Glenville Ash­by

The quib­bling of the so-called po­lit­i­cal left and right con­tin­ues, un­abat­ed. Re­pub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates duke it out, de­bat­ing the is­sues, while the Pres­i­dent, no doubt buoyed by his op­po­nents' less than stel­lar show­ing in the polls, is more as­sertive-in full cam­paign mode. Be­twixt this mud­dle is the Oc­cu­py Wall Street move­ment, on­ly re­cent­ly boot­ed from Zuc­cot­ti Park, the erst­while head­quar­ters of its an­ti-es­tab­lish­ment rad­i­cal­ism. These days, pol­i­tics in New York-a re­flec­tion of the na­tion­al ethos-has be­come trite and pre­dictable. Blind­ers are glued and par­ti­san­ship is rife, each side will­ing to sac­ri­fice the peo­ple at the al­tar of solip­sism. The in­ces­sant fin­ger-point­ing and air of calum­ny it has wrought are ex­haus­tive, lead­ing to a ter­mi­nal po­lit­i­cal ane­mia.

But last week a fresh breath of po­lit­i­cal life re­vived a dy­ing soul, one thirst­ing for po­lit­i­cal mean­ing. North of Zuc­cot­ti Park and a short sub­way ride away is Venezuela's Con­sulate in New York. It is here that an art ex­hib­it on the vic­tims of the earth­quake in Haiti is be­ing pre­miered. Con­sul Gen­er­al Car­ol Del­ga­do is ad­dress­ing a jour­nal­ist on Venezue-la's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to Haiti, the fore­run­ner of Caribbean rev­o­lu­tion­ary thought. Si­mon Bo­li­var, Jose Mar­ti and Hen­ri Christophe are men­tioned in the same breath. Lat­er, there is talk of "one Amer­i­ca" and the for­ma­tion of the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty of Na­tions, an or­gan­i­sa­tion geared to re­plac­ing the OAS and the over­reach- ing role of the US in the re­gion.

"We in the di­as­po­ra must come to­geth­er. We must in­ter­na­tion­alise our agen­da and re­sist hege­mo­ny wher­ev­er it is," Del­ga­do opines. Just the thought of sov­er­eign­ty, re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty, and the au­dac­i­ty to stand up to a be­he­moth is a balm, sooth­ing. The process of po­lit­i­cal re­sus­ci­ta­tion is be­gin­ning. Days lat­er, ten min­utes away from where the first signs of po­lit­i­cal life were in­fused, a tall and be­spec­ta­cled man with a deep rich voice is seat­ed in a con­fer­ence room on the 7th floor of a non­de­script build­ing in Chelsea. It is the head­quar­ters of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty USA. His name is Jarvis Tyn­er. He is 70 years old and he too is en­gag­ing a jour­nal­ist. Jarvis is po­lit­i­cal­ly sea­soned, hav­ing ran for New York gov­er­nor in 1979, and New York may­or in 1985. Even more in­ter­est­ing is Jarvis's present ti­tle-na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive vice chair of the Com­mu­nist Par­ty.

The spa­cious floor is eeri­ly qui­et save for a hand­ful of in­di­vid­u­als. The fre­net­ic pace of the New York City work­place is nonex­is­tent. There is an im­pres­sive li­brary and vin­tage posters of Che Gue­vara, the Ar­gen­tinean rev­o­lu­tion­ary icon with an un­fath­omable reach. It is mirac­u­lous how a set­ting void of life could give life. Maybe it is Tyn­er's ac­knowl­edge­ment of slain Grena­di­an Prime Min­ster Mau­rice Bish­op. "Bish­op was here," he says. "He was im­pressed with our read­ing ma­te­r­i­al so we sup­plied him with a well stocked li­brary." That sal­vo alone suf­ficed to slack­en the po­lit­i­cal thirst of a Caribbean soul, once on the verge of life sup­port.

