[Marxism] Sectarianism red in tooth and claw

[Aaron Aarons]

At 19:57 -0400 2008/09/23, Louis Proyect wrote:
>The WSWS has never been reasonable about the SWP. This fucking idiots
>charged Joe Hansen with being a Soviet agent and never repudiated it
>to my knowledge. This is a movement that literally went berserk in
>the 1970s and 80s and never came to grips with that. They should hold
>up a mirror to their own sordid history rather than pissing on Camejo's grave.

I am not defending the Northites. But just as (at 10:09 -0400 2008/09/23) Louis could write:

>I would add that WSW writes some generally credible material on culture and economics, [...]

without defending the history or organizational practices of the North-Mazelis group, I can also argue that Mazelis' article about Camejo was, at least from the perspective of orthodox Trotskyism, reasonable. And I don't see how such a mildly worded critique of Camejo's reformist politics can be called "pissing on Camejo's grave".

Here, as a reminder, are the final paragraph and the URL of Mazelis' article on Camejo:

>>> According to one account, Camejo liked to call himself a watermelon, "green on the outside, red on the inside." His "socialist" views were well hidden, however, including in his bids for public office. An advocate of what he called "fiscal responsibility and progressive values," he was recognized by the bourgeois media and the entire ruling establishment as a respectable representative of middle class reformism, who posed no real threat to their interests. <<<

<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/came-s16.shtml>

 - Aaron