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Eleventh Hour to Prevent Catastrophe in Syria

Communist Party USA — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:44:00 -0400

On May 8 of this year, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) wrote in a statement on the Syria situation:

"The push for U.S. intervention ultimately comes from the drive by international monopoly capital and especially the great oil and gas extraction transnationals to control resources in the Middle East and West-Central Asia....The Communist Party calls for an eleventh hour effort to stop the fighting and move toward a peaceful resolution."

Now, a month later, the eleventh hour is upon us. The situation has radically degenerated, and a region wide war involving not just Syrian factions but several local governments and major powers is not impossible. In response to some reverses for the rebels at Qusayr and elsewhere, the Obama administration appears to be ready to move into the Syria situation in a way which, we strongly believe, will greatly worsen the situation.

The United States government has announced that it will be providing arms directly to "moderate" Syrian rebels, in such a way as to supposedly prevent them from falling into the hands of the extreme Salafist militants of the Al Nusra Front, which is linked to Al Qaeda and shares its goals and methods. But numerous independent reports suggest that preventing such weapons from falling into the hands of the extreme Salafist jihadis is not going to be so simple. They appear to be the strongest rebel military force, and have showed no moderation in their stated objectives of setting up a repressive theocratic state in which minorities including Alawites, Sufis, Shiites, Christians, Jews and secular leftists will be in danger of their lives.

There are also indications that the United States also plans to set up military bases in Jordan, which could be used to launch attacks necessary to establish a no-fly zone in areas of Syria where rebels are taking a pounding from the forces of President Bashir al Assad's government. Although the Obama administration has not confirmed that such a no-fly zone is in the offing, it is what the rebels and their regional allies are demanding. We must remember that in the case of Libya, the setting up of a no fly zone was the first step to a massive NATO intervention which led to a war whose aftershocks are still being felt in North Africa and especially in the Sahel countries of Mali, Niger, Chad and Northern Nigeria.

The official reason given by the Obama administration for this escalation is that the Syrian government "crossed a red line" by using chemical weapons in a small number of incidents in their fight against the rebels, leading to the deaths of 120 to 150 individuals. Yet many people, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.N. war crimes investigator Carla Del Ponte and a variety of scientists in several countries question this, pointing out that the evidence is paper thin. There are also claims that the rebels have been either trying to get hold of their own chemical weapons or even have used them. Finally, it has been revealed that the "chemical weapons red line" may be a mere pretext for a decision to intervene which was taken weeks ago.

Russia, Iran, Iraq (which has a Shiite majority which feels threatened by Salafist Sunni militancy) and others will not tolerate that Syria, which is a modern and relatively developed country, becomes the base for al Qaeda type attacks on their countries, or for NATO insertion into the area. To avoid this eventuality, they are stepping up their aid to Mr. Assad's government, including with fighters from Iran and from the Hezbollah Shiite militias in neighboring Lebanon.

We do not think that the United States government is going to repeat the disastrous "boots on the ground" approach used in Iraq. But nevertheless, the whole panorama is degenerating into a series of interlocking proxy wars: Between Iran and Saudi Arabia, between militant Sunni and Shiite Islam, between Israel and Iran. More than 93,000 people, including many noncombatants have died and the number of refugees is in the millions. These figures will grow if something is not done to pull back from the brink.

Earlier there had been the beginnings of negotiations between Russia and the United States, which are now disrupted by the U.S. decision to escalate help to the rebels. Assad's government has shown some tentative willingness to move toward a negotiated solution, but the disparate forces in the rebel coalition have not so far, probably because this would cut off the aid they receive from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and wealthy patrons in the Gulf area. If the United States increases arms for the opposition, Assad is also likely to pull back from any inclination to negotiate.

In escalating U.S. intervention, the Obama administration goes against the clearly stated will of the overwhelming majority of the people of the United States, who oppose intervention in Syria.

The CPUSA calls on the American people to stop the slide toward disaster by demanding that the US government:

Cancel the order to start arming the rebels directly.

Stop the activity of the C.I.A. which has been helping channel aid from the Gulf states to the rebels.

Return to the idea that a negotiated and peaceful settlement is the best solution. This negotiated settlement must however be ultimately decided by the Syrians themselves.

Abandon the disastrous course of so-called "humanitarian interventions" to carry out "regime change" in other countries, which has benefited only multinational corporations wherever it has been applied.

International law forbids countries from intervening militarily in each others' internal affairs. This applies to the United States in the Syria situation also. International law, and international bodies, specifically the United Nations, should be the framework for resolving the situation, along with the will of the Syrian people, not unilateral action or self-serving "alliances" like the "Friends of Syria" and NATO.

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by Oxfam International

Communist Party: Stop spying - Repeal PATRIOT Act

Communist Party USA — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 20:48:00 -0400

Mass surveillance of our telephone & electronic communications must end

Last week, the British Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post revealed the massive scale of government surveillance of telephonic and online communications by the National Security Agency. The government claims that the programs in question will not be used to monitor the people communicating with each other within the United States, and that at any rate, there are adequate accountability mechanisms built into the programs, including court and congressional oversight. National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper has angrily denounced the media for publishing the leaked material, and the government says it is going to launch an investigation as to how this happened.

The Communist Party USA has long experience with government spying. We ourselves have been subjected to decades of this sort of thing, whose purpose was not to "protect" the country and its people but to silence working people's voices. Now, in an age when working people's struggles for social justice increasingly transcend national boundaries, the programs revealed in the Guardian and Washington Post are fraught with danger to our rights and that under this and future administrations, abuses are inevitable. Indeed, when this topic first arose during the administration of George W. Bush, it was widely denounced not only by civil libertarians but also by many Democratic Party (and a few Republican) politicians as an assault on our civil liberties. The program now in the news is basically the one initiated under Bush, but the vast scale of operations under Obama has shocked many

The fact that the program operates under authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court does not satisfy us. This is a secret court whose members are chosen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It only accepts cases brought by the government, its deliberations are not open to the public, and it almost never publishes its decisions.

Nor are we satisfied by the so called "congressional oversight". The heads of the House and Senate committees on intelligence are secretly briefed on the program, but are not allowed to reveal what is said in these briefings or discuss them with their constituents. And for quite a while, two Democratic members of the Senate Committee, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, have been warning about this situation without being able to go into detail because of the legal restrictions they are under.

The claim by the government that only communications between people in the United States and people in foreign countries are being monitored does not satisfy us either. In an increasingly globalized world, there are many urgent reasons for U.S. persons to be communicating with people in other countries without the fear that police officers are looking over our shoulders. To give just one example, the government is currently negotiating new international trade treaties that are a source of worry to labor unions in all the countries involved. Can we now assume that any communications between U.S. unions and those in other countries, on the topic of international labor solidarity, will now be "legally" spied on? And what about those of us who participate in online "listserves" which are not confined only to U.S. citizens and residents?

Finally, we strongly feel that this is no way to fight terrorism. Real terrorists can easily evade these monitoring mechanisms. For example, the Boston Marathon bombings were not stopped by all of this massively expensive and intrusive electronic wizardry.

The CPUSA therefore demands:

That the full truth of the eavesdropping programs be revealed to the U.S. public, so that there can be an open discussion and real PUBLIC accountability.
That the programs revealed by the Guardian and Washington Post be abandoned.
That the repressive laws which make these things possible, starting with the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, be repealed.
That the United States work for a peaceful world in which the conflict situations from which terrorist threats arise are eliminated.
That the United States agree to an international conference, proposed by Cuba and others, to create new mechanisms to stop terrorism.
That the United States crack down on terrorists living and scheming on our own territory, such as the extremist Cuban exiles in South Florida.

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution unported license\

Communist Party USA condemns Turkish repression

Communist Party USA — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:22:00 -0400

To the Central Committee & Membership of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP)

To the Turkish working class

Dear comrades:

We, like progressive minded people everywhere, are transfixed by the struggle taking place right now on the streets of Istanbul, Ankara and many other cities and towns in your country.

We salute the outstanding role your party has been playing in opposing the sharply reactionary tendencies of the regime of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the clericalist Justice and Development Party, AKP. These tendencies have shown themselves not just in the repressive and neo-liberal policies of the AKP government internally but also in its increasingly rightist international policies, especially with respect to the Syria crisis and the expansive role of NATO, an organization whose dissolution is long overdue.

In addition, the AKP government has fueled the flames of sectarianism within Turkey and throughout the Middle East, to the benefit of imperialism.

We were very angered to see the repression that the government unleashed against peaceful protesters who objected to the commercialization and destruction of the Taksim-Gezi Park in Istanbul from May 28 on, and particularly by attacks on the offices of your party in Ankara, injuries and arrests of your members, and the destruction of your Nazim Hikmet Culture Center.

When the servants of a reactionary state are reduced to methods such as the destruction of a cultural center named for one of the 20^th century's most beloved poets, one knows that they are grasping at straws and are losing confidence in their own ability to impose their views on the masses. The road may still be long and beset with difficulties, but important steps have been taking by you.

We are confident that with its determination and unity, your party and the Turkish working class will triumph over the reactionaries. We note the important moves of labor unions in your country to use strike action to oppose the Erdogan regime's policies.

We, for our part, are raising the issue with the U.S. people and with our political representatives, asking for solidarity and support for your just struggle.

PHOTO: TKP Facebook Page

Syrian conflict escalates, Communist Party calls for ceasefire & negotiations

Communist Party USA — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:57:00 -0400

The situation in Syria is threatening to set the whole of the Middle East ablaze. The Communist Party of the USA reiterates, with eleventh hour urgency, its call for an end to the fighting, and a peaceful negotiated solution, in which all decisions about the future of Syria are placed solely in the hands of the Syrian people.

Since our last statement, issued on March 2 of 2012, the situation in Syria and between Syria and its neighbors has degenerated sharply. At least 70,000 lives have been lost and the number of refugees and displaced persons within and outside of Syria is now estimated at about four million, overwhelming the resources of neighboring countries and international organizations. Important infrastructure and cultural treasures have been destroyed in the fighting.

Within Syria, sectarian tensions have been exacerbated as Sunnis, Shias, Alawites, Christians and others have lined up either with the government or the rebels. Massacres have been carried out by both sides, and more are threatened. There is a real danger, also, that the Syria situation could re-start the internal war in Iraq as well as destabilizing the neighboring countries of Jordan and Lebanon.

Within the rebel forces, there is a fear that extremist Islamist groups are playing an increasingly important role. The al Nusra Front, believed to be connected with Al Qaeda in Iraq, is seen as an especially strong force. Other rebel factions have a more secular orientation, but it is not clear how strong they are.

