Saturday, November 12, 2005

On Nov. 4, Katherine Kersten characterized Socialist Alternative, the organizers of the 11/2 protests, as being Marxists. The Strib prints this commentary from Ty Moore, an organizer from Socialist Alternative, who complains that Kersten was 'red-baiting'. He then attempts to rebut her by agreeing with what she said about Ty's organization. For example,

We want to replace capitalism with a system of democratic control of the economy from below. Instead of industry and government being run by the super-rich, we believe the top 500 corporations should be put under the control of elected workplace committees, and production organized around a democratic plan. All economic decisions, from foreign policy to wage scales, should be decided democratically, based on human and environmental needs, not the short-term profit drive of CEOs and wealthy investors.

This has nothing to do with the Stalinist dictatorships that Kersten implies we are aiming to re-create.

I don't know ,Ty, but so far the track record of places that have tried the things you describe is that they always seem to turn into those Stalinist dictatorships that you don't intend to re-create. Sounds pretty Marxist to me, anyway. In any case, how can Moore accuse Kersten of red-baiting when she accurately describes what Moore's organization believes?

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