Spartacists

[The Idler]

I would like to know a little more about Spartacists and their differences with their antecedants. I'm struggling to detect a major ideological rupture. What is it?

[Brutus]

I'm just going to post this hilarious image:
http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/migration/img_up/up_3/37123_1.JPG

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I would like to know a little more about Spartacists and their differences with their antecedants. I'm struggling to detect a major ideological rupture. What is it?

Well, the organisation that would later become the Spartacist League (then called the Revolutionary Tendency) split from the SWP-US due to the latter group's uncritical support for Castro. Later, they split from Wohlforth's group due to Wohlforth's role as the American viceroy of Gerry Healy, and his attempts to subordinate the Spartacists to the British SLL.

Ideologically, the Spartacist League and related organisations (sections of the ICL, but also the IG etc. etc.) are distinguished by their commitment to the theory of the deformed workers' states, which they also extend to China, by calls for the unconditional defense of the remaining workers' states from foreign aggression and internal "democratic" counterrevolution, by pessimism toward cooperation with other leftist groups, and a generally libertarian approach to social issues.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

So many acronyms...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So many acronyms...

SWP-US: The Socialist Workers' Party in America, founded by Cannon and others, opposed to Pablo after the Second World War, helped found the International Committee of the Fourth International, later degenerated into a pro-Castro outfit and fused with Pablo's International Secretariat into the present United Secretariat.

SLL: Socialist Labour League, later the Workers' Revolutionary Party and then the Marxist Party, founded and ruled by Gerry Healy, founding member of the International Committee, used intimidation and underhanded tricks to coerce other sections of the Committee to follow the Healyite line, supported the Red Guards in China, financed by various Arab nationalist governments, discredited and eventually exploded. Creepazoids of the first order.

ICL: International Communist League, the international tendency associated with the American Spartacist League.

IG: Internationalist Group, split from the ICL due to, as far as I can tell (Dabrowski might know more about this), inter-party politics in the Spartacist League

[The Douche]

I actually want to subscribe to their paper cause it seems like it would be entertaining, but you can't subscribe online, and I can't be fucked to actually mail a subscription in.

[Geiseric]

They support pedophile associations right to do their thing by saying that age of consent laws are a bourgeois concept. They are ultraleft, and very sectarian. All they do is sell their shitty paper and make communists look weird. But they really jump on the same bandwagons as Stalinist in current politics.

[The Feral Underclass]

I would like to know a little more about Spartacists and their differences with their antecedants. I'm struggling to detect a major ideological rupture. What is it?

They support NAMBLA.

[Devrim]

They support pedophile associations right to do their thing by saying that age of consent laws are a bourgeois concept. They are ultraleft, and very sectarian. All they do is sell their shitty paper and make communists look weird. But they really jump on the same bandwagons as Stalinist in current politics.

Are they 'ultra-left' or Stalinists? Make up your mind.

Devrim

[Geiseric]

Are they 'ultra-left' or Stalinists? Make up your mind.

Devrim

They're both depending on the situation. For example like Stalinists they refer to the arab spring as result of "the west" somehow funding the protesters. Just as PSL does, and they are basically Stalinist. They are also ultraleft in that all they do is call things other groups are doing "reformist". All they do is hawk their shitty paper.

[The Feral Underclass]

You think people who say activity is reformist are ultraleftist?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

They support pedophile associations right to do their thing by saying that age of consent laws are a bourgeois concept. They are ultraleft, and very sectarian. All they do is sell their shitty paper and make communists look weird. But they really jump on the same bandwagons as Stalinist in current politics.
Do you support laws against oral sex, too? You really trust the bourgeoisie to regulate your sex life? If you paid attention to the way the age of consent laws are used by the bourgeoisie, maybe you would oppose them too. How do you feel about gun control?

Your analysis is stupid and lazy. They are not Stalinists, they are Trotskyists. They defend China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and Laos against capitalist restoration as they see them as bureaucratically deformed workers states.

And their US paper, anyway, Workers Vanguard, is among the best on the left and has been for decades. I have been reading leftist papers since the late 70s -- while WV isn't always brilliant, it shines compared to the sorry stuff put out by most left groups.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

They support pedophile associations right to do their thing by saying that age of consent laws are a bourgeois concept.

Again, Spartacists are generally libertarian when it comes to social issues. That includes opposition to the bourgeois state regulating sexuality. That said, this does not mean that the SL condones child molestation. Child molestation harms the victim, mentally and usually physically. It can be prosecuted without special laws that make it criminal for someone who is 14 years old to sleep with someone who is 18 years old - laws that are disproportionately enforced against LGBT people, mind.

And this libertarian approach has resulted in an organisation that stood for the rights of women and sexual minorities almost from the start. While the Spartacist League was merging with the gay Red Flag Union, the RCPUSA wanted to put LGBT people into concentration camps, and Wohlforth was spewing bile about how "the working class hates hippies, feminists and gays, and so do we [his American Committee of the Fourth International]". Even in the late eighties, when Healy was finally deposed, charges against him included being a bureaucratic dictator, molesting female party members and - allowing a homosexual to train party cadre.


They support NAMBLA.

They criticised one human rights group for not fighting against the suppression of a NAMBLA publication, as I recall it. Some people act as if this is literally the only thing the Spartacist League has ever done.


They're both depending on the situation. For example like Stalinists they refer to the arab spring as result of "the west" somehow funding the protesters. Just as PSL does, and they are basically Stalinist.

The Spartacist line on military support for states threatened by imperialism has been the same since at least the eighties, when it was vigorously opposed, in the case of Iraq, by the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA. So by this sort of logic, the people who oppose the Spartacist line are also Stalinists.

Would it not make more sense to recognise that this transcends the boundaries of tendencies? And in any case, since when have we been afraid to agree with "the Stalinists" on certain issues? No consistent proletarian politics can be built on taking every "Stalinist" position and inverting it; the political trajectory of Shachtman is evidence enough.


They are also ultraleft in that all they do is call things other groups are doing "reformist".

The Spartacist group is admittedly small; even so, they have participated in several campaigns (for Mumia, against the Klan, in support of a longshoremen's strike, etc. - all these examples are off the top of my head, so to speak). And they call certain tactics reformist, true. Like building a Labour party on the British model.

[The Feral Underclass]

They criticised one human rights group for not fighting against the suppression of a NAMBLA publication, as I recall it. Some people act as if this is literally the only thing the Spartacist League has ever done.

There isn't anything else we need to know.

NAMBLA is a front for active, predatory paedophiles. Any notion that they continue to be a cultural or political pressure group is a fantasy.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

There isn't anything else we need to know.

NAMBLA is a front for active, predatory paedophiles. Any notion that they continue to be a cultural or political pressure group is a fantasy.

How do you know that? And do you think the Spartacist League knows that, if it is true? (Besides, this was in the early nineties, as I recall it, or before that.)

[Leftsolidarity]

Their whole existence seems to be to attack other left parties and discredit them.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

How do you know that? And do you think the Spartacist League knows that, if it is true? (Besides, this was in the early nineties, as I recall it, or before that.)

I dunno, I would be suspicious of any group known as the "North American Man-Boy Love Association"

Age of consent laws are used in a very repressive and idiotic way in many circumstances (like 20 year olds punished for sex with 16 year olds, etc), but for the most part they protect children from being sexually exploited by older men with too many hormones and not enough shame.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I dunno, I would be suspicious of any group known as the "North American Man-Boy Love Association"

Perhaps, but that doesn't prove that they're an organisation of active predators, as TAT alleges. And if they are not, how does defending their right to publish material (that the Spartacist League does not necessarily agree with) prove that the SL is some child molester conspiracy?

[Geiseric]

Do you support laws against oral sex, too? You really trust the bourgeoisie to regulate your sex life? If you paid attention to the way the age of consent laws are used by the bourgeoisie, maybe you would oppose them too. How do you feel about gun control?

Your analysis is stupid and lazy. They are not Stalinists, they are Trotskyists. They defend China, Cuba, Vietnam, North Korea and Laos against capitalist restoration as they see them as bureaucratically deformed workers states.

And their US paper, anyway, Workers Vanguard, is among the best on the left and has been for decades. I have been reading leftist papers since the late 70s -- while WV isn't always brilliant, it shines compared to the sorry stuff put out by most left groups.

Hey asshole I was a minor a year ago. If you support some dudes right to rape me after tricking me into taking his dick up my ass, then guilt tripping me to stay quiet, than fuck you and fuck anybody who thinks pedophiles are exhibiting anything other than hegemonic or predatory behavior. They have quite nauseating politics as a whole, NAMBLA is just the tip of the fucking iceberg.

To the OP they are a cult. I have no idea why anybody who wants to do something as big and important as revolutionary politics would waste their time with the Sparts, who ironically are mostly around 50 years old.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Hey asshole I was a minor a year ago. If you support some dudes right to rape me after tricking me into taking his dick up my ass, then guilt tripping me to stay quiet, than fuck you and fuck anybody who thinks pedophiles are exhibiting anything other than hegemonic or predatory behavior.

Happily, the Spartacist League does not support this sort of behaviour. One can disagree with their position on age of consent laws - indeed one is not allowed to not disagree on this site - but their positions does not imply that child molestation is right. Child molestation causes real, actual harm to the victim. And causing harm is criminal.

I mean, using this sort of logic, it would follow people who oppose fetal homicide laws think that physically assaulting pregnant women is alright. And obviously, that's not the case.

Why do people lose all sense when discussing the Spartacists?

[The Feral Underclass]

How do you know that? And do you think the Spartacist League knows that, if it is true? (Besides, this was in the early nineties, as I recall it, or before that.)

Are you kidding me with this? Most of their leaders and many of their members are either in prison or have been in prison for fucking pre-pubescent children or owning films of other people doing so.

