Except for a hiatus between the First Gulf War and 911 I have been continuously involved with one or another local group (or groups) and a number of national groups since 1964. Anti-War; local civil rights; Palestinian solidarity; Central American solidarity; SDS; NUC (a founding member), TNV; LRS. support for the Pontiac Brothers; Solidarity, & others. My political thought has almost continuously evolved, changed. One constant element,though its theoretical grounds have evolved: Capitalism is (a) incompatible with human life, (b) cannot be reformed: the wages system must be abolished. Also continuously opposed to the idea that action must be directly revolutionary (hence, for example, my contempt for Weatherman). Revolutions emerge unexpectably from mass 'reform' actions and cannot be planned. The alternative to capitalism is democracy, not some plan specified in advance by "theorists." Representative government (capitalist democracy) is not democracy but a form of tyranny. It is impossible to predict who will make a rvolution or how it will be made. That is why I call Dean & Zizek garbage in their call for a disciplined party: they are ignorant of the history of that form of party and under what conditions it is either possible or desirable. They are also ignorant of how activist groups grow. The Russian industrial workers created the RSDLP. Read Lih. Social movements have their own independent validity.
Carrol