The Question of Parasitism.

Though I do not share the hostility of leo's massage, I at least agree that the criticisms and the way of putting the questions are not fraternal. When I ask a question or criticize a communist, I do this either to really know what is meant or make him/her to change his methods in a fraternal way etc. This does not seem the aim intented here. I do not want to say that this does not make the questions not that important to answer.

However when it becomes like talking to a wall, it becomes difficult to come up with a proper answer emotionally.

This is unconvincing - Leo began the insults after I politely asked what Devrim has since acknowledged is a reasonable question. He assumes - with no knowledge of what he's talking about - that those who post on web forums do nothing else (even though he spends time doing the same). He knows nothing about what I do or don't do, so he makes it up. And yet he portrays himself as the 'serious revolutionary'. I have no need to justify myself to a liar (or imply I'm some super-militant as Leo does), but to justify my calling him a liar I can point to this article, which is a result of my particpation at Visteon; http://libcom.org/history/report-reflections-uk-ford-visteon-dispute-2009-post-fordist-struggle

As he's well aware, I have often provided 'real arguments' when debating the ICC but that doesn't stop him repeating his myths that those who criticise the ICC have no substance to what they say. He can carry on lying to himself if he must, but we all know the ICC has been seriously and intelligently criticised on many topics by many posters on these forums - often very successfully (which is when Leo often starts his tantrums). The evidence is abundant on past threads here, as anyone can read.

Leo has behaved at least as badly as anyone on this thread (eg, insults, talking about shooting me ), but he still pretends to himself that he's above such behaviour. BTW, is this the same 'Leo' who moderates on revleft?

Leo's anger is probably really about feeling obliged to defend the indefensible rubbish about Masonic infiltrations which he finds as incomprehensible as anyone else (or only explained as paranoid fantasy). But instead of giving an honest answer he tries to discredit me with lies as fictitious as claims of Masonic spies.

The more grown up Devrim ackowledged the validity of the question and answered. But this seems odd;

But I first became aware of these articles when Alf linked to them on this site; he didn't qualify by saying the terms 'Masonic' etc shouldn't be taken literally. And, considering the articles have been on the ICC website for a long time, there's no reason to not take them literally; the article calls the expelled a "Masonic adept" and gives a clear impression he was a Freemason infiltrator. Devrim says this is untrue, so it's slanderous, and the accusations of slander made by former ICC members involved in other splits will be seen in this light. Alf has also shown considerable interest in "esoteric things" while in the ICC, such as articles on shamanism and telepathy - yet no condemnation or expulsion has resulted from this. Apart from the fact the Masonic claims are about as credible as claiming ICC members have been abducted and 'probed' - if, as Devrim says, the article has long been admitted to be misleading about someone - why is it still displayed?

Otherwise I can only conclude that, though Leo is happy to make up lies about people for political purposes - that he is only continuing a long ICC tradition.

It is what I was told when I asked. To be honest, I am not really very interested in things about who did what twenty plus years ago and didn't dwell on it. It may well use the term 'masonic adapt', but then I am not that familiar with these terms and what they actually mean, it wasn't it the quote you used either, and to be honest I haven't read the article myself.

Ha, ha, yes, there was a certain pamphlet with a pink cover.

Well yes, it is very clear. Sometimes people get some sort of bee in their bonnet and blow up at people even on the internet. It doesn't make it acceptable, but we should at least understand that it happens.

The whole "you don't do anything" line is a standard internet denunciation for people who are annoyed and who have nothing better to say. We all know that. You choose, not to ignore it, or just put out its irrelevance (your arguments would be equally valid if you didn't do anything but post on the internet, and I personally know that you do do things anyway), but to call him a liar, (based on something which is not particularly about you at all and just a standard slag off) and 'up the ante'. I don't know. Maybe you think it will wind him up, and provoke him into making himself look even worse, and hey, I am not even saying that I am above doing things like that myself. Stepping back from it, and taking a detached view, it doesn't make for calm discussion though.

Devrim

Damn, you've sprung the trap now. You're right though, escalation is pointless. Please assure Leo that he is wholly forgiven for his disgraceful behaviour .

This is DEFINITELY masonic code for something.

