The glassy-eyed girl

People have the right to choose to be involved in cults. Deprogramming is a vile and violent thing, and a concerned friend or family member who embarks on such a course of action is being blinded by their own need for control. Freedom means the freedom to cut yourself off from parents and other nasty people who laugh at your chosen way of life, however nutty. And so I would never torture an International Socialist into abandoning the cause.

But there's a limit to everything. The daily featured listings of the leftie Rabble.ca (the brainchild of Judy Rebick) are promoting an International Socialists' event taking place tonight in Toronto ("From Che to Chavez: Latin America in Revolt," at 6:30 pm at a public library).

The I.S. tries to take over everything its members touch, and there's no room for dissent or debate. The I.S. is organizational poison. Rabble's feature listing is just stupid. Talk about the left helping to destroy itself....


ADDENDUM: There's one good thing to be said about I.S. Toronto: It's not homophobic. Featured speaker Michelle Robidoux is out and proud.

For a look at far-left political groupings, see Roger O'Toole's "The Precipitous Path: Studies in Political Sects," a 1977 monograph (published by Peter Martin Associates Limited) that looks at a handful of wacky Toronto groups. An interesting read -- and even "regular folk" will recognize how some of the bonding rituals of the far-left have been adopted and adapted by mainstream political parties. Socializing together is a requirement for young Liberals, too, I'll bet. Gotta build the group-think.