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I posted the forwarded message below to Solidarity's membership
list-serve a little while ago.
I am posting it here because
a) I am a Leninist, and if discussing "internal" problems in public was
good enough for Lenin, it's good enough for me;
b) The national leadership and staff has not managed to fix the national
membership list-serve so even if I WANTED to keep the discussion
"internal" that would be impossible unless I abandon all efforts to
raise these problems beyond a few individuals;
c) The national leadership acted in bad faith when it refused to accept
their proposal's defeat due to overwhelming membership abstention and
extended the deadline at a time when discussion through the national
online discussion bulletin was impossible, and
d) The leadership's proclaiming a new basis of political agreement
"approved" when no-one had ANYTHING to say about it until I spoke up,
and when I did the rest of the membership never saw what I said, shows a
peculiar idea of democratic functioning that --frankly-- suggests to me
it would be a mistake to take their probity for granted in any serious
matter.
Obviously, the sort of statement I have just made, in a serious
political organization, would be a declaration of war, a pledge to
organize a public faction against the leadership of the group.
However, I am not calling on people in Soli to organize a faction
because my point is precisely that Solidarity has lost the capacity to
function as a serious political organization, as the main vehicle
through which its members define themselves politically and coordinate
their political activities.
I have tended to view Solidarity in this way since our spectacular
failure to act as a serious political organization in relation to the
Occupy movement, and I hope the national leadership takes on the task of
thinking through what this means, instead of goofily proclaiming
approval of a new fundamental basis of political agreement AS IF anyone
(apart from me and one or two indicudals in the current leadership)
gave a flying fuck about it.
Joaquín
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Solidarity] Basis of Political Agreement Referendum Results
Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 00:51:36 -0500
From: Joaquín Bustelo <jbust...@gmail.com>
To: i...@solidarity-us.org, solidar...@groupspaces.com
On 1/7/2014 12:58 PM, i...@solidarity-us.org wrote:
Solidarity's referendum on our Basis of Political Agreement has resulted
in a majority YES on all points, and the constitutional quorum requirement
of 1/3 of membership voting has been met, so the text is approved.
I ask that the Political Committee, the National Committee, and failing
that, the next convention, declare this referendum null and void on the
basis that the only member (AFAIK) who expressed a critical view of this
proposal was prevented from communicating it to the rest of the membership.
Without challenging that this was due to technical problems of the
service provider (groupspaces), and not suggesting at all that this was
due to any intentional action or inaction of Solidarity's elected
national leadership or staff, the FACT that my article, the sole
substantive discussion article (whether for or against) on the proposal
that I am aware of, was never seen by the membership, and that it was a
very critical article, makes the claim that the points of unity were
approved akin to Microsoft's claims that its click-through licenses are
fair since so few people reject them.
Especially when you consider it from my point of view, that the fact
that no one else has had anything to say for or against this proposal to
completely redefine the basis of our organization's existence in either
the pre-convention discussion or the post-convention referendum
discussion shows that this is basically the socialist equivalent of a
motherhood-and-apple-pie July 4th speech.
In the latter case, the speech may seem innocuous but it is used to
bolster imperialist arrogance and aggression.
In our case, the "adoption" of the statement only deepens our refusal to
look at reality and call things by their right names: Occupy, a profound
political earthquake and upsurge was "related to" by Solidarity from the
outside (in the best of cases). Though it challenged corporate privilege
and capitalist rule in a much more profound and sweeping way than the
Wisconsin fight that prepared the ground for it, we welcomed the latter
(at least verbally) qualitatively more enthusiastically than the Occupy
movement.
And I believe the explosion and collapse of the Madison branch in the
wake of the Wisconsin battle is also rooted in the political
disorientation and instinctive sectarianism that our reaction to the
Occupy upsurge showed.
Basically, we've got our heads stuck up our asses so far it is coming
out of our throats.
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