Barack Obama and the Communist Party
Barack Obama's involvement with the
Communist Party USA
Communist leader on "friend" Barack Obama
On November 15, 2008,
Sam Webb, National Chair of the
Communist Party USA delivered an address to the
Communist Party USA National Committee. During his address, he noted the following concerning the party's relationship with Obama,
- "The left can and should advance its own views and disagree
with the Obama administration without being disagreeable. Its tone
should be respectful. We are speaking to a friend."
Marable on Obama and Chicago communists
The late marxist academic
Manning Marable claimed that
Barack Obama has read some of his books and "
understands what socialism is."
Marable, writing in the December 2008 issue of British Trotskyist
journal Socialist Review, also claimed that Obama worked in Chicago
with socialists with
backgrounds in the Communist Party.[1]
- What makes Obama different is that he has also been a
community organiser. He has read left literature, including my works,
and he understands what socialism is. A lot of the people working with
him are, indeed, socialists with backgrounds in the Communist Party or
as independent Marxists. There are a lot of people like that in Chicago
who have worked with him for years...
Frank Marshall Davis
Barack Obama's first known connection with a
Communist Party USA supporter was his boyhood relationship with communist poet
Frank Marshall Davis in Hawaii.
Barack Obama's relationship to
Frank Marshall Davis, first came to light through a March 2007 speech
[2] at New York University's Tamiment Library by
Communist Party USA supporter and historian
Gerald Horne.
Commenting on the alleged leftist sympathies of Hawaiians, Horne said;
- When these sources are explored, I think scholars of the
future will be struck by, for example, the response in Honolulu when
tens of thousands of workers went on strike when labor and CP leaders
were convicted of Smith Act violations in 1953 – a response totally
unlike the response on the mainland. Of course 98% of these workers were
of Asian-Pacific ancestry, which suggests that scholars have also been
derelict in analyzing why these workers were less anti-communist than
their Euro-American counterparts.
- In any case, deploring these convictions in Hawaii was an
African-American poet and journalist by the name of Frank Marshall
Davis, who was certainly in the orbit of the CP – if not a member – and
who was born in Kansas and spent a good deal of his adult life in
Chicago, before decamping to Honolulu in 1948 at the suggestion of his
good friend Paul Robeson.
- Eventually, he befriended another family – a Euro-American
family – that had migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman
from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya
East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the
steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago.
- In his best selling memoir ‘Dreams of my Father’, the author
speaks warmly of an older black poet, he identifies simply as "Frank" as
being a decisive influence in helping him to find his present identity
as an African-American, a people who have been the least anticommunist
and the most left-leaning of any constituency in this nation
Frank Marshall Davis' communism
Information from Davis' 601 page FBI file reveals that Davis (born 1905) became interested in the
Communist Party USA as far back as 1931.
Certainly from the mid/late '30s to the early '40s Davis was involved in several Communist Party fronts including the the
National Negro Congress, the
League of American Writers, the
National Federation for Constitutional Liberties and the
Civil Rights Congress.
The FBI first began tracking Davis in 1944 when they identified him as member of the Communist Party's
Dorie Miller Club in Chicago-card number 47544.
Davis taught courses at the party controlled
Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago and attended meetings of the party's Cultural Club until he left for Hawaii in 1948.
Hawaiian activism
Frank Marshall Davis' move to Hawaii was influenced by two secret
Communist Party USA members
Harry Bridges and
Paul Robeson.
When contemplating moving to Hawaii, Davis "
wrote to Harry
Bridges, whom I had met at Lincoln School. Bridges suggested I get in
touch with Koji Ariyoshi, editor of the Honolulu Record..."
The
Lincoln School was run by the
Communist Party USA.
Koji Ariyoshi was a leader of the Hawaiian Communist Party which controlled the
ILWU affiliated
Honolulu Record- which Davis went to work for.
Before going underground in 1950, the Hawaiian Communist Party
was one of the most dynamic in the U.S. at the time. The mainland put
huge resources into the Hawaiian party because the Soviets wanted the
U.S. military presence on the islands shut down. The Hawaiian communists
were charged with agitating against the U.S. military bases at every
opportunity. Several times the FBI observed Davis photographing obscure
Hawaiian beaches-possibly for espionage purposes.
Through its control of the
International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) the Hawaiian
Communist Party USA had considerable influence on the local
Democratic Party. In the mid '50s, while still a confirmed communist, Davis like many of his comrades, became an official in the local
Democratic Party.
At the time the underground Communist Party was divided into two
or three person independent cells. Davis led one such cell "Group 10"
with his wife
Helen Canwell and one other comrade.
An extensive Senate Security Investigation in 1956 shattered the Hawaiian Party, driving the remnants completely underground .
The FBI continued to monitor Davis into the 1960s and he was
marked down for immediate arrest should war break out between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union.
Still a communist?
ACPFB letterhead April 12, 1973
Frank Marshall Davis
met Barack Obama in 1970 or 1971 when Obama was about 10 years old. The
relationship lasted until Obama left Hawaii for Occidental College in
Los Angeles in 1978.
As late as 1973,
Frank Marshall Davis was still listed as an endorser of a major
Communist Party USA front organization,
American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born.
