Note by Hunterbear: It's obvious that this is getting into Leo whose apex or nadir of distortion or memory lapse -- however one wants to put it -- is certainly becoming, however nefariously, impressive. His sour post is attached to the bottom of this communication. Normally, I'd waste little time on this increasingly transparent shadow -- so obviously full of self-perception as an "intellectual" -- but there are several basic points:
1] I joined DSOC/DSA in 1978 -- while on the Navajo Reservation -- so I've certainly been around DSA for almost all of its life. When I got on ASDnet, almost two years ago, I encountered from Leo and his groupies some of the most rank, vile smear stuff that's been directed against me since the Deep South and Southside Chicago. At the same time, most ASDnet members, who have never joined in this vilification, still remain silent when this poison is thrown and sown. 2] SocUnity [of which I'm a co-moderator], featured a discussion of Workers World and a scurrilous attack by Nathan Newman on myself -- growing simply out of the fact that I had quoted the very thoughtful position of an individual [who happens to be a WW member] on the commutation of Illinois death row sentences. This occurred many weeks ago. 3] A few days ago, Dave Anderson on ASDnet, posted the highly commendable National Lawyers Guild resolution attacking red-baiting. Immediately, Nathan Newman posted his response. I picked those up and, indeed going to SocUnity and several other lists, made my responses. No apologies. It came from ASDnet. See attached post following this message of mine. And, further, no apologies either for my taking an extremely revealing thread, from the public archives of Casey's DL list, for the discussion of NLG and Newman -- already well underway in several list quarters. 4] I have always held Carl Bloice in very high regard -- as I have a number of other people with CPUSA backgrounds. For many years -- sometimes off and on, but frequently long continual stretches -- our family subscribed to The Peoples' World, edited by Carl, which we always saw as a first rate newspaper. I miss it. I'm very pleased to be a member, with Carl and the others, of CCDS. 5] Here's a bone for Leo: a friend of mine in CPUSA asked me recently to contribute an article to the Peoples Weekly World, the CP newspaper, on the North Dakota Native murders. I was glad to do so and it came out very nicely. It's in print -- February 22, 2003 -- and here's its web version http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/2986/1/139/ The article -- along with several other sources from me -- has now sent many letters to the North Dakota governor and state attorney general. So many, in fact, that these officials are finally sending responses of sorts. 6] Finally, Leo -- like Nathan, like Pugliese -- totally distorts my position on Workers World. Here is that position, as I set it forth almost a month ago: FUSSING ABOUT WORKERS WORLD -- VS. THE CHALLENGE OF THE REAL REALITIES [HUNTER GRAY 2/11/03] I don't know a great deal -- or even much at all -- about Workers World. [I remember it slightly from the early and mid '60s but it was only a very peripheral and minor presence in the South.] But it is my understanding that it presently numbers much less than a thousand nationally. This means you could cut a very small slice from Pocatello, Idaho [total population about 50,000 or so] right here and have far more souls than WW. At this point, it's an easy target for Redbaiters and reactionaries and ex-radicals and sanctimonious/supercilious "liberals" -- but, if it weren't around, they'd find many other scapegoats [and are -- including DSA!]. WW, like anything else, is certainly not beyond thoughtful criticism at all -- but I'm not impressed with people who are spending their basic time and passion attacking WW -- or any other Left outfit at this point -- when the world teeters on the brink of one of the worst regional disasters in human history, when unemployment and subemployment in this country are carrying us straight to Hell in a handbucket, when farmers and ranchers are continuing to lose their land in the Great Plains [and elsewhere], and when Bush/Ashcroft/Ridge are testing our democratic foundations with wave after wave of what I call "wistful fascism." [I do think our basic democratic institutions will survive the assault.] Nor am I at all impressed with those who "use" the presence of WW as an excuse to cop out of social activism -- either via transference or outright retreat. I gather WW, along with many others, has done an effective job in organizing and mobilizing people in the anti-War cause -- and started, commendably, along with many others, with the "previous" and still on-going "war" in Afghanistan [which, of course, set the stage for this Iraq crisis.] If WW has anything solid to offer over the long haul, it'll grow; if not, it won't. The relatively free minds of people can still reject error and grab truth. Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] DSA Anti-Racism, Solidarity, CCDS, SPUSA www.hunterbear.org Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ and Ohkwari' ------------------------------------------ FWD from ASDnet [NLG's anti-redbaiting position; N. Newman's attack] Mar 02, 2003 11:05 PST Note by Hunterbear: The National Lawyers Guild has taken [not at all surprisingly] a highly commendable, principled position against Red-baiting. This has drawn an attack from Nathan Newman, who recently announced his conversion to the Democratic Party. His statement is first, then followed by the NLG position. Hunter [Hunterbear] ===================== [Since David Anderson has posted the NLG resolution, and I was one of the original targets they were attempting to silence with it, here is my response within the Guild to their "redbaiting" resolution- NN] USING "REDBAITING" CHARGES TO SILENCE ANSWER'S CRITICS by Nathan Newman, Vice President NYC National Lawyers Guild former National Vice President, NLG [Note, as will be obvious, my views are my own and those who agree me within the Guild and do not reflect those of the national leadership of the NLG or the collective views of the NYC local chapter leadership. Title for identification purposes only] ================================================================== >From Leo Casey: Since Hunter, as he is wont to do, introduced this controversy here and to another five lists from ASDNet, the unofficial DSA list, spreading flames far and wide at every opportunity, it may not be apparent exactly what transpired. There was a thread on the Democratic Left list, which was carried over to the DSA list, which did not involve Hunter, and which did not seek his participation. The question under discussion was what to do about the fact that the WWP/ANSWER has managed to illegimately seize stage center in the movement against the war in Iraq, by unilaterally calling national demonstrations under their control and then blackmailing everyone else in the movement into supporting them. As part of that discussion, the practice of the WWP to call any and all political criticism of it "red baiting," as an attempt to insulate itself from criticism of the manipulative and undemocratic way it functions in the movement, and more, to silence that criticism, was raised. Since Hunter has felt the need, on several occasions, to express his warm feelings about the WWP and its leading members, and since he, too, thinks that the slightest criticism of his politics is a form of "red baiting," no one was in the slightest bit interested in his thoughts on this matter. No one asked for his comments, or addressed any of the discussion to him. Nevertheless, he truculently intruded himself into the discussion [going so far as to copy the public archives of the Democratic Left listserv, to which he is not subscribed and on which his presence is not welcome, for commentary on other lists], and then sent his intrusions to every list to which he is subscribed, including this one. As per standard Hunter operating procedure, this posts attacked a number of us as "red baiters," inauthentic leftists, the whole nine yards of the usual ad hominem excuses for political argument. And when people respond to these attacks by telling Hunter to go to hell, there are several rounds of copies to various lists telling everyone how he is such a poor victim of vilification, since the obvious obligation of "red baiters" and the like is to sit still while he flings shit in your direction. When I was not even eighteen years old [I am now a shade under 50], I was arrested several times for non-violent civil disobedience against the war in Vietnam. I do not make it a practice of issuing forth long e-mails on my life's work, as I do not see my rather long history in this regard as demonstration of anything but my longstanding opposition to unnecessary, unjust war. My arguments and my positions on any issue of war, peace and justice -- whether it be the current proposed adventure in Iraq, or past interventions in Angola, Nicaragua or Vietnam, where I oppose[d] American use of force as wrong, or the intervention to restore the democratic government in Haiti and to halt the practice of serial ethnic cleansing and genocide in the former Yugoslavia, as well as the war of self-defense against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, where I found the use of force to be necessary and just, or the failure of the US to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda, which was just as wrong as the unnecessary intervention in Iraq today -- should be judged on their merits, and not on my life of political commitment. But we have a form of argument, practiced here in the extreme by Hunter, which asserts that his life of political commitment means that his argument, on any subject, trumps everyone else's argument. If that were not bad enough, in and of itself, the respond to other's arguments is one of casting aspersions on the political commitment of others, as Carl Bloice did here to me in his comment on Hunter's epistles. That is not simply a rather poor excuse for political discourse, it is poisonous to any serious political debate. It is the reason why the unofficial DSA listserv has become the mess that it is. And, yes, it is the stock in trade of political commissars, whose job it is to find ways to silence political views they deem politically unacceptable, and barring that, to use every means at their disposal to cast discredit on those who express such views. This is what we have come to expect from the likes of the CPUSA and the WWP, and it is what Hunter and Bloice have brought here. _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
