Right guy is a PCUSA member or (ex PCUSA member?) maybe @Alaskaball can clarify, who ran for state office under the party, idk if this twitter user is affiliated with the org, but they claim to be, this was before Maupin got exposed, but I feel like you should know better than to be chummy with Caleb Maupin's weird org regardless of the abuse not being public given all the patsoc stuff.
same twitter user tweeted today
Glad too see many former CPI members joining the ranks of PCUSA, already proving themselves valuable Comrades.
Did any of this get okayed by the party? Is the PCUSA recruiting CPI people ? I feel like that's a recipe for disaster, if you were part of CPI the last thing you should do for at least a few months is join a new org.
There is no such thing as a western left. It's grifters all the way down.
1: Party of Communists USA works with any organization or party in local regions to build overall communist and socialist presence in their local communities. We can and have cooperated across sectarian lines from ultra-Left groups to rightist groups.
This accomplishes three goals.
To build a positive visible communist presence in the eye of the American public.
To build networks of allies to unite on political issues both on local, state, and eventually national levels.
To recruit more ideologically aligned members to our party and help less ideologically aligned members leave to go where they're more comfortable.
2: Party of Communists USA has an open door to all who want to join or leave should they think their personal guiding ideology does or does not closely align with the party ideology. The people may change over the years but the party remains. This is why we have members from all political backgrounds from maoists to DSA socdems who choose to unite under the banner of Marxism-Leninism. To try and attack the Party for welcoming anyone that wishes to enter the movement with the intent to learn how to become a communist and a political activist, regardless of their past circumstances, is a naïve person who thinks in terms of political theater and not the concrete political reality that concrete human beings of flesh and blood.
3: I have been a part of the party for more than two years now and remember the rabidly obsessive smear job Peter Soeller, Peter Korman, and S4A orchestrated to attack the Party with of sock puppet accounts over the course of the election cycle.
Let me be blunt and up-front about this. Helali did use the U.S army to get a full ride through college where in 2015 he resigned from the military as a conscientious objector. He did what a lot of people had done and use the government to jump-start his academic career. Personally I found it a bit distasteful but understandable and even humorous since he used that full-ride from the U.S government to qualify himself for a scholarship and study in the People's Republic of China and earn a masters degree in Marxist Philosophy.
On the IWW question, Helali stole nothing, he requested a loan from the chapter to help fund his trek to Iraq to fight with the YPJ against DAESH from the Boston IWW General Membership Branch during a short period of time where its charter as a legitimate branch of the IWW was suspended by the IWW's General Executive Board (GEB). The IWW's GEB ruled against it as illegitimate regardless of the fact the loan had approval before the Boston charter was suspended and demanded an immediate return of the "stolen" funds while Helali, an ethnic Kurd, fought with the YPJ in Syria between January 2017 and September 2017. Side note, he also participated in the assault on Raqqa, the capital of ISIS's "caliphate", so he wasn't just there to "avoid legal action". When he returned to the U.S, he repaid his loan that he "stole "from the IWW, moved to Vermont to work as a farmer and continue pursuing his academic education in cultural studies and anthropology at Dartmouth, and eventually moved from being ideologically an anarchist to being a communist.
When the allegations came out, during his political campaign for State Rep of Vermont coincidentally, party members rightfully concerned for the truth requested a commission be organized to seriously investigate the claims. The party leadership followed through by organizing a committee of 4 - a two men, a trans woman and a woman as gender balanced group for this sensitive issue - and spent months going through all available information and interviews.
Attempts were made to try and reach the various accusers who ignored or refused to make any statements or interviews to the commission and instead continued publicly attacking helali with the same allegations while stating that "PCUSA refuses to investigate and continues to hide and protect the thief, anti-Semite, and serial rapist by helping him flee the country" even though the guy wasn't a thief, agrees with Stalin on the treatment of anti-Semites (Read], never raped anyone, and was still quite literally in Vermont running as the first communist candidate in the state since 1984, the final year Gus Hall and Angela Davis ran for President and Vice-President of the U.S.A.
At the end of the investigation, since it was impossible to reach any of the accusers, and helali co-operated with the investigation by providing receipts, paperwork, and personal testimony that rebutted the charges the committee ended with the declaration that Helali was not guilty of the claims levied against him and the party moved on.
I am deeply disgusted by this attack on my party, and my comrades and firmly request you delete this post.
If anyone does have further questions on this topic I will answer to the best of my abilities. I can not discuss internal party information, and I refuse to discuss any legal information out of respect of what is a completely private matter.
I'll finish on the note that if I, or many of my comrades that are still a part of the party did hold these allegations to be truthful we would have collectively left the party. And yet here I am, two years later still a proud member of PCUSA.
I am not concerned about the split. The party, and every party has splitters that cause damage to the party they split from.