If the Spartacists were not aware of that then they were a) completely unaware of current events and the basis of their own opinions or b) wilfully ignorant.

Which would you like to pick from?

[The Feral Underclass]

Of course that's not to mention the fact that they no longer actually do any political activism and haven't done for at least a decade or two.

[La Guaneña]

I love the smell of a united left in the morning.

[Bostana]

I know they named themselves after the slave revolt lead by Spartacus. And that's pretty much all I know of the group.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They're both depending on the situation. For example like Stalinists they refer to the arab spring as result of "the west" somehow funding the protesters. Just as PSL does, and they are basically Stalinist.

PSL are Marcyites, aka "right-wing Trotskyists".

And what's this about the PSL's line on the "Arab Spring"? I remember them writing very supportive articles during the Egyptian uprising of 2011.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

PSL are Marcyites, aka "right-wing Trotskyists".

And what's this about the PSL's line on the "Arab Spring"? I remember them writing very supportive articles during the Egyptian uprising of 2011.

They support the arab spring except for the ouster of Ghadaffi and Assad

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yeah, that goes back to the whole Marcyite "imperialist camp" thing or whatever the fuck. Of course, in the absence of the USSR or any real valid socialist alternative, it inevitably means that you end up supporting some real eccentric scumbags, aka people like the good colonel, may he rest in peace

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Yeah, that goes back to the whole Marcyite "imperialist camp" thing or whatever the fuck. Of course, in the absence of the USSR or any real valid socialist alternative, it inevitably means that you end up supporting some real eccentric scumbags, aka people like the good colonel, may he rest in peace

Yep, All the way back to the Hungarian uprising. They even managed to support both sides of the cultural revolution somehow without the cognitive dissonance making their brains explode.

But of course, these are people with more sympathy for tank treads and steel boots than the proletariat.

[The Douche]

PSL are Marcyites, aka "right-wing Trotskyists".

And what's this about the PSL's line on the "Arab Spring"? I remember them writing very supportive articles during the Egyptian uprising of 2011.

I was out with the PSL when the no fly zone was declared in Libya, one of their national leaders talked to me about all the wrongs that the US had done to the problematic Gaddafi, but why he (my emphasis) still had to be defended.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Hey asshole I was a minor a year ago. If you support some dudes right to rape me after tricking me into taking his dick up my ass, then guilt tripping me to stay quiet, than fuck you and fuck anybody who thinks pedophiles are exhibiting anything other than hegemonic or predatory behavior. They have quite nauseating politics as a whole, NAMBLA is just the tip of the fucking iceberg.

To the OP they are a cult. I have no idea why anybody who wants to do something as big and important as revolutionary politics would waste their time with the Sparts, who ironically are mostly around 50 years old.
Oh, I see, your recently being a minor gives you some special insight here. If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion. If coercion was actually involved, and you were being threatened to keep you quiet, then a trip to the local police would be in order.

The state uses age of consent laws to persecute people, not to protect them. Rape is a crime. If coercion or deception are used, there are laws on the books about that. If a 15 year old boy and a 21 year old man have sex that doesn't necessarily constitute rape -- saying so is just moralism.

I'm not a member of the Sparts, but I have a long association with them. They are not a cult, but they have their weaknesses, for sure.

As for the OP -- I will try to quickly go through the various splits from the SLUS with a little commentary.

Around late 1967 Kay Ellens split with a few others and formed Spark, a group centered in Detroit, that was aligned with Lutte Ovrier, a French group with a rather syndicalist bent. They still exist, according to their website. When I was more active, I almost never ran into them at demos, or anything else for that matter. I think they were always small, even on the scale of the US left.

I think Treiger and Cunningham tried to form a group after leaving in the early 70s, but nothing as far as I know really came of that.

The next notable "split" although I don't know if that is the correct name for it, came in the form if the ET, or the External Tendency. According to the SL, this was a layer of members who were demoralized and quit the SL in around 1981. It should be made clear that they quit, they were not expelled, not a single one of them. There were some things going on inside the SL at the time -- the group was liquidating some of its union work and making a "turn" toward people of color. This generated some fights, but no faction emerged in the party (no oppositional documents). I knew some of the comrades that quit. They were not a homogenous bunch, but I do think they were mostly kind of burned out. It was also very hard to take them seriously as they all quit usually giving reasons like their feelings were hurt -- e.g., one comrade that I ran into was telling me that "they actually accused me of being RACIST." I told him the best response to that would have been "comrades, I respectfully say fuck you, and my documents will be ready by next Wednesday." Anyway these folks eventually coalesced into the Bolshevik Tendency. The two centers of the BT were Toronto and the Bay Area.

The political differences were always quite small, with each group fulminating against the other. The SL would accuse the BT of not being defenders of the USSR, and of having some kind of nefarious motivation for existing as an "anti-spartacist league." For their part, the BT accused the SL of being "political bandits," something that was used, correctly to label Healy earlier. I won't go into the specific differences -- suffice it to say that they should not have been any impediment to the groups fusing, even using a very stringent standard.

A watershed occurred when Bill Logan, who had been expelled from the IST for horribly mistreating comrades when in a leadership position in the IST (in Australia and New Zealand), was co-opted into the leadership of the BT. At this point, I would say the group had a stable core of around 40 or so members, maybe a few more (they had some comrades in Germany and France). After that, the Bay Area basically split from the group (early 90s), and they have gone into serious decline. The only presence they have in North America now, is Toronto. The only other place they have a presence, as far as I can tell, is New Zealand. While I'm not sure that Logan is a sociopath, as claimed in the bulletins covering his crimes in the SL, he is clearly a rather unsavory fellow who should be avoided.

The next group of note to emerge would be the Internationalist Group. They were formed by a small group of members that were expelled in 1996. The expulsion centered around problems with dealings the ICL (they changed their name in 1991 to the International Communist League) had in Brazil with a group they were considering fusing with. The SL's main internal documents about this fight are available to those that are interested. In my mind, the comrades that were expelled, including the long-time editor of Workers Vanguard, Jan Norden, and his partner, Majorie Stamberg, were run out of the party prematurely. It is impossible to know from the documents what the fuck really happened in Brazil. Both sides tell cogent stories -- it becomes a "he said, she said."

The IG is a small group centered in NY City with a few international followers in Brazil, Mexico and maybe France (?). Norden is a very prolific writer and puts out a bunch of stuff. The IGs propaganda has a bunch of "rah rah" kind of stuff that I don't like, but their positions are mostly legitimately Trotskyist. Again, the big picture, there are absolutely no political differences that justify seperate organizations.

A gripe I have with the SL is that they have always been too preemptive with possible factionalists. I think it has left the organization to homogeneous and the opportunity for cadre to mix it up in faction fights as a learning experience has been lost. The serious mistake they made in not calling for US troops out of Haiti did not foster any kind of serious opposition within the organization and that certainly worries me.

I hope that helps. I spend too much time thinking about this stuff.

[blake 3:17]

Why do people lose all sense when discussing the Spartacists?

Because they lose all sense when talking about anyone else on the Left. We all have out stories.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Because they lose all sense when talking about anyone else on the Left. We all have out stories.
And what might yours be, comrade?

[The Feral Underclass]

Oh, I see, your recently being a minor gives you some special insight here. If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion. If coercion was actually involved, and you were being threatened to keep you quiet, then a trip to the local police would be in order.

What the absolute mother fuckery is this bullshit?

There is so much that is fucked up about this one paragraph alone that I don't even know how to start.

Not only do you bring into question whether what happened was rape, you imply that naivety makes you deserved to be raped, and that it's his fault it happened; that tricking someone isn't coercion and ignoring the fact that going through something like that is really fucking traumatic and going to the police isn't always something traumatised people feel like doing.

This one paragraph alone demonstrates just how fucking ignorant and stupid people are when it comes to issues of rape. Right here, right now, in this moment, you have contributed to the culture of rape and added to the long list of rape victims who are told that it was their fault they got raped, that it wasn't really rape anyway and that they should have been better prepared, as if you can ever really be prepared to have some one coerce themselves inside you. Not that it was even that serious because he didn't go to the police, right?

You have belittled a rape victim, belittled their experiences and failed to fully recognise the seriousness of what has occurred.

Well fucking done. You piece of fucking shit.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

What the absolute mother fuckery is this bullshit?

There is so much that is fucked up about this one paragraph alone that I don't even know how to start.

Not only do you bring into question whether what happened was rape, you imply that naivety makes you deserved to be raped, and that it's his fault it happened; that tricking someone isn't coercion and that going through something like that is really fucking traumatic and going to the police isn't always something traumatised people feel like doing.

This one paragraph alone demonstrates just how fucking ignorant and stupid people are when it comes to issues of rape. Right here, right now, in this moment, you have contributed to the culture of rape and added to the long list of rape victims who are told that it was their fault they got raped, that it wasn't really rape anyway and that they should have been better prepared, as if you can ever really be prepared to have some coerce themselves inside you.

You have belittled a rape victim, belittled their experiences and failed to fully recognise the seriousness of what has occurred.

Well fucking done. You piece of fucking shit.

Comrade, take a deep breath and calm yourself. I oppose rape just as much as you do. Your personal trauma, whatever it might be, really is a subject for your own personal therapy and is not generalizable into a political program. You posed your story as a hypothetical. I'm sorry for whatever pain you have endured. It does not mean that every time a 20 year old and a 15 year old have sex it should be labeled "rape." I said that if there was coercion/deception involved report it to the police cause that would be rape. If you are afraid of how the pigs might handle it go to a rape crisis center. But that doesn't mean you should give the bourgeois courts the right to put people in jail for decades for consensual sexual acts. So my point, which you somehow missed completely was that if it was rape, then yes, it was a crime -- how the fuck do I know if your hypothetical scenario constitutes rape? I wasn't there. Sexual coercion is a crime, period. That is the point, age of consent laws are about prosecuting consensual sexual acts. And as for your absurd self-righteous indignation about how "I contribute to a culture of rape," put a lid on it. It is immensely offensive and patently false. How about the culture of putting young gay people in jail for having sex with people a few years younger? Is that cool to you?

