SEP (ICFI) & the WSWS

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Hey, I'm just wondering if there any members of the Socialist Equality Party or readers of the World Socialist Web Site here..

[Who?]

The SEP is a cult, dude.

[RedHal]

run by a millionaire CEO

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Thanks for the input, fellas. :rolleyes:

[Who?]

Thanks for the input, fellas. :rolleyes:

Listen, if you don't want to take my word for it just check this (https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20022967344) out.

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Yes, I'm aware. I've spoken at length with several members of that group and they all either have some petty personal grievance, are ideological opponents of Trotskyism (e.g. a deeply religious, right-wing libertarian), or they believe in some truly bizarre conspiracy theories. I was annoyed at first but I actually feel bad for them -- they seem so unmoored and confused.

I was just inquiring here out of curiosity. The "SEP is a cult/FBI trap" BS has really gotten tiresome.

[Who?]

Well I'm no expert, that's just the word on the street.

The SEP was discussed pretty thoroughly in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/sep-socialist-equality-t138883/index.html?p=1808743) thread a while back if you're interested.

[Martin Blank]

I wouldn't trust the word of Scott Solomon if it was to save my life. I remember him from Usenet more than a decade ago, and he was an ass then. I imagine he's only rotted with age.

There are plenty of things to criticize the SEP/ICFI for, without resorting to baseless accusations like "It's an FBI trap" or the old standard, "It's a cult" (which seems to be said about a lot of organizations these days). It's better to stick to the political criticisms, instead of mucking up the waters with kneejerk charges.

Anyway, from what I've seen, there is an SEP supporter on here. I'm sure s/he has PMed you by now.

Enjoy your time on RevLeft.

[A Marxist Historian]

run by a millionaire CEO

Don't know whether the guy is actually a millionaire or not, haven't seen his tax returns. But the guy does both own and is the CEO of a prosperous Detroit printing company, which is the financial basis of the organization. They are basically an Internet hobby of said company.

And being determines consciousness, that's a basic Marxist principle.

The fact that they reject unions is not accidental, being that it is a nonunion company.

-M.H.-

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I support them... :mellow:

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Thanks for injecting some sanity, Miles! And yeah, he and a few others who rant and rave about "SEPtic" really give me the creeps -- they come across as anti-social misfits.

M.H., you should give some thought to what exactly that implies. The whole enterprise would then have to be a scam, a secret anti-union plot by a relatively small company. Makes perfect sense when you put on your tinfoil hat.

Its principled opposition to the corrupt labor union bureaucracies intertwined with the Democratic Party is perfectly sound.

[A Marxist Historian]

Thanks for injecting some sanity, Miles! And yeah, he and a few others who rant and rave about "SEPtic" really give me the creeps -- they come across as anti-social misfits.

M.H., you should give some thought to what exactly that implies. The whole enterprise would then have to be a scam, a secret anti-union plot by a relatively small company. Makes perfect sense when you put on your tinfoil hat.

Its principled opposition to the corrupt labor union bureaucracies intertwined with the Democratic Party is perfectly sound.

It's not a secret anti-union plot, 'cuz it's not really a secret and it's not really a plot.

The SEP doesn't come out of nowhere, it has an extremely lengthy prehistory which ended up bringing it quite naturally to what it is now. But let's not get into that, or if we do, on the History page not here.

Principled opposition to corrupt labor bureaucrats is a good thing. Principled opposition to *unions,* which is what the SEP position boils down to, is something else.

It defies reason to imagine that this has nothing to do with just how the SEP and the WSWS is financed. It certainly defies Marxism.

As for the "god that failed" anti-SEP obsessionalists like Scott Solomon and his friends, well, that ex-SEP people are like that tells you something about the SEP too.

-M.H.-

[Devrim]

Principled opposition to corrupt labor bureaucrats is a good thing. Principled opposition to *unions,* which is what the SEP position boils down to, is something else.

It defies reason to imagine that this has nothing to do with just how the SEP and the WSWS is financed. It certainly defies Marxism.

Principled opposition to trade unions was argued for by delegates at the early congresses of the Communist International, and is, though perhaps little known today, certainly a current within Marxism.

As far as I am aware none of them were financed by non-union printing shops either.

Devrim

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I occasionally read the WSWS newsletter....don't really know much about the party though.

[BrianUltraRedskin]

The SEP doesn't come out of nowhere, it has an extremely lengthy prehistory which ended up bringing it quite naturally to what it is now. But let's not get into that, or if we do, on the History page not here.

I'm pretty well-versed on the history of all the ideological disputes and splits of the various factions and tendencies. My interest in the party stems from the fact that in my view it is the only true representative of the original Fourth International.


