“Keynote Address, 27th CPUSA National Convention” first appeared on CPUSA.net on July 6, 2001. Read it on CPUSA.net.
On behalf of the outgoing National Committee, I want to thank the office of the Mayor of Milwaukee and the representatives of the progressive community here for your greetings to our Convention. It seems especially appropriate to hold our Convention in a city whose socialist, progressive, and working-class movements stretch back into the 19th century.
I'm a long-time socialist and activist, but new to the blogging world, to which I aim to bring a different perspective on politics, sports, culture, and Marxism. I also teach online classes, but leave plenty of time for swimming, hiking, ESPN, music, reading, drinking good beer, and, not least, my family and friends. I wish I could play basketball, but my knees ruled out that possibility long ago. I was the national chairperson of the Communist Party, USA from 2000 until 2014. While I grew up in Maine and currently live in New York City, my politically formative years were spent in Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. I graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia (where I played basketball) and received my MA in economics from the University of Connecticut.
