Political method

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Thought this was the best forum for this.

I'm feeling a bit frustrated and powerless at the moment.

I don't believe in parties (so not joining one) and don't really believe (as you know) unions do anything to advance Socialism (so not joining one), yet I stop short of subscribing to anarchy (I still follow Marx over Bakunin et al.), so not really that fussed about joining an anarchist organisation either.

So i'm kind of in this limbo right now of the following: if I stick to my principles, then I may as well stay at home and not do anything concrete in terms of political organisation. I mean, I still spend a lot of time arguing for Socialism, raising it amongst friends/acquaintances, go to protests etc., but as far as really getting involved at an organisational level I am at a massive crossroads right now.

tl;dr don't wanna join a party, union or organisation, what do?

[Threetune]

Carry on as you are, struggling for a theoretical understanding that will guide you. Hard init?

Edit:
Stop looking for perfection and learn to deal with the world conditions you must fight in, not the ones you would chose to fight in.

[Per Levy]

anyway, i know how you feel, i live in small dead town with only "left" parties here are a social democratic party, a social democratic ML party and a ML sect. the unions are all shit and in on working with the bosses.

so yeah, id say carry on with what you do right now, i mean you still do stuff, protesting, arguing and so on and thats not bad stuff.

[Book O'Dead]

Study Deleonism.

In Deleonism you'll find an excellent synthesis of the political and economic struggle that classconscious workers need to wage.

One--perhaps the best--outlet to start learning about Deleonism is http://www.slp.org/

I am not a member of that party but for my money they are the best resource for Marxist literature available anywhere in and out of the internet.

If you need a sound education in Marxism or if you're just wanting to hone your working class consciousness that's the place to go.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Not really interested in Deleonism but thanks.

Guess i'll just have to carry on as I am for the while, i'm sure some interesting opportunity will crop up somewhere.

[Book O'Dead]

Not really interested in Deleonism but thanks.

Guess i'll just have to carry on as I am for the while, i'm sure some interesting opportunity will crop up somewhere.

Not that I want to debate the point but, why aren't you interested in Deleonism?

[Prometeo liberado]

Dealing with parties or most any organization is a lot like being married. Together you can do great things but always remember that you will never win an argument. Throw that checklist of what constitutes the perfect programme. It doesn't exsist. Holding up in a cabin to figure out "a theoretical understanding that will guide you" in my book constitutes the ultimate act of selfishness. IMO. The best thing to counter apathy is to lose ones self in the movement of the people, not walk away from it. What your feeling is very real and it blows. Most, if not all of us here have felt this way but this shit is a marathon, not a race. A comrade of mine once told me that we are merely stuards of an idea, nothing more. Keeping the idea alive until the working class claims it for themselves. That may take forever, may not even happen.

[Threetune]

‘Oh god isn’t the world shit. The unions are shit, the communist parties are shit, my family, friends and neighbours are shit, and I’m shit. By all means wallow in despair, take up drugs, booze and/or religion, cynicism, scepticism, or outright nihilism. The world will not give a shit. If however we want to have some effect, which all sane humans do, we have to, even grudgingly accept that the “shit” alienated world we live in, is the very purpose and object of our revolutionary existence. Man up boys!

Edit: The many revolutionary girls will appreciate it.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

‘Oh god isn’t the world shit. The unions are shit, the communist parties are shit, my family, friends and neighbours are shit, and I’m shit. By all means wallow in despair, take up drugs, booze and/or religion, cynicism, scepticism, or outright nihilism. The world will not give a shit. If however we want to have some effect, which all sane humans do, we have to, even grudgingly accept that the “shit” alienated world we live in, is the very purpose and object of our revolutionary existence. Man up boys!

Your post is shit.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Not that I want to debate the point but, why aren't you interested in Deleonism?

Don't see unions as vehicles for revolution.

[Threetune]

Your post is shit.

Exactly
‘Oh god isn’t the world shit. The unions are shit, the communist parties are shit, my family, friends and neighbours are shit, and I’m shit. By all means wallow in despair, take up drugs, booze and/or religion, cynicism, scepticism, or outright nihilism. The world will not give a shit. If however we want to have some effect, which all sane humans do, we have to, even grudgingly accept that the “shit” alienated world we live in, is the very purpose and object of our revolutionary existence. Man up boys!
The many revolutionary girls will appreciate it.

[Threetune]

Don't see unions as vehicles for revolution.

So?

Edit: Trades Unions were never supposed to be “vehicles for revolution” as you think, they were only ever part (but an important part) of the Russian revolution as compared with the ‘Soviets’ which were decisive.

[Book O'Dead]

Don't see unions as vehicles for revolution.

In other words, you think that unionism is not an incipient form of working class emancipation?

Or, to put it more simply, the working class should look only to a political solution to the class struggle?

[Blanquist]

I couldn't find any party with an agreeable program so I started my own..

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I'm a little confused as to why you wouldn't join a union. Granted, most unions nowadays have lost their revolutionary character and there is few red/black unions out there however I still think they provide some good, in the short term.

