Don’t cry, little girl, no one’s going to hurt you —
unless ordered to do so.’

Opium of the people...

i a ua leaving the teach-in at
Other Reeney of Toronto, the
Car g ae it, 1 was waiting at the
Struck P when an old worker
tumeg UP a conversation. It
age Ut he was 81 years of
boinget® you. in there?” he said,
Hall.-«8 ee Convocation
rej » Sal as i
ytink of to” I What did
those,’ it was all right. But
Ming ote people in there!
thing 9u, I’m not saying any-
Way, “S8ainst them. In some
them, tg ve got to admire
a big tee” they have
| “ipetts that?” 1 said.

Man, «yp® this,” said the old
“Guting th en I went overseas
learmey CU First World War, I
Well ap -omething. I was doing
Was School. I can tell you I
Wo: gers udered brilliant and
family veral scholarships. My
haq , 20d teachers thought I
anq 4 eal career ahead of me,
Mark » s would leave my

We gi;

Cc

and f, neibed on the street car,

Olq 4 seat together. The

ene Went on:

t pytlOng came the war. I

eM about that, but

Ver Ore. in life than
learned at school. And

Editor_TOM McEWEN

that’s the trouble with these
young people. You listen to the
talk about Canadian indepen-
dence tonight. But they don’t
know how to do it. They talk,
but life’s not the way they talk.
You've got to be scientific . . AY

I interrupted, “Yes, I’m a be-
liever’ in that. I work from the
standpoint of Marxism-Lenin-
isMes ;

“But Marx made a terrible
mistake,” he interrupted in turn.
“Marx’ economic theories were
sound, in fact wonderful. Half
the world is living by his theo-
ries. But he made a terrible
bloody mistake on religion.. He
said religion is the opium of
the people. That’s wrong.”

I said, “But the problem is
that you’ve quoted only the
seven words which are used to
distort Marxism by its enemies
to imply Marx rejected all the
standards of human conduct
previously put forward. Marx
really said this: ‘Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature,
the heart of the heartless world,
just as it is the spirit of a spi-
ritless situation. It is the opium

99

of the people’.
“Oh my God”, said the old
man, “I’ve missed my stop.”
And he darted away. W.B.

o%
fete

Associate Editor —MAURICE RUSH

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The fight for Canada

The capitalist press pleads that U.S.
big business is in trouble. American
monopolies have exhausted some of the
resources of the U.S., have failed to
develop others, and have polluted its
atmosphere and its waters. The grow-
ing people’s struggles for independence
have restricted U.S. imperialism’s ac-
cess to raw materials, so that the com-
petition between imperialist powers for
raw materials grows sharper.

Canada has been chosen for special
treatment, expressed in the old saw,
“Canadians are among my best
friends.” :

That ugly beast, U.S. imperialism,

‘which has built up a colossal war ma-

chine, established military blocs, and
acts as a world gendarme, aims to get
‘eontrol of Canada’s entire energy com-
plex. Canada is to be part of the exten-
sion and consolidation of the U.S.-based
global and industrial financial empire.

All of this is with the connivance of
the Canadian bourgeoisie as junior
partners. playing a jackal-like role in
all of U.S. imperialism’s schemes. Cana-
dian governments have arranged the
disposal of the ownership of vast sec-
tions of our natural resources, and some
of our water, for the use of U.S. mono-
polies. Prime Minister Trudeau shrugs,
and pragmaticallv says here’s a chance
to squeeze out some “hard cash” (for
the capitalists) and why shouldn’t we?

He speaks for that section of the
Canadian capitalist class that sees a
chance to make a fast buck out of the
deal, even though this works against
the interests of Canada.

The challenge confronts the workers’
movement in the first place to lead a
struggle. along with the farmers and
other sections of society, against this
disastrous plan, being engineered by
Nixon and Trudeau. It is a fight for
jobs, for the development of Canada in
the interests of Canadians—and, yes, it
is part of our unity with the U.S. work-
ers who fight against the reactionary
policies of their own government.
That’s what’s involved in fighting Tru-
deau’s “hard cash” sellout of our re-

sources.

Join the peace action

In Toronto four U.S. deserters tape-
recorded their experiences in Vietnam
for the Citizen’s Commission on U.S.
war crimes in Vietnam.

What terrible things they said!

“Sych things as withholding medical
care from a prisoner to encourage him
to talk =a.

“Ag'soon as you step foot in Vietnam
it becomes a racialist thing. You call

m gooks, dinks and slopes...”

“She didn’t have a lot to say so he
shot her. You can call that an atrocity
if you like, or just a man getting his.
dander up...”

They told of going into Cambodia in
the summer of 1969 to make a “body
count” in a village 25 miles inside the
border, bombed by U.S. B52s; you heard
a shot, you turned your head, and saw
someone falling to the ground; of ele-
mentary schools razed by napalm;

\

and about a company called “

and children” ialfeys They aia that
some U.S. soldiers cut off ears, scalped
the dead, or gouged out eyes, for “sou-
venirs” and “psychological” reasons.

You read it with sick horror
realize that it’s confirmation of aie ene
talizing, degrading effect of the war on
imperialism’s own soldiers. Gus Hall
national leader of the Communist
Party of the U.S.A., correctly said the
dirty war against Vietnam adversely

affects every facet of life in the United .

States.

It’s the kind of war—dressed up in
fine sounding phrases — that the colo-
nial peoples have had waged against
them down through the ages. Aside
from combining the contemporary
technological and scientific revolution
with genocide, the pattern established
by oppressors for all time is familiar
in Vietnam .— joining Genghis Khan,

_ Hitler, Dayan and Nixon.

The peace demonstration in Ottawa
on April 18 is the way Canadians can
help to bring an end to this dirty war.
Let’s stand up with our Vietnamese
brothers and sisters and with the brave
Americans who are fighting against
that war from the heartland of im-
perialism.

Make the rich pay

“ory leader Robert Stanfield has been -

going around bleeding copiousl

what he calls the “victims” of Go Ber
son White Paper on Taxation. Trudeau
— and even Ontario’s Robarts — are
using the old tactics of the powers that
be in pretending to be concerned about
the plight of the masses while their real
aim is to influence the middle class to
help them obstruct the kind of tax re-
forms that would get at profits — thus
coe Bs a for the low-income

orkers. The Benson Paper
bad features, of course. ee

Tax reform must make thos
e
who have the money. Those who have
- as Les big corporations, not the
milies whose average income h
around $7,000 a vente ie

In fact, 25 percent of all famili
unattached individuals received ae
$3,000 in 1965. Actually, 50 percent of
al dames Bele than $5,300 a year
and not even percent of ilies
more than $8,000. Sips

That’s proof enough, if it were -
ed, that at least 80 percent of the Alec
ing people need urgent and immediate
tax relief. After all, taking away in
taxes 75 percent from a person whose
income is $400,000 still leaves him
$100,000 a year to spend. -

But the poorest people pay a high
proportion. of their =e Set in ces
than anyone else. It amounts to 60 per-
cent of a $2,000 a year income if you
ae ee ee all taxes, direct and
indirect. For those earning $10,
up, it’s 38 percent. St i

Benson’s White Paper would reliev
750,000 people of paying taxes—all of
whom earn less than $2,800 yearly.
That’s the principle that needs defend-
ing and extending. That’s the big job
before the labor and farm unions today.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 13, 1970—Page 3