Socialist Equality Party

What are your thoughts on them?

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wsws.org/en/articles/2008/09/prin-s25.html
marxism.livejournal.com/300825.html
youtube.com/watch?v=yDpFv0VV1Os
robertscribbler.com/2016/11/18/arctic-storms-sparked-severe-polar-warming-sea-ice-melt-for-november-2016/
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/12/16/pers-d16.html
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/03/clim-f03.html
wsws.org/en/articles/2016/06/01/nino-j01.htm
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

WSWS does good reporting except for when they spaz out at the end of their articles.

Like, I get that worker mass movement is the only solution to capitalism. I don't need to be reminded every article.

There are rumors that the head of the SEP is actually a porky that's running it for nefarious purposes or some shit, but I've never seen any proof substantiating it. Supposedly the source was an ancient article posted on livejournal that's now defunct, so who knows.

It seems to hit some posters here right in the autism and occasionally make interesting threads, so if Ushijima poster is one person then I appreciate him for that.

I assume you mean the US one? There's a party by that name here in Britbongland. Typical Trots really.

its hard to say for sure since they really limit themselves by only spreading class consciousness through their news networks but even so they're probably the best american commie party tbqhfam.

Here is a story you might find interesting:

I know of two men. One of them is the leader of a small Trotskyist political party in the United States. He is known as David North. The other is the CEO of Grand River Printing & Imaging, a company that earns 25 million dollars a year according to its website. They call him David W. Green.

For nearly 30 years, Mr. North ran his political party and Mr. Green ran his business. Mr. North gave speeches about the exploitation of the working class. Mr. Green exploited his workers, deriving surplus value from their unpaid labor. Mr. North thundered against the corporations that dominate American political life. Mr. Green sought those corporations out as clients, and probably did lunch with some of their executives. Mr. North would talk about the disgusting climate of corporate greed that pervaded the American cultural atmosphere. Mr. Green helped actualize that corporate greed by printing advertisements to help them push their products on consumers.

Of course Mr. Green was no black-hearted tycoon. No, surely Mr. North would have to exempt from his tirades against the corporations that dominate American politics and exploit the entire world certain capitalist leaders who stood out as genuine pillars of their community. Why, Mr. Green had gone to great lengths to make his workers as comfortable as possible. He invested in their training and education, he included them as part of his "larger vision". But surely Mr. North, who understood Marxism very well, would point out the absence of democratic control of the workplace, or the usual separation of the worker from the instrument of production that is the requisite of capitalist production. After all, his party published in statement after statement that the aim of socialism was to create a democratic economy. Yet none of the reports on Grand River suggested anything about "democracy" or "worker ownership" - Mr. Green may have been a nice man who saw the value in keeping his work horses happy, but he was also a businessman. So surely, should Mr. Green and Mr. North ever meet one another, they would disagree on a great many things.

Unless, of course, they were the same man.

Could it be a case of multiple personality disorder? Not exactly. You see, David Green, alias David North, is a fraud. He is the biggest fraud to hit the socialist movement since James Robertson of the Spartacist League or "Chairman" Bob Avakian of the Revolutionary Communist Party. He owns a multi-million dollar corporation, and the upper echelons of his political cult and members of their family occupy key executive positions.

The rank and file members of the party are completely unaware of the existence of North/Green's corporate empire, which includes Grand River Printing, Merhing Books, and who knows what else. They assume that the party sustains itself through the donations that it begs for on its website and at its conferences, as well as the regular contributions that members are expected to "pledge" every month. I was exempt from this particular requirement only after I reminded one of its leaders of the considerable amounts of money I had invested in my own local branch. How nice of them. I can only imagine the giddy internal glee that North/Green must have felt every time some naive sucker wrote the SEP a check for a few thousand dollars. To North/Green, and the other party leaders, such donations were in fact chump change.

I can also only begin to imagine the difficult decisions that had to be made on a daily basis, such as, "how little can we put into this whole socialist thing to keep it viable while we live in the lap of luxury?", and, "should I use a 50 dollar bill or a 100 dollar bill to do this next line of cocaine?" All kidding aside, anyone who is serious about building a revolutionary movement, and who also happened to own a multi-million dollar company, would invest the maximum amount of profits into the former.

