"Attn MOVE"
Algernon Cadwallader
from Trying Not to Have a Thought
2025
It doesn't always work in every single moral quandary ever, but in the vast majority of cases, you can usually use the following question as a guiding light and principle: "Who's killin' them kids?" If you're killing kids, then you can't be the good guys. And if you try to justify it with a phrase that begins with the "But...", then you probably aren't backing the right team. Maybe there's no team to back, I dunno. Maybe you just gotta simplify it even further. Are your beliefs aligned with actions that killed or are killing children? Maybe you need to reevaluate those beliefs.
Talk to anyone in Philadelphia, and they are going to tell you that the MOVE incident of 1985 is complicated. In many ways, it was. A tough situation for all involved, I'd wager. But thinking about it another way, it's really not that complicated at all. The police dropped a bomb on a house and purposefully murdered kids. It's actually pretty simple.
But...
Yes, there are plenty of Buts in this case. I hear you. Go ahead and shout 'em out. But the members of MOVE were shooting at police! That's true. Now tell me that when an adult shoots at a police officer, that officer is allowed to murder a child. But the adult members of MOVE were purposefully keeping the child as hostages, basically, knowing that they'd be safer with children as figurative shields! That's true. Now tell me that when an adult uses a child as a way to deter retaliation, that automatically makes it okay that the retaliators kill that child. But MOVE was a violent organization who were a terrible nuisance to the city and to their immediate neighbors for weeks, months, years! That's maybe true. Now tell me how the children of the adults in that violent organization deserved to die.
You can't tell me any of that, because you can't justify the killing of a child. There was a lot of fucked up bullshit that happened in the lead-up to the bombing on 5/13/85, and none of it, NONE OF IT, justified the murder of five children. If you find yourself wondering about the MOVE bombing, and wondering if maybe Mayor Goode and the Philadelphia Police had no other choice, then maybe remember that there was, at the very least, one single choice. Should they kill kids or not kill kids? And you can remember which way they chose.
In 1978—almost seven years prior—there was a violent confrontation between MOVE and police, when police attempted to evict the members of MOVE from their home. There was a gun battle, and a cop was killed. This was two years after a cop shoved a MOVE member holding her three-week-old son, which killed the three-week-old. No investigation was ever done regarding the child's death and the cop's role in it. Nine members of MOVE were sentenced to 100 years each for the killing of the cop, including the dead child's mother.
During that gun battle in 1978, two other cops were shot, as were three firefighters. My uncle was one of the firefighters. He still has the bullet in his arm. I've never asked him about it, and not just because I try not to make a habit of inquiring about other people's traumas uninvited. He's also MAGA, and he's the type of MAGA that the internet doesn't want you to know about—the guy is the nicest fucking dude on earth, ya know, besides the fact that he believes some truly evil and reprehensible shit. Do I think that he's ever asked himself about the dead kids? No, I do not. I am assuming that he believes that it was even justified that the Philadelphia Fire Department purposefully let the post-bombing fire burn long enough that 61 other houses were destroyed. I'm sure the bullet in his arm did a lot of the justifying.
I'm his nephew, and he's been so good to me throughout the years, and he's been so incomprehensibly cruel to so many other millions of people he'll never meet, and I'm telling you right now that starting any statement about his role in the MOVE bombing with "But..." is wrong and immoral and fucked. Because it completely misses the central question here: should you kill kids? Everyone is going to answer no. If you attach a But to your No, though, then you're wrong. You're fucking wrong. You're on the wrong side. You can't justify it. You cannot justify the murder of children.
I love this new Algernon Cadwallader album. This band has been special to me in a niche sort of way for a long fucking time. The comeback album is great, and speaks to a lot of my sensibilities both musically (this represents Midwest emo in its perfect form) and politically (ACAB all over this thing). And I think this song about the MOVE bombing is fascinating and invigorating and essential. I also think that maybe if you're trying to make a point about the MOVE bombing, you don't even need to go as far as Algernon Cadwallader does. They unnecessarily complicate matters.
Which is cool, that's their prerogative. A song about crooked cops and their crackpot plan for revenge makes for great storytelling, and I'm compelled to stop what I'm doing and put my full attention on this song every time it comes up. But if we're making a point about MOVE, it doesn't even have to be like that. I'm sure the cops were crooked (because ACAB) but only slightly so (because reality is way more boring than we assume). I'm sure there were plenty of people on the scene on the side of the bombers that thought their actions were justified. I'm sure my uncle would hear this song and not even be able to comprehend it, so violently opposite his established worldview is it.
We don't even need any of that. All we need is the question: "Who's killin' them kids?" In this particular case, nothing else matters beyond the fact that one side dropped a bomb and killed eleven people including five kids. That answers the question. You can't be the good guys if you're killing kids. You can't be the good guys if your ideology aligns with those who are killing kids. There's no more room for discussion on this matter.
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