discipline posted:mongosteen posted:please dont ignore me khamsek
I don't know much about yanqui leftist groups from personal experience. I want to see it with my both two eyes before I made a call. besides, I might not have hope in the organizations but I have hope in the people who get inspired to show up to meetings.
only thing is that, like, well at the ISO meeting last night for the uninitiated it went as follows: show up, someone shakes my hand, I sit down and listen to people talk about the convention and reports for about an hour, then everyone goes around and speaks for 60 seconds about what they like about the ISO. two and a half hours later everyone leaves to the bar. I leave not knowing what any of their views are about anything are or why I should stand with them. if I came in because I'm frustrated with the economic situation and would like to struggle towards a communist alternative, I leave frustrated because no one has mentioned anything about it to me.
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and later, at the second meeting, at the bar, where the cooler people go, I ask so, is your strategy to just appeal to seasoned radicals? like after you plant yourself in these organizations do you just swoop in and scream "Marx!" like a hawk and swoop them into your talons where yall end up at this bar? in a more reasonable way: does the ISO not radicalize people, not raise their revolutionary potential? Do you wait for that to happen outside and then enfold them into your warm embrace? well this was taken as trolling and I got the most hostile reactions here. they claim they flyer all the time and radicalize hella people. well I didn't see it! if I were a complete babby leftie, like an anarchist kiddo who incubated in occupy or something, I'd never go back to these meetings, I'd be totally discouraged. the people who had been there for more than 10+ years worked in advertising and marketing etc. they claimed they were better than the rest because their party members got on MSNBC and the like, which is just, it just blows my mind. it's like why I got a bad taste in my mouth with the jacobin - the media loves us! like I said they were really surprised I just showed up out of the blue and not as a referral. well honestly an ISO member I know recommended me like 3 or 4 months ago and it probably planted a seed but I never saw the ISO in person at any rallies or meetings in my lifetime. as it was, I feel like this was such a fluke, maybe I need to go to a different branch meeting or something.
I slept on all these problems and have some extra thoughts but I gotta go to work. maybe later.
I want to go to the next one with you please
discipline posted:I don't know much about yanqui leftist groups from personal experience. I want to see it with my both two eyes before I made a call. besides, I might not have hope in the organizations but I have hope in the people who get inspired to show up to meetings.
only thing is that, like, well at the ISO meeting last night for the uninitiated it went as follows: show up, someone shakes my hand, I sit down and listen to people talk about the convention and reports for about an hour, then everyone goes around and speaks for 60 seconds about what they like about the ISO. two and a half hours later everyone leaves to the bar. I leave not knowing what any of their views are about anything are or why I should stand with them. if I came in because I'm frustrated with the economic situation and would like to struggle towards a communist alternative, I leave frustrated because no one has mentioned anything about it to me.
I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and later, at the second meeting, at the bar, where the cooler people go, I ask so, is your strategy to just appeal to seasoned radicals? like after you plant yourself in these organizations do you just swoop in and scream "Marx!" like a hawk and swoop them into your talons where yall end up at this bar? in a more reasonable way: does the ISO not radicalize people, not raise their revolutionary potential? Do you wait for that to happen outside and then enfold them into your warm embrace? well this was taken as trolling and I got the most hostile reactions here. they claim they flyer all the time and radicalize hella people. well I didn't see it! if I were a complete babby leftie, like an anarchist kiddo who incubated in occupy or something, I'd never go back to these meetings, I'd be totally discouraged. the people who had been there for more than 10+ years worked in advertising and marketing etc. they claimed they were better than the rest because their party members got on MSNBC and the like, which is just, it just blows my mind. it's like why I got a bad taste in my mouth with the jacobin - the media loves us! like I said they were really surprised I just showed up out of the blue and not as a referral. well honestly an ISO member I know recommended me like 3 or 4 months ago and it probably planted a seed but I never saw the ISO in person at any rallies or meetings in my lifetime. as it was, I feel like this was such a fluke, maybe I need to go to a different branch meeting or something.
I slept on all these problems and have some extra thoughts but I gotta go to work. maybe later.
That is actually a really cogent perspective on ABC organisations contradictions in the way they organize.
It is a bit ridiculous they actually let you in a meeting like that since it effectively sounds like a branch and that should be for comrades only and not at all open to the public.
The extent to which you put forward reports and the like in a public meeting should never expand past a propaganda exercise to tell people why your grand and what the next grand thing you are doing will be.
The entire culture around having these open branches seems to be fairly popular in the "mass" trot parties, for example the SWP do it as well in the UK and it just feeds into the entire non cadre semi part time trend which they treat their comrades through a complete failure to understand how to actually develop into an actual fighting organisation rather then a catch all basket for fractured debate and contact network wrapped up in a restrictive as fuck party loyalty.
