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Making change by looking at the world as it is: Marxist methodology 101

Rossana Cambron — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:34:00 -0500

In this 33-minute video, CPUSA Chair Sam Webb presents foundations of Marxist methodology: How to make change and win millions to socialism in the American political, social and economic framework.

Recorded during a 2011 seminar in Los Angeles on Marxism, this video is an excellent tool for CPUSA and YCL members, friends and collectives to discuss and deepen understanding of Marxist methodology.

Photo: Chicago labor and community groups join together to celebrate the 125^th anniversary of May Day. (PW/John Bachtell)

Celebrating the life of Henry Winston

Special to cpusa.org — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:06:00 -0500

February is African American History Month. It is also the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Henry Winston, former national chairman of the Communist Party USA. On Sunday, February 19, 2p.m., the Communist Party will hold a celebration and tribute on Winston's legacy in New York City. The event, "The Legacy of Henry Winston: Fight against Racism and the Far Right in 2012" will be livestreamed. Speakers will include professor and political activist Angela Davis, CPUSA Exec. Vice Chair Jarvis Tyner and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism founder Charlene Mitchell.

People Before Profits Education Fund, New York State Communist Party, Young Communist League and Longview Publishing are sponsors. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 at the door with a special discounted price of $5 for low-income attendees. Make checks payable to People Before Profits Education Fund. Checks can be sent to 235 W 23^rd St. 7^th floor New York, NY 10011. For more information call 646 556-7409. Click here for the event invitation.

Henry Winston lived a heroic life. Born in Hattiesburg, Miss., into a poor working-class family in 1912, Winston at a young age became active in the unemployed movement during the early years of the Great Depression. It was then that he joined the Young Communist League and was soon elected as a national leader. Winston helped in the building of the 3-million-member American Youth Congress, the Southern Negro Youth Congress and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade whose members fought fascism in Spain.

Winston served in the armed forces, which were segregated, during World War II. Upon his honorable discharge, he became national organization secretary of the Communist Party. In 1948, despite his service to his country, he was among the first 12 leaders of the CPUSA who were indicted for their political beliefs under the unconstitutional Smith Act. Winston spent seven years in jail under this infamous thought control act, and became blind due to the racist negligence of his jailers and the Jim Crow prison system. In 1966 he was elected national chairman of the CPUSA, a position he held until his death in 1986.

Winston made profound theoretical contributions to the class and democratic struggles of the United States. His book, Strategy for a Black Agenda, which first came out in 1973 "remains a fundamental contribution to the struggle," says Tyner. Winston focused on the unity of the class and "national questions," stressing the need for the "Black liberation movement to come to grips with the long-term economic crisis faced by our community, and to direct the struggle against racism toward a broader struggle against the power of monopoly capitalism and imperialism," Tyner says.

In addition, Winston was active in the struggles for Black liberation, black-white and working class unity, and among the American pioneers in building solidarity with peoples of Africa, in particular the struggles against apartheid in southern Africa.

Tyner says the celebration of Winston's life is relevant for 2012 and the elections, especially the struggle against racism. "I think Winston's legacy is still very powerful for today. Much has changed since Winston's time, and today holds its own complexities, but we are still confronting racism, economic injustice and reactionary political forces."

Photo: Henry Winston (PoliticalAffairs.net)

CPUSA: Happy 100th birthday to the African National Congress

Communist Party USA — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0500

From the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA)

To: The African National Congress
Luthuli House,
Johannesburg, South Africa

On Saturday January 7, South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) celebrates its 100th birthday. This event represents a century of creative struggle for the freedom of all the people's of South Africa. It is a tremendous event for South Africans to celebrate, and for the whole world to celebrate with them.

The ANC was formally founded on January 8, 1912 in Bloemfontein, capital of the Orange Free State, in response to increasingly harsh racist measures taken by the white dominated government that had achieved self-rule within the British Empire in 1910. Well before the advent of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party's apartheid system, the white elite, of both Afrikaner and British background, was moving aggressively to drive Africans off the land and turn them into a source of cheap labor for the mines and other industries. To achieve this, it was necessary to deprive the majority population of what little political and civic rights it had enjoyed up to then, by means of such abominations as the famous pass laws and other restrictions. Noted South African intellectuals and leaders of the time, including John Dube, Sol Plaatje and Pixley Seme saw the need for the Black majority in South Africa to unite across ethnic, regional and other lines to confront this menacing prospect with a united program of struggle for equality, inclusion and justice.

To continue reading the statement go to solidnet.org

Capitalism, climate and class power

Marc Brodine — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:40:00 -0500

CHECK OUT: CPUSA teleconference on climate change and capitalism with Marc Brodine, Tuesday, January 17, 8 pm EST, 7 pm CST, 5 pm PST. Call (605) 475-4850 and dial 1053538# after the prompt. (In addition to this article see links to more background reading at the end.)

While conservatives win political arguments more often than they should, there are no winning arguments with the basic laws of physics. It's like trying to argue with gravity-gravity always wins.

So no matter what political position wins the day temporarily, the continuing accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to increase global temperatures, continue to increase extreme weather events, continue to increase sea levels, continue to increase floods and droughts and forest fires.

This is not a short-term problem that will go away; it will only get worse for a long time to come. This requires us to understand that climate change is not an issue; it is a fact, a reality that will force changes in human societies.

Weak responses

The official worldwide response to this growing crisis is weak at best-the Durban Conference basically agreed to negotiate to maybe agree about something in the future. Canada is pulling out of the Kyoto Accords. The same arguments between developed and developing nations result in the same stalemates in negotiations, and in spite of some efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, emissions continue to increase. As one participant at Durban said, "The world has been talking about this for twenty years, and there is still no major progress." So the problem is going to keep getting worse for the foreseeable future.

Tipping points loom

As greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, the world is nearing dangerous tipping points. For just one example, average temperatures at the poles are increasing faster than elsewhere on the globe, resulting in more permafrost melting. As permafrost melts, it releases greenhouse gases that have been frozen for centuries, or even millennia. Once we reach a tipping point, the melting of the permafrost will release so much carbon dioxide and methane that it can overwhelm whatever modest reductions from human activity we manage to accomplish. We don't know in advance exactly when that tipping point will be reached, but once it is passed, that is a disaster. The only sensible thing to do is to avoid reaching a tipping point. As prominent climate scientist James Hansen has said, if the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's tar sands goes through, the additional emissions of greenhouse gases means "essentially game over" for limiting climate change.

Keeps getting worse

As proof of the continuing accumulation of scientific evidence, each Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, issued every seven years, shows that earlier optimistic projections are no longer realistic. In each report, summarizing the world consensus of climate scientists, the worst-case scenarios of the previous report become the most-likely scenarios-in other words, the news just keeps getting worse the more scientists understand and research the details and new evidence of climate change. The next complete report is not due until 2014, but interim reports on specific issues are continuing this trend, as the current draft on extreme weather shows.

Climate change is symptom of deeper problem

Climate change is related to many other environmental challenges, and exacerbates most of them. To mention a few examples, increasing water stresses, desertification, forest fires, droughts, and extreme weather events.

In the broadest sense, global climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are just a symptom of an even deeper problem-the gross and growing imbalance between humans and the environment upon which humans depend.

We are using up fossil fuels, water, soil, agricultural land, and other resources faster than is sustainable. For example, the so-called "green revolution" in agriculture depends on massive increases of water-leading to the drawing down of aquifers in many parts of the world faster than those aquifers can be "recharged." This is not sustainable-the overuse of fresh water for agricultural uses (along with fossil fuel-based fertilizers and intense extraction of the nutritional value in the soil) has already resulted in declining agricultural yields worldwide. Global climate change is just the most widespread imbalance.

There is a long list of ways in which human activity as currently constructed is destructive of the natural balance that human life depends on-ocean acidification, depleted and exhausted fisheries, rapidly expanding desertification, etc.

Opposition to taking action on climate change is not really opposition to the science, though it often presents itself that way. As Naomi Klein notes in her excellent article in The Nation, "Capitalism vs. the Climate": "It is not opposition to the scientific facts of climate change that drives denialists but rather opposition to the real-world implications of those facts."

This all leads to two conclusions.

One, that global climate change and other related environmental issues and struggles will increase for many decades to come-this is determined by the natural laws governing nature.

Two, the problems are so far-reaching and fundamental that small fixes won't solve the problems.

Capitalism can't fix it

Another crucial conclusion is that capitalism can't and won't solve these intertwined problems. Partly, this is because of the entrenched economic interests that profit from maintaining the status quo. But even more so, it is due to the basic assumptions of capitalism.

Capitalism wants and needs constant expansion of markets and of commodities, so that profits can continue to grow. Endless economic growth, endless production of ever-increasing commodities, ever increasing development, ever greater burdens on the natural world which require more natural resource extraction at one end and ever-increasing absorption of wastes at the other end, all are part of the unsustainable system of capitalism.

Capitalism wants and needs the continuation of private decision-making over energy, production, transportation, and agriculture (and the ever-increasing concentration of that private control).

Capitalism wants and needs environmental problems to be "economic externalities" so that corporations don't have to bear the costs of the wastes that they dispose of in water and air, nor the costs of disposing of the wastes generated by their packaging and marketing decisions.

Environmental problems affect all of humanity, and require social decision-making, social investment, and worldwide cooperation at the scale of all humanity. These are also antithetical to capitalism, and to narrow nationalism.

To make real progress on climate change means, as Klein writes, "Making a persuasive case that the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a much more enlightened economic system-one that closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work and radically reins in corporate power. It would also require a shift away from the notion that climate action is just one issue on a laundry list of worthy causes vying for progressive attention. Just as climate denialism has become a core identity issue on the right, utterly entwined with defending current systems of power and wealth, the scientific reality of climate change must, for progressives, occupy a central place in a coherent narrative about the perils of unrestrained greed and the need for real alternatives."

She goes on to note that the fact that "the earth's atmosphere cannot safely absorb the amount of carbon we are pumping into it is a symptom of a much larger crisis, one born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need, and that if something runs out it can be seamlessly replaced by another resource that we can endlessly extract. But it is not just the atmosphere that we have exploited beyond its capacity to recover-we are doing the same to the oceans, to freshwater, to topsoil and to biodiversity. The expansionist, extractive mindset, which has so long governed our relationship to nature, is what the climate crisis calls into question so fundamentally. The abundance of scientific research showing we have pushed nature beyond its limits does not just demand green products and market-based solutions; it demands a new civilizational paradigm, one grounded not in dominance over nature but in respect for natural cycles of renewal-and acutely sensitive to natural limits, including the limits of human intelligence."

A matter of class power

The environmental problems we face are inextricably linked to the political problems we face. It is striking that Al Gore's last book, "Our Choice", starts by saying that all we lack is the political will to make the necessary changes, and then spends the rest of the book talking about all the potential technological fixes and ignoring what he already identified as the central problem! Why do "we lack the political will?" and who is this "we" he is talking about?

This is just a newer and amped-up version of the old question, "Who benefits?" Freedom for the wolf is not freedom for the sheep, and freedom for the capitalists to profit from resource extraction and to not pay for their waste is not freedom for the rest of humanity.

The majority of people in the United States have no more say in how many coal-fired electric plants are built than the majority of those who live in sub-Saharan Africa have to do with the economic circumstances that result in the destruction of forests to make charcoal so they can cook food. The vast majority of humanity makes decisions about what to buy, what to consume, and how to survive in circumstances not of its making or choosing.

The questions facing humanity about the environment are ultimately questions of class power; they are issues of class struggle.

The importance of the Klein article is that it links the necessary environmental change with the necessary fundamental transformation of our political and economic systems. She points out that progressives have to approach climate change and environmental crisis as not just another issue but as a crucial, central aspect of our critique of capitalism.

The real limitations of Klein's article are not the reflexive swipes she takes at the "Stalinist" and "statist left," nor her assumption that solutions all require "interventions to systematically disperse and devolve power and control to the community level." (Some of them do but others require more centralization, even internationalization.)

The real limitation is her restricted view of the forces required to bring about the change she calls for. This is true as well of some other prominent writers about environmental issues, like Richard Heinberg. They see the problems clearly, they see the links between environmental problems and economic and political systems, but they are relatively blind to the social forces needed to bring about fundamental transformation. They don't see the essential role of the organized working class as not just another in a list of social forces but as the crucial element without which fundamental transformation cannot take place.

What is needed is not just an amorphous "countervailing popular movement" but a broad coaltion with the organized working class at its core. While Klein points to positive developments around the Occupy Wall Street movement, she neglects to include alliances with the labor movement.

Social movements, including the Occupy movement and the environmental movement, are important, but without the organized might of the working class, the changes they can create will be limited, and will stop short of solutions.

Building international union alliances and joint struggles will be an important feature as countries around the world wrestle with climate change. Part of the problem with the international negotiations that have taken place under the auspices of the United Nations is that the top level negotiations take place between governments, each most often representing the interests of their own capitalist class, rather than the interests of the people of the world.

Movements such as 350.org, national environmental organizations, and NGOs play a role, but they struggle to have enough of an impact. The power of workers is needed to push through the competiting national and class interests to reach international agreements with teeth.

Klein's bulleted list of solutions is a contribution to the discussion, but many versions of such lists exist, and none, especially none for short articles, are comprehensive.

For Communists, we can and should see Klein's article as a challenge: to place environmental issues more squarely in the center of our critique of capitalism, and more squarely at the heart of our vision of a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.

Communist also have to understand that building environmental consciouness into our vision of the future challenges some of our traditional views. Nature's limits mean that production can't be endless, and so a future in which there is more than enough of everything for everybody, no matter how many people there are, is not a vision based in reality. We need to adjust our vision to our current knowledge of nature's limits.

I'd like to end with a few questions:

1. How can we (and should we) make environmental challenges more central to our critique of capitalism?

2. Can we help the labor movement place environmental issues more to the fore? What changes in the labor movement have already happened, and how can we build on them?

