The US based Socialist Workers Party should not be confused with the British organisation of the same name, but they do have some similarities: they are both rest homes for the politically deluded, social misfits, psychopaths, and swivel-eyed totalitarian monsters.
We can get some idea of the support the US SWP have because they run candidates for President. In the 2008 Presidential election, they had two candidates: Roger Calero and James Harris. This dynamic duo garnered a combined total of 7,551 votes out of 131,257,328 votes cast. One does not need to be an expert in calculating percentages to realise that the Party has not managed to convince the population of the correctness of its political line. They have a long way to go in their hopes of building a mass movement: somewhere over the rainbow.
A former member has spoken out!
I was in an organization, the U.S.-based Socialist Workers Party, which I would characterize today as a cult-like group. I have asked myself how did it happen that a group of young antiwar activists allow one individual to become dominant and I can only respond by saying that those who stayed in the group learned that to question the leadership was opening Pandora’s box. So when the leadership presented a new theory or idea, they squinted very hard until they could see how 2+2=6, not 4. It took me awhile to figure out how they changed their minds when the presentation was full of holes.
What did I gain by saying what I thought at those meetings? I gained the hatred of the group that saw me as being a dissident while I simply thought I should say what I thought because that was my obligation to the organization. I didn’t leave because this was the group that taught me to be a Marxist so I ended up being expelled. As one of my comrades said during my trial, if we’d been up in the Sierra Maestra with Che, he would have known how to deal with me—meaning he would execute me as a traitor.
Perhaps the US SWP and the British SWP have more in common than the respective parties would care to admit.
