deleonism.org site purpose

June 9, 2008
A first draft for a statement about
the purpose of deleonism.org

De Leonism, also called Marxism-De Leonism, is the socialist analysis and program that was developed by Daniel De Leon (1852-1914), press editor and public speaker for the Socialist Labor Party of America.

I describe deleonism.org as an independent research project that is not associated uniquely with any political or economic organization, and I, the registrant of the domain, am not a member of a political or economic organization.

I visualize the site's purpose as the documentation and archival of everything I can find that is related, directly or even very indirectly, to De Leon and the program that he developed. There are viewpoints about De Leon's role in the history of Marxist theory and activity. There is discussion of the meanings of common phrases and examples that De Leon used. It includes people who don't use the De Leonist designation but who show the historical influence of the political and industrial program. It includes samples of opposition viewpoints, from critics of industrial organization and critics of political organization. It includes biographical information about writers and speakers whom De Leon criticized. It includes news stories from past decades about event that are now forgotten, and issues that are now moot, except for historical reference. To supplement what I archive locally, a lengthy list of web links will be compiled. Everything that conceivably could be related as a footnote is relevant to the site's purpose.

I view this project as a resource for readers and writers, history students, supporters of organized labor, journalists, and others. Making converts to the idea of socialism is not the site's only purpose, although it is my personal desire. Articles belong on this site, not because they support the principles that De Leon developed, but because they mention those principles, or because De Leon mentioned those people or ideas, in any way.

I seek new writings, old writings, photographs, newspaper clippings, and anything available. Let's collaborate in our uses of scanners and graphics design tools. When submitting non-graphical text to this site, it will be most convenient for me if it is pasted into plain ascii text email, with no fonts or colors, and not contained in HTML markup or wordprocessor files. Make prior arrangements with me by contacting me through the site's contact form at http://www.deleonism.org/contact-us.php .

Please join our lively discussions in the site's public forum at http://www.deleonism.org/forum/ . Those interested in posting messages in the forum must read the "read this first" message to find the secret authorization code that a person needs when registering a user name and password.

I will soon be asking ask other web sites to link to http://www.deleonism.org/ (but please don't put my email address anywhere online, because of the "address harvesting" by spammers).

Responsible for contents:
Mike Lepore
29 Redmond Way
Stanfordville, NY 12581 USA