It is the 4th of July, a day of celebration. This is my Independence Day message. Please take heed.

In the late ’60’s I first encountered these folks on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While on a fellowship there to receive my MA and PHD if desired, I was an eager and naive young woman from a Christian college in Pennsylvania. I had no idea I was about to come face to face with violent Marxist anarchists.

For you younger folks, this was the height of the Viet Nam War era, and the massive protests against it. Our right to assemble and peaceably protest is part of the First Amendment. Cherish it, but use it wisely. Never let anyone hijack your righteous cause, and exploit it for their less-than-righteous one.

One day, without any warning, a chair came crashing through a plate glass window, dropping a huge sheet of glass mere inches in front of my leg, as I sat in a classroom. I had no idea who the marauders in the hallways were who were vandalizing the building, and jeopardizing the well-being of their supposedly-fellow students. No one seemed to care about what almost happened to me. But, I did. I was an inch away from losing a leg.

In the ensuing weeks and months, Madison, Wisconsin became the most violent campus in America, even surpassing the highly-publicized Berkeley campus. National Guard was called in, and we were under martial law for most of the time I took my degree.

Madison is a state capital, and the rioting, vandalism, looting, and eventually arson spread like a conflagration from the campus, down the main boulevard, to the Capitol building. The damage was so frequent that storekeepers eventually gave up trying to protect their windows and property, and simply boarded up.

Police engagements with rioters were constant and violent. Teargassing was a regular part of my daily walk home from campus to my apartment building. Many a night I risked harm, even from the police, as I violated curfew, walking from theater rehearsals late at night. My naivety was such that I felt that since I was not doing any harm, and since I had come there to get my degree and get on with my life, it would be OK to be out.

One night watching a massive protest march, it was crystal clear to me that, though the students were in the fray with their concerns about the War, they were being egged on and organized into criminal activities by individuals who did not belong on that campus. The agitators escaped the police; the students did not.

Violence tends to escalate like a pandemic unless it is put down. Bombings began. The Krogers market next door to my building was firebombed so artfully that it was gone before the Fire Department got its first truck out. And, the Fire Department was right next door to it! I knew then that these were professional bombers and arsonists–masquerading as concerned citizens who were revulsed by the loss of life in Viet Nam. The issue was real. The issue was valid. But, their agenda was anarchy and power. ( I saw the same type of fire-bombing by the way in the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict.)

The group, I came to learn, was the Weather Underground. The SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) were like a perverted sister organization. Their game was hatred, violence, and destruction. Their motive: to destroy the existing order of things and replace it with their vision. They graduated into bombing government buildings, banks, and academic institutions.

Sound familiar, my friends? It should. Like predatory grandchildren of anti-American radicals from the past, today’s destroyers carry the name of Antifa, and who knows what else. You will recognize them by their hatred, their desire to tear down, but no real workable solutions. And they prey always upon the goodness of Americans who when they see injustice try to right it. When they see a wrong, they try to fix it. They will infiltrate your legitimate causes. It is their modus operandi.

Sadly, no one speaks of George Floyd anymore. Have you noticed? The man whose death could have triggered legitimate reform and unity, is obscured by those who hate. And make no mistake, my Democrat and Independent friends, they hate you too. It is not a party thing. It is a power thing.

Seizing on the emotions of the moment, anarchists egged on Black Lives Matter, and between the two of them, they have caused chaos in America today. Hijacking a legitimate cause, and using it to gain your empathy and contribution, is their tactic always. They need you to hide behind. These killer professionals know that if they use language that appeals to your innate sense of compassion and high ideals, they can gain your attention, and eventually your complicity.

But they are a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and no good comes of their escapades. They will burn your home too. They will destroy the memory of abolitionist troops and statesmen alike–in the name of racial justice. And, they are counting on your ignorance of history.

Most of today’s agitators are a new generation. Different grievance, different justification for their criminal acts. But, always the same motive: to sow dissent and division, to tear down, to destabilize, and to extort from you whatever they demand. Their game is fear, which they know will paralyze you. I have been told by people too many to count that they are not flying the American flag today out of fear of reprisal!

You need to know that two people–the founders of the Weather Underground–are still here. They took a plea and paid their debt to society years ago, yet they remain to this day unrepentant for what they did.

Their names are Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. I was victimized by their hellacious tactics back in the day, and you are being victimized by them and their philosophy again today. They’re back! With a new army of thugs! Are they themselves on the streets or war-rooming the simultaneous attacks around the country? I doubt it.

Today’s organizers have learned from them, however. From what they wrote, and what they did. You might want to read what they wrote. It might help you defend yourselves psychologically–and even physically–against their admittedly effective tactics.

Just know that we have faced this before, that the issues may carry different characters’ names and have different story lines, but it is the “same crew.” Those who wish to tear down this nation may change their underwear and their hairstyles, but never their agenda.

Be alert, and know that THEY ARE BACK! ONLY THIS TIME THEY ARE NOT COMING FOR THE SUPERMARKET NEXT DOOR, THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR MIND. YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO NAIVELY DO THEIR WORK FOR THEM.

We Americans are a good people, and we have built an ever-improving country. We are better today than we were 50 years ago. Better than we were 150 years ago, and better than 250 years ago. We learn from our past. Don’t let anyone take your past from you, no matter what that past was.

Last, be wary of anyone who wants to whip up your emotions and send you out in a stimulus-response mob to “do something.” That, my friends, is a modern-day lynch mob. Thoughtless, raw emotion, directed toward violence, which overrides your reason. Ironic, isn’t it? In the name of black lives, we are “reverse lynching.”

We quelled this in my generation. Now, you will have to do it in yours.

Though I am not a fan of Wikipedia, you will find some interesting reading on the Weather Underground. Read “Prairie Fire: the Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism” which was their manifesto. Its tenants should cause your skin to crawl, since you hear the same chants (white privilege), and verbiage today. Catchy title, isn’t it? Make sure you note the use of “Prairie Fire.” Look that word up!

While we slumber, in our blissful ignorance of even recent history, today’s mob leaders have been studying diligently–obtaining their PHD in Anarchy and Subversion.