Iceweasel
Diamond Member
Seems I see a LOT of this type of rhetoric here.
Home cpusa
- What are the CPUSA views on the environment?
One of our main slogans is "People and Nature Before Profits." We are for developing policy that provides for a sustainable economy and a sustainable ecology. Where possible, we participate in environmental movements, and recognize and work on the environmental aspects of struggles on the shop floor and in unions.
We oppose drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge and we oppose the use of nuclear power until there is a safe way to dispose of waste (and if there is no safe way, don't use nuclear power at all). We fight against subjecting workers to untested new chemical compounds with unknown health consequences, currently being introduced at the rate of 3,000 or 4,000 new compounds each year. We support the use of sustainable forest practices, which also are more labor intensive, creating new jobs and job retraining for laid-off lumber workers.
We seek to build unity between the environmental movement and other important movements: the labor, civil rights, women's, youth, peace, and immigrant rights movements, to name a few.
To build a better world, we must have a world to build on. The greatest environmental threat is that of nuclear war. We are for complete disarmament and for the destruction of all nuclear weapons.
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.
- 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.
But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit - socialism.
We are rooted in our country's revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for "Bill of Rights" socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.
Until we win enough support to change the system, communists call for radical reforms under capitalism. We call for nationalization of the banks, railroads, and industries like steel and auto. Everyone who wants to work should be guaranteed a job or get unemployment payments until she/he can find a job. We say put the unemployed to work at union wages on massive public works programs to rebuild our cities, provide affordable housing for the homeless, build mass transit, and clean up the environment!
Our outlook is based on the social science of Marxism-Leninism. We study history, politics and economics in order to change the world.
