Posted on 07/09/2004 2:38:04 PM PDT by Cableguy
It turns out "Let America be America again" isn't the Kedwards campaign's only communist-inspired slogan. John Edwards's claim that we are "two Americas" echoes a speech given by James P. Cannon to the 1948 convention of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyite outfit:
"There are two Americas--and millions of the people already distinguish between them.
One is the America of the imperialists--of the little clique of capitalists, landlords, and militarists who are threatening and terrifying the world. This is the America the people of the world hate and fear."
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
"One America -- middle-class America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten"
Maybe I've forgotten my history, but didn't the Dems have lock-stock control of the government from 92-94? Both houses and the WH? How is it that utopia didn't come to fruition? How is that America flatly rejected their leadership? How is that in only 4 years we can 'ruin' America...
If GWB and the Republican congress are such a failure:
How is it that first time jobless claims are lower than when Clinton left office?
How is it that this failed leadership has produced an economy with more working Americans than EVER BEFORE?
How is that the mean and median wages are higher than EVER BEFORE?
How is that 2 terrorist regimes have been deposed, and another has capitulated without a shot?
Yes there is much work to be done, but this administration has not failed America. And to say that they have spits in the face of all those who have worked so hard over the last 3 years to rebuild and protect this great nation.
No, but Harpo Marx did.
There are fellow travelers in both parties. They may not realize what they are doing but the graduated income tax was a very progressive idea that is part of the communist religion, ala Karl Marx.
Free countries do not have such tax structures.
James P. Cannon
Delivered: 1948
Source: Fighting for Socialism in the American Century;
Reprinted from The Militant, New York, July 12, 1948. ©
Resistance Books 2001 Published by Resistance Books 23
Abercrombie St, Chippendale NSW 2008, Permission for
on-line publication provided by Resistance Books for
use by the James P. Cannon Internet Archive in 2003.
Transcription\HTML Markup: David Walters
The following keynote address was delivered on July 1, 1948
to the 13th National Convention of the Socialist Workers
Party. It was broadcast live by the American Broadcasting
System over a nationwide network. It was published
in the Militant, July 12, 1948.
Comrade chairman, delegates and friends:
We meet in national convention at a time of the gravest
world crisisa crisis which contains the direct threat of a
third and more terrible world war. The basic causes of this
world crisis are no mystery.
The first cause is the breakdown of capitalism throughout
Europeand Asiaand the colonial lands. The working people
want peace and bread, which capitalism cannot give. The colonial
slaves dont want to be slaves any moreand capitalism
cannot live without colonial slaves. The working people, the poor
peasants and the colonial slaves are in revolt against the
continued rule of bankers and landlords.
On the other hand, American capitalismthe last solvent
stronghold of an outlived and doomed world systemis trying
to prop up the hated regimes of capitalists and kings and
landlords by economic pressure and military force.
These are the two main elements of the present world
crisis.
The Wall Street money-sharks, and the brass hats of
Prussian mentality, are riding high in Washington these days. The
masters of America, drunk with power, are threatening and terrifying
the people of the worldseeking to dominate and enslave
themstriving to transform the other countries of the world
into colonies of the American empire.
Their program is a program of madness, and it is doomed to
failure. The great majority of the peoples of the world
do not want to be slaves of America. That is
to their credit and we applaud them for it. The
attempt to enslave them would be profitable only for the
small group of monopolistsand the military caste, who dream
of careers as colonial administrators of conquered peoples.
But the criminal adventure would encounter such ferocious
resistance that the American people at home would have to
pay an enormous cost in living standards ruined by inflation,
in the stamping out of democracy by military rule. And
Americas young sons would have to pay in misery, blood
and death. The American people would be among the first
victims of the insane campaign of American imperialism to conquer
and enslave the world.
To avoid this calamity it is necessary now to show
the people of the world the other America. For there
are two Americasand millions of the people already distinguish between them.
One is the America of the imperialistsof the little clique
of capitalists, landlords, and militarists who are threatening and terrifying
the world. This is the America the people of the
world hate and fear.
There is the other Americathe America of the workers and
farmers and the little people. They constitute the great
majority of the people. They do the work of the country.
