Published: The Revolutionary Youth Movement newspaper, n.d. [1969]
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The National Action represents a concrete application of RYM 2 politics to the struggle against the war in Vietnam. The joint call issued by the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Organization and the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) represents a big step forward in insuring revolutionary proletarian leadership in the united front struggle against the U.S.-war in Vietnam. The only reason why this call could be issued is because it truly conforms to the needs of the people. Each of the Actions that make up the Chicago National Action are a microcosm of the political line of RYM.
The action against the hospitals is based on exposing and taking steps to end the exploitation of Third World working women as the lowest paid, most oppressed workers in hospitals, as the main victims of genocidal sterilization and other practices that make these butcher shops houses of terror for the oppressed. The role of hospitals in urban removal plots to drive working people out of their communities, the primacy of profits over decent health care make these institutions key examples of the moribund and decadent character of imperialist society.
The action in front of the Harvester plant which is soon to be torn down and replaced by a jail while Harvester opens new plants abroad to super-exploit the colonial world exposes how imperialism oppresses domestically and abroad, how it is a system and not simply a foreign policy, how it is the highest stage of capitalism and not something separate from capitalism.
The actions boycotting the schools during the National Action and the support we are giving to the General Strike in the schools called by the Panthers for Sept. 24th, is an expression of building alliances and carrying out the mass line in practice.
The decision to not let Weatherman determine the course of the National Action will defeat certain non-struggle, conservative tendencies in RYM. To abandon the National Action to the Weathermen would have made us scabs on the Vietnamese and would have insured a dismal turnout for the National Action. On the other hand, to not put forward a program representing RYM politics which people can participate in would have been irresponsible in the extreme. We must defeat both of the bad tendencies that have arisen in dealing with the Weathermen political Dadaists. The defeatism which insists that the National Action is bound to fail because of Weathermen “turning off” the people represents a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to distinguish a good from a bad line. People will turn out if we make our politics clear and spread the message far and wide. The sectarianism which insists, because of its lack of contact with Weathermen (out of sight, out of mind), that to develop a RYM program for the Action is factional.
We are tremendously encouraged with the Detroit Conference and the first four days mobilizing in Chicago.
ON WITH THE NATIONAL ACTION!
AWAY WITH ALL GHOSTS AND MONSTERS!
VICTORY FOR THE VIETNAMESE!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
* * *
The heroic war of national liberation being waged by the South Vietnamese people against the U.S. aggressors has advanced to within grasp of final victory. Rallied together behind the banner of the National Liberation Front and aided by their compatriots in north, the South Vietnamese people have defeated the criminal, blood-stained invading force consisting of more than half of the total U.S. military capacity armed with the most barbarous engines of modern warfare, as well as considerable forces of various U.S. satellites.
They have succeeded in liberating more than three-fourths of their homeland, have brought the overwhelming majority of the South Vietnamese people under the jurisdiction of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and have prepared the conditions for the democratic and peaceful reconstruction and re-unification of Vietnam.
For the U.S. the war has proven to be an economic, political and military meat-grinder. It has led to one cut-back after another in the people’s livelihood – the latest examples being the 10% blood tax and the cut-back in federal construction spending at a time when Black workers are fighting for their just share of skilled construction jobs – and the death of tens of thousands of young men. The war has isolated the U.S. diplomatically, and has widened all the fissures in U.S. society, exposing the imperialist, white-supremacist character of the U.S. rulers. Resistance to the war of aggression has forged links of solidarity between the oppressed people in the U.S., especially the Black and Latin peoples, and has brought millions of our countrymen to their feet with the cry – U.S. Get out of Vietnam Now!
While millions have spoken out against the war, millions more have remained silent in their opposition. Recognizing that the these silent millions can be a great force in bring the aggressive, white-supremacist war to an end as well as the basis of a powerful anti-imperialist movement, we call for a mass action in Chicago from October 8 to 11, consisting of three days of programs and militant actions designed to serve the needs of the people of the U.S. and to connect these needs with the fight against U.S. aggression in Vietnam. We call for the action to culminate in a mass, militant, disciplined march behind the demand U.S. Get Out of Vietnam Now, and other demands which will ling the struggles of the exploited and oppressed people of the U.S. with the struggle of the Vietnamese.
We call for this action as the start of the Year of Solidarity with the People of Vietnam.
Black Panther Party, Young Lords Organization, RYM II SDS