A Great Moment In Revleft History

[Popular Front of Judea]

I just love poking through the archives. The poll is just a bonus.

"Revleft -- No Apologies"

http://www.revleft.com/vb/should-revleft-apoligize-t70408/index.html

[Dagoth Ur]

lol I remember when the MIM was telling everyone to convert to Islam to join the only real anti-imperialist front.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Wasn't MIM basically one seriously disturbed individual? I don't mean to imply that their politics were awful because they had mental problems - their politics were awful, period - but it might explain the borderline incoherence of their texts, and the generally, well, inflated view of their own importance.

[SonofRage]

I miss MIM. They were so entertaining. One of their offshoots, MIM(Prisons), seems to do some good prison work from what I can tell (I tend to follow the work any leftist group doing this type of work since it's my focus with Hell Gate Anarchist Black Cross).

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[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

RAAN > MIM (http://www.revleft.com/vb/raan-die-raan-t143025/index.html?t=143025)

[SonofRage]

RAAN > MIM (http://www.revleft.com/vb/raan-die-raan-t143025/index.html?t=143025)

That was amazing.

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[Lenina Rosenweg]

MIM actually was a real organisation, I used to read their bizarre paper at a cafe near where I used to work 7-8 years ago.Their extreme "labor aristocracy" theory, anti-sexuality and bizarre spelling actually was disturbing and put me off from becoming a full fledged socialist for a while.Despite this I've had a morbid fascination w/MIM for a while and I actually felt sad when they folded.

The main person (or at the end maybe the only person) was an individual named Henry Park, a Korean-American who worked at either Harvard University or Radcliffe.He seemed like an intelligent guy but seems to have been suffering from some sort of paranoid schizophrenia.The paranoia and delusions of grandeur point to this.He had a blog where he literally disintergrated online.It was sad.At one point he described a job interview he had. He was convinced that the interviewer was with the CIA and he was agonizing over whether he should take the job or not.Finally he decided that working for the CIA would confuse the "Russians" and therefore might be the right thing to do.

My guess is that Park or one of his comrades stumbled on RevLeft and were shocked or startled to find that no one on the left took their outfit seriously and that they were an object of ridicule.He pulled the plug on the project, backing it up with paranoia and pompous "Aesopian" language.Park died in 2010, I believe.

[Sam_b]

This is old and not particularly interesting.

[SonofRage]

MIM actually was a real organisation, I used to read their bizarre paper at a cafe near where I used to work 7-8 years ago.Their extreme "labor aristocracy" theory, anti-sexuality and bizarre spelling actually was disturbing and put me off from becoming a full fledged socialist for a while.Despite this I've had a morbid fascination w/MIM for a while and I actually felt sad when they folded.


I've had a weird fascination with them as well. I don't know what it is.

I've actually started following MIM(Prisons), an offshoot organization: http://prisoncensorship.info

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[Zealot]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/osama-might-hero-t13453/index.html

"you know people im glad osama sent people to destroy the world trade center and the pentagon.. the people in the world trade was nothing but capitalist inside.and the pentagon for being anti-communist...i totally hope osama blows up the u.s.a then my team and abolish the rest of usa army.....osama i hope you live and help me destroy usa for once and for all..."

a few moments later...

"oh shit my mistake sorry people i wasnt thinking before i wrote...i take everything back i wasnt thinking of the cleaners and i never knew there were resteraunts i really dont know much about the twin towers.... sorry my big fault."

Revleft used to be a lot weirder than it currently is that's for sure

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

MIM actually was a real organisation, I used to read their bizarre paper at a cafe near where I used to work 7-8 years ago.Their extreme "labor aristocracy" theory, anti-sexuality and bizarre spelling actually was disturbing and put me off from becoming a full fledged socialist for a while.Despite this I've had a morbid fascination w/MIM for a while and I actually felt sad when they folded.

