the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Nov 23, 2015
Following the attacks in Paris, political leaders of the big parties suspended all electoral campaigning [for the regional elections due to take place in December], campaigning that had only just begun. It didn’t prevent them pouring forth what they wanted on all the television and radio channels. What it prevented was the other electoral campaigns, those of the smaller, revolutionary groups, like Lutte Ouvrière, from having the few minutes of television and radio time [allowed to them in French elections].
But that didn’t stop certain journalists from slandering Lutte Ouvrière, even though the organization no longer had the right to a few minutes of time on the news channels. On the contrary, it was easier for them to attack our tendency, when we did not have the right to say exactly what our views were. For example, the journal West-France published on the Sunday after the attacks an article declaring that “the extreme left, with impunity, legitimizes the blood bath by making the level of violence of the terrorists equal to the violence which we inflict on the terrorists.” And in the same edition an editorial writer summarizes what he says are the positions of Lutte Ouvrière and of the NPA (the New anti-Capitalist Party) under the title, “They excuse the killers.” The bits of our writing quoted do nothing to justify such a slanderous presentation, but that apparently doesn’t bother the writer. Without a doubt, his anti-communism and his desire to punish the extreme left guided him, not intellectual honesty.
And on November 16 on a French TV station, a deputy of the Socialist Party, Malek Boutih, found it necessary to vomit on the parties of the extreme left with the claim that “Their communications produced in the last 48 hours show they are on the side of fascism.” He recycles the old lies of the Stalinists from an earlier time, calling us “Hitler-Trotskyists.” It’s hardly surprising that such slanders are used to counter a revolutionary current that opposes the current propaganda, a propaganda that defends the politics of bourgeois imperialism, which has led us more and more into this impasse.
The workers movement and communists are well acquainted with this phenomenon. But these attacks show what honesty and what attachment to “values” part of the media has.