Is it true the ISO gets funding from Liberal NGO's?

[ComradeAV]

I have recently been hearing that the trotskyist ISO has been getting funding from Liberal NGO's, I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am a Hoxhaist and oppose to trotskyism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander trotskyists, just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

[genstrike]

I have recently been hearing that the Hoxhaist American Party of Labor has been getting funding from the Tea Party, I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am an anarchist and oppose to Hoxhaism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander Hoxhaists, just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

[A Marxist Historian]

I have recently been hearing that the Hoxhaist American Party of Labor has been getting funding from the Tea Party, I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am an anarchist and oppose to Hoxhaism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander Hoxhaists, just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

Um, was that intended to be a No answer to the question from the Hoxha supporter? Or a Yes, but you guys do too, so Shaddup?

If a rumor like that is floating around, it needs to be answered not just sneered at. Whether there is any truth in it or not.

-M.H.-

[Revolutionair]

I have recently been hearing that the Democratic Party has been getting funding from the anarchist IWW, I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am a fascist and oppose to liberalism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander Democrats , just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

[khad]

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2010/364/400/2010-364400754-06b901f8-F.pdf

P. 15, Wallace Global Fund for $250k

It's funny that you're quibbling over something like this when the ISO makes far, far more money from their printing press.

[genstrike]

Although, in all seriousness, I do recall a thread a little while ago where the ISO's financial statements were looked at and it was raised that the ISO makes a small amount of money from investments (which, if I remember correctly, wasn't a heck of a lot - they just had a bit of money saved up in their account and decided to sock it away in a place where they can get a bit of a return on it).

As for funding from liberal NGOs, sometimes left groups and their front organizations seek out resources from non-revolutionary sources - say, getting an environmental NGO to co-sponsor the cost of booking a room for a talk on climate and capitalism, or having a campus front group take advantage of the funds available from student unions to student groups. But I can't imagine a lot of liberal NGOs lining up to fund the ISO - most of them would rather spend the money on themselves.

oh, BTW, I'm not a member or sympathizer of the ISO

[khad]

As for funding from liberal NGOs, sometimes left groups and their front organizations seek out resources from non-revolutionary sources - say, getting an environmental NGO to co-sponsor the cost of booking a room for a talk on climate and capitalism, or having a campus front group take advantage of the funds available from student unions to student groups. But I can't imagine a lot of liberal NGOs lining up to fund the ISO - most of them would rather spend the money on themselves.
Wallace Global Fund for $250,000.

[genstrike]

I would say that the Wallace fund is more of an endowment fund than an NGO, but what's the point?

All this proves is that someone in one of the ISO's front groups or a group that the ISO has some sort of close relationship with is moderately savvy when it comes to grant applications. Unless you can prove that the ISO's politics are influenced in some way by their "paymasters" in the Wallace Global Fund, it's no scandal (and believe me, their are bigger and more real problems with the politics of the ISO than influence by the Wallace fund). For example, I once won a scholarship funded by and named after a fairly prominent, now deceased, local Zionist - and used the money to fund a solidarity trip to Palestine.

Plus it looks like they make over twice as much just from sales of magazines and books.

To me, the more damning thing about that financial statement is the investments in Caterpillar - a company which is complicit in Israeli apartheid and which is a target for divestment by Palestine solidarity activists.

[RichardAWilson]

I don't see how there has been a violation of cause (I.e. influence on ISO Affairs by external sources).

[Jose Gracchus]

Obviously ten times as serious as supporting this: http://china.cat.com/cda/layout?m=63735&x=7

Because its a socialist challenge to backward productive forces.

[genstrike]

Obviously ten times as serious as supporting this: http://china.cat.com/cda/layout?m=63735&x=7

Because its a socialist challenge to backward productive forces.

Ummmmm, what? I'm pretty sure there's some sarcasm here that's not coming across.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think ISO should not be owning Caterpillar stock if it thinks divestment, boycott, and sanctions is the way to go on Israel. However, in a now junked thread, every self-righteous Brezhnevite crawled out of the woodwork to complain about this abstract 'collaboration' with corporations; most of the ISO-critics do not regard China as a capitalist state, so one wonders why the PRC's massive commitments with shitty corporations like Caterpillar receive relatively less attention. After all, both institutions claim, ostensibly, to represent revolutionary socialism.