3. How can we prepare ourselves now, so that as global climate change and other environmental crises escalate, we are ready with a program to address them, a program that places organizing workers as the most crucial aspect of creating fundamental change?

Background reading for teleconference:

Capitalism vs. the climate by Naomi Klein: http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate

Six reasons to oppose the Keystone Pipeline: http://peoplesworld.org/six-reasons-to-oppose-keystone-pipeline/

Photo: CPUSA poster

What is Hanukkah really all about?

Ari Goldman — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:30:00 -0500

A familiar saying at this time of year has it that when all the Jews spell Hanukkah the same way, Deliverance will truly have come! (Other variants include Hanukah, Chanukah, Hanuka, Khanuka, Khanike, and more.)

The joke is telling because like most things, the holiday can be viewed from multiple perspectives. For many years Jews considered it a minor holiday, observed with small gifts for the children and the lighting of candles on a menorah each of the eight nights of the season. It is no coincidence that Hanukkah is called the "Festival of Lights."

There's no mystery in understanding why Jews, and perhaps most peoples, celebrate a holiday of light at the time of the winter solstice. The Yule log, the Christmas lights, the evergreen, the Kwanzaa candelabrum, are all cheerful reminders of hope and promise in the cycle of rebirth that will return in the spring with the New Year. When Americans wish one another a generalized "Happy Holidays," we express a sincere universality of shared warmth amidst our collective cold.

Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday (until modern times) with verifiable historical roots. It commemorates the revolt of the Maccabees in 167-164 BCE (Before the Common Era, as Jews prefer to say), against the Greek occupation of Jerusalem and Palestine. The Greeks had imposed the rule of law, philosophy, religion, debate and governance at odds with traditional Jewish practice. The Maccabean rebellion was directed as much against Greek hegemony as against fellow Jews they accused of becoming overly "Hellenized," giving up circumcision, for example, eating pork or engaging in nude sporting matches.

Although celebrated for having conducted the first successful documented revolution for "national liberation" and religious freedom, the Maccabees are also disparaged by history for having established a corrupt dynasty of priestly kings, a theocratic mixing of "church and state." Later rabbinical authorities looked back on this disastrous period and invented the charming story of the miracle of the vial of oil that lasted for eight days, trying to convert the significance of the holiday into one of awe of God and his wonders, rather than military victory.

Incidentally, the Hanukkah story inspired the American colonists in their struggle against King George III. How could people so profoundly influenced by Christian theology oppose the divine right of kings? Well, just look at the First Book of Maccabees and there you have it: "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." And from that principle, how many people of faith, and entire movements for civil rights and freedom, have taken a potent lesson! (Needless to say, right-wing ideologues also cite such passages - one of the dangers of relying on Biblical literalism.)

In modern times, defenders of the West Bank occupation cite the Maccabean spirit as an expression of the militarist solution to Israel's survival. Curiously, those who most loudly insist on the definition of Israel as a "Jewish state" thus fly directly in the face of the many later generations of rabbis who emphasized that well-known passage in Zechariah 4:6 that warns us, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

So the controversy over the essential meaning of Hanukkah continues and perhaps can never be pinned down definitively. Perhaps it's best left as a joyous holiday for children that brings the Jewish component to the bountiful table of multiculturalism as we anticipate the return of sunny days.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scazon/ / CC BY 2.0

This article originally appeared on PeoplesWorld.org Dec.14, 2009.

This is an FDR/MLK moment

Jarvis Tyner — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:20:00 -0500

The following is edited from remarks given at the Nov. 11, 2011 meeting of the Communist Party National Committee.

2012 is a big election year and as we know the stakes are very high. The right-wing Republican opposition unashamedly defends the wealth and privilege of the 1% over the 99% that includes tens of millions who are struggling to survive. These self-proclaimed patriots are willing to wreck our country in order to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 elections. Our party and youth league are an active part of the great democratic mass that is standing against them.

These so called patriots wrap themselves in the flag and claim strict adherence to the Constitution. Those who are elected officials are sworn to uphold the laws of the land. But as we meet today they are organizing in over 30 states (with Koch Brothers and anonymous corporate money) to steal the election by suppressing the votes of Black, Latino and white democrats. They are creating new restrictions to make it much harder for youth who voted in record numbers in 2008 to do the same in 2012.

I say to Mike Huckabee, former Republican presidential candidate, who thinks voter suppression is a joke: what the Republicans are doing is a serious violation of the constitutional rights of the U.S. people. Voter suppression driven by racism and hatred of working people is rooted in the shameful period of Jim Crow. It is no joke. When I think of voter suppression I think of Michael Schwerner, James Goodman and Andrew Cheney --- the three civil rights workers, one Black and two Jewish, who were brutally murdered for registering Black people in Mississippi to vote in 1964. People died for the right to vote and those who continue such despicable practices are in violation of the highest principals of any democracy.

If the Republicans and Tea Party gang want people to stop accusing them of racism, there is a solution. They must end their long history of using racist scapegoating and pushing racist policies and practices. After the passage of the Civil rights and voting rights acts in the mid sixties the racist Southern white Democrats (called "Dixiecrats") en mass joined the ranks of the Republican Party. They were warmly welcomed. Today without their racist Southern base of voters the Republicans could not win the presidency, or any national election. They literally thrive on racism as a party. And that is why there is a virulent racist component to almost every program they advance today.

It begins with the disgraceful attacks on the first African American president. But continues also on the issues of reducing the size of the federal government and privatization, which means that the government will not be able to stop massive corporate abuse of working people.

It means the destruction of vital public services and the jobs of public workers who are disproportionately African American and Latino unionized workers. And the privatization, characterization and destruction of public education are primarily aimed at predominantly Black and Latino school.

The racist component is dramatically present in the incarceration rates for African-American males and the use of the death penalty. Since a higher proportion of African American and Latino workers are members of unions then other racial groups, the Republicans pro-corporate anti-union drive also has a strong racist component. One of the most backward parts of the Republican program is the racist attack on Mexican immigrants.

There is a direct correlation between the level of racism and the fight for democracy, peace and for socialism. In our country in a special way, racism blunts the fight against capitalist exploitation and oppression and US imperialism. These struggles cannot be advanced without an ongoing struggle against racism.

This coming Black History Month should be marked by a renewed offensive against racism. The struggle against racism is central to everything we are fighting for. The struggle against racism must be intensified. "We are not going back! Step up the united fight against racism and for equality!" That should be the theme for our Black history month events. We also want to make a special effort in conjunction with Black history to honor two distinguished communist leaders.

This is the centennial year of the birth of Henry Winston. It is also the 101-year of the birth of Gus Hall. These two outstanding communist leaders represent one of our nations greatest examples of interracial leadership. As a dynamic team these two workers one Black one white left a legacy of outstanding struggle against racism and for working class unity. They left a treasure trove of brilliant writings, practices and theoretical work, which needs to be brought out, studied, circulated widely and made available to reread. We also need to expose the new Jim Crow and the role of racism particularly as it related to the historic 2012 election fight. Without racism they cannot win the election. Racism is central to the rights electoral strategy.

I also think we need to let people know and bring out the policies of Gus Hall and Henry Winston on the class struggle, on building broad united movements of struggle and the critical fight for democracy which permeates every thing they wrote. Our party had clear differences with the liberal John F. Kennedy but in 1960 election our policy was defeat Nixon. Same with 1964 --- defeat Goldwater. In 1968 we had a Presidential ticket but our strategy remained--defeat Nixon. In 1972, when I ran with Gus Hall, the sharpest edge of our criticism was against Nixon.

In 1976, Carter ran against Ford. The sharpest edge of our campaign was against Ford and the Republicans. All the while we have had big differences with the Democrats but policies of the Republican right represented the main danger and the main obstacle to moving forward. The fight to advance the democratic and revolutionary process forward toward greater and greater changes requires defeating the greatest danger. And that is what we did. And the process did go forward.

Obama's support among African Americans and Latinos remains high even though they have criticisms of him. The leadership of the AFL-CIO also sees shortcomings but supports his re election.

I agree with Sam Webb that "supporting the lesser of two evils" does not explain the tactics accurately. I believe it is building a broad united front against the main danger. That is mature and winning politics. It is true Obama has fallen short on some issues and made concessions and some tactical turns to which we take exception. That was the Obama with out the militant social movement that Roosevelt had during the New Deal.

But an honest assessment of Obama's overall record will show mistakes but also show he did some remarkable things.

The stimulus created and/or saved hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The health care bill with will cover 30 million uninsured.

The democratic forces are getting their second wind. Congresswomen Donna Edwards described this period as a "FDR moment." At the height of the Wisconsin struggle, the Rev. Jesse Jackson described it as a "Martin Luther King moment."

What were they talking about? They are talking about a new willingness to struggle by democratic masses, about new movements emerging. There is a new movement among the youth. It has a great potential of gaining a deeper understanding of what are winning tactics. Their demands can be won with a broader more inclusive approach. Confrontation with the cops gives the media a reason to frame the issues around law and order, not jobs and taxing the rich, not relief from student loan debt. Higher levels of class and racial unity must be achieved for further progress.

New battle lines have been drawn. The Occupy Wall Street movement and the fight for the American Jobs Act have fired up the democratic forces. They are taking the offensive. We must continue to be fully involved. The announcement that the troops will be withdrawn from Iraq means it's time for peace action!

The Occupy Wall Street movement based on the reality that the problem is the 1% capitalist ruling class and "we the people" are the 99% majority. That is an advanced idea and in harmony with our anti monopoly strategy. But to mobilize the 99% means building a popular front style movement. Narrow sectarian politics of "my way or the highway" will not suffice. Views that "I will only work with the left, and the center is the enemy" will not mobilize the 99%.

Why are we confident about this point? Because it was the broad united from tactics that our party brought forth that was key to basic change like defeating fascism and that built the New Deal and industrial unions.

Next year we are proposing a national conference on strategy and tactics. How do we get to socialism? The incredible 2011 election victories in Ohio, Mississippi, Arizona, Maine, New Jersey and elsewhere tell us a lot about where masses are at politically. It's time for action; to mobilize masses for jobs, to tax the rich and to register, educate and mobilize, voters for next November and beyond. The right wing can be defeated in 2012.

Organized labor understands this. The major anti racist organizations under stand this. Arizona shows what is possible. We are in a new era of democratic and progressive upsurge a lot of things are possible.

And I can tell you, comrades, we can criticize Obama, and when it is done in a united front way he has shown that he can be moved. The whole effort of the Congressional Black Caucus and Progressive Caucus to organize town meetings and job fairs, which drew large crowds across the country, played a big role in pushing Obama to come up with his American Jobs Act, which is laying the basis for a big defeat of the right in 2012.

Frankly comrades, speaking as one who has been politically active under nine different presidents --- five of the right wing Republicans, four liberal Democrats --- all the while pushing for progressive change and the ideal of a socialist USA; from many decades of struggling and pushing for change, nothing Barack Obama has done or failed to do in the last three years is a reason to sit back and not take part in this tremendous historic struggle to defeat the extreme right wing at the polls next year.

We need to treat this like the life and death struggle that it is. As Sam Webb has put it ...If you want to know what the Right will do to the country look at what they are doing everywhere they dominate the political and legislative process. What the working class did last week in Ohio, Mississippi, Maine, Arizona and New Jersey showed a high understanding of what is at stake and a determination to reverse the setback in 2010. This battle can be won. For sure, cynicism and pessimism will not lead to victory. It will take a lot of work. There will be setbacks and disappointments no doubt. But we can and must be optimistic: this battle can be won.

The tea party was supposed to be the new majority trend in our country. But where is the tea party now? They are still a well-organized and financed group. They tried to help Walker and Kasich. I'm sure they were working in Ohio, Miss., etc., but they could not match the united might of organized labor, the unity of black, brown and white, Asian Pacific, Native American Indian in struggle. Men, women, youth, old, gay and straight - united nothing can stop us.

Where was the tea party? They had plenty of money but they were out organized, out strategized, and most importantly, their bankrupt ideas are losing support among honest working people. They are not a match for the united power of the organized working people, along with racial and nationally oppressed, youth and students, women, LGBT, peace and justice struggling together in a broad popular front. That's what is needed to turn the tide.

Our job is to contribute all that we can to maximize that power. And that is what will set the stage for a new progressive era and for a socialist transformation. Big progressive change is closer then we think.

Photo: Jarvis Tyner, center, gets ready to march for voting rights, Dec. 11, 2011, as part of the Communist Party contingent. (Matthew Weinstein)

Beatrice Lumpkin offers "Joy" to cpusa.org readers

Teresa Albano — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:29:00 -0500

Cpusa.org takes great pride in offering a free downloadable book: Beatrice Lumpkin's "Joy in the Struggle-My Life and Love," a unique account of one woman's lifelong experience in the struggles of America's working class and people.

In "Joy in the Struggle" Lumpkin describes her personal experiences in the great working class struggles of the 1930s up to the election of President Obama in 2008.

Born in the East Bronx, New York City, she was part the unemployed struggles, the fight to free the Scottsboro Nine and Angelo Herndon, student strikes against war and fascism, the Congress of Industrial Organizations organizing drive and winning the "safety net" of Social Security¸ unemployment insurance and the minimum wage.

"There was great joy in these struggles," she said, "because of the victories we won and the feeling of empowerment."

As a defense worker in World War II, Lumpkin moved to Buffalo, N.Y., and met her love, Frank Lumpkin. Together, they defended the rights of steelworkers in Buffalo and the Chicago area.

Then Beatrice became an educator and worked to end racism in the schools. As lifelong members of the Communist Party, the Lumpkins worked together for revolutionary change.

"Socialism was the way out," Beatrice Lumpkin wrote, "the light at the end of the tunnel."

Dr. Jenny Carson, an assistant professor of history at Toronto's Ryerson University and one of Lumpkin's editorial collaborators for the book, says "Joy in the Struggle" is:

"A compelling account of an activist's 80-year struggle for worker and civil rights is a must read for anyone interested in today's struggles against inequality and injustice.

