Contact
Personal
- About me
Looking for direction in the vacuous wastelands that lie between between anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary socialism. Will state ownership always fail because it necessitates centralised power? If so, how do you have collective ownership of the means of production without a state? These are the questions which trouble me. Anyone got some ideas to where I might look for some answers?
Was a member of the DAM (central and north London branch) in the late 1980's. Happy days at 121 and Leslies. Lost contact with all those good folks I knew and should have kept in touch with. Love to hear from any of you if you're out there???
Now a molecular biologist and living in the US rust belt, trying to concoct some form of organization out here. Watching the collapse of the empire from its epicentre. The sunsets over the lake are great!
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 30 - 39
- Custom title
- Kentish Town to Cleveland, Ohio
- Interests
- Radical politics, cooking, gardening, bike riding, reading, writing, sci-fi, horror, futuristic fiction, good movies, outdoors, watching the sun go down, that kinda stuff
- Favourite books
- Currently reading The Road, needed some light after just finishing John Pilger's Tell Me No Lies
- Favourite films
- Gotta be Brazil.
- Music
- The Clash, Scientist, Steel Pulse, Mercedes Sosa, Tracey Curtis, Last Internationale, Benjamin Zephania, "The Rob Da Bank Show", Eric B and Rakim, Cold Play, Lemon Jelly, Chem Bros, Brian Jonestown, Electric Six, Neurotics, Carter, Test Dept, silly 80's hits, stupid classic rock, some heavy metal, Motorhead, lots of reggae, selected melodic punk.
- Dislikes
- This is a bit negative no?, Egotism, narcissism, arrogance, ignorance, prejudice, smoking, bad driving, pixar movies, mobile phones, SUVs, romantic comedies, gimmicky gadgets, Hugh Grant, Bravo TV, Noel Edmonds, Cliff Richard, George Michael, Jonathan Ross, Pat the Prat (capital radio), Glen Beck, the elite 1%, Joe the Plumber, Mandy, machismo, incessant rain, incessant heat, the Dow Jones industrial average, men and women in suits, smart do's, smart people, sushi, sodding trail mix, grenola, grits, gala dinners, small talk, weddings, chain restaurants, private hospitals, big hotels..., Gawd, I could go on forever. Love men with big hairy thighs though....
Networking and politics
- Political label
- Not sure. Somewhere between anarcho-syndicalism, or just syndicalism, and revolutionary socialism.
- Region
- North America
- Employment sector
- health and medicine
- Occupation
- Biomedical scientist
- Political group membership
- International Socialist Organization, Cleveland Economic Democracy Network, Sympathetic to International Workers of the World and International Workers' Association, but not a member
- What do your politics mean to you?
More than anything else I believe the forms of organization and the processes of decision making that we utilize in the political groups we affiliate with, must necessarily prefigure those of a post-capitalist world. This is not to say that we should try to personally live now as we might at such a time in the future. But crucially, within political organizations our relations of social production and distribution i.e. how we make decisions and distribute tasks and responsibilities, must be the kernel of the future. This is an essentially marxist scheme. But the revolutionary socialist vanguardist parties over look it. Why?
Hence disagreements over tactics, methods, analysis, direction and ideology must be tolerated within organizations, allowing decent and disagreement to flourish within democratic structures. Instead the revolutionary left, anarchists included, commonly settle disagreements with expulsions, splits and splinter groups. What kind of model is this of the robust democratic process at the heart of revolutionary politics?
Doctrine and orthodoxy have come to cast in stone fanatical ideas of timeless formulas that hold the key to defeating capitalism. And each ego that dominates each political organization, carries their own tablet of the said formula. Egotism and elitism are as prevalent in anarchist groups as they are in vanguardist groups. To the left I have to say "All you have to loose are your chains of doctrine". Almost everything that has been written since Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?" deserves to be torn up and thrown away.
The defeat of capitalism, if it will ever be carried out by any agency, will almost certainly require multi-facetted dynamic approaches, combined and in concert. There is no one timeless formula.
Until the revolutionary left learns to move beyond its own petty egotism and caste aside its orthodox doctrines, forming alliances and co-operation across factions and tendencies, I don't think capitalism will ever be haunted by anything, other than the systemic risks of its own short-sighted profit lust.
- Favourite thinkers
- Marx.
- Comrades re-united - political groups you were a member of
- Direct Action Movement
- Comrades re-united - further information
Central and North London branch, 1987 - 1990
History
- Member for
- 4 weeks 1 day