[lbo-talk] Hey Brad

[Michael Pugliese]

Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 22:32:50 -0400
From: "Sam Friedman" <sam.friedman at ndri.org>
To: <psn at csf.colorado.edu>Subject: Re: Cuba petition (Chomsky, Zinn, Ariel 
Dorfman et. al.)
I have not yet decided whether to sign the petition, but I want to say
that the argument that it "breaks left unity" is silly at best, perhaps
much worse.  It reminds me of all the times people accused anyone who
protested against Russian injustices of breaking left unity.  The
problem with this whole approach is that it obscures, perhaps spits on,
the question of what the left is for.   
I and many of the signers of this petition--and many non-signers, too, I
suspect, but I have not seen a list of all the signers--think that the
left has to be for working class revolutionary democracy.  No matter
what else Cuba may be, it is not that.  And the history of Cuban
repression does not suggest anything like workers democracy.   
To be blunt, many of those who oppose this petition have a conception of
socialism and the left that is very different from what I seek.  I hope
that the struggle will win them over, but until it does, they may be
fellow members of the anti-imperialist struggle, but they are not
members of a viable left because their goal is not democratic, it is not
a society run by the working class, and it is not socialist.
 
best
sam
 
>>> Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> 04/24/03 21:58 PM >>>
 
 
CyberBrook wrote:
>  
> How do you reconcile that I signed the petition and I don't have
> "hostility to Cuban socialism"? And because of the former, you think
> I'll have "blood on [my] hands"? How kind of you to give us such
> power, but you're delusional at best.
> For peace and justice everywhere, Dan
 
I have accused no one of "hostility to Cuban socialism," but i do accuse
you and all who signed this petition of utter indiffence to the task of
building left unity in the U.S. Nothing in my adult life (born 1930, so
this measures from, say, 1945) or in my political life on the left (from
about 1965) has been such a utterly mindless breaking of unity in what I
can only regard as an act of self-regarding moralistic masturbation. I'm
deeply shocked and hurt that such persons as Chomsky, you, and Zinn
should show such contempt for the future of the left in the United
States.
 
I doubt you are hostile to Cuban socialism. I think you have simply made
an utterly unforgivable mistake. For 30 years I've held a grudge against
the Weathermen for their role in destroying the embryonic left of the
'60s. You are doing the same for the embyronic left of the 2003. How I
ever trust you, or you ever trust me, after this act of betrayal.
 
Carrol Cox