Spartacist League line change on Haiti
jh
International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake
A Capitulation to U.S. Imperialism
http://www.spartacist.org/english/leaflets/rehaiti.html
As can be seen from the title of the leaflet, the Spartacist League
has completely reversed itself on Haiti, denouncing its previous line
as a major political blunder, very sharply.
I am not quite sure how I feel about this. The statement is quite
persuasive--but so to me were the arguments for the old position.
I had been backpedaling a bit on some of the pragmatic arguments
around Haiti in the last week or two, but this is a principled not a
pragmatic change in position.
My first impulse is to think, well, OK, but maybe they are
overshooting a bit again. I notice that the article makes the point
that the *original* article, at least by implication, was arguing a
worse position than the one I was arguing, which by omission at least
could be seen as an outright endorsement of the US invasion.
Certainly the very fact that far more words were devoted to blasting
the IG etc. than to denouncing the crimes of US imperialism in Haiti
can be read that way, in and of itself.
Perhaps it would have been better if they simply should not have
challenged the IG on this particular issue in the first place, but
just stuck to denouncing the horrible way the rescue effort was
conducted. Sometimes silence can be golden.
I am unconvinced by the article that defense of Cuba vs. Obama, etc.
is posed here. I continue to think that Obama plans to get the US
troops out ASAP so the point is moot. We shall see.
In any case, I'm going to have to think seriously about this, and I am
certainly not going to automatically assume in the future that a
political position is correct just because the SL proclaims it.
They are still the only group around with politics that are worth a
damn as far as I am concerned. I have never seen them as some sort of
Healyite inerrants who are always correct by some kind of political
immaculate conception, this, well, all I can say is this reinforces
that. Obviously they either were making a big mistake then, or now.
My leaning is to think then, which is better of course. Though I
shared it of course.
ICL statement below.
-jh-
In its articles on the Haitian earthquake, Workers Vanguard, the
newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S., committed a betrayal of the
fundamental principle of opposition to one’s “own” imperialist rulers.
In addition to justifying the U.S. imperialist troops as essential to
the aid effort, these articles polemicized against the principled and
correct position of demanding the immediate withdrawal of the troops.
This line was carried in a number of presses in other ICL sections,
becoming the de facto line of the International Communist League.
Without a public accounting and correction, we would be far down the
road to our destruction as a revolutionary party. From the beginning
the only revolutionary internationalist position was to demand that
all U.S./UN troops get out of Haiti!
In our article in WV No. 951 (29 January), repeated in subsequent
issues of the newspaper, we baldly stated:
“The U.S. military is the only force on the ground with the capacity—
e.g., trucks, planes, ships—to organize the transport of what food,
water, medical and other supplies are getting to Haiti’s population.
And they’re doing it in the typical piggish U.S. imperialist manner.
We have always opposed U.S. and UN occupations in Haiti and everywhere—
and it may become necessary to call for U.S./UN out of Haiti in the
near future—but we are not going to call for an end to such aid as the
desperate Haitian masses can get their hands on.”
The International Executive Committee of the ICL repudiates this
betrayal of our revolutionary program. As stated in the SL/U.S.
Programmatic Statement: “We unconditionally oppose all U.S. military
intervention—and U.S. military bases—abroad, and defend the colonial,
semicolonial and other smaller, less developed countries in the face
of U.S./UN attack and embargo.”
Even in very belatedly raising the call for “All U.S./UN Troops Out of
Haiti Now!” in WV No. 955 (26 March), we continued to evade and reject
the principle of opposition to the U.S. imperialist occupation of
neocolonial Haiti. Moreover this article stated: “As we made clear in
our article, ‘Haiti Earthquake Horror: Imperialism, Racism and
Starvation’ (WV No. 951, 29 January), while we were not for the U.S.
military going into Haiti, neither were we going to demand, in the
immediate aftermath of that horrific natural disaster, the immediate
withdrawal of any forces that were supplying such aid as was reaching
the Haitian masses.” In fact, our earlier article had not clearly
stated that we were not for the U.S. troops going in nor did it even
call the U.S. military takeover what it was.
The U.S. military invasion was designed to provide a “humanitarian”
face-lift to bloody U.S. imperialism and was aimed at securing U.S.
military control in Haiti and reasserting American imperialist
domination over the Caribbean, including against imperialist rivals
like France. In failing to oppose the invasion, we also ignored the
particular danger this posed to the Cuban deformed workers state (as
well as to the bourgeois nationalist-populist regime of Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela). We accepted Washington’s line that the provision of aid
was inextricably linked to the U.S. military takeover and thus helped
to sell the myth peddled by the Democratic Party Obama administration
that this was a “humanitarian” mission. Our statement that “it may
become necessary to call for U.S./UN out of Haiti in the near
future” (emphasis added) amounted to giving conditional support to
U.S. military intervention. As one leading party comrade argued, the
only difference between the position we took and August 4, 1914, when
the German Social Democrats voted war credits to the German
imperialist rulers at the outset of the First World War, is that this
was not a war.
Thus we gutted the revolutionary internationalist essence of Trotsky’s
theory of permanent revolution linking the fight for social and
national liberation to the struggle for proletarian state power both
in neocolonial and in more advanced countries. This means educating
the proletariat in North America, and internationally, that its class
interests lie in actively championing the fight against the
imperialist domination of Haiti. Instead our articles did the
opposite, promoting illusions in U.S. imperialist “democracy” as the
savior of the Haitian people. We all but echoed Barack Obama as he
dispatched imperialist combat troops, including elements of the 82nd
Airborne Division and a Marine expeditionary unit. One doubts that we
could so easily have taken such a position if the Republican Bush
administration were still in the White House.
In its latest article, “SL Twists and Turns on
Haiti” (Internationalist, 9 April), the centrist Internationalist
Group (IG) writes: “While support to imperialist occupation is a small
step for reformists, who only seek to modify imperialist policies
rather than to bring down the imperialist system, in the case of the
SL/ICL it should be harder to digest.” Indeed it is. For its part, the
IG treated the earthquake as an opening for revolution in Haiti,
asserting: “This small but militant proletariat can place itself at
the head of the impoverished urban and rural masses seeking to
organize their own power, particularly at present where the machinery
of the capitalist state is largely reduced to rubble and a few
marauding bands of police” (“Haiti: Workers Solidarity, Yes!
Imperialist Occupation, No!” Internationalist, 20 January).
Instead of simply exposing the IG’s Third Worldist fantasies, we
concentrated in our polemics on zealous apologies for the U.S.
imperialist military intervention, a position to the right of the IG.
These centrist apologists for Third World nationalism quite correctly
characterized our position as “social imperialist”—socialist in words,
support for imperialism in deeds. This is a bitter pill to swallow.
Only through a savage indictment of our line can we avoid the
alternative of going down the road that led the founders of the IG to
defect from our organization in the pursuit of forces other than the
proletariat. In their case, this has ranged from remnants of the
Stalinist bureaucracy that sold out to imperialist counterrevolution
in the DDR to Latin American nationalists and left-talking trade-union
bureaucrats.
In the context of polemics with the IG, Workers Vanguard misused the
authority of the revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky in order to alibi
support to an imperialist occupation. In his 1938 article “Learn to
Think,” Trotsky argued that one should not always put a minus where
the bourgeoisie puts a plus. He was referring not to a military
occupation force but to instances where an imperialist government
might send military aid to anti-colonialist fighters. Moreover,
Trotsky’s reference in this article to workers fraternizing with an
army called in to fight a fire manifestly did not refer to a situation
like Haiti where U.S. imperialist troops were invading a neocolonial
country, an act which Leninists unconditionally oppose on principle.
However, neither do revolutionaries foster illusions in such non-
military aid as capitalist governments may provide. In responding to
the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti following the earthquake, we
would have done well to look to the position of our Australian section
in 2005 responding to the imperialist “aid” intervention in Indonesia,
specifically the secessionist province of Aceh, following the tsunami.
Demanding “Australian/all imperialist military/cops get out of Aceh
now!” an article in Australasian Spartacist titled “Australian
Imperialists Seize on Tsunami Catastrophe” (No. 190, Autumn 2005)
indicted imperialist aid programs. The article pointed out that
“whatever short-term benefit a part of them may provide to a small
number of oppressed people,” such aid is “always aimed at reinforcing
neocolonial subjugation of the Third World masses.”
The “Politics of the Possible”
From the time of our tendency’s inception as a left opposition within
the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the early 1960s, we have
recognized that national isolation must in short order destroy any
subjectively revolutionary formation, not least one subjected to the
pressures of operating in the heartland of world imperialism, the
United States. Genuine proletarian internationalism means disciplined
international collaboration, without which we cannot successfully
counter the powerful pull of nationalist opportunism.
The handmaiden to our embellishment of U.S. imperialist intervention
was the abrogation of international democratic centralism. The role of
propaganda as the scaffolding of a revolutionary party is to publish
the line of the party as decided through discussion and motions by the
party leadership. Prior to going into print opposing the call for
“troops out of Haiti” in WV No. 951, the SL/U.S. Political Bureau and
the International Secretariat (the resident administrative body of the
IEC) abdicated responsibility by not holding an organized discussion
and vote, instead setting our line through informal consultation.
However, once the line was published in Workers Vanguard it was picked
up by many of the ICL’s other sectional presses, indicating that there
was little initial disagreement.
A meeting of the I.S. on March 18 did at last vote to call for the
immediate withdrawal of U.S. and United Nations troops. However, the
motions adopted at that meeting, which became the basis for the
article in WV No. 955, reaffirmed that “we were correct in not calling
for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in the immediate aftermath of the
earthquake.” In stating that “the particular exceptional circumstances
that obtained two months ago no longer exist,” the motions also
continued to insist that conditional defense of the U.S. military
invasion was correct in the immediate conjuncture of a natural
disaster. Moreover, while criticizing the formulation that the U.S.
military was the only force on the ground with the wherewithal to
deliver aid, the I.S. motions did not mandate a public correction of
this statement. This kind of dishonesty was condemned by James P.
Cannon, founder of American Trotskyism. In addressing a situation
where the Trotskyist SWP at its 1954 convention needed to acknowledge
mistakes, he noted: “You know, the Stalinists make more changes, and
more rapid and drastic changes, than any other party in history. But
they never say: ‘We made a mistake.’ They always say: ‘The situation
has changed.’ We should be more precise and more honest.”
Menshevism often takes the guise of “realism” and “expediency.”
Looking to come up with a “concrete solution” in a situation where
there was no such solution from a proletarian revolutionary vantage
point, we capitulated. What our small revolutionary party had to put
forward was a proletarian internationalist perspective for the
liberation of Haiti, above all through opposition to our “own”
imperialist rulers. In the immediate situation, the only concrete
expression of such a program was negative—to demand that any and all
Haitian refugees be allowed into the U.S. with full citizenship
rights, to oppose any deportations of Haitians who had made it here
and above all to demand all U.S./UN troops out.
Our articles distorted reality in order to justify the American
military presence. We correctly criticized the reformists for
spreading illusions in the imperialist governments by demanding that
they provide “aid, not troops” but our own response was worse. Our
articles presented U.S. military intervention as the only “realistic”
way for the Haitian masses to get “aid” and claimed demagogically that
withdrawal of U.S. combat troops “would result in mass death through
starvation.” This was to treat the question not from the standpoint of
Marxist program, but through the liberal lens of “disaster relief.”
Michael Harrington—the former leader of the Democratic Socialists of
America and adviser to the “war on poverty” programs of Lyndon B.
Johnson’s Democratic Party administration—captured the core of such a
social-democratic worldview with the expression, “the left wing of the
possible.”
The “politics of the possible” is a palpable pressure in the period of
post-Soviet reaction, where revolution—or even, particularly in the
U.S., militant class struggle—appears remote and there is an
overwhelming absence of resonance for our political views. There is a
yawning abyss between what we stand for and the consciousness of the
working class and young radicals, even those who claim to be
socialist. As we have noted, it has been very difficult to maintain
our revolutionary continuity and very easy to have it destroyed.
The Fight to Maintain a Revolutionary Perspective
In fighting against the Cochranite opposition in the then-
revolutionary American Socialist Workers Party in the early 1950s,
James P. Cannon argued:
“The revolutionary movement, under the best conditions, is a hard
fight, and it wears out a lot of human material. Not for nothing has
it been said a thousand times in the past: ‘The revolution is a
devourer of men.’ The movement in this, the richest and most
conservative country in the world, is perhaps the most voracious of
all.
“It is not easy to persist in the struggle, to hold on, to stay tough
and fight it out year after year without victory; and even, in times
such as the present, without tangible progress. That requires
theoretical conviction and historical perspective as well as
character. And, in addition to that, it requires association with
others in a common party.”
— “Trade Unionists and Revolutionists,” 11 May 1953
The example of the degeneration of the SWP from a revolutionary party
through centrism to abject reformism is instructive. The party endured
more than a decade of stagnation and isolation during the anti-
Communist witchhunt. Seeing their role reduced essentially to a
holding operation in the citadel of U.S. imperialism, aging party
cadre like those in the Cochran wing gave up on a revolutionary
perspective. The SWP majority under Cannon and Farrell Dobbs fought to
preserve the revolutionary continuity of Trotskyism against this
liquidationism. But they themselves were not immune from the deforming
pressures that led the Cochranites to split.
Four years later, in 1957, the SWP supported the introduction of
federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas—the end result of which was
the crushing of local black self-defense efforts against the howling
racist mobs fighting school integration. Painting U.S. troops as
reliable defenders of black people engendered significant opposition
within the party in the 1950s, particularly from Richard Fraser whose
program of revolutionary integrationism as the road to black freedom
in the U.S. we take as our own. But the wrong line was never corrected
and the view of the U.S. imperialist army as the only “realistic”
force to defend civil rights protesters in the Jim Crow South against
racist terror deepened. By 1964 the SWP had adopted the grotesque
campaign slogan, “Withdraw the Troops from Viet Nam and Send Them to
Mississippi!” By 1965, the SWP had thrown overboard the last remnant
of a revolutionary opposition to imperialism, promoting the reformist
lie that a classless peace movement could stop U.S. imperialism’s
dirty war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants.
The young SWP cadre in the Revolutionary Tendency who fought the
party’s degeneration were the founding leaders of our organization.
Recognizing where the SWP went, and holding it up as a mirror of where
we could go without correcting our mistakes and the outright betrayal
of our revolutionary internationalist program in response to the Haiti
earthquake, is part of the fight to preserve this continuity with
Cannon’s revolutionary party that extends back to Lenin and Trotsky’s
Bolsheviks.
But the ability to make such a correction is hardly cause for
celebration. It merely lays the basis for political rectification. We
crossed the class line and the urgent necessity is to reassert and
struggle to maintain the proletarian internationalist program of
Leninism.
—27 April 2010
srd
My reflexive reaction is laudatory: who else would so forthrightly
admit error. Then, I realize there was one person and only one who
could instigate the line change.
Unconditional opposition to imperialist invasions is a matter of hard
principle; refusal to demand foreign aid doesn't have the same status.
I think the Sparts are wrong on aid to Haiti and refuse to recognize
that their rigidity on aid was the actual cause of their original
line.. They are misdiagnosing as a capitulation to imperialism an
ultra-left refusal to demand the aid that the U.S. in fact only can
supply in sufficient quantities. I don't know how the Australian
section fared in 2005, but one could not have opposed the invasion
without simultaneously affirming aid because , as you showed, calling
for U.S. withdrawal meant withdrawal of aid. The implication is to
call for aid, not to countenance the invasion.
No doubt demands for aid are generally bad. But that's because the AID
IS USUALLY BAD; but emergency supplies aren't bad aid. I say that as a
matter of common sense rather than expertise, but what's obvious is
you can't justify not calling for withdrawal on account of aid
accompanying the invasion and at the same time decry the aid!
srd
srd
Also, there's the matter of what the line change does NOT address. The
article makes a point of responding to the various arguments
supporting the original position, but it omits two important ones. 1.
Why didn't they call for U.S. troops out of New Orleans? 2. Why didn't
Rosa Luxemberg call for troops out of Martinique? On the first, that
should at least have been their position, which they pretty much have
admitted it wasn't. On the second, it's an intriguing question for
which I haven't found a completely satisfactory answer.Have they?
srd
srd
Haitian refugees. Since the Sparts don't call for open borders nor
have a policy of opposing all immigration restrictions, acceptance of
Haitian refugees is a form of aid. It's a very specific form of aid,
but then, demands for emergency supplies can also be tailored
specifically.
But the Sparts oppose all demands for aid; so their support of
emigrating Haitians puts in question their rationale for abstaining
from opposing immigration restrictions. Why admission to for Haitians
and not for other starving people in Third World Countries?
If Open Borders is utopian in the same manner as Disarmament is
utopian, then rejecting the utopianism of open borders doesn't exclude
opposition to immigration restrictions any more than rejecting
Disarmament excludes voting "No" on any military budget.
srd
Vngelis
This whole circus is to do with faction fights within the SL.
There has been no line change as there never was over the Pentagon.
The central thrust of their positions are still the same.
Al CIAda exists and the US cannot engineer attacks using dubious
means.
Thus Katrina wasn't an inside job, neither was 9/11 or for that matter
Haiti.
The only good thing in the process is that Jesse Helmes once more has
come out to the ...right of the new SL position. He is sticking to his
guns cos he spent time arguing on here for the previous position and
now
cant backtrack. Apst does that to people....
vngelis
Vngelis
Troops in Missisipi.
A whole host of leftists in the last decade and a half have called for
UN/Imperialist troops to
settle disputes Yugoslavia being one moot point.
Now all leftists argue dont leave the Euro or the EU in other words
remain in chains and bonds
to imperialist agencies. The economic has finally matched the military
demands. Their cover
has been blown.
vngelis
jh
> On 29 Apr, 06:06, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Then, there's the question of the demand that the U.S. accept all
> > Haitian refugees. Since the Sparts don't call for open borders nor
> > have a policy of opposing all immigration restrictions, acceptance of
> > Haitian refugees is a form of aid. It's a very specific form of aid,
> > but then, demands for emergency supplies can also be tailored
> > specifically.
>
> > But the Sparts oppose all demands for aid; so their support of
> > emigrating Haitians puts in question their rationale for abstaining
> > from opposing immigration restrictions. Why admission to for Haitians
> > and not for other starving people in Third World Countries?
>
> > If Open Borders is utopian in the same manner as Disarmament is
> > utopian, then rejecting the utopianism of open borders doesn't exclude
> > opposition to immigration restrictions any more than rejecting
> > Disarmament excludes voting "No" on any military budget.
>
> > srd
>
> This whole circus is to do with faction fights within the SL.
Possibly, there definitely was a faction fight last summer. I don't
think so though, no sign visible of the minority getting back in the
saddle, or having anything in particular to say over this.
> There has been no line change as there never was over the Pentagon.
> The central thrust of their positions are still the same.
> Al CIAda exists and the US cannot engineer attacks using dubious
> means.
> Thus Katrina wasn't an inside job, neither was 9/11 or for that matter
> Haiti.
Yes, the SL doesn't seem to think that the Haitian earthquake was
cooked up in the Pentagon. But then, nobody else on earth does either.
Only you and other UFO landers disagree.
> The only good thing in the process is that Jesse Helmes once more has
> come out to the ...right of the new SL position. He is sticking to his
> guns cos he spent time arguing on here for the previous position and
> now
> cant backtrack. Apst does that to people....
I don't believe in switching one's political convictions 180 degrees
on a dime. Too reminiscent of the way things were under Stalin. I'm
going to read this article thoroughly and think about it thoroughly.
I'm pretty well persuaded that old position was wrong by now, but that
doesn't necessarily mean the new one is correct.
-jh-
Sam
texts, but here is the link to the song mentioned.
Posted 4/29/10; We would like to draw our readers attention to the
series of recent flips flops by the Spartacist League on the recent
events in Haiti ("All US/ UN Troops Out Of Haiti Now!" and
"Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake: A Capitulation to US
Imperialism"). We had previously criticized the Spartacist League's
position in "Spartacist League Supports US Troops in Haiti!" ( "La
Spartacist League soutient les troupes américaines à Haïti !"). In
lieu of a more elaborate analysis at the moment, we would like to
direct Spartacist League supporters attention to the following audio
file of a Trotskyist song parody from the 30's and 40's "Our Line's
Been Changed Again".
http://new.music.yahoo.com/joe-glazer/tracks/our-lines-been-changed-again--177003039
srd
> On Apr 29, 12:51 am, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > On 29 Apr, 06:06, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Then, there's the question of the demand that the U.S. accept all
> > > Haitian refugees. Since the Sparts don't call for open borders nor
> > > have a policy of opposing all immigration restrictions, acceptance of
> > > Haitian refugees is a form of aid. It's a very specific form of aid,
> > > but then, demands for emergency supplies can also be tailored
> > > specifically.
>
> > > But the Sparts oppose all demands for aid; so their support of
> > > emigrating Haitians puts in question their rationale for abstaining
> > > from opposing immigration restrictions. Why admission to for Haitians
> > > and not for other starving people in Third World Countries?
>
> > > If Open Borders is utopian in the same manner as Disarmament is
> > > utopian, then rejecting the utopianism of open borders doesn't exclude
> > > opposition to immigration restrictions any more than rejecting
> > > Disarmament excludes voting "No" on any military budget.
>
> > > srd
>
> > This whole circus is to do with faction fights within the SL.
I'm sure Holmes understood my earlier remark, but for the benefit of
the Renegade Vngelis, here's what happened (imho): Robertson saw the
headline and went berserk! He demanded not only the line change but
the public humiliation of the deviationists.
There's a theory circulating that I don't subscribe to that the Sparts
are an obedience cult to Robertson, and the Haiti position was a test
of cadres submission to cult leader. This line change should at least
set _that_ theory to rest. What "international movement" served to
counterbalance the alleged capitulation to imperialism by the American
section. The international "sections" went along with WV! The line-
change document even admits the same. Only Robertson has the authority
and prestige to compel a 180 degree line change on a dime.
>
> Possibly, there definitely was a faction fight last summer. I don't
> think so though, no sign visible of the minority getting back in the
> saddle, or having anything in particular to say over this.
>
> > There has been no line change as there never was over the Pentagon.
> > The central thrust of their positions are still the same.
> > Al CIAda exists and the US cannot engineer attacks using dubious
> > means.
> > Thus Katrina wasn't an inside job, neither was 9/11 or for that matter
> > Haiti.
>
> Yes, the SL doesn't seem to think that the Haitian earthquake was
> cooked up in the Pentagon. But then, nobody else on earth does either.
> Only you and other UFO landers disagree.
I guess we can't call him a moon-landing denier any longer, as he
seems to have reversed that "position."
>
> > The only good thing in the process is that Jesse Helmes once more has
> > come out to the ...right of the new SL position. He is sticking to his
> > guns cos he spent time arguing on here for the previous position and
> > now
> > cant backtrack. Apst does that to people....
A good thing is that Holmes might have to retract his claim that my
application of Marxism to "the world" is invariably absurd. <g>
>
> I don't believe in switching one's political convictions 180 degrees
> on a dime. Too reminiscent of the way things were under Stalin. I'm
> going to read this article thoroughly and think about it thoroughly.
> I'm pretty well persuaded that old position was wrong by now, but that
> doesn't necessarily mean the new one is correct.
>
Exactly.
srd
srd
> Posted onwww.regroupment.orgtoday. See online version for links to
> texts, but here is the link to the song mentioned.
>
> Posted 4/29/10; We would like to draw our readers attention to the
> series of recent flips flops by the Spartacist League on the recent
> events in Haiti ("All US/ UN Troops Out Of Haiti Now!" and
> "Repudiating Our Position on Haiti Earthquake: A Capitulation to US
> Imperialism"). We had previously criticized the Spartacist League's
> position in "Spartacist League Supports US Troops in Haiti!" ( "La
> Spartacist League soutient les troupes américaines à Haïti !"). In
> lieu of a more elaborate analysis at the moment, we would like to
> direct Spartacist League supporters attention to the following audio
> file of a Trotskyist song parody from the 30's and 40's "Our Line's
> Been Changed Again".
>
>
Is this to say you agree with the present Spart line?
I think the Spart line is now identical with yours, with the
difference that, having an actual _group_, the Sparts have some
concern with implementation. They could not have ignored the plight of
the Haitians inflicted by the earthquake with a one-sided concern
regarding the oppression by the troops alone. It is necessary to stand
side-by-side with the Haitian masses when they face natural
devastation to which imperialist subjugation made them vulnerable. The
atmosphere of the day combined hypocritical bourgeois humanitarianism
with a genuine sense of solidarity by workers in the imperialist
countries with the Haitian masses. This required counter-posing
demands for massive *elemental* aid in foodstuffs and medical
personnel, canceling Haiti's foreign debt (also a form of "aid"), and
admitting Haitian refugees to the U.S. (still another form of "aid").
The sectarian Robertson shibboleth against demanding aid (based on a
"Militant" article during WW II concerning the principled opposition
to demanding aid for the _Soviet Union_!) is the real impediment to
getting Haiti right. (Offered as objective analysis. I am unable to
place this in any broader framework from which I might obtain
factional advantage.)
srd
srd
You were hit harder than the Sparts. After all, Haiti is part of the
reason Dusty left, although neither of you probably realize it. You've
never answered: what your position on Haitian refugees trying to
immigrate to the U.S?
srd
jh
> On Apr 29, 8:13 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 29, 12:51 am, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 29 Apr, 06:06, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Then, there's the question of the demand that the U.S. accept all
> > > > Haitian refugees. Since the Sparts don't call for open borders nor
> > > > have a policy of opposing all immigration restrictions, acceptance of
> > > > Haitian refugees is a form of aid. It's a very specific form of aid,
> > > > but then, demands for emergency supplies can also be tailored
> > > > specifically.
>
> > > > But the Sparts oppose all demands for aid; so their support of
> > > > emigrating Haitians puts in question their rationale for abstaining
> > > > from opposing immigration restrictions. Why admission to for Haitians
> > > > and not for other starving people in Third World Countries?
>
> > > > If Open Borders is utopian in the same manner as Disarmament is
> > > > utopian, then rejecting the utopianism of open borders doesn't exclude
> > > > opposition to immigration restrictions any more than rejecting
> > > > Disarmament excludes voting "No" on any military budget.
>
> > > > srd
>
> > > This whole circus is to do with faction fights within the SL.
>
> I'm sure Holmes understood my earlier remark, but for the benefit of
> the Renegade Vngelis, here's what happened (imho): Robertson saw the
> headline and went berserk! He demanded not only the line change but
> the public humiliation of the deviationists.
Given the profundity of the line change, this is exactly what was not
done, as no names were named. Hiding a line change that big in an
editorial note at the bottom of page nine was not gonna fly. Nor was
the ex-minority faction blamed for this. Granted that would be tricky,
under the circumstances...
>
> There's a theory circulating that I don't subscribe to that the Sparts
> are an obedience cult to Robertson, and the Haiti position was a test
> of cadres submission to cult leader. This line change should at least
> set _that_ theory to rest. What "international movement" served to
> counterbalance the alleged capitulation to imperialism by the American
> section. The international "sections" went along with WV! The line-
> change document even admits the same. Only Robertson has the authority
> and prestige to compel a 180 degree line change on a dime.
