Who should American socialists hero-worship?

[Blanquist]

I think Big Bill Haywood is a good candidate. Does anyone know of any good biographies on him?

I can only think of Haywood and James Cannon. Are there any others?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Me

[Geiseric]

Hero worship isn't healthy. Eugene Debs, James Cannon, Max Shachtman, Mike Abern, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Malcolm X, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, John Reed (he's a really, really cool guy), and the guy who ran w/ debs for president (a swedish immigrant) are all marxists (or at least were indespensible theorists for the class struggle) whose writings are important to this day. James Cannon has been huge with my ideological formation.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

By the way, fuck Blanquist idiots.

[Geiseric]

Jack London was a novelist/journalist who wasn't quite a marxist activist, but his stories have alot to do with class struggle, and in general i'd recommend them.

[jookyle]

Jack London was a novelist/journalist who wasn't quite a marxist activist, but his stories have alot to do with class struggle, and in general i'd recommend them.

And a huge racist.

[Geiseric]

Was he? I didn't know that. Still, doesn't take the value away from some of his stories.

[Halleluhwah]

Bono

[Igor]

Bob the Builder

[Raúl Duke]

Stalin

[Commiekirby]

Hero worship isn't healthy. Eugene Debs, James Cannon, Max Shachtman, Mike Abern, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Malcolm X, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, John Reed (he's a really, really cool guy), and the guy who ran w/ debs for president (a swedish immigrant) are all marxists (or at least were indespensible theorists for the class struggle) whose writings are important to this day. James Cannon has been huge with my ideological formation.

I think John Reed is a pretty cool guy, eh writes Bolshevik books and doesn't afraid of anything.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Jack London was a novelist/journalist who wasn't quite a marxist activist, but his stories have alot to do with class struggle, and in general i'd recommend them.He was part of the Socialist Party and before he was a novelist he was known as "the boy-socialist of Oakland". The plaza where Occupy Oakland happened is the same location where Jack London was arrested in a act of civil disobedience. His crime: speaking about politics on the street (soapboxing) without prior approval of the Mayor. Over 100 years and people are still being thrown in jail in that very spot for acting without the Mayor's consent.:rolleyes: Even as, ironically, the city of Oakland milks the legacy of Jack London in their "revitialization" (gentrification) schemes.

At any rate, like many Socialist Party members coming out of the 1800s, his politics were a mixed bag and there are many great things about Jack London, but his white supremacy is really a glaring stain that shouldn't be overlooked (not that people do it intentionally - many people don't know about these racist attitudes because they learn about him in High School - they also probably don't learn about his socialist politics).

Upton Sinclair is another example of idiosyncratic Socialist Party era US socialists. I find him endearing in his sincerity and enthusiasm though - and "The Jungle" more than makes up for some of his weird politics and new-age mysticism.

At any rate, there were some strange ideas in the US Socialist Party - some worse, some (racially and sexually) chauvinist ideas too. They had their middle-class excentrics and utopianists back in the day - but if all of the current self-identified socialists and anarchists in the US were put into a big party together, then most of the party would probably be life-stylists and punk and backpacker hip hop counter-culture folks. It'd be Occupy Wall Street the political party essentially.

As to my personal US radical heroes, I'd say Debs and Malcolm are up there. James Cannon is great, but not really a general point of reference like Malcolm, and Debs (to a lesser extent) for most people in the US.

Malcolm provides some of the best quotes and arguments for militancy over US liberalism and so it always stops an anti-racist activist who supports Obama in their tracks to back up a "Yeah, but look at what Obama has really accomplished, he's pushed the war and helped the banks while things have gone to shit for black people" with the Malcolm quote: "You put the Democrats first and the Democrats will put you last."

Malcolm is also the first "revolutionary" I knew about and read about when I was younger. Though he wasn't a socialist, he probably did more to make me a socialist than any other US figure.


Hero worship isn't healthy.

I agree - I have a sort of knee-jerk revulsion to the concept of "socialist heroes of the US". Still I think short of breaking out some nerdy US Red Trading card set or putting busts of figures on your desk, it's good to highlight some of the prominent US figures just to be able to point to some of the history of radicalism in the US that surrounds them. Debs, Malcolm, the BPP, the IWW and the CP - I have political disagreements on some level with all of them, but their legacy is important if only for undercutting the common idea in the US, that people here are inherently averse to radical ideas or actions.