Principled opposition to corrupt labor bureaucrats is a good thing. Principled opposition to *unions,* which is what the SEP position boils down to, is something else.

It defies reason to imagine that this has nothing to do with just how the SEP and the WSWS is financed. It certainly defies Marxism.

As for the "god that failed" anti-SEP obsessionalists like Scott Solomon and his friends, well, that ex-SEP people are like that tells you something about the SEP too.

Its opposition to the leadership of the major labor unions has to do with their gradual transformation into formal collaborators with bourgeois governments and corporate management. The US Democratic party and Social Democratic parties of Europe are in league with the labor unions which smother every working-class struggle that rears its head. It's not because the workforce at their printing shop isn't unionized..

Your last point may be a legitimate one and I'll be finding out for myself soon enough. But at the same time, the fact these guys were driven out might be an indication of what the party doesn't tolerate.

[A Marxist Historian]

Principled opposition to trade unions was argued for by delegates at the early congresses of the Communist International, and is, though perhaps little known today, certainly a current within Marxism.

As far as I am aware none of them were financed by non-union printing shops either.

Devrim

Precisely. Follow the money. Those who oppose unions because they want to replace them with factory committees or Soviets or something are one thing. And with those folk this was not some theoretical position, they were involved in actual factory committees and so forth.

Those who oppose unions because they are employers and want to keep their shops non-union are another.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

I'm pretty well-versed on the history of all the ideological disputes and splits of the various factions and tendencies. My interest in the party stems from the fact that in my view it is the only true representative of the original Fourth International.

Its opposition to the leadership of the major labor unions has to do with their gradual transformation into formal collaborators with bourgeois governments and corporate management. The US Democratic party and Social Democratic parties of Europe are in league with the labor unions which smother every working-class struggle that rears its head. It's not because the workforce at their printing shop isn't unionized..

Your last point may be a legitimate one and I'll be finding out for myself soon enough. But at the same time, the fact these guys were driven out might be an indication of what the party doesn't tolerate.

I find the idea of David North and his group as the one true representative of the Fourth International so hilarious that I don't know how to respond. Certainly not on trade unions!

But, since an answer to that could only be lengthy indeed, this is certainly not the place to go over the history of Healyism and its decomposition products, of which the North group is virtually the last survivor at this point.

Here however is a link you might do well to look over.

http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/1986/index.htm

There are many other such if Spartacism is not to your taste. Healyism is quite notorious, and lurid exposes of Gerry Healy's "International Committee of the Fourth International" are a dime a dozen, given the noxious stench this organization left behind it when it exploded and disintegrated.

-M.H.-

[BrianUltraRedskin]

Ah, now it makes sense. I wasn't sure why you were associating the current ICFI with Healy but I'm guessing you're a Spart?

I'm not allowed to post links yet but if you go to the WSWS and click on 'History of the ICFI' under 'ICFI/Marxist library' you'll find plenty of material on the split.

[Martin Blank]

Precisely. Follow the money. Those who oppose unions because they want to replace them with factory committees or Soviets or something are one thing. And with those folk this was not some theoretical position, they were involved in actual factory committees and so forth.

Those who oppose unions because they are employers and want to keep their shops non-union are another.

For the record, the SEP does advocate for strike committees and workplace committees to replace the unions in situations of struggle. They were quite adamant about strike committees during the fight in Wisconsin.

Whether that's a genuine position or some kind of ideological cover for their anti-unionism I cannot answer. Only the SEP leadership can do that.

[graymouser]

You think that the SEP/ICFI is the legitimate continuator of the Fourth International? That takes some special thinking, and honestly I can't even sympathize with it.

Healy's ICFI was the most rotten, worthless thing that Trotskyism ever produced. Healy ran an undemocratic regime that kissed up to actors but terrorized and brutalized subordinates. It never produced one lick of theory worth mentioning (for instance, even if you disagreed with Joseph Hansen's take on Cuba, Healy's idea that it was still capitalism was incoherent). Healy baffled his followers with incomprehensible nonsense on dialectics, and then prostituted himself out to Gaddafi for the money. He slandered his political opponents with FBI-, CIA- and KGB-baiting, a particularly wretched charge that every other current of Trotskyism rejected. The fact that he was only thrown out on his ass when it became too inconvenient for the WRP members to cover up his rampant womanizing is a clear indictment of Banda, Slaughter, Torrance etc, and also North.

North's rump ICFI has kept up Healy's lies and slander. They still keep up his "Security and the Fourth International" campaign of unsourced lies, and made a habit of slander against the SWP particularly. They have a history of being the worst sexists and homophobes of the Trotskyist movement - literally saying shit like "The workers hate f*gs and so do we" in the 1970s. They declared that the unions were reactionary and folded their newspaper just in time to turn the party print shop into a very profitable business.

