From:    Louis Proyect 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: Re: Re M-I: For a culture of scientific discussion (Ben replies to Proyect)
Date:    Wednesday, April 08, 1998 11:43 AM

David Stevens:
> Well, originally you did register your site to the
>non-sectarian Marxist webring "Commie Ring" (tm), but
>you never even finished your homework.  On 26 June 1998,
>I sent you the HTML code to link to the ring, but you
>never installed it.  But I don't attribute that to
>sectarianism, so much as a skewed sense of priorities. 

This David Stevens is some character. His hatred for "reformism" is just
the sort of thing that I've been getting at. Here is a guy whose total
involvement in politics consists of working on web pages, his own or the
new Trotskyism web page. His own page is titled "Trotsky, Sex and Drugs",
which has the usual Trotskyist boilerplate with links to a sex therapist
and people distributing medicinal marijuana. Okay, there's nothing wrong
with that. But when somebody signs their posts "Trotsky, Sex and Drugs" as
if it was the same thing as identifying oneself as "Socialist Workers
Party" or "CPUSA", you get a sense of the problem. "Trotsky, Sex and Drugs"
is David Stevens. David Stevens is "Trotsky, Sex and Drugs." He has
absolutely no history of working with grass-roots organizations fighting
for social change. He has never been a long-term member of a cadre
organization like the Sparts, who he sometimes professes an affinity for.
He is a kibitzer on the left.

He is just the sort of person that might gravitate toward Ben Seattle's
project of realigning the revolutionary, anti-reformist left but it would
turn out to be a rowboat full of Admirals with no navy. Real revolutionary
organizations are not created by isolated, ultraleft, armchair
revolutionaries. They are created by people who know how to put their
politics into practice. When I came back from Nicaragua in 1986, I had an
idea that a solidarity organization of people who would be willing to
donate their technical skills could be feasible. And then I went out and
created that organization. My ideas bore fruit. Meanwhile, someone like
David Stevens has nothing but ideas. He sits around all day cooking them
up. Just like Malecki, just like Rodwell, just like Beddggoodd.
Cyberwarriors who want to expose "reformism" should band together. It would
probably serve a useful purpose for them to get together and draw others
like them into their circle or "Commie Ring" as Stevens put it. It would
allow the rest of us to work without interference.

Louis Proyect
General Secretary, Mariategui and Rhumba Dancing Society




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