Innuendo, falsehoods and character assassination

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Thursday August 07, 2003 21:39 by SP Member - SP-CWI

A reply to Denis Tourish’s writings on political cults from a member of the CWI-SP

Given the repeated references to Tourish’s writings (especially by Pat C.) and the apparent intervention by the man himself, I have decided to take a couple of hours out and submit a reply. This is not an official CWI statement (the CWI would not waste their time on it) and is purely a personal response to the claim that the CWI is a cult.

Please refer to the link for Denis Tourish's article posted by Pat C.

It must be stated that the analysis of the CWI by Denis Tourish is view with some amusement by members of the CWI and is not regarded as worthy of any considered reply. Saying that I do occasionally rise to the bait. My intention in this is not to answer the criticisms and accusations levelled against the CWI by Denis Tourish for the benefit of those that oppose the CWI and frequent this site. Irrespective of what defence I would make of the CWI, these opponents will always find some fault to harp on about. Nor is it intended to open up a debate with Denis Tourish on this analysis. It is intended for anyone open to and interested in the politics and methods of the CWI, that is, if anyone independently minded enough still bothers to use indymedia anymore.

As some background, I have been a member of the CWI since the time of Denis Tourish. I am not a member of any of the elected bodies of the CWI or the SP.

Denis Tourish’s book - Chapter Six of “The Lonely Passion of Ted Grant”

For a book that is intended (from what I understand) as an academic work, analysing the nature of cults, and specifically outlining the evidence to show that the CWI is a political cult, I have to say I was far from impressed. The analysis is short on specifics, contains substantial innuendo, numerous quotes from anonymous sources, contains significant errors in fact and makes absolutely no effort to place any of the analysis in a political context. There is a liberal use of “appropriate” language to emphasis various points, probably as a result Denis Tourish’s education in the area of communications. The analysis appears to start with the assumption that the CWI is a cult and then sets out to prove the point.

The analysis contains nothing more, in my opinion, than a character assassination of Ted Grant. A “shabbily dressed” man with “a life long addiction” who “for over sixty years has sat in dingy offices… plotted and planned, and hoped and waited”. Tourish states “Grant had always resembled a down at heel teacher in one of the poorer British colleges” (in contrast to the author). The history of the CWI “is the story of one man’s obsession with the dream of revolution”. To further denigrate him, Tourish implies that the attempts by a man to hide the fact that his hair was thinning was “the only recognisably human trait in otherwise tedious accounts of Grant’s career and organisation”.

Grant is described as “this unusual adolescent” that didn’t have any “recorded instance of….ever having amorous attachments to members of either sex”. Tourish further goes on to suggest that this “inordinate urge to displace all his feelings in this way suggests that the motive force behind his obsession with politics is neither entirely normal or healthy”. All of this is intended to create an image of an obsessed man, a man who’s interest lies in becoming a guru, a man who is a few pennies short of a pound.

“Even his real name is uncertain” states Tourish, knowing full well that in the 1930’s, with the existence of large fascist organisations, it was often necessary for revolutionaries to use pseudonyms for safety reasons, for easy of travel, etc. This did not just apply to the 1930’s, most, if not all, of the Bolshevik leaders use many different names. In the 1980’s, John Throne (who Tourish defends later in his article) used a false name in the USA, and Denis Tourish would be well aware that during the height of sectarian violence on this island in the 1970’s it was necessary for members of the CWI in the North to use false names for their personal protection. This is not a startling revelation, but is necessary for Tourish, as are all the other throwaway comments, to paint a tainted picture of a man who was to become the “guru” of Tourish’s “CWI cult”.

Denis Tourish has obviously travelled a long way from his CWI days and his belief in the possibility of socialist revolution. He seeks to outline a process of evolution of Trotskyist organisations that start small, grow to a certain size and then being unable to maintain a cult like grip on the membership slid back into oblivion. He attempts to portray the evolution of the CWI as a personal journey on the road that is Ted Grant’s life with absolutely no analysis of the political processes underway or the role of others within this process. For example, “As war drew to a close Grant’s fortunes temporarily improved”. Again the building of a revolutionary organisation is reduced to the personal ambition of one man to be a guru.

