed struggle becomes a reality in this nation. The revolution is already made in Amerika. It exists as a concept in the heads of thousands of young blacks, whites and Latins in this country who know they are allied with the vast majority of the world’s People. But unless all of these liberated, hip brothers and sisters carry on the fight and push the revolution into reality, we will be suppressed, isolated, and picked off one by one. The time is now! Our survival and free life style are the issues! Our very existence is threatened. It is a necessity that we do two things to assure our victory: 1) Come together. 2) Act now. The first step is to get together with five or six other brothers and sisters that you love and trust. Start learning how to hang together—stay together, move together, fight together, fuck together, get high together. Friendship is the most revolutionary form of organization. Some groups define a special role for themselves in the movement—theatre, films, newspapers, organizing, etc. But it doesn’t matter what you call your group, it could be a collective, a cell, a family, a tribe, or a gang. It doesn’t matter. The main thing is that this group begins to act politically. By acting politically, I mean carrying on the fight against the ruling class and its jackals. I mean singling out the institutions most oppressive to your group and disrupting or destroying them and creating your own alternative. I mean pick up the gun! “Political power grows from the barrel of the gun, in order to get rid of the gun, it is necessary to take up the gun.” (Chairman Mao Tse-tung). The enemies of our community must be exposed and made powerless. In the schools, begin guerrilla theatre actions in assembly or class when it gets too repressive or ridiculous. If the principle deserves a pie in his face, throw a pie in his face. Get together and throw the pigs and narcs out of the schools if they make it too hard to learn. If class just gets too irrelevant and bullshit tear it up and begin your own course of study. At your shop, start groups to rap and educate among the workers. Sabotage, if necessary, but always be showing workers that they can and should take over the shop. A new culture is getting together in ballrooms and stadiums across the country. Unfortunately, we still have to pay to hear our own music and gather with the brothers and sisters. Tear down these old jive relationships! Crash the gates, assault the fences! And build more free concerts—always making sure that the bands have enough electric power, food and smoke. If your group is up for bombing, bomb. If your group is up for bricking windows, then do some windows. If all you’re into is ripping off record stores, then do that as a group. But stay together! We’re powerless if we remain isolated. Go to demonstrations together, and fight together if the pigs attack. Maintain a continual education program on the walls of your city. Spray paint, glue leaflets and posters, fasten stickers—but spread the word! Use my name anytime, anywhere—blame anything on me. I am already marked as an enemy of the state, and my continued presence will put fear and confusion in the authorities’ fear and disease-ridden hearts. There are so many of us, the cowardly pigs won’t know which way to turn. COME TOGETHER with your friends. Form your groups. Begin to act. And as groups begin to function together, take on the task of increasing the strength and focus of your striking power. By this I mean preparation—study and training. Chairman Mao Tse-tung began the process of liberating his country by forming small study groups which developed into fighting units. We must do the same: begin to study to gain a greater knowledge of the enemy and his tactics. Show Newsreel flicks from your local Newsreel Collective, pick up the reading list in my next message. Train by learning karate, which is valuable in unarmed, individual combat and also in forming revolutionary determination. Learn how to shoot and become familiar in the care and handling of guns. Time was when every kid that grew up in this country knew how to shoot a gun at an early age. This was because survival depended on this knowledge. Well, that time has come again—we must recognize the stakes and act accordingly. If you are in a family group, the kids should learn and train along with the adults. What we are doing is arming ourselves for survival, and kids must know as much as we can teach them about why and how they must fight. Just as we wouldn’t send a man weaponless into the jungle, our children and relatives can’t grow up in this jungle without the knowledge of how to fight and survive. These tight revolutionary groups will be the basis for the force that will bring in the new society if we think and act politically. Continue the struggle! I have traveled the whole country and the whole planet in my fight against the forces of pigism and profit. I know that our allies are everywhere—they may be repressed, they may be underground, but they are holding on in every town and along every road. I will put out further bulletins of my activities. Help me spread the word, and mention my name. I am alive everywhere! I may even come to your house. ALL POWER TO ALL THE PEOPLE! IF YOU WANT TO GET HIGH, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO FIGHT! SEIZE THE TIME! SERVE THE PEOPLE!