Date: Tue, 9 Dec 1997 08:02:51 +0000
From: Gerry Downing <gerry-AT-gerryd.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: Re: M-G: Troskyist reply to LCMCRI! (Zeke)



And Zeke contribution - I should say miserable, crawling and pathetic
contribution to inject the correct sectarian athmosphere into the debate
- is a perfect example of how to avoid the political substance of a
debate by stupid name calling.

This is the third time now to challenge the ICL (sorry if 'Sparts'
offends) to say why arming individual workers is the same as arming the
working class as a class. In Britain extreme right-wing arguments for
arming the police on the beat has suffered a big set-back by the banning
of handguns. We cannot transpose the norms of a revolutionary situation
when the working class is challenging for state power and therefore need
to be armed, to non-revolutionary situations. 

And your piece on Afghanistan is equally dishonest. Why do you not reply
to the polemic of your own deceased comrade, Dale Ross, who spelled out
in great detail the totally opposite transitional method approach to
dealing with the Mullahs and the oppressed women? But then you would be
required to think through some contradictions and that would be too much
to ask. If you think the Red Army of 1920 is the same as the 'Red Army'
of 1980 there is little hope that you might begin the painful process.

90% illiteracy makes socilaist revolution impossible, does it? You
should have been around in Russia in 1917 to let the Bolsheviks in on
that one. They would have immediatedly seen the stupidity of their
efforts and ceded the leadership to the 90% illiterate Russian masses to
the Mensheviks.

Gerry Downing

In message <199712090614.BAA48544-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>,
ZEKE-AT-pseud.pseud writes
>In two rather long letters Gerry Downing tries to answer the "Sparts" or the 
>International Communist League and their politics. In fact this miserable 
>attempt by Downing shows more of his appetite to tail the "Iranian" Mullahs 
>as their left face in some sort of "anti-imperialist revolution and his love 
>for popular front politics. While at the same time trying to find a working 
>class in Afghanistan which even he finds difficult and admits between the 
>lines that 90% (!) of the Afghan peoples can't even read or write!
>
>The other letter is and attempt to argue European petty bourgeois morals on 
>the gun issue. Well, even here in Sweden the working class is armed to the 
>teeth. Albight for different reasons then in the US and communists defend 
>the right of workers to bear arms. 
>
>Gerry's softness on the anti-imperialist Mullahs and his backhanded 
>arguements supporting the capitalist state's attempts to disarm workers 
>while arming the cops to the teeth is the arguement of the traditions and 
>politics of the Second International..
>
>Above and beyond this his crawling before the "New" labor party of Tony 
>Blair is despicable.
>
>But I do not think that these things are appropriate for M-intro. However 
>anybody interested in these discussions can contact me and I can show you 
>where to get the arguements and polemics around these questions..
>
>Warm regards
>Zeke
>
>
>
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-- 
Gerry Downing


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