Oppose ISO attack on DPRK and its US supporters

The 12 January ISO attack on Workers World Party, PSL, and FRSO-FB for their unconditional support of the DPRK and its leadership came across my desk, coincidentally, after I had spent several morning hours making notes on the various differences, strengths, and weaknesses of these organizations as I have had the chance to observe them over the last year.

The attack article is entitled "Socialism in one dynasty" and is written by David Whitehouse. Whitehouse has written several articles in the last 12 months for the socialistworker dot org website attacking the People's Republic of China and the Libyan government of the late Colonel Qaddafi.

Left-liberal doxa runs deep in the fundament of the ISO. For instance, they cling theoretically to the Cold War rationalization called "state capitalism", a classic example of political capitulation to imperialism which was formulated by Tony Cliff in the 1950s in order to lift the burden of unconditional defense of the USSR and other workers states off his and his co-thinkers shoulders.

It all goes to serve one overriding social impulse of this international group of privileged middle class professionals, public sector union hacks, and college professors: it allows them to have their cake and eat it, too.

A few examples:

US elections: attack often the bigotry of the Republicans, but tell readers Obama can be "forced" to the left by mass action.

Imperialist war: Don't like the obligation of unconditionally defending Libya against US-NATO attack? Splice together the hearsay and double-dealing of pro-Western journalists to indicate that the TNC has revolutionary, democratic components within it which must be supported against Qaddafi's "police state."

Others show solidarity with the Kim Jung Il leadership in the DPRK? Dig up a "North Korean concentration camps" horror story from that most reliable of NGOs', Amnesty International, tarring the DPRK's supporters.

The DPRK puts military self-defense first? Forget that Songun policy is a response to 60 years of war with the United States and a bitter national encirclement. Forget that every working class that threw off capitalism did so within the warping context of this encirclement. Just have the gall to tell the DPRK's population how you would run their country. After all, the prescription is always more important than the patient.

After all, we don't live there, and we don't want to take a principled stance that would jeopardize our quest for tenure or a seat on a loftier union body. Better to carry signs like those the ISO sported in 2002: "Stop Bush's war machine!."

Pathetic.

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Among the many bourgeois media sources used to bolster claims in the ISO article is the book Kim Jong Il's leadership of North Korea By Jae-Cheon Lim. [A free copy is available here.]

The book is published by Routledge, an international publisher of scholarly books on history, the liberal arts, and political economy. According to the dust jacket copy reproduced at Amazon dot com, Lim's perspective is that the DPRK is a "totalitarian society." Clearly the ISO is not far off from such a perspective. It should go without saying that phrases like "totalitarian" and "police state" have long been promoted by such estimable socialists-from-below as Henry Luce and People for the American Way as they promoted the US side in the Cold War. Such books have about as much usefulness as Conan Doyle's analysis of the Cottingley Fairies.


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In his article, Whitehouse writes, "moments like this are an opportunity to remind ourselves that our vision of socialism is very different from these organizations--and that the differences matter."

What is the ISO vision of socialism?

A living room of white radicals groaning with relief on election night as Barack Obama is re-elected?

A study group held at a coffee house on Murray Hill in Cleveland Heights that is so petty bourgeois that the furniture is hand-made and the convener wallows over a plate of sliced cucumbers and balsamic vinegar?

A newspaper and website that constantly castigated bigoted Republicans, but can spare space for only one article on the NDAA [as revealed by the site's own search function?]

ISO hates nepotism and hereditary leadership in the DPRK? In the United States they foster illusions in one of the most nepotistic social formations, the leadership of the AFL-CIO unions, all the while rationalizing its role in curbing struggles around auto contracts and the Cooper Tire lockout.

Speaking of democracy, the ISO has plenty of conferences, but when and how often is their leadership elected? And how often are the same suspects re-elected?

The ISO promote illusions dear to the hearts of Washington and Wall Street: that Obama can be moved in a progressive direction through mass action, or that enemies of the US government can be condemned as dictatorial regimes worthy of more opposition than the US government is, all without consequences to our class internationally [Iraq, Libya.]

They preach the "socialism from below" of the "Third Way" writer Hal Draper, but when it comes to a country like Cuba, which is by general consensus "socialism from below" to a fare-the-well, they deny that Cuban workers long ago ended the rule of capitalists and capitalism on the island! Clearly it is far easier to navigate a social event at the Faculty Club when one is not known as a supporter of Fidel or Raul. Better to print interviews with semi-respectable John Kerry supporters like the liberal Noam Chomsky.

For me the caliber of ISO cadre is best epitomized by this anecdote:

At a February 10 [2009] panel discussion at Hunter College in New York, ISO leader Lichi D'Amelio appealed to students not to buy hummus produced by the company Sabra. After stating that the company gives money to the Israeli military, she also asserted that the chick-pea-based dip "is not even Jewish, but an Arab food."

Again, pathetic.

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As I wrote at the beginning of this angry screed, the ISO attack article against WWP, PSL, and FRSO-FB came to my attention as - quite by coincidence - I was composing a few notes about those same parties. Over the last year I have become more familiar with their politics, their positions, and their activism in the US working class. Indeed, it was nearly a year ago that my request for WWP membership was denied.

Today is not the day to publish those notes. Today is a day to stand in solidarity with WWP, PSL, and FRSO-FB as they are attacked for their Marxist-Leninist politics and proletarian internationalism.

Jay Rothermel
20120112