https://twitter.com/the_vello/status/1321435262023536641
Feels like (the good parts of) old chapo again, drop an AOC post and go grab some lunch... come back and there are over 60 replies :)
I know I pop up on almost every post about AOC but I helped work with her election campaigns here in Queens as well her predecessors and she’s honestly so much better. YES she is a shitlib. YES electoralism is BS.
But she is leaps and bounds better. She WEAKENS the democrats. Yes she works with them, but she regularly voices her grudges and dissent in this otherwise hegemonic party over the American “””“left”””” and that is what starts to radicalize people. Anecdotally, it is what happened to me, who used to be a libertarian, after seeing the old Bernie’s speeches. This huge spotlight has brought the young people who don’t care out in DROVES.
I did a few AOC backed food drives to feed the community in the last couple years. I’ve been participating in these for YEARS. Before AOC, we would get a showing on the strongest of days with the best weather of about 15 people, which is awesome. In the last two years when AOC literally only attached her name to these things, we have had such overwhelming support that we’ve gotten (and our community has gotten) the privilege of adding extra food drive and community organization events just to fit all of the people who want to help into the schedule. We are talking well into the HUNDREDS of people I’ve never met at these events before, we are talking about people I watched these previous events benefit come back to now participate in them.
At the beginning of the pandemic, AOC was out here on the streets directly delivering real door to door aid to her constituents with us while other politicians were hiding away. When I say real aid I mean she was out here for days, hours at a time with no cameras, no press, nothing but the community. She has directly had an effect on this community’s organization. If there are any politicians in the US doing actual praxis right now, she is one of them and whether she means to or not, whether she is a lib or not, our community has organized and gotten several demsoc candidates into local/state elections. Over 10% of the NY state legislature is demsoc and it is trending upward with each cycle. Our city council has seen massively increased representation of grassroots campaigns by actual members of the working class.
It’s not all AOC, but unlike the rest of the Dems, she isn’t actively trying to undermine this movement. That is sometimes all it takes. Don’t get me wrong, I hope one day we remove AOC by primarying her from the left, but for now this is enough to not just keep actual action and organization alive, but to grow.
AOC is good because she's a good dem, and makes all other Dems look that much worse in comparison.
She's a Congressperson - an attractive, articulate, energetic one - who grabs media attention regardless of what she says or does. She's hard to ignore.
Keeping some dipshit like Anthony Weiner out of the seat is it's own reward. Promoting a voice that doesn't suck, even if her votes suck, is good. And backhanding the corporate weasel that Dems tried to run against her in the primary is good. And building a base of power in a major metro area is good.
It feels good, man.
:volcel-vanguard: Volcel Vanguard is on the scene, please maintain your vital essences as these will be needed after the revolution that is definitely happening.
Exactly. There is real organization by leftists on the ground here in queens that I never imagined I’d see. It obviously isn’t radical, but it’s the kind that brings our people out into the public eye and makes us look good. It’s won so many people over with just the most basic implementation of our ideology that once a big enough base is built up (and that base is SERIOUSLY building up, we are even getting political representation) we will be able to create real change
AOC is good because she's continuing to work with grass roots organizations and empowering new ones. A far cry from soviets and syndicates, but objectively better than typical Dems who move into the party fundraising once elected.
this post is the moment before the post heard round the world, take it in folks. soon the mods’ giving to RW pigpoopballs will be a long honored tradition, immortalized in time on the banner.
Strasseris good because he's a good nazi, makes all the other Nazis look that much worse in comparison.
Everyone is a Nazi. Mmmhmmm. We're all sane here on this board.
the point was to show that just because you're slightly better than your fellows doesn't make you fucking good. eat shit liberal
"Why is the American left 70,000 people in the DSA?" in one message board exchange.
Nah I am good. I am gonna hang around to have you white knuckle pound on your keyboard about social fascists.
Are you going to tell the mods on me? OH NO! How dare I challenge RandomWords, the one true leftist on the Chapo message board in the 3 times a week AOC struggle session post. Stfu.
lol as if i have to report anything you dumb fuck mother fucker. you'll eventually say something so fucked up you won't be welcome, you just haven't really let it out yet.
