Communist Party USA

It is hard to believe that we met only four months ago. So much has happened since then, so much has changed. All of us thought this year would be exciting, and possibly a transitional moment to a new stage of struggle.  

But did anyone anticipate such a dramatic turn of events? Did anyone foresee the sudden burst of political activism? Did anyone expect that the normal and tedious routines of political life would give way to a peoples surge across the length and breadth of the country? Did anyone anticipate such a titanic struggle for the Democratic Party presidential nomination?  

I didnt, but I suspect that I have plenty of company.  

In taking matters into their own hands the American people have confounded political pundits of all persuasions, reconfigured the political terrain and atmosphere, and set in motion a process that could well prefigure a triumphant victory at the polls in November. Such a victory against right-wing extremism would realign the political balance of forces and set the stage to move in a new direction.  

In this new stage, transnational corporate power as a whole could quickly emerge in bolder relief as the main obstacle to social progress. And the new task of the peoples movement would be to radically curb the power of the biggest corporations and deepen democracy further still all of which would open new possibilities for a socialist future.  

But I am getting ahead of myself.


Political Upsurge

The political upsurge ricocheting across the country has no counterpart in recent decades. Its breadth and depth are remarkable. Its politics are progressive. It is framing the nations political conversation. It rejects the old racist and sexist stereotypes. It is a mass rebellion against the policies of the Bush administration. It is seeking a political leader one who gives priority to lunch pail issues, appeals to our better angels and visualizes a country that is decent, just, united and at peace with the rest of the world. And its the necessary groundswell and kinetic energy for a smashing victory in November.

The setting of this upheaval is the Democratic presidential primaries. So far, the turnout has been far beyond anybodys expectations. Records are being broken in nearly every state primary. Every sector of the people is marching to the polls. Young voters are grabbing the electoral bull by the horns. Twice as many Democrats have voted as Republicans, an ominous sign for the GOP this fall.  

The high octane of this upsurge is simply breathtaking. In every place where people gather, the candidates, the primaries and the issues are the subject of animated conversations.

If anyone thinks that issues are getting short shrift or that it is all about personalities, I can only guess that they are just watching, but not feeling and listening to the whirlwind that is blowing across the country.  

Arent the most pressing concerns of the American people structuring the give and take of candidates as well as voters? This is anything but an issueless campaign. It contrasts sharply with the last presidential elections when the War on Terror took up nearly all the oxygen in the room.

Thanks to this surge, a woman or an African American is on track to become the presidential nominee. This reflects the growing political maturity of the American people. It should be celebrated as a great democratic achievement. Anything that is done to diminish this fact should be vigorously challenged.

In short, tens of millions of voters have turned the Democratic primaries and the November general elections, into the main, if not the singular, terrain on which millions hope to draw down the final curtain on the whole right-wing project and set the country on a new course. No matter whether voters support Obama or Clinton in the Democratic primaries, the political intent of their votes is clear: people want change and not any kind of change, but change that puts peoples needs before war-making, division, sleaze and corporate profits.  

Struggles in other arenas will continue to be sure, but all of them should find their part in the great drama that that is now unfolding on the stage of electoral politics. While an ending to this drama is still to be written, it is fair to say that a decisive peoples victory will reconfigure every arena of struggle to the advantage of the peoples movement.

Any mass organizations or movements that dont insert themselves in a full-blooded and practical way into this very dynamic process will be left behind by their own constituencies and by events. They will miss an opportunity that comes along rarely in political life.  

Thus, every communist should become an active participant in this electoral upsurge, if he or she hasnt already done so. The avenues are many and the possibilities are nearly limitless.

Lets seize the moment.


Spontaneous factor

While the working class and every other section of the peoples movement are engaged in this upheaval, it reaches well beyond their organized structures and constituencies. That it is more spontaneous than organized should startle no one. Any upheaval of this magnitude is a work in progress and has a large element of spontaneity.  

The entry of people in their millions, and especially many who have been passive and disillusioned with politics up to now, cannot be explained solely or even mainly by the actions of the existing network of peoples organizations. Any mass upsurge has its own independent dynamic.

Triggering this one are a slow buildup of combustible feelings of injustice and insecurity and a deeply felt perception by millions that the 2008 elections could change their life prospects in deep-going ways.

Like everything else in nature and society, a mass upsurge should be viewed dynamically, that is, in its contradictory motion. Life, to paraphrase Lenin, is always much more complicated and multifaceted than we can ever imagine. Theory, as necessary as it is, is only a guide to action.

Unfortunately, this lesson has yet to be fully learned by some on the left. Seeing little, if any, progressive potential in electoral politics or the Democratic Party, they have a difficult time taking proper measure of and responding to unfamiliar political patterns, such as the current upsurge in the Democratic Party primaries. It doesnt fit, nor can it be easily shoehorned to fit, their political model of social change.  

Needless to say, we dont share such views. In fact, this upsurge in the electoral arena is the main political vector of struggle for the year ahead.  

To our credit, we said two years ago that the midterm elections and their results were a dress rehearsal for the 2008 elections. And at our National Committee meeting last fall we went further, saying that this years elections could set in motion a process leading to a new era of class and democratic struggle on much higher ground.

At the same time, we have to admit that we underestimated the fury and the scope of this surge. Nor did we anticipate the Obama phenomenon.


Young people and independents enter

One of the most hopeful aspects of this peoples surge is the entry of young people who either were not of voting age in the last election or were old enough to vote but chose not to do so. In injecting themselves en masse into the Democratic primary process, todays    younger generation is becoming an agent of change. Not since the sixties have we seen young people bring their energy and idealism to the political process on such a scale.

