Re: On "embitterment" among SWP escapees

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxx>]

I agree with John 100%. The best political years of my life were spent
around the SWP (13 through 24). I doubt anyone dwells on it outside this
list or when some one who wasn't in the SWP poises the question. It comes up
when new comers raise the question or something  dealing with the 'old' SWP
historically comes up. And, the history of the SWP is not unimportant in and
of itself.

As the Director of the Marxists Internet Archive, I have more to be bitter
about the SWP NOW than anyone here, perhaps, in light of the SWP's attack on
the MIA, but I'm not bitter, rather disappointed.

To be honest, when Lou would repost things from The Militant, it was, it
seems, more out a grand sense of humor. It doesn't take a keen eye to point
out "SWPese" on many Militant articles and it was, and still is, a
light-weight form of fun distraction now and again versus the more heady
topics we often discuss here....

David Walters

> I lost track of the original message, but there was an assertion
> posted a few days ago that former SWP members turned harsh critics are
> "embittered."  It didn't occur to me to respond, but then I got a
> message from a former member who I knew in Pittsburgh; he told me that
> the branch was informed that I was "totally burned out and tired"
> etc. after I resigned, i.e. jumped off the sinking ship (I was in
> Pitt. until one year before I resigned, and moved from there to Des
> Moines). This slander was no surprise, and many people (also probably
> including myself) are slandered far more egregiously when they wake up
> and get the hell out. But anyway it prompted to write a few words.
>
> I may have been sick to death of meetings that only ended when the sun
> went down (or later in winter-time), but I made it clear to one and
> all when I resigned that I was not "tired," nor would I ever be (I've
> instructed my wife to have me put to sleep if I ever evince signs of
> political weariness), and I was not embittered. Unfortunately, a large
> majority of people who resign are indeed either tired, depoliticized
> (both, if they've been working in the print shop for longer than a
> month), cynical and sectarian, or all of the above. Since I resigned
> I've certainly been leading a much healthier and more active political
> existence, as well as reading many more Marxist and other worthwhile
> books and articles (I've even discovered a few non-Pathfinder titles
> that are worth reading, and from which I was shielded while in the
> party). This seems to be true for the other former SWP/Barnes
> International members who periodically contribute a few thoughts to
> this listserv on the party's precipitous decline.
>
> I actually do not regret in the least the time I spent in the party;
> in spite of a few roadblocks of our own design, I was able to
> participate in many wonderful projects and activities and so on (the
> sort that the party has increasingly abandoned), and I'm very glad to
> have worked in a variety of workplaces and unions, from which I
> learned a great deal. The force of our indignation against the band of
> charlatans that has driven the SWP into the ground was probably clear
> in my long post last week (and will be from a message that Philip
> Ferguson and I are preparing to unleash), and certainly comes through
> in the messages of other escapees--but there is a big difference
> between healthy indignation and embitterment.
>
> John Cox
>