It is not anti-communist to say that one theory from the Party was shown by history to be flat out wrong. It is charming that you continue to promote the Dimitroff line, but loyalty doesn't make the theory any better today than it was when it was formulated.
For someone who claims to honor dialectical materialism, I am confounded by your insistence that believing conspiracist rumor is appropriate, apparently because the end of discrediting the bad, bad government justifies the means of adopting right wing parodies of anti-elite analysis. Christic did more to woo leftists for the conspiracist right than it did to introduce an anti-imperialist critique.
There was a FEMA plan that was formulated by North that was a civil liberties nightmare. You proposed reading the hyperbolic trash version from a right wing crank, I proposed reading the progressive analysis. You can't wiggle out of that.
Are you seriously suggesting that we take our fact base and political line from the LaRouchites? Lie down with fascists get up with Christic. By the end they were openly working with Bo Gritz.
The judge threw out the case because it was prepared in an incompetant manner. Sheehan's own clients tried to get him disbarred:
here is a statement by Tony Avirgan:
=== "It's sad that these issues have to be raised by `outsiders' such as Berlet. But the truth is that criticism-self criticism, an essential tool in any social movement, has never been tolerated by the leaders of the Christic Institute. Those who criticized the legal work of Sheehan were labeled as enemies and ignored.
"There were, indeed, numerous undocumented allegations in the suit, particularly in Sheehan's Affidavit of Fact. As plaintiffs in the suit, Martha Honey and I struggled for years to try to bring the case down to earth, to bringing it away from Sheehan's wild allegations. Over the years, numerous staff lawyers quit over their inability to control Sheehan. We stuck with it--and continued to struggle--because we felt that the issues be ing raised were important. But this was a law suit, not a political rally, and the hostile judges latched on to the lack of proof and the sloppy legal work.
"The case, before it was inflated by Sheehan, was supposed to center on the La Penca bombing. On this, there is a strong body of evidence here in Costa Rica. It is enough evidence to get a reluctant Costa Rican judiciary to indict two CIA operatives, John Hull and Felipe Vidal, for murder and drug trafficking. Unfortunately, little of this evidence was successfully transformed into evidence acceptable to U.S. courts. It was either never submitted or was poorly prepared. In large part, this was because Sheehan was concentrating on his broad, 30-year conspiracy.
"The exercise Berlet suggested--breaking each allegation down and compiling evidentiary proof for it--was indeed undertaken by competent lawyers on the Christic Institute staff. But it was an exercise begun too late. The case had already been spiked by Sheehan's Affidavit.
"We feel that it is important to openly discuss these things so that similar mistakes are avoided in the future."
===
Once again, I suggest reading my opus, especially the section on Christic:
http://www.publiceye.org/rightwoo/Rwooz-09.htm#P296_102053
It is not fair to keep asking questions that are answered in my longer published works when I provide the online links.
I choose not to respond to those comments that are petulant whining.
-Chip Berlet
----- Original Message ----- From: Charles Brown <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, November 21, 1999 12:24 PM Subject: Re: Proto-fascist structure
>
>
> >>> "Chip Berlet" <cberlet at igc.org> 11/20/99 09:06PM >>>
> Hi,
>
> I challenge your belief in the Christic allegations about FEMA. They were
> repackaged from the Liberty Lobby Spotlight newspaper and from the
LaRouche
> intelligence network.
>
> ((((((((((((
>
> Charles: Now that you remind me, I recall the Miami Herald article as the
origin of this story. Are you saying the Miami Herald story was repackaged
Right wing ideas ?
>
> Was there or was there not, in your view, a FEMA plan, whether some
rightwingers distorted it or not ? If yes, then, the Christic Institute
alerted many to investigate it, even if their portrayal was not entirely
accurate.
>
> Why is it that the Chrisitic Institute was silenced by the federal
court/government , and you were not ? If the Christic Institute was
rendering such a disservice to the truth, why was it silenced by that court
order, as I recall ?
>
> The LaRouchites also putforth the accusations of CIA trafficking in
cocaine. Do you thereby think that claim is false too ?
>
> Unfortunately, the CIA knows that LaRouchites etc. discredit claims for
many, so , they could take true claims and publish them through LaRouche to
discredit them, as with the CIA cocaine story.
>
> Spy vs Spy is tricky.
>
>
>
> ((((((((((
>
> Congratulations, you make my point again.
>
> ((((((((((
>
> Charles:
>
> Congratulations, what is your point ?
>
> You have a lot of data, but your reasoning is not quite up to snuff. We
congratulate you on your empirical work, but your political theory for
analyzing it leaves something to be desired.
>
> I pointed out one of the weaknesses in your analysis, lack of a cogent
theory of class struggle. I would add that the tone of your comments to me
evinces a level of anti-communism. So, not surprisingly your analysis of
fascism leaves out or downplays another critical defining charateristic of
it: anti-communism. From what I see, you also don't place enough emphasis on
the centrality of racism especially in the U.S. context.
>
> Weak class analysis, anti-communism, and weak analysis of racism are
rather critical defects in a theory analyzing U.S. potential fascism.
>
>
> Your responses to my posts demonstrate that you subscribe to a brand of
typcial left-liberal , dogmatic anti-communism, including arrogating to
yourself intellectual superiority to classic Marxist concepts and analysis,
to the extent that you dismiss out of hand my discussion. The is par for
the course around here, but again and again it has been demonstrated that
classic Marxist concepts and analysis are actually more cogent than all the
fancy , new petit bourgeois intellectual fads.
>
> The other point of course is that your anti-communist theory did very
little to win the enormous struggle to get rid of real fascism, while , as I
said , the Red Army did much more than the Western countries in this task.
Actions speak louder than words when it comes to who has the best
anti-fascist approach, knows what it is, etc.
>
>
>
> Keep up the good work, but work on your political theory a little.
>
>
> C.Brown
>
>
>
>
>
>