Big problems in the working class movements continue to surface but there are also beacons of hope.

In Canada, the Liberals work for Bay Street and Wall Street, just like the Democrats here, which means they are willing accomplices to these dirty Wall Street wars and the militarism of these merchants of death and destruction in quest of greater profits. Not only this, but the Liberals continue to see oit Canadians by allowing U.S. (and other) multi-national corporations to rape the land of natural resources while using Canadians as a source of cheap labor in the process--- what the Liberals essentially do is get a second and third mortgage on the country and its people every single time they get in office. With only sightly more than thirty-million people and its enormous holdings of natural resources and highly skilled labor, Canadians could be living extremely well with a very good standard of living if not for the fact of its participation in these dirty U.S. imperialist wars and foreign capitalists rapping the land and exploiting the people.


Hopefully, those on the left in Canada will stop attacking the New Democratic Party, focus on correcting the problems created by this small group of social democrats and democratic socialists who are afraid of socialism, and provide the kind of working class leadership capable of taking on the Liberals and Conservatives who are nothing but pawns of Wall Street and its junior partner, Bay Street in a struggle for political and economic power.


Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch have taken to lecturing the U.S. left about how we need some kind of special socialist party whose goals and objectives remain very vague while they have attacked the NDP in Canada while getting little to no response from workers for their call for such an undefined new socialist party in Canada when they have the NDP right under their noses. and then instead of supporting the most popular working class Communist Party in Greece (the KKE) they support Syriza which much worse than the NDP.


With the NDP, the good solid labor movement Canadian workers have built up, and with a much larger Communist Party of Canada, Bay Street and Wall Street wouldn't stand a chance against the Canadian people... and this is the kind of organized might we should be looking to build here in the United States... but, at the present time the U.S. working class lacks its own political party like the NDP, lacks a solid trade union movement and has a Communist Party USA in complete shambles with "leaders" hand-picked by the FBI to serve the interests of U.S. imperialism.


And Canadian workers have an excellent newspaper in The People's Voice; something else we lack here in the United States.


There is something to be learned from the current struggles of the Greek people, especially the Greek working class who have in very large numbers sorted through all of the confusion being tossed at them and taken up with the KKE--- http://inter.kke.gr/en/firstpage/


I will never understand why people as smart as Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch refuse to push for solidarity with P.A.M.E. and the KKE... perhaps for the same reason they shun the NDP instead of focusing on bringing left-wing working class leadership into it?


Until working people are willing to struggle for beating swords into plowshares I really doubt workers anywhere in the world will make much headway against Wall Street's thoroughly reactionary neo-liberal imperialist agenda intended to save capitalism at great expense to the rest of us. Here again, the Greek KKE stand out in the forefront of the struggle for peace as it fights to free Greece from the clutches of the greedy bankers and the multi-national corporations.

Communist Party of Greece - KKE

Communist Party of Greece

inter.kke.gr

Some thoughts about the anti-monopoly struggle... the Greek Communist Party says this stage of struggle is not needed; not needed in Greece or just not needed anywhere?

I don't think any of the Communist Parties support the idea that there are "intermediate systems' although they do bring forward the concept of an anti-monopoly government being an intermediate, albeit probably very brief, stage of government during which time the working class can catch a new breath to continue on with the struggle for socialism through which many of the anti-monopoly allies will be won to supporting socialism.


What would you see as an "intermediate system?" Capitalism and socialism are "systems." Anti-monopoly and democratic are stages, not systems.



I think it is up to Communists to be creative... whatever works to get the working class on the road to socialism.


I don't think any Communists have ever said that we "must" take the anti-monopoly struggle to a "stage."


Most Communist Parties around the world are much weaker in influence among the working class than is the KKE. If Greek workers don't need this intermediate stage we refer to as the "anti-monopoly" stage all the more power to you. Why go backwards in struggle when the trend of the struggle in Greece is for making the transition from capitalism to socialism?


On the other hand, where working class struggles are not so advanced other industrialized capitalist countries, I don't see how the working class can avoid the anti-monopoly stage.


Wall Street (and its many junior partners around the world) is the common enemy of workers, and most other people, in every single country. My personal opinion is that the Communist Parties should be working together to advance a common anti-monopoly struggle against Wall Street by encouraging mass struggle for the implementation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in every country--- the task is to take the words of these hypocritical liberals from a piece of paper to make these words a reality for everyone.


I should think the KKE would understand the need for a global and international anti-monopoly struggle like this? And such a struggle would help Greek workers in their struggle for socialism.


I think we need to be thinking in terms of Wall Street (and its numerous junior partners around the world) is our common enemy, anti-imperialist struggle, anti-monopoly struggle combined with the struggle for socialism.


Viewing the class struggle in this way would lend support to the struggle for socialism in Greece, would it not?


Is not the Communist movement flexible enough to take into consideration how all of this fits together internationally?


Quite frankly, I think the international Communist movement has, collectively, done a very poor job in taking issue with the Communist Parties, like the CPUSA which have gone completely astray to the point of siding with the enemies of the working class and sabotaging international working class solidarity including attacking the KKE.


I believe the CPUSA leaders like William Z. Foster, Gus Hall and Henry Winston were correct in advocating the building of a massive all peoples anti-monopoly front as a "stage" in the struggle (here in the United States) as the road to socialism just as the KKE is probably correct in assessing there is no need for this anti-monopoly stage of struggle in Greece.


I think the NDP in Canada is a good example of anti-monopoly struggle, too. The NDP for all practical purposes is the anti-monopoly coalition... although I understand there are those who would disagree with this and they think the anti-monopoly struggle can be by-passed... but, here again, Canada is not Greece.

Why no discussion about the need to enforce Affirmative Action?

Not one single one of the presidential candidates, in spite of a lot of talk about racism, has had the moral or political courage to call for the strict and strident enforcement of Affirmative Action where public funds are involved pursuant to Federal Executive Order #11246 signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson even though the enforcement of Affirmative Action is the only known mass remedy to racist discrimination in employment.


Why isn't there the demand that a rider be attached to every single piece of local, state and federal legislation proving Affirmative Action has been enforced before public funds can be allocated for any project?

Why are racists and bigots of every stripe being allowed to squash any mention of Affirmative Action enforcement?


And, why have ALL the foundation-funded outfits refused to call for the enforcement of Affirmative Action as the way to achieving full equality in employment in this country?


Probably for the same reason these foundation-funded outfits refuse to address "standard-of-living," "cost-of-living," the need for peace, making the politicians who talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs" legislatively accountable for attaining and maintaining full employment and why they refuse to take up the need for a National Public Health Care System and a National Public Child Care System both of which would be publicly funded, publicly administered and publicly delivered just like public education.


We have allowed, through our failure to struggle against the reactionary ideas of the neo-liberals who see freedom of the capitalist markets to take over every facet of our lives to dominate the political discussion in this country through bullying, name-calling, intimidation of all forms, to dominate the political life of what is supposed to be "our" country and "our" government.


And it is time to speak up and challenge all of this.