You may already know me.

If you don't, I'm sure you've heard terrible things about me.

I'm a queer woman in my early forties living in northern California. I am a volunteer at a sexuality related non-profit and also hold down a day job as a laboratory mechanic. I have a long personal history of activism in various fields, all executed through a lens of class consciousness. Others may mention their military service in an introduction like this, and the similarly relevant fact of my experience is that I saw hundreds of friends, lovers and personal acquaintances die in the worst days of the AIDS epidemic. That experience colors all of my beliefs about the potential value of government for the public good as a tool of collective action as well as the potential for what many dismiss as "social issues" to be life and death struggles as important as struggles over war and food.

While the topics here are ones that bring a lot of heat between me and other folks on this forum, I came here so that we could actually have these discussions. I feel like we have only gotten to shorthand stuff at each other through the din at LGC and I would like to actually talk this stuff out. That is part of the socialist tradition I grew up with: one part German socialists and one part American Communist Party.

I didn't come here to troll and I hope my conduct and engagement here have made that clear.

I am here because I am a socialist. I raise the issue of the forum's name because I am the sort of socialist who believes that kyriarchical analysis is critical to the advancement of socialist principles in the real world.

Generally, I may speak of what I call "unidimensional Marxism" as being limited by Marx's incomplete understanding of the privileges of his own social position. When I say that, I'm not demeaning Marxism but making arguments about the proper and improper application of his analysis in understanding the nature and problems of capitalism. Analysis as recent as the 1930s is often speaking of a capitalism that is only similar to the current form of capitalism in its most basic dimensions.

I shoot all sorts of things, almost entirely at paper. Lately I'm shooting revolvers more than other things, but precision rifle shooting is also an interest. Some of my gun interests are experiential and some are mechanical. I am a tinkerer and a maker of things. I have a PHD in fixitology from the University of Figgeritoutkid. I also reload.

My opinion has been significantly improved. Welcome.

I think now that we are working on more familiar territory the arguments won't descend into the toxic level as they did @ the LGC.
I always felt like I was playing in front of an audience over there.
Anyway, welcome aboard.

comedian wrote:I think now that we are working on more familiar territory the arguments won't descend into the toxic level as they did @ the LGC.
I always felt like I was playing in front of an audience over there.
Anyway, welcome aboard.

Exactly why I brought the O discussion here; because I felt like we hadn't really had it effectively.