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Weekly focus # 11 --
(1) Proposed mission/program -- disappointing lack of discussion
(2) Our attitude toward "fraternal organizations"
(reply to Samyabad)
(3) Proletarism confronts the crisis of theory
(reply to Dennis)
(4) easy, robust, free blogs at: http://blogger.com
(5) wiki + blog = wog
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Hi everyone,

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1. Proposed mission/program -- disappointing lack of discussion
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Last week (June 5) I posted the proposed mission statement and
program of action for the community which I hope to see
eventually grow around this email list and our wiki and the
projects that we eventually undertake.

Unfortunately, no substantive comments that were made in response
except for those made May 31 by Samyabad. Other subscribers
support the mission, as is shown by short statements and by their
actions, but discussion of the mission and program has,
unfortunately, failed to attract much interest.

This is an indication that, at the present time, our community is
a community in name only. It may be a long time before our
efforts here result in the development of a real community that
is focused on the decisive tasks that will bring about the end of
bourgeois rule.

On the one hand this is a disappointment for me. On the other
hand, as a materialist, I will maintain my focus on the things
that are most important. The work that we do today will help to
lay the foundation for a real community in the future.

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2. Replying to Samyabad about fraternal organizations
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Samyabad asked (see appendix to my June 6 post) how our community
will "relate itself with fraternal communist parties?"

First, we must recognize that, as a community which includes
activists with a range of views on many questions, the Media
Weapon community will not be of a single mind concerning various
organizations (whether these organizations are communist,
anarchist, reformist or whatever). It would be useful if our
community included within itself people who supported various
groups. That would be a step forward and I would like to see
that eventually happen. It is also possible that the core of our
community (if or when this core comes into existence) might vote
on resolutions supporting or opposing actions or policies by
various groups. Even in this case, however, such resolutions
would not represent the views of everyone in our community.

As an individual, of course, I have my own views and would
advocate that various organizations be supported when they "do
the right thing" and opposed when they do the wrong things.
Whether or not an organization calls itself "communist" or
"anarchist" or whatever often means very little. What counts is
what the organization actually _does_ in the world. Actions
speak louder than labels.

Many organizations within the left have strong disagreements with
one another concerning the path forward and fundamental issues of
tactics and so forth. Unfortunately, however, the existing
discussion and debate on these questions is usually either
non-existent or of very poor quality. This is where we can help.
We can help to make the existing disagreements and contradictions
more transparent so that a wider section of activists can better
understand what is going on. If we can attract serious activists
to our community--then we may eventually be able to develop
serious and focused discussion and debate that will highlight the
strengths and weaknesses of various organizations, influence
opinion within the left, develop the struggle against the
diseases of reformism and sectarianism--and help influence the
evolution of a wide range of groups.

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3. Proletarism confronts the crisis of theory (reply to Dennis)
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Dennis posted an article (June 11) "The truth about American
Capitalism" which included the following introductory comments
from Dennis.

> Feel free to check this important website although the
> author somewhat supports communism as an alternative
> but then again he wants [something] other than communism
> or socialism so in other words he wants to reform or find
> something else.
>
> In my opinion I only think that socialism and
> then eventually communism will be the alternative
> for a better society.

First, I am glad to see that Dennis is including a short
introduction to some of the articles he posts. Any article on
politics will have both strengths and weaknesses and part of our
work to build a conscious community--is to give thought to the
strengths and weaknesses of the material we post.

I took a look at the article and saw the strengths and weaknesses
in a different way than Dennis. The author made it clear that he
opposes not only capitalism but also "communism" and "socialism"
(as he understands these terms). But it is clear that the author
understands "communism" and "socialism" to be the practice of
those countries that the mainstream press calls "communist" and
"socialist" (ie: the author includes the qualifying phrase: "as
it has been practiced in various countries").

From a scientific point of view (or at least as I see it) genuine
communism or socialism has never existed. I also oppose the
practice of "communism" and "socialism" as practiced by those
countries that the corrupt mainstream press in the US describes
as "communist" (usually China/dpr-Korea) or "socialist" (usually
Sweden/France). So in _this_ sense, I am in agreement with the
author.

What this highlights is the existing crisis of theory. I
advocate the rule of society by the working class. Nowhere does
the author of the article indicate that he opposes the rule of
society by the working class. On the contrary it seems quite
possible that the author would support such an idea if there
existed some conception of this that he knew about and that made
sense to him.

The problem is that we have no _words_ to descibe a society that
is ruled by the working class because all existing words have
been corrupted by:
(a) the bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries
which controls the mainstream press,
(b) the parasitic ruling classes of countries like
China, dpr-Korea, France and Sweden and
(c) various groups on the left that have their heads
in places that cannot be reached by sunlight

The bourgeoisie excercises its dictatorship, in part, by
controlling the definitions of words that we use when we try to
think and have political discussion and debate. If the
bourgeoisie can control the meaning of the words that we
use--then the bourgeoisie can control our ability to think. It
is really as simple as that.

If we lack the words to describe our concepts--then we are
fucked. We will be unable to communicate with one another--or
even to sort things out very well in our own minds. George
Orwell's novel, 1984, brilliantly captured this essential truth
in its description of how the oppressive regime of big brother
fucked with the language and even systematically removed key
political words entirely from use.

