Re: World Socialist Website

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Charles Brown wrote:

> [snip]
> Communist China has 1.2 billion people, and they are wide awake.  What is 
> that 1/5
>of the world's population ? I don't grant the claims of those who say the 
>China is
>not still a Communist country.  Cuba lives . Viet Nam lives.
>
> [snip]
> >>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> 04/25/00 01:57PM >>>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >My movement hasn't been defeated.
>
> Is it just sleeping? Gathering forces for the next forward assault?
> Will the USSR rise from the ashes? The outside world come around and
> realize that North Korea is an inspiring political model after all?

I  disagree with Charles on China and (probably Vietnam) -- I think he
is letting his trial lawyer instincts (Defend every inch of ground!) run
away with him. And, Charles, you see here the reason I was disconcerted
when you introduced the North Korea thread to the m-fem list.

But here it is -- so let's see if we can establish some rational point
of departure.

If, on the lbo thread, one were to substitute "USSR" for "North
Korea," then those posts which Doug claims are presenting NOrth
Korea as a model form an exact echo of the posts on the USSR
which Doug himself has been writing on maillists for years. He
has consistently defended the USSR *in the same way* that on
LBO Yoshie, Mike Yates, Sam Pawlett, I, Wojtek, various authors
quoted by Yoshie, several MR writers over the years have
defended North Korea. The sentence "The outside world
come around and realize that North Korea is an inspiring political
model after all?" would be more suitable on the editorial page
of the WSJ than in the context of the North Korea thread on
LBO. It is a lie. No one has come close to calling North Korea
an "inspiring political model."

In the 1950s Mossedagh (sp) tried to follow the "democratic
route" which apparently Doug thinks should have been selected
by North Korea under the bombs. In the 1960s Juan Bosch in
the Dominican Republic tried to follow the "inspiring political
model" Doug favors. In the 1970s in Chile Allende tried to
follow the "inspiring political model" Doug favors.. I wonder
what would have happened in North Korea had the North
Korean leadership chosen that particular inspiring model?

I at least have never been into "models" of any sort. I don't
quite understand where Doug unearthed this particular
slanderous terminology.

I may add that I never have been and am not now one of those
who attack Doug for not being a Marxist. But his performance
on this particular thread has been extremely disturbing. His
contributions have been confined mostly to mind-reading
assaults on the inner motivation of other subscribers. He has
not offered a single comment on North Korea which has a
source other than headlines in the capitalist media. I really
do not understand where his performance comes from. He
doesn't even have Charles's excuse of being a lawyer.

Carrol