The main source of direct aid to the rebels has been the group of reactionary wealthy states of the Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. Major support is coming from Turkey also. The United States has said it is not ready to provide direct military help to the rebels, but there is plenty of evidence of other important US support. Major political groupings in the United States are pressuring the Obama administration to intervene directly by arming the rebels and establishing a no-fly zone. The argument is that if the United States does not arm the rebels, the radical Islamist forces in their ranks will gain greater power. But there is also an argument that arms the United States sends to the rebels will end up in the hands of the extremists of Al Nusra. Calls for the establishment of a no fly zone should also be resisted; the example of Libya shows that such a move would greatly ratchet up US involvement and intensify the conflict.

The latest developments include conflicting claims that either the rebels or the Assad government or both are resorting to the use of chemical weapons. And perhaps the most ominous development is that in the space of 48 hours, the Israeli military has carried out air strikes against Syria. The first strike hit vehicles which Israel claimed were transporting rockets to be delivered to the Lebanese organization Hezbollah, which is supporting Assad. The second strike, on Sunday May 5, was directed against a military research center in Damascus, and produced a huge fireball and scores of deaths. The reason Israel gave for the attacks was to prevent Syria from providing advanced arms, its own or Iranian, to Hezbollah, which both Syria and Iran deny.

It is easy to see how the current bloody stalemate could be transformed into a regional conflagration involving not only Syria but also Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and even Iran. It is hard to see how anything positive could come out of that; certainly it is not in the interests of the people of Syria. Aid to the rebels will only prolong the conflict and make any kind of a peaceful settlement even more difficult.

The push for US intervention ultimately comes from the drive by international monopoly capital and especially the great oil and gas extraction transnationals to control the resources of the Middle East and West-Central Asia. Leaders of the U.S. government and of both the Republican and Democratic parties are abetting this, against the interests of the people of the region and also of the U.S. working class.

The Communist Party USA calls for an 11^th hour international effort to stop the fighting and to move the conflict toward a peaceful resolution. This means:

An end to outside interference including US help to the rebels, Israeli bombings etc.
Joint international action, coordinated through the United Nations, toward a cease fire.
Support for peaceful negotiations among the Syrian factions, toward a settlement that will be for the Syrian people alone to determine.

We call for the Obama administration to work cooperatively with the UN, Russia, China and others to this end.

PHOTO CREDIT: public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Build the Party: Oh yes we will

Jarvis Tyner — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:38:00 -0400

I very much agree with Sam's report. It is a real contribution and will help to bring clarity and greater unity as this phase of the post election struggle proceeds.

The extreme right Republicans have been the main obstacle to progressive change over the past 40 years. In alliance with the unreconstructed labor-hating Dixiecrats they have pushed war, racism, and austerity for working people while supporting the creation and cultivation of a whole new class of the super Billionaires who are at war with democracy. As I see it, the Koch Bros are today's expression of German Industrialist like Alfred Krupp who was the big sponsor of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In this epic battle, the role of the party in helping to build unity and struggle is indispensible in helping to defeat this threat to humanity. That is why we must continue to keep on pushing, keep on building ties between movements and our party and building mass confidence that the people can win in this complicated post election period.

Sam's report will help our party continue to play that role while it builds its size and influence to new heights.

From the attendance at this conference I have to say, that our party is growing and we have always been working class party but we are becoming more of a grass roots working class party.

I see a lot of new comrades in this room. I say Welcome! and I hope you will share with us made you decide to join the Party.

Here in New York we had a very successful Black history event in February Thanks to the enthusiastic hard work of our collective especially Esteban Nembhard and his contacts, this hall was full...

Last night I had a great experience. I attended the first meeting to reorganize the Ben Davis Club...based in Harlem and Wash. Height. We had 4 nonparty comrades at the meeting two Latinas joined on the spot. And two others agreed to keep attending the meetings.

It makes me so happy to be able to say, The Ben Davis Club of the Communist Party is back!

And it has deeper ties with labor and people's movements uptown then we have dad since the "Free Angela" period.

You know comrades, I am disappointed that this administration saw fit to make new concessions to the right that run counter to the spirit and the letter of the issues that won in the last elections.

I am disappointed but not dismayed or discouraged. This battle against austerity is a battle for the working class and against racism. It is gaining momentum. It is a battle for union rights and against poverty. It is to stop the criminalization of the poor, racially oppressed and immigrants. It is to stop the theft of the people's publicly owned social services.

I believe in that Sam Cook song we heard from that wonderful young man this morning. "Change is Gonna Come".

The Republicans are committed to their belief that the only way out of the economic crisis is austerity for the people. This policy is being rejected in Europe and everywhere working people have the means and will to fight back. The majority of the voters here rejected it in 2008 and 2012 but it has not gone away.

Let's be clear, it was not the unions, not the seniors, not immigrants, not the children, not black, brown and white workers, not the disabled who brought this country to its knees, it was finance capital, and that's who has the means and should pay for the crisis.

There is currently a new scandal on the extreme right on this question.

In 2010 Harvard economists Rienhart and Rogoff coauthored a paper entitled, "Growth in a Time of Debt". Right wing politicians all over the world have used their theories as "proof" that slashing government spending and other austerity measures is the path to prosperity. Paul Ryan and Tim Geithner have both sited the 2010 paper to justify the most vicious attacks on public workers and government social spending. The Rienhart and Rogoff paper is considered, "the most politically influential economics paper of the last decade".

Well recently, a young graduate student at U Mass, Amherst, Thomas Herndon got hold of a copy of the data used in that 2010 paper and found that some basic figures were left out that would disprove their theory that high debt prevents economic growth. Paul Krugman and other top economist have said that Herndon's findings are proof that the pro austerity movement is based, at least in part, on "bogus math".

My instincts are that Rienhart and Rogoff where consciously cooking the data. We've seen a lot of that coming mainly from the extreme right.

But this shows that, the basic arguments used by the Republicans to fire massive numbers of unionized public workers, used to deny needed government created jobs; the basic argument used to push for privatization and destroy Social Security, ---to deny decent education to children, food for the hungry and housing for the ill housed and homeless (those arguments) were based on what has been shown to be "bogus math".

We believe of course that the way out the crisis is to stimulate the economy from the bottom up; put people back to work, rebuild our infrastructure, schools, affordable housing, health facilities. Stimulating the economy by increasing the buying power of the working class is the way to go. After all, workers are the largest number of consumers. Making the rich richer at the expenses of working class especially the poorest sections of the working class will deepen the crisis.

Austerity has a sharp racist edge. Who has the highest unemployment and poverty rates? Who is being victimized by Stop and Frisk, racial profiling and are the majority of the 2.2million people in prison? Who? Black and brown, people. This is structural racism. This mass suffering and deprivation will eliminated with austerity.

Fighting austerity means fighting racism. It means fighting for women's equality. Single moms are special victims of austerity.

46 million in poverty means that its not only people of color are hurting. The fight again austerity is a fight against poverty and the right to organize. I could go on. But it is urgent that we build our party because we are needed to help forge the movements needed to fight this epic battle against austerity.

2014 is approaching. Most of the 60 million SS recipients are barely making it and should get a subsidy or some kind of raise. Not cuts. And they vote...

And while the troops are coming home it's time to transfer that money to job creation meeting critical needs of working families otherwise the crisis will deepen.

Comrades, we must be among those organizers that are helping the millions to find there way to struggle.

The struggle continues. The battle ahead is clear. To move things forward, the labor and people's multi-racial coalition that won the day last November needs to be in the streets in large numbers.

Politicians who align themselves with that coalition have to present a legislative and political program that is worth fighting for. In the style of the New Deal: We still have to make them do the right thing.

I agree with Sam Webb, we have to up the ante on mass struggle.

It's already happening but it needs to be taken to a higher level.

People are ready to do big things to fight for their survival.

They seem to understand that united struggle, building movements is the answer. Struggle can win...

That Chicago school boycott by students against arrogance of Mayor Manuel. That's upping the ante

Those postal workers who stopped the elimination of Saturday delivery were amazing.

Those undocumented youth who step out of the shadows, and put the Dream Act on the national agenda - courageous!

That strike of Walmart workers. Historic.

The organization and strikes of fast food and car wash workers- unprecedented. Struggle can win.

The major black and brown civil rights groups with labor that blocked voter suppression in a number of states and then came to the pols in record numbers (93% African American voters) they put Jim crow back in the ash can of history for now... Magnificent.

Those predominantly black Mississippi students that built solidarity with Toyota workers. Incredible!

2,000-strong labor-organized demo in Harlem against gun violence. Outstanding!

The big immigrant march in DC was right on!

All of these developments show that masses understand the essence of Fredrick Douglass' adage: Struggle can win...

Tonight, black and white high schoolers in rural Wilcox Co. Georgia are defying State authorities and their parents and holding their own integrated Prom. Shades of Greensboro - wonderful!

This is an another example of where today's younger generation is at and another reason why we must build the YCL.

People are upping the ante. I think when Obama said he wants to change things from the bottom up he may not have expected this reaction, but a lot of folks are responding with struggle. They are saying, "We need to do something,""We need to get politically active."

It is clear to me that we can build our party in this atmosphere.

And speaking of that, how many here have seen the documentary "Free Angela and All Political Prisoners?"It is a real contribution. It is an honest portrayal of what happened in that historic struggle; including the role of the Communist Party. It will be very helpful in the fight against anti-communism as we build.

It's not being pushed by the big theaters owners but I was told that the producers are making it available to any group that can bring together a minimum of 80 people at $10 a person. Since a lot of people have not seen the movie, we can use it as a money raiser.

Since Obama was reelected despite all the red baiting and racism directed at him. Some are saying that the growing interest in Socialism is in part a mass reaction to the McCarthyism of the Republicans.

All of this shows change among basic masses and opens the door to build a bigger and bolder movement and party ....

My point is that the new unity coming out of the last election is not lost and is still key to breaking the Republican gridlock and push the democrats of the vacillating center/right. The political left/right balance of forces is far better in the country as a whole then inside the Beltway.

The election has created new divisions in Republicans ranks. Barbara Bush has publicly called on Jeb Bush not to run. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin the darlings of the Tea Party are being pushed to run. My question is, "Is that all you got"?

The Republicans "don't relate to the average Americans". You know who said that? Not somebody on the political left. That quote is from Reince Pricbus the Chair of the Republican Party.

They are going through a so-called post election self examination. They talking about a change in style but not in political substance.

They are working hard to split the Obama electoral coalition and win in 2014 and 2016.

Just last Sunday on the McLaughlin Report Pat Buchanan described their problem. He said, "non white voters are now 40% of the population and 30% of the electorate, but they vote 80% Democratic.""This country is becoming more like California," he added, in California, "only 30% of the electorate votes Republican and there are No Republicans elected statewide."

All I can say is California here we come. To reduce the most vociferous and well financed force on the right to only 30% of the vote nationally is something to work for. The democratic and independent progressive forces would have more space to put up more quality candidates that would fight harder for the people. We could win the fight to democratize the electoral system that would open the door to real electoral independence. A congressional majority that would fight for labor rights, peace, economic and social justice.

