DSA Momentum Platform

Not going to lie, that was some good stuff. How can I help these folks out?

join

it's mainly a lie, they spend their money on feminist 'education' and progressive stack bullshit.

Source? Recently DSA has been showing up at most major protests and sparked some of their own for universal healthcare. They've been re-embracing radical leftists recently too, at least according to their twitter feed which has been featuring some unapologetic Trots.

Are you speaking from experience with the DSA?

Donate to the Democrats, maybe they will reward the DSA for co-opting movements and feeding them with new voters when whey grow up.

this guy is a dipshit lol

one of the authors of the spring platform (part of this effort) has the twitter handle young_stalin69 or something similar.

this platform is anti-electoralist?

Oh, I get it now. You're retarded.

I really hope DSA can at least convince the majority of Greens or, better yet, Bernies to their cause. A 300k strong American Socialist party would be damn encouraging.

Well the DSA are a non party, so they can work with both if they wanted. I think a broad-front american leftist movement is in the making, it will take time but it can happen.

the most confounding part to me is the org's continued opposition to democratic centralist groups. SAlt reached out and basically said hey lets start a coalition but the reception was very cold. there's a lot of ex-trots backing the marxist coup and they hold grudges against other orgs.

they are making conscious efforts to reach out to greens and berniecrats, but i'd really just like to see some sort of agreement met with PSL. those guys are dedicated revolutionary professionals, i was working with their candidacy group but i just couldn't keep up. my contacts in the org have completely given their lives to the org.

Did I somehow miss it or don't they talk about electoral reform at all in that?

Always these expensive brand-new progressive stacks, only the fanciest materials will do for them! I still have my grandma's. Good enough for me, you fucking millenials.

Leftists will always love to quarrel with one another.
I wonder if the DSA could be open to coalitions now? It seems like they've been undergoing major reorganization, and are taking the fullest advantage of the recent Bernie, Corbyn, and Jacobin popularity. Have you ever floated the idea of a agreement with your former PSL contacts? Perhaps it's not so out of the question now; it definitely does seem like a Pan-Leftist movement is on the rise.

Personally, I'd love to see some sort of reach out to DiEM25; regardless of what you think of them, any approval by Snowden, Varoufakis, Slavoj et al could do wonders.

there's a lot of talk of the DSA being open to coalitions, but at least the local ex-SAlt people i work with are against collaborating with anyone who is "democratic centralist"; they're very committed to the whole non-bureaucratic complete transparency thing, but i don't see any reason to extend that to our allies. left unity and all that

things are dicier on the PSL side. there was a PSL poster on here who basically said collaborating with the DSA is betraying the working class because the DSA are reformist. that's an insane conclusion from a reasonable premise imo. my IRL PSL contacts make a bigger deal about the historically anti-communist flavour of the organization w/r/t Harrington, etc. but there's a ton of hammer & sickle iconography floating around DSA twitter, so i don't see any reason to prefer one form of symbolic orientation over another.

bump

PSL is not going to waste their time with anti-communist socdems who take marching orders from the imperialist rag Jacobin.

That's all ironic memeing. DSA members love to shitpost with communist iconography, but if you actually talk seriously about communism with them, they will get scared or even mad at you.

Because DemCen parties have turned out so well in the past amiright?

Yes.

:^)

Succdems get the bullet too

Holla Forums's unwillingness to work with or try to convince succdems will be the death of leftism in the west. DSA objectively gives us a good chance to make socialism popular, or at least normalized.

leftypol isn't a hivemind m8. Of course there are going to be sectarian tankies and smashies who don't want to try and salt groups like the DSA, but that doesn't mean you can't

Why the fuck would it be a reference to "joementum". Are you retarded?

Are you the retard who's always in DSA related threads making up random shit and claiming they backed Hillary along with a bunch of other easily debunked drivel? If you're disinfo you're the laziest PoS disinfo I've ever seen.

PSL has the worst grasp of PR and optics of any leftist organization I've ever seen and every SAlt group I've seen is autistic as fuck and WAY more obsessed with idpol, libfem shit than even the DSA. They're smart to keep very far away from both except in rare cases like in WA where they're doing something ostensibly worthwhile.

>leftypol's __ will be the death of socialism in the west

no. we're irrelevant.

PSL has optics of cult tankies who are literally willing to die for communism which is tight, i want those guys on my side

yeah but ironic memeing is about as material a distant anti-communist past. i'm sure the anti-imperialist left would take it seriously if they had a consistently communist history but were posting ironic anti-communist memes.

PSL has aspergers as a whole institution without a hint of leadership or awareness in sight. Every time I've tried to talk to them about anything they have the most autistic reaction imaginable, including really basic shit like "hey this other group said they don't want to be a part of this so stop contacting them already".

