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A TICKET FOR THE FREEDOM TRAIN
JARVIS TYNER

FOR FOUR HUNDRED years my people in the United States have been the victims of savage racism, exploitation and repression in a reign of terror and oppression unequalled in its duration and scope in human history.

Racist ideology and practices have become deeply ingrained in the entire fabric of American life during these centuries by the slave-owners and the capitalists who abetted them and then succeeded them in power.

Throughout, my people have fought for liberation.  And today, the fight for liberation and for equality, for the most elementary human rights, has reached a new stage of militancy and effectiveness.  But the fight cannot be completely won so long as we live under capitalism - which spawns racism, inequality, inhumanity daily and hourly; which thrives on it, cultivates it, requires it as its prime instrument of division and confusion and uses it against the entire 200 million people it exploits.

Complete liberation, complete equality, the full ending of racism and exploitation, can be won and will be won rapidly when and only when the American people as a whole get rid of capitalism, win working people's political power, and substitute this system with a socialist society.

Yet, important, major gains can be won prior to that basic victory.  And the very struggle for these immediate gains, these reforms, is essential to weld together the people's forces which will ultimately win the full strategic victory.

First and foremost, we must fight to end the disastrous, racist, genocidal war in Southeast Asia, which is devastating the lands and peoples there, and is also eating at the heart of our own country - taking our lives and our livelihoods, perpetuating racist ideology and giving our veterans a jobless, honorless homecoming.  The racism of that war is not only evidenced by the decimation of colored Asians, but by the use of Black Americans to fight and die in disproportionate numbers to their population.  That damned war must end, and we

Jarvis Tyner is National Chairman of the Young Workers Liberation League and Vice Presidential candidate on the Communist Party ticket in the November elections.

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TICKET FOR THE FREEDOM TRAIN     TYNER

must demand that the resources now used for wasting life and land be applied to such things as the realization of this program.

We urge upon any elected administration, the platform on which we would mobilize all the people of the United States to struggle against racism and inequality.  This program, though short of socialism, provides for the building of an anti-monopoly coalition which will nationalize many industries and place them under democratic control.

This program is aimed at raising the economic and political power of Black working men and women in the first place; and, as well, the plight of all other class strata among Black and other oppressed people.  This program is aimed at the problems of the masses of Black people as opposed to the token gratis, to the few.

This program further seeks to direct the fight against the main oppressors and benefiters from super-exploitation and oppression of Blacks - the giant monopolies (500 corporations) that control the economy and social life of this country.  It will help to properly place the relationship of Black Americans to the entire country and lay the basis for greater unity of Black, white, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Indian and Asian peoples - especially the unity of those who are women, youth, and most importantly, working class.  These demands are in the interest of all Americans.

These proposals are reforms in the main.  But they are reforms that move directly to the source of the problems - the ruling class and the system itself.  And they lay the basis for the further acceleration of the Black Liberation and all democratic and anti-monopoly movements and masses.

Also they will lay the basis for a new unity of Black people themselves.  A unity based on a program aimed at moving the entire Black population forward, and not merely the token enrichment of a few Blacks at the expense of the masses of Blacks.

This will lay the basis for a sharp curb on the racist, reactionary thrust of the administration and the dangerous trends towards fascism.

This program won't bring about complete liberation, we repeat, only the complete abolition of capitalism and a socialist United States will bring about this.

to satisfy the vital needs of oppressed people for a decent life

Spend $120 billion per year - equal to current spending for war and related purposes - for the needs of the poor, the Black and 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 15:33:56 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-17 19:24:07