And if we build our party as part of this, comrades,

Big change is gonna come.

As the Sam Cooke song goes, Oh, yes it will!

Building a Transformative Movement & Party

Sam Webb — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:06:00 -0400

Keynote address to the Communist Party National Members Conference, April 27 & 28, 2013, New York City

I want to welcome you to Winston Unity Center, named after our former National Chairman, Henry Winston. Winnie, as he was affectionately known, would be very happy that we are meeting this weekend to turn our attention to the twin tasks of building a transformative movement and party. Few things were closer to his big heart.

I hope each of you brought your thinking cap to this conference. Its success rests on your active and thoughtful participation. So don’t be shy, don’t hold back, tell us what you think.

It is easy to become frustrated with the pace and scale of change in recent years. Over the past 30 years or more, the working class and its allies have lost far more battles than we have won. Nearly every section of the working class — none more so than racially oppressed and women workers — has lost income, job opportunities and rights as the capitalist class has ferociously pressed its offensive. Entire regions have been turned into economic wastelands. Many cities have become concentrations of poverty, inequality and racial segregation. The temperature of the planet has tacked upward at rates that, if they continue, could endanger life on our fragile planet. And wars, the buildup to wars, and the steady expansion of U.S military presence worldwide for geoeconomic and geopolitical advantage — albeit disguised in the language of containing threats to peace, stability and democracy — has continued no matter who occupies the White House.

The election of President Obama in 2008 and his reelection in 2012 gave millions hope that this awful situation would change for the better.

But that hope hasn't been fully realized.

To be sure, some positive changes have occurred over the past four years. Stimulus measures put a tourniquet on a hemorrhaging economy, one war was ended and another war is winding down, health care was expanded to millions who up to now had none — to name a few of the accomplishments during these years.

Only someone disconnected from the everyday lives of millions would “damn these achievements with faint praise” or, worse still, give them no praise at all.

As for us, we not only acknowledge positive changes, but we also note that they were in no small measure the result of the persistent efforts of an energized movement of which we are a part.

Still, the day-to-day lives of most working people — and I’m using the term broadly, not narrowly as is sometimes our habit — have improved far less than what most had hoped on that historic night four-and-a-half years ago when the American people elected the first African American president in our nation’s history. In fact, the main trends that frame life for the multiracial working class continue to slope downward or move sideways.

How do we explain this?

Part of the explanation is that the economic terrain — offshoring, new technologies, the decline of old industries, new international competitors, and so forth — shifted in ways that have been disadvantageous to the working class over the past three decades.

Another part of the explanation is that the economic crisis that broke out five years ago and rambles on more or less unabated cut the ground from underneath working people here, not to mention on a world scale.

But the main factor explaining the grim circumstances in which the working class finds itself is the one-sided intensification of the class struggle by the capitalist class.

What I’m saying, if it isn’t clear, is that it isn’t mainly changes in the overall economic environment that account for long-term wage stagnation, double-digit real joblessness, growing income inequality, and the erosion of democratic rights, liberty and democracy. It is, instead, the result of a sustained and successful counteroffensive of the 1 percent to reassert its class power, privilege and wealth at the expense of tens of millions.

This offensive was, and still is, as much political and ideological as economic. With its army of well-paid lobbyists, its dense network of think tanks and institutes, its control over the major means of communication, and its super pacs that — thanks to the Supreme Court — can now throw unlimited amounts of money into political campaigns, the hooks of Big Business are deeply embedded in the governing process at the federal, state and city level, as never before.

And if you think this unrestrained offensive is easing up after nearly 40 years, you are badly mistaken. It has lost none of its ferocity.

In fact, the owners of the commanding heights of the economy are exploiting the current economic crisis to double down on their efforts to further shift wealth into their hands — not to mention to further weaken, if not destroy, the labor movement as well as other organizational citadels of people’s power.

In the epicenter of this offensive at the moment is the battle over so-called “entitlements.” While they wrap their attack on earned income benefit programs in the gown of “good fiscal governance,” the actual aim of broad sections of the capitalist class is pretty clear. It is to eliminate the whole bundle of rights and benefits that the American people secured in battles going back to the 1930s.

So far a broad people’s coalition has prevented any weakening of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But the battle is far from over.

Which leads me to ask: is it any wonder that the hopes of tens of millions for a progressive turn in U.S. politics have yielded to a day-to-day grind that feels more like the past than a future filled with promise?

The answer is “NO.” It isn’t any wonder.

But we can’t leave things here. Reality is many-sided, complicated and contradictory. And political reality is no different.

To be more specific, intertwined with the corporate offensive is the emergence of a broad people’s movement which has been fighting like hell over three decades to keep what was won in earlier struggles.

It doesn’t yet have transformational power, by which I mean the political and organizational capacity to effect a political realignment in a progressive and radical direction on a national scale.

But it does have transformative potential.

In other words, the loosely-organized movement of the present contains early signs of an emerging political force that could well pack the wallop to give the country a “new burst of freedom, economic security, and peace.”

Now some may say this is nothing but wishful thinking on my part. So I want to take a few minutes to make a case for my claim. And to do so I’m going to lean on an earlier period in our nation’s history.

As you probably guess, I’m referring to the 1930s. During that momentous decade, a confluence of factors came together to bring about progressive and democratic political transformations despite a determined and powerful opposition.

To name the most important of these factors:

The ground on which people lived changed dramatically when the bottom fell out of the economy. The conventional wisdom that gave legitimacy to “business as usual” politics gave way to new democratic and class understandings among substantial segments of the American people.

Broad democratic unity and alliances of diverse people and organizations came together. Splits in elite circles grew and were skillfully utilized by insurgent forces. New leaders and organizations emerged — none more important than the CIO, and the left grew rapidly.

Millions of formerly passive people shed their lethargy, took to the streets, engaged in disruptive actions and not least, streamed to the ballot box. The color line was bridged — not completely and not permanently, but enough to make a new level of multiracial unity a reality.

And above all, a transformative, labor-led movement, reaching far beyond the "politically active" and knee-deep in every arena of struggle, materialized — not all at once, not out of thin air or "revolutionary rhetoric" — but out of the lessons learned and relationships built in day-to-day struggles.

As a result of all this, the defenders of the status quo and the old economic regime were no match for the liberal, progressive, socialist and communist change-makers. A political realignment took place in a democratic direction. A period of reform ensued. And the role of government expanded to include, among other things, the provision of jobs and economic relief.

Now I’m not suggesting that in today’s movement we see a carbon copy of the movement of the 1930s.

But I am saying we see some loose parallels that should give us hope that an era of broad, deep-going and democratic (anti-corporate) restructuring of our political and economic institutions is possible.

What are some of these parallels?

Hasn’t the ground on which people live shifted over the past three decades in dramatic and excruciatingly painful ways? No, it’s not the Great Depression, but it is pretty damn bad.

Hasn’t the thinking of substantial sections of the people changed in a democratic, progressive and radical direction? In public opinion polls capitalism’s star is sinking downward, while socialism’s is on the rise.

Hasn’t labor taken many important steps to transform itself into a fighting force in the 21st century?

Haven’t we seen the emergence of new alliances of organizations and groups on our side of the class struggle? Who would have thought a decade ago that labor and environmental groups would find common ground on many issues?

Haven’t we seen a rising anger and militancy across this land of ours? Less than a month ago, our comrades in Chicago joined other Chicagoans in mass civil disobedience to stop school closings.

Haven’t people entered the political arena in dramatic ways in the past two presidential elections, despite systematic Republican efforts to block them?

Hasn’t anti-racism gained ground, and done so, I would argue, in the face of an amped-up racist offensive coming from rightwing extremism and its corporate backers?

And haven’t we been part of a movement that feels like it has transformative potential — if not immediately, then down the road a bit?

Of course, a devil’s advocate would quickly remind me that the depth of today’s movement is nowhere near that of the 1930s, that labor density is less than 10 percent, that divisions along racial and gender lines persist, that nearly 50 percent of voters choose to stay home on election days, that individualism still crowds out collective aspirations and struggles, that millions don’t trust “big” government to do the right thing, that rightwing extremism still has a substantial mass constituency and that the Great Depression and the ensuing reforms of the 1930s were singular and unique events that can’t be reproduced in today’s circumstances.

I don’t dispute any of this; it’s all true. But I would say this in reply: These factors make our task daunting to be sure, but not so daunting that we should lower our sights, trim our sails or worst of all, give up.

I’ll be the first to admit that building a transformational movement with the power to change the politics, priorities and political economy of our nation is not for summer soldiers. It isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme.

But it isn’t pie-in-the sky either. It is feasible and doable. The American people shouldn’t settle for a second-rate future. And a second-rate future or worse is what waits if progressive and left activists in the labor movement and elsewhere falter in their efforts to build a movement with transformative capacity.

How then do we go forward? What are some of the main ingredients that when taken together, bring about a transformative movement and change?

To begin, contrary to what some on the left think, the starting point of transformative politics isn't political desires and a wish list, but a sober and concrete assessment of the balance of class and social forces on the ground, not least of which is the political consciousness of the majority of working-class people and what they are ready to do.

And by this measure, socialist transformation is not on the agenda in the near and medium term. The American people, much like the president, are — to paraphrase Billy Joel — in a reform state of mind. They don't yet have the desire or the wherewithal to bring down the curtains on U.S. capitalism.

Thus, a movement with transformative hopes must be up to its ears in the struggle for jobs, a higher minimum wage, immigration reform, gun control, infrastructure renewal, protecting the climate, preserving earned-benefit programs, reversing the sequester, winning a federal budget favoring people’s needs, cutting the military budget, and many more issues of struggle at the federal, state and local level.

Similarly, it should be an energetic part of the struggle to give the Republican Party a licking in next year’s Congressional elections. Defeating rightwing extremist candidates is the key link in moving the whole chain of struggle forward. It will take an expansive coalition of voters, including independents, centrists and even some moderate Republicans.

Far from a diversion, these democratic struggles to protect, extend and deepen political, economic and social reforms and change the balance of forces in our nation’s capital are the incubator of a movement that possesses the necessary unity, understanding and capacity to effect progressive and radical change.

But some say the grounds for democratic reform within the framework of capitalism have largely evaporated, that the struggle for reforms is fool’s gold.

Granted it is more difficult to win reforms in current circumstances. A globalized and cratering economy, a corporate-dominated mass media, a governing structure and rules at the federal level that mitigate against progressive and radical social change, the outsized role of corporations in politics and public policymaking, and not least right-wing obstructionism — all this makes the struggle for reforms more difficult, protracted and complicated.

Nevertheless, turning these considerable difficulties into a reason to say nothing (from partial to more advanced demands) can be won should be rejected. It would be tantamount to surrender.