[Tablo]

Already had a thread on this months ago.

[chegitz guevara]

I would say that the Wallace fund is more of an endowment fund than an NGO, but what's the point?

Endowments are NGOs.

[praxis1966]

Everything else being equal, OP: How the fuck do you prove a negative? What you're asking would be like if I looked at a Christian and said, "God doesn't exist," and his response was, "Prove it." That's the most logically fallacious construction of a paragraph I've ever seen.

Note: I'm not in the ISO nor am I a sympathizer... Unless you count the fact that I sympathize with Jimmy Higgins since he lets me get uber drunk at his house.

[Property Is Robbery]

most of the ISO-critics do not regard China as a capitalist state
Where'd you come up with that shit?

[Jimmie Higgins]

There seems to be some rumor-mongering going around I've heard from other members that they were receiving some chain-like email making all sorts of accusations. It could just be some kind of leftist inbred-internet echo-chamber where one claim goes out onto a listsereve and then bounces around the anarcho-trot conspiracy world for a while before dieing out.

The ISO does not go out and buy stocks in caterpillar, that's ridiculous. I heard about the Caterpillar thing and, it was given as a donation and then sold off. If someone wants to suggest that it's immoral to keep the donation money then fine, I'm an anti-moral bastard I don't really care. I do care about politics though, so if someone wants to suggest that the ISO is soft on Israel or not committed to Palestinian solidarity or "paid-off" by this stock or whatever, then we have beef because I know that's not the case.

There's always some rumor or claim that some group or individual on the Radical Left is living high on the hog. Some of it is just pettiness or alertness due to negative lessons from history (of Social-Democrats and so on) and a healthy mistrust of anyone who might have power over others. But a lot of it is just red-baiting. People go on about how much this US SWP publisher makes and that kind of stuff, but really how much could even the most corrupt Revolutionary Socialist make from our poor-asses? Every leftist group out there is living on scraps, the radical left is just too weak to support any parasites.:lol:

No doubt there are charlatans out there and no doubt there will be real opportunists out there when the Left is very big and much more powerful. But right now, unless you think that money is influencing the poltical ideas and actions of a group (as it does with NGOs who will back off of political topics that might impact their state patrons) then the only money issue on the radical left is an overall lack of funds and financial resources.

[black magick hustla]

its free money who cares, your shirt and shoes are made by children slave labor and your bank savings end up murdering brown children the left could not be more irrelevant and more theoretically vulgar

[Binh]

I have recently been hearing that the Bolshevik RSDLP has been getting funding from imperial Germany. I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am a Menshevik and oppose to capitalism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander Lenin, just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

[HEAD ICE]

Where'd you come up with that shit?

that is the position of your organization, the PSL.

[Reznov]

Just believe it if you don't like the ISO, and do not believe it if you like them.

Problem solved.

[DiaMat86]

I'm split on ISO.

(Rimshot)

For real though. Some comrades and I defended them when they were sharply red-baited in a certain mass org. That's the comradely thing to do. Plus you never know when the hatchet is coming your way.

I hope they don't turn into backstabbers like Trotsky himself. Another problem with Trotsky oriented groups is they place insufficient emphasis on self-criticism. ISO in particular has a takeover mentality. Rinse wash. repeat. It provokes red baiting and the org collapses.

PLP was burned by this strategy in the SDS split with the weatherclowns.

The bosses will never let a revolutionary run an organization with the bosses' endowment money.

The ISO press makes money because they publish revisionist crap that's palatable to a certain market (left liberals).

[A Marxist Historian]

I think ISO should not be owning Caterpillar stock if it thinks divestment, boycott, and sanctions is the way to go on Israel. However, in a now junked thread, every self-righteous Brezhnevite crawled out of the woodwork to complain about this abstract 'collaboration' with corporations; most of the ISO-critics do not regard China as a capitalist state, so one wonders why the PRC's massive commitments with shitty corporations like Caterpillar receive relatively less attention. After all, both institutions claim, ostensibly, to represent revolutionary socialism.

Well, if all ISO critics were to concede that the politics of the ISO were no worse than those of the Chinese government, that would not exactly be the highest praise the ISO has ever received.

As for the Wallace Fund, that is a rather large amount of money in my book, enough to raise some questions. I mean, who here on this thread has had their fingers on that much money in their lives? Not me.