The beginnings of this change were evident in recent years. More young people participated in the 2004 elections and the majority of youth voted for Kerry. Furthermore, young people were a sizeable part of the anti-war movement as well as participants in other social movements. But what we are seeing today is on an entirely different scale and level of intensity.  

The reasons for this qualitative change seem clear enough. Young people are saddled with enormous debt, horrified by the Iraq war and the pervasiveness of violence, alienated from the policies of division and intolerance of the Bush administration, and turned off by a political culture that is opaque, money driven and seemingly empty of higher ideals and aims. Sensing something different in Obamas candidacy, they are flocking into the Democratic Party primaries in record numbers as organizers and voters.

Unlike some older people, the pressures and grind of everyday life havent yet worn them down. Keep on keeping on is not a slogan they embrace. Yes we can better captures their mood. They eagerly desire and embrace change. They not only imagine the possibility of another world; they imagine its realization in their lifetime.  

Befitting their youth, they take inspiration from yesterdays struggles but they are not prisoners to them. The Sixties, even the Reagan years, are history, not lived or vivid experiences for them.  

Finally, the young are less inclined to be cynical. This election might not begin the world anew, but for millions of young people it is a first step.

Independents are entering this upheaval, too. For many of them the Democratic presidential primaries are where the action and fresh ideas are. The politics of yesteryear no longer resonate for them; they are looking for answers to stubborn problems such as the impossible costs of health care that weigh heavily on the quality of their lives.  

Not least, the working class, the nationally and racially oppressed and women are leaping into this upsurge in a way not seen for many years. Each of these constituencies went to the polls in record numbers.


Voting patterns

What do voting patterns reveal?  

First, working people divided their vote largely between Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Kucinich and Richardson. To say that Clinton has garnered nearly all of the working class vote is simply wrong. For one thing, Black people are overwhelmingly working class and cast their vote for Obama. For another thing, Obama received the lions share of the working class vote, understanding working class broadly, in many primaries and    overall. At the same time, it appears that Clinton polled well among trade unionists, women workers and Latino workers.

Second, the African American people gave their overwhelming support to Obama. In nearly every primary, roughly nine of 10 African American voters cast their ballot for him. This is explained not only because of understandable pride in the possibility of electing an African American to the Presidency for the first time, but also because Obama would represent their interests, unite our country and usher in a new era of fairness, justice and peace for all.  

Third, most women voters supported Clinton, although younger women and African American women of all ages tended to vote for Obama. But what is really notable is the massive turnout of women of all nationalities, races and social circumstances. If one obvious reason was their deeply felt opposition to the Bush administration, the other was their excitement over the possibility of electing a woman president. No doubt both desires energized women to go to the polls and assure that women as organizers and voters will be a powerful force against the right in the fall.  

Fourth, many white people, male and female, cast their votes for an African American. This might be the most notable feature of the vote so far, as quiet as it is kept by the mass media. In fact, from media reports it seems as if Obama has become the front-runner on the basis of the Black vote alone. But anyone who thinks about it for a moment knows this is ludicrous. Obama carried several states with small African American populations, and did well in the southern states and especially Virginia, where a majority of white voters supported him.

Furthermore, the millions of white people, the majority of whom were workers, who voted for Obama did so because they liked him his manner, his style, his opposition to the war, his concern about lunch pail issues, his ability to unify our country along racial and other lines, his fresh appeal, his youthfulness and so forth.  

Were some white men (not to mention other men) motivated to vote for Obama because they would never vote for a woman? Of course, but I suspect when voting patterns are studied more closely, greater explanatory weight will be given to the first set of reasons ― that is, they cast their vote for Obama because they liked him.

Fifth, the Latino vote in its majority went to Clinton. But what is most striking is the increase of the Latino vote in the 2008 Democratic primaries. So far the Latino percentage of the overall primary vote is over 10 per cent, whereas in the 2004 general election the percentage was 6.7 per cent. In California, the Latino percentage of the Democratic Party 2008 primary vote was 30 per cent compared to 16 per cent in 2004; in Texas, 32 per cent this year compared to 24 per cent in 2004. Similar changes have occurred in other southwest states.

Equally striking is that in the primaries Latinos have voted Democratic over Republican 78 per cent to 22 per cent, while in the 2004 general election, the spread was much less,    roughly 63 to 37 per cent. With nearly five million Latinos voting in the primaries, it is becoming more likely that the Latino vote in November could reach 10 million or more and thus provide a cushion of four to five million votes for the Democrats over Republicans compared to less than two million in 2004.  

The implications are obvious: the Latino vote is an essential and growing part of a larger effort to win a landslide victory over the right wing in the presidential and congressional races in November. One would never get this impression, however, from the mass medias reportage of the primaries so far. Instead, the media spin is that Latinos flinched at the option of voting for Obama, because of anti-Black feeling. I cant go into this in great detail, other than to say that we should take issue with this interpretation. The vast majority of Latinos voted for Clinton to be sure, but it doesnt follow that they are anti- Obama, anti-Black. Most did because they liked her concern about economic issues, her experience, her familiarity and her connections with the Mexican American community and its leadership. Many have positive feelings toward Bill Clintons administration.

To bring more evidence to bear on this point, in recent decades Mexican Americans and Latinos have given support to African American big city mayors by clear and in some cases overwhelming majorities. Look at the facts: Harold Washington won 80 per cent of the Latino vote in Chicago in his successful mayoral run in 1983; David Dinkins 73 per cent in New York in 1989; Wellington Webb more than 70 per cent in Denver in 1991; Ron Kirk big majorities in Dallas in 1995, 1997 and 1999. In Los Angeles, Tom Bradley got a good share in his first run in 1973 and clear majorities the next four times he ran.  

In addition, African American members of Congress in heavily Latino districts in Los Angeles and elsewhere get significant Latino support. And in Illinois, where Obama is a known entity, he has received strong support from Latino voters.

