Sam Webb and the CPUSA

I don't care to get into discussions about Sam Webb who heads what remains of the CPUSA.

Webb isn't a figure of any stature within any of the mass movements and all the Communist parties around the world have rejected his views as anti-Marxist.

Here is my view of Sam Webb who I personally know very well; feel free to share with my permission with anyone you want to--- publicly or privately.

Read what Sam Webb writes for yourself to determine what you think his political views are. In my opinion he is a neo-liberal Democrat--- at best; his views pretty much mirror (perhaps a little more to the right) those of Joseph Stiglitz who also makes the claim to being a socialist even though he only provides a left veneer for a very reactionary form of neo-liberalism.

All of Sam Webb's ideological chums--- Amy Dean, Robert Borosage, Dean Baker are associated with The Century Foundation whose job it is to keep us all trapped in the Democrats' "big tent" provided we don't oppose Wall Street's imperialist agenda of wars abroad paid for through austerity measures here at home.

In fact, Webb contributes nothing to ideology; his only use to the Democrats has been to provide one more level and layer of cover for Obama's dirty service to Wall Street along with sowing even more confusion and disorientation in the working class movement.

We invited Sam Webb to participate in the struggle to save the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant through public ownership. He was a no show.

I am ashamed to have ever been so closely associated with Sam Webb and I assume the feeling is mutual.

The Communist and socialist movements have had such traitors as Sam Webb in the past including Jay Lovestone who ended up doing the CIA's dirty work through the AFL-CIO's International Affairs Department and those traitors like Maurice Childs and Louis Budenz who joined the FBI as infiltrators of the CPUSA. I believe the FBI recruited Sam Webb to do its dirty work after they were forced to pull Maurice Childs out.

Workers in every country need a strong Communist Party; the United States is no exception. It will likely be considerable time before we can repair the damage Sam Webb has done on a national level.

On the local level many Communist Party Clubs are immersed in the class struggle in spite of being attacked by the Webb group who have hi-jacked the National Office for their destructive purposes making it more difficult, but not impossible, for our local clubs to function.

Alan L. Maki

What needs to be done to break free from this two-party trap?

I think the left has confused "a labor based" party with a labor "leadership" party so I use the term "working class" based people's party.

Working people need not wait for these labor "leaders" to initiate this struggle to break free from this two-party trap.

Left wing and progressive working class grassroots and rank-and-file activists must become the initiating leaders of the movement to break free from this two-party trap.

As with any attempt to improve the lives, livelihoods and standard of living of working people, it is the left which is going to have to be the catalyst initiating this new party which simultaneously is building a movement that reflects the idea that we need a labor movement acting responsibly in taking up the problems and needs of the entire working class--- insisting on a government responsible for full employment is the place to start both a political party and a movement.

If we look at the executive council of the AFL-CIO there are maybe four members who might join efforts once WELL underway to create a progressive working class based people's party similar to the socialist New Democratic Party in Canada:

http://www.aflcio.org/About/Leadership/Executive-Council-Members

There is a basis for the left to become a catalyst to launch a working class based people's party working around this:

"There is no way to fund what we must do as a nation without bringing our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The militarization of our foreign policy has proven to be a costly mistake. It is time to invest at home."

AFL-CIO Executive Council
August 3, 2011

And this:

"The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Bob Herbert, Columnist New York Times

We need to be very honest here--- there is no one left wing party in this country that could have led the organizing drives of the industrial unions; there was never any one left wing group which, on its own, could have led the civil rights or anti-Vietnam War movements; why would anyone think that there is any one left wing party or organization today that could lead the struggle to take on Wall Street?

If we pool our little resources and look at where we each have local and regional strengths we form a network capable of running slates of candidates while putting the most important issue on the national agenda:

Full employment based on peace putting people to work solving the problems working people are experiencing.

Maybe we should be thinking of convening some kind of national conference where we can meet face-to-face to kick this kind of thinking around to see if we can't reach some kind of "meeting of the minds?"

