1. “To the extent that your difficulties posting are related to problems with Disqus, this is something that the WSWS can’t properly assist with as it is a third party application. All I can suggest based on my own experience is that if you attempt to post on Disqus using Tor or a VPN connection, problems may arise as a result.”

To quote from the WSWS itself:

“As we reported yesterday, Facebook restored the accounts and claimed unconvincingly that the politically motivated purge of the socialists from its platform two days earlier was the result of a technical glitch. As WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North explained to the Financial Times in a front-page story on Monday, ‘Even though this particular ban has been [reversed], it’s a warning we don’t know what might come next.’”

(Facebook restores service to socialist pages, claiming the purge was an ‘automation error.’ )

From the same article:

Judith Jackson: “Having disabled the group account for the University of Michigan IYSSE account, and those of its admins and leading members of the Socialist Equality Party, Facebook restored these accounts on Monday. While an apology was made, there has not been a satisfactory explanation given as to why these accounts were targeted, other than it was an ‘automation error.’ Given that Facebook employs several thousand personnel to monitor accounts, I for one do not take this explanation at face value. …”

Dr. Laurie Cestnick: “… In November 2020, the personal pages of all 3 administrators of the page were shut down all on the same day within minutes of each other. None of us ever spams and we run a very clean and respectful page … there was no reason for it. Once my personal page was back, a message popped up stating ‘You are not allowed to create any more groups until February 2021’ … I hadn’t created a group since 2015—my progressive group, so this was extremely odd. I STILL cannot even post on my OWN group wall (link above) and all other admins are still off of FB. Thankfully a couple of moderators were left to man the page but we still get threats from FB to shut us down with no explanation. Not only can I not post on my own group wall, but I am a neuroscientist and neuropsychologist/psychologist and cannot even post on my own page that I created to help children with autism, dyslexia etc.”

From another article: 
(Facebook escalates attack on socialist left)

“These actions by Facebook take place in a definite political context. There is an immense and ongoing political crisis within the US state, a raging pandemic that has killed nearly 430,000 people in the United States, an extreme economic crisis, and growing anger in the working class against the entire policy of the capitalist ruling elite. The ruling class is terrified of the growth of social opposition from below.”

As you can see, these arguments about a third party application, within the context of the campaign against internet censorship, make no sense.  The fact remains that not only the ruling class but also the nano-bureaucracy feel terrified by the social opposition from below.  The only way for the nano-bureaucracy to contain that social opposition without turning to the tactics and strategy of the counter-revolution will depend on its ability to incorporate opposition factions into official positions within the party.  Barring this, the WSWS will find itself following the same tactics and strategy as Facebook, Google, and every other corporation attempting do its part to censor any challenge to all existing political leadership.  Perhaps they prefer to be censored so as to avoid any conversation that would make them uncomfortable.  I have no reason to believe that Disqus somehow follows a different pattern.  In 2017, Zeta Global bought Disqus.  Zeta Global was founded by former Apple Inc. CEO John Sculley.  To argue that Apple and Disqus really stand for our democratic rights reveals an unacceptable level of naivete and political subservience to the corporations and their executives.

2.  “I have not looked through your entire commenting history or attempted commenting history on the site which you’ve documented on your wordpress page.”

Has anyone looked at my history?  I have published 3 books on my website.  Doesn’t the SEP have to respond to a former SSE President at a major university, somebody who campaigned for the SEP during elections, who wrote for the website?  Is the commenting history really that problematic?  If so, how would it hurt to speak directly about these issues.  If no agreement can be reached, then members should have a right to discuss and vote, as well as receive proportional representation inside national committees.  In the mean time, the leadership should be held accountable to provide someone to discuss these issues in the most inclusive way possible.  If the point of the party is to create theoretical clarity for the revolutionary movement, then chasing TV hosts for crowds will only lead the party to disaster.  The first responsibility should be to discuss these issues and remove barriers to participation for dedicated members.

3. “It is clear, however, that you are not simply a ‘random poster’ but that you have a real differences with the program of the ICFI.” 

The real differences with the program of the ICFI do not justify the censorship attacks.  The content of the difference deserves discussion, not suppression.  The willingness to discuss should open the door for participation in meetings and campaigns.  Beyond just censoring me on Disqus, the SEP blocked me from participation in an online meeting of the Chicago Education Committee without a word of explanation.  Why don’t you judge me by my participation in a meeting, instead of relying on backward prejudice?  This talk of “real differences” appears taken straight from a chauvinist’s guide to politics.