"Beatrice Lumpkin has spent the last eight decades on the frontlines of some of the most important battles for economic and social justice, including the fight to secure union rights and Social Security in the 1930s, the movement to end Jim Crow segregation and racism, the fight against U.S. imperialism during the Cold War, and the more recent battles to secure affordable health care for Americans.

"Activists and academics alike will find this a moving story about how one individual can help change the course of history."

Ed Sadlowski, retired steelworker and leader of SOAR (Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees), says "Joy in the Struggle" is:

"A must-read inspirational tale of a woman who dares. Bea tells her story of life on the front lines. 'Joy in the Struggle' is a story that shines a light on all that is good; keen lessons, a life worth emulating to advance our struggle for a better world."

"Joy in the Struggle" is free, in PDF format, 253 pp, 10MB in size, with photos and hyperlinks. Click here and it will automatically download.

Photo: Beatrice and Frank Lumpkin from the front cover of "Joy in the Struggle."

On Wisconsin! Teleconference on Walker recall campaign

John Wojcik — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:43:00 -0500

Join us Tuesday, December 20, for a live interview on the historic Wisconsin recall campaign of Gov. Scott Walker and its implications for turning back the rightwing anti-labor assault and winning in the 2012 elections.

The recall movement sweeping the state has already gathered the minimum signatures needed for a special election and a month remains to withstand any challenge.

In a special teleconference interview, December 20, Ed Sadlowski, Jr., of AFSCME Council 40 Wisconsin, will discuss the the historic recall campaign against Gov. Scott Walker and the struggle going forward.

Tuesday, December 20
8:00 pm Eastern, 7:00 pm Central, 5:00 pm Pacific

Call (605) 475-4850 and dial 1053538# after the prompt.

Because Ed's up to his neck in the fight, including today's "sing-in protest" at the state capital, we're unable to do the Ustream broadcast as we intended.

Call (605) 475-4850 and dial 1053538# after the prompt. Check out ongoing coverage of the recall at the PeoplesWorld.org:

Check out coverage of the recall at the PeoplesWorld.org:

Wisconsin recall campaign off to blazing start: here

84 year old woman forced to pay $200 poll tax: here

Best wishes for the holiday season.

Photo: Tens of thousands of teachers, firefighters, students, parents and more fill Wisconsin's Capitol protesting Gov. Scott Walker's attack on union rights, Feb. 18, 2011. (Teresa Albano/PW)

This holiday season demand jobs, benefits, voting rights

Joelle Fishman — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:31:00 -0500

This holiday season the struggle for basic human rights takes center stage. The 99% are marching and lobbying and standing up to secure the right to vote which is jeopardized by new laws pushed through in many states.

On Human Rights Day thousands led by the NAACP, 1199-SEIU, teachers and other unions marched from the Koch Brothers office to the United Nations with the message that voting rights are human rights.

See coverage in the PeoplesWorld.org.

Signs with pictures of Schwerner, Cheney and Goodman, "Three Martyrs" of the civil rights movement reminded everyone that young people had to sacrifice their lives to secure voting rights for African Americans in the South just four decades ago.

Growing grassroots pressure combined with blatant efforts to disenfranchise millions have prompted the U.S. Senate to schedule hearings in January. See PeoplesWorld.org coverage here.

Click for the report just released by the NAACP, "Defending Democracy:

Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America."

Blocking efforts by the extreme right to pass voter suppression laws is vital for victory for the labor-led people's coalition in 2012.

This same determination and spirit has pushed unemployed people forward in the movement demanding creation of good jobs to meet the needs of communities and crumbling infrastructure.

Thousands protested last week in Washington DC to "take back our capital," sitting in at congressional offices demanding action on jobs creation and extending unemployment insurance. Thousands more rallied in solidarity across the country.

Read PeoplesWorld.org coverage here: Occupiers message to Congress

Congressional Republicans continue to block every effort to extend benefits and a payroll tax cut for millions of American workers. Calling Congress and getting others to do so could deliver the greatest holiday gift to the millions who will otherwise be cut off at the beginning of the New Year and force to pay higher taxes. Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard and ask for your senator or representative: (202)224-3121.

The Republican House passed an Unemployment Insurance Extension that contains provisions President Obama and Democrats refuse to accept. The fight will go on.

Tell them to vote "NO" on slashing benefits to the 2 million unemployed workers who rely on it. Click here to send an email to your representative and senators.

Best wishes for you and your family,

Joelle Fishman

Chair, CPUSA Political and Legislative Action Committee

Photo: (Mary Altaffer/AP)

U.S. young people show their discontent with capitalism

Lisa Bergmann — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:04:00 -0500

The following is Young Communist League leader Lisa Bergman's speech to the World Federation of Democratic Youth meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 9-12.

The Young Communist League USA stands firmly, as it always has, united with all of you against U.S. imperialism, greed, and war.

I will do my best to paint a picture for you about what is happening with the youth movement in the United States right now, but please feel free to find me and ask me questions after my remarks if there is something specific you would like to know about that I do not cover.

Youth in the United States are shouting at the top of their lungs that the U.S. capitalist economic system has failed them. It offers them no future, no educational prospects, and no economic stability. High school students in urban communities are regularly losing their friends to violence. Students are graduating from university with record amounts of debt. Young people in general cannot find work to establish economic independence from their parents.

It is for these reasons and many others that thousands of youth in the United States are taking to the streets to demand a better world.

Inspired by the Arab Spring and other youth movements in Europe and Latin America, the Occupy Wall Street Movement began in the heart of the U.S. capitalist system, and has now spread to more than 300 cities in the United States. Occupy is predominantly a youth movement, calling attention to the unprecedented wealth inequalities that exist in our country.

Indeed, in the U.S. now, the wealthiest 1% of the country's population owns 35% of the nation's wealth. While the participants in the Occupy movement are members of a wide variety of groups, they all identify as part of the 99% of people who do not have access to the country's wealth.

The U.S. labor movement has been one of the strongest allies to the Occupy movement. Other participants in the Occupy movement include peace activist groups, veterans, elected officials, immigrant rights groups, and of course the Communist Party USA and the Young Communist League!

The Young Communist League, even though we are in a re-building phase, has participated in Occupy in every city where we exist, and has even initiated the Occupy chapters in some cities. Leaders of the Young Communist League and leaders of the Communist Party have been arrested in Chicago on two separate occasions during police raids on the Occupy movement.

Also, the networks of student-labor alliances in the country have achieved a new level of coordination and power. I had the privilege of attending the AFL-CIO's "Next Up" conference in September, where 800 young workers and leaders gathered to plot the future of the union movement in the U.S. Student leaders there reported winning many victories on university campuses. For example, under the direction of United Students Against Sweatshops, students at over 15 universities nationwide have built a successful campaign to end their universities' contracts with the food service provider Sodexo because of corporate giant's violations of workers rights in the U.S. and elsewhere. The labor movement, in general, has made dramatic investments in young people over the last period of time.

Young people are also leading the fight for job creation. The Young Communist League has been collecting signatures nationwide in support of President Obama's "American Jobs Act", and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's "Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act." If passed, these bills would create over 4.2 million new jobs in the U.S.

Last week, in the city where I live, the Young Communist League and other youth led a march of 200 people in support of jobs for youth and jobs for all.

I will highlight why the fight for jobs is so important. Right now we have 25 million people who are unemployed and looking for work in the United States. This is therefore the worst economy we have had since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The youth employment rate has dropped to 48.8 percent, which is the lowest on record since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking this number in 1948. As racism remains a major factor in access to education and employment in U.S. society, for African American and Latino youth the employment rate is much lower. Students who take out loans to go to college are graduating with an average debt of over $25,000. College graduates have an unemployment rate of 9.1 percent.

Youth unemployment has also exacerbated violence amongst youth in urban communities. In my small city of New Haven, Conn., 29 people, mostly young men of color, have been killed this year. The most recently killed was only 13 years old.

In Chicago, in one May weekend alone, six people were killed and twenty-one were injured by gun violence. That same weekend, 1,000 youth were part of a gang-related fight on Carson Beach in South Boston. In general, the Center for Disease Control reports that youth violence is the second leading cause of death for young people in the U.S.

As I mentioned earlier, The Young Communist League is in a period of re-building in the United States, and has been for the last year and a half. We are making good progress. We held 5 YCL schools in the last year, in Los Angeles, New Haven, Chicago, Florida, and Texas. At the schools we taught classes about Marx and Lenin, the labor movement, ending racism, and other topics. Also, hundreds of youth are joining the Young Communist League every month online.

Because youth are so disillusioned with capitalism in the U.S. right now, this moment is a huge opportunity for building solidarity with and awareness of countries where socialism or communism exist as the dominant system. This includes Cuba and the growing anti-imperialist governments in Latin America. This past weekend the Communist Party USA and the YCL held a joint meeting on building solidarity with Cuba and the Cuban Five.

Finally, I will speak briefly about the 2012 elections in the U.S. The election of Barack Obama in 2008 was a tremendous victory for the people of the United States and indeed for people all over the world. The election of our first African American president has been a huge blow to the entrenched racism in our country. Young people are a reason that Obama won the presidency, as he earned 66 percent of the youth vote. Obama continues to push policies that benefit working-class people in the United States. And Republicans continually block these policies to make Obama look ineffective.

Youth in the United States also have major disappointments with the Obama administration that cannot be ignored. These include the large number of people who have been deported during his presidency due to immigration issues. (The number exceeds the number deported during Bush's presidency.) These also include his foreign policy towards Libya, Cuba, Afghanistan, and other regions where aggressive imperialist policy has continued. We in the Young Communist League USA look forward to working with all of you to push the U.S. government to reach a cooperative, rather than imperialist, approach to foreign policy around the world.

That said the fight for jobs and for real solutions must include reelecting Obama in 2012. If youth, whether in the Occupy movement or elsewhere, do not want to work with any politician, then being absent from the political process is only allowing the ultra-right wing to build power.

Reelection will also allow working people to continue to focus on building a viable movement for themselves in the United States that will be in a position to stand in solidarity with working people throughout the world.

Activist and author Angela Davis, when visiting Occupy Wall Street on Oct. 31, said, "It is up to US to build a movement. And it is up to Obama to respond to that movement. But he cannot do it on his own."

Thank you so much for your time, Comrades! Thank you again for having us at the assembly and we look forward to working with all of you in solidarity.

Photo: Occupy Chicago (John Bachtell/PeoplesWorld.org)

The power of the 99% in 2012

Joelle Fishman — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:04:00 -0500

This report was presented to the CPUSA National Committee meeting, Nov. 12-13, 2011.

Part one: Strategy and tactics in this moment

The resounding vote that affirmed collective bargaining rights for public workers in Ohio sets the tone and contains many lessons for the 2012 elections, just one year out from now. Congratulations Ohio!

The impact of years of corporate profit gouging is giving way to a new level of fight back and activism in our country and internationally as well. The 99% are saying, "Enough is enough!"

Since the 2010 election in which Tea Party Republican candidates won contests for Governors and for Congress, the class war has become more vicious against working people while, at the same time, at the grassroots class consciousness has been raised and the fight back to tax the rich and protect worker's rights has strengthened.

From the moment Barack Obama was elected President by a broad alliance and cross section of the electorate, the corporate driven and lavishly funded extreme right-wing went on a rampage, blocking basic legislation that can bring the country out of economic crisis, and attempting to take back every progressive gain from the New Deal to the Civil Rights movement.

Therefore, the struggle in which we are engaged is a struggle to protect and expand basic democratic rights. To win this sharp battle will take unbreakable unity by all democratic minded people, and especially from the labor movement, racially oppressed, women and youth - the core forces for social change.

The extreme wealth gap and resulting unemployment, homelessness and lack of educational opportunity has also brought a growing number of people to search for new avenues of independent political expression, and for some, to question the capitalist system.

We are in a unique position to engage in this discussion because of our vision for fundamental change and our historical experience, which teaches us that the grave dangers posed by the extreme right wing can become reality unless there is full unity to defeat them.

Our approach to the 2012 elections is a big responsibility. A key aspect must be to sound the alarm and expose the objectives of the Republicans, which are dominated by Tea Party politics. Whatever populist rhetoric is used, these are the policies of the strongest sectors of the ruling class including finance, the military industrial complex and energy.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL CIO, expressed the outrage felt by millions this week when Republicans called for a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts for the super rich.

"Yesterday Republicans on the so-called "Super Committee" proposed lowering tax rates for the richest Americans while cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare benefits that middle class Americans depend on. This is Robin Hood in reverse: class warfare against the American middle class on behalf of the top 1 percent," he said.

Every Republican presidential candidate supports cuts of Social Security and Medicare as well as ending all regulations on business. The Republican candidates were quick to oppose the decision of the President to bring the troops home from Iraq.

As Sam said in his report, to get an idea what would be in store with a Tea Party friendly president and Congress we need only look at the actions of the governors of Ohio and Wisconsin.

Ohio and Wisconsin also provide the example of the kind of unity needed to turn back this danger, raise the level of class consciousness, and lay the foundations for moving onto the offensive.

Growing unity and class consciousness

"We Are One" was the slogan and idea that took Wisconsin and the country by storm at the beginning of this year, coming out of the difficult 2010 elections. We Are One. A powerful, fighting idea born out of the vicious all-out attack by a new Tea Party Governor against public workers and their communities.

"We Are One" brought together in the hundreds of thousands teachers with farmers, firefighters with machinists, students with laborers saying, "We will no longer be divided against one another." This message reverberated from union to union and statehouse to statehouse resisting attacks on workers rights swept across the nation. Two Republican allies of the Governor in the State Senate were defeated in an unprecedented recall election. The campaign to recall Gov. Walker has already begun.

"We Are Ohio" carried Ohio, a tough swing state, though an unprecedented upsurge led by the labor movement which succeeded in soundly rejecting the even more vicious union-busting SB 5, mobilizing thousands of union members and other volunteers over many months standing up for their rights and their future, and becoming a national example for voter education and mobilization in 2012. The Koch brothers' FreedomWorks and the Alliance for America's Future poured in $30 million. But direct visits and voter contact by labor and allies won out. This experience, including the outstanding role of our Party, deserves careful study so that all the lessons can be drawn and made widely known.