I've said zero things that are worthy of being reported on or will be reported on. I am sorry I challenged you in your special place. Clearly you aren't used to that. I am sorry, next time I will let the comparison of AOC and Nazi fly.
nothing has to be reported here you stupid shit, the mods aren't fucking libs like your stupid ass. you will eventually say something so fucking heinous that you won't be welcome. you stupid fuck.
I am not resorting to profanity laced tirades to get my points across. Someone disagrees with you on something. It happens.
I am going to keep going because I am completely chilled the fuck out and I know you are behind the screen enraged. I can smell it.
Jesus alright I am done. This person is an idiot. Have your last grand reply after this. Go get em.
That would make sense if the Dems were a unified bloc, like the Nazis were.
Maybe instead of venting to Chapo Chat you can organize her consistuents to do some cultural exchange with bolivans to promote socialism or something?
No, but your LE EPIC OWNS are all just stupid shit that's been proven to not be the true to what she believes.
She's like one of maybe 8 federally elected officials who aren't complete dog shit... maybe my point is how about reserve the flaming for the other 97% of Congress who are in fact actually ghouls.
i'm from america ass hole, but is that xenophobia? cause it sounds like it.
No, it's not Xenophobic... but the attitude of overly criticizing soc-dems does seem to come from European leftists who actually have decent representation whereas in the US we have basically none.
And it kind of makes sense, she might be half dog shit for somewhere like Spain, Greece, France, Germany etc.. for us she's definitely in the "good, but hold her accountable (not cancel) her" category.
well at least you realize we have no actual decent representation, stop trying to manufacture the idea that we do... and blaming a giant group of people who aren't american for something that you disagree with is not xenophobic?
I mean saying there's 1 decent person in the House out of like 400 something isn't really saying there is "decent representation"
Recognizing material and political differences between regions of the world ain't xenophobic.
Leftists in NA are different than leftists from SA or the EU. Sure there are similarities, but those regions have much different political realities.
you're right, they're better at actually getting shit done than we are, because we only have fake fucking leftists representing us, which you seem to promote for some reason.
we probably don't have one. stop pretending that we do. ilhan omar so far has been pretty good about shit, from what i can recall.
yeah most likely, but we'll see. so far, she hasn't held up any flags with anyone attempting a coup over a socialist government, but the day she does i won't be posting "well she's better than the rest of them" bullshit.
She voted against recognizing the Armenian genocide, and now they're at war
Good job you stupid shitlib, you caused that with your posts
ah yes, coungtering pro sucdemm pro elecotralism propaganda, the libbest lib of lib
You’re right that libs don’t radicalize people, but the system can and we can if the libs aren’t actively trying to stop us, which was the intention of my comment. AOC is a lib who hasn’t tried to stop our local community from organizing and now we do hold some tangible power
I already told you this isn’t about AOC being objectively good, it’s about the fact that she allows materially better conditions for actual leftist organization here on the ground in our district.
She’s infinitely better than any of the other neoliberal ghouls who have represented this district in the last 40 years and I implore you to actually read what I wrote saying I hope we one day primary AOC from the left and win, something that would not be possible had we not been able to organize locally during AOC’s tenure as our elected official.
If I could I’d be part of the First Peoples Regiment of the NYC Liberation Army tomorrow to establish the People’s Republic of Greater NY but it’s not happening and not possible yet, so I’m building the conditions to allow it to happen. What are you doing you fucking lib?
better than a neo-lib doesn't make you fucking good. it doesn't even really allow material conditions to be better. what it does is stifle an actual movement.
Ok and again I am BEGGING you to read where I directly say AOC is not good.
But god you in your fucking ivory tower. You know what’s not happening? People rising up in New York while the NYPD has a SIX BILLION dollar budget. You know the only way to change that? Either rising up and physically dismantling it or legislating that money away and enabling the EXACT CONDITIONS YOURE TALKING ABOUT.
