US Communists Organise Huge Anti-War Rally
It's widely accepted these days that the Vietnam War was lost, not Asia, but in the USA.
The huge anti War demos of the time gave the leftists and defeatists in the US government the "mandate" they needed to gift Vietnam to the communist forces.
The demos were of course organised by the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party and other allies of the North Vietnamese.
The US left has been using the same tactics with the Iraq War. Mass mobilisations in order to give their allies in the US Congress and Senate the "excuse" they need to close down the war effort.
This Saturday, the 27th of January, the US far left have organised what they hope will be the largest rally of the war.
From the Communist Party USA's Political Affairs
MASSIVE ANTI-WAR MARCH PLANNED FOR JAN. 27 IN D.C.;
PROTESTERS WILL URGE CONGRESS TO STAND UP TO BUSH
Peace March Expected to be Among Largest Since War Began
MoveOn.org, National Organization for Women, Labor Unions Mobilize Members
Buses and vans coming from 30 states and 111 Cities
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Jr., Members of Congress, Military Families, and Soldiers to Speak
Americans angered by Bush's plans to escalate the Iraq war will flood the streets of Washington on Saturday, January 27, in a massive national peace march organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). Marchers will call on Congress to listen to the voters, not Bush, by using its power to end Bush's war and bring the troops home. The last three national marches organized by UFPJ each attracted between 300,000 and 500,000 people.
MoveOn.org has called upon its 3.2 million members to join UFPJ, describing the march as potentially a "turning point for the war" comparable to how "Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963 was a turning point in the fight for equality and civil rights." The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) is mobilizing its chapters to participate. Local antiwar groups in cities and towns across the nation are mobilizing.
What is United for Peace and Justice?
According to UFPJ's website;
With more than 1,400 member groups under its umbrella, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is the nation's largest grassroots peace and justice coalition. Since its founding in October 2002, UFPJ has spurred hundreds of protests and rallies around the country, including the two largest marches against the Iraq war.
Members of UFPJ include;
Black Radical Congress-founded by the Communist Party USA
Campus Greens
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism -breakaway from Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
Democratic Socialists of America-Marxist, works with Communist Party USA
Freedom Road Socialist Organization -Maoist
Freedom Socialist Party
Green Party of the United States
Greenpeace
Institute for Policy Studies -founded by and linked to Communist Party USA
International Socialist Organization -Trotskyist
League of Revolutionaries for a New America
Left Turn
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression- Communist Party USA front
Lawyers Guild -founded by Communist Party USA
National Network on Cuba
National Youth & Student Peace Coalition-led by Communist Party USA member
Progressive Democrats of America -works with Communist Party USA
Socialist Alternative-Trotskyist
Socialist Party USA -Marxist
Solidarity-Trotskyist
US Peace Council -Communist Party USA front
Veterans For Peace -Communist Party USA aligned, probable front
Young Communist League -Communist Party USA youth wing
Young Democratic Socialists of America-radical socialist
Z Magazine and ZNET-radical socialist
Is there a pattern here?
Who leads United for Peace and Justice? The two main leaders of the organisation are;
Leslie Cagan
Cagan is co-chair of United for Peace and Justice. She is also co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism-formed in 1992 as a breakaway group from the Communist Party USA.
Her CCDS bio, describes her thus;
From the Vietnam war to racism at home, from nuclear disarmament to lesbian/gay liberation, from fighting sexism to working against U.S. intervention. Leslie has put hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in many of the country's largest mobilizations. Ending seven years as Director of the Cuba Information Project, Cagan coordinated the largest U.S. delegation to Cuba for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1997.
Judith LeBlanc
LeBlanc is the other co-chair of United for Peace and Justice. She is also National vice chair of the Communist Party USA and chair of the party's Peace and Solidarity Commission.
This commission is charged with co-ordinating "peace" activity within the US and laising with foreign organisations. For example LeBlanc represented GFPJ at the Japanese Communist Party organised World Conference against A and H Bombs, in Nagasaki in August 2003.
Of course, like all communist parties, the CPUSA is not anti-war; it is anti "right wing" war. The war is being used to help bring about a change of government in the US. LeBlanc explicitly states this
in a report to the CPUSA's National Committee of June 24th 2006.
This is worth reading in its entirety. It demonstrates just how much influence the Communist Party USA has on the "peace" movement and the US Democratic Party.
Here are some extracts;
I will discuss two points we, the Party and Left, need to address in the next months: 1) the need for an active, vibrant peace movement in the lead up to Election Day, and 2) Party District and Club initiatives to strengthen the impact of the peace movement in defeating the right in November.
