From the YCL of the USA

[chefdennis]

From the other side...You know , the Young Communist League....And it might be a "LIE, Hoak, or even a Half Turth, and even the Turth", you can decide..... Whatever it is, you can see how the communist think that Osamaba is their kind of guy!!!

Found at: Young Communist League USA - Yes We Did. Now What?

Yes We Did. Now What?

Top level Issues & Ideas Now Mobilizing

Author: Erica Smiley
Young Communist League USA - Yes We Did. Now What?
Publishing date: 05.01.2009 15:52

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States will forever be known as a major turning point, not only in US history, but in the history of the western nations and of the world. Although Obama’s election is no defeat of capitalism, it represents a changing tide in our on-going struggle for democratic rights, and a step forward in our long-term struggle for socialism. Obama’s election and the landslide victory over the Ultra-Right in Congress create the conditions for new advances for equality and democracy generally

A LANDSLIDE VICTORY

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States will forever be known as a major turning point, not only in US history, but in the history of the western nations and of the world. And leaders worldwide agreed with Obama’s assertion in his now famous “A More Perfect Union” speech that only in our country, with it’s rich and unique experiences and traditions of struggle against racism and national oppression, could the candidacy and corresponding election of an African-American man with such a diverse heritage occur, and could such a candidate tap into and relate to the experiences of so many people.

For those who were not convinced earlier this year, let their cynicism be shattered by the mass outpouring of joy and jubilation from the masses of American people—literally running into the streets at the announcement of Obama’s victory on the night of November 4th. Long held assumptions that the country was too backwards to ever elect a Black president have been toppled.

And never have many been so proud to be from the United States. Obama was able to reclaim patriotism for the center-left, not in a chauvinistic way, but in a way that we can be proud of our own traditions of struggle and progress.

Although Obama’s election is no defeat of capitalism, it represents a changing tide in our on-going struggle for democratic rights, and a step forward in our long-term struggle for socialism. Obama’s election and the landslide victory over the Ultra-Right in Congress create the conditions for new advances for equality and democracy generally. For example, racism as a weapon of division will no longer have the same power.

We need only look to who voted for Barack Obama to see proof of this. This election literally changed the map! States that went for Bush in 2004 such as Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, and my own home state of North Carolina that’s gone Republican for the last 9 of 10 presidential elections went for Obama. Obama won the Electoral College overwhelmingly 365 to 173.

Obama won the popular vote 53% to 46%, the first president since Lyndon B Johnson to actually win the popular vote by a clean majority (versus a plurality).

The Republicans’ age old strategy of controlling the South was shattered, shifted by the emerging Latino Vote, the consistent Black vote, the massive youth voter turn out, and scores of white voters who stood up against outdated pre-conceived notions and voted for Barack Obama.

In addition to this overwhelming change of public consciousness, the on-going war in Iraq coupled with Wall Street’s sudden meltdown and our dependency on oil created a political climate poisonous for Republicans.

The Labor movement led the way in exposing the “Real McCain”, waging an all out campaign to minimize the influence of racism among trade unionists and other working people—encouraging workers to vote in the interests of the working class, not the ruling class.

Women, the nationally oppressed and youth—the core allies to the working class movement, voted in mass for Barack Obama.

Youth in particular made up 18% of the electorate this year, according to the New York Post . They also reported that youth vote went overwhelmingly to Barack Obama, and has been accredited for the slim margin of victory in nearly all swing states…going 74% for Barack Obama in my home state of North Carolina where he won by less than 20,000 votes (out of 4.3 million).

All of the aforementioned demographics made up the massive upsurge that exploded earlier this year to support Barack Obama! And what a well-greased machine! The Obama campaign strategists did such a good job of supporting the spontaneous element of this movement—using on-line “meet-up” technology so people could form groups, mobilize events/actions, phone bank from their homes, and interact without having to wait on any specific DNC functionary to give the “okay” first. The old school Democratic Party machine that’s turned so many of us off in the past had to simply step aside in most cases.

But the presidential elections were just part of the landslide victory. Democrats gained 6 more seats in the Senate and 20 in the House of Representatives with the outcomes of some races still to be determined.

