>It's the (ex?) Catholic in me. Penance. Stalinism was the
>self-inflicted set of practices and ideological
>crudities/binaries/crimes against the Left by members of our
>extended family.
I'm an ex-Catholic too. And growing up under the Church's influence encourages some seriously neurotic behavior - guilt, self-reproach, sexual repression, etc. I just don't see any point in carrying it over into the political realm. Stalinism is dead. It's of almost no relevance to politics today. Obsessing about it serves no useful purpose except to rightwingers eager to discredit the left. It's especially irrelevant to bring it up out of nowhere. It looks like a taunt when you do.
Doug