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Dragon Teeth

Dragon Teeth image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
June
Year
1971
OCR Text

DRAGON TEETH

a column by JOHN SINCLAIR, Chairman RPP

A MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE FROM PRISON

Dearest Sisters & Brothers in the World--

First of all I want to apologize for talking to you this way, through my brother instead of face to face, but I tried everything I know and these pigs still won't let me come out to the park today. I've begged and I've pleaded with them, but they just keep telling me that they're going to keep me here in my cage until the people can get me out--and I have this feeling that they're going to be surprised pretty soon because the people are moving now and when the people start moving to get what they want it's awful hard to stop them. We proved that in 1968 when they tried to tell us we couldn't have free rock and roll concerts in the parks here in Ann Arbor--they thought they had us wrapped up tight because they'd passed a "law" against rock and roll music in the parks and we were just a bunch of freeks who had to have the music. And we had to have it so bad that we just went ahead and did it, and there wasn't anything they could do except change their ridiculous "law" to keep up with reality. But it was the people, moving together to get what we wanted, who changed the law--we changed it with our lives, and then the authorities changed it on paper to try to keep up with us.

Ann Arbor is really a far out place you know--it's my favorite place in the whole world, and I'm not joking when I say there's no where else I'd rather be than in Ann Arbor with the people I love. If I would've wanted to go somewhere else I could've split when I was out on bond on this case for 2 1/2 years--it was only a $1,000 bond too, and I could've got out from under this phony case real easy, because I knew what that pig Colombo would do if I got found guilty. But I want to come back to Ann Arbor and get back with my people--with all of you crazy rock and roll maniacs who are so far out--and I don't wanna go nowhere else. So I'll just wait here in the penitentiary or wherever they put me--I'm in the Wayne County Jail right now with brother Pun, who sends you all his love today too--I'll just stay here until you can bring me home. I have that much faith in you. and I know you can do it--it's getting closer every day and I can already feel the energy you 're putting out! It's so powerful that it reaches all the way in here, and it's so beautiful that it keeps us alive even though the pigs think they've got us cut off from you! RAINBOW POWER! ANN ARBOR POWER! Right on!

I don 't want to hold up the music today because it's much farther out than anything I've got to say, but every time I think about you being out here in the sun and how we got these concerts "legalized" it makes me know that I'll be back with you before long. and it'll happen the same way these concerts happened--through the organized determined, stomp-down power of the people. I'm only in this jail because some chomps in Lansing said that marijuana is "illegal" and that they can lock us up for smoking some weed--I tried to tell them they were crazy and they got pissed off is all, so they put me away and they've kept me away from you for almost two whole years--I think the last concert I took off was the SRC over at James Rector Memorial Park, which they called "Fuller Flatlands" until the people took over the job of defining reality and named it after brother James Rector, who was murdered in Berkeley when the pigs brought out all their military machinery to shut down People's Park--I didn't get to check out any of the concerts last year either, but I don't think I'll miss all of them this summer. And the reason I won't is that the people--you!--have forced or are forcing the chomps in Lansing to change their marijuana laws so they can catch up with where we are now. We change the laws with our lives, by resisting the repressive "laws" and rules they try to throw up in front of us, and then the petty political opportunists finally throw in their crying towel and go along with the people.

Dig it--when we were talking five years ago, when I first got popped for giving two joints to a pair of undercover snakes from the Detroit Narcotics Bureau--when we were talking about the illegality of the marijuana "laws" and saying that weed has to be legalized, the politicians and their pals who run the newspapers said we were crazy. They said the laws would never change, and that people who wanted to get high would have to go to prison for 10 years. We said, if you wanna get high you're gonna have to fight, and we started fighting them in the courts and everywhere else. We took some hell of a casualties, including this 9 1/2-10 year sentence I got and these 22 months I've already been locked up, but we've passed beyond a doubt that people do no have to go to jail if they wanna get high--and I think you can tell if I'm right by looking around you right now, or maybe down in your own hand where you 're holding that joint ! Be sure to pass it on to your brothers and sisters sitting next to you, OK? And take a couple tokes for me and Pun while you're at it.

Anyway, we've shown a little of what we can do if we move together and if we refuse to be intimidated by the paper tigers of "law and order"-- we've shown Jack Garris and his creepy pals here in Ann Arbor where the people are at and what they will not stand for, we've shown people all over the world that the Rainbow people in Babylon will not back down even from the most mechanically powerful robot police state in human history. And we've really just started to move! They ain't seen nothin' yet ! When we really get organized and start dealing with all of our needs like we've dealt with our need for some free music and some killer weed right here in Ann Arbor, then we'll be able to do anything! And when you look at it like that, getting Pun and all of our brothers and sisters out of jail, ain't no big thing at all ! I know what you've done already, and I know you're trying to get me out now, and I'm already packing my shit because I know I'll be home in a few. And then I can talk to you like I should, face to face out here in the park, and we can get on with what we have to do.

See you soon ! All Power to the People ! And Rainbow Power to the Righteous Freeks of Ann Arbor! I Love You--John