Known
Communist Party USA members listed with
Frank Marshall Davis at right include
Richard Criley,
Abe Feinglass,
Hugh DeLacy,
Stanley Faulkner and
James Dombrowski.
Frank Marshall Davis and Obama
In an article by Toby Harnden published in the Telegraph on August 22, 2008, Communist
Frank Marshall Davis's influence on the young
Barack Obama was uncovered.
Maya Soetoro-Ng,
Barack Obama's half-sister, told the Associated Press that her grandfather had seen Davis as
"a point of connection, a bridge if you will, to the larger African-American experience for my brother (Barack Obama)".
Dawna Weatherly-Williams, a close friend of Frank Davis stated that Obama's maternal grandfather,
Stanley Dunham
and Davis were close friends, adding that they would spend evenings
together, playing scrabble, drinking, cracking jokes and smoking
marijuana. She said that Davis was first introduced to Obama in 1970 at
the age of 10:
- "Stan had been promising to bring Barry by because we all had
that in common - Frank’s kids were half-white, Stan’s grandson was
half-black and my son was half-black. We all had that in common and we
all really enjoyed it. We got a real kick out of reality."[3]
Chicago Communists first recorded interest in Obama
In an article entitled
Voter enthusiasm on rise in Chicago by
Judith M. Hochberg, published in the
Communist Party USA paper
People's Weekly World on August 22, 1992,
Barack Obama, then Illinois State Director of
Project VOTE! is quoted as saying:
- "The main point is that awareness of the importance of voting, the excitement of voting this year is getting out there".[4]
Addie Wyatt connection
According to the United States Department of Labor, Chicago activist Rev.
Addie Wyatt worked closely with Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. to support the
Montgomery Bus Boycott and later counseled a young community organizer named
Barack Obama as he came up the ranks in Chicago.
[5]
According to Chicago Attorney and broadcaster
Lonna Saunders The Rev. Addie Wyatt, was a mentor to President Barack Obama in his community organizing as a young man.
[6]
In a letter, read at her funeral in April 2004, from President
Barack Obama and first lady
Michelle Obama, Wyatt was called a “champion of equality and a fierce advocate for working Americans.”
[7]
Wyatt's home was used to carry out meetings with public figures such as Rev.
Jesse Jackson, President
Barack Obama, and US Rep.
Bobby Rush.
[8]
Addie Wyatt was a long time affiliate of the Chicago
Communist Party USA.
Vernon Jarrett and Barack Obama
Vernon Jarrett was a prominent Chicago journalist and was a family friend and later father-in-law of Obama adviser
Valerie Jarrett.
In the 1940s Jarrett worked in several communist influenced
organizations in Chicago, including serving on the publicity committee
of the communist controlled
Packing House Workers Strike Committee, with
Frank Marshall Davis.
He also ran a radio show with
Communist Party USA member
Oscar Brown, Jr.
Vernon Jarrett was also a fan of
Barack Obama. He watched his career from its early stages and became an influential supporter.
In 1992 Obama worked for the
ACORN offshoot,
Project Vote to register black voters in aid of the Senate Campaign of
Carol Moseley Braun-who had strong
Communist Party USA ties and was
Harold Washington's legislative floor leader.
Obama helped
Carol Moseley Braun
win her Senate seat, then took it over himself in 2004-backed by the
same communist/socialist alliance that had elected Washington and
Moseley Braun.
Commenting on the 1992 race,
Vernon Jarrett wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times of August 11th 1992;
- Good news! Good news! Project Vote, a collectivity of 10
church-based community organizations dedicated to black voter
registration, is off and running. Project Vote is increasing its rolls
at a 7,000-per-week clip...If Project Vote is to reach its goal of
registering 150,000 out of an estimated 400,000 unregistered blacks
statewide, "it must average 10,000 rather than 7,000 every week," says
Barack Obama, the program's executive director...
Dee Myles, a Chicago based chair of the Education Commission of the
Communist Party USA penned a tribute to
Vernon Jarrett, for the
People's Weekly World of June 5th, 2004.
Readers like me can be extremely selective of the journalists
we read habitually... We are selective about the journalists to whom we
become insatiably addicted, and once hooked we develop a constructive
love affair without the romance...
Such was my experience with Vernon Jarrett, an African
American journalist in Chicago who died at the age of 86 on May 23. I
became a Vernon Jarrett addict, and I am proud of it!
Vernon Jarrett’s career as a journalist in Chicago began and
ended at the Chicago Defender, the African American daily paper. In
between, he was the first Black journalist at the Chicago Tribune, and I
first began to read his articles during his tenure at the Chicago
Sun-Times.
Jarrett’s claim to fame is that he was a partisan of the cause
of African Americans in the broad democratic tradition of Paul Robeson
and W.E.B. DuBois...
Paul Robeson and
W.E.B. DuBois were both
Communist Party USA
members. On April 9th, 1998 at Chicago's South Shore Cultural Center,
Vernon Jarrett hosted a Paul Robeson Citywide Centennial Celebration
event, with his old comrade and Party sympathiser
Margaret Burroughs and former
Communist Party USA members
Studs Terkel and his old friend
Oscar Brown, Jr.
