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FREEDOMWAYS   SECOND QUARTER 1972

by an administration whose shaky grasp on this war has never been more obvious.

The most recent testimony of the Secretary of State takes us back to the same drivelling lunacy we were subjected to four, six and eight years ago. How in the name of heaven can he babble now about the possibility of "horrible blood baths" in Vietnam when he remained silent about the bloody slaughter of Bengalis (in Bangladesh-Editors) undertaken by his Pakistani allies a short time ago? How can he whine about the possible collapse like dominoes of all those faithful allies whose safety is threatened in Indochina when this government had to bribe them to contribute even token forces to this war in the first place? Do allies who are in mortal danger have to be cajoled and bribed to defend themselves? What is it about this war that so corrodes those who deal with it, that so rattles and obsesses them, that reduces earnest men to spouting harebrained gibberish in defense of a garishly obscene fantasy?

The plain fact is that the American people long ago wanted out of this criminally stupid and wrong-headed war and elected Richard Nixon, in part, because he said he had a plan to end the war. But while the administration quietly and blandly anesthetizes the American public, the nightmare continues, and the unresolved business at home festers.

Regardless of how the present military situation develops, the imperative is clear. The substitution of American pilots and sailors for American footsoldiers is not ending the war in Southeast Asia, much less American participation in the hideous mess. We should stop the bombing immediately and get out of Indochina completely by August first, while negotiating the return to the families of our prisoners of war who are condemned to a prolonged living death by the present Nixon policy.

I call upon Congress to cut off all funds for this war now and I call upon the American public to defeat those members of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who do not at long last face up to what they should have done years ago. 

It may take until November to end this war, if the politicians procrastinate. I am warning Congress that the public is telling you to get off your hind legs, stop debating and passing resolutions, and prove your worth.

law and order

I call your attention to another major issue which is also compromising 

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"ALL WE ARE SAYING IS"-   CHISHOLM

the Nixon-Agnew administration. It now looks as if "law and order" will again be a major issue this election year. But this year it will not be so much a question of law and order in the streets as much as the reckless record of the Nixon Administration and its collusion with big business. As it turns out, this "law and order" team appears just as willing to drop anti-trust suits and threatened indictments against white collar crooks as it is to drop tons of bombs in Indochina.

I suppose that we, the people, the masses, seem just too foolish and dim to be of any serious concern to a government which has made suckers of us all. But make no mistake about it-those selected paroles and that confident junking of the Constitution, which has become an awkward irrelevancy for this outfit, have left many Americans uneasy. They add to the fact that this regime has lost all moral authority. And the I.T.T. case surprises no one, or there would have been more public outrage about it. The I.T.T. case appears to support all those fears of moral dissipation in high places in Washington. Here again, as in Vietnam, it is the duty of Congress to act decisively. I demand that the Senate reject the nomination of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General. Aside from being unfit for that high post, he is hopelessly compromised. The Congress should call for the resignation of Mr. Flanigan and should call for a federal grand jury to indict the I.T.T. officials, including Mrs. Beard, whose easy contradictions before the Senate make them look like fools.

We are now witnessing the Democratic Party primaries and the process of selecting a possible alternative to the nation's present hopeless leadership. I have to tell you in all honesty that I am just about as sick and tired of the humdrum and insipid messages of some of the aspirants to the White House as I am of the present occupant. The primary election results to date suggest the same weariness is felt by the American people.

The old fiddling-while-Washington-burns goes on during this campaign-business-as-usual; the status quo politics reign supreme. More hearings on the war, more "sense of the Senate" resolutions which will be voted down; more plans to end the war at the end of still another year; more time-worn cliches from the elected officials of this land when the public is showing in the primaries that it is nauseated by this same old rot.

Among those "opposing" the Nixon administration, we are asked to welcome back a fatally-flawed relic of the old days, who went along with the war for the sake of party unity. The faithful old boy of

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 15:26:06