Point-by-point response to WW editor
[Peter Manson's comments are emphasis, my replies in normal text]
"I am not prepared to publish your latest letter in its current form. This is because it repeats or refers to patently false claims that have already been refuted in the Weekly Worker."
It refers to political differences that are ongoing, and on which there is disagreement. You may flatter yourself that you have 'refuted' me, but you have disproved nothing about my political characterisations of your organisation.
"It is true that publishing the lies of, say, the SWP is often useful in exposing the nature of such an important organisation, but the same consideration does not apply to a lone individual. We have printed and responded to all your false claims previously, but it is in nobody's interest to continue to do so."
You mean that it is not in your interest to publish my views. I don’t see how anyone else's 'interests' come into it. And your statements about 'lies' are themselves examples of lying cant. See below.
"Here, in my view, are your "lies" on Osler/Galloway:
'Dave Osler's article was published because it corresponded to the views of the CPGB or its leadership."
Of course it did. Otherwise it would not have been so highlighted on the back page. Jack Conrad, who took the decision to publish and highlight it in this way, quite obviously regarded it as a very good article on the Galloway question. The fact that under subsequent pressure, he half-heartedly retreated from some of its most odious points does not negate that. And I'm afraid that John is the organ-grinder on these questions. I know for a fact that you played no role in the decision to publish this article, since you were a continent away when the Telegraph story broke and when this article was published. Your defence of JC is very touching, but to me it smacks of machine politics.
"The CPGB's views were in fact more accurately reflected in commissioned articles by Manny Neira and Ian Donovan in the two issues that followed. Later articles by Peter Manson, Eddie Ford and Mike Macnair, as well as yourself, confirmed the CPGB's actual position, which was to "Defend Galloway"
The position eventually adopted was indeed to very grudgingly and half-heartedly defend Galloway on the part of the core of the organisation. That has never been in dispute. My point has always been however, that the third campist politics of the organisation meant that shift was very superficial and unstable, and that the kind of politics that led to the highlighting of that disgusting article in the first place keep showing themselves in your political practice. You know this very well.
My article was not 'commissioned'. It was proposed by myself. I made it very clear at the ed-board meeting where I proposed it that I considered Osler's article to be terrible, and that I would be writing something with a completely counterposed political line. I also remember being criticised for my remarks by Marcus, saying that he believed I was in favour of uncritical support of Galloway.
That was never true – though my differences with GG have virtually nothing in common with Marcus’s ‘criticisms’, which are not that different from Osler's. However, anyone who reads my articles alongside Manny Neira’s in the same period can see that there is a real political difference between them. Neira’s simply repeat legalistic phrases, about giving GG ‘the benefit of the doubt’, and how he is ‘innocent until proven guilty’, while at the same time making clear his distaste for Galloway. Osler-lite, as it were. Not 'criticism', not mere 'political disagreement', but distaste. A distaste shared by JC. I'm sure you know the difference between normal political differences, and distaste. Or do you?
Whereas my articles were forthright in defence of GG, e.g the conclusion of my May 8 2003 article “The Galloway witch-hunt is a transparent attempt by the most venal, reactionary and sinister circles of British and US capital to strike back against the anti-war movement by a McCarthyite attack against one of its most prominent spokespersons. It should be met with militant resistance, on the simple principle that an injury to one is an injury to all.” No feeble legalisms about the ‘benefit of the doubt’, or GG being ‘innocent until proven guilty’ there. What was there to ‘prove’? What ‘doubt’? This was always a transparent CIA- style frame-up.
2. Osler's article was "unworthy of a publication calling itself communist", since it stated: "Galloway was probably guilty and 'the left should lead the condemnation'."
"Comrade Osler actually wrote that Galloway should be given "the benefit of the doubt" - pretty much the exact opposite of your falsified representation of his opinion. I referred to your dishonest quote-chopping in my last letter to the paper. Osler's piece was one-sided and therefore wrong and I agree with what you wrote after you left the CPGB - that it would have been better to carry it on an inside page."
