3-31-08, 9:56 am

At its quarterly national committee meeting this past weekend, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) called for a landslide in the November 4th elections to defeat John McCain and strengthening the Democratic Party majorities in Congress.

Needed: One Landslide on November 4th

Sam Webb, the CPUSA's national chair, delivered the main political report in which he argued that voters have confounded pundits and political predicters and have set the stage for a political victory in November for the people's movement. Democratic primaries signal a huge upsurge with record-breaking turnout and enthusiasm. 'The high octane of this upsurge is simply breathtaking,' he said.

With the undiminished role of the labor-led people's movement, Webb predicted the outcome could bring enormous change that puts people's need before warmaking, sleaze and policies that put profits before peoples need. Such an outcome is possible regardless of whether or not Clinton or Obama wins, he stated.

The Democratic campaigns and the possibility for change have eroded disillusionment and apathy. The main dilemma of the left is to not be left behind in this upsurge, he said. If we are not engaged in this struggle to advance the people's movement, we will be left behind.

Independent involvement is part of the upsurge, and people are inspired by the possibility that this election will result in real changes and improvements in their daily lives.

Webb talked about the fact that the nature of the support for the both candidates shows that working-class voters will vote for a woman and an African American candidate. Neither would have been swept to the place they are now with support from either women or Black voters alone.

To say that Clinton has garnered the vast majority of the working-class vote is simply wrong, he said. Black voters are overwhelming working class. The working class has divided its vote between the two. Trade union voters have given a slight edge to Clinton, but Obama has polled well and has won important union endorsements.

On the issue of demographics, 'we should stay away form easy and static explanations,' he said.

Obama's candidacy is unique in all of this excitement. It is transformational and new. It has brought new forces into the process and built new organizational forms.

'What makes it different is that it has the feel of a movement,' Webb said. Obama speaks to people's desires and inspires them. 'He is a fresh voice on the political scene. His courage and astuteness are obvious,' Webb said.

His desire to overcome racial and religious and national and other divisions 'strikes a deeply responsive chord far and wide.'

For her part, Clinton would likely govern to the left of her husband, and she would be a formidable opponent for McCain, Webb asserted.

We have a chance to sweep the Republicans from power in a landslide. 'It is an altogether new page in American politics,' Webb said.

Webb went on to discuss the deepening economic and financial crisis. He linked Republican policies of the last 30 years and the ongoing decline of US capitalism and imperialism. What is needed to counter this and heal the country is a broad and ambitious program off housing relief, urban investment, environmental clean up and more, Webb insisted.

A favorable outcome of this election will give working people power to prevent capitalists from shifting the burden of this recession onto the backs of workers.

Equally important, the war must end. Resources for the war would've have been better spent on needs at home. 'Too much blood and treasure has been lost. It's time to bring the troops home,' Webb said.

All peace minded people should unify and defeat McCain and strengthen Democratic majorities in Congress. Such an outcome would constitute a victory not only for the Democratic Party but also, and more importantly, for the whole working class and for people around the world. 'The day after the election won't matter if we don't win the day of the election,' Webb said.

Trends in the Election Struggle

Joelle Fishman, who chairs the CPUSA political action commission, reported on trends and movements around the 2008 elections. 'This election presents an historic opportunity to end ultra-right-wing rule of this country, ' Fishman started.

'A massive voter turnout in November is needed to provide the political strength to win new priorities,' Fishman said.

'Neither (Democratic) candidate is of the left,' Fishman said, but history teaches us that when people mobilize candidates can be forced to act to do the right things.

Keeping fire on McCain and exposing the fact that he is the candidate of the ultra-right and of the big banks is a main task. 'John McCain is a favorite of the military industrial complex,' Fishman noted. 'He is the favorite of Wall Street.

He opposes S-CHIP and universal health care. He supports obscene tax cuts for the super-rich. He supports Bush's war policy and wants to stay in Iraq endlessly and spread that war to Iran. He also unquestioningly supports NAFTA and free trade policies that have cost millions of jobs.

