A CALL TO ACTION:
Build Unity to Take Back Our Country in 2004!
Defeat Bush and the Ultra Right!

NATIONAL CONFERENCE SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2004
New York, NY

A consensus is forming that progress in meeting human needs in our country is impossible as long as George W. Bush remains in the White House and the extremist Republicans control all three branches of government. It underlines the enormous stakes in the 2004 elections. Bush – Cheney, Tom DeLay and their ilk will resort to every dirty trick to steal this election.

Their aim is to shift the burden of capitalism’s economic crisis to the backs of working people, destroying jobs, cutting wages, terminating health care and pensions, privatizing Medicare, Social Security and public education. They would nullify affirmative action and rollback the gains of African American, Latino and all racially oppressed people. Women’s rights are under brutal assault. Their doctrine of preemptive war, using even nuclear weapons, thretens humanity for the sake of U.S. empire. and the quagmire in Iraq is costing thousands of U.S. and Iraqi lives and billions of dollars to fatten U.S. corporate coffers and enforce U.S. global domination.

A grassroots movement to stop the ultra-right offensive is springing up, led by the AFL-CIO and its 14 million members. They are committing their brains and muscle power and millons of dollars to defeat Bush and the ultra right at the ballot box. The African American, Latino and other peoples of color, the women’s equality movement, civil liberties, peace, environmental, youth, seniors, family farmers, LGBT groups all are part of the coalition against the right in the 2004 elections, as is the Communist Party.

Our strategic vision of an ‘all people’s front’ against the corporate ultra-right resonates in slogans like ‘Tax the rich,’ and ‘Cut the Pentagon budget’. Use those billions to create jobs, universal healthcare, and quality public schools.

We invite you to a daylong conference on the theme, ‘Build Unity to Take Back Our Country in 2004! Defeat Bush and the Ultra Right!’ Communist Party and Young Communist League members and our allies are invited to participate. We will examine the task before us to defeat Bush and the ultra-right in Congress and to build our Party as a unique contribution toward strengthening the broad people’s movement.

We will discuss and plan:

• How can we work more effectively in the grassroots movements to engage together in the elections?
• Can we help organize voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts?
• How can we inject more advanced, anti-monopoly demands that help promote the forces of political independence?
• Can we help push forward better candidates, including trade unionists, people of color, and women?
• What about using the 2004 elections to lay the basis for local CPUSA candidates in 2005 elections?
• How can we build the CPUSA and recruit many new members in this election campaign which will help strengthen the people’s movements?

Among the many exciting initiatives we will discuss is a concentration project in the battleground states of the Midwest where many believe the outcome will be decided.

The ultra-right has unlimited corporate cash and control of the news media. They are skilled demagogues who hide their real agenda under a mask of moderation. They use racism to divide and conquer. The challenge is to expose their reactionary, anti-people agenda, as the voters of Philadelphia did in the landslide reelection of Mayor John Street in the face of FBI dirty tricks.

We must enter this battle united and filled with a fighting spirit, confident in our cause. A decisive victory over the right in 2004 would open the way for the forces of political independence to go on the offensive for more advanced demands.

AGENDA

Opening Remarks: ‘Building Unity to Take Back Our Country in 2004’

Panel I: ‘Unity of Labor and Allies v. Ultra-right tactics.’ Experiences since 2000.

Panel II: ‘What it Takes to Win.’ A roundtable with leaders from Labor, African American, Latino, Women, Peace, Youth, Environment and other groups organizing to defeat Bush.

Panel III: ‘The Communist Party at the Grass Roots.’ Building at the club level. The Midwest Project.

Closing plenary. Performance and summary remarks.

SCHEDULE

Registration: 8:00 AM / Adjourn: 8:30 PM
$30 / $15 limited income. Includes meals.
Location to be announced.

For information and to register:

Political Action Commission, Communist Party USA.
235 W. 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
212-989-4994. E-mail: joelle.fishman@pobox.com
Web page: www.cpusa.org

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