-M.H.-

[~Spectre]

Stop snitchin'

[Stalin was right]

that is the position of your organization, the PSL.

this is a pretty big misrepresentation, they say that china is pretty far down the capitalist road but there is potential for it to become socialist again because the communist party has power.

pslweb dot org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12205&news_iv_ctrl=1261

The economic reforms instituted since 1978 have eviscerated many of the social insurance guarantees previously enjoyed by the workers and even more numerous peasantry. Basic social rights—healthcare coverage for all, the right to a job, free public education, affordable housing—have been severely cut back for millions.
Although it is impossible to say with 100 percent certainty where in this process China is, it is indisputable that the basic trend toward more entrenched capitalist class relations has only deepened since 1978. This process is, however, unfinished. As long as the Communist Party of China retains its hold on political power, there is a possibility, however great or small, that this trend can still be reversed.

[thefinalmarch]

this is a pretty big misrepresentation, they say that china is pretty far down the capitalist road but there is potential for it to become socialist again because the communist party has power.

[...]

As long as the Communist Party of China retains its hold on political power, there is a possibility, however great or small, that this trend can still be reversed.
As long as there is a party in power we cannot have socialism. Unless, of course, you believe socialism can be implemented "from above", in which case I humbly request that you stop posting on this forum. China cannot become socialist "again" because it never has been. The potential for China to become socialist lies not in the demagogues of the CPC, but in the class-conscious workers fighting for their interests and organizing against the daily realities of both the capitalist and the co-ordinatorist systems in place.

[Crux]

Where'd you come up with that shit?
http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/pages/for-the-defense-of-china.html

[praxis1966]

Although it is impossible to say with 100 percent certainty where in this process China is,

I don't think it is impossible. Exhibit A: If you allow sweatshops producing goods for Wal-Mart in your country and liquidate non-government sanctioned unions, chances are you're not socialists.

[theblackmask]

I don't think the issue here is whether or not the ISO is right in accepting the money. The real issue is the manner in that the ISO spends this money.

Firstly, there's the fact that any spending of almost any money (let alone large chunks from grants) is handled with the utmost secrecy, even amongst its own members. I seriously doubt the majority of the rank and file are even aware of the NGO or Caterpillar money. Would it not make more sense to be somewhat open about things like this, so the membership doesn't have to find out from secondhand internet sources?

This secrecy, I believe, is tied in with the base issue of what the money actually gets spent on...paid organizers. Who gets to decide what to spend money on? The paid organizers. By operating as it does, the ISO is effectively creating a bureaucracy within its own ranks that puts its own survival before that of revolutionary activity. Grant money and endowments are used to pay salaries of organizers, while the substantial income from Haymarket Books is used to increase the size of the staff. This becomes a major problem when these same salaried members are basically handed leadership positions in the organization.

I can think of a couple examples...one where a member was moved to Chicago, where the ISO is headquartered, to be hired on into the publishing wing. Within two weeks of his arrival, he had been shoehorned onto a branch committee, and soon after had become the de facto head of the branch. The rank and file had very little say in any of this, as it was all done very quickly and in a manner that made it seems as if it was already done.

Another time, at a district meeting, a member proposed a thought out plan on opening a sort of storefront for the organization. He gave his quick speech and then proposed a vote, which the district committee pretty much ignored with a response of "We'll talk about this in the future." There was no vote or even discussion. Predictably, at least half of the district committee that shut this proposal down, were paid organizers.

Now, I realize that this may be just a problem in the city where the ISO's HQ is, but if the organization were to ever grow into something more substantial, I see no reason why the bureaucracy wouldn't grow along with it. Also, I don't think this is a problem particular to the ISO, as I doubt many other organizations with as many salaried members are very open with their finances, or provide a means for any money to actually be spent on worthwhile activities. The point here is that money corrupts. If there is no mechanism in place to properly decide how an organization's money should be spent, bureaucratic survival will supersede the fight against capitalism.

[Jose Gracchus]

I think the ISO blows chunks, but it makes me sick to my stomach to watch class-collaborationist blowhard Brezhnevites* guffaw at their expense, as if their shit doesn't stink. They only pretend to care because they think the PSL might win some anti-war activists in the competition for street cred.

