Continuing a revolutionary working class tradition.

Monday, January 31, 2011

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and shutdown the 800 military bases.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.


* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* WPA - three million new jobs.

* CCC - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Over the past two years, don’t we have to admit that the tea party has better communicated its message to millions, united its supporters, and expanded its bases of power than our side has? 

For too long we have assumed that the American people are ready to wholeheartedly embrace left solutions. If we, and especially Democrats, project them, "the people will come." Tell that to Russ Feingold!

This is wishful thinking. Notwithstanding the awful mess we are in, I don't see the system breaking down or people spontaneously rising up. In my view, the path to a progressive, and socialist, future will take long persistent work, flexible and broad tactics, and a sound strategic policy.



Sam Webb, National Chair, CPUSA
Barack Obama on Social Security: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3O_ZoCyCbQ&feature=player_embedded

Barack Obama on single-payer universal health care:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE

Do you trust trust this Wall Street flim-flam man and con-artist when he says he will protect Social Security?

Barack "Liar" Obama

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Something for Club discussions

This statement was published as part of a critical look at the National CPUSA leadersip:

"Rather than fighting among ourselves, we should be fighting the right wing elements in the Obama administration, the Republicans and the Tea Party fascists. However, if leadership continues to uncritically endorse all Obama administration policies, we must struggle at this level first before taking on the external enemy."

First of all Obama is part of the right wing in his Administration.

Second, it goes on to say, "However, if leadership continues to uncritically endorse all Obama administration policies, we must struggle at this level first before taking on the external enemy."

We know the present leadership of the CPUSA is going to uncritically continue to endorse all Obama Administration policies.

To suggest that internal struggle is needed before taking on external struggles makes no sense from a Marxist-Leninist perspective.

William Z. Foster, James Ford, Earl Browder and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn demonstrated how Communists need to work under these circumstances. These leaders were confronted with very similar problems as the Depression came on.

The way they resolved the problem was by getting Communist Clubs involved in the struggles of the people while providing Marxist-Leninist education at the same time. As a result, workers engaged in the struggles in the communities, mines, mills and factories defeated the misleaders at the district and national levels.

By pushing before the American people an agenda centered around peace and disarmament tied to financing universal social programs which create jobs we will take on Obama and Wall Street and rebuild the Communist Party along Marxist-Leninist lines.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The infatuation by the CPUSA leadership with Wall Street's Barack Obama continues to confuse working people

A parting thought


 
With the end of the year fast approaching, I decided to join the pundits and leave one parting thought. So here goes!

The battle over taxes was a teachable moment. But left and progressive people missed the boat. An opportunity to teach millions about the realities of class power, politics, and tactics went by the board. Let me explain:

The compromise met nearly universal opposition from progressive and left people. I don’t know if anyone called it a “sellout,” but they might as well have. One writer said in the aftermath of the legislative compromise that we won the battle in 2008 and lost the war in 2010. 

The question is: is this criticism warranted? In my view the answer is unequivocally – No. What was the president’s alternative given the balance of class and social forces in the capital and across the country at that time and later when the new Congress convenes in January? What was the policy option given the right-wing Republican comeback, the political confusion of the American people and the weaknesses of the left and broader movement that the election results revealed?

To stand down Mitch McConnell and his gang as his critics suggested would have been feasible, but only if a legislative alternative was available and only if millions of ordinary people, many of whom just voted for Republicans in the midterm elections, could be rallied to compel congressional Republicans to support that alternative – and let’s not forget that all the while this is going on working people’s paychecks are shrinking and their unemployment benefits are evaporating.

Finding an alternative legislative package, say one that sunset the Bush tax cuts and expanded spending for the jobs and the unemployed, would be easy enough to come by. 

But setting millions into motion in an organized fashion is a different kettle of fish. A snap of the fingers won’t do it. Nor will a good slogan. Not even a presidential address. Indeed, it would depend in the end on the political and organizational capacity of the leaders of the main social organizations (labor in the first place), liberals, progressives, left thinking people, and so forth to activate millions – including again many who turned the election map red on election night this past November. 

I’m not suggesting that we enter only those battles that we are sure that we can win, but we should have some confidence that in the battles in which we engage, we can make a respectable fight of it and stand some chance of winning – provided, of course, that we exploit every division among our opponents, look for allies – reliable and unreliable – and fill the streets and the corridors of Congress with an army of outraged people.

We don’t need moral victories at this moment, but real ones. And that is particularly the case for the unemployed who in this instance would have  lost their benefits. 

While we don’t set moral claims aside, it is imperative to take into account the balance of class and social forces at any given moment, our capacity to bring into motion masses of people, and our best guess of what can be realistically won.  