Dee Myles went on to say;
- Jarrett was fanatical about African Americans registering and
voting in mass for socially conscious candidates. He championed Harold
Washington like a great warrior, and this March, from his hospital bed,
wrote an article appealing to Black Chicago to turn out to vote for
Barack Obama in the Illinois primaries. Obama astounded everyone with an
incredible landslide victory as the progressive, Black candidate for
the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.
From his sickbed, Vernon Jarrett issued a clarion call, and the people
responded.
Communist Party support in Obama's 2004 Senate race
The
Communist Party USA was supportive of several candidates in the 2004 election cycle including
Frank Barbaro,
Cynthia McKinney,
Barack Obama,
Betty Castor,
Nancy Farmer and
Inez Tenenbaum[9];
- It would be helpful for each district to single out House
seats that can be swung from Republican to Democrat to develop our list
of key races, which includes progressive Frank Barbaro in New York and
Cynthia McKinney in Georgia.
- A number of exciting candidates are emerging in the Senate,
in the first place Barak Obama in Illinois, and also several progressive
women including Betty Castor seeking to retain retiring Bob Graham's
seat as Democrat; Nancy Farmer seeking to defeat Kit Bond in Missouri;
Inez Tenenbaum seeking to retain retiring Fritz Hollings seat as
Democrat.
The
Communist Party USA actively campaigned for Obama during his successful 2004 Illinois Senate race
[10].
- Activists from Illinois were immersed in the campaign to
elect Barak Obama to the U.S. Senate. Obama won a landslide victory in
the March 16 Democratic primary. If Obama wins in November, he would be
only the third African American senator since Reconstruction.
- “This was a historic victory. It was a victory for political
independence and grassroots, coalition, and issue oriented politics over
the machine and money,” said John Bachtell, Illinois CP district
organizer.
From a November 21 2004 report to the
Communist Party USA National Committee - "The Communist Party USA and the 2004 Elections: Build the Party, Build the Coalitions".
[11]
- MO: State Rep. During the campaign to elect a worker as State
Representative: A new club in St. Louis, with another in formation. A
new YCL club and another by the end of the year. A total of 19 new
members in the YCL and Party. An increase from 2 to 12 bundles of PWW/NM
a week. MI: A new club in Saginaw emerged from a national/district team
that helped on a local campaign which elected a township trustee. A new
club in the Upper Peninsula formed after a visit by Sam. New clubs in
Lansing and Ann Arbor will be formed by the end of the year. ILL: 27 new
members and an increase in PWW/NM bundles to 2500 a week. This in the
process of participating in the movement from Illinois to Wisconsin to
put that state over the top for Kerry, participating in the historic
election of Barak Obama to the US Senate, and the successful campaign of
Melissa Bean, defeating incumbent Republican Congressman Philip Crane.
In an October 23 2007 report to a Chicago Special District Meeting on African American Equality,
Communist Party USA National Board member
John Bachtell wrote:
[12]
- The historic election of {Harold} Washington was the
culmination of many years of struggle. It reflected a high degree of
unity of the African American community and the alliance with a section
of labor, the Latino community and progressive minded whites. This
legacy of political independence also endures...
- This was also reflected in the historic election of Barack
Obama. Our Party actively supported Obama during the primary election.
Once again Obama’s campaign reflected the electoral voting unity of the
African American community, but also the alliances built with several
key trade unions, and forces in the Latino and white communities.
- It also reflected a breakthrough among white voters. In the
primary, Obama won 35% of the white vote and 7 north side wards, in a
crowded field. During the general election he won every ward in the city
and all the collar counties. This appeal has continued in his
presidential run.
Young Communist League backing
According to a November 20 2004, election report
[13]
from
Young Communist League USA national coordinator
Jessica Marshall confirms Young Communist League USA support for Obama's campaign through
Youth for Obama.
- In New York YCLers were delegates and founders of the local
organizing committees of the National Hip Hop Political Convention. In
Providence, Miami and Chicago YCLers helped head up the League of Pissed
Off Voters efforts. YCLers staffed Democratic Party operations and
headed up precincts in Ohio and Florida. A YCLer from Virginia was a
canvas director for a progressive young candidate in a tight race in
Ohio. In Miami, the newly formed club helped ACT organizing efforts at
Miami Dade Community College.
- In Chicago YCL members were very active in the Youth for
Obama efforts and one member worked with the United States Student
Association and his student government to register over 1,000 new
voters.
From a 2006
Young Communist League USA report by
Jessica Marshall.
[14]
- Young people are up to the challenge. In 2004 youth-run
organizations helped to organize and register 4.6 million new young
people to get out and vote… the majority of them voted against Bush and
more than half were young people of color. The YCL was there and present
for those experiences - we learned alongside them through our Midwest
Project.
- The YCL has to be at the table this fall too. Every club and
every member needs to be out there and involved. And we need to bring
everyone we work with out too! This is a national campaign to change the
Congress and we are gonna be a part of that!
- We don’t have to be millions to have an impact! Just think
about what a small group of YCLers have done in less than four years
since our last convention!
- We organized dozens of young people to head to the battleground states in 2004
- In Ohio our YCLers were asked to lead up get out the vote teams because of our experience and hard work.
- In Cincinatti we helped defeat an anti-gay ballot initiative.
- In New York we worked on a campaign to elect Frank Barbaro defeat a Bush Republican and elect a real progressive
- In Chicago we helped to form a youth vote operation to elect Barak Obama.