Tourish describes the writings of Ted Grant during WW2 as “feeble…activity” and claims “Official optimism in the face of refutation from the outside world is one of the most recurring traits of the cult groups surveyed in this book. Ted Grant is the virtuoso of optimism”. Tourish quotes from a document entitled “Preparing for Power” to prove his point. Of course, in most situations, quotations can be taken out of context. What Denis Tourish fails to do is place this analysis in any political or historical context. There was every reason to believe that the aftermath of WW2 would be similar to the revolutionary upheavals that had occurred after WW1 (in fact in many countries it did). To quote Leon Trotsky “The crisis of the current epoch is the crisis of leadership”. This is what Ted Grant was addressing in the quotation used by Denis Tourish. The analysis of the failure of the working class to achieve power is well written about elsewhere (including by Ted Grant) and I do not intend to go into it here.

“Grant’s predictions of revolutionary upheaval increasingly clashed with the actual march of events”. Here Denis Tourish engages in the re-writing of history, a history bourgeois commentators conveniently avoid speaking about. Revolutionary upheavals did occur in many countries around Europe and the rest of the world (Greece was gripped in civil war from 1946 to 1949 which left 158,000 people dead). Tourish suggests “in defiance of Grant’s prognosis, the 1945 Labour administration proceeded to deliver on its promises of reform”. Again, a distortion of history by Tourish. The Labour government was forced by the weakness of the ruling class in Britain (and their fear that they could be overthrown) combined with the power of the British working class, to implement reforms to save their system. They had to do it, whether they wanted to or not.

Using a quotation from a book by McSmith, Denis Tourish attempts to show that Ted Grant was constantly displaying zealous optimism about the inevitability of imminent social revolution. Again this does not square with the facts. The leadership of the Fourth International had steadfastly refused to acknowledge that anything other than revolution was on the horizon. However the position of Ted Grant and the Central Committee of the RCP was different. Ted Grant presented a policy document to a meeting of the CC of the RCP in March 1945 entitled “The Changed Relationships of Forces in Europe and the Role of the Fourth International”. The most significant aspect of this document is that for the first time there was an acknowledgement of a relative stabilisation of the political situation in Western Europe. This is what Ted Grant said “It is possible on the basis of the support rendered to world imperialism by Stalinism and classical reformism… that world imperialism can succeed, for a period, in stabilising bourgeois-democratic regimes in certain countries” (The Unbroken Thread page 83). Remember, this was written in March 1945. Despite the clear evidence to the contrary, the leadership of the Fourth International, primarily in the guise of Pierre Frank, continued to ignore what was happening. By July 1946, Frank argued that “Governments by the Sword” (Franco type military dictatorships) had been established in Western Europe and going on to deny that “normal” capitalist democracies existed. In the August 1946 edition of Workers International News, Ted Grant replied, “Everywhere in Western Europe since the “liberation”, the tendency has been for a steady movement towards bourgeois democracy” (The Unbroken Thread, page 125). The collapse of the Fourth International in the aftermath of WW2 had more to do with the failure to correctly analyse the world situation, as it existed at that time (Correctly outlined by Ted Grant and the RCP) than any natural ebb and flow of the growth and disintegration of Trotskyist groups.

As an aside, Denis Tourish makes great play of the reference of the Labour Government of 1945 being a “Kerensky” government. The clear implication of this is that Grant believed that revolution was only 8 months away (as in 1917). What Tourish fails to understand (or conveniently ignores) is that Grant is explaining the type of government that existed in Britain in 1945, NOT the timescale for revolutionary movements. This is explained and in “Democracy or Bonapartism in Europe” August 1945 (The Unbroken Thread, page 111).

Following on from his “analysis” of the life of Ted Grant up to 1960, Denis Tourish now introduces us to the other main character that is necessary for to prove his claim that the CWI is a cult. “Grant recruited his own nemesis, Peter Taaffe”. The “Militant Tendency” was a secret organisation with a “labyrinthine web of bank accounts”. We are told, “Grant…was notoriously inefficient in organisational matters and increasingly relied on his talented young protégé”. In saying this, Tourish is trying to draw subtle comparisons with the rise of Stalin. CWI members “in the know whispered that he (Taaffe) rather Ted Grant had become the leading comrade”. Peter Taaffe was made “the first full-time organiser”, while Ted Grant “held onto his job as a night-time telephone switchboard operator”. Again Tourish is attempting to imply that Peter Taaffe had somehow, organisationally, managed to replace Grant as the “guru”. I think it would be interesting to read Peter Taaffe’s recollection of his appointment, “I was promised a £10 weekly wage and secure accommodation. However, the accommodation and the £10 wages remained in the plain of “theory”, never actually materialising for years. I was compelled… to sleep on the floor of a supporter in Balham, South London…. sometimes forced to sleep on other peoples floor and once or twice spending sleepless nights in entrances to subways, before finally a decision was taken that I should sleep “illegally” in an office….rented from the ILP”(The rise of Militant, page 11). Taaffe goes on to describe how he played a game of cat and mouse with the caretaker every morning, “fortunately the agility of youth had an advantage over older legs”. Peter Taaffe may have had youth on his side, Ted Grant at this time was well into his 50’s.