What I mean to say is, I could accept the fact that North/Green exploits the labor-power of his workers if the surplus value created by their unpaid labor was being used to build a movement that would one day end all exploitation. The ends, as I generally believe, justify the means if the ends themselves are justified. But this is obviously not taking place. The SEP has full branches in three cities - LA, NY, and Detroit. With the profit margins we can assume a 25 million a year company is capable of, there should be a fully-staffed branch in every major city in the United States. There should be an SEP radio station, a public access program on television, etc., etc., etc. Those profits, in sum, should be used to promote the movement, to expose not tens of thousands but millions of people to socialism.

What could possibly account for a failure to do these things? There is only one inescapable conclusion - that North/Green and his cronies enjoy the good life more than they do the revolutionary life. And they enjoy that life at the expense of the wage-laborers they employ. To dance around these uncomfortable realities they invent all sorts of paternalistic schemes where they provide top quality education and training for their workers - while, of course, "keeping wages competitive". To read the website of Grand River Publishing & Imaging is to be sickened. Every line is infused with phony corporate enthusiasm and politeness, in order to impress the equally phony corporate clients looking to get their ads published and printed. Contrast that to what you normally read on the WSWS. How can these people sleep at night? They might respond like the fictional Renier Wolfcastle: "On top of piles of money with lots of beautiful ladies".

It seems that every other week brings some new revelation about this political cult that I could have only wished I had known earlier. I tell you these things so that you can avoid my mistakes.

I mean the US one

but the proofs billy

where are the proofs

This really, I cant take you at face value.

The guy that wrote that's a former member. If you ask the SEP if it's true they won't deny that David North and David Green are the same person.

The UK branch is so riddled with informants, to the point where it's debatable whether it even exists anymore outside of people employed by the British police.

It's still just hearsay and speculation on the part of a former member.

I'm not saying it isn't true, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence substantiating it either.

Equality is a myth, and they're not socialist, but Communist

Next

show tits

The SEP's small enough to have practically no coverage beyond tiny blog sites online.

If you see someone in the SEP (unlikely given there's perhaps 1,000 of them worldwide), ask them about it.

Don't expect to get a straight answer (it is a cult after all), but they'll not deny it straight up.

Sectarian as fuck but they keep being right about the rest of the left, so I voted for them this year.

But Satan-can, you can't get to communism without getting to socialism first.

This copypasta goes back a decade and yet all I've seen to "substantiate" it is broken links. If you want me to believe they're the same person I want more evidence than that they're both named David.

I think you fail to understand what socialism is

This what 45 minutes of research has lead me. You would think something as big as a socialist party being run by a capitalist would be used by other left-wing parties.Since the WSWS news is so hard on them and it would be pretty damning

I've googled around and I've seen the claim repeated a few times, but never with evidence save for those same decade-old broken links.

Comrade, What is your specific question about the SEP program? I have been around the party since the early 1980s. We place at the centre of our demand the international unity of the working class. We have sections in many countries, including Canada, the USA, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Sri Lanka and supporters are building sections in many more countries (Turkey, India, etc.). Workers from over 100 countries participated in our online May Day Rally. We are a Trotskyist party opposed to "socialism in one country" and we fight on the basis of perspectives democratically adopted within the sections of our party. We are a cadre party and our goal is to spread class consciousness to the working class. Here is a link to the american sections perspectives doc wsws.org/en/articles/2008/09/prin-s25.html

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1.What are your thoughts on the poster in this thread saying that David North is a capitalist and is leading a double life?

2. How is the party organized? Branches, committees?

3.What is your response when other left call you sectarian?

4. how does the party receive it funding?

1.What are your thoughts on the poster in this thread saying that David North is a capitalist and is leading a double life?

2. How is the party organized? Branches, committees?

3.What is your response when other leftist call you sectarian?

4. how does the party receive its funding?

marxism.livejournal.com/300825.html

Don't be a Dum As Nikka, OP. Socialist Alternative is much more effective anyway.

Actually, my rule of thumb for judging whether or not a socialist group is useful is whether they run a presidential candidate or not. This leaves us with SAlt and CPUSA.

