Strike

(The CRIMSON endorses the following policy, which was written by the Columbia Spectator and which is appearing this morning in the student newspapers of Brown, Bryn Mau'r, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harerford, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Rutgers, Sarah Lawrence, Berkeley Stanford, and UCLA. Below it is the CRIMSON'S additional statement.)

President Nixon's unwarranted and illegitimate decision to send American combat forces into Cambodia and to resume bombing of North Vietnam demands militant, immediate, and continued opposition from all Americans.

Through his unilateral executive move, the President has placed the country in a state of emergency. He has ignored the constitutional prerogative of Congress and has revealed the sham of his policy of Vietnamization, a policy which through a tortuous process of inner logic, demands that we escalate the war in order to enable American troops to withdraw. He has demonstrated that American foreign policy still dictates the necessity to sacrifice American lives to ravish independent countries and to squander our resources and energies.

The President has tragically misgauged the mood of the country. The antiwar movement, which has marched and protested for years in a vain effort to reverse the U. S.'s role in Southeast Asia, has finally resurfaced in new and larger numbers. With Nixon's lies now finally exposed, the immorality and hypocrisy of our government's policy have been revealed for all to see.

The need for action has never been so great and so urgent.

We therefore call on the entire academic community of this country to engage in a nationwide university strike. We must cease business as usual in order to allow the universities to lead and join in a collective strike to protest America's escalation of the war.

We do not call for a strike by students against the universities, but a strike by the entire university-faculty, students, staff, and administrators alike.

The reasons for such a strike are manifold. First, it is a dramatic symbol of our opposition to a corrupt and immoral war. It demonstrates clearly our priorities, for the significance of classes and examinations pales before the greater problems outside the classrooms. Moreover, it recognizes the fact that within a society so permeated with inequality, immorality, and destruction, a classroom education becomes a hollow, meaningless exercise.

But the necessity for a strike extends even far beyond these reasons. The strike is necessary to free the academic community from activities of secondary importance and to open it up to the primary task of building renewed opposition to the war. It is necessary to permit the academic community first to solidify its own opposition, and then to act immediately to extend this opposition beyond the campuses.

We, ask the entire academic community to use this opportunity to go to the people and to bring home to the entire nation the meaning of the President's action. A massive, unprecedented display of dissent is required.

We urge that this strike be directed towards bringing about the following changes:

1.) An immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Southeast Asia:

2.) Passage of an amendment to the Senate's military appropriations bill to deny all aid for our military and political adventures in Southeast Asia:

3.) The mobilization of public support for antiwar candidates in the upcoming primary and general elections:

4.) A reallocation of American resources from military involvement abroad to domestic problems, in particular the problems of our beleaguered cities:

5.) The end of political repression at home, in particular the government's systematic attempts to eliminate the Black Panther Party and other political dissidents:

6.) And the building of support for a massive demonstration in Washington on May 9. to bring our opposition to the nation's capitol in unprecedented numbers.

The stage has been set, the issues clearly drawn, the need apparent. It is now time to act.

( The following editorial represents the majority opinion of the CRIMSON.)

WE JOIN IN supporting the above editorial because we feel the most urgent need is to show immediate and widespread opposition to the war in Southeast Asia.

In joining a nationwide strike call, we must be consciously looking both outward and inward. The May 9 demonstration in Washington is one in a series of actions we must pursue to bring the fallacies of President Nixon's policies home to the American public. The demonstration, however, is not the sole aim of this Strike and efforts to end the war must not end there.

While building a strike to change American opinion outside the University community, tonight's mass meeting must also examine the University's own complicity with the war machine. Harvard's acceptance of Department of Defense research grants, the military advice given by the Center for International Affairs, and the continued presence of ROTC on campus must end.

Many will support wholly the arguments of the preceding editorial. To some, the analysis of Nixon's move as a tragic misjudgment of American mood seems far too shallow: The CRIMSON in the past has urged victory for the National Liberation Front, we still do so. The immediate necessity, however, is to present a unified resistance to Mr. Nixon's War.