Thus this divisive media spin should be vigorously contested.

Sixth, the youth and senior votes swung in different directions, with young people enthusiastically supporting Obama and senior citizens, except for Black seniors, casting their vote for Clinton. This is not too hard to explain. Older voters prefer a candidate who is a known quantity, which Clinton is. Obama, by contrast, is new on the scene. He doesnt have the long-standing ties to the Democratic Party. His promise of change is appealing for many to be sure, and especially the young. But for others living on the edge, change can be unnerving. In hard times, we sometimes assume that working people are eager to roll the dice and say, Come what may.

As appealing and as seductive as that idea is to left-minded people, I am not sure the factual evidence for it exists. There are moments when ruptures occur and people embrace a radical path of action, but it is also true that in response to deteriorating conditions of life, some sections of working people have sought incremental, protective and less ambitious courses of action, some of which have taken a negative form. Instead of manning the barricades, they built fortresses to protect themselves in stormy times. This dynamic is something to consider.  7

My breakdown of the vote makes no claim to be comprehensive or in depth. Many categories of voters, for example, were left out who will surely have an impact on the elections outcome other nationally and racially oppressed people, Jews, and peace and environmental activists to name a few. Nor did I make a precise estimate of the degree to which or how sexist and racist attitudes influenced voting patterns. That still is to be done.

Nevertheless, voting patterns bode well for the general election. The turnout was far more than anyone predicted and never before on a national level have so many crossed racial and gender boundaries to cast their vote, boundaries that a few years ago seemed impenetrable. Moreover, where voters didnt do so say, white workers voting for Clinton, men voting for Obama, women voting for Clinton or Black people voting for Obama their motivations can be explained more easily in a positive than a negative way.  


The Obama phenomenon

The clearest expression of this developing movement pivots around the candidacy of Barack Obama, whose inspirational message and politics have captured the imagination of millions. So much so that many commentators and politicians use the words transformational or transforming to describe his candidacy that is, a candidacy capable of assembling a broad peoples majority to reconfigure the terms and terrain of politics in this country in a fundamental way.

The Obama campaign has not only brought new forces into the political process, it has also catalyzed new organizational forms.

The surge around Obamas candidacy, much like the larger surge in the Democratic presidential primary, has a large spontaneous quality. But what makes it different is that it has the feel of a movement. Its supporters see in Obama someone who is without the baggage of an older generation of politicians, and who speaks to their desires.

I have heard political commentators say that Obama mania has no spelled-out political program, lacks organizational coherence and offers no guarantees it will continue after Election Day. Hearing such observations, I ask myself why on earth anyone would think this developing movement whose life span can be measured in months would be a well- oiled machine?

Anybody with any historical sense knows that movements in their early, and sometimes later, stages arent neat and tidy. Ideal types never find concrete representation in real life.

While this movement has its own dynamic, it is inseparable from the personality and politics of Barak Obama. While he is not a candidate of the left or someone we would endorse since we dont endorse candidates of either party he is, nonetheless, a fresh  8 voice on the political scene. His strategic and tactical concepts are broad in their sweep and his politics are forward looking. His appeal for change resonates with millions who are fed up with things as they are. And his desire to overcome divisions between Black and white, Black and brown, white and non-white, red state and blue state, immigrant and native born, Christian and Muslim, Muslim and Jew, blue collar and white collar, male and female, gay and straight, urban and rural strikes a deep responsive chord among Americans. After three decades of acrimonious rancor and division, people yearn for a kinder, gentler and more just country.

While much has been said about his own personal journey and its formative impact on his values and outlook, what has been greatly understated is that the struggles of the African American people and the larger movement against the right also have left their mark on his sensibilities and politics.  

Not since Bobby Kennedy has a leader stepped on the stage with as much promise to reconfigure politics and the underlying assumptions that inform debate and policy choices. His ability to articulate a vision, give voice to peoples hopes, and use the platform of politics to educate millions is extraordinary.

On paper, its true that some of Clintons positions, not to mention those of Edwards and Kucinich, are better than Obamas. But in many ways policy statements and party platforms are not the main things that should shape judgments about a presidential candidates potential or the prospects for change. This is looking at politics too narrowly.

It doesnt take into account who can inspire and unite this massive upsurge, or who can articulate a moral and political vision to tens of millions, or who has the capacity to assemble political majorities in the post-election period, or who has the ability to win a landslide victory against McCain and the Republicans in November.

On these counts, advantage goes to Obama in the eyes of many voters. That isnt to say that Clinton wouldnt be a worthy adversary to McCain. She would. Nor is it to suggest that she couldnt win in a landslide. She can. But it would be much more difficult.  

I also suspect that she would govern to the left of Bill Clintons administration, in large measure because the conditions and expectations are so different now.

But I have heard it asked, isnt Obama a bourgeois politician? Hasnt he raised a lot of money from Wall St.? And isnt he is a centrist and a creature of the Democratic Party? All of these assertions are worth discussing, but none of them can be easily answered with a yes or no reply. And even if they could, these questions by themselves wouldnt necessarily tell us who Obama is, what his presidency would look like and how he would interact with the broader labor led peoples movement.


Class categories dynamic and open

We dont want to dispense with the categories of class and class struggle for sure, but we dont want to turn them into frozen, lifeless categories either. Class and class struggle should be understood as dynamic processes and open-ended categories and not simply as a fixed relation to the means of production that inexorably gives rise to class struggle and consciousness.

Employed properly, class categories give us clues to attitudes, tendencies, predispositions and behaviors of political actors, whether one individual or a social group. But they dont inscribe on these same actors a mental mindset and an irrevocable course of action. To claim they do leaves out the larger political, economic and cultural processes in which class formation takes place and turns Marxism into a dogma.