You also omit to note that I also said that it should have been accompanied by an introduction that stated that it completely and fundamentally took the wrong side on this crucial question, and was included solely to promote discussion and show the 'other side'. The phrase 'benefit of the doubt' may have appeared in Osler's piece, but beyond this piece of legalistic banality Osler made his real views perfectly clear: "But such is the gravity of the accusations against Galloway that no publication still in possession of its marbles would go to press with such a sensational story unless it was pretty convinced it had got the basic facts straight. Let the truth be established. If he did take the money, the left should lead the condemnation."
That is the most damning sentence in the whole article. The very idea that it, for instance, was part of a criminal conspiracy by these ruling class elements, in that one sentence is completely dismissed, and it renders the purely formal and legal phrases about the "benefit of the doubt" utterly meaningless.
"You were an elected member of that leadership - the PCC, which oversees the production of the WW - and were therefore ultimately just as responsible for its contents as any other PCC member. Yet you made no complaint about the publication of the Osler piece either on the PCC or in writing elsewhere. This is because you were not against its publication at the time."
There are two provably false statements in this sentence. One: I was not elected onto the PCC till early 2004. Check your own PCC minutes. Two: I am deemed responsible for the contents of a publication that I played no role in producing and did not see until after it was published. I was in [another continent] at the time the Galloway witchhunt broke out, and I first read this article on the web on a public PC at [a distant overseas capital city]. I was not able to return for around a fortnight after that. You know very well that you are peddling falsehoods here, because you too were in [another continent] at the time this article was written, and you too played no role in its production. I pointed this out in the letter published in the current WW! Can't you even get elementary facts straight???!!!!
I was elected to the PCC on the basis of the political fight I waged over questions like this and the core leadership of the organisation appearing to move in my direction on these questions. This they did … but only for a short period.
Unfortunately, after the outbreak of the Iraqi uprising in the spring of 2004, the Conrad grouping moved back in the opposite political direction - as symbolised, among other things, by JC's volte face on the question of support for all Respect candidates against Labour (in the early spring arguing in favour of votes for Anas Altikriti, within a few months arguing against calling for votes to Salma Yaqoob). And by the abrupt shift away from my position on the Iraqi uprisings in Fallujah and Najaf - my semi-agitational material calling for solidarity with these anti-colonial revolts were featured on the front page of the paper in the early spring of 2004; a few months later my views were anathema.
"Your latest allegations about "pre-emptive censorship" on the CPGB discussion list have also previously been published and refuted in the Weekly Worker."
You mean that you have lied to your readership about that as well. You are lying now about admissions you made previously, including in WW, that a regime of pre-moderated 'editorial control' was indeed introduced onto the CPGB e-list by the grouping you are part of. If such a form of pre-moderation had been introduced, say by the SWP, on say, the Socialist Alliance e-list in the same period it would have been roundly denounced by WW as an attack on the democratic rights of members of the SA. And such denunciation would have been right. It is equally bad when you do such things.
And you are doing such things now, in public, behaving in exactly the same way externally as you were doing internally. You can refuse to publish my letters if you like -- it's no skin off my nose -- but it does demonstrate to others that my allegations of censorship in the CPGB were 100% true. Are you so myopic that you cannot see that only your own reputation is suffering because of this censorship?
"The Weekly Worker was not "embarrassed" into publishing your last letter. I decided not to publish it for the reasons given above, but immediately posted it for comrades' information on our internal discussion list. Mike Macnair suggested it should be printed, allowing the points you raised on accountability to be answered (although I note you have nothing to say on this substantive question in your latest letter). Other comrades agreed and I (reluctantly) went along with this and published the article as soon as Mike was able to write it."