I mean questions like that can be put forward across in a confrontational way by some folks but considering your back which I assume you told them its a bit sad they couldnt work past their ego to deal with something like that.
hey posted:I went to a meeting for the centrist NDP party up here in canada. And when a nice young lady went up to speak someone cat called her. AKWARD
i voted in the leadership race lol.
littlegreenpills posted:who did you vote for
peggy nash.
in retrospect anyone other than mulcair would have detonated the party, but nash was the only person who sounded mildly friendly to unions and to industrial strategy, so whatever. i personally think they could lose like half their quebec seats in 2015 anyway though.
Colorado Marxism Conference
Featuring talks on the Russian Revolution, Marxism and oppression, unions and class struggle, and more.
King Center, 301, Auraria Campus, Denver.
For information | E-mail isodenver@gmail.com
TG posted:should i go to this?:
Colorado Marxism Conference
Featuring talks on the Russian Revolution, Marxism and oppression, unions and class struggle, and more.
King Center, 301, Auraria Campus, Denver.
For information | E-mail isodenver@gmail.com
sure why not
i paid a few times because i'm an idiot but yeah
discipline posted:please don't take this thread as me telling you not to go to ISO meetings. I think everyone here should go to ISO meetings. a good communist is one who knows the geography of the struggle, who knows what other activists are doing/thinking/feeling and then runs it up against their own experience. we must be willing to educate and be educated
everyone here should totally go to ISO meetings. report back to this, the official ISO thread of rhizzone.net
replace ISO with the left generally
like 80 percent of being a Marxist is being active and the remaining 20 percent only counts if you are active
SovietFriends posted:like 80 percent of being a Marxist is being active and the remaining 20 percent only counts if you are active
or you could grow up and join in your faith community.
discipline posted:please don't take this thread as me telling you not to go to ISO meetings. I think everyone here should go to ISO meetings. a good communist is one who knows the geography of the struggle, who knows what other activists are doing/thinking/feeling and then runs it up against their own experience. we must be willing to educate and be educated
everyone here should totally go to ISO meetings. report back to this, the official ISO thread of rhizzone.net
what would you like to propose to the ISO meeting that they do instead of what they're currently doing?
stegosaurus posted:im going to see anwar shaikh say something in a few weeks.
dang, how does he do that? i can hardly go one day without saying something
animedad posted:i mean i can read lenin at home, i can decide whether i think china is socialist at home. ive decided those types of things arent for me
that's true, but it's really hard to survive in isolation for long, and especially with this revolutionary impetus for social movement, it could waver into a feeling of impotence when one isn't able to put into action this sort of struggle for justice or what have you.
also, it's important i think to be able to defend and talk on these views, so that you could point out weaknesses or errors to yourself in your thought. its like sparring
discipline posted:animedad posted:i guess the main thing i hear is the need for some connection with the black community, or indiginous community, or some other type of minority. and it's like, look around, who would trust you? and why should they?
they were very on and on about anti-racist initiatives and stuff but there was only one POC there
there are lots of hispanics in the chicago meetings ive been to, the girl im dating is ISO and latino and got into it via childhood friends (also hispanic). very few african-americans even though they are a third of the city
Crow posted:animedad posted:i mean i can read lenin at home, i can decide whether i think china is socialist at home. ive decided those types of things arent for me
that's true, but it's really hard to survive in isolation for long, and especially with this revolutionary impetus for social movement, it could waver into a feeling of impotence when one isn't able to put into action this sort of struggle for justice or what have you.
also, it's important i think to be able to defend and talk on these views, so that you could point out weaknesses or errors to yourself in your thought. its like sparring
i was in a barroom israel/palestine debate at like 5am a little while ago and i just sort of sat there while everyone else talked, and then i came in at the end summarizing everyone's argument and saying my piece lol. im not quick witted enough for sparring i dont think
he interrupts us from a few benches down and was like HEH I DONT THINK SO, HAMAS TRAUMATIZED ALOTTA DOGS WITH THEIR BOTTLEROCKETS or whatever, and we tried to debate him but it just degenerated into yelling and laughing at him and making jokes, and then when he couldnt name the capital of Israel, every. single. fuckin. wiseguy. ass. patron, and lady, filed out to the outside bar area, and they surrounded us, and reached out their hands to touch our bodies, and they kissed our hands and washed our feet, and surrounding Santa Fucker, they let out such a thunderous stood-applause, that he lost his mind, screaming like banshee, ears caked with blood. .. BITCH! (jesse from breaking bad)
if we did start a radical left party.. I think it may look a little something like this:
Crow posted:stegosaurus posted:im going to see anwar shaikh say something in a few weeks.
dang, how does he do that? i can hardly go one day without saying something
once you have a casual mastery of the original true political economy you express yourself in written proof of production functions, god's linear algebra, and let mere mortals have their chatter.