SPK
25th July 2006, 09:48
Hello! I'm SPK, writing from a big, low-energy city in the south of the U.S. I'm new to RevLeft.
I ran across the site from a link on CelticFire's blog and was pleasantly surprised to see the different varieties of anarchists and communists actually speaking to one another in an (almost) civil tone. I come from the movement side of things -- organizing demonstrations and direct actions against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and so on -- and one does not usually see that kind of dialogue in the movement. Its usually the anarchists who ostentatiously reject those kind of discussions, with much muttering about the RCP, Avakian, etcetera.
I've been an activist / organizer off and on for years and was a member of the Workers World Party -- a Stalinist group in the U.S. -- back in the mid-90's. Well, I got over that :wacko: and moved away from Leninism, which is a poor substitute for real mass movements. I also made a rather bad Leninist, which is probably the only kind of Leninist one should ever be. :lol:
If I absolutely had to apply a political label to myself at this point, it would likely be libertarian Marxist or ultraleftist (I know those words mean very different things historically). Leninists are doing what Leninists have always done, organizing big liberal coalitions, safe and legal demos, and so on: see the laundry lists of antiwar groups in this country -- ANSWER, UPJ, WCW, CAN, TONC, etc. As for the anarchists, well, they had their moment in the sun from about 1999-2003 (Seattle to Miami). However, they have for the most part not stepped up to the plate since then to provide a viable, national alternative to the typical left / liberal BS. I expected anarchists to play a much more key role in direct resistance to the state, but that clearly has not happened. :(
So, I haven't been too active for the past 6-9 months. I came to RevLeft to get a sense as to where anti-capitalists and anti-statists were at these days and to dialogue and refresh my thinking on a whole bunch of questions.
I ran across the site from a link on CelticFire's blog and was pleasantly surprised to see the different varieties of anarchists and communists actually speaking to one another in an (almost) civil tone. I come from the movement side of things -- organizing demonstrations and direct actions against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and so on -- and one does not usually see that kind of dialogue in the movement. Its usually the anarchists who ostentatiously reject those kind of discussions, with much muttering about the RCP, Avakian, etcetera.
I've been an activist / organizer off and on for years and was a member of the Workers World Party -- a Stalinist group in the U.S. -- back in the mid-90's. Well, I got over that :wacko: and moved away from Leninism, which is a poor substitute for real mass movements. I also made a rather bad Leninist, which is probably the only kind of Leninist one should ever be. :lol:
If I absolutely had to apply a political label to myself at this point, it would likely be libertarian Marxist or ultraleftist (I know those words mean very different things historically). Leninists are doing what Leninists have always done, organizing big liberal coalitions, safe and legal demos, and so on: see the laundry lists of antiwar groups in this country -- ANSWER, UPJ, WCW, CAN, TONC, etc. As for the anarchists, well, they had their moment in the sun from about 1999-2003 (Seattle to Miami). However, they have for the most part not stepped up to the plate since then to provide a viable, national alternative to the typical left / liberal BS. I expected anarchists to play a much more key role in direct resistance to the state, but that clearly has not happened. :(
So, I haven't been too active for the past 6-9 months. I came to RevLeft to get a sense as to where anti-capitalists and anti-statists were at these days and to dialogue and refresh my thinking on a whole bunch of questions.