Sam Webb on Fox New's Glen Beck Show

Now after the Bush Administration has screwed up the country and the world with its economic policies and disastrous wars, the right wing wants to blame everybody but themselves for the mess we’re in.

For weeks now, right-wing bloggers and talk shows have been trying to paint President Barack Obama as a socialist in order to scare people away from his policies. And they have been telling lies about the Communist Party USA as well.

Yesterday, Communist Party National Chairman Sam Webb accepted an invitation onto conservative television host Glenn Beck’s Fox News show in order to give our side of the story.

Watch the full video on our website.
http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/1026/1/27/

Sam held his own against Beck despite being cut off repeatedly and other gimmicks. Beck’s claim that Hitler was a socialist doesn’t hold up to common sense and neither is the idea that “big government” is the source of our problems. Obviously Beck and Fox aren’t all that interested in a real discussion about the country’s problems.

As Sam said on the show, “This country has been brought to its economic knees because the policies of the Bush Administration and Wall Street.” You don’t have to be a communist to agree with that.

Its just Fox trying to link Obama to the Communists.

Edit: Wait, Stalin killed 100,000,000 people now? lol

Did he really hold his own? It seemed like his drowned in Glenn's strawmans.

What the frag? Nationalized socialism?

It's so fragging sad that there are people who take Fox seriously. I would have just declined the invitation.

The CPUSA are desperate for publicity and Fox is the only network that will give it to them. The people at Fox are smart and know that if they get some commies in to support a guy it will have the affect of turning people against him. Thats why they invite Webb on to defend Obama, and why they previously invited two CPUSA representatives on to defend Chavez.

Also Webb is awful at debating, and putting out a communist arguement, how did this guy manage to become General Secretary?

The video's a good example of why the CPUSA party line sucks. Besides Beck calling Obama a communist and a marxist and relating his policies to Lenin and Stalin, he completely destroyed Webb. Not saying that Webb did a bad job in the debate, all TV debates are skewed, but the CPUSA policy line doesn't link with most USA citizens. Relating the Democrats to a socialist society, which the CPUSA seeks to do some how, helps those "right wingers" the CPUSA is so terrified of more than the left.

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The video's a good example of why the CPUSA party line sucks.

It's really not. Like Sam Webb kept trying to say, whenever he tried to talk about the problems in the US, Glen Beck (I think is the guy?) started talking about Stalin or other countries. Then he would make a point about the US, and when Webb tried to respond he'd bring up Stalin again. This was basically sophistic and confusing, and prevented Same Webb from making any real arguments. The best thing Sam Webb got to do was give out the cpusa website address. Hopefully a few people will look at it and try to actually understand the CPUSA line... which does suck, by the way, but I really couldn't have gotten that from the video.

I think the CPUSA sees Obama as someone working for the people under the restraints of capitalism and big business, so they see him as well intentioned but very limited. If Sam Webb had been able to finish a sentence maybe that would have been clarified.

Beck also kept interrupting him whenever he would be making a point. He totally ignored the most important point Webb made: that Obama is not any sort of socialist. I would have sent someone else as a representative of the Party. Chairman Webb seems more like a very soft-spoken type of person and does well with speeches and lectures but not debates.

Beck really is a nutcase, but I support Chairman Webb, myself. I understand that alot of people think CPUSA has "betrayed its roots" so to speak, but I think the truth is much more complex. CPUSA simply seeks to do side with the Democrats in order to curb Republican power as much as possible. Third parties are in a bad way in the US, so struggling against *both* parties seems a bit unrealistic in current circumstances.

I can't help but look at CPUSA's limited siding with the Democrats and be reminded of the USA's siding with China in the Sino-Soviet split, a strategy that would prove devastatingly effective in the Cold War. So in order to break into the mainstream, perhaps it is prudent for the radical left to try and appeal somewhat to those who consider themselves "Democrats". In appearing on Glenn Beck, Webb appeared to be under the impression that showing viewers what a loud-mouth these right-wing television and radio pundits are would inspire at least a few people to question what they were being spoon-fed.

Anyways, that was just my take on it. Thanks for reading, I'm definitely getting alot out of this forum!

Communist organizations need more charismatic, energetic, enthusiastic, and youthful leaders similar to Fidel Castro of the 1960s. People are not interested in what a senile old man like Sam Webb has to say. Because Webb is not an effective as a communicator, the right-wing pigface on Fox clearly outmatched him.

Outmatched? Really?

The only thing Beck did better than Webb was scream louder. Webb is someone who is experienced and theoretically well-versed. I would encourage anyone who is looking to judge him first read his work "Reflections on Socialism". Let's try to be a bit more fair in our assessments, comrades.

Agree with both of you. Be fear in our assements - produce leading cadres a la Fidel of the 60`s with the charisma and ability to translate and communicate the revolutionary political line of the party to the working-class in order to strenghten the party and the working-class fight for liberation and socialism!

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"Reflections on Socialism"

Revisionist dreck every word of it.

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Reflections on Socialism

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The main political task at this moment is to assemble the necessary social forces to defeat Bush and his counterparts in Congress and elsewhere.

I stopped reading here.

Red_Son wrote:

Outmatched? Really?

The only thing Beck did better than Webb was scream louder.

On the Glenn Beck Show, Glenn Beck got his point across to the viewers. Yeah, outmatched, really.

Red_Son wrote:

Webb is someone who is experienced and theoretically well-versed. I would encourage anyone who is looking to judge him first read his work "Reflections on Socialism". Let's try to be a bit more fair in our assessments, comrades.

Being "experienced" and "theoretically well-versed" didn't help Webb on the Glenn Beck Show. Also I believe "Reflections on Socialism" deserves a little more credit than Dagoth Ur and Whitten give it (although I still agree with them) and I'll make a new thread on it soon.

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Revisionist dreck every word of it.

If "every word" is "revisionist", then it should not be difficult to produce some specific lines from it with which you take issue.

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I stopped reading here.

Well, that certainly qualifies one to give a fair assessment of the work.

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On the Glenn Beck Show, Glenn Beck got his point across to the viewers. Yeah, outmatched, really.

I have to disagree. Beck may have gotten his "point" across to the viewers, but he also demonstrated his world-class stupidity through his utter lack of ability to keep a reasonable atmosphere for debate. I think it is safe to assume that a few viewers took note of Webb's thoughtful subtlety and levelheadedness as contrasted with Beck's er, volume.

There is a persistent characterization of socialists as being like 70's radicals. Smoking pot, blasting hard rock, the whole affair. If nothing else, Chairman Webb successfully challenged this notion that is no doubt pervasive among Fox's viewers.

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I'll make a new thread on it soon.

I'll be the first to welcome this.

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Well, that certainly qualifies one to give a fair assessment of the work.

Anything which opens with that line cannot possibly be worth reading. What do you think Marx, writer of "Critique of the Gotha Programme" would have done if he'd seen this.

I like to think that Marx would at least read it through once. I fully understand your disagreeing with the work, but I disagree with your prejudging of it upon simply reading the first few words. Sorry for my delayed response, by the way.

Update. CPUSA represents on CNN. This appears to have gone much better and the CP representative was able to make some points and hopefully got a few viewers to question what they have heard. She didn't have a loudmouth like Beck to cut her off constantly, so she was able to communicate much more clearly. Here's the link:

http://www.cpusa.org/article/articleview/1051/1/27/

"seem to have bought into this crap"

They're arguements against Cuba might be given aditional weight if their broadcasts didn't sound more overtly like propaganda than those of the Cuban state media. . .