From:    David Stevens 
To:      marxism-international
Subject: M-I: Proyect on "Kibitzing"
Date:    Sunday, April 12, 1998 4:01 PM

I'd like to thank Louis Proyect, who was kind enough to
provide proof of what I said the other day.

I said:
->
->   It's representative ... that Louis not only identifies
-> the struggle against reformism as "sectarian," but that his
-> arguments are spurious ad-hominems regarding "organizers."

 I asked for representative samples:
->
-> _ad hominem_ arguments, spurious analogies, or outright
-> misrepresentation whenever he thinks they suit his purpose.

Louis Proyect obliged:
>
>  This David Stevens is some character...Here is a guy
> whose total involvement in politics consists of working
> on web pages ... 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.

 .  That pretty much covers the bases, I think.
The Sparts ought to protest that, since my solidarity
with them was expressed conditionally; (that is, I said
something like, "compared with a reformist slimeball
like our Comrade Saint Louis Proyect").  In terms of
my actual political affinities, I support the New
Zealand journal "revolution," which recently produced
its fifth issue.  And I subscribed to _Living Marxism_
because the people attacking it on a.p.s.t. seemed
to be the most craven of reformists ... as readers
here at M-I can plainly see.   ;-)

 Besides, I like Norden's Internationalist Group
better than I like the Sparts anyway.  The IG is
clearly the more-Spartacist-than-Spartacist group,
rather like Proyect is a more-liberal-than-liberal
defender of Vance Hartke, the progressive mission
of the US Army, and least-common-denominator
popfrontism in the name of classless "grassroots".

 .  Proyect made a similar rant against Ben Seattle.

 As is his custom, Cde Proyect errs in small details
as he does in his grand outline.  Louis wrote a similar
(but even more ridiculous) diatribe last week in newsgroup
news:alt.politics.socialism.trotsky asserting that some
veteran trade unionists (with more years in organizing
than Louis has on this planet) were lonesome middle-aged
petty-bourgeois who had never done anything.  (Louis is
very concerned about doing something/anything, on account
of needing to distinguish himself from all the other
middle-aged petty-bourgeois white guys he spews against).

 Doing "something" -- even if that "something" is merely
running around like a chicken with his head cut off --
is Comrade Proyect's top priority.  He doesn't even care
if he splatters blood and chickenshit around the barnyard.
For Louis Proyect, like for the original revisionist
Eduard Bernstein, "the movement is everything, the
goal is nothing."

 _Ad hominem_ arguments are Louis' stock in trade.
Even if Louis were more often correct in characterizing
his opponents, would that make their _arguments_ any
less valid?  Of course not.  These characterizations
merely serve diversionary purpose: Louis didn't answer
the _political_ questions occasioned by craven reliance
on the capitalist state (Federal troops to Mississippi,
blocs with "good" liberal defeatists like Vance Hartke).

 Personal evaluations _can_ be useful, especially when
evaluating the probity and veracity of a testimonial
or an assertion.  In this respect, I invite list members
to note the _chronic_ nature of Proyect's polemical
dishonesty, since it bears on matters of his direct
testimony and assertion.  (In other words, "get used 
to not believing" this guy).  Those already acquainted
with Comrade Saint Louis Proyect (as he's affectionately
known on the Trotsky newsgroup) already know to look
out the window themselves whenever Louis claims that
it's raining outside.
 
 As a matter of policy, I advise readers not to rise
to any McCarthyesque baits such as Louis offered Ben:
>
> We don't even know your real name. 

 The same goes for any other stuff Louis trolls for,
usually alleging a search for "credentials."  

 Proyect has something of a sliding scale for what
he calls "credentials"; ask Bob Malecki.    ;-)

 I don't trust Louis Proyect as far as I can throw him.

 I don't even trust him as far as _he_ can throw _me_.

 Louis isn't the "one man sect" we termed him last year
in the Trotsky newsgroup; instead, he is (as Ken MacLeod
aptly observed) more of a "one man workers state," and
a rather badly deformed one, at that.  Comrade Proyect
doesn't take well to workers democracy; he tends to be
as shrill as Robert Malecki (but with better spelling).

 Proyect has offered physical violence to opponents,
including T.Smith of New York and D.Stevens 
of San Francisco, just because that's the kind of guy
Louis is.  On my part, I have offered to meet Proyect
at SFO airport, where I promise to sell him a subscription
to _Living Marxism_ magazine.  (It is all to easy for
persons to make such empty threats remotely.  I expect
Comrade Proyect's visit will be warm and memorable).
But this shows what Ken MacLeod was talking about. 

  Louis' only consistency is inconsistent hypocrisy.
Proyect invites Ben Seattle to "step away from that
computer terminal and interact with the working-class."
Proyect, of course, doesn't hold forth to a dozen Net
forums merely by use of an abacus.  And he's expressed
the view that "real" workers are only in "Kentucky 
or North Carolina," so he's probably not the one to
ask about interactions with the working class.

 By his own standards, Louis Proyect is a failure.
After thirty years of fruitless effort, all he has
to show for it is his one-man sect -- oops, I mean
his one-man deformed workers state -- plus thirty
years of wasted effort. 

 But of course, Louis is dishonest to pretend even 
that his own idea of revolutionary activity involves
"going to Africa and teaching SWAPO how to vote."
Naw.  It consists of sitting his middle-aged spread
down at a computer terminal and spamcasting forth
his shaggy stories of going native in Peru (which
he hasn't done) and going to Africa to teach SWAPO
how to vote (which he also hasn't done).  Somewhere
in there, Commissar Leader Proyect will also find
time to establish a "grassroots" movement among the
0.0000001% of the planetary population that reads
his words on these commie Internet forums.  After all,
it's hard to reach the "real" workers of Kentucky
or Carolina, when you're parked in a white-collar
administration job at a bourgeois university in 
the middle of Manhattan.

- David Stevens


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