Re: Stalinism And Standards of Intellectual Discourse

[Scott Marshall <Scott@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff Booth:

>       This is a really good observation and something else follows from
>it:  every CP member I've ever known has been a shameless ass-kisser of
>the trade union bureacracy.  They also routinely hide their politics and
>are, in effect, indistinguishable from liberals and trade union
>bureacrats.

Scott:

This just proves that you haven't been around the trade union movement very
long. We sure didn't see you in the mighty rank and file struggles of the
1980's when we were leading large formations in steel, auto, machinists. And
you can't be very familar with the current struggles, say in the teachers
union in NY.

You should come here to Chicago and talk to the district director in steel
about me and my friends. Now things have changed and the standard ultra-left
rant and mantra about labor leaders is silly. The main enemy is the bosses
not the labor leaders. We should organize to defeat those who stand in the
way of class struggle trade unionism, but not as a thing in itself. If must
be part of the fight against the boss and the capitalist system. I see far
too many lazy leftist who would rather attack the easy target of union
leaders, while never putting anything but their lip into the fight against
the corporations.

I don't know a thing about your practice Jeff, so I won't characterize it,
but I will say that you know very little about our work in the unions based
on the above. BTW Jeff, I've been an open Communist in the shop most of my
union life. I've also been fired by the bosses for my political beliefs in
about three instances that I could prove - so stuff you 'hide your politics'
crack. There have been times when people couldn't feed their families
because of their political beliefs - you better believe that makes people
cautious. But i've noticed that a lot of loud mouths that only went around
blasting the union leadership neer got fired for their politics......hmmm...




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