To illuminate this point further, let me mention three examples. If Frederick Douglass, the great African American abolitionist leader, posed more or less the same set of questions to Lincoln in the late 1850s and early 1860s and ignored the wider political environment and the interaction between that environment and Lincolns shifting views, he might well have remained with the wing of the Abolitionist movement that refrained from electoral politics, was deeply suspicious of the Republican Party, and attached little significance to Lincolns victory in 1860.  

Or if William Z. Foster posed more or less the same questions to the Blue Blood aristocrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt just prior to the 1936 elections and disregarded the new dynamics of struggle taking shape at the time, including Roosevelts understanding of these dynamics from his own class viewpoint, he might have argued against our participation in the massive coalition to reelect Roosevelt and New Deal Congressional candidates.  

Or if Martin Luther King posed more or less the same questions to Lyndon Johnson and overlooked the convulsions going on in the country and Johnsons capacity to change, he might not have supported his election bid in 1964 a landslide victory that undeniably and significantly contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, immigration reform and the War on Poverty.

In asking only narrowly constructed questions and in not considering the fluidity of the political terrain, the overall logic of struggle and the facility of the individual to change in each of these periods, the peoples movement would have cut itself off from openings and opportunities to secure historic victories in each instance. To employ a similar methodology today with regard to Obama runs the same danger.  


Struggle for unity

For some time supporters of both Clinton and Obama have said unambiguously that they would rally around the eventual nominee. Assuming for the moment that this happens, it is easy to imagine the formation of an electoral movement that in its scope and depth has no equal in the 20th century.

 10 Moreover, such a broad-based political formation has the potential to inflict an overwhelming defeat on McCain and the Republican Party at the polls and to journey down a new highway.

Whether or not that happens, however, isnt a foregone conclusion. Setting aside for now the divisive role of the right, tensions have cropped up in the Democratic primary contest making it far less certain that supporters of each candidate will seamlessly migrate to the others opponent in the event their candidate isnt the standard bearer.

To a large extent, the tensions did not arise spontaneously nor are they the inevitable product of the rough and tumble of the primary process.  

How then do we explain them? Earlier I said it is a great tribute to the democratic spirit and sense of decency of the often-maligned American people that a woman and an African American man are contesting for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination.

At the same time, racial and gender prejudice have not been absent from the presidential primaries. This should be acknowledged and vigorously opposed as having no place at this uplifting moment in our nations political life.  

All democratic minded people should have no truck with debasing images, double standards, demeaning words, small slights and false opposition of one form of oppression to another or, worse still, the privileging of one over the other.

All of them impede the struggle for equality and unity and weaken the struggle against the right by the whole people.  

We should never forget that the struggle for equality and against racism and male supremacy in its ideological and material forms is as much in the interests of white and male workers as it is in the interests of nationally and racially oppressed and women workers. As Marx wrote, Labor in the white skin can never be free, as long as labor in the Black skin is branded. Much the same could be said about the struggle against gender oppression.  

It is precisely this that the ruling class goes to great lengths to obscure. Working class advance is always portrayed as a zero sum game, meaning the advancement of nationally and racially oppressed workers comes at the expense of white workers or the advancement of women workers comes at the cost of male workers or the securing of rights of immigrant workers comes at the expense of native born workers, and so on.

That your political adversaries on the right would exacerbate racial and gender tensions is to be expected. It has been, after all, the main way along with narrow nationalism that the extreme right has exploited white peoples feelings and resentments in order to mobilize them around their ruling class goals.

But what is unexpected is when someone you thought was on your side employs similar if not identical tactics, which is what the Clinton campaign is doing in the primaries. So that there is no misunderstanding, Im not talking about her wider ring of labor, women, Latino and other supporters, nearly all of whom, Im sure, object to such tactics as harmful.

The racialization of the campaign began with former President Bill Clinton in New Hampshire and South Carolina. In both primaries his assignment was to be the bad cop, no small part of which was to introduce a racial subtext in the charged atmosphere of the primaries.

After that episode it seemed to subside momentarily, in part because of the negative reaction to it. But the pause was only temporary. Going into Super Tuesday and since then, Clinton and her campaign have acted as if nothing matters except her nomination in August. Concerns about unity seem to have been cast aside.

There is a racial subtext to remarks such as only Clinton and McCain have the experience to be commander-in-chief, or as far as she knows Obama isnt a Muslim, or when she offered Obama the vice presidency on her ticket, or when her TV ads show a blond young girl next to the phone ringing at 3 a.m., or when her campaign circulated tapes of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the media, or when Bill Clinton said how good it would be if two candidates running for the presidency were both patriotic and loved their country all of this panders to the American peoples worst fears and stirs the embers of racial feelings at a moment when tens of millions of white people are showing their willingness to transcend them.

The Clinton campaign doesnt seem to realize what the stakes are in this election. They are playing a dangerous game. Supporters of both candidates should strongly insist that it cease its increasingly transparent attempt to polarize the electorate along racial lines. Unless resisted, this could turn a moment of opportunity and victory into a bitter defeat with all the demoralization, division, and name calling that would inevitably follow such an outcome.

Thus, we cannot be silent. Accommodation to racial and gender disunity in the name of unity is not a communist approach. Our strategic policy is to defeat the right decisively in this election. Only a united movement can do that.  


The role of the media

The mass media is also amplifying these fissures in the Democratic Party primaries many times over. Early on it seemed there was a relentless media gang-up, dressed in blatant and subtle forms of sexism, to diminish Hillary Clinton and her candidacy. Hillary bashing was a national pastime, and not only by its practitioners on the right.  

