From jdav@noc.orgSun Feb 12 12:17:45 1995 Date: Sun, 12 Feb 95 09:15 GMT From: Jim Davis To: pt.dist@noc.org Subject: Rally, Comrades! 2-95 (Electronic Edition) [This publication is being sent to you as a subscriber to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition). The intent of RALLY is to assess the current political and economic conditions, and map out the tasks of revolutionaries at this stage of the struggle. It is published approximately every two months. This issue features the draft documents of the upcoming National Organizing Committee Second Convention, to be held April 29 and 30. For more info, e-mail noc@noc.org] ****************************************************************** ****************************************************************** ##### #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##### ###### ## ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #### #### ## ## # |||| |||| || || ||||| |||| ||||| |||||| |||| ## || || || || ||| ||| || || || || || || || || | ## || || || || | || ||||| |||||| || || ||||| || ## || || || || || || || || || || || || || | || |||| |||| || || || || || || ||||| |||||| |||| ## ****************************************************************** February, 1995 Electronic Edition Vol. 14, No. 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------ INDEX TO Volume 14, Number 1 SPECIAL CONVENTION ISSUE 1. A VISION OF A NEW AMERICA 2. DRAFT PROGRAM FOR THE NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE 3. 'CHANGING WITH THE TIMES': DRAFT RESOLUTION ON ORGANIZATION 4. DRAFT POLITICAL RESOLUTION ****************************************************************** ****************************************************************** 1. A VISION OF A NEW AMERICA ****************************************************************** Humanity is being reborn in an age of great revolutionary change. The tools and techniques exist which can produce all that we need. For the first time in history, it is possible to create the conditions for a true flowering of the human intellect and spirit. Our fight is to re-organize society to accomplish these goals. Our vision is a vision of a new America. We know the revolution we need is possible. We have the commitment and the moral passion to carry it out. We have the opportunity to end our poverty and suffering once and for all. Now the choice is ours to make. Our vision is our choice. Our vision is one of equality. Everyone must have the means for a decent life: enough to eat; a home to live in; life-long education; medical care and assistance when sick or alone or when growing old; the ability to enjoy all aspects of human culture, to have joy and laughter and love as their everyday companions. Everyone deserves this and everyone should have it. Our vision is a vision of a people awakening. We believe that all of us, especially the poor and the oppressed, the wretched of the earth, can discover within ourselves the moral courage and the political will to build a mighty revolutionary movement. A great moral optimism is beginning to sweep this country as the poor, the oppressed, the decent-hearted, embrace their revolutionary mission and make this vision a reality. ****************************************************************** 2. DRAFT PROGRAM FOR THE NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE ****************************************************************** 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 back-breaking 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. ****************************************************************** 3. 'CHANGING WITH THE TIMES': DRAFT RESOLUTION ON ORGANIZATION ****************************************************************** We are building an organization for this stage of the revolution. We must teach, train and elevate the thinking of a movement which is scattered, diverse and searching for answers. We must focus on the special contribution we can make -- education about why our society is in crisis, what can be done to solve it and a vision for the future. Our organizational structure has not kept up and could not keep up with our evolving understanding of the struggle. The committee system as our basic organizational form was designed to carry out the task of bringing together the practical leaders of the movement to help them connect with one another and strategize for the entire movement. The agitation and propaganda we did in the committees was to facilitate that task. Our committee system has become a way to organize and coordinate the mass movement. Today, our structure has to organize our agitation and propaganda on the specific questions of the day. We need a new structure which will enable us to carry out our new program. Each chapter must be based in a territory (such as a part of a city) and will do its agitation and propaganda within that territory. Political education must be at the center of the chapters' work. Our organization must be a place where both our members and the movement can learn what they need to explain, persuade and prove to the people the dangers and possibilities of the situation today. With this knowledge and understanding, our membership can participate in any activity in a way that elevates the consciousness of those around them. The People's Tribune, the Tribuno del Pueblo and Rally, Comrades! are our main weapons in the fight for the hearts and minds of the American people. In our activity, writing for and distributing the papers is the primary means to educate and politicize the revolution. Through our papers, we can reach millions with the truth about the struggle, what we are facing and what we must do. Every paper read means a mind opened. Every chapter must make its central responsibility to get these papers into the hands of every person asking the question "Why?" The chapter must be open and flexible to reflect the reality of the movement today. It holds regular and public meetings which are open to all, members and non-members alike. The chapter organizes itself to carry out the program. Our organizational principles -- along with the political direction given by the program -- forge the unity necessary for a membership of diverse people to march in a common