In “the decade of sexual liberation….Militant largely escaped the contagion of popularity…helped by the dullness of its pages”. Inspired by the personal (boring) example of Ted Grant “Militant bored for socialism”. Is this what the academic that is Denis Tourish passes off as analysis? Tourish goes on to give a brief, and once again non-political, account of how Militant gain a majority in the LPYS. To further his claim that the CWI always predicts that revolution is around the corner Denis Tourish quotes from a pamphlet from 1984 entitled “Socialism or Catastrophe”. What Denis Tourish doesn’t say, is that this pamphlet was written by none other than John Throne and that Tourish himself was still a “leading member” of the Militant. Another thing he doesn’t say is that many members of the Militant in Ireland, including me, raised questions about some of the contents of this pamphlet. I do not recall Denis Tourish making any such effort. Despite the language used by Throne in “Socialism or Catastrophe” much of the analysis of the political situation in Ireland was by and large accurate. Denis Tourish, given his position as editor of the “Militant”, must have been a party to the “fear arousing tactics” he talks about. It is a good job he never spoke to me using these fear arousing tactics, because I would probably have run a mile.

I found Denis Tourish’s section about the Liverpool Council of the mid-1980’s very informative. Again not for its political analysis but for the similarities between it and the tactics used by Neil Kinnock to discredit the Labour Council in Liverpool. “The result was massive demonstration and gridlock in a major metropolitan area of Britain”. Nothing of the massive support the Council enjoyed among the working class people of Liverpool, nothing of the thousands of jobs created, the thousands of houses built, the schools, crèches, leisure centres etc. Nothing of the hope that the people of Liverpool felt after many years of Thatcherite government. What happened in Liverpool, according to Tourish, - “massive demonstrations and gridlock”, caused by those cult-like Trotskyite Militants. Sounds like something Seamus Brennan would say about workers fighting privatisation in Ireland today.

Denis Tourish makes big play about the Militant “infiltration” of the Labour Party. The argument of the right-wing was always that the left were infiltrators in the Labour Party. The reality is that the right wing elements were the infiltrators into the Labour Party of the time, undermining its history and traditions and the very reason for its existence and eventually succeeding in destroying the last remnants of its connection with the working class. The CWI were not the only group that was organised, in Britain we had the Campaign Group of MP’s, Tribune and the right-wing Solidarity Group. In Ireland Labour Left were organised in the Labour Party and the right wing were working with elements, particularly from the Swedish Social Democracy and the USA Democratic Party. Some influential members of the Labour Party were reportedly members of the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral Commission.

Following on from Denis Tourish’s brief, non-political and personality based history of the CWI, we come on to the meat of the piece. The CWI is a cult and this is the proof. “Within a startlingly short period of time the traditional tension between achieving influence in the real world, and exerting control over its own members, shipwrecked the entire organisation”. We are then treated to a whole series of analogies about shipwrecks, scattered survivors, desert islands, water around people’s ankles etc. What is missing is any understanding of the political world, as it existed in the 1990’s up to today, and any analysis of the journey of the CWI during this period.

Let us take a look at what Tourish is saying. He talks about the “starling short period of time” when the CWI lost members. The reality is that the growth of membership occurred over a much shorter time frame, yet we have no indication of the startlingly short period when the (boring) CWI membership grew or the reasons for it. “Life within the CWI was a constant strain”. Well Denis, life in the ivory towers of academia might be all rosy, but I have news for you, life in the real world is a constant strain for working class people. Life is a constant struggle to keep your head above water. Even during the Celtic Tiger, with a real increase in living standards, one of the main complaints that people had was about the deterioration in their quality of life.