It's true, but I don't think we have to be. Holla Forums could definitely be as influential as Holla Forums if we were better organized.

thats true i get that vibe. i told my contact i was going to do mass work in the DSA because i felt like it was more in line with my own views and degree of time commitment and he said "that's a good place to recruit". i don't think he got my implication.

their whole strategy of running a ton of front groups like ANSWER and the PCOR while trying to also hijack movements like BLM and No DAPL is like, really disconcerting. it feels very opaque and like…neo-blanquist.

that's why i like the DSA so much; they put the needs of the groups we work with first. the strategy is to earn the trust of the broader left by getting things done that help them; the What Is To Be Done style vanguardist backroom shit didn't stop the iraq wars or stop neoliberalism from destroying our communities. the left is discredited still and rebuilding that trust through fight for 15, universal healthcare, etc is the best strategy to me, rather than being purely opportunistic and parasitic on other organizations and movements.

He was claiming momentum that wasn't true and they're, seems about right.

yeah but DSA inarguably has momentum

Pure opportunism.

The problem is that they are anti-communist today. Jacobin, extremely influential to DSA, is explicitly anti-communist and regularly publishes chauvinistic pro-regime-change bullshit about Syria, Venezuela, etc. The editor of Jacobin has said he thinks the USSR was "worse for socialism" than Nazi Germany. Many DSA figureheads are incapable of taking the mildest criticism from even watered-down trot groups like SAlt.

in this case
literally means
They have bad PR the way the kekistani fags that go into playgrounds and REEEEEEE unironically have "bad PR"

Jacobin has 1 or 2 "let's remember how great Lenin and his revolution were" thinkpieces a month and Trotsky was trash anyway without even getting into Stalin.

jacobin is infested with trots, so theyre just chauvinist apes, not anti-communists

Yeah that's pretty much my position on it, which is why I'm so perplexed that a Trot would be assblasted about them.

As you pointed out, it basically seems like a less extreme version of conspiratorial communism, as outlined in What Is To Be Done. The truth is that if you are a communist, you have to acknowledge that things like BLM and NoDAPL must be hijacked by communists or otherwise relegated to the dustbin of history. The spontaneous liberal moral pangs of activists will accomplish nothing in the long run, and are only useful insofar as they can be used as recruiting grounds for the real movement.

I think PSL is helpful, they are just against opportunism.

Nothing did. However, PSL is basically one of the only remaining orgs that actually puts a lot of energy into broad anti-war and anti-imperialist activity today. Really it puts every other USA socialist party to shame on this front. The pathetic state of anti-imperialist sentiment and activity in DSA or SA is almost enough to write them off entirely.

What are you even talking about? What autistic screeching? PSL are not memers. They don't go to demos with meme flags or any bullshit like that. So how are you comparing them to kekistanis?

I'm not a Trot, just pointing out that Jacobin is lower on the rung than Trots are.

I think some self-avowed Trot communists write for Jacobin, but the editor/founder Bhaskar Sunkara is definitely an anti-communist and a social chauvinist of the worst kind.

I meant I was confused by your statement that Trots would take serious issue with amounts to a Trot publication, not your personal beliefs

There are a lot of things that make grown adults painfully embarrassing to associate with in public, I'd venture that less than 20% of such cases are internet meme related.

Wow, fantastic comradely criticism.

I've had quite enough interaction with them IRL in a leadership capacity to make that judgement. Do you want to know specific details of arguments and public misconduct that led me to this judgement? Because that seems way more "uncomradely" than just venting generally.

Yes, that's far preferable to vague bullshit. However, it would remain to be seen whether your allegations were true.

Prediction: With the terrible quality of current and upcoming Capcom titles and obnoxious DLC deals, more and more angry fighting-game autists will get disillusioned with capitalism and join the only organization that fits their personality: PSL.

They are erratic and difficult to work with IRL, refuse direction or even advice when it is warranted, purposely create and display inflammatory and damaging signs for no benefit and have a history of being a pain in the side to organizers that disagree with them and the organizations they represent, specifically liberal ones who they shouldn't fucking bother with because they don't belong in our fucking movement to begin with. I have no idea why you're so assblasted at me but this is all a pattern of behavior and not one instance, and I refuse to reveal the kind of details that would betray my identity or the identity of the offending/offended parties (yes, including PSL ones) just to satisfy your curiosity/ire.

They mention in the proposal they would like to see official caucuses/tendencies formed in the organization so yeah. All of the members are apart of the "Left Caucus" but it isn't a formally recognized caucus so.

This platform begins to call for democratic centralism in the electoral section. SAlt is interested in co-opting DSA or even trying entryism, so I understand DSA's reluctance. I think at the moment it just makes sense for them to work together informally when it works. For instance DSA members are helping get an SAlt member (ginger jetzen) elected in Minneapolis. SAlt and DSA in Seattle are both working together for single-issue stuff and to elect Jon Grant.

DSA has formally opposed every bombing campaign/intervention under Obama and Trump. That's with the NPC under control of Harringtonites.