This article could be the basis and foundation of a new working class based people's party and a movement for peace, jobs and needed reforms:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/opinion/26herbert.html?_r=0

Quite frankly, I don't think there is a more revolutionary socialist initiative and activity we could undertake right now.

Yes; we all have our differences but lets agree not to set aside our differences but to air our differences in a very transparent way through roundtable discussions and debates as we let the working class see that we can work together when it really counts around issues and concerns that really matter.

Again, check out the blog on full employment I have created... it is open for any of you to comment:

http://fullemploymentnow.blogspot.com/

Angela Davis and her support for Obama.

There is lots of controversy that continues to swirl around Angela Davis' support for Barack Obama.

You know, I couldn't care less who Angela Davis supports for president; what really irks me is that some people think there are certain people's opinions that are taboo for discussion--- at least if there is anything critical being said. It just so happens that the same people who want to drown out a discussion on what Angela Davis has had to say about Obama are the very same people who tried to prevent a discussion about Obama and what he represents.

Why would anyone be anointed with some kind of status that no matter what they say there should be no discussion? This is perpetrating the worst kind of arrogance which can only stifle and block movement building.

I just posted this as a comment under a facebook post where this is being discussed, again:

Angela Davis' main concern is on the prison reform issue. What I don't understand is when she is out campaigning in support of Obama and defending Obama's "progressive proclivities" is why she never talks about Obama in relation to the prison reform issue. Does Obama have any "progressive proclivities" when it comes to prison reform or reforming the racist system of justice--- or more appropriately as we should label the entire system all across this country as one of "in-justice?"

The entire "judicial" system and "justice" system has been turned into nothing but a racket from the first phone call you are allowed to make once arrested that is likely to cost you $3.00 a minute to being charged "booking fees" and "room and board fees" from the time you are first arrested to enormous fees for using your credit card for bail--- and this is just the beginning of what has been transformed into one big profit-gouging racket.

What has Obama and his Department of Justice done to bring an end to any of these injustices? Nothing.

Leonard Peltier remains behind bars when one of his first acts being elected should have been to let him out of prison.

Barack Obama has refused to enforce Affirmative Action pursuant to Federal Executive Order # 11246.

In fact, Barack Obama has been carrying out Wall Street's agenda which is thoroughly racist and reactionary.

Angela Davis in her last speech in Detroit just before the election supported Obama and chastised progressives for not building the movements required to do what is right by the people.

Obama does okay on his own doing right by Wall Street; how come he, with these "progressive proclivities," needs a push from the people to do what is right by the people?

But, even more to the point, who ever heard of building up the very politician you are going to end up having to fight for what is right and just?

Angela Davis talks about "movement building" yet where is her leadership in helping to build these movements.

Obama has not delivered on one single issue on the progressive agenda--- not one.

After the election Angela Davis delivered a speech in New York City heralding Obama's victory.

The problem is, her speech before the Left Labor Project, was promoted as "Where do we go from here?" and she never broached that topic except in a in the most superficial way without any specifics.

There was one banner behind her calling for jobs to be created by taxing the rich--- nothing on the banner about full employment or how Obama's wars are killing jobs just like they kill people.

I don't know how anyone calling themselves progressive or left can tolerate Obama because he has some kind of "progressive proclivities" and then castigate the rest of us for not being engaged in "movement building."

The fact is; if Angela Davis was engaged in the kind of movement building which won her freedom; she wouldn't even be invited to speak in front of these audiences organized by the Democrats and their coalition partners calling themselves "progressives for Obama."

If you don't believe me, just try to get the floor at any Democratic Party function from precinct caucus, to county or state conventions--- never mind trying to get a issue like single payer to the floor of a national Democratic Party convention.

Would Angela Davis ever be allowed the courtesy of speaking about prison reform before a national Democratic Party convention? No.

She wouldn't even be extended the courtesy of speaking before the Michigan or New York Democratic Party State Conventions. Yet Democrats in both New York and Detroit turned out people to hear her speak about supporting Barack Obama but she never asked the most important question of all:

What about the government's responsibility for full employment?

Why not? There is an issue a huge movement can be built around.