>
I'm going to avoid too much speculation here, as I don't know. But I
will do a little. I suspect it may not be so simple, as if it really
were that simple, the piece would probably have quoted some stinging
aphorism by Robertson.
Be it noted that, last I checked, he was still a member of that WV ed
board that was condemned. OTOH, there was a complaint about a lack of
internal democratic discussion on the ed board. I suppose if you want
you could read that as Robertson complaining that they did this behind
his back while he was in the hospital or on a long vacation or
something.
>
> > Possibly, there definitely was a faction fight last summer. I don't
> > think so though, no sign visible of the minority getting back in the
> > saddle, or having anything in particular to say over this.
>
> > > There has been no line change as there never was over the Pentagon.
> > > The central thrust of their positions are still the same.
> > > Al CIAda exists and the US cannot engineer attacks using dubious
> > > means.
> > > Thus Katrina wasn't an inside job, neither was 9/11 or for that matter
> > > Haiti.
>
> > Yes, the SL doesn't seem to think that the Haitian earthquake was
> > cooked up in the Pentagon. But then, nobody else on earth does either.
> > Only you and other UFO landers disagree.
>
> I guess we can't call him a moon-landing denier any longer, as he
> seems to have reversed that "position."
>
Yes, I did. Making a fool of himself that long and that thoroughly
seems to have finally made some impact on him.
>
> > > The only good thing in the process is that Jesse Helmes once more has
> > > come out to the ...right of the new SL position. He is sticking to his
> > > guns cos he spent time arguing on here for the previous position and
> > > now
> > > cant backtrack. Apst does that to people....
>
> A good thing is that Holmes might have to retract his claim that my
> application of Marxism to "the world" is invariably absurd. <g>
I am certainly *not* going to claim that the SL did a brilliant job of
creatively applying Marxism to Haiti. The truth is concrete, including
when it's a concrete brick falling on one's foot.
-jh-
>
> > I don't believe in switching one's political convictions 180 degrees
> > on a dime. Too reminiscent of the way things were under Stalin. I'm
> > going to read this article thoroughly and think about it thoroughly.
> > I'm pretty well persuaded that old position was wrong by now, but that
> > doesn't necessarily mean the new one is correct.
>
> Exactly.
>
> srd- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
jh
Unless you have info the rest of us do not, let us not make
assumptions.
He could have just gone off on vacation for a couple months, as he did
a couple years ago. Or, being as he is fairly old it seems, he could
have had a stroke or something.
-jh-
srd
I don't think the line change needed to be quite as big as it was. I
don't think it's the case that the Spart position was equivalent to
conditional support of the invasion.
>
>
>
> > There's a theory circulating that I don't subscribe to that the Sparts
> > are an obedience cult to Robertson, and the Haiti position was a test
> > of cadres submission to cult leader. This line change should at least
> > set _that_ theory to rest. What "international movement" served to
> > counterbalance the alleged capitulation to imperialism by the American
> > section. The international "sections" went along with WV! The line-
> > change document even admits the same. Only Robertson has the authority
> > and prestige to compel a 180 degree line change on a dime.
>
> I'm going to avoid too much speculation here, as I don't know. But I
> will do a little. I suspect it may not be so simple, as if it really
> were that simple, the piece would probably have quoted some stinging
> aphorism by Robertson.
>
> Be it noted that, last I checked, he was still a member of that WV ed
> board that was condemned. OTOH, there was a complaint about a lack of
> internal democratic discussion on the ed board. I suppose if you want
> you could read that as Robertson complaining that they did this behind
> his back while he was in the hospital or on a long vacation or
> something.
That's my interpretation. I can't imagine how it could be different,
although imaginative limitations are weak argument.
srd
srd
> On Apr 29, 12:27 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 29, 12:55 am, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > the SL seems to go back to the 1960's and the SWP's calls for Federal
> > > Troops in Missisipi.
> > > A whole host of leftists in the last decade and a half have called for
> > > UN/Imperialist troops to
> > > settle disputes Yugoslavia being one moot point.
>
> > > Now all leftists argue dont leave the Euro or the EU in other words
> > > remain in chains and bonds
> > > to imperialist agencies. The economic has finally matched the military
> > > demands. Their cover
> > > has been blown.
>
> > > vngelis
>
> > You were hit harder than the Sparts. After all, Haiti is part of the
> > reason Dusty left, although neither of you probably realize it. You've
> > never answered: what your position on Haitian refugees trying to
> > immigrate to the U.S?
>
> > srd
>
> Unless you have info the rest of us do not, let us not make
> assumptions.
These are the assumptions that the Renegade Vngelis makes when an
opponent is absent unannounced for more than two days.
>
> He could have just gone off on vacation for a couple months, as he did
> a couple years ago.
Nobody spoke of his absence and drew conclusions. If they did, I think
the Renegade Vngelis would have set out the truth (enjoying the
opportunity to post _something_ true, provided it didn't confirm the
suspicions).
I have a stake: I'm claiming the hit.
srd
macphineas
All he is is Dust(y) in the Wind; Diamonds are Forever.
***
On the topic at hand, this seems more of a long-time push toward
sectarian abstention on the part of the SL than anything else. The
rebuke they got from the IG stung, but not as much as actually having
to push a line that, if carried to its logical conclusion, would have
meant organizing to actually help the Haitians, well, better to just
condemn everything, including aid as a concept, and batten down the
hatches. It's one thing to hysterically demand that Mumia be freed
this instant, and quite another to demand that all possible effort go
into aiding Haitians. There's a danger workers might listen to that
second one...
I can't speak to the SL's internal regime, but they seem to be pretty
downbeat atm. Even when they have formally correct positions and
could maybe get a hearing, they do everything in their power to
alienate their audience. The "nuclear option" of alienation tools is
the abrupt line change, as ex-Stalinist Robertson knows well.
macphineas
jh
So then, you think the old SL line was correct, or at least at any
rate *more* correct than the old one?
Actually, the new line is perfectly consistent with aid efforts to
Haiti, as long as they are by way of trade unions etc., rather than
giving money to the Red Cross or what have you. When I was in the
Labor Support Committee of my union, we were always giving donations
like that to various worthy causes, I never had any impression that
this was something the SL disapproved of, quite the contrary.
I dimly recall that there was a Haitian group in New York that was
pretty left wing, had a following, and did this kind of thing as well.
The natural recipient, just can't remember their name right now. They
even were endorses for the "anti-fascist newsgroup" fiasco I and
Kneisel were involved in. Dave probably knows the name, or I could
retrieve it off my hard drive if you or anyone else is still
interested.
But going into a big aid-Haiti campaign would I think be problematic
as a tactical choice for a small propaganda group. Haiti is just not
the nexus of the world revolution, au contraire as they say in French
(spelled differently in Haitian patois).
For Americans, the main effort should really be on defending Haitian
refugees.
-jh-
>
> I can't speak to the SL's internal regime, but they seem to be pretty
> downbeat atm. Even when they have formally correct positions and
> could maybe get a hearing, they do everything in their power to
> alienate their audience. The "nuclear option" of alienation tools is
> the abrupt line change, as ex-Stalinist Robertson knows well.
>
> macphineas- Hide quoted text -
macphineas
I think this new line is formally correct (the old one was rotten) but
doesn't go far enough. One can't just condemn the imperialist
intervention without proposing an alternative, and "Socialist
Revolution" is an ultra-left alibi for abstaining from building class
consciousness here, on the basis of aiding the stricken people of
Haiti, who had been put in that position by our "own" US imperialism.
The fundamental problem here with both lines is that the SL method is
unsound: pragmatic, abstemious, and sectarian, to the point where
hunkering down and blasting their epigones is considered the correct
course, rather than working to build a mass workers' movement. It's
why they can't engage in dialogues with any non-Spart without becoming
hysterical.
> Actually, the new line is perfectly consistent with aid efforts to
> Haiti, as long as they are by way of trade unions etc., rather than
> giving money to the Red Cross or what have you. When I was in the
> Labor Support Committee of my union, we were always giving donations
> like that to various worthy causes, I never had any impression that
> this was something the SL disapproved of, quite the contrary.
No, but did they not abstain from it?
>
> I dimly recall that there was a Haitian group in New York that was
> pretty left wing, had a following, and did this kind of thing as well.
> The natural recipient, just can't remember their name right now. They
> even were endorses for the "anti-fascist newsgroup" fiasco I and
> Kneisel were involved in. Dave probably knows the name, or I could
> retrieve it off my hard drive if you or anyone else is still
> interested.
>
> But going into a big aid-Haiti campaign would I think be problematic
> as a tactical choice for a small propaganda group. Haiti is just not
> the nexus of the world revolution, au contraire as they say in French
> (spelled differently in Haitian patois).
Neither was Cuba in the 1960's. Nor Russia in 1917. That doesn't
mean that revolutionaries should balk at nurturing or building
revolutionary consciousness anywhere the opportunity presents itself,
especially if it means an opportunity to raise the level of class
consciousness here, in the imperialist metropole, and break workers
from their imperialist masters.
Gotta start somewhere. Would you have counseled the Bolsheviks to
wait for the German revolution?
>
> For Americans, the main effort should really be on defending Haitian
> refugees.
>
> -jh-
Day-to-day, yes. During overt, well-publicized imperialist
interventions, no.
macphineas
srd
> I am certainly *not* going to claim that the SL did a brilliant job of
> creatively applying Marxism to Haiti. The truth is concrete,
The Spart diatribe against "expediency" (read pragmatism) in the line-
change document strikes me directed against your concept of concrete
truth, as with the icl's *dismissal* of the practicalities concerning
aid delivery to Haiti during the crisis as irrelevancies.
Truth is only somewhat concrete.
srd
srd
> On Apr 29, 12:27 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 29, 12:55 am, Vngelis <meberr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > the SL seems to go back to the 1960's and the SWP's calls for Federal
> > > Troops in Missisipi.
> > > A whole host of leftists in the last decade and a half have called for
> > > UN/Imperialist troops to
> > > settle disputes Yugoslavia being one moot point.
>
> > > Now all leftists argue dont leave the Euro or the EU in other words
> > > remain in chains and bonds
> > > to imperialist agencies. The economic has finally matched the military
> > > demands. Their cover
> > > has been blown.
>
> > > vngelis
>
> > You were hit harder than the Sparts. After all, Haiti is part of the
> > never answered: what your position on Haitian refugees trying to
> > immigrate to the U.S?
>
> > srd
>
> Unless you have info the rest of us do not, let us not make
> assumptions.
Perhaps I was making assumptions about your information. I rest my
case primarily on the content of the discussion when he last posted.
The Renegade had Vngelis defended his Greek nationalism based on
Greece's being an oppressed country, and I asked where that left his
Australian flag-worshipping comrade. Yes, it could have been
coincidence—
srd
jh
> On Apr 30, 9:17 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>...
> > > ***
> > > On the topic at hand, this seems more of a long-time push toward
> > > sectarian abstention on the part of the SL than anything else. The
> > > rebuke they got from the IG stung, but not as much as actually having
> > > to push a line that, if carried to its logical conclusion, would have
> > > meant organizing to actually help the Haitians, well, better to just
> > > condemn everything, including aid as a concept, and batten down the
> > > hatches. It's one thing to hysterically demand that Mumia be freed
> > > this instant, and quite another to demand that all possible effort go
> > > into aiding Haitians. There's a danger workers might listen to that
> > > second one...
>
> > So then, you think the old SL line was correct, or at least at any
> > rate *more* correct than the old one?
>
> I think this new line is formally correct (the old one was rotten) but
> doesn't go far enough. One can't just condemn the imperialist
> intervention without proposing an alternative, and "Socialist
> Revolution" is an ultra-left alibi for abstaining from building class
> consciousness here, on the basis of aiding the stricken people of
> Haiti, who had been put in that position by our "own" US imperialism.
That's where I disagree. Yes you can condemn the imperialist
intervention without proposing an alternative, when there is no
alternative. In fact, I think the SL slid into backhandedly endorsing
the invasion (a characterization I firmly argued against, incorrectly,
but as the SL itself pointed out, there were far more words devoted to
denouncing the IG etc. than to denouncing the truly vile way that
Haiti was "rescued") precisely through forgetting that.
As someone once said, that's the American disease, thinking that just
because a problem exists that therefore there is a solution.
The correct element in all those polemics was the argument that the
solution for Haiti's problems at this point can only be found outside
Haiti, not through American assistance but through Caribbean-wide
socialist revolution, then spreading to Latin America and the world.
Humanitarian assistance to the people of Haiti is a good thing, just
as helping an old lady cross the street is a good thing, it's right
there in the Boy Scout code after all. It is not and cannot be the
basis for a revolutionary movement.
>
> The fundamental problem here with both lines is that the SL method is
> unsound: pragmatic, abstemious, and sectarian, to the point where
> hunkering down and blasting their epigones is considered the correct
> course, rather than working to build a mass workers' movement. It's
> why they can't engage in dialogues with any non-Spart without becoming
> hysterical.
I have for a very long time, decades in fact, been sympathetic with
such arguments, I know exactly where you are coming from. However,
this is simply not a period in which we can expect a mass workers'
movement next week.
Have you read the Seymour piece, which I posted to another thread?
When it first came out, I had problems with it, as it seemed to me to
be an argument for passivism. And yes, I do think that accepting the
pessimistic immediate prognosis he advances had something to do with
the blunder on Haiti committed immediately subsequently--and my
acceptance of this blunder for that matter. If you don't have an
immediate prognosis, desperation is one natural response.
Nonetheless, I have reluctantly concluded that Seymour is correct. If
you want to critique the current Spartacist perspective, that is the
place for you to go. I'd suggest taking a solid look at it, and
posting your thoughts about it to the thread.
>
> > Actually, the new line is perfectly consistent with aid efforts to
> > Haiti, as long as they are by way of trade unions etc., rather than
> > giving money to the Red Cross or what have you. When I was in the
> > Labor Support Committee of my union, we were always giving donations
> > like that to various worthy causes, I never had any impression that
> > this was something the SL disapproved of, quite the contrary.
>
> No, but did they not abstain from it?
Well, when I raised money for Mumia, they not only did not abstain
from that, they sent a team to show their Mumia video to the union
meeting at which I got the union to adopt a "free Mumia" position.
It's true they did not get actively involved every time we sent money
to the UFW or what have you. That was my sphere as far as I was
concerned, frankly I would not have wanted or needed some sort of SL
support, which if anything might have complicated things.
As for now, if there was a support Haiti movement to abstain from, I
haven't seen much signs of it. Just the usual donations to the Red
Cross and so forth.
>
>
>
> > I dimly recall that there was a Haitian group in New York that was
> > pretty left wing, had a following, and did this kind of thing as well.
> > The natural recipient, just can't remember their name right now. They
> > even were endorses for the "anti-fascist newsgroup" fiasco I and
> > Kneisel were involved in. Dave probably knows the name, or I could
> > retrieve it off my hard drive if you or anyone else is still
> > interested.
>
> > But going into a big aid-Haiti campaign would I think be problematic
> > as a tactical choice for a small propaganda group. Haiti is just not
> > the nexus of the world revolution, au contraire as they say in French
> > (spelled differently in Haitian patois).
>
> Neither was Cuba in the 1960's. Nor Russia in 1917. That doesn't
> mean that revolutionaries should balk at nurturing or building
> revolutionary consciousness anywhere the opportunity presents itself,
> especially if it means an opportunity to raise the level of class
> consciousness here, in the imperialist metropole, and break workers
> from their imperialist masters.
Yes indeed, Russia was the nexus of the world revolution in 1917. The
most class-conscious working class in the world, in a major
imperialist power that occupied the largest land mass on the planet.
Not demoralized and downtrodden, but militantly storming barricades
and more or less spontaneously overthrowing the Tsar.
And in Cuba, you had a revolution too. There is no revolution in
Haiti, quite the contrary. The country was one of the poorest on earth
even before the quake, with a thoroughly demoralized and mostly
unemployed working class and a peasantry being driven into starvation
and losing their land by competition from US agribusiness, whom
Aristide gave free reign. The earthquake was a body blow on top of
previous fatal injuries. One of the most hopeless situations on the
planet earth. Exactly where you *cannot* see any kind of revolutionary
developments or consciousness in the immediate future. The reports in
the press of Haitians desperately welcoming US troops as saviors are
doubtless exaggerated, but I don't think they are entirely invented.
>
> Gotta start somewhere. Would you have counseled the Bolsheviks to
> wait for the German revolution?
If you want to get started somewhere, I'd start with Greece. That is
why I have been arguing with Vangelis. If he wasn't Greek, I'd
probably ignore him. A serious criticism of the Spartacists for
abstentionism should start with them not writing anything about Greece
in WV. And just where is the ICL Greek section anyway? Granted, they
have obviously been preoccupied with internal matters, unavoidably
so...
Seymour at least would argue I think that, given the general
retrogression in workers' class consciousness, this will all sputter
out soon enough, as workers now see no alternative, so no big campaign
around Greece is appropriate. I must say that Vangelis is an argument
in human form for this kind of perspective. If all radicals in Greece
can come up with is Vangelisism, the Greeks are almost as thoroughly
screwed as the Haitians.
>
> > For Americans, the main effort should really be on defending Haitian
> > refugees.
>
> > -jh-
>
> Day-to-day, yes. During overt, well-publicized imperialist
> interventions, no.
I continue to think that, from the Haitian perspective, the single
worst thing about this intervention, besides interfering in the first
few days with rescue efforts, is that one of its purposes is
*obviously* to prevent Haitians from escaping to America.
-jh-
jh
> On Apr 29, 5:39 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I am certainly *not* going to claim that the SL did a brilliant job of
> > creatively applying Marxism to Haiti. The truth is concrete,
>
> The Spart diatribe against "expediency" (read pragmatism) in the line-
> change document strikes me directed against your concept of concrete
> truth, as with the icl's *dismissal* of the practicalities concerning
> aid delivery to Haiti during the crisis as irrelevancies.
>
> Truth is only somewhat concrete.
>
> srd
>
humanitarianism, in language I would imagine you would be quite
comfortable with.
This did not thrill me. Not my style. Not some sort of principled
difference, but definitely a shading of attitudes. I would not have
used that kind of language in such a statement.
-jh-
>
>
> > including
> > when it's a concrete brick falling on one's foot.- Hide quoted text -
jh
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
You could be right. It was always a rotten bloc. Australia is simply
not Greece, and an alliance between a nationalist from an obvious
white imperialist enclave does not belong in the same camp with a
nationalist from a country where we can at least argue about whether
it is an imperialist country or not. Vangelis's refusal to critique
Dusty's defense of "White Australia" certainly had an element of
disingenuous opportunism on his part, it wasn't just his willingness
to follow Dusty over the cliff.
I wouldn't be surprised if my points to Dusty about how similar
Australia was to the USA had an impact on him. Maybe he finally
decided that since the USA and Australia are so similar, maybe America
isn't so bad after all... I assume you noticed how friendly he was to
Watson?
-jh-
David
Immigrant Rights...JH...are you going?
So...my view on all this. First...I don't think it is incorrect to
*demand* US aid to Haiti. These ridiculous caveats about unions or
workers or a sort of 'Red Aid' are ridiculous. None of this is going
to happen and people are starving, out in the rain and dying. The USSR
took aid from France and the US before and after the Civil War.
The issue was never aid and how this got distracted into that is
something I don't understand. Really. We should be demanding the US
give thousands of tons of food, transport, tents, etc etc TO the
Haitians. The ONLY issue is troops. Troops need not to go to Haiti and
we should oppose all efforts to send more and get the ones there out
of Haiti. The US has the means right now to help the Haitians but they
do not. The offered some aid but it was a small part of the overall
*military occupation*.
No "workers aid" is really set up to deal with the crisis. Not the
Brazilian effort, not the Dominican effort, none of them. They a
workers solidarity actions that are at best symbolic. They cannot and
will not aid 1.5 million destitute people.
Again: the Haitian popular movement never opposed aid to Haiti from
the Imperialist west...they oppose troops, political strings and
restructuring or rebuilding Haiti in their image.
David
srd
> I continue to think that, from the Haitian perspective, the single
> worst thing about this intervention, besides interfering in the first
> few days with rescue efforts, is that one of its purposes is
> *obviously* to prevent Haitians from escaping to America.
1. At the time, you said stopping Haitian immigration was an
insignificant purpose because the Coast Guard could do it more
effectively and efficiently.
2. From the icl's immigration program, what justifies advocating
allowing all Haitian refugees entry to America, when the same
dispensation is not allowed hungry Mexicans and Indians?
srd
srd
> On Apr 30, 11:04 am, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:> On Apr 29, 5:39 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I am certainly *not* going to claim that the SL did a brilliant job of
> > > creatively applying Marxism to Haiti. The truth is concrete,
>
> > The Spart diatribe against "expediency" (read pragmatism) in the line-
> > change document strikes me directed against your concept of concrete
> > truth, as with the icl's *dismissal* of the practicalities concerning
> > aid delivery to Haiti during the crisis as irrelevancies.
>
> > Truth is only somewhat concrete.
>
> > srd
>
> Yes, I noticed that. As well, I noticed their complete dismissal of
> humanitarianism, in language I would imagine you would be quite
> comfortable with.
>
> This did not thrill me. Not my style. Not some sort of principled
> difference, but definitely a shading of attitudes. I would not have
> used that kind of language in such a statement.
>
> -jh-
This language?: "Menshevism often takes the guise of “realism” and
“expediency.” Looking to come up with a “concrete solution” in a
situation where there was no such solution from a proletarian
revolutionary vantage point, we capitulated. What our small
revolutionary party had to put forward was a proletarian
internationalist perspective for the liberation of Haiti."
1. You're moving to similar language, if I understand what you mean,
when you say humanitarianism is fine for Boy Scouts but is no basis
for a revolutionary program.
2. Didn't Lenin denounce humanitarianism using strong language?
3. I mentioned earlier two arguments the icl did _not_ take up in the
line-change document. Now I notice a third: that no substantial
proletariat exists in Haiti. This position too was widely ridiculed on
the left. (I didn't mention it because I don't know how many workers
are in Haiti.) What the icl now says implies (if nothing else is said)
that they also repudiate that bit of analysis: "What our small
revolutionary party had to put forward was a proletarian
internationalist perspective for the liberation of Haiti." Maybe the
counterposition is stronger in your interpretation of the old
position, as when you suggested the only thing for Haitians to do was
emigrate.
srd
I would be surprised, but OK, I'll give you an Assist if you insist.
I think the split issue was loyalty. (We had discussed this before,
when the Renegade Vngelis broke our boycott ... against you. I raised
the point with the National Trotskyist repeatedly, and the Renegade
Vngelis repeatedly failed to comment. (Dusty's _personal_ morality,
like mine, tends toward Aristotelian Virtue more than to either
Kantianism or Utilitarianism.)
srd
srd
> > I think this new line is formally correct (the old one was rotten) but
> > doesn't go far enough. One can't just condemn the imperialist
> > intervention without proposing an alternative, and "Socialist
> > Revolution" is an ultra-left alibi for abstaining from building class
> > consciousness here, on the basis of aiding the stricken people of
> > Haiti, who had been put in that position by our "own" US imperialism.
>
> That's where I disagree. Yes you can condemn the imperialist
> intervention without proposing an alternative, when there is no
> alternative.
There's always an alternative, always demands that address immediate
class problems. There just isn't necessarily a "concrete" alternative.
Where the icl now goes wrong is it refuses to recognize the Haitian
plight as a class issue. It sees only the possibility of building a a
humanitarian rather than a class movement for aid, and it correctly
rejects humanitarianism.
The old position and probably the new are comfortable with saying
there's *nothing* for the Haitian masses to do. (It got in this habit
with its abstention on Palestinian self-determination in the absence
of a socialist Middle East.) The Haitian masses can join with emigrees
and others in solidarity to demand that imperialism be made to pay for
what it did to Haiti. (When I mentioned this before, you dismissed it
because we couldn't immediately put a gun to imperialism's head and
force it to do anything. This is part of what I mean by seeing the
*only* alternatives as rejectable "concrete" ones.
Abstention generally is under-utilized by the centrist left, but it
applies to demands, NOT to issues.
srd
srd
> Ah...Saturday...finally. Off to the May Day demo in defense of
> Immigrant Rights...JH...are you going?
>
> So...my view on all this. First...I don't think it is incorrect to
> *demand* US aid to Haiti. These ridiculous caveats about unions or
> workers or a sort of 'Red Aid' are ridiculous. None of this is going
> to happen and people are starving, out in the rain and dying. The USSR
> took aid from France and the US before and after the Civil War.
>
> The issue was never aid and how this got distracted into that is
> something I don't understand.
The Sparts claimed that the invasion and the aid were inextricably
tied together: if the imperialists didn't send troops, they would send
no aid.
Their centrist critics refuse to face the principled question; you,
David, said you hadn't even thought about it. They argued not much aid
was supplied. I have yet to see any definitive information on the
subject, but the point is that it certainly isn't inconceivable that
the imperialists would send substantial foodstuffs and medicine in the
immediate aftermath. The "pragmatic" issue of how much aid was
actually involved was just an effort to side-step the questions of
principle.
The Sparts or at least Holmes claimed that the troops were also
necessary (or possibly were necessary) to protect the aid from bandits
and the like. The Opportunist left counters that this unrest just
didn't occur. The Haitians are peaceful and idyllic, etc. This is also
evasion, and I wouldn't be surprised if in fact there was no unrest
precisely because the of the presence of the troops. Whether this was
so is basically unknowable.
So, few countered on principle; even "Revolutionary Regroupment" found
an excuse not to argue theory of the state. The factual specifics may
be the centerpiece of mass agitation and even propaganda, but failing
to look beyond it to principle and theory (the Spart position
repudiation was strong on principle but weak on theory) is dishonest
evasion.
I could be wrong, David, but I bet you won't face the real question:
what if no aid would in fact be forthcoming if the military hadn't
intervented? THIS is where repudiation of the politics of the possible
comes into play. We demand withdrawal; we demand aid, despite the fact
that aid is unlikely without military intervention, despite the fact
that the imperialists will produce "good excuses" for denying aid if
they can't send troops. We subordinate "humanitarian" goals to
revolutionary politics, which is to say we don't pursue the former. We
don't shrink from "humanitarian" sacrifice when such sacrifices
further revolutionary ends. This means, frankly, that no U.S. troops
and no U.S. aid the lesser evil to U.S. troops with imperialist aid.
But we aren't lesser evilists. We demand massive elemental aid to
stricken Haiti from governments even if the likelihood of getting it
is small.
The truth is not as concrete as some think.
srd
jh
> Immigrant Rights...JH...are you going?
>
> So...my view on all this. First...I don't think it is incorrect to
> *demand* US aid to Haiti. These ridiculous caveats about unions or
> workers or a sort of 'Red Aid' are ridiculous. None of this is going
> to happen and people are starving, out in the rain and dying. The USSR
> took aid from France and the US before and after the Civil War.
That is the problem with Mac's idea of a united front for workers'
aid. It would be far too smallscale to deal with the situation.
But that doesn't mean a campaign to demand that Obama aid Haiti is
correct. Such a campaign, like it or not, would inevitably be putting
yourself in Obama's camp and just urging him to do a better job than
he has.
Yes, the Soviet Union accepted quite considerable amounts of aid from
Herbert Hoover and his ARA during the 1921-22 famine crisis. Without
that aid, the famine would have been even more disastrous than it was.