In recent months, as the Obama campaign has unexpectedly surged into the lead and as a movement has sprung up in the context of his candidacy, the new charge of the media   and especially the right-wing media is to diminish his stature and his candidacy. Over the past two weeks, the repeated playing of the tape where Reverend Wright says God damn America is not only incendiary, but is also a very conscious effort to cut Obama down to size, to deflate his supporters balloon, and to make him appear unpatriotic and a close cousin to the Muslim enemy.

Of course, Obama addressed this head on with a speech that was both courageous and brilliant. Never before have we heard such a speech from a political figure who is so close to becoming the next resident of the White House.  

He could easily have lain low and hoped the furor would blow over, but he chose instead to speak out about the role of race and racism in our nations life. Only time will tell, but his speech could well become a defining moment in this election and in our countrys history.  

What are we to make of the effort to diminish Obamas stature? It seems to me that sections of the ruling class and right-wing Democrats are anxious to diminish his stature for fear his candidacy and message will not only take him into the White House, but will also set in motion a process going far beyond anything with which they are comfortable.

Some sections of the ruling class prefer McCain, others Clinton and still others Obama, but one thing they all dread is a landslide victory. In their minds, Obama is much more likely than Clinton to win by a large margin and with significant coattails.

The ruling class could live with a narrow victory in the presidential race and a redistribution of a few seats in the Senate and House. But a landslide by either Clinton or Obama and a 60-40 Democratic advantage in the Senate are not at all to their taste. Such an outcome would make it very difficult to contain the pressures for change in a democratic pro-people, anti-corporate direction.  

Given the deepening economic crisis and the growing demand for federal action, these miscreants of money and power worry about the public cries for a new New Deal. They lose sleep over popular demands to re-regulate the economy and democratize the state. They are troubled by mass expectations for deep-going political and economic reforms.


The war and the economy

If there is such a thing as a perfect economic storm, I would say we are close to it. The housing crisis is deepening and spreading; credit and money markets are freezing up; the stock market is gyrating downward; unemployment is leaping upward (sharply so in the communities of the nationally and racially oppressed); poverty is up and wages are down; oil, food and other prices are climbing; the value of the dollar is falling sharply compared to other currencies; the level of indebtedness is astronomical; and on and on.

To make matters worse, so far the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Bush administration have bailed out the moneygrubbers on Wall Street, but have done little to    ease the turbulent economic conditions experienced by tens of millions of working people and homeowners.  

While I will go into the dynamics of this crisis at some later date, suffice it to say that the crisis is serious both in its potential depth and duration. Even without a financial meltdown in international financial markets, which cant be ruled out entirely, this downturn could easily eclipse the downturn in the early 1980s when unemployment soared to double-digit levels and wages took a big nosedive.

Furthermore, the present turbulence is traceable to longer-term as well as near-term trends in the U.S. and global economy. While the crisis was triggered by overproduction, speculation and indebtedness in the housing market, it is also interwoven with and aggravated by longer economic processes of U.S. capitalism, one of which is financialization.  

Financialization is a process in which financial motives, financial markets, financial actors, and financial institutions come to play an increasing role (my italics) in the operation of domestic and international economies (Gerald A. Epstein, Introduction: Financialization and the World Economy). Or, alternatively, it is a process of accumulation in which profit-making occurs increasingly through financial channels (my italics) rather than through trade and commodity production (Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American Economy). Take your pick.  

In this sense, financialization began in the late 1970s when Paul Volcker, then chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, drove up interest rates (the Volcker shock). Not surprisingly, soaring interest rates combined with the Reagan administrations sweeping dismantlement of regulations on financial institutions triggered rampant speculation, the multiplication of financial players, the proliferation of a mind boggling array of new and complex financial instruments, and the migration of money capital from the manufacturing sector where profit rates were low into the financial sector where profit yields were significantly higher.

Rising interest rates also slowed down the economy, suppressed inflation, eased the dollar crisis on international money markets (investors are adverse to holding dollars when inflationary pressures are eroding their value), generated an unprecedented shift of income in favor of the very wealthiest families and corporations and attracted mobile capital worldwide to U.S. financial and real estate markets that promised a very healthy return.  

As the power and profits of finance capital swelled, union jobs were permanently lost, wages stagnated, the social safety net was hollowed out, entire communities went into shock, sizable chunks of manufacturing were destroyed and the working class and labor movement were thrown on the defensive. Not since the Great Depression has so much productive capital been destroyed so fast.  

On a global level, financialization had particularly negative impacts too, especially on the newly industrializing countries and the global south.

To be fully understood, financialization must be seen as a leading edge of a broader counteroffensive by the U.S. ruling class to restore U.S. capitalisms dominant position in domestic and world affairs. This counteroffensive began in earnest with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who turned the state into an undisguised mechanism to prosecute this counteroffensive.

It was triggered not by one event or trend of development, but by a confluence of several events and trends occurring in the 1970s, including the economic catch-up of key competitors in Europe and East Asia, declining profit rates over major sectors of the U.S. economy, the loss of the Vietnam war, the growing power of the socialist countries and the non-aligned movement, instability in the Middle East, flagging confidence in the dollar as an international reserve and means of payment and domestic political challenges.

After some indisputable successes to reinflate U.S. imperialisms power, prestige, reach and profitability (all of which were made easier with the meltdown of the Soviet Union), it now appears that this counteroffensive is stumbling mightily, if not reaching a point of exhaustion. The limits to militarism are evident. Economic crises and contractions are intensifying. New configurations of economic power are gaining in strength. And new opposition movements are cropping up in many regions of the world as well as in imperialisms heartland.


The one arena of struggle  

No one has to be convinced in this meeting that the spreading economic crisis is roiling vast swathes of working people and drawing them into the electoral arena. In the view of millions of working people, it is the main arena of struggle offering them the opportunity to defeat the right decisively and to shift the balance of power in labors favor across the board a prerequisite if solutions are to be found to the new stage of capitalisms economic crisis.  

