[Marxism] Solidarity's (alleged) scabbing and Stalinism

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chegitz:  "The fact that I was the lone voice raising a protest against
Feeley's siding with the Feds against the Teamsters tells volumes about the
level of political discourse within the organization, or rather the lack
thereof."

Well, yes, either that or ... we have a case where Feeley's support for
federal government union busting is, like Beauty itself, in the eyes of the
beholder. 

This possibility cannot be excluded, as we have now been given a link to a
very long article from those days detailing the course followed by the TDU
from the point of view of Soli members and nowhere do we find in it the
alleged position ascribed to Feeley, that it was a good thing Carey had been
removed as president of the Teamsters. I also searched through all the ATC
articles posted online by Feeley for the relevant year (1998); of the half
dozen, none deal with Carey or the Teamsters. I also did a Google search of
the soli web site for Feeley and Teamsters and Carey. I could not find
anything that seemed to be what chegitz is referencing. 

I cannot, of course, PROVE a negative, that Feeley did NOT write something
of the tone and tenor that chegitz ascribes to her. But having known Feeley
since around 1970, and accepting chegitz's word for it that only he noticed
and only he was outraged by Feeley's alleged anti-union pro-government
position, I think if chegitz wants to convince us, he will need to provide
documentation, especially Feeley's own words -- in context.

Otherwise what we will have is the allegation of a former Soli member, who
is still VERY sore at Soli, against a leading Soli member who has been a
socialist fighter her entire life and a union militant for decades, that
contrary to her entire trajectory and everything else she's ever said or
written, she supported the government's attack on the IBT.

And not just that, in an organization full of socialists and union members,
including many leading activists in the Teamster rank-and-file movement and
Carey's campaign, only Chegitz noticed what Feeley said. 

Which, by the way, PROVES what a rotten outfit Solidarity is ... according
to Chegitz.

And, no, Chegitz hasn't provided the issue number or date, the page number,
the name of the article, we don't have the context, we don't have direct
quotes and it doesn't happen to be among the dozens of Feeley's ATC articles
that have been posted over the years including six in 1998. 

You know, I've seen government terrorism frame-ups with more substance than
this!

And we find the pattern repeating itself. Chegitz claims Solidarity has some
sort of secret democratic centralism because Isaac Silver and David Finkel
questioned him on something he wrote on facebook.

In my experience Isaac is a very good organizer and a good guy, but David
Finkel is a saint -- even-handed, calm, fair, thoughtful, objective, and an
awesome editor. If David got on Chegitz's case, I would assume there was
good reason for it.

Chegitz on the other hand tends to write loosely, confusing interpretation
with fact. Thus he said earlier he had been expelled from Solidarity, but
later revealed he was actually dropped from membership for failing to pay a
convention assessment, as required by the Soli constitution. Undoubtedly
Chegitz contends his failure to pay a constitutionally-required assessment
was simply a pretext seized on by the Silver-Finkel-Feeley leadership clique
to drive him out of the organization.

Which raises the obvious question: if waging a struggle inside Solidarity
against the things Chegitz considers bad and evil, like supporting the Green
Party, was so important to him, why did he put himself in a position where
he could so easily be removed from the rolls?

Finally, Chegitz seems to be under the impression that just because people
in Soli are not required to spout the party line on everything from Nepal to
the California Gold Rush, that therefore one can say ANYTHING AT ALL. Quite
mistaken

a) Where appropriate and also when asked, members are required to state what
Soli's position IS. They aren't required to pretend they agree with it nor
are they prevented from explaining their own point of view. But they have to
state what the group's position is.

b) Members are enjoined from campaigning AGAINST Solidarity positions and
efforts. Thus in the recent election campaign, say I advocated a boycott, I
was free to say that but chairing the Atlanta Boycott the Bourgeois
Electoral Farce Coalition would have put me beyond the pale.

c) As point 'B' illustrates, when dealing with voluntary organizations,
freedom of speech is bounded and circumscribed by freedom of association.
Solidarity's members have a right to have it be the kind of group they want
it to be. So if, for example, you were to become a supporter of Obama's
escalation of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, applauded the rounding up
of immigrants, hailed internment camps for Japanese Americans, Solidarity
COULD and I assume WOULD expel you for holding and expressing those views. 

d) This would ALSO include one's attitude towards the group. If one believes
that Soli is an organization of blowhards and scabs, a cesspool that the
left needs to clean up or get rid of and so on, well, guess what, you don't
have a right to be a member or remain a member once you've developed those
views. And for my part, IF THAT WERE TO HAVE BEEN THE CASE (notice this is
all conditional/speculative) then I would have really no problem with Isaac
or whoever seizing on someone's failure to pay a required assessment to
exclude that person from the organization. I mean if a person publicly
expresses his hostility to the organization, there's every reason to take
his or her failure to comply with the requirements of membership as simply a
reflection that the person is really no longer a member.

Joaquin


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