This Democratic mandate creates the space for the Obama Administration, and the people of the country to finally go on the offensive for peace, jobs, education and other needs of the working class. This provides room to thoroughly stimulate the economy, and infuse federal funds into job creation, alternate energy industries, and housing.

Concluding from this that we are now ready to enter into a mass movement against monopoly capitalism in general is pre-mature—though we are on our way. Public consciousness is definitely such that most would not defend capitalism with the same vigor that they might have in years past. However, most would still defend it. Many are ready for partial demands, such as the partial nationalization of banks. But they are not ready to nationalize all the peak industries yet.

This election was a huge blow against the Ultra-Right, but it was not necessarily the complete and decisive victory we struggle for. What we are seeing is the early embryos of an anti-monopoly movement that we must nurture and support. But it is not yet a full anti-monopoly coalition. We should get in the practice of always reminding ourselves of how quickly the tide could turn in either direction. One minor mis-calculation on the part of us and the broader movement could spoon feed the Ultra-Right the opening they need to set us back for another decade. It is important for us to see ourselves as not only working within the movement to maintain unity and progress in this current period, but to also protect the future of the movement—preventing any unnecessary fall-backs.

However, there are huge new opportunities to discuss public ownership, partial nationalization of some key industries and within the financial sector in particular. The Economic Bail Out has made many open to the public owning controlling shares in the companies that are bailed out. It is more common sense to note that if a company is worth $3 million, but is asking for an $18 million bail out, of course the public should own a controlling share. Anyone with “good business sense” can see this.

And there are new openings for us to discuss socialism as a solution. Sam Webb recently noted that our ideological role in the current economic crisis is just as important as our practical one---engaging in local hearings and meetings. We have to raise what the root issues are causing this crisis, and what real solutions are.

As the Communist Party reviews its strategic policy, we too recognize that we are in a transitional phase where we cannot count the Ultra-Right completely out of the picture, though we can begin developing the basis for an anti-monopoly coalition. We are in a period of people’s democratic reforms under the current framework of capitalism.

Thus, it is important to note that victory around all working class demands will not be met immediately in the first 100 days. It took FDR a couple of years to get through the reforms of the New Deal.

The next period will be incredibly difficult. It will take us years to get out of this particular crisis in the financial cycle. We have to let folks know that this period will be hard, not because of the Obama Administration—tediously critiquing his every appointment, but because of the crisis in global capitalism. There is a huge mess to clean up!

It will be our role to work side-by-side with our allies in labor and the broader youth movement in identifying the most unifying demands at any given stage and pushing forward incrementally and strategically.

Specifically the youth league must engage the young voters and Obama supporters who sprang out of this year’s upsurge. Many of these groups will stick around, and we should be a part of them. We should see this as a way of helping the Obama Administration and the Congress fulfill the promises they made during the campaign.

It is our role to continue to engage this movement in the broader democratic struggles, maintaining momentum when there are possible setbacks, and not allowing them to get discouraged by every presidential appointment that is not perfect or law that is not passed. Obama and the Democratic leaders in Congress are going to engage people from all spectrums of the anti-Bush camp—including moderates. This is expected and, at this point, desirable—as it will still be the basis for progress on democratic demands. They simply are not yet the enemy of our movement. It is important for Obama to continue uniting the broad coalition that elected him against the Ultra-Right and to deal with this crisis.

Some have a narrow and skewed interpretation of what our role is in a Center-Left coalition. It is not to force the center to the Left in this next period or rather to force our most advanced demands on the Center. Building unity against the Ultra-Right is not the same as building unity for socialism, though it is obviously a necessary step along the way. As always, we must meet people where they are currently willing to struggle, and fight for the most advanced demands of the Center. These are the most unifying demands, and will in practice win more people over to discussions on more advanced ideas and demands.

In this new period, we have the opportunity to not only engage a broader spectrum of youth, but we do not have to depend solely on the existing organizations and formations to do it. We can work to build new groups, new coalitions to strengthen our movement. What a refreshing time to start anew!

