http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/User:Lance_Murdoch
User:Lance Murdoch
From InfoshopOpenWiki, the free encyclopedia.
Hello, I'm Lance Murdoch.
I volunteer at an infoshop in New York City, May Day books[1]. I'm interested in anarchism, especially anarcho-syndicalism and to some degree anarcho-communism. I consider myself part of a worldwide workers movement which seeks to bring all means of production, workplaces, capital, and what have you into the control of the workers who work on them, and who create all of the wealth of the world. I sometimes attend local Wobbly meetings.
I was a militant Wikipedia user for some time, and am happy there is a Wikipedia for anarchists now. I intend to financially support Infoshop's open wiki as I am able to do so. I do see a need for a broad, popular front wiki for anarchists, socialists, communists, liberals and what have you to have encyclopedia articles on history and politics, hopefully the rules here will not be anarchist-only draconian, or perhaps another wiki of that type will pop up, I no longer have the resources to put one up myself unfortunately.
My political reading bounces around - I read a lot of Noam Chomsky's work, then I began reading about the Spanish Civil War. Then I became interest in economics, which there is not a lot of anarchist writing about, so I began reading Das Kapital. This lead me to read a lot about the history of communism which I am still reading about.
Table of contents [showhide] 1 Editting guidelines 2 Questions 3 Reinventing the wheel 4 My articles 5 Articles I will write or rewrite 6 Family tree 7 Bibliography
Editting guidelines
Since this encyclopedia is small, I am editting in some of the entries from the Encyclopedia of Marxism (which are GNU FDL) as well as some other sources. Some changes I have been making from the various sources which I think are good policy:
1) Do not personalize things. Hitler did not invade anywhere, Germany did. Even saying Germany invaded is imprecise, but it's better than saying Hitler anyhow. This irks me - it's like saying "Sam Walton built Wal-Mart". The hell he did, like one man with Herculean effort created all of Wal-Mart's fortune. Wal-Mart's thousands and millions of workers are what created Wal-Mart.
2) Give facts, not opinions. This is an encyclopedia, not a polemic. Give people the facts and let them make up their own minds, you don't have to pre-digest everything for them.
Questions
These are some questions about bias in language. Of course, I feel that speaking of blue collar Americans as middle class as opposed to working class is bourgeois, but some things have to be investigated more. Some examples:
- Is calling industrialized countries "developed" and non-industrialized countries "developing" bourgeois? I would guess it is somewhat.
- What is a liberal exactly? Only one in five[2] Americans identifies themselves as liberal.
- Wikipedia calls the war between the US and Vietnam the "Vietnam War". Vietnamese call it the "American War". What is a good name for it? Probably the "American-Vietnam War" or the "Vietnam-American war" or something like that. Lance Murdoch 14:07, 27 May 2005 (PDT)
Reinventing the wheel
Obviously, it would be better to jumpstart this site with works already in the public domain.
People have been bringing Wikipedia GFDL'd works here, which is fine. Wikipedia itself has pilfered from old public domain encyclopedias. I have brought articles from the Encyclopedia of Marxism, which is GFDL.
Anyhow, there is a Great Soviet Encyclopedia - first edition 1926, second edition 1949, third edition 1969-1978. Since the USSR only began copyrighting works in May 27, 1973, the first and second editions are, I believe, public domain, and the third edition might be. The questions are is the third edition copyright, and what are the copyrights of the English translated works?
Other problems are is the encyclopedia online, and is in English? Actually, it appears it is online, in Russian:
Encyclopedia 1
Encyclopedia 2
This might be a good source of material.