4.  “You essentially use bogus charges of repression of criticism to build support within the party to change its orientation in line with the current fashionable trends of US ‘left’ imperialism.”

This argument about bogus charges seems designed to bring down the WSWS itself.  Censorship can censor its own critics, but when censorship knows no bounds, all is propaganda in service of the military, and all opposing views can meet military force or silence themselves.  This forces all opposition into a violent downward cycle, bringing the WSWS down with it.  In order to save the WSWS, the SEP must take the strongest position against the silencing and breaking up of opposition factions within the ICFI.  Maintaining silence is the greatest gift you can offer to US imperialism, fashionable or not. 

5. “Your encouraging and extended conversation with an ex-SEP member who left the party to embrace upper-middle class identity politics and the #MeToo movement in particular was quite revealing.”

In fact, the amount of abuse she suffered before she finally left the party is quite revealing.  She had dedicated her life to the cause, even running in an election as a candidate, and only a series of abusive actions that went unpunished and unexposed by the leadership finally led to her forced withdrawal.  That people could hear her story and still support the party speaks to the dedication of the Democratic Power faction, which judged by its positions has a much higher level of support among ICFI members than any official count reveals.  The defense of class over personal identity should not depend on the defense of identity crimes (which Disqus arguably participates in) or unsustainable objections to individual testimony.

Your opposition to the MeToo movement fits into the middle class attitude represented by Jimmy Dore in his arguments with Jerry White.  White attempted to explain that the working class needs a Left political stance in order to push politically for their interests.  Jimmy Dore answered that all poor people should unite and defend each other regardless of politics.  White’s position more accurately follows from Marxist theory, that the workers must rise in a conscious way, conscious of their class and their common future as the revolutionary class that ends capitalism and builds socialism.  The MeToo movement may include individuals of the upper middle class, but to workers, the political aims of the MeToo movement must outweigh the presence of rich supporters.  The presence of poor people among fascists, likewise, must not force Marxists to reconsider their political goals.

6.  “At any rate, I hope that your future attempts at posting on the WSWS are successful to the extent that do not run afoul of the site’s discussion rules.”

If the problem stems from my running afoul of discussion rules, then I would gladly adjust my writing to follow the rules.  Considering that the WSWS blocked 12 of my last 31 posts, all posted since my last email to you on January 5th, I think I deserve a detailed and specific reason for how I broke the Discussion rules.  This should show how at least 1 but in fact how all 12 posts ran afoul of discussion rules.  Also, the party must also explain why no explanation arrived earlier.  The Discussion Rules do not include a policy for the appeal of moderator decisions.  This frees every abusive moderator to act with impunity.

7.  “We are quite confident that your attempts to line the party’s program behind conspiracy theories that the coronavirus was deliberately manufactured in a Chinese lab…”

The Yan Report released by a Hong Kong University Virologist, along with recent reports about WHO scientists meeting bureaucratic resistance after seeking to trace the origins of the virus in Wuhan, indicate that the Chinese government may in fact have something to hide.  Only the staunchest Stalinist would deny that the Chinese government has the capacity to kill millions of people, which it has done twice in the last century under the rule of the same ruling Maoist party.  To witch-hunt this position as a conspiracy theory creates a grave danger for the free discussion of science for the revolutionary movement.  If hard science, laboratory science, cannot freely discuss its findings and its methods then social sciences such as Marxism will surely fall as well.  The revolutionary movement has an extra responsibility to refrain from witch hunts and the censorship of scientific arguments.  If it is really a conspiracy theory, then the best answer would provide the hard facts to disprove it in fair debate rather than silence and erase the entire known scientific history regarding genetic engineering and particularly the engineering of viruses and other biological weapons.

