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Patty Hearst and the SLA's militarist disaster

American Heiress: The Kidnapping, Crimes & Trial of Patty Hearst
Jeffrey Toobin
Profile Books, 2017, 371 pages

“Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people.” With this hyperbolic declaration by “General Field Marshall” Cinque M’tume (the nom-de-plume of a Black prison escapee), the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) introduced itself to the American people in the early 1970s.

Our vanishing cultural resources

Within 100 years, many of our cities will become uninhabitable, submerged under oceans or deadly hot. Food will be more difficult to grow. Storms will become more violent. The gentle planet we’ve known will be no more.

That’s hard to wrap one’s brain around. Some turn to faith, others despair.