Howdiddlydoodaday!

[DonQuixote]

Hello all,
I just joined the forum and thought that it would be discourteous of me not to introduce myself. I am an anarchist by instinct, and I like to consider myself a socialist by principle, I like to consider myself a believer in the righteousness of armed insurrection against corrupt, atavistic systems of governance. I am formerly a Trotskyist, raised by Tory parents in a very old fashioned, bordering on the aristocratic, English household. Perhaps it would not be completely disagreeable to say three random things about myself related to Left Wing politics.
1.) I first read the Communist Manifesto at age 13 and my father has regretted purchasing it for me ever since.
2.) My first real political influence, excluding Marx, was Thomas Paine.
3.) I have visited Nepal twice and both times, entirely out of a perhaps immature curiosity, interviewed former fighters in the Maoist insurgency there. I still have the notebooks in which these interactions were recorded.
In any case, thus ends my longwinded and boringly verbose method of saying 'hello' :)

[Q]

Welcome :)

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.

Very cool background story :) How were your experiences in Nepal? Did it influence your politics?

[Sinister Intents]

HI! Welcome ^-^ I'm very interested in those notebooks you speak of!

[DonQuixote]

Hello again!
To answer your questions the fairest way seems to be in the order they were given. Nepal, in my experience, was a truly lovely place, it is stunning, I find that words decline to do the immense natural beauty of the place any kind of credit, suffice it to say that the majority of people I encountered reflected their geographical environment if not their political one. The country is recovering from a horrific 'revolution' in which both sides ignored any principle of decency or moral conduct for the sake of performing acts of terrorism against the civilian population and securing some semblance of political power. There are worryingly totalitarian elements openly touted in Nepali society. As for how it influenced my politics, I think it addressed my naivety in taking a Left = good, Right = bad, mindset. The place instructed me, in the harshest way that I think I could have taken at the time, in the nature of authority. I worked at an Orphanage while I was there, just outside of Kathmandu, and any kind of moral reservations about tearing down capitalism disappeared after hearing the first story of the first child to converse with me. I appreciate that some people still struggle with the topic but to me it is now very simple, any system which treats people as simply an expendable resource in the pursuit of material wealth, whether they claim to be from the Left or the Right, is criminal and immoral and must be opposed by any thinking, ethically serious person. As for the notebooks, I'd be happy to transcribe them if you wish? Or simply discuss them in general. There are parts I'd prefer to leave out simply for the sake of maintaining the level of privacy that I promised those I interviewed, but the meat and pulp is freely available to anyone with an interest in them.

I actually wrote about Nepal in an essay concerning Hemingway, although it served more as a setting than a theme, quite recently if anyone is interested in taking a peek. I can't link it here because I'm a new member but I'll be happy to do so in a private message

[The Idler]

Welcome, if you like the writing of Thomas Paine, you already sound more democratic than most anarchists and socialists I encounter outside of the WSM/SPGB.

[DonQuixote]

Thomas Paine is a man I have admired and continue to admire very much. It seems a shame that so many seem to value democratic ideals only when they support their own positions, I am an Anarchist because I believe in individual freedom without the economic or social shackles of capitalism and the state, in my mind anti-democratic tendencies undermine the validity of both Anarchism and Socialism.