It’s a Party…a COMMUNIST PARTY!

I know I have a pretty huge following out there on the internet, being Montana’s only known Communist blogger and all. In fact, I bet that many of you out there have been thinking these past two-some years, “This Red Montana guy is pretty rad, I wish I could totally party down with him.”

Well now you can.

This Wednesday, the 15th — TWO DAYS FROM NOW — I’ll be hosting the coolest pro-union get toether this little town has seen in decades. I cordially invite you to the…

Employee Free Choice Act Letter-Writing Party
Hosted by the Butte area Young Communist League
WHEN: Wednesday, April 15th — 7:30pm
WHERE: Butte, MT (contact me for the address…all are welcome, I just don’t want to publicize it on the blog)
WHAT: We’ll be writing letters to Montana’s Senators to tell them that we support the Employee Free Choice Act. This week is the Senate recess, so they’ll all be in the State. It’s the best time to get in touch with our people in Washington. If we get enough people to show up to make it worth doing, we will discuss plans to hand deliver the letters to the Senators’ local offices. Oh, and there will be some light refreshments served.

Again, everyone is welcome. If you want to swing by, contact me for the address. And bring  a friend. Bring four friends. Bring 100. Bring your grandma. Any pro-labor letter writers are welcome. We’ll have paper and pens and all that jazz available, so don’t worry about a thing (although if you wanna throw a few cents in to the paper fund we’ll gladly let you utilize our donation jar). We’ll also have good company, snacks, communist propaganda, maybe some tunes, some and a little time to munch & mingle.

So please, please, PLEASE get in touch with me, and swing by Wednesday night. I would really like to see as many people as possible. See you there!

The left-wing view of Obama

Despite what the media tells you, Obama is not a leftist. At best I would call him “center-left”. He’s by no means a socialist or a communist. He’s not a revolutionary. He was the best chance we had to defeat the ultra-right during the last Presidential election and a hell of a lot better than McCain would have been. But he’s not going to lead us into a global communist revolution or something like that.

Everyone, except Glenn Beck maybe, realizes this. That’s not the question. The question concerns those of us who ARE socialists, leftists, or communists, and it’s this: now that we’ve got him in office, how far do we go in supporting him and criticising him? Where do we draw that line?

The Clinton years were wonderful for me, as a teen just becoming politically aware in a very conservative rural town. For the only time in my life I could talk about how lousy the President was and people agreed with me. Then came 8 years of Bush. Those were not easy times. I became more withdrawn about politics, a little more careful about who I spoke to about it. Sure, I wore a Fidel Castro tee shirt on a regular basis, but I waited for people to ask me about it and then gave them a watered-down response.

Now it’s back to a Democrat in office and for the first time in a long time I could call my dad up and bitch and moan to him, and he would bitch and moan right with me. But I don’t want to. So far I have been very quiet about my reservations regarding the Obama Administration’s policies. Because he is NOT a socialist/communist/etc. and I am, there are obviously some things I disagree with him about. Quite a few of them.

But at the same time I’m not so sure it’s time to start publicly blasting him because I’m afraid if we drag him down too far, the Pig with Lipstick will be ready to turn our country into one big JesusLand in 2012. I guess I am not entirely confident in the political education of Joe Sixpack. I think most people don’t see out of the two-party box and if they don’t like the Democrat incumbent they’ll automatically vote for the Republican (or vice versa). I seriously can’t see a lot of people saying “well, the problem with Obama is that he is not left enough.” Which is exactly what I’d like them to say, because it’s true. But our political system has been trapped in this framework where John McCain is considered centrist and Obama is the farthest left we’ve had in decades, that I don’t see a lot of people thinking outside of that box.

Then again, if we — meaning the really left left –  just sit by silently, or even cheerlead Obama, don’t we stand to lose the few people who support us? If we appear too “centrist” don’t we risk alienating our support from the left and further fragmenting the movement that way?

So there has to be a line drawn somewhere. Where is it? I don’t know. That’s not a rhetorical question. I seriously want some input on how we approach the Obama adminsitration.

Here’s what I do know. Whatever policy we take, we need to be crystal clear on our intentions and present alternatives. We cannot criticise Obama only to throw fuel on the right-wing’s fire, and whenever we support him it has to be clearly stated that it is a tactical move, and why. That’s all I’ve got.

Death threats, awesome!

So it was only a matter of time before I got my first death threat for this blog. If you scroll down to the latest comment on my “Revolt with a Vote” post, you’ll see this gem. But I’ll copy and paste it here for you:

Communist scum. Watch your fucking ass because I have no problem killing you. There is revolt brewing and you are on the losing side. Get the fuck out of Montana if you value your life.

Of course, wordpress gives me plenty of tools to identify assholes like this. I don’t have anything to pin down exactly who this hateful fellow is, like his name and address. But I do know that his e-mail is elohim757@gmail.com, his IP address was 68.38.147.199 at the time which would make him a user of Comcast in the vicinity of Plainsboro, New Jersey.

This is new to me since most of my detractors have been smart enough not to do something as stupid as make an illegal death threat while leaving clues to your identity. I’m sure if the authorities wanted to they could easily find out exactly who this dude is. However, I doubt there is anything seriously worth worrying about; if this guy really wanted to kill some Commies, there’s a whole office building full of them in New York which is much closer than yours truly, all the way out in Montana (but hey, if I wind up dead in a ditch somewhere, you know who to blame).

That being said, I wonder if maybe Comcast would like to know that one of its subscribers is using their service to threaten to kill people? If this guy is going to threaten to kill me I figure the least I can do is fuck with him a little bit. Maybe getting his (or probably his mom’s) internet service disconnected would teach him not to be an internet tough guy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s Thanksgiving. It’s a happy day for me because I love food like you can’t imagine. But as we celebrate the harvest today, we have a lot to be thankful for.