*Who invariably talk real big shit among the left, but then put on their happy faces and gleefully collaborate with union bureaucrats, even Democrats as it suits their purposes.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

The tax return which has been floating around showing this money is a fake. The ISO was donated Caterpillar stock in 07-08 and it was sold immediately afterwards and for nowhere near the amount represented. The donation from the Wallace Global Fund seems to be a recent addition to this fake document. Do you really think the ISO regularly gets 250k dollar donations? Shit, we'd have a way bigger publishing wing and wouldn't be constantly in the red in this period of crisis. (Haha, reds in the red)

[khad]

The tax return which has been floating around showing this money is a fake. The ISO was donated Caterpillar stock in 07-08 and it was sold immediately afterwards and for nowhere near the amount represented. The donation from the Wallace Global Fund seems to be a recent addition to this fake document.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidestar

The tax form is reported from the Guidestar service, which reports tax information for over a million nonprofits. Unless you're trying to accuse the ISO of falsifying its tax returns, there's no reason to distrust these records.

If you're so inclined, you can find records for the Center for Economic Research and Social Change going back several years.

Interesting progression of the contributions by the wallace global fund:

2005: $5,000
2006: $10,000
2007: $125,000
2008: $175,000
2010: $250,000

Also, book sales (gross profit figures):

2003: $84,729
2004: $78,330
2005: $182,888
2006: $304,202
2007: $304,894
2008: $295,721
2009: $375,744
2010: $601,411


Do you really think the ISO regularly gets 250k dollar donations? Shit, we'd have a way bigger publishing wing and wouldn't be constantly in the red in this period of crisis. (Haha, reds in the red)Quit your whining. You have more money than every other leftist party in the USA. Just because you don't see the money in the Atlanta branch doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[theblackmask]

The tax return which has been floating around showing this money is a fake. The ISO was donated Caterpillar stock in 07-08 and it was sold immediately afterwards and for nowhere near the amount represented. The donation from the Wallace Global Fund seems to be a recent addition to this fake document. Do you really think the ISO regularly gets 250k dollar donations? Shit, we'd have a way bigger publishing wing and wouldn't be constantly in the red in this period of crisis. (Haha, reds in the red)

I think this illustrates my point of how far in the dark most ISO members actually are as to their finances wonderfully :D

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidestar

The tax form is reported from the Guidestar service, which reports tax information for over a million nonprofits. Unless you're trying to accuse the ISO of falsifying its tax returns, there's no reason to distrust these records.

If you're so inclined, you can find records for the Center for Economic Research and Social Change going back several years.

Interesting progression of the contributions by the wallace global fund:

2005: $5,000
2006: $10,000
2007: $125,000
2008: $175,000
2010: $250,000

Also, book sales (gross profit figures):

2003: $84,729
2004: $78,330
2005: $182,888
2006: $304,202
2007: $304,894
2008: $295,721
2009: $375,744
2010: $601,411

Quit your whining. You have more money than every other leftist party in the USA. Just because you don't see the money in the Atlanta branch doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I didn't even check the link as I assumed it was a repost of the supposed image of a tax return posted a while back of the ISO, not CERSC which claimed we had Cat stock as late as 2010 and were making like 80k off of it. THAT is a fake. How CERSC is funded is not my problem as it is NOT the ISO and does not purport to have the ISO's politics. You're holding CERSC to the ISO' politics when it doesn't HAVE them otherwisee, why would haymarket publish stuff by folks who disagree with the ISO's politics? This is merely guilt by association and irrelevent. If all the CERSC money went to the ISO we'd actually have storefronts and shit, like the SWP, which we just don't.

[khad]

I didn't even check the link as I assumed it was a repost of the supposed image of a tax return posted a while back of the ISO, not CERSC which claimed we had Cat stock as late as 2010 and were making like 80k off of it. THAT is a fake. How CERSC is funded is not my problem as it is NOT the ISO and does not purport to have the ISO's politics. You're holding CERSC to the ISO' politics when it doesn't HAVE them otherwisee, why would haymarket publish stuff by folks who disagree with the ISO's politics? This is merely guilt by association and irrelevent. If all the CERSC money went to the ISO we'd actually have storefronts and shit, like the SWP, which we just don't.
The CERSC is the ISO, numbnuts. Look at the names on their official payroll--they all write for the ISR.

More specifically, the Center for Economic Research and Social Change is a paper organization for the ISO and their activities. It is quite common amongst activists to have a non-profit act as a steward for managing funds of other groups. This is so they can save the administrative and bureaucratic hassle of getting a tax exemption. Even anarchists do this.

