Forty Two wrote:L'Emmerdeur wrote:Your claim regarding the United Packinghouse Workers Union is bullshit. If it were accurate you'd be able to cite a reputable source rather than resorting to the evasive tactic of calling it 'arguable.'
Noooo... what I said was that the point about the UPW not being a communist front organization was "arguable" and not "established." That's accurate, given the information you posted. I also did not allege that he was a communist. I alleged he was a socialist. He alleged that he was a socialist, too, by the way.
Herbert March was specifically sent by the Communist Party USA to participate in organizing the packinghouse workers. He was part of the UPW. The Communist Party USA was behind much of the organizing of those unions. When the UPW was accused of being too rife with communists, the union had to set up a Public Advisory Review Commission to help root out the problem.
You can tap-dance all you like, your claim remains bullshit. The fact is that the UPWA was not a 'communist front' organization. A communist working at a meat-packing plant and helping workers build a union doesn't make the union a 'communist front.' The CIO
expelled 11 unions in 1949-50 because of their communist affiliations; the UPWA was not one of them.
Forty Two wrote:
It doesn't make it "not" a Marxist propaganda group.
You made the accusation--the burden of proof is yours. You haven't provided
any evidence to support the accusation.
Forty Two wrote:Propaganda is biased or misleading information used to promote a political view. The APHS produced just that, which was designed to promote Marxist Socialism . . .
Bald assertion is not evidence,
Forty Two. Below are descriptions of six of the film strips produced by Sanders and Barnett. There is not the slightest indication that they contain "biased or misleading information used to promote a political view." If you have evidence to the contrary you would have presented it rather than merely making a baseless accusation.
The Battle of Bennington
The Battle of Bennington is considered by many historians to be the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Fought at North Hoosick, New York, a combined "citizens army" of men from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont, under the leadership of General John Stark, successfully defeated a British expeditionary force which sought to capture the American suppy base at Bennington, Vermont. The fighting, much of it hand to hand, was extremely bitter and, at one point, the Americans were on the verge of defeat. Two months after the surprise American victory at Bennington, British General John Brugoyne surrendered his entire army to the Americans at Saratoga.
Great Statesmen from Vermont
The state of Vermont, founded as an independent Republic in 1777 and incorporated into the United States as the 17th state, has produced from its soil a number of outstanding political leaders. This filmstrip provides a brief biographical sketch of 5 of the most important:
Ira Allen (1751-1814)
Mathew Lyon (1750-1821)
Thomas Chittenden (1730-1797)
Justin Morrill (1810-1897)
Redfield Proctor (1831-1908)
The Vermont Flood of 1927
On the night of November 2, 1927, at about ten o'clock in the evening, it began to rain in Vermont. It rained all through that night and continued raining during the next day. Then, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon of November 3, the rainfall greatly intensified and, for one hour, a torrential rain of unheard of volume fell upon the ground which was already filled to capacity. This one hour rainfall was the greatest burst of rain that anyone in Vermont had ever seen. This filmstrip describes the flood of 1927--and the damage and suffering wrought by the flood which was, in the words of Gov. John E. Weeks, "The greatest natural disater in the history of the state."
Thoreau of Concord, Mass.
Henry David Throreau, who was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts and spent most of his life in that area, was one of the most independent and creative thinkers in American history.
In March of 1845 Thoreau borrowd an ax and on land given him by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, began building a small cabin near Walden Pond--a cabin which ended up costing him $28, Out of his experiences and observations on Walden Pond Thoreau wrote Walden, one of the most important books in American literature. This filmstrip, often quoting directly from Walden, discusses Thoreau's views of the individual in society, nature and government.
Massachusetts and the Sea
This filmstrip discusses the role of the sea in Massachusetts life from the settlement of the colony until the late 19th century. The sea live of Massachusetts has made such towns as Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, Boston, Yarmouth, New Bedford, and Nantucket famous throughout the world. From the shores of Massachusetts skilled workers have built ships and sent them to virtually every part of the world. By the end of the 17th century a prosperous trad existed between Massachusetts, the West Indies and Europe, and a hundred years later Massachusetts ships were trading as far away as China. In 1715 a new maritime industry was born--whaling. For the next 200 years Massachusetts whaling boats were chasing their prey from Australia to Greenland--and making such towns as Nantucket and New Bedford the center of the whaling industry.
Massachusetts and the Abolitionist Movement
This filmstrip deals with the key role that Massachusetts played in the abolition of slavery in this country. In 1700 Samuel Sewall published the first anti-slavery tract in what was to become the United States. In 1790 the Massachusetts Constitution became the first in the Union to abolish slavery. In the years prior to the Civil War, Massachusetts became the center of the anti-slavery fight. From the pages of the "Liberator" William Lloyd Garrison sent forth attacks against slavery which aroused the nation, and was joined in the crusade by such citizens of Massachusetts as Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, John Quincy Adams and Charles Sumner.
Forty Two wrote:. . . in part as you noted by promoting a certain slant on "America's Greatest Socialist" Eugene Debs. The documentary provides no criticism or balance regarding Debs - it's love piece, and he even admires Debs' support for the Soviet revolution in Russia.
Ah, so you've watched the documentary, have you? If not, on what basis do you make your criticism? The source I gave earlier says that the video no longer exists, so you can't have seen it. That source describes the video as 'a glowing remembrance of the leftist icon,' but you go beyond that and accuse it of providing 'no criticism or balance.' Unless you watched it yourself, you have no evidence to support that accusation. Debs was a socialist, not a communist. He was involved in Social Democratic Party of America and the Social Party of America, both of which were democratic socialist organizations,
not communist. You're desperately flailing to try to support your accusation that the APHS was a 'a Marxist propaganda group,' but you've been unable to present even a single piece of solid evidence to support your lame defamatory red-baiting. Sanders like Debs is a democratic socialist, not a Marxist
per se.
Forty Two wrote:Yes, the APHS was a non-profit, which has no relevance to whether it was a propaganda producer. Bernie's description of it producing films and other materials "from an alternative point of view..." is illustrative, in that his "alternative point of view" was Socialist. His coup-de-gras was the Eugene Debs project, and Debs - the Marxist Socialist - was his hero. He presents a biased view, to advance his socialist ideas and he specifically sought to market the piece to schools so it could be shown to children, so they could see how great socialist Debs and socialism are.
Again no evidence, just an unsupported accusation that Sanders was propagandizing. The APHS produced film strips and one video tape, and your whole case rests on what is clearly a biased description of a video tape you haven't even seen.
Forty Two wrote:Rolling Stone magazine, that bastion of conservatism, called him the “red mayor in the Green Mountains.” Red means Socialist and/or Marxist, at least.
Sanders, incidentally, descried capitalism repeatedly - famously, he criticized capitalism for providing too much in the way of product options for the consumer. We, he thinks, should not have multiple deodorants to choose from.
None of that supports your accusation that the APHS was 'a Marxist propaganda group.' It is abundantly clear that your accusation is nothing but a repetition of something you read in a smear piece somewhere. Your ignorance of what it was and what Sanders' involvement with it was is undeniable. He co-founded the company, while your term 'organizer' implies that he was some sort of Marxist apparatchik. You seem unable to differentiate between democratic socialism and communism; it's all 'Marxism' to you.