I am firmly responding because you " only asked to confirm the membership status of the person to make sure" while including a controversial video that was designed with the intent of smearing the reputation said person while they were running for state congress. I would have been fine answering the question of there was only a question to be answered and and not an addendum bringing up an extremely sensitive topic that without contextual information would poison the well.
Add into the fact you immediately went to the user union to accuse my comrade of "stealing money from the IWW, which the IWW thinks they did and sued them for, the party member ultimately ending up paying them back, " which is a naked and completely made-up lie because I wasted my evening searching through court cases to verify whether or not that occurred. And it didn't.
And now you're behaving in the most two-faced manner by continuing to attack my party right below this comment while facetious apologizing to me.
On the IWW question, Helali stole nothing, he requested a loan from the chapter to help fund his trek to Iraq to fight with the YPJ against DAESH from the Boston IWW General Membership Branch during a short period of time where its charter as a legitimate branch of the IWW was suspended by the IWW’s General Executive Board (GEB). The IWW’s GEB ruled against it as illegitimate regardless of the fact the loan had approval before the Boston charter was suspended and demanded an immediate return of the “stolen” funds while Helali, an ethnic Kurd, fought with the YPJ in Syria between January 2017 and September 2017. Side note, he also participated in the assault on Raqqa, the capital of ISIS’s “caliphate”, so he wasn’t just there to “avoid legal action”. When he returned to the U.S, he repaid his loan that he "stole "from the IWW
Also including more context.
In January of 2016, the General Administration of the IWW was made aware of conflicts developing in the Boston General Membership Branch (GMB). As a result, on February 8, 2016, the General Executive Board (GEB) struck a committee to audit the "practices and culture" of the Boston GMB. The Boston GMB met on February 14, 2016, and a conflict erupted during this meeting, resulting in the formation of two separate groups, or factions, which would go on to meet separately. As a result of this dispute and various controversies surrounding it, the GEB suspended the Boston branch's charter on April 7, 2016. Branch officers were notified via email by GEB Chair Michael Garcia on April 8, 2016. The branch charter was reinstated on September 9, 2016.
The only reason why the IWW considered it illegitimate was because the Boston branch had divided into factions at the time and most likely threatened to disintegrate the Boston branch leading the main branch take drastic measures regardless of whatever agreements there was made beforehand, nor whatever emergencies would arise in the period between April and September. Adding in Helali's statement as well gives a much better understanding to what occurred in the months of April and May when the checks were disbursed.
I once again reiterate that at this moment I am out of the country in Rojava. I gave FW (fellow worker) Max Perkins funds since they underwent another operation and were in bad shape with the resurgence of the cancer and increasing difficulty walking. I also reimbursed FW Genevieve Butler for outstanding payments that she was due by the branch for her receipts. Additionally I consulted about making a donation to a cause or revolutionary effort. Some even thought it would be a good idea to take the money for other organizing efforts in Boston. In the end, I decided to donate money to the ongoing revolutionary efforts here in Rojava.
Quite frankly I think both the IWW General Executive and Helali to both be in the right. The only reason why there was a technical "wrong" is because of a factionalist element that disrupted the Boston branch enough to force a reaction from the main branch. I hardly find it ethically wrong to render medical aid to a comrade, financially settle outstanding payments to a standing member that may need that money for more important things, or materially supporting the Rojava socialists in their fight against ISIS.
And onto your final line. I'll keep it simple by saying the people that actually ran the discord, youtube, and made statements/propaganda were the people that stole the discord, youtube, and other platforms that were used to make statements/propaganda. I am quite serious when I say that the current membership are all people that actively participate in their local communities to materially aid the people and build political coalitions with other local groups. We quite luckily had our political dead wood throw themselves out for us instead of staying dormant like a benign tumor that has yet to metastasize. I'll take 100 dedicated people that'll both participate in administration work and work the streets to make a positive material impact on their local communities than a thousand armchair windbag theorists who waste their day bickering all day on twitter like modern philosophy majors over arcane metaphysical interpretations over the meaning of individual words.
I don't deserve any thanks. I can think of plenty of comrades both inside and outside of my party in the lower 48 that deserve more accolades than me. They actually go on the streets to feed the homeless, organize tenants unions, and fight for workplace unionization, do actual tangibly positive things for the world versus some random poster on the internet
Because the Donbass republics sought their right for national self-determination after the american-sponsored coup overthrew the ukrainian government and helped install a hostile government that began to enact harsh ethnic oppressions on the non-Ukrainian peoples of their nation.
I personally consider the action of publicly protesting against american imperialism and showing solidarity to the people of the donbass regions by giving a speech encouraging people to be more publicly anti-war and anti-sanction over the topics of the "rogue nations" of Bolivia, China, Cuba, Best Korea, the Donbass, Russia, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, over the optics of associating with a, at the time prior to the latest accusations, weird-ass fucking ginger, but I get what you're saying.