You mean Jack Conrad decided not to publish it, and you nodded your head in loyal agreement as usual. I’m sorry, but I dont see any reason to believe a word of what you say. And I must say, it really takes chutzpah for you to criticise me for the content of my reply to Mike McNair, given that you are refusing to publish my views in any case. It really is like the definition of chutzpah that Jewish leftists like to joke about - a man murders both his parents and then seeks sympathy on the grounds that he has been left an orphan.
And doubly chutzpah given the failure of Mike McNair (or anyone else) to address the most obviously current point in the letter he was replying to, about the very topical question of Tommy Sheridan and the Scottish Socialist Party and attacks from the courts. I.e. that “if the SSP had done what it should have done, and united in defence of its leading comrade in the first place, none of these [legal] attacks would have been possible. All of these things, without exception, typify the exploitation of mistakes made by those who undermined Sheridan and capitulated, whispering about alleged ‘truth’ in the porno-mag titillation that appeared in the News of the Screws. All this proves is that the failure of the left to hang together in struggle against the class enemy means that we will be hanged separately. A very elementary lesson in class politics, which the CPGB seems to have completely forgotten.”
I suggest that, aside from your extreme touchiness about the historical question of the Galloway witchhunt, your failure to respond to this point is also a result of political fear. Perhaps even more so than over Galloway. You are disgracing yourself over this in a manner that is going to do you a lot of political damage over the next period in the same way as your vacillations over the Galloway witchhunt have done in the past period. I’m not entirely sure which is causing you more trouble – is it the Galloway question or the Sheridan question? What is clear, however, is that you are in deep political doo-doo, as the elder president Bush was wont to say.
Why dont you let your readers evaluate my points in reply to Mike? Come to think of it, since you claim to stand for the best traditions of the labour movement on questions of open debate, why don’t you uphold one key aspect of that tradition - i.e. that someone attacked in print should have the right to a reply of equal prominence?
This is a democratic norm that socialists should seek to impose on the bourgeois press - pity you can’t even rise to that level.
"I have posted your latest letter, together with this response, on our internal list."
Big deal.
Communist Greetings
Ian Donovan
"I am not prepared to publish your latest letter in its current form. This is because it repeats or refers to patently false claims that have already been refuted in the Weekly Worker."
It refers to political differences that are ongoing, and on which there is disagreement. You may flatter yourself that you have 'refuted' me, but you have disproved nothing about my political characterisations of your organisation.
"It is true that publishing the lies of, say, the SWP is often useful in exposing the nature of such an important organisation, but the same consideration does not apply to a lone individual. We have printed and responded to all your false claims previously, but it is in nobody's interest to continue to do so."
You mean that it is not in your interest to publish my views. I don’t see how anyone else's 'interests' come into it. And your statements about 'lies' are themselves examples of lying cant. See below.
"Here, in my view, are your "lies" on Osler/Galloway:
'Dave Osler's article was published because it corresponded to the views of the CPGB or its leadership."
Of course it did. Otherwise it would not have been so highlighted on the back page. Jack Conrad, who took the decision to publish and highlight it in this way, quite obviously regarded it as a very good article on the Galloway question. The fact that under subsequent pressure, he half-heartedly retreated from some of its most odious points does not negate that. And I'm afraid that John is the organ-grinder on these questions. I know for a fact that you played no role in the decision to publish this article, since you were a continent away when the Telegraph story broke and when this article was published. Your defence of JC is very touching, but to me it smacks of machine politics.
"The CPGB's views were in fact more accurately reflected in commissioned articles by Manny Neira and Ian Donovan in the two issues that followed. Later articles by Peter Manson, Eddie Ford and Mike Macnair, as well as yourself, confirmed the CPGB's actual position, which was to "Defend Galloway"
The position eventually adopted was indeed to very grudgingly and half-heartedly defend Galloway on the part of the core of the organisation. That has never been in dispute. My point has always been however, that the third campist politics of the organisation meant that shift was very superficial and unstable, and that the kind of politics that led to the highlighting of that disgusting article in the first place keep showing themselves in your political practice. You know this very well.