Critics of the president say that the tax/unemployment extension compromise was demoralizing and unnecessary, but I would argue that walking into the jaws of a hungry lion with barely a weapon in hand can be far more demoralizing, even near deadly, which is what I think would have been the political residue in this instance if no compromise had been reached.

Obviously, I have a different estimate of our fighting capacity and public opinion (that by the way overwhelmingly supported the compromise) than the president’s critics. If the last two years have revealed anything to me, it is this – our ability to influence and bring into the streets millions in any sort of sustained way is limited and the political consciousness of the American people (as a whole) is contradictory and confused.

I wish that were not the case, but I’m afraid this is the reality. Some blame the president for this situation, others the Democrats, but this is too easy an answer. The president should take some responsibility, as should his party, for the present political mess to be sure, but shouldn’t we as well? Doesn’t it say something about our politics (which lean in the direction of narrowness), mass connections (not enough to the main mass social organizations), organizing skill set (not enough emphasis on broad unity), and ability to shape mass thinking (speak too much to ourselves and in a language that only we understand – the new buzzword is “Empire.”)

Over the past two years, don’t we have to admit that the tea party has better communicated its message to millions, united its supporters, and expanded its bases of power than our side has?

For too long we have assumed that the American people are ready to wholeheartedly embrace left solutions. If we, and especially Democrats, project them, "the people will come." Tell that to Russ Feingold!

This is wishful thinking. Notwithstanding the awful mess we are in, I don't see the system breaking down or people spontaneously rising up. In my view, the path to a progressive, and socialist, future will take long persistent work, flexible and broad tactics, and a sound strategic policy.

Supposedly, a deep and protracted economic crisis is the triggering mechanism for a lurch to the left, but in the current situation it is being resolved to the advantage of capital. This contrasts with the 1930s. During that decade, a broad upheaval and openings from above, thanks to President Roosevelt and congressional New Dealers, resulted in the New Deal. The current ruling class and especially its most reactionary sectors (politically represented by right-wing extremism that now controls the Republican Party) prefer a “raw deal” for the American people. Their aim is not only to multiply their wealth at the expense of working people, minorities, women, youth, seniors, and other social groupings, but also to crush any organized opposition.

It's amazing, isn’t it, how little reform transnational and finance capital will tolerate! In this latest battle over tax cuts, right-wing Republicans acting on their behalf drove a tough bargain – a hostage deal, the president correctly called it – on behalf of their clients who operate globally. And earlier this year it only took some very modest financial and health care reforms for the corporate elite, and finance capital in particular, to go apoplectic and beat up on the administration.

Which brings me back to the overriding necessity to significantly enlarge the political and organizing capacity of the working class and people’s movement. It’s the linchpin of progressive change at this moment.

Moreover, the starting point – not the ending point – for such an effort is not some long-range vision or a full blooded left, or even progressive, program of action. They have a place for sure. Ground zero, however, is the immediate struggles for relief that are stirring millions and the overarching task of decisively defeating right- wing Republicanism in 2012 – something we didn’t do four years earlier.




Comment:

Sam Webb has joined the ranks of the Democratic Party hacks as a follower of Barack Obama and the rest of the Dumb Donkeys.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

An article for Club discussion

http://www.truth-out.org/the-left-has-nowhere-go66504

This interview with Ralph Nader needs to be discussed.

Some questions to discuss:

How can Ralph Nader get away with saying the left has no place to go?

Shouldn't people with left wing views be able to find a political home in the Communist Party U.S.A and the organizations the CPUSA should be leading?

Since this isn't happening on a large scale should we be exploring the reasons why it isn't happening?

Is there a Communist Party Club where you live, work or go to school?

Monday, January 3, 2011

Primary Obama and unite around a people's agenda for real change

We shouldn't get hung up too much on "who" the candidates are to get rid of Obama; just so we get rid of this Wall Street flim-flam man and con-artist who sucked people in with his big lies to give us all a good shafting.
As working people who are liberals, progressives and leftists we need to be advancing an alternative to Wall Street's agenda of war abroad and austerity at home; an agenda that places human need before war and corporate greed; we need to create jobs by putting people to work solving the problems of people and society--- pay for it all with the "peace dividend" coming from ending these dirty wars, taxing the rich and taxing Wall Street profits.


There are two really pressing needs the American people have right now:

1. Acceess to health care

2. Child care
With National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care systems we put ten-million and three-million people to work. Combine this with restarting WPA to maintain and upgrade our infrastructure and the CCC to see to it that our forests are adequate for future needs and we have a full-employment economy.


