Honestly its rude to be invited by a country to meet their president who decided to respond to your criticisms of their administration only to not show up and go meet the opposition.
Being invided and then no showing shows complete disregard to basic diplomatic Etiquette since it was a mission to show solidarity against the embargo
Bonus socdems being cringe part 4.5: about another member that didnt show up to the presidential meeting
Show
Deeply unserious people
I mean, singling these losers out is cool, but it seems weird to call out all of DSA for the ugly behavior of these two bad actors. After all, this is a statement coming from within DSA. Its not coming from the Cubans themselves. The fucking President took time to meet with them, which would seem to suggest Cuban organizers are largely supportive of these outreach efforts.
Giving these two tickets was a mistake. But organizing the trip, getting Americans to visit the island, and putting them face-to-face with a bonafide AES state leader should be a huge mark in DSA's favor.
Did you read the linked article? It goes into more detail about the organizational failures not limited to two participants.
It does, but I'm reading it as an outcropping of the fractured state of the returning committee membership.
I can't speak to what the International Committee facilitated, but I can say I've seen some off-shot of the delegation's visit via Noah Pasarán regarding the history of the embargo and its long term and most recent economic consequences. This is some of the most real and informative coverage of the Cuban Embargo I've had the opportunity to access, and I would consider this kind of outreach invaluable when attempting to shift views on our foreign policy.
To dismiss the efforts of the DSA participants as a whole seems shortsighted, as it appears more radicalized members of the delegation such as Noah continued to advocate for and send support to the country.
The article also seems to completely neglect that the DSA delegation brought 500 lbs of medical supplies to the island. Which seems like a bigger thing to crow about than two naysayers with shitty attitudes.
It's written by DSA members trying to improve the DSA, it seems pretty clear they'd focus on what they want to improve rather than back-patting themselves on aid they brought.
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If the scope of your plan for Cuba is limited to the amount of supplies you can carry in suitcases, you might want to find more productive places to focus your efforts to help Cuba. I don't think it's unreasonable to not focus on the drop-in-the-bucket level of material support their delegation was able to bring for an entire nation. Either way, I guarantee the writers of the article can walk and chew gum just like the rest of us can.
Then why fixate on the two members of a two dozen person delegation you've got beef with?
I don't see anything in this article about the next step in extending relief to Cuba. I don't even see a "follow my link to learn how to help us do X".
The impression I get from this article is that the visit was a mistake, the DSA International Committee won't be following up or doing anything like it again, and members should feel bad about even making this much of an effort.
Your criticism seems to boil down to "they should be doing X instead of writing this article" and I must once again suggest that they can do more than just write an article. The purpose of the article is clear. You might not like it, but it doesn't mean the article is the sum total of the writer's efforts.
What a silly argument. I'm done.
zifnab often comments like this, going in circles on minutiae. I just no longer respond
Yeah, I had them blocked for a while because of it and then unblocked them not too long ago. Not mad at them or anything just.. don't want to get dragged into this kind of circular silliness all the time.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I'll call out all of the DSA for wasting everyones time and energy giving life support to DNC instead of growing the PSL or Greens.
I wish there were more left orgs but the PSL and the Greens aren't it.
Disregard that tomfoolery. The PSL is absolutely a worthy left-wing org.
Copy of my other response: The way they respond to sexual abuse allegations, I've also heard they have a very non-leninist idea of what democratic centralism entails.
Also the ones in my area seem more interested in recruiting than doing literally anything at all outside of recruiting
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Disagree. An organization is responsible for their members especially when their members are clearly acting in bad faith.
edit: A strong and healthy organization should be able to absorb the criticism and make internal improvements to regain public faith.
None of the goals are mentioned, none of the organizations leaders are named, and there's no mention of when or how the author plans to
The author as in the critic blasting the 2 losers? like is the critic supposed to be incompetent?
The opening complaint is that the International Committee didn't follow up on the trip properly. This seems to be an indictment of the entire visit, as if the author is trying to dismiss it as a vacation for spoiled rich kids.
No word on who else attended or what they accompolished or how they planned to continue outreach to Cuba. Just some wishy-washy "We should be fighting imperialism at home" with no other plan of action.
Demanding that people come up with a detailed 69-point plan for global revolution before they can criticize social chauvinism in their party is absurd and bad faith behavior on your part
If this is how they act, this isn’t a mark in their favor it’s a fucking disgrace and Cubans will soon move on to another group with less chauvinist predispositions
Other groups send delegations to Cuba regularly, including PSL and Cuba-specific groups like those opposing the embargo. I'm not sure if FRSO has a delegation or not, or whether they join some of the amalgamation delegations that go every do often (they probably do one of those options).
Yes, we can absolutely criticize the DSA for actions it's members do, especially while part of an official delegation.
Just disband if you don't want to be an accountable organization.
I left after a number of years being deeply engaged in it because of this and I think their failure to have even rudimentary ideological unity is what has led to their current crisis.
Props comrade. All our groups draw circles around what we think are appropriate ideas to be a member of an org, but when you don't practice democratic centralism, and just let anyone break the rules at any time because "freedom", it doesn't build much trust or faith from the public, who are expecting a group even more disciplined and consistent than the current leaders to run things.
It might be possible for a big tent org to do this, but DSA has probably more members of the selfish individualist liberal orientation than not.
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Way to miss their point. They aren’t saying the DSA should disband, they are saying they should shape up and act like an actual accountable organization with internal discipline.
Official delegates are representatives. They represent the organization. Stop squirming out of it
This post is about the DSA doing fed work, not us.
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No actually I think the entire DSA org should disband if they can't keep their members from denouncing people they're on a diplomatic mission to visit, or meeting with anti-communist opposition groups, without being censured or suspended.
If members aren't accountable for anything they do even while on an official visit, then no one is going to trust them in the slightest.
This is why DSA libs eventually get themselves disinvited from the planning (and sometimes participation) of actions. They reveal that they cannot be trusted.
I might be ignorant on this, but did DSA call these people out or apologize for their behavior? Because they were essentially acting as diplomats for the org and if not strongly refuted then indeed reflect badly on the org as a whole.
The DSA isn't a single entity really, it's a decentralized mass of tons of different squabbling groups. Some of them are attempting to repudiate them, others are defending them. The DSA isn't really capable of enforcing discipline on its members.
I'd say the DSA is LARPing as the CNT-FAI with all the disfunction and infighting, but we all know that 90% of the DSA don't deserve the honor of being compared to people who actually went out and shot fascists.
:deeply-unserious:
This whole organization is a mess, being able to keep a cogent message for the party is the bare minimum in organizing political action
It’s not a party though. It’s a site of struggle and a place where communists can organize and educate among a very large membership of people open to left wing politics.
How effective is that if all they have been able to produce is more liberals
That’s not the case though. This article should serve as an example of that. Red Star was a small ML caucus in San Francisco a few years back. Now they’re a national force that hold a sizable number of positions in DSA national leadership including one of DSA’s two cochairs. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the authors of this article were liberals when they first joined DSA.
Impossible to tell from this article