> On Mar 13, 2016, at 12:39 PM, James Creegan <turb...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> Proyect quotes the Norman Thomas of the 1930s. But what about the Norman
> Thomas of the 50s and early 60s…
No need to fast forward, Jim. Thomas’ political trajectory was an outgrowth of
the antipathy between the reformist and the revolutionary left which, as we
know, was evident in the 1930’s and well beyond, predating their formal split
into two rival Internationals following WWI. As a social democrat, Thomas came
into conflict with the Communist Party and the smaller Trotskyist movement on
ideological and practical grounds since all three political currents were
competing with varying degrees of influence for the same working class
constituency. Line many Cold War social democrats (and erstwhile Marxists)
Thomas’ opposition to Communism invariably led him to align with US foreign
policy, while his earlier opposition to the Trotskyists led him to preside over
their expulsion from the SP in 1937.
He’s not the benchmark I would use for the US left to take the measure of
Bernie Sanders.
>
> 1) took money directly from his good friend, CIA chief Allen Dulles, to help
> sustain the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA anti-Communist front, on
> whose board of directors Thomas sat;
>
> 2) helped the CIA to promote the Vietnamese dictator, Ngo Din Diem, and
> cancel the elections promised in 1956 under the Geneva Accords;
>
> 3) supported US-rigged elections in the Dominican Republic, held to
> legitimize the American invasion to oust the reformist leader, Juan Bosch in
> 1966;
>
> 4) signed a widely circulated statement denouncing the first big anti-Vietnam
> war protest in 1965, and warning people away, because the demonstration did
> not exclude people who called for the total and immediate withdrawal of US
> troops from Vietnam.
>
> I don't support Sanders, and think his foreign policy pronouncements are
> particularly pusillanimous, but he is not the State Department Socialist that
> Thomas was.
>
> Jim Creegan
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> pen-l mailing list
> pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu
> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