The main person (or at the end maybe the only person) was an individual named Henry Park, a Korean-American who worked at either Harvard University or Radcliffe.He seemed like an intelligent guy but seems to have been suffering from some sort of paranoid schizophrenia.The paranoia and delusions of grandeur point to this.He had a blog where he literally disintergrated online.It was sad.At one point he described a job interview he had. He was convinced that the interviewer was with the CIA and he was agonizing over whether he should take the job or not.Finally he decided that working for the CIA would confuse the "Russians" and therefore might be the right thing to do.

My guess is that Park or one of his comrades stumbled on RevLeft and were shocked or startled to find that no one on the left took their outfit seriously and that they were an object of ridicule.He pulled the plug on the project, backing it up with paranoia and pompous "Aesopian" language.Park died in 2010, I believe.

I thought that Park was the only permanent member - but that is probably a misunderstanding. He seems to have been in quite an unfortunate situation, which makes laughing at MIM's bizarre rhetoric and convoluted arguments a bit difficult, to me at least. That said, their politics were outright atrocious, and members of MIM were objectively on the other side of the class line, both in the "First World" and in the "Third".

As for the spelling and, ah, "wordplay", I think a lot of American Maoists, and perhaps even some Hoxhaists, used to write like that. It really seems juvenile to me, and some of the jibes don't even make sense. United Snakes?

[Art Vandelay]

I don't know, when it comes to leftist history there are certain groups you just don't laugh at cause there were clearly some mental health issues going on, this seems like one of those cases. The main one I can think of is the Pabloists, which got really fucking weird for a bit, but Pablo had also, most likely, been tortured relatively insane.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Posadas, not Pablo. Pablo had a nuclear war fetish, but otherwise he was mentally stable, if sleazy as hell.

[Art Vandelay]

Posadas, not Pablo. Pablo had a nuclear war fetish, but otherwise he was mentally stable, if sleazy as hell.

Ahh that's right, I got them confused sorry. Posadas split from Pablo and Pablo was the whole 'socialist society shall rise from the ashes of nuclear war' visionary.

[Jimmie Higgins]

He seems to have been in quite an unfortunate situation, which makes laughing at MIM's bizarre rhetoric and convoluted arguments a bit difficult, to me at least.Agreed.


As for the spelling and, ah, "wordplay", I think a lot of American Maoists, and perhaps even some Hoxhaists, used to write like that. It really seems juvenile to me, and some of the jibes don't even make sense. United Snakes?Yeah back during the Afganistan bombing when I was pretty new to politics, there was this old guy in LA who would always come to coalition meetings and denounce "the United Snakes". In a way there could have been some political logic to it because the divide in the coalition at that time was between progressives and radicals (liberals were almost uniformly pro-war to some degree) and so there were always arguments because the progressives wanted to put american flags and "peace is patriotic" all over the posters and so on. But I think this guy was just saying it because that's what he always says, not trying to make a specific point of America not being a "peace-loving society".

I thought he was some kind of Stalinist because he'd talk about how everything was bad now because of the collapse of the USSR, but he easily could have been a vet of the Maoist New Communist movement groups. At any rate I think a lot of that sort of AmeriKKKa stuff was New-Left and Black Power-speak.

Now it's like too much the other way and most leftists talk in a lot of academic-speak. A balance would be nice; if you grew up talking street, talk politics street, if you are an academic writing a paper, then use academic jargon - otherwise just talk normal.:lol:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I protest, snakes are actually fairly cool. Anyway, perhaps United Snakes and AmeriKKKa could pass as "talking street", but "womyn", "persyn" and so on? I think that was an ancient predecessor of the modern art of Tumblr-speak.

[Le Libérer]

This is quotable.

"Are they capable of making a single document that doesn't sound like the confessions of a deranged acid-tripping recluse" Sounds like someone that got themselves recently banned.

[Comrade Jacob]

I don't think MIM got his apology.

[synthesis]

Revleft used to be a lot weirder than it currently is that's for sure

I was going to disagree with this, but I looked at the thread you linked to and I realized you're probably right.