From the guest list, the show looked like it was created to have a space where left commentators of various sorts would come on and hash out ideological differences as the US left is in the wilderness post-Bernie. It would be interesting, I thought, to have a show where an ultra like Sean KB from The Antifada could explain Marxist theory on a panel with social democrats and have some kind of discussion.

It turns out that its basically just a radlib version of The Five from Fox News, where they just take turns kicking the tires on the days news.

Does anyone actually want a show like this? It seems like its trying to fill a market that doesn't exist - or maybe existed a few years ago and doesn't today. When I look around, I don't think to myself, "You know who has some understanding of the political struggle we face in this moment? This DSA-backed state legislator from NYC."

Listening to it was deeply unsettling. I don't recommend it.

  • hagensfohawk [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I agree with everything you just wrote. The question is how does the average poster to this board differ in their actual political actions than the typical Bernie supporter. There's not a communist party to be a member of, labor unions are basically all business unions, nobody is holidaying in the PRC to meet up with other communists, there's no international to speak of.

      • hagensfohawk [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Of course there are orgs that are nominally parties. There are not professional party members in PSL though. The PSL can't organize strike actions. It's not the hub that directs organizing. This is what is meant when talking about a party.

        • Bread_In_Baltimore [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It's kinda hard to have paid professional revolutionaries when you're small. They're just in the beginning stages but they're growing rapidly. They currently organize tenant unions and those campaigns have shown some benefits and made inroads work a segment of the Proletariat that the mostly white left has been unable to for decades.

          • hagensfohawk [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            I'm knocking PSL. Lots of good comrades. They are nearly solely responsible for maintaining some modicum of an antiwar movement during the Obama years. But I cannot imaging a future of a 3,000,000 member PSL. I think if we are able to build a real communist party in the US again, it will come out of a synthesis of mostly new orgs bourn out of developing material conditions. The PSL will likely have a role in that, but I don't think it will be The Party