A further development of the new level of unity came with the slogan and idea, "Rebuild the American Dream." drawing upon the historic civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King's contributions emphasizing racial and economic equality and social justice.

This movement emerges out of an intensive summer of organizing for "jobs not cuts," including the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Progressive Caucus jobs hearings and listening tours, and the roll out of the ten point Contract for the American Dream including proposals for large scale job creation to put people to work and meet community needs, funded by taxing the rich, ending the wars - ideas now supported by the majority of people in the country.

The American Dream Movement projects one million leadership volunteers and 2,012 candidates for the 2012 elections made possible by labor and core forces organizations with millions of members recognizing their common interests.

This organizing led up to President Obama's Labor Day address on jobs and the American Jobs Act, which began shifting the national discussion from deficits to jobs.

Against this backdrop, on September 17, Occupy Wall St. burst onto the political stage and proclaimed, "We are the 99%" Occupy Wall St. transformed the debate, pointing the finger at the obscenely richest 1%, and capturing the sentiments of the majority in the country who support taxing the rich and holding the financial corporations accountable.

Large cities and small towns responded, "We are the 99%," a unifying cry that forced its way into the media and forcing discussion away from deficits to "tax the rich" and demanding that youth no longer be locked out of the American Dream. It was a shout heard around the world.

The young people at the center of Occupy and all generations involved are searching for a more fair, just and sustainable society where they can thrive.

The message of "We are the 99%" is that we are all in this together. It therefore challenges the extreme right-wing attempts to "shrink government so small it can go down the bathtub drain," and reaffirms the idea of government's responsibility for the common good.

"We are the 99%" objectively exposes the hypocrisy of the corporate right-wing in blocking any taxes on the super rich at the expense of jobs and human needs while complaining about the deficit. Tea Party calls for no tax increases are a protection for the 1%, just as the shell game the Republicans are playing on the Super Committee is all about yet another extension for the $4 trillion tax cuts to the super rich..

These slogans and contents reflect a growing class consciousness - We Are One, We are the 99%, They are the 1%, identifying Wall St. as the main enemy. Objectively they reflect an awareness of class struggle and willingness to fight back - not as individuals but as a class.

Political independence in 2012

Objectively, the 2012 election is critical to achieve any and all of the goals of Occupy. If the Tea Party ends up in power, it will be like putting the wolves in charge of the hen house. So sitting out the election is not an option.

The mass street action of the movement is interconnected with the elections. Each needs the other to meet the goals of standing up for the 99% against the economic divide and record inequality.

The 2012 elections are a pivotal moment for the direction of our country. If we veer backward it will be a giant setback for the newly emerging social movements and developing class consciousness in our country. It will make the crisis of every day living even worse, and foreign policy even more aggressive.

On the other hand, if the most heartless, inhumane sections of monopoly capital are delivered a blow, the conditions will be improved to raise the level of political independence and organization

In this way, the 2012 election is the immediate struggle that can move the process forward for fundamental change, for bill of rights socialism. As one of our state committee members in Connecticut likes to say: "The revolution isn't somewhere down the road. The revolution is now and here in what we are doing."

Upon re-examination, our strategy - adopted in 1981 when the corporate ultra-right gained control of the Republican Party - our strategy of building the broad alliance against the extreme right-wing and focusing our attention on building up the role and strength of labor and all the core forces within that and the Communist Party and YCL in particular does fit the challenges of the present moment, and should be applied.

For example, who in your local area can be encouraged to become one of the 2,012 American Dream candidates for public office? How can our clubs and members be in the number of the million volunteers? How can we help build up the political action structures that each union is establishing?

The form that political independence takes at a given moment cannot be separated from the overall challenges of the moment.

Richard Trumka earlier this year announced a new and controversial approach by the AFL-CIO to cut back on funding for campaigns, and invest in developing union structures to educate, mobilize and get out the vote for candidates who support labor's values, and for union members to run for local office. In Ohio and Wisconsin, the strength of labor's leadership pulling out hundreds of volunteers and speaking to many thousands of workers and their families, is a clear signal of the power being harnessed to defeat the extreme right wing.

Expanding the Broad Alliance

An even larger and stronger alliance than that which elected Obama in 2008 will be needed in 2012. The lessons of these three years underscore the essential role of street heat by labor and people's organizations to protect past gains and push a progressive agenda forward.

Rep. Keith Ellison, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus made a ringing appeal to the American Dream conference about how to change the political climate. He said instead of griping, bring the message and organize in every town and community across this country

This week's election victories in Ohio and across the country show the correctness of that approach.

Right-wing attacks were defeated from Mississippi (the "personhood" amendment that would have given fertilized eggs the rights of human beings lost 58% to 42%. ) to Maine (voted to preserve same-day voter registration after the right-wing legislature passed a law to repeal it.)

In Kentucky, which McCain carried in 2008, incumbent Democratic governor Steve Beshear won easily over his Republican challenger, along with four out of five statewide races. In New Jersey, Democrats retained control of the legislature, representing a defeat for Gov. Chris Christie, and elected 34 new union members to public office. In Arizona, voters recalled Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, who was the architect of SB 1070, the anti-immigrant ID bill. And in Connecticut, the Working Families Party gained a third seat on Hartford City Council, and labor-backed candidates, mostly union members, swept the New Haven Board of Aldermen.

Voters in red states made choices that are opposite to the Republican presidential candidates' positions, showing the possibilities to shift in a progressive direction. A strategy is needed to reach out in a new way to win over people to a tax the rich message and erode the base of the Republican right wing and tea baggers. In the eye of the storm in Ohio and Wisconsin, those firefighters, police and teachers who are Republicans are getting a different view and could change their vote in the 2012 presidential elections.

The fight for jobs

The Republican leadership in Congress came out and said their main goal was to defeat Obama. They have blockaded every piece of legislation that would bring relief to the unemployed, to cities and towns, to youth and retirees. Hypocritically, they then blame Obama for rising poverty and unemployment.

A Washington Post - ABC News poll released this week shows the impact of the economic crisis with two-thirds doubting they can maintain their standard of living, and half worried they will retire without enough assets to last their lifetime. This has created a volatile political climate.

The dramatic figures that came out this week showing that in the midst of the economic crisis the 1% has amassed even more wealth as everyone else sinks further and poverty deepens is an expose of the bankruptcy of the Republican agenda.

For the 25 million unemployed or underemployed, the crisis is deepening. A quarter of all youth, and nearly half of all African American and Latino youth are locked out of the job market. Many youth can't afford college and college graduates are hard pressed to find work.

But the massive public works jobs programs that are necessary for relief and to put the economy on a better footing are being held hostage to a political agenda that says "you're on your own."

On October 11, 100% of Senate Republicans voted against bringing the American Jobs Act to the floor, sacrificing millions of jobs to protect the very wealthiest Americans - the top 0.5 percent - from having to pay their fair share. On October 20, 100% of Senate Republicans voted against nearly 400,000 jobs for teachers, firefighters and cops. On November 3, 100 % of Senate Republicans voted against 450,000 jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges, airports and other critical infrastructure. In each case one or two Democrats shamefully joined in and voted no.

Obama's American Jobs Act HR 12 has 98 co-sponsors in the House. In addition are a host of more far reaching job creation bills including the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act HR 2914 introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky with 48 co-sponsors which would immediately create six public works jobs programs.

Petitions, city council resolutions, marches and rallies are all in the mix in the fight to create good jobs.

On November 17, Rebuild the Dream, the AFL-CIO, MoveOn, Occupy Wall St. and others are calling for "We are the 99%" actions for jobs across the country at bridges or anywhere in the community that infrastructure needs repair. The message will go out to the Super Committee to raise new revenue by taxing the very rich and create jobs, not make cuts into Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid that are the lifelines for millions of retirees and disabled.

These kinds of street actions have new momentum with the Occupy movement. They need to become a constant fixture in the political calendar in a way that amplifies the voice and leadership of the unemployed.

On the immediate agenda is the cry to extend unemployment compensation to those who are running out. If Congress doesn't act, five million people will be cut off from any income as of December 31.

Part two: Core forces in 2012

Labor, racially oppressed, women and youth voters play a special part as the most deeply affected by the economic crisis and, as a result, the most class conscious. These core forces, along with activists in the environmental and peace movements, senior and LGBT movements, are in position to give grounding and stability to the Occupy movement as it unfolds and provide the foundation to move in a progressive direction in this election.

There are many trends including a softening of support for President Obama because of policies that run in a counter direction, including the rise in deportation of immigrants, the passage of new trade deals, environmental issues and overall foreign policy direction. However, the quest to end the relentless class war, racist divisions and drive to destroy unions that the Republicans embody, and to end the ability of the Tea Party to hold Congress and the country hostage, provides a unity of purpose to re-elect the president and gain majority control of both houses of Congress.

In fact, the record of the last three years includes important victories within a difficult political climate. These include the Lilly Ledbetter Act for workplace rights for women, de-privatization of student loans, the stimulus which created or prevented loss of two to four million jobs and extended unemployment insurance for millions of unemployed workers, the health care bill which despite weaknesses will extend coverage to tens of millions of Americans including youth, repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell and establishing the Consumer Finance Protection Board. Many of President Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, the U.S. Supreme Court, and to federal agencies covering health and safety, food and drug, have begun to re-orient these agencies toward their original overall purpose of protecting people rather than corporate interests.

The 30,000 people who protested the Keystone Pipeline at the White House and won a postponement of action by President Obama on tar stands oil, give a powerful example of how street heat can influence policy.

The core forces for social change on a mass level have to see themselves as an organized and disciplined force that is not only blocking the extreme right-wing by voting for Obama, but is positioning itself to fight for the progressive programs the country needs.

As Mary Kay Henry, president of SEIU, said upon endorsing Obama for re-election, "We will fight shoulder to shoulder alongside working families across this nation. We will show the one percent that they aren't the only ones willing to fight for America's future."

The 2012 election is shaping up to be an epic battle in a debate about what kind of country do we want to be. As shown by the campaign in Ohio, the labor movement is gearing up for its biggest mobilization ever.

President Obama has launched a special outreach to communities of color, women and youth. He has convened several conferences with African American, Hispanic and Native American community leaders and policy makers from across the country to discuss his agenda in relation to those concerns. In addition, Operation Vote is outreaching to Jewish and LGBT communities. .

A New York Times / CBS News survey last month shows that African American voters are favorable to President Obama by over 90%, and a Pew Research Center poll showed Black voters preferred Obama over Romney by 95 to 3.

The number of Latino voters has grown significantly, from 17.3 million in 2006 to 21.3 million last year, according to the Pew Center. Latinos now have the highest rate of poverty among every racial and ethnic group in the country. Reflecting disappointment at the lack of comprehensive immigration reform and increasing deportations, support for Obama has fallen as much as 25% according to the Pew Center, an issue which cannot wait to be addressed.

Support for Obama among women voters was evenly divided in the 2010 midterm elections compared to a 56% vote in 2008. The Republican website dares to blame Obama for the fact that "over 1.1 million women have lost their jobs as the unemployment rate among women has risen from 6.9% to 8.5%," when it is Republican blockage of remedies that is to blame. Emily's List and Planned Parenthood and others are gearing up to take on the frontal attack on women's rights the extreme right wing has been pursuing.

Among youth the Pew survey found wide support for the president, but also found that the share of young voters who identify themselves as either solidly Democratic or leaning Democratic has fallen to 50% now from 58% in 2008. Obama won the 18-to-29 voters by a 66% to 32% margin, which was the largest margin by any presidential candidate among any age group in any election since 1972.

Moreover, those younger voters made up an unusually large 18% of the electorate. In the 2010 midterm elections, younger voters fell to 11% of the electorate, and their support for Democrats dropped to 57%. The challenge is to galvanize the youth vote and overcome the new laws in many states that place barriers in the way of the right to vote.

Republicans and right-wing political action committees continue to target the core forces to create confusion and disunity and to suppress the vote. Every lie, deceit and dirty trick can be expected and must be prepared for.

The Republican campaign drips with racism, not only in open attempts to defeat the first African American president, but also in the program projected and the crass revival of the racist "welfare queen" rhetoric that was used so effectively in the 1970s and 1980s.

Examples include blaming the financial crisis on giving mortgages to poor people and blaming rising health care costs on those forced to use the emergency room for a doctor. The entire Republican economic and social arguments are based not only on faulty reasoning but on outright lies aimed at splitting the vote. "We are the 99%" lays the basis for shifting the ground to the class essence of the Republican positions.

Women and seniors are also targets. The Granny-gate scandal in Ohio, where a senior activist's video in opposition to SB5 was altered and aired by the Koch brothers portraying her as supporting SB 5 is just a preview of what we can expect this year.

Voter suppression has become a civil rights issue in the 2012 election. A Brennan Center for Justice report, "Voting Law Changes in 2012," examines 19 laws and two executive actions that passed in 14 states in 2011, including regulations requiring photo IDs or proof of citizenship to vote, and laws curtailing access to voter registration, early voting, and absentee voting, initiated by ALEC., the American Legislative Exchange Council, founded by the Koch brothers.

The states that made changes to voting laws have 171 electoral votes, 63% of the 270 needed to win the presidency. These new laws could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012, especially youth, racially oppressed, low income voters and voters with disabilities or past criminal convictions.

Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin have new photo ID requirements and several other states have implemented new voting rules that reduce early voting and limit same-day registration.

This attack is being met head on, and could have the effect of swelling voter turnout. The NAACP, SEIU and 57 organizations have announced a Stand for Freedom march and rally on December 10, Human Rights Day, from the offices of the Koch brothers to the United Nations.

Rock the Vote has launched a special website to mobilize the youth vote. "You are getting screwed!" it says. "There is a war on voting going on and your rights are under attack ... In America, we rock the vote, we don't block the vote."

