Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 20:25:18 -0500
Subject: M-G: Hugh Rodwell's imitation of the "old man"


Hugh Rodwell:
>d) hopefully, organization at various levels, as militants from different
>currents make contact and work together on the big slogans of No War on
>Iraq, Troops out of the Persian Gulf, etc, and discover they have more in
>common on other questions than they realized before.
>
>Of course, all this is too cleancut and abstract as I've written it here.

This is the sort of communique that Trotsky used to dispatch to his world
movement in the 1930s. The phrase "too cleancut and abstract" is
echt-Trotsky. The problem is that Trotsky had led a worker's revolution,
defeated the counter-revolution when he was general of the Red Army and
could count on the support of thousands of militants on four continents. So
when Trotsky wrote to his Spanish followers, "But we must make sure in
advance that not the right wing, which combats the strikes, but the left
revolutionary wing will come closer to us," he was in touch with people who
trusted his advice.

Strategic advice coming from Hugh is nothing but self-delusion. He must
think to himself that his directives will taken seriously by Americans
because he has read a lot of Trotsky and does a passable imitation. (You
should hear my Che Guevara: "I felt great affection for Paco. We had known
each other since the Sierra Maestra days. He taught me the pleasures of
monkey tortillas.")

The only way people take suggestions like this seriously is when the person
issuing them has some kind of credentials. Hugh has been on the Spoons
lists for a couple of years now, but that doesn't count for much. It's only
cyberspace after all.

Louis Proyect



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