But did the CPUSA mount a campaign to demand that Harding and his
Secretary of Commerce, Hoover mount an aid campaign? Certainly not.
Instead, they raised money for Soviet aid themselves, through the
Friends of the Soviet Union and various other groups the CP supported
(and ran, most of the time), while basically ignoring Hoover and his
relief efforts. This was precisely the right attitude. Opposing it
would have been insane, and supporting it would have been, at best,
counterproductive, helping Hoover's political enemies tar him as a
comsymp. And tarring the CP as Hoover's lackeys, for that matter.
The Haitian situation is different, as in the Soviet Union what Hoover
was doing was precisely what is inconceivable in Haiti, namely
delivering aid and letting the workers' government handle all security
matters. Haiti is a US neocolony where the workers are flat on their
backs, not in charge as in the USSR.
But the basic principles remain the same.
>
> The issue was never aid and how this got distracted into that is
> something I don't understand. Really. We should be demanding the US
> give thousands of tons of food, transport, tents, etc etc TO the
> Haitians. The ONLY issue is troops. Troops need not to go to Haiti and
> we should oppose all efforts to send more and get the ones there out
> of Haiti. The US has the means right now to help the Haitians but they
> do not. The offered some aid but it was a small part of the overall
> *military occupation*.
Well, somebody would have to run the food distribution. Since the
Haitian government has completely collapsed, who would do it? There is
a vacuum there that needs to be filled somehow. Obama is filling it in
his way.
>
> No "workers aid" is really set up to deal with the crisis. Not the
> Brazilian effort, not the Dominican effort, none of them. They a
> workers solidarity actions that are at best symbolic. They cannot and
> will not aid 1.5 million destitute people.
Here you are absolutely 100% right.
-jh-
jh
> On May 1, 8:31 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I continue to think that, from the Haitian perspective, the single
> > worst thing about this intervention, besides interfering in the first
> > few days with rescue efforts, is that one of its purposes is
> > *obviously* to prevent Haitians from escaping to America.
>
> 1. At the time, you said stopping Haitian immigration was an
> insignificant purpose because the Coast Guard could do it more
> effectively and efficiently.
Yes I did. If instead of landing in Haiti, the Marines had just
concentrated on sealing up Haiti in a bottle, that would certainly be
more efficient and effective.
However, what I forgot was just how politically impossible that would
have been.
>
> 2. From the icl's immigration program, what justifies advocating
> allowing all Haitian refugees entry to America, when the same
> dispensation is not allowed hungry Mexicans and Indians?
Because the Haitian situation is much more extreme. The obvious
comparison is with Jews during the 1930s, when the SWP did indeed
raise the slogan "open the doors."
-jh-
>
> srd
srd
> On May 1, 9:00 am, David <dwalters...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ah...Saturday...finally. Off to the May Day demo in defense of
> > Immigrant Rights...JH...are you going?
>
> > So...my view on all this. First...I don't think it is incorrect to
> > *demand* US aid to Haiti. These ridiculous caveats about unions or
> > workers or a sort of 'Red Aid' are ridiculous. None of this is going
> > to happen and people are starving, out in the rain and dying. The USSR
> > took aid from France and the US before and after the Civil War.
>
> That is the problem with Mac's idea of a united front for workers'
> aid. It would be far too smallscale to deal with the situation.
>
> But that doesn't mean a campaign to demand that Obama aid Haiti is
> correct. Such a campaign, like it or not, would inevitably be putting
> yourself in Obama's camp and just urging him to do a better job than
> he has.
This is true for economic aid, etc., not elemental aid. The reason,
demands for elemental aid can be made precise and any substantial
executive discretion can be eliminated from the demand.
It seems you're reasoning the same way as before. Obama will only
provide bad aid, so demands for the aid that's needed are "utopian."
This is a maximalist mentality
>
> Yes, the Soviet Union accepted quite considerable amounts of aid from
> Herbert Hoover and his ARA during the 1921-22 famine crisis. Without
> that aid, the famine would have been even more disastrous than it was.
> But did the CPUSA mount a campaign to demand that Harding and his
> Secretary of Commerce, Hoover mount an aid campaign? Certainly not.
>
> Instead, they raised money for Soviet aid themselves, through the
> Friends of the Soviet Union and various other groups the CP supported
> (and ran, most of the time), while basically ignoring Hoover and his
> relief efforts. This was precisely the right attitude. Opposing it
> would have been insane, and supporting it would have been, at best,
> counterproductive, helping Hoover's political enemies tar him as a
> comsymp. And tarring the CP as Hoover's lackeys, for that matter.
>
> The Haitian situation is different, as in the Soviet Union what Hoover
> was doing was precisely what is inconceivable in Haiti, namely
> delivering aid and letting the workers' government handle all security
> matters. Haiti is a US neocolony where the workers are flat on their
> backs, not in charge as in the USSR.
>
> But the basic principles remain the same.
No. Aid is not aid. Letting in the Haitian refugees is a form of aid
too. It, too, is acceptable where other aid demands aren't because the
demand leaves the government no discretion to implement it in a
reactionary way. That's the key, often lost because no one is explicit
on it.
srd
nada
The question is "...what if no aid would in fact be forthcoming if the
military hadn't
intervented?".
It's weird, SRD, but probably every single natural disaster where the
US through a variety of agencies has given a lot of aid never involved
an occupation or armed troops. In fact, I think Haiti might of been
the first time I even heard of this. So this Haiti is a one-off
example of a rare occurrence.
I don't know...it seems to me that the "answer" to the question has
first and foremost be up to the Haitians who have clearly demonstrated
against US troops. They don't like it. The demand has to be "aid, not
invasion". What's to disagree with here. That the US couldn't be guilt
baited into providing aid without troops should be easy. The US didn't
ask permission, they just did it. So the main demand is the US OUT of
Haiti, right? That doesn't mean the aid, it means the gunships and
Marines.
Any international communist group has to always oppose *troops* in
this manner. I can't see the exception really with regards to even
this big a natural disaster. The SL fucked up, they admit they fucked
up, at least. It was a contorted position they tried to articulate.
David
srd
Then what you're saying is you still stand by your position that the
troops and the aid were a package. Before you gave backhanded support
to the troops to allow the aid in; now that you oppose the troops, you
accept this means there would have been no U.S. aid.
You can see why, when locked into this version of the politics of the
possible, opting for aid seems like the more attractive option in the
heat of crisis; while from a faraway perspective, you and colleagues
can stick to principle and bite the bullet of no aid.
srd
srd
Sophistry! Pettifogging! A starving peasant in a neocolonial country
is in no less "extreme" condition in India or Mexico than in Haiti.
As I recall, the documentation left a lot to be clarified about the
context of the SWP position. If memory serves, David introduced that
SWP position into the discussion of immigration to show that the
historical position of Trotskyism is to oppose ALL restrictions on
immigration into an imperialist country. If I recall, I made a
pettifogging response to that argument by saying calling for letting
the Jews in involved political solidarity. It doesn't.
As far as I can tell, David's original point was correct. If the SWP
called for opening the doors to the Jews, and this wasn't a fluke but
a well-considered position, it implies almost certainly that the SWP's
position was in fact to oppose any immigration restrictions, making it
entirely proper to raise the matter of the Jews agitationally. Thus
the British SWP would have no problem today calling for opening the
doors to the Haitians: it would just be an agitational formulation of
their basic open borders position. Nor would David, whose position is
essentially the same as the LRP's: Oppose any restrictions on
immigration. (Which differs from open borders the same way that voting
no on any military budget differs from advocating disarmament.) For
the Sparts to have called for opening the door to the Jews would have
been unprincipled IF they refused to generalize the *position* (as
opposed to the conjunctural slogan).
srd
srd
the Sparts to have called for opening the door to the Jews would have
been unprincipled IF they refused to generalize the *position* (as
opposed to the conjunctural slogan).
should be
For the SWP to have called...
srd
David
This is an interesting intellectual juxtaposition of ideas I have to
admit. The SWP supported an restricted open door policy for European
Jews facing repression in Germany. Pictures of SWPers picketing some
event with other left groups demanding Open the Doors was a political
response to Jews being turned back into the hands ofthe Nazis. It was
not strickly immigration in that these were not economic refugees but
ones of being victimized by a Fascist gov't. I think the picket was in
1938 but the photos are fascinating.
A few corrections. No, SRD, repressed peasants in Mexico are NOT in
the same situation as Haitians. There is a qualitative difference
between Haiti after the earthquake and Mexican peasants. By and large,
Mexicans are NOT starving. Food exists, it's in stores, it's still
even subsidized to a limited extent AND a contorted economy, for
sure, large double-digit inflation but they are a LOT better off than
Haitians. In fact...the comparison to be fair and more excemplified is
the condition of the Haitian masses before the earthquake and
afterward. it is a LOT worse now because there IS no food production,
there is no infrastructure, period: it all has to be rebuilt.
Thus the comparison between Haiti's masses and, say, Nicaraguas, is no
comparison at all...they are in completely different places
socially...and here I use the two *poorest* countries in the
hemisphere. Nicaragua, actually has an economy...based totally on
petty commodity production and distribution and some coffee exporting
(bad coffee, I might add, most of it used for instant coffee). Haiti
was *destroyed*, period. No comparison.
David
srd
Watch the Stalinist word substitutions. <g> Actually, I said "starving
peasant." That a peasant starving in Mexico is in the same position as
one starving in Haiti is a mere tautology. The point is that the fact
that Haiti is a worse place than anywhere else in the world is no
reason to make a demand exclusive to Haitians! (I imagine there are
more actually starving Mexicans than Haitians. If not Mexicans,
substitute Indians.)
srd
jh
> On May 1, 4:56 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The Haitian situation is different, as in the Soviet Union what Hoover
> > > was doing was precisely what is inconceivable in Haiti, namely
> > > delivering aid and letting the workers' government handle all security
> > > matters. Haiti is a US neocolony where the workers are flat on their
> > > backs, not in charge as in the USSR.
>
> > > But the basic principles remain the same.
>
> > No. Aid is not aid. Letting in the Haitian refugees is a form of aid
> > too. It, too, is acceptable where other aid demands aren't because the
> > demand leaves the government no discretion to implement it in a
> > reactionary way. That's the key, often lost because no one is explicit
> > on it.
No, this is not the same thing as demanding aid. The demand would be,
not that the US Navy should operate caravans to carry Haitian refugees
to Miami, which might require a US naval base on Haiti, but simply
that they get out of the way and stop *preventing* Haitians from
fleeing the island if they wish.
>
> > srd
>
(Dave)
> > > > The issue was never aid and how this got distracted into that is
> > > > something I don't understand. Really. We should be demanding the US
> > > > give thousands of tons of food, transport, tents, etc etc TO the
> > > > Haitians. The ONLY issue is troops. Troops need not to go to Haiti and
> > > > we should oppose all efforts to send more and get the ones there out
> > > > of Haiti. The US has the means right now to help the Haitians but they
> > > > do not. The offered some aid but it was a small part of the overall
> > > > *military occupation*.
Is it true that the aid was just a small part of a military
occupation? That was not my impression, but I may have been overly
influenced by the way WV was portraying things before the line change,
so I am not going to argue this point.
>
> > > Well, somebody would have to run the food distribution. Since the
> > > Haitian government has completely collapsed, who would do it? There is
> > > a vacuum there that needs to be filled somehow. Obama is filling it in
> > > his way.
>
> Then what you're saying is you still stand by your position that the
> troops and the aid were a package. Before you gave backhanded support
> to the troops to allow the aid in; now that you oppose the troops, you
> accept this means there would have been no U.S. aid.
Well, I was an abstentionist. The SL is now saying it gave backhanded
support to the troops. That was not how I read the statements, but the
arguments they now give for that reading I find fairly persuasive.
Were aid and troops a package? Yeah, I think I'll stand by that. Dave
says this is an exceptional situation, never before has the US coupled
aid with troops. Unless you count Somalia of course, where the food
aid morphed rapidly into brutal imperialist terror, Black Hawk Down
and all that. 10-20 US soldiers dead, but thousands of Somali
civilians.
But here you have a situation where the civil authorities essentially
collapsed and ceased to exist. Unlike Somalia, where you *did* have a
civil authority that was more or less at war with the Americans, and
the Americans were overthrowing it and imposing their own rule. Or
rather, trying to unsuccessfully. So this was in fact a unique
situation.
>
> You can see why, when locked into this version of the politics of the
> possible, opting for aid seems like the more attractive option in the
> heat of crisis; while from a faraway perspective, you and colleagues
> can stick to principle and bite the bullet of no aid.
Yup.
At this point, my inclination is to like the way Rosa Luxemburg
handled the issue. Just because opposing imperialist troops is correct
does not necessarily mean that the slogan needs to be positively
advanced at an inopportune moment.
Pragmatically speaking, the biggest mistake WV made was to polemicize
with the IG etc. over this. Like I said, there are moments when
silence is golden.
The WV should have concentrated on blasting Obama for just what a
horrible botched-up racist imperialist job of *aiding* the Haitians
was being conducted, without bothering to advance any particular
slogans for the situation, being as the immediate situation is so
hopeless. The answer to catastrophes like the Haitian earthquake is
abolishing capitalism and establishing world socialism.
And, if it felt like attacking the IG at all over this, the thrust
should have been over just how pollyannaish their idea that a Haitian
revolution was on the agenda is, without getting into squabbles over
slogans for a basically hopeless situation.
-jh-
jh
> On May 1, 3:42 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 1, 10:44 am, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 2. From the icl's immigration program, what justifies advocating
> > > allowing all Haitian refugees entry to America, when the same
> > > dispensation is not allowed hungry Mexicans and Indians?
>
> > Because the Haitian situation is much more extreme. The obvious
> > comparison is with Jews during the 1930s, when the SWP did indeed
> > raise the slogan "open the doors."
>
> Sophistry! Pettifogging! A starving peasant in a neocolonial country
> is in no less "extreme" condition in India or Mexico than in Haiti.
>
> As I recall, the documentation left a lot to be clarified about the
> context of the SWP position. If memory serves, David introduced that
> SWP position into the discussion of immigration to show that the
> historical position of Trotskyism is to oppose ALL restrictions on
> immigration into an imperialist country. If I recall, I made a
> pettifogging response to that argument by saying calling for letting
> the Jews in involved political solidarity. It doesn't.
I argued at the time, I think, that it was better to consider this as
an exceptional situation rather than a model for all immigration
situations.
>
> As far as I can tell, David's original point was correct. If the SWP
> called for opening the doors to the Jews, and this wasn't a fluke but
> a well-considered position, it implies almost certainly that the SWP's
> position was in fact to oppose any immigration restrictions, making it
> entirely proper to raise the matter of the Jews agitationally. Thus
> the British SWP would have no problem today calling for opening the
> doors to the Haitians: it would just be an agitational formulation of
> their basic open borders position. Nor would David, whose position is
> essentially the same as the LRP's: Oppose any restrictions on
> immigration. (Which differs from open borders the same way that voting
> no on any military budget differs from advocating disarmament.) For
> the Sparts to have called for opening the door to the Jews would have
> been unprincipled IF they refused to generalize the *position* (as
> opposed to the conjunctural slogan).
>
> srd
I recently happened across an article from 1924 from the CPUSA press,
on the occasion of the imminent passage of the 1925 immigration laws.
It set out the official CP position at the time, which happened to be
pretty close to that of the SL now.
It opposed the old slogan of "open the doors," traditionally advanced
by Jewish liberals and European (not American!) socialists, and also
opposed all capitalist immigration restrictions, arguing in a very SL-
like manner that the problem of immigration and emigration cannot be
solved within the framework of capitalism.
The author suggested as a possible transitional alternative the
regulation of immigration jointly by the Red Trade Union International
and the "Amsterdam" social-democratic union international.
Given what Hitler was doing in Germany, I see no reason why advancing
open doors for Jews in the 1930s, or Haitians now, could not be a
conjunctural temporary slogan.
-jh-
nada
This sounds close to something SRD advocated a few years ago. So,
under capitalism, the CP opposed immigration restrictions. Under
socialism, like most things, it would be "planned"?
David
nada
> At this point, my inclination is to like the way Rosa Luxemburg
> handled the issue. Just because opposing imperialist troops is correct
> does not necessarily mean that the slogan needs to be positively
> advanced at an inopportune moment.
Yes, but that is what so many polemicize with the SL about, isn't it?
When do you use slogans and how. Also the what I believe to be the
mistake which is the SL (and others like the WRP) using "slogans" as a
substitute to organizing. In this case, Haiti, at no point was the
slogan correct, er, the position, as it is what they say it was, and
why the recanted the position, actually *attacking* their "old"
position.
>
> Pragmatically speaking, the biggest mistake WV made was to polemicize
> with the IG etc. over this. Like I said, there are moments when
> silence is golden.
They had no choice in this. They put out a line that was, effectively,
objectively by anyone watching, a 'rotten one' and so they were
obligated to defend it. The SL put a gun to it's own head and wore a
sign that says "go ahead, pull the trigger, go ahead...". The IG
stepped up and pulled the trigger. The IG specializes in defending the
'old' SL line upto the point they were purged/split from the SL. Thus
they functioned to the SL as the SL was known to function to much of
the left as the eternal polemicizers whose existence *appeared* to
most everyone on the left as their raison detat. So of course the IG
went after them and the SL had to respond.
It's hard to imagine the IG having *no* effect on the change of
position. Anyone who watched all this unfold in the course of the last
month could of seen this coming.
> The WV should have concentrated on blasting Obama for just what a
> horrible botched-up racist imperialist job of *aiding* the Haitians
> was being conducted, without bothering to advance any particular
> slogans for the situation, being as the immediate situation is so
> hopeless. The answer to catastrophes like the Haitian earthquake is
> abolishing capitalism and establishing world socialism.
Well yeah, JH, of course...in otherwords, essentially what the
*entire* left did do. But, the problem is that your last sentence an
impossible one. The answer to catastrophes like Haiti is not
socialism. It's aid, world wide, preferably by friendly non-
interferring gov't. Like I noted, the US should of aided *only* the
victims of the earthquake...like Imperialist Canada, wannabe
Imperialist Brazil did, what Zionist Israel did, what workers state
Cuba did. Clearly a system of democratic and immediate demands would
of demanded this. *Waiting* for socialism would mean what exactly to
Haitians facing hurricane season this year...exactly? Falling into the
"socialism is the only answer" is a retreat by those who reject both
the Transitional Program and who have no answer to what appears to be,
but is not, the seeming contradictions that exist under Imperialism.
It is like the very anti-Permanent Revolution slogan (IMHO) of
"National Liberation through Socialist Revolution" as if the national
question is only a bullet item for those engaged in struggle against
imperialism AND those tasks are solved so lets move onto socialist
revolution anyway...The Grantites of Labour Militant were famous for
this pushing the national question under the rug. The same is true
with this formulation (given by you here off-the-cuff so I can't hold
you to it) solving such catastrophes with "socialism".
BTW...I might add that after the earthquake in Qom, Iran, the US &
Israel sent search and rescue teams to help the Iranians. No strings
attached as far as anyone knows. Aid was received. Thanks exchanged.
They moved on and back to opposition immediately afterward. Shit does
happen like that now and again.
> And, if it felt like attacking the IG at all over this, the thrust
> should have been over just how pollyannaish their idea that a Haitian
> revolution was on the agenda is, without getting into squabbles over
> slogans for a basically hopeless situation.
Well, yeah, but the charge could be leveled at the SL just as easy in
many other situations, JH. Neither the IG nor the SL has a soul in
Haiti. So any talk of revolution is just that "talk" and from very,
very far away at that. But Haiti is always bubbling in a state of semi-
pre-revolution anyway...with only Mustah forces there (lead by Brazil
for the US) keeping things in check.
David
jh
>
> - Show quoted text -
Well, yeah, though not just necessarily waiting for socialism either.
The way the author put it was that trade unions would regulate the
flow of immigration and emigration according to the state of the labor
market. Sort of like a labor bureau on a world scale.
-jh-
jh
> On May 1, 8:41 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > At this point, my inclination is to like the way Rosa Luxemburg
> > handled the issue. Just because opposing imperialist troops is correct
> > does not necessarily mean that the slogan needs to be positively
> > advanced at an inopportune moment.
>
> Yes, but that is what so many polemicize with the SL about, isn't it?
> When do you use slogans and how. Also the what I believe to be the
> mistake which is the SL (and others like the WRP) using "slogans" as a
> substitute to organizing. In this case, Haiti, at no point was the
> slogan correct, er, the position, as it is what they say it was, and
> why the recanted the position, actually *attacking* their "old"
> position.
>
This was a situation in which neither slogans nor organizing is much
use.
In a situation like that, maybe the best thing to do is to shut up, or
rather restrict oneself to a purely negative condemnation of what the
US government was up to, without pretending that one has a positive
alternative. Instead, by condemning those who called for US troops
out, they created a strong implication that they *supported* a US
troop presence. I argued for weeks here that this was not what they
were doing. Formally and on paper I was correct, in practice, I was
wrong, as they themselves admit now.
>
> > Pragmatically speaking, the biggest mistake WV made was to polemicize
> > with the IG etc. over this. Like I said, there are moments when
> > silence is golden.
>
> They had no choice in this. They put out a line that was, effectively,
> objectively by anyone watching, a 'rotten one' and so they were
> obligated to defend it.
Too true. Obviously, they shouldn't have.
> The SL put a gun to it's own head and wore a
> sign that says "go ahead, pull the trigger, go ahead...". The IG
> stepped up and pulled the trigger. The IG specializes in defending the
> 'old' SL line upto the point they were purged/split from the SL. Thus
> they functioned to the SL as the SL was known to function to much of
> the left as the eternal polemicizers whose existence *appeared* to
> most everyone on the left as their raison detat. So of course the IG
> went after them and the SL had to respond.
Well, at least they finally admitted they were wrong.
>
> It's hard to imagine the IG having *no* effect on the change of
> position. Anyone who watched all this unfold in the course of the last
> month could of seen this coming.
Damn right the IG had an effect on the change of position. They come
pretty close to admitting this in the statement.
>
> > The WV should have concentrated on blasting Obama for just what a
> > horrible botched-up racist imperialist job of *aiding* the Haitians
> > was being conducted, without bothering to advance any particular
> > slogans for the situation, being as the immediate situation is so
> > hopeless. The answer to catastrophes like the Haitian earthquake is
> > abolishing capitalism and establishing world socialism.
>
> Well yeah, JH, of course...in otherwords, essentially what the
> *entire* left did do. But, the problem is that your last sentence an
> impossible one. The answer to catastrophes like Haiti is not
> socialism. It's aid, world wide, preferably by friendly non-
> interferring gov't.
And just which governments would that be? Can't think of any with the
ability to do an aid job on this kind of scale off the top of my head.
The country by far in the best position to do the job is the one we
live in, the Hew Hess Hay. Aid from Uncle Sam comes at a price.
> Like I noted, the US should of aided *only* the
> victims of the earthquake...like Imperialist Canada, wannabe
> Imperialist Brazil did, what Zionist Israel did, what workers state
> Cuba did. Clearly a system of democratic and immediate demands would
> of demanded this. *Waiting* for socialism would mean what exactly to
> Haitians facing hurricane season this year...exactly? Falling into the
> "socialism is the only answer" is a retreat by those who reject both
> the Transitional Program and who have no answer to what appears to be,
> but is not, the seeming contradictions that exist under Imperialism.
Not all situations have good immediate solutions. I don't think the
transitional program is too applicable to the Haiti earthquake,
because it is supposed to be made up of demands that address the
immediate concrete situation and lead the path for the masses to
socialist solutions.
The Haiti earthquake solution is just an incredible horror that
hopefully the people of Haiti will survive somehow.
> It is like the very anti-Permanent Revolution slogan (IMHO) of
> "National Liberation through Socialist Revolution" as if the national
> question is only a bullet item for those engaged in struggle against
> imperialism AND those tasks are solved so lets move onto socialist
> revolution anyway...The Grantites of Labour Militant were famous for
> this pushing the national question under the rug. The same is true
> with this formulation (given by you here off-the-cuff so I can't hold
> you to it) solving such catastrophes with "socialism".
My view about the Haiti catastrophe is that the people of Haiti are
screwed. End of story.
>
> BTW...I might add that after the earthquake in Qom, Iran, the US &
> Israel sent search and rescue teams to help the Iranians. No strings
> attached as far as anyone knows. Aid was received. Thanks exchanged.
> They moved on and back to opposition immediately afterward. Shit does
> happen like that now and again.
If so, great. That is not, as we all know, the Haitian situation. In
Iran, the US and Israel want to see the Iranian government overthrown
by the Iranian people, so want to act real nice in an earthquake
situation.
In Haiti, the US feels firmly in the saddle, and doesn't really care
what people in Haiti think. The PR benefit from the US aid effort is
primarily with people, especially black people, here in America, and
secondarily with world public opinion.
>
> > And, if it felt like attacking the IG at all over this, the thrust
> > should have been over just how pollyannaish their idea that a Haitian
> > revolution was on the agenda is, without getting into squabbles over
> > slogans for a basically hopeless situation.
>
> Well, yeah, but the charge could be leveled at the SL just as easy in
> many other situations, JH. Neither the IG nor the SL has a soul in
> Haiti. So any talk of revolution is just that "talk" and from very,
> very far away at that. But Haiti is always bubbling in a state of semi-
> pre-revolution anyway...with only Mustah forces there (lead by Brazil
> for the US) keeping things in check.
I think that would have been a good description of Haiti in the '90s.
But revolutionary situations never last forever, and sooner or later,
if there is no positive resolution, give way to despair. Hopefully I
am wrong, but my impression is that that is old news, and the people
of Haiti are demoralized, dispirited and disorganized. They wanted to
put Aristide in power. When the US army put him in office, he just
opened the floodgates for turning Haiti completely into a US
neocolony. And the US simply dumped him when they got bored with him.
-John-
>
> David
nada
John, first, I agree it's a good thing the SL corrected their
position. I also agree transitional demands, per se, are not really
applicable in this situation, that is not "transitional demands" as
defined by the TP but the TP has a set of demands, often ignored, that
are called "democratic" demands and "immediate" demands. These
demands, if raised by Haitian revolutionaries, make total sense. Off
the top of my head:
1. US out of Haiti/End the occupation/UN-Mistuah troops out now!
2. Rebuild Haiti for Haitians and not the IMF and World Bank!
3. Massive world wide aid from anyone and everyone: food, rain gear,
tents, water purification systems.
4. The return of Aristide (a huge demand of the masses there).
5. Legalization of all political parties and most notably Lavalas and
the PSO.
6. Convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
Now these are demands, that Haitian revolutionaries could raise, meet
the consciousness of the masses and challenge Imperialism.
David
jh
> On May 2, 12:36 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>...
> > I think that would have been a good description of Haiti in the '90s.
> > But revolutionary situations never last forever, and sooner or later,
> > if there is no positive resolution, give way to despair. Hopefully I
> > am wrong, but my impression is that that is old news, and the people
> > of Haiti are demoralized, dispirited and disorganized. They wanted to
> > put Aristide in power. When the US army put him in office, he just
> > opened the floodgates for turning Haiti completely into a US
> > neocolony. And the US simply dumped him when they got bored with him.