What follows is the story of Andy Troke followed by a series of un-attributed examples of life within the CWI. Thousands of people have passed through the ranks of the CWI. I am sure that for some the experience was not a happy or beneficial one. Some people undoubtedly found it boring, tedious, mundane and a bit of a slog. However, for an academic to use the experience of one individual as evidence of a trend is hardly scientific.

“Subs were extracted from members” apparently like pulling teeth. “A leader” would make “an hour long introduction which laid out the line…the more you agreed with the leader the more he or she cited your contribution. in the sum up….There was a distinct tendency to promote the most conformist comrades to key positions, even if they were the most bland”. Is that how you became a “leader” Denis and what you did when you got there? If this is a case then I am glad that you are no longer a member of the CWI. However, the reality is probably that you were the best person for the job at the time. As regards the way financial collections were conducted at meeting, I would accept that this was an inappropriate process (one that you did not object to), one I personally never supported and one that has cessed to exist for many years. Unfortunately, your in-depth research does not seem to have uncovered this fact, or the fact that the SP no longer elects its National Committee by slate. A simple look at the SP constitution would have confirmed this fact.

“Indoctrination began with the recruitment process….given the CWI’s secret existence within the Labour Party, people who came into contact with it would not have immediately known it was an organisation”. Give us a break; the dogs in the street knew we were an organisation. The reason CWI survived as long as it did within the various social democracies, as you well know, had more to do firstly, with the ability of the right-wing within the social democracies to expel members of the CWI, and secondly, with the degree of threat the CWI posed to the right wing leadership. As Denis well knows, it was not the membership of the Social Democracies that was the important factor (in some countries we had been expelled very early on) rather the orientation of the CWI to the organisations of the working class. To hand the excuse for our expulsion on a plate to the right, was not something we were going to do. To suggest rites and rituals and a series of crystal maze like challenges is really quite disingenuous.

The claim the CWI was a cult is not the invention of Denis Tourish. As early as 1984, with the advent of the miners’ strike and the growing support for socialist candidates on Merseyside, claims like this were being made. Tourish quotes extensively from Michael Crick’s book “The March of Militant” to support his claim. Crick’s book, now largely discredited, was written as part of the attacks being made against the CWI and the left in general within the labour movement in the 1980’s. The methods used by Crick are now being copied by Tourish here.

“What runs through all these accounts is the boredom (a re-occurring theme for Tourish) which accompanied CWI membership, after the thrill of initiation and the feeling of being special had worn off”. Exciting is not a word I would use to describe revolutionary politics. I would much prefer to spend my time in a stress free life, watching telly, going for walks etc. But unfortunately life is not like that and the membership of a revolutionary organisation does not add or take away from that. There are times it can be difficult, stressful, tiring etc. but each individual has to make their own decision if this is what they want to do. Some participate, some leave.

Denis Tourish goes on to quote from one interviewee (again anonymously) “We would routinely lie to recruits about what their membership would involve”. Assuming this quote is accurate, then this person has done a great disservice to the CWI, to the people that join as a result of meeting this person and to the working class as a whole. I sincerely hope that this “interviewee” is no longer associated with the CWI. I have never lied to anyone about what membership of the CWI involved and I personally do not know anyone in the CWI that behaved in this way.

Collapse and disintegration
“After the CWI split in 1992 the consequences of this situation (a lack of devotion to Grant and Taaffe) was frankly summarised by Grant”. So from pillaring Ted Grant for telling lies and building a secret and destructive cult, Denis Tourish now turns around and uses quotations from Grant to prove his point. So Tourish attacks Grant when it is necessary to prove his argument but then uses his “rantings” to support his point of view when it suits him. Again the reality is that, after an extensive debate, the minority faction lost the vote at the British Conference. Grant then went on to make a whole series of accusations about the leadership of the CWI. This is nothing new and not surprising. Unfortunately the aftermath of such divisions often bring out such recriminations (they even happen in football clubs, never mind revolutionary organisations).

1987 was indeed an important year for the CWI. The aftermath of the defeat of the miners strike and Liverpool Council had a massive effect on the CWI, particularly in Britain. This was further compounded by the collapse of Stalinism and the ideological offensive of world imperialism. Despite this, the British section of the CWI (according to Tourish, already in terminal decline) lead the anti-poll tax movement which lead to the defeat of the Thatcher Government. In fact the entire anti-poll tax campaign is almost completely ignored by Denis Tourish.