Now I realize that many people feel frustrated with the Democratic Party. Who doesn’t?

Not in the past 30 years have the top layers of the Democratic Party fundamentally resisted the main direction of neoliberalism — that is, the supremacy of capitalist markets, deregulation, financialization, the pruning of government’s role, and upward redistributive economics.

In fact, at many important turning points, Democratic Party leaders brokered deals and greased the skids for neoliberalism.

It was Bill Clinton who campaigned for NAFTA, squeezed the heart out of the welfare program, lobbied hard for bank deregulation, and famously said, “The era of big government is over.”

At the same time, the Democratic Party has been a part of the broad “small d” democratic coalition that has blocked the imposition of some of the worst features of the extreme right’s agenda and stymied the right wing’s ambition to gain unchallenged dominance over the federal government.

Moreover, since 2008 the Obama administration has advanced many positive reform initiatives, which the movement would be foolish not to welcome and support.

Finally, the mass base of the Democratic Party still includes major sections of the people’s movement and a substantial layer of progressive elected representatives who while not completely happy with the centrist positions of its top leaders, are still not ready to bid goodbye and join a new political/electoral party.

In these circumstances, it would be foolhardy to refuse in advance to ally with the Democratic Party as a whole or sections of it under any conditions. That would be a prescription for marginalization.

Nor would it bring a movement with a transformative agenda any closer to building a new political vehicle that consistently speaks for a broad array of people and organizations who feel the crushing weight of the corporate class and its political sponsors. In fact, it would move it further away.

Also vital to building a transformative movement is an understanding of which social forces have to be brought together for progressive and radical change. Not any kind of movement can make fundamental change; it takes more than the left, more than progressives, more than radicalized youth. A transformative movement will only materialize to the extent that it is able to attract the working class and its organized sector, people of color, women and youth into its center.

Movements like Occupy (and new forms of organization and struggle always emerge in a period of mass upsurge) can have a dramatic impact on the political discourse of the country and stimulate a surge of activity, but to turn them into the hub of a broader movement with progressive and radical aspirations, as some did, betrays any understanding of the power relationships in capitalist society.

Still other ingredients for a movement hoping to challenge entrenched power are a commitment to participate in every arena of struggle, flexible tactics, a readiness to employ various forms of struggle, and robust use of social media. The allergy that some on the left display toward electoral forms of struggle — sometimes dismissively called “electoralism — is wrongheaded. As I see it, a movement that entertains transformative objectives will leave a larger and larger and increasingly independent electoral footprint on the political landscape going forward.

A constant struggle for unity in all its forms is also essential to a transformative movement. At its core is the fight against racism, male supremacy, nativism, homophobia and other forms of inequality and oppression.

The search for common ground and a common program of action is not at loggerheads with the fight for equality. In fact, the common ground will be wider, deeper and more durable to the degree the broader movement vigorously fights for equality in all of its forms.

While in recent decades vast political, economic, social and demographic transformations have occurred, the fight for full racial equality retains its overarching importance.

Anyone who devalues the struggle for racial equality and against racism limits the sweep of any victory at best. At worst, it provides an opening to the most backward sections of our ruling class to gain ascendency. Indeed, for three decades racist appeals were the grease that smoothed the passage to power of the extreme right.

And this filth has not ebbed since Barack Obama’s election four years ago. Actually, it has ramped up.

A firm and broad rebuff to this counteroffensive is imperative. And white people and white workers should be in the middle of this fight.

A movement that has transformative aspirations has to strengthen its own political and organizational capacities to reach, mobilize, and unite millions as well. For a number of years people’s organizations and the left — all of which are too small and not yet fully attuned to the times in which we live — have been exploring new ways of thinking and organizing in order to expand their size, influence, and power. Some successes have been achieved no doubt, but this process of renewal and growth has still considerable distance to go. Of particular importance in this regard is renewing the political and organizational capacity of labor and the left, both of which, as I mentioned earlier, played overarching roles in the struggles of the 1930s. It is hard to imagine a qualitative turn in a progressive and radical direction that doesn’t include a far more robust presence and level of engagement of both.

Still another ingredient to building a transformative movement is a vision of deep-going democratization of our economic and political institutions. In this era of economic stagnation, multiple crises and shrinking democracy, the reforms applied in the post-World War II period no longer suffice. What is needed is a program that breathes new life into our democracy and challenges the logic, profits, prerogatives and growth imperative of corporate capitalism. Among other things, some public ownership is in order at the level of the commanding heights of economy and an expansion of the existing cooperative/solidarity sector of the economy.

Yet another ingredient of a transformative movement is a willingness to challenge the growth of the coercive powers of the state and the military-industrial complex with its far-flung network of bases, both of which are rationalized in the name of fighting “The War on Terror.”

And, of course, a movement that represents the future must be a tireless fighter to transform the economy along sustainable lines and make the world a habitable for human beings and other species. In the words of the notable climate scientist James Hansen, we are facing a “planetary emergency.”

Finally, a transformative movement has to “Keep Hope Alive.” The three-decades-old neoliberal corporate offensive, ramrodded first of all by right-wing extremism, galvanized resistance to be sure. But it also crushed the hopes of countless numbers of people for the possibility of social change.

Thus a task of a movement with transformative desires is to articulate a compelling and hopeful narrative that convinces millions that collective avenues of action will bring changes for the better in their everyday lives.

So far I have outlined what it will take to build a transformative movement. In my remaining time, I will focus on the process of growing and renewing our Party.

Our role isn’t to stand apart or declare ourselves the vanguard or show off our political pedigree or flaunt symbols and images from another era.

To the contrary, we should be in the thick of day-to-day struggles; we should embrace slogans and symbols that resonate with the experience of the American people; we should be radical, but reasonable and respectful of others. We should have deep appreciation of our nation’s diverse peoples and cultures; we should be drum majors for peace and non-violence even as we articulate the anger that we and others feel. We should be uncompromising fighters against racism, male supremacy, anti-immigrant bashing, homophobia, and other forms of oppression; we should build unity and more unity. We should advance a program of advanced, anti-corporate democracy as well as make the case for a socialism that is deeply democratic and participatory, peaceful, just, ecological, and reflective of our traditions and history; and we should build a much bigger and deeply grounded party, and thus be able to make a far bigger contribution to building a transformative movement of the kind described earlier. It is no coincidence that the transformative movement of the 1930s included a growing and dynamic Communist Party and Young Communist League (YCL).

Communists are organizers, but of a particular type. We keep lists, make phone calls to other activists, talk to strangers, burn the midnight oil, employ new forms of communication and organization, etc., but we also bring a strategic sense that allows us to see the main obstacles to progress, the main forces of social change, and a path to move the struggle to a new stage.

For the past decade or so we have been attempting to bring everything we do in line with the new conditions of struggle of the 21st century. Much has been accomplished, but the mission of transforming, modernizing, and growing our party is a never-ending journey.

That journey includes giving life to our programmatic and strategic polices in the course of grassroots activity and struggle. It includes a commitment to ramp up our presence on the social media. It includes a readiness to further build up our system of education for communists and noncommunist alike, off and online. It includes expanding the avenues of membership input into the decision making process. It includes a willingness to reach out to people and organizations on the left. It includes an updating of the party’s polices, ideology, constitution and program. It includes appreciating the new circumstances and rhythms of the day-to-day life of tens of millions. It includes adjusting our understanding of membership responsibilities to contemporary life.

It includes bringing our party’s image, symbols, and slogans into the 21st century. It includes finding a place on and off line for members who for one reason or another are unable to attend club meetings. It includes giving more attention to questions of theory and self-study. It includes a steady increase in the party’s public presence. It includes asking co-workers and friends to join the party as well as become financial sustainers. It includes building a bigger YCL. And it includes growing and training a broadly-based leadership who think independently, organize the party’s work, enjoy the confidence of our members and friends, and represent the party in the public square.

Organizing more active and vibrant clubs is the ground floor of transforming our party. It is hard, if not impossible, to qualitatively increase our political and organizational capacity without a much larger organizational presence in the form of clubs at the local level. Just as union power depends on local unions, party power is grounded in a dense network of clubs across the country.

It should go without saying that clubs will come in many different shapes and sizes. One size doesn’t fit all. Clubs have to adapt to the comrades who are members of them and to the places where they are located. Some will be statewide, others citywide, and still others located in a neighborhood or workplace. The main thing is that we continue to build clubs into centers of education and struggle.

I have gone on too long. Let me end with this.

The challenges before humanity are formidable. Living in the early decades of the 21st century is not for the faint of heart. But we should proceed with our discussions this weekend confident in two things.

One is that humanity will overcome these challenges with the same determination, spirit, and creativity that it has done at earlier turning points in human history.

And the other is that the party and YCL will play their part in this great struggle for a future that is worthy of humankind.

Sí Se Puede!

NOTE: This version of the report is slightly edited from a previous published version.

PHOTO CREDIT: Some rights reserved, Communist Party CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

May Day 2013: We Stand with the Workers of the World!

Communist Party USA — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:41:00 -0400

On this May Day, humanity is facing enormous challenges - economic stagnation, multiple social crises, savage and growing inequalities, climate change and environmental degradation, food insecurity, resource depletion, peak oil, population pressures, terrorism of state and non-state actors, imperial occupations and sanctions, outbreaks of war, and nuclear weapons proliferation - all of which can only be addressed if the economic and political power of the transnational corporations is radically diminished and eventually eliminated.

We are confident that humanity will meet these challenges as it has done at earlier turning points in human history and create a future that is worthy of humankind, a socialist future. We know the working class will lead the way.

Today we join with the tens of thousands across the U.S. who will march for immigrant rights, workers rights, jobs, justice and equality.

We also join with the working people of the world who celebrate May 1 as International Labor Day, a holiday born right here in the U.S.A.

Happy May Day!

PHOTO: Haymarket Martyrs Memorial, Forest Home Cemetery, Illinois, Some rights reserved by Communist Party

This Earth Day: End the Keystone XL Pipeline

Communist Party USA — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:50:00 -0400

Download and print this brochure

The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed pipeline running from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska, ultimately carrying tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in tax free "Foreign Trade Zones" on the Gulf Coast.

Circumventing Midwestern refineries and consumers, Keystone XL is intended to transport tar sands oil across America's heartland, without paying taxes to America's communities or providing jobs for America's workers!

Jobs for the Future

We need a real jobs program to create living wage jobs that don't harm the environment!

There are thousands of infrastructure projects which could put tens of thousands of unemployed construction workers to work, hundred of thousands of jobs retrofitting both residential and commercial buildings and cut heating bills, and millions of jobs building the new energy economy and smart electrical grid to have a sustainable future.

In March 2012, President Obama tried to end oil company subsidies, but was blocked by a GOP filibuster. That money could be put to better use building good, green jobs for America's workers, not lining oil executives' pockets! Add in corporate taxes at their lowest point in forty years, and you get government of and for companies, not citizens!

