Παρασκευή 23 Αυγούστου 2013

Dear Professor Matsas,

Please accept my support for your willingness to stand up publicly against the rise up of neo fascism in your country.   I actually am shocked and sad to learn that it is necessary to do so in Greece.   I taught in the state of Alabama here in the USA.  I was arrested, subject to arson, vandals, bomb threats during the run up to the Reagan election and given a sabbatical I had not requested on the literal eve of his inauguration.  You are almost fortunate that you were charged literally with identifying a trend toward  fascism as a trend toward fascism.  That is what my friends and others understood I was doing.  Many did not agree with me, but  any would have agreed that is what I was doing.   Most of my colleagues in the sociology department went along, a couple were highly complicit. I was not able to rally support from influential colleagues like Ollman, whom I knew very slightly  then.  I don't know for sure he is one I approached.  I was never able to get an academic appointment afterward.  Perhaps it was for the best, I became a full time activist linking labor and civil rights organizations in the South, although being economically dependent on my husband was humiliating as I had been mainly known as a founder of the Women's Liberation Movement

Anyway, I am not glad you have to suffer what I know you are going through, but I am very glad to see Ollman rallying international support for you.  The persecution of intellectuals particularly sociologists and economists who have seriously studied marx and Engels and simply share with others what they understand is going on and underway before a critical mass agrees, does go on constantly.  That is why it is so hard for a critical mass to form and agree to act effectively.  One by one we are isolated, marginalized, and lose our credibility with those who still retain some credibility and fear, consciously or not, but definitely rationally, losing theirs.

I devoutly hope your case becomes a centripetal force prompting others to stand up and to stand up for others who do

Keep on keeping on... as those who have won difficult and important victories down here say

Peggy Dobbins,Ph D