- In St. Louis we were instrumental in electing John L. Bowman
a progressive state representative. Bowman publicly acknowledged the
key role the YCL and Communist Party played in his election.
Bea Lumpkin on Obama
Senior Chicago
Communist Party USA member
Bea Lumpkin, and her husband and comrade
Frank Lumpkin were longtime supporters and a fans of
Barack Obama.
As a friend, supporter and campaigner for pro communist Chicago mayor
Harold Washington, Lumpkin credits the Washington campaigns with blazing the way for
Barack Obama.
[15]
- Sadly, when Washington died in office, the Democratic Party
hacks crept back into power. The movement around Harold had not had time
to jell into an organization with staying power. Still, the lessons of
that campaign, with its spirit of African American, Latino and labor
unity, took deep root in Chicago. Those roots nourished the spectacular
rise of a new voice for people's unity, Barack Obama. Since then,
Obama's strong voice has brought the message of unity to every corner of
the country.
From her book "Joy in the Struggle", pages 244, to 248;
- I am sure that Frank and I met Obama in the '80s. That's when
he was working on pollution problems at the Altgeld Gardens public
housing. The site was close to the steel mills, and Frank was active on
similar pollution issues. We certainly knew the community people with
whom Obama was working. But I cannot say that we knew the Obama name
then. There were two reasons for that. Both Frank and I have a hard time
remembering names. More important, was Obama's style. He pushed the
community people forward and stayed out of the limelight himself. After
Obama became our state senator in 1996, we knew his name, and I am sure
he knew ours.
- We were also friends with Alice Palmer, a progressive state senator. When she ran for Congress, Barack Obama won the vacated state senatorial seat.
- During Obama's years in the Illinois Senate, we heard many
good things about him. I helped organize steel worker retirees to visit
Obama about health care legislation. He made us happy by telling us he
was a sponsor of the legislation we wanted. And we liked his stand
against a U.S. invasion of Iraq. He told us he was thinking of running
for the US Senate.
- Electing Obama to the U.S. Senate was a must-win election for
us... The hardest part of the senatorial campaign was winning the
Democratic primary...
- About that time in the campaign, I heard Michelle Obama for
the first time. Barack Obama introduced her in a way that really
appealed to me. It showed not only his love for his wife but also his
respect for women. "I want to introduce my wife, Michelle. She is taller
than I am, smarter, and better looking." Michelle Obama then took the
podium and gave a good, progressive review of the issues we care about.
- The stakes were high. To win, each one of us had to do more
than we could. But Frank was 88 and I was 86. Sure, we were in good
shape "for our age." But how good was that? Well we found out. We worked
and we worked and worked. And we did a lot of worrying, too. The polls
kept teetering back and forth...As it was, he won the nomination in a
landslide, 29 percent higher than his nearest Democratic opponent.
- With Obama safely nominated, we relaxed just a little. We no
longer had to dream the impossible dream. But nobody knew how much
racism might cut into Obama's vote. It takes a huge supermajority in
Chicago to offset the Republican counties in southern Illinois. So once
more we needed to work on voter registration. But Frank and I could not
continue the pace of the primary election. We did not have to. Many new
activists came forward.
- That August, at the 2004 Democratic Convention, Obama gave
the speech that became his "trademark," the call for people to unite to
benefit the whole country. In November 2004, Obama was elected to the
U.S. Senate with 70 percent of the vote...
- As an 18-year old, I served as a poll watcher in 1936.1 was
not yet 21, not old enough to vote. In fact I served as poll watcher in
more local elections than I can remember. But it was not until 1948 that
I really threw myself into an election, heart and soul and body, too.
That was the Progressive Party campaign to elect Henry Wallace for
president. Fast forward to 1983 for Harold Washington, as described
above. And then we come to 2008, for Barack Obama. That was like nothing
I had ever seen. There had been a high level of enthusiasm when
Washington ran for mayor. But nothing equaled the Obama campaign for
president.
- I was ecstatic when Barack Obama put his name forward as a
candidate for the nomination for U.S. president. There were other good
candidates, with Kucinich the clearest progressive voice. But my hopes
went through the ceiling when Obama spoke. A progressive African
American for president? About time and more! With Obama, we could not
only reject "W's" years of right-wing destruction, we could move the
country forward. Then something I had never seen before happened. People
surged forward and took ownership of the campaign. The candidate
himself encouraged them to do that. He kept talking about "we" and "you"
and repeated "It's not about me." People took him at his word. They
believed him, and let their imaginations flow. Soon there was a
flowering of people's Obama art and music that flooded "You Tube," kept
artists busy and printing presses running. Tee-shirts by the millions
were silk screened or whatever method is now used.
- My favorite tee-shirt was the one that said, "We Are the Ones
We Were Waiting For." This was the feeling of empowerment that was
taking root in working class neighborhoods and communities of color. The
coffee shop in my neighborhood, the family restaurant two miles away,
friend after friend, were inviting me to forums, phone call parties,
debate watching, pizza feasts, most with a television hookup to the
national campaign. Strangers visited strangers, and all at once we were
not strangers anymore. We were sisters and brothers united in the
greatest cause of all—saving our people and our country from the Bush
disaster and to rebuild America.
