First Published: The Call, February 1974.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The January 20th demonstrations have set the tone for the emerging mass movement aimed at throwing President Nixon out of office. Up until now, the motion around this question has been mainly around the windbags in the congress who have done nothing but hem and haw about the “good of the nation.”
Now under the slogan “Dump Nixon!” thousands of people have taken to the streets in Oakland, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Portland and other cities and have begun to transform the anti-Nixon struggle from being an effort to build the Democratic Party, into a mass, anti-fascist, anti-monopoly struggle.
While including the forces of the impeachment movement, the Dump Nixon campaign is much broader. By broadening the slogan, it moves beyond the confines of strictly a parliamentary effort, chained by the bureaucracy and red legalistic tape which an impeachment proceeding requires.
We are concerned with Nixon’s blatant violations of the constitution in his re-election efforts. We are concerned with Nixon’s tax evasions and his taking of bribes from the dairy millionaires, oil monopolies and IT&T. We are concerned with these “impeachable” offenses because we are fighters for democratic rights and are revolted by the fact that a poor unemployed worker can go to prison for 20 years for stealing some food to feed his family, while the real criminals live in comfort and luxury, rewarded for their crimes with high political office.
But we also know that even without the bribes, the government of this country is and always has been in the service of one class of people only-the big capitalists. For them, profiteering off of the hardships of others is not a policy of a president, but a way of life. For them, war, discrimination and stealing are the basic ingredients of the system they have created, a system which is based upon the exploitation of working people for the profit of a few.
We are equally concerned with the crimes of the Nixon regime which are not “impeachable.” These include his aggression in Indochina, which while in most cases being loosely within the legal framework of the constitution, is still criminal from the standpoint of the people’s interests. His crimes include the “legal” violence being carried out against the oppressed minorities and the “legal” police murders in the ghettoes and barrios every day under Nixon’s banner of “law and order.” His crimes include the perfectly “legal” wage freeze which has kept workers frozen under the 5.5 per cent guide lines, while the cost of living has risen by more than 8 per cent and monopoly profits by 40 to 60 per cent.
Even if successful, the Dump Nixon movement will not solve these basic problems facing the people of the country. The crisis which we now face is inherent to this system of capitalism. Furthermore, with Nixon dumped, the White House will still be filled by Gerald Ford – just as crooked, just as racist, and just as much a servant to the oil companies as Nixon. No matter how loudly the Communist Party, USA and other phony revolutionaries scream about “new elections” the solution to the economic and political crisis can never be found through the electoral system.
But a victory in dumping Nixon will be a real blow to the efforts of the ruling class to unleash their fascist offensive against the working and oppressed people. It will make it more difficult for them to carry out their aggression abroad and it will further deepen the contradictions within their own ranks. At the same time, if this united front struggle is built on the action and initiative of the people themselves rather than relying on the Democrats in Congress, the fighting capacity of the people will be strengthened and the aims of the struggle broadened.
It is for these reasons that we strongly support this struggle to Dump Nixon and deal a blow to the fascist tide. It is for these reasons that we urge the organization of more mass actions around this slogan, linking it to the struggle against the energy freeze, the tight for the right to strike, for an end to aggression in Indochina and for the democratic rights of working and oppressed people here in the U.S.