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and they both shook their heads at one another as the Hun mimicked applause, offering a heavily sarcastic, "Terrific! Terrific!" He went on to explain some of the Diggers' plans for dealing with the summer months, concluding by asking the Haight Independent Proprietors to aid in any way they felt they could.

The merchants reacted with approval for the ideas he spelled out, but announced that the association had previously decided, as a group, to concentrate all their financial assistance on helping Doctor Smith's H.A. Medical Center, the HIP Job Co-op, Happening House, and the Council For The Summer of Love projects, which they thought would be able to handle satisfactorily the influx of young people arriving during the next few months. They did remark that if the Diggers could continue their "exemplary, charitable work," all the better! But, of course, their HIP association wouldn't be able to afford much in the way of aid to the Diggers because of its already overburdening economic involvement with the aforementioned social-activist organizations.

Emmett felt that did it. There was no reason to continue the meeting. It was over and he ended it. "Uh-huh! You're all going to financially ensure the existence of a pharmacist's center for the research of drug abuse and abet his persistence in building a career for himself, an employment agency which either places runaways in lowly sweatshops owned by the same employers who supervise the agency itself, or gives out-of-town college kids the jobs that are needed by San Francisco's poor, an uninspired experiment in education conducted by the academic community of multi-million-dollar universities, and a platform for the city's unimaginative artists to display their utterly bad art! You're going to allow these pitiful scams to remain throughout the summer to hopefully provide you all with a facade which'll represent your deep, heartfelt concern and empathy for the community. A community which ain't gonna keep letting you guys off forever because you play stupid. No, someday it's gonna find out that all of you have been aware, conscious of what you were doin' 'n not doin' all the time. That you knew what you were makin' all along! An' when they do find that out, they're gonna bomb everyone of you 'n your shops, 'n the banks where you been depositing the money you been makin' out of existence! Blow every fuckin' thing away! Everything! Ha! Ha! Come on, let's get outta here! "

The Diggers got up together and headed for the staircase, glaring back at all the eyes who followed them out the door. Someone in the [end page 294]

 

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