Why are American communist parties so weird.
i can actually vote for a semi-functioning communist party in czechia
get fucked nerds
KSCM. a weird leftist fusion that leans ML. theyre the party that used to run czechoslovakia. current guy who leads it was a cop during the revolution and was known for breaking a liberal leader's jaw iirc
yeah. however they like focusing on regional and city councils and taking over the police because thats how the czech communist revolution happened post ww2
Nice. How much power to they have? Do the have a base? Is there nostalgia for communism as I know Czechoslovakia was one of the first communist countries to fall. Also are they weird on LGBTQ rights like many European communist parties are?
the party's official stance on lgbt stuff is silence. however, almost all lgbt legislation in czechia was written and pushed by individual communists and was watered down by the liberals. the communists have been largely marginalized but they control many rural towns completely still, including the town my family is from
czechia is weird when it comes to queerphobia. its almost never religiously motivated.
That has more to do with their inability to get anything done than with the reason for their current state, but damn is it why they suck.
That's Socialist Alternative's main criticism of many left groups (at least in my area), the whole point is to meet the working class where they are and help them get to where they need to be, build them a bridge don't just wish they were already across! That's why SAlt accomplishes WAY more than you'd expect, given our size, we're just now passing 1,000 members internationally again.
Sometimes y'all swoop into things other socialists have already organized, acting like it's an unorganized worker action or whatever and try to channel it and it's like, dude we're already here we're just not wearing red scarves.
can't speak to any experience with that, but in my area since I've joined it's been grassroots events, protests, stuff we organized, or stuff we were cooperating on.
We do be coopting lib organized shit tho 'oops your friendship huddle with police became a defund the police rally with people chanting ACAB :soviet-bashful: '
I would like to ask you guys to be a little more careful with what you identify as "grassroots."
My branch/ other local branches are for sure. I'm one of the loudest people on here about left unity, I'm aggressively against infighting and trying to steal members or anything like that o7
There's no real problem as infighting has in no way prevented any sort of mass action from happening or anything close to that. It's mostly just mild annoyances and DSA types don't like that they aren't in the driver's seat.
I think it's just that Sawant works her ass off, so people are willing to always follow her lead regardless of any sort of disagreement.
Nah SAlt coopts BLM rally's to make it about taxing Amazon, something that everyone there already agrees on.
I still generally believe SA is the most accomplished dem centralist org in the US, but there's a lot of real criticism there. Also like other trot orgs, there's splits over tedious bullshit.
When we went to blm actions it was just to participate in solidarity or to talk to people about how fed up with the system they were and help point out contradictions as we talked, to raise consciousness not to talk about tax amazon
Well Sawant literally took over a BLM march into city hall only to turn it into a tax amazon event that featured almost exclusively white speakers. And that fuck up is now being used by the WA state supreme court (for covid related reasons) to allow her recall petition to gather signatures.
Like I definitely think SAlt is an incredibly effective organization that definitely does far more meaningful work than DSA, but they do sometimes come across as out of touch.
Ahh gotcha, I was just talking about locally. And I agree, I share those criticisms at large
my only complaint with SAlt after working with the local chapter on a bunch of stuff is the emphasis on panels... like dammit, we don't need another panel on international antifascism, we just did one. come on, y'all... ISO was worse on this front though.
tbf that only really sucks if you're pretty well read or exposed to the ideas and discussions. For a lot of people, especially newer members, they have a lot of groundwork to lay out. Even then, for those who do know, its also about learning and practicing discussion, not rehearsing, but practicing organic discussion with sharp analysis. Because you can't just go to a protest and walk up to working class people and hit them with boring shit or long speeches, you gotta give them what you want them to hear in the way they need to hear it, and to do that takes practice and confidence
It's also why getting into big fights with other leftists online isn't really helpful, because you don't need practice for arguing with socialists, you need practice for talking to and working with working class people
I know, I know, it was just the repetition. the original plan had been to do 3 separate events on each topic but somehow we kept skipping everything but the panels and I was getting annoyed. I'm mostly just teasing.
What's SA's relationship to / opinion of currently existing socialist states?
We're quite critical of china and others, but I don't know too much of the extent, it's not been something that's come up much with local conditions as they are so I can't really say as I don't know where I personally stand on it yet, haven't had the brainspace to investigate it
Alyson Kennedy is really nice, but painfully awkward in person. (She showed up to one of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis with a booth) Their party is supposedly based after Castro.
Because they're in the imperial core, where the hegemony is strongest, brain worms are most numerous, and by which the state is most concerned
Because there are no real communist parties here, that's the short answer. I'm not voting for either of them.
Are you voting Biden? Green? PSL at least canvased my neighborhood
Nope. Not voting at all. The Greens nor PSL are going to be on the ballot in my state and I wouldn't vote for either of them anyway. I knew a handful of comrades that came out of WWP, which is the party that became PSL. I don't know enough about PSL to really trust them. Sorry, but the communist imagery and all that isn't enough for me. I've seen quote on quote "communist parties", even been a member of one to know a lot of them are just LARPing arm chair leftists and edgelords (and that's not counting all the infighting and stupid drama that goes on in these "parties").
On the flip side for the Greens, they are a joke and do this same song and dance every 4 years just trying to get enough votes to get federal funding.
