Month: December, 2016
Musical Offering to the Alexandrov Ensemble and the People of Russia
| December 31, 2016 | 3:16 pm | Russia | Comments closed

Condolences to Russia over the recent tragedies
| December 30, 2016 | 6:40 pm | Houston Socialist Movement, Russia | Comments closed

By James Thompson

Today A. Shaw and James Thompson presented a dozen red roses and a letter expressing our condolences to the Russian Consul General in Houston. The letter was as follows:

“December 29, 2016

Alexander Zakharov

Consul General, Russia

1333 West Loop South, Ste. 1300

Houston, TX 77027

Dear Alexander Zakharov:

The Houston Communist Party, Houston Peace Council and Houston Socialist Movement want to express our deepest condolences. We are very sad to learn of the tragic recent events. The crash of the airliner in the Black Sea and the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey cause us much sorrow.

Many of us are admirers of the Red Army Choir/Alexandrov Ensemble.

We are also concerned about the tensions between our two great nations and want to express our opposition to further conflict. We are hopeful that the President-elect of the United States will maintain his campaign positions in support of peace with Russia. Any sensible person can easily recognize that a major war between Russia and the US would reduce us all to cockroach food. As Pete Seeger sang many years ago “We can all be cremated equally.”

We applaud Russia’s efforts to establish peace in Syria and hope the next President of the US will work with Russia in an honest atmosphere of cooperation and dialogue in order to neutralize the terrorists who have done so much damage.

Peaceful coexistence rather than delusional allegations should be our one and only goal.

Peace and solidarity,

Houston Communist Party

Houston Peace Council

Houston Socialist Movement”

The consulate staff who received the letter were very gracious and professional. They showed us a display they had organized on a small table. It had flowers and a picture of the assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov. Needless to say, it was quite moving.

As we were leaving, the consulate staff member, Dmitri, called for better relations between our two countries. We replied simply, “We need peace!” Hopefully, 2017, the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution which ended the Czarist monarchy and marked the beginning of a socialist government, will bring better relations between the U.S. and the Russian Federation.Victoryoverfascism1945-590x260worker-and-collective-farm-woman

Roofers Local 36 strong support for refugees
| December 30, 2016 | 3:45 pm | Immigrants' Rights, Labor | Comments closed

local_36_support_for_basque_human_rights_fighters

CPUSA member renounces CPUSA leadership
| December 29, 2016 | 7:50 pm | About the CPUSA, Party Voices | Comments closed

In response to the article we posted “Elena Mora resigns from the CPUSA,” we received this comment:

“Good riddance to liberals. There will always be differences in any party and that is healthy ,but when one ceases to be a Marxist then they belong in a different political party. The CPUSA has grown alot in the last year. Our club now numbers 113 members,some are union members,some work in election campaigns,some in the environmental field,some in anti racist,anti sexist,and some in anti imperialist work. We sponsor 2 meetups and 2 websites. We sponsor a Socialist reading group every 2 weeks and a progressive movie night once a month. We built this club by carrying on a struggle against both left sectarianism and right wing revisionism. Anyone is welcome to come to our club meetings or other activities and see for themselves.”

We don’t understand what it means. Bourgeois liberals are hard to read. Splitting is usually the underlying motive.

WFTU supports the Roofers Union
| December 28, 2016 | 9:53 pm | Labor, WFTU | Comments closed

The World Federation of Trade Unions representing more than 92 million affiliated workers, in every corner of the world expresses its solidarity to the Roofers trade Union and its Head Cliff Smith for his unfair prosecution and arrest.

We salute the militant stance of comrade Cliff Smith who is struggling for the benefits of the workers in their workplaces and their communities. We strongly condemn his arrest for his trade union activity. His prosecution is proving that the capitalists laws are made to guard their profitability and can turn against the militant workers when they’re fighting for their rights.

The WFTU calls all its affiliated organisations to show their solidarity to the WFTU cadre, Cliff Smith and demands from the USA court to drop all the unfair charges against his trade union activity.

The Secretariat

Bernie Sanders on the Life and Legacy of Late Cuban Revolutionary Fidel Castro
| December 19, 2016 | 6:17 pm | Analysis, Bernie Sanders, Cuba, Democracy Now, Donald Trump, Fidel Castro, political struggle | Comments closed

Social Democrats fight right wing insanity with insanity
| December 18, 2016 | 9:43 pm | Analysis, class struggle, Donald Trump, political struggle, Russia | Comments closed

by James Thompson

It was a chilling moment when I woke up to a surreal New World in which Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States (POTUS) the night before.

Just like one of the disjointed scenes from the 1971 Monty Python movie “And Now for Something Completely Different”, the present absurd reality shocks us out of the previous absurd reality. The previous buffoon has been jettisoned and a new buffoon takes the stage.

Now we are confronted with a new POTUS that some on the left characterize as a right-wing, authoritarian populist. It is too early to tell whether he is a true fascist since he has never held public office before. There can be no question that many of the kooks and clowns he has appointed to his new administration are open fascists. However, “one swallow does not make a summer.” The world will soon find out if the US people have elected a true fascist to head their government.

Meanwhile, the vanquished social Democrats in the United States refuse to be excluded from the buffoonery. The buffoon-elect is no stranger to bad ideas and bad policy. He has a terrible history of vicious public attacks on people with disabilities, women, racial minorities, immigrants, i.e. you name it, and he has attacked it. He advocates dismantling government programs and replacing them with privatization schemes which only benefit the wealthy. He has put his foot in the middle of almost all important domestic economic issues.

Do the so-called “progressive” forces in the United States call out the new buffoon in the White House on these issues? When you listen to the mainstream media, do you hear about the new POTUS’ absurd stance on these issues?

No, all you hear about are the unfiltered delusions of the progressive left about the Russians hacking poor, innocent little Hillary and causing her Majesty to lose an election that was hers to lose. All you hear about is the Russian state propaganda machine which has poisoned the minds of innocent Americans and turned them into agents of Putin.

Never before has one man had such pervasive control over the minds of Americans. Putin has been turned into a modern day Rasputin, Hitler and Darth Vader all combined into an evil individual who threatens the very survival of the American way of life. Indeed, Putin and Trump are accused of threatening “American democracy.”

Trump, in spite of his repugnant racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, etc., has resisted the demonization of the Russians and has argued against the social Democrats’ rush to war with the Russians. In this regard, Trump has assumed the role of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike.

Trump seems to get it that war with Russia would be the end of capitalism, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in short order.

This position infuriates the most reactionary sector of the US bourgeoisie.

So, what do the social Democrats do? In an opportunistic orgy they attempt to savage Trump in an effort to please the most reactionary sector of the US bourgeoisie. By attacking Trump’s peaceful tendencies towards Russia, they prove without a doubt that the social Democrats in the United States view their alliance with the most reactionary sector of the US bourgeoisie to be more important than their alliance with the US working class.

A war with Russia would definitely benefit the US bourgeoisie but would be devastating and catastrophic for the US working class.

The US social Democrats continue unashamedly with their historical motto “Profits before People.”

No one knows whether they will be successful in pushing the new buffoon-elect into starting a new war.

They must believe that great treasure awaits them if they please their evil Masters.

Meanwhile, the US working class is stuck in a swamp full of alligators.

Will the US working class continue to cleave to the social Democrats? The next four years should tell the story.