Everyone is affected by the environmental crisis, including workers and oppressed people. We must all fight to stop transnational corporations from deciding our future. Only by uniting can we win security for our jobs and our environment! Together, we can choose-

People Before Profits!

The Keystone pipeline is part of ever increasing efforts by global corporations to exploit resources across international borders, placing profit above the safety of working people, their environment, and the future of humankind!

The oil companies tell us this is price of job creation. but it doesn't have to be this way.

One Week of Oil Spills 2013
March 26:	Minnesota	Derailed train: 30,000 gallons
March 29:	Arkansas	Broken pipeline: 156,000 gallons
April 3:	Texas	Broken pipeline: 30,000 gallons
April 3:	Ontario	Derailed train: 16,642 gallons

Resources

For more information about legislation and action visit these websites:

350.org

Blue Green Alliance

People's World

The Venezuelan People Have Spoken

Communist Party USA — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:42:00 -0400

Venezuelan Acting President Nicolas Maduro was elected to a full term as president, to replace Hugo Chavez, on April 14. The right wing opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, has taken advantage of the fact that the margin of victory was smaller than anticipated in the polls to not only question the results but also to launch street actions which have turned violent, resulting in deaths and the destruction of property.

The Venezuelan electoral system is highly sophisticated and has been praised by many, including former President Jimmy Carter. As a routine matter, an audit of 54% of all votes (far greater than one would need for a statistically significant sample) has already been carried out. Both the National Elections Commission and the Venezuelan Supreme Court have signed off on the results.

Mr. Capriles, not satisfied with this, demanded a complete hand recount and launched street demonstrations which included violent thug elements. The result has been the burning of buildings belonging to Mr. Maduro's political party as well as attacks on health centers and other public and private property. Up to 8 people have died in this violence so far. This is not "freedom of expression", it is criminal violence; the Venezuelan government would be remiss not to try to get it under control before more die or are hurt.

Soon after the election, numerous governments and international organizations recognized Mr. Maduro as the president. The United States, to date, has not. Some who initially did not recognize the election results, including the government of Spain and Mr. Jose Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, have now moved to do so. In the Latin American region, even relatively right wing governments, such as those of Mexico, Colombia and Chile, have recognized Mr. Maduro as president.

Further, Venezuelan election authorities have now agreed to audit the remaining 46% of the vote.

The United States is not in a position to pontificate about the quality of other countries' electoral systems: In such matters, charity begins at home! Long before the notorious "Citizens' United" Supreme Court decision, which essentially allows private for-profit corporations to buy elections on the grounds that "corporations are persons" and therefore their rights of freedom of expression would be infringed by limits on their campaign spending, there have been many well known problems with the integrity of elections in the United States, the general effect of which has been to make it harder for poor working class people, minorities, the elderly and youth to vote. The Obama administration surely realizes this, as these voter suppression methods have been used against its own electoral support base.

Venezuela and numerous other countries complain bitterly, in fact, against illicit US interference in their elections. This has come through taxpayer funded projects run by AID via the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the National Endowment for Democracy, not to mention entities such as the Central Intelligence Agency. There are credible reports that for years, these U.S. government agencies have been channeling support to the right wing opposition in Venezuela. Then there are private, U.S. based organizations, many of them connected with the right-wing Cuban exile networks of South Florida and with left-over political figures from the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations. Some of the individuals and groups in this sector have a record of terroristic violence.

All progressive people should call on the White House and the State Department to take the opportunity of the Venezuela crisis to take a new tack on U.S. relations with Latin America, by:

Immediately recognizing Nicolas Maduro as the new President of Venezuela.
Upgrading U.S. diplomatic relations with Venezuela to the ambassadorial level.
Stopping the practice of funding semi-governmental and private agencies to channel U.S. taxpayer money toward interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
Recognizing that the Monroe Doctrine and its Roosevelt Corollary are dead, and that the United States is going to have to deal with the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond as sovereign states with the right to determine their own trade and foreign policies-no more "big stick", no more "gunboat diplomacy" via the Fourth Fleet which should be withdrawn from Latin American waters.
What goes for Venezuela goes for Cuba too.

PHOTO: Tribuna Popular

Communist Party saddened by the senseless attacks in Boston

Communist Party USA — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:16:00 -0400

The Communist Party strongly condemns the terrorist attack on spectators, bystanders and athletes gathered from around the world for the Boston Marathon on Monday. As of the time of this statement three people are confirmed dead including a young boy and more than 100 are injured, many severely. It is reported that many victims have suffered amputations.

Very little information about the attack is yet known including the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators and the possible motive. We do know, however, that there is never a justification for attacking civilians. It is a crime against humanity.

We caution against spreading dangerous rumors and false information in this critical time as people try to reunite with family and aid the victims. We firmly condemn the racist theories being spread in some sectors who want to use this tragedy to support their agenda of hate and xenophobia.

We applaud the first responders, volunteers and courageous individuals who assisted the injured and have come to the aid of those needing aid in the wake of the attack. The spirit of cooperation and community in the face of violence is our greatest asset.

We stand with all peace-loving people stand with the victims, their families and the community of Boston in this terrible time. Our hearts and thoughts are with you.

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by KOMUnews

Just Immigration Reform will take a Struggle

Communist Party USA — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:38:00 -0400

The struggle for immigrant rights is a key component of the struggle for working class unity in our country today.

The coming months are crucial. This is a call for all progressive forces to become fully engaged at every level.

More than 11 million people who came in search of work and a better life have been blocked from legalization and a path to citizenship, and forced into substandard and life threatening working and living conditions. The constant fear of deportation and family separation is held over their heads as Homeland Security deports non-violent, non-criminal immigrants in record numbers, 1100 a day which could equal two million before reform is passed.

The corporate right-wing are the big beneficiaries of a two-tiered workforce with a large undocumented sector that cannot vote and is denied basic rights in workplace and community. It is in the interests of the right-wing extremists to promote racism and hatred, foment disunity between immigrants and the African American community, and between immigrants and organized labor. The consequences are dire for all working people.

A new generation of undocumented children raised in this country are coming of age only to discover that they are denied drivers licenses, in-state tuition, and access to many services funded by their parents' and their own taxes. As these young people stepped out to say "I am undocumented and unafraid," they helped to spark a new chapter in the long struggle for immigrant rights. They have been joined in the latest phase of the struggle by U.S. citizen and legal resident families and children of the undocumented. The overwhelming Latino vote for President Obama has pushed the need for legislation forward, but there is a hard fight still ahead.

As Congress begins to draft legislation, immigrant rights groups and the labor movement including the AFL-CIO and its constituent organizations, SEIU, Change to Win, and many faith based groups are mobilizing for comprehensive immigration reform with legalization, a path to citizenship and workers' rights. Business interests will push language that does not include these elements.

This legislative and political battle is also at the top of the agenda of the Communist Party USA and Young Communist League. Our program includes stopping deportations now as legislation is being adopted, and calling for legalization with a clear and speedy road map to citizenship for all 11 million. Future workers who come should have the same opportunity.

The People's World/Mundo Popular will soon post a pamphlet answering common questions about immigration, Myths v Facts, which can be circulated via social media and printed out, along with daily coverage and commentary on the immigrant rights struggle.

Calendar

Immigration reform legislation is being crafted in the Senate and the House now and could be introduced as early as the first week of April, with a possible vote in June. Below are some actions that deserve full support and mobilization.

March 25 - April 5 Rallies, marches and lobbying are taking place during spring break when members of Congress are in their home districts, providing an opportunity to build broad alliances of support.

Wednesday, April 10 The Time is Now - All in for Citizenship. National day of action for immigration reform. Buses are being organized from many states for the lobby day and rally in Washington, DC. Rallies are also being organized in local areas.

April 29 to May 3 Members of Congress in their home districts.

Wednesday, May 1, May Day, international workers' day, is being re-claimed with large marches organized by coalitions of labor, immigrant rights and faith based organizations in each state as well as actions in Washington, D.C. These build on the mega-marches of 2006, and on the re-structuring and outreach of the labor movement now underway.

A wealth of educational materials are available on-line at the AFL-CIO , National Immigration Law Center, Center for Community Change, National Council of La Raza, ACLU among many others.

To read more on the current immigration reform struggle, visit the People's World: "Immigration Reform must be All-Inclusive"

Photo: Chicago, children's march for immigration reform 3/26/13. PW

Call in: This Girl is on Fire! This Generation's Women's Movement

Communist Party USA — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 16:15:00 -0400

This girl is on fire!
She's got her feet on the ground,
and she's not backing down.

The lyrics to Alicia Keys's song "Girl on Fire" sum up this generation's women's movement.

Almost a century after women won the right to vote, why are economic, reproductive, and marriage rights still so bitterly contested and challenged in U.S. society today?

During this year's Women's History Month we ask, is the assault on the labor movement linked to the assault on women?

What's behind the recent attempts to legitimize rape and to expand the government's limitations on abortion in many states? Why does the ultra-right continue to use the oppression of women as a primary tool for its divisive political tactics?

Please join Lisa Bergmann, National Coordinator of the Young Communist League USA, for a presentation on the state of the struggle for women's rights today and the important role of young women. At the age of 31 Lisa has a decade of experience in social justice movements. As a union organizer she focused on service industries, where women of color and immigrant women make up the majority of the workforce.

DATE: Tues, March 19
TIME: 8pm eastern, 7pm central, 6pm mountain, 5pm pacific
Call: 605-475-4850
DIAL access code 1053538# at the prompt

Your carrier's normal long distance rates my apply.

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by Peace Education Center

Hugo Chavez empowered and united

Sam Webb — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:56:00 -0400

The powerful voice of Hugo Chavez - a voice for economic justice, democracy, empowerment, national independence, continental solidarity, peace, anti-imperialism, and socialism - has been stilled.

While local and global elites sigh in relief and belittle his life in the major media, the untimely death of Chavez is also evoking a heartfelt cry from millions of abused, marginalized, and exploited people across the globe - none more so than in Venezuela and throughout Latin America.

In that cry one doesn't hear a note of despair and defeat, but rather an unmistakable affirmation that the irrepressible spirit, intellectual curiosity, and disposition to action that defined this man's life will find reflection in the lives of struggling humanity in the years to come.

The celebrations in the seats of power of the global elite over Chavez's death are very premature. The "masters of the universe" make the mistake of underestimating the consciousness and capacity of people in Venezuela and elsewhere to carry forward Chavez's legacy of challenging entrenched capitalist power and injustice. This misunderstanding is not unusual for a class that is steeped in notions of racial superiority, patriarchy, and class entitlement, and tucked away in bubbles of privilege and opulence.

Few of us leave an individual imprint on history. For most of us, our ability to affect history lies in joining with others in collective action.