>
> > -John-
>
> > > David
>
> John, first, I agree it's a good thing the SL corrected their
> position. I also agree transitional demands, per se, are not really
> applicable in this situation, that is not "transitional demands" as
> defined by the TP but the TP has a set of demands, often ignored, that
> are called "democratic" demands and "immediate" demands. These
> demands, if raised by Haitian revolutionaries, make total sense. Off
> the top of my head:
Right, the minimum program, as the Second International used to put
it. That is pretty much what Haitians revolutionaries stuck there and
unable to leave would want to advocate right now. I am afraid that,
given the way that Haiti is flat on its back, mounting a Haitian mass
movement for these demands would be hard. People are desperately
trying to survive, not marching in the streets.
>
> 1. US out of Haiti/End the occupation/UN-Mistuah troops out now!
Sure. Especially since the obvious and immediate barrier to Haitians
marching in the streets to raise any of these demands is the US and UN
troops ruling the roost. It is important to talk about the UN troops,
as they are there permanently, whereas the US troops are probably
there temporarily (my saying "probably" is a deliberate backtrack on
my part).
> 2. Rebuild Haiti for Haitians and not the IMF and World Bank!
OK, but who is to do the rebuilding?
> 3. Massive world wide aid from anyone and everyone: food, rain gear,
> tents, water purification systems.
This is what people want and need. In practice though, this is not so
much a demand as a plea for help. Not ultimately different from when a
poor person asks for spare change. So I am not sure "demand" is the
right way to put it. When a homeless guy "demands" spare change this
is usually unwise and counterproductive for him.
> 4. The return of Aristide (a huge demand of the masses there).
Absolutely not! It was Aristide who helped put Haiti in this mess in
the first place. He was simply an American puppet when in office, and
he was the one who dropped all Haitian tariff barriers, which is the
single dominant reason for people starving in Haiti and peasants
losing their land. And remember, when Preval was voted in, it was
because he was Aristide's #2. Aristide in office would simply be
Preval all over again.
> 5. Legalization of all political parties and most notably Lavalas and
> the PSO.
This I support. Free elections would probably result in Aristide
coming back into office. But that is not the reason to support this,
the reason is because it is an elementary democratic demand.
> 6. Convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
I am dubious about that. There is nothing particularly good or bad
about the Haitian Constitution. As is, if enforced, it allows free
elections. There is no particular reason to believe a Constituent
Assembly would be any better or worse than just a new parliament
elected through free elections. The Preval regime has announced that
due to the earthquake, it has put off elections for a couple years.
Maybe by that they mean forever...
Demanding new elections with all parties allowed to participate could
be a democratic demand that would enable the Haitian people to
mobilize, denounce the total failure of the Preval government and its
subservience to foreigners, and in general wake up and seek political
rather than personal solutions to their problems.
-jh-
macphineas
On May 2, 9:55 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > John, first, I agree it's a good thing the SL corrected their
> > position. I also agree transitional demands, per se, are not really
> > applicable in this situation, that is not "transitional demands" as
> > defined by the TP but the TP has a set of demands, often ignored, that
> > are called "democratic" demands and "immediate" demands. These
> > demands, if raised by Haitian revolutionaries, make total sense. Off
> > the top of my head:
>
> Right, the minimum program, as the Second International used to put
> it. That is pretty much what Haitians revolutionaries stuck there and
> unable to leave would want to advocate right now. I am afraid that,
> given the way that Haiti is flat on its back, mounting a Haitian mass
> movement for these demands would be hard. People are desperately
> trying to survive, not marching in the streets.
Are there any mutual aid societies that have come about since the
earthquake? If so, developing them and fighting for them to control
aid, especially the distribution, is priority #1. They should also
develop whatever police/militia force they would need to control
profiteering and black markets.
> > 1. US out of Haiti/End the occupation/UN-Mistuah troops out now!
>
> Sure. Especially since the obvious and immediate barrier to Haitians
> marching in the streets to raise any of these demands is the US and UN
> troops ruling the roost. It is important to talk about the UN troops,
> as they are there permanently, whereas the US troops are probably
> there temporarily (my saying "probably" is a deliberate backtrack on
> my part).
My only suggestion is to simplify the slogan to "Foreign troops out
now!"
>
> > 2. Rebuild Haiti for Haitians and not the IMF and World Bank!
>
> OK, but who is to do the rebuilding?
Whoever is willing to send aid, namely the US State Dept. Who would,
naturally, rebuild Haiti for the IMF and World Bank, as well as an
infinitesimally small minority of Haitians. The call should be for
workers of the world to unite to support their class brothers in
Haiti, to rebuild Haiti for the Haitian people (ie workers and
peasants)
>
> > 3. Massive world wide aid from anyone and everyone: food, rain gear,
> > tents, water purification systems.
>
> This is what people want and need. In practice though, this is not so
> much a demand as a plea for help. Not ultimately different from when a
> poor person asks for spare change. So I am not sure "demand" is the
> right way to put it. When a homeless guy "demands" spare change this
> is usually unwise and counterproductive for him.
This speaks to conditions that existed before the earthquake too--
plenty of Haitians were starving and homeless then, too. Haiti needs
development, not just handouts, and the first step to becoming
developed (which will require socialist revolution) is appealing to
the international proletariat to assist in those tasks, to help its
class brothers. That is a process that begins here, from within
Haiti's imperialist master, where there are many immigrant Haitian
workers.
>
> > 4. The return of Aristide (a huge demand of the masses there).
>
> Absolutely not! It was Aristide who helped put Haiti in this mess in
> the first place. He was simply an American puppet when in office, and
> he was the one who dropped all Haitian tariff barriers, which is the
> single dominant reason for people starving in Haiti and peasants
> losing their land. And remember, when Preval was voted in, it was
> because he was Aristide's #2. Aristide in office would simply be
> Preval all over again.
This amounts to supporting a bourgeois politician, because you believe
that he is in fact magical, some sort of syncretistic shaman, and has
eluded the grasp of the evil imperialist 'ricains. Supporting his
*right* to return and run as a candidate, however, would be consistent
with supporting elementary democratic rights, hence correct.
>
> > 5. Legalization of all political parties and most notably Lavalas and
> > the PSO.
>
> This I support. Free elections would probably result in Aristide
> coming back into office. But that is not the reason to support this,
> the reason is because it is an elementary democratic demand.
Well, duh.
>
> > 6. Convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
>
> I am dubious about that. There is nothing particularly good or bad
> about the Haitian Constitution. As is, if enforced, it allows free
> elections. There is no particular reason to believe a Constituent
> Assembly would be any better or worse than just a new parliament
> elected through free elections. The Preval regime has announced that
> due to the earthquake, it has put off elections for a couple years.
> Maybe by that they mean forever...
>
> Demanding new elections with all parties allowed to participate could
> be a democratic demand that would enable the Haitian people to
> mobilize, denounce the total failure of the Preval government and its
> subservience to foreigners, and in general wake up and seek political
> rather than personal solutions to their problems.
>
> -jh-
>
>
I don't understand the obsession with constituent assemblies. In rare
cases, when you have an authoritarian or autocratic regime on the
verge of collapse, then they can, depending on the level of class
consciousness and struggle, operate as a transitional means of
bringing workers to power, by bringing them over to the ideas of
revolution by highlighting the inadequacy of bourgeois forms of
government. However, in the absence of organs of dual power,
supporting a CA amounts to leading the workers back to their
bourgeoisie; this goes doubly so when you advocate an essentially
bourgeois convocation (the CA) in an already bourgeois-democratic
state, such as Haiti is.
macphineas
srd
> > > > The Haitian situation is different, as in the Soviet Union what Hoover
> > > > was doing was precisely what is inconceivable in Haiti, namely
> > > > delivering aid and letting the workers' government handle all security
> > > > matters. Haiti is a US neocolony where the workers are flat on their
> > > > backs, not in charge as in the USSR.
>
> > > > But the basic principles remain the same.
>
> > > No. Aid is not aid. Letting in the Haitian refugees is a form of aid
> > > too. It, too, is acceptable where other aid demands aren't because the
> > > demand leaves the government no discretion to implement it in a
> > > reactionary way. That's the key, often lost because no one is explicit
> > > on it.
>
> No, this is not the same thing as demanding aid. The demand would be,
> not that the US Navy should operate caravans to carry Haitian refugees
> to Miami, which might require a US naval base on Haiti, but simply
> that they get out of the way and stop *preventing* Haitians from
> fleeing the island if they wish.
Getting out of the way when the normal course is getting in the way is
aid. The only reason it's a special kind of aid is it involves
allocates minimal discretionary power to the bourgeoisie state. All
you're asking them to do is something very simple: get out of the way.
Almost as simple, drop food on Haiti's doorstep.
srd
srd
No, that is not the SL position. The SL's position on most immigration
restrictions is abstentionist. They do not _oppose_ all immigration
restrictions. That's exactly the difference between, say, David's
position and the SL. Open the doors or Open borders raises a utopian
slogan. The difference between open borders and "end all restrictions"
is that open borders says something like "pass a law abolishing
immigration controls." To apply a rough and ready if ultimately
questionable test, the open borders demand is utopian because it won't
be achieved under capitalism or immediately under a workers state. But
oppose all immigration restrictions merely means oppose each one,
without encouraging the illusion that immigration controls can be
entirely abolished under capitalism.
Letting the Haitians in is consistent with "oppose all immigration
controls." It is *not* consistent with the SL position, which is
abstention on most immigration controls.
>
> The author suggested as a possible transitional alternative the
> regulation of immigration jointly by the Red Trade Union International
> and the "Amsterdam" social-democratic union international.
>
> Given what Hitler was doing in Germany, I see no reason why advancing
> open doors for Jews in the 1930s, or Haitians now, could not be a
> conjunctural temporary slogan.
Because we have a scientific and not an Opportunist program. Because
nothing in the SL program warrants the demand.
You want a more affirmative argument? Because its a divisive slogan,
offering advantages arbitrarily to Jews in Eastern Europe (or to
whatever group they're offered) without offering the same to others
suffering comparable threats. The fact that the threat was more
concentrated against the Jews doesn't speak to any given Jew
warranting more favorable treatment than any similarly situated
individual.
Your "pragmatic" approach, moreover, fails to absorb the lessons of
Haiti. The reason the demand to allow Haitians entry is popular is
that the earthquake demonstrates the reactionary absurdity of
capitalist borders: Haitians suffering geophysical calamity are
condemned to probable death when safety is a few miles away. It's not
a special situation; death by starvation occurs throughout the
neocolonial world, and there is absolutely no justification for saying
Haitian can get in and a starving Mexican peasant can't. It's an
arbitrary, hence reactionary, rule, thought up to save the Spart line
from exposure. The logical implication of the Spart immigration
position is abstention on Haitian entry.
srd
>
> -jh-- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
Vngelis
A more serious issue would be if the SL opposed Cuban immigration to
the US.
They dont. Gusano socialists if there ever was.
vngelis
srd
> My $.02:
>
> On May 2, 9:55 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > 3. Massive world wide aid from anyone and everyone: food, rain gear,
> > > tents, water purification systems.
>
> > This is what people want and need. In practice though, this is not so
> > much a demand as a plea for help. Not ultimately different from when a
> > poor person asks for spare change. So I am not sure "demand" is the
> > right way to put it. When a homeless guy "demands" spare change this
> > is usually unwise and counterproductive for him.
>
> This speaks to conditions that existed before the earthquake too--
> plenty of Haitians were starving and homeless then, too. Haiti needs
> development, not just handouts, and the first step to becoming
> developed (which will require socialist revolution) is appealing to
> the international proletariat to assist in those tasks, to help its
> class brothers. That is a process that begins here, from within
> Haiti's imperialist master, where there are many immigrant Haitian
> workers.
I was hoping we agreed here, but that was wishful thinking. When I
call for "elemental aid," I mean to restrict the demand to handouts,
and restrict the demand to the immediate dire emergency. As to broader
imperialist aid, I agree with Holmes strictures; they aren't so much
wrong as overgeneralized. But of generality, why wouldn't you
generalize your perspective to the whole neocolonial world?
I don't think a labor subsidy is the way to express international
solidarity with the Haitian proletariat (whose existence seems to
remain an unresolved question). The spirit of my aid demand—against
governments, primarily American—is make the imperialists pay for what
they inflicted. For the labor movement to divert resources to Haitian
development—I see that as an *anti* class struggle perspective.
If I label the Renegade Vngelis a National Trotskyist, I should
baptize you a Christian Trotskyist.
What should Holmes say, since he maintains that revolutionaries have a
strong stake in humanitarian propriety? (This topic arose somewhere
else, but it seems sufficiently relevant here.) Maybe on this we
should start with the historical evidence. What informs Holmes's
belief that antihumanitarians like me don't make revolutions? ["You
prove my case" is insufficient."] Didn't Marx scoff at humanitarian
sentimentality? Didn't Lenin turn of Bertrand Russell by guffawing
about priests and landlords swinging from the lamps?
srd
srd
only _general_ *principled* response to the immigration question
today. (It probably isn't very _relevant_ today because of the
condition of the international labor movement, but that's another
question.) The demand also demonstrates that the icl's view that the
proletariat CAN have *no* general immigration policy is wrong. I
think I'm the only one here who can consistently support this demand;
supporting it requires recognizing that immigration is a class issue
APART FROM immigrant rights. (National Trotskyism couldn't support
this demand because of it _globalist_ character.)
srd
nada
"positions", that is program, with "slogans". I saw ONE leaflet
yesterday calling for "Open Borders". I haven't look real hard but I
don't know of any coalition or immigrant rights organization that in
fact "calls" for this....even among ALL Trotskyist groups that I'm
aware of and I think the Bay Area has about one of everything except
for a CWI affiliate.
What is more important is how one confronts the overall issue of
"immigration reform" as demanded by immigrant workers organizations,
unions, left, Latino, etc etc groups. What groups have actually
"called for" are: full legalization, unconditional and immediate, jobs
for all, no to privatizations, Boycott Arizona, and the like. And that
is why 100000 came out in LA, 20000 in San Jose, etc.
David
jh
>
> - Show quoted text -
There's an ambiguity here that goes all the way back to the CPUSA in
the 1920s, and is not just a particular kink of the Spartacists. In
the article I read, the author *starts out* by saying that this is a
problem that cannot be solved under capitalism, that the open borders
slogan is wrong, and that OTOH all capitalist laws restricting
immigration should be opposed. Reads straight out of WV.
Then at the very end, he goes right ahead and offers a solution, which
he does *not* in fact say can only be established under socialism,
namely immigration regulation by the unions on an international basis,
including the Profintern, not by capitalist governments.
Which by the way didn't sound quite as absurdly utopian back then as
it would now. Unions were much more powerful, and governments were
simply less *interested* in regulating immigration and emigration than
they are now. And were not as all-encompassingly powerful as they are
now.
Especially the US government, a far smaller scale affair back then. It
was the European governments then that were Leviathan, and they were
all *in favor* of emigration to the USA, especially Mussolini and his
fascist regime, and had far fewer immigration issues of their own to
worry about.
And, last but not least, back then there was the Red Trade Union
International, in theory at least a body that could be trusted to
handle such matters in a non-chauvinist fashion.
I think advancing it now would be a big mistake, as nowadays the
policies of unions on immigration and emigration are usually hard to
distinguish from those of the governments of the countries they live
in. You wouldn't want to see the Teamsters Union regulating
immigration on the Mexican border, though hopefully they wouldn't be
as bad as the ICE Gestapo.
-jh-
jh
>
> - Show quoted text -
The press of course presents it as if everybody there was marching to
demand that the horrifying Democratic "immigration reform" bill be
passed. Not having been there I will refrain from commenting on the
accuracy of this. Not in SF at any rate, it sounds like.
-jh-
jh
Just finally talked to somebody in the SL about the line change. They
are indeed in a bit of a state of shock about this, in the mood for
sackcloth and ashes.
One thing that *does not* come out in the official statement, though
no doubt it will be talked about in future articles. In addition to
the fact that the line was wrong in principle, they now maintain that
the Haiti articles in question in WV misrepresented the situation in
Haiti factually.
Dave at least will be interested to hear that the SL is now saying
that what they wrote about the USA being the only people able to do
the job was simply factually dead wrong.
In fact, they are now saying, Chavez in Venezuela provided three times
as much practical aid on the ground as the US did, there were Cuban
teams doing good stuff, etc. etc. And really the only role of Obama
and his Marines was to get in the way.
Well, truth is concrete in my book. Assuming that *that* is correct,
and it certainly matches up perfectly with what all the other leftists
are saying, indeed every source I am familiar with with the solitary
exception of the New York Times, that eliminates any of my last-second
kvetches. The line was wrong, the SL should have been calling loudly
from the getgo for the US troops to get the hell outta there, end of
story.
All SL critics now get to gloat over this one. The only defense they
have is that they have dropped it about as thoroughly and publicly as
one possibly can.
At this point, if there is anyone left in the SL still defending the
old line, one suspects that they will not be in the SL much longer,
one way or another. This could definitely lead to a real faction fight
and/or split, much more serious than the rather mild affair they had
last summer.
-jh-
srd
make them consistent with its line.
What shows disorientation/demoralization is that so many of the
vaunted cadres accepted the line without blinking; as they now accept
the new line the same way. I don't think Stalin got such unblinking
acceptance.
srd
srd
> There's an ambiguity here that goes all the way back to the CPUSA in
> the 1920s, and is not just a particular kink of the Spartacists. In
> the article I read, the author *starts out* by saying that this is a
> problem that cannot be solved under capitalism, that the open borders
> slogan is wrong, and that OTOH all capitalist laws restricting
> immigration should be opposed. Reads straight out of WV.
No, WV does NOT say "all capitalist laws restricting immigration
should be opposed." I don't know what you might be thinking. Remember,
the position is essentially that immigrants should be left alone if
they succeed in entering, NOT that all laws restricting entry
(capitalist laws restricting immigration) should be opposed!
srd
srd
The British SWP calls for it (I've seen pictures of them carrying
signs); I imagine the ISO does too. Actually, I can't say I'm 100%
sure of the preceding, but here's the clincher: the LRP definitely
USED to call for this, before they revised their demand to "End all
restrictions on immigration." The essential reason is that the first
slogan tended to confuse a task with a demand. You might say the same
for the "Disarmament demand." (I'm not sure if I find the talk-demand
distinction that illuminating. Sort of stinks of Grant.)
>
> What is more important is how one confronts the overall issue of
> "immigration reform" as demanded by immigrant workers organizations,
> unions, left, Latino, etc etc groups. What groups have actually
> "called for" are: full legalization, unconditional and immediate, jobs
> for all, no to privatizations, Boycott Arizona, and the like. And that
> is why 100000 came out in LA, 20000 in San Jose, etc.
Not sure if I can go along with boycotting Arizona. Probably not.
Sounds plain reformist. Not that I'd go there.
srd
>
> David
jh
> As the new-position document points out, WV _distorted_ the facts to
> make them consistent with its line.
>
> What shows disorientation/demoralization is that so many of the
> vaunted cadres accepted the line without blinking; as they now accept
> the new line the same way. I don't think Stalin got such unblinking
> acceptance.
Oh, they're blinking alright. The attitude seems to be "how could we
have been so stupid and accepted that, what's wrong with us."
Being as I can't claim to have disagreed with the line, I for one am
not in much position to criticize. When I ran down my own arguments
here on APST, for example my characterization of the position as
"abstentionism" rather than backhanded support for the US troops, was
told that very similar arguments had been made frequently in internal
discussions, though nobody had actually used the term.
That was the point at which I was told about the factual distortion
issue.
Why? Well one reason is simply that the SL has had such a longstanding
*reputation* for honesty and political judgment, at least in my book
and certainly in that of SL members, that, well, it was abusable.
That reputation is now tarnished in my eyes, and in that of, it seems,
a good number of SL cadre. That is why I think faction fights and
splits are now a definite possibility.
-jh-
jh
Oversimplification on my part. But not much of one. In theory there
are cases in which one could have an abstentionist rather than
oppositionist attitude, or even support one outright. And they raised
certain concrete examples of this in the original article that has
been controversial on APST at least for so long.
In practice, it is difficult to imagine an *American* immigration law
that they would not oppose, especially in the current period. I cannot
think of one offhand.
The article which has the immigration demand which you like *also* at
the same time calls for unconditional opposition to legal immigration
restrictions in America.
-jh-
Vngelis
Its not an issue of stupidity or smartness. Its one of political
orientation.
For the past decade now the Sparts have become true full bloodied
Americans.
They assume the motive of American imperialism is to do with
'humanitarian' efforts
when it is to do with geopolitical control of the whole region.
The about turn is about faction fights. On the surface the turn looks
'left' but is in reality
right...
vngelis
srd
> On May 4, 1:12 am, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 3, 10:04 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > There's an ambiguity here that goes all the way back to the CPUSA in
> > > the 1920s, and is not just a particular kink of the Spartacists. In
> > > the article I read, the author *starts out* by saying that this is a
> > > problem that cannot be solved under capitalism, that the open borders
> > > slogan is wrong, and that OTOH all capitalist laws restricting
> > > immigration should be opposed. Reads straight out of WV.
>
> > No, WV does NOT say "all capitalist laws restricting immigration
> > should be opposed." I don't know what you might be thinking. Remember,
> > the position is essentially that immigrants should be left alone if
> > they succeed in entering, NOT that all laws restricting entry
> > (capitalist laws restricting immigration) should be opposed!
>
> > srd
>
> Oversimplification on my part. But not much of one. In theory there
> are cases in which one could have an abstentionist rather than
> oppositionist attitude, or even support one outright. And they raised
> certain concrete examples of this in the original article that has
> been controversial on APST at least for so long.
I'd call your posture on this evasive rather than simplistic. I mean,
come on. You ask a Spart his position on immigration laws and the
answer is "no position," not opposition. The distinction is as
important here as when it related to Haiti.
Ah, I see your move. Clever, but no cigar, or how does that go? You
want to say that because every extant American immigration law is
opposable, in effect the Spart League opposes all immigration
restrictions. Sometimes if you take a minute to state the position,
its falsity becomes immediately apparent; I realize you lack time at
present.
See Pedro over there in Mexico City? He's never been to the U.S. but
he wants to become a U.S. citizen. Should he have the unqualified
right? The document you paraphrase says (relying on your account--
maybe I should type that one up too)--says yes.. More concretely, he
tries to get in and is politely refused at the border. Are you
unequivocally in favor of his right to enter? The Sparts say no. The
document says yes.
The question is precisely the Spart difference with the LRP. The LRP
has the "oppose all immigration restrictions" of the early U.S.
Communists. The Sparts don't. They've debated this publicly with
considerable heat. Certainly you don't claim they have no differences?
Indeed, you have held that the LRP position and the British SWP
position are essentially the same on immigration. So, you have equated
the historical no opposition position with the revisionist open
borders position. Certainly you must recognize that your position
differs materially from the early CP position precisely in NOT
unequivocally opposing all imperialist immigration restrictions--not
only by supporting certain hypothetical restrictions but also by
EXPRESSLY DISTINGUISHING the unequivocal right to remain in the
country with the absence of such a right to enter. Even if the
difference, contrary to fact, made no difference as to immediate
demands, it demonstrates a whole different take on the intersection of
immigration and proletarian internationalism.
My own view on immigration now is that, having determined that any
attempt to limit immigration in the imperialist countries is
reactionary, I am compelled by the logic of my analysis to oppose all
imperialist immigration controls, a duty I grudgingly accept. I think
the icl position has become ludicrous to the ear--"we favor letting
them stay if they get in, but don't support their right to enter."
WTF?
If I'm going to support immigrant rights, I'm going to adopt a
position that is coherent, actually (on this narrow question alone)
agreeing as far as I can tell with David's (although I apparently
haven't made that clear enough to him). Where I still differ from all
of you "New World Orderists" <g> is that I would not try to prettify
the consequences of immigration. Modern mass immigration lowers the
standard of living for native workers at least in the short run (and
an interminable run of short runs is becomes the long run.) But it
should be opposed in unity with immigrants at its source—in the
facilitating international agreements—while opposing each and every
application of exclusionist laws.
Didn't Lenin even say expressly that Communists must *oppose* ANY
immigration law?
srd
srd
> On May 4, 12:30 am, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > As the new-position document points out, WV _distorted_ the facts to
> > make them consistent with its line.
>
> > What shows disorientation/demoralization is that so many of the
> > vaunted cadres accepted the line without blinking; as they now accept
> > the new line the same way. I don't think Stalin got such unblinking
> > acceptance.
> > ...
>
> Oh, they're blinking alright. The attitude seems to be "how could we
> have been so stupid and accepted that, what's wrong with us."
What is? If the revised position caused consternation, it also
demanded it. If you'll allow me to be undiplomatic and look at your
position, you didn't find the original position surprising but were
almost shocked by the IG's opposition. You agreed that "Learn to
Think" captured and dismissed the IG's criticisms from the SL's left.
When I argued positions close to the new position, the argument served
only to _solidify_ your support for the first line.
Now I've certainly accepted some bad positions. But never without a
sense of shock when first learning of it and an intellectually
dishonest struggle to accept it. Why did it go down so easy?
srd
jh
> On May 4, 8:27 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 4, 12:30 am, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > As the new-position document points out, WV _distorted_ the facts to
> > > make them consistent with its line.
>
> > > What shows disorientation/demoralization is that so many of the
> > > vaunted cadres accepted the line without blinking; as they now accept
> > > the new line the same way. I don't think Stalin got such unblinking
> > > acceptance.
> > > ...
>
> > Oh, they're blinking alright. The attitude seems to be "how could we
> > have been so stupid and accepted that, what's wrong with us."
>
> What is? If the revised position caused consternation, it also
> demanded it. If you'll allow me to be undiplomatic and look at your
> position, you didn't find the original position surprising but were
> almost shocked by the IG's opposition. You agreed that "Learn to
> Think" captured and dismissed the IG's criticisms from the SL's left.
> When I argued positions close to the new position, the argument served
> only to _solidify_ your support for the first line.
>
> Now I've certainly accepted some bad positions. But never without a
> sense of shock when first learning of it and an intellectually
> dishonest struggle to accept it. Why did it go down so easy?
>
> srd
>
I think the answer does have something to do with what one might as
well call the "Seymour line" that we are in a bad period where the
consciousness of the working class has retrogressed, and one cannot
expect much offensive class struggle in the immediate future, because
workers in general, not just in Haiti, are feeling beaten down and
defensive.
So if one accepts this and there is a disaster like Haiti, and doesn't
think that one can do much about it right now, that creates a tendency
to look for the "politics of the possible."
I myself had trouble accepting the Seymour line, thought it might
breed passivity. That's why I wanted to have it discussed on APST,
even if Vangelis and Dusty turned out to be the main discussants. I
think I even said so on APST. My *very first* reaction to Haiti here
on APST, before I saw the WV article, was sound enough. But once I did
accept the Seymour analysis, suddenly the Haiti line went down much
easier.
Does this mean that the Seymour line is wrong and should be rejected?
No, unfortunately, although the WV ed board certqinly applied it too
broadly universally and uncritically. I continue to find his
argumentation for it solid and persuasive.
But it creates a definite danger.
The correct attitude is precisely Gramsci's old slogan,
"Optimism of the will, pessimism of the intelligence."
But *without* the attitude of Stalin in the Third Period, or Healyites
like the WRP (old or current) almost always, or even of the SL
minority with respect to the Mumia campaign. Optimism of the will
*does not* mean a small revolutionary organization can transform the
political situation through sheer will.
