NCTT’s Ten Core Objectives for Progress and Social Transformation

The Ten Core Objectives for Progress and Social Transformation

1. We want full employment with a living wage for all people who will work, and for employment to be enforced as the right which it is.

2. We want an end to institutional racism, sexism, hetero-sexism (homophobia)  and race- and class-based disparities in access to, and quality of, labor, education, health care, marital rights, criminal defense, political empowerment, technology and healthy food. We recognize that equality is the birthright of all humans, men and women. Yet women continue to experience institutional inequality at every level of people activity, while hetero-sexualism (homophobia) continues to discriminate against entire segments of our population. 

There exists no articulable, principled basis upon which a human’s gender, gender identification, or sexual orientation should be the basis for institutional inequality in exercise or access to any right enjoyed by men or heterosexuals (i.e. wages, employment, opportunities, marriage/divorce rights, access to higher education, etc.). We recognize such institutional inequality is inextricably linked to the nature and structure of capitalist society and the puritanical, patriarchal authoritarian mass psychology that supports it.

3. We want decent and affordable housing for all people and for it to be enforced as the right which it is.

4. We want affordable and equal access to higher education for all and access to education that teaches the true history of colonialism, chattel slavery, repression of organized labor, the use of police repression and imprisonment as tools of capitalist exploitation, and the perpetuation of imperialism in the development and maintenance of modern U.S. power systems and corporate financial markets.

5. We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of oppressed people in the U.S., particularly in the New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and underclass communities and among those protesting in this nation.

6. We want an end to the expansion of the prison industrial complex, as a profit base – from our tax dollars – for the disposal of surplus labor and the poor.

7. We want an end to all corporate and financial influences in the political process in the U.S.  This also means the complete divesture of all corporate assets and financial instruments (stocks, bonds, swaps, holdings, etc.) by any elected official as a prerequisite of assuming public office. All such assets can be placed in a blind trust managed by a committee selected by the people until the officials’ term ends. This is the only way to remove the incentivation of corruption in the U.S. system.

8. We want an end to imperialist wars of aggression and sending our youth off to kill and die to enforce the economic interests of big oil and other corporate concerns seeking new resources to exploit, new markets to open for sale of their goods and services and as an impetus to keep from addressing domestic ills.

9. We want a sustainable ecologically and environmentally conscious, bottom-up approach to economic development and labor-capital relations in the U.S.We recognize that the structure of the productive system in capitalist America is one that has, since the rise of the Industrial Revolution, consistently disregarded our environmental and ecological future in favor of an ever obsessive pursuit of super-profits. 

We have been subjected to genetically modified organisms in our food supply, as droughts, increasingly powerful storms, sea-level rise, and depletions of arable land continue to contribute to the litany of human misery among the 99% while the corporations who are the primary contributors to this reality sit on trillions in cash reserves. We cannot speak of a “bottom-up” approach to economic development without making sustainable ecological and environmentally responsible production / distribution-methods the centerpiece of labor-capital relations. This will of course necessitate a transition in the motive force of the productive system from corporate profit of human need.

10. We want a more equitable distribution of wealth, justice and opportunity at every level of society, reflecting the objective reality that it’s the socio-economic, political, intellectual and cultural contributions of the 99 percent upon which this society stands.

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Post a copy of this proposal online at as many sites as possible. Post it on Facebook, blogsites and wherever social commentary is held.

The NCTT, both here in Corcoran SHU and Pelican Bay SHU are committed to making meaningful contributions to the development of such community action programs, which we will outline in our next communication.

But what must be understood is social movements of this nature are supported only to the degree that their ideas find resonance in the psychological structures of the masses, but even this is not enough.

To ensure the realization of any substantive change in the nature and structure of U.S. capitalist society and to prevent this movement from being isolated and neutralized by the forces of repression, it must be firmly embedded in as broad a cross-section of this population as possible.

There are some 47 million people in Amerika living below the poverty line, another 150 million or so barely getting by – two thirds of this nation’s population, all of them part of the 99 percent. It is here that we will find our most lasting support, and thus it is here that you must begin forging meaningful ties. These are overwhelmingly New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and poor communities.

You champion us all with your ideas and the courage of your convictions, just as we continue to support you with our sacrifices and insight. It is now time to take the movement to its next evolution and ultimately to its inevitable conclusion: victorious revolutionary change.

Your greatest power lies in your unity and cooperation and ultimately your organizational ability. The power of the people far surpasses all the repressive violence of the Babylons attacking you/us or the wealth of the 1 percent, who will stop at nothing to silence us all.

This is a protracted struggle; there will be no 90-day revolution here. Victory will require sacrifice, tenacity and competent strategic insight. The question you must ask is, Are you prepared to do what is necessary to win this struggle? If you answer in the affirmative, commit to victory and accept no other alternative. The people, as we are, are with you. Until we win or don’t lose, our love and solidarity to all those who love freedom and fear only failures.

These 10 core objectives can be modified, augmented or amended to take into account the broadest cross-section of the 99 percent possible and the collective will of the movement:

Click here for the original article with extended explanations.

Published on December 6, 2011, in the SF Bay View, titled: California prison hunger strikers propose ‘10 core objectives’ for the National Occupy Wall Street Movement.

Taken over in abridged form in Turning the Tide of April-June 2012 (PDF).

Also published in: The Abolitionist, Summer 2012

NCTTCorSHU.org

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