8. “…or that wealth distribution is not primarily a class but generational question…”

How this appears to be a conspiracy theory to you, I have no clue.  This is an argument about political program.  Besides grievously misrepresenting the positions in Random Poster’s Press Page, you take a strong position against Marxism. You assert that if wealth distribution is primarily a class question, then it can have no other dimension.  That effectively conspires against those would support a primarily class-based wealth distribution.  If Capitalism only hurts the working class, then for the working class it is useless to unite other classes as well as individuals behind its program.  This turns the entire middle class and national bourgeoisie of oppressed nations against the revolution, a political loss for the working class.  As Lenin wrote in Imperialism Ch. 4:

“Capitalism is commodity production at its highest stage of development, when labour-power itself becomes a commodity. The growth of internal exchange, and, particularly, of international exchange, is a characteristic feature of capitalism. The uneven and spasmodic development of individual enterprises, individual branches of industry and individual countries is inevitable under the capitalist system. England became a capitalist country before any other, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, having adopted free trade, claimed to be the “workshop of the world”, the supplier of manufactured goods to all countries, which in exchange were to keep her provided with raw materials. But in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this monopoly was already undermined; for other countries, sheltering themselves with “protective” tariffs, developed into independent capitalist states. On the threshold of the twentieth century we see the formation of a new type of monopoly: firstly, monopolist associations of capitalists in all capitalistically developed countries; secondly, the monopolist position of a few very rich countries, in which the accumulation of capital has reached gigantic proportions. An enormous “surplus of capital” has arisen in the advanced countries.

“It goes without saying that if capitalism could develop agriculture, which today is everywhere lagging terribly behind industry, if it could raise the living standards of the masses, who in spite of the amazing technical progress are everywhere still half-starved and poverty-stricken, there could be no question of a surplus of capital. This ‘argument’ is very often advanced by the petty-bourgeois critics of capitalism. But if capitalism did these things it would not be capitalism; for both uneven development and a semi-starvation level of existence of the masses are fundamental and inevitable conditions and constitute premises of this mode of production. As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilised not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries.”  

Here, Lenin analyzes the different generations of Capitalist countries.  England arose in the mid-19th century and other countries later.  This division of countries according to generations did not contradict Marxism but pushed Marxism forward, gained it a large following, and brought it to power.  The division of generations within the United States holds similar keys to explain the revolutionary situation that the capitalist media tries to cover over.  If England failed as the workshop of the world, leading to the outbreak of WWI, so did the Boomers fail to establish a compromise between classes that bought off the revolutionary class.  To argue that British military might or French capital should not control Russia but instead the working class did not weaken Lenin’s argument but strengthened it.  To argue that the class compromise espoused by previous generations of labor leaders should not hold when it comes to the politics of the younger generations would not weaken but strengthen the socialist revolution. 

Refusing to compromise with the capitalist class means attacking where they have failed to defend.  To excuse the impoverishment of the Millennial generation would be to turn on Lenin, who did not excuse capitalism for keeping the masses “half-starved and poverty-stricken” but instead exposed the backwardness of agriculture and the export of capital to backward countries as “fundamental and inevitable conditions.”  Lenin advocated the investment of surplus capital in agriculture (once capitalism has been defeated) so as to reduce starvation and improve the standard of living.  From your point of view, this would constitute an attack on Marxism!  You interpolate, “Why does Lenin want to invest in agriculture?  Isn’t that a specific sector of the economy rather than the whole working class?  What does it have to do with the workers in the factories, the only audience for Marxism?  Why should the workers care about those excluded from the contracts and careers of class-compromise politics?” The confusion seems endless.  Lenin did not attack Marxism!  You have!

Just as Lenin rejected the Social Democracy of Germany, the younger generation will reject your chauvinism.  That chauvinism forms the basis for your nano-bureaucratic class compromise.  Your attempts to find “real differences” in order to defend the nano-bureaucracy really amounts to a defense of Economism, the theory revising Marxism so as to claim that the revolutionary really has nothing to do as impersonal economic forces determine the course of history.

9.  “We are quite confident that your attempts to line the party’s program… will not find a hearing among a continually growing cadre of revolutionary Marxists.”

“Your attempts”, you say, as if posting comments on the website is a crime.  The WSWS defended the rights of Harvey Weinstein, who hired spies to suppress the New York Times, to a fair hearing, but to defend a Marxist with some formal hearing within the party would seem completely foreign.  The growing cadre will increasingly resemble careerists and functionaries, not the great Marxists of the early 20th century and not the Marxist revolutionaries that Trotsky wanted at the head of the Fourth International.  In order to reach the level of those great revolutionaries, the level necessary to bring success to the revolution, then the party must approach the struggle for theoretical clarity in a professional way.  They should assign someone to the task of having this discussion.  They should provide for a formal hearing and a reply that gets reported to the membership.  Finally, the membership should have a chance to discuss and vote on the formation of a Democratic Power faction or factions in general.