At the Kent State conference, the Brigade decided to embark upon a national campaign for the spring semester. It had to be an issue around which people all across the country could militantly fight and expose the imperialist system, forging the student movement into a solid fist. This didn’t mean that chapters would drop their other work, but uniformly across the Brigade, the campaign would become an important aspect for organizing. “Throw the Bum Out – Organize to Fight” was chosen.
The entire world-wide system of U.S. monopoly-capitalism is in crisis. The devaluation of the U.S. dollar, collapse of the Breton Moods world monetary system, spiraling inflation and commodity shortages are all symptoms of a decaying economic situation. And along with this, the liberation movements against imperialism in the Third World, increasing competition from lesser Imperialist powers like Japan and Europe, and growing unrest among the American people create a desperate and confusing situation for the U«S. imperialists. Under attack from all sides, great turmoil breaks out within the ruling class as these dogs fight and scramble for more power and over strategy for continued control. For, to survive, even the most powerful monopoly capitalists must constantly try to eliminate rival capitalists or be gobbled up themselves.
And, even though the ruling class is united around the desire to keep the people down and to save the system, tremendous infighting has developed over the strategy and tactics for their continued rule. And all the scandals of the Nixon administration have left the politicians and government in a state of chaos, exposed as the corrupt tool of the criminal ruling class for all to see! As they fight among themselves, it is an excellent situation for the people; a time to add to their turmoil!
We can do this by building a mass movement, and while throwing Nixon out, expose the whole ruling class. While the elimination of Nixon will be a great tactical victory for the people of the world and cause greater turmoil in the ranks of the monopoly capitalists, we must always show that the real cause of Watergate is the crisis of bankrupt imperialism. We must go beyond the “exorcism” of the bum and attack the whole imperialist class.
Developing a national campaign, we quickly found, was easier said than done. It demanded that we tighten up as a budding national organization and develop a strategy of how to develop struggle around this issue. And, while there were certainly mistakes that held back our work, the overwhelmingly principal aspect of the national campaign was good, hard, and successful work.
Brigade members really threw themselves into building the Throw the Bum Out – Organize to Fight campaign. Chapters on local campuses held discussions, movies, forums, and built “Burn-the-Bum” effigy-torching rallies. Thousands upon thousands of leaflets and pamphlets were distributed, and Throw the Bum Out committees were formed. And whenever administration voiceboxes forayed out to spout their lies, they were confronted by crowds of angry people chanting “Throw All the Bums Out!”. Brigaders threw eggs at Ford (the heir transparent) in Providence Rhode Island, and then built large demonstrations which chased him throughout Ohio and up to Michigan where he was shouted down at a university commencement speech. On March 15th 1n Chicago, 3,000 people marched on Nixon as he spoke to a convention of big businessmen. In Iowa City, Iowa, the Brigade led a thousand students in throwing a “Nixon” Into the river. And In N.Y., the Attica Brigade seized the Statue of Liberty to the applause of millions of Americans.
All the time, we were building toward April 27th rallies scheduled for three cities. On that date, one thousand rallied in Chicago, 2,500 in Los Angeles, and in Washington D.C. 3,000 marched under the banners of the Throw the Bum Out contingent – out of a total of 10,000! Following the Washington march, the contingent, filled with righteous anger over the racist Zebra manhunts in San Francisco and cutbacks at our schools, militantly served notice at the “Justice” Department that we were aiming at the whole oppressive system – not just one bum in the White House!
By the end of the spring the Brigade could look back and see that they had helped mobilize thousands of people in struggle both to throw Nixon out and against the Imperialist system. We learned a great deal – both from positive and negative examples – of how the Brigade should bring issues to the people and how we should function as a national organization. And we learned of the importance of a national student organization bringing the issues to the people in a unified way – like a fist – so that it could strike the maximum amount of blows against the monopoly rulers.