Social movements need to be steered left and ideally towards an organziation/party. The problem with what PSL and occasionally SAlt do is they trick people into shit. Nobody likes that. Sure ANSWER Coalition or an SAlt led "Resist Trump" rally might get thousands of people out in the streets in a demonstration or on an email list.. but few will actually follow through on anything when they find out what they really signed up for.

DSA honestly engages with people and it's been more successful. Entryism fucks shit up most times/10

You misunderstand. When people like him say they support intervention, they take anything short of enthusiastic adulation of Assad in public to be "pro-intervention" no matter how thorough your anti intervention stance actually is

This still looks pretty awful. I'm one of the rare few ultras who think the DSA could have potential to be transformed into a workers' movement because it's open to debate and there's already a small but growing communist left inside it (an American friend, in Mississipi, told me this), but this barely even qualifies as a well-founded social democratic party. It honestly strikes me as just a fair bit more left than the Democrats; very Bernie-type and no doubt such a platform will in many ways and varying degrees be the future of the Democrats once they realize how they can win an election again. Here's to hoping prolonged communist entryism manages to make it more than that.

Lmao no they won't. Have you ever checked out the Eventhubs forums or /Kappa/? I'm tight as fuck with the European FGC and know people from everywhere and I'm unironically the only communist there. There aren't even any tankie-flavoured "communists" or fucking socdems.

The FGC's politics from most prevalent to least goes like this:

Forgot to mention that these are mostly ardent Hillary/Democrat voters and a minority of Trumpfags that are both 100% anti-Bernie (they'll say he's either delusional, a cuck or a communist).

starting a coalition like ANSWER isn't entryism. They aren't joining liberal groups and trying to seize the bureaucratic levers; they're just organizing a coalition for a broader front on an issue.

Dude…no. That's literally the definition of opportunism. You're preying on legitimate grievances of the proletariat to artificially force revolutionary consciousness on them. Proletarian consciousness can only be achieved through struggle, so joining the masses in the fight for reforms and justice is the revolutionary act. Communism is not some ideal to preach to people, but something to be arrived at through the abolition of the present state of things. We must therefore travel to the outer limits of reform to build the class-for-itself, for as long as people can believe justice is a legislative issue and not a revolutionary one, they will.

On anti-imperialism though, the PSL is simply the best there is. The DSA could learn from them.

I live in the American south and know a few fighting-game/smash pros in Atlanta. They're definitely more the Bernie type, but they're young black people so I dunno. I'm not big on fighting games. Got maybe a dozen hours in Guilty Gear at best.

On the other hand this post reeks badly of opportunism: you are positing that communists should instead rally around spontaneous movement, partial as always, and get bogged down in them. Experience has shown that movements of this kind can only end in being absorbed by capitalism. What we need is a serious vanguard which leads, not one which is instead dragged around in the machinations of capitalism.

You're thinking of the CPUSA, which is just a sattelite of the democrats.

Totally subjective.

MUH PR! Bet you're butthurt about their pro-Syria campaigning.

Shocking, disagreement leads to difficulty in cooperation.

So you're mad they didn't cooperate with liberals.

You're full of shit m8.

Well, pro-Syria(as in government) campaigning couldn't possibly come across well the in the US. Opposition to intervention and supporting Jihadist rebels would be a better angle to take.

Their "opposition" is indistinguishable from any liberal dissent. Full of hedging and no action to back it up. Moreover, they are doing nothing to get Jacobin in line, and in all likelihood, the influence is far more the other way around. When the magazine they all promote is advocating regime change in Syria, they have a big problem.

I'm down in the south like your friend. There are more Trots, Marxists, and MLs in the southern chapters than on the coasts. For a lot of us, it went from "Well we'll check it out" to "WE MUST WORK TOGETHER" pretty quickly because we literally have no other decent options here and the local DSAs are working with us.

What accomplishments exactly? At least SA has some councilmembers and played a major role in the $15 min wage in a couple cities. And PSL is keeping anti-imperialist action alive, has real theory, and is already scaring the porkies (getting targeted by COINTELPRO). DSA has a chauvinist magazine and 20k "members" who will show up to two meetings.

Just the opposite; I think we should earn a leading position in the labor movement by getting results, not just waltzing in and expecting one because we read a bunch of books (or worse, trying to trick people).

thats a meme. a bunch of spooked liberals got mad at them for no reason lol

"Why is there no clear condemnation of Russian and Iranian intervention in Syria, without which the Assad government would have collapsed?"
"Why was there no mention of the fact that Washington blocked Syrian opposition access to anti-aircraft weaponry, without which the regime was free to rain bombs on them?"
"It is simply unacceptable to stand by and see a brutal regime like Assad’s get away with emptying Syria of its own people. Syrians have a right both to live and to live freely in their homeland. No regime should be allowed to massacre its own people or force them into a life of permanent exile and displacement."
jacobinmag.com/2017/04/syria-assad-russia-united-states-humanitarian-imperialism-militarism-gourevitch/
Jacobin literally calls for regime change and arming terrorists.

