Mulciber
26th January 2012, 03:11
Hi everyone. Started lurking around the site recently and eventually decided I had to get in on the conversation.
I'm from Toronto and a supporter of Fightback, the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency, which bases itself on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Ted Grant of the Militant Tendency in Britain. We orient towards the traditional mass organizations of the working class, which in Canada means the trade unions and the New Democratic Party (NDP).
Regarding how I got to this point politically, it's been a long and winding road. I always had leftist tendencies, and had always been concerned about the environment, but I really got interested in politics after 9/11, when everybody was paying rapt attention to what was on the news. Unfortunately, I was a bit young and naive and fell for the fearmongering about Saddam handing WMDs to terrorists; the Iraq War seemed like a good idea in 2003. :blushing:
Clearly that was my first big lesson in not trusting the authorities. As the full scale of the horror revealed itself in the subsequent months, I realized we'd been lied to, and felt ashamed by my gullibility given the destruction the war had wrought on the Iraqi people. When Bush took office I hated his anti-environmental, pro-wealthy policies, but as the Iraq War descended further into bloody chaos, the horrific nature of the corporate state became clearer and clearer to me.
Despite my socialist tendencies, I remained for all intents and purposes a liberal, and in 2008 it was my turn to believe Obama actually represented change. By the summer I'd realized he was, as Ralph Nader put it, "a corporate candidate from A to Z". Still, I was unprepared for his blatantly regressive stance upon taking office, entrenching and expanding all the worst Bush policies. This represented my final break from believing in bourgeois politics.
At the same time, I was unsure of what the alternative was, and my politics swung wildly from reformism to ultra-leftism. I read Mao's Little Red Book, having heard the Black Panthers liked it, but even though some of the quotes were good, I always knew Mao's policies were disastrous. I tried joining the Communist Party of Canada, but after sending in a membership card I never heard back from them. At any rate, the party mostly seemed full of weird old people.
Next I tried the Socialist Equality Party, having become a big fan of the World Socialist Web Site. I saw Keith Jones, the leader of the SEP (Canada), give a speech, and he seemed to make a lot of good points about the NDP being sellouts. But then I realized that the SEP, especially in Canada, was a joke. They had no organization, no candidates, no real membership, and nobody had ever heard of them. I moved on.
When I first started reading Fightback online, I thought they had good ideas, but I was a little skeptical of their orientation towards the NDP. I wanted full-on socialism, and the NDP's bland, warmed-over reformism did not interest me at all. However, after in-depth conversations with some of the comrades at Fightback, I realized that the NDP, no matter how lame its platform, was still Canada's labour party. It was strongly connected to the unions. And if you want to be a real Marxist, you need to go where the workers are.
Declaring yourself the revolutionary party, as the SEP does, with no mass basis, is a highway to irrelevance. I had no interest in being part of a tiny fringe group, but wanted to be part of the labour movement. In Fightback and the International Marxist Tendency, I believe I've found that.
But I'm interested in discussing politics with anyone, no matter what their ideology. I joined RevLeft because, while wary of getting sucked into sectarian disputes, I also wanted to join a discussion forum where everyone around me already agreed that capitalism sucks and needs to be replaced. At every other general interest forum where I've tried to discuss politics, it's impossible for me to say anything about socialism without people asking the most inane questions: "derr, socialist? You mean like Obama?" "Socialism doesn't work! Just look at North Korea!" And "capitalism may not be perfect, but it's better than any alternative I can think of!" Blah blah blah...
Looking forward to some stimulating discussions. Viva la revolucion! :thumbup1:
I'm from Toronto and a supporter of Fightback, the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency, which bases itself on the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Ted Grant of the Militant Tendency in Britain. We orient towards the traditional mass organizations of the working class, which in Canada means the trade unions and the New Democratic Party (NDP).
Regarding how I got to this point politically, it's been a long and winding road. I always had leftist tendencies, and had always been concerned about the environment, but I really got interested in politics after 9/11, when everybody was paying rapt attention to what was on the news. Unfortunately, I was a bit young and naive and fell for the fearmongering about Saddam handing WMDs to terrorists; the Iraq War seemed like a good idea in 2003. :blushing:
Clearly that was my first big lesson in not trusting the authorities. As the full scale of the horror revealed itself in the subsequent months, I realized we'd been lied to, and felt ashamed by my gullibility given the destruction the war had wrought on the Iraqi people. When Bush took office I hated his anti-environmental, pro-wealthy policies, but as the Iraq War descended further into bloody chaos, the horrific nature of the corporate state became clearer and clearer to me.
Despite my socialist tendencies, I remained for all intents and purposes a liberal, and in 2008 it was my turn to believe Obama actually represented change. By the summer I'd realized he was, as Ralph Nader put it, "a corporate candidate from A to Z". Still, I was unprepared for his blatantly regressive stance upon taking office, entrenching and expanding all the worst Bush policies. This represented my final break from believing in bourgeois politics.
At the same time, I was unsure of what the alternative was, and my politics swung wildly from reformism to ultra-leftism. I read Mao's Little Red Book, having heard the Black Panthers liked it, but even though some of the quotes were good, I always knew Mao's policies were disastrous. I tried joining the Communist Party of Canada, but after sending in a membership card I never heard back from them. At any rate, the party mostly seemed full of weird old people.
Next I tried the Socialist Equality Party, having become a big fan of the World Socialist Web Site. I saw Keith Jones, the leader of the SEP (Canada), give a speech, and he seemed to make a lot of good points about the NDP being sellouts. But then I realized that the SEP, especially in Canada, was a joke. They had no organization, no candidates, no real membership, and nobody had ever heard of them. I moved on.
When I first started reading Fightback online, I thought they had good ideas, but I was a little skeptical of their orientation towards the NDP. I wanted full-on socialism, and the NDP's bland, warmed-over reformism did not interest me at all. However, after in-depth conversations with some of the comrades at Fightback, I realized that the NDP, no matter how lame its platform, was still Canada's labour party. It was strongly connected to the unions. And if you want to be a real Marxist, you need to go where the workers are.
Declaring yourself the revolutionary party, as the SEP does, with no mass basis, is a highway to irrelevance. I had no interest in being part of a tiny fringe group, but wanted to be part of the labour movement. In Fightback and the International Marxist Tendency, I believe I've found that.
But I'm interested in discussing politics with anyone, no matter what their ideology. I joined RevLeft because, while wary of getting sucked into sectarian disputes, I also wanted to join a discussion forum where everyone around me already agreed that capitalism sucks and needs to be replaced. At every other general interest forum where I've tried to discuss politics, it's impossible for me to say anything about socialism without people asking the most inane questions: "derr, socialist? You mean like Obama?" "Socialism doesn't work! Just look at North Korea!" And "capitalism may not be perfect, but it's better than any alternative I can think of!" Blah blah blah...
Looking forward to some stimulating discussions. Viva la revolucion! :thumbup1: