Expelling Bowman would mean handing the perfect tool to the establishment to stoke divisions within the Palestine solidarity movement, the left and the working class, and play into the strategy of divide and conquer. It is exactly what our enemies want.
Yeah I'm torn. DSA is essentially working to make socdem demands as a theory of change that helping workers win demands will illuminate the promise of uniting as workers. It's kind of undeniable that expelling Bowman (and theoretically Bernie for not publicly endorsing BDS, eventually AOC for her 'present' vote) will weaken the left as an entity in DC. I guess the question comes down to "what is the point of DC politics" which I'm still trying to answer myself.
But honestly I don't have any faith in PSL as an alternative 'more radical' option to be the most influential left org in the US. I would prefer to have DSA be an imperfect 'big tent' :visible-disgust: org that primarily helps unions through solidarity campaigns, but also pushes for things like the PRO act, M4A etc. I can't help but think this is the only option we have, considering how awfully organized & class conscious the US working class is. In other words, I think DSA is only as powerful as the working class, which is to say NOT powerful. We're at a stage where the demands we're able to make through the org are extremely limited by this. This is what I think when people criticize DSA for making cringe moves. This is all we can do right now, and I think we should be careful about squandering the little power we do have.
There was a very interesting thread on Twitter about similar issues Lula faced in Brazil, I'll link if I find it. Online lefties are typically extremely pro-Lula, but people seem to not understand how much awful right-wing coalition building he did. And he did so to stay in power, to extract wins for the working class. So it seems hypocritical to criticize DSA and be uncritically pro-Lula. If you're one of these people, please share why I'm wrong. :lula-bars:
So yeah, all this to say I have no idea where I stand. I'm also not super clued in. But I think not expelling, instead not re-endorsing is an acceptable move.
EDIT: I swing hard between Bernstein and Lenin on a daily basis, please don't crucify me too hard for my right-wing take today. BDS forever of course, liberate Palestine in our lifetime :palestine-strong:
I think Lenin would define the DSA as a Bourgois Workers Party(notparty) like UK Labour in 1900. Worth supporting, but only if communists have full political freedom to agitate about its weaknesses from inside.
Yeah I think you're right on the first point. Lenin taught me so much, but I still struggle with how much to / how much not to apply Lenin to our own context.
I used to read Lenin and go "haha he's talking about DSA cucks" but that changed when I actually started doing DSA organizing work. I'm under no illusion that "DSA can establish communism" or whatever, but in my city and my situation, we are organized in doing great and valuable labor solidarity work as well as political education. And I find that lots of online leftist's takeaways are that "lol you're in DSA but Lenin said you're a cuck" but I found that to be an incredibly demobilizing sentiment personally. I'm happy staying kinda ideologically agnostic on this because I've directly seen how useful DSA can be for labor.
I don't agree with you that DSA is only useful because communists have freedom to agitate. Considering how weak the working class is currently it seems a bit like a destructive ultra left position to me. And I struggle to even picture what that would look like, there really hasn't been any moment in the discussion meetings I've attended where I've been like "actually DSA is doomed and we need to be Leninists." In fact many comrades would probably agree with the criticisms of its contradictions.
And also let's be real, if you're organizing labor, much of that labor will be American boomers. I'm really just interested in growing people's class consciousness and hoping to push people to learn about socialist labor politics OF ANY FORM really. Maybe that's besides the point idk.
Yes, we seem to forget that while left-wing orgs were around the same size in the 1890s-1900s, there was significantly more stochastic worker violence and unorganised labour action than we see, and unions were much stronger. The base was far more conscious.
We're getting to that point (for better or worse), but I agree that as long as you're willing to highlight weaknesses and contradictions in a DemSoc org, and where possible agitate for a more hard line stance you're doing ok.
No, wrong continent. Unfortunately, to a first approximation, everyone not in AES lives in America, they just have radically different experiences of what that means.