Edit: 2 more things.

1) How many ISO members does it take to read a table? The CERSC had $5000 in CAT, not $80000.

2) Whoever told you that story about CAT being liquidated in 2007-2008 was full of shit. There was nothing to liquidate because there was no CAT stock being held. What was liquidated in 2007-8 was Altria Group (Philip Morris) stock. I remember that you had said that CAT came in a packaged donation that year, but it's obvious from these records that it was Philip Morris that was in the portfolio, not CAT. CAT was only added at the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal period.

2007-2008 (No CAT stock here, but impressive gains in the Florida-based real estate developer, CTO):
http://i.imgur.com/Zgx42.png

2008-2009 (Again, no CAT stock):
http://i.imgur.com/4GxDG.png

2009-2010 (There it is, right at the end of the year):
http://i.imgur.com/Xm0VL.png


5000 dollars isn't a lot, especially when compared to the Wallace Fund and Haymarket Books kind of money, but what I hope to illustrate here is the extent to which ISO members themselves are clueless about their own finances.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

The CERSC is the ISO, numbnuts. Look at the names on their official payroll--they all write for the ISR.

More specifically, the Center for Economic Research and Social Change is a paper organization for the ISO and their activities. It is quite common amongst activists to have a non-profit act as a steward for managing funds of other groups. This is so they can save the administrative and bureaucratic hassle of getting a tax exemption. Even anarchists do this.

I appreciate your concern for my genitals. Anyway, back to the topic. The ISR is run by CERSC, it would be quite logical for the people who run the ISR to be many of the same people who run CERSC. CERSC is in no way affiliated with the ISO and by it's very nature has MUCH broader politics than the ISO as a revolutionary socialist group, otherwise Haymarket wouldn't publish Chomsky or any of the left-liberals it does.


Edit: 2 more things.

1) How many ISO members does it take to read a table? The CERSC had $5000 in CAT, not $80000.

2) Whoever told you that story about CAT being liquidated in 2007-2008 was full of shit. There was nothing to liquidate because there was no CAT stock being held. What was liquidated in 2007-8 was Altria Group (Philip Morris) stock. I remember that you had said that CAT came in a packaged donation that year, but it's obvious from these records that it was Philip Morris that was in the portfolio, not CAT. CAT was only added at the end of the 2009-2010 fiscal period.

2007-2008 (No CAT stock here, but impressive gains in the Florida-based real estate developer, CTO):

2008-2009 (Again, no CAT stock):

2009-2010 (There it is, right at the end of the year):

5000 dollars isn't a lot, especially when compared to the Wallace Fund and Haymarket Books kind of money, but what I hope to illustrate here is the extent to which ISO members themselves are clueless about their own finances.

I never said the ISO or CERSC do have $80k in Cat stock, I said there was a fake tax form circulating a while back which claimed the ISO had $80k in Cat stock. Big difference. I am aware of the situation with the Phillip Morris stock and the same has occurred with the Cat stock(the tax forms just haven't gone up yet). The members of the ISO don't need to know who the donors to CERSC are unless they are a donor to CERSC, however, the Wallace Global Fund and the Lannan Foundation are hardly donors to get upset about. The WGF is a non-profit which puts on the Earth at Risk conference and focuses on "fighting for justice" and preserving our environment. The Lannan Foundation supports contemporary artists, especially Native/Aboriginal cultural artists and also supports literature which opposes globalization. Hardly anything to be upset about a broad "leftist" non-profit getting money from. Aswell, a document has recently gone out about the finances of the ISO in order to combat this new wave of rumors about the organization.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I have recently been hearing that the Tea Party has been getting funding from the Koch Brothers and the Murdoch empire, I am just asking about the validity of this claim, I am a Marxist and oppose to Tea Partyism to the fullest, but i do not like to make accusations without evidence. So therefore, If this untrue, please explain how the claim is false, and if it is true please provide evidence. Before anyone starts to neg. me, remember that I am not in anyway trying to slander tea partiers, just trying to figure out whether the claim is true or not.

[Ravachol]

its free money who cares, your shirt and shoes are made by children slave labor and your bank savings end up murdering brown children the left could not be more irrelevant and more theoretically vulgar

Make sweet love to me bro.

