Published: n.d. [1972]
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The real issues surrounding the shooting of George Wallace have been covered up, just as the cases of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The newsmen acted surprised that it was not a Black man who shot Wallace. They know that Black people – and for that matter, all poor people, all self-respecting, class conscious working people – have plenty of good reasons to want to shoot Wallace (along with the rest of the political swindlers), but it wasn’t the workers who did it.
And it’s too simple to say that it was just the act of a “kook” or “nut” like the newsmen are telling us. There have been nuts around for a long time, so why have so many presidents and politicians been shot just in the last few years – along with leaders of the people’s movements? The answer can only be that the big wheels who run this country are getting desperate. They are starting to hire guns not just to hit leaders from the people’s ranks that they can’t silence or buy off, but even to knock each other off. And if one gang of them didn’t hire the gun that got Wallace, that’s the surprise, because all their power is based on force and violence.
After all, these moneybags and their political mouthpieces can murder masses of people without blinking. From the miners in West Virginia, Kentucky and Idaho, to the prisoners and guards at Attica, to the millions of Asian people and thousands of American soldiers in Indochina. Nothing is too bloodthirsty for the glory of their sacred flag – the dollar bill. These international gangsters, who never stop preaching about “law and order,” make the Godfather look like Mary Poppins!
But why kill each other off? And why now? Because their whole system is on the rocks again – where it always ends up. In their panic and mad scramble to hang on to their profits, they are even clawing at each other like a pack of rats.
But most of all they have to step up their killing robbery of the working people. And they need new and different, even deadlier ways of doing it. That’s where Wallace comes in.
All of a sudden, Wallace is a “legitimate candidate,” he “has a rightful place in the democratic process,” and so on. Who says so? The same politicians, newsmen and “opinion makers” who used to call him a “crackpot” and say he couldn’t play in the political big leagues because he is a bigot and a white supremacist – which he is.
But that was back in the early ’60s. Back before things really got hot. Before these High Priests of Profit got themselves bogged down in Vietnam, before they taxed us to the hilt, drafted us in the hundred thousands, and inflated the economy out of sight to try to do the impossible: to try to make slaves of the people of Vietnam, who just won’t bow down to Rockefeller, Ford & Co.
And more...it was before millions of people in the United States really stood up to fight back: students and young people against this war of plunder in Vietnam, Black people and other minority nationalities braving the guns of the police and army, soldiers rebelling within the armed forces, women fighting for equality, and workers of different races uniting, employed and unemployed in the plants and on the streets, hitting back at their wage freeze and Pay Board, their speed-up and lay-offs, and their whole phony “New Economic Policy.” Millions of American people, joining forces, recognizing in those puffed-up millionaires the real enemy, refusing to be silenced, refusing to be alienated, sidetracked or suppressed – what a nightmare for those who have lorded it over us for so long!
And what is their answer? – More lies, more robbery, more attacks on our rights, more bombs, clubs and guns. In short, more war and more open moves toward fascism, which is nothing but naked dictatorship by the kings of monopoly capitalism, the “democracy” of the gun and the gas chamber.
And along with this, more George Wallace. They need a fascist faker like Wallace popping off, bad -mouthing the monopolies and “Big Government” out of one side of his mouth – because the people are sick and tired of the monopoly capitalist rulers getting away with murder.
But these same monopoly capitalists know that Wallace is really their man, that they can count on him to keep on giving them tax breaks, “right to work laws,” and other weapons against the working people, like he’s done in Alabama for so many years. They need a Wallace because they need to build up a base for fascism and provide a cover for their mounting attacks on the people. And when they finally have no way out, when they are ready to pull their mask of “democracy” all the way off, they need a “popular leader” like Wallace to be their front man, to paralyze the “little man” with double-talk so we’ll be helpless to fight back.
Here’s one example of how it works. Wallace makes a lot of hay about stopping high taxes, deficit spending and inflation. Then he turns around and says we have to have a stronger military establishment. But that same military machine, the thousands of military bases all around the world, protecting the almighty prophets of Big Business, the war in Vietnam and smaller “police actions” – these are the most immediate causes of high taxes, deficit spending and inflation. Wallace is just talking out of both sides of his mouth, and he really thinks we are dumb enough not to notice!
To add insult to injury, the ruling powers claim that Wallace speaks for the working man – at least for the white working man. They think this is very clever. They pat each other on the back and say to each other, “We’ll appeal to the white trash (as these rich white “Gentlemen” call the white workers) and we’ll tell them:
We’re all one big happy family, all of us fine white folks. So what (they say to the white working people) if us rich folks who never did a honest day’s work are driven around in big cars you couldn’t pay the gas for; so what if we live in fancy mansions where you’re not welcome? So what if we jet-set around the world and live it up on the wealth you’ve broken your backs to create? So what if you slave at our machines, lose your limbs and even your life to make us rich and powerful, if we put you out in the street and call you a bum when we don’t need you anymore? So what if we spend more on a night on the town than you make in a month? So what if your kids schools are lousy, if the future you’ve planned for them is taking dope, dying in our wars, or just becoming a dumb worker like you? So, what! We’re still one big happy, white family.
