With a newly launched web site, the Communist Party USA is inviting broad discussion on how Americans can defeat the Bush agenda and build a bigger and stronger movement for peace, democracy, jobs and equality.
With a lively, interactive format, the web site, discuss.cpusa.org, makes available several draft documents and articles that party members and fellow activists are discussing in the period leading up to the party’s 28th national convention, set for July 1-3 in Chicago. Through the web site, the party is throwing its doors open to all left and progressive-minded people to join in the discussion.
“The political process is not moving onto the Internet — it’s already there,” says Noel Rabinowitz, the party’s communications technology organizer. “We’re joining the active online discussion community that’s already discussing the burning issues of the day, and we’re adding the communist perspective.”
Rabinowitz told the World, “For any social justice activist, the urgent need to defeat the Bush agenda is on the top of your mind. The Communist Party’s preconvention discussion will put you in touch with the thinking of some of the most involved and active people in communities across the country.”
In addition to finding food for thought in the documents and discussion, the party hopes that labor, peace, civil rights and all democratic-minded people will use discuss.cpusa.org to offer their experiences and input in a national dialogue about how to defeat the ultra-right, stop the war, and move our country in a pro-worker, pro-people direction.
Two documents on the web site, in both English and Spanish, will form the core of the work of the party’s July convention:
• A draft main political resolution, titled “Defeat the Bush agenda — the people can win!”
• A draft longer-range program, titled “The road to socialism USA: unity for peace, democracy, jobs and equality.”
In addition, the site presents for discussion a series of educational papers, commissioned by the party’s Education Department, on a range of topics such as racism and the African American community, political action, women in the U.S., the environmental movement, the “ownership society,” and socialism. Also available are the party’s preconvention discussion bulletin and related articles from the People’s Weekly World.
“Anyone can read the documents and articles, and we encourage everyone to contribute their thoughts, using the easy log-in process,” Rabinowitz told the World.
The party’s convention organizer, Pam Saffer, described the web site as one of many “exciting possibilities” that are in the works as preparations for the convention gather steam. A culture committee is working on performances and dialogues including music, theater, dance and other arts media. Workshops are being organized on the areas of mass struggle that members are involved in. International guests will attend.
The energy around the convention reflects the people’s movement “bouncing back stronger,” Saffer said. If you compare it with the Bush administration’s take on reality, “it’s like two different worlds.”
“There’s a tremendous amount of activity among our members everywhere,” she told the World. “I think we’re going to have a larger convention than four years ago.”
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