One has to be willing to be patient until the working class is ready,
and then even a very small group can be the spark, the *Iskra,* to
light the fire.
The easiest thing of all for a small group to forget is that the
revolutionary party of the working class is the vanguard *of* the
working class. No more, no less. It is not a self-sufficient entity
outside of time and space. Or, putting it in the classic terminology,
it is not a sect.
-jh-
>
>
>
>
> > Being as I can't claim to have disagreed with the line, I for one am
> > not in much position to criticize. When I ran down my own arguments
> > here on APST, for example my characterization of the position as
> > "abstentionism" rather than backhanded support for the US troops, was
> > told that very similar arguments had been made frequently in internal
> > discussions, though nobody had actually used the term.
>
> > That was the point at which I was told about the factual distortion
> > issue.
>
> > Why? Well one reason is simply that the SL has had such a longstanding
> > *reputation* for honesty and political judgment, at least in my book
> > and certainly in that of SL members, that, well, it was abusable.
>
> > That reputation is now tarnished in my eyes, and in that of, it seems,
> > a good number of SL cadre. That is why I think faction fights and
> > splits are now a definite possibility.
>
Fred
> One has to be willing to be patient until the working class is ready,
> and then even a very small group can be the spark, the *Iskra,* to light
> the fire.
>
> The easiest thing of all for a small group to forget is that the
> revolutionary party of the working class is the vanguard *of* the
> working class. No more, no less. It is not a self-sufficient entity
> outside of time and space. Or, putting it in the classic terminology, it
> is not a sect.
>
Well, don't forget that there is a massive propaganda campaign
funded by people with very deep pockets and control over the mainstream
media. They virtually control public opinion for a majority of the
Americas, and much of the rest of the world. The working class will
never be ready unless they are educated and "we" (the left) don't have
the budget for it.
What we do have is our labour wealth and a good idea of what the
truth is. If we are not working diligently to promote truth, truth will
be neglected and people will not trust us because they will have had
their opinions shaped by the capitalists. That being the case they would
not turn to us even in crisis.
There is work to be done.
I got this from an activist friend of mine:
"Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies
whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim
no easy victories … Our experience has shown us that in the general
framework of daily struggle, this battle against ourselves, this struggle
against our own weaknesses … is the most difficult of all."
- Amilcar Cabral, African freedom fighter (1924-1973)
--
Regards,
Fred
srd
BEGIN IG QUOTE
Trying to Justify Support for U.S. Invasion
SL Twists and Turns on Haiti
Humanitarian aid workers? Hardly. Paratroops of the U.S. 82nd Airborne
Division patrolling Port-
au-Prince, January 19. IG said: No to imperialist occupation! U.S./
U.N. Troops get out now!
Photo: Moises Saman/Panos Pictures
Since the mid-1990s, following the wave of counterrevolution that
brought down the Soviet Union and swept through East Europe, the
Spartacist League (SL/U.S.) and its international tendency, the
International Communist League (ICL), have undergone a process of
degeneration. Step by step, the SL/ICL has abandoned key elements of
the program of revolutionary Trotskyism it championed for three
decades. Seemingly at every crisis or major turn of events, another
plank would go: opposition to popular fronts (defined out of existence
in Mexico, the United States, etc.), calls for defeat of their own
imperialist rulers in wars on semi-colonial countries (trashed in the
wake of 9/11), the demand for unconditional independence for U.S.
colonies (dropped). The list goes on and on.
Recently, in the wake of the earthquake that devastated Haiti’s
capital, as Washington sent thousands of U.S. combat troops and a
naval armada to secure the country, the SL/ICL ostentatiously declared
it was not calling for withdrawal of U.S. and United Nations military
forces. Going further, the SL newspaper Workers Vanguard (No. 951, 29
January) justified the presence of imperialist occupation forces in
Haiti, falsely claiming they were engaged in – and indeed essential to
– distributing aid when in fact the U.S. military was actively
blocking relief flights and refusing to release what aid was arriving.
In contrast, The Internationalist put out a statement, “Haiti: Workers
Solidarity, Yes! Imperialist Occupation, No!” (20 January), saying
“Washington Exploits Earthquake to Reoccupy the Country.” The
Democratic Obama administration in Washington reinvaded the island
under the guise of emergency relief, and the ex-Trotskyist SL bought
the cover story.
In order to hide its grotesque capitulation to the pressure and
propaganda of the U.S. rulers, in the same article and in three
subsequent issues, WV hysterically attacked the Internationalist
Group, claiming that our call for imperialist forces to get out of
Haiti “would result in mass death through starvation.” In response, we
issued a statement, “Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Invasion
of Haiti” (30 January). The SL’s apology for the U.S./U.N.
“humanitarian” occupation of Haiti was “social imperialism,” we wrote,
such as what was denounced by Lenin during World War I, who excoriated
those who claim to be socialist while in fact backing imperialist war.
The SL came back with a frenzied response, “Haiti: IG Conjures Up
Revolution Amid the Rubble” (WV No. 952, 12 February), and a follow-up
going after the misnamed Bolshevik Tendency for belatedly calling for
imperialist troops out, “The BT on Haiti: Postscript to IGiocy” (WV
No. 953, 26 February).
Strikingly, WV portrays Haiti in the same way as the propaganda spewed
out by the bourgeois press, which paints Haiti as nothing but violent
slums with no working class. The imperialists then use this caricature
to justify the “need” for U.S. and U.N. troops to maintain “security.”
Yet international observers were unanimous in remarking on the near
absence of riots and the low level of looting, except for people
desperately seeking food during the early days when the U.S. was
blocking aid. In fact, the SL’s line on Haiti bore an uncanny
resemblance to that of the right-wing Washington Times (25 January),
which editorialized on “The Upside of Yankee Imperialism in Haiti”:
“America's critics are claiming that the United States is using the
pretext of earthquake relief to take over Haiti. The Haitians should
be so lucky.... The United States deserves credit for this
humanitarian effort, not blame for imagined invasions,” wrote this
mouthpiece for Sun Myung Moon’s sinister Unification Church. Still,
despite a similar line, the latter-day Spartacists are not a bunch of
Moonies, but opportunist leftists bowing to the pressure of “their
own” imperialist rulers.
Finally, after squirming for weeks to justify its support to the U.S.
military “aid,” two months later the SL tries to slither out of its
predicament by calling for “All U.S./UN Troops Out of Haiti Now!” (WV
No. 955, 26 March). Sure, now, when U.S. troops are securely
entrenched on both sides of the capital, and some are even being
withdrawn, but once again they denounce the IG for demanding troops
out when the Yankee imperialists were moving in and it was necessary
to combat illusions in their role in Haiti. This recalls Trotsky’s
remark about the anarchist “theoreticians” who found it necessary to
abandon their principles during the Spanish Civil War: “Such
revolutionists bear a close resemblance to raincoats that leak only
when it rains, i.e., in ‘exceptional’ circumstances, but during dry
weather they remain waterproof with complete success.” So it is with
the SL’s sometime “opposition” to U.S. occupation of Haiti.
The SL’s claims are the usual subterfuges of opportunists seeking to
justify the unjustifiable. It is one thing to read old polemics about
the abandonment of Marxist program by once-revolutionary groups, of
their zigs and zags as they sink deeper into centrism and outright
reformism – and something else to see it happening before your own
eyes.1
SL Amalgams and Straw Men
Groups that pretend to be socialist while apologizing for imperialism
have to resort to myriad lies and distortions seeking to obscure the
glaring contradictions. The Spartacist League today is no exception,
dismissing reality and dispensing with intellectual honesty and even
rudimentary logic in order to obscure the spectacle of an ostensibly
revolutionary organization supporting a military occupation by its own
imperialist government.
Take WV 952’s claims that “in its two articles on the earthquake, the
IG has only oblique and passing references to [Jean Bertrand]
Aristide” and “the IG largely sidesteps the issue of Aristide.” They
allege we avoid confronting illusions in the populist former cleric
who was elected Haitian president in 1990 and 2000. Nonsense. All one
has to do is look at our denunciation of the U.S. invasion of Haiti in
1994 “under Bill Clinton, to put in Aristide as Washington’s man in
Port-au-Prince,” and our statement “Even former Liberation Theology
priest Aristide dutifully carried out Washington’s dictates,” to see
that this is false.
Moreover, a second article included in our January 2010 special issue
of The Internationalist, “Haiti: Battle Over Starvation Wages and
Neocolonial Occupation,” stressed that, “in forging a revolutionary
consciousness, it is vital to combat illusions in petty-bourgeois and
bourgeois nationalist forces.” Referring to current Haitian president
Préval who was elected as a stand-in for Aristide, we noted that,
“both Aristide and his former protégé [have] been loyal enforcers for
the Haitian bourgeoisie and the imperialist overlords.” So WV’s charge
is a flat lie. Both articles are available on the Internet, so
interested readers can see for themselves.
Or another claim: WV No. 952 writes, “By the IG’s logic, workers in
the U.S. should be actively blocking any aid being shipped to Haiti by
the U.S. military.” Once again, these inventers of straw men dream up
positions for us in order to make a phony (and particularly stupid)
polemic. The fact that we demanded the opposite, “Stop Blocking Aid to
Haitian People – U.S./U.N. Forces Get Out!” is never mentioned – not
once in four articles – by these professional prevaricators.
What’s more interesting is why the SL resorts to transparent
falsifications. It is desperate to make an amalgam between the
Internationalist Group and various pro-Aristide nationalists, such as
the newspaper Haïti Liberté and the Stalinoid Workers World, which
regularly hails Third World nationalists.2 Never mind that the IG
uniquely called to resist the imperialist coup that ousted Aristide in
2004 but explicitly not to reinstall him as president.3 Never mind
that we called on Haitian workers to fight attempts by U.N. and right-
wing Haitian forces to overturn Préval’s 2006 election victory, but
not with the aim of installing Préval as president.4 The SL makes this
false equation in order to assert that “the IG’s shrieking about the
supposed imperialist ‘invasion’ of a country already under imperialist
occupation” ... “essentially portrayed Préval and his predecessor
Aristide not as quislings of the imperialist powers but as the
embodiment of national independence.”
So the IG “largely” ignores Aristide and “essentially” hails him as
the embodiment of Haiti’s independence? How blithely WV drops in those
weasel words to serve as an escape hatch for its conscious, deliberate
falsification! The SL lies about our position on Aristide so it can
construct a tangled sophist argument according to which our opposition
to the U.S. imperialists’ renewed occupation of Haiti somehow equals
“nationalism.” They falsely claim we prettify Washington’s former
puppet in hopes of distracting readers from their support for the
imperialist puppet-masters.
But they have a little problem: we have repeatedly denounced the
imperialist occupation of Haiti by Brazilian and other mercenary
troops wearing U.N. blue helmets over the last six years, calling to
drive out U.N. troops. Writing, as we did, that Aristide was
“Washington’s man” and that he and Préval were “loyal enforcers” for
the “imperialist overlords” hardly portrays them as representatives of
Haitian independence. Our opposition to the recent reoccupation of
Haiti by the U.S. military had nothing to do with support for Préval
and Aristide. Rather, it was because the U.S. action was, as we wrote,
“not intended to deliver aid, but to put down unrest by the poor and
working people of Haiti.” In contrast, the SL social-imperialists
justify the dispatch of up to 20,000 U.S. troops to impose “order” on
the Haitian people in the name of disaster relief.
The 82nd Airborne as Humanitarian Aid Workers?
The central claim by the SL apologists for the U.S. imperialist
takeover of Haiti in WV 951 (29 January) is that “The U.S. military is
the only force on the ground with the capacity – e.g., trucks, planes,
ships – to organize the transport of what food, water, medical and
other supplies are getting to Haiti’s population.” This is almost word-
for-word what Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said on January
27, when he told reporters: “No one can provide the kinds of
assistance we can.... We have to provide the kind of security that
will facilitate a safe, secure flow of food, water, medicine.” Morrell
also laid out the U.S. rationale, saying that this shows “we are a
force for good and try to provide assistance to those who need it
around the world.” Belying the pretense of emergency aid, he added:
“we envision that there will be a role for the United States military
for some time to come in Haiti.”
We answered WV’s bogus claim in our earlier (30 January) article.
Since we noted that the U.N. claimed to have fed up to 310,000 people,
a drop in the bucket considering that agencies estimated 3 million
people were in daily need of emergency food supplies, WV writes, “the
question of how those hundreds of tons of supplies got to Haiti
remains a mystery.” It’s no mystery. For starters, the U.N.’s World
Food Program alone had 15,000 tons of emergency food supplies
stockpiled in Haiti in warehouses around Port-au-Prince filled with
rice, beans and other foodstuffs, most of which were not seriously
damaged (many didn’t have concrete roofs). One of them is in the huge
slum area of Cité Soleil. But the U.N. “peacekeeping” occupation
troops, MINUSTAH, ordered international agency personnel not to
distribute these supplies for a number of days out of fear of “crime”
and unrest.
Beyond that, particularly since the terrible food shortages of early
2008, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has operated a
Logistics Cluster in Port-au-Prince, with an elaborate operation
trucking in supplies from the Dominican Republic. You can see it on
the Internet at http://www.logcluster.org/ops/hti10a and
http://wfplogistics.org/haiti-earthquake-2010. You can look at the
daily updates going back to January 13 showing conditions of the
roads, reports of space available, forms to submit for donated
shipments, and the like. This is how the vast bulk of the food and
other aid arrived in the Haitian capital. For a panorama photo of a
warehouse of the Bureau de Nutrition et Développement warehouse
stocked to the brim with bags of food, see
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/haiti-panoramas.html#/4.
Statistics? The U.S. Department of Defense reported on February 17
that it had brought in 7,000 tons of bulk food to Haiti; the United
Nations reported that Venezuela alone had donated 10,000 tons of food,
Thailand donated 20,000 tons of rice. The WFP reports it has delivered
45,000 tons of food to Haiti since January 12. The DOD said it had
delivered 60 tons of medical supplies; Médécins sans Frontières
(Doctors without Borders) alone brought in 1,400 tons of medical
supplies. The “meals ready to eat” (MRE) brought by the U.S. military
were not for the Haitian population but a six-week supply to feed the
troops and U.S. embassy personnel. The fact is that the vast majority
of food and emergency supplies distributed in Haiti after the quake
were not brought by the U.S. military, but through various
governments, international agencies and so-called “non-governmental
organizations.”
Not that we’re praising the work of this “humanitarian” aid apparatus.
The NGOs, of which more than 1,000 were at work in Haiti before the
earthquake, are funded by governments, international agencies and
foundations. They are a means by which what used to be government
functions are semi-privatized under prevailing “neo-liberal” policies
of “free market” capitalism. They and the International Red Cross, the
U.N.’s WFP and various church programs have for years distributed aid
in Haiti since the U.S. has refused to let the Haitian government
touch the money. Some agencies, like the various national Red Cross
groups, are stand-ins for imperialist governments. The head of the
American Red Cross is named by the U.S. president, Médicins sans
Frontières was founded by French foreign minister Kouchner and
provided medical aid to the CIA-financed anti-Soviet mujahedin in
Afghanistan in the 1980s. The International Red Cross kept silent
about torture at U.S. military prisons in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
The point is not that these agencies are “good guys,” but simply that
the aid is not being distributed by the U.S. military. Clearly, our
demand that U.S. and U.N. forces get out of Haiti does not equal
calling for mass starvation, as the SL cynically contends, but would
have speeded up rescue missions and delivery of relief supplies. It is
also interesting, in view of claims that they are supplying emergency
relief, that U.S. forces (along with their Canadian allies) took over
all of Haiti’s ports, including in the north (Cap Haïtien and Môle St.
Nicolas, a deep-water harbor just across the strait from the
Guantánamo Naval Base the U.S. stole from Cuba), far from the
earthquake-devastated capital of Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. mission in Haiti was and is “security,” not aid. The U.S.
military made its aims clear from the outset. Gen. Douglas Fraser,
commander of SOUTHCOM, in his January 13 Pentagon news briefing
defined the Haiti mission as a C3 operation: “we’re focused on getting
command and control and communications.” More recently, the house
organ of the U.S. military, Stars and Stripes (15 March) wrote,
“Marines in Haiti training for Afghanistan.” The article reports that
“the Marines from 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment have been honing
warfighting skills” in anticipation of their Afghan deployment. It
quotes one corporal saying, “I want to kill the terrorists and get rid
of the bad people.”
The idea that the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division 2d Brigade Combat
Team or the Marine Amphibious Unit of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary
Unit are humanitarian aid workers delivering MREs to a starving
population is grotesque. Anyone (like the Spartacist League) who
pretends they are is peddling imperialist propaganda. These units,
which were deployed to Haiti after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, are
combat forces. Any incidental aid they hand out in order to gain good
will is no more “humanitarian” than are “civic action” medical teams
in counterinsurgency operations.
Baits, Non Sequiturs and Smokescreens
Among the diversionary arguments raised by WV are the following:
* WV 952 writes: “we don’t recall the IG screaming about an
imperialist invasion when the U.S. and Canada dispatched warships to
Haiti after the country was devastated by four hurricanes in the
summer of 2008.” No, because what the U.S. did then was send the USS
Kearsarge, an amphibious ship which delivered 1,500 tons of
internationally donated aid. This time it dispatched a nuclear
aircraft carrier (USS Carl Vinson) plus its battle group including two
guided missile destroyers and a complement of Coast Guard vessels
aiming to stop Haitian refugees from heading for Florida. The Navy
says the Vinson transported 150 patients in medical evacuations. The
hospital ship USS Comfort which only arrived after a week, and has
already left the scene, reportedly performed 8,000 operations – a
pittance. By way of contrast, the more than 800 Cuban medical
personnel and Cuban-trained Haitian doctors performed over 100,000
operations and serious medical procedures.
* WV 951 writes: “By the IG’s reasoning, the Cuban government is
to be condemned for opening its airspace to American military planes
after the earthquake.” WV 952 writes that it “challenged the IG” to
condemn Cuba. In fact, we praised Cuba’s actions in Haiti. What the
Cuban government did was open its air space to medical evacuations
from Port-au-Prince to Miami, not generally to overflights by the U.S.
military. Medevacs are not the same as bringing in U.S. occupation
troops. But since the SL is so exercised about its “challenge,” we
suggest it direct it to Fidel Castro, who said the Cuban government
was right to aid medical evacuations and in the same article (“We Sent
Doctors, Not Soldiers” CubaDebate, 23 January) denounced the U.S. for
sending military forces that “occupied Haiti’s territory.”
* WV 952 condemns the “cynicism of the IG’s vituperations,”
claiming this is revealed by the fact that “the IG itself did not
oppose the deployment of National Guard troops to New Orleans in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” It quotes our article, where
we wrote: “Revolutionary communists would certainly not stand in the
way of troops actually providing aid or helping rescue survivors” (The
Internationalist No. 22, September-October 2005). Yet we did not say
that the 82nd Airborne was necessary for relief operations, as the SL
claims about Haiti today. In fact our 2005 article denounced the U.S.
government action, whose purpose was to “militarily occupy the
devastated city and put the population under martial law.” Does the SL
do that in Haiti today? No. We also detailed how the 82nd Airborne and
2d Marine Expeditionary Forces blocked emergency aid from reaching the
population, as they are doing in Haiti today. But there is one
difference between New Orleans and Haiti: Port-au-Prince is the
capital of another country, a semi-colonial country oppressed by
imperialism. Is WV perhaps “challenging” us to call for U.S. troops
out of the U.S.?
Again, what we have here is an exercise in what stage magicians call
“misdirection”: a bluff in order to draw attention away from what is
really going on. With its reasoning, the latter-day Spartacist League
has simply wiped out Haiti’s independent existence with a few keyboard
strokes. What does it matter to the SL if thousands of U.S. troops
occupy another country? “Haiti has been a UN protectorate in all but
name” anyway, dixit WV, so what’s the big deal if the U.S. nails it
down? Well, it is a big deal if you are a Haitian worker facing U.S.
soldiers of the 82nd Airborne with their M16s, even if some leftist
flacks for the Pentagon claim the troops are there to provide aid and
succor. And it is a threat to the entire region, since strengthening
U.S. imperialist control over Haiti provides another precedent for
Washington’s intervention throughout Latin America.
The “Non-Existent” Haitian Working Class:
SL Says No to Permanent Revolution in Haiti
The other centerpiece of the SL’s “argument” for the presence of U.S.
troops is its claim that Haiti has “virtually no working class,” hence
proletarian revolution is supposedly impossible on the island. At a
February 24 forum in New York City on “Haiti Earthquake: Capitalism,
Occupation and Revolution,” sponsored by the Internationalist Club at
Hunter College, we responded that SL supporters in the audience could
look at our newspaper where a large photo shows thousands of Haitian
workers marching on Haiti’s parliament to demand a raise in the
minimum wage last August. Or if they refused to believe their eyes,
they could check out the clothes they were wearing, since most Hanes
and Fruit of the Loom brand underwear is made in Haiti, as are Levi’s
jeans and clothes from The Gap, Banana Republic, DKNY and other
fashion houses. As we have stressed: “In a country with a numerically
weak proletariat such as Haiti, throwing off the imperialist yoke can
only come about as part of a struggle spanning borders from the island
of Quisqueya [Hispaniola] to Brazil to the United States” (“Haiti:
Battle Over Starvation Wages...”) But revolutionary struggle could
certainly break out there.
This is fundamental to Trotsky’s perspective of permanent revolution,
which holds that in the imperialist epoch achieving revolutionary
democratic tasks such as agrarian revolution, national liberation and
democracy “is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the
proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its
peasant masses,” led by a communist party, that “grows over directly
into the socialist revolution” while extending internationally to the
imperialist centers (Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution [1930]).
Although WV quotes from this work, it is in order to deny that the
permanent revolution applies to Haiti – due to the supposed lack of a
working class. It quotes a single sentence out of context to claim the
authority of the co-leader of the Russian 1917 October Revolution for
writing off countries like Haiti. What Trotsky meant, however, was
quite different. Here is what he wrote:
“Under the conditions of the imperialist epoch the national democratic
revolution can be carried through to a victorious end only when the
social and political relationships of the country are mature for
putting the proletariat in power as the leader of the masses of the
people. And if this is not yet the case? Then the struggle for
national liberation will produce only very partial results, results
directed entirely against the working masses.”
The SL falsifiers leave out Trotsky’s reference to the maturity of the
“social and political relationships” (our emphasis), as well as the
very next sentence, which reads:
“In 1905, the proletariat of Russia did not prove strong enough to
unite the peasant masses around it and to conquer power.”
Was Trotsky saying that the proletariat in Russia was non-existent or
numerically too weak to carry out a revolution? Obviously not. Yes,
there are economically extremely backward areas that have “virtually
no working class.” But Haiti, with 9 percent of its labor force in
industry and thousands of workers employed in modern plants in export
processing zones, is hardly the same as the pastoral society of
Mongolia in 1920 or semi-feudal conditions in Afghanistan in the
1980s. So what is the SL’s program for Haiti? What’s a (supposedly non-
existent) Haitian worker to do? Emigrate to the U.S. or Canada is the
SL’s answer, referring to “a sizable Haitian proletariat in the
diaspora, which went unmentioned in the IG’s revolution-mongering
around the earthquake.” We have already pointed that this ignores our
article on Haitian workers printed in the same special issue of The
Internationalist which ends with an entire paragraph on the vital role
of Haitian and Dominican workers in New York City.
Then there is WV’s claim that “In the IG’s fantasyland, the earthquake
placed workers revolution on the immediate agenda in Haiti.” Did we
say that? We did not. What we wrote was that “particularly at present
where the machinery of the capitalist state is largely reduced to
rubble and a few marauding bands of police,” Haiti’s “small but
militant proletariat can place itself at the head of the impoverished
urban and rural masses seeking to organize their own power.” We
referred specifically to the experience of the Mexican earthquake of
1985, when “tens of thousands of Mexico City working people who were
left homeless organized independently of and against the government
whose soldiers prevented them from rescuing their neighbors and
relatives.” We stressed that “leadership was key,” noting that in
Mexico “various self-proclaimed socialist groups that took charge of
the organizations of those affected by the quake turned them into
agencies for channeling government welfare funds, thus squandering an
opportunity for revolutionary mobilization.”
This is hardly saying that “now is the time” for Haitian working
people to “rise up in revolution,” as the SL claims we say, but that
Haitian workers can take the lead in organizing the vast poor
population “independently of and against the government,” which lay in
tatters. Ah, but “the real state power” in Haiti for the last six
years has been the imperialist occupiers, says the SL. Yet the
MINUSTAH was also laid low by the quake and barely functioning.
History shows that natural catastrophes that reveal the incapacity of
the bourgeois regime to provide even minimal conditions for survival
of the population, and whose toll of death and destruction are vastly
intensified by conditions created by capitalism, can spur
revolutionary organizing. The 1972 earthquake that leveled Managua,
Nicaragua was a key factor in setting off struggles that eventually
brought down the Somoza dictatorship. But what does today’s SL care?
It would no doubt write off Nicaragua as yet another country without a
working class, like Haiti, Bolivia, etc.
Shades of Shachtman
With their refusal to call for U.S./U.N. troops out of Haiti and their
justification of the U.S. military forces as supposedly saving lives,
the SL borrowed a page from the followers of Max Shachtman who became
notorious as “State Department socialists.” (Secretary of State
Clinton was said to be “mortified” at accusations that the U.S. was
using earthquake aid to reoccupy Haiti.) Some decades later, anti-
Soviet Cold Warriors and “neo-cons” from the Shachtmanite Social
Democrats U.S.A. staffed the upper echelons of the Reagan
administration, including U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick (a fan of
“moderately authoritarian regimes” such as the Shah’s Iran); Carl
Gershman, head of the National Endowment for Democracy (which replaced
the CIA’s covert funding of international subversion) and
Undersecretary of State Eliott Abrams (a key figure in the Iran/
Contragate scandal). But for now the SL/U.S. remains a centrist
outfit, albeit one that is lurching precipitously to the right.
The closest parallel to the Spartacist position is that of the British
Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) of Sean Matgamna, whose article on
Haiti could have been lifted from the pages of Workers Vanguard.
Matgamna and his AWL are the main current partisans of Shachtman’s
brand of pro-imperialist “socialism” on the left, notorious for their
support to Israel. The AWL writes:
“The basic accusation of much of what passes for the far-left is that
the US/imperialism is in the process of occupying Haiti under the
pretext of aiding the relief effort. Some even add to this ‘analysis’
slogans about the troops.... The logistics of the operation cannot be
met by ‘civilian’ agencies.
“At the moment any ‘US troops out’ message, directly or by
implication, means ‘Let the Haitian people starve and heal
themselves’.”
–“Haiti, emergency aid and the left,” Solidarity (4 February)
Like the SL, the AWL claims that in Haiti “the working class, as a
class, has been scattered and put out of work.” It also admits that
“the US has an appalling history of bullying and bossing its poor
neighbour,” and makes some noises about not endorsing U.S. policies,
similar to the SL’s lame disclaimers about the “piggish” way the U.S.
dispenses aid. But according to these avowed Shachtmanites, “the
nature of its intervention, now, in Haiti, is not motivated by the
need to ‘control Haiti’ through military occupation. Why would the US
need to invade to ‘control Haiti’?” it asks. The answer: while Haiti
may lack oil, it has one thing in common with Iraq – strategic
location, just off Cuba and within striking distance of Washington’s
current nemesis in Latin America, Hugo Chávez’ Venezuela.