You know how we are trying to do away with that budget? By ensuring we have representation on the inside ready to work to get rid of it, something that isn’t happening if you have Giuliani or Bloomberg running the city.
Me: “Here are how material conditions in our local community have improved since and because of AOC, allowing for us leftists to directly organize in ways we weren’t before”
@RandomWords: “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MATERIAL CONDITIONS?!?!???!?"
my 'ivory towers' got a fuckin staircase and a welcome mat you stupid fuck. elevate yourself. you said specifically that "the system can" which is only true if enough people get pissed off at it's existence, and the entire point of this post which your replying to is to fucking boost up fucking aoc, which you're helping to promote with this fucking bullshit. you know how e're going to do away with a budget? is that the fucking goal? are we doing local revolutions now? is that the fucking point that we're going to try to achieve? cause taht shits going to get immediately squashed.
AOC serves a fucking purpose in congress or she wouldn't be there. she a fucking token progressive, just like bernie was. they serve a fucking purpose. a fucking "manufactured consent" of representation.
Local organization leads to revolutions you absolute imbecile. You cry and whine and moan about material conditions and when I tell you they’ve improved you deflect and make it about AOC. Fucking newsflash, political offices hold immense sway and power and when they’re not being used to undermine the left like they have through all of American political history the left is able to organize and increase the power base of the left.
I WANT TO REMOVE AOC FROM THE LEFT. How many damn times am I going to have to tell you this? AOC IS NOT GOOD but she is better for the left than anybody else and it has improved material conditions for the left. We aren’t electing MLs yet, we aren’t dismantling our political system yet, so why is it bad that we do what we can strategically to build up the left?
Do you understand how shortsighted you are being? This is why I’m saying you live in this ivory tower. We are on the ground doing praxis and telling you it is only possible because material conditions have improved as a direct result of AOC and you’re telling us that’s bad. What is good enough for you? What’s your plan? Because I’ve not yet seen it.
AOC undermines the socialist movement by encouraging would-be socialists to vote for and therefore compromise with Democrats, which is class-collaborationist because the Democrats are a 100% bourgeois-controlled party with no mass membership or internal democracy. Her and Bernie's entryism has allowed us to draw important conclusions about the Democrats being ghoulish libs at their core, but this entryism was an avoidable mistake. We should have already learned this lesson from the Jesse Jackson campaign in 1988 that eventually turned Black and Rainbow Coalition Dem-entryists (some with even Maoist and Black Panther backgrounds!) into Obama-supporting liberals and Democrats. Even Angela Davis critically endorsed Biden!
If AOC and The Squad remain in the Democratic Party, they will follow the same trajectory and repeatedly betray their working class supporters, misleading the masses into thinking they can have any consistent or meaningful control over Democratic Party policy the whole time.
AOC is damaging the Democratic Party and enabling us to organize leftist and recruit new ones.
Electoralism fucking sucks, I’ve openly acknowledged that. But elected officials by design wield serious power, and when that power is not actively being used to undermine the left on a local level, it enables leftist growth. This is the reason the American left has been so silent for so long. The simple fact that she is coordinating with our local leftist groups for direct community organization has grown our groups from a few dozen organized people to hundreds, not only wielding actual local power but holding elected power which is a powerful tool for either fostering or destroying leftist organization.
I’m glad the power AOC holds has allowed our leftist community to grow. To say this has undermined us simply because AOC is participating in politics while ignoring the fact that it has actively organized and fostered our leftist community is an ivory tower so white I had to put on sunglasses to read your response.
You don’t have to like AOC or her politics. I’ve worked with the campaign and I personally don’t. I know many others who have and still work with her who aren’t fond of it either. But it has given us a strategic ally that (on the local level) doesn’t endorse the typical centrist Dems, and instead has brought working class people into positions of power and writing policy instead of more bourgeoisie attempting to disenfranchise the working class. Cry about electoralism all you want, I’ve watched my leftist and mutual aid community grow exponentially in the last 3 years alone, and every member of this group knows that the system can not be reformed from within. What we do know is that now a few people working from within are not actively conspiring against us and it has allowed us to grow a tangible power base that exists almost nowhere else in this country.