For us, it is not the simple demand of “holding Obama accountable”. Rather, we wish to play a unifying role in pushing and winning key gains for working people and youth.

For example, there were 2.2 million newly registered youth voters this year. Consider the role these 2.2 million young voters were able to play in electing Barack Obama. Now, imagine the role 2.2 million newly unionized young workers could play in strengthening the labor movement and the economy over all…let alone the next election. After all, young workers with unions make nearly $5 more an hour than those without a union, and have almost double the rates of getting employer provided health insurance.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would open the doors for this to happen. It would give us a license to organize more young workers into unions! In an era where access to healthcare, living wages and housing are common concerns at our dinner tables, the status of young people as a part of the country’s workforce must be strongly considered. And what better time to do it. We have a Congress that is ready to pass it, and a president that, unlike any other, has walked side-by-side with workers on a picket line.

Before this, the Obama Administration will pass an economic stimulus package—a project that will undoubtedly be leftover by Bush where large quantities of federal dollars will have to be injected into the economy to keep it from crashing. This is the most unifying issue right now. Americans clearly support this. We want it to improve the situations of working people, not the corporations. We need a moratorium on foreclosures, affordable housing and jobs.

Consider the on-going US war in Iraq. The Obama Administration will have to work with Congress to identify a rapid timeline for withdrawal. It will not be enough for us to scream “immediate withdrawal”. We have to work with Congress to bring our troops home quickly and safely and fight for resources and support for the Iraqi people in their long struggle to re-build.

And on the issue of Afghanistan, it is not enough to say “troops out now”. We must continue to support diplomacy there as well as discuss real international intervention in their country’s on-going battle with religious fundamentalists.

The US Student Association has already begun their campaign to secure federal funding for higher education, including pushing to pass the DREAM Act—which would allow immigrant youth increased access to a college education, re-authorization of the Higher Education Act, increasing the Pell Grant, and other programs. We should support these efforts, as well as their state-legislative components.

There are many other policies that various segments of the movement will inevitably push as the priority. For example, we will have to unite students with teachers and parents to identify if and how to reform the No Child Left Behind Act. We should figure out a way to rebuild public schools systems while having a realistic approach to charter schools for youth in areas where real gains in the fight for public schools cannot be made immediately. Again, it will be our job to identify the most unifying demands and mobilize people around those in order to push the entire movement forward.

This is not to say that we should ignore social issues that are not yet unifying. In fact, we suffered electoral defeats over gay rights on ballot initiatives against same-sex marriage in Arizona, Florida and California and on anti-gay adoption laws in Arkansas. We have to warn against trends that pit the gay community against Black and Latino communities when explaining these results.

There were many positive results on ballot initiatives, however. Reproductive rights were upheld in Colorado, South Dakota and California. Stem Cell Research was passed in Michigan. And Affirmative Action, though defeated in Nebraska, was upheld in Colorado. Those who are unable to recognize Affirmative Action’s impact on race and class view it far too narrowly and belittle it into a tokenizing quota program. Though not at the forefront of our struggle as it has been in past years, Affirmative Action is still one of the best ways to ensure that youth of color, working class youth and women get equal access to jobs and a college education.

We have indeed reached a huge turning point in our history of struggle. And this victory belongs to all of us. YCLers were a part of it at every turn, be it the Chicago Club mobilizing buses to Indiana, clubs in New England piling in vans to go to New Hampshire, the many New York bus trips to Pennsylvania, the DC collective’s trips to Virginia, the Florida YCLers who fought right there in that state, and the many others who were in Ohio, Michigan and other states. This is our victory as much as it is anyone else’s.

We know that it is our role to give leadership to this movement, but only to the extent that we are working side-by-side in the trenches with it. When the majority of the working class is not ready to push for our most advanced demands, we work side-by-side with them to push the partial ones. Though the masses are not yet ready to join us in a strategy for socialism, many will join us in a discussion on alternatives to capitalism and on socialism. The YCL has to be out there facilitating more and more of these discussions, publicly. This is the only way we can ensure that our ideas are accessible to those with an interest.

