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Prison Notebooks of Phoenix Quinn, part 5

As part of my on-going efforts to glorify celebrate the legacy of Phoenix Quinn by reviewing materials recently discovered in his "Prison Notebooks", I thought it might be interesting to re-publish in full one of his early articles.

It is from the period when he had left the USA, emigrating first to Czechia and then to New Zealand, and was pondering the fate and direction of his beloved Socialist Freedom Party as it was going through some transitions, so this would be from around Day 1050 or so...

My intention in re-publishing this article is two-fold. It gives an interesting insight into how PQ thought about party organization. And it demonstrates that the SFP has gone through multiple periods of activity, decline, upheaval, re-examination, re-organization and re-thinking.

So make yourself a nice cafe con leche, sit back, relax and enjoy this little trip down socialist-memory lane....




Publishing Tomorrow's News Today Since Yesterday


Requiem for the Socialist Freedom Party?


This is a special report from Nomos Laboratories.

Our trained monke... err... scientists have been observing the Socialist Freedom Party since the summer of 2009. Saddened by its demise as the beacon of global e-proletarian revolution, we decided it was time to reveal to the world what's going on with the party once known as "the mighty mouse of the American sixth parties".




Ever since that wunderkind coryphaeus of e-science, Generalissimus Great Teacher-Leader Osmany Ramon...

...left this world to care for his baby daughter in real life, the SFP has been a bit of a rudderless ship.

Not the least of Chairman Ramon's world-shaking contributions was the development of the revolutionary science of Ramonism-Chuikovism, which provided generations of little red erepublikaners with a glorious world-historical vision. In this version of the e-communist dream, a global network of nodal communes was to rise up and challenge the very foundations of the game.

Aside from his wizard-like powers of conjecture, old-time SFPers and their friends fondly remember the Man of Steel's inspiring off-the-cuff quips like, "Oh, I really hate him...but in a friendly way.".

And his thoughtful musings... "I've considered what an eRep assassination might look like..."

His hard-nosed devotion to anti-revisionism: "Those communist parties of old were really fucking lame."

And most of all, his dedication to the working class: "I have been operating under the notion that the end goal is to minimize exploitation and maximize fun times for the working class in this game, hence my pushing for being a large tent party with a lot of ways to participate. And also a party that looks for every opportunity to effect change for the working class, whether it be reform or revolution."

Yes,




Sadly, Our Great Friend is not the only proletarian hero who has faded to black...

Also long-gone is the SFP's outspoken firebrand, Fredrick Engels, whose vitriolic attacks on everything to do with Harrison Richardson were once the talk of the town. Fred had the audacity to give up e-communism for real life political activism, leaving the SFP without anyone willing to throw the kind of flash-bang grenades that really pump up the votes in the e-media. (We can only imagine -- and cringe slightly -- thinking about how Fred would've responded to HR's recent announcement that he too is leaving the game.) Also, Fred got a girlfriend.

The truth of the matter is that the SFP's revolutionary and anarcho-communist core has left the building.




While we're counting the bodies, let's not even mention the fall-off in activity that occurred after Civil Anarchy abandoned the Party of the Workers in order to earn a big paycheck with the "Party of the Workers" and Rainy Sunday flipped over from Left to Right, taking her amazing organizational skills with her over to the Extreme Right-Wing Trollers. (Ooops, too late, wasn't gonna mention that, was I? Hiya, Civ and Rainy! You know I'm joking, right? Heh-heh, please don't e-assasinate me...)


Well. There's just no nice way to say it. It's a fact...

* Nobody has represented the SFP at the Internationale for weeks on end.

* The SFP has not run a successful Congressional candidate in quite some time.

* The once-mighty SFP Commune is in mothballs.

* The gory glory days of the Bear Cavalry are a faded memory.

* And the OCTOcom, bless its heart, never found its legs.





Without their Fearless Leader, without their bomb-throwers and party crashers, their hard-core organizers and pontificators, the SFP became something of a degenerate worker's statelet. All flag and no pole, as it were. A hollow shell of its former self.





To be fair, the SFP hasn't been a total sixth-party wash-out, like, say, the Umbrella Research Party. (trollala!)

There have been several attempts at resusitation since the Great Leader traded in organizing New World Revolution for organizing Nappies...

Ferinstance...

The Great Proletarian Cultural Mario Brother and Eternal Sentinel of #socialistfreedomparty, Zhao Ji still stands watch over the IRC, where he has vowed to carry out his duties, as the Great Leader liked to say, "Until the last elitist is hung by the guts of the last Dioist". But nowadays ZJ is no longer e-alive in the game and he mainly monitors the deafening sounds of silence on the SFP channel.

And then there's...

Multi-time SFP PP Mark Valshannar (now exposed as a deep Haruhist agent and follower of a nefarious Trotskyoid-Anime-ist cabal of cloud-watchers). MV wrecked the old Green Party, so former Green PP Kyle Galli came over to the SFP and tried to pull together something of a sixth party mini-consolidation. He even put in a term as SFP PP. But there were no fresh sprouts to speak of. Evidently, Greens weren't that interested in becoming Reds.

And of course there's...

Phoenix Quinn (known affectionately as PQ 'cause he's Pretty Quick with a snappy comeback), the SFP's official cantankerous old coot now in self-imposed exile in New Zealand. He tried to rejuvenate things when he was PP by coming up with the Revolutionary Committee structure, aimed at bringing fresh blood to the leadership. But our informed sources say he's basically a grumpy and lazy old sod...