My article was not 'commissioned'. It was proposed by myself. I made it very clear at the ed-board meeting where I proposed it that I considered Osler's article to be terrible, and that I would be writing something with a completely counterposed political line. I also remember being criticised for my remarks by Marcus, saying that he believed I was in favour of uncritical support of Galloway.
That was never true – though my differences with GG have virtually nothing in common with Marcus’s ‘criticisms’, which are not that different from Osler's. However, anyone who reads my articles alongside Manny Neira’s in the same period can see that there is a real political difference between them. Neira’s simply repeat legalistic phrases, about giving GG ‘the benefit of the doubt’, and how he is ‘innocent until proven guilty’, while at the same time making clear his distaste for Galloway. Osler-lite, as it were. Not 'criticism', not mere 'political disagreement', but distaste. A distaste shared by JC. I'm sure you know the difference between normal political differences, and distaste. Or do you?
Whereas my articles were forthright in defence of GG, e.g the conclusion of my May 8 2003 article “The Galloway witch-hunt is a transparent attempt by the most venal, reactionary and sinister circles of British and US capital to strike back against the anti-war movement by a McCarthyite attack against one of its most prominent spokespersons. It should be met with militant resistance, on the simple principle that an injury to one is an injury to all.” No feeble legalisms about the ‘benefit of the doubt’, or GG being ‘innocent until proven guilty’ there. What was there to ‘prove’? What ‘doubt’? This was always a transparent CIA- style frame-up.
2. Osler's article was "unworthy of a publication calling itself communist", since it stated: "Galloway was probably guilty and 'the left should lead the condemnation'."
"Comrade Osler actually wrote that Galloway should be given "the benefit of the doubt" - pretty much the exact opposite of your falsified representation of his opinion. I referred to your dishonest quote-chopping in my last letter to the paper. Osler's piece was one-sided and therefore wrong and I agree with what you wrote after you left the CPGB - that it would have been better to carry it on an inside page."
You also omit to note that I also said that it should have been accompanied by an introduction that stated that it completely and fundamentally took the wrong side on this crucial question, and was included solely to promote discussion and show the 'other side'. The phrase 'benefit of the doubt' may have appeared in Osler's piece, but beyond this piece of legalistic banality Osler made his real views perfectly clear: "But such is the gravity of the accusations against Galloway that no publication still in possession of its marbles would go to press with such a sensational story unless it was pretty convinced it had got the basic facts straight. Let the truth be established. If he did take the money, the left should lead the condemnation."
That is the most damning sentence in the whole article. The very idea that it, for instance, was part of a criminal conspiracy by these ruling class elements, in that one sentence is completely dismissed, and it renders the purely formal and legal phrases about the "benefit of the doubt" utterly meaningless.
"You were an elected member of that leadership - the PCC, which oversees the production of the WW - and were therefore ultimately just as responsible for its contents as any other PCC member. Yet you made no complaint about the publication of the Osler piece either on the PCC or in writing elsewhere. This is because you were not against its publication at the time."
There are two provably false statements in this sentence. One: I was not elected onto the PCC till early 2004. Check your own PCC minutes. Two: I am deemed responsible for the contents of a publication that I played no role in producing and did not see until after it was published. I was in [another continent] at the time the Galloway witchhunt broke out, and I first read this article on the web on a public PC at [a distant overseas capital city]. I was not able to return for around a fortnight after that. You know very well that you are peddling falsehoods here, because you too were in [another continent] at the time this article was written, and you too played no role in its production. I pointed this out in the letter published in the current WW! Can't you even get elementary facts straight???!!!!
I was elected to the PCC on the basis of the political fight I waged over questions like this and the core leadership of the organisation appearing to move in my direction on these questions. This they did … but only for a short period.
