On “Sri Lankan SEP rejects Frontline Socialist Party invitation for a ‘dialogue of lefts’”

The “regrets” RSVP from the Sri Lankan SEP Political Committee to the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), decisively rejecting their invitation to attend a “dialogue” with an assortment of pseudo-left political parties and groups, was right on target. Hurrah!

Comrade Wije Dias, who wrote the letter, included this: “We [the SEP] are at a loss to understand why the FSP would believe that the Socialist Equality Party would have any interest in the talks you propose.”

Since the 1920s, the Trotskyist movement has relentlessly fought all Stalinist, reformist, centrist, petty-bourgeois, and pseudo-left parties as always unprincipled, and (at least) politically light-minded, (more typically) actively setting traps for honest members of the working class to fall into, and (at worst) of betraying entire working class movements to destruction, at the cost of millions of lives. The Stalinist betrayals of the German, Chinese, and Spanish revolutions are but three of the most egregious examples of the worst case.

Therefore, when Comrade Wije wrote: “We are at a loss to understand,” he may have had his reasons for putting it that way, but I don’t think it’s accurate. The SEP, as the only Trotskyist party in the world truly meriting the name, understands very well why the FSP might be so mistaken as to offer the SEP an invitation to a conference of light-minded people. Because of their own light-mindedness and unprincipled politics in general, they assumed that the SEP is no different.

Wije’s letter ought to set them straight, but probably won’t. I imagine there will be a lot of squealing and howling at the FSP gabfest over the insult that the SEP actually turned them down.

CH

Texas, USA

23 November 2013

On “David Walsh’s The Sky Between the Leaves”

An enormous accomplishment. Twenty years (and counting) of exceptional writing. I’m especially interested in taking a look at the work from 1992-1997, as most of it is not available in the WSWS archive.

It’s only a shame that more people won’t be made aware of this volume. Maybe if Walsh had spent more time aggrandizing Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Wong Kar-Wai and Pedro Almodovar, it’d be a bestseller!

Adam C

New York, USA

23 November 2013

On “Boston school bus drivers take wildcat action”

My thanks to Kate Randall for this article on the Boston bus drivers wildcat action last October 9, 2013. I think it’s important for your readers to review the short video you provided, from Masslive.com, where a courageous worker confronts a Steelworkers Union representative. I’ve worked around union reps of this caliber; look carefully at the video, and you’ll see him slink away like a whipped dog.

The bus driver, who unleashes with gusto at the union bureaucrat, will be described by the filthy mainstream news outlets as “a disgruntled worker”. In reality, he is a candidate for membership in the enlightened working class. (The co-worker who tries to calm him down is the ignorant one). I hope a member of the Socialist Equality Party was present to encourage him, and join in the action.

This is what the working class consciousness looks like in its early stages, believe it or not. That, no doubt, is why Kate Randall posted it. It is encouraging.

Randy R

Oregon, USA

23 November 2013