- Soon after Obama opened a volunteer center in Chicago, I went
down to help. They were making phone calls into battleground states.
The large office was crowded. All the seats were taken. All the phones
were in use. And every inch of floor space was occupied by 16 to 25 year
olds, sprawled in various teenage positions. They had thought to bring
their chargers for their cell phones and were calling away. The young
people were a perfect cross-section of multiracial Chicago, a total
blend of purpose and dedication. My heart sang, and I had the rare
feeling that I was not needed. My replacements had arrived!
- By primary time 2008,1 was nearing my 90th birthday. Did I
have one more campaign left in my arthritic legs? "Yes," my heart told
me, and my legs kindly cooperated. Of course, I could have spared my
knees, sat in a chair, and made telephone calls for the campaign.
- When the votes were counted, Indiana came through for
Obama-Biden! It was close. The steel retirees felt that they had made a
difference, all of us. We are still celebrating our huge victory. Things
have never moved so fast. At this writing, it is only six weeks since
Obama took office. We are being swallowed up by the biggest economic
disaster since the '30s. And it is beginning to look as though nothing
smaller than a new New Deal can help us. How good it is that we have a
president who has made job creation a plank of his crisis program. Had
we not worked so hard and elected Obama, we'd be under a president who
would let the people drown.
- Meanwhile, Frank spent the campaign in the nursing home. I
talked to him about Obama every day. I knew he wanted to know. But I
could not tell if the news was getting through to him. The day after the
election, the first page of the New York Times carried Obama's picture
and his name in three-inch letters. I showed it to Frank. He looked at
it, hard. Then he drew his right arm out from under the covers, bent it
at the elbow, and raised his clenched fist high!
"Revolutionary mole" letter
Frank Chapman is a long time
Communist Party USA supporter. In the early 1980s he chaired a party front
National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. In the mid '80s he served on the board of another communist front, the
U.S. Peace Council, alongside two future Obama colleagues and supporters
Alice Palmer and
Barbara Lee.
Just after Obama won the pivotal Iowa primary Chapman wrote a letter to the January 12, 2008 edition of the CPUSA's
Peoples Weekly World;
[16]
- Now, beyond all the optimism I was capable of mustering, Mr.
Obama won Iowa! He won in a political arena 95 percent white. It was a
resounding defeat for the manipulations of the ultra-right and their
right-liberal fellow travelers. Also it was a hard lesson for liberals
who underestimated the political fury of the masses in these troubled
times.
- Obama’s victory was more than a progressive move; it was a
dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle. Marx
once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who
sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of
his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary “mole,” not
only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through.
- The old pattern of politics as usual has been broken. It may
not have happened as we expected it to happen but what matters is that
it happened. The message is clear: we can and must defeat the
ultra-right, by uniting the broadest possible coalition that will
represent an overwhelming majority of the people in a new political
dynamic. We must quickly shed yesterday’s political perspective and get
in step with the march of events.
Message of support to a Communist Party "front"
In March 2008, Barack Obama sent a message of support to the
Communist Party USA controlled
Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday
organization.
April 1, 2008 Washington DC--
Evelina Alarcon,
Executive Director of Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday welcomed the
backing for a Cesar Chavez national holiday from Presidential candidate
Senator
Barack Obama who issued a statement on
Cesar Chavez’s
birthday Monday, March 31, 2008.
“We at Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday appreciate the backing of a
national holiday for Cesar Chavez from presidential candidate Senator
Barack Obama. That support is crucial because it takes the signature of a
President to establish the holiday along with the Congress’s approval,
” stated Evelina Alarcon. “It
is also encouraging that Senator Hillary Clinton who is a great admirer
of Cesar Chavez acknowledged him on his birthday. We hope that she too
will soon state her support for a Cesar Chavez national holiday.”
Alarcon’s remarks were part of a statement made at a press
conference at our nation’s Capitol on April 1st called by Chair of the
Hispanic Congressional Caucus Rep.
Joe Baca
(D-CA) in support of HR 76, a resolution he authored with 62
Co-Sponsors that encourages the establishment of a Cesar Chavez national
holiday by the Congress
[17].
Barack Obama’s statement for a Cesar Chavez national holiday:
- "Chavez left a legacy as an educator, environmentalist, and a
civil rights leader. And his cause lives on. As farmworkers and
laborers across America continue to struggle for fair treatment and fair
wages, we find strength in what Cesar Chavez accomplished so many years
ago. And we should honor him for what he's taught us about making
America a stronger, more just, and more prosperous nation. That's why I
support the call to make Cesar Chavez's birthday a national holiday.
It's time to recognize the contributions of this American icon to the
ongoing efforts to perfect our union."
- Senator Barack Obama March 31, 2008.
Obama's sister given communist "front" award
standing Evelina Alarcon left, Maya Soetoro-Ng, right
In June 2008,
Communist Party USA leader and Executive Director of
Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday,
Evelina Alarcon presented an award from the organization to
Barack Obama's younger sister
Maya Soetoro-Ng at a gathering in East Los Angeles
[18].
- Addressing a largely Latino audience in East Los Angeles
yesterday, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng shared stories about her childhood with
her older brother, Barack Obama, and the effect he has had on her life.
Held in El Sereno’s Hecho en Mexico restaurant, the event drew more than
a hundred enthusiastic community activists, local elected officials,
and regular citizens...