I don't know what in particular you guys are talking about, but I wouldn't be surprised. FRSO was hit by COINTELPRO back in 2008 when the left was basically as dead as can be in the US so I can imagine a larger org that actually does stuff would be a bigger target.

jacobinmag.com/2017/07/lenin-trotsky-russia-1917-war-wwi

and here they are suckin off lenin and trotsky. it's a mixed big, read critically as you would anything else

No, it's not. It's conspiratorial communism. Opportunism is going after every temporary movement or liberal reform instead of working towards the end goal of communism. Let me spell it out: Leninism = not opportunist. Social democracy = opportunist.

Communists are "preying" on the poor proles and giving them fake belief in communist theory! Pic related. Side note, I'm not personally in PSL.

Communism is a theory to educate people on so they can put it into practice. If people don't have the communist theory, they will never accomplish communism. Communism is inevitable, but communist theory is what makes it possible.

You can't have one without the other. I do agree that PSL could play up the anti-Al Qaeda thing more though.

the reason was COINTELPRO.

Nobody will listen to us prattle on about communist theory unless it's proven to yield results. As it stands now, it has not, at least not recently in the U.S. We have a unique opportunity to fill the void left by the death of liberalism and make historic gains for the American poor.

Anyway, communist theory *cannot be taught*. This is a core concept of dialectical thinking: theory and practice are inseparable.

A socialist magazine can't be a publication for any kind of random garbage. They shouldn't bring in Dick Cheney for op-eds, and they shouldn't publish anti-Syria, anti-Venezuela shillpieces either. If they occasionally publish seemingly pro-Soviet articles as well, that doesn't redeem them– quite the opposite. It only means they are trying to drag communists rightward by mixing leftwing messaging in with their imperialist nonsense. In order to rehabilitate Jacobin at this point, they would have to publish full retractions and apologies of dozens of articles, and remove the founder of the magazine.

Hence the front groups like ANSWER, or in the case of SA, whatever they had for their Fight for $15 stuff.

lol it literally can and must. What are you smoking?

Fight for 15 isn't just a front for SA, it's actually getting people 15$/hr. ANSWER isn't stopping wars, it's just advertising for PSL.

I'm smoking dialectics my good bitch. Read any number of texts on this. I recommend Dialectical Logic by Evald Ilyenkov or On Contradiction by Mao Zedong.

You can actually. You can push an anti-intervention and anti-rebel message without going full retard and supporting Assad.

...

ANSWER does other shit too (antiracism, immigrant rights), and PSL also works extensively for other causes and community services. However, I agree they don't have a big accomplishment to their name yet (as far as I know). I think this comes down to the size of the party. They are serious people who punch above their weight, so as they grow, I think we will see them get a lot more done.

I guarantee you that literally nobody worth reading has ever argued that the party and the masses will learn revolutionary theory without being educated on it. It is impossible to learn the theory without being educated on it. This borders on tautology it is so obvious. Yes, you have to give an example through your praxis, but this is different from saying that people are going to spontaneously synthesize a complete understanding of dialectical materialism if you just do enough actions.

All antiwar activists are accused of being "Assad supporters." If you genuinely oppose the imperialist attacks on Syria, you are necessarily advocating for the Syrian government to remain in place (barring some fantastical worldwide communist revolution) and are thus an Assad supporter. You don't convince people by pussyfooting around.

well if you don't want to do that, here's a few more.

Rosa Luxemburg:

Georg Lukacs

concept. For the active and practical side of class consciousness, its true essence, can only become visible in its authentic form when the historical process imperiously requires it to come into force, i.e. when an acute crisis in the economy drives it to action."

I agree that you can't simply learn by doing, but I am emphasizing that you also can't learn *without* doing. The development of class conscious is dialectical like everything else: it proceeds through the struggle of opposites.

Absolutely none of these quotes argue that communists don't have to teach people about communist theory.

moreover, you can't "stop war and end racism" without ending capitalism, so it exists only as a lofty ideal, separated from the real day to day life of the proletariat.

Being opposed to both the government and the rebels isn't pussy-footing.

communism can't be taught, it can only be learned. as communists, we serve as examples, not as professors. involvement in the fight for reform is a crucial part of revolutionary pedagogy.

yeah it kinda is. if you oppose the government, you implicitly support regime change. if you support a regime change that isn't the rebels actively trying to overthrow the government, i don't really know what you're hoping for but i can assure you its not realistic

Not only is it pussyfooting, it's fucking nonsensical.

dont forget that DSA still supported liberal politicians for the democratic party.

This is just meaningless wordplay. Give up. Every socialist org worth a shit has some form of education, such as required reading lists and discussions about theory.

no shit socialist and communist orgs require their own members to be educated. i'm talking about the broader relationship to mass organizations and the class at large.

