#1
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https://internationalistdispatch.wordpress.com/2018/07/17/on-opportunism-within-workers-world-party-and-the-partition-of-syria/

On Opportunism Within Workers World Party and the Partition of Syria

I am adapting a thread I made on twitter to describe a struggle over the partition of Syria that I and others within the former Detroit branch of Workers World Party engaged in with the national editorial leadership last year. As of July 15th, the Detroit branch of the party elected to resign en masse from Workers World Party due to the intractable opportunism and liberalism exhibited by the party. The full resignation statement can be found here.

In this article I will address information regarding the internal ideological struggle in Workers World Party surrounding the role of the YPG/SDF as imperialist mercenary armies working toward the partition of Syria. When I began the process of joining WWP Detroit about a year and a half ago, I was highly aware of the criticisms of many on here, especially those concerning Taryn Fivek’s propaganda about Syria and her public friendship with Brace Belden (f/k/a @PissPigGrandDad on twitter), a “punk florist” who is in reality a tech industry heir and member of a fascist, Israeli-themed band who went to fight in Syria with the YPG and publicly boasted of calling in airstrikes from US armed forces. From the start I and others in Detroit felt a need to publicly rebuke our implicit support for the US/YPG partition of Syria. The only legitimate avenue for that was through the newspaper and website.

Beginning in March or April, I and several others in Detroit and the Midwest collaborated on an article to condemn the role of the YPG as imperialist collaborators and to bring attention to this front in the proxy war virtually blacked-out in anglophone party media. I proposed an article to the editorial board with the support of Detroit leadership and over the next few two months I had an editorial struggle with editors in NYC, primarily John Catalinotto. J. Catalinotto’s role was to disabuse me of this view and to steer me away from any condemnatory language, explicitly encouraging me write the article “as if I was explaining it to a Kurdish friend.”

Through the edits, J. Catalinotto and other NYC editors made various additions that totally blunted the edge of the article and made it essentially a propaganda piece for “Kurdish national liberation” in Syria, again supporting the partition and delegitimizing the very legitimacy of Syria as a sovereign, multiethnic nation-state. I regret to say that after this editorial struggle that it still felt important to me to have at least SOMETHING go up so the article was published. This piece can be found here.

I published it under a pseudonym and saw many responses to it online, some harsher than others, but recognized that it was all that could be done in the framework of the party and deferred to our attempts at centralizing the party to gain a position to push our line on this. I regret that I was not able to publish an article rightly denouncing the YPG and SDF as imperialist, Zionist running dogs and that I was complicit in maintaining anything to the contrary via the WWP newspaper and site.

Another notable question: why was the article taken down? For background, I had pushed firmly to include Brace Belden’s role in the article both to have a public record that would prevent T. Fivek from claiming that her friendship with him was legitimate and to counter the disinformation about Belden in the press. J. Catalinotto took out the most condemnatory language but still allowed me to call him a mercenary. However, within 12 hours of the article being posted, it was unilaterally taken down. It was J. Catalinotto who did it and I believe it to have been done at T. Fivek’s behest.

The editors and leaders in Detroit and I then got calls from him urging us to TAKE OUT the language on Belden or else he wouldn’t put it back up. It was a brazen breach of party discipline, as the responsibility for the article should have rested with the managing editor (who is a Detroit leader and who I will not name here). We adamantly refused and said that the article must be put back up as it stood, otherwise it would have been a blatant defense of Belden given the attention the article and its retraction has received. From that point on I followed and learned from criticisms of the article, both the content that the NYC editorial staff included and that of mine as well.

Not much happened internally after that other than support from my local leadership for having waged the struggle. I also got messages from T. Fivek asking for my original draft, which I didn’t answer. In conclusion, I believe that Workers World Party supports the partition of Syria under the cover of “Kurdish national liberation.” I’m not sure if this is due to T. Fivek’s infiltration but many leading intellectuals in WWP NYC support this line as well, in particular J. Catalinotto.

To the extent that WWP had any correct analysis of Syria it was due to the insight and efforts of comrades in Detroit. All I will say otherwise is that I and the former Detroit branch of WWP denounce the imperialist, Zionist partition of Syria via the YPG and SDF and that there were attempts to silence us by party leadership a year ago. Please feel free to ask me any other questions.

Edited by animedad ()

#2
Dont Mess With Sucess
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Pity reply
#3
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i saw taryn fivek once in washington d.c. i also saw alex jones the same day. it was the inauguration.

anyway, the m-l groupuscules should all just reunite, let's stop being silly. let's all get along.

#4
UNUSUALY COOL
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Parenti posted:

i saw taryn fivek once in washington d.c.



whoa..... a brush with celebrity...

