Nachie
23rd September 2005, 15:52
To all participants in this forum,
I am a Brazilian citizen of American residence, travelling around the country with variable frequency and hopefully making trips back to Brazil and Venezuela for the WSF later this year and early in the next. My nome de guerre is Nachie, which is an affectionate shorthand for "Anachronist".
I first became a communist in 2000 after reading Orwell's masterpiece, Homage to Catalonia. The issue was of incredible interest to me because my great grandfather had fought in the Spanish revolution as an anarchist. I promptly became involved with the Communist Party USA, simply because of an ignorance at what the available options were. Through the CP I learned a lot about union organizing and grassroots solidarity, (the party at this point runs almost entirely on the mutual aid of its working-class membership) but my theoretical self-education continued to come primarily out of Trotskyist literature.
Between 2001 and 2002 I became more and more exposed to anarchist and anti-Leninist writing, in particular Ron Tabor's masterpiece "A Look at Leninism". I had simply never seen these opinions before and faced with them, I could not deny their validity. Through a series of coincidental meetings over the Internet I picked up a capable number of "tutors" who were very willing to take me through the paces of what an actual Marxist analysis would look like when unchained by Leninist totalitarianism. My understanding of communism deepened immensely and without this change in ideology I never would have been able to get as much done as I have.
In 2002 I founded with a Montana anarchist the Red & Anarchist Action Network (RAAN) - http://www.redanarchist.org which continues to be the channel for my radical activity. In a personal capacity I have worked construction and volunteer food preparation for a number of community centers and homeless advocacy groups around the East Coast. Through exasperation at the sheer size of the problem I gave up dialoguing with Leninists several years ago, and have had several confrontations with them ever since. Although as a communist I operate outside the anarchist and anarchopunk circles, through RAAN I have attained many allies there and together we have embarked on a number of projects, usually geared towards sustainable (or even temporary) solutions to living in capitalism. This would include food scams, housing scams, and most importantly for the network's survival, mutual aid. We are committed to organizing for action and make moves whenever the possibility presents itself, as in the case of relief for Hurricane Katrina, but primarily we are involved in a fight to sustain ourselves and then extend that opportunity to our comrades, so that then a greater number of us can organize fulltime.
I don't have the time or patience for the kind of discussions on this forum, as I've been involved in such things for nearly five years now and - as reflected in the principles of RAAN - have not been convinced of the utility of dialoguing with Leninist communities. Nevertheless I see this place as a great resource and hopefully I'll be stopping by more often and maybe sticking my thoughts in here or there...
I am a Brazilian citizen of American residence, travelling around the country with variable frequency and hopefully making trips back to Brazil and Venezuela for the WSF later this year and early in the next. My nome de guerre is Nachie, which is an affectionate shorthand for "Anachronist".
I first became a communist in 2000 after reading Orwell's masterpiece, Homage to Catalonia. The issue was of incredible interest to me because my great grandfather had fought in the Spanish revolution as an anarchist. I promptly became involved with the Communist Party USA, simply because of an ignorance at what the available options were. Through the CP I learned a lot about union organizing and grassroots solidarity, (the party at this point runs almost entirely on the mutual aid of its working-class membership) but my theoretical self-education continued to come primarily out of Trotskyist literature.
Between 2001 and 2002 I became more and more exposed to anarchist and anti-Leninist writing, in particular Ron Tabor's masterpiece "A Look at Leninism". I had simply never seen these opinions before and faced with them, I could not deny their validity. Through a series of coincidental meetings over the Internet I picked up a capable number of "tutors" who were very willing to take me through the paces of what an actual Marxist analysis would look like when unchained by Leninist totalitarianism. My understanding of communism deepened immensely and without this change in ideology I never would have been able to get as much done as I have.
In 2002 I founded with a Montana anarchist the Red & Anarchist Action Network (RAAN) - http://www.redanarchist.org which continues to be the channel for my radical activity. In a personal capacity I have worked construction and volunteer food preparation for a number of community centers and homeless advocacy groups around the East Coast. Through exasperation at the sheer size of the problem I gave up dialoguing with Leninists several years ago, and have had several confrontations with them ever since. Although as a communist I operate outside the anarchist and anarchopunk circles, through RAAN I have attained many allies there and together we have embarked on a number of projects, usually geared towards sustainable (or even temporary) solutions to living in capitalism. This would include food scams, housing scams, and most importantly for the network's survival, mutual aid. We are committed to organizing for action and make moves whenever the possibility presents itself, as in the case of relief for Hurricane Katrina, but primarily we are involved in a fight to sustain ourselves and then extend that opportunity to our comrades, so that then a greater number of us can organize fulltime.
I don't have the time or patience for the kind of discussions on this forum, as I've been involved in such things for nearly five years now and - as reflected in the principles of RAAN - have not been convinced of the utility of dialoguing with Leninist communities. Nevertheless I see this place as a great resource and hopefully I'll be stopping by more often and maybe sticking my thoughts in here or there...