Save any of that, they're quite possibly the most sectarian group in the world right now and their ideology is the worst parts of ultraleftcom/Bordiga and Trotsky poured into one giant crock of shit. Oh yeah and they have that obnoxious "you can't talk about racism or sexism at all" thing going on that Holla Forums suffers from. And then they have the anti-union stuff going on, which is borderline controlled-opposition territory.

You seem like the kind of guy who's into all that though, OP.

You've got to be the worst tripfag this board has ever seen.

JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAJJ
Anyone who's anti-union.
And guess what? I don't give a fuck about "principled Marxism". Or Marxism, really. Marx had a lot of good ideas with diamat and hismat and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall but not only are "Orthodox Marxists" basically wrong about Marx on a lot of things but they hold up their picture of Marx like he was always right, like this is a religion. It's not a religion, and it shouldn't be much of an ideology either, it's a political cause and some economic ideas. They're allowed to evolve.
Basically, fuck -isms. The only thing I call myself is a leftist, for convenience.
That's the rap SAlt gets but I don't buy it. They're out their actually doing things, I mean, so what if the Trump protests are kind of silly? They are spreading discontentment and advancing their position in the public eye.
CPUSA I don't know much about but they don't look all that great especially with how they still hold on to 100+ year old tested and failed Leninist ideology.
Anyway like I said anyone fucking stupid enough to join this kind of group is more than free to, just know that you all look like that idiot that comes to shill for meme magic and the Humanity Party every now and again to the rest of us.

...

Is there a way to filter out posts from specific names or tripcodes on Holla Forums?

You've obviously never worked with ANY of these political organizations or done even a tiny bit of research into them. SAlt is complete irredeemable shit and are, in practice, closer to a socdem party than an actual socialist party. CPUSA has backed the democratic candidate every election for ages.
Also, you said the standard by which you judge a party is whether they run a candidate. CPUSA didn't run a candidate, but you're shilling them. SEP DID run a candidate, but you're shitting on them.

kys faggot

I will reply to each of your questions:
1. I would ask you to listen to this interview with David North: youtube.com/watch?v=yDpFv0VV1Os Does he sound like a capitalist to you? Seriously, where is the evidence that he has any capitalist leanings? North has been in the party ever since he was a university student, about 40 years. He led the ICFIs investigation into Trotsky's murder and spoke to almost everyone who was still living who actually knew Trotsky. At that time he was a very young comrade. He led the split with the WRP when the British section abandoned Trotskyist principles and supported some bourgeois nationalist movements. This is why he is constantly attacked - he theoretically hammers the pseudo-left and Stalinists. Nuf said.

2. The party is led by an elected committee of international comrades. Within countries we are organized into national sections and there are local branchs and committees. The leadership is elected at every level of the party by secret ballot. National congresses are held every 2 years. There are IYSSE clubs on many campuses and the students may be members of the IYSSE, our youth movement. Schools are held where marxism is taught and strategy discussed. We lead campaigns around our own struggles in the working class and the organization of these varies. All the articles on the WSWS.org are written by comrades and supporters, including me. We are all workers.
1/2

Yeah, there is a filter section under the settings menu.

3.We do not support broad, swampy fake socialist movements like Bernie Sanders,SYRIZA or PODERMOS.We expose the social democrates as having betrayed socialism on Aug 4 1914 when the German Social Democrates voted for war credits against their own approved anti-war party policy: they were the elected German government and that led to the bloodbath known as WW1. I need not go into their recent betrayals- the Labour Party in the UK is particularly discredited, but the NDP in Canada is no better. What has the Greek working class to say about them? Lenin's 3rd International was formed due to the split which the betrayal of the 2nd International necessitated. When Stalin betrayed the international working class with his policy of "Socialism in One Country", Trotsky, the Leader of the Left Opposition, founded the 4th International.Our party traces its roots back to that event.We believe a disciplined and unified and trained cadre party is necessary in order to take power and create a socialist society.

4. All the comrades financially support the party. We all work for a living. We receive donations from workers as well. That is how we financed our recent election campaign.We receive no state, corporate, union or any other funding - just donations from the working class. We appeal for funds and we are supported. There are no dues. You cannot pay $5 and beconme a member.

