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oppressed minorities of the United States of America--were able to drop out of the system and become independent within their own power structure, rather than dependent on the state's, then they would have the chance to eliminate their considerable racial prejudices toward one another, and unite themselves as a single popular class to fight for equality, forming a united front to abo]ish all classes through a prolonged series of uprisings embodying a socialist revolution.

That's what the mass media called the philanthropy of "a HaightAshbury band of hip social workers without portfolio" and the Hun "Guerrilla Theater" and Emmett "Free Food."

"Some Salvation Army!" Emmett often thought to himself. But he was glad that the mass media joked about the Diggers as mod monks and that the so-called heavies of the New Left slighted the Diggers as lightweights and claimed that they were politically naive and irrelevant. He was glad because it was going to be a long haul of determined action and not just one "revolutionary" outbreak by a bunch of leftist rhetoricians, before the stage would be set for the total reconstruction of society into a popular social democracy. And Emmett knew that if he revealed the innermost truth of the Diggers and their work, it would have only provoked their annihilation by the government. So, even though it was frequently hard to do in the face of the smug logorrhea chattered by punk radicals, he just kept his mouth shut and tried to take care of business.

It was after the Hun's piece had been printed, and while Emmett was up at the Communication Company's office-pad that he discovered Ramparts magazine was preparing a story about the HaightAshbury, concentrating on the district's leading figures, their political attitudes, or lack of them, and focusing special attention on the Diggers, particularly Emmett Grogan. Fully aware of Ramparts' facile dependency on muckraking and frequent reliance on falsifying "for the good of the cause," Emmett figured he had to try and do something about the article or at least the parts about him and the Diggers. He thought about it for a moment and decided to appeal to the editors on the grounds that, if they publicized him and the Diggers as radicals in their national magazine, it would seriously interfere with their work and definitely hamper them in their attempts to serve the people--the same people whom the magazine purported to wholeheartedly support.

Tumble drove Emmett over to North Beach and dropped him off a few blocks away from the ma~azine's offices before continuing on [end page 304]