Posted on 08/30/2005 9:04:53 PM PDT by JohnRoss
5. Unity Against the Ultra Right
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, capitalism in the U.S. went through a period of economic stagnation, an oil crisis which challenged U.S. corporate dominance of energy resources, the exposure of the illegal and immoral operations of U.S. intelligence agencies, and the resignation of a sitting president. Internationally, there was the renewed economic power of U.S. competitors in Europe and Japan, a continuing rise of newly independent former colonies who sought alternatives to subservience to the transnationals, growing economic strength in the socialist community of nations, and a military defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam. These and other challenges to U.S. capitalist dominance caused a shift in ruling class thinking.
Sections of the U.S. ruling class began to seriously fund right-wing think tanks, ultra-right political campaigns, and efforts to turn religious fundamentalism to their political advantage, in an attempt to reassert their power. They sought to reassert U.S. military strength with massive investments in new weapons systems. They sought to break up the grand political coalition that supported the Democratic Party by building their own coalition of transnationals, and economic and social conservatives in the Republican Party.
Beginning in the 1970s and dramatically escalating with the election of Reagan, the ultra-right increased U.S. military build-up. Under Reagan, they attacked the very existence of unions and bargaining rights, imposed tax cuts for the rich, cut social programs, demonized foreign opponents of the U.S., and covertly funded the right-wing-initiated civil war in Nicaragua. They picked small countries to invade, testing new military equipment and strategy, and breaking down resistance at home and abroad to U.S. military invasion as a policy option. The election of Clinton led the ultra-right to step up attacks on Democrats, liberals, and all social programs, and to intensify all their efforts in a vast right-wing conspiracy which quickly won a Republican majority in Congress for the first time since World War II. Across the "mainstream" political spectrum, support for capitalist globalization led to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the WTO, and other international trade agreements and organizations and to increased outsourcing of union manufacturing jobs.
Further shifts to the right occurred with the stealing of the 2000 elections and the 2004 election of George W. Bush. Republican control of all three branches of the federal government put tremendous power into the hands of the most reactionary section of the transnational corporations. Massive tax cuts for the wealthiest few, accompanied by huge increases in military spending and privatization of social programs, have decimated the budgets of most states and cities. Today, pre-emptive war and nuclear weapons development aimed at global domination threaten the future of the entire planet. Utilizing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as a smokescreen, constitutional rights of free speech and assembly have been curtailed, and police powers and monopolization of the media have accelerated.
The ultra-right is dominated by the most reactionary sectors of the transnational monopolies. These include the military-industrial complex, the oil and energy industry, the pharmaceuticals, sections of the high tech industry and finance capital, and massive manufacturing and distribution companies including Wal-Mart. The ultra-right also incorporates various social and political tendencies, and has achieved a mass base among sections of different class and social forces which currently support ultra-right candidates against their own interests. Most of ultra-right's mass base is unaware of the real program of the ultra-right. These include the so-called "neo-conservatives," social and fiscal conservatives, religious fundamentalists, nativists, libertarians, and other rightwing trends. The ultra-right also includes sections of the urban and rural middle strata: farmers, large and small business people, as well as small sections of most class and social forces. This mass aspect of the ultra-right movement tends to be located more in the suburbs and exurbs, and in small cities and towns especially in the West, Midwest and South.
The present period of capitalist development poses a grave danger to democratic rights and civil liberties in the United States. Since the early 1980s, the Republican Party, dominated by its ultra-right wing, has controlled much of the national legislative agenda, while the leadership of the Democratic Party ceded ground to their agenda.
Currently, every movement for change and progress is challenged by the oppositional power of the corporations. Workers face corporate power in every contract negotiation. African Americans, Mexican Americans, other Latinos , Native Americans, Asian Americans, and women face corporate power when they seek real equality on the job and in their communities. Youth face corporate power when they seek free quality education for all. Environmental organizations face corporate power when they try to stop pollution, stop the dumping of industrial waste, or stop the ravaging of remaining wilderness areas.
