During the weeks preceding the second march on the Oakland-Army Terminal, Allen Ginsberg spent much of his time trying to persuade Barger and his people not to attack the marchers. On the Wednesday before the march Ginsberg, Kesey, Neal Cassidy, some of Kesey’s Pranksters and a group of Angels met at Barger’s house in Oakland. A lot of LSD was taken, foolish political discussion was resolved by phonograph voices of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, all concluding with the whole group chanting the text of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Buddhist Highest, Perfect Wisdom Sermon.
The outlaws had never met anyone quite like Ginsberg: they considered him otherworldly. That goddamn Ginsberg is gonna fuck us all up, said Terry. For a guy that ain’t straight at all, he’s about the straightest sonofabitch I’ve ever seen. Man, you shoulda been there when he told Sonny he loved him. . . Sonny didn’t know what the hell to say.
The Angels never really understood what Ginsberg meant, but his unnerving frankness and the fact that Kesey liked him gave them second thoughts about attacking a march that he obviously considered a Right thing. Shortly before the November march, Ginsberg published this speech in the Berkeley Barb:
To the Angels
by Allen Ginsberg
These are the thoughts — anxieties — of anxious marchers
That the Angels will attack them
for kicks, or to get publicity, to take the heat off
themselves
or to get the goodwill of police press / or right
wing Money
That a conscious deal has been made with Oakland
police
or an unconscious rapport, tacit understanding
mutual sympathy
that Oakland will lay off persecuting the Angels
if the Angels attack break up the March
make it a riot
Is any of this true, or is it the paranoia of the less
stable-minded marchers?
As long as Angels are ambiguous and don’t give open
reassurance that they can be trusted to be tranquil,
The anxious souls, the naturally violent, the insecure, the
hysterics among the marchers have an excuse for
policy of
self-defense thru violence,
a rationalization for their own inner violence.
That leaves the Marchers with choice of defending themselves
thru force on account of fear threat
unleashing the more irrational minority of rebels
or at best, defending themselves coolly, under control
BUT CRITICIZED FOR BEING LAWLESS
or not defending selves, and possibly abandoned by police
(for we have no clear assurance from Oakland police
that they will sincerely try to maintain order and guard
our lawful right to march)
if you attack, having innocent pacifists, youths
old ladies busted up
AND CRITICIZED AS IRRESPONSIBLE COWARDS
By you, by Press, by Public by Violence loving leftists
rightists.
As it stands the VDC adopted policy of pacifism for marchers,
WHO SIMPLY WILL NOT RIGHT. And will try to
make the march a HAPPY SPECTACLE.
* *
Do Angels have any questions for Vietnam Day Committee?
any suspicions that might be cleared up now?
What’ s the main complaint?
What do the Angels plan to do Nov. 20? Do they really have
a plan?
Let’s now make a plan that will leave everybody secure.
Because the Fearheads around the VDC public meetings
believe the Image of Angels as They like to bust people
up for kicks and naturally you get a bad rep. that way
especially if you’ve finally found a group you can beat up
with some social approval, temporarily,
compliance of the cops.
You don’t want to change you want to be yrselves,
if that includes sadism, or forced hostility,
here’s a situation where you can get away with it.
BUT NOBODY WANTS TO REJECT THE SOULS OF
THE HELL’S ANGELS
or make them change —
WE JUST DON’ T WANT TO GET BEAT UP
* *
The protest march is trying to point out
that the terror in Vietnam is making
same terror here inside our country
loosing publicly the same cruel psychology that’ll
give approval to busting yellow head gooks in Vietnam
This is infecting peaceful human relations here
allowing for public mass persecution of people
who disagree with
the
growth of mass hostility mass hypocrisy mass conflict
The mass of marchers are not POLITICAL, they’re
PSYCHOLOGICAL HEADS
who don’t want the country to drift into the habit of blind