File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1998/marxism-general.9804, message 71


Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 14:44:36 -0700
From: David Stevens <phylstevens-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: M-G: WV Smears Militant as HUAC Collaborant -- McCarthyesque "I am Not Now and Never Have Been"


WV Smears Socialist Militant as HUAC Collaborant!
McCarthyesque "I am Not Now and Never Have Been"

 In yet another smear of a socialist militant,
identified as "M.L." in _Workers Vanguard_ No. 688
(10 April 1998), _WV_ places the letter under the
McCarthyistic header:

 "I Am Not Now and Have Never Been ..." !!!

 The letter itself details the correspondent's
objection to having been libeled an "ex-member"
of the fake-socialist Cliffite ISO [International
Socialist Organization, affiliated to the British
SWP].  The letter writer, citing adherence to
Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, rejects the
charge of former ISO affiliation, calling it
the political libel which it is.

 Yet even while reluctantly conceding that their
former charge was untrue, the official organ of
the Spartacist League prints this letter under
the repugnant words:

  "I Am Not Now and Have Never Been ..." !!!

 Comrades in UK mightn't appreciate what this shit
means, because I dunno if the witch-hunts in the
Labour Party were ever conducted with the fervor
and faith the late 1940s to 1950s United States
exhibited during what's called the McCarthy era.
I don't think so ...

 Both US Senator Joe McCarthy's investigating
committee in the US Senate, and its equivalent
in the House of Representatives, called the
"House Un-American Activitees Committee," HUAC.
And contrary to the way bourgeois liberalism
writes the history texts, it didn't unfucking
die with Joe McCarty, either.  (HUAC lived on
to contend with the antiwar movement of the
1960s-1970s.  I forget whatever the name of 
the current equivalents are).

 What was considered "Un-American"?  Well,
you see, that was for the committee to decide.

 These committees would _sub poena_ witnesses to
compel them to answer questions like "Are you
now or have you ever been" a [member of the
Communist Party, member of the Socialist Workers
Party, member of any organization the committee
deems to be a front organization, or a subversive
organization, or a front for a subversive org, or
else a front for the front of an organization that
might become subversive given half a chance ...].

 A witness who didn't answer questions would
go to jail.  A witness who answered the questions
would be compeled to answer more questions.  
Questions about their friends and associates
and their friends' and associates' politicial
views and their friends' and associates' 
acquaintances' presumed views, and so on.

 Not only revolutionists, but many principled
bourgeois civil libertarians, refused to answer
any of those questions, and would be jailed for
contempt of Congress.

 But the people who would fink out were always
forced (in a sort of Orwellian Winston Smith way
if they could pretend to be believed) to swear:

  "I Am Not Now and Have Never Been ..." a
[fill-in-the-blank-with-accusation, in the
current instance the charge of being a former
member of the ISO].

 So -- in essence -- by tagging the letter with
that headline -- WORDS THE WRITER NEVER USED --
_Workers Vanguard_ essentially is accusing this
socialist militant of rolling over link a fink.
 
 This is outrageous.  First, _WV_ politically
libels this comrade by declaring against clear
evidence that the comrade is "a former ISOer".

 Now, _WV_ wants to pretend that only a fink
would have called them on it!
  
 Whatever the sort of politics that motivated
the Spartacists to place those words:

 "I Am Not Now and Have Never Been ..." !!!

 in front of this letter, it is disingenuous,
demagogic and stultifying -- repugnant to the
interests of political elucidation and therefore
working class self-emancipation and therefore
revolutionary Trotskyism -- for _Workers Vanguard_
to smear a principled socialist opponent as a fink.

 _Workers Vanguard_ should be ashamed of themselves.
Clearly, they are not.  This was published as an
ostensible _correction_ of the smear published in
_Workers Vanguard_, No. 686, 13 March 1998!  One
must presume that they've had time to say what
they mean with all the accuracy and precision 
that the world workingclass should expect from
the Spartacist League and _Workers Vanguard_.

      Down with HUAC Socialism!
 Against Libel, and Against McCarthyesque Smears!

- David Stevens


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