Again, for Tourish, the political developments of the period are irrelevant; the crisis in the CWI comes down to the conflicting personalities of Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe. “Ted Grant realised that he was not being propelled into the limelight of major speaking engagements as much as he had been…Taaffe was increasingly tired of his position as second in command. Gurus generally dislike other gurus”. There can be clashes of personalities within revolutionary organisations, just as there can be in any aspect of everyday life. The are some people in the CWI that I don’t get along with on a personal basis. Most of my close friends are not involved in politics at all (something which seems to make me at odds with Denis Tourish’s list of essential elements to being in a cult). But my personal feelings do not detract from the fact that we are all attempting to achieve the same thing, the emancipation of working class people. The CWI does not hide differences, be they personal or political and deals with them in an open and frank way. Incidentally, I believe it would be appropriate for Denis Tourish to give credit for his revelation about this issue to Peter Taaffe. After all he did lift the sections necessary for his critique from the pages of “The Rise of Militant” (Fortress Books, 1995). After all he was generous in giving credit to the anonymous sources that he used to attack the CWI. Anyone interested can read the pages of this book and see that there is no attempt to hide any differences that occurred, be they political or personality based.

Even given this fact, in the end, the conflict within the CWI was a political conflict brought about by the changing political landscape. It was necessary for political organisations to adjust to the changing circumstances. If the CWI had not we would certainly have gone the way of Grant’s new group. So what was the conflict about? A number of issues came to the surface. Black Monday, October 21st 1987, saw a collapse on the world stock markets. Ted Grant predicted a 1930’s style depression within one year. The issue was extensively debated within the CWI. “The discussion around the issue within the Militant National Editorial Board and the working Editorial Board was searching and at times very sharp. The opponents of Ted Grant rejected the perspective of an immediate slump.” (The Rise of Militant, page 447) Grant refused to accept the possibility that capitalism could be re-established in the Stalinist countries even denying the evidence when looking at TV. Grant refused to accept the quantum shift occurring in the social democracies and insisted that the tactic of entryism continue (as they still do to this day). The first Gulf War also caused political differences. Grant was convinced that the war would be long and that the Iraqis would put up significant resistance. At one particular public meeting Ted Grant declared that if the British government introduced conscription then members of the CWI should willingly join the British army and agitate from within. This brought a storm of protest from the members of the CWI present at the meeting. There were also disagreements in relation to Namibia and South Africa. Many of the debates occurred within the pages of the Militant newspaper. The political differences are well documented and available. Remember the CWI are attempting to build a revolutionary international. Unfortunately there is no place for sentimentality.

“Taaffe shamelessly accused the Ted Grant led opposition of – being a party within a party” Wow! What an exposition. How shameless can you get! “Grant and his supporters….were expelled in 1992”. Factually incorrect. The minority group left the CWI, they were not expelled. A parting of the ways had occurred. From the Militant there was no recriminations but “a sober assessment of the role of Ted Grant”. (The rise of Militant, Page Incidentally, I believe it would be appropriate for Denis Tourish to give credit for his revelation about this issue to Peter Taaffe. After all he did lift the sections necessary for his critique from the pages of “The Rise of Militant” (Fortress Books, 1995). After all he was generous in giving credit to the writing of other authors that he used to attack the CWI.

Of course it was necessary for Denis Tourish to claim that the minority faction were expelled. It reinforces his argument. He goes on to outline the paranoia, as he sees it, of Peter Taaffe. “Taaffe now exhibited an increasing fear of mutiny”. Continuing with his capsizing boat metaphors Tourish says “he threw overboard the 1000 members of the CWI Pakistani section, By then the largest part of its membership” (again factually incorrect). Yes the LPP were expelled, not because of mutiny, but because they were accepting large sums of money from the Swedish social democracy and had become a corrupt and opportunist group establishing NGO organisations and displaying patronage in the allocation of jobs. The paper membership was 1000 but the activity level indicated that at most 100 were involved in any kind of party work. The expulsion was carried out by the CWI world congress and not by Peter Taaffe. “The more spectacularly his (Taaffe) predictions were falsified the more paranoid he became about permitting real debate” Could Denis Tourish please give us examples of this?