However, there is a real demand from people to fight war and racism, and there are thousands of real working class proles (nationally and internationally) who want to know that the party will really have their back. Serious campaigning against reactionary ideology and imperialism is required for solidarity building. If a party doesn't have at least a record of action against these things, they can't build and don't deserve the trust of others.

We were talking about the dealings between Leninist orgs and broader movements such as BLM and FF15, not the class at large. No, the class at large simply will never get educated on the extensive nuances of one political theory or another, and that isn't necessary. But yes, people in movements should be targets for extensive education.

i can agree with that, but operating a *literal* front organization is dumb as shit. be honest about your goals and validate them with action.

Supporting either as a communist is pure retardation. We don't support strongman capitalist dictators OR Jihadist rebels. The only thing we can objectively support is working class revolution. Really sucking off Assad is as bad as the retards supporting the FSA. At best we can argue Assad and the SDF are the least worst options available to the Syrian people at the moment.

well on that count, i am in agreement. we should absolutely provide education to those in the struggle. but our relationship must not be predatory. black lives matter is not a means to an end and when communists see it as such, those people absolutely do notice. there are plenty of horror stories about condescending communists preaching marx at union rallies and anti-war rallies while everyone else groans because they've heard it from similar people a dozen times.

solidarity /must/ come before utility.

There might be social democratic elements in the party and even in the NPC, but DSA is against capitalism and for socialism. They have always recognized that the social democratic class compromise is unsustainable. They are against reforming capitalism.

Jacobin isn't their magazine and it never has been. It's not their fucking job to get them in line. Did PSL stop the bombing in Syria? Organize mass protests against it? No. Neither did DSA because they don't have the means yet. And they especially didn't have the means before 2016. Fuck off. DSA needs to be more outwardly internationalist and anti-imperialist, and that's exactly what DSA Momentum is calling for here.

SA has one councilmember, Kshama Sawant. They are running Ginger Jetzen in Minneapolis and the DSA chapters there are enthusiastically supporting her and volunteering for her.

DSA has 20,000 members and is growing. That's a huge accomplishment for the Left even though DSA needs changes.

It doesn't. Syrians do have that right. It's just that US or Russian/Iranian bombs will never be the thing that saves them.

It is impossible to force revolutionary consciousness on someone. If it is "forced" on them it isn't true revolutionary consciousness. You can educate people on the fundamentals of socialism/communism but they have to find revolutionary consciousness through active engagement. Read (PSL member) derek ford on communist pedagogy and Lenin when he talks about revolutionary discussion.

bump

I agree but SA runs 15 NOW, a front organization, and not the Fight for $15. They engage with the Fight for $15 only because they have to.

lmfao fucking trots. this shit is stupid too, don't do it.

Yeah, because of its size alone the DSA is probably the only "revolutionary" organization in the US.

It's gotten tens of thousands of Americans actively invested in transforming their society. None of the farther-left orgs have done this on any scale.

Agreed, the DSA's kneejerk reaction against democratic centralist orgs is one of their biggest drawbacks.

Well AFAIK, they didn't create ANSWER for that specific purpose. Just when the anti-war movement died, PSL kept ANSWER alive. But aside from that, what's so stupid about it? It's a way to allow participation from people who aren't ideologically aligned. When you're building a party along strict theoretical guidelines, you still want to work with people outside of it.

If you're arguing Assad is the least-worst, you're supporting him.

I continue to completely object to this ridiculous characterization of "predatory" communists.

If you elaborate a bit on this RE: BLM, I might know what you mean. As for preaching Marx at union rallies or whatever, yeah, you do a protest action for the purpose of sending a message and organizing people. If you're not primarily talking about the subject at hand, you're an idiot. But if you happen to mention Marx or socialism, or try to connect related struggles to the present one (which is the job of communists), there is nothing wrong with that.
What I will say as a counterpoint to this is that liberals violently overreact to communists. Remember this?
jacobinmag.com/2014/08/love-me-ferguson-im-a-liberal/
Proto-BLM liberals literally attacked the guy Carl Dix in the street.

lolno

It unofficially is, and since they associate so closely with it and recommend it as reading, they DO have a responsibility to denounce Jacobin's imperialist propaganda.

The vast majority of Syrians support the government. Jacobin advocates terrorist regime change.