I want to go back to Cassady's post, which contains a number of historical inaccuracies which I think need answering.

“We are all aware that revolutionary organisations will at some point be targets of state infiltration. It is implausible, however, that almost every disagreement within the ICC for the past 20 or so years can be so characterised. I don't possess detailed knowledge of every split but as a former ICC member and ex-CBG I am in a position to pass judgement on the Chenier affair. It bears repeating that despite many promises from the central organs NO evidence to support the accusation that he was an agent of the state was ever produced”.

This is not the place to deal with the apparent idea that revolutionary organisations ‘will’, one day in the future, be targets of state infiltration. We would argue that existing left communist and anarchist organisations have already experienced more or less successful attempts to infiltrate them.

What is more serious is the wild assertion that “almost every disagreement within the ICC for the past 20 years or so can be so characterised”(ie as the work of state agents)

First of all, it paints a completely distorted vision of debates within the ICC. Disagreements take place every week, in every level of the organisation, and far from being labelled state agents, comrades disagreeing with the majority or the central organs are positively encouraged to develop their arguments in meetings and internal bulletins.

Perhaps Cassady is referring to some of the more acrimonious splits that have taken place in the ICC. It is true that in our view some of the groupings who have split from us have been animated by individuals with dubious motives, and that some of these individuals have been expelled from the organisation for behaviour which we judged incompatible with communist militancy. But to recognise that an individual shows motives that are doubtful and behaviour that is destructive is not the same as describing them as a police agent. Even in the case of Chenier we did not, in the warning we issued to the proletarian movement, claim that we had proof that he was a police agent. But we had certainly consulted a number of other organisations who confirmed that he had behaved in exactly the same duplicitous and destructive way inside them as he had inside the ICC. We have no proof that he was a paid police agent but a police agent could not have done his work any better.

Secondly, we do not claim that the former comrades who went on to form the CBG were directly involved in planning or carrying out the thefts organised by the Chenier tendency. What we have said is that they provided arguments that publicly justified the thefts, while denouncing the organisation’s legitimate efforts to recuperate its material far more loudly than any timid criticisms they may have made of those who had used deceit to enter a comrade’s home to steal equipment we needed to produce our press. This was then compounded by a refusal to hand back bulletins and other material that was held by the Aberdeen and Edinburgh sections on behalf of the organisation. And of course there is the issue that Cassady does not mention: the threats to call the police into the ICC’s affairs should the organisation attempt to retrieve any of that material. It was this threat above all which confirmed to us that these former comrades had crossed a class line, and in our opinion they have never really clarified this.

Cassady regrets that this thread has descended into ridicule. But he identifies with a grouping whose main influence on political life for the past 20 years has been precisely to provide ammunition to all those who want to present the ICC as being either ridiculous or worse, as a sinister and deranged cult. Ingram’s infamous open letter has again been recycled on this thread to support the view that the ICC’s theory of parasitism proves only that it is a paranoid sect.

At the Birmingham MDF and in recent correspondence, the former comrades of the CBG say that they think it is not appropriate to call the ICC an insane cult. Cassady even says that the ICC remains “at the heart of the revolutionary movement”. But if it is not appropriate to call the ICC insane today, why was it acceptable to do so a decade or so ago when the open letter was published? Given that the letter is still so widely in use today, an answer to this question is the least we could expect from anyone who really wants to overcome the nightmares of the past.

A brief word on Ingram's post. He seems to be saying that we are using the theory of parasitism not because we are mad, but because we are calculating Stalinist manipulators. Is this any more appropriate than calling us an insane cult?

I will come back to the 'masonic' question in due course.

Come on Alf, tell us about the decadence of the shamans!

And could you explain the importance of recovering old copies of internal bulletins from ex-members, I've never understood that one.

... not really specifically addressed to ret.

As stated, my comment was not addressed to your post nor did it have anything to do with it in fact, it was addressed to posts like these:

"Thanks for posting that, seriously funny, reads like a Monty Python comedy"

"The ICC have evidently constructed a spectacular conspiracy theory "

"The ICC - definitely not a cult. wink "

"The ICC stuff on 'the struggle of Marxism against freemasonry' is nearly as entertaining as their stuff on parasitism. "

"This is the ICC we're talking about here! Mad as a box of frogs, I'm telling you."

