Is there any veracity to the claim that "the PSL covered up SA allegations"? I hear it a lot in discussions surrounding the PSL. I wanna know if this is a valid concern
Is there any veracity to the claim that "the PSL covered up SA allegations"? I hear it a lot in discussions surrounding the PSL. I wanna know if this is a valid concern
OP you are engaging in my mind in unacceptable wrecker behavior.
You are attempting to suppress votes for the only anti-imperialist, socialist party on the ballot nationwide in the US on election day.
The time to ask this question was a week ago, a month ago, 3 days ago, time for people to have a discussion without a deadline looming to cast a ballot for them or not.
Doing this at the 11th hour reads to me as an attempt to suppress votes for them, to perhaps even attempt to get some lurkers to vote Democrat instead by causing issues and concern that they're voting for abusive people.
Since we're in the court, I move that OP be given a temp ban until the election is over and this thread be locked and removed as should all other discussion on this as wrecker behavior.
Why couldn't any of you have brought this up a week ago? A month ago? We've long been supporting PSL's candidates and discussing our imminent votes for them for some time and people would have been happy to discuss it. But there was silence, no threads, no major discussions on it. Now at this opportune moment you break ranks, you deploy these accusations in an inflammatory thread on election day without proper time for a discussion, raising emotional tensions against PSL right as we most need people to vote for them.
So why now? I'm disgusted by people dredging up this shit on this day of all days. It's transparent what it is. It isn't good faith, it isn't helpful or useful. Even if it's all true what are you going to do about it? How else are you going to signal on the ballot as an American a support for the agenda of socialism, a vote against war with China and Russia?
There is a time for discussion and a time for solidarity and closing of ranks and showing any left-leaning people who browse our instance that we support Claudia de la Cruz and they should too rather than voting Democrat. Today is a day for closing of ranks. Tomorrow will be a day for litigating any problems we may have with our movement.
This is peak western left in-fighting, ill and unacceptably timed.
I really didn't want to get into it and have to try to work out how to say it diplomatically (and even so, I fear I'll get accused of being dismissive of women's issues for saying it), but since you've already gone there and aren't pulling any punches, I will say, I had a similar thought as you. The timing of it, whether accidental or not, is weird as hell. The accusations could be entirely true, exaggerated, false, or anywhere between, but there is no time for people to sort that out properly literally on election day. And it's not as though PSL is gonna win the presidency and someone needs to call them out to make sure they don't gain immense power and abuse it. In this election, they've always been a fringe "closest thing to something truly 'left' to gain popular support and build a movement at all" and electorally, is mostly just a way to spread a "leftist" message. Tossing around "what's up with, I heard a rumor" type statements at a time like this, when they're going to be at the height of being seen at all throughout all the erasure a party like them faces in popular media, is bizarrely naive at best.
Similar happened with the green party recently (not originating on here, mind) and though I have little desire to defend them considering I never expected them to be aligned with folks like us in the first place, the timing of it was also odd. After a lot of hearing little about them policy-wise one way or another, the green party VP running has a statement extracted out that makes him sound like he has anti-trans views. Maybe he does and it's important to know, but if there is one thing US electoralism is a well-oiled machine at, it's smearing political candidates. And when it's coming for candidates who in the best case scenario could have their party win 5% or whatever for funding, it's all the more to me like, "We're doing this right now? Is this supposed to be principled?"
I could understand if we were talking about candidates who can actually win the presidency, but like, what exactly is the goal of bringing it up right now other than to get people to hesitate voting for a third party and help undermine any attempts to put a wrench in the dual party structure?
Even as little as a week ago would have been better. At least then there'd be some time to go over what is known. And if this was already known and people were waiting around to bring it up until now, that's just straight up the opposite of helping; not helping women and not helping organizing efforts either.
This is how you get people to see through your party and NOT want to vote for them. Bourgeois democracy is literally not ever that serious, it is a symbolic protest vote and matters so SO much less than SA allegations true or not. Calling someone who wants to make sure they aren't supporting SA protectors a "wrecker" (again, whether the allegations are true or not and there are certainly true ones) is a misogynist reaction to real concerns that only shows that women are unsafe in the PSL. One more vote for Claudia is not worth that.