In the course of making the case during the election debate for jobs or income for the unemployed, a housing foreclosure moratorium, a massive infrastructure program, an industrial and urban policy, environmental cleanup, alternative energy production and the regulation of financial institutions and capital flows, we should also join movements and struggles fighting for immediate relief.

Much the same could be said with regard to the peace movement, which continues to press for a quick exit from Iraq. The war, now entering its sixth year, has aggravated every economic imbalance of U.S. capitalism while draining the country of resources that could have gone for jobs and domestic reconstruction. Guns and butter have never coexisted very well, and in the current situation they are at loggerheads.

    Moreover, this reality is not lost on tens of millions of Americans who even if they see something positive in the U.S. military surge are still anxious that we leave Iraq as soon as possible. They say too much blood and treasure has been lost and its time to bring the troops home and end the occupation.  

The recent outbreak of violence in Iraq only makes Bush and McCains sell of an interminable occupation so much tougher. The window to end the war is wide open today, but it will require that all peace-minded people and the peace movement join hands and defeat McCain decisively in November.  


What it will take to win

The winning of the presidency and Congress by a landslide is doable. Admittedly, it wont be easy. With a big assist from the media, McCain and the Republican right will employ lies, swift boating, sleaze, racism, anti-immigrant hysteria, terror-mongering, super-patriotism and any number of things to win the presidency and pick up a few seats in the Congress.  

They will claim the Democrats are soft on terrorists and even want to appease them. We can expect to hear their refrain about tax-and-spend liberals. They will warn the American people of the specter of socialized health care. They will claim that only McCain has the credentials to be commander-in-chief, while claiming that neither a woman nor an African American can be trusted to lead the country in such perilous times. And they will make the case that the Democrats want to open our borders to undocumented immigrants and oppose (rightfully so) anti-immigrant legislation in the current Congress, including HR 4088.

In short, we can expect probably the dirtiest campaign in memory.  

And yet it will be a tough sell. Bushs standing is in the low 30 per cent range, the economy on the Republicans watch is going south at a frightening speed, the war on terror doesnt resonate with voters in the same way and the majority of Americans want the troops to come home. To make matters worse, the Republican Party leadership and its grassroots base are not excited by the choice of McCain, and a record number of Republican House and Senate members are retiring.  

Meanwhile, the wind is at the back of the peoples movement and the Democratic Party. Public attitudes are changing in a progressive and democratic direction. The energy and enthusiasm at the grassroots is palpable. Voter registration and turnout on the Democratic side far surpasses that of the Republicans. Anti-corporate feeling is high. Absent a debacle between now and the convention, the Democrats and the broad peoples movement are ready to unify around the nominee in the fall.

So victory by a landslide in November is within reach. Whether it happens depends not only on the candidate, but also on the initiative and energy of the main forces of the peoples movements.

These forces powered the primaries. To the same degree and then some, they will power the fight to defeat McCain and the Republicans in November. It is among these forces and in their main organizational forms that the broad left and progressive movement should find itself. After all, they reach, influence and activate tens of millions.

At the same time new organizational forms will continue to emerge, especially if Obama is the nominee.  

As in recent elections, the working class and labor movement are digging in for the election fight. Record amounts of money are committed. Record numbers of union members will be mobilized. And record numbers of union halls will be sites for mobilization and much more. And while labors aim is to elect Democratic Party candidates, labor continues to build its own independent forms and methods of political action in new ways. The AFL-CIOs Army of Shop Stewards is coming to life in workplaces, neighborhoods and the streets.

Another independent action initiative of the AFL-CIO is the McCain Revealed campaign. Not only is this campaign producing great material that can be used to expose the real anti-labor McCain, but also the campaign is mobilizing truth squad type demonstrations of union members at all McCain events. They dog him everywhere he goes, pointing out his real stance on issues important to labor.

Still another initiative is to gather a million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Finally, a massive effort with labors allies is kicking off to register new voters. Organization of these campaigns is very sophisticated and coordinated with central labor bodies, district labor bodies and local unions.

With some small individual exceptions, the level of unity in labor is high, resting on a fierce determination to defeat McCain in November, to enlarge the Democratic majorities in Congress, and to support whoever gets the nomination. Beginning with the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federations, unity is at its highest point since the split.


Tactical policy for new conditions  

The purpose of tactics is to give effect to our strategic policy. At this moment, our strategic task is to contribute to the popular upsurge whose mission is to win a landslide victory against McCain and the Republicans in November.  

Which begs the question, why do I attach so much importance to defeating the Republicans by an overwhelming margin?  

It is the outcome that gives the broader movement, not to mention the new president and progressive Democrats, political leverage in the post-election period. Historical experience in 1936 and 1964 offers evidence of this fact.  

It is the outcome that shifts the balance of class and social forces in this country decisively in favor of the peoples movement and leaves the right wing reeling and in disarray.  

It is the outcome that sends a message to the new president and Congress that quick and decisive action is expected on the outstanding issues roiling the American people.  

It is the outcome that nudges the next administration to move away from preemption and unilateralism and toward diplomacy, neighborliness and peaceful resolutions of outstanding hot spots like the Iraq war and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  

It is the outcome that compels our government to aggressively address the mounting worldwide problems of global warming, nuclear proliferation, poverty and endemic diseases.

It is the outcome that elbows the White House and Congress to place our relations with China on a mutually beneficial path.  

It is the outcome that prods policy makers to construct an altogether new peaceful relationship with Cuba accenting trade, investment and cultural exchange.

In short, a landslide victory is the outcome that lays the ground for the labor-led peoples movement to transition to a new stage of struggle in which the transnational corporations are recognized as the main roadblock to peace, equality, economic security and democracy.  

