I just submitted the following letter to the City Paper concerning a piece they did on the Socialist Workers Party's presidential campaign. The original article is at
<a href="http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/03/where-have-all-the-trotskyites-gone</a" target="_new" rel="nofollow">
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/04/03/where-have-all-the-trotskyites-gone</a>;.
Your article on the Socialist Workers Party painted it as irrelevant but benign. As a former member of their youth group, I have a different view.
If you want to make a statement against capitalism, go ahead and vote for their candidates -- but I'd advise strongly against getting involved with their organization, if you value your intellectual and emotional freedom. Notwithstanding their public claims about internal democracy, you may find that thinking for yourself -- even about minor questions, and even inside your own head (which they may ask you about) -- really isn't tolerated, and that (not necessarily pleasant) means will be found to oust you if you insist on doing so.
At least that's what happened to me. And reports I got from others subsequently -- e.g., of members' being encouraged to share apartments so they could vet each others' mail for "bad influences" -- indicate that my experience wasn't a fluke.
For more information on avoiding or getting out of abusive and manipulative groups, visit the International Cultic Studies Association (which I support but don't represent) at www.icsahome.com. They're meeting in Philadelphia this year.
Eric Hamell
P.S. I considered also mentioning in the letter that the SWP hasn't identified itself as Trotskyist in quite a while, contrary to what the article's title had suggested. But I decided that would be a distraction from the main point.