AMERICA
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Meanwhile, the failure to make social investments has intensified
the misery of the poor in the rotting central cities and vitiated much
of the effort of the "war" on poverty which has had to contract its
program of ameliorating the intolerable.
3. White America is certainly not going to "grant" equality to the
Negroes. Civil rights is now an issue which challenges the economic and
social premises of the nation in areas like employment, housing and edu–
cation; it is no longer a confrontation with the sectional prejudices of the
Old Confederacy. To provide decent, integrated housing for the black
(and white) poor, meaningful jobs for all (black and white), quality,
integrated education, etc., demands planned and massive social invest–
ments throughout the society. Such a radical policy will come as a result
of a militant Negro movement allying itself with liberals, trade unionists,
religious people in a gigantic political thrust for general change. A.
Philip Randolph's "Freedom Budget" provides a program for such a
movement but I suspect we will see more fratricidal conflict within the
potential coalition-organized against unorganized, escapee from the white
slum against those seeking to break out of the black ghetto--than unity
in the near future.
4. I doubt that our tragic foreign policy will, in the immediate
future, lead to World War III, primarily because China's internal crisis
will not permit such a showdown. Therefore, we will perpetuate the
killing in Vietnam, increase our commitment in Thailand, infuriate most
of the rest of the world which will not be able to do much about its
outrage, encourage ultrapatriotism and even McCarthyism within the
United States, and the bill for all these accomplishments will, in effect,
be
presented to the black and white poor.
5. All of the foregoing is rather pessimistic. What hope I do have
takes the form of this strange scenario:
The war in Vietnam will come to an end, not through the efforts
of the peace movement, but because
Realpolitik
in either Washington,
Hanoi or Peking demands it.
The detente with Russia will then proceed at a faster rate and
result in significant disarmament moves.
Within the United States, the outbreak of relative peace will be the
occasion for a fierce debate on economic and social policy. Henry Ford,
the Business Advisory Council and others will propose another thirty
billion dollars or so in tax cuts. The civil rights coalition, including the
Reuther wing of the labor movement, will demand the construction of a
new urban society. Thus, a frondash unity will be created when the
black and white poor and the organized and unorganized workers realize
that their immediate self-interest can only be guaranteed through a
somewhat idealistic coalition (as, for instance, the hostile national and
