Six Statements with Extrapolations
for the Underground Press Service
Kurt setting a tower of books ablaze as part of the Experimental Arts Festival at UCLA in 1967
1. Burning of works of art or books or guitars isn't very shocking in comparison with the acts of a government that is burning human beings; but it does suggest the truth that whatever else creativity in beauty or intensity may mean, the acts of artists and creative mentalities are fundamentally opposed to war.
--Perhaps it is only when we can grasp the problem of war as art--the aesthetics of violence and destruction--that we will begin to understand what war really implies, and hence be able to oppose it effectively.
2. About 30,000 peace demonstrators recently learned what the so-called American Negro has known for a long time: that if you are going to play the power and control games of politics, to do so effectively involves ultimately the contemplation of terror and violence.
--Perhaps that is why Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Stokeley Carmichael will emerge as the real heroes of political freedom, unless we are prepared to reject the power and control of politics altogether.
3. The quest for peace requires a more enlightened and consistent approach than that manifested by Zionist iliberal intellectual pacifists who had blood in their eyes during Israel's war.
--Perhaps Israel will annex Czechoslovakia next, and march into Poland; or did the Arabs really "deserve" it?
4. About 30 years ago the citizens of Germany had certain moral and ethical bases for opposing their authoritarian and totalitarian government's antihuman acts; and they failed.
--Perhaps we could begin with half-way measures even if we are not prepared to go all the way: stop dropping half the napalm, stop killing half the people (in preference to only half-killing them all), bring back half our troops from Vietnam, cut our war budget in half, cut every police force in the nation in half, and start respecting the human dignity of at least half the Afro-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Oriental Americans, dissenting Americans, young Americans, creative Americans, and American Indians.
5. Strong language isn't very shocking aesthetically in contrast to the bad taste of programs of death, destruction and domination exemplified by the politics of Police State America.
--Perhaps we should stop all these motherfucking wars, domestic and foreign, right now.
6. All reasonable men with an enlightened self-interest in the preservation of the world, it would seem, must either revise their tactical political thinking to take new accouht of terror and violence, or devote some swift incredible energy toward eliminating the imposition of politics on the lives of all potentially peaceful and beautiful human beings.
--Perhaps only love will save the world.
Dr. Kurt von Meier
Los Angeles
June 1967