This is a perfect 2020 post about Tara Reade, with some modifications.
Not really the same thing at all. Tara Reade was an individual coming out, risking her reputation to do so, against someone who had a viable chance to acquire immense political power (and who subsequently did so and used it in service of genocide). Someone who also has a detailed past of horrible policies. This is vague "I heard a rumor" language being said about an entire party by an anonymous person on the internet, not even about the PSL candidates running specifically, and for candidates who have zero chance to win the presidency and a party that has virtually no political power thus far. The OP didn't even provide a case against PSL themself. They prompted a case to be made against them. Whether intentional or born from ignorance, this is one of the most common types of rumor-mongering, while trying to avoid having any responsibility put on the person who does it. "I heard that my neighbor Tom eats babies? Is this true? Just want to make sure if I should keep my children away from him."
Like take a step back from this particular issue for a moment and think about the framework of how this is being done. Because even if this is all true and PSL 100% deserves the flack and OP has the best of intentions trying to be a conscientious person, this is also a kind of approach that gets used for dishonest means. This cannot be the best we have for dealing with accountability and consequence, is reactively asking provocative questions on election day and shouting at each other about who is more principled in the face of accusations.
I think you may not have looked over the whole thread yet? It's understandable, there's a whole bunch written.
I'm referring to a specific situation where a specific person alleged that a specific party member SA'ed them, and then felt that PSL ignored their concerns.
I think, in light of that situation (which darkcalling is familiar with in this thread), their language really does parallel the DNC reaction to Tara Reade.
I read quite a bit of it. I must be missing something big for it to make any sense at all as a comparison. One is a national imperialist party, one of two parties who holds power in the world-spanning US empire, and is capable of carrying out genocide (and is doing so right now). One is a grassroots organization with very limited reach and influence. That doesn't change the fact that SA allegations need to be taken seriously, but it does make the timing and nature of allegations different. Also different is the way in which it has been done with this thread. This was not a thread compiling resources and providing sourced information to make a case against PSL for a specific, described purpose. It was a thread asking a leading question and letting the reader fill in the blanks with their imagination. And PSL is not an organization with immense power and a sparkling reputation in the public eye for millions of loyalists, which needs a dose of reality applied to it. It is a (relative to the existing power structures) tiny and struggling organizational effort in the core of the empire. And with it being in the core of the empire, it is especially vulnerable to both infiltration and the various imperialist tendencies in the very population it's trying to recruit membership from. If it is failing to be disciplined on those fronts, it deserves criticism for doing so; from fellow anti-imperialists and communists who are trying to make better happen. But there is a tendency for people to approach this kind of thing with individualist thinking, to view it not as an "us problem" but as a "them problem" and "I'm not part of it because I condemn it and I don't support them." Sexism happens in the most banal, everyday ways in a patriarchal society. The point there is not that it should be seen as normal and ignored—just the opposite if anything—but that, much like being anti-racist, opposing it means more than saying it's bad and saying people who are doing it are bad and should feel bad and you should be mad at them.
At some point, we have to actually develop processes of disciplined accountability. I don't see how anyone would even begin to do such a thing for a party like the democratic party, but it is possible to do so with communist or communist-adjacent orgs. That is one of the differences in comparing. It should be possible to approach this in a way that can get real results in accountability, with organizing efforts like PSL. With a party like the democratic party, it's more a matter of helping people understand how systemically unconscionable they are and how irredeemably captured by imperialist interests and all the oppressive isms tied up in that. It does us no good to apply the same approach to an org that is meant to have the potential to resist the empire, to only treat it as a hopeless endeavor in need of being putting on blast with tactless dismissal if any hint of bad behavior comes out of it. We can't afford to give up on orgs like this as victims of poor leadership.
I don't know if I'm making myself clear or not, but I'm kind of tangentially getting into a pattern that I see with US "left-leaning" orgs and how people talk about them. "This one is bad for this reason, this one is bad for that reason," okay, so what are we doing for alternatives then? Where are we leading people if the only options are bad? Is there no way to root out issues in any of these orgs? Is the only solution to tell people they are bad and to stay away from them? What does that accomplish for organizing?