Just try asking Barack Obama to re-submit the Full Employment Act of 1945 which Democrats defeated to Congress.

After all, isn't everyone having a job paying a real living wage the real key to "prison reform?"

Just think; if we built a grassroots movement making the government shoulder its responsibility for full employment like the movement which freed Angela Davis we would be building the kind of heat required to make Obama and all these other politicians accountable to the people.

i listened to both of Angela Davis' speeches pre-election (Detroit) and post-election (New York); she never so much as asked people to sign a petition to Obama reflecting the progressive agenda opposed to these dirty Wall Street imperialist wars which kill jobs just like they kill people thus subjecting people to the kind of racist and criminal poverty which is a breeding ground for crime.

The controversy surrounding my being "expunged" from the National Steering Committee of the Justice Party.

• Who were the three "left wing" cowards who joined with the right wing reactionaries to "expunge" me from the Justice Party's National Steering Committee in the name of becoming a party "beyond progressive" open to John Birchers and Social Credit in the name of "populism?"
  
  There were three left wingers who joined the right wingers:
  
  Lenny Brody from Chicago.
  Dave Jette from the State of Washington
  Luis Rodriguez from California

  
  Some people are attempting to organize "the progressive tendency in the Justice Party;" I seriously doubt they can be successful unless they can get rid of these right wingers Rocky Anderson was so sneaky about bringing in.
  
  Of course, the Justice Party doesn't need Rocky Anderson and his "star power;" we could have run Charlie Brown and Lucy carrying signs for peace, against racism and for full employment and received more votes than Rocky ever could.
  
  As progressives we are looking for votes along with building a progressive movement so why would we want to bring into a party a bunch of right-wing racist and anti-Semitic reactionaries who are also anti-labor?
  
  I don't believe how some people, including even some very confused leftists, argue this is a matter of "freedom of speech and belief" that these John Birchers and Social Credit be allowed into a party that is supposed to be "progressive."
  
  Political parties are built by people who share common ideas, goals and objectives--- this has nothing to do with "freedom of speech and belief;" these bigots have the right to organize their own political party centered around their racist and anti-working class views, goals and objectives.
  
  There is a very sharp battle of ideas underway in our country and around the world. Political parties reflect this battle.
  The initial calls to "expunge" me for my declared left wing views by the Georgia and Texas Justice parties was joined by Rocky Anderson.
  
  So, on the one hand these people are hypocritically insisting they have a right to take over a small "progressive party" turning it into some kind of perverted "populist party" claiming this is the only way to get votes because a declared "progressive party" limits the number of votes while out of the other side of their mouths they talk about "expunging" those they disagree with.
  
  Have these people forgotten who the backers of Joe McCarthy were, and remain?
  
  The John Birch Society has been the base for the continuation of McCarthyism.
  
  I called for each and every member of the National Steering Committee to submit something in writing concerning the government being responsible for full employment as a way to assure accountability to progressive views.
  
  How do you build a "progressive party" when those working with you are actually against what progressivism stands for?
  
  And wow! Did these people, including Rocky Anderson, go into a tizzy. But, what better way to maintain accountability than to have something in writing--- especially when you see these people posting articles from John Birch Society publications and stating they are supporters of Social Credit and then when challenged they claim the magazine "The New American" is the voice of "real progressives."
  
  I have never come across such sleazy bastards.
  
  These "left wingers" who defend this as "freedom of speech and beliefs" definitely have no place in leadership in any progressive national organization or political party which makes me wonder why the organizations which they belong to pay so little attention to what these people are doing?

   I would also point out that fascist movements have only always made headway and come to power by wrapping themselves in the pretense of progressivism and leftism because if they peddle their racist and reactionary ideas straight up very few people will buy into their hateful message. Although there are exceptions--- here in North America, Social Credit came to power in the Province of Alberta in Canada and plunged that province into darkness for around three decades until courageous labor leaders like Dave Werlin, who was President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, took these dirty bastards on.
  
  Canada's very racist and anti-labor Prime Minister, Steven Harper who hails from Alberta, is the embodiment of what these Social Credit movements create.