If you’ve got a big old bird in the oven, remember to be thankful to the farm workers who raised it, the workers in the slaughterhouse who prepared it, the truck drivers who brought it to the store, and the store clerks who put it on the shelf and sold it to you!

Be thankful that in a few short months we’re finally going to get rid of the dumbest President the United States has ever had and replace him with someone with a brain in his head.

Be thankful that, for the moment at least, the political momentum in the U.S. has shifted, and we’re no longer drifting rightward but finally toward the left.

So there’s a little bit of “food for thought” while you’re whipping up some “food for gut”. Hopefully I’m not the only one who thought of this. My head is buzzing with ideas so I will probably make a better post here in the next couple days, so stay tuned.

Goin’ to School!

Hey everyone. I’m off to Young Communist League School in Knoxville, TN. I’m leaving for Missoula in about 30 minutes or so; the drive is going to suck because it dumped a bunch of snow everywhere. I hope I make it there alive! Anyway, don’t trash the place while I’m gone.

Happy Birthday!

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you might be aware that, as of this month, Red Montana has been online for a solid year. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but we’ve made it further than a lot of blogs have. So happy birthday RM!

Looking back, we’ve had some ups and downs, but I’m impressed that I’ve been able to keep this project going more or less continuously for a year straight. I think there are supposed to be something like 300 million blogs on the internet but only about 15 million that are updated on a weekly basis. So aside from some periods where things have gotten slow due to personal stuff in my life, I like to think that means that this blog is somewhere in the top 5%.

Anyway, on a semi-related note, I’d like to mention that our recruitment efforts in the Butte area is starting to bare fruit. For those of you over 30 — too old to be in the youth league — there is some interest in starting up an official Communist Party club in the Butte area. I’ll keep you posted on whether or not this actually comes to pass, but the first requirement is to round up a couple more members. So if there are any other Red Montanans out there who are being shy or something, let me know, and I can give you more information and point you in the right direction as far as getting your red card.

That goes for people who aren’t in the Butte area, as well. The Party has launched something recently called the “Club At Large” which is for members who don’t have an active club in their area, so even if you don’t have other Party members in your town you can stay in touch with the organization and get your “directives from Moscow”, as I like to call them. Besides the Club At Large, our Butte/Helena club would be happy to add any comrades to our club mailing list and keep in touch with others around the state so that we can expand our area of influence. So, even if you’re in one of the far-flung reaches of the State, speak up! We’d love to have you on board.

Anyway, that’s all for today. I’ve got a few beginnings to drafts in the works but nothing promising yet. When something comes to maturity I’ll be sure to post it up.

Holy shit, I’m alive.

So I didn’t intend to keep this blog dormant for so long, but here’s the scoop. I went up to Alaska to work in the oilfields and touched a computer a grand total of 3 times while I was up there (imagine living in a camp where there are a couple hundred people sharing 6 computers and precious little bandwidth, and only having 2 hours of free time a day and you’ll understand why). Since then I’ve been laid off, generally demoralized, and kind of out of the loop as far as Montana goes.

But, I just thought I’d let you know that as soon as I have something to write about I intend to fully get back into this thing. Also, there are some folks who left me comments and it took me a while to approve them, so I apologize. So here’s a fun picture showing you what the Arctic Ocean in June looks like (yes, that’s ice):

Odds n Ends

So a couple of things:

1) I’m going to be in the great state of Warshington until Sunday night/Monday morning. I hear they have internets there but I’ve got stuff planned (anyone going to the Mariners game Saturday?) so if you’ve got any comments to make about how I am a horrible monster, and they don’t get approved until next week, don’t worry. I’m not trying to censor you or anything.

2) In keeping with my pro-blog stance, I wanna give some linkage to Coffee House Poetry, who did me the honor on their blogroll. I don’t really know how to sum that joint up other than good stuff, funny stuff, thought-provoking stuff, what have you, so just do yourself a favor and click on the linky link.

3) I’ve got some ideas for new posts but I don’t have time to start new drafts, but I’m hoping to do a defense of Socialist Realist art, and I also hope that something interesting will happen in Montana so I can write about it (I know Obama and the Clintons were here in Butte, but every blog ever is already all over it and I don’t have anything new to add.

Have a good weekend, comrades!

Holidays!

So as part of the ongoing War on Christmas, I will be spending my HOLIDAYS in Alaska (actually since I’m an atheist I don’t celebrate on holiday specifically…I just party for a month straight. Rock on!)

Anyway, I don’t have a laptop so I will be largely sans computer. The folks have a computer in their igloo, but I’m going to try and be social and not spend all my time on the internet.

What does this mean for you? I might not post with the same frequency as I have been. I will definitely try to throw up a couple posts over the holiday season but if I don’t keep you fed every couple days, please don’t give up on my blog. I’ll be back, I promise.

Random Stuffage…

Just an update really quick. I’m having company for the holidays and trying not to be a complete and total computer nerd. I’m also really getting my ass kicked in Calculus and have some serious studying ahead of me. I apologize if I haven’t been totally on top of this blog in the past few days, but keep checking back because I will definitely be back in action by next week, if not sooner.

I’ll try and get at least one good update over the break, but it might be slow going, so just keep your eyes peeled. In the mean time, if you’re looking for something to read, you might check out Sam Webb’s report to the National Committee of the Communist Party, USA this last week. Also interesting is the PWW’s report on the latest congress of the Chinese Communist Party. While I’m trying to focus mainly on Montana issues with this blog, I think that these two pieces are evidence that the Communist movement worldwide is moving out of a defensive position and is poised to move ahead, which I find encouraging. If there are any fellow reds out there reading this, maybe those will give you some good reads while I work on my next update.

Until then, go eat some turkey or something.