By contrast, a narrow Democratic Party victory will make it difficult to move forward on any of these issues. A narrow win closes off openings and opportunities to reshape the playing field of politics and the class struggle.  

Thus the main task of left and progressive-minded people is to mobilize, register, educate and get people to the polls on Election Day. This can be only done if we are in the trenches of the wider labor-led peoples movement and building this peoples upsurge in all directions. Only if the left and progressive movements are making practical, on-the- ground contributions to it can we help give organizational, political and ideological coherence to this broad upsurge.

Nothing irritates me more than people on the left who say they cant support Obama or Clinton because neither one consistently embraces left positions. But why would they? They arent candidates of the left and therefore they are not going to consistently embrace left positions. Both hope to be the candidate of a broad, diverse, loose and surging electoral coalition this fall. If we were in their shoes, I am not sure that even we would articulate a strictly left program either. In fact, I think sensible left and progressive people will give them a little wiggle room.

The objective of this election is not to elect a candidate of the left or a Congress that is left in outlook. It isnt doable at this moment. We wish it were, but in the spirit of Marxism, objectives should be grounded in concrete reality, not in wishes, not in flights of fancy that may momentarily soothe but come back to bite you in the end.  

The reality of this moment is the following: the right wing has dominated political life for three decades and the task of the peoples movement is to dislodge them from power and create a more favorable political terrain on which tens of millions can fight and win going forward. In present circumstances the only way to do that is for this surging coalition to elect a Democratic Party president and increase the Democratic Party majorities in the Congress.

If that happens, it would not only constitute a tremendous victory for the Democratic Party, but also for tens of millions of people in this country and worldwide. It would bring closer that day when the movement fights for a more advanced political and economic program. There is no other way to get there from here.

And yet, not everyone sees matters this way. Some say the task is to break from the Democratic Party. The only problem with this tactic is that tens of millions, including all the core forces of the peoples movement, have shown no interest in such a course of action.

Others argue that the Democrats are unreliable and thus have no confidence that they will enact progressive polices if they win. But wont a landslide victory against the right (which wasnt the case in 2006) carry with it a progressive political mandate and create a more favorable political dynamic in the post-election period on which millions can fight? Doesnt it reflect an underestimation of the breadth, depth and power of the labor-led peoples movement and the overall mass upsurge in the electoral arena? And doesnt it fail to account for the competing trends in the Democratic Party, notwithstanding the dominant role of the corporate class?

Still others in left and progressive ranks appear to be so concerned about the particulars and nuances of the inside-outside strategy of the progressive and left movements the day after the election that they lose sight of the practical tasks of winning the election. As interesting as this speculation is, it should be said that the day after wont matter if we dont win on the day of the election.

Finally, some say the role of the left and progressive movement is to drive the debate and up the ante. In their view the main focus should be on pressuring Obama or Clinton to the left on one issue or another on Iraq, on Palestine and Israel, on health care, on impeachment, and so forth.  

I would like to say that I agree with this tactic up to a point, but frankly I dont. For one thing, left and progressive forces are too small to drive the debate. The candidates, the media and the American people are driving the debate and conversation. Left and progressive forces people should join that debate and bring their programmatic positions    to it. To the extent that left and progressive people are registering voters, doing door-to- door canvassing, participating in weekend mobilizations, staffing phone banks, organizing coffee klatches in neighborhoods and workplaces, distributing literature at shopping centers, delivering lawn signs to supporters, hosting meetings organized on the Internet to that extent people will take our views seriously.

For another thing, the overriding aim of this election is to defeat the right by a landslide. There is no way to do that in present circumstances other than to keep the fire on McCain and to contrast his views with those of the Democratic Party nominee on the war, health care, Supreme Court vacancies, abortion, affirmative action, home foreclosures, public works and green jobs, to name a few. While the media suggests that McCain is a maverick and an independent, his record shows he is a water boy for the military industrial complex and other big corporate interests. He is their echo chamber in Washington, clever and demagogic but also reactionary to the core.  

Similar tactics should be employed at the congressional level.  

Yes, we should bring issues and more advanced positions into the election process that go beyond the Democratic Party platform. But we should do this within the framework of the main task of defeating the right not so much to influence the positions of the candidates, but to mobilize the people to participate in the elections, to pull the vote out on Election Day and to begin the process of shaping the post-election political agenda.


Ideological questions

Before finishing, I want to raise three ideological questions for our deliberations as we go forward this year and next.  

The first is the term labor-led peoples coalition. We use that term to reflect the growing role of labor in the broader peoples movement and our hope that labor will assume a leading role on the full range of issues confronting that movement. But in employing this term, we have to be careful not to inadvertently diminish the role of the other core forces of this coalition.  

The participation of each of them is a strategic requirement at every stage of struggle, including the socialist stage. Remove any one of them from the mix and the prospects for winning are not just dimmed but doomed. Who leads at any given moment will vary depending on the specific issues and struggles. It is important to remember that each of these social forces is not only allied with, but is also overwhelmingly of the working class.  

I raise this in a cautionary way so that as we go forward we avoid a narrowly constructed understanding of this concept that unintentionally reduces the working class as a whole and other core forces to appendages and afterthoughts. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but the sense of what I saying is worth pondering. We should be expansive and dialectical  20 in our strategic thinking. Such thinking, I am certain, will be appreciated by the labor and other movements who themselves are accenting broad unity.

A second ideological question that warrants a look is the concept of class. That may comes as a surprise. What prompts me to raise it is that the reporting of primary voting patterns by talking heads and ordinary observers alike reveals a misunderstanding of the working class from a Marxist point of view. Moreover, sometimes we inadvertently express such views.

