The Communist Party USA holds its National Committee meeting, Feb 9-10 2002. Sam Webb, CPUSA National Chairman is interviewed by Noel Rabinowitz, CPUSA Internet Dept. Coordinator. Webb previews the upcoming NC meeting.

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EXCERPTS

We heard in [Bush’s] State of the Union message that the policies that began last fall are going to continue into the coming year. Looks like the Bush Administration wants a long period of unending war and conflict. The military budget, for instance, he’s talking about increasing by 48 billion dollars. So where’s that money going to come from? It means cutbacks for people’s needs and programs.

We’re trying to give more life and substance to our deliberations of the National Committee. There are some new things [since our last meeting in November]. The war in Afghanistan is winding down now and the Bush Administration considers what occurred there a success and it’s trying to use that to pick some new targets.

There are new dangers. Another new development is [that] the economy has continued to move downward. Some mainstream economists are suggesting that there’s going to be a mild economic downturn, a quick recovery, but I doubt that. I think there’s a lot of signs and indicators that suggest it will be a longer one.

And I think the big thing to take note of was that there was a kind of freeze on political dissent in the wake of September 11. [People] kind of lost their political legs. And I think that freeze is beginning to break up.

For instance, the demonstrations that occurred here in New York over the weekend against corporate, capitalist globalization is one sign that there ‘s new life coming back into the labor/people’s movements.

I want to make the argument that socialism is more necessary now. There are some new dangers to human survival in this period. Capitalism has been creating what might be called irreversible damage-to the environment and so on. And I think there are some new ways that we have to place socialism now.

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