Is it really any wonder, given the recent history in particular, that we see terms such as "authoritarian" bandied about, sometimes in a slack-jawed manner, sometimes, as you say, in the same manner that the Right would use the term "un-American" or "Communist"?
THAT SAID, I think we're presented with an opportunity to contextualize the concepts behind the term, rather than ban its usage. (Though, if the word in and of itself causes a wincing effect, one might consider simply making a mental habit of replacing it with another when read. It is, after all, just a word, and words can be confusing!) For example, the function of the State, as an entity bound to use violence to uphold the interests of a particular class, is certainly authoritarian, as posited by Engels and the like. This is certainly true of states regardless of whether they are left or right.
You ask, then, which leftists are authoritarians. Certainly the notion of accountability, as you mention below, is separate from that of authoritarianism, when it comes to collectively-made decisions. But adherence to a certain picket line, for example, with no critical inquiry into its purpose or knowledge of what's going on, strikes me as authoritarian, or perhaps dogmatic. (Note: I am not saying this is what you or anyone else is doing.) And I imagine this point becomes more salient for leftists in light of the failures of organized labor, despite the obvious importance of the working class and the labor movement in general.
Your point (2) below to me seems problematic in that I'm not sure that accountability can be causally linked to pragmatism. Left history in the US seems to bear out the failures of "doing what it takes to actually win," which often seems to come at the expense of genuine accountability. The pragmatism of leftist Kerry campaigners, and their lack of ability to gain mass support and a "win" for the Democratic party, on the basis of a campaign of negative assertion against a certain Other, is perhaps the most recent evidence of this failure. Similarly, the left in the '60s failed to gain much ground with its (often careless) invocations of Stalinist "appeasment" or Maoist third-worldism as applied to the situation on the ground in Babylon (I think it was Carroll who went into some of these details a couple of days ago).
I think the position of capitalists in the US in 2005, counterposed to their position in-- oh, say-- Russia in 1917, should allow us to at least hesitate a little in our desire to rebuff those who refer to themselves as "anti-authoritarian," etc. The advances of capitalism have objectively provided more opportunity for a diversity of tactics for the organizing of workers. If the failure of nearly all of the "actually-existing socialist" (or "left-nationalist", or "state-capitalist", or whatever) states, mirrored by the failures of the organized labor bureaucracies, do not prove this, I don't know what else does.
--adx
And which leftists are "authoritiarians" according to this functional definition? Those who suggest that (1) there are certain standards to which we're all bound to adhere if we're to call ourselves progressives, and we all have some responsibilities as well as the "right" to act out, and we should be held accountable to abiding by collective and democratically-arrived-at decisions; and (2) maybe leftists should do what it takes to actually win, and that more than occasionally involves holding ourselves and others accountable.
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