AOC's participation in politics and helping to grow community organizations isn't the problem. Her doing so while running as and governing as a Democrat is the problem. I want to make it crystal clear that I don't favor an ultraleft abstentionist approach to electoral politics here.
As problematic as Kshama Sawant has become, she's repeatedly demonstrated that it's possible to "grow the left" organically and run a candidacy without running as a Dem, and still win under similar conditions. It is also possible to grow the left in a similar fashion and organize with DSA members and other liberals on a united front basis without conceding to shortcomings in consciousness that tend towards time-wasting class-collaborationist bullshit, without endorsing or encouraging their obvious mistakes. The key is to focus on the issues and not the candidates - organizing around demands rooted in a principled Marxist program, including the call to abolish ICE, or calls for M4A or the GND, the Fight for 15 campaign, and so on.
AOC helping to popularize the demands for abolishing ICE and for the GND is good, and we should encourage AOC's supporters to still fight for these demands, but as Marxists we shouldn't reinforce or encourage their delusion that AOC is going to pull Dems to the left, or legislate a transition from capitalism to socialism. This is where Kshama screwed up and erred on the side of opportunism.
Instead of misleading people, we should seek ways to organize the working class and the oppressed to fight for these demands outside the reach of liberal and bourgie saboteurs, which means building alternative to the repeatedly failed Dem-entryist approach, including immediate tasks like forming an independent mass worker's party while simultaneously developing the embryo of the revolutionary party.
but as Marxists we shouldn’t reinforce or encourage their delusion that AOC is going to pull Dems to the left, or legislate a transition from capitalism to socialism.
This is why the phrase "critical support" exists. Support her for good intentions and the good results she actually helps produce, openly criticizer her bad foreign policy takes and votes. AOC's followers are definitely closer to radicalization than the Khive or Warren stans, it's our job now to move them away from electoralism. Same as Sanders, she is useful to a point but not th end goal.
Unfortunately, because of the role Dem entryists play (unwittingly or otherwise) in sheepdogging would-be socialists into critically and then "critically" endorsing increasingly worse neoliberals and imperialists, critically supporting Dem entryists has the same effect as uncritically supporting Dems in general. AOC and the others are ultimately dragged by the party's puppet strings, regardless of how radical or correct their messaging or demands might be. The experiences of 2015-2020 are more than sufficient to conclude that the Dem entryists have outlived their usefulness, if they were ever useful at all.
Right the politicians themselves are opportunists and we cannot expect to "pull them left" other than in cases of extreme solidarity where they fear for their positions (like MN after George Floyd). However, radicalizing regular on the ground AOC fans and Berniecrats is a viable tactic, especially right now. A huge group of young people just got involved in politics for the very first time this election cycle and got FUCKED by both parties. I know I personally lost faith in electoralism after dedicating hours of my life to a guy who endorsed the enemy, so I expect there are others who feel the same.
Anyway four dollars a pound, I'm not gonna die on a hill for entryism since most people don't even fucking vote.
I agree and this is not what I’m trying to say. I’m also not saying AOC is the best possible elected official participating in our political system.
What I am saying is that material conditions have improved locally to the point that we are organically growing our power base and as an ML it pains me to say that a non-insignificant amount has come from AOC attaching her name to things like our food drives and labor organization, then at the events and over time the actual leftists who participate in them like myself have recruited people and those people have recruited people to the point that in the last ten years before AOC we had a few dozen people at the most to hundreds of people after we had a well known political figure attach their name to us.
Don’t get me wrong, AOC is NOT radicalizing people, but the pipeline is real and working in ways I never thought possible with such efficiency. Our groups have grown exponentially and now are growing organically. The aid we’ve set up to help people has recruited those people into our movement. Our ideology, because of praxis possible due to AOC’s willingness not to persecute the left and instead nominally attach herself to it, are winning the hearts and minds of people. They see US as the champions of these issues in our community, NOT AOC, and that’s the critical difference and tipping point. They may not see the system as incapable of meaningful reform yet, but they do see direct action as MORE capable of reform.