But some individuals do play an outsized role shaping historical events - as part of the wider struggles taking place in society.

Hugo Chavez Frias falls into this category.

He was an early and unyielding opponent of neoliberal globalization - a system of political and economic capitalist domination that grew out of the dynamics and contradictions of capitalism in its current stage of development. This system of governance broke up traditional farming in the countryside and forced vast numbers of peasants off the land. It created massive slums rimming South America's major cities, rolled back social provisioning by the state, degraded the environment, generated ever wider inequalities, tore down trade and financial barriers protecting local economies, decimated and de-nationalized industry, and condemned millions to impoverishment and spiritual hopelessness.

Drawing inspiration from Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries of Latin America, Chavez challenged in words and deeds this system of exploitation and oppression.

But his fight was not a lonely one. This great leader of indigenous and African descent (a fact that fueled the hatred of the elites even more) not only gave voice to the impoverished and rootless, but also inspired them to become political actors in their own right. Indeed, Chavez played a singular role in transforming a fragmented mass of people in Venezuela into an organized force challenging the profits and prerogatives of local and global capital.

If we left it here however, we would miss the other side of the dialectic. Chavez, like other great leaders, was as much a product of his times and the people he sought to influence as they were of him. Changing circumstances and an aroused people remade him as much as he remade them.

Chavez was a socialist, and one whose feet were very much in this century. While he was inspired by struggles of the past, he wasn't a prisoner of the received wisdom of earlier times. His socialism - its sensibilities, goals, theory, program, and path - were conditioned by the particular, novel circumstances of the 21st century.

At the core of his worldview and political practice were people's needs, people's empowerment, and people's unity at the national, regional, and global level. His politics grew out of the real movement of people and a sober estimation of the actual balance of class and social forces.

At times, his views raised the eyebrows of those on the left who considered problematic any deviation from what I would call their undialectical and rigid reading of Marxism.

In an interview with Tariq Ali, Chavez said,

"I don't believe in the dogmatic postulates of Marxist revolution. I don't accept that we are living in a period of proletarian revolutions. All that must be revised. Reality is telling us that every day. Are we aiming in Venezuela today for the abolition of private property or a classless society? I don't think so. But if I'm told that because of that reality you can't do anything to help the poor, the people who have made this country rich through their labor - and never forget that some of it was slave labor - then I say: 'We part company.' I will never accept that there can be no redistribution of wealth in society.

"Our upper classes don't even like paying taxes. That's one reason they hate me. We said: 'You must pay your taxes.' I believe it's better to die in battle, rather than hold aloft a very revolutionary and very pure banner, and do nothing ... That position often strikes me as very convenient, a good excuse ... Try and make your revolution, go into combat, advance a little, even if it's only a millimetre, in the right direction, instead of dreaming about utopias."

As you can see, Chavez's theory and practice included intermediate steps and stages of struggle. It embraced the struggle for reforms, even minor ones that would meet in some, even small, ways people's needs, and at the same time act as a matrix for mass political participation, anti-capitalist education, and deeper and broader unity. And it rested on a creative and flexible application of theory to changing reality.

Hugo Chavez will be greatly missed in his home country and worldwide, but the way to honor him isn't to turn him into an icon and his words into sacred texts. We honor Hugo Chavez by embracing his passion and courage, his curiosity about the world, his tireless struggle for unity of diverse forces, his readiness to think independently and develop Marxism in fresh and creative ways, and his belief in the intelligence and power of an engaged people.

Photo: Fernando Llano/AP

Avenues of Fightback: Political Report to the NC

Joelle Fishman — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:15:00 -0400

This was a political/legislative report to the March 10, 2013 National Committee Meeting of the Communist Party

1. Framework

The class and democratic struggles remain sharp as we enter the second term of Barack Obama's presidency. Grass roots organizing and mobilizing that bring people together around their common needs and interests is the key to move the country forward in a progressive direction. The President's Inaugural and State of the Union messages offered hope by placing onto the national agenda raising the minimum wage, pay equity for women, immigration reform, ending the wars. job creation for infrastructure repair and alternative energy sources.

But the framework of "balanced cuts" to solve the deficit, instead of an infusion of spending for jobcreating community needs, plays into the hands of the proponents of an anti-people agenda. Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt" CEO crowd is spending millions to tear down President Obama and create the political atmosphere that allows unconscionable cuts in basic human needs. The ideological struggle to uphold the role of government for the common good continues.

The Congressional Calendar of Constant Crisis orchestrated by the Republican leadership, including the so-called fiscal cliff, sequester, continuing resolution and debt ceiling are part of the overall austerity agenda. They are the means to an end to further swell the coffers of the richest few by robbing more and more of the wealth that workers create. They are holding the country hostage to keep their tax breaks and raid Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren made it plain when she questioned why the sequester cut $85 billion from helping Americans in need, yet big banks got $83 billion in subsidies? The contradictions between the difficulties most families face to make ends meet, and the soaring profits on Wall Street, are giving way to a rising tide of protest in the streets and through social media by labor, youth, women, seniors and in the African American, Latino and immigrant communities.

For example: This week - 2,000 rallied in Philadelphia to stop school closings with 19 arrested in civil disobedience, the Immokalee workers began their march across Florida for A New Day, and climate justice actions were held on 24 campuses. Last week - 40 actions in 25 states were held to Pull the Pork from the Pentagon budget, and 90 cities rallied with the Keeping Families Together immigrant rights bus tour.

2. Sequester

Last week the sequester went into effect. Polls show that the Republican leadership in Congress is blamed for the sequester, but President Obama's ratings are also way down. In the end, Congressional Republicans refused to concede any tax increases on wealth, even though a Pew Research poll on January 21 showed 56% of Republican voters favored some taxes on the rich along with cuts in spending.

The impact of the sequester will not be felt all at once, but it is very serious. A couple of local examples are the removal of all air traffic controllers at three airports in Connecticut, and withdrawal of some of the money for rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy. The White House website has links to the impact in each state. The sequester is expected to cost 750,000 to 2 million jobs at a time when official unemployment is at 7.7%, and among Black and Latino youth unemployment is well over 50% in some areas. 600,000 women and children could lose WIC, 125,000 families could lose their HUD vouchers, 70,000 children could lose Head Start, 100,000 college students could lose financial aid — to mention a few.

Without a strong enough outcry, there is a danger that these cuts will become the "new normal." To inspire a larger fightback, the program has to go beyond the defensive and rally for large-scale investment in job-creating infrastructure and community needs. Organizing for Action is coordinating protests of the cuts this coming week. March 18 is a national day of action in local communities. The YCL has issued a petition for jobs for youth and jobs for all.

3. State Legislatures

The austerity drive is not limited to the federal government. The depressed economy continues to pressure state and local budgets, while the Koch brothers and other corporate interests of the extreme right-wing continue battering state legislatures for right to work and other anti-worker and anti-labor privatization bills.

Of special concern is the on-going attempt to suppress voting rights. Voter suppression bills are being considered by at least ten state legislatures (AZ, AR, MO, MT, NE, ND, OH, VA, W WA, WI). Justice Scalia's outrageous and alarming comment that pre-clearance requirements in the Voting Rights Act are "racial entitlements" exposes the critical nature of this fight for fundamental democratic rights. Democratizing election laws, including the fight for a national election law, is a basic ingredient to insure the ability of the increasingly more diverse and progressive electorate to elect workers, youth and people of color to public office. This is an immediate fight coming up onto the 2014 elections and the effort to change control of the House of Representatives and increase democratic minded forces in the U.S. Senate.

Across the country immigrants are standing up for their rights. Eight state legislatures are considering bills for in-state college tuition and drivers licenses (AZ, CO, CT, FL, IA, KY, NC, OH). The movement is being driven by immigrant youth, the Dreamers. Local marches for immigration reform will be held on April 9 and 10. On April 10 a large rally and lobbying will be held in Washington DC for an end to deportations and comprehensive immigration reform with legalization and a path to citizenship. Rallies with labor are being planned for May Day. The labor movement has placed this at the top of the agenda. Our Party has established an Immigrant Rights Taskforce and will be issuing an updated version of the Myths and Realities handout that was first published by the People's World in 2008. As long as there are some workers being pushed down into an underground economy, all workers are pushed down.

4. Our program

The challenge remains to shift priorities away from a job-killing austerity agenda of divestment in community needs, to an agenda of large-scale investment that creates jobs and provides a future for youth and for everyone. Immigration reform, climate change, gun regulation, public education and addressing growing racial and economic inequality all relate to the need for good jobs.

Our long standing program to fund these measures by taxing the rich and corporations and cutting the military budget is now in the mainstream. In addition to ending the wars, transitioning from military production jobs to jobs producing alternative energy sources is part of the national discussion, uniting the labor, peace and environmental movements.

We and our program are welcomed when we reach out to those who are standing up for their needs and dreams including the labor movement's new community organizing, the immigrant youth Dreamers, neighborhood agencies hit by the cuts. The People's World is highly appreciated and respected for its contribution to the battle of ideas when we share it.

The concept we have developed of building a broad alliance to defeat the extreme right-wing carries a lot of respect when we put it into practice where we live and work. The connection to the longer term goal of socialism is something people are looking for, as shown by the successful African American History Month events in many areas and a host of other recent experiences.

There are many challenges. We have a lot of opportunities to make our contribution in this moment.

5. Avenues of fightback

There are so many big battles being fought out at every level that it is impossible to be everywhere and remain effective. Conditions and circumstances in a particular community determine what issue and organization is key to moving everything forward. In the last two weeks four strong bills have been introduced in Congress that need a groundswell of grassroots support and can be integrated into organizing around local issues with local coalitions and candidates.

Rep. John Conyers introduced the Cancel the Sequester Act (HR 900) a week and a half ago. Rep. Alan Grayson sent out an appeal for a quarter million individual signers, and I believe they are almost there.
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill this week to strengthen Social Security by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax that everyone else already pays. It is co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The companion bill in the House was introduced by Rep Peter DeFazio. This is very important to intervene in discussions between Republicans and the White House where cuts in cost of living increases, called the chained CPI are under consideration and must be rejected.
Sens. Tom Harkin and Bernie introduced a bill this week to strengthen Social Security by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax that everyone else already pays. It is co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The companion bill in the House was introduced by Rep Peter DeFazio. This is very important to intervene in discussions between Republicans and the White House where cuts in cost of living increases, called the chained CPI are under consideration and must be rejected.
Sens. Tom Harkin and Bernie Sanders introduced a bill on March 2 to tax Wall Street speculators (S 410). A companion bill in the House was introduced by Rep. Peter DeFazio (HR 880). "Both the economic crisis and the deficit crisis are a direct result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street," said Sanders. "This bill will reduce gambling on Wall Street, encourage the financial sector to invest in the job-creating productive economy, and significantly reduce the deficit," with an estimated $352 billion over 10 years.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus is filing "The Back to Work Budget" this week as an alternative to Paul Ryan's austerity budget. It repeals the sequester, creates infrastructure, education and public works jobs, closes tax loopholes and moves military spending back to 2006 levels.Organizational endorsers are welcome.

