What do you want to know?
I’m in the Green Party of England and Wales, having joined as part of the 2015 ‘Green Surge’. Some years before that I would have described myself as a ‘revolutionary socialist’. Inevitably then, my posts might end up being as much about untangling my own political history as having anything useful to share with others.
I was born in 1961; which will be relevant for some who have been through similar or parallel personal political histories.
I’m white and hetro, which is relevant because we live in a world plagued by inequalities which I haven’t lived.
The things that have influenced my thinking recently (in no particular order) include;
- Facebook discussion with other ex-trots who are coming/have come to terms with the fatal flaws inherent in that tradition
- Reading about Syria
- Reading John Medhursts’ No Less Than Mystic; A History of Lenin and the Russian Revolution for a 21st-Century Left
- Actually doing stuff as a member of the Green Party, with some great local members, and as a Councillor
- Chewing over ideas with my 19 year old son, who is pretty sharp about this stuff
- Chewing over ideas with my partner, who comes at things from a usefully different perspective
- Having dealings with intelligent, likable, mostly positive people from other political traditions and walks of life that had been beyond my ken until the last 5 or 6 years
Julian Dean 