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Elections: Politicans Fight for $ Interests; We Must Fight For Our OWN!!

By VVAW

Vote for America! Vote for national unity! Vote for Carter or Ford or Gene McCarthy or Lester Maddox! If you don't vote, you can't criticize. Be a part of America and VOTE!

All of these slogans have been either said or implied on TV, in the papers, at plant gates, in supermarkets around the country. In the period leading up to the 4th of July, the band of thieves who run this country kept trying to get across their message, wrapped in red, white and blue: Unify! We all have to pull together. While we might have some problems in this country, it's still the "freest" country in the world and the "democratic" system (meaning the system in which they're on top) has solved all its problems over the last 200 years and is good for at least 200 years more. Now as election time approaches, the words may be a little different but the song is still the same.

I haven't had anything to do with the state of the nation, says Carter--vote for me and I'll get rid of all the corruption and evil that has been plaguing Washington for the past 8 years and replace it with compassion. Ford has to take a little bit different line; things aren't all that bad, he says, and the things that are messed up--well, those are the fault of the Democratic Congress, so elect me and some more Republicans and we'll take care of it for you.

Credibility--faith in the government--is the big issue. Particularly in the face of polls saying that only 46% of voting age Americans will even bother to vote in the 1976 elections. The candidates don't much care how many people vote--just that more people vote for them than for the other candidate. Even that doesn't matter too much in a city like Chicago or its many sister cities where the political machines can turn out legions of long-dead people to "vote" the way they want the votes to go. But the candidates, and even more important, the class of rich rulers of this country who pull the strings on the candidates, know that to continue their rule they have to have the American people on their side with at least enough faith in the government to vote for the president.

People give different reasons for their non-interest in elections--"I don't like either candidate," "It doesn't seem to make any difference who I vote for." "All politicians are corrupt," "The economy keeps right on going downhill no matter who's in office," and a series of similar reasons. And all of these reasons are at least a part of the truth.

But what they all boil down to is people seeing that the sweet-talking politicians will say damn near anything to gobble up a few more votes and the, once elected, won't serve the needs of the people. Evidence is too plain to miss. 7.8% unemployed, and that's one of the government figures jiggled around to make them look as good as possible. That means 10 million men and women standing in lines at unemployment offices looking for jobs or, if they can't get jobs, trying to get enough to live on. Cities filled with burned-out vacant houses while millions of people look for a decent place to live, and they very few live on their estates behind high walls and bask in their private swimming pools. Workers forced into overtime in factories that are unsafe even when the worker is fresh and alert, and which become more and more dangerous when workers get tired. Crime. Dope. Polluted air. Hospitals closed for lack of money.

Although they don't venture into the poorest communities, even politicians see some of these problems. So they come up with get-rich-quick schemes and outright lies to make it sound like they have solutions. For instance, there is the Humphrey Hawkins Bill which is supposed to put a few people to work for the government at starvation wages and thereby halt unemployment. Or an "omnibus" veteran's bill which, while the sponsors talk about how it will help vets, is in fact an attempt to steal away some of the few benefits that vets still have.

Democrats and Republicans both admit that the big issue in this election is not their respective positions on unemployment or relations with the Soviet Union or the other thousands of things on the minds of the American people. The issue is trust. While they try to sound different and may in fact have small differences in their tactics or in the words they use, the fact that liberals and conservatives are the same in all but words was underlined when "Mr. Conservative," Ronald Reagan could chose "Mr. Liberal Senator" Richard Schweiker as his prospective running mate because, they both said, "our ideas are the same."

Damn right! Not only are their ideas the same, but so are their bosses--and Carters and Fords and all the rest of that bunch of gangsters, from top to bottom. When Chase Manhattan Bank, or General Motors or Gulf Oil pull the strings, these puppets jump and jump fast. When it comes to vets benefits--where there are no profits to be made--the politicians will talk and talk and do nothing. When it comes to $104.3 billion for defense, they may not talk so much, but they'll vote for it in a big hurry. They see that the class they serve--the rich and powerful--will not only make big bucks off defense spending, but they have economic and political interests to protect and expand through war. Look for the bucks and watch the politicians following after.

Working people have no reason to vote for either presidential candidate; working people have every reason to stand up and fight for what we need, because that's the only way we've won gains in the past, like the 8 hour day or unemployment compensation, and the only way we'll win gains in the future. These gains have come because the rich and their flunkey politicians saw a huge movement growing and saw their own positions threatened. When there wasn't anything else they could do, they gave in, just like they finally withdrew US troops from Indochina in the face of massive protest at home and determined resistance by the Indochinese. For all their "compassion" and "concern," there isn't a politician around we can rely on--we can rely only on ourselves and our struggle. Politicians fight for $ interests' must fight for out own!