Political democracy is also threatened by the unlimited anonymous spending allowed for corporations by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. There are a variety of tactics being developed to challenge this ruling. The only answer to the financial onslaught is to fully mobilize our numbers.

The frontal assault on labor, racially oppressed, women, youth and many other sectors of the voting population is being met with a strong fight back, adding to the significance of the 2012 election.

Part three: The political map

A determined, organized and focused voter outpouring can succeed in re-electing President Obama and winning control of the House and the Senate.

The White House

This election is considered the most difficult a President has faced for re-election in two decades. While every state is important to amass the electoral votes needed for election, there are 13 states that are expected to be the most sharply contested.

States Obama carried in 2008 that were carried by the Republicans in 2004: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

States Obama carried in 2008 that were carried by the Democrats in 2004: Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The House

All 435 House seats are up for election.

The current balance is 242 Republicans (55.6 %) to 193 Democrats (44.4 %).

Democrats need to pick up 25 seats to regain majority control, which is considered possible.

The Cook Report rates 32 Republicans "at risk" compared with 24 Democrats "at risk."

Sixty-one Republicans represent Congressional Districts that voted for President Obama in 2008,

The Senate

Thirty-three seats are up for election.

The current balance is 53 Democrats and 2 Independents who caucus with them to 47 Republicans.

Of the 33 seats up for election, Democrats hold 23, and Republicans hold 10.

Six Democrats or Independents are retiring: Jim Webb of Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingamen of New Mexico, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin.

Two Republican Senators are retiring, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and John Kyl of Arizona.

Dem/Independents seeking reelection are: Vermont's Bernie Sanders, Florida's Bill Nelson, Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, Missouri's Claire McCaskill, Montana's Jon Tester, Pennsylvania's Bob Casey, West Virginia's Joe Manchin, Delaware's Tom Carper, Maryland's Ben Cardin, Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, New Jersey's Bob Menendez, New York's Kirsten Gillbrand, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehorse, and Washington's Maria Cantwell.

Democratic candidates seeking open seats include: Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wash., Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

Other noteworthy Senate races already underway include Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., running to unseat Republican Senator Scott Brown, Rep. Shelly Berkeley, D-Nev., running to unseat freshman Republican Sen. Dean Heller, Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., running to unseat Republican Senator Richard Lugar.

Part four: Role of CPUSA

As anger at the financial institutions rises, so does interest in the Communist Party, the YCL and socialism.

We are proudly a party of the working class, a party of all those who are locked out of the American Dream. Our program is a clarion call for unity and a call for justice.

As millions of people, especially young, and also older, are questioning and rejecting capitalism for most there is no clear alternative.

We are called upon in this moment to clearly place our vision and how to get there. The National Board has been having several discussions along these lines with some proposals.

Our vision is not separate and apart from the tremendous task before us in 2012. Not only is there no contradiction, the way we work in this election can result in many new multi-racial, working class members in the Party and YCL.

We have had such an experience in New Haven. Following the YCL school in April where new members joined, we all gave our summer to the important election campaign for Board of Aldermen. We went door-to-door, weekly, and sometimes several times a week, the YCL focused in one ward. They were greatly appreciated. The candidate received many compliments for the youth involvement in her campaign. During the campaign more youth joined the YCL when they found out that was who had organized the effort. After the successful campaign, that alderwoman worked with the youth and participated in a big march for youth jobs. Again more youth joined the YCL when they found out that was who had initiated this movement.

I am sure we will hear other examples around the country as well, that show that the strategy and tactics and action of the Communist Party and YCL is what can build our membership numbers and develop new leaders.

The doors are wide open in every community for 2012 with nationally coordinated grass roots work by labor and by the American Dream movement as a whole.

This election will be decided by the number of doors knocked on, the number of conversations held, the number of voters who are inspired to become a part of this movement and make a difference.

Where we have clubs that are focused on a neighborhood, door to door election work is made to order as a way to bring out the vote and build a club base. In the example I mentioned, we coordinated our participation through the labor movement. It all started with door knocking to find out what the concerns of the voters were in that ward, and it went from there. And don't forget to bring voter registration cards along!

If there is a new club, or even if there is just an individual comrade in that area, the excitement of participating with the unions in an election campaign is really great. You are making a stronger labor movement and you are giving voice to the community, and you are helping to win all at the same time.

One of the things that really attracts people to be a part, are the stories and analysis in the People's World / Mundo Popular. Rick Nagin, Juan Lopez and others set a terrific example writing for the paper and widely circulating the articles among labor leaders and activists. We should look at the People's World as a very special asset to building unity and cutting through the lies and confusion that is bound to happen during this election year.

The election is not just a project that ends on November 6. The election is part of the long-term process of bringing new members of the working class, their family and friends and co-workers into action and also into our inspiring movement.

We need a variety of materials to carry with us along the way. The promo card for the People's World is great. So is the "Save Our Nation - Tax the Rich" brochure. Another in the series is on the way focused on jobs. The pamphlet "Feeling Locked Out of the American Dream?" is also great to circulate and discuss. The weekly electronic blast from Scott Marshall, the monthly phone conference discussions all are open to bring people in to see what we're about and take part.

It's easy to get so involved in the day to day that outreach and club building gets lost. That's why it helps a lot to have a local plan mapped out with some modest goals to follow and amend as need be.

This is an amazing time, a time of motion, a time of transition. It is a time with great dangers, but the opportunities are there. This is a moment we cannot miss!

There will surely be attempts to split and divide. But sticking together, youth protesting for their right to a future, joined with the labor movement, civil rights, peace, environment and social justice, can rescue democracy in our country. If we do our part and stay focused, this new social movement growing in the context of the 2012 elections, has the capacity to take us beyond what has been possible and open the door for new dreams toward equality and "people and nature before profits."

Resources

League of Women Voters: state by state voter dates and information

http://www.vote411.org/

Youth Vote: state by state voter registration info

http://www.youthvote.org/

Rock the Vote - Don't Block the Vote

http://www.rockthevote.com/campaigns/suppression/#

NAACP Voter Rights Mobilization and Voter Hotline

http://www.naacp.org/content/main

Photo: (PeoplesWorld.org)

Class and democratic struggles in a volatile time

Sam Webb — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:57:00 -0500

The following is a report to the National Committee of the Communist Party USA, which met in New York City, Nov. 12-13, 2011.

This is a volatile period. Battle lines are being drawn. Not for a while have things been so unhinged.

A marked upswing, if not a qualitative turn in class and democratic struggles, is afoot.

Sustained mass actions, civil disobedience, new levels of solidarity and consciousness, innovative tactics and slogans, and a complex array of social forces and organizations are reshaping the political landscape in unexpected ways.

The most dramatic expression of this broadening, quickening, and to a degree spontaneous upsurge against the gaping inequality and injustice in our society is the Occupy movement.

This spirited movement - and the spirit is contagious - is capturing the imagination of tens of millions who are fed up with Wall Street's greed and worried sick about their own diminishing economic prospects.

Its politics don't fit neatly into any distinct political category and its methods of organization are unorthodox. No single "ism" prevails. Nevertheless, most of the participants are on the progressive and left side of the spectrum even if they don't characterize themselves in those terms.

While the occupiers are disgusted with Wall Street and Washington's deference to the "lords of finance," they don't embrace a specific set of demands. Some observers see this as a grave weakness, but we shouldn't. They have shined a spotlight on Wall Street, changed the national conversation from anti-government to anti-Wall Street, and turned the struggle against finance capital into a mainstream, top versus bottom issue.

This movement has spread to other cities and around the world, proving that in a volatile climate, small initiatives can trigger massive social irruptions.

Each occupation has its own distinct character shaped by local conditions and struggles. Grinding poverty, not Wall Street opulence, surrounds Occupy Detroit, for instance.

The occupations are winning the enthusiastic support and solidarity of labor all across the country. In Oakland, the longshore workers shut the port down.

If there is a divergence between the occupiers and labor's leadership, it lies in the attitudes towards the 2012 elections. Labor sees the defeat of the Republican Party - the party of rightwing extremism - as the critical terrain on which the class struggle will be fought.

Many of the occupiers, on the other hand, are suspicious of the political process, and see no value in participating in electoral and legislative politics.

What is needed is a friendly dialogue about the place of electoral politics in the larger scheme of things.

Spokespeople for labor should make the point that the 1 percent cringes at the thought of the occupiers and the 99 percent going to the polls in next year's elections.

Class warfare

For Republicans the occupations are distressing, to say the least. They have called them "un-American," say they are "designed to incite American against American," and are "the work of mobs."

But these attacks increasingly fall on deaf ears, and reveal in unmistakable ways their class loyalties to finance capital.

No longer can they have it both ways: insisting on class peace while waging class war. The jig is up. The people are at the gates. What goes around comes around.

In Marxist terms, the class contradiction is sharpening.

The occupations may seem to have come out of the blue, but they didn't. Since the spring we have witnessed an uptick in class and democratic struggles on a global scale from Cairo to Athens, Madrid and Santiago.

In our own backyard, major struggles broke out in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere.

Nor should we forget that millions of young and older activists who threw themselves into the campaign to elect Barack Obama are looking to leave their mark on the political process going forward.

Thus, the occupation movement continues, draws inspiration from, and is rooted in homegrown as well as international struggles. It is a current in a much larger constellation of forces in which the participation and leadership of labor and people of color are of crucial importance.

Young people

Young people, bringing their flair and freshness, are the largest constituency of the occupations. Not only do they want to curb the power of the banks, take the money out of politics, and democratize public and private institutions, they also want to transform their own lives.

Some of what they do may seem farfetched and removed from the realities of power, but maybe that speaks to our limited cultural and political imaginations.

In any case, the potential of further building a broad youth movement has never been greater. It could eclipse in size and understanding the youth rebellion of the 1960s. And that movement left a permanent mark on the politics and culture of our country.

An immediate challenge - and a special challenge for the Young Communist League - is to energize the rest of the young generation whose life prospects are grim. As long as they are not a part of the occupation movement and the struggle generally, any hope of any substantive victory now and in the future is greatly diminished. And here I include the college campuses that are not yet plunged into struggles on a broad scale.

One would think that the economic conditions that measure the well being of young people - unemployment, student debt, etc. - should dispose them in the direction of struggle. And it does, but it doesn't happen automatically; the same conditions can also result in a narrow focus on individual advancement.

What young people do hinges on many factors, including if the broader movement gives them both support and, at the same time, space to articulate their specific concerns, express their generational styles, and construct their own independent forms of organization.

Challenges

Obviously the occupation movement faces challenges. One of them is to articulate a set of demands - jobs creation, student debt relief, transaction tax, millionaires' tax, etc. - and a pathway to win them.

Looming large as well is growing the movement in labor and communities of the racially oppressed, avoiding unnecessary confrontations with the police that draw attention away from Wall Street robbery, approaching the 2012 elections, and transitioning to a new phase of struggle in which the occupation of physical space isn't necessarily a defining feature.

Everyone is asking: what's next for the Occupy movement? A fair question with no easy answer, but it is no more important than some other related questions: How does labor and other social movements - how do we - adjust to this moment? What new initiatives and methods of struggle fit this upswing in class and democratic struggles? What new demands should see the light of day? Isn't greater boldness necessary? How can the entire progressive community mobilize broad support against police actions to evict the occupiers from public space?

All of this needs to be chewed over.

Strategic policy

In times like these some might think the shortcomings and inconsistencies of the president and the Democrats since 2008 warrant a change in strategic policy in general and electoral policy in particular.

I can understand this sentiment, but the facts on the ground, as messy, contradictory and disappointing as they are, don't call for jettisoning our strategic policy.

The main obstacle to social progress remains rightwing extremism and its corporate backers. They cast a reactionary shadow over the whole political process.

The election of Barack Obama was a blow to the ultra right, but subsequent events have demonstrated that it wasn't a decisive blow.

The right still retains considerable power and initiative to frame the debate and disrupt the legislative and political agenda.

Its overarching goal next year is to regain control of all three branches of the federal government. How dangerous is that? In my view it would set the stage for a period of extreme rightwing onslaught.

In the bull's-eye would be every democratic right, economic protection and people's organization.

The right to organize into a union would be annulled.

The unemployed would be left out to dry.

Abortions would become a criminal offense.

Education and health care would become a privilege.

The social safety net would disappear.

Discrimination would become the law of the land.

Global warming would accelerate to the point of irreversibility.

Prison populations would expand still further.

The projection of military power would become the favored instrument of foreign policy.

In sum, gone would be the rights, protections and programs that were won in the 20th century.

If you don't believe me take a glimpse at Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio where rightwing Republicans took control of the levers of power in 2010, and then ruthlessly rolled back rights, eliminated social programs and attacked the labor movement.

Those actions are a harbinger of what the Republican Party would do if in command of the federal government next year.

By contrast, the decisive defeat of the right would weaken Wall Street and the entire corporate class, give leverage and momentum to the people's movement, and open up the possibility of an era that puts people and nature before profits.

Said differently and dialectically, the defeat of the right at the polls next year is not only to the advantage of the Democratic Party, but also to the advantage of the labor-led people's movement. To affirm one doesn't deny the validity of the other.

In fact, I would go a step further, and say that a decisive victory will be of more advantage to the working class and people's movement than to its temporary ally, the Democratic Party.

None of this is to suggest that the Democrats aren't now or won't be in the future an obstacle to progressive change; in too many instances they are, but they aren't the main obstacle for the moment.

This election, then, is not about choosing a lesser evil. Politics is not a morality play and the Obama administration and Democrats are not evil. It is about our nation's future: Are we going to move in a progressive-democratic or rightwing anti-democratic authoritarian direction?

Thus, the labor-led people's coalition, and Communists as a current within that coalition, must make every phase of the election process a number one priority.

The people's coalition must be a major factor in the primaries. It must reach, register and educate new and stay-at-home voters. It must guarantee a maximum voter turnout on Election Day.