I mean, I'm pretty sure theres a ton of empire challenging parties that are beyond help and arent worth advocating for. Trotskyist parties obviously. A big lesson people have been learning recently in the CPUSA is that trying to change the org from the inside just has not been working. The complete declawing of the anti-zionist DSA proposal shows that the right will assume power whenever something radical comes along. I'd argue both organizations are controlled resistance simply through the futility in engaging in liberalism and settler politics, CIA inflitration or not.
You could say the same thing about the green party as well. Hell, theyre not even self described socialist, following the party as a guide towards anti-imperial work leads you to doing electoralism without any kind of dual power building or smashing tentacles of imperialism beyond toothless protests.
PSL is largely funded by a few people who have a large say in the party, there's a tendency to burnout, abuse of power, a distinct lack of dual power building, transperancy, and settler cadre and policies to the extent that some native orgs (The Red Nation) see them a lost cause and do not work with them.
Where does that leave us? What's the point of condemning, to say that these parties aren't worth engaging in? In my opinion, "Something else" is a good enough answer. Native ML orgs exist that are doing the community organizing, education, and dual power building that really matters. Black defense groups and mutual aid orgs, hell anarchists feeding their communities and engaging in materially anti-imperialist actions are doing more than our American brand of protests or electoralism could ever bring.
Lastly, who are we organizing? Are we radicalizing, connecting, and orchestrating actions among the actual proletariat of America and its imperialist tentacles? (non-citizens, indigenous, racialized hyper-exploited populations) Or are we organizing the white labor aristocracy, petite bourgeoise, or otherwise settler population and arming them with marxist rhetoric and calling them the vanguard of the hyper exploited?
The fact is, this is America. In America, as long as imperialism produces a labor aristocracy, as long as coputulating to whiteness is in the material interest to the vast majority of this population, the revolution is not coming with just organizing, and certainly not in parties or power structures overwhelming controlled by settlers. The material conditions need to be created. The guide to action is cutting the tentacles of imperialism, building dual power to help the hyper exploited before and after the revolution, and bringing our number one export, suffering, home.
If PSL would rather care about the election of all things more than people feeling unsafe in their org, that's on them. I see the entire effort put towards getting them on the ballot to be fruitless and a waste of cadre time and money, and the wrecker allegations happen no matter what day the SA cases get brought up. Why do so many of you online sound like democrats upset you're not getting the marxist vote you're apparently owed, despite the fact there's literally nothing to gain but a symbolic number go up?
I'm sorry if I sound mad but Marxists should know that this election and this party does not matter as much as having the frank discussion and self-crit on what has happened in the PSL and what good can come from being in the org. What worries me is that not a single response has been "They recognized power abuse in the organization and addressed it and try and prevent it from happening in the future" but instead sweeping it under the rug, handwaving the issue, or saying that these many people were simply lying. If there's anything the election should be it should be an advertisement for the party and its policies, and the reactions to this post is capitalizing on that to say that even just asking if the party is an unsafe place for women and other vulnerable groups you are a "wrecker", it's a bad look for PSL and the Marxism-Leninism they claim to follow.
I hope you'll forgive me, my steam is running out for reading and replying here, so I don't have too much more in me.
On the difference between the DNC and PSL: sure, it's not an exact comparison, but does it matter to a mouse if it's being crushed by a person or an elephant?
On developing better processes: it seems like PSL is working on something, at least, most of the examples seem to be several years old.
I really agree with you on not labeling the org as a whole as bad, and that's what I'm finding so frustrating here. I think the PSL is probably the better of the parties in the U$, but there's some fucked up stuff that (allegedly) happened at some points. Is it so difficult to say they're pretty good, but have some faults?
The Philly thing specifically has been struggled over since genzedong on Reddit, and it doesn't seem to ever be accepted that it happened and it was fucked up, and move past that. The insinuation that this is some kind of opp really burns me because no one cares about this. No one at all. It pops up every once in a while in these spaces, but it's not part of some real unified smear campaign against PSL. No one gives a fuck. If this had happened to someone I love I'd at least want it to be acknowledged.