"Clinton makes History": CPUSA's opportunist transformation

COMMENTARY

The transformation of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) into an opportunist political organisation has been a long process. Since 1988, the CPUSA endorses the candidates of the bourgeois Democratic Party: Dukakis (1988), Clinton (1992, 1996), Gore (2000), Kerry (2004), Obama (2008, 2012). In an article published yesterday on 'People's World', the presidential nomination of Hillary Clinton is presented as "a major milestone in the fight for women's rights". Once again, CPUSA endorses a political representative of the U.S. monopoly capital and a war criminal. What a shame really for a party with such a long, significant history and close ties with the U.S labour movement.

Hillary Clinton, like Donald Trump, is a choice of the U.S. monopoly capital, of the country's bourgeois class, for the position of the President. Mrs.Clinton's service as Obama government's Foreign Secretary is known and has been proved disastrous: Libya, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Syria, Yemen. The people of these countries know, better than anyone, what Imperialism means and what was Clinton's contribution in war crimes. 

24 years since the Los Angeles Riots (Video & Photos)

On the afternoon of April 29, 1992, a jury in Ventura County acquitted four LAPD officers of beating Rodney G. King. The incident, caught on amateur videotape, had sparked national debate about police brutality and racial injustice. The verdict stunned Los Angeles, where angry crowds gathered on street corners across the city. The flash point was a single intersection in South L.A., but it was a scene eerily repeated in many parts of the city in the hours that followed.

A Warmonger: Bernie Sanders approves US 'Kill List', backs troops in Syria

In a previous article we had referred to Bernie Sander's pro-war stance- as a senator- in the cases of Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Now, we read that the Democratic Presidential nominee defends Barack Obama's plans for the deployment of more troops in Syria. What does Sanders cover behind his supposedly radical-"leftist" rhetoric?

The U.S. senator said he thinks President Obama's extrajudicial drone assassination program is constitutional and legal.

Revolution or Reform? Bernie Sanders and American Socialism

Bernie Sanders- like Jeremy Corbyn in Britain- does not consist a threat to the capitalist system. Despite using "socialist" slogans and a radical rhetoric, he is a proponent of class concilication. As a candidate of the bourgeois Democratic Party, Sanders' case is used by the bourgeoisie in order to funnel working class' radicalism back to the capitalist system. Below, we publish an interesting article depicting the historic link between American Socialism and Sanders' contemporary progressive populism (IDC).

Revolution or Reform? Bernie Sanders and American Socialism.

By Graeme A. Pente.

Source: Erstwhile.

Bernie Sanders’s campaign for the Democratic Party nomination has produced an incredible amount of publicdiscussion. As his polling numbers have risen and after his surprising successes in the early primaries, one of the biggest concerns among Democrats is his electability in a general election, should he secure the nomination. Sanders’s self-identification as a “democratic socialist” has resulted in quite a lot of hand-wringing in the party, especially among its elite and its older supporters. They dismiss Sanders’s popularity among younger voters as the naivety of an electoral bloc too young to respect the fact that “socialism” is a bad word. Despite some convenient forgetting inspired by the exigencies and excesses of the Cold War, socialism in fact has a long pedigree in the United States. Its history in this country breaks roughly into two phases: communitarian and electoral.

Communist Party of India (Marxist): No Bases for US Armed Forces

Source: Solidnet.

The Modi government has taken the dangerous step of deepening military collaboration with the United States by agreeing to allow US armed forces to use base facilities in Indian naval and air force bases. 

The US Defence Secretary and the Indian Defence Minister have announced an in principle agreement has been reached for a Logistics Exchange  Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA). This is just another name for the Logistic Support Agreement (LSA) that the United States enters into with military allies like Philippines, South Korea and Japan. Unlike what the Defence Minister says, refueling, maintenance and repair facilities for American ships and airplanes will require the  stationing of US armed forces personnel on Indian soil on a regular basis. 

Solidarity Declaration with the Venezuelan People - Declaración de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Venezolano

Communist Party of Venezuela / Source: Solidnet.

The Communist, Revolutionary and Workers Parties of the world, express our strong support and firm solidarity to the VENEZUELAN PEOPLE, the Government of the Constitutional President Nicolas Maduro Moros, the Communist Party of Venezuela, and the Committee of International Solidarity (COSI), member of the Executive Committee of the World Peace Council (WPC), victims of an abominable and new interventionist escalation by the US imperialism which means the prelude to a declaration of war.

The "Executive Order" was renewed on March 3^rd, 2016 by the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, which extends and expands the possible actions of the major State aggressor on sovereignty and self-determination of peoples, against the political and social process in Venezuela, in which a "national emergency" against an alleged "unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and foreign policy of the US" is declared.

Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

April 4, 1968- American-African Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tenneessee. Honoring Dr.King, we present below a video from his famous- "I Have a Dream"- speech.

       

It's not just Trump; It's Imperialism, stupid!

Special to the In Defense of Communism.

The enemies of Donald Trump have used numerous words in order to describe the multi-millionaire republican presidential candidate: "Bully", "arrogant", "racist", "misogynist", "intolerant", "narcissist" etc. Maybe Trump is, indeed, all the above. But the major issue isn't Trump's character or the way he presents himself in the media. The primary issue- the one that the working class in the US should be aware of- is the following: How the 'Trump phenomenon' was born and what feeds it? 

On that point it would be useful to clarify that the so-called 'Donald Trump phenomenon', independently of the result in November's presidential election, is not an unprecedented or incomprehensible phenomenon in the world's major imperialist power. The rise of Trump reflects the interests of a significant part of US capital which, especially in times of inter-imperialist contradictions, choose to promote specific personalities for the political leadership.

Fidel Castro on Obama's visit to Cuba: "We don’t need the empire to give us anything"

Fidel Castro: Brother Obama.

March 28, 2016.

Source: Granma.

The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadores and masters, whose footprints remained in the circular land grants assigned to those searching for gold in the sands of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation, traces of which can be noted from the air in many places around the country.

Tourism today, in large part, consists of viewing the delights of our landscapes and tasting exquisite delicacies from our seas, and is always shared with the private capital of large foreign corporations, whose earnings, if they don’t reach billions of dollars, are not worthy of any attention whatsoever.

Stop Lecturing Cuba and Lift the Blockade

Stop Lecturing Cuba and Lift the Blockade

By Marjorie Cohn.

Republished from mrzine.monthlyreview.org.

Surrounding President Barack Obama's historic visit to Cuba on March 20, there is speculation about whether he can pressure Cuba to improve its human rights.  But a comparison of Cuba's human rights record with that of the United States shows that the US should be taking lessons from Cuba.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains two different categories of human rights: civil and political rights on the one hand; and economic, social and cultural rights on the other.

Join Statement of Communist and Workers Parties

We, the communist and workers parties, that sign this text:

 We denounce the imperialist aggressiveness, the interventions and wars, the USA, NATO and the EU and their "allies", like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The criminal activity of these powers has caused millions of people to become refugees and immigrants.

All the bourgeois governments which have been participating all these years with armies, providing every kind of assistance and reproducing all the pretexts used to justify the unleashing of these imperialist interventions also bear serious responsibilities.

 We denounce the EU and the bourgeois governments that follow a line of police-military repression of the refugees, who are trying to escape war, destitution and the human trafficking networks.