June Musings

I’ve been up to quite a bit lately, on and off. I’ve been trying to maintain the Labor Working Group at my city’s DSA, to limited effect; I’ve been trying to be an active steward at my store for my union, to limited effect; I’ve been trying to participate in picketing at nearby labor strikes, in a limited capacity. I did see Kshama Sawant, veteran to Seattle socialist politics, at one strike. That was neat. I wound up briefly in one of the videos she posted to her socials.

My apprehensions about my party persist. It is still scarcely active, with limited to no communications. It exists in a state of perpetual pre-germination after the forcible dissolution of the prior club. I remain willing to give a great deal of my time and effort toward party work, but there seems to be no work to do. I’ve been working on an analysis of the hintings of national chauvinism, American exceptionalism, and rank opportunism riddling the party program. Based on the minimal discussions that do happen in internal club channels, and the materials put out by national, I have difficulty identifying what distinguishes it from a social democratic mass org.

In the meantime, I have been getting active with a lovely group of MLs through Madeline Pendleton’s discord server; the incredible people there have been working hard on a streamer collective and server ambassadorship system for principled Marxist-Leninists. I’ve been doing theory readings and discussions three times a week there, and it has been marvelous for my morale and excitement to get involved and do more.

I finished transcribing and formatting R. Palme Dutt’s Fascism and Social Revolution and published it on Left Is Best, which also got a sexy redesign. I need to revisit the downtown library to scan more magazine articles.

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately. Some include:

• Against Empire, by Michael Parenti
• Liberalism: A Counter-History, by Domenico Losurdo
• Western Marxism: How it was Born, How it Died, How it can be Reborn, by Domenico Losurdo
• The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, by Gerald Horne
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The last two books I read as part of a funk I’ve been falling into lately about the 250th “anniversary” of the U.S. I wanted a better, more varied understanding of the United States, what it is, what it has always been, and just how different that is from what we are taught and how that manifests in the cultural hegemonic normative narrative.

I hope to write more of my thoughts on this soon. I have numerous draft posts unpublished, needing a great deal of polishing. It is too hot outside to think, most days, and I am very tired.