1)Letter to Frank and SAIC (WITH A CORRECTION)

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex G
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2007 3:42 PM
To: pof-300@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [pof-300] 1)Letter to Frank and SAIC (WITH A CORRECTION) 2)New Templates


Hello everyone. For the past week or so, I've been working on a
letter to send to Frank and the SAIC (Seattle Anti-Imperialist
Committee) regarding the subject of transparency and SAIC's need to
make some changes in order for them to flourish.

The idea behind this was that Ben felt that SAIC may listen to me
more than Ben because they don't know me yet and I don't have
a "reputation." In the short term, it is most likely the case that
neither Ben's June 30 reply to Frank or my letter will have any
effect on SAIC's policy. However, it will hopefully get their brains
working, and possibly have an effect in the long term.

Ben, if you're reading this, I have no means of contacting Frank
directly, and although I can email the CVO, I'm not sure who reads
those emails and I don't know that it will get to Frank that way.
CORRECTION: Ben, if you read this post on Pof-300, you don't need to 
point out the SAIC address to me because I looked again and found it 
(I don't know how I missed it the first time). But either way, I 
still can't contact Frank directly. I also corrected a couple of 
sentences below, so this is a slightly better version.

Secondly, Marik and I have begun a project to set up our own news
channels which will post to Indymedia, RevLeft, etc. Included after
the letter is a section on two new templates we've managed to create.

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A Letter to Frank and SAIC

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Contents or Letter
----------------------------------------------------------
*Introduction (all about me…)
*Transparency and its Opposite (the good stuff)
*Conclusion
----------------------------------------------------------

Dear Frank, SAIC, and whoever else may be interested,

==================================
Introduction
==================================

I don't know you and you don't know me. My name is Alex. To introduce
myself, I'll start by telling you a few things about my background
with politics and leftist activities.

My interest in Leftist activities really started in my freshman year
of high-school, which is about the time that I started to question
the bullshit I'd been taught for eight years of my life. Until that
point, I generally accepted the common misconception that communism
looks good on paper but is really a shit idea in practice. However, a
friend of mine, an anarchist, convinced me to read a book that he had
on anarchism and from that point on, I was a Leftist (though I pretty
quickly rejected anarchism in favor of communism).

It is a long while later, now, and since then I have been involved in
several minor leftist events and a few major ones. However, the
biggest (and rather unfortunate) experience I had recently was with
the RCP. Exited about their World Can't Wait campaign, a friend of
mine and I convinced the students in the local high-school to stage a
walkout. Though this was quite successful, I was in for a major
disappointment.

After the day was over, I realized that the RCP was more intent on
advancing the goals of the Democratic Party than any real
revolutionary goals. It also seemed as though they repeated slogans
and words like "fascism" without understanding what they actually
meant, which was a real turn-off. The others didn't seem to mind very
much, but I was irked.

After experiencing the reformism (and cultish-ness) of the RCP, I
dedicated myself to finding (or helping to create) a truly
revolutionary organization.

Unfortunately, the area in which I live is fairly conservative, and
attempts to spur action since the WCW campaign have generally failed.
Because of this, I decided to try to reach a larger audience, so I
participated in discussions on RevLeft, DeviantART, and sought out
the local Indymedia. However, the local Indymedia had been out of
commission for some time, and it proved utterly useless. So, my hopes
of encouraging local activism were dampened for the time being.

After my disappointing failures, I found Ben Seattle and read
S.O.M.E. and a number of his other essays, such as Proletarian
Democracy and The Laws of Commodity Production for Dummies. Finding
it appealing, I went ahead and joined the pof-200 and pof-300 e-
lists.

Since my discovery of Ben's pages, my focus has been mainly one of
education. Not only have I been educating myself as best as I can (I
have become pretty well-versed in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rousseau,
etc.), but I have been writing to others a great deal in an attempt
to gather support for communism and Leftist activities.

When I discovered the debate on transparency between Ben and Frank, I
found it to be an extremely important theoretical question, and I
directed my actions toward participating in it. After some semi-
frequent correspondence with Ben, I felt it was time to step in and
write this letter.

Although my recent work has been through the internet, I would very
much like to get people in my own community involved. I would be
quite interested in what Frank (or any other SAIC supporter) has to
say regarding that, and I would like to hear their suggestions on how
to advance the anti-war and revolutionary movements in my area (as I
do value your advice).

Now for the good stuff:

The real purpose of this letter is to address the points in Frank's
reply to Ben's Annual Report and Ben's subsequent reply to Frank
SEPERATELY FROM BOTH BEN AND FRANK. Yes, I may be (relatively)
inexperienced, but I have been observing SAIC and the CVO very
carefully for the last couple of months, and I believe I have
something interesting to say.

=================================================
Transparency and its Opposite
=================================================

In Frank's reply to Ben's Annual Report (May 2007), he insists that

> [...] building the anti-imperialist movement today is impossible
> unless activists fight to overcome contradictions among
> themselves, and do overcome them.

Really? I agree. But what does Ben have to say?. He says that
overcoming contradictions is impossible unless certain measures are
taken to ensure transparency. Let's examine that point a little.

Taking a look at SAIC's site, I don't think they are doing enough
to "overcome contradictions among themselves." I only see blog-style
format for their main page, and only replies are allowed to be made
to posts that the committee has put there. If SAIC's idea
of "overcoming contradictions" is to simply limit them by only
allowing those posts agreed upon by the entire committee to be
displayed, then I think they seriously need to rethink their
priorities.

In short, if, as Frank advocates, an organization should "overcome
contradictions among themselves," then they must actively seek to do
so, and adopt a system where members and non-members alike can post
their own articles instead of just replying to others, and adopt a
system where each article can be critically reviewed and rated. This
is the only way to truly overcome contradictions. In other words, the
content of discussion should not be decided by the committee alone,
but by all supporters and non-members as well to ensure that
contradictions are really dealt with instead of just ignored.

Because SAIC only displays pamphlets that are agreed upon by the
entire committee, the controversial topics never see the light of
day. The contradictions, when they exist, ARE NOT OPEN FOR THE PUBLIC
EYE. Frank doesn't seem to mind because he believes that anything
else would make it difficult for people to resolve their differences.
But the entire point is that they are NOT truly resolving their
differences now! Despite how democratic the committee itself may be,
the message they spread is still monolithic.

Ben has suggested that SAIC post records of committee meetings on a
section of the web page and allow readers to respond. I think this
idea is quite sound. It would increase the level of transparency, and
it wouldn't be very difficult to do.

You could, of course, say that spending too much time arguing would
get SAIC nowhere and would take attention off the other tasks that
SAIC has. But this is, in all honestly, an excuse to avoid serious
discussion, because such things require deep thought and hard work
(which people tend to want to avoid).

No one said we had to tackle everything at once. TOO MUCH is TOO
MUCH, and that's that, but we can resolve our differences one step at
a time. It merely requires a little bit of common sense. And as far
as developing SAIC's site, no one said that we had to abandon all
face-to-face tools in favor of virtual ones. Developing a mix of
practices on the internet and "in the field" will, again, merely take
a little common sense.

You (Frank) have also said that SAIC does not need to take up
revolutionary tasks because it is not a "communist" organization.
However, SAIC is obviously an anti-imperialist organization.
Capitalism and imperialism are unfortunately entwined and cannot be
separated, and I'm sure you will agree that the defeat of imperialism
in this country will ultimately only come with the defeat of
capitalism. Therefore, why can't SAIC take on explicitly 
revolutionary tasks? It would be the most efficient way to combat
imperialism. The bottom line is that SAIC has the potential and the
need to become an independent, revolutionary organization.
Unfortunately, at this stage, SAIC seems to be having trouble when it
comes to their future goals and needs, and they are instead focusing
only on the immediate. To flourish, SAIC will have to think more
about the big picture (i.e., reaching a national audience and talking
about the eventual defeat of capitalism).

But many supporters of SAIC will be reluctant to do this because,
according to some of them, there is no alternative to capitalism 
(i.e., they think that the only alternative is a police state like 
the USSR).
Many also seem to be obsessed with immediate goals such as the next
pamphlet. Sure, it's good to be exited about your immediate goals,
but the kind of mentality that SAIC seems to have at this stage--that
is, one of obsession with the extremely urgent tasks--is unhealthy
for the organization as a whole. This mentality becomes apparent when
members of SAIC call people like Ben "dreamers" when they suggest
thinking bigger. History not only shows that it is dangerous to focus
too much on the now without thinking about the future, but it also
shows that these naysayers are usually wrong.

Once again, the immediate tasks, such as distributing the next
pamphlet, should not be put on the back burner, but SAIC's long term
goals (like reaching a much broader audience) MUST be thoroughly
discussed and kept in mind for the organization to continue its
usefulness. This is where a few steps to ensure more transparency
would really come in handy, because it would allow people from all
over the country to openly discuss SAIC's future goals and tasks.

On the other hand, this is what organizations like the CVO are
apparently for. SAIC's revolutionary tasks should (apparently) be
entrusted to the CVO because they are supposedly a "communist"
organization, and as far as teaching people about the alternative to
capitalism, there is apparently a study group for that, right?

Unfortunately, the CVO and this study group seem to like excluding
people if they think a person will "distract from their study,"
(i.e., Ben) meaning that what the study group thinks is the
alternative to capitalism is not open for debate. Ben has also said
that the CVO has failed to take up revolutionary tasks in its
existence, and has also failed to recognize the need for democratic
rights of free speech, etc., so SAIC should therefore not be
dependent on it (so Ben says).

I wouldn't exactly know, so I want to hear from you, Frank.

How is it that the CVO is a revolutionary organization, and how can
they be trusted with SAIC's revolutionary tasks if those tasks are
not subject to debate? How can the CVO really be an organization of
the people if they can simply exclude who they want from debate? Why
does SAIC really need to rely on the CVO at all? In short, why is
transparency somehow a detriment to any revolutionary organization?

=============================================
Conclusion
=============================================

From where I'm standing, it seems as though all Frank has managed to
come up with is that Ben is somehow a "rogue" and an "anarchist" who
doesn't give a damn about the anti-war movement, and whose work
merely amounts to a bunch of "emotional phraseology." To me, this
represents a complete failure to tackle the REAL ISSUES involved, and
also, a complete inability to tackle them. What do you do when you
can't (or don't want to) talk about the issues? You go after your
opponents character, of course! When you do that, it means that deep
down, you know that your opponent will win if the issues are talked
about, so you avoid the issues altogether.

But I want you to PROVE ME WRONG! I really do want to hear from you
(Frank or any supporter of SAIC), as I do value your opinion.

Sincerely,
Alex