does anyone on here do any activist work?

[The Red Next Door]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world?

[DancingLarry]

I've engaged in activism in one form or another for over 30 years now. Part of the reason I'm here, and in a sense , "back to my revolutionary roots" is because so much time and effort I have spilled out in my life has accomplished so little, in fact the world, the nation, my locality are all more reactionary now than before I put in all that effort, spent all those endless hours, ponied up way more money than I can afford, and for what? To see things get more right-wing, more corporate, more corrupt. The lesson I take away is that kind of activism might make you "feel good", but in the end it not only has changed nothing, the world has gotten steadily worse. The social rot has gone deeper. I can only conclude, having tested all the waters, that the only hope for positive change is to crash the entire system.

You can tell your sister that the old man on the board that has already done far far more organizing, activism, door-knocking, meeting holding, petitioning, assemblying, rallying, marching, lobbying, letter-writing, and voting than she'll ever do in her life tells her to stick her stereotypes where the sun don't shine.

[el_chavista]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world?
Is your sister an empiricist? Tell her we got to master the science of changing society first :lol: I'm just a militant in two left parties.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Out of all the stupid threads on revleft, I think there is some thing especially stupid about this one.

[Code]

Read up on security culture!
That's a SERIOUS COP QUESTION.
Just a warning.

EDIT: I'm talking about the thread name

[Q]

No, I'm not an armchair socialist.

[mikelepore]

Complaining _IS_doing something. The whole problem in front of us is that most people don't realize that the type of social system is the cause of society's problems, and the system can't be mended to work in the interests of society. People need to be persuaded to despise not only the effects but the cause. Publicly talking about this situation as often as possible is the task that needs to be done the most. It's everything else besides complaining that is a distraction, and complaining that is the one useful act.

[Dóchas]

just because we may not be doing anything in the community at this moment doesnt mean we arnt doing anything. we are all constantly learning and debating with people in everyday life. with this we learn more about left wing politics and ideas and when do start to engage in more activity within the community we will have enough knowledge and know how on how to deal with any more challenges and obstacles that we will undoubtly face. so no we may not be doing at the moment we are preparing ourselves so we are ideologically mature enough to.

maybe your sister could come on to revleft herself and see what we really do? ;)

[Holden Caulfield]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world?

I do plenty, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend :huh:

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

much to the annoyance of my girlfriend :huh:

why would she be annoyed? I can see why she wouldnt want to do any troterizing herself but why would she be annoyed by it?

[alexo]

Too much says the wife

[InTheMatterOfBoots]

I do plenty, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend :huh:

ditto.

[jake williams]

It's certainly possible to be one of those "armchair revolutionaries" who talk a lot amongst themselves and never do anything in the real world, and they do exist, but they're much rarer than I think is usually assumed. Most political people I know are in fact constantly engaged in different things.

[apathy maybe]

It doesn't matter what people do, this is a discussion board. I don't discuss what I do in real life on here, for the most part it is not relevant. (Not to mention, I would rather leave as few clues as possible as to who I actually am.)

More to the point, saying, "what do you do?" is a pointless question on the Internet. I can be anyone I want! One restricted member claims to be a factory owner, and a member of the Communist Party USA (and a supporter of the capitalist system).

There are some members who's online persona is easily linked to a real world figure (I can think of at least two from Britain), but in the main, it is not so easy.
And that's the way it should be.

Yes, I'm paranoid, but that doesn't mean the cops, intelligence services, and the fash aren't out to get me (or anyone else).


What do I do? I masturbate, I have sex, I drink, I eat, I cook, I write, I sleep, I make bombs, I travel, I read, I throw stones, I bathe, I do heaps of things.

What activist stuff do I do? None of your fucking business.

[bellyscratch]

I go around carrying a big red flag and charge into parks like I'm in a dress rehearsal for the revolution and thats about it really. Just spend the rest of my life on the interwebz pretending to be a communist :D

[Code]

pretending to be a communist

:huh: ? :glare:

[bellyscratch]

:huh: ? :glare:

Yes, definatley pretending...

[Holden Caulfield]

I go around carrying a big red flag and charge into parks like I'm in a dress rehearsal for the revolution and thats about it really. Just spend the rest of my life on the interwebz pretending to be a communist :D

he does i've seen him

[Code]

Stop answering "cop questions"

[Code]

he does i've seen him

Both you and the person your talking about (mostly him) have just given up your identities

[StalinFanboy]

Both you and the person your talking about (mostly him) have just given up your identities
rofl

[Dejavu]

Yep. I do local self-organized activist work with my fellow tenets. We are currently trying to take more control over our part of the Apt Complex.