[blake 3:17]

And what might yours be, comrade?

Lots. When I first got into politics, I was encountering all these different groups and was pretty confused by them. First chat I had, I was on security at an anti-fascist meeting and a Spart wanted my opinion on Clinton. "I hate him" End of conversation. I was amazed by a normal conversation on the bus with one Spart last year. Nice guy. We actually had a conversation about politics and some normal conversation about how life was.

I find it amazing that their members can pick fights with organizations and individuals they agree with. One accused me of being a Solidarnosc supporter (he'd actually been in a pro-Solidarnosc group) and it 2002. Huh? Never been involved in anything to with Poland...)

The one that most irked me was at a forum on Quebec's right to independence, (which the Sparts were late on, only supporting weeks before the 95 referendum) and their only member got up and started lecturing the whole meeting on Jean Claude Parrot being a "labour bureaucrat" -- maybe scientifically correct, but also the most kick ass militant leader of a major union in Canada in any recent memory.

I've many more...

[The Feral Underclass]

Comrade, take a deep breath and calm yourself. I oppose rape just as much as you do. Your personal trauma, whatever it might be, really is a subject for your own personal therapy and is not generalizable into a political program. You posed your story as a hypothetical. I'm sorry for whatever pain you have endured. It does not mean that every time a 20 year old and a 15 year old have sex it should be labeled "rape." I said that if there was coercion/deception involved report it to the police cause that would be rape. If you are afraid of how the pigs might handle it go to a rape crisis center. But that doesn't mean you should give the bourgeois courts the right to put people in jail for decades for consensual sexual acts.

Dude. There's no backing out of what you just said. It's there in print. You typed those words and you embraced their meaning. You can justify and obfuscate as much as you want, what you have just said demonstrates quite clearly just how much contempt you have for victims of rape, and you did so using the ABC of Classic Rape Apology. It was flawless.

If you really "oppose rape" as much as your post attempts to imply, you would have never have said those things. You oppose rape in the abstract and you have absolutely no idea just how damaging the things you said can be to victims of rape, which is precisely why you said it. Because you're an idiot.

You could have easily addressed the political issue you have in the conciliatory tone you have addressed the issue to me now, but you didn't. You chose to denigrate, humiliate and belittle a victim of rape. That's what you did. That's how you chose to respond.

And I'm not the one who brought up rape or the incident of rape. I am merely the one calling you out on your bullshit.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Happily,

Why do people lose all sense when discussing the Spartacists?

The Spart's modus operandi is to heckle and condemn all other left groups.They frequently show up at anti-war meetings,and left conferences, not to participate and fight for their viewpoint but to heckle and attempt to disrupt from the sidelines At an anti war conference I went to a few years ago hosted by Socialist Organizer the entire first page of Worker's Vanguard, the Spart's paper, was dedicated to bashing that organization. This was timed for the that specific conference.They are famous for extreme sectarianism.


They aim to preserve their revolutionary purity and when the working class is looking or a fighting organisation, they will be there.

The Sparts regard themselves as orthodox Trotskyists (indeed the only Trotskyists in existence). They orient strictly towards the left, not the working class. Their idea is to recruit people , from the left, by "ones and twos".

Many of their positions aren't half bad.Worker's Vanguard does have some interesting history articles. Because of their activist method they are regarded as ultra sectarian, disruptive and generally crazy.

Their support for NAMBLA, uncritical support for the right of the "deformed worker's state of North Korea to have nukes" and other issues is a turn off for many.

They do not have an understanding of the Transitional program.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Dude. There's no backing out of what you just said. It's there in print. You typed those words and you embraced their meaning. You can justify and obfuscate as much as you want, what you have just said demonstrates quite clearly just how much contempt you have for victims of rape, and you did so using the ABC of Classic Rape Apology. It was flawless.

If you really "oppose rape" as much as your post attempts to imply, you would have never have said those things. You oppose rape in the abstract and you have absolutely no idea just how damaging the things you said can be to victims of rape, which is precisely why you said it. Because you're an idiot.

You could have easily addressed the political issue you have in the conciliatory tone you have addressed the issue to me now, but you didn't. You chose to denigrate, humiliate and belittle a victim of rape. That's what you did. That's how you chose to respond.

And I'm not the one who brought up rape or the incident of rape. I am merely the one calling you out on your bullshit.

No, you are being an angry, moralistic dirtbag. We were talking age of consent laws and you turned it into a personal issue. I don't know what your anyone's traumatic experience has to do with the SL or age of consent laws. You brought them into a political polemic. Not a good idea for someone as traumatized as yourself. Then you start fulminating about my belittling rape victims. I didn't realize you were talking about your actual experience when I read it the first time. Because it was not appropriate or even logical to put it into the discussion, I should have figured it was. And no, you are the one who brought up rape, and accused me of aiding and abetting. I am not able to come close to the denigration and belittling that you are taking the lead in here. Keep it political. Oh, sorry -- I didn't realize that you were being indignant self-righteous asshole on BEHALF of someone else who may have actually been posting a hypothetical. To comrade Geiseric: Sorry for the harsh polemic -- if that did happen to you I hope you have been able to come to some emotional resolution of it. It still has nothing to do with age of consent laws. To Anarchist Tension: Get some counseling and get a life.

[Geiseric]

Their usage of the same name as Eugine Levine and luxembourgs party would be fitting for a leftist caricature, a political comedy, albeit only funny for bourgeois wisacres. If anybody on the left wants am example of the way blanquism works, they should look at the sparts. They think they're the communist messiahs sent with the holy word, and they're going to show up wherever socialists are to yell it out.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Could folks start a different thread if they want to talk about Nambla? As sensational as the spart's position was/is (?) as far as I understand they are not a single-issue group and I doubt it's their defining position.

In general, my political criticism of them is that they seem far too internal. They often propagandize around things that only other leftists--even only other Trotskyists know about, which suggests that they are only oriented around what other left groups do. They seem too content to only be a small propaganda group and my impression is that they see spreading the gospel as the way to build a revolutionary movement.

When occupy happened, they ran an article arguing to not get involved but instead "dazzle the activists" with militant rhetoric and communist politics. In an anti-racist protest I went to, they had a banner that said: all power to the soviets to end racism. Um, what soviets right now get the power? Yeah I know that they just meant "you can't end racism without also ending ruling class rule" but it was just sooooooo disconnected and they got ignored by most people and then tried to essentially troll and provoke the other 6 revolutionaries at the thing.


Lots. When I first got into politics, I was encountering all these different groups and was pretty confused by them. First chat I had, I was on security at an anti-fascist meeting and a Spart wanted my opinion on Clinton. "I hate him" End of conversation. I was amazed by a normal conversation on the bus with one Spart last year. Nice guy. We actually had a conversation about politics and some normal conversation about how life was.
i thought they were beginning to thaw out a bit a few years ago... I don't know if that's just my perception, or if they are tying to take a different approach... Or if it's just the individuals I ran into.

But some of their more aggressive members are maybe 25 percent responsible for me staying in the iso. I was a little unsure in my first year, but constant challenges by spart's made me stick in there out of spite:lol:

Not really.

[Rafiq]

There's nothing more exclusively worthless in regards to the sparts than any other ideologically vulgar and masturbatory leftist organization in the U.S. that prattles off of the dead carcass of 20th century class consciousness. Oh how degenerate our movement has become. What kind of bizarre political or ideological entanglements and confusions could possibly compel support for NAMBLA by a leftist organization? The kind that came into this world following the collapse of the left as we know it.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well, a lot of the SL cadre got their start in the New Left, when people were waving Little Red Books at each other and screaming. I think their program is good and much of their propaganda is excellent. I never loved the scorched earth polemics, as much as l like a good verbal fight as much as the next comrade. I think they tend to be insular, and also tend to try be reductionist. It is a pretty crappy era in which to be a leftist -- maybe especially in the US. The Sparts are very serious about Marxist education and about fighting for a revolution which are two of the most important things I can think of.

[Leftsolidarity]

They have a nice history of violently crashing other leftist events and meetings. I don't think I've ever seen them organize something themselves. They seem to like to just show up at other groups' events, pass out their literature, and pick arguments with everyone and be general assholes. There's not a single positive thing I can say about them. They do more good for the ruling class than the workers and oppressed.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

They have a nice history of violently crashing other leftist events and meetings. I don't think I've ever seen them organize something themselves. They seem to like to just show up at other groups' events, pass out their literature, and pick arguments with everyone and be general assholes. There's not a single positive thing I can say about them. They do more good for the ruling class than the workers and oppressed.

Wrong. They do, of course, organize their own events. Check their website for local listings. You have first hand experience with their "violently crashing other leftist events and meetings"? If you mean the go to public meetings held by other leftists and raise their arguments, which you don't appreciate -- well that sounds more like it. They tend to be surly and argumentative. And they sure don't have any love for the WWP (after all, you guys originally split from the SWP around supporting the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian workers' uprising against the Stalinist bureaucracy). Do you realize you said absolutely nothing political in your criticisms of the Sparts?

[Leftsolidarity]

Wrong. They do, of course, organize their own events. Check their website for local listings.

News to me. They ever organize any mass mobilizations or do they just like book readings?


You have first hand experience with their "violently crashing other leftist events and meetings"?

Second-hand, of people who have been at meetings where they've come in with bats.