[Lucretia]

Socialism is about us, not about heroes.

[Tim Cornelis]

Blanquist. You sure you not a troll?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

The greatest socialist of all.
Comrade Barack Husein Obama.

[A Marxist Historian]

And a huge racist.

Indeed. His daughter Charmaine's biography of him really exposes justhow rotten he was. She was in a good position to know, and compares him with another renegade from the Socialist movement, Benito Mussolini.

At the time of writing, she was a Trotskyist and a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

-M.H.-

[Metacomet]

Joe Hill

[Blanquist]

Indeed. His daughter Charmaine's biography of him really exposes justhow rotten he was. She was in a good position to know, and compares him with another renegade from the Socialist movement, Benito Mussolini.

At the time of writing, she was a Trotskyist and a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

-M.H.-

name of book please

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

His crime: speaking about politics on the street (soapboxing) without prior approval of the Mayor.
My great-great-grandmother was arrested for the same "crime" in Seattle in 1907. Like him, she was involved in the Socialist Party.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Is this a serious question?

[La Guaneña]

:hammersickle: MARX-ENGELS-LENIN-STALIN-MAO-OBAMA :hammersickle:

[A Marxist Historian]

name of book please

Got the name wrong, Charmian was Jack London's wife, his daughter's name is Joan.

Here's the URL for the book, "Jack London and His Times," which you can get incredibly cheaply on Amazon it turns out. Used, 2 cents?

http://www.amazon.com/Jack-London-His-Times-Unconventional/dp/0295953551

It isn't just a bio. It's also the best eyewitness account there is of California Socialism before WWI. A great book.

And here's an URL for Joan London, a very interesting person in her own right.

http://london.sonoma.edu/Family/Joanlondon.html

-M.H.-

[rylasasin]

Princess Luna

This inanimate carbon rod

http://bp3.blogger.com/_l4ZZFzs7VIs/R4xEBODVGKI/AAAAAAAAAwk/28J-G8W6HRk/s400/In+Rod+We+Trust.jpg

But seriously, hero worship and personality cults are Bourgeois

[Neoprime]

For me Stalin, Marx, Lenin, Mao, & Engels. Don't hero worship them but look to for inspiration.

[Art Vandelay]

For me Stalin, Marx, Lenin, Mao, & Engels. Don't hero worship them but look to for inspiration.

Cool.....but literally none of those guys were from the U.S. I also like how you put Stalin before Marx; Freudian slip perhaps.

[Geiseric]

Woodie Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Pete Seegar, are all "communist," folk musicians, who I've grown to like. Fuck bob dylan though. however you'll be fucked in the u.s. if you don't read things from non white authors, and if you have a W.A.S.P. socialist world view, which I've run into. C.L.R. James's book on Haiti is fucking brilliant. Malcolm X was giving speeches to black unions in the months before he died.

[Crux]

Chairman Bob Avakian.

[Bostana]

I think the idea of worshiping something has put Man far back enough already


:hammersickle: MARX-ENGELS-LENIN-STALIN-MAO-OBAMA :hammersickle:

Amen

[Prometeo liberado]

I think John Reed is a pretty cool guy, eh writes Bolshevik books and doesn't afraid of anything.

Speaking of Reed, does anyone know where to find the articles he wrote while covering the Mexican Revolution?

[Prometeo liberado]

Chairman Bob Avakian.

In what universe could you leave out The Chairman? For your consideration folks, The One, The Only, The Man who has single handedly kept the Ghost of Jimmy Carters reign of terror alive and well, deep from the beaches of sunny southern France it's Big Bad Bob Avakian!!!!!!!!!

Freakin' guy.:rolleyes:

[Peoples' War]

Hero-worship? You're taking the piss.

Let's hero-worship the working class for suffering through what they suffer in America.

[mew]

"jimmie higgins"

[hatzel]

"jimmie higgins"

Yeah you're right he's a pretty good user...

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

If we are hero-worshipping users now, I want to nominate our unfortunately banned heroes DaftPunk and TrotskistMarx.

[La Guaneña]

Redstar2k.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Hero worship isn't healthy or particularly Marxist.

Thread closed.