The corporations and their paid hacks in the media constantly proclaim that "competitiveness" requires lower wages, fewer benefits, fewer holidays, gutted pension plans, continuing wage differentials and discrimination, and the free export of capital and jobs to other countries. We don't think that is so. "Free Trade" agreements, which place supra-national committees of capitalists above our laws, which require ending environmental protections, which allow the "free" export of capital and jobs, which remove the ability of countries to restrict the rights and activities of corporate managers, are only free in that they give a "free" bonus of super-profits to the already rich and powerful at the expense of democracy and sovereignty. Back to top Building an All-People's Front Against the Ultra-Right
The only strategy capable of defeating the ultra-right is the widest possible unity of all the class and social forces whose interests run counter to those of the most reactionary section of the transnationals. This includes all the class and social forces described herein, except the most reactionary sectors of transnational capital. This unity will include an ever-growing Center-Left political coalition that includes the Democratic Party, left and progressive independents who recognize the danger the ultra-right poses, and all social movements on the major issues of our day. This All-People's Front should even strive to and be able to attract many who voted Republican in the past.
The labor movement has made significant shifts in its organization and outlook, and now leads many coalitions for progress and change, and leads defensive struggles against the attacks of the corporations and the ultra-right. Labor's intensified participation in electoral struggles has resulted in the election of thousands of union members to office, the creation and development of labor's own independent political apparatus, and better communication with, education of, and mobilization of union membership. Increased efforts to organize workers, to build relationships with allies, and to fight in the political arena have made labor the key element of most major progressive coalitions and election campaigns.
While the ultra-right has used the terrorist danger to justify its attempts to dictate to the world and as a weapon to beat down internal opposition, working people in our country have been the victims of terrorist attacks, especially the Sept. 11 attacks. Marxist-Leninists oppose targeting civilians for violence. Terrorism attempts to substitute individual acts of violence for the mass action essential to real change. We have long rejected and opposed terrorist methods as a means of struggle even for a just cause. The organizers of much individual terrorism in the world today are not pursuing social progress, but rather are trying to impose right-wing regimes, often under the banner of religious extremism. Defeating terrorism requires isolating these extremists and reactionaries from any mass support. That cannot be accomplished by police and military methods. It requires removing solving real grievances of poverty and hunger, national oppression and other injustices around the world. Only international solidarity, ending imperialist domination, and genuine economic and social assistance to developing nations can put an end to terrorism.
Another aspect of the terrorist threat is state-sponsored terrorism by the U.S. and other imperialist countries. The targeting of civilians for military attack is just as much terrorism as an individual act of violence.
The ultra-right in the U.S. justifies its terrorist aggression and interference in many countries under the banner of "freedom" for all peoples. It claims that when all countries have freedom, the result will be world peace. It is not hard for people around the world to understand that the United States has no right to define freedom for them, nor impose capitalist austerity measures to guarantee the "freedom" of capitalist investment and transnational domination, nor impose any form of government against the will of the majority of people of a country.
Freedom is of great importance to Communists. But freedom has different class and social content for different classes and social forces. The "freedom" to exploit is not freedom for the exploited. Freedom is the right of the majority to determine the conditions of their own lives, to decide for themselves the policies and forms of their government. Defeating the ultra-right will expand the freedom of working people. Radically curbing the power of the transnationals will expand freedom for working people even more.
The struggle against the ultra-right, against the most reactionary sector of the transnationals, and for achieving a defeat of its political power, will be of great significance. However, that alone will not end the ultra-right danger. There will still be the danger that the most extreme reactionaries, militarists, and racists in our country will seek to impose fascism-an open terrorist dictatorship of big capital. Only the replacement of capitalism, which gives birth to these political trends, with socialism can finally do away with the ultra-right threat.