  
  

Is capitalism working?

[Please note: I added the links to the original leaflet in order to make this a study guide for workers and a guide for promoting cross-border understanding between workers and joint working class action & solidarity. I hope you find this information useful. Feel free to copy, use and distribute... yours in struggle and solidarity, Alan L. Maki]

Our northern working class friends across the border say:

Capitalism is Not Working

As delegates to the British Columbia Federation of Labour convention you will be aware that there is a continuing economic crisis in the developed capitalist countries.  This is a crisis brought on by the greed of the 1%. The origins of this greed are not abstract; they are rooted inextricably in the capitalist system.

Since the 1970s capital was faced with falling rates of profit from manufacturing, so capital sought out new and higher sources of profit.  In general terms, this meant a shift of capital from the manufacturing to the financial sectors of the economy.

A second attempt to spur profits was to close plants in the U.S. etc and to open branch plants of new plants in the Maquiladora zone or in the “free economic” zones in China, Vietnam or wherever labour was cheap.  This had the desired effect on profits but contributed to unemployment at home.  Unemployment meant competition for jobs and a harder negotiating climate for unions and eventually declining real wages.

The right wing pundits called for tax reductions in order to stimulate spending to boost their economies.  Significant tax reductions were carried out for both the wealthy and for corporations.  Working people got small cuts,but user fees seem to have absorbed these.  The long term effect of tax reductions is that national governments had deficits and reduced transfer payments (education, health) to regions, provinces, and states.  The regional governments having also reduced taxes then found themselves in deficit positions and passed on many expenses to cities and municipalities who pass them on to us.  In the end the infrastructure suffers because there are limits to property taxes that people will accept.

In Europe the solution to the crisis has varied but it always seems that it is the working class that suffers.  In Greece, bond-holders lost a significant portion of the “value” held but the government also had to reduce wages for the public sector and had to lay off many workers in order to get the financial relief needed to keep the country going.  In Spain as in the U.S., there have been large transfers of money to the banks so that they do not default.  This money does not seem to be stimulating either economy - just the banks’ profits and their managers’ bonuses.  The situations in Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Cyprus seem to be facing the same problems.  However, there always seems to be enough money for the military - F35's, warships, but not for First Nations housing. Of course there is also corporate welfare; “And in Canada, between 1994 and 2007, governments spent $202 billion on all types of subsidies to multiple corporations in all sort of industries.” (Vancouver Sun 2012/09/26) but not for marine safety. 

Working Class Reaction?

In Europe there have been continuing massive demonstrations against these cut backs.  The reaction to these demonstrations has primarily been police and tear gas. Yet in many cases these governments are led by, or have large components of, social democrats (and in some cases socialists) who are going along with the European Union’s and European Central Bank’s insistence that major reforms be carried out in order to protect the integrity of the European Union itself. Their goal is only to improve and moderate capitalism and not to replace it with a better economic model. They fail to recognize that the interests of the bosses are opposed to those of workers and that capitalism can not be reformed to serve working peoples interests.

In the Arab countries we have seen what has been termed the “Arab Spring”, a democracy movement which was spurred by the neoliberal austerity measures of governments. In some cases these movements even had success in overturning reactionary governments.

But here in Canada the labour movement has reacted to austerity assault launched at the behest of the 1% by the Harper government largely like a deer in the headlights. The Quebec student movement have demonstrated the type of organizing and action that is required across the country if we are to defeat the neoliberal austerity agenda. The Occupy movement, and other movements, demonstrate that there is an appetite for change. The labour movement has a key role to play in making that change possible.

The NDP

            The NDP appears poised to take office here in BC in 2013. Given the level of support provided to the NDP by the labour movement, not to mention its historical origins, the issues of this Convention should be its top priority.

Yet we are concerned that important issues such as Labour Code reform i.e. card check, sectoral bargaining, and successorship rights for workers whose jobs are contracted out may be avoided as controversial during the election campaign, and rejected as inexpedient after the formation of the new government. The labour movement must be prepared to fight tooth and nail for the interests of working people, regardless of what government is in power.                            

