Greetings, from a young comrade

[Starship Stormtrooper]

I found this site a couple of months ago and just recently decided to make an account. Unfortunately, I failed to check the usernames of those who had recently registered and make one sufficiently unique. Durruti's friend, you have my most sincere apology (if you're reading this).

So, I'm from the south east coast of the US and while I'm not going to be very specific, the leftist scene in close proximity to me is quite bad with the majority of the population consisting of wealthy retirees and upper middle class people. I'm 18 and a senior in high school though, should be able to get out of here next year when I go to college (scholarships FTW).

I subscribe to "platformism" though I have varying degrees of sympathy for ultra-left currents including Autonomism and the Situationist International. Though I had always been a prolific reader, I began my descent into leftism just after the 2008 crisis when I picked up Marx for the first time at the behest of my history teacher.

Nice to meet you all!

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Welcome, Column of Durruti! :)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Welcome!
Your first post is full of enough promise that it hasn't made me want to immediately jump down your throat. That's like, seriously above par. <3

[LOLseph Stalin]

It sounds like you have an awesome history teacher :wub:. Welcome!

[Pelarys]

Welcome to the forum!


It sounds like you have an awesome history teacher :wub:. Welcome!

For some reason History teachers are the only kind of teacher that I had a pleasant experience with overall.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Welcome to the forum!



For some reason History teachers are the only kind of teacher that I had a pleasant experience with overall.

Really? Mine in high school seemed more on the anti-communist side.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Really? Mine in high school seemed more on the anti-communist side.

Even the anti-communist ones seemed cool to talk with. My teacher who thought communism probably wouldn't work, gave me some Chomsky books and we talked about communism.

[Q]

Welcome :)

Sorry that I didn't welcome you earlier, your post must have been approved by another mod...

If you have political questions, you can ask them in the Learning forum. That's why it's there after all!

If you have questions about your account, don't hesitate to send me a PM or ask here.

[Starship Stormtrooper]

Thanks everyone!


Your first post is full of enough promise that it hasn't made me want to immediately jump down your throat. That's like, seriously above par. <3 Good to hear, I saw what you did to Kingdom :laugh:


It sounds like you have an awesome history teacher :wub:. Welcome!Yeah, he was pretty awesome. He saw me reading books on anthropology and was like "You know who was one of the founders of social science? KARL MARX! You should definitely read him." (he knew I was just a liberal at the time). He was the only leftist teacher I ever had (most likely due to my location), though he never identified as such. I asked him and he refused to say, probably because he had to work 3 jobs to pay his children's medical bills and couldn't afford to lose any of them. That said, when we were covering the revolutionary upheavals of 1917-1919 someone asked why anyone would want to be a socialist. He pondered it for a second, and decided on the spur of the moment to ask the class for their objections to socialism and then trashed them all one by one for the rest of the period. :D

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yeah, I was enamoured of history so much so that I decided to try and take it at university … it was 2004/2005 though, the last big year of student strikes in Quebec, and I ended up doing strike instead of academia (and can't really afford it anyway).
Those are some rad stories 'bout yr teacher, though. Are there other similarly inspired students around?

Also, Foucault's Disciplene and Punish - seriously read it if your thing is critical history. Also, Caliban and The Witch.

[The Jay]

Hello, you seem pretty cool. I hope you enjoy the site!

[The Cheshire Cat]

Grrrreetings Comrade!

[Starship Stormtrooper]

Thank you for your suggestions VMC, I'll have to add them to the bottom of my reading list (which is unfortunately quite long at the present). The only other leftists I know IRL are a couple of insurrectionist types who got me into anarchism with some crimethinc stuff, though I don't think they anticipated the direction I went with it :lol:.

[Starship Stormtrooper]

Oh, I forgot to mention (my apologies to whoever has to deal with approving my posts). The teacher I mentioned was only there for a couple of years (and I was lucky enough to have him both years :)) so his influence on the student body was relatively muted. That said, the only other leftists I know also coincidentally had him for history.

[The Jay]

Oh, I forgot to mention (my apologies to whoever has to deal with approving my posts). The teacher I mentioned was only there for a couple of years (and I was lucky enough to have him both years :)) so his influence on the student body was relatively muted. That said, the only other leftists I know also coincidentally had him for history.

I was actually curious about how long he was able to retain his position based on what he sounded like.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Thanks everyone!

Good to hear, I saw what you did to Kingdom :laugh:

Yeah, he was pretty awesome. He saw me reading books on anthropology and was like "You know who was one of the founders of social science? KARL MARX! You should definitely read him." (he knew I was just a liberal at the time). He was the only leftist teacher I ever had (most likely due to my location), though he never identified as such. I asked him and he refused to say, probably because he had to work 3 jobs to pay his children's medical bills and couldn't afford to lose any of them. That said, when we were covering the revolutionary upheavals of 1917-1919 someone asked why anyone would want to be a socialist. He pondered it for a second, and decided on the spur of the moment to ask the class for their objections to socialism and then trashed them all one by one for the rest of the period. :D


That is actually really awesome. The closest I ever had to a leftist teacher was my civics teacher in high school. When we were learning about different political ideologies he actually got pretty close to the proper definition of Marxism, but I had to correct him on a few things and I think then he knew I was a leftist. He seemed pretty cool with it though and was actually curious more than anything.