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we are funded by these television companies and more, includg cox. >> mckinney -- when connection is needed most, cox. is there. wherever and wherever it matters most, we will be there. front row seat to democracy. us is the national cochair of the communist party of the united states. here to talk about their convention and issues related and of interest to their party. thank you for your time. >> thank you for having us. host: for those were not familiar with your party in the u.s., how is it started and what's the main driver of the commonest party usa? guest: the party has a lg and storied history in our country,

it was brought together in the early part of the last century, we have over 100 years -- i think 100 and three this september, it came together as a result of the struggles and difficulties that we're -- that were faced by working people in this country particularly after the first world war. there we labor strikes, huge amounts of discrimination against african-americans who were in the process of migrating south to the midwest and north. and west coast. , there were immigrants that were coming from europe who were fleeing the aftermath of that terrible war and all of these issues produced the circumstances in which the party was born.

in 1917 in november according october according to the russian calendar, there was the russian revolution. which for the second time in history you had a situation in which working people took decisive action to take control over our lives and founded a working-class state. so these were -- the confluence of the circumstances came together and helped birth our party and many other parties around the world. host: it's your 32nd national convention this weekend. what is the purpose of the convention and particularly in an event -- in an election year, what are your interests? guest: it is a place where the

rank and file of the party, the -- we organizing what we call party clubs in cities across the country. it's a time when we come organizations and other political parties and discuss our previous work and assess, criticize, put forward plans to move the work forward, so that's what we will be doing over the next three days. and of course the fact this convention is taking place in an election year makes it especially important because there are huge stakes in this election. it's been said and i think it is true that it may be a turning point election in the history of our country. on the one side you face what we

think and many others a fascist like danger coming from trump and maga, and on the others you have a progressive coalition that has emerged to move the country in a more profoundly democratic direction. of course that is circumscribed by the problems we have around the planet, climate change, a huge issue. probably a growing emergency and then you have this terrible genocidal war in gaza conducted by the israeli right, funded by our tax dollars which we think is a disgrace. and then of course you have the situation in ukraine and the

russian invasion, and invasion that needs to stop, of the troops need to be withdrawn. nato must stop expanding and the people of that part of the world in eastern europe and the former soviets need to be able to determine their own destinies like people around the world. spotlight congo and haiti and so forth. we are in a very important and unique moment in our lives in the big thing and important thing i think is in our country, more and more -- you find more average rank-and-file people who are taking greater initiative to take control over their lives and we saw that in the women's

movement after the dobbs decision where their rights to control over their bodies was abrogated by the supreme court and it's just been an explosion to reclaim that right and democratic right which is very important. but that also includes voting rights, it includes the right to health care, the right to ha a decent place to live and so on and so forth. these are issues that are at stake coming up in november. host: if you want to ask questions of our guest you can do so on the lines. 202-748-8000 for republicans. democrats, 202-748-8001. ■independents, 202-748-8002. if you're a member of the communist party in the united states and want to ask a question, that is 202-748-8003. you can also use that same number to text us your thoughts

as well. how many people in your party you said you referenced it will convention this week include an endorsement of a presidential candidate? guest: we do not endorse candidates from other political parties. we never have. i doubt that we will. our electoral strategy is based on issues. so we are taking a look at who supports the rights of workers to organize. who supports environmental regulation, who stands for abortion rights, who is taking a position that would reduce the amount of gun violence in the country and put an end to these

terrible massacres that a been happening around the country. it's not so much for us a contest of personalities, but a contest of programs. with respect to the amount of people who in our party rather we are very happy to say that the party has been growing tremendously over the past several starting today after trump -- starting the day after trump was elected we saw increases in applications for membership. another big sequence was after bernie sanders dropped out the first time he ran and this was by people who had supported him but who were very disappointed in how they perceived the way senator sanders was perceived by the democratic party leadership at the time.

