With a professed Democratic Socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders, engaging and enraging the Democratic Party establishment as represented by Hillary Clinton, I decided to google “American Communism” to see if there was any remaining sign of the Communist movement in the USA. One would think that the downfall of Communism in eastern Europe and the breakup  of the Soviet Union would have discredited that ideology forever. And yet…..

http://www.cpusa.org/

A better and peaceful world is possible — a world where people and nature come before profits. That’s socialism. That’s our vision. We are the Communist Party USA.

Oh, really?

http://www.cpusa.org/faq/

What are the CPUSA views on the environment?

And yet in the 20th Century, Communist nations were notorious for causing massive pollution, and even disasters like the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. To explain that….

There was environmental damage in the former socialist countries. Some of that was due to their efforts at forced industrialization, which put the environmental dangers of such development low on their list of priorities. A related problem was that in adopting machinery and industrial processes from advanced capitalist countries, they unintentionally adopted the capitalist economic realities embedded in the machinery and processes. In other words, capitalist industrial development is based on not having to pay the costs for most of the waste products it generates. When socialist countries used that as a model to develop their own industry, they ended up with the same skewed industrial waste model.

They did this for several good reasons—to short cut the process of technological change, to quickly provide more goods for their citizens, to be able to compete with capitalist countries. However, unintentionally, adopting technological processes designed to function in capitalist reality, they brought in environmental problems that relied on the ability of industries to dump waste without paying the social and environmental costs. To adapt, rather than just adopt, major industrial processes will take more time.

In short, even the hard-line Communist states could not complete the revolution promised their peoples, yet now Communists say they can do better?! Fool me once, shame on them; fool me twice…..

What does the Communist Party stand for?

The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign.

In the 20th Century, it also stood for spying on the USA for the benefit of the Soviet Union. Which it should never have done if it had been a truly American movement. It was always far more attached to Soviet leaders than it should have been. Even Benedict Arnold did not represent a foreign ideology seeking to totally undermine and overthrow a legitimate government.

Is the Communist Party legal?

Yes. The right to belong to the Communist Party is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

Never mind that throughout the 20th Century, Communist states were responsible for the most outrageous human rights violations. If Communists take over here, the Bill of Rights might well be the first thing to go.

What has the Communist Party accomplished?

Founded in 1919, the Communist Party has helped win important changes in our country. Communists helped organize the great industrial unions including steel, meatpacking and auto. Communists were pioneers in the 1930s in the fight for Social Security, unemployment compensation, the 8-hour day and the 40-hour week. They took a lead in the fight against lynching and to save the Scottsboro Nine. Communists were among those who developed militant direct action tactics – such as the sit-down strikes that helped win unionization of the auto industry. At the height of the Great Depression communist neighborhood clubs organized mass unemployed councils that put back the furniture of evicted neighbors. In rural areas, communists organized to block bank auction of foreclosed farms.

Fighting Jim Crow, communists helped lay the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. During the Spanish Civil War and in World War II, Communists volunteered to fight fascism. Many died in battle. In the Korean War and early days of the war in Vietnam, Communists were among the few who openly opposed the war. Their pioneering work helped build a huge peace movement.

Thank you for confirming the talking points of the fuking John Birch Society, you bastards!

Why does the Communist Party oppose violence?

Communists believe that social change can only be accomplished through the united action of mass movements which express the majority will of the people. Peaceful methods of change are not only the right thing to do, they are the most effective way to unite and mobilize the greatest majorities.

Violence, on the other hand, is a tool of the big corporations and the governments they control. To preserve their power, they use violence against workers’ and people’s movements.

In contrast, Communists seek to change society peacefully. We work to expand every democratic and electoral avenue as part of our fight for working class political and economic power.

So that Russian Revolution of 1917, followed by the civil war that ended around 1922 didn’t happen?

• What about the Communist Party and religion?

  Communists are not against religion. We are against capitalism. In fact, the Party has its own Religion Commission which seeks to build positive relations with religious people and communities in the struggle to make life better for working people. Most religious people believe in justice, peace, and respectful relations among the peoples of the world, and many are motivated by their faith to work for those goals.

  Membership in the Communist Party is open to all who agree with our program, regardless of religious beliefs.

What about the fact that most Communist states in the 20th Century were officially atheist? One of them, Albania, even went so far as to force all the various houses of worship within it to close down. Only when Communism fell there were they reopened.

Why does the Communist Party fight to expand democracy?

We believe that the broad participation of working people in every area of life is the gateway to a more just and humane future. Socialism offers the best environment for democracy to fully flourish because it sharply limits the power of corporations to dominate politics and the economy. Socialism’s democratic potential can only be realized, however, if broad sections of the people are wholeheartedly engaged in every aspect of society’s decision-making processes.

HYPOCRITES! You didn’t do a damn thing to expand democracy in already Communist states, did you?!

Why is the working class at the heart of the communist program?

The working class and working people as a whole are the overwhelming majority of society. The working class creates everything that the world’s people need to survive and thrive – from food, housing, health care, energy, education to transportation, music and art. Because working people make the country go, they are also uniquely positioed [sic] to change the society. Workers, when united and working together with other oppressed people, have the power to change the world.

Health care? Are doctors also members of the working class, even if they make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? And artists and musicians also often become rich from their works. When does someone stop being of the working class and start being a capitalist oppressor? Maybe these absolute distinctions among people are not so reasonable.

 

• Why is the fight against racism, sexism and oppression so important to the communists?

  We make the fight for equality an important part of every struggle we fight. The Communist Party fights for full equality for people of all races, for women and men, straight people and LGBT, for speakers of all languages, for young people and older people, and for people of all religious beliefs or none. The U.S. working class includes millions of immigrant workers. We stand for full rights for these workers, regardless of their documentation status. We believe in equality because it is just and right. Even more, the fight for equality is key to uniting the working class into a powerful force for the changes we need.

 

It has been said that the difference between the USA and the USSR was that the USA treated people equally (at least in theory), while the USSR mistreated everyone equally in practice! So the Communists can take their commitment to “equality” and shove it back up their collective @$$es!

 

• Is the Communist Party USA part of an international movement?

  Yes! We are internationalists. Capitalism is a global system of exploitation and oppression. We have relationships of solidarity with communist and workers parties in countries across the globe. We believe that the world working class, and those oppressed by capitalism in any form are natural allies. We work in solidarity with all movements around the world that struggle for independence, peace and economic and social justice.

  We believe that the freedom and advancement of the American people is closely tied to the freedom and advancement of all working people and the oppressed around the world.

 

We are the Borg, resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated.

There is a hell of a lot more to people around the world than what social class they belong to. As I see it, the views and goals of Communists are as idiotic as those of fundamentalist Christians and deserve to be scorned just as much. We tried their system, it failed, so we need to find a different one, period!