Re: Communist Internationalist Position on Immigration and Travel

[aabdo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tony Abdo)]

Lou Proyect writes-
<And what is all this bullshit about "we communists". Communists belong
to organizations and do hard work, like selling newspapers at plant
gates and raising money. You are a cyber-communist, aren't you? A
different thing entirely.>

Damn it, Lou, you're giving me that old macho activism test the SWP uses
so often, to tell everybody to shut up with.     How many papers have I
sold at plant gates recently?

Well, I do get a bundle of papers, though I don't sell them at factory
gates.     And I am a member of a 'commie' organization.    Kind of hard
to do in the State of Texas.  Of course, being a communist here is a
little different than being one in San Francisco or New York.

Maybe you think I should move the family to New York City so that I
could be more active at plant gate sells?     Or raising money?

After spending my lifetime as a Trotskyist, I find it comical to have to
justify to any other commie, my level of activism or not.    The plain
fact is that socialist organizations have had trouble sustaining even
the smallest cells of activity in the US, beyond metropolitan areas of
less than 3-4 million.

The fact that I am able to exist and open my mouth at all on this list,
after coming from and living in Texas the majority of my life, should be
something that you big city activists should want to encourage.     You
don't want me to give an opinion about why the movement hasn't ever
accomplished anything in the region I come from, right?

I am a cyber-communist, aren't I?      Well come on down and let's do
things together, and talk in person, and 'raise money'.     Or do I have
to come up to New York City to keep from being labeled a
'cyber-communist'?
And work with groups there?

I'm tempted to use the verbal style of our transient Right Wing friend,
to further describe the reality of affairs I am talking about.     But
let me use instead, a more academic style to say what I got to say.

I first began to realize how out of touch US socialist groups were on
understanding border society, when I lived in San Diego and worked with
the SWP branch there in 1980, or thereabout.      They wanted to do a
lot of plant sales then.    And they did.

But San Diego and Tijuana are one gigantic metropolitan area with about
5.5 million population now.     What has been the record in esablishing
a Left presence in this area that jointly works together in both sides
of the border?

Anything that does exist, came about via spontaneous combustion.
There was no sense in the SWP that something other than plant gate sales
in San Diego was something that was worthy of doing in San Diego/
Tijuana.     And the situation as a whole hasn't changed in the 2
decades since.    And I'm not just talking about the problems of the SWP
here.

I have been accused of using a broad brush.      But what else can one
do to talk about issues and regions where the communist movement is so
absent and unaccustomed to dealing with?

The Zapatistas have begun to try to deal with the Border areas in
Mexico.      They realize that they cannot grow and survive in Mexico as
a whole, by being entirely out of physical range, of where so many
people actually live.

The US Left is a different story.      I paint with a wide brush certain
issues, principally because the US and international Left doesn't even
know that this problem, of the socialist Left being absolutely,
physically absent in the Border areas, exists.

It's not that, I all alone, am trying to be some sort of conscience
here.      It's just that if the issues are not approached in a broad
manner, yet sharp manner, they just get skipped over.

Let's see what I mean.    If I were to mention something like that the
AFl-CIO has done well to organize the Walmart store in Podunk, Texas
with it's 20 workers or so.... congratulations!      This would be
acceptable.    And skipped over.

But if I were to say something like... that the AFL-CIO is clueless
about how to organize Texas, therefore it's not doing anything real
despite the 20 workers at Podunk asking for unionization and being
talked about.     Then about umpteen so people begin to think about
this, one way or the other, and get indignant that someone would dare be
nasty to the labor movement.     And they would be thinking about
something real, because the AFL-CIO IS CLUELESS on how to organize
places like Texas.

The problem in this marxism list, as in the socialist movement as a
whole, is that you guys don't want to talk about, know about, or think
about, the politics of a region that is so NOT IN, in marxist circles.
If I was to write about the Delta region in Mississippi, there would be
endless interest.

The fact that I am talking these issues on lists is more activism for
this region, than most comrades have ever known.      Label it
'cyber-communism' if you will.     But the politics I find a few faults
with, don't even make a cyber presence here, let alone a physical one.
And I'll say just that.

Tony