SL’s Path to Social-Imperialism
Since the time of the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. has considered the
Caribbean an American lake and vigilantly kept other powers away from
its Latin American pawns. It’s notable that the U.S. reoccupation of
Haiti comes after the Obama administration’s complicity in the
overthrow of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya last June. Spurred on by
the Reaganite right, the Democrats in power are moving to encircle
Venezuela. In light of the SL’s support for U.S. occupation of Haiti
(since the country was already occupied), and its call (along with the
U.S. State Department and pro-imperialist forces) for a “no” vote on
Chávez’ December 2007 referendum (we called for a blank ballot), it is
curious indeed that WV has not seen fit to print one word, much less
an article, against the U.S. backed Honduran coup.
The SL’s line on Haiti also recalls its shift on Puerto Rico in 1998,
when it suddenly “corrected” its longstanding position of advocating
independence for the U.S.’ main Caribbean colony. Instead it only
called for recognizing Puerto Rico’s right to self-determination, as
every recent U.S. president has done, including George Bush II. This
is no minor matter, as one of the famous “21 Conditions” for admission
to the Communist International under Lenin and Trotsky required that:
“Any party wishing to join the Third International must ruthlessly
expose the colonial machinations of the imperialists in its ‘own’
country, must support – in deed, not merely in word – every colonial
liberation movement, demand the expulsion of its compatriot
imperialists from the colonies....” In that case as well, the SL’s
“correction” – refusing to call for the expulsion of U.S. imperialism
from Puerto Rico just as it recently refused to call for the expulsion
of the imperialists from Haiti – came in a polemic against the IG
which continues to uphold the Leninist position of unconditional
independence for colonies (see “ICL Renounces Fight for Puerto Rican
Independence,” The Internationalist No. 6, November-December 1998).
The SL’s justification for not opposing the U.S.’ “humanitarian”
occupation of Haiti boils down to: there is/was no alternative. Former
members of the Spartacist League who were active in the 1970s have
written to us that they were struck by the parallels between the SL’s
current line and the arguments of the Socialist Workers Party in 1974
justifying its demand that U.S. troops be sent to defend blacks in
Boston against anti-busing racist mobs (i.e., that the armed fist of
the ruling class – the main enforcer of racist oppression – be
pressured into “defending” the oppressed). Just as the SL today
vituperates against “deranged and grotesque fantasies” of the
Internationalist Group when we call for Haitian working people to
“organize their own power” independently of and against the bourgeois
state, the SWP’s Peter Camejo railed against calls for workers defense
guards in Boston, saying: “The Black Community lives in the real
world, and it demands real, meaningful solutions, not unrealistic
slogans” (Militant, 1 November 1974).
Unlike the latter-day SL and before it the SWP, the Internationalist
Group and League for the Fourth International polemicize against
positions that groups actually hold rather than inventing policies for
them. What’s at stake here is far more important than the tawdry and
dishonest point-scoring that the SL revels in. As we noted in our
January 20 statement, under Barack Obama, the U.S. imperialist rulers
have switched gears to posture as defenders of “human rights.” And as
we pointed out, from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton, both of whom
invaded Haiti, this is standard operating procedure for Democratic
presidents. The purpose is to reel in liberals and reformists, like
those who supported Clinton’s two wars on Yugoslavia in the name of
defending the rights of Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians. What’s
striking in this case is that a centrist group, the Spartacist League,
has taken the bait. While support to imperialist occupation is a small
step for reformists, who only seek to modify imperialist policies
rather than to bring down the imperialist system, in the case of the
SL/ICL it should be harder to digest – unless the membership is
already so inured to careening down the revisionist road that they
can’t see they just went over a cliff.
The SL disingenuously claimed in its initial article that “We have
always opposed U.S. and UN occupations in Haiti and everywhere – and
it may become necessary to call for U.S./UN out of Haiti in the near
future” (WV No. 951, 29 January). We noted that this meant that these
pseudo-Trotskyists-become-apologists-for-U.S.-imperialism were not
opposing the U.S./U.N. occupation in the here and now, as U.S.
imperialist troops were arriving in Haiti in the guise of providing
emergency aid. As for past SL “opposition” to U.N. occupation of
Haiti, this was hardly of any great import: up to 2010 WV had one
brief article at the time of the 2004 U.S./French/Canadian invasion –
the only article on contemporary Haiti it published since the founders
of the Internationalist Group were expelled by the SL/U.S. in 1996,
compared to 20 in the decade before then. The SL’s newfound
“opposition” to the occupation is just as chimerical as before, it
only exists on paper, like the rest of its politics as it flees the
class struggle. Its supreme disinterest makes clear that the SL’s main
concern over Haiti is to denounce the IG.
For our part, the Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth
International have done our level best to fight the U.S. occupation of
Haiti. In the U.S., the IG helped organize protests on January 21 and
February 4 outside the U.S. mission to the U.N. We put out a special
issue of The Internationalist headlining “Haiti: Workers Solidarity,
Yes, Imperialist Occupation, No!” We have sold well over 100 copies in
the Haitian areas of New York City, as well as going to weekly
meetings with Haitian activists in Brooklyn and speaking on February
20 on Radyo Panou in a program that was rebroadcast in Haiti. We
organized a February 24 panel discussion at the City University of New
York together with Haitian and Dominican leftists, where we put
forward our different programs of what should be done. In Brazil, the
LFI section, the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil, put out a
special issue of Vanguarda Operária with a collection of articles on
Haiti calling to mobilize to drive Brazilian troops out of Haiti and
out of the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The LQB also demonstrated in the
city of Salvador with a banner calling for U.S./U.N. and Brazilian
troops out. In Mexico the LFI section, the Grupo Internacionalista,
put out a 38-page supplement to El Internacionalista of articles on
Haiti.
So now, two months later, Workers Vanguard No. 955 announces that the
SL is calling for U.S. troops out of Haiti. It claims that in WV 951
it “made clear” that “we were not for the U.S. military going into
Haiti” – an outright lie, they never said it – but they would not call
for “the immediate withdrawal of any forces there were supplying such
aid as was reaching the Haitian masses.” No, WV swore that the U.S.
military was providing such aid, whitewashed the U.S. military
takeover as a “supposed imperialist ‘invasion’,” and opposed
withdrawal of U.S. forces, which were in fact “securing” Haiti for
imperialism. This is a pure case of the “cynical phrasemongering” the
SL falsely accuses us of. But the bottom line is that when the
Pentagon invaded, when it was necessary to take a stand, to expose the
Obama administration’s humanitarian pretensions and demand it stop
blocking the aid, these fakers went for the U.S. justification for
occupation, hook, line and sinker.
This is a sharp turn, but it didn’t come out of the blue. Following
the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the IG put
out a 14 September 2001 statement, “U.S. Whips Up Imperialist War
Frenzy, Drives Toward Police State,” calling to defeat the U.S./NATO
war drive and defend Afghanistan. At the same time, the SL put out a
statement (see WV No. 764, 14 September 2001) that went on for
paragraphs denouncing terrorism, yet didn’t call to defend Afghanistan
nor to defeat the U.S. war. When after a few weeks, it came out for
defense of Afghanistan, it coupled this with denouncing us for
allegedly pandering to “anti-Americanism” for upholding the Leninist
position (which the SL precipitously dropped) of being for the defeat
of “one’s own” imperialism in a war on a semi-colonial country. We
encourage people to read both the SL and IG statements, as well as our
response to WV’s ominous “anti-American” baiting of the Trotskyists.
To justify its support to U.S. troops in Haiti, WV 951 cited an
article by Trotsky, “Learn to Think: A Friendly Suggestion to Certain
Ultra-Leftists” (May 1938), in which the Bolshevik leader rightly said
that “workers would not interfere with soldiers who are extinguishing
a fire or rescuing drowning people during a flood.” WV claimed that
this applied to Haiti, even though what Trotsky wrote was that the
proletariat does not enter into a struggle in all cases “against its
own ‘national’ army.” He wasn’t speaking about an invading imperialist
army, and certainly not one that was blocking, not delivering aid. Now
WV treats us to a quotation from the then-Trotskyist Militant writing
in 1941 about U.S. aid to the Soviet Union in the middle of the
imperialist Second World War, while remarking that “the circumstances
were different than those in Haiti today.” That’s putting it mildly.
This is what’s known in the trade as “baffle ’em with bullshit,” a
common practice of opportunist groups trying to cover up their
betrayals. The revisionist SL seems to have mastered the technique.
Our friendly suggestion to certain centrists, like the SL, is, to cite
another Trotsky article, “Even Slander Should Make Some
Sense” (August 1933). With its support to Washington’s “humanitarian”
invasion, the SL placed itself to the right not only of much of the
reformist left but also of rad-lib types like Amy Goodman of Democracy
Now, who along with Al Jazeera TV documented how the U.S. and U.N.
were blocking aid from reaching the Haitian population. While WV now
claims that this zig is over, one has to wonder where the next zag
will take it. It may still keep twisting and turning for some time in
a bizarre centrist holding pattern, but Haiti marks a milestone in the
SL’s flight from revolutionary Trotskyism. ■
1 And now the SL is back at it. In its latest issue, WV No. 956 (9
April) attacks the Internationalist Group yet again, this time over –
what else? – a panel discussion on public education. Here WV conjures
up an “alliance” between the IG and “scabherders” that exists nowhere
but in the SL’s fevered imagination. It all reeks of desperation, and
it’s oh-so predictable: one of the first rules in Mudslinging for
Dummies is to just keep on slinging mud, never mind the content, in
hopes that some of it will stick. But after a while it dawns on
observers that it is the mudslingers themselves who are covered with
it.
2 Stalin used the technique of the amalgam (mixing up diverse
elements) frequently against Trotsky, equating the Trotskyists with
Francoist forces in the Spanish Civil War, and notably in the
murderous Moscow Purge Trials, claiming an identity between Trotsky
(as well as other Bolshevik leaders, including Zinoviev, Kamenev and
Bukharin) and counterrevolutionaries seeking to overthrow the Soviet
Union – and on that basis executing every remaining member of the
Bolshevik Central Committee of 1917.
3 See “Combat the Coup Plotters – No Political Support to Aristide!
Organize Worker-Led Resistance Against Death Squad Invaders!” The
Internationalist leaflet, 28 February 2004.
4 See “Attempted Election Theft in Haiti: Form Committees of Working
and Poor People to Expropriate the Bourgeoisie and Drive Out U.N.
Mercenaries! No Confidence in Préval – Workers to Power!” The
Internationalist No. 26, April-May 2006.
UNQUOTE
srd
srd
> Latest from the IG on the Last from the SL:http://www.internationalist.org/sltwistshaiti1004.html
>
> BEGIN IG QUOTE
>
> Trying to Justify Support for U.S. Invasion
>
> SL Twists and Turns on Haiti
The article is earlier than I thought. It's title misled. The article
deals with the twist, but in fact does *not* cover the subsequent
turn.
srd
jh
Norden, finally given the opportunity to nail the SL to the wall ...
does an excellent job of it. He had after all been the editor of WV
for two decades.
I particularly note the quote from the US commander that the US troops
are going to be there for a while. Not whaqt the SL had been saying,
or at least implying.
And he provides some pretty solid evidence that Haiti may not have
much of a proletariat, but it isn't Afghanistan. Certainly solider
than the raw assertions WV has produced. So, until I hear any
different, I for one will accept his picture as more accurate than
that in WV a few months ago.
Though I suppose that's not much of a concession on my part, what with
the ICL statement saying that their line was "to the right of the IG."
-jh-
On May 5, 9:13 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> the Internet athttp://www.logcluster.org/ops/hti10aandhttp://wfplogistics.org/haiti-earthquake-2010. You can look at the
> daily updates going back to January 13 showing conditions of the
> roads, reports of space available, forms to submit for donated
> shipments, and the like. This is how the vast bulk of the food and
> other aid arrived in the Haitian capital. For a panorama photo of a
> warehouse of the Bureau de Nutrition et Développement warehouse
> stocked to the brim with bags of food, seehttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/haiti-panoramas.html#/4.
> aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” It quotes our article, wherewe wrote: “Revolutionary communists would certainly not stand in the
srd
srd
IG position completely.
While Diamond didn't bow to imperialist pressure storm as blatantly as
the icl, he wavered in response to the pro-imperialist breeze funneled
through the icl, the LRP, and most of all, Holmes. <g>
I was really influenced by the LRP, which called for demanding U.S.
aid in response to the emergency, which I interpreted/reconstructed as
meaning elemental aid. What's wrong with the demand is mainly the
facts it rests on, the assumption that only the United State was in
the end capable of dealing with the scale of the aid required. Thus
the LRP accepted imperialist lies, but in a fashion more gullible than
Opportunist.
My attempt at explaining the icl's position conceded too much; why my
arguments hardened Holmes's opposition, his arguments weakened my
position, partly because of my habit of conceding any facts about
which there is reasonable doubt and fighting itout on theory and
principle. Like the IG, for example, I reacted, "This is obviously a
combat force and demonstrates objectives outside, even contradicting,
rescue." But I lacked the IG's confidence in my perceptions. It's easy
to forget that concessions made for the sake of argument were only
conceded for that reason, which short-circuits a full analysis of the
depth of the betrayal.
The elemental-aid demand I advocated was mistaken also because it
compromised, for no substantial reason—this massive aid wasn't about
to materialize—a general position on foreign aid. This rubberiness on
foreign aid opens the way for reformist humanitarianism, as in
Macphineas's proposal that the international labor movement contribute
massively to Haiti's development.
Maybe the lrp and the IG will fuse based on the lrp's theory and the
IG's practice.
One IG demand I don't understand: "Working class solidarity, yes;
invasion no." What does "working class solidarity" mean here? In the
so-important concrete it means solidarity against the invaders; for
the withdrawal of foreign troops. (Which, amidst the appropriate self-
flaggellation, I call attention to the fact that I opposed them
_before_ the IG!) Is that what the slogan means. The construction two
parallel clauses suggests working class solidarity is something other
than the means to say no to the invasion.
srd
> ...
>
> read more »
srd
Lincoln should have declined to emancipate slaves who accepted
enslavement?
srd
jh
> Diamond too must issue a line change. My line change is to endorse the
> IG position completely.
I have to reluctantly say I like the IG position too. I'd have to
study the original piece that WV was polemicizing against, but even on
the point against Pollyannaism, Norden's defense in this piece at
least reads fairly well.
>
> While Diamond didn't bow to imperialist pressure storm as blatantly as
> the icl, he wavered in response to the pro-imperialist breeze funneled
> through the icl, the LRP, and most of all, Holmes. <g>
Alas, I am in a weak position to disagree. I certainly can't defend
what I was posting here a month ago.
>
> I was really influenced by the LRP, which called for demanding U.S.
> aid in response to the emergency, which I interpreted/reconstructed as
> meaning elemental aid. What's wrong with the demand is mainly the
> facts it rests on, the assumption that only the United State was in
> the end capable of dealing with the scale of the aid required. Thus
> the LRP accepted imperialist lies, but in a fashion more gullible than
> Opportunist.
With the SL, you had a mixture of the two. I am almost more annoyed by
the gullibility than the opportunism.
>
> My attempt at explaining the icl's position conceded too much; why my
> arguments hardened Holmes's opposition, his arguments weakened my
> position, partly because of my habit of conceding any facts about
> which there is reasonable doubt and fighting itout on theory and
> principle. Like the IG, for example, I reacted, "This is obviously a
> combat force and demonstrates objectives outside, even contradicting,
> rescue." But I lacked the IG's confidence in my perceptions. It's easy
> to forget that concessions made for the sake of argument were only
> conceded for that reason, which short-circuits a full analysis of the
> depth of the betrayal.
For me, the factual element is (here I'm pretty consistent I think)
decisive.
And, by the way, that leads me to think you are wrong in thinking it
was Robertson who forced through the reversal. He may have played a
role, but he is a bit too old to challenge the WV ed board's research
I should think. Besides that is not his usual role. If it had been all
Robertson, then it would be a purely principled line reversal, in
which factual issues would be unlikely to be key.
>
> The elemental-aid demand I advocated was mistaken also because it
> compromised, for no substantial reason—this massive aid wasn't about
> to materialize—a general position on foreign aid. This rubberiness on
> foreign aid opens the way for reformist humanitarianism, as in
> Macphineas's proposal that the international labor movement contribute
> massively to Haiti's development.
My only problem with Mac's idea is that it is impractical. The
disaster is just too largescale.
>
> Maybe the lrp and the IG will fuse based on the lrp's theory and the
> IG's practice.
>
> One IG demand I don't understand: "Working class solidarity, yes;
> invasion no." What does "working class solidarity" mean here? In the
> so-important concrete it means solidarity against the invaders; for
> the withdrawal of foreign troops. (Which, amidst the appropriate self-
> flaggellation, I call attention to the fact that I opposed them
> _before_ the IG!) Is that what the slogan means. The construction two
> parallel clauses suggests working class solidarity is something other
> than the means to say no to the invasion.
Yes, it is simply a weaker version of Mac's idea, which they do not
draw out as Norden is perfectly aware that as a solution to the
problem is is grossly inadequate.
Pretty good slogan actually IMHO. Sure, workers should send what they
can to Haiti by way of union fund drives or what have you, might help
a little.
-jh-
jh
If slaves actually wanted to keep working for their former masters for
free, nobody was going to stop them. Somehow or other the issue never
came up.
They call it "self-determination" for a reason. If Puerto Ricans
prefer statehood or autonomy to independence, that is their right.
And given that an independent bourgeois Puerto Rico would just be a US
neo-colony anyway, it's just a matter of which lesser evil they
prefer. Is there something "revolutionary' about the "independence" of
the Dominican Republic?
I think it was Robespierre who said that you do not impose freedom at
bayonet point. Something Napoleon was not too clear on. Or Norden.
-jh-
-jh-
srd
> With the SL, you had a mixture of the two. I am almost more annoyed by
> the gullibility than the opportunism.
I think the gullibility of the SL expressed its Opportunism; the
gullibility of the LRP expressed the general gullibility of its
leadership. Any chance they get, the SL points out how the LRP was
taken in by certain E. European scammers who pretended to be
sympathizers of various far-left tendencies. On another occasion, they
admit to being fooled by Spart misrepresentations regarding the timing
of a Nazi demonstration.
People who are very honest tend to be gullible. People who are
Opportunist tend to believe imperialist propaganda. I don't think the
Sparts are generally gullible at all.
>
>
>
> > My attempt at explaining the icl's position conceded too much; why my
> > arguments hardened Holmes's opposition, his arguments weakened my
> > position, partly because of my habit of conceding any facts about
> > which there is reasonable doubt and fighting itout on theory and
> > principle. Like the IG, for example, I reacted, "This is obviously a
> > combat force and demonstrates objectives outside, even contradicting,
> > rescue." But I lacked the IG's confidence in my perceptions. It's easy
> > to forget that concessions made for the sake of argument were only
> > conceded for that reason, which short-circuits a full analysis of the
> > depth of the betrayal.
>
> For me, the factual element is (here I'm pretty consistent I think)
> decisive.
>
> And, by the way, that leads me to think you are wrong in thinking it
> was Robertson who forced through the reversal. He may have played a
> role, but he is a bit too old to challenge the WV ed board's research
> I should think. Besides that is not his usual role. If it had been all
> Robertson, then it would be a purely principled line reversal, in
> which factual issues would be unlikely to be key.
It had to be Robertson. Who else? The international "sections" eagerly
accepted the first line. (One "Leftist Trainspotter," however, claims
to see evidence of German involvement.)
This point is rooted in your misconception of the Marxist method.
Robertson (or hypothetically, whoever reversed the line) made the
decision based on principle. "Facts" didn't enter into in the least.
How could facts enter into a principled decision like this one? One
first arrives at the position on principle, then one theorize to
determine which facts are relevant, and then one applies theory to the
facts. It would be entirely natural, unless this understanding is
wrong, for Robertson to recognize the line was wrong and then order
the comrades to produce an article applying them.
What's the alternative. How does one incorporate all the apparently
significant facts from the start. All I can think of is by way of
analogy to how I think about psychological information (as opposed to
political). When I practiced psychology along psychoanalytic lines, I
didn't use psychoanalytic theory as an instrument of deduction. It lay
in the background, coloring my view of the patient's behavior. This is
how I picture your view of the _Marxist_ method; it informs your
understanding of the facts.
> > The elemental-aid demand I advocated was mistaken also because it
> > compromised, for no substantial reason—this massive aid wasn't about
> > to materialize—a general position on foreign aid. This rubberiness on
> > foreign aid opens the way for reformist humanitarianism, as in
> > Macphineas's proposal that the international labor movement contribute
> > massively to Haiti's development.
>
> My only problem with Mac's idea is that it is impractical. The
> disaster is just too largescale.
It would be interesting whether either the Sparts or the IG (or even
the lrp) would agree with you. I doubt it strongly. Macphineas thinks
trade union contributions to the development of Haiti under a
capitalist state is an expression of class consciousness; that such a
campaign is a good road to heightening the class consciousness of the
workers. Since he may not be around to defend himself, I'll just say
that ridiculous. <g>
You, on the other hand, probably understand that such contributions do
not necessarily demand class consciousness and they have little if
anything to do with its development. Instead, you just think it might
help.
>
>
>
> > Maybe the lrp and the IG will fuse based on the lrp's theory and the
> > IG's practice.
>
> > One IG demand I don't understand: "Working class solidarity, yes;
> > invasion no." What does "working class solidarity" mean here? In the
> > so-important concrete it means solidarity against the invaders; for
> > the withdrawal of foreign troops. (Which, amidst the appropriate self-
> > flaggellation, I call attention to the fact that I opposed them
> > _before_ the IG!) Is that what the slogan means. The construction two
> > parallel clauses suggests working class solidarity is something other
> > than the means to say no to the invasion.
>
> Yes, it is simply a weaker version of Mac's idea, which they do not
> draw out as Norden is perfectly aware that as a solution to the
> problem is is grossly inadequate.
>
> Pretty good slogan actually IMHO. Sure, workers should send what they
> can to Haiti by way of union fund drives or what have you, might help
> a little.
>
As a slogan, its strength is impugned by our disagreement about its
meaning. (Perhaps the masses understand it.)
The Haitian ORT I quoted early on had a different understanding of
solidarity, an understanding that had nothing to do with direct
contribution of material resources.
Workers solidarity would be expressed by demanding that Haitians be
admitted to the U.S., etc.; that the imperialist countries write off
the Haitian debt; and most of all, to get rid of the troops. My money
is on that being the IG's ambiguous demand.
srd
srd
significance of _Haiti's_ not being a colony, by the way, was
responsible for the SL's misuse of the Luxemburg speech. It would have
been absurd for Luxemburg to have demanded that the British Navy leave
Martinique, which was a colony. There was no element of self-
determination to defend in Martinique. Your response when I raised
this in the earlier discussion to explain Luxemburg was that American
control over Haiti is so extreme--the U.S. can basically appoint the
head of state--that the distinction is irrelevant. This mistakes is
also involved in the Sparts thinking about Puerto Rico. Essentially
it's what Chairman Mao used to call left serving a right end. You
remove any distinction between a formal colony and a tightly
controlled neocolony (ultraleft) to refuse to challenge the status of
America's only actual colony.
Basically, your position confounds the Leninist position on European
multinational states with the position on the colonies. The practical
orientation is really quite different. The demand for the *right* of
self-determination, as *opposed* to actual self-determination--this
distinction is only relevant to the multinational states, where in
general union is better than actual self-determination for the working
class. Actual separation is only desirable when tensions have reach a
high point on ethnic lines. But it isn't the same in the colonies,
where the demand has always been unconditional independence.
The Lincoln analogy isn't to letting slaves stay in slavelike
relations but using state power to enforce slavery: regardless of
whether the slave might wants his enslavement sanctioned by legal
obligation and enforced by state power. (Even a willing slave will not
be apt to stay a slave without such supporting laws, human nature
having a volatile nature, so that even seemingly voluntary submission
is built on force.)
srd
jh
> On May 7, 1:46 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 6, 4:18 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > They're also glaringly correct on Puerto Rico. Do you think, perhaps,
> > > Lincoln should have declined to emancipate slaves who accepted
> > > enslavement?
>
> > > srd
>
> > If slaves actually wanted to keep working for their former masters for
> > free, nobody was going to stop them. Somehow or other the issue never
> > came up.
>
> > They call it "self-determination" for a reason. If Puerto Ricans
> > prefer statehood or autonomy to independence, that is their right.
>
> > And given that an independent bourgeois Puerto Rico would just be a US
> > neo-colony anyway, it's just a matter of which lesser evil they
> > prefer. Is there something "revolutionary' about the "independence" of
> > the Dominican Republic?
>
> > I think it was Robespierre who said that you do not impose freedom at
> > bayonet point. Something Napoleon was not too clear on. Or Norden.
>
> No, it's unequivocally better to be a neocolony than a colony.
Not if Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is correct.
The
> significance of _Haiti's_ not being a colony, by the way, was
> responsible for the SL's misuse of the Luxemburg speech. It would have
> been absurd for Luxemburg to have demanded that the British Navy leave
> Martinique, which was a colony. There was no element of self-
> determination to defend in Martinique. Your response when I raised
> this in the earlier discussion to explain Luxemburg was that American
> control over Haiti is so extreme--the U.S. can basically appoint the
> head of state--that the distinction is irrelevant. This mistakes is
> also involved in the Sparts thinking about Puerto Rico. Essentially
> it's what Chairman Mao used to call left serving a right end. You
> remove any distinction between a formal colony and a tightly
> controlled neocolony (ultraleft) to refuse to challenge the status of
> America's only actual colony.
I think you here are falling prey to leftover '60s Third Worldism.
Suggestion: *try* to find anywhere in Lenin's writings a place where
your and Norden's distinction between self-determination as applied to
colonial questions and as applied to the national question is made. I
doubt that you will, Norden I assume has tried, and apparently has
failed, as otherwise he'd haul out a quote. I don't recall any, and
I've read a lot of Lenin.
>
> Basically, your position confounds the Leninist position on European
> multinational states with the position on the colonies. The practical
> orientation is really quite different. The demand for the *right* of
> self-determination, as *opposed* to actual self-determination--this
> distinction is only relevant to the multinational states, where in
> general union is better than actual self-determination for the working
> class. Actual separation is only desirable when tensions have reach a
> high point on ethnic lines. But it isn't the same in the colonies,
> where the demand has always been unconditional independence.
The demand that the Comintern always raised for the colonies was --
self-determination. Look it up. Was that a mistake on its part?
>
> The Lincoln analogy isn't to letting slaves stay in slavelike
> relations but using state power to enforce slavery: regardless of
> whether the slave might wants his enslavement sanctioned by legal
> obligation and enforced by state power. (Even a willing slave will not
> be apt to stay a slave without such supporting laws, human nature
> having a volatile nature, so that even seemingly voluntary submission
> is built on force.)
???
I suggest you reread the above paragraph a few times. It makes no
sense.
Few slaves are legal thinkers, those that are might want to remain
slaves legally if they are like the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire,
the true powers behind the throne, but I digress...