Fishman noted some major policy differences between the Communist Party and the Democratic Party. While Democratic candidates seem to favor repealing the worst of Bush's tax cuts for the rich, Communists want tax policy to be moved back to 1970s levels to ensure that the very richest people pay their fair share into the treasury and lift the burden off of working families.

Democratic candidates also appear to support the ongoing war and occupation of Afghanistan, while the Communist Party calls for bringing those troops home as well as ending the Iraq war and transforming US foreign policy.

Also, while the Democratic candidates have offered plans that move toward universal health care, the Communist Party seeks passage of a national health insurance program that is a single-payer, not-for-profit Medicare-for-all system.

Accomplishing the broadest policy agenda requires changing Congress as well, she noted. 'There is a need to increase the pro-labor and pro-peace members of Congress.'

The Communist Party plans to watch closely 28 House races, 4 Senate races, 2 governorships, and several ballot initiatives across the country, Fishman announced.

Fishman also reported on the role of 'core forces' in the 2008 election cycle. The Communist Party uses the term 'core forces' to refer to those communities who have a special role within and around the working class in bringing about social progress.

Labor is making a huge national effort to win the presidency for a Democratic candidate by exposing the truth about John McCain. Additionally, the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition are launching a massive postcard campaign to get 1 million signatures in support of passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and for universal health care. While some AFL-CIO unions have endorsed Obama and some have backed Clinton, the federation itself is waiting to endorse the Democratic nominee. CtW has backed Obama.

Among millions of others, African Americans have been inspired and energized by the Obama campaign. Massive new efforts to register Black voters are underway. If African American voters in some southern states like South Carolina and Georgia vote in proportion to their populations, they could flip those states from red to blue, Fishman argued.

Fishman also described as 'hype' the notion that Latino voters will not back Black candidates. In the primaries, 79 percent of Latino voters have voted for Democratic candidates (up from 60 percent for Kerry in 2004 general election). Latino turnout has tripled. New registration drives among Latino voters aim for 12 million registered with 10 million voter turnout.

Fishman called for Democratic candidates to reject the divisiveness promoted by the ultra-right Republicans on the immigration question.

Women voters have also turned out higher for the Democratic candidates, and women's issues are at stake in this campaign. Additionally, youth voters, environmentally-oriented, and peace voters have an opportunity to make their mark on this election.

For its part, the Communist Party is developing multimedia/Internet tools and printed pamphlets that expose the real McCain and his record and introduce voters to the election platform of the Communist Party. Communist Party members will work in local communities registering voters from the core forces and mobilizing them to defeat John McCain and to win bigger majorities in Congress.

Save the Earth, Stupid

Marc Brodine, a member of the national board of the CPUSA and the chair of the Communist Party in Washington State, delivered a report on the impact of global warming, its causes and consequences.

'Global warming,' he said, 'is not just an inconvenient truth.' Global warming has to be examined within a larger context of capitalism and other environmental problems. 'We can't have a healthy humanity without a healthy natural world,' he said.

He tied environmental degradation to capitalism. Increased capitalist exploitation of nature will result in serious crisis, he said. 'We can either work with nature or nature will work against us,' he argued. 'Capitalism is playing with the survival of humanity for short-term profit,' he noted.

Brodine addressed current environmental action. 'The biggest problem is not caused by individuals but by a system that privileges profit over people and nature,' he said.

Capitalists are to blame for the crisis, but tend to try to shift the blame to the workers and the poor. They seek solutions that put the burden on individuals who did not cause the crisis rather than on the policies and actions they themselves pushed for.

While capitalism is the culprit, immediate action is needed. 'We can't profit our way to a solution,' Brodine said. 'But neither can we wait for socialism. Economic development that doesn't destroy the environment is required.

Brodine insisted that political changes are required, including democratization of the political process, public policy, and economic decision-making. These need to happen in order to move in the right direction and to mitigate the destructive policies of the Bush administration and the worst actions off the big transnational polluters.

Some solutions that are being put forward by big industry are either partial solutions, untested or are very problematic steps. Biofuels, for example, drive up the cost of food or cause food shortages. 'It means solving an energy problem by creating a food problem,' Brodine stated.

