By: Trevor Loudon
KeyWikiBlog

Michigan Democratic Party chairman Mark Brewer, has come under attack by conservative commentator Kyle Olson, over an allegedly bogus new “Tea Party” group with leftist ties.

You have to live in Michigan and pay attention to the political news to understand how obnoxious the Michigan Democratic Party and its chairman Mark Brewer really are. While we all expect such behavior from hyper-partisan outfits, Brewer gives it a whole new meaning.

He was behind the famous “sleeping justice” ads – photos of a now-former Michigan Supreme Court Justice allegedly sleeping during a hearing. He is now supposedly putting up money for similar “evidence” against another conservative justice.

So it comes as no surprise that the entrance of a “new” political party in Michigan, The Tea Party, might have Democratic Party fingerprints all over it.

For a better part of the last decade, Michigan has been in the true-blue column. It was so hopeless in 2008, the McCain campaign actually pulled out of Michigan many weeks before Election Day.

And this year, given displeasure with Obama, the Democratic Congress and more so Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Republicans’ prospects look pretty good.

So leave it to Mark Brewer and the Democratic Party to pull out all the stops in their cynical ploy to cling to power.

OutsideLansing.com brings news that paid petition circulators are collecting signatures to create ‘The Tea Party.’ According to site proprietor Chet Zarko, the paid circulators have ties to the Democratic Party.

True Tea Party leaders have no knowledge of such an effort, which makes one think the stench wafting from the left side of the political spectrum is that of a rat.

Zarko’s follow-up research finds that the Soros-connected “Progressive Campaigns Inc.” is behind the signature gathering.

Situations like this were bound to happen, given the outrage seen in Americans today and the unhappiness with the Obama administration. But to see such a cynical campaign in the offing is no surprise, given the left appears to be behind it.

Guilty or not, Mark Brewer, is certainly no moderate Democrat. He is on the far left of the Party and is a key player, both in his native state and nationally. Until 2009, Brewer was President of the Association of State Democratic Chairs and was DNC Vice-Chair 3 times, serving from 2003 until 2009. During that time, he led the Association of State Democratic Chairs to its endorsement of leftist Howard Dean as DNC Chair and he worked with Dean to implement his very successful 50-State Strategy.

Brewer was a delegate to the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Democratic National Conventions and served as Chair of the Michigan delegations at all of those Conventions. He is a key ally of Michigan’s leftist Senator, Debbie Stabenow, a friend and protege of Democratic Socialists of America leader and United Auto Workers official, the late Mildred Jeffrey.

Brewer himself is close to Democratic Socialists of America. He began working for long-time Michigan Congressman David Bonior in 1977 and was involved in every reelection campaign of Congressman Bonior until 2000. Bonior has been a long time DSA supporter and has become a member of the organization since leaving Congress – a fact which has not barred him from serving the Obama Administration.

The Michigan Democratic Party works closely with the Marxists of Democratic Socialists of America, especially in their Detroit stronghold. According to Seth A. Maxon of the DSA who was linked in the Chicago-based journal In These Times:

Democratic socialists in southeastern Michigan can do something most of their counterparts across the nation cannot: they can boast of electoral victories. Moreover, they possess a level of influence within the Michigan Democratic Party of which many American leftists dream. And they’ve done it all without compromising their beliefs or values.

Their success has come from working with, instead of against, local Democrats.

“It starts out with relationships,” says David Green, the chair of the Detroit chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America… He continues, “Mark Brewer, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, has a very good relationship with us. He’s spoken to our local several times. The chairs of the county parties, several of them are close friends as well.”

Michigan DSA held a meeting at the Kulick Community Center in Ferndale on Sunday, June 4th, 2006. The subject of the forum was “Democrats and Socialists: Building the Alternative.” The speakers were DSA steering committee member and Wayne State University Distinguished Professor Ron Aronson, Labor Notes editor Chris Kutalik and Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer.

Ron Aronson argued that in building an alternative to the dominant neo-liberal ideology, the Democratic Party must once again “become friendly” with many of the basic tenants of socialism — particularly those dealing with social provision (e.g., Social Security, national health insurance, public education). Mark Brewer argued that in order to avoid even more egregious setbacks for poor and working people, it is essential for socialists and Democrats to work together in the electoral arena. Chris Kutalik cited examples of direct worker actions on the job as a means of challenging capitalist hegemony and suggested that this may be preferable to participation electoral politics.

Brewer was back in November 2007, speaking at a Detroit DSA General Membership Meeting on the “prospects for the 2008 elections in Michigan as well as the upcoming presidential caucuses.”

Michigan is the most a blighted state in the union, for a reason. Detroit based communists, socialists and unionists have infiltrated and dominated the state’s Democratic Party for decades with disastrous results. Mark Brewer and his socialist comrades mean to keep it “business as usual” at any cost.

Unless Mark Brewer and his allies are defeated in November, the Obama Administration may well succeed in duplicating the “Michigan model” across the entire U.S.A.

