I think one tradition Americans should let go of is your obsession with putting the KKK on life support. In the civilised world, people are innocent until proven guilty. But Robeson was innocent, Malcolm X was innocent, John Reed was innocent, Huey Newton was innocent.

You have exhausted every possible angle by which to round up communists, and now the words of Karl Marx ring true: History will repeat itself first as a tragedy, and then as a farce.

You can throw around as many abstractions as you want. You can recite La Rouche in your own head like a Jesuit clutching his rosaries, but it makes no difference. What matters is what people do. The CPI was always the first to speak on behalf of those of us outside of the US, no matter the cost. No matter the enemies they made. Even though those enemies proved too influential.

This is a tangible action, and your chants and superstitions cannot change it.