Weekly Worker 686 Thursday August 30 2007 Subscribe to the Weekly Worker

Some chicken shit

Paul Hampton clearly scuttled off home still hyper after the AWL picket of the opening session of this year’s Communist University. He was straight onto his blog that evening to pen an entry that opens: “The CPGB, those pretentious squirrels of leftwing tittle-tattle, outdid themselves today by chickening out of a debate with the AWL over Iraq” (www.workersliberty.org/node/8970#comment).

Paul Hampton: oaf

The comrade had appeared - clucking (we kid you not) - brandishing a Kellogg’s cornflakes packet (it has a chicken on the front - get it?). Chickens were clearly still flapping around in Paul’s head later, as he summed up our organisation in his parting blog shot - “Chickens when it comes to debate. Chicken shit when it comes to politics.”

We wonder - who does the comrade think he’s fooling? Let’s go through it, shall we ...

llIn early July, at the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism, we invite David Broder to share a platform at this year’s CU. Comrade Broder is a member of the AWL’s substantial ‘troops out’ minority.

llDavid then writes to inform us that he has been told he cannot speak - that we have to go through the central office. We do so, but we are not after an official AWL spokesperson, but comrade Broder, as he is a signatory to the founding statement of the Hands off the People of Iran campaign - including its call for “The immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US-UK troops from the Gulf region”. We were hoping to spark a more general discussion on how this call, along with our steadfast opposition to the Tehran theocratic regime, could be disseminated in the wider movement.

llAfter numerous emails and telephone calls to the AWL office, on the eve of CU we are offered ... Sean Matgamna! A self-proclaimed Zionist and (shamefaced) supporter of the occupation! So not really ideal for the meeting we had in mind for the opening session of our school, then.

llI wrote declining the offer of comrade Matgamna for these reasons, but adding: “… we would like to make it clear that we would relish the chance to debate Sean or any other pro-occupation AWL comrade at any other time. Please feel free to suggest some dates” (Weekly Worker August 9).

llThe very next contact we have with AWLers is when they turn out a small posse on Saturday August 11 ... accusing us of ducking (just to break the Paul Hampton chicken theme for a moment) a debate!

The AWL picket was a pretty ragged affair, ranging from uber-oaf Hampton (who made some laughable physical threats to myself - “Anywhere, any time,” the comrade promised. What is he - 12?) through to the embarrassed younger comrades, David Broder and Kit Leary.

Duncan Morrisson - on the other hand - did not seem to know quite why (where?) he was at all and Mark Osborn clearly felt he had to adopt the role of ‘soft cop’ to comrade Hampton’s ‘hard cop’ (this is called ‘playing against type’, of course).

As to our comrades. They not only thought the picket completely ridiculous, almost all of them had the gumption to simply ask the protesting AWLers to come into the CU … where we could debate. Under heavy instructions from Sean Matgamna they were obliged, of course, to chicken out.

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