-In the 1920s, the CP were often tactically idiots. CB: What was idiotic about their tactics ?
They engaged in a serious of internal and external fights that led to internal splits and cut them off from most other organizations. They built few allies and accomplished little.
- But in the 1930s I -would have been a critical fellow traveler with the CP on a whole range of -domestic issues, criticizing them on foreign policy
CB: Why would you be crictical of their foreign policy ?
Let's see-- they opposed Hitler, then supported peace with Hitler, than switched around and became so gung-ho for WWII they enforced no strike clauses with more pro-management gusto than the Reutherites.
And of course, they uncritically supported a dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
-My criticism of the WWP/Workers World folks is not just their bad foreign -policy but that their analysis -- which is stupider and more vile than the -CP's "Popular Front" views by far --
CB: What's stupid and vile about the WWP ?
I think we've been here, but praising the North Korean regime and murder by the Chinese government of dissidents at Tiannemen Square is vile. As was their cheerleading of Saddam Hussein's regime during the 1980s.
-If you set out to stop a war and fail, you're strategy was dumb. See -definition of dumb under ANSWER.
CB: So, it's a bit too early to decide whether WWP is smart or dumb by this criterion. What about your section of the left ? Pretty dumb at stopping the war ,no ?
My section of the left? Which is that? Oh yeah-- I forgot the cheap tactic of excusing failure by accusing the critic of not themselves leading the revolution single-handedly.
But my point is stronger than that ANSWER failed to stop the war. Their existence made the war more likely, since they were such an easy caricature of anti-war opposition for the neoconservatives to play off. It was either them or the cheerleaders for Saddam Hussein-- which helped push a lot of moderates towards supporting the war.
But this is my point. You excuse ANSWER despite the clear failure of the antiwar movement, shown by the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and an ongoing occupation despite its unpopularity. And you actually say it's "too earlier" to tell whether ANSWER failed.
In some ways Bush is right about the "soft bigotry of low expectations." It just applies to the antiwar Left's tolerance for total incompetence in its leadership.
Nathan Newman