A PROGRESSIVE PARLIAMENT FOR USA

On Election Day, November 2nd 2010, the people must vote for the Democrats, in the absence of the Communist ticket.

vol. 1, no. 17

MONTRÉAL – One word about the break up of the US communist newspaper People’s Weekly World: the US Marxist, James Connolly, recalls that “the Party’s newspaper during the repressions of the McCarthy period served as ‘the only means for the CPUSA to reach outside of its own ranks.’ (Zoltan Zigedy, ‘The Demise of an Old Friend, the PWW’). To this day, the newspaper remains the single most effective way for the Party to communicate with broader masses of working-class people [...] through distributions at mill gates, on shop floors and picket lines, at mass meetings, and even deliveries in neighborhoods.”

This “get to the topic” reveals the dead-end of the current electoral campaign in USA, while the communists don’t have any more the will –in the case of the leadership-, and the possibility –in the case of the membership- to expose their views and to support their own candidates. As for the General Secretary of the Party, Sam Webb, he wrote: “They (the workers, Ed.) expected bold action on the economic crisis, but it didn’t happen. The stimulus didn’t go far enough. Ditto for health care legislation. The scale and pace of change has been too slow – too many people are out of work, out of affordable health care, and out of their homes.” At last, one wise conclusion about this system...
(Photo Internet: The US Congress Buildings in Washington, D.C., USA)

This viewpoint is shared, for other purposes, by Rightist, CNN’s journalist, Tom Foreman who wrote in New York Metro newspaper, on October 18th, that “many congressional Democrats are sprinting away from any association with the White House as they try to salvage this election. It’s no wonder. They are getting more bad news than Sarah Palin (Republican presidential contestant, Ed.) when Bristol calls. The unemployment numbers stink. The mortgage crisis is still a mess. The deficit is ballooning. And the polls are placing the president in the middle of it all. Even a novice campaigner knows to run from that.”

Instead of advancing its program, –that we are not informed of-, the CPUSA electronic journal People’s World lectures (!) us: “Politics is a contested, complex, and impure process. There are waves and breaks –progressive and reactionary – in continuity to be sure, but in between there are longer periods in which the struggle doesn’t soar to new heights or sink to new depths, but still is consequential to the breaks that do come.” Webb is certainly a “nouvelle vague” poet, but he seems to forget about bread and butter issues, that the working people are longing for.

The CPUSA Labour secretary, John Wojcik, is not any better. Here is one of his last reports of the AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka"s speeches: “The ‘enthusiasm gap’ among progressive voters, he told the union leaders, is also the result of frustration that comes from watching Republicans throw up roadblocks on every single thing workers care about, and additional frustration comes from watching some of the Democrats ‘we thought were our friends’ join them saying, ‘Go slow, play it safe, split the difference.’”

The US conservatives don’t say much about the toll of wars in the US Budget. With Foreman, quoted above, they repeat that “President Obama’s Dems are in trouble now: a broad sense among voters that the party had launched too many programs that were too expensive in an economy that was still too weak.” It is worthy of noting that New York Metro “does not endorse the opinions of the author”. They are aware of their readers' expectations: less war, less bails-out to US monopolies and banks, more for the needed and the workers...

Talking about the work of the union staff with the rank-and-file members, he continues: “After a relationship is established, the AFL-CIO staff can roll out the program”. You say: a program... What does it look like, what does it deal with? The Party leaders affirm that the workers are not ready for more. Wrong! The Pew Opinion Poll (May 4, 2010), which came out after the Rasmussen poll, found that 43% of Americans under 30 years old describe “capitalism” as positive but the same poll found that those who described “socialism” as positive also equated 43%. Those figures were taken from a Jarvis Tyner (one of the Party leader, Ed.) speech at a youth conference in USA, last summer.

Probably, the members of Communist Parties around the world cannot understand the scale of damages caused to the cause of communism in USA, by the Sam Webb clique. As put it several members of the CPUSA since last spring: “We need another Jacques Duclos!”

In the history of the Communist Party of America (CPA), it is related that: “Internationally, Jacques Duclos, secretary of the Communist Party of France, published an article that solidly denounced Browderism (akin to Sam Webb’s political views). The article played an important role in mobilizing already existing opposition to and critics of Browder. The CPA received a copy of Duclos’article on May 20, 1945, which was immediately discussed in the Political Committee. [...] A special convention was held in July 26-28, 1945. The convention thoroughly cleansed the party of Browderism and restored it to a solid Marxist-Leninist basis. The CPA was liquidated and the Communist Party was reconstituted. [...] The reconstituted Communist Party rejected Browder’s post-war no-strike line, incentive wage, subservience to the tow-party system, and ‘organized capitalism’. Browder then tried to build a revisionist factional grouping. However, he failed to split the party and in early 1946 he was expelled.”

“The history of the crucial defeat of Browderism and the restoration of the party are more relevant now than ever. The CPUSA is currently controlled by another group of right-opportunists who also seek to liquidate the party much like Browder tried to do. Only the CPUSA’s membership and supporters can save it at this key moment. Strengthening of the CPUSA as a Marxist-Leninist party will allow for new, bright chapters of its history to be written.”

Most likely, friends and supporters of the CPUSA around the world will be adequately informed about the situation at the 16th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions, in Athens in April 2011, outside the convention floor.
(Photo Internet: the war in Viet Nam, typical of the US foreign policies, from either the Democrats or the Republicans; the reason the world expects so much from the Left, including the US communists).

SOME INTERNATIONAL CLUES

A statement by the Canadians for Peace and Socialism, on October 13th 2010, stresses that “the rejection by a majority of the member states of the United Nations, of the bid by the right-wing minority Conservative Government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper for a seat on the Security Council of the UN is a stinging defeat for the pro-NATO, pro-Israel, pro-war, anti-people’s program foisted on the UN by the leading G7 imperialist states led by the U.S.A. [...]

There should be no doubt that the minority right-wing Harper Conservative Government was delegated by international reaction led by the U.S.A. to attempt to seize another position on the Security Council to strengthen the extremist pro-war forces in the inner circle of the UN. The Harper administration is viewed by international finance capital as a reliable representative of extreme reaction, an avowed and open exponent of subverting the U.N. to the purposes of U.S. imperialism. The defeat of the Harper Government’s bid is a significant event in the struggle to preserve the integrity of the original intent of the U.N. and its Charter.”

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

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