Christopher Johnson
11th August 2014, 21:14
Hey everyone!
I'm Christopher Johnson (not my real name, btw). I've been a lurker of this forum for over a year, and so far I love it! So I have decided to become more active on this forum and start posting, as I now feel more confident my ability to defend my leftist views than I did back a year ago (my knowledge is still limited, thought).
A little bit about myself:
I'm a young adult worker who had been dealing with major alienation and a strong sense of hopelessness for a while. For a long time, I had felt that there was something profoundly wrong with the way people live, but I could not understand what it was.
I grew up in a "moderate" right-wing environment (more on that in a bit). However, 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terror" really changed my view. Seeing how people allowed themselves to be manipulated by propaganda and blatant lies, and turned into nationalists reactionaries, helped me develop a hostility towards conservative politics. During that time, I found comfort in my local punk/crust scene, where political views were different from mainstream politics, and where I felt that people at least cared about something other than maintaining their first world privilege at any cost.
However, at this point I was still pretty much a liberal. During college, I was very much aware of problems and injustices around the world. I cared, but I was still oblivious to the nature of this problems, and the patterns on oppression. I believe that problems could be solved by diplomatic means, by politicians getting together and coming to agreements, peace treaties, by the UN drafting resolutions, etc. I believed that society could change for the better by having people uphold "democracy" and "human rights" above all. I was that type of idealist. After all, I came of age in one of the most reactionary parts of the US, where I was summered with right-wing propaganda from day one: Horror stories about "Communist countries" (specially Cuba/Venezuela), horror stories about how the Democrats were closet "Socialists", how the US was the bastion of "Freedom/Liberty/Human Rights" and had the duty to promote its values around the world... you get the idea.
Sometime after college I started questioning my views again. Luckily, I never bought into the conservative BS my environment was feeding the people. However, I felt that my analysis, while not bad intentioned, was lacking something important. This is when I started getting more into economics. That's when I made the switch to Social-Democrat. At this point, I was convinced that the economic arrangement of society was had much more negative implication than I previously thought. At this point, after reading a lot about the history of US foreign policy, colonialism, and political economy, I became a solid anti-imperialist. So, as you can imagine, at this point I was even more alienated from my family and other peers, since they believed I was becoming "radical" in my views. Often times, they believed I had a point, but that I had to propose a more "moderate" solution, that wouldn't have any negative implication for the rich, and/or for the imperialists.
After a couple years of being a Social-Democrat, I once again started feeling like I wasn't satisfied with my view. Even though I had a better graps on what I thought "the real issue" was, I still felt that my understanding was incomplete. I remembered studying some of Marx's theories during college as part of the curriculum, but I never really cared or paid much attention to them. But this time, I decided to revisit them and really try to understand them. I will be honest, I didn't actually pick up Marx's own writings until very recently. However, I did learn about Marxism through other Marxists resources online (lectures, articles, and discussion boards like this one). After educating myself more on Marxism, I finally felt that I had found from my understanding of politics/economics: Materialism and class analysis. After adopting this mode of thinking, I felt like I had finally found a way of understanding the world around me that felt complete and consistent.
After finally overcoming the insecurities and the stigmas perpetrated by those around me, I finally started embracing Communism, and calling myself a Marxist. I have been and advocate of the revolutionary left for about 2 years now, and I feel that my views are more solid than they have ever been, as my understanding is also more complete/consistent (with its respective limitations).
One recent event that further solidified my view was traveling to "my country" after many years of absence and seeing the realities of "development" in an "emerging economy". On a more personal note, I also visited a remote town in the middle of the andes where my family first established itself after arriving from Europe to the Americas. Learning about my family's history was great but also problematic: Learning that I came from a family of European settlers who occupied stolen land, and that my family were also big landowners who thrived on the exploitation of the native people for generation was not something I can say I feel proud about. Something to note is that my family stopped big patrónes/landowners after the agrarian reform that took place in the 1970s. This compelled my family to abandon the towns, join the military, move to the capital, and eventually to the US, where they would continue their lives as petit bourgeoisie. This experience, however problematic, did help me get a better understanding of the class nature of my family and their "moderate" right-wing views (they are reactionaries but they claim to be moderate because they supported Obama in 2012, lol), and has solidified my belief in a world free of classes, free of exploitative labor, free of private property, free of imperialism, free of racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism.
So, that's enough about me. I also want to take a moment to thank some posters here that really helped me along my journey. Special thanks go to: Lowtech, The Garbage Disposal Unit, Jimmy Higgins, Luis Henrique, Rosa Partizan, 9mm, Psycho. Your posts have been invaluable contributions (to me, at least). And of course, thanks to the forum in general, this has been and keeps being a great resource for people in general out there. I look forward to contribute, give back, and be part of the discussion. Keep up the great work!