Taking such an alternative agenda into our neighborhoods, schools and places of employment we develop the kind of liberal-progressive-left movement from which leaders will come forward who will become our candidates for public office.


This is a bunch of crap having to rely on well-heeled "professional" politicians to support who don't even have the common human decency to step forward to run when they know it is the right thing to do.


Let's concern ourselves with re-building the historic liberal-progressive-left coalition around an alternative agenda and then we have a solid block of voters with votes that we can at least "bargain" with.


The agenda as proposed is not something just thought up out of thin air; it is the result of talking face-to-face with thousands of people and it is actually part of the unfinished agenda from the New Deal that Frances Perkins advocated--- peace, health care, child care, jobs for all.


Any candidate who can't support this kind of agenda does not deserve the votes of liberals, progressives or the left and as a group/coalition we shouldn't give in to supporting candidates based upon "promises" to support reforms like EFCA which we have all now clearly seen was used as a gimmick by these Wall Street politicians to divide the working class which is mainly very liberal, quite progressive with a growing left wing.


Why shouldn't we be pushing the only candidate who has a chance to defeat Obama on this short notice in the 2012 Primary--- Hillary Clinton with the understanding that we are supporting her in the Primary with one clear purpose: defeat Obama; as we tell her we are walking with our votes in the General Election unless she agrees to our alternative agenda.
It is very strange that those who intentionally misled us into thinking Obama was something other than he is, a Wall Street warmonger, now say Hillary Clinton will not do even as they say they will continue supporting Obama.


Let's get real here; no Democrat--- not anyone of them--- can win a Primary or General Election without the votes of liberals, progressives and the left... all of us bring very important things into the political process; number one of which is a desire for peace and re-ordering the priorities of this country away from war and military spending and towards meeting the needs of the people.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

12th International Meeting of Communist and Workers` Parties

12th International Meeting of Communist and Workers` Parties
3rd - 5th December 2010, Tshwane, South Africa
 
TSHWANE DECLARATION
 
The 12th International Meeting of Communist and Workers` Parties took place in Tshwane, South Africa from the 3rd to the 5th of December 2010 with theme "The deepening systemic crisis of capitalism. The tasks of Communists in defence of sovereignty, deepening social alliances, strengthening the anti-imperialist front in the struggle for peace, progress and Socialism".
 
102 delegates representing 51 participating Parties from 43 countries and from all continents of the world came together in order to take forward the work of our previous meetings, and to promote and develop common and convergent action around a shared perspective

THE DEEPENING CAPITALIST CRISIS
 
The international situation continues to be dominated by the persisting and deepening crisis of capitalism. This reality confirms the analyses outlined in the declarations of our 2008 Sao Paulo and 2009 New Delhi 10th and 11th International Meetings. The current global crisis of capitalism underlines its historical limitations and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. It shows the intensification of the basic contradiction of capitalism between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation.
 
The crisis is systemic - despite pre-2008 capitalist illusions to the contrary, capitalism cannot escape its in-built, systemic tendency to go through cycles of boom and bust. The current global crisis is a particularly severe manifestation of a capitalist downturn occasioned by capitalist over-production. Now, as in the past, there is no answer, within the logic of capitalism, to these periodic crises other than crisis itself, marked by the massive and socially irrational destruction of assets - including mass job lay-offs, factory closures, and the wholesale attack on wages, pensions, social security and erosion of people`s livelihoods. This is why, at our previous two meetings, we correctly asserted that the current crisis was not merely attributable to subjective failings, to the greed of bankers or financial speculators. It remains a crisis embedded in the systemic features of capitalism itself.
 
The persisting crisis is compounded by significant shifts in the international balance of forces. In particular, there is the on-going relative decline of US economic global hegemony, general productive stagnation in most advanced capitalist economies, and the emergence of new global economic powers, notably China. The crisis has intensified the competition between the imperialist centres and also between the established and emerging powers. This includes the US-led currency war; the concentration and centralization of economic and political power within the EU deepening its character as an imperialist block led by its main capitalist powers; a distinct sharpening of the inter-imperialist struggle for markets and access to
 
raw materials; expanding militarism, including the strengthening of aggressive alliances (for example, the NATO Lisbon Summit with its "new" dangerous strategic concept), the profusion of regional points of tension and aggression (notably in the Middle East, Asia and Africa), coups in Latin America, the intensification of neo-imperialist tendencies of fanning ethnic conflicts and the increasing militarization of Africa through, amongst other things, AFRICOM.
 
