[Marxism] "Anti-Communist" cooties

[Eli Stephens]

Various people have taken Walter to task for terming the ISO/SWP 
"anti-Communist." I'm not going to bother either defending or attacking the use 
of the term, which gets us nowhere.

However, I DO think there is something behind that description, whatever the 
actual words that are used. Walter wrote that "they cannot see ANYTHING positive 
in anything which is done by the leadership of the Cuban Revolution" but that 
can't be right; after all, even the New York Times can see the positive things 
about the Cuban Revolution. Anyone in their right mind can see positive things 
about the Cuban Revolution.

No, what is involved here, I think, is precisely the opposite, and it's very 
much related (though not identical) to what I wrote about the appearance of 
Democrat Jim McGovern, a "friend of Cuba" (insofar as Congress is concerned), on 
C-SPAN the other night. With the right-wing Diaz-Balart on the attack against 
Cuba, McGovern uttered not one word of defense, even against such ludicrous 
charges as that Cuba was acting as a "terrorist nation" when it killed Americans 
in Grenada, or that Cuba "invaded Africa."

And what I said about McGovern was this:

    But liberals like McGovern are so frightened about being "tarred" by
    association with Cuba that the thought of saying one word in Cuba's defense
    is simply too much for them to deal with, even on a subject like the end of
    apartheid. Instead, he retreats to the "safer" area of "Americans'
    Constitutional right to travel" and the "best way to change things in Cuba."

And I think that's exactly the situation with ISO/SWP, and why Walter wants to 
call them (rightly or wrongly) "anti-Communist." Because they want to be able to 
claim to the world that their brand of socialism is a perfect system, coming 
from "below," from the "people." Having to defend an ACTUAL system, one that 
dares to call itself socialist, might mean having to defend a state which puts 
collaborators with its sworn enemy in jail. It might mean having to defend a 
state which doesn't believe multi-party [sic] elections where voters get to 
choose between one multimillionaire and another is the height of democracy, or 
that the ability of a billionaire to publish a newspaper is not the pinnacle of 
"freedom."

In the movie version of Hairspray, if you keep listening during the credits, 
you'll find a song entitled "Cooties" (you can watch it on YouTube here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyVrFk1BEKE&feature=related ). And really, this 
is what the aversion to Cuba on the part of some is all about. They don't want 
to associate with someone with cooties, lest their perfect (and perfectly 
imaginary) brand of socialism catch a case.


_________________________________________________________________
Your smile counts. The more smiles you share, the more we donate.  Join in.
www.windowslive.com/smile?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_oprsmilewlhmtagline