You were the one complaining about people not getting sarcasm.

All I "assumed" was that you aren't involved with militant activity, that you aren't a member or a sympathizer of an actual organization and thus are not giving the day-to-day effort or taking the risks which such people do.

Of course even if you only post on the internet, your criticisms of the political positions and actions of organizations should not be taken any less seriously and I might have been a bit over the top and a bit too aggressive due to events that actually are unrelated to this thread, but what on earth do you think gives you the unchallengeable authority to mock people who actually do give day-to-day effort to militant activity and take the risks it brings?

Yes, it is positive that that you went to support the visteon occupation, and also positive that you wrote about it but it was in March and we are in November. Being engaged with daily political activity is something different.

Not really. All arguements you came up with the ICC as far as I am aware of basically consists of repeating or implying that the icc is a sect, that the icc is a cult, that the icc is lunatic, that the icc breaks into peoples houses, that the icc is stalinist, that the icc is asocial etc. These aren't real arguements or political criticisms.

OK, so are you a militant or a sympathizer of an organization?

If you want an answer on the issue of masonic activity:

No, calling someone a "masonic adept" does not imply that the person in question was a Freemason infiltrator, it implies that he had a mason-like perspective and what the rest of the article says was that he was trying to recruit people to it. It isn't as if there is any claim that he was a part of the Freemason Order personally. I don't really see any problems with this point anyway, no serious organization could even consider having a person as such in it.

just in immediate proximity to it, and was the only reaction visible.

but the whole business is explained now well enough, so forget it.

No - you said this;

- which is obviously quite different. You also assume 1) that those in organisations do political things every day, and (2) that those who aren't in formal organisations do less than those who are. Leaving aside the relative value of particular activities, both are assumptions that in my experience aren't always true at all. Nor is one inherently more risky at all, organisational routines are often the safest, most unchallenging activity. But you seem to feel the need to create a hierarchy of militancy and I have no psychological need to compete on that level with anyone, nor find enough activities to 'prove' I'm militant enough. Your criticism of those who aren't as militant as your wonderful self also implies a very condescending vanguardist attitude to the vast majority of proletarians who are not political militants.

The date on the article shows it was written in June, fwiw - the dispute was still active in March. But why not make another inaccurate assumption about what I've done since then. If I was to use your criteria I might assume you'd done nothing unless you'd written about it - and that would be stupid and arrogant. Anyway, it's a desperate way to argue - as your calmer comrade says;

Then;

You are simply amalgamating criticisms of the ICC and attributing them to everyone who criticises the ICC. When I have directly engaged in argument I have taken issue with ICC politics, as here; http://libcom.org/forums/history/1968-06022008 and on several other threads.
If I didn't exist those criticisms you list would still be made by a wide variety of people. But I do think the ICC has in the past acted in a paranoid cult-like manner and still defends some of that behaviour. If you think there's no substance to those criticisms at all you don't understand the history of your organisation.

Wrong;- 'adept' has two meanings - it can simply mean an expert - but it is also a Masonic title (eg, True Freemason Adept, Prince Adept) so in the article's context most people reading that article would come to the conclusion that I did - and presumably Devrim too, as he felt the need to ask for clarification. The article is clearly misleading and slanderous. If you feel able to complain about the inaccurate names applied to ICC that you list above, you should surely see the logic.

Ret

Yes you have engaged in criticism of us not around the questions under discussion here and we have no problem with that. We have engaged in discussion with you on these threads.
Leo has said that he went over the top a bit, but has apologised, which you do not appear to accept or at least acknowledge. He says

He feels that we are being mocked not criticized. We can disagree on whether this is the case, but lets at least try to understand what is being said

Ret says

This is a fair enough position and we are very willing to discuss it with you (the reason we have not posted for a couple of days is that we wanted to check up on what happened so we could avoid false discussions etc). But it would help the discussion if you could say what you think about alf's post in response to cassady, which shows we have not behaved like a paranoid cult. It would also be useful if you could be more precise. We want to reply to these accusations.