After the past few weeks, the peace movement has a running start. We have political momentum to encourage both new and incumbent candidates to speak out against the war and challenge the rightwing Republicans.
The media spin has been that the Democrats are split on the war. The real story is that 85% of the Democrats in Congress voted for withdrawal and are in step with the majority public opinion. Eight months ago, two Democratic senators were for withdrawal; two months ago it was four. This past week 39 Democrats in the Senate voted for withdrawal and the need for non-military support for the reconstruction of Iraq.
The debate in the Congress and the shift among the Democrats is breathtaking. The peace movement is a movement that must make the links between the war policies and the domestic.
The peace movement is making progress in turning the politics of protest into a real political shift for ending the occupation.
As the Republicans make the defense of the war in Iraq the centerpiece of the midterm elections, the peace movement response must be targeted and vigorous. The highest priorities are helping elect Democratic and peace candidates....
Linking political action with building a vibrant movement is a critical contribution of the Communists and the left.
The movement is also critical to generating excitement on the streets for defeating the right. The main obstacle to empowering the peace majority is that over 50% of the people donÂt vote! Mass demonstrative actions and educational work can activate the stay-at-home-vote.
The movementÂs role is to respond to the daily stream of war mongering and new rationales for the occupation and to guard against new preemptive strikes against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba or on the Korean peninsula.
The movementÂs efforts in the midterm elections are geared to defeating the Republicans in November and quickly moving into action with the new Congress. No Honeymoon. We need to help develop tactics that result in a more organized, stronger, broader movement post election.
As a result of protests and an emphasis on Congressional pressure campaigns in the years since the Presidential election, the movement has had a big impact on the political terrain of the midterm elections. Think about it. WeÂve shifted the position of the Democratic Party presidential candidate on the war. Kerry now believes that his vote in support of the war was the worst vote he has cast in his Senate career.
Now is not the time to sit out the elections, its time to step up! ThatÂs the spirit the Party must bring into the peace movement organizing.
The peace movement needs more Congresspeople like Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Inouye and Menendez, who are willing to stand firm and fight for a deadline for withdrawal.
Either way, the peace movement must see itÂs main task between now and November is to shift the majority in Congress away from the Party of war. And then post election to exert the power of protest and congressional pressure campaigns to bring the troops home.
We are active in a cross-section of peace groups and local and national coalitions. Our contribution can be great.
First, Party peace activists discuss on District and Club levels a list of peace activists to meet with to discuss our outlook and assessment of the elections and ways to move peace groups into action. We are also doing this on the national level.
Although not all of our activists openly represent the Party in coalitions, it is still important to have these discussions with other activists.
The end objectives of our involvement in peace movement activity leading up to the midterm elections is:
1) To broaden the circle of people in the peace movement who are familiar with the Communist PartyÂs outlook on the elections and the need to defeat the ultra-right.
2) To deepen the understanding of the role of movements in political empowerment.
3) To strengthen basis for recruiting new Party members.
4) To energize the peace movement with tactics that move mass protest and majority opposition to the occupation into political action.
The Democratic Party and its candidates are only as strong politically and economically as the mass movements behind them. The greater participation of the Party and Left, the more effective the movements are, the more likely we can deliver a blow to the Right in November.
With our collective efforts in the targeted congressional races and our mobilizations in the streets and in the halls of Congress, the mid term elections can become a turning point in ending the occupation of Iraq.
Saturday's march may not just be a turning point for the Iraq War, but may effect the outcome of the 2008 US presidential elections and the political direction of the entire West.
Who says the communists have no influence in the US anymore?
The huge anti War demos of the time gave the leftists and defeatists in the US government the "mandate" they needed to gift Vietnam to the communist forces.
The demos were of course organised by the Communist Party USA, the Socialist Workers Party and other allies of the North Vietnamese.
The US left has been using the same tactics with the Iraq War. Mass mobilisations in order to give their allies in the US Congress and Senate the "excuse" they need to close down the war effort.
This Saturday, the 27th of January, the US far left have organised what they hope will be the largest rally of the war.
From the Communist Party USA's Political Affairs
MASSIVE ANTI-WAR MARCH PLANNED FOR JAN. 27 IN D.C.;
PROTESTERS WILL URGE CONGRESS TO STAND UP TO BUSH
Peace March Expected to be Among Largest Since War Began
MoveOn.org, National Organization for Women, Labor Unions Mobilize Members
Buses and vans coming from 30 states and 111 Cities
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Jr., Members of Congress, Military Families, and Soldiers to Speak
Americans angered by Bush's plans to escalate the Iraq war will flood the streets of Washington on Saturday, January 27, in a massive national peace march organized by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). Marchers will call on Congress to listen to the voters, not Bush, by using its power to end Bush's war and bring the troops home. The last three national marches organized by UFPJ each attracted between 300,000 and 500,000 people.