By this logic, any European socdem party is revolutionary.

they are in words, if not in methods. they're explicitly anti-capitalist in all of their recent material and press releases.

clearly user meant to emphasize "american"

well i mean actually ANSWER arose as part of a split of the anti-war movement since it was run behind the scenes by the WWP which eventually gave birth to PSL. so in that regard it kinda fucked everything up.

but on the topic of a predatory relationship, i want to emphasize SAlt's tactics. they coined hashtags like #MovementForBernie and apparently "15 NOW" like said without actually *contributing* to these movements. a relatively small org like PSL is poorly positioned to contribute to causes and can only exist as a quasi-parasitic body trying to get access to leadership or other significant influence. sure they're helping a bit but in all my dealings with the party, actually helping these movements is considered secondary to the goal of building PSL membership, and that is very obvious to anyone who talks to them at events.

contrast with the DSA who are visibly leading the charge to get medicare for all passed. this is movement-oriented work, not party-oriented work and i am convinced it's the way to go. that said, alliances with professional DemCent orgs is desirable to me because it would help counterbalance the omnipresent temptation to work too much with Democrats.

Pretty sure SAlt has contributed heavily to the $15 movement in Seattle and Minneapolis.

You need a party to take power, and it has to start somewhere.

They work on transitional demands. Medicare-For-All, a living wage, end to the wars, unionization.

They describe them as "non-reformist" reforms that build working class power.

Yurofag here, I have a question. I know that saying you are a socialist in the USA is like saying you are a Nazi in Israel, but why the fuck does the DSA not become a political party that regularly participates in elections?

Man I wish. We are so far off from seizing the state in a Leninist sense that it's pure pipe dreams to talk about that. I think it's far more important to build a strong left-wing movement that can support a traditional democratic centralist party in a revolutionary situation. I think the DSA should work towards building that movement but maintain ties with revolutionary organizations. The centralists can build their revolutionary parties, but in the process they're doing little to help get the left movements they want to lead off the ground to begin with. That's where I see the importance of the mass socialist organizations.

Let's not pretend that America is Europe.

In our lifetimes, we will either have communism or mass destruction as a result of global warming. So we had better get building the party now. I agree that the building of a socdem party is part of the dialectical process that will bring us to communist revolution, but the thing is, if you are already a communist, you should put your energies into communism. There will be more than enough socdems to build the socdem party.

Also: for all this talk about Bernie and socdems pushing the "Overton window," you'd think people would recognize the value of having staunch communists making themselves known. Building a communist party will make it easier for "moderate"-minded people to accept socdem politics, because it will seem less extreme.

Don't fall for the meme that European SocDem parties are actually SocDem. With the exception of Corbyn they are neoliberals pushing the same retarded policies the Democrats in the USA. To be honest, Obama has been even more SocDem than European SocDem parties because he was Keynesian during the financial crisis, European SocDems just enforced austerity. We aren't better off.

yep this is where i find the most convincing argument to work with marxist-leninist or trot orgs. but i see the dichotomy as false, i'd rather encourage cooperation. after all, the bolsheviks were a faction of the social democratic party.

Are there even genuine Marxist-Leninist orgs in the US that aren't COINTELPRO? I only know of one Hohxaist party

oh i agree. but also i think that's sort of the role of the social democratic party as well. i think the DSA does a good job of making socialism palatable without diluting it (too much). i'm convinced they're genuinely anti-capitalist, only less convinced they're anti-reformist. i think they are an important piece of the puzzle on the left.

American Party of Labor is literally the most fringe and insignificant group imaginable even by American leftist standards. The RCP cult has more members than those weirdos.

PSL, WWP, and apparently Party of Communists are pretty good if you're into ultraorthodox leninist stuff.

I'm not American, I was just wondering if ML parties actually exist in the US considering the Cold War and all. ML parties in Europe are still going decent considering the state of the radical left, as they keep their numbers usually above 1k.

Our electoral system is rigged in a way it's nearly impossible to even get on the ballots and the energy involved in that isn't really worthwhile.

Really? That's fucking sad. I don't know much about how elections work in America on a state or communal level. It just makes the DSA some sort of walking Oxymoron, since democratic socialism is literally defined as partaking in parliamentarian elections.

not necessarily. it can also mean using parliamentary democracy to implement the DotP.

Well, DSA started as a socdem entryist into the democrats. It isn't the past decade that actual leftists have been taking over and it actually got this major boost in membership. I think the DemSoc label is good because it keeps Americans from thinking of the org as some big bad Stalinists or whatever.

What in the actual fuck did I just read? I'm sorry, where were the New Deal jobs programs and support for the people who had their homes foreclosed on? All Obama did was take on a mountain of debt instead of taxing the rich and bailed out criminal financial institutions while sending none of their leaders to jail. The "stimulus" that would have been used on helping the poor and unemployed in time of crisis was instead almost entirely quantitative easing to further enrich the oligarchs.

America is a "democracy" profoundly affected by Duverger's Law. In addition, the two parties do everything they can to make it as difficult as possible to get ballot access, they file lawsuits to try and kick other parties off them, and they create private corporations to administer debates with arbitrary barriers to keep others out. Finally, although I don't know how much people in DSA are really in the know on this, it really much be said that a substantial amount of America uses ass-backwards decade-old electronic voting machines without paper trails that can and have been demonstrated to have loads of hacking vectors with ample evidence of election fraud in real elections.

