I've been pulling my hair out on Democratic Underground, so I decided to join PI. Actually someone told me to "go back to PI with all the other Marxists" and I said--wait! There's a discussion board with Marxists on it!? So here I am.

Revolutionary Socialist. More or less a Trotskyite. Active in organizing with and for war resisters and labor organizing and LGBT organizing. Interested in getting to know folks here. And already do know some folks here. :)

It's a strange site, but not bad. It started as a DU refugee site a few years ago, grew to encompass many different views, and ran smack into the Socialists "are alienating the Kucinich-types" problem. The Socialists got purged, the site went towards conspiracy and life-style radicalism directions. Then, a few months ago, the Socialists (who had since "evolved") got invited back... the reds and the New Agers yelled at each other, and the site went kinda dormant. Now, it seems to be growing again.

The discussion is fairly materialist and often serious. The composition is a few old reds, more new ones, and some people who are radical democrats or are in "transition". We mostly avoid "sectarian" battles (too small for that) and there is probably one (and not more than two) of each kinda Red. Talkin' about real life and social criticism seems to be the most valuable stuff around here.

The tone is sometimes hot, but cools very quickly. Welcome.

It's nice to see ya. Anaxarchos gave you the rundown pretty good. There aren't a lot of us active here these days but that doesn't keep us from talking and learning.

:hi:

but is your name a reference to the Bogdanov novel that Lenin eviscerates in Empirio-criticism?

:D

Don't worry thats about the worst "hazing" you'll get

I think that the most important thing to remember here is that we don't get personal. If you say something stupid you will be called on it (I know from experience), but that is a good thing. We deal in ideas and thinking - not feelings and self-expression. This isn't about any of us, it is about supporting the working class (whatever that means). There is a class war going on and most of us here have picked a side.

Welcome!

kidding. It is amazing how many over there mouth 60 year old propaganda.

The message is spreading: "You belong with the other commies at PI"!

Woo-woo...

It's all dusty and shit in this joint, clutter everywhere. Someone clean up the bathroom, it's disgusting.

I'll go on a beer run and pack the bong...

:rofl:

it is events, the election of Obama and the utter nakedness of the Democratic Party when they are in power. 'The message' is a fine lens making what seems incomprehensible plain as day.

And correct, too...

I'm a fuckin' idiot. Comes of snuffling on the forest floor, sometimes a truffle, sometimes a rabbit turd.

I hope you find some discussions to suit!

than your other line...

welcome aboard...

I'm a relative noob. I love the people here though and I'm reading and learning a lot. I'm starry messenger on DU, too.

http://www.macysinc.com/shopforacause/images/macys_shopping_bag.jpg

Anybody else find this more than a little weird?

:wtf:

...and raise you some sneakers:

http://rlv.zcache.com/red_star_shoes-p167702498579453282qj2c_400.jpg

I looked it up.

http://www.nantucketmagazine.net/NSide/?p=20


But in 1837, Macy was only a boy of about 15 and expected to assist in the island’s whaling industry. He set off on his first whale ship voyage as a cabin boy for the Emily Morgan, remembered Macy’s official historian and director of event operations, Bob Rutan. “While he was with the ship, there was a bad storm, and the only navigational tool they had to go by was the North Star, which in this storm appeared to have a reddish glow to it,” Rutan related.

“That’s how they got their bearings and stayed on course. After that trip, R.H. Macy never went back to sea, but he got a red star tattoo because he always considered that to be a lucky thing for him.” The red star tattoo remained only a personal talisman for a while, as he pursued various ailing business ventures.

Macy’s historian Robert M. Grippo is the author of “Macy’s: The Store. The Star. The Story,” due out this fall from Square One Publishers. According to Grippo, R.H. Macy’s father and brother both owned dry goods stores in Nantucket and Boston, respectively. Inspired by his older brother, R.H. traveled to Boston, where he opened his own store sometime between 1843 and 1844. When it failed, Macy and his brother relocated to Marysville, California in 1850 to open a dry goods store during the Gold Rush. That also went belly up, however, and Macy returned to Haverhill, where he opened a store from 1851 to 1857 and adopted a temporary crowing cock logo. According to Rutan, “There weren’t a lot of retailers trying to logo at that point.” Then, in October of 1858, Macy moved his location yet again, this time to the site that would make it famous, the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York City. It was a rebirth for both store and owner, as Macy began trying his hand at creative advertising copy, while also allowing people to believe that he had been a whale ship captain back home on Nantucket.

“Throughout the 1860s, 1870s and even into the 1880s, people referred to him as ‘Captain Macy,’” Rutan said. “For 30 years, the company tried to play on this idea of Macy as a Nantucket whaling captain, which was not the truth. They got very sketchy with it.”

At one point, the store displayed a wooden carving of R.H. Macy in full captain’s regalia, according to Rutan. “A long-term captain on a whaling ship is a better story than cabin boy for one trip.” Macy began using images of the star in his advertising copy shortly after relocating to New York. Rutan said the earliest existing image dates back to 1863. In newspaper broadsheets containing 50 to 60 ads, the star graphic, sometimes made of dots or asterisks, was an eye-catching way to draw attention to an ad. Additionally, Macy summoned rNantucket Magazineomantic images of navigational stars in poetic ad copy, as Grippo showed by including in his book a poem entitled “Westward Ho!” from one of the earliest star-themed ads.

Do you really own Macy's?