At the same time it has become clear that capitalism`s trajectory with its profit-maximising, headlong destruction of natural resources, and of the environment in general poses a grave threat to the sustainability of human civilization itself. The political elites in the dominant capitalist states with their various proposals for "green technologies" and carbon trading at best represent adjustments which increase the profitability of capital while deepening the commodification of nature, and the transfer of climate change crises onto less developed countries. The crisis of the capitalist system that we face as humankind is directly linked to capitalism`s inability to reproduce itself except through a voracious pursuit of compound growth. It is a crisis that can only be overcome through the abolition of capitalism itself.
 
Faced with these realities, everywhere capital fights back, seeking to preserve profits and to transfer the burden of its crisis onto the working class by intensifying exploitation based on gender and age, the urban and rural poor, and a wide range of middle strata. Exploitation is intensified, the state is used to rescue private bankers and financial houses while exposing future generations to unsustainable levels of debt, and there are intensified efforts to roll back social gains.
 
In the entire capitalist world, labour, social, economic, political and social security rights are being abolished. At the same time the political systems are being made more reactionary , restricting democratic and civil liberties, especially trade union rights. The retrenchments, including major spending cuts in the public sector are having a devastating impact on workers, especially women workers. There are also attempts to divert popular distress and insecurity into reactionary demagogy, racism and xenophobia, as well as to legitimise fascist forces. These are expressions of anti-democratic and authoritarian tendencies also marked by the escalation of anti-communist attacks and campaigns in many parts of the world. In Africa, Asia and Latin America we are witnessing the imposition on our peoples of new mechanisms of national and class oppression, including economic, financial, political and military means as well as the deployment of an array of pro-imperialist NGOs.
 
However, for the mass of peoples, in particular in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it is important to remember that, even before the current global economic crisis, life under capitalism was a continuing crisis, a daily struggle for bare survival. Even before the current global crisis, one billion people were living in squalid slums, and half of the world`s population was surviving on less than $2 a day. With the crisis these realities have been massively aggravated.
 
Most of these urban and rural poor, along with family members working as vulnerable migrants in foreign countries, are the displaced victims of the accelerated capitalist agrarian development under-way in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Global capitalism, spear-headed by the major corporates in the agro-industrial sector, has declared war on nearly one-half of humanity - the three billion remaining rural people in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
 
At the same time inhuman barriers are being set up against immigrants and refugees. There is an ever-increasing mushrooming of urban and semi-urban slums populated by desperate marginalised masses typically involved in a variety of activities for survival. The accelerated capitalist agrarian transformation in countries with a lower level of capitalist development has genocidal implications.
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE RESISTANCE STRUGGLES OF THE WORKING CLASS AND POPULAR FORCES
 
Across the world, capital`s attempts to load the burden of the crisis onto workers and the poor is being met by working class and popular resistance.
 
Over the past year the anti-people assault on labour rights, social-security rights and wages provoked an escalation of popular struggles notably in Europe.
 
Imperialist aggression in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America continues to meet resolute popular resistance.
 
In Africa and Latin America, anti-imperialist forces, trade unions, and social movements have escalated their struggles for the rights of the people and against the plunder by the multinational corporations. These struggles have, in some cases, led to the emergence of progressive, popular national governments that declare programmatically for national sovereignty, social rights, development and for the protection of their natural resources and biodiversity, giving renewed impetus to the anti-imperialist struggle.
 
In the current reality, it is an historic imperative that as Communist and Workers` Parties we participate, to strengthen and transform these popular defensive battles into offensive struggles for the acquisition of broader workers` and people rights and for the abolition of capitalism.
 
In advancing this strategic agenda, communists stress the significance that the organisation of the working class, and the development of the struggles of the labour movement in a class-oriented direction, have in the struggle for the acquisition of political power by the working class and its allies.
 
Within the framework of this struggle we attach particular importance to:
 
* The defence, consolidation and advance of popular national sovereignty
* The deepening of social alliances
* Strengthening the anti-imperialist front for peace, for the right to full-time stable work, labour rights and social rights such as free health and education.
 
THE DEFENCE, CONSOLIDATION AND ADVANCE OF POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY
 
In the face of the intensified aggression of transnational capital, the struggle against imperialist occupation of countries, against economic and political dependency and to defend popular sovereignty has become increasingly salient. In these struggles it is important for communists to integrate these struggles with the struggle for social and class emancipation.
 
Communists, fighting against imperialism, struggle for equitable international relations between states and peoples on the basis of mutual benefit.
 
