VMSmith wrote:
so when you say you're a socialist you dont mean marxist lenninist? i am, i just a have a weird sense of humour so i posted both sides. he makes it out as if marxist lenninists form really authoritarian, insular groups with really rigid ways of thinking and an elitist mentality. though there is a little issue with some groups on the left being sectarian but here, for the most part, everybody can at least work together in campaign groups. rovics could appreciate people who were left wing and did something about it which is why he didnt play songs deriding each group to the group the song was about. or so i've been told.
No, I'm not a Marxist-Leninist. In my opinion that is rather out-dated as it doesn't do anything to engage the middle class, which is the backbone of modern capitalist society. I'd be best described as an ecosocialist. I'm somewhat more radical than the Scandinavian parties that subscribe to "Popular Socialism" but I don't believe in revolution or the vanguard party or anything like that. Revolution rarely works. And anyway, calling yourself a Marxist-Leninist will alienate you from most of the population who will associate you with Soviet-style Communism.
The main reason I liked those lyrics is because of the sectarianism I see present in certain parts of the left. I'm thinking of the British left in particular, with it's dozen or so fragmented, fighting and altogether useless parties. But I guess that this thread isn't really the place to debate these things.
23 Feb 2012, 7:24 pm