They really think that white workers are such chumps that they’ll buy this line!
They program Wallace to tell white working people that the problem is the “niggers” and the “Big Government” backing them up – giving them too much power. What shameless, low-life liars! From the beginning of this country, from the days of slavery, through the law of lynch-mobs, night-riders and murderous cops, right down to today, the government has used every means of terror to try to keep the Black people – along with other minority peoples – powerless and in the very pit of poverty.
Still Black people do have power – the power of daring to fight back, of the iron unity and strength in numbers that can only come from fighting for a just cause. Is this a threat to white workers? No – it is a tremendous inspiration, to learn from and unite with. And this is already starting to happen.
Sure, some white folks are voting for Wallace. Some because, like him, they’re sour-bellied racists and they’ve something to gain by keeping the Black people and the white working class down. But most Wallace voters support him for the same reason others back McGovern: because they’re fed up with the likes of Humpty Dumpty and Tricky Dicky and they haven’t seen yet that all of these politicians stand against the working people and have to be swept aside by the people’s movement.
Wallace is against the working class because he’s against the Black people out front – the most militant fighters for the working class who stand, courageously in the front ranks of our struggle. Now Wallace says he’s not against Black people, he’s just against busing. But who made busing the big issue? Not the Black people, but the ruling class of bankers and Big Business, the men who danger Wallace and the others like puppets and use them to confuse the real issues.
Black people demand – and they have a right, if there’s any right on earth – to have a good education for their kids, as good as white kids get. But when Black people tried to get into college in Alabama, George Wallace stood in the doorway. What in the hell did that have to do with busing!
Wallace claims he’s for quality education for everyone. What a hypocrite! It’s a well-known fact that Alabama has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the country, and one of the lowest budgets for basic education. Any way you turn it, Wallace is just trying to pit white workers against Black people, to divide our ranks.
Divide and conquer – it’s the same old story of the minority of rich ruling over the majority. The same old line from the rotten bunch of millionaires who own Presidents and politicians like Wallace: the rich oil men, the owners of Boise Cascade, International Paper, Philco-Ford, U.S. Steel and DuPont (to name but a few) who make a killing in Wallaceland.
Wallace is the millionaires’ man, just as much as the other politicians. And if he got cut down for peddling their garbage, or for pushing too hard for one group of super-rich instead of another – well, it just goes to show that if you play with fire you’ll get burned and it’s a well known fact that there is no honor among thieves when money and power are at stake. That’s their problem. But they’ve got much bigger things to worry about.
The working class has just begun to flex its muscles. When we really get rolling, when we unite our ranks in steel-like solidarity, we’ll not only turn back the attacks of the “legitimate” gangsters who run this country; we’ll take control from them of this society we’ve built with our sweat and blood.
And some chips are gonna fly. Petty hustlers who try to stand in our way – Wallace and the rest – are gonna go down with those who hire them.
We don’t need any George Wallaces, any more than we need the rest of the self-seeking, power-hungry, politicians and whole system of monopoly capitalist robbery that produces them, one after another. We don’t need any more fascism and war.
We need working class unity and the unity of everyone willing to fight for a decent life, for an end to wars, repression, discrimination, unemployment, poverty, exploitation and the jungle law of dog-eat-dog. We need the strength of our own numbers. We need real leaders from our own ranks, who share our problems, our struggles and our victories. Who remain part of us and loyal to us – all of us, white and non-white, old and young, men and women.
With a mass movement based on these principles, nothing can stop us or turn us around. And the days of gangster “law and order,” of monopoly-capitalist wage-slavery, of murderous war and fascism are numbered. The rule of the workers: a society based on equality, cooperation, and the real will of the majority – this is the future that belongs to us!
* * *
Wallace is running as the people’s candidate (white people’s candidate) so it is fair to ask how the people, Black and white, fare in Alabama under Wallace.
Alabama is 48th in total income per person (1970).
Production workers in Alabama average $2.86 an hour, $.50 below the national average of $3.36 an hour (1970).
24.7% of the citizens of Alabama live in poverty by federal standards, that’s twice the national rate.
Only 20.1% of Alabama’s 150,000 non-agricultural workers are organized. The national average is 28.4%. Alabama is a “right to work” state where the union shop is outlawed.
Alabama spends less per pupil for all levels of education than any other state. But Alabama gets more federal funds for education than all but ten other states.
Per 1000 live births (1968):..... White......... Non-White
National Average..................... 19.2.............. 34.5
Alabama................................. 20.9.............. 37.7
Per 100,000 people (1969):........ Murders............ Assaults
National Average........................... 7.2................ 152
Alabama...................................... 13.7............... 182