 What’s to be done?

At this convention delegates should bring pressure on the incoming leadership to develop labour’s independent programme - independent of all political parties. Such a programme could include the previous issues as well as the use of BC resources for BC jobs, and end to private public partnerships, stopping and reversing privatization, and more.

Included in such a programme is the need to pressure any and all political parties to enact such legislation as soon as possible - not when politically expedient.  This programme can not be limited to mere lobbying. Action is needed, from teach-ins to sit-ins, rallies, marches, pickets, and strikes.

We also need to ensure that the labour movement is a movement that represents, and fights for, the working class – not just those with union cards. It must be activist oriented, and rooted in solidarity and struggle, not business unionism.

Ultimately we also need to discard the mistaken belief that the interest of workers and bosses can be reconciled, and that the labour movement has a role in helping to better manage capitalism as if it is a system with the potential to serve workers interests.

What we need is the Socialism as defined by Marx and Engels in the 1800s; a society in which the value produced by labour is used by society rather than expropriated by corporations and sold for profit.  This of course means the public ownership of banks, major resources, and producers, and placing political and economic power in the hands of working people.

Labour Bureau, Communist Party of British Columbia

November 2012   

This leaflet is posted on my blog. 

Capitalism isn't working in Canada and it sure as heck isn't working here.

How much does imperialism cost us?

The price we pay for Wall Street's imperialism...


There Will Be No Peace Dividend After Afghanistan

Financial Times
January 24, 2013
 Pg. 11
There Will Be No Peace Dividend After Afghanistan

By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes

Nearly 12 years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan began, a war-weary America is getting ready to leave. But there will be little in the way of a peace dividend for the US economy once the fighting stops.

The direct costs of the war are already $700bn. The original mission was to root out al-Qaeda and the Taliban. But in 2003, the US shifted nearly all of its attention and resources to Iraq. The Taliban regrouped and strengthened in Afghanistan, making the conflict far more expensive. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda shifted operations into Pakistan, Yemen and Mali, where France this month sent troops.

US forces have struggled in Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain, where getting supplies and munitions has been a complex logistical exercise. Then came the ill-fated “surge” strategy, which put 30,000 more US troops on the ground with little if any military gain. There were 3,000 attacks on US and allied forces in 2012 – a figure little changed from 2009, when President Barack Obama’s administration decided on the change in strategy.

The surge itself was expensive. But the way we conducted the war unnecessarily increased its costs. For instance, the closure of the land route through Pakistan for eight months in reprisal for a US drone attack in November 2011 that inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers added billions to the transport bill. Another $90bn has been devoted to “reconstruction” aid in Afghanistan – the largest amount spent by the US since the Marshall plan, with little to show for it. Endemic corruption among local contractors and officials has drained money from the budget.

Much of this red ink will dry up once Nato troops withdraw. But the true cost of the war is only just beginning. Indeed, the costs after withdrawal may exceed those during the war. Choices made in the past decade mean high costs for years to come – and will constrain other national security spending.

In 2008, when we wrote The Three Trillion Dollar War, our book on the costs of the Iraq war, we predicted that costs of disability and healthcare benefits for recent war veterans would grow enormously. With nearly one in two returning troops suffering some form of disability – ranging from depression to multiple amputation – the reality far exceeds our estimates. The number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans receiving government medical care has grown to more than 800,000, and most have applied for permanent disability benefits. Yielding to political pressure, the White House and Congress have boosted veteran’s benefits, invested in additional staff and technology, expanded mental health treatments and made it easier to qualify for disability pay. But the number of claims keeps climbing. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs struggles to cope with its backlog.

The VA’s budget is likely to hit $140bn this year from $50bn in 2001. In previous wars, the bill for benefits came due decades later – the peak year for paying second world war benefits was 1969. Now, with much higher survival rates, more generous benefits, and new, expensive treatments, the eventual costs of caring for veterans of the Afghanistan war will exceed $1tn. To put these numbers into perspective, the debate surrounding the fiscal cliff has centred on expenditure cuts over 10 years of $1tn-$2tn.