MoveOn.org has called upon its 3.2 million members to join UFPJ, describing the march as potentially a "turning point for the war" comparable to how "Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington in 1963 was a turning point in the fight for equality and civil rights." The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) is mobilizing its chapters to participate. Local antiwar groups in cities and towns across the nation are mobilizing.
What is United for Peace and Justice?
According to UFPJ's website;
With more than 1,400 member groups under its umbrella, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is the nation's largest grassroots peace and justice coalition. Since its founding in October 2002, UFPJ has spurred hundreds of protests and rallies around the country, including the two largest marches against the Iraq war.
Members of UFPJ include;
Black Radical Congress-founded by the Communist Party USA
Campus Greens
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy & Socialism -breakaway from Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
Democratic Socialists of America-Marxist, works with Communist Party USA
Freedom Road Socialist Organization -Maoist
Freedom Socialist Party
Green Party of the United States
Greenpeace
Institute for Policy Studies -founded by and linked to Communist Party USA
International Socialist Organization -Trotskyist
League of Revolutionaries for a New America
Left Turn
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression- Communist Party USA front
Lawyers Guild -founded by Communist Party USA
National Network on Cuba
National Youth & Student Peace Coalition-led by Communist Party USA member
Progressive Democrats of America -works with Communist Party USA
Socialist Alternative-Trotskyist
Socialist Party USA -Marxist
Solidarity-Trotskyist
US Peace Council -Communist Party USA front
Veterans For Peace -Communist Party USA aligned, probable front
Young Communist League -Communist Party USA youth wing
Young Democratic Socialists of America-radical socialist
Z Magazine and ZNET-radical socialist
Is there a pattern here?
Who leads United for Peace and Justice? The two main leaders of the organisation are;
Leslie Cagan
Cagan is co-chair of United for Peace and Justice. She is also co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism-formed in 1992 as a breakaway group from the Communist Party USA.
Her CCDS bio, describes her thus;
From the Vietnam war to racism at home, from nuclear disarmament to lesbian/gay liberation, from fighting sexism to working against U.S. intervention. Leslie has put hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in many of the country's largest mobilizations. Ending seven years as Director of the Cuba Information Project, Cagan coordinated the largest U.S. delegation to Cuba for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1997.
Judith LeBlanc
LeBlanc is the other co-chair of United for Peace and Justice. She is also National vice chair of the Communist Party USA and chair of the party's Peace and Solidarity Commission.
This commission is charged with co-ordinating "peace" activity within the US and laising with foreign organisations. For example LeBlanc represented GFPJ at the Japanese Communist Party organised World Conference against A and H Bombs, in Nagasaki in August 2003.
Of course, like all communist parties, the CPUSA is not anti-war; it is anti "right wing" war. The war is being used to help bring about a change of government in the US. LeBlanc explicitly states this
in a report to the CPUSA's National Committee of June 24th 2006.
This is worth reading in its entirety. It demonstrates just how much influence the Communist Party USA has on the "peace" movement and the US Democratic Party.
Here are some extracts;
I will discuss two points we, the Party and Left, need to address in the next months: 1) the need for an active, vibrant peace movement in the lead up to Election Day, and 2) Party District and Club initiatives to strengthen the impact of the peace movement in defeating the right in November.
After the past few weeks, the peace movement has a running start. We have political momentum to encourage both new and incumbent candidates to speak out against the war and challenge the rightwing Republicans.
The media spin has been that the Democrats are split on the war. The real story is that 85% of the Democrats in Congress voted for withdrawal and are in step with the majority public opinion. Eight months ago, two Democratic senators were for withdrawal; two months ago it was four. This past week 39 Democrats in the Senate voted for withdrawal and the need for non-military support for the reconstruction of Iraq.
The debate in the Congress and the shift among the Democrats is breathtaking. The peace movement is a movement that must make the links between the war policies and the domestic.
The peace movement is making progress in turning the politics of protest into a real political shift for ending the occupation.
As the Republicans make the defense of the war in Iraq the centerpiece of the midterm elections, the peace movement response must be targeted and vigorous. The highest priorities are helping elect Democratic and peace candidates....
