Rpp Election Statement

RPP Election Statement

gression and wielded equally viciously in its service, spearheaded of course by the capitalist "news" media and every other mass communications medium at the imperialists' disposal. Truth, common sense, and obvious fact are not allowed to stand in the way of the machinery of total control through language and image manipulation backed up by vast armies and even vaster economic forces; "doublespeak" and "doublethink" are the order of the day, and anyone who even begins to question the veracity of the government's propaganda is immediately declared crazy and totally unreasonable by everyone concerned.

When Nixon advances a line defining the U.S. government as a "peace" force, for example, even the most obviously contrary actions of that government, including the waging of the most vicious warfare in the history of the world, are structured to appear as if they are actually direct and concrete moves toward "peace." When he speaks of prosperity the statistics on rising prices and costs of living, inflation, and unemployment are twisted around to indicate that things are better than ever before. When he outlines an increasingly severe program for domestic repression he and his agents speak of "freedom of speech" and the "right (of the government!) to a fair trial." In every instance the actual situation is distorted perfectly and represented as its opposite, no matter how obvious the ruse, as long as everything fits neatly within the definition advanced by the super-honks of all time.

CREEPs vs. McGOVERN

The specific Nixon-CREEP media campaign against the candidacy of George McGovern fit neatly into the overall plan to brainwash the American people and to frighten everyone but the most crazed honkies - Nixon's most ardent supporters - into submission and despair. From the very beginning of McGovern's two-year campaign effort, Nixon and his cohorts in the capitalist media conspired daily to negate the moves McGovern was making by ignoring or distorting almost completely their actual political content. McGovern's every effort to establish his positions publicly was met with ridicule and scorn, as if he had no business interfering with the cozy electoral contest the CREEP-oriented newspapers and other mass media had been projecting since 1968. McGovern was declared crazy, a "radical," a naive do-gooder whose presence added a quaint touch to the political scene, and a total loser who should spend his time doing something less ridiculous than running for the presidency.

Nixon added his own bizarre touch to the campaign by refusing even to recognize the existence of George McGovern's candidacy, as he had done on the question of the existence of the People's Republic of China for twenty-two years before history forced him to make a complete about-face on that particular issue, and he conducted his own campaign as if here were merely being subjected to a public vote of confidence rather than a clear presidential challenge. At the same time Nixon copped McGovern's most popular positions, distorted them completely, and offered them to the people as his own, despite the fact that his practice ran absolutely counter to what he was talking about.

Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, once developed a media technique known as "The Big Lie," a process by which people could be brainwashed and kept under the government's control through the constant projection by the government of bigger and bigger lies. If a lie is big enough, and you tell it often enough, went Goebbels' theory, people are bound to believe it despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Of course Goebbels was dealing with a relatively primitive Communications technology at the time - radio and film and newspapers, no television - but he achieved tremendous results with what he had to work with. Nixon, on the other hand, has every piece of advanced electronic technology at his disposal, his lies are even bigger than those of Hitler and his gang of thugs, and his situation as president of the United States is even more desperate than that of Hitler trying to create a German imperial empire. Thus he wields the weapon of the Big Lie ever more recklessly, bringing it to bear on more and more of his constantly increasing problems of empire and further weakening his already crumbling position as the caretaker of imperialism by systematically destroying his credibility among ever greater numbers of people who were able to swallow his tissue of horseshit up to a very short time ago.

The role of the so-called "free" press in the Nixon-CREEP effort was to amplify Nixon's distortions and project them as truth while at the same time belittling and ridiculing McGovern's every attempt to offer himself as an alternative to the Nix. The editors, rich people for the most part who were solidly in the Nixon camp (90% of U.S. newspapers endorsed Nixon in the 1972 election), were aided and abetted in their task by the hyper-cynical chomps who prostitute themselves daily to the media barons while posing as "objective reporters" and "news analysts" for the newspaper chains and television networks which pay their handsome salaries.

These self-styled progressive journalists compounded the dirty work of the headline writers and copy editors who follow the government line without a whimper, by concentrating all their nit-picking attention not on the biggest gangster in history, Richard P. Nixon, but on pitiful-assed George McGovern and his hopeless campaign for the presidency. They made every effort to tear McGovern apart for his minor inconsistencies and his personal "lack of charisma," gloating over each of his series of political misfortunes, while letting Nixon's vast crimes pass almost unnoticed in their rush to condemn McGovern for not being radical enough or something.

In the process they contributed as much as anyone else to the success of the Nixon-CREEP forces, certainly as much as the editors and other self-interested supporters of the GOP/CIA clique who also work in the mass media, and they helped greatly to further the designs of the CREEP strategists where they could've been a real force opposing the brainwash express run by the CREEPsters. Their constant harassment of the McGovern candidacy directly served the interests of the CREEP strategists both in the short run - by helping to undermine the credibility of the challenger while accepting Nixon's horseshit almost without qualification - and in the long run, by helping to demoralize the masses of progressive people and spreading their cheap cynicism throughout the public consciousness.

