From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sat May 06 2006 - 19:52:58 EDT
> what's about to change?
> your last manical outburst.
What's about to change is that you're going to be held
responsible on this list for your actions and statements.
Do you recall my saying what I would do if you responded
in _any_ way to my last message?
=========================================
> Allin, Fred, Cyrus and many others received the posts in which you
> made up that crap. Do you really want to bring them into this?
***Don't you recall what that exchange was about?***
I have copies of those exchanges as well.
And I can easily show that the major issue under discussion was _NOT_
what Bhandari claimed. *It was about a malicious insinuation which
he made against me on the list on May 17, 2004*.
============================================
To make a long story short (comrades, you have no idea what I've
had to put up with!):
a) I asked RB off-list who he was talking about.
b) RB said that he had recommended someone for membership
and I had not acted on that recommendation until after the Advisory
Committee had been formed.
c) I replied that I had no recollection that he (or anyone else) formally
recommended that person before the AC was formed but
that RB might have informally made a remark to that effect on the list.
d) Somehow RB interpreted that as a "charge" against him. He
claimed that I "didn't understand the ethics of argument and
accusation" and that he was "innocent" of ever recommending
someone on the list. (At the time, the list policy was to recommend
someone for membership to the list coordinator *off-list*). The
"charge", he claimed, was "false" and that I am a "stubborn ass" who
never ("ever") admits that I am wrong.
"Produce the posts in which I made ONLINE demands
for admission to OPE-L. Produce the posts or drop the claim".
e) <sigh> I searched through the archives. I located the post
in which RB had done on the list exactly what he just denied
ever doing.
f) Without even apologizing, RB then claimed that he then later
(in November, 2001) recommended that person to me off-list.
g) Show me the (2001) off-list message where you recommended
him, I asked.
h) He wouldn't. <sigh> But, _I_ located the message. RB had
_not_ recommended that person (in November, 2001) as he had
just claimed.
i) _Once again_, instead of apologizing for making a charge which I had
proven with absolute certainty and documentary evidence to be false,
RB shifted gear and made yet _another_ accusation: he claimed that
someone _else_ on the list had recommended this same person and
I had failed to act on _that_ recommendation.
j) I asked him if it was OK to ask that person if s/he had
recommended the person for OPE-L. RB said to go ahead.
So I did. As he knows, that other member responded by saying
that s/he had recommended that the person in question join
_another_ list.
And so on. Never once did Bhandari apologize -- even when I
was able to show him (and the members of the Advisory Committee) the
"smoking guns".
===========================================
That is his modus operandi -- what I call RAKESH BHANDARISM:
he makes malicious and insulting claims before he even checks on the
FACTS. Bhandari feels that he doesn't need to provide P-R-O-O-F for
these charges no matter how personally insulting and damaging they
might be.
Rakesh Bhandari did it with Hugo Chavez (even going so far as to cite
ultra right-wing sources), he did it with Raya Dunayevskaya and
Bernice Shoul, and he has done it (many times over) with me. RAKESH
BHANDARISM is, in my opinion, an extreme form of unprincipled
and unethical praxis and rhetoric.
_Principled_ Marxians (and other radicals) *insist* that any activist or
scholar who makes an extreme claim against another activist or
radical (e.g. that someone is a cop or FBI agent, that someone is an
"agent of imperialism", that someone has committed violence against
other radicals, that other scholars are guilty of plagiarism, etc.) provides
_proof_ for such a charge or is discredited. It is the hallmark of
unprincipled politics (in various forms, including Stalinism) to make such
accusations maliciously and without proof in an attempt to isolate
other radicals and tarnish their reputations. Historically, many
thousands
of radicals internationally have died and had their reputations smeared
by Marxists who believe that if you want someone out of the way
(for whatever reason) and/or to resign some position _anything_ is
OK. It is a case of "the end justifies the means" applied by some
Marxists against other radicals. It is exactly what Marxists should NOT be
doing in the 21st Century. It is a form of praxis which is corrosive for
the building of any social movement and the preservation of any
working-class and/or scholarly community.
In solidarity, Jerry
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