Posted: 27 Dec 2011 05:04 PM PST
In a Christmas break message to his party, Communist Party USA vice chair Jarvis Tyner
has confirmed the vital importance of the build up to the 2012
elections to “set the stage for a new progressive era and for a
socialist transformation.”
Tyner draws clear right/left battle lines and the communist’s commitment to Party ‘friend’ President Barack Obama and to the Democratic Party cause:
Jarvis Tyner, center
2012 is a big election year and as we know the stakes are very high.
The right-wing Republican opposition unashamedly defends the wealth and
privilege of the 1% over the 99% that includes tens of millions who are
struggling to survive. These self-proclaimed patriots are willing to
wreck our country in order to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 elections. Our party and youth league are an active part of the great democratic mass that is standing against them.
Jarvis Tyner also makes it clear that a key part of the Communist
Party/Democratic Party game plan, will be use of the “race card.”
If the Republicans and Tea Party gang want
people to stop accusing them of racism, there is a solution. They must
end their long history of using racist scapegoating and pushing racist
policies and practices. After the passage of the Civil rights
and voting rights acts in the mid sixties the racist Southern white
Democrats (called “Dixiecrats”) en mass joined the ranks of the
Republican Party. They were warmly welcomed. Today without their racist
Southern base of voters the Republicans could not win the presidency, or
any national election. They literally thrive on racism as a party. And
that is why there is a virulent racist component to almost every program
they advance today.
It begins with the disgraceful attacks on the first African
American president. But continues also on the issues of reducing the
size of the federal government and privatization, which means that the
government will not be able to stop massive corporate abuse of working
people.
It means the destruction of vital public services and the jobs of
public workers who are disproportionately African American and Latino
unionized workers. And the privatization, characterization and
destruction of public education are primarily aimed at predominantly
Black and Latino school.
The racist component is dramatically present in the incarceration
rates for African-American males and the use of the death penalty.
Since a higher proportion of African American and Latino workers are
members of unions then other racial groups, the Republicans
pro-corporate anti-union drive also has a strong racist component. One
of the most backward parts of the Republican program is the racist
attack on Mexican immigrants.
There is a direct correlation between the level of racism
and the fight for democracy, peace and for socialism. In our country in
a special way, racism blunts the fight against capitalist exploitation
and oppression and US imperialism. These struggles cannot be advanced
without an ongoing struggle against racism.
Tyner then goes onto outline the Communist Party’s commitment to Democratic Party victories over several decades;
Our party had clear differences with the liberal John
F. Kennedy but in 1960 election our policy was defeat Nixon. Same with
1964 — defeat Goldwater. In 1968 we had a Presidential ticket but our
strategy remained–defeat Nixon. In 1972, when I ran with Gus Hall, the
sharpest edge of our criticism was against Nixon.
In 1976, Carter ran against Ford. The sharpest edge of our
campaign was against Ford and the Republicans. All the while we have had
big differences with the Democrats but policies of the Republican right
represented the main danger and the main obstacle to moving forward. The
fight to advance the democratic and revolutionary process forward
toward greater and greater changes requires defeating the greatest
danger. And that is what we did. And the process did go forward.
Tyner blames Obama’s limited successes on the movement that backed
him. To Tyner, the left was only able to make big gains in America
during the 1930s, even under Democratic presidents, because of the major
leftist social movements of that era – which, though Tyner doesn’t say
it, were largely communist controlled.
Now is the time for a new social upheaval, to pressure Obama into
doing what the left wants – or more accurately to give Obama an excuse
to do what he wants to anyway:
It is true Obama has fallen short on some issues and made concessions and some tactical turns to which we take exception. That was the Obama with out the militant social movement that Roosevelt had during the New Deal.
The democratic forces are getting their second wind. Congresswomen Donna
Edwards described this period as a “FDR moment.” At the height of the
Wisconsin struggle, the Rev. Jesse Jackson described it as a “Martin
Luther King moment…”
What were they talking about? They are talking about a new willingness to struggle by democratic masses, about new movements emerging.
There is a new movement among the youth. It has a great potential of
gaining a deeper understanding of what are winning tactics. Their
demands can be won with a broader more inclusive approach…. Higher levels of class and racial unity must be achieved for further progress.
Where will this new movement come from? Tyner makes it clear that it
will come from new alliances of existing organizations – including the
labor movement and Occupy Wall Street.
If the communists have their way, the GOP and the Tea Party movement
will be shunted aside. The communist led “peace movement,” no longer
concerned with Iraq, will turn its attention to domestic issues:
New battle lines have been drawn. The Occupy
Wall Street movement and the fight for the American Jobs Act have fired
up the democratic forces. They are taking the offensive. We must
continue to be fully involved. The announcement that the troops will be
withdrawn from Iraq means it’s time for peace action!
The Occupy Wall Street movement based on the reality that the
problem is the 1% capitalist ruling class and “we the people” are the
99% majority. That is an advanced idea and in harmony with our anti
monopoly strategy. But to mobilize the 99% means building a popular
front style movement. Narrow sectarian politics of “my way or
the highway” will not suffice. Views that “I will only work with the
left, and the center is the enemy” will not mobilize the 99%.
Why are we confident about this point? Because it was the
broad united from tactics that our party brought forth that was key to
basic change like defeating fascism and that built the New Deal and
industrial unions.
All these forces will be mobilized by the Communist Party to ensure
the re-election of Obama in 2012. The stakes are high. The Communist
Party actually sees socialism within its grasp:
Next year we are proposing a national conference on strategy and tactics. How do we get to socialism?
The incredible 2011 election victories in Ohio, Mississippi, Arizona,
Maine, New Jersey and elsewhere tell us a lot about where masses are at
politically. It’s time for action; to mobilize masses for jobs,
to tax the rich and to register, educate and mobilize, voters for next
November and beyond. The right wing can be defeated in 2012.
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