No less important, it must unrelentingly expose the reactionary positions of the Republican candidates and their racist and anti-democratic systematic campaign to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters.

Not everyone shares this view. Some think the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans.

Others go further and say that the Democrats are worse because they create popular illusions that change is possible within the two-party system.

Still others say the electoral process is so compromised by corporate money that participating in it is a fool's errand.

And finally there are advocates of running a third-party presidential candidate in this election.

I can understand these sentiments, but only up to a point. In the end, conditions don't warrant non-participation in the elections or a third-party candidacy.

Like it or not, millions go to the polls in spite of their misgivings. They are invested in the electoral process. And the Democratic Party remains the vehicle of reform for tens of millions, the majority of whom are working and oppressed people.

What is more, labor will throw itself into the campaign to elect Democrats, moderate as well as progressive, albeit from its own organizational base.

Much the same can be said about the racially oppressed. Ditto for the women's and seniors' movements. The majority of youth will also take part in the elections, and like four years ago on the side of President Obama and the Democrats.

A third party presidential candidate would only help the extreme right.

The two parties of the capitalist class have similarities. That is undeniable. But differences also exist at the level of policies, which can be widened under the impact of a powerful people's movement, as they were in earlier historical periods.

The past three years have been frustrating to be sure; much the same could be said about the past three decades. But frustration and impatience are a poor excuse for a strategic and tactical policy in relation to the coming elections and politics generally.

Only a very sober and objective analysis should guide our thinking and actions. It is easy to imagine any number of electoral strategies, but the question is: which one is rooted in objective realities and advances class and democratic struggles?

I wish the movement were not only ready to form an independent labor-based people's party, but also to help elect a consistently anti-corporate government, which under certain conditions could open up a path to socialist transformation.

But I don't believe that we are at that stage of struggle yet. And wish as we might, we won't be until our movement is broader, deeper and more consciousness of its tasks and objectives.

There is no direct path to socialism. The class struggle goes through various stages and at each stage new tasks arise. To skip over them in the name of militant radicalism may feel revolutionary, but in the end it is self-defeating and strategically misguided.

Lenin wrote in "Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder",

"Parliamentarism has become 'historically obsolete.' That is true as regards propaganda. But everyone knows that this is still a long way from overcoming it practically. Capitalism could have been declared, and quite rightly, to be 'historically obsolete' many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the soil of capitalism."

Struggle for jobs

Of the issues that will move the American people, poll after poll tells us that it is the issue of jobs, jobs, and jobs.

This is of overriding concern and understandably so. Roughly 25 million workers are either unemployed or underemployed. This is a national disaster with an unmistakable racial, gender and youth edge. It requires emergency action.

President Obama's jobs proposals are the ground on which millions, including the occupiers, can be drawn into the fight to create jobs and rebuild the nation's infrastructure. The AFL-CIO is embracing and promoting them. Others will come on board too as the campaign gathers momentum.

The president's proposals are not as far-reaching as some other jobs proposals. The plans put forward by the Congressional Black Caucus, Progressive Caucus, AFL-CIO and Representative Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., are more ambitious, and we recognize that they contain more in-depth solutions. But the hard fact is that none of them stand a chance of congressional approval given the current balance of forces in Congress, and in the House in particular.

The president's proposals do, although the going will be tough. The Republicans, while initially making conciliatory noises, are determined not to give the president a positive record to run on. They figure a president with no accomplishments, especially in a period of crisis, will not be returned to office.

That such a position will hurt millions of people is of no concern to them. In fact, in their view, the worse economic conditions are, the better are their chances of winning back the White House and Congress in 2012. Irresponsible yes, cynical yes, even diabolical, but as a political calculus, this contains some truth.

Indeed, unless the American people are convinced otherwise, they could easily blame the president for the economic mess when they go into the voting booth next year.

The president, probably more than the rest of us, seems to be well of aware of this. Thus he appears determined to take the initiative on the main economic policy questions facing the nation. It seems evident he is no longer willing to let Republicans frame the political agenda.

Indeed, his jobs speech and subsequent travel to campaign for jobs put the GOP leaders on their heels for the first time since 2010 when they regained control of the House.

Now we won't like everything the president proposes, especially if he supports cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and we should mobilize to make sure such ideas are dropped. But at the same time, that shouldn't be an obstacle to getting behind the job proposals (and I would add the millionaires' tax) in a full-blooded way.

The left should not set the perfect against the possible. It's counterproductive. And let's not "damn" the president's jobs and tax initiatives "with faint praise" - an approach that has been employed too often to no good effect.

A robust grassroots campaign for Obama's jobs measures will put wind in the president's sails, give people hope, and improve the prospects of a people's victory next year. We shouldn't concede this struggle in advance to the obstructionist efforts of the Republican Party. In fact, supporters of the jobs bill (and let's include occupiers) should organize visits to the congressional offices of Republicans during the holiday breaks.

Every Communist Party collective should discuss how to participate in this campaign. Where possible we should join with others in the neighborhood and at the workplace to establish jobs committees. A few people working together can make a difference; mass is a relative concept. Neither we, nor the movement generally, have enough traction on this critical struggle.

Struggle for unity and fight against racism

To win victories requires unity. We understand that well, but so do our adversaries. Thus they work overtime to divide the people's movement.

The employed against the unemployed, men against women, straight against gay, believers against nonbelievers, workers against welfare recipients, native born against immigrants, old people against young people, labor against environmentalists, occupiers against election activists, and white people against people of color.

Each of these deserves some elaboration, but space doesn't allow for that. So what I would like to do is focus on the fight against racism.

Racism is the most persistent and pernicious form of division in our country. It creates a fault line in our movement that if not overcome, irredeemably weakens the people's struggles.

Racism appears in structural and ideological forms. It is more than prejudice or attitude. It rests on the systematic elaboration of the notion of white superiority. And this notion has its origins in and is sustained by racist practices and structures that confine people of color to a subordinate status relative to white people in nearly every area of life.

Much has been said in recent years that the country is in a post-racial era. The only problem with this claim is that there is little evidence of it.

By every social measure people of color find themselves in inferior conditions. A quick glance at unemployment rates or life expectancy rates or wealth accumulation rates or incarceration rates or poverty rates offers ample proof of this fact.

Nor has racism in its ideological form abated. Perhaps its contemporary expression is different than it was a half century ago, but its essence hasn't changed.

In a column a few weeks ago, Pat Buchanan wrote:

"Can Western civilization survive the passing of the European peoples whose ancestors created it and their replacement by Third World immigrants? Probably not, for the new arrivals seem uninterested in preserving the old culture they have found."

He doesn't say segregation now and segregation forever, but it is a hardly concealed appeal to the worst instincts of white people.

Buchanan is not a lone voice in the wilderness. Since his election President Obama has been the object of open and unrelenting racist vilification.

"He's not a citizen," "he's in over his head," "he's Hitler in a blackface," "he's a tribesman," "he's a dick," "he's your boy," and on and on.

All of these vile expressions of racism pollute our political culture, rationalize the harsh conditions in which people of color live, fatten the corporate bottom line and sustain the rule of the most reactionary sectors of our society.

Racism is also the ticket of the party of white supremacy - the Republican Party - to return to the White House next year.

This racist ideological offensive attempts to convince white working people that they share common cause with the reactionary right.

But there is no evidence for this claim. While the program of the extreme right - cuts in people's programs, denial of voting rights, obstructing jobs legislation, etc. - falls especially hard on people of color, it also negatively impacts white working people as a whole.

This is the common thread that binds the multi-racial working class together. And this is especially so if the democratic demands of people of color and other oppressed people combine with the overall demands of the working class and people as a whole.

Thus what is urgently needed is a broadly-based, sustained struggle for economic justice and full equality.

Such a struggle not only brings relief to the victims of racism, other forms of oppression, and class exploitation, it also constitutes the strategic cornerstone of a winning struggle against the Republican right in the elections next year.

I emphasize this question because there is a tendency to lose sight of the special oppression that sections of the working class experience and the democratic demands associated with that oppression. This is a mistake at any time, but particularly now when such grave dangers are facing our country and the world.

Economy and its current status

The Great Recession of 2008 is looking more like the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic crisis of U.S. (and world) capitalism is entering its fourth year.

And according to no less than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, "the recovery is close to faltering." To think otherwise is wishful thinking.

In fact, a downward turn, aka "double dip," is more likely than a surge upward - not to mention a resumption of sustained and robust economic growth.

The International Monetary Fund in a recent report underscored the shaky prospects for the economy.

"The global economy is in a dangerous new phase. Global activity has weakened and become more uneven, confidence has fallen sharply recently, and downside risks are growing."

One of those risks is the potential default and implosion of the countries on Europe's southern tier - Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain. Each is caught in a dense web of mounting sovereign - government - debt that makes it susceptible to defaulting on its obligations to various financial institutions.

This would send financial and economic shockwaves across Europe and then to the United States and the rest of the world.

Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and economist, says the impact will be "catastrophic."

The rational policy response to this threatening danger on both sides of the Atlantic should be a combination of fiscal expansion, monetary easing, and debt restructuring/forgiveness.

In other words, governments should inject money into the veins of the economy, monetary authorities - read central banks and banks - should reduce interest rates and make credit easily available, and officials in the imperial centers should write down/postpone/cancel the debt of financially strapped governments such as Greece.

But that is not what they are doing. Austerity is the watchword. And, as you would guess, the brunt of it, despite massive resistance, is falling first of all on the working classes.

Hopefully European and American leaders will come to their senses, stimulate their economies and restructure the debt of indebted governments.

But we shouldn't hold our breadth. In short order, the super committee of Democrats and Republicans will bring forward its budgetary recommendations to the Congress. In all likelihood it will propose cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs, along with some modest tax increases on upper income people and corporations. Such proposals will hurt not only working people but the economy as well - a double whammy.

Only mass pressure will force the committee members to reconsider this course of action. We should be an integral part of these mobilizations.

Structural crisis

It would be wrong to characterize this global economic crisis as only cyclical in nature. In a typical cyclical crisis, workers are idled, wages are lowered, excess capacity is destroyed, inefficient competitors are eliminated, inventories are reduced, and debt is drawn down. And in so doing the conditions are created for a vigorous recovery - that is, a fresh round of accumulation of capital (investment and growth) on a broader scale.

In the post-World War II period this is precisely what happened in the core capitalist countries. Full recovery followed retrenchment.

But so far, this crisis is different. True, it follows old patterns, but only up to a point. No revival and recovery has followed.

Growth rates are no longer negative, but they are not robust either. And there is little reason to think it will be much different going forward.

All of which suggests that this crisis is structural and systemic as well as cyclical.

Over the course of the last century, the country has experienced four structural crises.

The first was in the 1890s and out of it came the rise of finance and finance capital (the first financial hegemony), which lasted to the Great Depression.

The second was the Great Depression 1929-1940 and out of it came the Keynesian (class) compromise and an era of vigorous growth.

The third began in the 1970s and lasted for nearly a decade, and out of it came neo-liberalism (or the second financial hegemony).

And the final and most recent dates to 2007-2008 and its outcome is still to be decided.

None of these crises were self-correcting. They were longer lasting and deeper in character. And their resolution was bound up with the outcome of a bitter class struggle in which the victor - the working class and its allies or the capitalist class and its allies - was able to restructure the economy, politics, and conventional wisdom in its interests.

Crisis of neo-liberalism

Neo-liberalism, as mentioned, emerged in the wake of the structural crisis of capitalism in the 1970s. It was the result of the economic contradictions of capitalism and the class struggle at that time.

It rested on flexible production networks on a global scale, union busting, deregulation, low-wage labor, inflation suppression, the hollowing-out of the welfare state, tax redistribution, and above all, the rise of finance.

The state didn't withdraw from the economy as much as it restructured its role and functions to suit the objectives of the top fractions of the capitalist class and particularly finance capital - that is, the restoration of class power, income and privilege.

Giving a necessary and heavy assist to this process was the Reagan administration. Much like Thatcher in the United Kingdom, Reagan employed state power to crush the opposition to neoliberal policies, reframe popular thinking, and grease the skids and shape the contours of neoliberal financialization and globalization. In doing so he set into motion three decades of neo-liberalism in a rightwing skin.

In other words, the morphing of capitalism into its neoliberal form was a contested process in which the working class and its allies found themselves on the defensive, fending off blows, and unable to mount a sustained and sufficiently strong counteroffensive.

What is more, the neoliberal expansion beginning in the early 1990s resting on debt-driven bubble economics, temporally hid the conflicting interests and contradictions of this structure of capital accumulation.

But all this changed in the fall of 2008 when the collapse of the housing market triggered a near-meltdown of financial markets and a long-term crisis of overproduction and stagnation in the economy as a whole.

Looking ahead, the exact contours and content of the recovery will depend on which class and its allies are able to leave their imprint on the political and economic process.

This is not a struggle between capitalism and socialism in the near and medium term, but over whether the working class and its allies are able to set into motion a process of reforms and radical reforms within the framework of capitalism.

So far financial capital and rightwing extremism have the initiative. But the battle and final outcome is far from settled.

What is encouraging is that millions, thanks in part to the occupy movement, are coming to the conclusion that there is a divergence between neo-liberalism and the needs of the working class and society.

If neo-liberalism is being challenged at the national level, it is under siege at the global level. In nearly every region of the world neo-liberalism finds itself discredited.

It was undone by its own contradictions. It promised growth and rising incomes, but brought hardship.

In some regions of the world, namely Latin America and Asia, the rebellion against neoliberal globalization and financialization has progressed from protest to the development of alternative growth models.

International developments

Following the demise of the Soviet Union twenty years ago, ideologues of U.S. imperialism spoke of the possibility of a unipolar century. How wrong they were!

Today the world is multi-polar, interdependent, unstable, and resistant to U.S. military power. It is defined by the rise of new powerful states - China in the first place. And it is filled with new overarching challenges - climate change, resource shortages and depletion, pandemic diseases, terrorism, and more.

Thus it is fair to ask if elite circles in the U.S. will take a fresh look at the U.S. role in world affairs and adjust it to new realities.

