>>> "Chip Berlet" <cberlet at igc.org> 11/21/99 01:42PM >>>
Hi,
It is not anti-communist to say that one theory from the Party was shown by history to be flat out wrong.
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Charles: Well, it is anti-communist since history has not shown that the Party was flatout wrong. You haven't adduced any facts supporting your claim that the Party was flat out wrong. You just keep asserting it.
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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.
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Charles: Your use of "charming" and "loyalty" is derogatory, but you still haven't produced any proof. You know "documentation".
My argument is not based on being charming or loyalty. It is based on a longtime, sober, logical, rigorous review of world history in this epoch and century, most of which I learned before becoming a Marxist.
I already pointed out to you one big fact that blows a big hole in your repetitive conclusory ( i.e. unsupported) assertions : the Red Army inflicted the most damage on the fascists. But there is a lot more.
I have been rereading Dimitroff's arguments. Of course, the definition I have been giving is only a small aspect of that analysis , which is extremely cogent and evidently correct. I'll probably copy some of it on.
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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.
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Charles: I am not granting your claim that it is conspiracist rumor for starters. All dialectical materialism means in this case is that one reaches conclusions based on material and reliable evidence , really basically the same principle as legal evidence, pretty much. However , dialectical materialism, which is in its historical materialist aspect here, would make presumptions that the bourgeois ruling class is conscious enough to prepare to counter insurrections and uprisings, especially given the history of urban rebellions in the mid-20th Century. Of course, they could be so negligent or confident as to not prepare for that contingency in the next rise of the movement. But, given the historical facts, evidence, of the conduct of the bourgeoisie, including the U.S. bourgeoisie with COINTELPRO, a historical and dialectical materialist would presume that there is such a plan. When some "documentation" of such a plan becomes public, it is materialistic to give it credence.
The Christic Institute was not the only or sole source of left attention to this issue, as I recall.
By the way, I forgot that Tony A. stayed at my house while he was in Detroit touring on the issue. He is the one who was there at the bombed press conference , no ?
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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.
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Charles: If the only source was a rightwing source, I would be more skeptical, unless it was some disgruntled CIA agent. As for the right wing trash version, I happened to go to a local chat room just as we were discussing this and there was the reference to FEMA, coincidentally. The last time I considered the FEMA plot was about five years ago based on left wing sources, including the National Lawyers Guild and Latin American solidarity groups. I don't think that because some rightwinger starts talking about it now that that discredits it basically.
What I said specifically was that the CIA trafficking in drugs was featured by the LaRouchites in its latest headlining. The "fact base" on it came from tje Left back in the Iran-Contra days, and from the San Jose ( ?) Mercury, and then Congresswoman Waters. There had also been a Detroit Metrotimes article on a CIA plane drug courier crash in Michigan about 10 years ago. So, with all that non-right fact base, the LaRouchites saying it doesn't contaminate it. Otherwise , they could get us off of everything by just having LaRouche or some other rightwinger publish on things that were true (but we would disbelieve it as lefts taking from rights).
I said nothing about taking a political line from LaRouche.
Bottomline, I trust my ability to test claims such that I can read rightwing stuff and critique it for veracity. However, I don't read much rightwing stuff. The main reason to read it would be to know what your enemy is doing. Of course, most of that is not rightwingers exposing things.
(((((((((((((( Charles: Regarding the below, I am sorry to hear that the suit and plaintiffs and attorney fell apart so badly. First , let me say that the critique below is not directly on the issue of the FEMA plot. I have not expressed an opinion in this debate on the La Penca bombing in relation to the 30 year long activities ( all this stuff is coming back to me now). So, I do not have an opinion on the dispute between Sheehan and Avirgan (and you) regarding Sheehan's trial strategy.
Frankly, as an attorney, I will tell you what occurred to me when it became clear you were talking about the La Penca vs. 30 year long activities: There is no way in hell that a U.S. Court, especially still in the middle of the U.S. imperialist war on Central America, was going to convict some CIA operatives of the bombing. Radical advances are not going to come primarily through the courts. So, MAYBE , ( I'm speculating) Sheehan, knowing this, decided to use the trial as a poltical platform, exactly a political rally, to get as much publicity mileage out of it as possible. I don't know this to be true, and maybe you and Avirgan are correct that he messed up the case. But, I'd have to hear Sheehan's side of the story.
At any rate, I have not been arguing this aspect, only that there probably was some Oliver North FEMA plot, perhaps now gone, but perhaps still in effect. What the movement does with that knowledge , I'm not sure. When activism gets strong enough again, it may just mean beware of FEMA in the case of civil insurrection. But , the National Guard will be obvious enough anyway. We may have caused them to drop the FEMA plan just by the publicity, but we can be sure that if they did, they put in another contingency plan for the same purpose.
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Chip B.: 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.
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Charles: Yea, I looked at some of the online links, but there was no argumentation cogently refuting the exact issues I am arguing. You are not being very precise in saying back to me what I am saying, so I don't think you are quite rigorously focussed on my arguments , and therefore as to whether your other articles refute mine.
In fact, I have already read the above link, and it did not refute my arguments.
Comments like "petulant whining" really reflect more on the weakness of your argument than mine. There is no whining of any kind in what I am saying. The fact that you don't realize it just undercuts your arguments, as they represent resort to ad hominem and unsubstantiated name calling.
C.Brown
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-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.
>
>
>
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>
> Congratulations, you make my point again.
>
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>
> 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
>
>
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>
>
>