First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 3, No. 19, September 1, 1976.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In a post-primary decision, a three-judge panel ruled Michigan Public Act 94 invalid in this election. The court’s ruling requires that the Communist Labor Party and its candidate General Baker, be placed on the Michigan ballot in November.
The rousing of support from thousands of workers and progressives, the swelling of the ranks of the Communist Labor Party, represented tremendous victories for the working class, despite the fraudulent primary election. Now that the court has ruled that the CLP must be granted its rightful place on the ballot, it is increasingly important to firmly establish the basis and clarify the goals of the campaign to elect General Baker in Michigan’s 9th District, and to vote communist throughout the land.
Until this campaign, no one was discussing issues. Not one Republican or Democratic candidate spoke to the real questions that confront the majority of people in this country: will I have a job tomorrow? how will my family eat? will my kids be shot by the cops? where will I be able to live?
None of the candidates of the major parties has been able to speak to these issues because they are spokesmen for the giant monopolies and major financial capitalists. They have nothing to say in the interests of the people, and therefore they say nothing. There’s no profit in peace for them. There’s no profit In full employment for them. There’s no. profit in full equality for them. Each of these issues cuts into their maximizing profits. Therefore they cannot talk about jobs, peace and equality.
Up to this time, there has been no organized opposition to the policies of these twin parties of reaction. They have effectively shut up, bought off, scared off or killed off all the opposition over the years.
Over the years the capitalists have very skillfully and cleverly preached that this is a free country–“you have the ballot,” they say. They have covered up with fine words and propaganda the basic fact that freedom isn’t casting votes. Freedom is something to eat, a house to live in, the knowledge that you’ll have a job tomorrow, that you’ll live your life in peace, that you can get up in the morning, go to work, and come home. That’s what real freedom is. But they have cleverly substituted the idea that the right to vote for either one of their candidates is freedom.
The people ask, what do you communists want? The capitalist says, the communists want a dictatorship.
But what is this capitalist system, that takes workers who have labored all their lives to build this country and lets them starve for want of a job, lets them die for lack of medical care, lets their children go down to drugs and despair because there are no jobs and no future for them. That’s what the capitalists call democracy; and that’s what must be changed.
This campaign is the beginning of that change. Something new is being organized in this country–an opposition not only to candidates and parties, but to the system itself. The time of no opposition is over! Something new is beginning, it is the campaign of decent people to see that when their children grow up, they have a better and more fruitful life; that they don’t toil their whole lives only to be pensioned off on $65-a-week they can’t live on.
In order to achieve this goal, the system must be changed from the capitalist system, a system based on the privilege of a few people, where the majority toils for the profit of a few, into a socialist system, where the majority produces for the use of the majority.
Despite lies and propaganda on television, In the schools, in the newspapers, the people cannot befooled about socialism any longer. They have learned that this capitalist system is the most savage, barbaric system in the history of the world. With the capacity to feed the entire world, there has never been such starvation. With the possibility of peace, there has never been such bloodshed. With the need of housing and school never greater, never has there been such unemployment. Capitalism is a system that demands that honest working people bow down and take orders from common criminals. That is what must change and that is what this campaign is all about.
The goal of this campaign is to imbue the people of the USNA with the burning desire and the will to fight for socialism, because the socialist system means real freedom. It means a job, because without a job there is no food, shelter and clothing, and without food, shelter and clothing there is no life. It means getting up in the morning and knowing the battery is going to be in your car so you can drive to work. It means coming home at night and knowing your television is going to be there. Because once people are capable of living without stealing from their neighbors, stealing will stop. It means living in a friendly town where national hatred has ended and people are no longer afraid of one another because of the color of their skin or the language they speak.
This can only come with socialism.
The working class must end this capitalist system that is based and thrives upon murder, starvation and misery of the masses of the people. There is no need of a system that can only produce want and hunger for the many, and vast wealth for the few. That system must be swept away, and only the working class can do it.
That is the message that must be taken across the land. People everywhere must be mobilized and organized. Something new is happening. Everyone knows that it’s time for a change. But it must be made clear that if there’s going to be a change, it is the people themselves that must make it!
Mankind makes its own history. Every time there’s been a change, it’s because somebody organized to do it. The goal of this campaign is to mobilize the people, to instruct them–if you want freedom, you must fight for it. It was the laboring classes of this country that built it; and they deserve to inherit it.
It’s time for a change and this campaign marks a bold beginning. It’s time to win this election, to dig in deep, to begin organizing, mobilizing the masses to seize upon this last best hope of mankind–to transfer the enormous economic power of this country into the hands of its people. That is the basis of this campaign to elect General Baker and vote communist in November. The first battle is on the ballot; but the goal is political power, in order to answer the call of history, and to transfer the wealth of this country into the hands of its rightful owners.