Most of the debate in this thread seems to more or less be a general recitation of the Bolshevik vs Menshevik dispute, i.e., should socialists pursue a "big-tent" based approach to their organizations or should they form "vanguard" parties of professional revolutionaries.

PS: The Bolsheviks were right, gas the Porkies, class war now.

I should have formatted that as Menshevik vs Bolshevik for clearer communication. Sorry.

well, no, the menshevik and bolshevik dispute only makes sense in the context of russia, which was an underdeveloped feudal society. the mensheviks wanted to hand power to the bourgeoisie and let them develop the means of production. we already have that part taken care of, now it's just the matter of actually taking political power in a thoroughly bourgeois society.

to which i should add: this is a novel challenge which nobody has successfully pulled off yet, and it's been about 100 years. uncritically applying bolshevik methods of organizing is a bad idea

Yeah, but the Mensheviks' argument about the bourgeoisie was due to their broader and well-established belief in forming long-term alliances with the non-revolutionary sections of society.

right but you have to consider the class character of those relationships. alliances between marxist leninists and social democrats aren't the same as alliances between the proletariat and budding russian bourgeoisie. the latter has a class character, but the first can and should be intra-class, not inter-class.

The Mencheviks had arguments based in their contemporary conditions, but they represented something timeless: opportunist gulag fodder.

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Seems bretty gud. They seem aware of the threat of getting co-opted by the Dems and they're against idpol (or at least, see idpol as as emergent from material conditions, which is perfectly fine)

DSA's not perfect, but this platform winning would be an excellent step at transforming it properly into a socialist org.

oh so we're just being edgy

This complaint was based on my experience organzing a pro-Syria even to which they were invited you fucking retard

Oh and this is the exact opposite with what I said. I said they insisted on inviting liberals and liberal groups that had no business being there in the first place. Seriously neck yourself

So what was the problem? If you're pro-Syria and they're pro-Syria, what was the dispute?

I just signed up, feels good.

bump

Somebody give me a quick rundown on USA socialist orgs?

PSL is tankies right?

Does anybody know if the Communist Labor Party is any good?

The "party beyond the party” strategy sounds like a whole lot of nothing. The "inside/outside" approach makes more sense for a party that it's still pretty unknown. Once they gain enough support they should distance themselves from the Democratic Party.

I read it as a way to sound less militant/alienating from centrists while appeasing more radlefts.
This is my only hope for DSA

PSL stop short of saying "Stalin didndu nuffin" but they do criticise Gorby. Not exactly Tankie, more hardcore Leninist.

Noice lad.

I just hope /lefty/ stops its succdem bashing, there's no time to armchair anymore

Read the thread. You don't have to become an opportunist to get out of the armchair.

The thread's encouraging, but it's hard not to get the impression that your average /lefty/ prefers theory over actual organization.

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Anyone goin to the convention in August? Could end up being a major event for the emerging american left

That's basically just because of the leftcoms. If everyone here would just read Lenin they'd get their shit straight.

Firstly, you're wrong retard, we're not doing either, we're very openly trying to convince them that our platform is correct, we even published an article saying as much. We're not allowed to join DSA because of the no commies rule(or "no democratic centralist party" rule). And If a party of 2000 members nationwide can co-opt a party with 25,000 members nationwide, while we're openly calling for a coalition with DSA, well… maybe the old guard leadership should try and teach their members to debate socialist ideas instead of taking a hard line against theory in general.

Also, you heard it here first: along with the other campaigns you mentioned, we will most likely be endorsing DSA's Jabari Brisport campaign for New York City Council(we were already unofficially working with him). Pic related, it's him.

I won'targue that I am autistic as fuck, I post on leftpol after all, but our official stance is very anti identity politics. We see it, as well as postmodernism, as part of the broader COINTELPRO attempt to use academia to split the left. What you experienced is an unfortunate result of our explosive growth from sub 200 members pre Kshama. Along the way many people who got their first experience in politics through idpol horizontalist/ occupy style affinity groups, and were quite surprised to learn that we don't endorse muh privilege theory. This has been a big debate recently, and probably will be as long as liberalism remains the most common gateway drug to socialism for young lefties.

left unity is a joke, even people who agree on 99% of the issues presently facing us hate each others' guts

LOL, 15Now was and is funded and motivated by us, and is still the only democratic way to get involved with the fight for $15 without joining the SEIU. Movement for Bernie was ill conceived, I'll admit, but I did a lot of work on the Bernie campaign from October '15 all the way to the final days in May. Endless meetings, doorknocking, collecting petition signatures, I hung out at the HQ and did random shit. So fuck you, can you honestly say you did more.

You don't know anything about how socialist praxis, we don't give a shit what the leadership of any groups thinks, if the leadership is democratically accountable then we try and agitate among their members, if they aren't then we only engage with them sparingly.

i dont hate anyone's guts

Non Burgerstani here: what is SAlt?