“Scotland embarked on their own attempt”. The debate around the launch of the SSP actually gives a lie to the assertion above by Tourish about stifling debate. The debate was long, extensive and well documented. The documents produced are freely available for anyone to read on the CWI website. The dangers outlined by the CWI during the debate are, unfortunately, appearing to become a reality for the SSP.

Dissent without and revolution within
Tourish describes the CWI as follows “political cults of all hues are possessed by a deep conviction that they alone have access to a series of sacred and absolute truths” Denis Tourish, if he recalls anything that he read about Marxism during his time in the CWI, will know that there is no such thing as an absolute truth. Marxism is a method not “tablets of stone”. Will the CWI lead the world revolution? Time will tell, personally I don’t care who leads it as long as it is a success. However, at this time I feel that the CWI analysis of political developments is the most accurate and the CWI at this point in time holds out the best prospect for building a revolutionary party.

Repeated again is the claim that Ted Grant and the minority faction were expelled. No matter how many times you repeat it Denis, it does not make it true. “Henceforth, the penalty for dissent was obvious to everyone”. Tourish talks about the expulsion of John Throne by the “Taaffe leadership in London”. Throne and others were expelled for dissent according to Tourish. Throne and 5 others were expelled by the membership of the CWI USA section for refusing to accept the democratic decisions of the membership and for actively working to circumvent those decisions. The US debate now amounts to mountains of documents, not the sign of an organisation that forbids dissent. Of course Throne cries foul and the CWI are supposed to roll over and apologise to John Throne, tell him he was right and the overwhelming majority of the US section were wrong.

Denis Tourish proceeds to carry out the same character assassination of Peter Taaffe as he has previously done on Ted Grant. Anonymous sources are quoted to back up the assassination. Taaffe is accused of “founders syndrome”. He “chaired all the important meetings”. His “ritual summing up…awarded marks for effort”. Nick Wrack “was a broken man” because of Taaffe. Tourish even claims that his favours extended to the football field. Taaffe would “signal who was in favour and who was out”. For those who have played football with Peter Taaffe and there is a quick realisation why everyone wants to be on his team. Peter Taaffe’s footballing ability is questionable but he has an incredible talent for kicking people in the shins.

On the last page Denis Tourish shows how far he has drifted from the revolutionary politics he once supported. “Real politics is about building alliances, achieving influence, and making a difference in the real world”. I doubt if any bourgeois politician could have said it better. “Making friends and influencing people” is the mantra that Tourish now subscribes to.

“For the CWI….the result has been oblivion”. Unfortunately Denis, you have been premature in writing the epitaph of the CWI. On a worldwide basis the influence of the CWI is greater than at anytime in its history. This is not to say that we don’t have a long way to go but we are getting there.

Does the CWI make mistakes? Of course it does. But if Denis Tourish remembers anything about Marxism, he will remember that coming to the wrong conclusions is far less important than how you arrive at those conclusions. It is the method of analysis that is the key. As long as the method in arriving at conclusions is correct, mistakes can be rectified. A stopped clock will be right twice a day. If the method is wrong then mistakes are not corrected and the outlook for any revolutionary organisation is bleak. The political conclusions of the events that lead to the split with Socialist Appeal (Grant, Woods, Sewell and their supporters) shows that the perspectives of the CWI were correct.

Do the rank and file disagree with the leadership? Of course they do. It doesn’t happen that often but it does happen. There have been and continue to be many debates within (and I stress within) the ranks of the organisation. Do the ranks ever go against the wishes of the leadership? It has happened. For example, the decision to call the Irish CWI section the Socialist Party, was a proposal from rank and file members, the leading bodies had proposed another name. Did this disagreement or dissent cause expulsions? Of course not.

Just because you want to believe, for whatever reason, that the CWI is a cult, does not make it so. Starting from the premise that something is fact and then setting out to prove it, does you a disservice just as much as does your readers. Denis Tourish claims that we deal with dissent by expulsion. To the best of my knowledge there has never been anyone expelled from the Irish section of the CWI.

While I don’t know what will happen in the future, there is one thing for certain, revolutions have, are and will continue to occur. Hopefully, at some point the working class will succeed and we can stop the poverty, the exploitation, the misery, something that Denis Tourish appears oblivious to in his ivory tower.

To finish with a quote:
"Life is beautiful. Let future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full." Leon Trotsky.