What’s at stake in

the US. elections?

ve

tions to crucial problems are being

demanded by millions of people in

the election campaign this year.
These millions have been in mass
movement for the past decade of crises
and have participated in every action,
in strikes, demonstrations, meetings,
delegations, and all forms of struggle.
They are victims of the criminal U.S.
war in Indochina, of the war policies
and domestic crises.

They want an end to war, racism and
repression, to poverty, inflation and un-
employment. They call for an end to
the policies of greater disaster and
want a new course in domestic affairs
and in foreign relations. They want to
turn the country away from its present
dangerous and reactionary direction.
They want to build roadblocks that will
halt and disperse the forces of the ultra-
Right and fascism.

These movements had their reflection
in the Democratic Party primaries and
at the Miami Convention. They influ-
enced the convention and are going to
influence the election campaign.

But they did not remake the Demo-
cratic Party in any fundamental way;
they did not change its class base. They
demand that elections be meaningful
and relevant to the needs of the people.

Thus, certain major issues must be
faced in these last weeks of the cam-
paign.

1. Nixon’s genocidal bombing of the
dikes and dams and of the civilian
population in Vietnam is a calculated
threat of death by floods to millions of
Vietnamese. This adds to the criminal
character of the U.S. imperialist aggres-
sion and the policy of endless war.

It calls for a peace offensive with
greater demands to end the war on or
before Inaugural Day, and the removal
of all U.S. troops and military hard-
ware from Indochina, and from all
parts of the world including from
Guantanamo in Cuba and from Puerto
Rico.

Close down the Pentagon and con-
vert the military budget to the peace-
time needs of the people. That must be
an objective of this election campaign.

The position of the Democratic Party
and of McGovern for ending the war in
Indochina is in the opposite direction

ie ONLY new faces but new solu-

_Young Workers Liberation League members collecti
Petitions were quickly filled in the 19th Congressional District where Jose
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1972—PAGE 6

As a service to our readers we
offer this statement by the Com-
munist Party of the USA, which
presents the clearest, most pene-
trating view to date of factors in
the U.S. election campaign—fac-
tors which the big business media
in Canada tend to hide, distort, or
ignore.

from Nixon’s genocidal escalation posi-
tion, but it is compromised by prom-
ises of military material and forces in
support of Israel’s aggression against
its neighbor Arab states. This is a dan-
gerous weakness and can lead to esca-
lated war in the Mideast, and continued
power of the Pentagon over our domes-
tic and foreign affairs.

This is the imperialist beachhead into
McGovern’s program. Thus, the strug-
gle for Peace by masses of people must
continue and becomes ever more urgent.

2. The Nixon-Wallace conspiracy to
halt busing of school children is a dan-
gerous trick to reestablish racist segre-
gation, prejudice and bigotry, not only
in schools but as a way of life. An
election crusade for the exact opposite
is in order for an end to racism, poverty
and repression in all areas and levels of
political, economic, social and cultural
life, organizations and institutions—the
unions, the universities and public
Office.

Such a crusade also calls for $6,500
a year for a family of four on welfare
to have a decent standard of living.

Increased Black representation in
Congress and in top governmental posts
is an election goal. An end to the brutal
racist practices in the prison and judi-
cial systems as well as to the migrant
farmers and in barrio and ghetto living
is part of this campaign.

All of this calls for a massive re-
education of the population to root out
racism, a massive job and housing pro-
gram and provisions for decent living
standards and full equality for Blacks,
Chicanos, Asians, Puerto Ricans, and
the American Indian.

The Democratic Party convention
and its Presidential candidate, George
McGovern, have been weak, compro-

i

ng signatures. to

the election petition to put Communist Pa
Stevens is the Communist candidate for Congress.

mising or noncommittal in characteriz-
ing the major poisonous, divisive, and
negative nature of racism in the coun-
try, although they deal with it a bit
here and there throughout the platform.
The platform is more direct against
racism in the plank on Africa. This is
not enough.

This is especially critical when there
is no condemnation of the Wallace-
Eastland Dixiecrats and the role of the
Dixiecrats in the Democratic Party over
the years. That struggle must be a top
priority in the campaign.

©

3. The Nixon wage freeze, inflation,
prices, proposed national sales tax, cuts
in welfare and unemployment benefits,
and his strike-breaking, wage-cutting
actions means lower living standards
for the American worker. Nixon’s stand
on the side of monopoly capital all
down the line is demonstrated by his
tax exemption loopholes and billions in
subsidy to monopoly corporations to
guarantee. ever-increasing profits. As an
example, there were his Administra-
tion’s gifts to Lockheed, Penn Central,
ITT, and others.

Nixonomics makes the rich into
super-rich, the corporations into con-
glomerates and multi-national centres
of economic imperialism, and the mili-
tary-industrial complex into a danger-
ous powerhouse in politics and the
economy. There is an ominous trend
toward fascism in the land.

Organized labor’s earlier condemna-
tion of the Nixon program did not pre-
vent George Meany and I. W. Abel from
trying to nullify that position by the
“neutral” non-endorsement stand of the
AFL-CIO Executive Council following
the Democratic convention.

This stand started a drive by some
international unions and the rank and
file to get Nixon off the backs of the
nation and Meany off the backs of la-
bor. Thus 55 international unions are
reported as favoring the endorsement of
McGovern; the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers gave a substantial initial con-
tribution to the McGovern campaign;
the president of the Painters Union sent
to all affiliates a resolution from the
California convention of the building
trades which condemned Nixon for his
whole series of anti-labor actions and
then “endorsed the defeat of Nixon.”

$
rty candidates on the ballot in New York

s)

The UAW launched a mobilization
its full membership to participa
the campaign. Meetings and © 4)
ences in major cities are being * i)
mented by grass roots campaignité ,

the precinct level. City and Stal
tral bodies are defying Meany a” aad
all-out to’ defeat Nixon.

GUS HALL

While the Democratic Party Pl@” ig)
“deplores the increasing conce? ost
of economic power in fewer ane HI
hands,” it does not tackle the “ai, i
It declares, “Five percent of the rot
ican people control 90% of our Pi
tive national wealth. Less than :
all manufacturers have 88% of
fits.” the

The description is made, but con
posals are a bandaid prescriptt veh
tated by representatives of th@ tio
monopoly capital under examin” it
and Wall Street becomes the COM
on the question!

To eeaett the Democratic ra
tackle the power of monopoly
serious way is to have illusions”
who is is control of what 12
tionship of monopoly capita 7
Democratic Party and the t
system.

"The problem of concentrated pe
in the hands of monopoly pete :
a matter of wide public know ted }
investigation. That power 15 ied
controlling both the Democt?” (i
Republican parties, and am Ff
major issues of this election. ~ _ pM)

AS it becomes a popular ist ott
solution, the people—not the pet)
tic Party—will establish an 17" eat!)
mass people’s party to bring Wy pf
and act upon an anti-mon0P™ |
gram. 10 54

That. may well include F
which only Gus Hall and Jarv

tate