and so that when we do a mailing today, we mail close to 20,000 people and our ability to organize and continue that growth is only limited we think at this stage by our resources and our ability to organize. if you're interested in joing u. host: first call for yusor coming from angela in pennsylvania, independent line. you are on with our guest, good morning, go ahead. caller: mr. sims, please don't take any of my questions is a form of disrespect. but i've never heard of the communist party of the united states. and honestly it kind of scares me.

i was listening to what you were saying about trump and biden and quite frankly in my opinion i feel like the democrats have tried to turn us into a socialist communist nation. i don't want to be controlled by the government and i to organio speech and i don't want my right stifled, so in your party, can you explain to me how your government would run? as opposedo what we already have? because i believe in my second amendment, i have a gun to protect myself from a taranto government entity for my home. but if you come down with we are to snatch up everybody's guns, i will turn mine in, but the gang

members aren't going to turn there is in. so therefore you're putting me at risk on that one. and then with climate change, there's only one solution to that and that's to put a dome across america because you never can get china to comply. it's just like i'm confused. host: got your points out caller, thank you for calling. guest: thank you for your question. no one is going to be taking away your gun, that's not the issue. i do think the military budget is a big issue in the amount of money that we are spending on arms and shipping them all over the world i'd say that's a gun issue. i think with respect to the issue of gangs, one of the things we have to do is to address the drug crisis in the country. a lot of the gangs are organized

around the distribution of illegal substances and i think that we have to take a public health approach. the communist party is not in favor of big government. that's not what we stand for. we stand for the rightordinary e like yourself to have the right to have control over your life. to control over what you produce and to control how that is distributed. so it's not about restricting people's rights it's about empowering working people to be able to control our own destinies. i do not think that at this day and time we need filthy rich

people who really don't produce anything determining how the country is run and what we are able to see on television and listen to on the radio or here in social media and that is what is increasingly, the mass media is increasingly controlled by international financial and media conglomerates. it's not a good thing. that needs to be democratized and the party stands for that kind of international cooperation to make that happen. i think with respect to china, i believe that the leadership wanr children and grandchildren to be able to breathe and live a free

of environmental pollution and toxic waste and so on and so forth. so we have to find points of agreement to bring this under control before it gets so out of control that we risk the extinction of the species. host: let's hear from michigan. republican line, good morning you are on with the guest. caller: thank you for putting me on. i remember, i'm 90 years old and i remember in chicago my father was a dentist and he used to go to the ymca every day for and i discovered later in my life that that was where one of the first communist parties started at the ymca in chicago. and then they spread out.

we are a constitutional republic. and there is something different between capitalism and communism and if there had been people controlling my fath's regulations he never would've invented the process for the gold inlay. we need the freedom that way. host: nancy there in michigan. guest: thank you nancy, i'm not familiar with what happened at the ymca in chicago. i know previously with a big and strong party in chicago that produced many great leaders and scientists and artists. richard wright was one of them. but again, there's been a big

lie told to the american people and that lie has been that our social system is antidemocratic, is meant to control and to restrict and of course i would not sit here and tell you that mistakes and difficulties and some crimes were committed during the course of socialist construction, but in this country, what happened to our party was that the big government, big corporations during the mccarthy period restricted our right to speak, restricted our right to teach

and in fact through us into jail and fired us from jobs in order to protect what they consider to be a threat from the left. and so, the issue of repression is not one that is unique to any particular social system. we have to learn the lessons from our history. and i think that means being vigilant and it also means coming together to protect and fight for the common good and that is what the communist party does. again if you are interested in finding out about us, or joining us, write to us at cp usa@cpusa.org. host: independent line, fred is

in philadelphia. rning. i just have a couple of questions. one, years ago i met jarvis tyner who ran for the vice president ticket with gus hall. we never talk politics or anything like that but my question for you is who is actually funding? are you funded through the commonest party in russia in different places like that? that's just my question. guest: not at all. we don't receive funding from any foreign power or foreign corporation unlike some of the candidates here. we don't get any money from any domestic corporations, jeff bezos or elon musk or the head of chase manhattan bank is not