If you mean the go to public meetings held by other leftists and raise their arguments, which you don't appreciate -- well that sounds more like it. They tend to be surly and argumentative.

Haha "surly and argumentative" that's one way to put it. Most people would refer to it as being a massive asshole.


And they sure don't have any love for the WWP (after all, you guys originally split from the SWP around supporting the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian workers' uprising against the Stalinist bureaucracy).

I don't think they have love for anyone but themselves and little children.


Do you realize you said absolutely nothing political in your criticisms of the Sparts?

Does one even need to look at their politics to know they are bat-shit insane? But their politics are garbage anyhow. My favorite line I heard from one of them is when a comrade of mine was arguing with them (when they came to an event in which they had no involvement in organizing and the first thing they do is set up a poster board condemning us and most other leftist parties). Said comrade was defending self-determination of oppressed nations particularly the Black nation in the US and the Spart laughed and said "Black people aren't an oppressed nation."

I'll take my leave at a bunch of white dudes that look like ultra-hipsters and indiana jones dismissing the Black Liberation struggle.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Well I never thought I would be defending the sparts. But at least theoretically speaking, their politics are adequate and good in some regards. A Marcyite has no right to complain about people having awful, disconnected events, or ruining other people's events.

See this moronic protest, I don't even know what is being protested here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r08LhKJs9g

Or when you ruined a perfectly good anti-police protest by shouting idiotic slogans that could only get working class people in trouble through guilt by association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8y_lhCux_M

Or when you went to a union protest with a fucking Mugabe poster

http://redyouthnyc.org/2013/05/13/red-youth-joins-with-poor-peoples-march-charges-into-wal-mart-demanding-union-wages-now/

Seriously, your orginization has awful politics, every one of your events is simply a desperate attempt for attention. Every single time you guys go to a protest all you do is scream "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS I WANT YOU TO KNOW I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS PLEAZ LOOK AT MEEEEEEEE" without even the slightest regard for the real needs of the working clas. Your party is nothing more than a gaggle of anti social idiots at best, and a wrecker, anti-communist organization at best. Considering the history of COINTELPRO entry into Communist politics, I would be surprised if your party was a government front organization.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Their whole existence seems to be to attack other left parties and discredit them.

The reason things look the way Leftsolidarity has described (above) is that most "other left parties" end up supporting the Democrats, if not in every presidential election, certainly in a bunch of them. The first time Obama ran for President, my recollection is that most of the "other left parties" tripped over each other, in their eagerness to back the pro-war, millionaire Democratic Party candidate, and that sort of thing has happened an awful lot, over decades. There was also the disgraceful incident of the "socialist" contingent at a pre-election Democratic Party rally, the "One Nation" thingy, some years ago, and that "socialist" contingent is the true face of much of the US "left," which is tirelessly opportunist towards the Democrats. In the southern New England city where I used to live, the ISO actually organized transportation, to enable workers to get to the Democrats' rally in DC.

So the strength of the Sparts is in their rock-solid opposition to the Democrats; my impression is that the Sparts are, indeed, ready to defend so-called "man-boy love," and I disagree with their position on that.

* * *

Semendyayev's descriptions of the SL are very accurate, I think. I know that the Sparts defended the reactionary closet-case GOP Congressman Larry Craig (in an incident where the Congressman allegedly solicited another guy in a rest room IIRC), because I remember their doing so.

* * *

From where I sit, the SL is strong on blasting the Democrats, (unlike "other left parties") and terribly wrong, vis a vis NAMBLA.

[Leftsolidarity]

Well I never thought I would be defending the sparts. But at least theoretically speaking, their politics are adequate and good in some regards. A Marcyite has no right to complain about people having awful, disconnected events, or ruining other people's events.

See this moronic protest, I don't even know what is being protested here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r08LhKJs9g

Or when you ruined a perfectly good anti-police protest by shouting idiotic slogans that could only get working class people in trouble through guilt by association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8y_lhCux_M

Or when you went to a union protest with a fucking Mugabe poster

http://redyouthnyc.org/2013/05/13/red-youth-joins-with-poor-peoples-march-charges-into-wal-mart-demanding-union-wages-now/

Seriously, your orginization has awful politics, every one of your events is simply a desperate attempt for attention. Every single time you guys go to a protest all you do is scream "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS I WANT YOU TO KNOW I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS PLEAZ LOOK AT MEEEEEEEE" without even the slightest regard for the real needs of the working clas. Your party is nothing more than a gaggle of anti social idiots at best, and a wrecker, anti-communist organization at best. Considering the history of COINTELPRO entry into Communist politics, I would be surprised if your party was a government front organization.

Lol this is something I've heard said about the Sparts countless times.

You know all of those were Red Youth which is not directly WWP, except for the top video I believe? There's actually already a long thread which talked about the first video too, I think.

Now I love a good ol' run at WWP and us "Marcyites" just as much as the next internet communist, but this thread is about the Sparts not WWP.

[Le Libérer]

Oh, I see, your recently being a minor gives you some special insight here. If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion. If coercion was actually involved, and you were being threatened to keep you quiet, then a trip to the local police would be in order.

The state uses age of consent laws to persecute people, not to protect them. Rape is a crime. If coercion or deception are used, there are laws on the books about that. If a 15 year old boy and a 21 year old man have sex that doesn't necessarily constitute rape -- saying so is just moralism.

I'm not a member of the Sparts, but I have a long association with them. They are not a cult, but they have their weaknesses, for sure.
As for the OP -- I will try to quickly go through the various splits from the SLUS with a little commentary.

Around late 1967 Kay Ellens split with a few others and formed Spark, a group centered in Detroit, that was aligned with Lutte Ovrier, a French group with a rather syndicalist bent. They still exist, according to their website. When I was more active, I almost never ran into them at demos, or anything else for that matter. I think they were always small, even on the scale of the US left.

I think Treiger and Cunningham tried to form a group after leaving in the early 70s, but nothing as far as I know really came of that.

The next notable "split" although I don't know if that is the correct name for it, came in the form if the ET, or the External Tendency. According to the SL, this was a layer of members who were demoralized and quit the SL in around 1981. It should be made clear that they quit, they were not expelled, not a single one of them. There were some things going on inside the SL at the time -- the group was liquidating some of its union work and making a "turn" toward people of color. This generated some fights, but no faction emerged in the party (no oppositional documents). I knew some of the comrades that quit. They were not a homogenous bunch, but I do think they were mostly kind of burned out. It was also very hard to take them seriously as they all quit usually giving reasons like their feelings were hurt -- e.g., one comrade that I ran into was telling me that "they actually accused me of being RACIST." I told him the best response to that would have been "comrades, I respectfully say fuck you, and my documents will be ready by next Wednesday." Anyway these folks eventually coalesced into the Bolshevik Tendency. The two centers of the BT were Toronto and the Bay Area.

The political differences were always quite small, with each group fulminating against the other. The SL would accuse the BT of not being defenders of the USSR, and of having some kind of nefarious motivation for existing as an "anti-spartacist league." For their part, the BT accused the SL of being "political bandits," something that was used, correctly to label Healy earlier. I won't go into the specific differences -- suffice it to say that they should not have been any impediment to the groups fusing, even using a very stringent standard.

A watershed occurred when Bill Logan, who had been expelled from the IST for horribly mistreating comrades when in a leadership position in the IST (in Australia and New Zealand), was co-opted into the leadership of the BT. At this point, I would say the group had a stable core of around 40 or so members, maybe a few more (they had some comrades in Germany and France). After that, the Bay Area basically split from the group (early 90s), and they have gone into serious decline. The only presence they have in North America now, is Toronto. The only other place they have a presence, as far as I can tell, is New Zealand. While I'm not sure that Logan is a sociopath, as claimed in the bulletins covering his crimes in the SL, he is clearly a rather unsavory fellow who should be avoided.

The next group of note to emerge would be the Internationalist Group. They were formed by a small group of members that were expelled in 1996. The expulsion centered around problems with dealings the ICL (they changed their name in 1991 to the International Communist League) had in Brazil with a group they were considering fusing with. The SL's main internal documents about this fight are available to those that are interested. In my mind, the comrades that were expelled, including the long-time editor of Workers Vanguard, Jan Norden, and his partner, Majorie Stamberg, were run out of the party prematurely. It is impossible to know from the documents what the fuck really happened in Brazil. Both sides tell cogent stories -- it becomes a "he said, she said."

The IG is a small group centered in NY City with a few international followers in Brazil, Mexico and maybe France (?). Norden is a very prolific writer and puts out a bunch of stuff. The IGs propaganda has a bunch of "rah rah" kind of stuff that I don't like, but their positions are mostly legitimately Trotskyist. Again, the big picture, there are absolutely no political differences that justify seperate organizations.

A gripe I have with the SL is that they have always been too preemptive with possible factionalists. I think it has left the organization to homogeneous and the opportunity for cadre to mix it up in faction fights as a learning experience has been lost. The serious mistake they made in not calling for US troops out of Haiti did not foster any kind of serious opposition within the organization and that certainly worries me.

I hope that helps. I spend too much time thinking about this stuff.

Yes, it does help and yes you do spend too much time talking about this actually - on this forum.

User banned- Rape apologist

[The Feral Underclass]

No, you are being an angry, moralistic dirtbag.

Erm, I'm not making any judgement about age of consent laws or about bourgeois justice.


We were talking age of consent laws and you turned it into a personal issue.

That may be what you're talking about, but what I am talking about is the way that you have employed rape apologist rhetoric to belittle a rape victim. It has nothing to do with the political issue.


I don't know what your anyone's traumatic experience has to do with the SL or age of consent laws.

That's not the point. The way that you have chosen to respond to a rape victim is to belittle them and make apologies for their rape. That's the issue.


