I really agree with Carrol Cox on this. The lessons of Witch Hunts is that it is crucial not to start cutting off your political colleagues one by one, no matter how much it seems politically expedient to do so. Making clear your own views and disagreements with others is one thing, but if we let the political right determine the boundaries of our movement, we are cutting holes in our own liferaft. We are in this together. Carrol Cox makes me crazy sometimes, but if he was targetted by a smear campaign I would expect all of us to rise up in his defense as a matter of principle. Ward is not the first to be targeted and he will not be the last. We are entering an ugly period in political life here in the U.S. Ask yourself what a progressive historian will say in fifty years about how we stood together or fell one by one.
No More Witch Hunts!
Chip Berlet
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From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org on behalf of Carrol Cox Sent: Thu 2/17/2005 11:00 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Terrain of Struggle was O'Reilly vs Churchill
snit snat wrote:
>
> YOu need another third who doesn't hate you or disrepsect you enough to
> trot off to the other third's side when things heat up. The WCs of the
> world do us no favors in that regard.
There will ALWAYS be Weatherman groups. There will ALWAYS be Ward Churchills. There will ALWAYS be Michael Puglieses. There will ALWAYS be Sparacist factions. There will ALWAYS be Nathan Newmans. There will ALWAYS be SLAs. There will ALWAYS be provocateurs. There will ALWAYS be Bob Avakians. There will ALWAYS be Michael Dawsons. There will ALWAYS be worse things than any of these. Get used to it or get out of the kitchen. It's simply the terrain that leftists or left organizations have to operate on, and it is silly to caterwaul about it. If a left can't operate on that kind of terrain (or worse) than a left or even an imitation left can't operate, period.
Carrol
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