[Holden Caulfield]

Both you and the person your talking about (mostly him) have just given up your identities
:crying:

[Incendiarism]

No, not really. I don't have many opportunities to do so, and of the leftists I know of, I would sooner cause my body grievous harm than offer them my trust in any degree. I'm not afraid to admit this because my intentions are genuine and true, and given the correct circumstances I'd work wholeheartedly for the advancement of socialism. Until I get my chance I'm comfortable reading up theory.

[Knight of Cydonia]

the only question here is: does you and your sister has done anything to change the world? tell her to see into her self first before she said something shitty like that.

[Pogue]

I have thanks, yeh. Started with local campaigns 4 years ago, been involved in pretty much everything from Stop the War to Tibet to Anti-fascism to workers struggles. Your sister is just repeating an often heard slur that is essentially meaningless.

[bellyscratch]

Both you and the person your talking about (mostly him) have just given up your identities

oh no... im going to be hunted down by the fascists and capitalists!!!

[ls]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world?

Your sister has the right to remain superwoman.

[Vincent P.]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world?


I'll admit I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to activism. What I do is mostly "propaganda", so far successfully enough, and mild direct action. I can't give no details on the internet sorry. We must get more troops before we do anything else...

My future plans: after I read loads of seminal anarchist work and learn things here, then I'll start writing pamphlet. I'm currently reading Kropotkin's "Mutual Aid".

In the future I will perhaps create some commune. I've been criticeized a lot here for that, but I've got time to change my mind...

[OneNamedNameLess]

Many of us are actually involved in campaigning. If some are not then what's the problem? I can think of plenty of people who label as a Conservative or Liberal or whatever and do absolutely nothing. Have you been on Stormfront? There are over 100,000 members. Do you think a high percentage of them are active? Inactivity is not just confined to the left.

[Communist Theory]

Well I live in Green Bay, WI. I do alot of protesting mainly on the 1400 block.
You can find me I like to wear red.
:laugh:

[alexo]

It can piss you off though when you've been out working to try and achieve something and you go on a forum and get attacked by people who can't be bothered to get off their arses to campaign for a better health service, or an alternative agenda for jobs etc.

[Holden Caulfield]

It can piss you off though when you've been out working to try and achieve something and you go on a forum and get attacked by people who can't be bothered to get off their arses to campaign for a better health service, or an alternative agenda for jobs etc.

exactly this. people who aren't active, who could be, and them come on this forum criticising other people, are wastes of space without the basic conviction to back up anything they say.

[narcomprom]

In the place I inhabit you could hardly cross a street without having a leaflet handed to you.or without some random person trying to engage with you in a discussion about some very irrelevant topic (including the omniportance of god, vanity and the decline of western civilisation). I don't think we lack agitators here.
A lot of manpower, I think, is in fact misallocated.

oh no... im going to be hunted down by the fascists and capitalists!!!
you won't be, for now they'll just register you, who fail to learn from history.

[Agrippa]

Your sister's analysis of RevLeft posters is correct.

However, activism is bourgeois.


L'Appel[/I]"]But what is most striking, for the time being, is not the arrogance of empire, but rather the weakness of the counter-attack. Like a colossal paralysis. A mass paralysis. Which will sometimes say - when it still speaks - that there is nothing to do, sometimes concede - when pushed to its limit - that "there is so much to do". Which is to say the same thing.

Then, on the fringe of this paralysis, there is the "something, anything, has to be done" of the activists.


Those who would respond to the urgency of the situation with the urgency of their reaction only add to the general asphyxiation.

Their manner of intervention implies the rest of their politics, of their agitation.

As for us, the urgency of the situation just allows us to be rid of all considerations of legality or legitimacy. Considerations that have, in any case, become uninhabitable.

That it might take a generation to build a victorious revolutionary movement in all its breadth does not cause us to waver.

We envisage this with serenity.

Just like we serenely envisage the criminal nature of our existence and of our gestures.



We have known, we still know, the temptation of activism.

The counter-summits, the No-Border camps, the occupations, and the campaigns against evictions, new security laws, the building of new prisons; the succession of all of this. The ever-increasing dispersion of collectives responding to the same dispersion of activity.

Running after the movements.

Feeling our power on an ad hoc basis, only at the price of returning each time to an underlying powerlessness.

Paying the high price for each campaign. Letting it consume all the energy that we have. Then moving to the next one, each time more out of breath, more exhausted, more desolated.

And little by little, by dint of demanding, by dint of denouncing, becoming incapable of sensing the presumed basis of our engagement, the nature of the urgency that flows through us.
Activism is the first reflex. The standard response to the urgency of the present situation. The perpetual mobilisation in the name of urgency is what our bosses and governments have made us used to, even when we fight against them.