I have zero time for the ISO but honstely, the so-called left is riddled with parties who have some sort of business, sales or whatnot to generate an income, thus perpetuating commodity society. I mean, the very act of wage labour reproduces Capital, in fact it lies at the root of it's reproduction. Unless we all plan on dropping out, diving dumpsters and robbing banks I suggest we direct our critiques to more meaningfull issues.

[khad]

I personally don't care if the ISO has 500k in caterpillar and not 5k.

My issue was with your absurd claim here:


Do you really think the ISO regularly gets 250k dollar donations? Shit, we'd have a way bigger publishing wing and wouldn't be constantly in the red in this period of crisis. (Haha, reds in the red)

Yeah, you're so broke that you're the richest leftwing party in the United States, with a publishing arm that earns record profits every year.

Congratulations.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

I personally don't care if the ISO has 500k in caterpillar and not 5k.

My issue was with your absurd claim here:



Yeah, you're so broke that you're the richest leftwing party in the United States, with a publishing arm that earns record profits every year.

Congratulations.

Again, so rich that we can match every SWP "Militant Labor Forum" storefront and RCP "Revolution Books" storefront...and on and on and on. Really, come on.

When the ISO starts expropriating it's members and moving them willy-nilly from workplace to workplace or city to city, then there needs to be a discussion of how it functions financially. As it is, all we do is publish a shit ton of books, put on a huge conference, and publish one of the top papers and theoretical journals on the left.

[Stalin was right]

As long as there is a party in power we cannot have socialism.

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, even if you take the view that socialism requires direct ownership of the MOP, a ruling party can ensure that all workplaces are worker-run and owned.


Unless, of course, you believe socialism can be implemented "from above", in which case I humbly request that you stop posting on this forum. China cannot become socialist "again" because it never has been. The potential for China to become socialist lies not in the demagogues of the CPC, but in the class-conscious workers fighting for their interests and organizing against the daily realities of both the capitalist and the co-ordinatorist systems in place.

Fine, you and the PSL have different definitions of socialism. Nobody cares about these dumb tendency wars, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. The PSL doesn't say that China is socialist, in Majakovskij's link it makes it pretty clear that China has abandoned many of the pillars of socialism (china produces for private profit, has capitalist market relations, etc) but that there still exists minor socialist aspects and the transition isn't complete.

[theblackmask]

CERSC is in no way affiliated with the ISO

So, please explain why they are both headquartered in the same office? Also, if this were true, employees of Haymarket Books would not be handed branch committee positions within the ISO. Can your rosy view of the ISO's leadership from all the way in Atlanta explain away my first-hand knowledge of how things work?

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

So, please explain why they are both headquartered in the same office? Also, if this were true, employees of Haymarket Books would not be handed branch committee positions within the ISO. Can your rosy view of the ISO's leadership from all the way in Atlanta explain away my first-hand knowledge of how things work?

Yes, let me counter you claims of bureaucratization which have no evidence apart from your claim of "someone" being "handed" a position on a BC with which I have never interacted and have no personal first-hand knowledge. That's gotta be the most baseless argument I've ever seen. of course I can't contradict it. The only argument I can make against it is that you are from the infamous RAAN and likely look at everything the ISO does through hate-tinted glasses and will take any minor thing and blow it up into a huge issue irrepresentative of the original facts. kthxbai

[Martin Blank]

I see nothing unprincipled about a leftist thinktank (which is what the CERSC is) generally affiliated to a political current (the ISO) applying for and receiving grant money to do their research and publishing activity. We're working on doing that with the Albert Currlin Institute and its publishing house, Currlin Press. CP has begun publishing a 12-volume Essential series of classic communist works (Communist Manifesto, Origin of the Family, State and Revolution, etc.), complete with new introductions and an expanded notes section prepared by ACI volunteers and staff. Publishing these books is part of the requirement for "making a significant contribution" to the field the Institute studies (in our case, the history of the international working people's movement). This is the kind of thing you have to do to get research grants, and we already have projects lined up that would begin if we received such grants.

So let's just end this kind of moralistic sniping and keep the criticisms on a political level.

[thefinalmarch]

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, even if you take the view that socialism requires direct ownership of the MOP, a ruling party can ensure that all workplaces are worker-run and owned.
Substantiate this assertion. Why can't workers acting independently of a (conscious) "vanguard" ruling party perform an adequate job of ensuring workplaces are worker-run and owned?