Other proposals aren't adequate either, Brodine argued. Cap and trade schemes do very little, and new nuclear plants and 'clean coal' are untested and present their own significant problems.

Globally, people who contribute least global warming are paying the highest price as a result of climate change. International reforms should include transforming international financial institutions and ending exploitative debt policies imposed on developing countries; transfer of green technology to developing countries; and implementing binding global agreements that enforce reduction of greenhouse emissions and fossil fuel usage.

Brodine pointed out that the Communist Party has a special role in winning the international communist movement to understanding the nature of the environmental crisis and steps toward halting global warming. Brodine urged the formation of multi-issue broad-based coalitions that link environmental issues to public policy and other political struggles.

He urged that the environmental question be injected into all of the struggles in which Communists are involved. The labor, youth, peace and all movements against racism and national oppression have a significant contribution to make on the issue. Brodine proposed the expansion of the party's education on the question and the reconstitution of the party's environmental commission.

Peace in Our Time

Judith LeBlanc, who is a member of the national board of the CPUSA, delivered her report on the peace movement and the 2008 elections.

She argued that it was the people's movement – not the media or the Democratic Party – that have transformed the attitudes about the ultra right and the war in the recent years. 'On the ground, people know the truth,' she said.

Seven years of organizing by the labor movement, the peace movement, and the various movements and communities against the Bush administration and the war have paid off and voters are ready for a big change.

She added that with regard to Iraq, the war can't wait until 2009. The peace movement has to continue the struggle to end the war.

LeBlanc linked the war to the elections and the defeat of McCain and the Republicans. 'In the peace movement, it is strategic to win and win big, and to have that victory interpreted as a result of the efforts of the antiwar movement,' she argued. It will increase pressure on the majority in Congress and the next president to bring the war to an end.

The peace movement has developed two levels of struggle: one, direct involvement in the campaigns of anti-war candidates as a step in the struggle to end the war; two, continue to mobilize the antiwar movement to become involved in defeating McCain in November.

United for Peace and Justice, the country's largest antiwar coalition, plans to build a voter engagement project that will help educate voters on McCain's plans to expand war and to focus efforts on winning in the general election.

Some efforts have begun to argue that 'Obama is for peace' and have taken to highlight differences between McCain, Clinton, and Obama. Some activists are making the argument that Obama is the best of the three, saying, 'Obama is the candidate who would go the furtherest on foreign policy and Iraq,' LeBlanc stated.

The peace movement must continue to push to end the funding for the war, LeBlanc said, and she noted that both Obama and Clinton voted to end war funding in the 2007 session of Congress.

LeBlanc called on the Communist Party to develop a multifaceted effort that seeks to win the best antiwar candidates in the 2008 elections but also to work within local communities to raise the discussion about how funding for the war saps resources. Additionally, she stated, participating and leading political discussions about connecting war and the economy and health care and more to the elections helps to build the Communist Party.

As a result people will see that the Communist Party has both a vision for unity but also that it has a strategic concept for winning peace and social progress, LeBlanc concluded.

Party Growth

Elena Mora, organizational director of the CPUSA, argued that the Communist Party's 'role is bringing to life our strategic policy of building the labor-led movement to defeat the extreme right.'

Specifically, she stated, our goal is to build a bigger communist contingent in the labor-led people's movement, which is composed of a diverse and widespread group of forces and organizations and communities that are gathering around this election struggle to defeat the Republicans.

Speaking directly to the Communist Party's organization, Mora said, 'growth is not automatic. Our party is growing, but not steadily, and we're still a long way away from achieving steady growth everywhere.'

Another report by the Communist Party's labor commission chair, Scott Marshall, discussed a recent CPUSA-sponsored conference on the economic crisis and the collapse of manufacturing, proposing invigoration of a 'green economy' to turn the tide. Young Communist Leader Coordinator Erica Smiley reported on the efforts to mobilize youth voters for the 2008 elections and educate them on the issues.

All the reports will be available soon at the Communist Party USA's Web site soon.

--Reach Joel Wendland at