Forms of life disappear every day, plant or animal species, human experiences and countless relationships between them all. But our feeling of urgency is linked less to the speed of these extinctions than to their irreversibility, and even more to our inability to repopulate the desert.

Activists mobilise themselves against the catastrophe. But only prolong it. Their haste consumes the little world that is left. The answer of the activist to urgency remains itself within the regime of urgency, with no hope of getting out of it or interrupting it.

The activist wants to be everywhere. She goes everywhere the rhythm of the breakdown of the machine leads her. Everywhere she brings her pragmatic inventiveness, the festive energy of her opposition to the catastrophe. Without fail, the activist mobilises. But she never gives herself the means to understand how it is to be done. How to hinder in concrete terms the progress of the desert, in order to establish inhabitable worlds here and now.

We desert activism. Without forgetting what gives it strength: a certain presence to the situation. An ease of movement within it. A way to apprehend the struggle, not from a moral or ideological angle, but from a technical and tactical one.

[LeninKobaMao]

Well i'm 14 so theres really not much I can do except learn about it until I am old enough be an activist. It also sucks for me because my parents hate communists and lefties :thumbdown:

[bricolage]

It's a Catch 22 because as soon as you do anything you get told you are wasting your time on something that will make no difference

[StalinFanboy]

Your sister's analysis of RevLeft posters is correct.

However, activism is bourgeois.
I've actually been looking for those particular excerpts. I no longer have a copy of the Call.

[Sam_b]

Well i'm 14 so theres really not much I can do except learn about it until I am old enough be an activist. It also sucks for me because my parents hate communists and lefties

I don't think age is necessarily a barrier, I was doing Stop the War and Scottish Socialist Youth activist work when I was that age.

[Agrippa]

Well i'm 14 so theres really not much I can do except learn about it until I am old enough be an activist. It also sucks for me because my parents hate communists and lefties :thumbdown:

Then keep your political activity on the d.l. until you're no longer dependent on them.

And remember you have your whole life ahead of you. Don't rush into anything stupid just because you feel the suffocating need to do something. That's what I did, and I was lucky only to waste a shit-ton of money on court fees for something that accomplished absolutely nothing and actually weakened my camp's position.

[rosie]

my sister had said that people on this site do nothing but complain about what wrong in the world and just do nothing. do you do something to change the world? I do. I organize a Marxist/Feminist benefit show every year. the turnout is usually high, and the monies raised are plentiful. No corporate sponsors. No record labels. The way I organize is totally grassroots ( a little different than other organized shows I have been told). No cover charge at the door, bands play, the organizations speak about themselves and their current and past campaigns, and the patrons donate directly to the representatives if they want to. Aside from that, I work for a Marxist community center/art gallery/music venue. We promote Creative Commons licensing, Marxism, and make great leaps to organize local factory workers and students. I personally do not have a job, so the community center is my main focus. Check out our web site if you would like. www.b414.org
You can also check out the myspace page (I hate myspace, but it's what I've got right now...website is in the works) for the benefit show I organize....www.myspace.com/brf07

[rosie]

Well i'm 14 so theres really not much I can do except learn about it until I am old enough be an activist. It also sucks for me because my parents hate communists and lefties :thumbdown:
Be strong, Comrade. You are doing your part by putting in the time and effort to learn the theory. I often find in local activist groups a lacking of theory. Too much action and not enough theory can be deadly. Too much theory and not enough action is also quite dangerous. We all need to keep that good balance. And remember, if the theory gets to be too much, not all of us are inteligencia elite. Some of us are soldiers. And there's no shame in that. If you are housed by people that are against communism and other leftists, you ARE engaging in activism, simply because you are actively learning to fight the system your parents attempt to enforce. Congratulations!
P.S. had I been learning communism at 14, I would be a lot better off now. I'm in my early 20's and have been heavily active in my community and hitting the books for only a year. Also, try to remember, being a reactionary is part of the learning process (not to say you are a reactionary). But you have to remember "we are all undesirables" or you will not be able to further your education. The best of luck, Comrade.

[Pogue]

14 is old enough to do activism. I did some activism at 14, mainly focused on just attending demonstrations, but its something and you can do it. Obviously its easier as you get older.

[rosie]

Read up on security culture!
That's a SERIOUS COP QUESTION.
Just a warning.

EDIT: I'm talking about the thread name
Regardless of whether or not its a cop question, most of us on here (granted, I can only speak from personal experience with fellow activists) are not doing anything illegal or outside of our legal rights.

[Bandito]

Yes. Enough said.

[Communist]

I do, yes. Not as much as I'd like though, due to wage slavery, family responsibilities, etc.