What a difference between now and five years ago when we convened in Chicago! At that time, a Puerto Rican woman raised in the South Bronx didn't sit on the Supreme Court. Then the president didn't call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Millions had no health care... Global warming wasn't on the White House agenda... And, an African American wasn't president. Now an African American is president, and much else has changed as we convene our 29th convention...
"[T]he long night of rule by the most reactionary groups on the political spectrum has ended...we contributed to the historic victory in 2008...
"In hindsight, I overstated the nature of the election victory... A decisive defeat of the right - signified by larger Democratic majorities... will profoundly alter the political landscape...
"Others (teabaggers and all) are captured by lies, half-truths, and hate-filled rhetoric steeped in a subtext of racism...
"Arizona's draconian and unconstitutional immigration law...Florida's governor [Charlie Crist] vetoed a rightwing-inspired overhaul of public education... The campaign for jobs and against Wall St. initiated by the AFL-CIO... The near-victories by Rick Nagin and Rudy Lozano in recent election campaigns are a sign of the times...
"You could easily say there was one mood before the health care bill passed and another mood afterwards. In fact, viewing the struggle through a dialectical lens, the bill's passage was not only a victory on its own terms, but it also changed the larger political dynamics of Washington and the country in a positive way...
"Yes we can!...
"For more than a year, the main issue that captured our energy and the energy of millions of others was health care reform. With the signing of a health care bill, our attention is shifting to job creation... It is urgent to win immediate legislative battles - unemployment compensation, the Harkin education jobs bill, the Miller Local Jobs for America bill, the Murray bill to help veterans find jobs, etc....
"The other key arena is the Congressional elections this fall... It's pretty clear that if the Democrats lose their majorities in Congress both the president and the broader people's coalition will be weakened...
Only an incredible grassroots effort... will turn back rightwing extremism and increase the Democratic majority in both chambers in Congress. Any less than that is playing with fire... We will join with the broader movement, including new formations like Organizing for America and MoveOn...
"I would argue that a relationship to the Democratic Party at this stage of struggle is a strategic necessity and later on probably a tactical requirement... In 2008, there was no other way to defeat the right without such a relationship. The same could be said about the health care struggle...
"[T]he Republican Party, which has turned into an instrument of unabashed racism - not to mention militarist, obstructionist, anti-working class, anti-immigrant, anti-women, homophobic, anti-democratic, anti-scientific, and so forth...
"Let's be blunt: there is no progressive alternative [to President Obama]. If the president loses in 2012, we will lose too, and the country will once again be in the hands of rightwing extremism. There is no option to the left of President Obama...
"In my view, President Obama is a reformer... whose agenda creates space for the broader people's movement to deepen and extend the reform process in a non-revolutionary period...
"When our movement is on the level of the popular upsurge of the 1930s and 1960s, we will be in a better position to say if his views are elastic enough to accommodate more deep-going change, as Roosevelt and Johnson did...
So, the leader of the American Chapter of the Communist party believes that they should follow the agenda of the current administration to achieve their goals...what does that say about this president?
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