First Published: The People’s Tribune (Online Edition), Vol. 22, No. 6, February 6, 1995.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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This is an era of revolutionary change. For the first time in history, humankind can produce such abundance that society can be free from hunger, homelessness and backbreaking labor. The only thing standing in the way is this system of exploitation and injustice.
The struggle today for homes, education, health care, freedom from police terror is the beginning of a revolution for a better world, economically and spiritually.
[The NOC] takes as its mission the political awakening of the American people. We invite all who see that there’s a problem and are ready to do something about it to join with us. With our organized strength, we will liberate the thinking of the American people and unleash their energy. We will win them to the cause for which they are already fighting.
We will excite the American people with a vision of a world of plenty. Electronic technology provides better, cheaper and more products with less and less labor. Society now has the capacity to devote the energies and talents of its people to satisfying the intellectual, emotional and cultural needs of all.
We will educate the people of this country about the economic revolution that’s disrupting society. Every day, the new electronic technology throws thousands – laborers and managers alike – out of their jobs. Their labor is worthless to a system that values only what it can exploit. If they cannot work, they cannot eat. Radical changes in the way a society produces its wealth call for radical changes in how that society is organized.
We will sound the alarm about the danger of a police state. The capitalist class cannot convince the American people to believe in their system while they are starving and freezing them and destroying their hopes and dreams. Their answer to the destruction of society is a police state. Their government takes away constitutional rights and gives back terror and prisons. They attempt to disarm the victims of capitalism by turning them against one another.
We will inspire our people with the alternative to a police state: a society organized for the benefit of all. A society built on cooperation puts the physical, cultural and spiritual well-being of its people above the profits and property of a handful of billionaires. When the class which has no place in the capitalist system seizes control of all productive property and transforms it into public property, it can reorganize society so that the abundance is distributed according to need.
We will empower the American people with the understanding of their role in striving for this new society and with the confidence that it’s possible to win. The struggle of those who have no stake in this system carries the energy to overturn it. [The NOC] is an organization based on the aims of these millions of people. Our members come from all walks of life. We are in the thick of battle on every front. From within housing takeovers and protests, from within universities, hospitals and prisons, from within each of the scattered battles, from wherever there is poverty and injustice, we take this message out to politicize and organize the revolution that is already shaking up this country.
We call on you to join us in crusading for this cause.
The last program was what we needed for where we were at that time in building an organization of revolutionaries.
But in two years, a lot has changed in this country. We have already seen how this system is now attacking the very people who until very recently trusted and defended it. These people are now searching for political direction and for solutions to their problems. The ruling class tries to keep people confused and to keep them from fighting in their own interests. We have to meet the ruling class’s intensifying propaganda war. This Draft Program says what has to be done to stop this handful of billionaires.
More and more, people from every walk of life and every pocket of struggle against this system are looking for an organization with a plan for what has to be done. If we carry out this Draft Program, we will bring into the organization large numbers of people who want to do their part for the political awakening of the American people.
We also found that our Program needs to state more clearly what our organization intends to do. The fight for what people need in order to live, the fight for an America of justice and happiness is the revolutionary struggle today, and our members are on the front lines of that struggle. This Draft Program spells out the message our members take to those front lines. The members have the important and difficult work: They take stock of what the people around them understand and what they’re ready to do. They figure out how best to take out that message to the American people so that they can take their destiny into their own hands.