At this stage in the history of our movement, there is no room for doubters. If, after the nearly 2 year period that resulted in the election of Barack Obama, you still cannot see the necessity of working with the mass upsurge that elected him to move forward on basic, democratic demands, you are bound to live on the sidelines as the movement pushes on. It is not enough just to be right in our advanced consciousness. We have to be right in our strategy too. And that involves meeting people where they are, and moving forward one step at a time.

This is a wonderful time to be active and an incredible period for the Young Communist League. This era will raise new challenges, new victories, and new levels of organization and consciousness. We have to be a part of every bit of it to progress our struggle for democracy and for socialism.


You can read their plan of action on the next post in this thread..

 

[chefdennis]

Continued from the previous post on this thread:

STATE OF THE ORGANIZATION

In addition to building coalitions, we recognize that there is a necessity for building a bigger YCL and a bigger Party. We often say that we act as the glue that holds coalitions together. And frankly, we need more glue.

Part of this entails getting our publications and our vision out far and wide. That is why the expansion of Dynamic Magazine on line is such an incredible development. But we also have to be more visible, doing more speaking engagements and meet-ups for people to actually see and hear us talk about socialism in this day and age.

Further, we have to be more active. Get your clubs out of their monthly meeting ruts and get them to a local hearing! Local city councils and state agencies will be doing hearings on all the public cuts they’re facing under the current crisis…unemployment, schools, hospitals, you name it. In almost every state they’re on the chopping block. Taking members and friends and potential recruits to these types of actions bring them face-to-face with a decision-maker. Let youth in New York actually see Bloomberg and his city council cronies say there is no money for public housing while they approve millions for luxury developers in the same meeting. Let them see this and be radicalized to want to do more! Our clubs have to get out of the meeting hall and into the halls of Congress.

The Party’s national board just called for mobilizing delegations to visit with congressional representatives while they are in town for the holidays to discuss what we need from an economic stimulus package. YCL clubs should mobilize youth delegations!

This is what I mean when I talk about leading from the trenches. It is not enough to simply talk and blog from the sidelines about what we should do. We have to get out there and try it! We have entered into a phase where it is actually desirable to experiment and try new things. Times like these were made for us. We can get creative when we mobilize youth to these actions. For example, write a fake check to your congressperson in the amount of how much debt you owe for college.

People join the YCL when they see us in action, when they see us as being a part of the solution to the problems they face on a daily basis. We have experienced steady growth in the past 2 years, nearly twice doubling our size. But we could be growing much faster. Our experience is that YCL clubs who are most active in the movements surrounding them, grow more rapidly and experience less turn-over. As we go into this next period, we must keep an eye on our organizational growth and development just as much as we follow the political shifts.


We have had much success in developing YCL leaders, deepening the commitment and investment of our current leaders. Our YCL schools continue to be a force for consistency and training, and we are developing ways to alter the curriculum to make various topics relevant and interesting to non-members. Young people are searching for answers, and we need to strengthen our infrastructure to meet these new needs.

The Party is also taking this into consideration and will be organizing an advanced school this year for cadre who know the basics. They will also be working with us to organize more speaking events on campuses, highlighting our modern approach to socialism in the US, and how it meets the demands of the current financial situation. Even more, we need to train a new generation of young, committed cadre to lead these sessions, and move away from simply sending national functionaries out to organize them.

To answer the staff transitions in the spring, we are implementing an exciting new summer internship program where YCL leaders can come to New York and test their abilities to be full time functionaries. Some of these leaders will be asked to become full time functionaries based on their efforts and achievements during the program.

As a youth organization, we have a higher rate of turnover due to the nature of youth and our inabilities to stay young forever. Thus, it is important for us to constantly train and develop new cadre to be prepared to take on leadership in the organization, be creative in addressing new situations, while also understanding the historic trajectory of how we got to where we are today. These programs, our schools and the deeper cadre development, help us address this need.

We have an exciting year ahead of us. The Convention of the Communist Party will happen within the year, and we also need to have initial discussions of the YCL Convention to follow. This meeting will be important in setting us up on the right path for future success.