REVOLUTION This is a deathly culture. It beats its children and discards its old people, imprisons its rebels and drinks itself to death. It breeds and educates us to be socially irresponsible, arrogant, ignorant and anti-political. We are the most technologically advanced people in the world and the most politically and socially backward. The quality of life of a Chinese peasant is better than ours. The Chinese have free and adequate health care, a meaningful political education, productive work, a place to live, something to eat and each has a sense of her or himself as part of a whole people's shared historical purpose. We may eat more' and have more access to gadgets, but we are constantly driven by competition, insecurity, uncertainty and fear. Work is wasteful and meaningless and other people are frightening and .hateful. This is no way to live. Anti-imperialism is our cultural revolution. We must rescue ourselves from the consequences of being the base area for imperialism -the base area for war, piracy, rape and murder. In this reclamation process, we come to a better understanding of our history and ourselves. This is not for a small group but for millions of people. Much has happened in the world and in the US to move this process along. Few people really believe anymore in the great civilizing leadership role of the US. Few still think that capitalism is the best of all possible ways to meet the economic needs of the world's peoples, or that .Black and Third WorId people are sub-human labor material destined to support the more worthwhile activities of white supermen. Few really believe that men will go on indefinitely monopolizing power in a supremacist anti-women society. Stated simply, our strategy is to base ourselves on the trends of change, to revolutionize and push them on, and to intervene in everything. Where do the US people look to learn about social revolution and consciousness, struggle and purpose?A decade of resistance in Vietnam demonstrated to highly "developed" Westerners that we have everything to learn from "underdeveloped" peoples. The revolutionary struggle is the social form from which will deal with the crisis of imperialism in decline. We learn from Third World people who resist US tyranny, with a unity born in a sense of collective power and purpose. We learn from our own history and examples of courage, struggle and communality which are here for us to search out and celebrate. Our movement must discard the baggage of the oppressor society and become new women and new men, as Che taught. All forms of racism, class prejudice, and male chauvinism must he torn out by the roots. For us, proletarianization means recognizing the urgency of revolution as the only solution to our own problems and the survival of all oppressed people. It means commitment, casting our lot with the collective interest and discarding the privileges of empire. It means recognizing that revolution is a lifetime of fighting and transformation , a risky business and ultimately a decisive struggle against the forces of death. Proletarianization is a process that is necessarily on-going. Breaking-thru to a higher level of engagementand commitment in 1968 is no guarantee that the level will be sustained in 1974. Standing still over time is sliding back. Commitment and engagement must be continually renewed.
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