I'm Christopher Johnson (not my real name, btw). I've been a lurker of this forum for over a year, and so far I love it! So I have decided to become more active on this forum and start posting, as I now feel more confident my ability to defend my leftist views than I did back a year ago (my knowledge is still limited, thought).
A little bit about myself:
I'm a young adult worker who had been dealing with major alienation and a strong sense of hopelessness for a while. For a long time, I had felt that there was something profoundly wrong with the way people live, but I could not understand what it was.
I grew up in a "moderate" right-wing environment (more on that in a bit). However, 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terror" really changed my view. Seeing how people allowed themselves to be manipulated by propaganda and blatant lies, and turned into nationalists reactionaries, helped me develop a hostility towards conservative politics. During that time, I found comfort in my local punk/crust scene, where political views were different from mainstream politics, and where I felt that people at least cared about something other than maintaining their first world privilege at any cost.
However, at this point I was still pretty much a liberal. During college, I was very much aware of problems and injustices around the world. I cared, but I was still oblivious to the nature of this problems, and the patterns on oppression. I believe that problems could be solved by diplomatic means, by politicians getting together and coming to agreements, peace treaties, by the UN drafting resolutions, etc. I believed that society could change for the better by having people uphold "democracy" and "human rights" above all. I was that type of idealist. After all, I came of age in one of the most reactionary parts of the US, where I was summered with right-wing propaganda from day one: Horror stories about "Communist countries" (specially Cuba/Venezuela), horror stories about how the Democrats were closet "Socialists", how the US was the bastion of "Freedom/Liberty/Human Rights" and had the duty to promote its values around the world... you get the idea.
Sometime after college I started questioning my views again. Luckily, I never bought into the conservative BS my environment was feeding the people. However, I felt that my analysis, while not bad intentioned, was lacking something important. This is when I started getting more into economics. That's when I made the switch to Social-Democrat. At this point, I was convinced that the economic arrangement of society was had much more negative implication than I previously thought. At this point, after reading a lot about the history of US foreign policy, colonialism, and political economy, I became a solid anti-imperialist. So, as you can imagine, at this point I was even more alienated from my family and other peers, since they believed I was becoming "radical" in my views. Often times, they believed I had a point, but that I had to propose a more "moderate" solution, that wouldn't have any negative implication for the rich, and/or for the imperialists.
After a couple years of being a Social-Democrat, I once again started feeling like I wasn't satisfied with my view. Even though I had a better graps on what I thought "the real issue" was, I still felt that my understanding was incomplete. I remembered studying some of Marx's theories during college as part of the curriculum, but I never really cared or paid much attention to them. But this time, I decided to revisit them and really try to understand them. I will be honest, I didn't actually pick up Marx's own writings until very recently. However, I did learn about Marxism through other Marxists resources online (lectures, articles, and discussion boards like this one). After educating myself more on Marxism, I finally felt that I had found from my understanding of politics/economics: Materialism and class analysis. After adopting this mode of thinking, I felt like I had finally found a way of understanding the world around me that felt complete and consistent.
After finally overcoming the insecurities and the stigmas perpetrated by those around me, I finally started embracing Communism, and calling myself a Marxist. I have been and advocate of the revolutionary left for about 2 years now, and I feel that my views are more solid than they have ever been, as my understanding is also more complete/consistent (with its respective limitations).
One recent event that further solidified my view was traveling to "my country" after many years of absence and seeing the realities of "development" in an "emerging economy". On a more personal note, I also visited a remote town in the middle of the andes where my family first established itself after arriving from Europe to the Americas. Learning about my family's history was great but also problematic: Learning that I came from a family of European settlers who occupied stolen land, and that my family were also big landowners who thrived on the exploitation of the native people for generation was not something I can say I feel proud about. Something to note is that my family stopped big patrónes/landowners after the agrarian reform that took place in the 1970s. This compelled my family to abandon the towns, join the military, move to the capital, and eventually to the US, where they would continue their lives as petit bourgeoisie. This experience, however problematic, did help me get a better understanding of the class nature of my family and their "moderate" right-wing views (they are reactionaries but they claim to be moderate because they supported Obama in 2012, lol), and has solidified my belief in a world free of classes, free of exploitative labor, free of private property, free of imperialism, free of racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism.
So, that's enough about me. I also want to take a moment to thank some posters here that really helped me along my journey. Special thanks go to: Lowtech, The Garbage Disposal Unit, Jimmy Higgins, Luis Henrique, Rosa Partizan, 9mm, Psycho. Your posts have been invaluable contributions (to me, at least). And of course, thanks to the forum in general, this has been and keeps being a great resource for people in general out there. I look forward to contribute, give back, and be part of the discussion. Keep up the great work!