Speech concerning black people and economic stability, ca. 1970 (Doc 1 of 4)

With our history of oppression and the current and past climate of repression aimed at us, with the might of government aimed at protecting the power of the few who have against the many who have not, with the official economic policy of the United States socialism/ and welfare millionarism for the wealthy and capitalism and free enterprise for the poor, it is no wonder that economic development stands high on our list of priorities.

[crossed out:] To shout his verbal bombasts and psuedo-pornographic political obscenities still louder, the administration wants "law and order" in the black community, but its fine for J. Edgar Hoover to use illegal wire tapping to intimidate us.

We are witnessing the beginnings of a totalitarian state not only for black people, but for all Americans. As in George Orwell's prophetic [1984 underlined] the first steps are being taken by the destruction of privacy and the subversion of the English language. As in 1984, large segments of the population are becoming so accustomed to oppression that they are no longer shocked by it. The assassination and imprisonment of dissenters is becoming a routine of American life, [crossed out:] that is tolerated if not actually approved of by the silent majority. [end cross] "Doublethink", the process of confusing words until they mean their opposites, seemed fanciful when Orwell wrote his classic. The present administration is turning fancy into an everyday reality.

"Freedom" is killing Vietnamese in order to make them "free"; destroying villages to "free" them, arming Fascists' dictatorships in Greece and Cambodia to keep the Greek and Cambodian people "free", and exploiting the resources and peoples of whole continents in the name of "free" trade. "Peace" means vast preparations for nuclear war, the expansion of the Vietnam war to all of Southeast Asia, the stifling of nonviolent protest, and winning wars that were lost before they were begun. "Benign" is an adjective to describe a deliberate policy of indifference and neglect. "Together" is where we bring the people when we call some of them "bums and effete snobs". "Protecting free enterprise" means billions of dollars in subsidies and a novel form of millionaire welfarism to government contractors, monopolistic corporations, and farmers who don't farm. [crossed out:] The politic

The political language of our society is becoming so polluted with "doublethink" and hypocrisy that sensible discussion of issues grows steadily more difficult. What can be done to solve these problems? The Administration spokesmen assure us that violence is not the way - just after they assure us that they will not do anything regardless of what we say in a peaceful, nonviolent manner. They assure us that we can get their ear only if we lower our voices, then tell us that millions of nonviolent voices will not affect them at all. Nixon tells blacks that the business system, not the government, will save us from economic destitution. The business system knows better. A much more candid statement of what business will do under existing circumstances is the following from the publisher of The Bankers Magazine: "Despite all the exhortations at business symposiums, social and economic threats inherent in racial schism and violence in America have

not yet reached the crisis proportions which would make business anti-poverty efforts a vital business need - essential to the continuance of corporate profits, the preservation of capital, or the survival of commerce. As long as this is the case, effort by private business to rehabilitate - the ghetto economy - will fail since the effort does not fulfill essential corporate needs or the need to make a profit, whatever is being sold to whomever for whichever reason." 1 The author of that statement is also the founder of the Atomic Energy Law Journal, a director of the Bank Tax Institute and current chairman of the Banking Law Institute. He is saying very clearly that black people will never have economic freedom unless they muster the force to threaten or counter or nearly parallel the existence of the entire American economic system. I suspect that if he were black, talk like that would get him thrown in jail and I am sure he hates black -------------------- 1 Theodore L. Cross, Black Capitalism, p. 5 (1060)