Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 13:52:07 -0700
From: Juan Rafael Fajardo <fajardos-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: M-G: Re: COMMITTEE -- Reply to Bob M. and Vlad B.'s statements and a request to reconsider resigning


Comrades,

A storm has certainly broken out and I will admit that I, personally,
don't entirely understand why this is so.  Let me assure you however
that no one is as saddened by these developments as I.

I have been unfairly accused of a couple of things.  I shall attempt to
address these in order to explain my point of view on the matter, and
what I have to say will be taken seriously.


1. ON VLAD B.'S STATEMENTS AND CONCERNS

On May 9th, some-one named Andrew Allen Walton posted to M-G on May 9th,
from the address <revcom-AT-hn.pl.net>, asking to join the nascent
committee seeking to form a new OPEN list.   I thought this was good,
after all, please, all, recall that I had been frequently making appeals
to others to join and insisting that ANY member of M-G had a right to
participate.  Until Mr. Walton's post no reply had been forthcoming.  I 
had no reason to suspect Mr. Walton, having never read anything from him
nor had any contact with him previously.  I was glad that someone was
volunteering to join the effort, but saw that we had yet to decide on
the procedures to enlarge the committee.  I took it upon myself to email
Vlad, Rolf, and Bob the following message on May 9th:

 
> > Rolf wrote the following on May 9th:
> >
> > > Let's constitute ourselves, we 4, as a committee.
> > >
> > > I suggest that, *if* someone else steps forward (or several others
> > > do) and expressly want(s) to be included, we 4 consider jointly
> > > whether to include that person or those persons or not. He/she
> > > would have to be an advocate of openness [...] They'd have to be
> > > accepted by (at least) 3 out of us 4, I suggest.
> >
> > I agree with this, and propose that we proceed in this manner in
> > relation to the person who is now interested in joining the committee,
> > Andrew Allen Walton <revcom-AT-hn.pl.net>.  As the charter has, in effect,
> > been approved, he'd have to subscribe to it to be accepted as a
> > committee member for the new list.  If he did that, I'd have no
> > objection to him joining us.  I shall email him informing him of that
> > provision and asking him to read the charter and wait for our decision.
> >
> > What do you guys think? Please respond quickly.
> >
> > - Juan

To which Vlad replied, also on May 9th:

>   Fine. Vlad

I emailed Walton a message which I Cc'd to Vlad, Rolf, and Bob,
explaining to him that he would need to read and edorse the charter,
which I saw as having been approved (more on this later).

Then,  Walton posted a statement renouncing Trotskyism and endorsing
Maoism.  To this Vlad replied:

> What's the fuck is going on?  Is this how you understand "openness", Rolf
> and Juan?

Now, I confess here, that I don't understand how Vlad arrived at the
issue of "openness" drawing from Walton's post.   Walton said nothing
attacking openness, but he has yet to endorse the charter.   Why do you
suspect something underhanded is going on Vlad?  Just because this guy
agrees with Rolf?  

Walton's "profession of faith"struck me as an odd sort of thing to post,
and not politically in line with my own views, but I have no problem
working with people who disagree with me on political issues; my
willingness to work with Vlad, Rolf, and Bob, ALL three of whom I have
serious disagreements with on a diversity of issues is a proof of that,
but I don't make the disagreements notorious in the context of this work
- the creation of a new list.  In that task what matters is the points
of agreement: namely openness on the list, and transparent dealings. 
That is why ALL my correspondence and proposals concerning the new list
efforts and the creation of a committee to accomplish that task -except
as pertaining to Walton- were posted to M-G, often Cc'd to M-Transition
as well, and often Cc'd directly to Vlad, Rolf, and Bob.  As for Walton,
I wrote one note about his offer to join the committee, which I did not
post to M-G but sent to Vlad, Rolf, and Bob (and which is reprinted
above).  My direct correspondence to Walton consists of two notes, one
which I Cc'd to Vlad, Bob, and Rolf, and a second which consisted solely
of the new list charter, which all three other committee members had
already seen or received (I hadn't yet heard from Bob), for which reason
I saw no need to Cc.

In spite of these efforts at transparency on my part, Vlad, wonders:

> Now I don't know anything about you,  Juan.  Perhaps, you are just a stupid
> assle if you thought I would let you play this game with me. 

I am sorry you feel this way, Vlad, but I fail to understand what sort
of "game" you think I was using you for.   My intent has never been any
other than the creation of a new, open, list like M-G used to be, a
process started, incidentally, by your original "Call to Vote" some
weeks ago.  I am frankly sadened that I should be approached in this
manner as my dealings withother list members have never been anything
other than open and polite at all times.

As for Vlad's statement that:
 
> I inform you, "comrades," that I am resigning from your fake 
> committee because of my poor health.  I am also forming a 
> committee to prevent your committee from highjacking this list.

I am sorry to hear of his poor health.  I am also sorry that he sees an
attempt to "highjack" the list, I can only surmise that he assumses that
I'm a Maoist, and that Rolf, Walton, and I are acting together to turn
the list into a Maoist encampment. Nothing could be further from the
truth.

