National Committee Meeting, June 24-25, 2006

A change in the composition of the congress will make it more possible to end the occupation in Iraq. That’s the political reality.

Today I will not discuss the next national initiatives of the peace movement, nor assess the tremendous 350,000-person national demonstration on April 29, 2006 organized to mobilize the majority peace sentiments toward the 2006 midterm elections. I also will not get into the details of the upcoming national peace conferences or the work to organize joint actions between the peace and immigrants rights movements...

There are 19 weeks until Election Day, Tuesday November 7.

Perhaps nothing underscores the significance of these mid-term elections more than the reality of 2500 killed and 18,000 maimed needlessly in Iraq, 100,000 Iraqi civilians lives lost.

The People’s Weekly World is the weekly voice to reach out and influence thousands who are angry, who are questioning, and who want to change things. People are open—in times like these—to alternative ideas. The newspaper can go beyond the one-on-one conversations and reach out with Marxist ideas—ideas of unity in every way—multi-racial, men and women, immigrant/U.S.-born, gay/straight, internationalism, pro-union, ideas that another world is possible with scientific socialism and the socialist alternative—to stop the destruction of lives and nature.

We are indeed living through a historical moment of global shifts, bringing young people an almost inherent awareness of the world and how it affects us locally. Despite our obsessions with American Idol, P Diddy’s latest discovery, or (my personal favorite) the new Namibian “Brangelina”, today’s youth are connecting the dots faster than ever.

• The industry is increasingly non-union—the number of foreign transplants is growing—60,000 non-union workers at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, etc.

• Auto companies have growing ability to quickly shift production between plants in the US or their plants/partners throughout the world;

• And, as in the case with Delphi, bankruptcy courts too easily allow companies to dump their union contracts.