The current success of the right wing in the electoral arena is not just the replacement of one set of politicians by another, but is a grab for control by one section of the capitalist class over all others. The present ultra-right government is not an ordinary bourgeois-democratic regime. It has a conservative-authoritarian nature, which rather than seeking to unite the capitalist class through compromise instead seeks to dominate less militaristic sections of the capitalist class. They target other sections of capital along with working-class and people's forces in an attempt to impose the most reactionary policies on all politicians and the corporate forces they represent. The current ultra-right conservative-authoritarian policies, which chip away at democratic and constitutional rights, escalate the danger of fascism. We shouldn't overstate fascist danger-fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, militarist, racist section of monopoly capital. Fascism is not inevitable, but the working class and allied forces will not be able to prevent the ultra-right section of the capitalist class from moving further towards fascism without resisting these beginning steps in that direction.
Ever since the major victories for the working class during the New Deal era of the 1930s, the rich and their paid operatives have worked diligently to take power away from workers. They have attempted to slow down or restrict many progressive programs that benefited people's lives, to chip away at every victory for unions, civil rights, and the environment. Now the ultra-right and the mega-rich want to place on the agenda the complete elimination of many of these programs, which they refer to pejoratively as "entitlement" programs. They would like to place Social Security, Medicare, the Food Stamp program, children's programs such as Head Start, and many other social programs on the chopping block. They want a government which has no role except to facilitate the ruthless power of the giant monopoly corporations-the industries, the banks, the chain stores, the brokerage houses, the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the arms merchants.
Defeat of the ultra-right in the political/electoral arena will substantially weaken the most reactionary sector of the monopolies. In doing so, their defeat objectively weakens all monopolies and capitalism as a whole. The struggle against that sector of the ruling class also serves the purpose of uniting, educating and assembling a major portion of the forces needed for the next historic task of the working class, that of struggling to radically curb the monopolies as a whole. The struggle against the ultra-right helps millions of people understand more clearly who the next main strategic opponent is and who can and must unite to achieve that next goal. It teaches millions about methods of struggle, forms of organization and the people's issue demands necessary to move forward.
A major, lasting rebuff to the ultra-right, rendered by the all people's front, will represent a qualitative change in the domestic balance of forces. It will make possible a new stage of struggle in our country. Just as important as the specific defeat of the ultra-right will be the growing unity of labor-led mass movements that makes such a defeat of ultra-right politics possible.
The ultra-right promotes anti-democratic electoral methods. Manipulation of the political process, including racist vote suppression, extreme partisan redistricting, and use of electronic voting machines with no paper trail for recounts, shows that the right to vote and to have every vote count has yet to be achieved. Major reforms, such as proportional representation, abolition of the Electoral College, and elimination of barriers to ballot access for minor parties, are needed to guarantee basic democratic voting rights.
The policies of the ultra-right endanger the working class and its core allies-racially and nationally oppressed peoples, women, and youth. As well, the ultra-right program is detrimental to seniors, family farmers, small business, professionals, and sections of capital that do not benefit directly from increased military spending. Objectively, all these forces become potential allies in the common fight to defeat extreme right-wing control of government.
While the Democratic and Republican Parties are both capitalist institutions, they are not identical. The ultra-right currently dominates the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has been the main mechanism used by African American and Latino communities to gain representation, as well as the main mechanism used to elect labor, progressive, and even Left activists to public office, especially at the local level. There exists an internal struggle within the Democratic Party between centrist forces who collaborate with the right wing, and centrist forces opposed to the right wing. Those opposed to the right wing are often willing to align with progressive elements that seek an anti-monopoly program. There are struggles within both the Democratic Party and within the labor and people's movements, which are reflective of the overall struggle to gain political independence from corporate dominance. Any serious strategy that hopes to win millions of people to a more advanced political program must relate to these struggles. .
Grassroots organizing around a program for working people's needs is key to shift the balance of forces to the left. Building a multiracial, multinational movement and expanding union organization and other movements into the South and rural areas are crucial to overcoming the racism and bigotry of the ultra-right.