My articles
Here are articles I had a significant part in writing:
* American Committee of the Fourth International * Anarchist Communist Federation * Anarcho-Syndicalist Review * Bay Area Revolutionary Union * Bolshevik Tendency * Communist League of America * Independent Socialist Clubs * Independent Socialist Club (incomplete) * Independent Socialist League * International Bolshevik Tendency * International Socialists * International Workingmen's Association * Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation * Libertarian Workers Group * RADACADS * Revolutionary Communist Party (incomplete) * Revolutionary Socialist League * Revolutionary Workers League (US) * Revolutionary Workers Headquarters * Revolutionary Union * Revolutionary Youth Movement * Social Revolutionary Anarchist Federation * Socialism and Liberation (incomplete) * Socialist Workers Party (USA) (incomplete) * Spartacist League (incomplete) * Students for a Democratic Society * Worker-Student Alliance * Workers Party of the United States * Workers Solidarity Alliance * Young Socialist League
Articles I will write or rewrite
* League for the Revolutionary Party * Revolutionary Marxists Committee * Workers Power * Trotskyist League * Workers League
* Socialist Party of America * Communist Party USA * Socialist Unity * Solidarity * International Socialist Organization
Family tree
This is a family tree of left groups. So far mostly American groups, which came out of the Trotskyist granddaddy, the Communist League of America (I figured if I wanted to start with sects that split, I'd start with the Trots). Note the Trotskyist-Anarchist crossovers
User:Lance _Murdoch/family tree
Bibliography
* SDS, Kirkpatrick Sale, Vintage Books, 1974, ISBN 0394719654 * The Prophet's Children, Tim Wohlforth, Humanities Press Intl Inc, 1994, ISBN 0391038192 * Revolution in the Air, Max Elbaum, Verso, 2002, ISBN 1859846173
http://www.redapollo.org/wiki/index.php/User:Lance_Murdoch
User:Lance Murdoch From Red Wiki
Hello, I'm Lance. I edit here and Anarchopedia, Infoshop's OpenWiki (When it's up), and sometimes dKosopedia and Demopedia and even Wikipedia, sometimes.
I feel these articles should be honest and factual. On the other hand, most articles on Socialism, Anarchism, Communism and what-not dwell entirely on negative aspects of Socialist history, so I tend not to do that. In this regard I'm a fan of the "sympathetic point of view". Wikipedia says it is "neutral" yet most of it's articles on socialism are screeds against it to one degree or another, I feel it's better to just be honest and tell people to read multiple sources to get a full picture and to decide for themselves.
The bourgeois point of view focuses on individuals, the socialist point of view focuses on classes. Thus my articles try not to focus on what Bush is doing, or what FDR did, or Stalin or Hitler or Mao Zedong. I don't write a lot of biographical articles. I'm more interested in what parties, groups, and classes did than what some supposedly important individual did.
I also try not to use bourgeois propaganda phrases. An example is "free market". What does that mean? Putting the word free aside, saying the US has a free market and, say, the USSR didn't is silly. Further putting aside corporate welfare and the like, the difference between the US and USSR economies were not the markets - a market for commodities, say a "super-market" which sold food, was not much difference in the US or the USSR. The main difference was over production and control over production of commodities. Not the market and exchange of them, which was more similar, not the consumption of commodities, which was similar. There are lots of other bourgeois propaganda phrases - middle class, Viet Cong, Shining Path, Khmer Rouge etc. I try avoiding all of these terms.
http://www.redapollo.org/wiki/index.php/User_talk:Lance_Murdoch
User talk:Lance Murdoch From Red Wiki
You've been opped. Quality articles, BTW.--Nimda
Thanks. I wrote most of them for Infoshop's OpenWiki and Anarchopedia after I became disillusioned with Wikipedia. Both of those Wiki's are anarchist-focused, this wiki is probably a better place for many of these articles. Most of my articles are written by me. Many of them are translations from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (with some changes, the GSE is apt for hyperbole, throwing clauses like "led by the example of the Great October Socialist Revolution") - an encyclopedia which is public domain's outside of the USSR, atleast up until the 3rd edition published before 1973. I don't like the trend of copying articles from Wikipedia into other Wiki's, but do it once-in-a-rare-while, when the author of the article is good and it hasn't been ruined too much by the Wikipedia peanut gallery. Anyhow, I'm still writing and translatin', right now I'm working on Committee for Non-Violent Action.--[User:Lance Murdoch|Lance Murdoch]] 06:21, 21 Jun 2005 (MDT)
Suppose I just helped out with'sum 'rit's hier!--Ole the Marxist 14:11, 27 Jul 2005 (MDT)