CPUSA Online - A Landslide Mandate For Change - Report to the National Committee Meeting 11/15/08

CPUSA Online - A Landslide Mandate For Change - Report to the National Committee Meeting 11/15/08: "1. Introduction: A breakthrough election

Congratulations on an extraordinary history making election!

We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward our strategic goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress. That all people’s movement has come to life, it is dynamic and it has the potential to keep growing.

The election of Barack Obama and a strengthened Congress creates new conditions in our country. There is now the possibility to shift gears and move forward. This new day requires us to further develop our tactics in order to continue to deepen and broaden labor and people’s unity.

There are thousands of experiences that we all have had in these momentous days, some large, some small, all of which express the enormity of change in thinking and readiness for involvement that is underway and that steels us for the battles ahead.

The tears of joy we all shared as crowds gathered to watch the election results here and throughout the world dramatize the new moment we are in.

145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 55 years after Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus, sparking a movement that led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama, has been elected.

African American children, Latino, Asian American and Native American children all know now that one day they too can be president.

It will take some time to fully comprehend this event, and the depth of progressive thinking and change it opens up.

In this election, a sense of determination took hold to end the long nightmare of inhumane, corrupt, ultra-right, profit-driven government.

Obama’s “yes we can - si se puede” message of hope and unity became a beacon for millions of voters of all races, backgrounds and ages, worried about their economic security and the future of their children and the planet."