- Evelina Alarcon, a notable Obama supporter and the sister of
long-time Los Angeles politician Richard Alarcon, presented a poster to
Obama’s sister commemorating the life of Cesar Chavez.
- Alarcon recounted the accomplishments of the late Chicano
leader and argued persuasively for honoring his accomplishments with a
national holiday. Reminding those in attendance that Barack Obama
supports the call to make Cesar Chavez’s birthday a national holiday.
Alarcon trusts that if Obama is elected president the holiday will
become a reality.
- Obama has been quoted recently to say:“As farmworkers and
laborers across America continue to struggle for fair treatment and fair
wages, we find strength in what Cesar Chavez accomplished so many years
ago and we should honor him for what he’s taught us about making
America a stronger, more just, and more prosperous nation. That’s why I
support the call to make Cesar Chavez’s birthday a national holiday.
It’s time to recognize the contributions of this American icon to the
ongoing efforts to perfect our union.”
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
From May 22-25, 2008, the
Communist Party USA founded
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists held their 37th International Convention in St. Louis, Missouri.
William Lucy, President, CBTU - Introduced Senator Barack Obama, who addressed the conference via phone.
[19]
Communist support in '08
The
Communist Party USA and the
Young Communist League USA, put in a huge effort to elect
Barack Obama in 2008.
Individual party members who actively propagandized for Obama, or worked on the ground to get him elected include;
Communists alter history to protect Obama
Screenshot of article as it appeared as at Dec. 30, 2007
Screenshot of the article as it appeared as at Nov. 10, 2010
To the left is a screen shot an article entitled
"Special District Meeting on African American Equality",
taken as it appeared on the Communist Party USA website as at December
30, 2007. Note the reference to Communist Party support for Obama in the
2004 U.S. Senate primaries.
[20]
To the right is a screen shot of the same article taken on Nov. 10, 2010. Note that the statement,
"Our Party actively supported Obama during the primary election" has been edited out.
[21]
CPUSA Extols Obama 2012 Victory at Int'l Communist Meeting
A report praising Barack Obama, and the changes wrought by him, was
delivered at the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers
Parties, held in Beirut, Lebanon, November 22-25, by
Erwin Marquit, member of the International Department, CPUSA.
[22]
- We express our gratitude to the Lebanese Communist Party for
hosting this important meeting under the present difficult conditions.
- The Communist Party USA not only welcomes the reelection of
President Barack Obama, but actively engaged in the electoral campaign
for his reelection and for the election of many Democratic Party
congressional candidates. We regarded the 2012 election as the most
important in the United States since 1932, an election held in the midst
of the Great Depression.
- The election of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 led to
the legalization of the right of workers to organize labor unions and to
bargain collectively with employers. It led to the establishment of a
compulsory employer-worker funded pension system for retired workers. It
also introduced measures that enabled unemployed families to survive
the Great Depression, among which were employment in the public sector
for the unemployed, work camps for youth, and food provisions for the
poverty stricken. Except for the youth camps, which ended with the onset
of World War II, all of these are measures that the 2012 Republican
Party agenda would have eliminated or greatly weakened. We believed that
if the Republican candidate for President were elected and if both
houses of the Congress fell under the control of the far right, racist
sector (calling itself the “Tea Party”) that now dominates the
Republican Party, the nation’s return to pre-1932 conditions would be a
real danger.
- Because of this danger, we viewed our participation in
mainstream electoral activity as obligatory, even though both major
parties in the United States are dominated by capital, with no effective
competition from a mass-scale social-democratic party, We are aware
that some on the Left in the United States thought that the correct
approach to the elections was either to boycott them, or as a protest,
to run or support small-scale left-wing candidacies with no possible
chance of winning. We Communists rejected this strategy because too much
was at stake.
- The most import success of the Obama Administration since its
election in 2008 was the introduction of a major expansion of the
people’s access to financing of their health care. As a result of this
legislation, 25 million people now have access to health care who
previously did not have it. The repeal of this health care law was one
of the main points in the programs of the Republican Party presidential
and Congressional candidates in the 2012 election. Even without a
repeal, there is still the danger that it will be ruled unconstitutional
by the present Supreme Court even though the lower courts have upheld
it. Whatever the present Supreme Court might not rule, a Supreme Court
loaded with right-wing justices appointed by a Republican president
would still be able to do so.
- Obama has opposed Republican attempts to introduce austerity
programs similar to those in the European Union. The Republicans have
opposed his efforts to use government funds as economic stimuli to
reduce unemployment, as well as his attempts to remove the special
provisions of the income tax code that have allowed the rich to be taxed
at a lower percentage of income than the average working person, and to
eliminate of tax benefits that the corporations get when exporting of
jobs abroad. The Occupy movement, with its slogan, “We are the 99 %,”
that swept through the country in 2011, sharply drew attention to the
power of the top 1%” of the population and stimulated support for
Obama’s efforts to require higher taxes for the wealthy. The Republicans
have blocked all proposals to reduce global warming, environment
destruction, industrial pollution, and other actions arising from
corporate greed that that threaten to destroy the biophysical basis of
human existence. Republicans even want to privatize the FEMA, the
federal agency for disaster mitigation.