The labor movement has played a leadership role in building an independent, issue-based worker-to-worker political apparatus since the mid-1990s. This shop-floor and neighborhood outreach, which mobilized a quarter-million union members in the 2004 presidential election, is the foundation for year-round organizing and is key to electing union activists to public office. Similar issue-based door-to-door grassroots efforts by African American, Latino, Asian American, women, youth, gay and lesbian, and environmental organizations strengthen the voice and power of the Left within the all-people's front against the ultra-right. Even with ultra-right control of the Federal government, people's legislative victories, such as increasing the minimum wage, can be won on an issue by issue basis locally, statewide and even nationally. Back to top People's Politics
Third parties which recognize the need in this period for Center-Left unity to defeat the ultra-right can play an important and positive role toward shifting the balance of forces, and perhaps moving closer to the formation of a viable anti-monopoly third party in our country. Some successful projects work by building local independent electoral formations, some by utilizing fusion tactics, some by building national networks or parties. Such efforts can make a great contribution to the defeat of the ultra-right, some however can adopt tactics which divide them from the main forces able to sustain long-term independent political action.
The Communist Party's approach to people's electoral politics is a basic aspect of the our view that the current stage of struggle requires an all-people's front to defeat the ultra-right. This is essential strategy for this historical period, not just a temporary shift in tactics. Ultra-right political dominance challenges the vast majority of people in this country-even including some sectors of monopoly capital-and very broad unity is both possible and necessary to bring about a major political shift. Without this shift, the people's movements will be continually on the defensive. Without building this broad unity, the ultra-right will succeed in splitting their opposition, will continue to succeed in setting the priorities and agenda for the nation, and will risk ever-greater military adventurism in pursuit of an illusory global dominance. Without first defeating the ultra-right section of monopoly, the working class cannot proceed to radically curb the power of the monopolies as a whole.
The Communist Party, as part of the developing all-peoples front to defeat the ultra-right, participates fully with the labor movement and its allies in building a strong people's electoral force. Communist candidates at the local and state levels are vital to building unity in the people's movement, strengthening the Left, and to organizing a strong grassroots base for a more advanced program.
Our Party makes important contributions to the struggle to defeat the ultra-right. Communists clarify who the main enemy in this period is, what is the class and political nature of the main enemy, and the need for an all-people's front. Communists help to unite the core forces of the alliance around the labor movement, and bring a high level of commitment, devotion, and activity to the struggle. The Communist Party is increasingly recognized for these contributions. The main limit on its role has been the small size of the Party. We work to build grassroots Party clubs to expand our independent base in the working class, to expand our ability to directly mobilize workers in shops and neighborhoods.
In the course of its participation in anti-ultra-right struggles, the Party agitates and helps prepare for the next phase of struggle, the building of an anti-monopoly people's party, all the while educating and advocating for socialism.
Add the Communist Party USA to the list of Democratic constituencies. They can't say enough good things.
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Of course, and don't forget the PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS in the Congress. Anti-America right in our own Congress. And check out the membership list...Sickening.
How can people who claim to be Americans subscribe to crap like this?
Center left indeed!
No, actually, it's the other way around.
Yep, "Center left indeed!" of Stalin.
It sounds good to me. Where can I contribute?
Go Republicans! Yeah!
Kind of funny about the ruling class funding right-wing think tanks because all of the foundation money is taken by the Left. Ford, Rockefeller, Getty, MacArthur Foundation, George Soros, Hollywood, etc. goes to fellow travellers.
Paul Weyrich is a close friend of mine and the only thing that keeps people like him afloat are mostly small contributions from ordinary peons.
China, Cuba, N.Korea..........
re Paul Weyrich...
THE FREE CONGRESS FOUNDATION
http://www.freecongress.org
Yes. What would have been unbelievable 30 years ago today garners not even a passing remark: the Communist Party USA now is just a wing of the Democratic Party. They don't even bother to stand presidential candidates any longer; Senator Kerry was more than acceptable to the Communists, who even did door-to-door canvassing for him. They were heart-broken, just as were the other Democrats, when he lost.
Ideologically there are few differences between the Democratic Party's stated platform and what the Communist Party's platform says.
Read with amusement.
"In the late 1960s and early 1970s, capitalism in the U.S. went through a period of economic stagnation,...."
What a laugh! Look at Cuba, the former USSR, and pre "reform" China. See any vital economic growth there? The least successful capitalist in America is better off than the most successful communist in Cuba.
I though DNC meant Democrats 'N Communists! I think I am right!
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