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.
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