INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF PROTEST AGAINST WAR IN VIETNAM
[The following is the text of an appeal received from "The Vietnam Day Conmittee" of 2407 Fulton Street, Berkeley, California. As the appeal notes, this is the committee that sponsored the "teachin” at the University of California last May at which 35,000 people
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turned out to hear such speakers as Norman Mailer, Isaac Deutscher and Bertrand Russell explain the true issues involved in American escalation of the war in Vietnam. ]
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Organizations all over the United States that oppose the American intervention have proclaimed October 15 and 16 “International Days of Protest" against American military intervention in Vietnam, WE ASK YOU TO JOIN OUR PROTEST.
The Vietnam Day Committee is the International headquarters and one of the thirty-three member groups of the National Committee. to End the War in Vietnam, which was founded on August 7th-9th in. Washington, D.C. The Vietnam Day Committee is a group of students, faculty, and residents of the San Francisco Bay Area opposed to Amer~ ican intervention in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and wherever. else it may occur. cs
Revolutionary struggles for self-determination are sweeping the world today. American suppression of these movements is immoral and a threat to the peace of the world, We believe that the struggle for self-determination in other continents is related to the struggle for democracy in America. The struggles in America against racism, poverty, and bureaucratic conformity are part of the same movement as the struggle against American militarism and imperialism. We must build a new America and join with those peoples in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in building a New World.
American involvement in Vietnam transcends questions of politics. Indiscriminate bombings of peasant villages by the world's . most massive military machine has outraged the conscience of the world, The time has come to go beyond debates about the politics. of war it is time for the peoples of the world to say to the U.S.A.: STOP!
The Vietnam war has also illuminated the political crises in the United States. The people have lost control of the government. The Congress has abdicated its function of leading and transmitting popular discussion. The American people are treated as objects to be ignored or manipulated; they voted for peace, but they received a policy of war, Every day, people in the United States. are coming to see that the struggle for civil rights, the struggle against poverty, the struggle for free speech in the universities and the struggle against the Vietnam war have at least one basic element in common: the inability of the American people to play a role in the decisions which affect their lives, With the slogan "fighting Communism" all discussion is closed, and any action justified. On August 9th even while hundreds of people were demonstrating outside the White House, calling for an end to U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, President Johnson stated that he believes there is "no substantial division" within the country.
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On May 21st and 22nd of this year the Vietnam Day Committee organized its first major public activity which also provided its name: a teach-in and educational rally held at the University of California in Berkeley, in which more than 30 persons spoke to the crowd about Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. It lasted 35 hours, bringing at least 35,000 people to the event, and reaching by radio an estimated half million people. Speakers included: Ruben Brache, Special Ambassador of the Dominican constitutionalist forces at the U.N. (by telephone); Norman Mailer, novelist; B. Parris, leader of SNCC, an organization devoted to the struggle for civil rights; Norman Thomas, former president of the U.S.A. Socialist Party; Isaac Deutscher; Ernest Gruening, Senator for Alaska; Bertrand Russell (through a tape), and many others.
We picketed President Johnson when he addressed the U.N. on its 20th anniversary in San Francisco, showing our opposition to his belligerent policies,
“We are organizing several activities such as blocking trains with troops bound for Vietnam and distributing our literature among them. We are going from door-to-door in selected districts, talking to people at length about the war in Vietnam, and attempting to organize neighborhood meetings to discuss the war, which we hope will lead to political action against the war.
We maintain a newspaper, a speakers! bureau, and a research project, and are producing a book and film based.on the original Vietnam Day. The other 32 member organizations of the National Committee to End the War in Vietnam are organizing similar activities in their regions.
The Vietnam Day Committee feels that dramatic, large-scale actions are needed to increase public alarm about the war in Vietnam. The bombing of North and South Vietnam and the slaughter of the Vietnamese are not sufficient to stir the American conscience. Nor might even the bombing of China. Vietnamese and Chinese are "non=-people™ to Americans, Unlike the civil rights struggle, there is no group in America which suffers directly from the war in Vietnam; nor do the American people identify with those who do suffer.
People throughout the world must now move beyond single demon= strations and rallies to one massive internationally coordinated action. Here in the United States we are discussing blocking the gates of army bases from which troops and munitions are being sent to Vietnam by acts of massive civil disobedience as our part of the October 15th-16th protest. We ask that organizations throughout the world take the most militant and dramatic actions compatible with local:conditions on October 16th. Of course, this should not pre= clude demonstrations against the war in Vietnam on other dates; however, the full impact of world opinion can best be brought to bear against the policy of the American government by simultaneous protest on October 16. .
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The Syndicate National de 1l'Enseignement Superior (F.E.N.) has translated our call to protest and is sending it throughout France. We are asking groups in all countries to do the same, Japanese representatives of student, faculty, religious, and labor groups have written, giving their support of October 15th-16th as International Days of Protest. We are awaiting further word from them on their specific plans for these days. Let us also hear from you. We urge you to join the protest against this war against the Vietnamese people, this war which affronts the dignity of all mankind and threatens it with nuclear destruction.
We must unite! We must begin now!
BERTRAND RUSSELL ON THE