Today, we are in a situation similar in some ways to the denizens
of the world Orwell described. The words that we most often use
to describe the rule of society by the working class (ie:
"socialism" and sometimes "communism") have been defined to mean
the rule of society by a corrupt, parasitic, feudal-style police
state that crushes all political expression by its opponents (ie:
China, dpr-Korea) or a very slightly modified version of ordinary
free-market capitalism with slightly higher taxes and a few more
bureaucrats to manage slighly higher social welfare benefits
(ie: Sweden/France).

This is why I asked last week (see "socialism or proletarism?",
posted June 6) if we would be better off to support the proposal
made by the Russian activist, Grigory Isayev (imprisoned at
various times for organizing workers by both the "communist"
regime and by the "democrat" Yeltsin) to use the term
"proletarism" to describe our movement and our goal of a society
ruled by the proletariat (ie: just as "capitalism" describes a
society ruled by the capitalist class).

Unfortunately, even with 50 people on this list, my comments drew
no response. Well, that's ok. But this post by Dennis helps to
illustrate that this issue (ie: the fundamental confusion created
by the fact that all existing words have become hopelessly
corrupted) will not go away. There are _millions_ of people with
views similar to that of the author of the article that Dennis
posted. Isayev's proposal might help us to reach these people.
Isayev's proposal might help us to confront the existing crisis
of theory (reflected in a crisis of language and terminology)
that acts as a barrier separating our movement from millions of
workers.

Dennis, if you have the time (I don't) feel free to forward this
post of mine to the author and tell him that he is welcome to
join our discussion list. (If he would like to have some picture
of what a realistic alternative to capitalism would be like--you
could point him to "The World for which We Fight" at:
http://struggle.net/ALDS/part_7.htm .)

By the way, two weeks ago (weekly focus # 9, May 30) I suggested
to Dennis that he create a wiki page so that he could list (in an
organized way) the articles that he found useful. I said that
8th floor would probably be able to help with this. It looks
like this has not yet happened. Dennis--if 8th floor is unable
to help you--I will eventually help you get started with this. I
can't do this right now (in fact I can't even log on to the wiki
right now--I will probably have to switch to my new PC before I
can access the wiki). But I will eventually. It is very
important that people such as Dennis be able to use the wiki.
In some situations it is important for activists to know how to
use a rifle. Today, in the US, it is more important to know how
to use a wiki. For activists today, in the US, the wiki is more
powerful than the rifle. (Of course rifles may also become
important in the US as a revolutionary crisis develops--but it
appears unlikely that this will be anytime in the next decade or
so.)

Dennis--we will create help files--and a front page with less
clutter--and give you personal help--so that you can master the
fundamentals of this weapon.

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4. easy, robust, free blogs at: http://blogger.com
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I saw in the news that google now has a site where people can
create free blogs. I tried it out and had a blog up (just for
test purposes, no real content) in less than five minutes. If
you have ever considered creating a blog--and were not sure how
to do so--or whether it would be too expensive--go to the above
site. It is free and easy to use.

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5. wiki + blog = wog
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I have not added any pages to our new wiki this week because, for
some reason, I am unable to log on. I may need to (as noted
above) spend a day or two switching from my old, obsolete PC to
my new PC before I am able to work again on our wiki. However I
did take a look at our wiki (our new wiki--not our old one) and
saw that 8th floor had made a list of some of the things that we
will eventually need to do.

That is very good. It is encouraging. The work of our community
will probably be project-driven. Everyone will be able to add
suggested projects to our master project page (once we create a
master project page) -- but the real issue will be to find
volunteers to do the work. So the key abilities needed to get
something done will be (1) the ability to articulate a clear
vision of what needs to be done and (2) the ability to convince
people who have limited time that a particular project is so
important that they will _want_ to work on it. Projects will
compete against one another (and cooperate with one another) and
everything will take place in the open in a transparent way.

8th floor also noted, in his comments on our wiki front page,
that we will need to collect and review ideas for wiki
improvements so that we can, so to speak, grab the low-hanging
fruit (ie: make the improvements that are relatively easy to do
and relatively valuable and postpone action on the items that are
difficult or less useful).

One item which I believe will be very useful (but not easy to
implement--so we may not be able to do this in 2004) will be to
give each wiki page the ability to split itself such that the
right half of the page becomes, in effect, a blog where readers
can post comments.

I have not seen this implemented anywhere (but I haven't really
looked for it either--if anyone sees something like this on the
net--please let me know). But I am convinced that such a thing
would be really useful. Many people come to a wiki page and
would like to make a comment--but are not sure where to place the
comment or how to do so. And visitors to a page should be able
to see comments on it without the need for an extra click.
Readers need to be able to see (a) the contents of a page
and (b) the comments about that page -- at the same time.

I discussed this last week (see weekly focus # 10, June 5,
section: 4. "Our wiki -- present and future directions",
suggested modification # 3 "micro-forums on each wiki page").
But I just wanted to repeat it again since it has been on my mind
a lot. In fact, if we got this thing working, it might attract
some attention. I thought we could call it a "wog" (ie: wiki +
blog) but (who knows) maybe if the concept proves itself to be
useful this kind of functionality would become standard on
wiki's (or maybe it already is on some wiki's--and I simply
do not know about it).

I am not sure, also, about the name "wog". It is certainly short
and easy to remember. A quick internet search suggested that it
is sometimes used as a derogatory term (with possible racist
undertones) in Britain and Australia. I am not familar enough
with British or Australian culture to have an opinion on this.

That's it for now. This has been a slow week for our discussion
list. Maybe this reflects that school is out for the summer and
most of our subscribers are students who access during school
hours. In any event, we march on.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// June 12, 2004
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)