Why must there be a ruling party anyway? Class struggle takes place not only on an economic battleground, but also a political battleground. For the working class to seize political power, it must establish its own new governing institutions of radical democracy as an alternative to the bourgeois state. Your ruling parties, complete with their nomenklatura, can eat my fucking arse.


Fine, you and the PSL have different definitions of socialism.
And only one of those definitions is correct; no points for guessing whose.


Nobody cares about these dumb tendency wars, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. The PSL doesn't say that China is socialist, in Majakovskij's link it makes it pretty clear that China has abandoned many of the pillars of socialism (china produces for private profit, has capitalist market relations, etc)
My post was in response to your claim that as long as the CPC retains its hold on political power then the trend of establishing capitalist relations will be reversed. This logically presumes that you believe there will be a reversion to a pre-existing socialist mode of production. My contention is that China has never been socialist, therefore your claim is quite simply incorrect.


but that there still exists minor socialist aspects and the transition isn't complete.
What minor socialist aspects exist? Where is the workers' democracy?

[Jimmie Higgins]

So, please explain why they are both headquartered in the same office? Also, if this were true, employees of Haymarket Books would not be handed branch committee positions within the ISO. Can your rosy view of the ISO's leadership from all the way in Atlanta explain away my first-hand knowledge of how things work?

1) People have to be voted onto Branch Committees by members of their branches so if someone works for CERSC and also is on a branch committee then the members of that branch wanted them there.

2) Haymarket has it's own board and is consciously not "a party press" - it publishes from a range of left-wing viewpoints. Although the ISO wants to get its specific perspective out through the newspaper and so on, the goal of Haymarket books is to help arm a broad left movement.

ISO doesn't control Haymarket and Haymarket doesn't control ISO. They have different, though overlapping, goals.


So, please explain why they are both headquartered in the same office?They have a working relationship but are independent and make autonomous decisions from each-other. Incidentally, in the Bay Area ISO and World Can't Wait share an office location even though these two groups don't fully share a political outlook.

[praxis1966]

So, please explain why they are both headquartered in the same office?

Could be the same reason that the SFGMB of the IWW and the Berkeley Green Party work out of the same building. It makes the fucking rent cheaper.

[Crux]

Fine, you and the PSL have different definitions of socialism. Nobody cares about these dumb tendency wars, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. The PSL doesn't say that China is socialist, in Majakovskij's link it makes it pretty clear that China has abandoned many of the pillars of socialism (china produces for private profit, has capitalist market relations, etc) but that there still exists minor socialist aspects and the transition isn't complete.
Indeed, if the PSL had been completetly open in their defense of the chinese state their capitulation for the CCP would have at least been more consistent, if not more defensible. In any case the end producft of their position "defend China" is virtually the same. Token criticism to hold back internal criticism, I would suspect. In anycase this is not the first time I have seen relatively new PSL members reacting with disbelief when the PSL's position are presented in black and white, straight from the source. Hell, even older members usually try to wriggle out of it, although with them it ought to be more cynical.

[A Marxist Historian]

The CERSC is the ISO, numbnuts. Look at the names on their official payroll--they all write for the ISR.

...

2007-2008 (No CAT stock here, but impressive gains in the Florida-based real estate developer, CTO):...

The ISO was sinking money into Florida real estate in 2007-2008? One wonders what happened to that in fall 2008 with the Great Real Estate Bust. If I were an ISO member I'd be very, very concerned about that one...

More to the point, just what did the ISO have to do to get that Wallace Fund huge sum of money? NGOs generally don't give out a quarter of a mill just because they like you. Whoever pays the piper does tend to call the tune.

It is possible that the Wallace Fund is a well-meaning liberal organization who gave the ISO all that money not for any nefarious reasons, but simply because the Wallace Fund sees the ISO as harmless well meaning liberals too.

In fact, that's pretty much my own view of the organization. So they deserve the money fair and square.

-M.H.-

[Olentzero]

Oh goddammit, not this again.

OK, so - I was the one that contacted the CERSC the last time this came up and got the straight dope on the Caterpillar stock. As noted by Iraultzaile and Jimmie, that stock was a donation from a supporter and was immediately sold off. It shows up on the reports in order to comply with federal laws that cover the donation and sale of stock. The forms as linked to via GuideStar are genuine; haven't seen the ones that show the ISO has $80K in Caterpillar stock but that's definitely fake.