direction. These principles are: collective discussion and decisions based on an assessment of the real world and individual responsibility to carry out those decisions; division of labor; unity of authority and responsibility; checkup and evaluation of our plans and reporting the results. They encourage individual creativity and initiative while at the same time guaranteeing accountability to the decisions and agreements of the collective. While our chapters must be open and flexible, we also need the means to guarantee the life and the political direction of the organization. To do this, we need a central body, both nationally and locally. In the areas, the local membership would elect in their local conventions an area office. The area office would ensure that the chapters are carrying out the program, establish the wherewithal for expansion into new areas and work within a division of labor. The members would come together for area-wide meetings as necessary to discuss and decide how to respond through agitation and propaganda and to build the organization as the social struggle develops. At the national level, the National Council, the Steering Committee and the National Office use the press to give direction to the agitation and propaganda of the members. The National Office must be organized around the People's Tribune, the Tribuno del Pueblo and Rally, Comrades!. Our new structure will allow us to get varied and different levels of contribution from people as they join and get to know the organization. In this way, we can build everywhere and in any social struggle. ****************************************************************** 4. DRAFT POLITICAL RESOLUTION ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ INTRODUCTION During moments of great, epochal change, a social movement unites with and is illuminated and guided by a cause. That cause today is a vision of humanity crossing into a new world, a world free of exploitation, ignorance and strife. Within the great revolutionary movement for U.S. independence, a cause arose. The cause, the vision, was not simply one of national independence, but of a new continent with human freedom, peace and brotherhood based on independence. It was this cause, not the movement, which made it possible for the revolutionaries of that era to bear the great sacrifices and endure the suffering that ended in victory and independence. George Washington led the movement; Thomas Paine spoke for the cause. Eighty years later, another great movement engulfed our country -- the struggle to preserve the Union. Within this revolutionary movement, the cause arose again. That cause -- a vision of a new world of human freedom and brotherhood based on the Union -- made the great sacrifices and suffering of the Civil War bearable. Abraham Lincoln led the movement; Walt Whitman spoke for the cause. In all previous revolutionary movements, the foundation of the movement -- the level of the means of production* -- was never developed enough to make realizing the cause possible. But a cause never dies; it lies latent until a new round of social struggle brings it forth to illuminate and guide the movement again. Today, a new, great movement against poverty and its consequences is growing across this country. No force on Earth can prevent the people who are struggling against intolerable conditions from coalescing. This movement cannot mature without a cause, a morality, a vision. That vision is a vision of a country free forever from want, from race and national hatred and from sexual oppression and human exploitation. That vision is a vision of a country where the ever-expanding material and cultural needs of the people are satisfied by an ever-expanding technology that has freed humanity from toil. The vision is one of peace and social harmony. Today, the level of the means of production makes realizing this cause possible. Thus, the cause is the soul of the movement and the source of its morale, illuminating it, guiding it and inseparable from it. Only unyielding, intelligent, serious revolutionaries can combine this vital cause with the growing movement. We have formed our organization to accomplish this end. To guide our struggle, to help accomplish this great and historic task, we submit this Political Resolution and, on that basis, call for the convening of our comrades. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SITUATION Scouring the world for profits, capitalism has expanded into virtually every corner of the Earth and created a truly global economy with an international division of labor. The most important and fundamental aspect of this development is the accelerating application of electronics to economic life. Production based on the labor-saving technologies of electro- mechanics has shifted to production based on the essentially labor-replacing technologies of electronics. This is an economic revolution of historic significance, leading to broad societal changes worldwide, on a scale not seen for over 200 years. The last 50 years have seen the rise of a section of capital that is supranational. The economic interests of these supranational financiers transcend national boundaries. Thus, they have no loyalty to any particular country. Their only loyalty is to capitalism and to themselves. Some 80 percent of U.S. external trade (both exports and imports) is now undertaken by transnational corporations. In 1990, there were 35,000 supranational corporations with 150,000 foreign affiliates; the largest of these corporations account for about one-quarter of the value added in production in the world economy. The international economic strategy of the supranational financiers has two broad aspects. First, they are moving to make the countries of the world "borderless" (economically speaking), so that there can be a relatively free flow of capital and goods across the world. (The restructuring of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is part of this process.) Second, they are moving to invest capital in the "developing" world and in the formerly socialist countries, in an effort to turn those areas into new markets and sources of skilled but cheap labor. Their vision is a vision of the world as one giant investment