Reply to Paul from the DSP

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul, let me explain why this list was created. It was meant as a space for
Marxists who rejected the methodology of small sectarian groups that viewed
email lists as a place to "intervene". This list is the culmination of a
five year struggle to put as much distance between independent Marxists and
the various Maoists and Trotskyist groupuscles who thought they were in the
Russian Duma in 1905, making speeches under the discipline of their central
committee.

I discovered a couple of days ago that Whitlock was a supporter of the
Movement for Socialism groupuscle. MfS is one of the shards in the rubble
that was known as Gerry Healy's International Committee for a Fourth
International. While they pay lipservice to the idea that something was
wrong with that enterprise, they also retain a lot of its bad habits.
Mostly, that consists of kneejerk Stalinophobia. In a list like this, that
is almost guaranteed to set off fireworks.

Steve Drury, the first MfS'er who showed up, got into fight after fight
with people on this list around African questions and Argentina. He tried
to draw a line of blood between the "traitors" and "killers" of the ANC and
the tiny group in South Africa he was connected with. He also alleged that
Peron was a "fascist" and implied that our Argentinian subscribers were
little better than apologists for fascism. He caused such a storm of
controversy that he kept us from discussing more important matters. So he
was unsubbed.

Then we received a visit from MfS'er Bernie Wool, who raised the same
bullshit about Peron. Evidently it is something that the British sectarian
Trotskyist movement is really into. Nestor and Julio correctly labeled it
as accomodation to British imperialist prejudices. When I unsubbed Wool, he
told me that he was glad because the list was such a Stalinist cesspool.

Not 2 weeks after Wool is gone, Whitlock shows up. I had no reason to take
any disciplinary actions against him, but after I found out in a private
mail that he was not only another MfS'er, but that he regarded the list as
"a mix of flame wars and cosy tummy stroking." When I read that, I was in
no mood to cut him slack.

Yesterday I posted an item from the bourgeois press that was meant to
supply background information on the Chechen guerrillas. It is exactly the
kind of thing that I used to do routinely with the KLA. Since I have access
to Nexis at work, I try to take advantage of it. Whitlock's bitter response
has to be understood politically. The anger reflects a belief that the
litmus test for revolutionaries is what attitude they take toward the KLA
and now the Chechen rebels. Those who take the wrong side are a combination
of Stalinists and Serb fascists. Support for the Serb side is tanamount to
supporting Hitler. If you think I am exaggerating, check out the Branca
Magas piece on the Against the Current website. Although they promoted her
views during the war, she lambasted them for not supporting Nato bombing,
which she viewed as analogous to the effort to stop Hitler. Not quite a
Trotskyist position.

Now I personally don't think that Kosovo is any kind of "litmus test". I
regard the DSP, Solidarity, Jose Perez and other comrades on this list who
I disagree with as being revolutionaries. But I am smart enough and
experienced enough to know that that's NOT the way that MfS thinks. They
divide the world into true revolutionaries and traitors around the question
of Kosovo and a whole menu of other "defining" questions. This is part of
the sickness of Trotskyism. Trotsky's idea that a scratch turns into
gangrene has turned the Trotskyist movement into something that looks like
an amoeba on steroids.

But I will not allow them to pursue traitors on this list. I had too bitter
an experience in the American SWP to put up with that kind of bullshit
here. Especially when I am paying $100 a month to keep the list going and
countless hours trying to get the furkackte procmail to talk to the mhonarc
software.

Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)