Slaves either want to be free or don't. It is possible for a slave to
want to remain a slave. But why would a slave want "his enslavement
sanctioned by legal
obligation and enforced by state power"? You really have been writing
too many legal briefs...
-jh-
srd
Whether a slave wants this or not is irrelevant to the point. But if
you can't understand psychologically how this could ever be true,
_you_ need to study a little psychology. It might actually help doing
history.
srd
srd
> On May 7, 1:56 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think you here are falling prey to leftover '60s Third Worldism.
>
> Suggestion: *try* to find anywhere in Lenin's writings a place where
> your and Norden's distinction between self-determination as applied to
> colonial questions and as applied to the national question is made. I
> doubt that you will, Norden I assume has tried, and apparently has
> failed, as otherwise he'd haul out a quote. I don't recall any, and
> I've read a lot of Lenin.
Memory is selective. Perhaps that psychological tidbit will prove less
exceptional than the human impulse to shore up conscience by external
authority (in the slave example). Here's the quote:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm
BEGIN QUOTE
srd
Here's the quote; pressed send too soon:
BEGIN QUOTE
6. Three Types of Countries in Relation to Self-Determination of
Nations
In this respect, countries must be divided into three main types:
First, the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe and the
United States of America. In these countries the bourgeois,
progressive, national movements came to an end long ago. Every one
of these “great” nations oppresses other nations in the colonies and
within its own country. The tasks of the proletariat of these ruling
nations are the same as those of the proletariat in England in the
nineteenth century in relation to Ireland.[3]
Secondly, Eastern Europe: Austria, the Balkans and particularly
Russia. Here it was the twentieth century that particularly developed
the bourgeois-democratic national movements and intensified the
national struggle. The tasks of the proletariat in these countries—in
regard to the consummation of their bourgeois-democratic reformation,
as well as in regard to assisting the socialist revolution in other
countries—cannot be achieved unless it champions the right of nations
to self-determination. In this connection the most difficult but most
important task is to merge the class struggle of the workers in the
oppressing nations with the class struggle of the workers in the
oppressed nations.
Thirdly, the semi-colonial countries, like China, Persia, Turkey, and
all the colonies, which have a combined population amounting to a
billion. In these countries the bourgeois-democratic movements have
either hardly begun, or are far from having been completed. Socialists
must not only demand the unconditional and immediate liberation of the
colonies without compensation—and this demand in its political
expression signifies nothing more nor less than the recognition of the
right to self-determination—but must render determined support to the
more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements for
national liberation in these countries and assist their rebellion—
and if need be, their revolutionary war—against the imperialist powers
that oppress them.
END QUOTE
"Socialists must not only demand the the UNCONDITIONAL and IMMEDIATE
liberation of the colonies..," to repeat.
Lenin goes on to say that this demand is the expression in the
colonies of the right to self-determination. (But unlike Europe, the
demand for liberation is unconditional and immediate--which leaves no
time for the plebescites left social democratic sparts would no doubt
favor.
This isn't an obscure quote. It took me all of 45 seconds to find it.
Memory is selective.
srd
srd
there's maybe a 50% chance I'm wrong when I couldn't on questions I
was and am 100% sure I'm right: opposition to U.S. troops to Haiti and
opposition to the signing of anti-communist declarations by Greek
prisoners.
srd
srd
> On May 7, 1:56 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, it's unequivocally better to be a neocolony than a colony.
>
> Not if Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution is correct.
Care to explain? Abolition of colonial status, which establishes a
democratic formal equality, is a democratic demand. Despite its
insufficiency, it's completely supportable.
The logical proof, if necessary: It is *reactionary* to demand
colonial status for a neocolony that's formally independent.
srd
jh
> On May 7, 6:36 pm, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > The Lincoln analogy isn't to letting slaves stay in slavelike
> > > relations but using state power to enforce slavery: regardless of
> > > whether the slave might wants his enslavement sanctioned by legal
> > > obligation and enforced by state power. (Even a willing slave will not
> > > be apt to stay a slave without such supporting laws, human nature
> > > having a volatile nature, so that even seemingly voluntary submission
> > > is built on force.)
>
> > ???
>
> > I suggest you reread the above paragraph a few times. It makes no
> > sense.
>
> > Few slaves are legal thinkers, those that are might want to remain
> > slaves legally if they are like the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire,
> > the true powers behind the throne, but I digress...
>
> > Slaves either want to be free or don't. It is possible for a slave to
> > want to remain a slave. But why would a slave want "his enslavement
> > sanctioned by legal
> > obligation and enforced by state power"?
>
> Whether a slave wants this or not is irrelevant to the point. But if
> you can't understand psychologically how this could ever be true,
> _you_ need to study a little psychology. It might actually help doing
> history.
>
> srd
>
you lay out. After all, they have little or no legal protection as
slaves anyway.
But let us hypothesize that a house slave who has been illegally
taught to read and write and has been compelled to write legal briefs
for his master (a status perhaps you can identify with) might feel
that way.
In that case, his feelings would still not be relevant, as what we are
talking about is putting an end to a whole mode of production, a
social not just a legal transformation.
By contrast, when a colony gets its bourgeois "independence" and
becomes a neocolony, that does not change its socioeconomic status as
a colony in the least.
Sure, formal independence is a democratic demand, and one should
support it. Every so often they have colonial referenda in Puerto Rico
on the question, and Puerto Rican revolutionaries should vote for
independence in them, or boycott them if they are fraudulent and
Puerto Ricans see them as a farce. Which they never are, as Puerto
Ricans by and large oppose independence, so there is no reason for the
ballots not to be counted honestly.
The question essentially is whether *Americans* should force
independence down *Puerto Rican* throats, in alliance with nativist
foreigner-haters who want to stop the flow of Puerto Rican immigration
into New York City. And American businessmen investing in Puerto Rico
who don't want to have to worry about US minimum wage laws etc., and
figure an independent Puerto Rico would have fewer labor laws. And of
course Republican politicians who don't want the US government to pay
for welfare and food stamps in Puerto Rico.
To that I say no. Norden would certainly not say yes to that, but in
practice that is what it boils down to, if his position is
consistently applied.
-jh-
jh
>
> > On May 7, 1:56 pm, srd <srdiam...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think you here are falling prey to leftover '60s Third Worldism.
>
> > Suggestion: *try* to find anywhere in Lenin's writings a place where
> > your and Norden's distinction between self-determination as applied to
> > colonial questions and as applied to the national question is made. I
> > doubt that you will, Norden I assume has tried, and apparently has
> > failed, as otherwise he'd haul out a quote. I don't recall any, and
> > I've read a lot of Lenin.
>
> Memory is selective. Perhaps that psychological tidbit will prove less
> exceptional than the human impulse to shore up conscience by external
> authority (in the slave example). Here's the quote:http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/jan/x01.htm
>
"The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the
colonies and for the nations that “its own” nation oppresses."
Well, there you go. Right of political secession does not imply that a
colony that does not secede should be forced to, quite the contrary.
Here's another quote: "Socialists must not only demand the
unconditional and immediate liberation of the colonies without
compensation—and this demand in its political expression signifies
nothing more nor less than the recognition of the right to self-
determination..." Lenin saw no difference between demanding colonial
independence and demanding self-determination.
At the time he wrote this, the idea that a colony might *not* want
independence seemed so unlikely that I rather doubt the possibility
even crossed Lenin's mind.
In Puerto Rico, statehood has always been a possibility, in fact the
Statehood Party in Puerto Rico is often the governing party, and has
ties to the Republicans. So the clearest analogy would be Hawaii I
suppose, which was conquered as an imperial act in the 1890s. At the
time Lenin wrote the pamphlet, Hawaii had a legal status much like
that of Puerto Rico now, and socially too. But that was before the New
Deal, so Hawaiians got no social welfare measures whatsoever, or any
other benefits from being an American colony.
Should we now call for independence for Hawaii? There is still a
Hawaiian independence movement, though it is fairly ethereal.
In Lenin's time? The call would have been for self-determination for
Hawaii. But they weren't having any colonial referrenda there, as
there would have been a serious danger of the native Hawaiian
population voting for independence.
Why do Puerto Ricans prefer their current status to either option?
Because they get New Deal social benefits, protection under labor law,
minimum wages maximum hours etc., the right freely to immigrate to the
US, and, since they are not a state, don't have to pay income taxes.
If you accept that socialism is an impossible dream, that sounds to
most Puerto Rican workers like the lesser evil to the alternatives.
Quite possibly this will change in the future, as the US government
cuts off social benefits and uses the US army to break strikes etc.
But one has to deal with the current situation.
-jh-
jh
>
> - Show quoted text -
A misunderstanding. Lenin was simply assuming that the colonies want
to be liberated. If independence is forced down Puerto Ricans' throats
against their will, that is not liberation, that is another form of
oppression. The quotes I brought out are the decisive ones, they
explain what Lenin *meant* by "immediate and unconditional
liberation."
I think it took me about as long as it took you to find the quotes I
quoted.
-jh-
jh
As Vangelis once said here, quite correctly, nobody actually changes
their opinions as a result of argument on the Internet. I think I have
occasionally, you have fairly frequently. That makes both of us
unusual, you more so of course.
-jh-
jh
See previous postings in the thread on this.
-jh-
jh
In general, the best, certainly the quickest, way to convince me I am
wrong about something is not to argue theory but concrete facts.
That's why I was not 100% convinced the SL position on Haiti was
totally wrong until I became convinced that they had their facts
wrong. That is why Fred and Dave actually made a certain dent on me
whereas you didn't.
But on theoretical issues you do have an impact on me, indeed I have
just now, in the last 15 minutes, changed my mind on a highly
significant issue under your prodding. See the other thread.
-jh-
jh
Heh. Five minutes after I wrote that, I changed my mind on something,
see other thread.
-jh-
srd
Unconditional independence for the colonies is the traditional
communist demand. If it didn't even cross Lenin's mind that the
colonies might not want independence, that's because the Leninist
position *presumes* the colonies want to be independent: it's a non-
rebuttable presumption.
That benefits, etc. might be lost is a pragmatic argument of the same
character as that Haitians might succumb to natural disaster. If
independence carries some negative associations, it can be coupled
with other demands addressing those matters. But independence for the
colonies is a matter of principle because:
1. The underlying right in the right of national self-determination is
really two-fold. It is expressed *either* in existence as an equal
nation in a federation, etc. OR by separating. If federation is
impossible or inherently undesirable, as with a colony, then the only
alternative is separation.
2. The concept of a colonial people "wanting" to remain dependent is
an absurdity inherently because it is impossible to determine the will
of a people when they are under the political thumb of an imperial
power.
3. The notion that American workers should partake in the exercise of
imperialist domination over Puerto Rico by failing to demand its
liberation merely because Puerto Ricans don't want it is an insult to
the class honor of workers. Even if it were possible to say a colonial
people wants to remain dependent, no one has the right to tell the
American working class it shouldn't wash itself of the stink of direct
colonial domination by demanding independence for an American colony..
One who does this is really a liberal third worldist, preaching
condescending charitableness and toward and concern for the oppressed,
at the expense, among other things, of the political hygiene of the
metropolitan working class. The independence of the colonies is a
class issue for the workers in imperialist countries regardless of
whether the colonials want independence for the same sort of reason--
since we were talking about slavery--as the abolition of slavery was
in the interest of Northern workers, even if the Southern blacks
"weren't ready" for freedom.
Undervaluing the political independence of the colonies is part of the
Sparts' Haiti problem. They didn't call for U.S. out in part because
they thought Haiti was *indistinguishable* from a colony and had no
self-determination to defend. We were in a stronger position to make
demands in relation to Haiti than Rosa Luxemburg for Martinique
because Haiti is nominally independent. As I said, the fact that
calling for an independent country to become a colony is reactionary
proves the point that unconditional independence is a supportable
demand.
I don't think Hawaii should be granted independence because it would
be like giving America back to the Indians. The American settlement of
Hawaii is a done deed. Not so with Puerto Rico. But I think the real
source of the Spart position on Puerto Rico is the same as the source
of my position on Hawaii: the Sparts don't _really_ think Puerto Rico
is a colony, and they don't want to stick it to America for owning
one.
(But I like the IG slogan: "Give Southern Arizona to Red Mexico;
divide Northern Arizona among the Indian tribes.")
srd
jh
> On May 8, 9:32 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Unconditional independence for the colonies is the traditional
> communist demand. If it didn't even cross Lenin's mind that the
> colonies might not want independence, that's because the Leninist
> position *presumes* the colonies want to be independent: it's a non-
> rebuttable presumption.
Thereby raising the interesting question of what position one should
take when the nonrebuttable presumption is rebutted anyway.
I think what Lenin meant by "unconditional independence" is that the
colonies have the right to become independent regardless of any other
considerations whatsoever-unless of course the bourgeois demand for
independence comes into conflict with the interests of proletarian
revolution, as in the ex-Tsarist colonies in Central Asia that were
forcibly kept as part of the Soviet Union, over the objections of
Islamic fundamentalists who wanted independence. So his support was
not in fact "unconditional."
But if they do not want to be independent, the point is moot.
It was Seymour himself, in a signed article in the youth press in the
year 1975, who took the question to its logical conclusion, and argued
that Puerto Rican independence should be, if necessary, forced down
the throat of the Puerto Ricans. (Not the language he used of course,
rather he used formulations very similar to yours.) I remember reading
this at the time, and thinking it sounded a bit strange, but I went
along with it. Much like my reaction to the Haiti line.
When I found out that the SL had abandoned this position, I was
relieved. Norden is essentially arguing Seymour's 1975 position, but
dishonestly. He certainly is more than familiar with the 1975 Seymour
piece, but never mentions it, because Seymour stated the position
honestly, without too many word games with "unconditional
independence." Though that was the title I think, "Unconditional
Independence for Puerto Rico."
>
> That benefits, etc. might be lost is a pragmatic argument of the same
> character as that Haitians might succumb to natural disaster.
For me, the pragmatic fact that US aid was less than that of others
and clearly subordinated to military considerations was what was
finally decisive, why I vacated my "silence is golden" temporary
position of a week or two ago that yeah, you should support US troops
out as a slogan but maybe shut up about it for a few weeks while the
food is distributed.
Apparently for the Spartacists too, just read Norden's "open letter"
to the SL on his website, that was the turning point it seems in
Spartacist internal discussions according to his account. Norden makes
some excellent points, but his denial that there has been a general
retrogression of working class consciousness is highly problematic.
I am reminded of Goldman/Morrow vs. Cannon. Goldman/Morrow were
*right* vs the SWP majority as to perspectives. But they were wrong
politically and programmatically and were moving to abandonment of a
revolutionary perspective.
However, the SL are not yet Goldman/Morrow, as their repudiation of
the Haiti thing illustrates. And when the day finally comes that
Norden is forced to recognize that the SL is right on this period, his
left-centrist militancy is liable to collapse more basically and
profoundly than with what just happened to the SL, which is
correctable and is being corrected--though as Norden quite correctly
states, if it simply means correcting this one position without going
to the root of the error, it will be repeated.
> If
> independence carries some negative associations, it can be coupled
> with other demands addressing those matters. But independence for the
> colonies is a matter of principle because:
>
> 1. The underlying right in the right of national self-determination is
> really two-fold. It is expressed *either* in existence as an equal
> nation in a federation, etc. OR by separating. If federation is
> impossible or inherently undesirable, as with a colony, then the only
> alternative is separation.
Then what do you think of the USSR, which was a federation which
included former colonies such as Tadzhikistan and the other "stans"?
>
> 2. The concept of a colonial people "wanting" to remain dependent is
> an absurdity inherently because it is impossible to determine the will
> of a people when they are under the political thumb of an imperial
> power.
If it is impossible to determine the will of a people when they are
under the imperial thumb, it is also impossible for said people to
organize to enforce that will and free themselves. So I find that
conclusion highly objectionable. I do believe Seymour did say
something similar to that in his Puerto Rico piece in 1975.
>
> 3. The notion that American workers should partake in the exercise of
> imperialist domination over Puerto Rico by failing to demand its
> liberation merely because Puerto Ricans don't want it is an insult to
> the class honor of workers. Even if it were possible to say a colonial
> people wants to remain dependent, no one has the right to tell the
> American working class it shouldn't wash itself of the stink of direct
> colonial domination by demanding independence for an American colony..
I dunno, demanding "self-determination for Puerto Rico" does it for
me, and I think it would do it for Puerto Ricans too. That's a better
bath to wash off US chauvinism than Americans trying to tell Puerto
Ricans what is best for them, like it or not.
> One who does this is really a liberal third worldist, preaching
> condescending charitableness and toward and concern for the oppressed,
> at the expense, among other things, of the political hygiene of the
> metropolitan working class. The independence of the colonies is a
> class issue for the workers in imperialist countries regardless of
> whether the colonials want independence for the same sort of reason--
> since we were talking about slavery--as the abolition of slavery was
> in the interest of Northern workers, even if the Southern blacks
> "weren't ready" for freedom.
"Readiness" has nothing to do with it, and even raising the question
smells of chauvinism.
The objective is proletarian revolution Americas-wide and worldwide.
In that context, whether Puerto Rico ends up in a federation with a
socialist US or a Caribbean socialist federation or a United Socialist
States of Latin America or whatever doesn't really matter, and one can
perfectly well let the Puerto Ricans themselves decide that.
>
> Undervaluing the political independence of the colonies is part of the
> Sparts' Haiti problem. They didn't call for U.S. out in part because
> they thought Haiti was *indistinguishable* from a colony and had no
> self-determination to defend. We were in a stronger position to make
> demands in relation to Haiti than Rosa Luxemburg for Martinique
> because Haiti is nominally independent. As I said, the fact that
> calling for an independent country to become a colony is reactionary
> proves the point that unconditional independence is a supportable
> demand.
It is not impossible that you are right about this, in terms of
helping to explain in logical terms just how the ICL fell into this
disaster. A little bit of theoretical clarity can be a dangerous
thing, as Goldman/Morrow illustrate.
>
> I don't think Hawaii should be granted independence because it would
> be like giving America back to the Indians. The American settlement of
> Hawaii is a done deed. Not so with Puerto Rico. But I think the real
> source of the Spart position on Puerto Rico is the same as the source
> of my position on Hawaii: the Sparts don't _really_ think Puerto Rico
> is a colony, and they don't want to stick it to America for owning
> one.
You have a good point on Hawaii.
There's been a lot of stuff in the WV supporting actual anti-colonial
rebellions by Puerto Ricans, notably the mass mobilizations vs. the US
military occupation of Vieques, defence of independentistas in prison,
etc. Whereas I don't recall any demos vs. Pearl Harbor over the last
century.
So I think that is a premature conclusion. Not one I share in any
case, I think the place is a colony.
>
> (But I like the IG slogan: "Give Southern Arizona to Red Mexico;
> divide Northern Arizona among the Indian tribes.")
>
> srd
Norden always did have a good imagination for slogans. I particularly
recall the 1980s WV Scottish slogan, "for self-determination for a Red
Scotland as part of the Soviet Union." Of course, Robertson is
Scottish by extraction, he might have come up with that one.
-jh-
Vngelis
>
> Norden always did have a good imagination for slogans. I particularly
> recall the 1980s WV Scottish slogan, "for self-determination for a Red
> Scotland as part of the Soviet Union." Of course, Robertson is
> Scottish by extraction, he might have come up with that one.
>
> -jh-
As if Scotland exists and why does every yank pretend they come from
elsewhere?
Globalist panderings of globalist grouplets.
vngelis
jh
Ah, yes. "As if Scotland exists."
Vangelis does provide cheap amusement. That is of course if he exists,
and is not just a poorly-designed computer program to mimic a crazed
ex-Trotskyist for some programmer's amusement. Haven't seen Big Mac
here for many years, maybe he made Vangelis up.
Never been to Scotland myself, but I understand there are computer
satellite pictures of the place available on the Net. Of course, if
the US never made it to the moon, maybe there aren't any satellites in
orbit either...
-jh-
Vngelis
This geyzer has his own independent rebublic.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=50186928366
As relevant as Robertson pretending he is from Scotland when he is a
Yank.
You can say what you want and believe what you want, dont except me to
buy it.
When will your single follower in Greece declare he is a gay
macedonian with roots
from Africa?
vngelis
srd
That's the second time you made this error in this posing; so, it
isn't mere carelessness. Indeed, self-determination for Puerto Rico is
a formally correct slogan. It _means_ independence. The only thing
wrong with it is the objection to using Marxist jargon in propaganda
when there's a perfectly serviceable classless term: independence. But
the icl is NOT for self-determination for Puerto Rico, merely for its
right to self-determination. And in what does that consist? Why, the
right to vote themselves out, a vote they've apparently already fully
exercised. (At least if I've correctly inferred the facts underneath
the revised icl position.)
What happens if some Puerto Ricans initiate an armed struggle for
independence. Who do you support; the colonial nationalists or the
plebiscitory mandate?
You say it must be possible to know an oppressed people opposes
secession, since they're able to organize themselves to demand
independence. Yes, the logic of this is one-sided: it is possible to
demonstrate that a people wants to be independent; it is never
possible to demonstrate that they oppose it.
>That's a better
> bath to wash off US chauvinism than Americans trying to tell Puerto
> Ricans what is best for them, like it or not.
>
> > One who does this is really a liberal third worldist, preaching
> > condescending charitableness and toward and concern for the oppressed,
> > at the expense, among other things, of the political hygiene of the
> > metropolitan working class. The independence of the colonies is a
> > class issue for the workers in imperialist countries regardless of
> > whether the colonials want independence for the same sort of reason--
> > since we were talking about slavery--as the abolition of slavery was
> > in the interest of Northern workers, even if the Southern blacks
> > "weren't ready" for freedom.
>
> "Readiness" has nothing to do with it, and even raising the question
> smells of chauvinism.
Of course; just as raising it in relation to the Southern slaves
smells of racism. But it's icl that tacitly argues this chauvinist
position by claiming that Puerto Ricans don't want independence; that
"imposing" it on them amounts to "shoving it down their throats."
>
> The objective is proletarian revolution Americas-wide and worldwide.
> In that context, whether Puerto Rico ends up in a federation with a
> socialist US or a Caribbean socialist federation or a United Socialist
> States of Latin America or whatever doesn't really matter, and one can
> perfectly well let the Puerto Ricans themselves decide that.
I'm going to leave taking on Spart maximalism for another day; or at
least another hour.
srd
jh
> On May 11, 11:10 am, jh <jhsherl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I dunno, demanding "self-determination for Puerto Rico" does it for
> > me, and I think it would do it for Puerto Ricans too.
>
> That's the second time you made this error in this posing; so, it
> isn't mere carelessness. Indeed, self-determination for Puerto Rico is
> a formally correct slogan. It _means_ independence.
> The only thing
> wrong with it is the objection to using Marxist jargon in propaganda
> when there's a perfectly serviceable classless term: independence. But
> the icl is NOT for self-determination for Puerto Rico, merely for its
> right to self-determination. And in what does that consist? Why, the
> right to vote themselves out, a vote they've apparently already fully
> exercised. (At least if I've correctly inferred the facts underneath
> the revised icl position.)
Not sure what you mean here. Voting in a referendum is *far* from the
only way to exercise the right of self-determination. Usually it is
done at gunpoint.
As for leaving out "right of," picky picky.
>
> What happens if some Puerto Ricans initiate an armed struggle for
> independence. Who do you support; the colonial nationalists or the
> plebiscitory mandate?
Silly question. In a military conflict between Puerto Rican
nationalists and US imperialism, as when Lolita Lebron tried to
assassinate Harry Truman, certainly you would be on the side of the
nationalists. Hell, one should even support ultrareactionaries like
the Taliban in Afghanistan against US imperialism.
But if the plebiscitory mandate honestly reflects the views of the
population, then the armed struggle has zero hope of success, and the
task is to defend the poor fools embarked upon it against the
repression that will hail down on them as the imperial power, with the
support of the population, crushes the rebellion. So the point is
moot.
>
> You say it must be possible to know an oppressed people opposes
> secession, since they're able to organize themselves to demand
> independence. Yes, the logic of this is one-sided: it is possible to
> demonstrate that a people wants to be independent; it is never
> possible to demonstrate that they oppose it.
>
Why not?
I think it is a good, solid general rule that any party that cannot
determine what the people support or oppose, one way or another, will
never be able to make a revolution. So if you are right about that, a
logical deduction is that revolution is impossible, except perhaps for
spontaneous, accidental affairs.
>
>
>
>
> >That's a better
> > bath to wash off US chauvinism than Americans trying to tell Puerto
> > Ricans what is best for them, like it or not.
>
> > > One who does this is really a liberal third worldist, preaching
> > > condescending charitableness and toward and concern for the oppressed,
> > > at the expense, among other things, of the political hygiene of the
> > > metropolitan working class. The independence of the colonies is a
> > > class issue for the workers in imperialist countries regardless of
> > > whether the colonials want independence for the same sort of reason--
> > > since we were talking about slavery--as the abolition of slavery was
> > > in the interest of Northern workers, even if the Southern blacks
> > > "weren't ready" for freedom.
>
> > "Readiness" has nothing to do with it, and even raising the question
> > smells of chauvinism.
>
> Of course; just as raising it in relation to the Southern slaves
> smells of racism. But it's icl that tacitly argues this chauvinist
> position by claiming that Puerto Ricans don't want independence; that
> "imposing" it on them amounts to "shoving it down their throats."
>
But they don't want independence. This is not because they are not
ready for independence, they are perfectly ready for it by any
conceivable criterion. They just don't want it at the moment.
>
>
> > The objective is proletarian revolution Americas-wide and worldwide.
> > In that context, whether Puerto Rico ends up in a federation with a
> > socialist US or a Caribbean socialist federation or a United Socialist
> > States of Latin America or whatever doesn't really matter, and one can
> > perfectly well let the Puerto Ricans themselves decide that.
>
> I'm going to leave taking on Spart maximalism for another day; or at
> least another hour.
>
> srd
Maximalism? Realistically, short of proletarian revolution, the only
way Puerto Rico will get its independence is if the US decides it
doesn't want the place anymore. The relationship of forces is just too
disproportionate.
The reason why the US holds these referendums from time to time and
gives the Puerto Ricans various carrots to keep them voting against
independence, instead of employing the iron fist, as with say Diego
Garcia, is that Puerto Rico simply isn't very important for US
imperialism--unlike Diego Garcia.
If Puerto Rico were to demand its independence, then the US would look
bad on the world stage if it was denied. Better for US imperialism
that the Puerto Ricans voluntarily prefer to be a colony, but granting
it its independence would certainly be a lesser evil than colonial
suppression in the classic mode.
-jh-
srd
Open Letter from the Internationalist Group to the Spartacist League
and ICL
Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 05/09/2010 - 08:59
in Elsewhere Haiti imperialism International Communist League
Internationalist Group Labor & Unions League for the Fourth
International open letter polemic social-imperialism Spartacist League
Trotskyism
May 2010
Repentant Social Imperialists
Open Letter from the Internationalist Group to the Spartacist League
and ICL
The Spartacist League/U.S. and the International Communist League it
leads are in a heap of political trouble. The International Executive
Committee of the ICL has now issued a statement “Repudiating Our
Position on Haiti Earthquake,” headlined “A Capitulation to U.S.