Tyn­er then of­fers a deep­er in­sight in­to US pol­i­tics. "Oc­cu­py Wall Street may be on to some­thing but they can­not shun the elec­toral process and dis­miss elect­ed of­fi­cials who have them­selves been ac­tivists. It is on­ly the leg­isla­tive process that can ef­fect the change they want. Their tac­tics are im­ma­ture, even mis­guid­ed." He refers to the "oc­cu­piers" as pe­tit bour­geois, many who are more con­cerned with con­fronta­tion than "sit­ting down and brain­storm­ing." He be­lieves that "they are push­ing the lim­it," a lim­it that would nev­er be re­mote­ly tol­er­at­ed if it were black folks out there. "De­spite be­ing the group hit hard­est by the eco­nom­ic down­turn, blacks don't wel­come con­fronta­tions with po­lice agen­cies in this coun­try. You know what will hap­pen." The con­ver­sa­tion changes-now cen­tring on re­li­gion and the Holy Book. The Bible he says made his em­brace of com­mu­nism "com­plete."

"Lib­er­a­tion the­ol­o­gy was ad­vo­cat­ed by priests in Latin Amer­i­ca dur­ing the Cold War. They sided with the rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, so don't tell me that com­mu­nism is an­ti-re­li­gious, or pure­ly sec­u­lar." Then he ex­plains Karl Marx's "Re­li­gion is the opi­ate of the mass­es." He un­der­stands and con­curs with the anal­o­gy. "Opi­um eas­es pain and that's what re­li­gion does...but so­cial­ism, if right­ly prac­tised, can do the same." Of the US Pres­i­dent he is some­what sym­pa­thet­ic, laud­ing his ef­forts at na­tion­al­is­ing health­care, but trou­bled that his suc­cess­es have been marked­ly un­der­played. He is con­vinced that Oba­ma needs a mass so­cial move­ment to make his lib­er­al agen­da stick. "Roo­sevelt's New Deal was gal­vanised by civ­il rights and well planned ac­tivism."

He sub­se­quent­ly as­sails trick­le­down eco­nom­ics and the con­ser­v­a­tive talk­ing point that trade unions have bro­ken the backs of the busi­ness sec­tor. "Are they telling me that as­sem­bly line work­ers who are ex­posed to fumes and chem­i­cals, those who don't en­joy a qual­i­ty life af­ter decades of this kind of labour, are not en­ti­tled to a full re­tire­ment pack­age?" Con­verse­ly and re­fresh­ing­ly, Tyn­er does not de­nounce the pri­vate sec­tor. "Lenin's New Eco­nom­ic Pol­i­cy wel­comed for­eign in­vest­ment," he says, and crit­cis­es gov­ern­men­tal mis­steps that sul­lied the fun­da­men­tal teach­ing of so­cial­ism and its nat­ur­al un­fold­ment to­wards com­mu­nism: "To each ac­cord­ing to his labour, and to each ac­cord­ing to his need." But sure­ly, "man is ca­pa­ble of cor­rupt­ing the most ide­al of plans."

Com­pe­ti­tion is al­ways good but cap­i­tal­ism has gone mad. Yes, it has be­come preda­to­ry, "de­stroy­ing the soul of man and so­ci­ety." The com­mu­nist vet­er­an is buoyed by a re­cent Gallup poll show­ing 30 per cent of Amer­i­cans are in favour of a more so­cial­ist mod­el. He feels vin­di­cat­ed. He is ea­ger to share that mem­ber­ship in his par­ty has spiked in Chica­go, Illi­nois, Cal­i­for­nia, and small towns in the South. New York, once at the fore­front of the Com­mu­nist move­ment, is now shak­ing off the dust. So­cial me­dia too has been a boon. The seeds of so­cial­ism, he sug­gests, are fi­nal­ly tak­ing hold in this citadel of cap­i­tal­ism. "We must form al­liances and build a unit­ed front."

He is al­so re­as­sur­ing that "the Mc­Car­ran Act has long been deemed a vi­o­la­tion of the First Amend­ment. So no one, not even im­mi­grants, can be black­list­ed for join­ing our par­ty." Tyn­er was through. The soul, once dy­ing, has made a full re­cov­ery, and is now re­flec­tive. It mus­es that so­cial­ism is the or­gan­ic out­come of preda­to­ry cap­i­tal­ism; but a gov­ern­ment's im­po­si­tion of so­cial­ism on a peo­ple is doomed; that so­cial­ism on­ly flour­ish­es from the bot­tom up, and that cap­i­tal­ism's "jekylled" side had to man­i­fest for seeds of so­cial­ism to nat­u­ral­ly sprout. There was a loud si­lence, punc­tu­at­ed on­ly by Tyn­er's fad­ing foot­steps.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is the for­eign cor­re­spon­dent for the Guardian Me­dia Group