[lbo-talk] Was: Principled Discoursing More like off My head

[Carrol Cox]

John Lacny wrote a letter to CounterPunch accusing not only CounterPunch
but anyone who supported Nader or didn't support the DP this election
was a splitter, a traitor, and just as bad as Horowitz. There had been
some chat about that on the Marxism list. That chat had contained some
(more or less justifiable) slurs at CPUSA policy in the late '30s. I
posted somewhat to the effect that while there were certainly warts on
the CP of the '30s, in many ways it was way above Lacny, who was
becoming all wart or something like that. I referred to that in one of
the posts I was writing under the subject line above, and got an
explosive reply from Lacny. I replied equally explosively, to the effect
(among other things) that I was not about to try to carry on a civil
conversation with someone who called me a traitor. (I'm no admirer of
Nader or his politics, but his candidacy is one of the ways those of us
who oppose climbing on the DP bandwagon in November can express that
disinclination.)

My main point was that by throwing around charges of "splitter" and
"traitor" over failure to support Kerry Lacny was threatening _future_
cooperation in opposing u.s. imperialism. After all, whoever wins next
November, the empire trudges on and we have to build opposition.

Does that clear it up enough? If not, let me know & I'll try to both
condense _and_ expand it.

Carrol