In the mean time we have a question for you, you appear to imply we have been wrong in our handling of warning concerning JJ in 1995, and Chenier: but if we were wrong in these actions why have neither of these individuals ever asked for a jury of honour to clear their names? Instead of that they leave it to others to defend them: cowardice if nothing else.

We called on them to ask for such juries, which is the tradition of the workers movement, but they didn't. This speaks volumes in itself. If we were slandering them falsely such a jury would have shown it. By refusing a jury they allow the unfounded idea that they have been poor innocent victims of the ICC to circulate. What about criticizing them for their lack of honour in allowing this situation to last? Any genuine militant unfairly expelled from an organisation and having a warning issued about them would have gone to the ends of the earth to clear that honour. You put them blame on us all the time, but we have treated these expulsions and warnings with the greatest of seriousness.

The reason it can appear that you are always attacking us on these organizational questions is because you do not appear to call into question the actions of those we are meant to be so unfair too. For example why aren't you indignant about the fact that fact that comrades threatened to call the police against us?

Concerning the way we are apparently meant to treat all those who have criticisms of us internally. I would like to clarify some points about the comrades who became Internationalist Perspective.
-First of all, we do not see them as being the same as Chenier, or JJ, we have never said they were agents etc etc.
- We did not expel them from the ICC they left, we wanted them to stay and finish the very important discussion that was taking place concerning the question of centrism and opportunism.
- We did not suppress their ability to develop the discussion in the ICC. IP may not see it like that.
-We did not see why they needed to form an organisation outside of the ICC defending the same positions when we wanted them to remain in the organisation and finish the discussion.
- The main point of disagreement came when once they left they began to accuse the ICC of Stalinist methods, which were clearly false: well as far as we were concerned. And no one has been able to show that we did use Stalinist methods. But we are willing to discuss that.
Hardly the actions of a paranoid cult.

Concerning the question of freemasonary comrade alf will return on that. But in order to stop any more confusion about what we said about the comrade we expelled and issued a warning about (something we have only done in relation to three comrades: none of which has ever called a jury of honour which speaks for itself) here is the warning we issues:

"

So lets stick to discussing what we actually said not what comrades think we said, or infer we said. These are very important questions, because what is acceptable behaviour within a revolutionary organisation etc has implication for the development of common work etc and we need to discuss them as clearly and scientifically as possible.

Yes, obviously.

I don't think we are talking about the same sort of safety here. To clarify, I am talking about things at least like being blacklisted and at worst like imprisonment, torture, death.

My point had nothing to do with myself, and also included anarchist militants and all.

Not really, since I am talking about politicals who aren't militants.

Fair enough.

If you do think there is any substance to any of those criticisms, you have not seen a paranoid group, or a sect, or a cult, or a group which is lunatic, or a violent group or simply a Stalinist group even.

I think the determining factor in determining whether it means an expert or a title is whether it says "adept" or whether it says "Adept" (ie the capital letters).

I think that the table tennis sarcasm, constantly being wound upwards, is not conducive to any sort of discussion. We are all liable to being wound up, particularly outside of face to face discussion and this is an element that we should try to fight against.

I support Alf's post on Cass's position and the idea that all splits in the ICC have resulted in infiltration of state agents is manifestly false - as is the sub-text that the ICC is a Stalinist organisation. Also, in my opinion, there is a general underestimation on these boards about the repressive nature of the state - even doubts expressed about its very existence, usually signalled by the code-word, "conspiracy theory" as applied to the ICC.

Indeed, what was to become the EFFIC, was almost begged to stay in the ICC, but they choose to quit. Their political position on the international situation, something they made a great deal of in their arguments prior to quitting, soon degenerated further after they left the ICC, seeing Russian imperialism - an imperialism that virtually imploded along with its economic collapse - as being behind the first Gulf War. Frankly, a ludicrous position.

Shamanism is an interesting discussion in itself in relation to religion in pre-historic society and indicative of elements of the spectrum of consciousness in the same, in my opinion. If anyone wants to start a separate thread on this elsewhere I will be happy to make a contribution. But this discussion doesn't belong here.

