Speech given at the 27th National Convention of the CPUSA.

Greetings!

The struggle for peace and solidarity is integral to the work of every communist. I welcome the renewed emphasis proposed in the main report. Our desire to elevate this work is not born out of a moral obligation alone; it is born out of necessity. For there is no struggle for bread and butter issues at home, for decent housing, for better education for better wages that will be won if we do not also struggle for peace and disarmament.

It is the same capitalist class in it greedy drive for profits that robs workers of decent wages and living conditions here in the US, in the sweat shops of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the same class that spends $324 billion of our taxes on a military machine that is poised to launch acts of aggression against those who would resist.

We must expose the seemingly apolitical term – globalization- as an attempt to obscure the class nature of the imperialist system. Behind the vague term globalization stands a viscous US imperialist system vying with Western European and Japanese imperialism for domination of every corner of the world. Comrades, we must understand that when it comes to the economic and military policies that support corporate globalization – first NAFTA, then FTAA, Plan Colombia, now the Andean Initiative there, has been a disturbing continuity of policy between the Democrats and Republicans. Corporate globalization enjoys bipartisan support. As we fight the danger of the ultra right, we must expose it in all it forms.

The need to organize a broad anti-imperialist peace and solidarity movement in the US must be high on the agenda of every district, every club, every comrade. Why is this such a central task?
· Because the people of Vieques cannot wait until 2003 for the U.S. Navy to withdraw and stop bombing their island. It must end NOW!
· Because the children of IRAQ cannot wait any longer for an end to the vicious embargo which has robbed them of a future.
· Because the people of Palestine cannot wait while the criminal Sharon dines in the White House.

As we organize to expose and defeat the FTAA as a danger to workers and the environment throughout the hemisphere, we must also work to defeat Plan Colombia – a military campaign being waged against the people of Colombia, where US military hardware, training and advisors in support to the Colombia army and para military squads must be held responsible for the death of over 50 trade unionists – gunned down since January this year. Why? Because they fought against privatization and for workers rights.

This same US military aid is responsible for the massacre of hundreds of peasants and the defoliation that has displaced thousands more from their land. We must return home and start work immediately on building for the National Day of Action against US Intervention in Latin American and the Caribbean to be held September 29-30 in Washington DC.

The fight to defeat Plan Colombia and halt Bush’s Andean Initiative should be at the center of our work for peace and international solidarity. Support for the growing insurgent movement led by FARC – The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia , the independent path of Venezuela led by President Chavez and the growing indigenous movements in Ecuador is critical, because taken together these struggles represent a serious challenge to the free market ideology and US domination of the region. When we speak of the struggle for democracy – we recognize there is no greater democratic right than the right of a people to determine their own destiny.

We commit ourselves to building a peace and solidarity movement because it is only with a strong movement that we can expose the Bush promise of jobs in the military sector as a dead-end promise, one which robs the US people of much needed productive work, such as rebuilding the infrastructure of our cities. While Bush’s proposal for a Missile Defense System has been rebuffed round the world, we must build opposition in the US. The plan to revisit Star Wars is a reckless policy that threatens to unleash a new arms race in space further destabilizing the world. Every district should build support for the Cleveland Conference, “Keep Space for Peace: Preventing a New Arms Race,” to be held October 12-14. Where local demonstrations can be built, we should target the corporate Star Wars profiteers. In Chicago, this date coincides with the arrival of one of the largest single benefactors of the Star Wars spending – Boeing – and the peace movement is planning a fitting welcome.

We need a strong peace movement for when we fight for a sane energy policy here at home and for public control, we must also fight to end the US militarization of the Middle East. This policy, aside from the enrichment of the military industries, has fueled the basis for war after war, all aimed at securing unhindered access to oil and thwarting the just aspirations of this region’s peoples for peace.

The great work on Cuba solidarity being done by many comrades must be organized into a more focused approach so that we can deliver the death blow to the criminal blockade of Cuba. We work to end the blockade for a number of reasons – including the opportunity for truly free trade and the jobs creation that can result. But we also fight to bring the example of society that through the most difficult period has held firm to its socialist principles. Cuba serves as a beacon to peoples of the US and the entire world demonstrating the power of a society run by and for the working class.

Comrades, this work must be organized, we must find the resources to devote to building a national Peace and Solidarity Commission. We have a proud history in the Communist Party of being devoted partisans of the struggle for peace and solidarity. Let us organize to reclaim this proud tradition and put it at the center of our working class struggle.

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