by Citizen
Friday, Jan. 23, 2004 at 2:47 PM
The Sparticist League would rather interrupt meetings than hold their own.
The Sparticist League would rather interrupt meetings than hold their own. Well, maybe that's unfair. I've never actually been to an SL meeting. I'm sure they happen. . . somewhere. But once again, last night, they "crashed" a forum held by SPARK (a Revolutionary Socialist Orgnaization) to put forth their "message".
What is their message? Their message is that nobody "gets" Communism quite like they do. After the initial talk by a SPARK member, a talk which focused on Bush's State of the Union speech, one SL member was eager to criticize the "narrow-minded nationalism" of the talk. He must have liked the phrase because he used it twice, but never quite explained why the talk should be characterized this way. He was very upset that there was no "class context" as a frame for the talk. In other words, he was probably dissapointed that he didn't get to hear the
terms "imperialism", "colonialism", "ruling class", and "workers' revolution" 500 times because, after all, you can't be a "real" socialist without the empty rhetoric that SL members lamely cling to.
Then both SL members explained their position on the Iraq war. They say that the SL has taken a "military position" on the war. . . against the US. Okay, so far, no big deal, but this "military position" includes labeling U.S. troops, generally members of the working class who have been ordered to fight in Iraq, as "murderers". An actual soldier who had returned from Iraq was in attendance. This soldier was critical of the war and the US motives, but the SL members could only smirk and shake their heads. I decided not to ask them if a slaughter of 200 US troops tomorrow would be a "victory" for them because I could pretty much guess the answer.
A couple SPARK members did lose their cool, but frankly, it's understandable. They have allowed SL members to "attend" without protest in the past. They just lost their patience with the arrogance of the SL.
Finally, the SL members got up and left, denouncing the SPARK member who gave the talk as a phony, etc. Those in attendence actually clapped and sighed relief as they exited.
Go way, SL. If you are you so sure that your version of "Communism" is better, than you should be confidantly inviting people to your own meetings on your own time, not harrassing people at other organizations' meetings.