#5
UNUSUALY COOL
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what is with this shit in split-off diatribes though where you lead whatever argument you’re about to make with the weakest bullshit character attacks. Borb Coolguy, publicly seen eating soft serve within feet of Crandis Mapes, a notorious wearer of “army guy” Halloween costumes (during kindergarten AND third grade),
#6
UNUSUALY COOL
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animedad posted:

that would prevent T. Fivek from claiming that her friendship with him was legitimate



Here’s a question for this Herb, if you don’t like the guy why do you think it’s better if they’re legitimately friends?? Smooth move ex lax!!!

#7
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let me just weigh in here to say
#8
UNUSUALY COOL
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tears posted:

let me just weigh in here to say



*cups my chin in both hands w/ elbows on table*

#9
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fuck, rumbled *jumping out of window*
#10
UNUSUALY COOL
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*doesn’t move* *subtitle “2 HOURS LATER” as paramedics roll a covered stretcher out of the forums and drive away*
#11
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what are you nerds on about
#12
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cars posted:

Parenti posted:

i saw taryn fivek once in washington d.c.

whoa..... a brush with celebrity...



#13
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this is *important* ok. it's going to change everything
#14
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animedad posted:

In conclusion, I believe that Workers World Party supports the partition of Syria under the cover of “Kurdish national liberation.” I’m not sure if this is due to T. Fivek’s infiltration


#15
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someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about
#16
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graphicalUSSRinterface posted:

someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about


#17
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graphicalUSSRinterface posted:

someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about



that's the op, which originally started as a twitter post lol...

#18
UNUSUALY COOL
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animedad posted:

what are you nerds on about



hi animedad

#19
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marimite posted:

that's the op, which originally started as a twitter post lol...


ill find it then i assumed there was more

#20
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when will extremely online leftists learn that titles like On The Question Of Rubber And Glue add no legitimacy to their obsessive rants about twitter drama
#21
lies half the time
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it's better than Remember to Make a Title
#22
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how many members does wwp have? like whats the scale of this split? its kind of hard to tell as an outsider when most of the stuff about it is guys on twitter
#23
UNUSUALY COOL
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ialdabaoth posted:

it's better than Remember to Make a Title



it's not! it's not!!!

#24
UNUSUALY COOL
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related, this is easily in my top 10 posts of all time https://rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13400/?page=1#post-310063
#25
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lo posted:

how many members does wwp have? like whats the scale of this split? its kind of hard to tell as an outsider when most of the stuff about it is guys on twitter


Wwp has basically lost the entire Midwest at this point

#26
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Split is massive not much will be left
#27
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it's fun watching a party disintegrate before your eyes. we're really living in historic times. i just consider it an honor to have posted about such a momentous event
#28
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it's a strange definition of 'opportunism' that doesn't include using a split over mishandling of rape allegations to prosecute one's own political agenda on completely unrelated issues
#29
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graphicalUSSRinterface posted:

someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about


this is just tangential and i’m only posting about it because i’m a gossipy loser but i saw someone from that website complaining about the OP, not because its stupid and grandstanding nonsense, but because it used a racial slur. by which they meant the phrase “running dog”. because it’s referring to brown ppl as non-human.

#30
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lol
#31
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elias posted:

this is just tangential and i’m only posting about it because i’m a gossipy loser but i saw someone from that website complaining about the OP, not because its stupid and grandstanding nonsense, but because it used a racial slur. by which they meant the phrase “running dog”. because it’s referring to brown ppl as non-human.


I saw that but somehow didn't process it until this second lmfao

#32
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elias posted:

graphicalUSSRinterface posted:

someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about

this is just tangential and i’m only posting about it because i’m a gossipy loser but i saw someone from that website complaining about the OP, not because its stupid and grandstanding nonsense, but because it used a racial slur. by which they meant the phrase “running dog”. because it’s referring to brown ppl as non-human.


#33
Black Belt
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lo posted:

how many members does wwp have? like whats the scale of this split? its kind of hard to tell as an outsider when most of the stuff about it is guys on twitter



Less than 30 people have left, maybe a tenth of the org. WWP lived through the PSL split and is building new leadership in the ICC, despite Detroits repeated claims that the ICC was stillborn. Obviously losing comrades sucks but eh

Edited by JohnBeige ()

#34
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JohnBeige posted:

lo posted:

how many members does wwp have? like whats the scale of this split? its kind of hard to tell as an outsider when most of the stuff about it is guys on twitter

Less than 30 people have left, maybe a tenth of the org.



so you are saying they have 300 members... how... spartacist

#35
Black Belt
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I'm underselling the count but its a guess. That's roughly how many are in PSL too. US ML orgs are tiny.

Edited by JohnBeige ()

#36
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Petrol posted:

graphicalUSSRinterface posted:

someone link me to the stuff on twitter i keep hearing about


upvoete for the vape rip at 2:46

#37
Mike Nelson here.
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no opinion on wwp but defend t. fivek at all costs. t. fivek shield wall.
#38
bb bourgeoisie
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sovnarkoman posted:

so you are saying they have 300 members... how... spartacist



then we shall post in the shade