The defence, consolidation and advance of popular sovereignty is of particular importance in Africa and for other peoples that have experienced decades and even centuries of colonial and semi-colonial oppression. 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the commencement of the formal de-colonisation of Africa. Yet everywhere, including in the African diaspora, the grim legacy of the slave-trade, of colonial dispossession and plunder persist. Notwithstanding 50 years of formal de-colonisation, everywhere imperialist interventions are reinforced, the dominance of the monopolies is being strengthened with the aid of domestic capital. The struggle against them requires the active protagonism and unity of the popular masses, and the broadening of popular democratic rights.
 
DEEPENING SOCIAL ALLIANCES
 
The ongoing crisis of capitalism and its anti-civilisation fight-back are creating the conditions to build broad social, anti-monopolistic and anti-imperialist alliances capable of gaining power and promoting deep, progressive, radical, and revolutionary changes.
 
Working class unity is a fundamental factor in ensuring the construction of effective social alliances with the peasantry, the mass of urban and rural poor, the urban middle class strata and intellectuals. Particular attention needs to be paid to the aspirations of, and challenges confronting youth.
 
The land question, agrarian reform and rural development are important issues for the development of popular struggle in lesser developed countries. These are inextricably linked to food sovereignty and security, sustainable livelihoods, the defence of bio-diversity, the protection of national resources, and the struggle against agro-industrial monopolies and their local agents.
 
In these struggles, the legitimate and progressive aspirations of indigenous peoples in defence of their cultures, languages and environments have an important role.
 
THE ROLE OF COMMUNISTS IN STRENGTHENING THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT FOR PEACE, ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY, PROGRESS AND SOCIALISM
 
Imperialism`s crisis and counter-offensive are leading to the broadening and diversification of the forces that objectively assume a patriotic and anti-imperialist stand. Everywhere, in our diverse national realities, Communists have a responsibility to broaden and strengthen the anti-imperialist political and social front, the struggles for peace, environmental sustainability, progress, and integrate them in the fight for socialism. The independent role of Communists and the strengthening of the Communist and Workers` parties is of vital importance to ensure a consistent anti-imperialist perspective of broader movements and fronts.
 
Special attention must be given to the existing relation between various resistance struggles and the necessary ideological offensive for the visibility of the alternative of socialism and to the defence and development of scientific socialism. The ideological struggle of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to repulse contemporary anti-communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, anti-scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle, and combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement anti-people and pro-imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital. We have a key role to play in drawing the critical links in theory and above all in practice between different arenas of popular struggle in the development of internationalist class solidarity.
 
We are living in an historic epoch in which the transition from capitalism to socialism has become a civilisational imperative. The all-round crisis of capitalism once more underlines the inseparable nature of the tasks of national liberation and social, national and class emancipation.
 
In the face of deepening capitalist crisis, the experiences of socialist construction demonstrate the conditions of the superiority of socialism.
 
The strengthening of the cooperation among Communist and Workers` Parties and the strengthening of the anti-imperialist front, should march side by side.
 
We, the Communist and Workers` parties meeting in Tshwane, in a situation marked by a massive onslaught against workers and popular forces, but also with many possibilities for the development of the struggle, express our profound solidarity with workers and peoples and their intense struggles, reiterating our determination to act and struggle side by side with working masses, youth, women, and all popular sectors that are victims of capitalist exploitation and oppression.
 
We reaffirm our appeal to the widest range of popular forces to join us in a common struggle for socialism which is the only alternative for the future of humankind.
 
We point to the following main axes for the development of our joint and convergent actions:
 
1. With the capitalist crisis deepening, we will focus on the development of workers` and peoples` struggles for labour and social rights, the strengthening of the trade-union movement and its class orientation; the promotion of the social alliance with peasants and the other popular strata. Particular attention will be given to the problems of women and youth who are among the first victims of the capitalist crisis.
2. In the face of the all-round imperialist aggression and the sharpening of the inter-imperialist rivalries, we will intensify the anti-imperialist struggle for peace, against imperialist wars and occupation, against the dangerous "new" NATO strategy and foreign military bases, and for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. We will extend active internationalist solidarity with all people and movements facing and resisting oppression, imperialist threats and aggression.
 
3. We will resolutely fight anticommunism, anti-communist laws, measures and persecution; to demand the legalisation of CPs where outlawed. We will defend the history of the communist movement, the contribution of socialism in advancing human civilisation.
 
4. We affirm our solidarity with the forces and peoples engaged in and striving for socialist construction. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Cuban people and their socialist revolution, and we will continue vigorously to oppose the blockade and to support the international campaign for the release of the Cuban Five.
 
5. We will contribute, within the specific context of our national realities, to the reinforcement of international anti-imperialist mass organizations like WFTU, WPC, WFDY, WIDF. We particularly welcome and salute the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students to be held in South Africa from 13th-21st December 2010.