[Threetune]

I couldn't find any party with an agreeable program so I started my own..

Go for it! As should everyone without exeption.

[Threetune]

I'm a little confused as to why you wouldn't join a union. Granted, most unions nowadays have lost their revolutionary character and there is few red/black unions out there however I still think they provide some good, in the short term.

Unions never had a revolutionary “character”. Or a "revolutionary" character.

[Threetune]

Thought this was the best forum for this.

I'm feeling a bit frustrated and powerless at the moment.

I don't believe in parties (so not joining one) and don't really believe (as you know) unions do anything to advance Socialism (so not joining one), yet I stop short of subscribing to anarchy (I still follow Marx over Bakunin et al.), so not really that fussed about joining an anarchist organisation either.

So i'm kind of in this limbo right now of the following: if I stick to my principles, then I may as well stay at home and not do anything concrete in terms of political organisation. I mean, I still spend a lot of time arguing for Socialism, raising it amongst friends/acquaintances, go to protests etc., but as far as really getting involved at an organisational level I am at a massive crossroads right now.

tl;dr don't wanna join a party, union or organisation, what do?

Understand that you and everyone must struggle to give ‘leadership’.
You me and everyone without exception must study and argue to develop accurate understanding of the world as it is, and as it is developing, and give revolutionary “leadership” that will defeat imperialism. Step up and do it! Or fuck off.
So, what is miperialism doing? Why should we argue against it?

Just keep studdying and arguing about all of this. That is the struggle for the nessessary theory!

You and you

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Unions never had a revolutionary “character”. Or a "revolutionary" character.

So, Debs was completely wrong then?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Dealing with parties or most any organization is a lot like being married. Together you can do great things but always remember that you will never win an argument. Throw that checklist of what constitutes the perfect programme. It doesn't exsist.

Can't join a party if you don't agree with it's program, though. That's not good for the organization and it's not good for you.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Understand that you and everyone must struggle to give ‘leadership’.
You me and everyone without exception must study and argue to develop accurate understanding of the world as it is, and as it is developing, and give revolutionary “leadership” that will defeat imperialism. Step up and do it! Or fuck off.
So, what is miperialism doing? Why should we argue against it?

Just keep studdying and arguing about all of this. That is the struggle for the nessessary theory!

You and you

No, it's not my place as a white male from a middle class background (albeit always on the cusp of poverty) to 'lead' the working class. As i've said many times before to you, i'm very much against Lenin's idea of 'leading the uneducated working class' at the head of the movement. I'm all for direct workers' self-emancipation.

The only union i'd consider joining right now is the IWW, and then when i'm qualified in a year or two the teaching unions.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

What's stopping you from creating your own faction based on your axioms?

[Rusty Shackleford]

what is it that you view as necessary to do or act upon? or is ideology more of a hobby?

[Grenzer]

No, it's not my place as a white male from a middle class background (albeit always on the cusp of poverty) to 'lead' the working class. As i've said many times before to you, i'm very much against Lenin's idea of 'leading the uneducated working class' at the head of the movement. I'm all for direct workers' self-emancipation.

The only union i'd consider joining right now is the IWW, and then when i'm qualified in a year or two the teaching unions.

Well if you're on the cusp of poverty, that doesn't sound very petit-bourgeois.

You don't really seem to understand Lenin either. A real party of the working class is a class weapon. You seem to conceive of some fantasy world where parties aren't made up of workers(though unfortunately, many today are indeed corrupted with bourgeois influence) and all the workers will magically achieve class consciousness and make revolution. A party is an organization of the more class conscious segments of the workers, not to take state power in their name and in advance of them, but to help educate and organize them as a class for itself. The party is really a formation of the working class itself, you conceive of it as some abstraction which exists independently of the class; this is incorrect.

[citizen of industry]

Instead of running from organizations, why not join them and change them? You said you join rallies and demos? I'm assuming these took a lot of work and organizing, by groups you don't agree with?

[Threetune]

S&T,
The working class anywhere is not “uneducated” politically. It is most generally and specifically ‘educated’ in spirit of bourgeois nationalism, economism, pacifism and reformism etc This education is conducted relentlessly by the middle classes who, keen to preserve their privileges, consciously (and often ‘radically’) direct workers away from revolutionary perspectives and deliberately undermine all outbreaks of “self-emancipation”. That’s how class rule works isn’t it?

Your personal chosen method of exercising this class rule seems to be, “I still follow Marx” but refuse to collaborate with anyone in promoting Marxist revolutionary theory. So, you must ask yourself seriously, do you really “follow Marx” by refusing to counter the prevailing economism, pacifism and reformism etc in the working class?

Is ‘leadership’ really such a dirty word when it consciously attacks misleading opportunist reformism among workers? When it fires up debate about defeating ‘our own’ ruling class in war, when it exposes the trickery of bourgeois elections, when it reveals opportunist union bureaucracy for what it is?

If you want to absent yourself from that struggle, fine. But don’t expect to have any impact or make any serious theoretical political development by refusing to fight the dominant capitalist ideology, just because fighting it confirms the Leninist leadership world view.