You brought them into a political polemic.

Are you high or something? I didn't bring any thing into this other than to question your highly dubious attack on a rape victim.


Not a good idea for someone as traumatized as yourself.

You seem very confused.


Then you start fulminating about my belittling rape victims. I didn't realize you were talking about your actual experience when I read it the first time.

You'r confusing me with another user.


Because it was not appropriate or even logical to put it into the discussion, I should have figured it was.

That doesn't give you a right to belittle someone who is a rape victim or make apologies of their rape.


And no, you are the one who brought up rape, and accused me of aiding and abetting.

Again, no. You're confusing me with someone else. It just goes to show contempt you have for rape victims when you can't even remember who it was you were belittling.


I am not able to come close to the denigration and belittling that you are taking the lead in here.

You are a rape apologist. You deserve to be denigrated and belittled.


Keep it political. Oh, sorry -- I didn't realize that you were being indignant self-righteous asshole on BEHALF of someone else who may have actually been posting a hypothetical.

Whether it was me posting or someone else, whether it was real or hypothetical, you employed rape apologist rhetoric to belittle a rape victim. That is what you did. That is the issue here.


To Anarchist Tension: Get some counseling and get a life.

Just wow.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Are you kidding me with this?

No, I'm genuinely curious.


Most of their leaders and many of their members are either in prison or have been in prison for fucking pre-pubescent children or owning films of other people doing so.

If the Spartacists were not aware of that then they were a) completely unaware of current events and the basis of their own opinions or b) wilfully ignorant.

Which would you like to pick from?

When did this happen? As I said earlier, all of this happened in the nineties. The Spartacist publication in question mentions one NAMBLA senior figure being charged with child molestation due to "recovered memory" (and I think Spartacists had every right to doubt that procedure, given how it was used in the daycare satanic abuse witch-hunt).

I doubt that the Spartacist League would support a group that they knew was a front for abusers, of any kind; I mean, when rumours started circulating that the chairman of the Spartacist organisation in New Zealand was abusing members, he was dragged in front of a control commission and questioned, and ended up voting for his own expulsion.


PSL are Marcyites, aka "right-wing Trotskyists".

I don't think "right-wing" is a good description, to be honest. If anything, their line is usually to the left of the mainstream Trotskyist groups.


Because they lose all sense when talking about anyone else on the Left. We all have out stories.

But most of these stories seem to boil down to "and then the Spartacists came and criticised my politics". And, alright, that can be obnoxious, particularly when they hold every individual member of an organisation responsible for everything that organisation had ever done, but it really doesn't warrant this sort of hostility, I think - whenever the Spartacists are mentioned, the discussion quickly becomes filled with attempts at character assassination and so on.


The Spart's modus operandi is to heckle and condemn all other left groups.They frequently show up at anti-war meetings,and left conferences, not to participate and fight for their viewpoint but to heckle and attempt to disrupt from the sidelines At an anti war conference I went to a few years ago hosted by Socialist Organizer the entire first page of Worker's Vanguard, the Spart's paper, was dedicated to bashing that organization. This was timed for the that specific conference.They are famous for extreme sectarianism.

As comrade sixdollarchampaigne has pointed out, much of this "extreme sectarianism" is hostility toward the Democrats and toward attempts at building a labour party on the British model.


In general, my political criticism of them is that they seem far too internal. They often propagandize around things that only other leftists--even only other Trotskyists know about, which suggests that they are only oriented around what other left groups do. They seem too content to only be a small propaganda group and my impression is that they see spreading the gospel as the way to build a revolutionary movement.

I think they see the present period as an era of revolutionary downswing, and try to exercise what Lenin termed "revolutionary patience". And I think this is an appropriate strategy, particularly when certain other sections of the left are just too pleased with anything that resembles a popular movement and end up tailing it.


Second-hand, of people who have been at meetings where they've come in with bats.

And that's the problem - most of the really problematic stories about the Spartacists (like pushing an ISO member down a flight of stairs) are something that some heard from a friend who heard it from a friend... I'm not saying those people you know are lying, mind, but they might have missed some nuances. In particular, the SL is notorious for its extreme theatrics - baseball bats are nothing. You should have heard the story of the Red Avengers.


Does one even need to look at their politics to know they are bat-shit insane? But their politics are garbage anyhow. My favorite line I heard from one of them is when a comrade of mine was arguing with them (when they came to an event in which they had no involvement in organizing and the first thing they do is set up a poster board condemning us and most other leftist parties). Said comrade was defending self-determination of oppressed nations particularly the Black nation in the US and the Spart laughed and said "Black people aren't an oppressed nation."

I'll take my leave at a bunch of white dudes that look like ultra-hipsters and indiana jones dismissing the Black Liberation struggle.

Did they, though? I mean, a case could be made for the black people in the United States not being a nation due to a lack of a common economic life. Then the slogan of national self-determination is not applicable. But that doesn't mean black people aren't oppressed. Claiming that really would be scummy beyond belief - but in fact, the SL had a special programme intended to recruit black members, and consider black proletarians to be among the most militant members of the working class.


Seriously, your orginization has awful politics, every one of your events is simply a desperate attempt for attention. Every single time you guys go to a protest all you do is scream "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS I WANT YOU TO KNOW I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS PLEAZ LOOK AT MEEEEEEEE" without even the slightest regard for the real needs of the working clas. Your party is nothing more than a gaggle of anti social idiots at best, and a wrecker, anti-communist organization at best.

Come, now. I mean, the politics of the WWP are not that bizarre, and in any case, I think they are to be commended for not watering down their slogans or downplaying certain points of their programme. Angular slogans are fine. In fact, my chief criticism of what I (as an admitted outsider) know about their political engagement in the US is that they're not angular enough, sometimes supporting "progressive" Democratic politicians.


Yes, it does help and yes you do spend too much time talking about this actually - on this forum.

User banned- Rape apologist

Really, now? I realise that the tone of the post was, perhaps unnecessarily, aggressive, but they explicitly made a stand against coercion and deception, in that post and in subsequent ones. Some formulations were problematic - but note that, as far as I know, Lev Bronsteinovich is a psychologist, so saying "get therapy" probably wasn't as dismissive as it sounded - but surely, this warrants a warning or infraction, and not an outright ban? I appeal to you to reconsider this.

[The Feral Underclass]

Really, now? I realise that the tone of the post was, perhaps unnecessarily, aggressive, but they explicitly made a stand against coercion and deception, in that post and in subsequent ones.

So because he said he wasn't a rape apologist that means he isn't? Do you actually know what you're talking about? Do you understand what rape apology is?

When someone tells a rape victim that their rape was their fault, or wasn't really rape, or it was their responsibility to go to the police so they shouldn't complain -- that is apologising for rape.

Lev did all those things and more. His ban was completely justified and I would just drop it if I were you.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So because he said he wasn't a rape apologist that means he isn't? Do you actually know what you're talking about? Do you understand what rape apology is?

When someone tells a rape victim that their rape was their fault, or wasn't really rape, or it was their responsibility to go to the police so they shouldn't complain -- that is apologising for rape.

Lev did all those things and more. His ban was completely justified and I would just drop it if I were you.

Lev never claimed that the hypothetical case of child molestation Geiseric put forward was the victim's fault - the point, as I see it (perhaps I'm not objective) was that "being tricked" is horribly vague. Like I said, Lev could have phrased it better. But a few sentences after that, he explicitly states that coercion and deception are not alright. Nor did Lev claim that the situation Geiseric described was not rape. And the police were mentioned because people often assume that child molestation could not be prosecuted without age of consent laws - Lev's point, and I made that point earlier, was that it could and should be prosecuted under other laws. Hardly the words of a rape apologist. And where did he say that Geiseric shouldn't have complained if that happened to him? He said that this hypothetical personal experience does not warrant age of consent laws that criminalise consensual relationships.

Lev wasn't completely faultless in this; they should have expressed themselves better, and not let their anger show in this sensitive issue, but an outright ban? No, sorry, that's too much.

[Lucretia]

Yes, it does help and yes you do spend too much time talking about this actually - on this forum.

User banned- Rape apologist


Which is it? Was he banned for "spending too much time talking about" an issue you don't like, or was he banned for rape apologism? Because these two things contradict each other: if you claim the content of his post was rape apologism, and that he spends too much time reiterating the contents of his post on the forum, then you're basically admitting he has been apologizing for rape a lot on the forum without the admin team taking any kind of action.

This is what? The third or fourth ban of a thoughtful user on this forum in the past month? You guys are compiling quite the record in your neverending quest to revert this forum back to a teenybopper Che t-shirt stand. I'm sure I'm not too far from the top of your little hitlist.

[The Douche]

Go ahead and make your valiant stand defending some victim blaming piece of shit. And then you can cry about how "trots got purged".

Everybody remember, when the fallout from this comes, what was actually said.


If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion.

Cool fucking quotes around the word tricked, implying that Lev doesn't believe a 17 year old can be manipulated into having sex by somebody. If Lev doesn't believe the individual can actually be tricked, then what Lev is saying is "you asked for it".

Goodbye, good riddance, and I hope the same fate for anybody else who holds such a position, or would defend a person with such a position.

[Devrim]

Go ahead and make your valiant stand defending some victim blaming piece of shit.

You do realize that there isn't an actual victim in this thread, and that the entire situation was hypothetical.

Devrim

[Tim Cornelis]

Well I never thought I would be defending the sparts. But at least theoretically speaking, their politics are adequate and good in some regards. A Marcyite has no right to complain about people having awful, disconnected events, or ruining other people's events.

See this moronic protest, I don't even know what is being protested here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r08LhKJs9g

Or when you ruined a perfectly good anti-police protest by shouting idiotic slogans that could only get working class people in trouble through guilt by association.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8y_lhCux_M

Or when you went to a union protest with a fucking Mugabe poster

http://redyouthnyc.org/2013/05/13/red-youth-joins-with-poor-peoples-march-charges-into-wal-mart-demanding-union-wages-now/

Seriously, your orginization has awful politics, every one of your events is simply a desperate attempt for attention. Every single time you guys go to a protest all you do is scream "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS I WANT YOU TO KNOW I HAVE AWFUL POLITICS PLEAZ LOOK AT MEEEEEEEE" without even the slightest regard for the real needs of the working clas. Your party is nothing more than a gaggle of anti social idiots at best, and a wrecker, anti-communist organization at best. Considering the history of COINTELPRO entry into Communist politics, I would be surprised if your party was a government front organization.

God, that video protesting Red Dawn was embarrassing. How do people get this delusional?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Go ahead and make your valiant stand defending some victim blaming piece of shit. And then you can cry about how "trots got purged".

Everybody remember, when the fallout from this comes, what was actually said.


If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion.

Cool fucking quotes around the word tricked, implying that Lev doesn't believe a 17 year old can be manipulated into having sex by somebody. If Lev doesn't believe the individual can actually be tricked, then what Lev is saying is "you asked for it".

Or perhaps Lev was using quotes because they were literally quoting Geiseric's formulation, which they though inadequate. And "tricked" has connotations of short-term deception, not the sort of long-term manipulation that certain predators use. Like I said, though, the post was overly hostile. But it was not rape apology; Lev clarified in the same post that manipulation or coercion are never alright.

Should Lev have apologised? I would say yes. Should they have been infracted or warned? Probably. But a ban is, in my opinion, excessive, and the speed with which the ban was decided on just makes it all the more suspicious. I remember actual rape apologists - like Narcissus, oh my dear god, Narcissus - posting for pages and pages after their initial rape-apology post, before being banned.

And no one is claiming that there is some sort of mass purge of Trotskyists going on, though undoubtedly certain members of the administration would like that. But several thoughtful, productive posters have been banned in the last few months, under suspicious circumstances. Meanwhile, members who outright violate forum policy are left alone. Need I remind everyone of how slowly the administration responded to certain homophobic new members?

[The Douche]

You do realize that there isn't an actual victim in this thread, and that the entire situation was hypothetical.

Devrim

Of course, we don't know if there is or isn't a victim of sexual abuse in this thread. All we do know is that nobody has come out and explicitly said they are.

Second of all, I am ok with banning "hypothetical" victim blamers as well.


But it was not rape apology; Lev clarified in the same post that manipulation or coercion are never alright.

Yeah, and the OI section is filled with people who say "I don't agree with these fucked up things anymore, will you let me out?". And every single day of my life I hear people say shit like "I'm not racist, but" or "I don't hate all women, but", and those little bread crumbs tossed to political correctness don't impress me. Lev saying "rape is wrong" doesn't, in my mind, excuse his suggestion that individuals cannot be tricked or manipulated into sexual activity.

It doesn't take "long term manipulation", I used to see it all the time in high school, it only takes a few hours, some liquor, and some rapist piece of shit.



And no one is claiming that there is some sort of mass purge of Trotskyists going on

No, but that is, inevitably, what happens whenever a member with some comrades on here gets banned. The more prolific the poster, the more who "come to their defense" (i.e. spam and troll), and then they get banned, and suddenly 4 trots are banned (1 for rape apology, 2 for trolling/spamming and 1 more for rape apology cause they were "trying to explain" how it wasn't rape apology, but actually they just agree with the rape apologism). Then people paint a picture of a "purge", when it only ever would've been a single, justified, ban. Go ahead with your claims that the ban was not justified, you won't convince a majority of anyone.


though undoubtedly certain members of the administration would like that.

I never saw any indications of that while I was an admin, and I think I probably am the person who harbors the most contempt for Trotskyists who has ever been an admin (except maybe TAT), and I even supported trots for staff positions in the past.


But several thoughtful, productive posters have been banned in the last few months, under suspicious circumstances.

You can go down this road if you want, but from one poster to another, it only leads to a ban. I suggest that you pick your battles, thats why I've never been banned, not because I've never found my head on the chopping block.


Meanwhile, members who outright violate forum policy are left alone. Need I remind everyone of how slowly the administration responded to certain homophobic new members?

I too, especially as a former admin, am pained when I see people being allowed to post things which I believe to be flagrant violations of our rules. But many mods and admins are slow to act because of exactly what is developing in this thread right now, and that is the temper tantrums of the membership. Believe it or not, the staff doesn't really want to ban people, and doesn't like disharmony, and they know that disciplinary measures on this board often result in huge fallout (everybody on here wants to fight the perceived oppression that exists on the boards, probably because they don't engage in any meaningful politics in real life).

Its a fine line to walk, trying to enforce the rules but not cause waves.

[Old Bolshie]

Meanwhile, members who outright violate forum policy are left alone.

Although I don't want to intrude myself in Lev's case, I couldn't agree more with this. There are users in this forum who openly defends market socialism, forced assimilation and other stuff that violates this forum policy and somehow nothing happens to them. And what makes it more strange is that it had already been reported to the Admins.

[Devrim]

Of course, we don't know if there is or isn't a victim of sexual abuse in this thread. All we do know is that nobody has come out and explicitly said they are.

Second of all, I am ok with banning "hypothetical" victim blamers as well.

Well yes, there are probably some victims of sexual abuse in this thread. It is, unfortunately all too common. However, the sexual abuse referred to was not real sexual abuse because it was hypothetical.


Cool fucking quotes around the word tricked, implying that Lev doesn't believe a 17 year old can be manipulated into having sex by somebody. If Lev doesn't believe the individual can actually be tricked, then what Lev is saying is "you asked for it".

His sentence should imply that the poster wasn't tricked because, as this is a hypothetical situation he wasn't. Let's look at what was said:


If at seventeen you were naive enough to be "tricked" into taking something into your ass that you really didn't want there, that would be your problem and a topic for your own therapy, not for political discussion.

He uses the wrong form. It should be 'had been naive enough' to show that it is an unreal past. However, you can hardly ban somebody for bad grammar,and if the inverted commas around tricked show that he hadn't actually been tricked, well he hadn't because it is, remember, a hypothetical situation.

Devrim

[The Feral Underclass]

You do realize that there isn't an actual victim in this thread, and that the entire situation was hypothetical.

Devrim

What difference do you imagine that makes? He still expressed the opinions as if it weren't hypothetical.

Even if his grammar was correct what he said still apologised for rape. It's not a question of getting the grammar right, it's a question of what his words meant.

[The Douche]

Well yes, there are probably some victims of sexual abuse in this thread. It is, unfortunately all too common. However, the sexual abuse referred to was not real sexual abuse because it was hypothetical.



His sentence should imply that the poster wasn't tricked because, as this is a hypothetical situation he wasn't. Let's look at what was said:



He uses the wrong form. It should be 'had been naive enough' to show that it is an unreal past. However, you can hardly ban somebody for bad grammar,and if the inverted commas around tricked show that he hadn't actually been tricked, well he hadn't because it is, remember, a hypothetical situation.

Devrim

And if Lev had responded in the same manner, to somebody who was the victim of sexual abuse, would his comments then be wrong? I don't understand your argument, Lev is dismissive and puts the responsibility on the victim of stopping themselves from being raped, whether he does it hypothetically or in response to an actual scenario is irrelevant.

And in fact, I would prefer that he come out with his disgusting victim blaming in a hypothetical situation, instead of telling an actual rape victim the same thing.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Of course, we don't know if there is or isn't a victim of sexual abuse in this thread. All we do know is that nobody has come out and explicitly said they are.

Second of all, I am ok with banning "hypothetical" victim blamers as well.

So is everyone, I think. The question is whether Lev's posts constitute victim blaming.


Yeah, and the OI section is filled with people who say "I don't agree with these fucked up things anymore, will you let me out?". And every single day of my life I hear people say shit like "I'm not racist, but" or "I don't hate all women, but", and those little bread crumbs tossed to political correctness don't impress me. Lev saying "rape is wrong" doesn't, in my mind, excuse his suggestion that individuals cannot be tricked or manipulated into sexual activity.

It doesn't take "long term manipulation", I used to see it all the time in high school, it only takes a few hours, some liquor, and some rapist piece of shit.

Oh. I honestly haven't considered the use of alcohol, which really changes everything. Alright, I can see how using alcohol would allow someone to trick an older child into having sex, in the strict sense of "trick" as a direct, short-term deception. That said, I still think that the intent of Lev's post was not to blame the victims of such occurrences, but to make a sarcastic comment about Geiseric's choice of words. That was still excessive, of course. I am not saying Lev was an innocent victim of administrative malice, but that the response was disproportionate.

I mean, the point was not that he denies being a rape apologist (since the charge hadn't even been raised at that point), but that he explicitly states that manipulating children or adults into sexual activity is not acceptable. And of course using alcohol falls under the rubric of "manipulation".

[Devrim]

What difference do you imagine that makes? He still expressed the opinions as if it weren't hypothetical.

It makes a difference because what he is being accused of is implying that something, him being tricked, didn't happen, which to me seems not so surprising as it didn't actually happen because it is hypothetical.

Devrim

[The Douche]

That said, I still think that the intent of Lev's post was not to blame the victims of such occurrences, but to make a sarcastic comment about Geiseric's choice of words.

Yes, we all are products of this world, we all carry a cop inside our heads or whatever. I am sure Lev did not believe himself to be participating in victim blaming, I'm sure he doesn't see how he was contributing to rape culture. But his ignorance to the realities of the situation don't excuse him. Because as a communist militant (and one with as much experience as Lev) he should just fucking know better.