Just like the last time, this thread has devolved into an ISO hate-fest where every loon with an axe to grind comes out of the woodwork with their own personal anecdote about how much we suck. It's fucking annoying, especially when you consider the fact that the people who head the CERSC actually aren't on RevLeft to defend themselves against this shit. Which leaves it up to people like me who support the CERSC and what it's trying to achieve to dig around wasting everyone's fucking time in order to stem the worst of it.

Seriously, you Hoxhaist twerp, is your party so well-organized and functional that you have more than enough time to snoop around in other organizations' tax returns? Do you feel you're defending the purity and the honor of The Revolution by playing investigate journalist and exposing what appear to be the moral and ethical contradictions of Trotskyist groups? Especially on a forum where, if you're lucky, nobody would know how to get the real story behind it, thereby allowing you to spew your sectarian bullshit unperturbed?

Fuck you for wasting people's time. Just... fuck you.

[Stalin was right]

Indeed, if the PSL had been completetly open in their defense of the chinese state their capitulation for the CCP would have at least been more consistent, if not more defensible. In any case the end producft of their position "defend China" is virtually the same. Token criticism to hold back internal criticism, I would suspect. In anycase this is not the first time I have seen relatively new PSL members reacting with disbelief when the PSL's position are presented in black and white, straight from the source. Hell, even older members usually try to wriggle out of it, although with them it ought to be more cynical.

I'm not a PSL member, and their position is perfectly defensible considering the ridiculous china-bashing that is happening in the US and around the world.

Someone said that the PSL thinks china is socialist, both the link I posted and the link you posted say that the PSL thinks china has been in a transition for capitalism since Deng took over and that the remnants of socialism are pretty small, however those remnants could be the basis for a resurgence of socialism. This is similar to why many socialists defend venezuela, because the worker-owned companies provide a good launching point for socialist transformation.

[khad]

The ISO was sinking money into Florida real estate in 2007-2008? One wonders what happened to that in fall 2008 with the Great Real Estate Bust. If I were an ISO member I'd be very, very concerned about that one...
You can see what happened to it. It wasn't a smart investment. After it more than doubled in one year, it's been retracing ever since.

[Olentzero]

There's more evidence for it being a gift than an investment decision by the CERSC. Unless you have solid proof to the contrary.

[Gorra Negra]

It is possible that the Wallace Fund is a well-meaning liberal organization who gave the ISO all that money not for any nefarious reasons, but simply because the Wallace Fund sees the ISO as harmless well meaning liberals too. [/B]

In fact, that's pretty much my own view of the organization. So they deserve the money fair and square.

-M.H.-

I'm glad you got to the point... :glare:

[chegitz guevara]

That the ISO has money is not a big deal. That it makes money and gets gifts from supporters and members is a yawn inducing revelation. Many rev organizations get them.

What is sad, however, is the desperate pretense that the ISO and its think tank/publishing house aren't really the same thing. They are separated as a legal fiction. You want the state involved in your organization's finances as little as possible. So you create something that the state can snoop into, that can pay for its organizers, that can handle most of the above ground stuff, while keeping other aspects of the organization secret. No big deal.

Who cares who the ISO publishes for money? Organizations need money. I'm sure that the SWP, the CP, the SEP make all their money from only publishing stuff they agree with. Yeah, right. You think the Panthers got all their money from bake sales?

There's nothing wrong with an organization setting up a business, either. There are revolutionary groups in other countries that set people up in the U.S. for the sole purpose of generating money for their struggle. Obviously, the business shouldn't be something awful, like murder for hire, but print shops and the like are fine.

We do what we have to do to win. Just stop acting like its shameful.

[khad]

As I said,


I personally don't care if the ISO has 500k in caterpillar and not 5k.

What gets me is how certain ISO members always act like their organization is starving:


Do you really think the ISO regularly gets 250k dollar donations? Shit, we'd have a way bigger publishing wing and wouldn't be constantly in the red in this period of crisis. (Haha, reds in the red)


There's nothing wrong with an organization setting up a business, either. There are revolutionary groups in other countries that set people up in the U.S. for the sole purpose of generating money for their struggle. Obviously, the business shouldn't be something awful, like murder for hire, but print shops and the like are fine.

Generally, this would be the case except for notable cases like the SEP running a print sweatshop.