Early on in the primaries and subsequently, it has been reported that the working class vote was for Clinton, whereas Obama received the support of other sections of the population. This is wrong on two counts. First, the African American people, as I mentioned earlier, are overwhelmingly working people. Second, many sections of the working class, who cast their ballot for Obama, are wrongly identified as part of the middle class.

This is not simply a game of splitting hairs, but rather a necessary correction of a wrong concept that narrows the working class and thus weakens its power and struggle. On many occasions, we have noted the relentless process of proletarianization, if not homogenization, of the U.S. people and of people around the world.  

Our concepts of class must take this objective fact into account. The working class is not reducible to workers in the material production sector, or to trade unionists. If we are going to criticize others, including the AFL-CIO, who employ the term middle class as a substitute for working class, then we shouldnt turn around the next moment and do the same thing. Our view of the working class should be wide-angled. In taking such a view, the notion that there are strategic sectors at the national and local level loses none of its relevance. In fact, it enhances their role, assuming that we understand that the aim of these sectors of the working class is to unite the whole class at each stage of struggle.

A final ideological issue is the relationship between unity and struggle. Our policy of broad alliances has a unity element, which is what we accent. But it also has the element of struggle, that is, we attempt to deepen these alliances politically and organizationally, strive for unity on higher levels, and adjust our tactics in a timely way as new phenomena come into play. In these primary struggles, we have done this, probably better than most on the left.


Our role

Our role in this election is simple: to be a part of and give leadership to the gathering storm whose waves will crest in November. Our biggest danger is that we might underestimate what is possible on both levels.  

I dont want to say the opportunities to build the movement and to build the Party are limitless, but they have grown immensely. The conditions are far more favorable than they have been in a long time. Lets face it, the movement is surging and our ideas are not so radical anymore, they are migrating into the mainstream. We have to do likewise.

Furthermore, I would argue that the building of the movement and of our party, the YCL, and our press should occur at the same time, in the same space and among the same people. In the excitement of this upsurge, lets not forget that enlarging the communist current in every sector of the peoples movement is of critical importance in the near and longer term. Without this, the practical and ideological growth of the present upsurge in my opinion will not be fully realized. The development of class-consciousness, unity and organization doesnt emerge spontaneously in the course of struggle. If it did, we could sit back and relax.  

The main questions we have to discuss now are: how does every club move out faster and farther? How do we connect with young people who are massing in the election arena? How do we deepen our connections to labor, the racially and nationally oppressed people, women, seniors, the peace, environmental, and student movements? How do we reach a new and bigger audience with our message? How do we increase our visibility, how do we build the party and press? It is these questions that should preoccupy every district, every club and every member in the period ahead.

It is of critical importance that the national and district leadership sit down with every club and its leadership to discuss the clubs election work. It cant be done from a distance or by flooding clubs with e-mails in which each of us gives them something else to do. Such communications satisfy the sender but can easily confuse, disorganize and demoralize the districts and clubs.  

To mobilize the party we have to be hands on, by which I mean interacting face-to-face and close up. I mean listening as well as giving advice.  

It is imperative to increase the circulation base of the Peoples Weekly World/Nuestro Mundo. Our recent experience shows this is possible. The PWW/Nuestro Mundo is a product of our party, but it is not just for us. It doesnt speak just for us. Indeed, it is the voice of the labor-led peoples movement. No other paper reflects the struggles of this movement as well, nor does any other paper shed light on what is required for this movement to move to a new stage of struggle. To put it in a different and perhaps more jarring vein, the PWW/Nuestro Mundo is more the property of this mushrooming movement and not so much the official organ of the Communist Party to be read only by Communists and our closest supporters.  

Much the same could be said about Political Affairs. It is not an in-house organ, but a journal that should be read by participants in the upsurge.

We also need to improve our Internet messaging and expand our electronic audience. Our recent forays into pod-casting, blogging and the like are to be welcomed. As we gain experience, the quality will get better and better.

Clubs should consider organizing forums on topical issues, Marxist classes and open club meetings where we can bring our friends. Frank Lumpkin says, Always bring a crowd, which is good advice, but even a few will do.

We should explore the possibilities of campus tours in cooperation with the YCL. From my own experience, I can say the reception will be very positive. We should experiment with ads in campus newspapers. The comrades in Oregon have done this.

No less importantly, we have to draw people into the party and YCL. So far we have met many people, young and old, since the beginning of the year. There is no reason to think that will change as we go forward. They have shared their views with us and we have shared ours with them. Nearly all have expressed interest in the party. Some have become subscribers, others have come to one of our events, and still others have joined. In nearly every case they like our approach to the elections and our ability to combine realism with radicalism.

However, to turn this slow stream of people into a bigger and faster current requires a more organized approach, involving every member. I wish it would happen spontaneously, but it wont. Discussions, both one-on-one and collective, are necessary. Lists have to be drawn up. Plans have to be put down on paper and carried out. Checkup has to be part of the mix.  

If we do all this, the party, YCL, and our press will grow faster than is the case now.  

But again I want to caution that our efforts to build the party, YCL and press have to be coupled with similar efforts to build the movement to defeat McCain and congressional Republicans. Our unique role is to organically combine practical and ideological work within the framework of our strategic policy and goals. Neither one nor the other by itself constitutes a communist style of work, although I would add this caveat: our involvement in the struggles and issues that are roiling masses of people is the ground floor of communist politics.  


Conclusion  

The next nine months are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We have to act on that basis and convey that same message to everyone we meet. When the New Year rolls around, it is easy to visualize that the monkey of right-wing extremism will be off the backs of the American people and people around the world, that a movement of enormous proportions will have taken shape, and that the balance of power in our nations capital has shifted qualitatively. If this is the case and I think it will be besides ringing the year in with a glass of champagne or a stein of ale or a shot of whiskey, we can turn our attention to translating an historic landslide victory into a peoples legislative agenda.