i Money and power-tripping by Billy Russo I first becam e acquainted with the group process in A u g u st 1972.1 was awaiting trial on a tru m pe d up assault charge in Belton County, Texas. I was there because I had inadvertently spoiled an am bush that (IS . authorities had arranged for a M aoist group operating near F ort Hood. To make a long story s h o rt when the M aoists found out how m y b u m b lin g had saved them from a m ajor defeat — 34 o f them were arrested with me that ho t sum m er day, but it could have been a lo t w orse fo r them — they felt sorry for me and bailed m e ou t o f jail. And since I was destitute, they took m e into their collective in Roseburg Report the tow n o f Killeen. In 1968, during the height o f racial unrest, C ongress took riot con trol away from the N ational Guard and gave it to the Regular Arm y. It was a tim e when ou r involvem ent in Viet Nam was still considered appropriate. Q uietly, the m ilitary set up this special riot co n tro l training center at isolated F ort Hood where com bat hardened m ilitary police were being trained to set a national exam ple the next tim e the people o f Harlem or Watts re belled against racism . The purpose o f the collective was to draw attention to the training. The focus o f the collective was a sm all coffeehouse that they operated just outside the W est gate o f F ort Hood called the Oleo S tru t (nam ed after a helicopter com ponent). They leafletted areas o f the tow n G l’s were know n to fre q u e n t attem pting to convince the m en w ho were involved in the special riot co n tro l training to lay down their guns. Need less to say, the M aoists were not real popular am ong the citizenry, w ho were fo r the m ost part retired m ilitary. By 1972 the tide was changing. More and m ore people were opposing the war in Viet N am and a few C ongresspersons were be g in n in g to understand the danger o f putting rio t co n tro l (w hich includes enforcem ent o f m artial law) in the hands o f the Regular Army. G nlike G uardspersons who w ould be law en forcers in th e ir own com m unities, the elite g ro u p o f M.P.'s w hich w ould swoop down on a tro ubled area, an area in w hich they had no personal investm ent, and establish law and order. M any believed that the to ll on hum an life and property w ould be very high. There was no leader, as such, in the collec tive. All decisions were made at weekly m eet ings that often went on into the wee hours of the n ig h t And the decisions that were reached at those m eetings represented the concensus o f the group. To me, a casual observer, it seem ed like an enorm ous waste o f tim e. It seem ed that the decisions reached were not im p o rta n t enough to warrant the tim e and energy that went into them . The m em bers o f the collective, like m em bers o f the hom ophile com m unity, came fro m all walks o f life. The com m on elem ent th a t kept them focused was their strong com - Just Out. August. 1985 m itm en t to peace and freedom . They stuck it o u t and after alm ost four years o f struggle, the 1968 decision was reversed and riot con tro l was, once again, in the hands o f the N ational Guard. A ccording to Harry Hay, founder o f the hom ophile m ovem ent in Am erica, the Mat- tachine Society was governed by the group process from 1950 until 1953. At that tim e a pow er struggle ensued where a handful of straight identified white men pulled a coup that resulted in the group process being re placed by a variation o f Robert’s Rules. This action, adm ittedly, stream lined the decision m aking process; however, it also im posed certain restrictions on the potential growth of the organization: it grew faster but w ithin nar rower param eters. Instead o f m eeting the needs o f the diversified hom ophile com m unity, M attachine focused on the needs o f its leaders, straight-identified white men. Twenty years later, the late David Good- stein, past publisher o f the Advocate, sum m ed up this m entality in his editorials. Ac cording to him , the only people qualified to m ake the decisions are the ones with the money. The hom ophile m ovem ent should stand behind the people (straight-identified w hite m en) with the power to make change. And w ith the form ation o f groups like GRNL and NGTF, that's exactly what we’ve been doi ng. T hrough brillia nt leaders, like Virginia Apuzzo, power backed groups can make great strides tow ards ending oppression, but all to o often great leaders w on’t make the concessions necessary to get the powerful backing. So, here we are, half way throug ht he fo u rth decade o f gay activism . And where are we? W hat have we accom plished? It’s true that du ring the past 15 years the entire nation has evolved to the level C alifornia was at d u r ing the early Fifties. But C alifornia has shown little progress during that same period. Since the onset o f AIDS our developm ent as a com m u n ity has com e to a h a lt Like the im m une system o f the AIDS victim , our co m m u n ity’s developm ent backslides and deter iorates fo r a while, then it reaches a plateau and stagnates. And like AIDS researchers, little groups band together to com pete with each other fo r the m oney and the power, playing one against the other. Family B usiness Traffic W orkers Com p. 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