Issued: July 1, 1980.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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July 1, 1980
Dear Western Regional Conference Delegates and Observers:
Bay Area Socialist Organizing Committee (BASOC) is a local M-L organization in the anti-revisionist, anti-“left” tendency. BASOC was allowed one observer to this regional conference as a non-OCIC organization.
One of our members, Eileen, was a participant at the National Minority M-L Conference (NMM-LC) in June, 1979. She and Nobuo (another participant at the NMM-LC) were not invited as individual observers by the local Planning Committee (PC) to this regional conference. The local minority-position adherents struggled with the local PC to invite Eileen and Nobuo. We were informed that they were denied individual observer status by the local PC because they did not fit the criterion of being interested in joining the OCIC.
BASOC’s Coordinating Committee (CC) thinks there are significant extenuating circumstances in Eileen and Nobuo’s case that should allow their inclusion as observers. As two participants, Eileen and Nobuo have well-developed criticisms of the NMM-LC. Their criticisms are documented and have been clearly known to some members of the local PC since last fall. We believe that they should also be permitted to speak in the discussion on the NMM-LC. Without Eileen and Nobuo’s participation in the discussion, delegates and observers will not have a full picture of the issues. Furthermore, criticism of the NMM-LC will now have to be presented by white people, setting the stage for possible race-baiting of their position. As a result, participants in the Western Regional Conference may not even be aware that there are national minority critics of the NMM-LC. The PC action can only encourage unprincipled isolation of the minority viewpoint when first-hand participants in the NMM-LC are not allowed to rebut majority arguments in the discussion at this conference.
Coordinating Committee of BASOC