Linking political action with building a vibrant movement is a critical contribution of the Communists and the left.
The movement is also critical to generating excitement on the streets for defeating the right. The main obstacle to empowering the peace majority is that over 50% of the people donÂt vote! Mass demonstrative actions and educational work can activate the stay-at-home-vote.
The movementÂs role is to respond to the daily stream of war mongering and new rationales for the occupation and to guard against new preemptive strikes against Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba or on the Korean peninsula.
The movementÂs efforts in the midterm elections are geared to defeating the Republicans in November and quickly moving into action with the new Congress. No Honeymoon. We need to help develop tactics that result in a more organized, stronger, broader movement post election.
As a result of protests and an emphasis on Congressional pressure campaigns in the years since the Presidential election, the movement has had a big impact on the political terrain of the midterm elections. Think about it. WeÂve shifted the position of the Democratic Party presidential candidate on the war. Kerry now believes that his vote in support of the war was the worst vote he has cast in his Senate career.
Now is not the time to sit out the elections, its time to step up! ThatÂs the spirit the Party must bring into the peace movement organizing.
The peace movement needs more Congresspeople like Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Inouye and Menendez, who are willing to stand firm and fight for a deadline for withdrawal.
Either way, the peace movement must see itÂs main task between now and November is to shift the majority in Congress away from the Party of war. And then post election to exert the power of protest and congressional pressure campaigns to bring the troops home.
We are active in a cross-section of peace groups and local and national coalitions. Our contribution can be great.
First, Party peace activists discuss on District and Club levels a list of peace activists to meet with to discuss our outlook and assessment of the elections and ways to move peace groups into action. We are also doing this on the national level.
Although not all of our activists openly represent the Party in coalitions, it is still important to have these discussions with other activists.
The end objectives of our involvement in peace movement activity leading up to the midterm elections is:
1) To broaden the circle of people in the peace movement who are familiar with the Communist PartyÂs outlook on the elections and the need to defeat the ultra-right.
2) To deepen the understanding of the role of movements in political empowerment.
3) To strengthen basis for recruiting new Party members.
4) To energize the peace movement with tactics that move mass protest and majority opposition to the occupation into political action.
The Democratic Party and its candidates are only as strong politically and economically as the mass movements behind them. The greater participation of the Party and Left, the more effective the movements are, the more likely we can deliver a blow to the Right in November.
With our collective efforts in the targeted congressional races and our mobilizations in the streets and in the halls of Congress, the mid term elections can become a turning point in ending the occupation of Iraq.
Saturday's march may not just be a turning point for the Iraq War, but may effect the outcome of the 2008 US presidential elections and the political direction of the entire West.
Who says the communists have no influence in the US anymore?
posted by Trevor Loudon at
1/26/2007 12:30:00 PM
20 Comments:
And of course I am certainly quite sure the deniers would deny that the Communist movement is endorsing the "peace" movement despite even open acknowledgements by the Communist Party USA and other parties such as the Workers' World Party.
Trevor, what do you think of Robert McNamara coming out after his years of involvement in this and saying that the Vietnam War was a mistake, that the United States was basically interfering in a civil war, and in hindsight shouldn't have gotten involved? Does that make him a communist sympathiser?
How lucky we are that Act didn't get its way in 2003 and NZ didn't join the invasion of Iraq.
Anonymous,
Care to comment on how some "peace" movements like Vietnam Veterans Against the War had a trip funded to North Vietnam by the Communist Party USA and to a certain extent the Communist Party of Vietnam?
Yea, that civil war was certainly just between Vietnamese and Vietnamese. Never mind that the Communist movement was banking on the North Vietnamese to win.
I didn't say it mah, it was Robert McNamara. He was the Secretary of Defense you know. I'm assuming he would know more about the Vietnam War than you.
I do not condone initiating physical force or the threat of physical force against any person or group. I accept the need for physical force in self defence or to pre-empt force which has been threatened against me.
Despite the fact that Saddam Hussein was a despot he was not an immediate threat to the American people and so the American attack on Iraq was immoral.
Bush and Co have done a huge injustice against the Americans by giving the Communists an opportunity to back the side of truth and gain from it.
By the way I am an ACT member and love your Blog. I just cannot support Republicans regardless of what they do just because they are meant to represent the "right".
Steve R. I am pretty torn on America's foreign wars-right back to WW1 in fact)
Basically I sympathise with the paleo-conservatives and libertarians who think the US should fight defensive wars only.
I'm a great admirer of Thomas Jefferson who was strongly against US involvement in Europe's perpetual squabbles.
