<div>More to the point, Doug Ireland's response is unhelpful. Every coalition I've ever been in has had elements that could barely stomach each other. In Boston, Berrigan Catholics couldn't sit in the same room with pro-choice feminists back in the day, and the anti-busing movement contained working class elements I dearly wanted to relate to but couldn't. I had to pick a side, and I did--I rode on the buses protecting the school kids, and nothing short of busing was going to break up the old racist Boston school committee --but I always felt it was a lose/lose situation. Ireland writes as though the fight against homophobia is one dimensional, and not a tactical minefield in the context of waging war against imperialism in the Middle East. What would I do as a Brit? I haven't a clue. I'd like to think there'd be the space to be a defender of gay rights among Muslims and Muslim rights among gays and workers power among both, but there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. Politics is not science, despite our pretensions. The only thing I know for sure is that the kind of certitude Doug Ireland exhibits in his reply to" Lenin" doesn't help. And Lenin, is the SWP really, really the only road to a new Jerusalem? I liked Cliff plenty in my time (Chris Harmen, too) but don't kid a kidder.   </div> <div> </div> <div>Mike Hirsch    </div> <div>On 11/26/05, www.leninology. <a href="http://blogspot.com">blogspot.com</a> <<a href="mailto:leninology@hotmail.com">leninology@hotmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Michael, thanks for going to all that effort on Google.  I would have happily supplied you with any info you wanted on the unhappy gibbon, but if a session on a search engine makes you feel like a private dick, I am certainly not inclined to stop you.  However: >    Ruthless? I've always thought Bolsheviks were a bit tougher than >this whining. I am tough.  I swear.  I once walked all the way home from school with a splinter in my toe, and I didn't cry once.  However, the Greens did react more or less as I suggested to the possibility of a broad left radical coalition, and they have continued much as before - although following the May elections, there were some statements from within the organisation about the possibility of more cooperation with Respect etc. Incidentally, isn't all this sniggering about 'whining' and so on a little, well, masculinist? _________________________________________________________________ MSN Messenger 7.5 is now out. Download it for FREE here. <a href="http://messenger.msn.co.uk">http://messenger.msn.co.uk</a> ___________________________________ <a href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk </a> </blockquote></div> -- ________________________________________ `And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again -- again -- again-- `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.' --------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]