colony where capital moves across national boundaries without restrictions. They see regional trading blocs such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the European Union as stepping stones toward their goal, not as ends in themselves. The supranational financiers have devised a variety of means to implement their strategy. Health, education and welfare programs have been reduced or eliminated to free capital for investment. "Austerity measures" have been introduced to reduce inflation. State-owned companies have been privatized. Open dictatorships are replacing "democracies." (These are constitutional police states with democratic faces and predictable legal systems friendly to foreign investment). In many cases, these changes have been forced on the countries involved through the "structural adjustment" programs of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. While the capitalists have been fairly successful in imposing their strategy, their very success is setting the stage for their ultimate failure. The reason? Labor-replacing technology is producing a global glut of labor, both skilled and unskilled. Human labor is becoming worthless. As a result, wage rates are falling. The small, highly skilled global work force that will ultimately result from the changes currently underway won't be large enough to buy all the goods the system produces. As production is modernized to compete on the world market, a huge and permanent increase in unemployment results, with all the social, political and economic consequences. For example, in largely agricultural China, the World Bank has estimated that 100-150 million rural workers have been displaced through this process. A similar situation exists in Russia, where there is massive, growing unemployment. The Russian government is having to choose between continuing to subsidize obsolete state industries (thus keeping people employed) or ending the subsidies, thus modernizing the industries by making even more workers jobless. In the countries which make up the European Union, the official unemployment rate is almost 11 percent. Africa has been virtually written off by the imperialists, consigning the people to absolute poverty, political anarchy and destruction. These changes are dislocating hundreds of millions of people. They are creating a tremendous polarity between wealth and poverty. Massive worldwide migration -- from rural to urban areas and from marginalized countries to industrialized ones -- has been a hallmark of this process. Absolute poverty is growing worldwide at the rate of 70,000 people a day. Eight of every 10 people in the world live below the U.S. poverty level. At the other end of the spectrum, 344 billionaires wallow in untold wealth while most of humanity struggles just to survive. With little hope of a decent future, the millions of proletarians, whether migrants or not, represent a political threat to the capitalists. The capitalists will use force and violence to control them. The construction of police states has been facilitated by the hysteria against "foreigners" being fanned worldwide. From the criminal violence carried out in cooperation with local police forces to the electoral legitimacy given to openly fascist forces, particularly throughout Europe, the fascist threat is real and growing. In sum, the strategy the capitalists are pursuing can only increase permanent unemployment and intensify the drive toward fascism. THE ECONOMIC SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES We have already seen how applying electronics to production is disrupting capitalism as an economic system. This is the key factor to keep in mind when examining the U.S. economy. Reflecting this spread of electronics, the period from the late 1980s to the present reveals a qualitative shift in the economy. Between 1987 and 1992, the nation's manufacturing industries registered a $530 billion increase in shipments. This was a 21 percent increase for the five-year period. New capital expenditures by these firms increased 32 percent during the same period. This expansion in production resulted in the elimination of 696,000 jobs, a drop of four percent for those five years. (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1992). Today, there are 3.2 million fewer manufacturing workers in the United States than there were in 1979. The capitalists have reaped unprecedented profits from these changes. Yet the reality of millions of people unemployed, with the number growing daily, means that there are fewer people with the money to buy the goods being produced by this new technology. The capitalists have tried to solve this problem by extending credit further. Loans now represent 78 percent of income. About 44 percent of all buying is done on credit. Of course, this cannot continue forever; there has to be a minimal chance of repayment. The source of the problem is a lack of good-paying jobs. Because there is a lower return on productive investments, the capitalists increasingly turn to speculative investments where the returns (and the risks) are higher. A parallel banking structure is emerging in which most financing no longer goes through the regulated, established banking system. The value of "derivatives" is now twice the value of all stocks traded on U.S. equity exchanges. (Derivatives are complex investments that gamble on the movement of stock markets or interest rates.) The General Electric Co. personifies this trend toward speculative, non-productive investment. GE's stock market valuation exceeds that of any other U.S. corporation. It has branched out from manufacturing airplane engines and power turbines into owning brokerage houses and has developed perhaps the world's most sophisticated financial and insurance empire. In 1993, GE's operating profit from manufacturing increased by only seven percent over the previous four years, while its profits from financial activities jumped 132 percent. During those years, GE's U.S. employment dropped from 244,000 workers to 163,000. Inevitably, speculation and credit manipulation will lead to financial collapse. The bankruptcies caused by investments in derivatives, as occurred in Orange County, California, represent just the tip of the iceberg. "With