Blogger Notes and New Team Member Announced

I established this blog a little over a year ago. I thought I should post something about blogging in general. I enjoyed the level of dialog that occured on this blog, and made friends all over the world.

This blog has visitors that I have little agreement with, even on the left. A Maoist can argue directly with a Trotskyist, in a more civil fashion than on the street here. Some of the dialogs have been intense; just read any Hugo Chavez post I made. I have actually reversed positions because of what I learned from the dialogs.

I write a post, than surf for new people to respond. To get traffic, you have to sign others blogs. Another action is to be liberal about trading links. I don't agree with, or even understand the politics, of all my links.

I think shorter posts are better than longer. How can you receive comments if everything is said? Like the great artists who left part of a painting unfinished, so the viewers imagination can work. To comment you don't need to write a book, a short comment trumps no comment.

I have invited to post at this blog Maryam Namazie. I have been courting her for a few months, to contribute to this blog, to post anytime and on anything she wants. Maryam finally consent to be a team member. It is generous of her, since she is a new mother. She knows I have dusagreements with her party about communist history, and the nature of the Soviet Union. I have found in her, a strong voice against imperialism and Islamism at the same, and a fighter for secularism, human rights, and refugee relief work. With war drums sounding against Iran, her insights will add much to this blog. I'm stealing a short bio of hers from her website: Maryam Namazie is currently a producer for TV International English, a member of the Central Council of the Organisation for Women's Liberation and Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran's International Relations Committee. She is also co-editor of WPI Briefing and the Worker-communist Review.

She has spoken at numerous conferences and written many articles on women's rights issues, violence against women, political Islam, and secularism - some of which have been translated into various languages. She has been interviewed on BBC TV and radio, including the Heaven and Earth programme and the Moral Maze, ABC TV Australia, quoted in Time magazine, the Independent, the Observer, the Guardian, Al Ahram Weekly, Persian media outlets, and had articles published in various sources, including Tribune, Gay Times, Medusa Journal, Gender Policy Review.

Previously, Namazie was the elected Executive Director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugee, a refugee run organisation with 60 branches in 15 countries worldwide; founded the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees (CHAIR); was the Human Rights Advocates Training Programme Coordinator at Columbia University's Centre for the Study of Human Rights in New York and the NYC Refugee Coordinator/ US National Steering Committee Member of Amnesty International. She also ran a refugee women's leadership training programme in NYC.

She works and lives in the UK.

See: Maryam Namazie.