In this post I plan on introducing myself and my intentions for this blog and its connected cooking show.
First, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Guillotine Gabe, I’m a college student in the DMV (D.C., Maryland, Virginia) along the East Coast of the so-called United States. I have been involved in leftist activism/organizing in one way or another for nearly two years. This is the first time I’ve really gone about writing concerning politics/activism and I figured that I could do something novel and combine two of my greatest loves; radical politics and cooking.
This blog is about two things: Communism and Cooking. These two topics are represented in the name of the blog by the Guillotines and Guacamole respectively.
Concerning the former, I take a ideological stance on communism that most closely associates with the tradition of Council Communism. It is an (obviously) explicitly anti-capitalist ideology that broadly walks the line between Marxist-Leninism and Anarchism. I hope to write extensively on the major ideas of Council Communism and why I so closely associate with it in future posts, but if are particularly interested in it right now you can begin with the works of Anton Pannekoek, Otto Ruhle, and Paul Mattick.
The guillotine was chosen as the symbol of communism for its non-sectarian appeal, it is neither a hammer and sickle nor a molotov cocktail. Although it has its roots in the efforts of the French bourgeoisie during the Revolution, it has been divested from those roots to be a symbol of popular discontent with the current state of affairs throughout the world. The guillotine remains the most romantic tool for the liquidation of the ruling the class that we have available to us.
The cooking aspect of this blog will mostly be dealt with on youtube through the classic style of a cooking show. The focus will be on food that is cheap to cook, as a result of my status as a student who can only work part-time, and overwhelmingly vegetarian if not also vegan (however, there may be examples of meat or fish being cooked, who knows).
Guacamole was very intentionally chosen after long hours of deliberation to represent the cooking half of this blog effort because guacamole is fucking delicious.
With the two aspects of this blog explained, I’ll address the intended structure of posts and videos. I hope to write a post about something generally related to leftist politics/history at least once a month and release a cooking video that in some way ties into the theme of the post. In addition to these monthly posts/videos, I would like to write up smaller posts consisting of book reviews, memes, quotes, opinions, and hopefully guest interviews.
Now that I’ve established the scope and structure of the blog as well as introduced myself I’d like to preview August’s analysis post: “Black Bloc vs Blackshirts” served with Black Bean Soup.
Guillotines and Guacamole 