“Election 2006: The Stakes Are Very High” first appeared on PoliticalAffairs.net on April 16, 2006. Read it on PoliticalAffairs.net.

Excerpted from a March 4 speech to the national committee of the Communist Party USA.

Last fall, I noted that the cumulative weight of an increasingly unpopular war, Katrina, indictments, incompetence, corruption, scandals, cronyism, and deeply felt anxiety with energy costs and the economy had taken its toll on the standing of the Bush administration. For the first time since 9/11, I said, it governed from a position of weakness and its support had narrowed to its most diehard backers. It spoke with far less political and moral authority. I went on to say that this downward slide in Bush’s political fortunes was more than a momentary blip.

“Fighting racism is at the heart of our struggles” first appeared on PoliticalAffairs.net on March 4, 2006. PoliticalAffairs.net.

From People’s Weekly World Newspaper   For the past six years, millions of Americans have been battling the Bush administration and its policies of pre-emptive war, economic austerity, usurpation of democratic rights and racism.

Yet a sober look at the political landscape yields an inescapable conclusion — though the movement has grown in breadth and depth, though this administration is greatly weakened and though some victories have been won, Bush and his right-wing counterparts in Congress continue to drive the nation’s political agenda.