They revere its old democratic traditionsits old record of
friendship for the people of other lands, in their struggles
against kings and despotsits generous asylum once freely granted
to the oppressed.
This is the America which must and will solve the world
crisisby taking power out of the hands of the little
clique of exploiters and parasites, and establishing a
government of workers and farmers. The workers and
farmers government will immediately proceed to change
things fundamentally -
Throw out the profit and rent hogs, and increase the living
standards of the people who do the useful work.
Assure freedom and democratic rights to all, not forgetting
those who are denied any semblance of them now.
Call back the truculent admirals from the seven seasand
ground the airplanes with their dangling bombs.
Hold out the hand of friendship and comradely help to the
oppressed and hungry people in the world.
These people dont want to fight anybody. They only want to
live. There are two billion people in the worldand more
than half of them dont get enough to eat. These people
should be helpednot threatened, not driven back into slavery,
under the social system that has kept half of them
hungry all their lives.
It is well to recall now that America was born of
revolution in 1776, and secured its unity as a nation
through another revolutionthe Civil Warwhich smashed
the abomination of chattel slavery in the process. Our
great, rich, wonderful country was once the light and
the hope of the world. But our America has fallen
into the hands of a small, selfish group, who are trying to
dominate the worldand to set up a police state at home.
These Wall Street money-sharks are just as foreign to the
real America as were the despots who ruled the land
before the revolution of 1776. They are just as foreign
as were the traffickers in human flesh and bloodthe slave
ownerswhose power was broken by the Civil Warthe
blessed second American revolution. These imperialist rulers of America are
the worst enemies of the American people.
American democracy, under their rule, is slipping away. The
fear that oppressed Mark Twain, the fear that America would
lose its democracy, is steadily becoming a reality. The Taft-Hartley
Law is but the most recent instance of this ominous
trend. The divine right of kings has reappeared in Americadisguised
as the divine right of judges to issue injunctions and
levy fines against labour organisations.
Only three years have passed since the imperialists
finished the last slaughter. And now they are drafting the
youth for another. Militarism is becoming entrenched in America.
Militarismso long synonymous with goose-stepping Prussianismis now
to be made synonymous with Americanism, if big business has
its way. A large section of the sturdy immigrants who
helped to build this country came here to escape militarism.
Now their grandsons face the same brutal regimentation here.
All this is part and parcel of the development of
capitalismthe system which puts profits above all other
considerations. The capitalist system has long outlived its usefulness. Capitalism
offers no future to the people but depressions, imperialist wars,
fascism, universal violence and a final plunge into barbarism.
To avoid such a fate, the workers of the United States must
go into politics on their own account, independent of all
capitalist politics. They must take power, establish a workers and
farmers government and reorganise the economy of the country on
a socialist basis. Socialist economy in the United States, eliminating
capitalist wars, profits and waste, will be so productive as
to ensure a rich living for all who are willing
and able to work, and provide security and ample means
for the aged and infirm.,p. We should also help the hungry people of the world to
improve their standard of life. Socialist America will rapidly make
that possible by helping them to secure their own freedom and
develop their own economy. Eventually, the economy of the entire
world will be united and planned on a socialist basis.
This will bring universal peaceand undreamed of abundance for all
people everywhere. The real upward march of humanity will
begin.
The American working class can open up the way to this new
world. They are the majority. They have the power in
America. All that is necessary is for the working class
to understand itand to use it.
We firmly believe they will do so. We firmly believe the
real Americathe America of the workers, the peoplewill
help save the world by saving herself.
We, the American Trotskyistswe, the national convention of
the Socialist Workers Party, summon our America to her great destinynot
as conqueror but as liberator of the world.
bump
INTREP
Kerry has the trotskys.
Looks like Brezhnev didn't give back any of his medals.
"Dead commies,
Dead commies,
Dead commies aren't much fun..."
Dr. Demento fans will understand.
Now I know where Bug Eyed Earl comes from!! It figures that he is the front page character on RED Meat.
My commies died, late last fall...
Once great fans of the Berlin wall...
Dead Commies aren't much fun...whoah whoah whoah!
The actual link:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005340
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