He is held to a higher standard than the typical college bro.

He very clearly put the responsibility for the hypothetical rape on the hypothetical rape victim, for allowing themselves to be tricked. That is the "they were asking for it" argument.

[The Feral Underclass]

It makes a difference because what he is being accused of is implying that something, him being tricked, didn't happen, which to me seems not so surprising as it didn't actually happen because it is hypothetical.

Devrim

Actually, that's only one part of what the issue is.

[Devrim]

And if Lev had responded in the same manner, to somebody who was the victim of sexual abuse, would his comments then be wrong? I don't understand your argument, Lev is dismissive and puts the responsibility on the victim of stopping themselves from being raped, whether he does it hypothetically or in response to an actual scenario is irrelevant.

I don't think that he did 'put responsibility on the victim'. Because the poster wasn't a victim. I read that post very different from the way you all did. I would imagine that part of this is to do with the fact that I don't start out wanting to ban people who defend the Sparticists positions on this question.

Anyway, I don't really care about it. I am just putting off doing something that needs to be done in the house by writing on this thread anyway. The admins will behave pretty much how they like.

Devrim

[The Douche]

I would imagine that part of this is to do with the fact that I don't start out wanting to ban people who defend the Sparticists positions on this question.


Well thats a bold comment to make. Certainly when I was an admin I had the opportunity didn't I, and yet I didn't exercise it.

And furthermore, if there were any group of Trots that I hated less than the others it would probably be the Sparts, but thats neither here nor there.

[The Feral Underclass]

I don't think that he did 'put responsibility on the victim'. Because the poster wasn't a victim. I read that post very different from the way you all did. I would imagine that part of this is to do with the fact that I don't start out wanting to ban people who defend the Sparticists positions on this question.

There may not have been a rape victim, but there was rape apologism. This is the point.

[Dabrowski]

Any organization that doesn't inspire frothing, irrational, violent hatred from the left cannot possibly be revolutionary, since the left by and large is a club for angry liberals who love the bourgeois order and only wish it would be nicer. Their vicious and near unanimous reaction to the Marxist position against age-of-consent laws is, for these middle class leftists, a token of loyalty to the bourgeois order, its state, its hypocritical moral code.

Of course while this healthy repellent effect that the Spartacist League has on reformists and centrists is a necessary condition, it is not sufficient. And after upholding revolutionary Marxism for about 30 years, the SL/ICL has, since the bureaucratic expulsions of the founders of the Internationalist Group in 1996, revised central aspects of the Marxist program, and has failed a series of key tests: from fleeing from the struggle to expel the police from the municipal workers union in Volta Redonda, Brazil, to dropping its opposition to the popular front in Mexico, to dropping its call for independence for Puerto Rico and all colonies, to polemicizing against the call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism after September 11, 2001, to the grossest failure of all, the SL's shameful support for the U.S. imperialist occupation of Haiti.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between former Marxists (the SL) and never-were-Marxists (most of its opponents), and that difference is showing all its ugliness in this discussion thread, as it does whenever the topic comes up on this forum!

All you have to be, in order to oppose state interference into sexual relations characterized by effective consent, is a decent human being -- most leftists, blinded by their craven submission to the bourgeois state's authority, can't seem to muster that.

[Fred]

Go ahead and make your valiant stand defending some victim blaming piece of shit. And then you can cry about how "trots got purged".

Everybody remember, when the fallout from this comes, what was actually said.



Cool fucking quotes around the word tricked, implying that Lev doesn't believe a 17 year old can be manipulated into having sex by somebody. If Lev doesn't believe the individual can actually be tricked, then what Lev is saying is "you asked for it".

Goodbye, good riddance, and I hope the same fate for anybody else who holds such a position, or would defend a person with such a position.

You seem to have a limited understanding of the use of quotes. Sometimes they are not used sarcastically. Sometimes they are actually a quote. And just out of curiosity, did anyone actually get raped and did Lev deny that it happened? I seem to have missed it in the thread.

[The Douche]

No discussion of age of consent laws can be had on revleft, and it hasn't really been discussed much in this thread, what has been discussed regarding that stuff is 1) the political culture (or lack thereof) of NAMBLA and 2) if Lev's comments constitute rape apology.

I think its absurd to try and claim that anti-statists are "in favor" of age of consent laws.

[Fred]

No discussion of age of consent laws can be had on revleft, and it hasn't really been discussed much in this thread, what has been discussed regarding that stuff is 1) the political culture (or lack thereof) of NAMBLA and 2) if Lev's comments constitute rape apology.

I think its absurd to try and claim that anti-statists are "in favor" of age of consent laws.

Why not? I really don't understand this. Plus, you just discussed this verboten topic. I am worried about this banning stuff. Are there other leftist forums where people aren't summarily executed?

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Any organization that doesn't inspire frothing, irrational, violent hatred from the left cannot possibly be revolutionary, since the left by and large is a club for angry liberals who love the bourgeois order and only wish it would be nicer. Their vicious and near unanimous reaction to the Marxist position against age-of-consent laws is, for these middle class leftists, a token of loyalty to the bourgeois order, its state, its hypocritical moral code.

Of course while this healthy repellent effect that the Spartacist League has on reformists and centrists is a necessary condition, it is not sufficient. And after upholding revolutionary Marxism for about 30 years, the SL/ICL has, since the bureaucratic expulsions of the founders of the Internationalist Group in 1996, revised central aspects of the Marxist program, and has failed a series of key tests: from fleeing from the struggle to expel the police from the municipal workers union in Volta Redonda, Brazil, to dropping its opposition to the popular front in Mexico, to dropping its call for independence for Puerto Rico and all colonies, to polemicizing against the call for the defeat of U.S. imperialism after September 11, 2001, to the grossest failure of all, the SL's shameful support for the U.S. imperialist occupation of Haiti.

Nevertheless, there is a difference between former Marxists (the SL) and never-were-Marxists (most of its opponents), and that difference is showing all its ugliness in this discussion thread, as it does whenever the topic comes up on this forum!

All you have to be, in order to oppose state interference into sexual relations characterized by effective consent, is a decent human being -- most leftists, blinded by their craven submission to the bourgeois state's authority, can't seem to muster that.

How does this fit into the Transitional Program? Where do you draw the line between underage kids fooling around and pedophilia? Given the explosive nature of this topic don't you think the Sparts and their offshoots are being just a tad ultra-leftist?

[The Feral Underclass]

You seem to have a limited understanding of the use of quotes. Sometimes they are not used sarcastically. Sometimes they are actually a quote. And just out of curiosity, did anyone actually get raped

There is at least one person in this thread who has experienced rape. But as has been stated several times, without any hint of rebuttal, whether someone has been raped or not isn't the point -- the rape apologism still exists and that's the contentious aspect of this discussion.


and did Lev deny that it happened?

Any one with a rudimentary understanding of the English language would be able to determine that is precisely what was being implied.

Also you are so obviously a sockpuppet for Lev.

[Lucretia]

Why not? I really don't understand this. Plus, you just discussed this verboten topic. I am worried about this banning stuff. Are there other leftist forums where people aren't summarily executed?

This kind of questionable purging is what routinely happens here, a forum where the admins and mods tend to be drawn primarily from the ranks of tendencies that pride themselves on being "anti-authoritarian" and "libertarian." By the way, you are allowed to discuss age of consent laws, apparently, since many people in this thread have been doing so without being banned. What seems to be prohibited, if I had to take a guess, since Lev's participation was hardly the "rape apologism" that he was supposedly banned for, and admins are never going to explain what specifically Lev said that prompted his banning, is to advance a position on age of consent laws that the admins disagree with. But it's not clear what their position is, so it's generally best to avoid discussing it from a critical perspective altogether, even if you're from a country - like I am - where these laws are routinely used to pursue a far-right puritanical agenda.

[The Feral Underclass]

This kind of questionable purging is what routinely happens here, a forum where the admins and mods tend to be drawn primarily from the ranks of tendencies that pride themselves on being "anti-authoritarian" and "libertarian." By the way, you are allowed to discuss age of consent laws, apparently, since many people in this thread have been doing so without being banned. What seems to be prohibited is to advance a position on age of consent laws that the admins disagree with.

Feel free to leave.

[Ele'ill]

This kind of questionable purging is what routinely happens here, a forum where the admins and mods tend to be drawn primarily from the ranks of tendencies that pride themselves on being "anti-authoritarian" and "libertarian." By the way, you are allowed to discuss age of consent laws, apparently, since many people in this thread have been doing so without being banned. What seems to be prohibited, if I had to take a guess, since Lev's participation was hardly the "rape apologism" that he was supposedly banned for, and admins are never going to explain what specifically Lev said that prompted his banning, is to advance a position on age of consent laws that the admins disagree with. But it's not clear what their position is, so it's generally best to avoid discussing it from a critical perspective altogether, even if you're from a country - like I am - where these laws are routinely used to pursue a far-right puritanical agenda.

worst post of this entire thread

[Lucretia]

worst post of this entire thread

Whereas yours adds so much substance. You can't even be bothered to add punctuation and capitalization FFS. :laugh:

Wouldn't it just save you a lot of time to have one of your long-time admin friends to code a script for you that will automatically respond to all my posts with "My name is Mari3L, and I disapprove of this message!"? Because this is literally all I remember ever seeing you post in response to me. Mindless one-liners that effectively state you don't like what I have to say.

In fact, I don't remember ever reading a post of yours that makes any kind of substantive point. Admittedly, I don't hang out in parts of the board you seem to participate in the most. But seriously, you have over 9,000 posts, and I've been on the forum for over two years. The laws of probability should have serendipitously connected me at some point to something interesting you've had to say. But nope.