Lord knows, they are trying.

By: Trevor Loudon
KeyWikiBlog

For a Party with only a few thousand members and supporters, centered in about a dozen major cities, the Communist Party USA has a significant amount of influence.

This is achieved by infiltrating and controlling much larger groups, including several major labor unions, sections of the Democratic Party, some Black and “mainstream” churches, the health care and “peace” movements and even Obama’s “private army,” Organizing for America!

Links to elected officials, including several members of Congress such as John Conyers in Michigan, Hilda Solis and Barbara Lee in California and Dennis Kucinich in Ohio are also carefully cultivated.

Dan Margolis has been the chair of the New York State Communist Party USA. In addition he writes for the People’s World, covering local New York City and state issues, as well as events at the United Nations.

Margolis has been active in New York City elections, including as the mid-Staten Island coordinator for the 2004 Democratic Party Congressional campaign.

Below are excerpts from a discussion paper Margolis wrote for the National Convention of the Communist Party USA which is due to begin in New York this weekend. The paper gives several examples of Party influence in New York, which can be safely assumed to be typical Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, Tuscon, St. Louis, Boston, Seattle and other Party strongholds.

The main thing that the Communist Party can contribute, i.e. its main role, is in the field of strategy and tactics. It is entirely true, as the document noted, that anyone reading this would likely also be working on the fight to support the health care plan that was put forward by Barack Obama, along with organizations like Organizing for America, HCAN, etc. But, because we have a background in the CPUSA and the YCL, we bring something different and special to this movement – a strategic concept of who the main players are, who the main enemies slowing down the process of change are, what is possible and so on.

Margolis notes that his local branch of Organizing for Obama, a claimed Party “friend,” was held together by Party comrades. He also calls on the party to fight for fully socialized health care:

When there were setbacks in the fight for health care, there was demoralization and frustration. Our Bronx club, which was instrumental in building an Organizing for America-based local organization, helped fight this feeling and, in the process, gained a good deal of experience. It can be said that, without the Communist Party, and solid leadership from one comrade in particular, the OFA group could have easily disbanded itself. Also, the Party was able and is able to play a leadership role in the question of what we’re fighting for, and in what context: why not some kind of National Health Service, as in the U.K., right now, or for Medicare for All? Why was even the watered-down Senate bill a victory? How do any of these victories contribute to the forward motion of the struggle overall?

Putting all those questions together is a key role of the Party and YCL, as it helps to build the unity and forward motion of the progressive forces.

Margolis goes on to talk about working with local unions and Black Churches to support the President’s jobs initiatives – which are mainly schemes to funnel taxpayers money into radical controlled organizations:

Another example would be the upcoming jobs fight. We’ve said that this is the key struggle, and that puts us in agreement with all of the major players in the core forces. There is a national coalition in place for this battle, but how do we help build it? It is our job to help bring it to life, and to localize it, bring it to the grassroots. This is something different from place to place, and it takes a Communist Party to figure this out. In New York, we have a situation in which the Central Labor Council isn’t playing a leading role in the city’s labor movement. Most of the biggest unions in the city are outside the CLC. How do we bring them together in this fight? (And in so doing, how can we contribute to overall labor unity in this city?)

At the grassroots level, how do we pull organizations and people in our periphery into this coalition? In Brooklyn, we have to consider how we can bring the large Black churches into the fight. How can we utilize the organizational connections we have, the relationships with elected officials, to do so?

Not to forget the Communist Party’s primary tactical goal – defeating the “ultra right” (Republicans) through supporting their allies the Democrats, “as part of an overall strategy on the road towards socialism.”

On the electoral front, it would be good to have more of our own candidates running for office. But right now, this can’t be our main electoral contribution. We have to be part of the fight to defeat what’s left of the ultra right, and make sure they don’t make a comeback in the mid-term elections. Others on the left see these elections either as ends in themselves or deviations from the “real” struggle. But the Communist Party can exercise a leadership role by helping to show the importance of electing or defending Democrats as part of an overall strategy on the road towards socialism.

The Communists have a plan. they always have a plan. They see great opportunities under the leadership of new AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

We do have a plan, so to speak, as to which industries are our main national priorities, as well as place to place. We in New York have a special emphasis on the teachers, transit workers, health care workers, the public workers: these are the most organized and decisive sections of the New York City working class.

Also, I would take issue with the discussion of who “the left” is. We can’t narrow it down simply to the 20 percent of the population that chose “socialism” on a single opinion poll that has, in my opinion, received way too much attention. We’ve seen the beginnings of a really new left: within the labor movement under Trumka, those who have come out for some form of health reform, the new jobs coalition, the movement of activists in Organizing for America, etc. These are the newly invigorated activists on the rising left with whom we want to be associated.

The Communists are masters of leverage, of covertly using their small numbers to achieve maximum impact in the political sphere.

The Communist Party USA is one of Obama’s most important allies. It’s impact should not be under-estimated.