CHAT: SWP anecdotes (was: RE: (POLITICS!!!): Putting the duh in Florida)

David Bell
> > From: John Cowan
> >
> > On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> > > Socialist Workers
> > > Socialist (I wonder what the difference is?)
> >
> > The SP is a wishy-washy united frnt.  The SWP are committed Trotskyists,
> > dedicated to universal revolution. (My father always voted SWP;
> > my mother, like me, held her nose firmly and voted Democratic.)
>
> And in my radical youth I left the Young Peoples Socialist League (YPSL),
> the youth organization of the Socialist Party, to join the Young Socialist
> Alliance (YSA), the youth organization of the Socialist Workers Party.
> Although YPSL was somewhat left of its parent organization, it wasn't left
> enough for my youthful passions.  I later became one of YSA's delegates to
> an International Socialist Youth Congress held in Caracas sometime in the
> early '60s.  Ah youth!
My 2 Socialist Worker anecdotes:

1. An acquaintance and former colleague of mine was recruited to sell the
   "Socialist Worker" newspaper. This he did, standing on the street
   corner, calling "SO-cialist WOR-ker! -- Buy one, get one free!"

2. In *my* radical youth I was, up until the death of socialism in, iirc,
   April 1985, a de facto (albeit dissenting) member of the SWP, but I never
   officially joined, in case at some time in the future a totalitarian
   regime took over the country and decided to purge former SWP members.
   (Half my family roots are in Central Europe, it must be remembered; a
   certain amount of paranoia would seem to be prudent.)

--And.