Workers World, Vol. 11, No. 2, February 7, 1969
In trying to draw any lesson from the experience of the Counter-Inaugural demonstration, it is of course always important to bear in mind what the Wall Street Journal of Jan. 28 calls “the power of the press to shrink an event into insignificance.”
The way the communications media of the ruling class handled the Inauguration and the Monday demonstration against it reminds one of the manner in which the press and TV handled the recent national Republican and Democratic Conventions.
The repression Chicago was certainly given a great deal of coverage despite the gross distortions. This of course was not the case with the repressions carried out against the Black people in Miami.
While many, many people were brutally beaten in Chicago, none were killed. In Miami, three were killed, eighteen were seriously wounded of which some died, and more than 250 were arrested – an untold number beaten and clubbed when dragged into police wagons.
The events in Chicago have already rightfully entered into the folklore of American radical literature. What happened in Miami, on the other hand, has practically been forgotten, as least by the whites. It’s a magnificent lesson on how the capitalist press could “shrink an event into insignificance,” in this case by failure to give it any consequential coverage. So far as the TV networks were concerned, they barely even referred to it, and when they did, it was in the manner of some minor incident unconnected with the Convention, when in reality it was a well-timed, forceful and dramatic protest by the Black demonstrators to the unrestrained racism exhibited at the Convention.
In a similar vein, the dramatic, well-timed and well-organized manner in which the Monday Counter-Inaugural was carried out by a coalition of revolutionary militants was completely distorted, falsified and maligned by the same capitalist media.
The inauguration of Richard Nixon, however, was the most dishonest embellishment yet manufactured by the monopolist media.
The reader should bear in mind that the National Mobilization leadership, which initiated the idea of a counter-inaugural, had projected three days of protest for the weekend of the Inaugural. There were, however, two more or less separate and independent actions during the protest days supported by different groups having opposing views on the nature of the protest to be made.
The leaders of the National Mobilization were uncertain from the very beginning as to whether to have any protest at all. However, they could not get themselves to say so. In part this was due to their fear that failure to stage some kind of protest would remove them from the arena as a leading anti-war organization.
It was also due in part to the fear that if they failed to carry out a protest, that the revolutionary militants would seize the initiative and hold one themselves.
When the “Mobe” leaders finally decided to have the protest days, it was not done in the spirit of militant defiance and confidence which such an event required, but was done in the spirit of pessimism and fear. During the period before the demonstration all the activities of the Mobe leadership were characterized by vacillation and indecision on how to carry out the protest, and consequently paralyzed any attempt at adequate proportion for such a serious undertaking.
To get out of their dilemma, the National Mobilization leaders resorted to the time-honored device of compromising the very objective of the projected protest. They concocted the idea of having three days of protest – Saturday, Sunday and Monday. However, they concentrated very heavily on highlighting events for Saturday and particularly Sunday, and deliberately played down Monday, the day of the Inauguration. A mere vague reference to some sort of “presence” on Monday was all that the ordinary reader of Mobilization literature could get out of it.
The scheme behind it all was to have the large audiences on Saturday and Sunday, and take up their time with trivialities, ceremonial speeches and innocuous workshops.
On Monday, the Mobe leaders reckoned, there would be a few hundred people present at the Inauguration just to show that they were there. But this was not at all what the revolutionary militants had in mind. They came on Saturday and Sunday, only to prepare for the big event on Monday. They were irked by the deliberate effort of the Mobe leaders to wear them down and sidetrack them from their objective of having a militant counter-demonstration on Monday.
It was plain for anyone with eyes to see that of the three days set aside for protest, the big and important one should be on Monday, the day when the press, radio and TV would saturate the country with propaganda calculated to bolster imperialist democracy and paint up the Nixon Administration as the new mild-mannered and peace-seeking custodian of the establishment. Counteracting this on Monday was vital, and gearing all activity for that day was essential to make the protest effective.
But the Mobe leaders pushed the other way. It was not lack of intelligence or foresight on the part of the Mobe leaders that prevented them from seeing what was the logical and common sense thing to do. It was a plain case of fear – fear of a bloody encounter with the federal authorities. That always of course should be a legitimate consideration in any such undertaking.
However, this was precisely what had to be reckoned with before the Mobe leaders decided to set the days of protest for the Counter-Inaugural.
Leaders who undertake a serious protest against the imperialist establishment always have the duty to soberly calculate the risks involved. A Marxist, for instance, bases his actions on an objective appraisal of the relationship of forces and the character of the political moment for which the actions are planned. If the relationship of forces are unfavorable for the demonstration and the political moment for which the action is planned is inopportune, it is sometimes best to delay the projected action and pick a more favorable moment.
In the opinion of seasoned Marxists who have been active in many of the anti-war protests, the situation was a most favorable one, and the moment for the demonstration, opportune. It was quite plain that the Nixon Administration was not likely on this particular day to unloose an avalanche of armed force, that is, on the day set aside to present itself to the world as an apostle of peace and moderation.
However, the Mobe leaders neither tried to objectively estimate the situation nor to speak their mind frankly. Instead they resorted to doubletalk. They let loose a series of pacifist drivel publicly disclaiming any violence, promising non-physical confrontation and all the rest of that nonsense. What they were trying to do was to assure the ruling class in general, and the government in particular, that there would be no violence, which in reality meant that they were putting the onus for any violence on that would occur, not where it belonged – on the police and the military – but on the demonstrators.
This could only anger the militants, especially those who would fall victim to police attack. It should be added, inter alia, that at no time did the Mobe leadership issue any statement that could be interpreted as anti-imperialist, something the militants really wanted.
The attitude of the Mobe leaders toward the Inauguration was something akin to the way the petty burghers in medieval times viewed the coronation of a monarch. On the one hand they saw the coronation as an opportunity for protest. On the other hand they were overawed by the display not only of the pomp and splendor of the ancient royal rites, but also of the array of force which was calculated to imbue the masses with a spirit of submission and to deepen their respect for the law and order of the master class.
A particular objective of a medieval coronation is to instill the masses with fear, particularly those who are prone to use the occasion for rebellious outbursts.
Is not the elaborate stating of an inauguration for the same purpose? Are not the Mobilization leaders the modern descendants of the ancient petty burghers?
It is no exaggeration to say that practically all of the leaders of the Mobilization undertook the making of this protest under the psychological and political outlook that was more fitting for ancient times than for space age television spectaculars calculated to bolster the reign of the dynastic monopolies.
The revolutionary and militant young people who were there, on the other hand, most of whom were also from middle class families, had anything but the reverence, awe and fear which characterized the Mobe leaders. On the contrary, they were all motivated by the spirit of real revolutionary defiance, courage, and they had tactical know-how. Above all, they were all determined to discredit the Inauguration and not to stand timidly in fear of it.
What, however, was most significant about Monday’s counter-inaugural, was not only the courage, determination and discipline of many of the demonstrators, but also the beginnings of a class, political approach, as is shown by the vivid and imaginative class slogans, such as “Billionaires profit off GI blood,” “Nixon is the one, the number one war criminal,” “Nixon is the tool of billionaire rule” and others of like character.
Certainly there were many arrests and brutal beatings, but all the world knows that a strong revolutionary contingent of several thousand dared to challenge Wall Street’s imperialist colossus on the very day on which it would put on one of its most hideous and disgusting spectacles.
The other lesson was that a new coalition of revolutionary militants made itself felt during the course of the preparations for this counter-inaugural demonstration. It was born in the fire of struggle and cemented by a more or less common political approach.
Last updated: 11 May 2026