Briefly on the masonic thing, because Ernie's post has clarified the main point: we did not claim to know whether or not JJ was or had been a member of a masonic group, only that he was establishing a secretive network which encouraged a fascination with occultist/masonic ideology. The fact that he was interested in the question of freemasonry was not the issue: marxists have long recognised that freemasonry is one of the forms through which parts of the bourgeoisie organise their activities, and insisted that the penetration of masonic ideas into the workers' movement is something that had to be rigorously opposed. Marx and Engels denounced Bakunin's secret Alliance as a kind of carbon copy of the hierarchical masonic organising principle; Trotsky in prison wrote a long text on freemasonry which was unfortunately lost; Bordiga insisted that masons be excluded from the Communist parties in the early 20s. In fact JJ himself wrote an article in the International Review on the P2 lodge in Italy which was undoubtedly a coordinating centre for different elements of the bourgeoisie - industrialists, politicians, trade unions leaders...The problem was that JJ was more and more drawn directly into the masonic outlook itself, into the ideology of seeing secret societies as key actors in history in their own right. But even this wasn't the main issue. The real capitulation of JJ to masonic ideology lay precisely in the fact that instead of raising his interest openly in the organisation, he organised his network behind its back, as a secret circle with him at the centre, and it only came to light because comrades who had been attracted to it became aware of what they were getting into and brought it out into the open.
With regard to my own interest in questions like shamanism, primitive communism, or psychoanalysis, I have never hidden these from the organisation, and I have always tried to approach them from what I considered to be a marxist standpoint. In the past I have not always found the best means to present these questions to the organisation, but in the last few years the discussions within the ICC on ethics, human nature, the book on communism, and the relationship between marxism and science have made it possible to deal with them in a much more collective framework, even if these are inevitably questions which give rise to many strong disagreements. We have not yet found the best way to publicly present some of these very rich internal debates, but it is a problem which we are discussing.

I'm sure you know that is nonsense, that this is not how people will interpret this at all; "a secret network of adepts of Masonic ideology". Apart from anything else, the very nature of Freemasonry is that its knowledge and ideology is secret and that one is initiated into it only as a member. If you can't even admit that the article is very misleading, it only adds to those general impressions people express of the ICC that you so resent. Your hair splitting is a bit like someone saying 'I never said the ICC was a cult, I said cult-like'.
You can also look back and see that the first response to my question was from ernie, who's been around the ICC a long time, and he responded by saying

Which could only add to the impression that 'Masonic adept' was used to mean Freemason infiltration.

Ernie; I'm not very interested in the details of the various splits, or in Courts of Honour etc - I just asked a simple question about the article. On learning it did not mean what it appears to mean I've asked why - if the ICC complain about misrepresentation so much - they think it's OK to misrepresent others in public. I await a credible answer. It's not as if I'm asking if the ICC would like to defend itself on this 'charge' in a libcom 'Court of Honour' - though maybe that follows from your own logic.

So Alf says the guy was definitely not a Freemason - then I suggest you take down that very misleading article - or never again complain of yourselves being misrepresented.

Ret for someone not very interested in the various splits you have spent a lot of time defending those who have split. In itself this is no problem and as we have said we are willing to discuss the issues you raise. Thus please specify where we have misrepresented others so at least we can have a chance to answer.
At the moment you are not specific. In the case of JJ you appear not to even address the actual reasons why we expelled him, but continue to insist we say he is a freemason when this is not what we said: how do we make a credible answer to that. We give an answer you do not like it, so ignore it: or rather oddly say we are saying what we do not say.
Not only that you appear to not have any concern about the other reasons we gave for expelling the comrade. You also totally ignore the fact that the comrade himself did not seek to repudiate the accusations made against him or seek to defended himself and his ideas. The only conclusion one can draw from this is that JJ was unable offer any defense or repudiation. So why are you so insistent on us misrepresenting him. If this was the case JJ would have done all it could to prove that he had been sorely mistreated. JJ silence demonstrates we did not slander or denigrate him. Why do you defend him, this is really puzzling?

It is obvious that if it was discovered that the expelled person was indeed a member of the Freemason Order, the comrades would have written that he was a member of the Freemason Order. While perhaps using a bit exaggerated tone, that quote can only be interpreted as a slander towards the person accusing him of being a member of the Freemasons by someone who consciously wants to interpret it that way.

