Michael, it's time to stop this loathesome crap. --jks
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [PEN-L:15144] If Open and Frank Discussion Is Red-Baiting...
>Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 12:15:53 EDT
>
>As tempting as it is to respond in kind to Justin's torrent of personal
>abuse in kind, I will not do so. For the personal abuse is just one more
>device designed to forestall open and frank discussion of how ideological
>left [primarily socialist and communist] organizations and mass democratic
>organizations, especially trade unions, have interacted. Every attempt at
>frank discussion on any particular point of this relationship is met with
>accusations of red-baiting, and if that doesn't halt all discussion, with
>personal abuse, such as Justin's accusations that I am a liar and a fool if
>I don't accept his account of the relationship among TDU, _Labor Notes_,
>and Solidarity, and their common indebtedness and links to the Trotskyist
>tradition.
>
>The history of interaction between ideological left organizations and the
>trade union movement in the US is long and well-documented. It starts with
>DeLeon and IWW, it involves Socialists, Communists and Trotskyists of all
>sorts, and it continues to this day. No one could write a history of the
>AFL without an account of Gompers split from Marxism and his battles with
>AFL Socialists, and then the IWW; no one could provide an account of the
>rise of CIO without the pivotal role of Communists, many of whom had been
>involved in dual CP unions during the 'third period'; no could write a
>history of the "left" CIO unions such as the UE, or explain their purge
>from the CIO, without an explanation of the battles over Communism; no one
>could write a history of the UAW, the ILGWU, or my own AFT, to mention just
>a few examples, without a study of the factional fights between Socialists,
>Communists and Trotskyists of every stripe. No one could discuss the twists
>and turns of the labor mov!
>em!
>ent's relationship with the Afri
>can-American community, without an analysis of the role of Socialists and
>Communists, from A. Phillip Randolph on. No one could explain the AFL-CIO's
>international work without reference to the anti-Communists of the
>Lovestonites and Shachtmanites. And all of this just touches the surface.
>
>Those connections continue today, and it is disingeneous to suggest
>otherwise. To cite the most obvious example: the old AFL-CIO leadership was
>clearly linked to Shachtmanites of the SDUSA variety, which explains, as
>much as anything, Sweeney's decision to join DSA. When Shanker was elected
>AFT President, he filled its national staff with SDUSA types. DSA members
>can be found among the elected leadership and national organizing staff of
>AFSCME, SEIU, UNITE and the UAW. Solidarity types have been key to
>organizing opposition caucuses in the Teamsters, the UAW and the
>Transportation Workers.
>
>Now if Bill Fletcher can work at the very top of the AFL-CIO, and be open
>and honest about his leadership of the Black Radical Congress and
>membership in Freedom Road Socialist Organization [FRSO], than there really
>is no reason for anyone to suggest that we can not have a frank discussion
>of all of these issues.
>
>My local union, the UFT, has four internal caucuses: [a] the leadership
>caucus, which ranges from moderate and liberal Democrats to democratic
>socialists and radical democrats, with a few retired SDUSA members and some
>DSA members [b] the main opposition caucus, organized by the CP, [c] a much
>smaller group, consisting of a handful of Solidarity members who refuse to
>have anything to do with the CP caucus, and [d] a new, ill-organized caucus
>with a sort of 'third worldist' bent which has attracted members of
>Progressive Labor and Freedom Road Socialist Organization. You understand
>nothing about UFT internal politics if you do not understand those
>political realities. To attempt to squelch public discussion of them as
>some sort of 'red baiting' is, to my mind, fundamentally anti-democratic.
>Discussion of these realities goes on all the time in private conversation,
>but only the 'insiders' are party to these discussions and in the know. I
>refuse to allow myself to be constrain!
>ed!
> by such anti-democratic dictate
>s.
>
>If you can't defend your politics in open and pubic forums, there is
>something wrong with your politics.
>
>Leo Casey
> >
>
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