In the final analysis, though, it was not merely the cooperation of the mass Communications media which gained the electoral victory for Nixon, but the entire range of tactical weapons at his disposal (including but certainly not limited to the mass media) and the ice-cold strategies worked out by the CREEP/CIA high command, along with the master criminals who carried out that strategy on his behalf and who orchestrated the tactical maneuvers so brilliantly. Kissinger, Mitchell, Clark McGregor, Maurice Stans, Robert Mardian, Richard Kleindienst, H. R. Haldemann, Ronald Zeigler, Herbert Klein, Erlichmann, Rogers, Connally and the rest of the CREEP gang will earn their rightful place in history behind their depraved practices in service to the Nixon re-election effort, and their exploits will stand with the most vile misdeeds of the ages as clear testimony to the perfectlv brutalistic nature of capitalism and imperialism in their highest and final stage.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE 1972 ELECTION

It is useless to talk about Nixon's re-election, however, without talking about what it means n the context of world revolution and the impending collapse of the imperialist order. As oppressed peoples all over the world rise up to reclaim their land, their resources, and their very lives from the imperialist invaders, the economic base of capitalism/imperialism continues to shrink back farther and farther so that capitalism - an economic system rooted in constant expansion - is increasingly unable to provide for its own security, let alone carry out ts stated policy of steadily accelerating expansion.

As the economic base of capitalism/imperialism becomes more and more unstable, the efforts of the imperialist ruling clique to guarantee their existence and to salvage at least a minimal portion of their riches in the process grow more and more desperate. As their economic and military might meets with defeat in sector after sector of the globe, and their supposed strengths are finally recognized as weaknesses by their victims and themselves, they are forced to resort to last-ditch strategies which might possibly save them n the short run but which will definitely work against them in the end.

"Four more years" may seem like an extremely short time n the total course of history, but the imperialist regime is on such shaky ground right now that the next four years are all-important in terms of carrying out their hopeless plan for self-preservation. And the situation is even so severe that only the most rigidly self-righteous bourgeois politicians can be allowed to sit in the administrator's chair - total unscrupulousness and unquestioning obedience to the dictates of the GOP/CIA high command are the first requisites of the modern presidential candidate, and politicians with designs on "reforming" this dying system can only be regarded as extremely dangerous to the future of the imperialist order.

This means that someone like McGovern, who professed his intentions to make sweeping reforms in the capitalist system - in order to make it stronger, of course, and more capable of fulfilling its historical tasks (even though the only really workable "reform" of capitalism possible is its abandonment) - someone like McGovern must be kept from obtaining the presidency by any means necessary, since he is not to be trusted to follow to the letter the orders of the master strategists of imperialism.

In other words, things are so tight that the ruling clique simply cannot afford any leeway whatsoever if its plan is to work. Only a perfect puppet, like Nixon, is in any way acceptable for the job, and such a chump must be kept in office if the brain trust's program is to have the slightest chance of success. They can 't possibly afford to have him lose, and thus they are ready and willing to go to any lengths imaginable and necessary to insure his re-election.

The GOP/CIA/CREEP mob took risks like the Watergate bust not because it likes to go around wiretapping and shit, but because the election was so important to their interests that they couldn't afford not to do everything within their power to insure victory for the Nix, even if it meant risking the legitimacy of the entire re-election effort in the process. Their situation was so desperate that they had to risk fronting themselves off it that's what it took to insure victory, and they calculated that they had brainwashed and confused the American people to such an extent already that they could get by with this relatively minor indiscretion if they were cracked p the middle of it. (It is interesting to note the effect of such propaganda devices as the spy-thriller movie and tv shows, which have prepared the masses of the people to accept criminal practices like wiretapping, assassination, and assorted thuggery of all kinds as perfectly normal behavior to be expected of freedom-fighting forces such as the CIA.)

Likewise the CREEP strategists had no choice but to pull the monstrous "peace at Hand - Kissinger" ruse only one week before the election, even though millions of people were able to see through the massive propaganda thrust carried out by the mass media, which trumpeted "Peace At Hand" while knowing full well that it was only the lowest, most reprehensible act of armed propaganda which has ever been perpetrated on the peace-loving people of the world. Again, the masses of the American people were so desperate for an end to the war in Indochina that they were easily duped by the last-ditch CREEP trick, even as they could read in the papers themselves that the "peace plan" was actually merely a new means for continuing the war.

To destroy effectively the last shreds of credibility concerning the war in the minds of the American people, in return for a measly four-year respite, exposing the utter viciousness of the Nixon regime in the process, is not an act of strength but an act of desperation and weakness. If Nixon and the imperialists were strong they would not even have to talk about peace when what they want and need is full-time war. If they were strong they could do anything they want to do and not be concerned about covering up what they're doing. They are not strong, but there is no question that they are desperate, and in their desperation they become increasingly dangerous. Unless we understand this simple fact we will be paralyzed politically for the next four years; but once we do understand it we can go about developing a strategy for dealing with these creeps which will advance us closer toward our ultimate victory over the forces of reaction and oppression.

[Note: The second half of the R.P.P. Election Statement will appear in the next issue of the SUN, beginning with a brief investigation of what the next four years of the Nixon regime might hold for us and continuing with an analysis of the local election results and the outline of a plan for local political action.]