supporting us, we get our resources from average ordinary working class people, some of whom donate their money to us in their wills. some of whom, most of whom actually support us financially through their dues. we have annual fund drives for our press, people's world.org. we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the working-class press, the daily worker and people's world this year. i'm glad you mentioned jarvis tyner, he is a great figure, civil-rights labor, african-american in our movement from west philadelphia. i will be seeing jarvis later today and i will be sure to tell him that somebody was on the

program today that once met him. thank you for calling. host: there is a history professor at hamilton college named maurice i sermon who writes a book about communism particularly roast -- wrote a recent op-ed in which he said american communist in the 20th century included in the ranks le of talent, vision and genuine idealism. their willingness to support thr boat -- bestn nks in eight fweand relevant historical model and in doing so they helped set back for generations the opportunities for the emergence of a genuinely american left. what you think of that perspective. guest: i reaat article and i think when the russian revolution took ple socialist experience was brand-new. we did not have an ability to

have the background iilding a new society. you have to remember that the socialist movement is a movement of ordinary working class people. you don't have the background that the wealthy have in distrig and administering a society. and they are not to teach it to you or you hrn it yourself and we find a number of developing countries with these kind of problems with are cap illiterate and are not provided the opportunity, when their labor is exploited, you spend all your time trying to survive.

so ian element of truth and what he says in the sense that we copied the soviet model because it was the only model. and a lot of other organizations and movements around the world did as well. and of course there were many positive developments in that experience, there were a number of important social and economic and political gains that the working people obtained in the former soviet union. but i think our evolution led us to understand we need to create a model of socialism in this country that's based on the united states and not on any other country. we have to take into account

others'experience, but the formula that we use, of the structures that we build has to grow out of our own history and our own culture and the best of our traditions and i think that the working-class people, the broadly defined and that includes scientists and academics and steelworkers and nurses and doctors and lawyers and dentists, all of us have to come together to build a new productive and empowering society and i think that is possible. so yes we made some mistakes, that learn from them, but the biggest mistake that has been made was i think by sections of

the left during the mccarthy period to come to the repression the took place and in so doing, they helped set back the labor movement for many decades and we are only beginning to see now a revival of labor and the republican right is attempting to push away . by labeling everything, every advance that is occurring in our country as being socialism. so they tell this incredible tale about biden being a socialist heard nothing could be further from the case. host: this is from james in kansas, republican line. caller: yes.

my question to you is what is the parties viewpoint on china and also the feature of china and u.s. relations. guest: thank you james. we think that china is a country that is coming into its own. they are a proud and brilliant people. who were horribly oppressed during the period of colonialism. i just read recently about how the british invaded china and the point was to convince the chinese government to convince the chinese people to purchase opium that they were producing in order to utilize that to

create assets. they were invaded by japan and i think they are rightfully of the opinion that the preservation of their country and culture and all of the different ethnicities of people is extremely important and that they do not want to be trampled on by anybody. of course no country is different. we can all understand the right of any people to their own dignity and they are trying to build a model of socialism based on their own history and traditions. they call it socialism with chinese characteristics. they have not reached there yet, but they are striding and they are very honest about that. i think the people of the united states and the people of china and other countries around the world, we need to put aside our

differences and find the common things that we can work on in order to ensure our mutual survival. and i think that that's the most important issue before the country and before the world at this perilous moment in our history. host: the website for our guest organization is cpusathank you . >>

>> this afternoon a status on in vitro referventization with emma waters from the claire booth luce center. >> today watch c-span twoertd campaign trail a weekly round up of campaign coverage providing a one stop shot to see what they are saying to voters with firsthand accounts from political reporters, updated poll numbers and campaign ads. it is today at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span on line at shap.org or wherever you get your podcast. c-span, your unfirst of alled view of