Everyone's always talking about PSL, SRA, DSA, RR, CPUSA, and I'm just over here like "I just wanna grill for god sake!"
There's a million little random leftist organizations with slightly different goals and ideologies, but which one should someone looking to, in the words of Father Matt, 'log the fuck off' go to? Which ones are crank warehouses? Which are honeypots? Which are full of libs?
Bitch and complain about your least favorite orgs and shill for your favorites here. Reply to others telling them that their org is full of libs and FBI agents. Etc.
EDIT: also anyone with a specific recommendation in the Quad Cities area in Iowa/Illinois definitely drop me a line
My suggestion? Join the most potent political force of the working class in your area, and push it left if you can.
Your local democratic party may not allow you to push it left, even if it is the most potent political force. Forget that. But maybe a lot of workers in your area are in a union. Join up and go. If there's an active DSA chapter in your area, join up and try to raise class consciousness.
If you're a Marxist like me, the search for the perfect org is idealist. Rather, we need to go where we can best raise class consciousness and escalate class struggle by organizing the working class. For me, that's DSA, specifically the Reform and Revolution Caucus, SRA, and the union I'm joining.
This is the best suggestion really. Revolutionaries must go where the people are and agitate even in the most reactionary organisations. That means that no org is categorically really off the table, it just has to make sense in your local conditions, which I guess is the tricky part.
Just to be clear, if the org is utterly undemocratic, it may be impossible to push it left even if you agitate. I would join an org that I can influence, not just act in concert with.
ofc, grassroots left-leaning orgs are the most ripe for this kind of thing as opposed to a local Democratic Party chapter or something
I'm going to try and send my dues straight to the my local DSA and try and get it to become more Marxist. Problem is DSA is a very flawed and disconnected organization as well as having a bad rep among many non white activists. That is going to be beyond something I can do alone even with a more Marxist base. DSA needs to help out local groups more than anything to gain trust.