There are other costly legacies. To recruit volunteers to fight in highly unpopular wars, the military adopted higher pay scales and enhanced healthcare benefits both for those serving and their families and for those who retired. Even though the Pentagon – watching its personnel costs soar – is asking Congress to roll back some of these benefits, they are politically untouchable. The result is that total personnel costs will soon reach one-third of the total defence budget. Spending on Tricare, the healthcare programme for the US military and their families, is likely to reach $56bn this year. Tricare is growing even faster than Medicare or Medicaid, and will soon consume 10 per cent of the defence budget.

Meanwhile, there is a huge price tag for replacing ordinary equipment that has been consumed during the wars – not least because of our policy of outsourcing maintenance to sometimes dodgy local contractors. There is also the US pledge to help prop up the Afghan police and army for the next decade – expected to run to $5bn-$8bn a year. The legacy of expensive commitments will force the Pentagon to make difficult choices – for example, reducing the size of the army and investing in more unmanned robotic weapons.

The US has already borrowed $2tn to finance the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – a major component of the $9tn debt accrued since 2001, along with those arising from the financial crisis and the tax cuts implemented by President George W. Bush. Today, as the country considers how to improve its balance sheet, it could have been hoped that the ending of the wars would provide a large peace dividend, such as the one resulting from the end of the cold war that helped us to invest more in butter and less in guns. Instead, the legacy of poor decision-making from the expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will live on in a continued drain on our economy – long after the last troop returns to American soil.

The writers are respectively a recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"Left neo-liberalism" is a perversion of the English language.

There is obviously an intent going on to pervert the meaning of words, ideas and ideology and to use language to confuse people in order to prevent movements from getting off the ground in opposition to Obama's thoroughly reactionary Wall Street agenda.

For instance; Obama's "progressive" supporters have concocted the term "left neo-liberal." I have never come across a more bastardized use of language. The term makes no sense at all. Neo-liberalism is reactionary as all hell; "left" is progressive. How can anyone be a "left neo-liberal?" Yet, this bastardization of language has gone unchallenged.
The official ideology of neo-liberalism is pragmatism as first developed by John Dewey as an alternative to Marxism.

Dewey's entire theory of pragmatism revolves around the idea that it is okay to overlook Wall Street's imperialist wars as long as some reforms are provided to the American people.

For over 100 years the labor leaders in this country who have supported the Democratic Party have been adherents of pragmatism.

These same labor "leaders" using this pragmatism to justify their silence in the face of Wall Street's dirty imperialist wars provide they were thrown a few crumbs were also complicit with Wall Street in helping drive the "Reds" from the labor movement after these "Reds" built the industrial unions into powerful organizations workers could use to stand up to capital.

It's like folk singer Utah Phillips used to say, "You ain't done nothing if you haven't been called a red."
Dewey and his pragmatism are often touted as "liberalism" when in fact such thinking, like pragmatism which supports neo-liberalism, is reactionary as hell.

In my opinion, one of the big problems for the left in dealing with Obama has been to refuse to deal with these concepts, ideas and ideology. To refuse to become involved in this battle of ideas.

The biggest phony of them all is New Leftist Carl Davidson who by his own admission claims to be an adherent of Marxism AND John Dewey's pragmatism.

And it is this bastardization of using Marxism as a "left" cover for Obama's reactionary agenda which has guided these "Progressives for Obama/Progressive America Rising."

Just look at all the outright contradictions you have here.

How can anyone be a "pragmatist" and a Marxist at the same time?

How can anyone be a "progressive" and support Obama with his Wall Street agenda?

Yet, here we have these founders of "Progressives for Obama"--- Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson and Barbara Ehrenreich all claiming to be adherents of either Marxism or socialism and at the same time claiming to be "pragmatists" as justification for supporting Obama.

This is nothing more than Obama being the reincarnation of Mussolini who claimed to base his fascist thinking, ideas and actions on socialism. Mussolini was the ultimate "pragmatist" until Obama came along.