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Socialist Alternative

Ah American Militant, gotcha.

We're not militant in England anymore, though we might become militant again if momentum would stop trying to keep us at a distance.

"young_stalin69" sounds about as communist as "LENIN_LOVER69"

these irony loving Cop-o Crap House pigs will Make Amerikkka Social-Chauvinist Again & do nothing to push socialism in a substantial way, in fact using their reformism to convince the masses that reformism is the revolution, reformism is liberation, imperialism and socialism are compatible, etc.

they mentioned Palestine and didn't even recognize that i$rael needs to be dismantled as it has no right to exist and is a white supremacist settler colony. you don't put out a fucking platform, mention Palestine, talk up BDS and not mention that it's your full intent to support the violent end of the state of "Israel"

these fucks hold no real convictions. of course there are some alright people in DSA (evidenced by that there are, even if rare, some Marxist-Leninists on board)

these "momentum" swine claim to "Marxists" but hardly show any material understanding of history and comment not ONCE on imperialism. they can all get fucked

What was the justification for this ban?

it should be very obvious.

If "actual organization" is supporting [Social] Democrats and other bourgeois elements, then yes, I will keep my armchair and my theory.

There is still plenty of time to make DSA more rad left. A necessary part of doing this will be joining the organization and conversing with Succdems, who are a lot more open to actual socialism than you think.

Regardless, unless we get some sort of miracle, a return to actual Social Democracy in political discourse should be welcomed. Infighting at this stage will only be counter-productive. DSA bashing is too easy and won't get us anywhere.

They insisted they be given "better billing" on an event they didn't organize, REEEEE'd at any signs they disapproved of for not being "pro syria enough" (we're in the fucking USA dipshits our primary message should be "don't fucking invade" but apparently addressing US politicians in the US is "imperialist"), and then started harassing every organizer they could online about how we wouldn't let them have the "proper exposure" whatever the fuck that meant.

Basically they operated from the starting position of "we're right and everyone else is imperialist" and then got extremely assblasted that they didn't have the moral high ground on imperialism so just tried to take the whole thing down instead

The whole post is just "all these things I don't like are the exact same group of not-commie" bookended by some prolier-than-thou wankery. What's not to ban?

To elaborate on that, every single member of level of government (federal presidency, house, and senate; state governor, assembly, and senate; civic mayor and council) is directly elected first-past-the-post in single-winner elections corresponding directly to easily Gerrymandered geographic areas. This means 3rd parties are electorally worthless, and executives have basically no obligations to legislators.

Pretty much the only way "3rd-party politics" are electorally viable in the US is by caucus entryism in of the big two parties, to challenge them in their internal primary elections (which, by the way, are also first-past-the-post, and often closed to any voters that aren't party members).

There is, however, one tiny loophole, which is that many states and localities allow direct ballot referendum measures to pass laws and change state constitutions, bypassing elected representatives. This could theoretically be used to implement PR/IRV at the state/local level, as Maine is currently attempting, and possibly even be used to affect that state's votes in federal elections.

Unfortunately instant-runoff voting is insufficient to overcome Duverger's Law. I wish my fellow Greens would move on already to something that actually can, like approval voting. The Libertarian Party figured it out.

bump

Which we're currently seeing being dismantled or in some cases overridden by state legislators, so that's going to have an increasingly short shelf life.

Well yeah, they're a part of that silent minority that has the right idea but can't really express it into the greater annals of the FGC because that FGC is so hostile to anything that goes against the modus operandi. I'm not saying Sanders is revolutionary, but the FGC wouldn't even want to live a more financially and socially secure life because it would mean voting for "the crazy old cuck commie totalitarian anti-human nature grandpa".

Play Skullgirls Humblebundle ver. and do the tutorial. Guaranteed to teach plebs all the ropes and make you an addict to fighting games for only a few dollarydoos.

Yeah, the DSA is a mess but if you want to even have a fucking alley to talk to other idiots to it's your only shot. That's how my friend worded it at least, and I'm sure that's how it actually is.

See, there's a difference between saying and being. Even if we ignore the fact that literally almost every relevant high profile member wants social democracy to be top policy (Harringtonite notion of "socialism" already meant this, even for Harrington himself if you just look at his debate videos on YT), they are a complete mess of an org with no coherent platform. Even the platform posted ITT is barebones SocDem (at least it sounds like actual social democracy as what it originally meant), and much more pressingly the platform excretes a need to sell itself, running then neither as a coherent party, nor as a full-on non-profit where molding can be done. Yes, molding is almost impossible, because it's more of a flycatcher org than an org that principally wants its members to be more heard than what the vocal party line allows. Like I said before, I think this can be pushed through, or at least that it can come far enough that the org needs to realize that it will need to change or will bleed serious members who will find success elsewhere.