Again only if you try to interpret it that way. Certainly the infiltration of actual Freemasons was the case for the early socialist parties and afterwards the early communist parties. Obviously, a lot of time passed, and the Freemason Order of today is very different from that of the past, but in the past revolutionaries actually fought a battle, as ridiculous as it might sound, to kick the freemasons out of their parties. While it obviously will not be the members of the Freemason Order today which would try to infiltrate an organization today, people who hold esoteric perspectives, who hold an ideology similar to theirs, fantasize about their practices do exist.

What do you think an organization is supposed to do when it encounters such a person? Should the comrades have given him a medal instead of expelling and exposing him?

Sorry, but that's really a very reasonable interpretation; if you want to stop people from coming to the wrong conclusion, you might want to emphasize what it is that you actually mean, revising the text.

Ernie; I've defended no one who has been expelled and have no interest in doing so - show where I have done that, or retract yet another inaccuracy. I asked one simple question - you replied in a way that didn't clarify that he wasn't a Freemason, quite the opposite. Devrim answered clearly and honestly, as far as he knew the facts - as a prospective member he himself had to ask the ICC for a clarification due to the article's misleading nature. Leo has offered unconvincing excuses.

The article is clearly misleading, as anyone reading it can see - yet Leo denies this on the basis of 'adept' rather than 'Adept' (though it has been spelt both ways when writing about Masons). I very much doubt he believes his own excuses - isn't it unnecessarily embarassing having to try to justify such nonsense, perpetuating the seige mentality that atrracts the ridicule you complain of? The ICC is just not prepared to admit it is being misleading, so carries on being so. And you wonder why you're criticised - the way you've responded here has only reinforced some of the criticisms of the ICC.

Exactly.

Devrim wrote:

Alf has also shown considerable interest in "esoteric things" while in the ICC, such as articles on shamanism and telepathy - yet no condemnation or expulsion has resulted from this.

Ha, ha, yes, there was a certain pamphlet with a pink cover.

I was going to ask if that was The Decadence of the Shamans, but then I scrolled down...
nastyned wrote:

Baboon wrote:

Alf wrote:

I very much enjoyed reading TDOTS when it came out and look forward to a public presentation of these debates.

Fucking hell, people on here go on about Dundee_United but this is really fucking mental. All of you, ICC and it's rebel daughters!

Ret for clarities sake, which article are we talking about, because I am becoming a bit lost now. This is why I posted up the reasons for his exclusion: which is the formal explanation for our warning. I cannot see mention of adapt. So may be we are talking about different things.
Ok you are not seeking to defend him, fine. So so could I take it that apart from what you take to be our calling him a masonic adept, you would accept that we had reason to expel him for the behaviours we outline? This is no trick question but an effort to establish common ground on what is acceptable behaviour or not within a revolutionary organisation: which in the end is what this discussion is about.

Vanilla, it is a bit of a bit of a whooper, but we were trying to respond to some pretty serious points.

Welcome

Why on earth would we expel alf? As he explains he openly put forwards what he considered and considers to be an marxist analysis of the question of shamanism, psycho-analysis, even telepathy. However, as he explained about JJ

So there is a world of difference, well we think so.

Keep up, ernie, you're supposed to be the fastest milkman in the west...
I linked on p.2 to the article I'm referring to;

...

I don't have much interest in discussing such questions here (partly cos they beg too many other questions, such as how you define a 'revolutionary organisation') - I just asked for clarification as to why Freemasons would apparently want to infiltrate the ICC.

Ernie, I take it 'Welcome' is intended to be me. Sorry to add to the confusion, but it's crappy editing/quoting on my part which made it look as if the remark about 'the expulsion of Alf' was attributable to me, when I was actually cack-handedly quoting Devrim quoting Ret Marut and adding comments of my own (which in my last post were pretty difficult to distinguish from what was quoted). It should've looked more like this... (but still not quite right(

Like I said, I look forward to a public presentation on discussions around shamanism, the spectrum of consciousness, etc., but it doesn't belong on this thread.