- Another important issue is that of justice for immigrant
workers and their families. There are between 10 and 11 million
irregular immigrants in the United States, mostly from Mexico and other
Latin American countries. Our Party supports the regularization of their
status, with full rights in the workplace and in the community, and
access to U.S. citizenship. The Obama administration has moved too
slowly on this issue (and the CPUSA has been sharply critical of this),
but it is now taking some modest but real steps. The Republicans, on the
other hand, have whipped up a racist frenzy against immigrants that has
led to vigilante action and in some cases the murder of immigrant
workers. Romney had promised to make life so hard for undocumented
immigrants that they would all “self” deport.
- Faced with a choice between the victory of either the
Democratic Party or Republican Party, the Communist Party viewed a
victory of the far-right Republican Party as an extreme disaster. In
this situation, we saw the necessity of a policy of center-left
alliances in order not to separate ourselves from the people’s struggles
for dealing with the far right onslaught, The basis of such an alliance
now includes the labor movement, organizations of African Americans and
Latinos, the women’s movement, gay and lesbian civil rights groups, and
organizations of the elderly and retirees. On some issues, these groups
are joined by a few far-sighted elements of capital.
- What do we mean by “far-sighted” elements of capital? As in
all capitalist countries, big capital is not a monolith of common
interest. Not only are elements of capital in competition with one
another, but differences in their investment policies give rise to
conflicting political interests. Corporations with investments in the
oil, coal, and natural gas industries tend to have the most right-wing
orientations. Corporations with heavy investments in China are somewhat
wary of China bashing by the Republicans and even by Obama. Some
corporations derive their superprofits by operations that do severe
environmental damage and contribute heavily to global warming, while
others depend on a relatively healthy environment for their maximum
profits. That is why some elements of big capital support the Republican
Party, while others support the Democratic Party because they can see a
limited common interest some issues with the working-class base of
support for the Democratic Party. Our present strategy is build
alliances both inside and outside the Democratic Party to curtail the
dominance of big capital over the lives of our people.
- We are well aware that mass political activity on issues of
social justice domestically and anti-imperialist solidarity
internationally will not spring from within the Democratic Party. The
Communist Party must continue to work with other components of this
alliance to generate mass activity independently of the two parties to
pressure the president and the Congress to act on its demands.
- In our electoral policy, we seek to cooperate and strengthen
our relationship with the more progressive elements in Democratic Party,
such as the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress, a group of
seventy-six members of the Congress co-chaired by Raúl Grijalva, a Latino from Arizona, and Keith Ellison,
an African American Muslim from Minnesota. We also will strengthen our
relationship to the Congressional Black Caucus (formed by African
Americans in the Congress), which has been the point of origin of
innovative policies including an end to the U.S. economic blockade of
Cuba, and with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In its domestic
policy, for example, the Progressive Caucus has put forth a program for
using the public sector to deal with unemployment. It has opposed the
use of the so called “war on terror” to incarcerate U.S. citizens
indefinitely without criminal charges. In its foreign policy, the
Progressive Caucus and the Black Caucus are outspoken in their
opposition to U.S. imperialist policies abroad. The Progressive Caucus,
now that Obama has been reelected, will be playing an important role in
contributing to the mobilization of mass activity on critical issues to
bring pressure on the Congress and administration to act on them.
- In this year’s elections, the labor unions made vigorous
efforts to involve their members and their retirees in phoning and
door-to-door visits to campaign for Obama and the Democratic Party
candidates for the Congress and state legislatures. In my state, our
Party members preferentially participated in the election campaign
through these labor-union channels.
- In our foreign policy, U.S. Communists consistently oppose
all U.S. imperialist activities abroad. We participate in the Cuban
solidarity movement and demand the end of the U.S. economic blockade
against Cuba and the freeing of the Cuban Five. We opposed the NATO
intervention in Libya and oppose U.S. intervention in Syria. We support
immediate withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan and oppose the use
of drones for assassination and bombing. We call for the end of
sanctions against Iran. We oppose the intrusion of the United States
militarily and politically in the affairs of Southeast Asia. We oppose
the China-bashing policies of the U.S. government. We welcome the
election of several progressive, anti-imperialist governments in Latin
America and oppose U.S. attempts to undermine them. This leftward shift
in Latin American, opening a path to possible socialist development, is
of tremendous importance in the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle.
- We call for the replacement of U.S. support of the apartheid
regime in Israel by support for a two-state solution based on the 1967
borders with the right of return of Palestinians to their native cities
and villages. The day before the elections, the New York Times, in
discussing the prospects of a Palestinian/Israel agreement, wrote:
“Whatever chance exists of a new American peace initiative after the
election is likely to vanish if Mitt Romney wins; at private
fund-raising event, he said that the Arab-Israeli conflict was ‘going to
remain an unsolved problem’ and seemed unconcerned about it.”
- With the elections now over, there is a prospect that growing
support in the United States for a just Middle East solution can induce
President Obama once again to put pressure on the Israeli government to
end the settlement expansion and resume negotiations leading to such a
solution. An indication of such growing support is the letter on 19
October 2012 signed by fifteen leaders of the principal U.S. Christian
churches calling upon the Congress to reconsider giving aid to Israel
because of human rights violations. Reverend Gradye Parsons, the top
official of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) said, “We asked Congress to
treat Israel like it would any other country, to make sure our military
aid is going to a country espousing the values we would as
Americans—that it is not being used to continually violate the human
rights of other people.” The letter said that Israel had continued
expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem despite
American calls to stop claiming territory that under international law
and United States policy should belong to a future Palestinian state.