What tears me is my view that the US and what's left of the free world is heading for a major stoush with Russia, China and their Islamic allies.
The US, in my opinion is actually fighting a "defensive" war in Iraq-only the real enemy isn't Al Qaeda, the Iraqi insurgency, or even Iran-it is Russia and China.
If Bush would challenge the big-boys, cut off trade and "stare them down", I would back him wholeheartedly.
As it is, he is fighting a guerilla army, backed by the Russians and Chinese, while pretending to be friends with the same Russians ans Chinese.
I hope the latest troop surge will do the trick in Iraq and the US can bugger off and put their troops where they're really needed-on the Mexican border.
When I expose the US "peace" movement, it is because they are traitors to their country-it does not necessarily mean I support what they oppose.
It was legitimate to attack Afghanistan, because the Taliban were sheltering Al Qaeda.
Iraq was far less clear cut, though I do believe Saddam Hussein would have threatened Israelwith WMD's given time.
I think there was more to Saddam and his ambitions than the general public was aware of.
To sum up, I am ambivalent on the war in Iraq, but I know a traitor when I see one.
That's why I attack the CPUSA and its fronts.
Have you got any evidence that the guerrilla army they United States army is fighting is backed by the Russians and Chinese?
mah, did you support the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Or do you only support wars waged by the United States?
Please anonymous, don't promote propaganda bullshit when I see it. How about you take the account that Osama bin Laden and other early Islamist radicals were being supported by Egypt along with China and even the Czech Republic government when it was openly ruled by the Soviets?
Or perhaps you are just simply going to promote pro-Communist propaganda into stating how America "created" bin Laden?
"Have you got any evidence that the guerrilla army they United States army is fighting is backed by the Russians and Chinese?"
Isn't Syria and Iran client states of the two nations? Didn't Iran receive missiles from Russia recently to defend against a hypothetical attack against the Iranian regime?
Doesn't Syria meet regularly with Putin in Russia? Or perhaps are you just going to ignore any of your reports that blow your propaganda bullshit apart?
Iran is a client state of Russia? Come off it! Even apart from its fierce nationalism, Iran has a long-standing enimity of Russia based on the latter's frequent incursions and the WWII occupation. Buying AA missiles from Russia no more makes them a client state than Saddam's arms purchases made Iraq a client state of France.
Sam Buchanan,
You should know by now it's pointless engaging with Mah.
He knows bugger all about anything, screeches like an incensed child even at his own when they don't reflect his appallingly zealotry, and regards the world from behind an array of tin soldiers deployed on the Bremworth fields of his lounge room.
Don't encourage the fellow !
How about those reports of Russia sending missiles to Iran sam? Or are you just going to ignore those sort of reports?
And as for you "steve the not so nice guy", please shut the hell up with your childish rants. You have already proven yourself that you can't debate in a healthy manner without making baseless ridicule.
Steve, you are the one screeching "like an incensed child".
Your pointless personal attacks on Mah and others just shows the bankruptcy of your arguments and position.
Give it up.We are not going anywhere.
EXOCET
I'm amazed that you can suggest I am ignoring the reports of the Iranian/Russian missile deal when I mentioned it in my comment just above.
I'm surprised to be giving you a lesson in free-market ethics, but buying something - even weapons - doesn't make a country a "client state".
Do you consider the NZ army's use of the Steyr AUG rifle makes us a client state of Austria or Australia?
Well sam, if one Western nation is buying a weapon from another Western nation, doesn't that make you automaticly allies? Isn't that what Russia and Iran are doing? Isn't that what Russia and China are doing? Isn't that is what Russia and India are doing?
If by that definition of New Zealand buying weapons from Australia counts as them being allies, wasn't it also the same thing when America smuggled weapons to Britain when they were fighting the Nazis during World War II?
"if one Western nation is buying a weapon from another Western nation, doesn't that make you automaticly allies?"
No it doesn't. neither is 'allly' a synonym for 'client state'.
Taking the Iran-Iraq war arms sales as an example, are you saying thet the US, France, South Africa, Russia and China were all allied with Iraq, and at the same time, China, Russia and the US were allied to Iran, even though the latter was launching military attacks on Iran? Weird theory, mah.
Sam, how about when a state like Syria habors leaders of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and remains an ally of Russia and China? Why couldn't Syria just hand over the leader of Islamic Jihad who is currently on the FBI's Most Wanted List if your theory were true?
And what's more about Syria is that it allowed leaders of Hamas to travel to Russia. Hmm, is there a problem here?
We were talking about Iran. How did Syria come in to this?
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