We've Carried The Rich For 200 Years, Let's Get Them Off Our Backs

By VVAW

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Regional Conferences

Since Vietnam Veterans Against the War first made the national call for a demonstration on July 4th back in January of this year, many people and organizations have joined to help build it. Seeing the great potential this demonstration has for striking a blow at the rich and strengthening our movement, a July 4th Coalition was formed in February. The July 4th Coalition has been coordinating building and making plans for the four days of demonstrations in Philadelphia. The planning and enthusiasm were significantly advanced by two recent events.

In mid-March the July 4th Coalition held two regional conferences, one in Philadelphia (for the East coast) and another in Cincinnati (for the Midwest) to push the organizing effort forward. Another conference is planned soon for the South.

Over 500 people attended the conference including workers who came from struggles going on in plants and factories all over the East and Midwest. From the garment and sweatshops of New York City to the coal mines of West Virginia and Kentucky, to the auto plants of Detroit, the steel mills of Chicago and the meat cutters' strike lines in Milwaukee, workers came to the conferences uniting with veterans, youth, and the unemployed, sharing their experiences and shouting lout and clear: "We've Carried the Rich for 200 Years, Let's Get Them Off Our Backs."

At the meetings, people spoke of the different struggles they were part of, the overall slogan of the demonstration, and its demands--"We Won't Fight Another Rich Man's War," and "Jobs or Income Now." Brining out their individual experiences, time and time again people hit out at the fact that we've carried the capitalist rulers of this country on our backs for too damn long, and placed the blame for our hardships squarely where it belongs--on the rich! Participants in the conferences also told how trying to survive under the capitalist system affects them. A young person from Milwaukee talked of the future this system offers, and asked: "What's left for us--the Army of McDonalds?" An unemployed vet who had been thinking of re-upping pointed out, "What do I ant to go to the Army for? When I get out it'll be the same thing--no job." And one older unemployed worker said, "The rich man organized to get this money--we got to organize to take it away from him."

People left the conferences determined to go all out to make this July 4th demonstration a big step forward in building a nationwide movement of the American people against the ruling class of this country, with the struggle of workers at its core. As one young worker put it, "I've been thinking about those Bicentennial minutes on TV and they always end up, 'And that's the way it was.' That's all they can say. So we're going to Philadelphia to say, 'This is the way it is!'"

UWOC Builds Petition Against Campaign

"The bosses' Bicentennial is about as popular as the mumps. At the unemployment centers workers say, 'What's to celebrate?' UWOC together with VVAW has been going out to shopping centers with the Jobs or Income Petition blown up poster size. Last Saturday, we brought our banner saying, 'We've carried the rich for 200 years, let's get them off our backs!' and taped it to the marble wall of a Chase Manhattan Bank. The response was stronger than we expected. In a few hours hundreds signed the petition, and many wanted to join in, building the campaign and come to Philly."

This is the description of one chapter of the Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee in New York City about the campaign to build the struggle of unemployed workers. UWOC is a nationwide organization of people who are demanding jobs. In their drive to build the struggle of unemployed, they have launched a nationwide petition campaign with the aim of getting over 250,000 signatures by July 4th to be brought to Philadelphia to wave in the face of the US ruling class. By early May UWOC had gotten well over 150,000 signatures, well on the way to the goal.

Because unemployment affects all working people, not just those out of a job, other organizations have taken up the UWOC call to take out the petition as widely as possible. With thousands being laid off every month, workers have been taking the petition into factories and workplaces across the country, gathering support from working people who don't want to be out on the streets after their next paycheck. And workers whose jobs seem secure today have not forgotten what it was like just a year ago when jobs were being picked off like flies, knowing that it will happen again. VVAW has taken up the petition also, taking it to veterans at VA hospitals, on campuses and wherever we meet vets. In New York City, VVAW has found that veterans are eager to sign the UWOC petition as well as the petition to Extend and Expand the GI Bill.

UWOC has been fighting to defeat state bills to cut unemployment benefits in Connecticut and Washington, uniting with city workers on strike in San Francisco, fighting layoffs in New York and extension cutoffs in Ohio, Wisconsin and Indiana, and beating evictions in Denver. And UWOC will be marching in full force to Philadelphia to set up a tent city of unemployed and, on July 4th, to "rip the red, white and blue veil off of 200 years of exploitation--taking 250,000 signatures on the Jobs or Income petition with us!"

1976--Millions walking the streets looking for jobs and still more shoved out the door while plants close down. Those still at work, worked to death, chained to their bosses machinery. Our cities falling apart. Our schools, hospitals and firehouses shut down. Half finished construction sites standing next to burned out tenements and the drums of another war beating louder. All this amidst lies of recovery and the fireworks of celebration.

No! This is not what we worked so hard for. No, this is not the future we want for our children. One thousand outrages slap us in the face. No, we can't live like this. And we won't.

Our class, the working class, men and women of all nationalities--we build and we produce. But their class, the capitalist class, takes it all. They own what they have never built--the mills, mines and banks. Owning all, they take all we produce. And for us, only enough to keep us alive so we can slave for them some more.

They take our hard work and twist it. We work together. They steal, each as much for himself as he can, and try to keep us apart. Everything has a price for them. Their uncontrollable drive for profit makes this whole society run like it does. Crises after crises, war after war, injustice upon injustice. Ten generations of profits bled out of ten generations of our lives.

Our whole history proves this. We have fought for all that is worthwhile in this country. We are not animals but that's how they would have us live. No! Not in 1776, 1876, or 1976. Our history is filled with storms of resistance, battling back and standing tall. We are men and women. We will not be slaves. We are the backbone of the whole country, millions strong. They are a handful of murderers and slave drivers, rotting as they claw to grab more.

1976. These thieves call all of us to celebrate with them. National unity...all together and many happy returns. No! We shall not celebrate their rule. Despite all their sickening lies and broken-record hoopla, we have nothing in common with them. For them--200 years of plunder. For us--200 years of slavery and oppression. All they have took from us. All we need we have wrenched from them through bitter battle. It is they and their never-satisfied thirst for profit that stand between us and our fight for a better life and a brighter future for our children.

Fellow workers! Today as before our class battles every last abuse--on picketlines and shop floors, in neighborhoods and communities and everywhere throughout society. Our fight is a just fight, our demands are just demands. In building this struggle on July 4th in Philadelphia, we will proclaim especially our demand for "Jobs or Income Now!" and determination that "We Won't Fight Another Rich Man's War!"

We have the strength to mobilize. We have the ability to unite all the battles, all the people, all the anger at the way we have to live. The future belongs to us. We are the only ones who can push things forward, and we are determined to break through.

Now is the time to pull it together. All our forces. All our battles. As we have always fought them we will fight them on the day they chose to celebrate their bloodsoaked rule. We will come together, thousands strong, to expose their crimes and build our movement, on that day and for the great battles ahead.

On to Philadelphia!

We've carried the rich for 200 years, let's get them off our backs!

Demonstrate in Philadelphia, July 4th!

July 4th Coalition
Initiated by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Unemployed Workers Organizing Committee, Revolutionary Community Party and Revolutionary Student Brigade

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