Call To Action

From the National People's Campaign,
Kanoheda Aniyvwiya (Naive American News),
Vol. 3, no. 17, 26 April 1995

As 1995 begins, we face a very dangerous situation, one which threatens the welfare and very lives of tens of millions of people in the United States. The forces of racism and reaction are seeking to turn back the clock, back to before the civil rights movement, before Stonewall, before the women's movement, before the CIO and NLRB, before the New Deal.

The Contract With America is really the program of corporate America. It will destroy already inadequate nutrition, housing, disability, for the unemployed poor, especially women. The Contract would mean millions more people in prison, and millions fewer in college. It would mean a further expansion of the already bloated Pentagon budget. The proposed legislation would take away economic social and political rights won through years of great sacrifice.

Gingrich's ContracT is not designed to overcome the budget deficit, it is in reality the cold-blooded transfer of wealth from working and poor people to the rich. The Clinton administration has shown little sign of opposing this program and, in fact, has embraced key elements of the right-wing Republican platform.

The right-wing offensive can and must be challenged! We need a new movement which affirms that a job, good income, housing, education, and healthcare are basic human rights. One that rejects racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-immigrant attacks.

The National People's Campaign aims to be a vigorous activist coalition, bringing together all those who want to oppose the Contract. A coalition made up of working people, the poor, those excluded from society, and our youth. We will organize local, regional and national actions with the goal of giving voice to the majority sentiment in this country which rejects the right's program.

What is needed is mass action. It was the mobilization of the people that won the voting and civil rights bills, welfare, unemployment, insurance, social security, freedom to unionize, legalization of abortion, limited rights for homosexuals, and affirmative action.

We call upon all those who want to defend and expand these rights, to join with the National People's Campaign. Together we can win.