These measures, even taken together, are not a complete solution, but they are core demands around which it should be possible to organize and take the struggle to the next level.

Finally, I would like to appreciate the work of all the members of the Political Action Commission!

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Hugo Chávez Presente!

Jarvis Tyner — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:31:00 -0400

This article is based on a report to the March 10 2013 National Committee Meeting of the Communist Party

At this meeting of the our National Committee, the highest body of our party between National Conventions, we want to take a moment to mourn and pay tribute to the courageous leader of the Venezuelan people Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.

Comrade Chávez, was the democratically elected President of his country for 14 years. And despite the efforts of a well financed right-wing opposition who organized a coup with the full backing of the Bush Administration and the powerful oil interests, Chávez was restored to power when the people took to the streets a million strong and returned their democratically elected President to power. They saved their nation and opened the door to real progressive/socialist reforms.

The Bolivarian Revolution under Chávez's leadership chooses what they defined as their path to Socialist development. He kept his promise to his people to use the country's enormous oil wealth to improve their lives and strengthen democracy. He promised to improve the lives of the poor and racially oppressed. Eighty percent of pre-Chávez Venezuela was living in poverty.

Under Chávez's program, overall poverty was reduced by half and extreme poverty reduced by 70%

Millions of Venezuelans had access to health care and education for the first time. What he did to improve the lives of the large impoverished Afro Venezuelan population, which was his racial heritage, was historic. His administration built housing for the poor. They opened up education to all. College enrolment doubled with many going to school tuition free. Those eligible for public pensions tripled. This was Hugo Chávez

Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Venezuela for the memorial services and was a friend of Chávez, described him as a "Poor people's Hero." After Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, Venezuela-owned oil company CITGO sent oil to help the people of New Orleans. The Government of Venezuela offered to send 1,000 generators. Jackson pointed out "Venezuela actually got to New Orleans before Bush did." He praised Chávez for using the nations wealth from the "bottom up not the top down."

And as we know the Venezuelan path to socialism was not confined to Venezuela.

The country sent millions of gallons of subsidized oil to Cuba in exchanged for 1,000s of health care workers who served the poor. Venezuelan subsidized oil was sent all over South America to help improve the lives and stabilized the economies of countries striving for real democracy and development.

And over 1.7 million Americans have received CITGO heating oil at reduced prices under a similar program for U.S. residents.

U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks from Queens, NY who helped bring the CITGO program to our country in fact introduced ex-Congressman Joe Kennedy to Chávez. Meeks also attended the recent Chávez memorial and he said, Chávez was a controversial figure but he was "a man who wanted to help the poor."

The heating oil program is currently helping 300,000 U.S. households yearly in 25 States and DC

This year 252 American Indian tribal communities and 245 homeless shelters in the U.S. will receive fuel assistance.

A number of housing projects in NY are benefiting from the Chávez socialist discount.

Our party issued a statement upon hearing the news of Chávez's untimely death. It needs to be circulated. Included in that statement was the fact that on

“On March 1, Venezuela and its allies signed twenty seven agreements with African countries, meeting at the Africa-South America Summit, aimed at ending the centuries old looting of African resources by the colonial powers and their successors.”

This is the Bolivarian Revolution and the legacy of Hugo Chávez.

There is a very good article at the People's World website on Venezuela that should be read and shared.

The Young Communist League also issued a statement that stated in part,

“We are together with you in mourning the physical loss of an extraordinary human being. As a man who dedicated his life to social justice and equality, he will be remembered alongside great revolutionaries Che Guevara, Jose Martí, Salvador Allende, Farabundo Martí, and Simon Bolivar.”

The opposition is circling the wagons to defeat this great development in Venezuela and the Republicans here are pushing for interference in their coming elections.

We need maximum pressure to stop the Obama administration from acting against democracy in Venezuela. That would be a huge mistake for them.

I left the following message in the condolence book at the Venezuelan Consulate in New York City:

“On behalf of the Communist Party USA, we extend our most heart felt condolences to the people of Venezuela on the death of comrade President Hugo Chavez.

He holds an honored place in history for illuminating a new light of freedom and socialism in our hemisphere.”

Hugo Chávez Presente!

PHOTO: elsanto_wa under Creative Commons BY-SA

Communist Party head in historic debate at Univ of Georgia

Libero Della Piana — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:15:00 -0500

Reprinted from People's World

ATHENS, GA - They call it "the debate that never was."

In 1963 as the country was coming out of the McCarthy Red Scare but still in the midst of the Cold War, and as the South was roiled by the civil rights movement, the Phi Kappa Literary Society here at the University of Georgia invited a speaker from the Communist Party to the campus in the heart of the Jim Crow South for a public debate. The topic was to be "Is Full Employment Possible Under Capitalism?" but the debate never happened.

According to the society's history, "the Student Affairs Committee of the University refused to permit the debate and the University President O.C. Aderhold rebuked the Society for attempting to create what he called a 'sideshow' and 'riot' on campus."

Fifty years after the incident, Phi Kappa organized a re-creation of "the Debate that Never Was" Monday evening, February 25 in "the spirit of free speech and debate."

Sam Webb, the national chairperson of the Communist Party USA debated Dr. Greg Morin of the Georgia Libertarian Party on the original topic from 1963 with a new spin: "Is Full Employment Possible Under Capitalism? Solving America's Jobs Crisis."

Over 300 students, alumni, faculty, and community members attended the event in historic University Chapel.

Webb argued that no, capitalism was not able to achieve full employment, and that an active struggle for jobs would be necessary to win important progress in putting people back to work. He called for "a bold, transformative 'new jobs' agenda."

"For the sake of our fragile planet and ourselves," said Webb. "Such an agenda would transform our economy from one dominated by Wall Street, Lockheed Martin, Peabody Coal, Exxon and Walmart to a Main Street economy rooted in a green, demilitarized production, clean and renewable energy, livable wages and union protections, publicly owned banks, public controls over the investment policies of the Fortune 500, affirmative action and equality, the modernization of mass transit, aid for small and medium sized businesses, renewal of both urban and rural communities, democratic forms of worker ownership, and a progressive tax structure."

Dr. Morin, a local businessman, didn't argue that capitalism as currently constructed could put people back to work. He argued that only a pure "free market" capitalism free from government regulation or taxation would achieve full employment.

"Maximum employment requires maximum freedom," said Morin. By freedom, apparently Morin meant free markets. "The market comes into equilibrium on its own through competition." Morin further argued that even the boom-and-bust cycle endemic to capitalist mode of production was only a result of government meddling beginning with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank and exacerbated by New Deal social programs like unemployment insurance.

"Unemployment insurance is basically paying people to remain unemployed," said Morin.

Webb countered that the root of the current economic and jobs crisis was in fact the deregulation of financial markets in recent decades and the insufficient consumer demand caused by increasing economic inequality and wage stagnation.

While Webb argued that there is no solution to the jobs crisis under capitalism, it can be curbed, "but only if the American people bring the power of their numbers and unity to bear on government at all levels, much like Americans did in the 1930s."

Event organizer and Phi Kappa Society member Ben Woodard felt the event was a success. "300 people peacefully gathered to witness an exchange of ideas on our campus," he said. "Whereas fifty years ago it was not possible. It shows just how far we have come since the dark days of the Red Scare. We must always be vigilant of infringements on our freedom of speech, the most basic of human rights."

The Phi Kappa Society is a student-led debate organization founded in 1820. It holds weekly student debates on a wide variety of topics. The group counts sixteen governors of Georgia among its alumni.

The main debate in the chapel Monday night was followed by a student debate open to guest participation at nearby Phi Kappa Hall. The topic of the student debate was "Was Jesus a Communist or a Capitalist?" The audience voted overwhelmingly at the conclusion of the debate that Jesus was a red.

The event was made possible in part due to assistance from Speak Progress, a progressive speakers bureau. For more information, or to bring a speaker to your campus or community, contact tonypec@peoplebeforeprofits.org.

Read the full text of Sam Webb's opening remarks here.

The Debate That Never Happened from Phi Kappa Literary Society on Vimeo

Photo: Phi Kappa Society

Hugo Chávez 1954-2013

Communist Party USA — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:54:00 -0500

The Communist Party USA expresses deep sorrow at the passing of one of the greatest political leaders of our time, Comrade Hugo Chavez, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. We extend our condolences and solidarity to President Chavez' family, to his comrades and colleagues, and to the people of Venezuela on this sad occasion.

In 1998, Hugo Chavez Frias was elected president of Venezuela, which was one of the wealthiest but worst ruled countries in the Western Hemisphere. In his 14 years in power, we applauded the way in which he stood up to Venezuela's own oligarchs as well as to the U.S. administration as he reshaped the Venezuelan state's relationship to its own citizens, especially the poorest ones, and to the outside world.

In 2002, we reacted with indignation to the cowardly coup attempt and especially to the involvement and participation of the U.S. administration of that time in it. When President Chavez and the Venezuelan people emerged victorious from that reactionary challenge, we celebrated with you.

In spite of the calumnies in the corporate controlled press and media, we were delighted with the progress that Venezuela made, under Chavez' wise and firm leadership, in eliminating poverty and illiteracy, in providing for the health care and housing needs of the Venezuelan people, and in rechanneling the country's oil wealth away from corporate greed and toward meeting the needs of the people.

We were no less enthusiastic about President Chavez's role in international affairs. His work in creating ALBA) (the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples' of our America), PETROCARIBE and CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), as well as his government's activities to develop MERCOSUR and UNASUR, have had a revolutionary impact in correcting the imbalance of power between the Latin American and Caribbean countries on the one hand, and the United States, Canada and Europe on the other. And there is a potential for expanding that "Bolivarian" dynamic: On March 1, Venezuela and its allies signed twenty seven agreements with African countries, meeting at the Africa-South America Summit, aimed at ending the centuries old looting of African resources by the colonial powers and their successors. Chavez' letter of encouragement to the ASA Summit was possibly his last statement to struggling humanity to which he gave so much.

The blow of losing Chavez is a hard one, for us as for you, but the Bolivarian revolution he started moves on. We pledge our solidarity to the Venezuelan people to make sure it triumphs.

Hugo Chávez presente!

Teleconference: The Black Freedom Struggle Makes American History

Communist Party, USA — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:19:00 -0500

Black History Month Special

We hope hope you join People's World in celebrating African American History Month with a national teleconference presentation by Prof. Jamie Wilson Tues, Feb 19, 8 pm Eastern on "From the civil rights movement to Obama: the Black freedom struggle makes American history."

