> > Is it your touchstone of ideological purity to have nothing to do
>> with anyone or anything associated with the Workers World Party?
>
>No. Unlike you, Yoshie, I'm not interested in academic left parlor games. Do
>you honestly believe that the average working person, with whom you seem to
>have little contact (judging from your posts) would take the WWP seriously,
>especially once they were exposed to its rhetoric and desire for
>control? I want nothing to do with the WWP because they are fascists and
>parasites. But you are free to frolic with the supporters of Chinese
>Stalinism, which I can see you have no trouble doing.
>
>> Why not,
>> then, make not working with AFL-CIO officials the litmus test, since
>> you say "You cannot apologize for state terror on the one hand, then
>> convincingly oppose it on the other"?
>
>Actually, I was opposed to the AFL-CIO when I was active in Central American
>issues during the 80s, given that their then-leader, Lane Kirkland, was
>pro-contra. But like the Teamsters, there are dissidents in the AFL-CIO, and
>the ones I came in contact with during that period were truly committed to
>stopping Reagan's wars and thus were in oppositon to the national union's
>stance.
Why do you think that all who have ever participated in any event organized by the Workers World Party are either "fascists and parasites" & "Chinese Stalinists" or supporters of such, whereas you have no trouble seeing a range of opinions among AFL-CIO officials? Since Lucius Walker was one of the speakers at the S29 rally in D.C., are you now going to write off IFCO/Pastors for Peace altogether? What of Leslie Feinberg, Barbara Lubin, Howard Zinn, Graylan Hagler, Sakhi, the SOA Watch, & other individuals & orgs that endorsed and/or participated in the S29 rally?
> > Is there any reason you think that the Workers World Party's support
>> for the Chinese state is a larger threat to the workers of the world
>> than the AFL-CIO officialdom's support for U.S. foreign policy?
>
>I think it's a threat to Chinese workers, many of whom toil in prison
>sweatshops turning out product for China's foreign investors. As for the
>AFL-CIO, see above.
So, if the Workers World Party changes its position on China to match yours, will no Chinese worker be toiling in prison sweatshops to enrich China's foreign investors?
> > What
>> makes it OK to support strikers together with AFL-CIO officials but
>> not OK to work with Workers World organizers (among many others, mind
>> you) to get an anti-war movement going?
>
>You think the WWP is opposed to war?
It made its opposition to America's next war clear & acted accordingly quicker than most other left-wing outfits.
>I have a friend who was in Tienanmen
>Square during the crackdown. He spent the better part of eight hours face
>down on the pavement while a Chinese soldier periodically hit him with a
>rifle butt. All the while my friend heard students pleading for their lives
>and then being silenced with a couple of shots. Your buddies in the WWP
>celebrated this. That you can make common cause with these people is at best
>disgusting, at worst insane. Good luck with your "anti-war" movement,
>Yoshie.
I've made common cause with those who celebrated the advent of "democracy & the free market" in Russia, etc., depending on what circumstances of local organizing demanded.
Yoshie