[Ele'ill]

Whereas yours adds so much substance. You can't even be bothered to add punctuation and capitalization FFS. :laugh:


what I added was enough and at least I didn't just use what is the lamest of all the emoticons



Wouldn't it just save you a lot of time to have one of your long-time admin friends

quite a few of the mods and admins don't like me

[Fred]

There is at least one person in this thread who has experienced rape. But as has been stated several times, without any hint of rebuttal, whether someone has been raped or not isn't the point -- the rape apologism still exists and that's the contentious aspect of this discussion.



Any one with a rudimentary understanding of the English language would be able to determine that is precisely what was being implied.

Also you are so obviously a sockpuppet for Lev.
I have now read through the entire thread -- no one actually says they were raped. How can a victim be blamed where there is no victim? Perhaps a hypothetical ban for the hypothetical apology for the hypothetical rape would be more appropriate? Only there was, in my reading, no apology for rape. The poster who made the strangely worded comment did seem to be using it as a point in an argument rather divulging a traumatic experience.

I suspect my grasp of the English language is more than adequate. Perhaps better than yours. I've spent too much of my life around liberal thought police. That is the impression that this site gives.

[blake 3:17]

But most of these stories seem to boil down to "and then the Spartacists came and criticised my politics". And, alright, that can be obnoxious, particularly when they hold every individual member of an organisation responsible for everything that organisation had ever done, but it really doesn't warrant this sort of hostility, I think - whenever the Spartacists are mentioned, the discussion quickly becomes filled with attempts at character assassination and so on.


No.

I've been reading the Spart press for 20ish years, and have read back to the 70s on their site, and what's useful is that they bash everyone else.

It's the constant Everyone Else is Wrong -- and quite often I've agreed with them -- what I don't appreciate is the Everyone Else is Wrong mentality as a basis for building any kind of socialist project.

The section here for a couple of years had some leaders who intended to be more involved in direct action politics that a lot of had ACTUALLY DONE AND BEEN BEAT UP BY COPS ETC and having a leaflet handed to me saying "We meant to do that" and NO FOLLOW THROUGH and CALLING ME A PABLOITE SOCIAL DEMOCRAT for doing DIRECT ACTION as a member of the AUTO WORKERS --fuck it --etc

Workers don't need more bosses.

Edited to add: The Quebec thing is annoying. They only came out infavour of Quebec independence a couple of weeks before the 95 referendum. Others of us were building for a couple of years before that -- with left trade unionists, feminists, socialists -- a united front -- and then to have the fucking purer than purer who never had to anything but hand out a leaflet and tell us why we did everything wrong is soooooooooooooo YUCK

[The Feral Underclass]

I have now read through the entire thread -- no one actually says they were raped.

Which we've already agreed is irrelevant.


How can a victim be blamed where there is no victim?

Had the person been raped your response would have been exactly the same -- you wouldn't have moderated your meaning had the rape actually existed. You made the response on the basis that someone who was raped was making the argument they made.

Trying to use the fact that apparently no one was raped to evade the actual content and substance of your views is just cowardice. You said the things you said. You made apologies for rape.

The decent thing would be to apologise and take responsibility instead of trying to wheedle your way out of it by accusing people of misunderstanding you.


Only there was, in my reading, no apology for rape.

Of course there wasn't. Then you would have to take responsibility for the fact you're a rape apologist, and clearly you're too arrogant, self-serving and ignorant to do so.


The poster who made the strangely worded comment did seem to be using it as a point in an argument rather divulging a traumatic experience.

And your response was to belittle the idea that a person could be tricked into being raped (why you inverted the word "tricked", implied that it would be there fault for doing so because they were naive and then essentially apportioned blame to those that don't go to the police.

You can try and duck and dive and bring up technicalities as much as you want, it's not going to make what you said disappear.


I suspect my grasp of the English language is more than adequate.

Your suspicions are misplaced.


I've spent too much of my life around liberal thought police. That is the impression that this site gives.

Then I suggest you fuck off back to where ever you come from.

[blake 3:17]

There is at least one person in this thread who has experienced rape.


??? Yes. I know that. Personal experience. very personal

[blake 3:17]

As someone sexually assaulted as a child and adult I really don't appreciate people equating hypothetical assaults with real ones.

[The Feral Underclass]

As someone sexually assaulted as a child and adult I really don't appreciate people equating hypothetical assaults with real ones.

I don't think that any one is doing that, certainly not intentionally. The issue here is really about the content of Lev's comments, which were an opinion offered against someone who uses sexual assault to make an argument about sex. His comments would have been the same irrespective of whether a person was raped or not.

Lev and his cohort are purposefully trying to distort the parameters of this discussion in order to evade responsibility. Please understand that no one is attempting to downplay the seriousness of sexual assault.

[The Feral Underclass]

??? Yes. I know that. Personal experience. very personal

I'm sorry, I had no idea. It wasn't you I was referring to by the way.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Why is banning lev a better solution than making him understand why what he said was fucking stupid? He didn't make a post extolling the virtues of rape, he made an insensitive and ignorant comment, while trying to make a post that actually delivered on what the OP requested. I don't feel that his post had any kind of malicious intent, I think he's just an older guy in need of a refresher on what's cool and not cool to joke about in the year 2013.

[The Feral Underclass]

Why is banning lev a better solution than making him understand why what he said was fucking stupid? He didn't make a post extolling the virtues of rape, he made an insensitive and ignorant comment, while trying to make a post that actually delivered on what the OP requested. I don't feel that his post had any kind of malicious intent, I think he's just an older guy in need of a refresher on what's cool and not cool to joke about in the year 2013.

I personally don't think it's appropriate to allow people like that to have the privilege of posting on the board. I understand that people might think it's better to talk him round, but RevLeft isn't responsible for making rape apologists change their minds. It should be a safe space for people and they shouldn't have to worry about being confronted with comments like that.

I think a zero policy on this kind of stuff is important.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

It's the learning section, perhaps I'm confused by the purpose of this part of the board, or are only new members in need of education?. I'm sure an admin will be in here to yell at me for discussing it soon, I just wanted to say that it was fucking stupid.

[The Feral Underclass]

It's the learning section, perhaps I'm confused by the purpose of this part of the board, or are only new members in need of education?

Sure. It's not, however, a place for rape apology.


I'm sure an admin will be in here to yell at me for discussing it soon, I just wanted to say that it was fucking stupid.

You think it's stupid to provide a safe space for rape victims to use these boards without having to read people making apologies for rape?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

If he had said what he said with malicious intent I wouldn't have a problem with him being banned, but I'm pretty sure he's just an ignorant old man.

[Anti-White]

This whole thread is some mutherfuckin' bullshit.

[The Douche]

If he had said what he said with malicious intent I wouldn't have a problem with him being banned, but I'm pretty sure he's just an ignorant old man.

Then he can fuck off to wherever ignorant old men go to die.

Revleft is not a pedastal from which to preach rape apology. Lev dismissed the notion that an individual can be tricked/manipulated or otherwise coerced into sex. And beyond the obviously reprehensible nature of that (you don't have to be a radical to be against rape and against victim blaming), the dude claims to have been active within the communist movement for 40 fucking years. So he has absolutely no excuse.

We don't have to tolerate the presence of our enemies in our spaces. Fuck that.


This kind of questionable purging is what routinely happens here, a forum where the admins and mods tend to be drawn primarily from the ranks of tendencies that pride themselves on being "anti-authoritarian" and "libertarian." By the way, you are allowed to discuss age of consent laws, apparently, since many people in this thread have been doing so without being banned. What seems to be prohibited, if I had to take a guess, since Lev's participation was hardly the "rape apologism" that he was supposedly banned for, and admins are never going to explain what specifically Lev said that prompted his banning, is to advance a position on age of consent laws that the admins disagree with. But it's not clear what their position is, so it's generally best to avoid discussing it from a critical perspective altogether, even if you're from a country - like I am - where these laws are routinely used to pursue a far-right puritanical agenda.

http://media.urbandictionary.com/image/large/waaaambulance-23284.jpg

[Red Flag Rising]

This whole thread is some mutherfuckin' bullshit.

No kidding.

[Fred]

Which we've already agreed is irrelevant.



Had the person been raped your response would have been exactly the same -- you wouldn't have moderated your meaning had the rape actually existed. You made the response on the basis that someone who was raped was making the argument they made.

Trying to use the fact that apparently no one was raped to evade the actual content and substance of your views is just cowardice. You said the things you said. You made apologies for rape.

The decent thing would be to apologise and take responsibility instead of trying to wheedle your way out of it by accusing people of misunderstanding you.



Of course there wasn't. Then you would have to take responsibility for the fact you're a rape apologist, and clearly you're too arrogant, self-serving and ignorant to do so.



And your response was to belittle the idea that a person could be tricked into being raped (why you inverted the word "tricked", implied that it would be there fault for doing so because they were naive and then essentially apportioned blame to those that don't go to the police.

You can try and duck and dive and bring up technicalities as much as you want, it's not going to make what you said disappear.



Your suspicions are misplaced.



Then I suggest you fuck off back to where ever you come from.

You are immensely hostile and self righteous. You must know Lev personally, because you clearly can interpret what he says with 100% accuracy. He said that he had believed Geiseric was using a hypothetical. You agree with some other comrades that that doesn't make a difference. You than plopped him into a category and called him bad names. It would seem he was pretty cranky in his response (to an inane post). Part of the deal is, as an old, ignorant, out-of-touch, geezer, he really didn't seem to like the bringing in made-up personal material into a political discussion. Material that was as irrelevant as it was offensive. And maybe he thinks young, hostile, wise-ass comrades should learn to keep it civil. And to stop sounding like liberals screaming for political correctness. It's embarrassing.

[blake 3:17]

Closing thread due to massive drift.