The black freedom struggle in the mid- to late-20th century exposed discrimination to the nation in stark terms and forced it to grapple with one of its most pressing problems, what W.E.B. Du Bois called the the color line.

African American grassroots activists, leaders, and organizations helped remap American History, forcing the nation to reexamine the basic democratic principles by which we live; forcing the country to live up to principals of its founding.

How does Black History shape American History? What remains of the problem of the "color line" today? Does the reelection of Pres. Barack Obama signal a "post-racial" era or an opportunity for the struggle for equality?

Join us for the conversation.
___________________

Jamie Wilson is an associate professor of African American and Modern US History and writes on black cultural formation, political thought and religion. Author of Building a Healthy Black Harlem (Cambria, 2009), which examines the urbanization of black Harlem in the Jazz Age and Great Depression, and The Civil Rights Movement (ABC-Clio, January 2013), a reference guide to the Civil Rights Movement, Wilson is now beginning a biographical project about the late Gil Scott-Heron, the rhythm and blues artist.

February 19
8pm Eastern (7pm Central, 6pm Mountain, 5pm Pacific)
Call 605-475-4850
Dial 1053538# at the prompt

Sponsored by People Before Profits

People's World is a daily news website of, for and by the 99% and the direct descendant of the Daily Worker. Published by Long View Publishing Co., People's World reports on the movements for jobs, peace, equality, democracy, civil rights and liberties, labor, immigrant, LGBT and women's rights, protection of the environment, and more. Mundo Popular provides the same coverage in Spanish.

People Before Profits is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that promotes education, analysis, journalism, culture and dialogue from a working-class and socialist perspective.

Photo: Professor Jamie Wilson

The fight to curb gun violence is a working-class issue

Communist Party USA — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:44:00 -0500

The Communist Party USA strongly supports efforts by grassroots organizations, local and state governments, members of Congress and the White House to curb the tragic scourge of gun violence in our country.

It is the 99 percent in our country - working families, people of color, low-income people, middle class wage earners and small business people - urban, suburban and rural - who are the primary victims of gun violence.

Horrifying mass shootings, as most recently the slaying of 20 small children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., shock the nation and world. And, perhaps less talked about but no less tragic, handgun shootings kill and wound thousands of Americans every year. The largest proportion of deaths from handgun violence are youth in communities of color where opposition to the proliferation of handguns is strong.

Confronting the victims and the vast majority in our country are an array of far-right forces aligned with the profit-making firearms industry. In the name of "freedom" and "constitutional rights," these reactionary forces, represented in government by the Republican Party, are attacking Americans' right to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence. This is a fundamental, constitutional, democratic right - the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The Second Amendment was adopted to enable the new American republic, lacking a standing army or state national guards, to muster militia to put down domestic uprisings and repulse any attempted return by the British. Which is what it did in repressing slave revolts, Native Americans, and earlier to poor farmers during Shays' Rebellion.

The Second Amendment is now being used by right-wing, anti-worker groups and politicians to divide and conquer, in the process threatening the basic safety and security of all Americans. There is no basis for claiming this amendment was intended to permit unregulated personal acquisition of firearms, including amassing military-style weapons and private arsenals for "protection,"including "protection from the government."

These are the same forces, backed by the Chamber of Commerce and similar elements, that are attacking labor unions and Americans' fundamental, constitutional right of free association. They are the same forces that are pushing anti-worker "right-to-work" laws in states across the country.

These are the same forces that are attacking vital social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and working to cut and privatize public education. While they seek to slash accessible and affordable health care they are crying crocodile tears about "mental health" in an effort to divert the growing sentiment for gun curbs.

These are the same forces that oppose President Obama's stimulus program to create millions of jobs and rebuild infrastructure which would provide jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed.

These are the same forces that promote racism and attacks on the rights of women, immigrants, gays and lesbians.

These are the climate-change deniers who are backed by the fossil fuel industry.

It's this simple: If you support the agenda of the National Rifle Association and their political allies, you are supporting the enemies of America's working people.

And we want to make this clear: Personal possession of weaponry is not a revolutionary means to change the system in our country in the 21st century, as some self-proclaimed "revolutionaries" and some extreme right wingers claim. The great social changes that have transformed our society in the modern era have come about through the nonviolent mass organization and struggles of the American people. In unity there is strength. This is the way forward to progressive change as well as the path to achieve more basic transformation - a socialist society that is deeply democratic, egalitarian, and at peace with the world.

The battle now being waged for real steps to end gun violence is a major political and ideological battle against the ultra-right. It is a battle against their backward "free market capitalism" ideology of a "you're on your own" society.

The battle to curb gun violence is a working-class issue.

We urge everyone to help make these connections clear and get involved in this struggle - in the name of our families, our communities, and our country.

People's World articles:

Guns, profit and Sandy Hook

Obama goes head to head with gun lobby

Gun control action will rely on grassroots organizing

Fight to end gun violence is key to defending democracy

The Second Amendment is a dangerous anachronism

A hunter speaks for gun control

Gun control battle opens in Senate

Gun madness, solutions and people's movements

The woman whose name I carried

Walmart and gun makers, drivers of the right wing

Additional resources:

Take action: petition to support congressional legislation

One million Moms 4 gun control

Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence

How a gun control petition went from Tumblr to Washington DC

When it's easy for anyone and everyone to get a gun, this happens

Photo: (AP)

Solidarity greetings to the Cuban Five

Communist Party USA — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 23:34:00 -0500

Once more at the end of a year and in the midst of a holiday season, the Communist Party USA communicates its dedication and highest regard to the Cuban Five political prisoners. Cruelly and unjustly, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González have remained in U.S. prisons for more than 14 years - all, that is, except for René González whose sentence was relatively short and who was released on parole earlier in 2012.

We are part of a worldwide movement demanding freedom for the Five. We extend to them our solidarity and our resolve to continue fighting for their liberation. The U.S. government for half a century has tried to starve and terrorize Cubans into submission. Violence and murder aimed at Cuba originated in Florida. The Cuban Five were there to stop the criminals and protect the Cuban people.

We're on their side for one more reason. For us, wildly excessive sentences and clear disregard of judicial and prosecutorial norms in railroading them to jail signify vengeance. We suspect the U.S. government regards the Cuban Five as proxies for a Cuban revolutionary movement the U. S. financial and military giant can't defeat. The most nefarious means have been used.

One of us recently visited Ramón Labañino at the Federal prison in Jesup, Georgia. He reaffirmed that he and the others were defending their country against death and destruction. They were quite aware, he said, of risks they ran as undercover agents in the United States. Cuba is a tiny island, harms no one, and wants to live in dignity, he added.

Ramon is hopeful. He calls upon President Obama to think of his place in history and release the Five. He and the others view the case of Alan Gross as crucial to their release. This U.S. agent, who violated Cuban laws, should be exchanged for the Five, Ramon maintains.

Responding to a question as to how one of the Five can issue statements on behalf of all of them, especially when they may not communicate directly, Ramon explained, "We went to the same school," the school, that is, of living in Cuba. "We know how each other think,"

Ramon recently sent out year - end greetings from the Five to their supporters.

"This year 2012 is reaching an end and we want to use this special opportunity to express how proud, grateful we are for counting on your support, love, and brotherhood.

"Thanks to your presence, we never feel alone, we are strong and optimistic. You give us the reasons to believe in justice and freedom. You give us the certainty that one day we will get together to celebrate this victory, and together we will go on fighting for just causes all over the world!!

"Thanks so much for your solidarity and love!

"On behalf of the Cuban Five, our five families, and the Cuban people:

"Merry Christmas! - Best wishes in the New Year! - Happiest 2013!!! - Love and peace!

"Antonio, Rene, Fernando, Gerardo, Ramon"

A worldwide movement may be there for the Cuban Five, yet they share the suffering of all prisoners. They are removed from day-to-day experiences of decency, brotherhood, and family solidarity that are their rights as humans. That's a gap we must try, partially, to fill. Please send the Cuban Five letters of friendship and solidarity. Addresses follow:

Gerardo Hernandez • #58739-004 • U.S.P. Victorville • P.O. Box 3900 • Adelanto, CA 92301

Antonio Guerrero • #58741-004 • Quarters: APACHE A • FCI Marianna • P.O.Box 7007 • Marianna, FL 32447-7007

Ramón Labañino - Send as: Luis Medina

· #58734-004 • FCI Jesup • 2680 301 South • Jesup, GA 31599

(NOTE: the envelope should be addressed to "Luis Medina," but address the letter inside to Ramon)

Fernando González - Send as: Rubén Campa • #58733-004 • F.C.I. Safford • P.O. Box 9000 • Safford, AZ 85548

(NOTE: the envelope should be addressed to "Rubén Campa," but address the letter inside to Fernando)

René González - For René's safety while on probation in Florida, his address is not available

Photo: J G Blanchard Lewis // CC 2.0

Articles » cpusa

Eleventh Hour to Prevent Catastrophe in Syria

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by Oxfam International

Communist Party: Stop spying - Repeal PATRIOT Act

Mass surveillance of our telephone & electronic communications must end

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution unported license\

Communist Party USA condemns Turkish repression

Syrian conflict escalates, Communist Party calls for ceasefire & negotiations

Build the Party: Oh yes we will

Building a Transformative Movement & Party

Keynote address to the Communist Party National Members Conference, April 27 & 28, 2013, New York City

May Day 2013: We Stand with the Workers of the World!

This Earth Day: End the Keystone XL Pipeline

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Jobs for the Future

People Before Profits!

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The Venezuelan People Have Spoken

Communist Party saddened by the senseless attacks in Boston

Just Immigration Reform will take a Struggle

Calendar

Call in: This Girl is on Fire! This Generation's Women's Movement

This girl is on fire! She's got her feet on the ground, and she's not backing down.

DATE: Tues, March 19TIME: 8pm eastern, 7pm central, 6pm mountain, 5pm pacificCall: 605-475-4850 DIAL access code 1053538# at the prompt

Hugo Chavez empowered and united

Avenues of Fightback: Political Report to the NC

This was a political/legislative report to the March 10, 2013 National Committee Meeting of the Communist Party

1. Framework

2. Sequester

3. State Legislatures

4. Our program

5. Avenues of fightback

Hugo Chávez Presente!

This article is based on a report to the March 10 2013 National Committee Meeting of the Communist Party

Hugo Chávez Presente!

Communist Party head in historic debate at Univ of Georgia

Hugo Chávez 1954-2013

Teleconference: The Black Freedom Struggle Makes American History

Black History Month Special

The fight to curb gun violence is a working-class issue

Solidarity greetings to the Cuban Five

This girl is on fire!
She's got her feet on the ground,
and she's not backing down.

DATE: Tues, March 19
TIME: 8pm eastern, 7pm central, 6pm mountain, 5pm pacific
Call: 605-475-4850
DIAL access code 1053538# at the prompt