Thanks.

LOL, it really is pathetic how even on here sectarian fucktards need their safe spaces free from people with opinions and facts they don't like. Reminds me too much of Tumblr, really. "Sad!"

My chapter's alright (Austin). I'm not a member since I'm moving soon anyway.
Like I said, I'm not going to defend CPUSA.
And that's ALL SEP did. They ran their crappy sectarian website and their presidential candidate. They have no other activities. THAT'S why I criticize them. Because running a presidential candidate is the easiest way to tell if they do anything of note.

I already posted it, none of those are "fake socialist movements", they're entryists who know how to get popular support, it's called PODEMOS, ideologies can't commit betrayal, sad to see all that money go to waste, you're fucking stupid, kill yourself.

I hope Holla Forums comes and bullies us over taking anybody who's a member of this party seriously when they have to cover their asses about Trump.

...

I'm not sectarian. I'm cool with anarchists, Leninists, Trots, leftcoms, and others. What I'm not okay with is reformists that have betrayed the working class at every opportunity they've had. If opposing reformists and the center-left is sectarian then so be it.

Just filter him.

That's completely wrong. I can't speak for the Labor Party, the NDP, PS France and whatever other parties but the reason everyone gives Syriza shit is because they put out a referendum on accepting bailout conditions which got a sound "no". They got some concessions and then they agreed to it. The mistake is assuming that the referendum was ever characterized as an "accept bailout conditions" referendum, it was a "accept these particular bailout conditions" referendum. You have been duped by elitists. Similar goes for Bernie Sanders. Podemos hasn't even gotten the opportunity to do anything much less betray anyone.

The betrayal has gone further back than the few examples you listed. Reformist parties have betrayed workers every single time they've taken power without exception. The worst betrayals leading to the rise of Fascism and mass executions of communists. Also love that you're defending Syriza. Shouldn't be surprised seeing as you're in SAlt.

I already said I'm not a member of SA, fuckface. I just think they're a burger's best option. Which is kind of indisputable if you ask me given the depths of shittiness the other parties are mired by, the question is whether or not it's good enough.

The fact of the matter is that ultraleftists who have no intention of doing anything and are continually looking for an excuse to be pessimistic and continue to do nothing while the momentum for their silly general strike builds up in the background (LOL) get positively giddy whenever other leftists employ strategy, because they can point at it and say that that's why they haven't donated to anyone or participated in anything or started anything or even told anyone or made selective purchases ("NO ETHICAL CONSUMPTION UNDER CAPITALISM" they say buying from Walmart and Amazon when they know they can do better). The SEP is a rare case of a party made up of these types of goons and it's a perfect demonstration of exactly why they don't work- because they're not supposed to. They're only supposed to make a point. the very act of running a presidential candidate who won't get 5% or even close is a self-defeating exercise for those who want to bring their BDSM fetish and depression into politics.

If there's anyone I hate more than the right, it's these faggots.

So Syriza interpreted the referendum as voters rejecting the offered bailout in order to get an even worse bailout? Please. You're so full of shit.

wew
note the lack of public outcry from Greece itself over it, Syriza lost four whole seats over the situation

"Wew" what? It's true.

Are you saying the Greeks are masochists who wanted an even worse deal? Your reasoning is still total nonsense.

Also, there was public outcry over the deal. And voters showed their dissatisfaction and disenchantment with the entire political system in the usual way: by not showing up. The turnout for the election was historically low. Are you just lying or what?

He's a liberal. He's had zero experience in political organizing and knows nothing about the history of the left. Worse yet, he's an obnoxious tripfag pseudo-intellectual that won't ever admit when he's wrong. He won't be happy until we subscribe to dead-end reformism and thank him by sucking off his tiny cock.

They're essentially, and little more than, an arm of the Democratic party. They endorsed Hillary this year. They endorsed Obama before that.
They are about as communist as a 1.5% hike on property taxes.

How do I actually get involved with the SEP?
I think you guys are more or less completely correct, but I don't really see any outreach directed towards me or any logical next steps for me to take, i.e. activities, discussion groups, beyond a "Join the SEP" form.
I know the WSWS reaches among the largest audiences of any leftist publication and was particularly forward-thinking (I enjoyed the account in the letter to Steiner) but I can't help but wonder if this is some functionally online-only group that reports the news and hands it out at a few "workers struggles" per year.
I'd really like a community and an opportunity for personal growth in all this.