...who's more interested in writing goofy long-winded articles than actually organizing anything. There are also rumors that he's not entirely human and may actually be either an ostrich or a squirrel. Nobody's quite sure. Others say that he's like 100 years old, maybe more, and some say he's so old that he once had a bitch-slapping contest with Lenin himself over some things that were said in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" about PQ's pal Bogdanov. At any rate, he's a bit of an odd duck.

On the bright side...

Vincent Nolan gave the SFP a shot in the arm. Following a successful international tour that led to the creation of the Indian Workers Movement, Comrade-Citizen Nolan returned to the States and has carried on his cheerful tradition of actually being funny and engaging with people. Nevertheless, though a couple of new players joined the ranks during his term as PP, Party membership continued to plummet. A real e-working class hero, Citizen Nolan in fact continues to try to weave the tattered threads of the SFP back into a coherent tapestry, despite a heavy load of schoolwork.

And we shouldn't neglect to mention that...

Long-time SFP stalwart R00fles Mesyats recently emerged blinking madly from the shadowy underground world of veteran SFP supporters to take on the PP role. One of the oldest of the Old Red Guards, Brother Mesyats has always upheld the Romantic Shining Path of Ramonist-Chuikovism through thick and thin, through ups and downs, backs and forths, flashbacks and stupors, never wavering, never whining, and never, never, never surrendering. Kind of like the situation with PQ, however, there are rumors floating around that R00fles may actually be some sort of clever speaking animal, possibly a tall white rabbit. When quizzed on this point, he cryptically responded by saying "Bring on ze lulz."



Is the red flag still flying there?


So... as somebody or another once aske😛 "What Is To Be Done?"

To answer that question, and also to see if he had any fresh conspiracy theories about what the frig happened last night when Comcast Broadband crashed all over the Eastern seaboard, we went to chat with our old "friend" Rant Casey:


He's not a member of the Socialist Freedom Party. He doesn't even play eRepublik. In Rant's words: "eRepublik is a pathetic waste of time. There are no car crashes. Hell, there's not even any car chases. The only decent thing about it is Jon Malcom. He's cute 'cause he doesn't give a shit and he makes fun of everything."

When we asked Rant Casey how he knew about Jon Malcom if he didn't play eRepublik, Casey changed the subject. Or he forgot what we were just talking about. The thing is, he's a big "friend of Jude Connors", if you catch my drift.

Casey's always a good one to talk to about difficult matters, though. He has a very unique perspective. Dark. Bitter. Cyncial. Maybe a little jaded too.

But unique.

At any rate, we catalogued the situation with the SFP for Rant and waited for him to do his oracular thing.






After a long pause, this is what he offere😛

"First, don't change the name 'cause if that Ramon dude comes back he'll frikkin' kill you.

"Second, think about changing the name. Americans are such dopes. Most of 'em freak out at the slightest bit of independent thinking. I mean, look at the crap in the e-American media. They're all a bunch of sheep. A mild word like 'socialism' makes 'em pee in their pants. Maybe just call it the 'Freedom Party'. Yeah. Maybe that'll trick a few lame-brained libertarians into joining!

"Second, think about changing the name. Americans aren't stupid. They're just bored. "Socialist Freedom Party" and all that retro-Russian-revolution hoo-ha is lame. If you're gonna be the "real" far-left party, then go whole-hog... and be funny about it at the same time. Try something with lots of K's in it... 'cause... you know... K's are funny. Like the "Spektacular Libertarian-Kommunist Cabal" or the "Party Party" or something. Oh wait. That doesn't have any K's. Whatever... And promote the left-libertarian aspect of it. Be exactly the opposite of a bunch of authoritarian shmucks.

"Third, take Ramon's ideas and build on them. Expand them in wild ways. You don't have to call everything a "commune" or name everything "SFP This" and "SFP That". Screw the idea of being any kind of "vanguard" party. What's the point of having a sixth party that just wants to be another Top Five party anyway? Do something completely different. Start a bunch of organizations and promote all sorts of autonomous stuff. Encourage factions and have them fight with each other in the press. Ha-ha! Yeah, make it more fun to start an org affiliated with your Party than starting yet another sixth party with three people in it.

"Fifth, screw elected positions and committees and all that crap. Be more like the Nose Dive party or whatever its called. Insist that everybody who wants to be active has to run their own organization and do something with it in the name of the Party. Give out prizes and ribbons and awards and junk like that instead of assigning titles. Also, drop that "comrade" BS. Not even real-life commies call each other "comrade" any more. It sounds retarded.

"Sixth, ummm... I forgot.

"Sixth... hey, do watch 'Sons of Anarchy'? That's an awesome show. It's like 'Hamlet', but with motorcycles and beat-downs.

"Oh right. Your SFP. Umm... Seventh, I dunno. Have fun. Don't worry too much about being purist "e-leftists". Worry about being pure hell-raisers. Have a hard-core leftist affiliated org if enough people want to do that. But don't be wussies about it. Call it 'Communism Now!' and start it up in the Polish-occupied States. Heh-heh! The Poles will frikkin' shit. But if somebody wants to start up an org called "The Society of St. Paul in the New World" or "Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs", that's cool too. Know what I mean? Encourage diversity. Remember: the revolution will not go according to plan...

"Eight? Yeah...

"I'm hungry. Hey, did you bring anything to eat? Man, I'm starving."