Yeah I'm torn. DSA is essentially working to make socdem demands as a theory of change that helping workers win demands will illuminate the promise of uniting as workers. It's kind of undeniable that expelling Bowman (and theoretically Bernie for not publicly endorsing BDS, eventually AOC for her 'present' vote) will weaken the left as an entity in DC. I guess the question comes down to "what is the point of DC politics" which I'm still trying to answer myself.
But honestly I don't have any faith in PSL as an alternative 'more radical' option to be the most influential left org in the US. I would prefer to have DSA be an imperfect 'big tent' :visible-disgust: org that primarily helps unions through solidarity campaigns, but also pushes for things like the PRO act, M4A etc. I can't help but think this is the only option we have, considering how awfully organized & class conscious the US working class is. In other words, I think DSA is only as powerful as the working class, which is to say NOT powerful. We're at a stage where the demands we're able to make through the org are extremely limited by this. This is what I think when people criticize DSA for making cringe moves. This is all we can do right now, and I think we should be careful about squandering the little power we do have.
There was a very interesting thread on Twitter about similar issues Lula faced in Brazil, I'll link if I find it. Online lefties are typically extremely pro-Lula, but people seem to not understand how much awful right-wing coalition building he did. And he did so to stay in power, to extract wins for the working class. So it seems hypocritical to criticize DSA and be uncritically pro-Lula. If you're one of these people, please share why I'm wrong. :lula-bars:
So yeah, all this to say I have no idea where I stand. I'm also not super clued in. But I think not expelling, instead not re-endorsing is an acceptable move.
EDIT: I swing hard between Bernstein and Lenin on a daily basis, please don't crucify me too hard for my right-wing take today. BDS forever of course, liberate Palestine in our lifetime :palestine-strong:
I think Lenin would define the DSA as a Bourgois Workers Party(notparty) like UK Labour in 1900. Worth supporting, but only if communists have full political freedom to agitate about its weaknesses from inside.
Which we do.
Yeah I think you're right on the first point. Lenin taught me so much, but I still struggle with how much to / how much not to apply Lenin to our own context.
I used to read Lenin and go "haha he's talking about DSA cucks" but that changed when I actually started doing DSA organizing work. I'm under no illusion that "DSA can establish communism" or whatever, but in my city and my situation, we are organized in doing great and valuable labor solidarity work as well as political education. And I find that lots of online leftist's takeaways are that "lol you're in DSA but Lenin said you're a cuck" but I found that to be an incredibly demobilizing sentiment personally. I'm happy staying kinda ideologically agnostic on this because I've directly seen how useful DSA can be for labor.
I don't agree with you that DSA is only useful because communists have freedom to agitate. Considering how weak the working class is currently it seems a bit like a destructive ultra left position to me. And I struggle to even picture what that would look like, there really hasn't been any moment in the discussion meetings I've attended where I've been like "actually DSA is doomed and we need to be Leninists." In fact many comrades would probably agree with the criticisms of its contradictions.
And also let's be real, if you're organizing labor, much of that labor will be American boomers. I'm really just interested in growing people's class consciousness and hoping to push people to learn about socialist labor politics OF ANY FORM really. Maybe that's besides the point idk.
Yes, we seem to forget that while left-wing orgs were around the same size in the 1890s-1900s, there was significantly more stochastic worker violence and unorganised labour action than we see, and unions were much stronger. The base was far more conscious.
We're getting to that point (for better or worse), but I agree that as long as you're willing to highlight weaknesses and contradictions in a DemSoc org, and where possible agitate for a more hard line stance you're doing ok.
Yeah. Ultimately I think we're all disgusted by Bowman's actions, and it seems like a vast majority think it was a mistake to endorse him at all.
Out of curiosity are you a member / active in DSA? (Not a fed) :fedposting:
No, wrong continent. Unfortunately, to a first approximation, everyone not in AES lives in America, they just have radically different experiences of what that means.