a growing number of banks and brokerage houses staggering from losses on derivatives, the potential exists for a financial meltdown that would make last spring's bond plunge look like a hiccup." (Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1994). The United States is experiencing broad societal changes on a scale not seen since the Industrial Revolution. At that time, new production techniques gave birth to a new class, the industrial working class. This class was created by the need to harness human labor to machine power in mass production. Today, with electronics, production takes place with a minimum of human labor or no human labor at all. Again we see a new class being born from the ongoing destruction of the old methods of production and the society built upon them. This developing class increasingly finds itself outside the capitalist system, unable to find work and finding it harder and harder to survive or even coexist with the capitalist system. The creation of this new class is not the only transformation taking place. Every aspect of society is undergoing upheaval. Everything that seemed "normal" yesterday is coming apart at the seams today. The revolution in the economy is bringing forth a revolution throughout society. Increasingly, the ruling class is making its intentions clear. It is unable to solve the problem of growing poverty. Therefore, it is moving to tightly control the tens of millions of Americans who will not starve in silence. THE NATIONAL POLITICAL SITUATION For the past 50 years, the ruling class has controlled the American people by offering limited political rights and a modicum of economic security to large sections of the population in exchange for their political and social support. The unprecedented economic expansion of those years allowed it to do this. Those struggles for reform which were waged during this period were fought largely to gain access to the capitalist system, not to challenge it. Today, all bets are off. Computers are replacing labor. Feeding us, housing us, taking care of our children, conceding our demands for a better life -- no longer are these things necessary elements of making a profit for the capitalists. This fact is revolutionizing the political landscape. Capitalism has been forced to strike at its own foundation. It is beginning to impoverish and brutalize the very people who once supported it. This new relationship of forces -- the undermining of the rulers' base of support and the loss of their "reserves" -- is creating the basis for a new stage of the social revolution. The ruling class is well aware of the threat posed by this changed situation. Our rulers are absolutely united on what they must do as a class to protect themselves from this challenge to the system of private property and to their privilege and power. As the crisis deepens and the polarization in our society intensifies, the ruling class must have the means to control and contain the millions being forced outside the system. Step by step, the ruling class is implementing a legal and political structure which openly sanctions unrestrained state power, particularly police power. This process is taking place legally, through the existing mechanisms of power. It is directed at guaranteeing the rights of the capitalists to do whatever is necessary to secure their profits. This is the meaning behind the Supreme Court rulings and the new laws which undermine the Constitution and expand the state's power to control personal behavior and family life, to censor information and ideas, and to restrict dissent. This is what's behind the broadening of the police's power to beat and murder at will. The police are the street-level enforcers of the interests of the ruling class. For what they can deliver, they have established themselves as an integral part of American political life, tied in myriad ways to governmental and social institutions, the military and the various federal law enforcement institutions such as the FBI. The police are building a political and economic base of their own, both in individual cities and nationally. They are heavily armed, highly organized and increasingly centralized. Behind them stands the entire apparatus of the courts, the Congress and the military. An aggressive campaign of lies and scare tactics is being waged to convince the American people that a police state is in their interests. Crime, poverty and all other social ills are identified as problems of the minorities, brought on by their own behavior. The ruling class has used this campaign as a platform from which to call for increasingly repressive and barbaric measures: the breaking-up of families and the warehousing of children; the abdicating of responsibility for the elderly; the stripping away of the safety net for the poor; and the extermination of the homeless. This manipulation of the American people's thinking has relied upon the worst aspects of American history. It is the old tactic of "divide and conquer," with the intent being to isolate one section of society in order to control the rest. The ruling class uses every question to assert alliances along color lines, particularly among whites. The objective situation is exposing the capitalists' weak flank. The reality of poverty in this country is getting harder to cover up. The Electronic Revolution is giving birth to a new class made up of millions of people who have no future in this economic system and so must fight the system to survive. At the heart of this new class are the unskilled and the semi-skilled. But its ranks are increased daily by the skilled industrial workers and the white-collar workers who are being displaced by electronics. The subjective, political polarization along color lines does not explain this development. The actual polarization is objective; this polarization is taking place not between the minorities and the whites, but between the rich and the poor. THE TASKS OF THE REVOLUTIONARIES The tasks of revolutionaries reflect the stages of the development of the revolutionary process. What stage are we in today? The American people are becoming aware of the consequences of the economic revolution. A movement is taking shape. The movement consists of the social