(Edited to Protect Identity)
Random Poster <randomposter33@yahoo.com>
To: Shoegazer
Fri, Sep 3 at 7:09 PM
Hello Shoegazer,
It was good hearing from you on twitter. I used to live near NYC and participated in the SEP NYC branch and was president of the SSE at Rutgers. The party then suspended me after I suspected government spying and has not given me any due process.
I hope we’ll be able to correspond or plan some type of political intervention. In the mean time, you can find my writing on the Batta controversy here:
Looking forward to hearing from you. Perhaps one day we can have a chat. At the very least, I would greatly appreciate a “like” and a short comment showing support!
Yours sincerely,
Randomposter33
Shoegazer
To:Random Poster
Fri, Sep 3 at 8:47 PM
Hi RP33,
I appreciate the links. About 1/3 through the long one, it occurred to me how out of place I’ve always felt with all of the history and general knowledge that so many comrades seem to have compiled from many years of study and engagement. I’m afraid I’m at a beginner level, and episodes of intrigue like the Batta incident, coupled with my own struggle to distill the ideas and movement history (let alone analyze current events in real time), combined with a recent protracted workplace struggle between the unionized workers and the boss, has discouraged further study.
The developments over the course of the pandemic have me questioning leftists of all stripes. One example is the continuing call for things like contact tracing or surveillance testing, which would necessarily be implemented by the state in partnership with capitalist tech companies (that’s fascism isn’t it?). Data about where one goes and who one came into contact with, along with other well known surveillance that figures like Snowden and Assange have shown us, seems like something revolutionaries would be cautious about supporting, but that doesn’t appear to be the case as far as I’ve seen. There are many many other contradictions that I don’t even care to get into.
Forming rank and file committees with my knowledge level and such people as I work with at any given job, is an uphill battle to put it mildly.
Again, thanks for reaching out. I may come around, but it’ll take a fresh approach from leftists to make that happen.
Random Poster <randomposter33@yahoo.com>
Shoegazer
Sat, Sep 4 at 10:38 AM
Thanks for writing. Do you mind if I put your letter and my response on my website?
I think that your demoralization has more to do with betrayal by the leadership than with any internal conflict. Your arguments could be used against you by some nano-bureaucrat, but that doesn’t mean that should happen. Your effort to make sense of the situation is a social process arising from the class conflict, which is happening everywhere. Your struggle is not just your own but also that of the working class struggling against pervasive bourgeois ideology and Stalinist oppression everywhere. The beginner level could decide the outcome of the conflict, since by necessity that would include the largest number of people. Remember that the historic battles between labor and capital had objective economic factors at their root, factors that have only recently returned and then only in part. As a result, your efforts to sift through the theories will bring about real changes, since they represent the process of political clarification occurring in the working class as a whole.
As for the contact tracing and surveillance, these also raise alarms when combined with drone strikes and other futuristic weapons as well as the government’s history of systematic or genocidal violence or the imperialist military necessity of slave labor. These fears, as long as we do not suppress them, form a real and legitimate foundation for the struggle to overthrow the capitalist government. We cannot trust them with the responsibility to contain viruses or use weapons solely to enhance security. They must, as a ruling class, use weapons to enslave and use any excuse for surveillance as a means of suppressing the political struggle of the oppressed masses. The people must organize a new government to conduct surveillance and security operations with democratic protections for the rights of the people, the accused, and the infected. We cannot lend to illusions that this could occur under capitalist rule.
Whoever you choose to participate with, what really matters is the documentation and the reporting of such efforts in order to overcome subjective factors limiting the revolutionary movement. The push for workers’ committees actually represents a major and critical advance in theory that workers must incorporate into their struggle. Batta had ignored this pivotal theoretical gain when turning to the unionized workers. The SEP, however, had bureaucratized the struggle and attempted to impose bureaucratic organization on what should develop into a more democratic and representative form. Both sides, through lack of preparation, ended up fighting each other rather than the bosses in favor of a revolution. This dynamic lies at the heart of the absence of significant historic class battles in the present day.
The intellectual enemies of the laboratory of the revolution, of the revolutionary party, use a logical tree to introduce lies and missteps at every stage of the development of the revolution. For this reason, a fresh approach, a degree of creativity, will prove crucial towards reversing the steady decline imposed by the containment policy and the Stalinization of the party. This fresh approach must also reach the masses and enter into the mass consciousness of the movement, of the movement’s consciousness of itself in history, and of the working class’ consciousness of itself as the revolutionary class.
To repeat, I think you should do your best to document your struggle in the workplace and your response to theoretical material. Such an action would allow the workers in general to make more sense of their situation and bring them closer towards acquiring the theory they need to overcome obstacles to participation, the main obstacles of their final victory. Like I said, because of the greater number of workers relative to capitalists, overcoming those beginners’ blocks may give them an instantaneous boost in revolutionary force, bringing them to power in many countries as quickly as the spread of the pandemic. If you agree, I would gladly publish whatever observations you make on my website.
-RandomPoster33
Shoegazer
To:Random Poster
Sun, Sep 5 at 1:00 PM
Thanks for the encouragement and generous offer of posting. I’ll seriously consider chronicling the events before and after the expiration of the contract. There is plenty to include about organic rank and file committee formation, other revelations, as well as a few twists and turns.
In case you’re not aware, there is the United Front Committee For A Labor Party that is spearheaded by several Trotskyists in the SF Bay Area. https://foramasslaborparty.wordpress.com/about/
Random Poster <randomposter33@yahoo.com>
To:Shoegazer
Sun, Sep 5 at 7:52 PM
Shoegazer,
Also, I’ll write to the group you mentioned. I read their introductory statement, which mentioned a Labor Party but no specific political program. I will ask them for a political program or “List of Demands” to see if they classify as a revolutionary or reformist group. The Labor Party has historically associated with reformism and concealed support for imperialism.
I look forward to hearing your account of the labor dispute. I had a minor in Labor Studies, which dealt with the NLRB, Unions, and labor contracts, as well as the history and economics of the Labor Movement.
Thanks for your participation, since that’s what we need most of all. The development of consciousness is a social process that suffers most of all from isolation, or atomized, solitary struggle often designed to influence or bring about crime or terrorism; sickness, addiction, or misery.
-RandomPoster33
The RandomPoster33 Press Page 
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