This is a sharp contrast to the evangelical Christian churches, which
have been part of the core of the far right support of the Republican
candidates for president and the Congress. A Jewish-American
organization called “J Street,” first organized six years ago as a
“pro-Israel pro-peace” organization, has been gaining growing support
among Jewish Americans for its advocacy of an end to the settlement
expansion and a two- state solution based on the 1967 borders. In the
2012 elections, it contributed 1.8 million dollars to support the
election of 72 candidates for the U.S. Congress, of which 71 were
elected,
- A key element of the Communist Party’s strategy of alliances
is to imbue the struggles of these alliances with enhancement of the
democratic rights, and to promote the increasing use of the public
sector to extend the acceptance of a socialist consciousness. Obviously
the Communist Party needs far more growth than it has been able to
achieve. We are, however, effectively using our participation in
people’s struggles and the Internet to recruit new members. We have an
online daily news publication, People’s World, www.peoplesworld.org, a
monthly online theoretical journal Political Affairs,
www.politicalaffairs.net, as well as national and district Websites. As a
result of our online activities, we have been forming Party clubs in
states in which we previously had very few or even no members. This
influx of new members led us to have a national Party school earlier
this year to acquaint new members with the Marxist-Leninist orientation
of the Party.
- The reelection of Obama places before us the high-priority
task of reversing the decline in labor-union membership by securing the
enactment of the law requiring the recognition of labor unions when
supported by the majority of workers of an enterprise and securing
passage of other legislation that benefits the working people. The fact
that the composition of the new Congress did not change ideologically
enough to facilitate passage of this law still presents us with a
difficult struggle. The fact that Republican Party still controls the
lower house of the Congress and has enough votes in the upper house to
block legislative changes of a highly progressive nature presents an
obstacle that we will have to combat until it can be changed in the 2014
elections. We still have the task of strengthening the center-left
alliance and enriching its anti-imperialist character.
- While the victory of Obama is a welcome aid for us in our
domestic struggles, we still face the challenge of mobilizing mass
pressure on his administration to reverse the imperialist character of
U.S. foreign policy. The CPUSA will pursue this formidable task
vigorously in alliance with domestic progressive forces and with our
comrades in the Communist and Workers’ Parties and their allies
throughout the world.
References
- ↑ http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10628
- ↑ http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5047/1/32/
- ↑ The Telegraph: Frank Marshall Davis, alleged Communist, was early influence on Barack Obama, August 22, 2008
- ↑ Peoples Weekly World: ''Voter enthusiasm on rise in Chicago by Judith M. Hochberg, August 22, 1992
- ↑ DOL Hall of Honor Inductee,Rev. Addie Hyatt
- ↑ HuffPost Chicago, Lonna Saunders, Remembering Rev. Addie Wyatt: Chicago's Little Engine Who Could, Posted: 04/ 4/2012 1:06 pm
- ↑ Chicago
Sun-Times, Hundreds gather to pay respects to the Rev. Addie Wyatt,BY
TINA SFONDELES Staff Reporter tsfondeles@suntimes.com April 7, 2012
- ↑ [http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Rev-Addie-Wyatt-Memorialized-146428745.html, NBC Chicago,
Rev. Addie Wyatt Memorialized, By Glenn Marshall, Saturday, Apr 7, 2012]
- ↑ http://www.cpusa.org/article/view/586/
- ↑ [1] Peoples Weekly World April 24 2004, The CPUSA fires up its members to ‘Dump Bush!’, Tim Wheeler
- ↑ The Communist Party USA and the 2004 Elections: Build the Party, Build the Coalitions, CPUSA website, November 24 2004
- ↑ CPUSA: Special District Meeting on African American Equality, Oct. 23, 2007, page archived on the WayBack Machine - originally found here: Special District Meeting on African American Equality, Oct. 23, 2007, scrubbed by Feb. 29, 2008 (accessed on Nov. 1, 2010)
- ↑ http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/608/1/56/
- ↑ of Tomorrow: Youth Demand a Better Future- Keynote to YCLUSA Convention. 2006 National Convention Folder, Jessica Marshall
- ↑ [Joy in the Struggle, Bea Lumpkin, page 243]
- ↑ People's World, January 12, 2008
- ↑ http://www.cesarchavezholiday.org/index.html
- ↑ http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/06/22/barack%E2%80%99s-sister-brings-the-heat-to-el-sereno/
- ↑ Broadcast Urban: 37th International Convention - Webcast Schedule (accessed on Dec. 19, 2011)
- ↑ CPUSA: Special District Meeting on African American Equality, Oct. 23, 2007 (archived as at Dec. 30, 2007 at Web Archive and accessed on Nov. 10, 2010)
- ↑ CPUSA: Special District Meeting on African American Equality, Oct. 24, 2007 (accessed on Nov. 10, 2010)
- ↑ Solidnet.org,
Contribution of the Communist Party USA, 14th International Meeting of
CWP, Presented by Erwin Marquit,, member of International Department,
CPUSA, 25 November 2012