It could be that I always think before I take a position and make sure that it's one I can be confident in that I know is right. Not that I can't admit I'm wrong. Just a thought. Also your post isn't any less of an obnoxious whiny attack just because you >>'d someone else and said "he" instead of "you", it just shows you have pretension where your bolitas should be. Thanks for being yet another example of "people who bring up that I have a trip like it's an issue also have bad opinions on everything else and are pathetic in several other ways" though, I'm about to prove my thesis here!

That's your opinion, Syriza didn't agree and neither did anybody else.
That's completely fucking retarded. Unless turnout went from 50% to 30% I'm not buying it.

M8 If you read further you'd tell I never endorsed them.
Honestly we get these SEP threads like once a month and they're always shit, I should've seen it coming this time. Ultraleft genocide best day of my life.

"Fuck off retards" is my thought

I can only judge you by what you post, friendo

You should send your local chapter an email asking about their next meeting.

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Le spook maymay XD

shut up lares you fucking teenage faggot

I assume you are in the States- if not let me know your country.The best way to get in touch is to fill out that form and a senior comrade close to you will contact you by email in a couple of weeks or quicker depending on their schedule.Then you will start a conversation with a comrade and they might suggest you join a discussion group, or a group discussing a book and take it from there.
There are also telephone "conference call" meetings advertised via newsletters, such as the World Socialist Website Autoworkers Newsletter, which you can subscribe to on its Facebook page. The next call is on Nov. 22.
The other way is to go to a meeting and talk directly to the comrades.
If you go to the World Socialist Website Facebook page, click on "Events" and "subscribe," some of the events in the USA will be pushed to you.
There are also IYSSE meetings which you could attend and each IYSSE group page has a "subscribe" button. There is a meeting in Pittsburg on Nov. 18, tomorrow. There is one in Chicago on the 22nd. Just search Facebook for IYSSE and all the local USA groups will come up. We often livestream our meetings.
The logical next step while you are waiting to be contacted is to listen to the daily podcast and read the articles on the wsws.org, as well as the documents on the ICFI/Marxist Library tab on the WSWS page.

I just bought some books from their online store and a member in my city contacted me out of the blue within a couple of days of placing the order.

Dunno what skeletons are in the closet or whether any of the shit about David North is true, but my contact with this guy left me with a pretty positive impression. No recruitment pitch or anything like that, just a discussion about what I thought about current events and politics and an offer to answer any queries I had about the books (mostly Lenin) as I read them.

Ageism isn't cute tbh smh af famrade rn y'all especially when it's not accompanied by an actual argument =/

Well that was good timing! This party is humanity's only hope, and our window to fix this is closing. The threat of nuclear war is real and scientists say the oceans will be dead by 2043. If you ever encounter a comrade from Edmonton Alberta, that might be me. All the best comrade!

I'm gonna need to see your sources on this one.

>>1062855robertscribbler.com/2016/11/18/arctic-storms-sparked-severe-polar-warming-sea-ice-melt-for-november-2016/
I have read that number. I am not a scientist but the science is worrying!
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/12/16/pers-d16.html
wsws.org/en/articles/2015/02/03/clim-f03.html
wsws.org/en/articles/2016/06/01/nino-j01.htm

I'm a chemist, so it's not my field and I'm not particularly up on the literature, but I haven't seen anything to suggest rising ocean temperatures and acidification will kill all marine life in

shut up lares you fucking teenage faggot

I am reading it too. Did you sign up for the Autoworkers Newsletter? we just carried out a big intervention in the Canadian autoworkers struggle- the trade union UNIFOR gave up huge concessions especially for new workers. They gave up defined benefit pension plans and now the Trudeau govt has introduced legislation to remove them from govt workers. this is a huge betrayal. I am looking forward to the call on Nov. 22.
I enjoyed the pseudo left book as well, especially since I knew Brenner well. It showed me the pressures that class forces exert on the left and North's books have really helped to orient the party and understand this.