The answer to that question is yes and no.

On a tactical level the answer is yes. Some rethinking is going on regarding the methods employed to maintain U.S. dominance.

There is, for example, serious discussion about cutting the military budget in favor of domestic spending on education, research and infrastructure.

Or, to take another example, the war against the Gaddafi forces in Libya gives us a glimpse of what a different and less costly approach to the projection of military power might look like, that is, NATO-led interventions, the use of air power and drones, selective assassinations, sabotage and cyber warfare.

But on a strategic level the answer is no. No one in elite circles is suggesting that the U.S. should relinquish its dominant role in the world. And given the fierce rivalry over oil and other natural resources now and in the future, it is fair to say that this won't change in coming decades.

Illustrative of this is the administration's response to the Arab Spring. The White House welcomed democratic change as long as it was in a certain direction and didn't jeopardize the strategic interests of U.S. imperialism in that region of the world.

As a consequence, it cautiously supported democratic aspirations in Tunisia and Egypt, aided the rebels in Libya, struck a posture of silence or near-silence in the face of government repression of prodemocracy forces in other countries, including the murder of dissidents, and ginned up threats against Iran.

Moreover, U.S. support for the Israeli government continued, albeit with tensions between the administration and the Netanyahu government, while at the same time, the U.S. opposed the PLO's bid in the United Nation for Palestinian statehood.

Which goes to demonstrate that no matter who is in the White House the opposition to any strategic change in foreign policy is enormously powerful and includes core sections of transnational corporate capital, the military-industrial and energy complexes, the Pentagon, right-wing extremists, the foreign policy lobbies and other institutions of the national security state.

U.S. foreign policy is not solely decided in elite circles, however. The American people - not to mention people worldwide - also have a say.

More and more they are insisting with a new vigor that a new political and economic order be constructed, shorn of U.S. dominance.

For progressive and left activists this creates some new opportunities to rein in U.S. imperialism and military spending. Needless to say, we should continue to be part of the peace and anti-imperialist movement.

Militancy and civil disobedience

We are for militant expressions of struggle; historically speaking, civil disobedience is part of the DNA of progressive and left movements.

It was Communists who illegally occupied the GM auto plant in Flint, Michigan in the winter of 1936, leading to the organization of GM and the rest of the auto industry.

It was Communists who were among the young people who occupied lunch counters in 1960.

It was Communists who were among the people arrested in the protests over the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

And in recent weeks, Communists proudly marched off to jail with other occupiers.

And going forward we won't be shy to put our bodies on the line when the cause is just and the message inspires others to stand up for justice.

At the same time, we are against reckless provocations, violence to persons and property, and false bravado - all of which undercut the political and moral authority of the people's movement.

The litmus test for any action or slogan or issue is: does it win the active and/or passive support of larger and larger numbers of the American people?

If it does, full speed ahead. If it doesn't, we should rethink our approach.

The task is not simply to propose the most radical action in every situation. The task is to choose that tactic that wins the sympathy of millions, not some small circle of committed activists.

I often say what really matters (and this is a bit of an exaggeration) is not what we think, but what millions think. The latter is the starting point of communist policy and work.

Role of the Communist Party

0ur role is to assist labor and its allies to fight more consciously and strategically across every front of struggle.

We are not go-it-aloners, nor do we advocate narrow approaches to struggle. We're not a big party, but we think big. Our aim isn't to make a momentary splash or show off our radical pedigree for its own sake, but to redirect powerful currents of change in the direction of social progress and socialism.

At the core of the movement that we hope to build is the organized section of the working class. Because of its new thinking and initiatives, resources, experience - and let's not forget its location in the system of social production - we don't consider labor (and the working class as a whole) as just one more participant in the broader movement. Its role is strategic to the broader movement's success.

On the other hand, we don't believe that labor (and the working class as a whole) can go it alone. That would be a losing strategy. Its organic allies are people of color, women, immigrants, seniors and youth.

Only with such breadth and relationships is victory possible in the near term against the right and in the longer term against corporate power and its political parties.

In other words, broad unity is the path out of this crisis and the fight for such unity is a distinguishing hallmark of communists. As Marx and Engels wrote long ago, our foremost concern is the unity of the movement as a whole.

Finally, we see no contradiction between the struggle for immediate reforms and the struggle for radical reforms and socialist revolution. In fact, we can't get to the latter without fighting for the former; that is, only in the course of fighting for democratic reforms are the conditions created for radical change.

Ideological work

A critical part of our work is ideological. That could be said on any occasion, but today it resonates with special force. Old notions long held by working people haven't entirely gone by the wayside, but they have become unhinged to a greater or lesser degree. Tens of millions believe that the system is unjust, that the 1 percent lives very differently than the 99 percent.

The fact is that it takes some doing to defend - let alone extol - capitalism, when its flaws and injustices are experienced by so many.

We can bring to light the linkages between capitalism's inner dynamics, the capitalist economic crisis and the current onslaught on people's living standards and rights in the public and private arenas. In particular, we can remind everyone that "free enterprise" got us into this mess, but won't get us out.

And what better time to bring into this conversation our vision of a democratic, home-grown socialism.

Party growth

We are experiencing party growth not seen in many years - perhaps since the late 1960s and early 1970s. This is related to the ongoing economic and political crisis, a growing tide of struggle, and openness to the ideas of socialism.

Most of the new members are joining online. Each month approximately 70 new CPUSA members are joining and another 30 are joining the YCL. Some are joining both. Many more are joining through the existing local clubs.

Meanwhile, readership of PW has grown, its Facebook "likes" have topped 15,000 9,000 for the CPUSA and 1,700 for the YCL.

This is presenting the party and YCL with two challenges:

1. Reaching the millions who are thinking anew about socialism and the CPUSA.

2. Reaching out and engaging the new members, who come from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences in struggle.

A qualitative leap in our public presence is of critical importance if we are to reach far beyond a small circle of people. Among other things, we should agree on a new ad campaign on Facebook.

In this campaign we should present the party in a fresh and contemporary way - a party of the 21st century in its thinking, organization, songs, symbols and image. We don't honor our history and past with a retro look; we should be more creative, more in the moment, more in tune with the feeling and perceptions of ordinary people.

As to the second question, the party and YCL have taken a number of steps to shorten the time of contacting new members and to expand the avenues of involvement and communication including: new member outreach projects in New York and Virginia, regional schools for YCL and young party members in Los Angeles, Orlando, Dallas, Chicago and New Haven; two national phone banks; establishment of a new roots meeting; visits to unorganized states; weekend schools in several districts; and regular political action messages to the membership.

We have also discussed how to improve the racial, national and gender composition of those joining. A whole series of steps are being planned including educational campaigns on the struggle for equality, targeted advertizing, meetings of our equality commissions and districts, etc.

A new Communist Party is being born. It is forcing us to work in a different kind of way, including entrusting responsibility for various areas of work to new members, tapping the talents and ideas of the new members, etc.

But more comrades and clubs need to be involved in the outreach and engagement if we are to take advantage of this extraordinary moment and make a turn.

Hands-on leadership

To play our part in this volatile period requires that we give practical as well as ideological leadership to the clubs and membership.

We should plan on meeting with every club to discuss its activity in the coming year. This discussion should be practical as well as ideological. And out of these discussions should come a simple but bold plan of work for the coming year that organically combines mass work with party and press building.

These are exciting times. The future is still to be decided. Let's do our part to make that future one that is worthy of humankind.

Photo: Communist Party contingent lines up to march at Occupy Chicago. (PeoplesWorld.org)

Message to Super Committee: Jobs not cuts!

Joelle Fishman — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:54:00 -0500

The following is a report to the National Board of the Communist Party USA by Political Action Chair Joelle Fishman.

Across the country today, Nov. 17, are "99%" events calling for jobs to rebuild crumbling bridges and other infrastructure needs of communities. The events will highlight the American Jobs Act. They will also highlight the looming Thanksgiving deadline of the "job-killing" Super Committee, which has been charged with identifying $1.2 trillion in cuts to the deficit.

This date marks the second month of Occupy Wall Street. Hundreds of thousands are in revolt against the kind of undemocratic backroom deals favoring the big corporations and ultra rich that the Super Committee represents.

In August, to avoid an immediate government shutdown, Congress agreed to $917 billion in spending cuts over a ten-year period on top of an already-reduced budget. They also created the Super Committee to make an additional $1.2 trillion in cuts.

If the Super Committee fails to come up with a proposal, a process called sequestration sets in. This would mandate cuts from domestic and military spending which would begin in 2013, excluding Social Security, Medicare and other major entitlement programs.

A major point of contention within the Super Committee is raising revenues by taxing the super rich. Most Republicans are hiding behind a pledge they signed with Grover Norquist to raise no taxes. Instead, they propose cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and programs essential for poor and middle-income families.

There is also a deceitful message from the Republicans claiming they will consider some tax increases. Their proposal is to eliminate some tax deductions (which would also impact middle income families), but only if there is a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts to the rich with the estate tax kept at the current low level. This equation actually increases the tax advantage for the richest 1 or 2% even more, and once again adds an additional burden on to middle and low-income earners!

The rallies today are very much on point. Putting people back to work is the way to boost the economy and therefore create the ability to reduce the deficit. Most deficit reduction measures increase unemployment, and further damage recovery. They impact most sharply on the racially oppressed, women, children and youth.

Yesterday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus held a hearing on job creation with the Economic Policy Institute and others. They said, "The American people have been clear that Congress' top priority must be job creation. Working families reject proposed austerity measures, including deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These cuts would have disastrous consequences for the middle class and the economy as a whole. Clearly, we must pursue other approaches to solving our economic problems."

The Occupy uprising captures the anger of the majority who are being devastated by the economic crisis while the wealthiest take home 24% of the nation's income, CEOs earn 530 times more than average workers and loopholes in the tax code favor ultra wealthy corporations and individuals. It is estimated that nearly one-third of African Americans are now unemployed, with youth much higher, and similar numbers for Latinos and the rural poor. Organizing this moral outrage can create significant mass pressure to impact the decision.

Most progressives agree that given the framework of the Super Committee, there can be no good deal.

On the other hand, business leaders are threatening to withhold campaign contributions until a deal is reached. They are pressuring the Super Committee to "Go Big" with cuts in spending.

There are divisions in the Democrats. A bi-partisan group in Congress also called on the Super Committee to "Go Big" and make sure to reach a "deal".

Some Democrats also joined in support of a Republican Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution which needs a two thirds vote for passage. (It failed on November 18 by a 261 to 165 vote.) A Balanced Budget Amendment would eliminate 15 million jobs and double the current unemployment rate to around 20%.

What are the options from the Super Committee?

If the Super Committee does come up with a proposal it will go to the House and Senate for an up or down vote by December 23. Then it will go to the President to sign or veto.

Or, the Super Committee can come up with a proposal in which they do not spell out all the details on taxes and forward it to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees.

If the Super Committee does not approve a plan, automatic cuts called sequestration will take place, half from domestic spending and half from military appropriations. However, Republicans are already lobbying that the military should be exempt from any cuts. Medicaid, SNAP, Unemployment Compensation and similar programs are to be exempted, but basic needs will be even further limited, and jobs will be lost.

These cuts are scheduled for January 2013, following the presidential election.

Or, if the Super Committee comes up with a plan that saves less than $1.2 trillion, there will be sequestration and automatic cuts to come up with the difference.

Many organizations are utilizing online petitions, and appealing for a flood of calls to the members of the Super Committee and to every Senator to oppose cuts for people's needs and to tax the rich and cut the military. (results.org)

The SAVE coalition of 1,600 groups adopted four principles. They agreed that for any proposal to be acceptable it must:

- protect low and mod income people and programs that serve them

- include substantial jobs creation

- include substantial fair sources of new revenue: taxes on the wealthiest

- reduce wasteful spending in military and elsewhere

The defeat of SB 5 in Ohio gives leverage. In Ohio voters soundly rejected an attack on workers' rights. Occupy has put the spotlight squarely on the top richest corporations and individuals. The message should be clear to elected officials that they will be in trouble if they give more to the top and if they mess with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Conclusions:

1. Any deal coming out of the committee will be a bad deal. At best it will have token tax increases on the rich. It will almost certainly focus on painful cuts on top of the cuts that are already taking place. We should urge committee members to reject any deal that cuts the safety net or any other useful spending. If the committee adopts such a deal, we should urge Congress and the President to reject it. Massive pressure is needed on all members of Congress to reject any deal and on the President to veto it if it comes to his desk.

2. The immediate issue is jobs, jobs, jobs. Any Super Committee deal will destroy jobs. (We should rename it the "job-killing Super Committee.") Congress should vote no on deficit reduction, then get to work and pass the American Jobs Act!

3. If the Super Committee fails, the fight shifts to implementation of the "automatic" across-the-board cuts. The right wing will try to exempt the military budget. We should fight to tax the rich and increase job-creating spending that meets the needs of our communities.

4. No matter what agreements are reached, Republicans will not be satisfied. Every appropriations bill, every debt ceiling resolution, will be an excuse for them to demand further cuts.

5. Unless Congress acts, January 1 will be the end of federal unemployment insurance and the 2% payroll tax cut for workers. Extending these are both included in the American Jobs Act. Immediate mobilization is needed to extend these benefits.

6. The best way to defeat the extreme right wing in 2012 is to campaign for jobs vs. austerity. A campaign based on a slightly milder (Democratic) austerity vs. a more severe (Republican) austerity is less likely to succeed and, if it succeeds, will be in a weak position to resist further austerity measures.

The Super Committee was set up to act in secret to impose austerity. The issue is jobs not deficits. Jobs not cuts. Social Security, Medicare, transportation, education, infrastructure, all create jobs and meet basic needs and should not be cut. Public support to tax the rich, and also to cut military spending, continues to grow, and are majority views. The demand must be placed on Congress to implement the will of the people.