Honestly, if I thought that the ICFI were the real continuity of Trotskyism, I would stop calling myself a Trotskyist.

[A Marxist Historian]

Ah, now it makes sense. I wasn't sure why you were associating the current ICFI with Healy but I'm guessing you're a Spart?

I'm not allowed to post links yet but if you go to the WSWS and click on 'History of the ICFI' under 'ICFI/Marxist library' you'll find plenty of material on the split.

Be it noted that "split" is a bit of a misnomer, given that as far as North is concerned, his organization *is* the ICFI. And the ICFI was Healy's creature when it had a real existence, with North simply the acolyte Healy replaced Wohlforth with when he purged him in classic Stalinist style. Even talking about the ICFI without talking about Healy and Healyism is silly. Northism is simply Healyism minus Healy himself and plus anti-unionism and a complete dive into cyberspace.

I won't give a listing here of all of the crimes of the ICFI, since graymouser gave a decent rundown of some of the worst and most famous of them. I will only note that for North, this is his heritage and he has never repudiated it, just criticized a few of the worst atrocities as of when the organization finally blew up. And far from all of them.

-M.H.-

PS: I make no secret of my political sympathies, just look at the upper right hand corner of this posting.

[Terminator X]

I used to write for the WSWS, but simply couldn't work with the SEP any longer. They are critical of other leftist organizations to a fault, the union-bashing gets beyond annoying, and telephone conversations with their leadership are nearly incoherent. Joe Kishore is one of the main speakers that the SEP trots (no pun intended) out at their conferences (and have the gall to actually charge for), and he can barely string two sentences together.

And yes, I realize it's cliche to call the SEP a "cult," but deal with them for more than a couple days at a time and you start to get seriously creeped out by the entire operation.

[albE36]

What an absolutely unprincipled load of old clap trap!! I support the SEP and the WSWS and one has to wonder what sort of "left" you support if the level of political debate is name calling and ridiculous assertions based on assumptions. I seem to remember that Karl MArx worked with some guy called Engels who also had "money" but supported Marx while he lived in poverty and supported the marxist movement. Engels contribution to the Marxist movement is not insignificant but if I can follow your trail of thought he should be dismissed at all costs as not being "marxist" because he has money! You seem to think that running a business to fund a party, paying the workers a fair wage for that work, letting them have a 4 day week and basically it being run democratically as a workers co-operative is not Marxist. Does anyone even use Dialectical Materialism on here? It would appear not........None of you have any idea what the SEP is about and your falsifications back up the propaganda machine. This inst a Marxist site it is Bourgeois propaganda! This is not intelligent debate you make a mockery of Marxism...shame on all of you

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I find the idea of David North and his group as the one true representative of the Fourth International so hilarious that I don't know how to respond. Certainly not on trade unions!


There are many other such if Spartacism is not to your taste. Healyism is quite notorious, and lurid exposes of Gerry Healy's "International Committee of the Fourth International" are a dime a dozen, given the noxious stench this organization left behind it when it exploded and disintegrated.

-M.H.-

The Sparts are famous for massively dissing any other group that isn't them.

I don't know where all the stories about the SEP somehow being a sinister cult come from. None of the accusations brought up in this thread or elsewhere have ever been substantiated.

So David North runs a printing firm? Why is this bad? The German SPD had something like 200 newspapers. The US SP at its height had dozens of papers and journals.North is a "CEO". That's a title required by US corporate law, that's all. We don't know anything else about Mehring Press.How do we know Mehring is anti-union? It could be five guys working in a garage for all we know. How is the structure of the SEP different from any other socialist group?

Is the ISO's Haymarket Press unionized? Is the US SWP Pathfinder unionized? Is Worker's Vanguard printed at a union shop?

The WSW is a valuable resource. I do have criticisms of the SEP but not for the unfounded innuendos which keep popping up. I would see them as overly sectarian. Their ritualistic ISO bashing is both funny and sad. They do see themselves as the only true Trotskyists.

Of course, the Sparts are vastly more sectarian. They regard every other socialist organisation as being class collaborators. Their ISO bashing is much further than the SEP. I remember a few years ago they dedicated the entire first page of their paper to denouncing Socialist Action.The Sparts orient themselves strictly to the left and their method is to tear down anyone who isn't them.

Gerry Healey was most certainly a thug. Having said this Jim Robertson does not exactly have a sterling reputation.

Anyway all this "cult bashing" is more reminiscent of Tim Wohlforth and his ilk than of principled socialists.