Unfortunately, after the outbreak of the Iraqi uprising in the spring of 2004, the Conrad grouping moved back in the opposite political direction - as symbolised, among other things, by JC's volte face on the question of support for all Respect candidates against Labour (in the early spring arguing in favour of votes for Anas Altikriti, within a few months arguing against calling for votes to Salma Yaqoob). And by the abrupt shift away from my position on the Iraqi uprisings in Fallujah and Najaf - my semi-agitational material calling for solidarity with these anti-colonial revolts were featured on the front page of the paper in the early spring of 2004; a few months later my views were anathema.
"Your latest allegations about "pre-emptive censorship" on the CPGB discussion list have also previously been published and refuted in the Weekly Worker."
You mean that you have lied to your readership about that as well. You are lying now about admissions you made previously, including in WW, that a regime of pre-moderated 'editorial control' was indeed introduced onto the CPGB e-list by the grouping you are part of. If such a form of pre-moderation had been introduced, say by the SWP, on say, the Socialist Alliance e-list in the same period it would have been roundly denounced by WW as an attack on the democratic rights of members of the SA. And such denunciation would have been right. It is equally bad when you do such things.
And you are doing such things now, in public, behaving in exactly the same way externally as you were doing internally. You can refuse to publish my letters if you like -- it's no skin off my nose -- but it does demonstrate to others that my allegations of censorship in the CPGB were 100% true. Are you so myopic that you cannot see that only your own reputation is suffering because of this censorship?
"The Weekly Worker was not "embarrassed" into publishing your last letter. I decided not to publish it for the reasons given above, but immediately posted it for comrades' information on our internal discussion list. Mike Macnair suggested it should be printed, allowing the points you raised on accountability to be answered (although I note you have nothing to say on this substantive question in your latest letter). Other comrades agreed and I (reluctantly) went along with this and published the article as soon as Mike was able to write it."
You mean Jack Conrad decided not to publish it, and you nodded your head in loyal agreement as usual. I’m sorry, but I dont see any reason to believe a word of what you say. And I must say, it really takes chutzpah for you to criticise me for the content of my reply to Mike McNair, given that you are refusing to publish my views in any case. It really is like the definition of chutzpah that Jewish leftists like to joke about - a man murders both his parents and then seeks sympathy on the grounds that he has been left an orphan.
And doubly chutzpah given the failure of Mike McNair (or anyone else) to address the most obviously current point in the letter he was replying to, about the very topical question of Tommy Sheridan and the Scottish Socialist Party and attacks from the courts. I.e. that “if the SSP had done what it should have done, and united in defence of its leading comrade in the first place, none of these [legal] attacks would have been possible. All of these things, without exception, typify the exploitation of mistakes made by those who undermined Sheridan and capitulated, whispering about alleged ‘truth’ in the porno-mag titillation that appeared in the News of the Screws. All this proves is that the failure of the left to hang together in struggle against the class enemy means that we will be hanged separately. A very elementary lesson in class politics, which the CPGB seems to have completely forgotten.”
I suggest that, aside from your extreme touchiness about the historical question of the Galloway witchhunt, your failure to respond to this point is also a result of political fear. Perhaps even more so than over Galloway. You are disgracing yourself over this in a manner that is going to do you a lot of political damage over the next period in the same way as your vacillations over the Galloway witchhunt have done in the past period. I’m not entirely sure which is causing you more trouble – is it the Galloway question or the Sheridan question? What is clear, however, is that you are in deep political doo-doo, as the elder president Bush was wont to say.
Why dont you let your readers evaluate my points in reply to Mike? Come to think of it, since you claim to stand for the best traditions of the labour movement on questions of open debate, why don’t you uphold one key aspect of that tradition - i.e. that someone attacked in print should have the right to a reply of equal prominence?
This is a democratic norm that socialists should seek to impose on the bourgeois press - pity you can’t even rise to that level.
"I have posted your latest letter, together with this response, on our internal list."
Big deal.
Communist Greetings
Ian Donovan
posted by Ian @ 1:19 PM
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