It is my habit to send an announcement of every new post on this blog to my Trotskyist friends. Where I have an email address I use that, and otherwise I use X (the only thing I ever use X for). Socialist Action has an email address that they post here. Click the "email" button to discover the address, which is socialistaction@lmi.net. This has been routine for the past several months.
My email, sent on Dec. 31, elicited a return email like this:
Friends,
Quota exceeded (mailbox for user is full)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dan Jelski <trotskyschildren@gmail.com>
To: socialistaction@lmi.net, (other addresses deleted)
Cc:
Bcc:
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2024 17:09:19 -0500
Subject: The General Strike Fizzles
Two things to notice. First, I addressed the letter to socialistaction@lmi.net, yet the message came back as jmackler@lmi.net. This suggests that Mr. Mackler simply forwards email to Socialist Action to his own personal account. Or, put another way, Mr. Mackler is the only person in the "National Office."
The second notable fact is that the message was rejected because "(mailbox for user is full)." In other words, Mr. Mackler has not checked his email for some time. My first response was that I'd been blocked, but that's apparently not been the case. Mr. Mackler has, at worst, been diligently deleting my emails unread. But he's fallen down on the job.
So I conclude that the man is ill. Which is a shame, but given that he's 84 or 85 years old is perhaps not too surprising.
More disturbing is that Socialist Action has not planned for this eventuality. There's nobody around to even check the email account! So I think Socialist Action is defunct.
The website offers more clues. The last edition of their print/pdf newspaper dates from June, 2022. The last post to the website, written by Mr. Mackler, is dated Dec. 4th, ie, almost four weeks prior to my email. It is an article about Syria--I have not read it. It is in any case seriously out of date (Assad was still in power). Mr. Mackler also authored an article dated Nov. 29th. So whatever has happened has occurred fairly recently.
I've dubbed Mr. Mackler "Vanguard Man," suggesting that he, alone, possesses the precisely correct program capable of leading the proletariat to the coming revolution. If Vanguard Man is truly incapacitated, then the prognosis for world revolution is seriously diminished. Perish the thought!
I hold no personal animus against Mr. Mackler. I do hope for a speedy recovery and for a continuation of the Socialist Action website.
Further Reading:
- Oberlin? Mackler? Time Takes its Toll
- Socialist Action's Political Report
- Socialist Action's Convention, 2014
