This is an introduction. Some of you I know very well, and some of you I don't know at all. I'd like to give you some idea of who I am. And, upfront, hope that those of you who have any contact with young radicals - anarchists, communists, greens, liberals, socialists, etc., - let them know about this series. By giving each piece a number it will be very easy for me to let newcomers catch up from the beginning. Thus, if next January, someone asks for back issues, I can send them on.

I'll run each "chapter" through the spellcheck, and do my best to proof them - but errors are inevitable. If you find something isn't clear, let me know. Some of you intimidate me a little - you know at least as much about socialism as I do.

From my experience in reading through correspondence among young socialists (and anarchists, greens, etc.) I'm impressed by the wealth of reading you've already done. It is important for anyone my age to realize that while there are books I have read that you probably haven't, if you are under thirty you live in a totally different world than I do. You take computers and the Internet for granted - for me they remain a challenge. (Hey, when I was a kid we had radio - not TV.)

I'm not an academic (though I have great respect for committed intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky), and taking on this project is as much an experiment for me as it is for you. My objective is to help the process of changing our world. A very slow process, but one in which I believe we can all play a part. Whether one has Gandhi as a model, or Lenin, or Mao, you will find they agreed on one thing - the need to build theories on pragmatic observation. To draw theories from the experiences of the real world, and to test those theories by using them in the real world.

All theories should be open to revision; for a Marxist to be dogmatic is a contradiction in terms. (Or as Marx is reported to have said "Thank God I am not a Marxist").

My background, for those who don't know me, is that of a white middle class man, who will be 73 next month, born and raised in Los Angeles, with parents who were staunch Republicans. (My father served in the army air force in World War II and came out a Lt. Col. - my grandfather served in the Spanish American War and also came out as a Lt. Col.). I graduated from UCLA in 1953, refused induction into the army during the Korean War, was arrested and very narrowly (on a legal technicality) avoided a prison term. Many of my friends at UCLA who were active in the pacifist or socialist movements did go to prison for draft resistance during the Korean War.

In 1956 I moved to New York City, where I have lived since (almost all of that time in the same apt. on the lower east side - thank God for rent control). I went to work for the radical movement in 1957 as the editorial secretary of Liberation magazine, worked closely with older radicals - AJ Muste, Bayard Rustin, Dave Dellinger, Sid Lens, Roy Finch, Paul Goodman, Norman Thomas. In 1960 I was hired by War Resisters League as field secretary and worked for WRL until I retired in 1999.

In 1951 I joined the Socialist Party, having become involved as a student at UCLA. I became a "student radical leader" of sorts during the McCarthy period. I have been a member of the Socialist Party to this day, with the exception of a year or two in the early 1970s when, in protest against the failure of the SP to take a clear position against the Vietnam War I resigned. (That is another long story, having little to do with "what is socialism"). During this time I have generally been in the left wing of the socialist movement.

During the Vietnam War I was active in mass movements against the war, doing a great deal of international travel to rally opposition to US policy, visiting Saigon in 1969, Hanoi in 1971, and both Hanoi and Saigon in 1981 after the liberation of Vietnam. It has been an interesting life - I was caught in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1968 when the Soviet Union invaded. I later visited the Soviet Union - I think the year was 1987 - at a time of profound change. I was in Libya on a tour led by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1990 and in Iraq in a similar delegation in 1991. I've been in Japan a number of times, working to build better ties between the Japanese and American peace movements.

There are those who feel a person's personal life has no bearing on their politics, but I question that. As a homosexual, who was astonished by the "gay revolution," I was an outsider to society, and have had some of the insights on "normal society" and its values which a person of a different color might have, or a woman.

My arrest record is long but not impressive - I never served more than 25 days in jail (an arrest in 1961 for resisting the civil defense drills). I ran for Congress in 1958 in Lower Manhattan but failed to qualify for the ballot, so the campaign was hardly an "event." In 1968 I ran again in the same district, this time on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket (there is still a remnant of that experiment in "electoral radicalism" in California), got on the ballot, had the endorsement of the Village Voice, and polled close to 5% of the vote. In 1980 I was the Socialist Party's candidate for President and again in 2000.

That will give those of you who don't know me some idea of who I am. If you pass through New York, don't hesitate to call. I'm in the phone book (212 / 674.7268) and live at 60 East Fourth St.

I have one published book, "We Have Been Invaded by the 21st Century," long out of print. I hope to start work on a book of memoirs. These "chapters" are not a way of avoiding confronting the horror of US policy as led by Bush (and the Democrats) but of helping, I hope, to deepen opposition to an economic and cultural system which drives this nation in the wrong direction.

It is always possible I will, at some point, pull these pieces together for a book but in the meantime none of this material is copyrighted and I encourage its broadest possible dissemination.

Fraternally,
David McReynolds