Photo: John Bachtell/PeoplesWorld.org

CPUSA teleconference: 2011 elections victories set stage for struggles ahead

Sam Webb — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:43:00 -0500

Voters went to the polls Nov. 8 and decisively repudiated Republican Tea Party extremist assaults on collective bargaining, immigration reform, reproductive rights, gay and lesbian rights and right to vote in several states.

This was a powerful statement and will help to further change the debate across the country away from the Tea Party anti-government attacks and talk of deficit reduction and more against corporate greed and taxing the rich.

This development is connected to the growing Occupy Movement and reflects the power of the 99% when united and in action. If the labor-led people's movement can build on the election results, it can have an important impact on the outcome of the 2012 elections.

Join us Tuesday, November 15 for the next Communist Party USA national teleconference. The subject is:

2011 elections victories set the stage for the struggles ahead

Rick Nagin, chair of the Communist Party of Ohio and a leading grassroots organizer in the epic movement to repeal the anti-collective bargaining law SB 5, who will the lead the discussion..

The next national teleconference is:

Tuesday, November 15, 8 pm eastern, 7 pm central, 5 pm pacific

Teleconference number: 605-475-4850

Access code: 1053538#

Here are some links to PeopleWorld.org election coverage including Rick Nagin's analysis of the Ohio election results:

Ohio celebrates: union busting Ohio bill goes down by landslide: click here.

PeoplesWorld.org editorial: Labor-community power thwarts GOP-corporate agenda: click here.

Roberta Wood radio interview:

Also, we want to share an excellent radio interview recently with CPUSA leader Roberta Wood about the Occupy Movement that reflects growing interest in what our Party has to say: click here.

Photo: (AP)

Libya for the Libyans: Stop the intervention!

CPUSA International Department — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:32:00 -0400

After the killing of former Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi, some in the corporate controlled media are extolling the overall operation as the right way for the United States to project force overseas in the future.

We beg to differ. We find the whole episode, starting with the beginning of NATO intervention in March, to be very troubling. Rather than a model to be emulated, the operation sets very bad precedents.

The United Nations was crudely superseded by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose leaders took a mandate to prevent a possible massacre of civilians and transformed it into a gung ho mission of "regime change". NATO is now posing as an international organization. It is nothing of the kind; it is a military alliance in which there is no representation of African, Latin American or, with the exception of Turkey, Asian nations. The key role in the NATO intervention in Libya is being played by the former colonial powers (France and the UK, and, to a lesser extent, Libya's former colonial master, Italy as well as the United States) who have a vested interest in trade policy with the African continent, and control of that continent's natural resources. Window dressing was provided by some of the Arab states, which themselves are hardly paragons of democracy and good government.
Efforts by many nations and groupings, including the African Union, the BRICS countries and the ALBA grouping, to obtain a cease fire and get negotiations for a peaceful solution underway were cynically brushed aside. This led to a far bloodier conflict than might otherwise have been the case.
Although Gadaffi was correctly denounced for his repressive policies, little or nothing was said or done by the NATO powers about the well-documented persecution and reprisals against Black Libyans and immigrants from other African countries residing in Libya. Unless some action is taken, these and other reprisals are likely to continue.
There is a real danger that the NATO powers, and especially the former colonial powers, will use the elimination of Gadaffi to increase their control of the economies and trade of the African states, in the process imposing even harsher neo-liberal policies of "free" trade, privatization and austerity on some of the poorest countries in the world.

The Communist Party of the USA calls for a halt to this kind of interventionist policy. We call for the strengthening of real international organizations in which all nations and regions of the world have a vote. Rather than NATO military intervention, conflicts within and between nations in Africa and everywhere else should be settled peacefully by negotiations. There is, in fact, no reason for the existence of NATO, let alone its transformation into a worldwide imperialist intervention force that has ranged as far afield as the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.

The danger now is that the NATO powers, and international monopoly capital, take advantage of the Libya situation to maximize their profits from Libyan oil, natural gas and water resources, as well as strengthening their control over the economies of the impoverished African countries which depended on Libyan aid to survive. The Communist Party of the USA pledges to oppose all policies which plunge Libya and its African neighbors into deeper poverty and dependency.

Libya for the Libyans! Africa for the Africans!

PHOTO: by Ammar Abd Rabbo CC BY-NY 2.0

Building the 99% movement

Roberta Wood — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:01:00 -0400

We're living in very exciting and challenging times.

During the week of Oct. 10-14, demonstrations across the country involving tens of thousands demanded jobs and making the banks and wealthy pay for the mess they created. In many places the America Wants to Work campaign joined with Moveon.org, National People's Action, Reclaim the American Dream movement and countless grassroots community and faith based groups and the local Occupy Movements.

On Oct. 15 over 950 Occupy demonstrations were held in 80 countries. In New York, 20,000 marched through mid-town Manhattan marking 30 days of Occupy Wall Street. They issued a demand for taxing the rich and investing $2 trillion to create 25 million public sector jobs rebuilding the country and expanding vital services.

Thousands more marched for jobs in Washington DC after the ceremony unveiling the new monument to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Chicago over 175 people were arrested attempting to establish an encampment in Grant Park following a spirited march of 4,000. The arrestees included 5 Communist Party and Young Communist League members.

An outstanding feature of the Occupy Movement is the growing solidarity with labor, faith based and community organizations. New polls show growing support among the American people.

A key slogan of the Occupy Movement is "We are the 99%!" What is the 99% and what challenges does the movement face in building an all-inclusive coalition? What forms will it take? And how can all of us help build it?

This is the subject of our next national teleconference call:

Jarvis Tyner, CPUSA executive vice chair
Tuesday, October 25 at 8:00 pm Eastern
Teleconference number: 605-475-4850
Access code: 1053538#

Follow the great coverage from People's World/Mundo Popular:

No Surrender in Chicago as Occupy Movmeent mushrooms worldwide
Ten thousand occupy capitol, demand jobs now
Cass warfare: What goes around comes around
Teach-in promotes labor/student unity
Occupy El Paso Launched
Occupation spreads to Detroit!
Message from Occupy Missoula

Photo: Paul Stein // CC 2.0

Communist Party heralds Occupy Wall Street movement

Communist Party USA — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:57:00 -0400

We greet the Occupy Wall St. movement as it spreads throughout our country from large cities to small towns, led by youth and joined by people of all ages and backgrounds, giving voice to deep anger at extreme economic inequality.

The unemployed, those who have lost their homes, who cannot afford education or healthcare, are joining together as the 99 percent, saying "enough is enough" to the enormous greed and arrogance of financial institutions.

An epic battle is underway for the direction of our country. The Occupy movement is not alone.

The remarkable battles of Wisconsin and Ohio for workers' rights; and the extraordinary American Dream movement for jobs not cuts, taxing the rich and ending the wars represent the largest social movements of our times.

We stand with the courageous young people who have sparked this movement and join with the occupiers who are putting themselves on the line to transform our nation and achieve a secure and sustainable future.

We stand with all those fighting racism and all forms of bigotry which is being used by right wing opposition to confuse, divide and defeat this historic movement.

The time has come to put people before profits.

Photo: ItzaFineDay // CC 2.0

Solidarity with “Occupy Wall Street”

John Bachtell — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:29:00 -0400

PLEASE NOTE corrected confrence call number: 605-475-4850

This is an exciting time! Thousands of mainly young people have been occupying Wall Street for three weeks already, and the “Occupy Movement” has spread to more than 200 other cities. On Oct. 6 the actions spread to our nation’s capital.

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) will hold a national teleconference to discuss it:

Arturo Cambron
The Communist Party and the Occupy L.A. Movement
Tuesday, October 11, 8 pm Eastern
Teleconference number: 605-475-4850 (please note this is the corrected number. ignore previous.)
Access code: 1053538#

Southern California Party leader Arturo Cambron will share how the CPUSA and Young Communist League (YCL) are working in “Occupy Los Angeles.”

This movement, also known as the “99% movement,” is being hailed across the country. Movements and organizations are reaching out in solidarity. The AFL-CIO is opening union halls and offering other material assistance. Ordinary people are donating food, money and materials.

In many areas, the “Occupy Movement” is linking up with the National American Wants to Work Week of Actions, Oct. 10-16.

No doubt the “Arab Spring” demonstrations and those that exploded in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere have inspired it. But underlying it all is the economic crisis, the massive unemployment and growing realization that nothing is getting better, and in fact we may be slipping into a “double dip” crisis. The crushing student debt and the feeling of being locked out of society with no future compound this.

The movement is the newest wrinkle in the all-people’s upsurge against the banks and corporations and reflects a new level of class-consciousness.

While there is a wide range of political and ideological trends, there is a consensus against corporate greed, getting money out of politics, taxing the rich and putting people before profits.

A big challenge for the CPUSA and left, progressive movements is to link these demonstrations with the labor led all-people’s coalition and help deepen understanding that the path to progress must be through electoral and political action including defeating Republican Tea Party reaction in 2012.

Of primary importance is linking it with the burgeoning fight for jobs and especially passage of the American Jobs Act.

We can also play a role in offering more advanced programmatic ideas like nationalizing the banks and socialism.

To have a positive impact, the CPUSA and YCL must be a part of the “Occupy” movement, participating at every level and building greater local support for the actions among labor and progressive forces.

See you all on the call October 11!

We have many materials at cpusa.org that can be downloaded including:

Feeling Locked Out of the American Dream?(PDF)

Tax the Rich flyer(PDF)

American Jobs Act petition(PDF)

Jobs Act Fact Sheet(PDF)

Check here to see how you can get linked up to the action on Wall Street and nationally:

www.occupywallst.org
www.occupytogether.org (National Occupy website)

Check here for excellent coverage in the People’s World:

L.A. joins the 'We are the 99 percent' movement
Unions help Wall Street 'occupiers' rock New York
Wall Street occupation: And the walls will come tumbling down
Spotlight is on jobs as "occupy" protests intensify
Occupy Chicago: 'For as long as it takes to end corporate greed'
'Occupy' demonstrations erupt in St. Louis

Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 — Oct. 1 in Los Angeles. Rossana Cambron/PW

Organizing for jobs, jobs, jobs

CPUSA webmaster — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:33:00 -0400

The Great Recession of 2008 is looking more like the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic crisis of U.S. (and world) capitalism is entering its fourth year.

And no recovery is in sight. To think otherwise is wishful thinking.

In fact, a downward turn, aka, a "double dip," is more likely than a surge upward - not to mention a resumption of sustained and robust economic growth.

Currently, 25 millions workers are looking for full time work and that figure hasn't changes since 2008. So what to do?

We know that the country can't rely on the private sector; it is sitting on over two trillion dollars in investable capital now.

Nor can we rely on a burst of consumer spending; working people are working off accumulated debt.

Thus we have to turn to government to create jobs.

Two weeks ago President Obama introduced the American Jobs Act to a joint session of Congress. It is sure to meet stiff resistance from the Republicans in Congress. A massive outcry of millions of American people insisting on the Act's passage is necessary.

America Wants to Work (AFL-CIO) in alliance with many community and activist organizations including Moveon.org are organizing a week of actions Oct. 10-16 demanding jobs. Thousands of grassroots actions, marches, vigils, delegations and speak-outs are being planned in cities and neighborhoods across the country.

Click here to organize or join local actions.

A national National Teach-in called Students and Youth Rising for Jobs and Economic Justice will take place Oct. 12.

What you can do to mobilize support for the American Jobs Act:

1. Circulate the attached petition among coworkers and neighbors or the online petition being circulated by the AFL-CIO and other organizations.

2. Join with others who are supporting the American Jobs Act and help organize an action during Oct. 10-16.

3. Secure endorsements of the bill from prominent individuals and organizations.

4. Help organize and participate in delegations visiting your congressperson.

5. Explore the possibility of a city council hearing.

6. Organize a jobs committee in your neighborhood or community organization.

Additional resources

American Jobs Act fact sheet

Let's get positive and win by Sam Webb

America Wants to Work Action plan

Trumka: In speech, Obama 'goes to the mat' to create jobs

O bama: fair taxes on rich will pay for jobs

Labor launches new drive to back Obama on deficit

President Obama's jobs plan in context

The President's jobs speech - Ben Jealous, president, NAACP

The American Jobs Act: National Council of La Raza

Obama speech to Congressional Black Caucus (Youtube)

CEPR Statement on American Jobs Act and work sharing

Photo: PW/Marilyn Bechtel

CPUSA national call on fight for jobs

Sam Webb — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:08:00 -0400

Sam Webb, national chair of CPUSA, will open a national teleconference on the fight for jobs, Sept. 27, starting at 8p.m. Eastern. Questions and a brief discussion will follow. Call: 218 339 4300 code: 100111#

The following is Webb's recent article in PeoplesWorld.org on the fight for jobs and role of the left.

The American Jobs Act is the leading edge of the jobs struggle. It is the ground on which millions can be drawn into the fight to create jobs and rebuild the nation's infrastructure.

The AFL-CIO is embracing and promoting it. Others will come on board too as the jobs campaign gathers momentum.

The Jobs Act, introduced by President Obama in a well-crafted and passionate address to a joint session of Congress, is not as far reaching as some other jobs proposals. The plans put forward by the Congressional Black Caucus, Progressive Caucus, AFL-CIO and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., are more ambitious, and we recognize that they contain more in-depth solutions. But the hard fact is that none of these stand a chance of congressional approval given the current balance of forces in Congress, and in the House in particular.

The president's proposal does. The various provisions in the act appeal to a broad constituency, including political moderates in both parties.

Even for this plan the going will be tough. The Republicans, while initially making conciliatory noises, are determined not to give the president a positive record to run on. They figure a president with no accomplishments, especially in a period of crisis, will not be returned to office.

Read the rest of the article at PeoplesWorld.org.

Photo: South Los Angeles resident Christian Del Cid waves banners calling for good jobs, on a bridge in front of oncoming traffic at the Interstate I-110 overpass on a "structurally deficient" bridge to call on U.S. Congress to provide funding for highway improvement projects that would create local jobs Sept. 22, 2011, in Los Angeles. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)