Vlad, I wish you'd reconsider that decision.


2.  RESPONSE TO BOB M.'S STATEMENTS

In regard to my update on May 9th on the call to vote on a proposed new
list charter indicating that there were three favorable votes among the
then-committee members, and that only Bob hadn't been heard from, and my
statement that "That means the proposal is carried and the new list will
have the proposed charter (Unless, I misinterpreted Vlad.)", Bob
replied: 

> Being that the vote was taken and "carried" without even waiting for any 
> reply from me I withdraw from cooperating in any way with this coup de
> tate! I suggest that Andy now take my place...I think he would pass in your
> little group of conspirators!

I admit I was a bit too quick on announcing that the motion was
"carried".  I should have waited for Bob's reply and I apologize for
this.  However, brashness should not be taken as tantamount to
conspiracy. 

Unfortunately Bob seems to be making the same assumption as Vlad that
there was some previous relationship between Walton and myself.  No such
relationship existed, and if it had, so what? Does that disqualify
anyone from membership in the committee?  What Rolf proposed and Vlad
and I, at least, had agreed to in principle was that any prospective
committee member agree to the charter and its overriding principle of
openness, and be approved by 3/4 of the existing committe members, not
that he or she agree with us on political matters.  If 100% political
agreement were something I was stuck on, neither Vlad, nor Bob, nor
Rolf, nor Walton, would be on any committee which included me. 
Fortunately (for me at least) I am not that type of person.

Bob, then continued:

> I also now will not paticipate in this attempt just because the people 
> involved already have put there ideas of "democracy" in place of the 
> principle of and open list. 
[...]
> Thirdly I disagree with the idea of "simple majority" as cutting across the
> fundamental principal of and open list..Either you have and open list
> period or you have a "democratic" simple majority list which is not open but is
> run according to what the human material in majority on the list at any given 
> time think is a good idea..


I don't understand how Bob can assume that "the people involved already
have put there ideas of 'democracy' in place of the principle of and
open list" when the charter which I proposed, and which Rolf, and, I
understood, Vlad,  approved of, EXPLICITLY called for openness,
non-moderation, no expulsions, no political lithmus tests.   The
"practice of taking decisions on the basis of a very few people" was
simply a matter of four individuals being all that had been working on
this issue and had stepped forward and agreed to participate on
acommittee in response to Rolf's proposal (which was for nine people);
for my part I consistently called for others to participate, let's
remember that shall we?  The practice of making decisions 
"according to simple majority rules"  was, in my mind, in regard to how
the committee should operate, NOT for what would go on on the list.  The
list should be fully open with no interference from the committee,
that's what I want.  Simple majority rules would apply to administrative
and financial decisions by the committee within the committee.  If
people had said they wanted to do it by consensus, that would've been
fine by me, but we needed some way to arrive at decisions.   In practice
I was clumsy, but I was not malicious.

As for Bob's comment that:

> However being that the new self constituted 
> threesome have decided to go ahead and make all the decisions before even 
> counting the votes, I say good luck and good bye.

Well, the "threesome" no longer exists, but I had hoped it would be a
"foursome" including Bob, and hopefully even more, a "half-dozen," a
"dozen".  So to Bob's comment that:

> [...] I think Dave B. ,Hugh, 
> Stuward, Neil (our list bordigist) and others (not in the least numerous 
> "Cockroach" subscribers like Brown, Zuus, some of their Japanese friends) 
> certainly can be on the list as consistent fighters for the principle of
> and open unmoderated list.. 

I say yes! all are welcome --as long as we can agree on the project, and
so far that has been the creation of an open and unmoderated list-- and
I have been saying so for days and weeks.

Bob later adds,

> First I must say I have nothing against the new attempt by Juan, Rolf and 
> Vlad to create a new list over at Blythes.
[...]
> 
> I agree that marxism (unmoderated) is and important point to make in light 
> of the numerous moderated lists now being served up by numerous
> people..Just  because Marxism stands for arguing on the basis of history 
> and living class struggle and not just one groups ideas of this stuff..

Bob, I hope that you mean this, and that you will reconsider your
withdrawal from the project. 


3.  CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROJECT

Who knows?  Sure, Rolf and I could continue the work on our own, but
this whole fracas leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.  I hate to see
the old joke about having four Marxists and ending up with five factions
coming true in its own sad way in regard to my well-intentioned and
honest attempts to give our project some shape and get it moving
forward.   

I shall have to take some time to think about whether I can spare the
time and the money that would be implied by having only two people do
the work, if that's what it ends up being.

We shall see.

- Juan

Ps:

As for the issue of my citing M2 as a having been an open list, which
both Rolf and Bob have pointed out it was not, I was going off of
statements made on M-G which reflected positively on M2.  I don't know
how it was, as I got on-line after its demise, but I had heard of the
original Marxism List very favorably for some time before that.  I
included M2 in the list of open lists --along with M1 and M-G (as it
used to be)-- which I saw as inspiring Marxsim List (Non-Moderated) due
to this misconception, and as an effort to explain why the acronym
"M3".  It should not be taken as anything other than an inclusion due to
my ignorance.



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