activity of millions of people to reorganize society in harmony with the new tools -- electronics. But the American people are confused. They don't know where to throw a blow or who to blame for their poverty and misery. The ruling class understands that as long as the mass of poor people lack a vision and remain confused about who is their friend and who is their foe, it can maintain its supremacy. The ruling class is waging a vicious, relentless campaign for the hearts and minds of the American people. It emphasizes "me, me, me, and to hell with everyone else." In everything objective, the American people are moving away from capitalism and its institutions. Yet in everything ideological, the people are caught up in proposals for a fascist resolution to the crisis in our country. Revolutionaries must win the war for the hearts and minds of the American people. The ruling class' tactics aim to disarm and divide the new class of poor people. When the poor unite as a class, no force on Earth can stop them from taking what rightfully belongs to them. Our agitation and propaganda have to unite this new class of poor people and arm it with the understanding that the only thing standing between them and the wealth being generated by the Electronic Revolution is a tiny, vampire-like class of billionaires. The development of electronics and robotics is replenishing the ranks of the social movement for a new America. However, the movement has to be merged consciously with its cause, its vision, its morality. This will not happen spontaneously. This task falls on the shoulders of the revolutionaries. No movement can succeed without a cause. A cause arises as a vision of what's possible, based on the objective economic and social forces that are in motion. The task of the revolutionaries is always agitation and propaganda. Today, the test of real revolutionaries is to produce agitation and propaganda that reflect the history-making transformation that society is going through. Our foremost task is to agitate and propagandize around the cause of the movement. It is this cause that will drive the movement toward the new world now possible. What is the cause of this movement? It is the vision of a country free forever from want, from race and national hatred, from sexual oppression and from human exploitation. The vision is one of peace and social harmony. Our agitation and propaganda need to express the changes being brought about and the possibilities being created by the Electronic Revolution. We no longer have to work long hours or wait for the meager welfare check just to eke out a miserable existence for our families. The new technology makes a world of material abundance and cultural development for all possible. Our agitation and propaganda need to sound the alarm about the danger of a police state. The tiny ruling class will do whatever is necessary to protect its profits and privilege. That means the overwhelming majority of Americans will face a reign of terror. Only when control of this country is in the hands of the masses of the American people can we transform our vision of the future into reality. We are an organization of revolutionaries dedicated to uniting the cause, the vision of what is now possible, with the movement spreading across the country. Our newspapers -- Rally, Comrades!, the Tribuno del Pueblo and the People's Tribune -- are our main weapons of agitation and propaganda. To teach the new ideas of revolution, our classroom has to become the streets, the shelters, the unemployed lines, the factories, the schools -- wherever there's injustice, oppression and tyranny. Comrades, we are marching with history. We are continuing all that is noble in the legacy of the revolutionaries of 1776 and of the Civil War era. On our shoulders lies the responsibility for bringing the cause of human freedom, of peace and brotherhood based on independence, the vision that gave birth to our country, to its conclusion. We will not fail. They are few; we are many. Victory will be ours! ------------------------------------------------------------------ * The term "means of production" refers to the tools, techniques and materials used in production. The means of production have developed over time as humankind has learned more about the way the world works. ****************************************************************** RALLY, COMRADES! (Electronic Edition) is the electronic version of RALLY, COMRADES!, a newspaper published by the Political Committee of the National Organizing Committee. The name of the paper is taken from the original chorus of the poem and song, _The International_, the rallying cry of the international proletariat: Rally, Comrades 'Tis the last fight we face The international Shall be the human race. Please address all correspondence to: RALLY, COMRADES!, P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, IL 60647, or e-mail rally@noc.org. (c) 1995 by the National Organizing Committee. Permission granted to reproduce, provided this message is included, the article is not changed, and no further restrictions are placed on its distribution. Hard copy subscriptions are available for $15/year, and donations are important. We encourage reproduction and use of all articles. Please credit RALLY COMRADES. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The mission of RALLY, COMRADES! is to orient, educate and raise the consciousness of those who are fighting the growing repression and poverty in our country. We have entered an age where electronics is replacing human labor and a growing mass of people is becoming permanently unemployed. No longer requiring our labor, those who run this country have launched a massive assault on our living standards and our legal and human rights. The people are fighting back, but their struggle is scattered and unfocused. The crying need of the moment is to unite the leaders of the scattered struggles around a common understanding and a common strategy. The leaders need a source of information on the political situation and the tasks of the revolutionaries. We dedicate the pages of RALLY COMRADES! to this end. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ******************************************************************