Imperialism” (27 April 2010). More specifically, it repudiates the SL/
ICL’s support to the U.S./U.N. invasion of Haiti in the name of
humanitarian aid. The statement doesn’t mince words, characterizing
the position taken by the SL’s newspaper Workers Vanguard as “a
betrayal of the fundamental principle of opposition to one’s ‘own’
imperialist rulers,” that included “justifying the U.S. imperialist
troops as essential to the aid effort” and “polemiciz[ing] against the
principled and correct position of demanding the immediate withdrawal
of the troops.” You write:
“We accepted Washington’s line that the provision of aid was
inextricably linked to the U.S. military takeover and thus helped to
sell the myth peddled by the Democratic Party Obama administration
that this was a ‘humanitarian’ mission....
“Thus we gutted the revolutionary internationalist essence of
Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution linking the fight for social
and national liberation to the struggle for proletarian state power
both in neocolonial and in more advanced countries.”
That’s some pretty strong coffee, as the Germans say, and all true.
Your statement says that this became the “de facto line” of the ICL,
which was carried by the presses of a number of other sections. It
admits that the Internationalist Group “correctly characterized” the
SL/ICL’s line as “social imperialist.” In fact, whole passages of the
ICL’s repudiation statement seem to have been taken almost word-for-
word from two Internationalist articles, “Spartacist League Backs U.S.
Imperialist Invasion of Haiti” (30 January) and “SL Twists and Turns
on Haiti” (9 April). Clearly, someone read at least our latest
article, agreed with much of it, and said so. But what the IG wrote
simply upheld the Leninist position of unconditional opposition to
imperialist rule of semi-colonial countries that the SL/ICL stood for
when it represented revolutionary Trotskyism.
Your emphatic repudiation of the ignominious position you vehemently
pushed for three months shows a degree of candor uncommon on the left,
and is a considerable improvement over the Pentagon propaganda you
were retailing and your blatant support for U.S. imperialist
occupation of Haiti. Yet in your April 27 statement and afterwards,
even as you acknowledge the “dishonesty” of your earlier articles, the
lies against those who did tell the truth continue unabated. Moreover,
your explanations of why and how your fundamental betrayal came about
don’t hold water. You admit to the crime, but fail to give a serious
explanation of the reasons for it. And that virtually guarantees it
will happen again. This isn’t the first time that the SL/ICL bowed to
the pressure of its “own” ruling class, nor the first time you have
smeared the IG/LFI for our revolutionary opposition to U.S.
imperialism.
So let’s begin with the key issues raised by your abrupt reversal
about the U.S. troops in Haiti. The most fundamental is: why wasn’t
there a gut response of opposition to the imperialist invasion? How
could you become active propagandists for U.S. imperialist invasion
without any internal turmoil? In any genuinely revolutionary party, a
betrayal of class principle would lead to a rip-roaring faction fight
and eventual split. Relying on recovered memory of the revolutionary
Trotskyism the SL/ICL once championed, it is possible to write a
statement. But to actually become a revolutionary leadership requires
a hard fight that goes to the root of the betrayals.
It all goes back to the devastating impact on the Spartacist League
and International Communist League of the counterrevolutionary
destruction of the Soviet Union and the East European deformed workers
states in 1989-92. It began by a turn toward passive propagandism and
desertion from the class struggle, and subsequently led to a series of
revisions of key programmatic questions. The most fundamental was your
declaration (in your 1998 revised program) that the key thesis of
Trotsky’s Transitional Program, that the crisis of humanity is reduced
to the crisis of revolutionary leadership, was outdated due to a
supposed “deep regression of proletarian consciousness.”
We have pointed out how virtually every revisionist, from Ernest
Mandel to Nahuel Moreno to Peter Taaffe, embraced the same doctrine of
historical pessimism in order to justify abandoning the revolutionary
program (see The Internationalist No. 5, April-May 1998). Like all
revisionism, this comes down to a loss of confidence in the
revolutionary capacity of the proletariat. It is just a “left” version
of the bourgeois lie of the “death of communism” – you need only read
the notes by the SL’s theoretical spokesman to see this (see WV No.
949, 1 January 2010). As we have remarked, it is the SL/ICL’s
consciousness that has suffered a qualitative regression. This is
proven by your line of support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti.
Since the April 27 statement vows to carry out a “savage indictment of
our line” in the interests of “political rectification,” we would like
to pose a few key issues that need to be addressed by any comrade in
or around the SL/ICL who wants to get to the bottom of this betrayal.
1) How did this betrayal come about?
We, too, have had some discussion of what the SL/ICL’s support for the
U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti and repudiation mean. No one can be
convinced by the ICL’s claim that this betrayal occurred because of
the absence of “an organized discussion and vote, instead setting our
line through informal consultation.” For a momentary lapse, an article
that missed the mark, perhaps, as an explanation for a fundamental
betrayal of class principle, crossing the class line, impossible. This
was no accidental slip, no oversight by the editor. It was full-
throated support for imperialist invasion. Workers Vanguard published
five articles in six consecutive issues repeatedly denouncing the IG
for calling for U.S./U.N. forces out of Haiti. WV heaped lie upon lie,
distortion upon distortion. And now, all of a sudden, the SL flip-
flops. All because of a lack of formal discussion? Please.
The ICL statement remarks, “As one leading party comrade argued, the
only difference between the position we took and August 4, 1914, when
the German Social Democrats voted war credits to the German
imperialist rulers at the outset of the First World War, is that this
was not a war.” So follow the analogy: “Well, you see we didn’t have a
formal discussion with Karl and Rosa there, so we unfortunately ended
up voting for the war budget”? The SPD reformists didn’t “correct”
their vote, of course, but the centrists who later formed the
Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) did, voting against war
credits in December 1915. Yet the USPD played a key role in preventing
proletarian revolution in Germany in 1918-19. Or take the Spanish
POUM, which supported the People’s Front in the 1936 elections, then
later pulled back as the popular-front government was sabotaging the
Civil War against Franco. As Trotsky explained, the centrist POUM
played a key role in blocking workers revolution in Spain.
Think about it a minute: how could SLers insist (as they did at a
panel discussion with Haitian and Dominican leftists sponsored by the
Internationalist Club at Hunter College in New York) that calling for
U.S./U.N. troops out of Haiti equaled support for bourgeois
nationalism? Because of a lack of “formal discussion”? The ICL gives a
definitive answer as to why this is not true. It states, “However,
once the line was published in Workers Vanguard it was picked up by
many of the ICL’s other sectional presses, indicating that there was
little initial disagreement.” You support a U.S. invasion under the
guise of humanitarian aid and there is “little initial disagreement.”
That says it all: the entire ICL swallowed this betrayal. Had any
section strongly objected, we can be sure this would have been noted
in the repudiation as saving the ICL’s honor. So even if you had had a
discussion, you would likely have come up with the same line.
In fact, you did have a meeting, on March 18, and what did it do?
According to the ICL statement, “the motions adopted at that meeting,
which became the basis for the article in WV No. 955, reaffirmed that
‘we were correct in not calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in
the immediate aftermath of the earthquake’.” And then, by your own
admission, you proceeded to lie about your original line, claiming
that you had “made clear in our article” of 29 January that “we were
not for the U.S. military going into Haiti,” when in fact you said no
such thing. Moreover, the March 18 meeting reportedly passed motions
“criticizing the formulation that the U.S. military was the only force
on the ground with the wherewithal to deliver aid,” but “did not
mandate a public correction of this statement.” And again, by your own
account, you “misused the authority” of Trotsky, distorting the
meaning of his 1938 article “Learn to Think,” “in order to alibi
support to an imperialist occupation.”
The whole business reeks of cynicism. You didn’t just accidentally
fall into error by an oversight or lack of clarity. You not only
repeatedly screeched that the IG was embracing bourgeois nationalism
by opposing the U.S. invasion, you distorted Trotsky and then lied to
cover your tracks. You held onto your “zealous apologies for the U.S.
imperialist military intervention” (your description) for dear life.
But under polemical pounding from the LFI, someone, perhaps the
“leading party comrade” referred to in the ICL statement, took note
and said this was going too far. This time. Without that call to
order, you would still be hailing the 82nd Airborne Division and the
22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit as humanitarian aid deliverers.
You might pause to consider the ramifications of your admitted
betrayal. What if no leading party comrade had said, “stop” – where
would you be then? “Pentagon socialists” anyone? Ask yourselves, how
could an entire organization which declares itself revolutionary,
Marxist and communist swallow this apology for U.S. imperialism, hook,
line and sinker? Why didn’t a whole layer of comrades vociferously
object, saying “this makes me sick to my stomach – I’m revolted and
outraged over the apology for the takeover of a semi-colonial country
by U.S. imperialism.” Why did this go down without a ripple and remain
your line for almost three months?
2) Why did this betrayal come about? It was an extension of previous
capitulation to the pressures of U.S. imperialism.
We submit that the origin of this betrayal lies in the fact that
repeatedly over the last decade, the Spartacist League and
International Communist League have shamefully capitulated to the
pressures of U.S. imperialism. As a result, alibiing the U.S. invasion
of Haiti must have seemed to many just a logical extension of your
previous positions, which it was.
Take a look at what happened after the 11 September 2001 attack on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon, which clearly shook up the SL and
ICL. But having lost your political compass with the demise of the
Soviet Union, the SL/ICL reacted by abandoning key elements of the
Leninist-Trotskyist program toward imperialist war. You issued a
statement (see WV No. 764, 14 September 2001) with paragraphs of
denunciations of terrorism but not a word in defense of Afghanistan
(which the U.S. immediately targeted for retaliation). After
Washington invaded, you belatedly came out in defense of Afghanistan,
but still pointedly refused to call for the defeat of U.S.
imperialism.
That was not all. You then proceeded to viciously attack the
Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International for our
call from the very outset (in our 14 September 2001 statement) for
defense of Afghanistan and for the defeat of U.S. imperialism. You
wrote that our line amounted to “Playing the Counterfeit Card of Anti-
Americanism,” as you stated in a subhead, and of appealing to an
audience of “‘Third World’ nationalists for whom the ‘only good
American is a dead American’” (Workers Vanguard No. 767, 26 October
2001). Yet the position we put forward was the same program the SL/ICL
had proclaimed on the front pages of WV for years, in the Persian Gulf
War, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
Think what that vile accusation meant in the midst of the war hysteria
sweeping the United States. Not only was this a monstrous lie, but as
anybody could see, it could have encouraged repression against us. And
consider the implications for today: if it was okay to go around “anti-
American”-baiting opponents on your left, for upholding the political
line you abandoned under fire, then it’s small potatoes to say –
demagogically, as you now admit – that our call for U.S./U.N. troops
out “would result in mass death through starvation.”
Your dropping the call for defeat of U.S. imperialism’s war on
Afghanistan and Iraq had many expressions. Our call for the defeat of
U.S. imperialism was not an abstract slogan. As we had done in the
Spartacist League and ICL, we coupled it with propaganda and agitation
calling on transportation workers to refuse to handle (“hot-cargo”)
war materiel, and for workers strikes against the war. Yet you
abandoned the call for “hot cargoing” military goods precisely when it
was most possible to realize it, at the beginning of October 2002 in
the midst of the build-up for the Iraq invasion, when the employers
shut down the ports with a lockout. (Your excuse: that a Taft-Hartley
injunction on the West Coast docks supposedly made this too
dangerous.)
As for workers strikes against the war, you ridiculed this in 1998
when our comrades of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (LQB)
raised this call (over a U.S. attack on Iraq by the Democratic
government of Bill Clinton), saying this had no “resonance” among the
workers. And on May Day 2008, when it turned out the demand had plenty
of “resonance” among the workers and the ILWU longshore union shut
down every port on the Pacific Coast to stop the war, you claimed that
this was just flag-waving support for the Democratic Party, it was
only about Iraq, not Afghanistan, it didn’t have any impact, etc. The
fact that the union delegates, in voting to shut the ports, denounced
the Democrats for helping continue the war – and that in fact there
was a striking dearth of American flags in the San Francisco march –
made no difference. Here, as well, your goal of covering your own
tracks made you twist the facts. And you repeat the lies put out by
the bureaucracy that bitterly fought against calls for strikes against
the war.
Your refusal to call loud and clear for the defeat of U.S.
imperialism, your dropping calls for “hot-cargoing” war goods, your
sneering at the first workers strike in the United States against a
U.S. war are all capitulations to “your own” imperialist bourgeois
rulers. And then, when Obama dispatched an invasion force to Haiti in
the name of providing earthquake relief, you alibied it. That step
placed you squarely in the camp of social imperialism; it crossed the
class line to open support for the bourgeoisie. But it was another
step on a road you had been going down for years.
3) How can you claim to uphold permanent revolution while denying the
possibility of workers revolution in Haiti?
Having admitted that the Internationalist Group was right in opposing
the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti, you still accuse the IG of
“Third Worldist fantasies,” of seeing the earthquake as being an
“opening for revolution” because we wrote that the “small but militant
proletariat can place itself at the head of the impoverished urban and
rural masses seeking to organize their own power” while the Haitian
capitalist state machinery lay in tatters. Evidently you continue to
hold that Haiti has “virtually no working class.” We have suggested
various ways to test this claim, including photos of more than 10,000
Haitian workers marching on parliament demanding an increase in the
miserable minimum wage. However, again, the fact of the existence of a
Haitian proletariat has no impact on your position.
But if it is a “Third Worldist fantasy” to say that a proletarian
revolution could begin in Haiti – as we do, while emphasizing that it
must spread to the Dominican Republic, other parts of Latin America
and above all the U.S. imperialist heartland if it is to succeed –
then how can you claim to uphold Trotsky’s perspective of permanent
revolution in Haiti? That program emphasizes that in the imperialist
epoch in order to achieve even the democratic tasks of the classic
bourgeois revolutions, the workers (led by their communist party) must
take power and go on to undertake socialist tasks and spread the
revolution internationally. If there is no working class, it can’t
take power, and revolution can only come from without. That was your
position from January 29 to April 27. Do you maintain this?
The SL/ICL also accuses us of being “apologists for Third World
nationalism,” though no specifics are given. (In 2001, the “proof” for
this claim was that the IG and LFI called for defeat of U.S.
imperialism.) In particular, there is no mention of your bogus claim
that we support Aristide, perhaps because your main “proof” of this
lie was that “the IG’s shrieking about the supposed imperialist
‘invasion’” of Haiti somehow portrayed Aristide as “the embodiment of
national independence.” Since you now agree there was a “U.S. military
invasion,” this charge falls flat.
And if you are curious about the existence of a Bolivian working
class, which the SL/ICL also denies, you might watch a video of a
recent demonstration by factory workers in La Paz, Bolivia, available
on the Internet at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g67JkH0srEE. What
comes through here from the SL is rank American imperialist chauvinism
and disdain for the struggles of the workers in semi-colonial
countries. In loudly proclaiming that they no longer “advocate”
independence for Puerto Rico and then extending that internationally
to other colonies, they abandon one of thecardinal points of the
Leninist struggle against imperialism. Up until now SL members have
shrieked that to say such a thing is sheer “provocation.” Perhaps they
will be less quick to do so now. But that remains to be seen.
4) What does your support for the U.S. invasion/occupation of Haiti
mean for the ICL’s claim to be the embodiment of revolutionary
continuity? A “revolutionary leadership” doesn’t betray the class
interests of the proletariat.
We hear from the Grupo Internacionalista, Mexican section of the LFI,
that members of the Grupo Espartaquista came to the May Day marches
with a rote response to justify the ICL’s claim to represent the
revolutionary vanguard. Other communist formations have committed
“errors” in the past, they argued, but didn’t cease to be communists.
For example, when the Polish Communist Party supported the putsch by
the ex-Socialist Josef Pilsudski in 1926. This is just grasping at
straws. The Polish CP’s “May error” was a reflection of the general
“right-centrist” degeneration of the Comintern, as Trotsky explained
in The Third International After Lenin.
What the GEM members considered their trump card was Trotsky’s call on
the eve of World War II for a “Proletarian Military Policy,” for trade-
union control of military training (for the imperialist armies). After
all, Max Shachtman, the renegade from Trotskyism, polemically exposed
what was wrong with the PMP, but he remained a centrist while the SWP,
which upheld Trotsky’s policy, was revolutionary.
To equate this mistaken call by Trotsky with the SL/ICL’s “zealous
apologies for the U.S. military intervention” in Haiti is grotesque.
Are you saying that Trotsky betrayed the world’s workers with the PMP?
Also, why do we say that the SWP remained the revolutionary party? In
the first place, the error represented by the PMP was not equivalent
to active support to U.S. imperialist takeover of a semi-colonial
country. Moreover, on the key issue in dispute with Shachtman, the SWP
defended the Soviet Union against imperialism, despite Stalin’s
betrayals, while Shachtman with his “Third Camp” position refused to
defend the bureaucratically degenerated workers state. The SL/ICL,
however, had abandoned the call for defeat of its “own” imperialist
rulers in war against semi-colonial Afghanistan (and then Iraq) years
before its Haiti betrayal. This call, which it used to raise with
regularity on the front page of WV, is now only mentioned as a
whispered aside, if at all.
This desperate search for historical precedents is a textbook case of
scholasticism, of a piece with WV’s convoluted comparison of the
question of aid to Haiti today with the SWP’s line on aid to the
Soviet Union in World War II. A clever (?) comeback can’t explain away
a betrayal.
Your basic argument is that you repudiated your support for the U.S.
imperialist invasion, and indeed “savagely” attacked it, so that
supposedly proves you are still the revolutionaries. As in the
Catholic church, it seems you can confess to all sorts of venial and
even some mortal sins, but as long as you admit all (and don’t
question the role of the Catholic church as the one true
representative of Christianity), you can be absolved. But unlike
religions, revolutionary politics is not a revealed doctrine and self-
enclosed movement of the elect. The vanguard party has a dialectical
relationship to the proletariat, representing both the fundamental
interests of the class and the revolutionary program that is the
product of historical experience. It has to earn its spurs by
providing revolutionary leadership in the class struggle.
This was at the core of the fight over the ICL intervention in
Germany, where you proclaimed the ICL was the (self-anointed)
revolutionary leadership and declared comrades apostates for saying
that we were struggling to become it. With your position of vociferous
support to the U.S. invasion of Haiti, you grievously misled whoever
still believed that you were the revolutionary leadership, which
mercifully is not very many. Despite your pious proclamations today,
how is one to know that what you say tomorrow isn’t a continuation of
what you said yesterday? The only way to tell is if there is a
revolutionary consistency to the program, but the ICL has been
anything but consistent over the last decade and a half (just reread
what you wrote about your last two conferences). And the program must
be carried out. As we pointed out, even when the SL claimed to oppose
imperialist occupation of Haiti, it was essentially meaningless: one
short article at the time of the 2004 U.S./French/Canadian invasion.
And then silence.
You can’t just say, “Oh, we really messed up, but we confessed and
washed away our sins, so everything is okay.” Your members go right on
vituperating at the Internationalist Group that the SL is “the real
thing,” as if nothing had happened. How about a little recognition of
what you have just done? The ICL statement says, “Without a public
accounting and correction, we would be far down the road to our
destruction as a revolutionary party.” Actually, the SL/ICL ceased
some while ago to be a revolutionary party, as your own account of
your betrayal in Haiti makes abundantly clear. What is true is that if
you hadn’t repudiated your line of support for the U.S. imperialist
invasion, you would be far down the road to outright reformism. By
pulling back from that, you only demonstrate that the ICL is today,
and has been for the last decade, a centrist political formation. The
next zigzag, the next upheaval, the next revelation – these are only a
matter of time.
It is hardly convincing to proclaim that, “Only through a savage
indictment of our line can we avoid the alternative of going down the
road that led the founders of the IG to defect from our organization
in the pursuit of forces other than the proletariat” when you
yourselves have had to admit that we upheld the class line as against
your “zealous apologies” for U.S. imperialism.
Which brings us to a matter that keeps coming up in your voluminous
polemics against the IG and League for the Fourth International (which
you never mention). In this instance you say the founders of the
Internationalist Group “defect[ed]” from the ICL, on other occasions
you have claimed we “fled,” “broke from” or “departed from our ranks.”
You resort to these circumlocutions in order to avoid dealing with the
simple fact that the founders of the IG and the LFI were expelled from
the ICL sections in the U.S., Mexico and France in a political purge.
You thereby try to equate us with the misnamed International Bolshevik
Tendency, whose founders quit, and indeed fled from, the ICL at the
height of Cold War II, objecting to our hard-edged defense of the
Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Poland. In the case of the founders of
the IG, we were thrown out precisely because we wouldn’t quit.
Judging by its own description of its last three conferences, the SL/
ICL seems to have a penchant for “correcting correct verdicts,” as
Chinese Stalinist leader Deng Xiaoping put it. Stalin, too, made many
zigzags during his time as a centrist. But he was based on the
material reality of the bureaucracy that had at its disposal the
enormous resources of the Soviet state. What does the SL have? When we
read, in your account of your latest conference – which was dominated
by a huge faction fight – that your “central task” is “to arm the
party programmatically and theoretically, from Spartacist to the
maintenance of our Central Committee archive,” the picture is that of
an inwardly turned group voluntarily walled off from the class
struggle. You can practically hear the embalming fluid dripping. But
for all the importance of archival work, the ICL hasn’t been doing
such a good job arming the party programmatically, has it?
The SL/ICL declares that, in this period, the struggles of the working
class no longer have any link to the goal of socialist revolution.
That supposed theoretical justification allows it to haughtily dismiss
the possibility that sectors of the working class could be won to key
aspects of the revolutionary program, or carry out actions that
concretize them (like strikes against the war or “hot-cargoing”). This
“revolutionary” rationale is really just an adaptation to what is, to
the bourgeois order. As the ICL statement rightly stated, your line on
Haiti was the “politics of the possible,” the phrase of Michael
Harrington, the “socialist” advisor of Democratic presidents Kennedy
and Johnson. This current has a long history going back to the French
possibilists in the 1880s, who reflecting demoralization following the
bloody 1871 defeat of the Paris Commune said one could only fight for
what is possible, which was not workers revolution.
While other groups may limit themselves to bourgeois democratic
demands or low-level trade-union struggle, the ICL line is “Stop the
class struggle, I want to get off.” This is your particular version of
the demoralization that affected large sectors of the left (even those
who denied the Soviet Union was any kind of workers state) as a result
of the victory of counterrevolution in the USSR. The SL/ICL pulled
back from its support for the U.S. invasion when it saw its image in
the mirror of reformism. But for those who do not wish to keep on
gyrating in centrist confusion while insisting they “are” the
revolutionary leadership, there must be a thorough-going search for
the causes of the betrayal. Those genuinely looking for the roots of
the SL’s pro-imperialist “politics of the possible” over Haiti would
do well to examine the real record of its adaptations and
capitulations to “its own” bourgeoisie over the past years.
Your leadership will undoubtedly tell you (and themselves) that this
is the most serious challenge the ICL has faced. Indeed. However, the
challenge is not to defend the revolutionary pretensions of the ICL at
all costs, but to fight for revolutionary programmatic clarity. Of
course, if you do undertake such a fight, you will doubtless soon
discover the limits of the desired political rectification.
Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International
8 May 2010
END QUOTE
srd
jh
is fair to say that they say it quite well. The SL and ICL have some
serious egg on their faces, and it is going to take a while to live
this down. The only thing that can be said here is that the SL is
taking this seriously. If there is anybody in or around the SL/ICL
*defending* the Haitian blunder, there is no sign of this.
Aside from that, you have a reiteration of longstanding criticisms of
the SL by the IG that are, IMHO, thoroughly wrongheaded. The key
question here is whether or not the SL is correct that there has been
a worldwide retrogression of class consciousness since the collapse of
the Soviet Union. It is.
The IG's denial of this obvious fact is the worst sort of
Pollyannaism, leading them continually to paint up various movements
and forces in the world as far more radical and leftwing than they
actually are. As the Spartacists put it, this is Pabloism of the
second mobilization.
However, how exactly does this apply to Haiti? The IG initially stated
that the Haitian earthquake would open the door to revolutionary
mobilization of the Haitian masses led by the proletariat, with
possibilities of Haitian workers' revolution. The Spartacists, then
backhandedly backing the US troops, as they themselves later put it,
ridiculed this, denying that Haiti by now even has a proletariat. Who
is right?
The new issue of Workers Vanguard has a letter from Joel, I believe
the same Joel who in a previous letter to WV made a principled
criticism of the SL Haiti line *before* the line change, which Diamond
posted. Thereby gaining him some instant credibility, at any rate more
than the WV ed board right now has on Haiti. Here is what he has to
say on this question:
***********************************************************************************************************
Workers Vanguard No. 960, 4 June 2010
On Haiti and Polemics (Letters)
Massachusetts
15 May 2010
Workers Vanguard has often stated that Haiti has virtually no working
class. I think it is important to be clear exactly what this means.
Preliminarily, I did some research on www.economywatch.com/economic-statistics/country/Haiti
and www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/1982.htm#econ.
Haiti does have a working class but it is very small and objectively
weak. The assembly sector employed over 100,000 workers in the
mid-1980s, but due to an embargo in the 1990s, it decreased to under
20,000. The number is likely far less after the recent earthquake
which leveled many of the factories. What proletariat exists, is
largely in the apparel industry, which accounts for nearly 1/10th of
the GDP. The apparel industry is largely unskilled and low profit.
What’s largely missing in Haiti is a proletariat employed in basic
infrastructure, core industries (coal, steel, electricity, transport,
etc.) or high profit industries like auto or electronics. It has
legalized unions, largely under the influence of Aristide populism,
with not much of a left and nothing that comes close to a Trotskyist
party. In a country of 9 million, with rampant unemployment and
poverty, the social numbers and weight of the proletariat is marginal,
limiting its ability to effect change through strikes, protests or
revolution.
The key to Haiti, as you point out, lies in the Haitian diaspora
(which employs many skilled workers and whose remittances account for
nearly 25% of Haiti’s GDP), the much stronger proletariat in
neighboring countries, and the powerful proletariat in the imperialist
centers.
This should not imply discounting the inhabitants of Haiti from
playing a more direct role in shaping their own destiny and sparking
struggles elsewhere. This should also not discount the possibility
that the economy and social composition of Haiti may change in the
future from imperialist investment, although this is uncertain given
the global recession and at best would result in transforming Haiti
into an even bigger sweatshop.
Haiti has a militant history, including the 1791 slave revolution. It
has a history of political instability and there is currently a lot of
anger at the government, which could spill over into protests against
imperialist troops. It would be wrong to expect mass protests in the
midst of the ruins and social collapse, but it would also be wrong to
refuse to call for such protest, in Haiti and internationally. The
exact nature of the protest would depend on the circumstances and the
emphasis of the demands may differ, but the guiding light for Haiti
and the rest of the neocolonial world remains permanent revolution.
Joel
***********************************************************************************************
Be it noted that the yearslong Haitian embargo which essentially
destroyed the Haitian working class was for the purpose of
overthrowing Duvalier Jr. and bringing in Aristide! The perfect
example of why trade boycotts for allegedly progressive purposes are
in general a reactionary tactic which should be avoided, whether
around Haiti or South Africa or Palestine or what have you.
They can only be used as a short term measure in the context of an
actual labor struggle for concrete ends, whether they are winning a
particular strike, or helping the worker side in a civil war. Not to
promote well-intended reforms or, the most common way they are used,
as a feel-good measure in a losing struggle when you can't figure out
what else to do. In that kind of case they will always backfire.
-jh-
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