I hope this clears up what my intention was in writing this
I mean she's not even saying she would abolish ICE how people understand that, she wants to replace it a more civil INS-type institution.
People rag on AOC for being a lib, but she's absolutely an important part of the lib-to-left pipeline. I wouldn't be surprised if she's hiding her power level, or just organically moves further left in the coming years.
I mean she's not hiding her "Powerlevel" at all. This idea that anyone who says anything slightly good must be a secret communist is like... inverse McCarthyism.
she’s not hiding her “Powerlevel” at all
These populist orators will point out with amazing clarity how terrible the current neoliberal system and its governmental enforcers are, and then pointedly don't say what they'll do to correct it. That way you can fill in the gaps in their platform with exactly your idea of the solution, and poof, now you're a huge fan of 25% a real person and 75% the person you invented in your head.
Kill the stan in your head.
This is precisely why I refuse to trust AOC and other DSA-adjacent Dem entryists, so long as they confine themselves within the Democratic Party. AOC, Bernie, The Squad and other so-called "democratic socialists" like them are opportunists and careerists steering socialists and workers away from the gruesome and thankless - but nevertheless ultimately necessary - task of building an independent vehicle for working class political representation.
I'm going to link this 2018 article by Howie Hawkins again because it's evergreen. Even if you prefer PSL, you'll probably find yourself agreeing with Hawkins's analysis and call to build a workers' political coalition. https://isreview.org/issue/107/case-independent-left-party
I don't think channeling energy away from the democratic party into a horizontalist socdem party does anything at all. If anything it's actively damaging to the left movement as a whole as the current first past the post electoral system we have only really works with 2 parties. Should the greens or something ever develop power there's absolutely nothing stopping them from just turning into the democratic party of today, look at what happened to the British labour party.
The explicit value dem centralist socialist parties provide is that they have levers within them that make co-opting things much more difficult. You can still have wreckers that split the party, but the party itself won't suddenly become much more centrist or something.
Yeah I totally agree, and it's even more rediculous that people are interested in the movement for a people's party project.
I also know this stuff not because I'm projecting, I got involved in the green party during Obama's first term. These folks know absolutely nothing, they are less competent than a 20 member trot party who at least know that they need to produce their own propaganda/media. Long time green party folks (like people who have been active since before Nader) still regularly complain about how they're ignored by the mainstream media and then do absolutely nothing to work around that fact.
I wouldn't say completely bad. I do think with the right people around her, she could move further left, but the problem is, everyone who is further left wouldn't (understandably) want to work for a congressperson.
People on here have insane standards for how everyone should act
They hate libs so bad any tiny amount of possible lib-ness must be snuffed out
Like a incel rating models 3/10 for having pointy elbows
That's because a lot of us are marxists and don't see politics as a neat little spectrum where liberalism is just a bit to the right of us.
Yea, it's becoming toxic
We don't need a rage fest on here
People respond to ideas with a little explanation
Left politicians regularly hide how far left they are, Kshama Sawant does things like try to differentiate between small and large landlords acting like small ones aren't a problem. Everyone knows she believes different stuff, but still.
Kshama at least has the sense to continue running as an independent, and continues to openly present herself as a Trot rather than a succdem, but she's grown weaker and more lib in recent years. One of the causes of the CWI splitting in 2019 was her and SA's increasingly dubious endorsements of DSA Dem and Justice Dem entryists like AOC and Salazar, rooted in the colossal mistake that was the 2015 Bern Turn, an avoidable mistake SA repeatedly doubled down on until class consciousness lurched forward in March 2020 and they had no choice but to self-correct. Kshama rightly continues to be a pain in the ass to Amazon but is in a much weaker position than she was when she first won her city council seat, especially as her district continues to gentrify and the voters living there necessarily become more petty-bourgie.
There are a ton of problems with the CWI and SAlt national that I'm aware of, I just point this out because opportunism isn't an inherently abhorrent thing that suddenly stops a group or a particular set of politicians from being socialist.
We live in a deeply right wing country, sometimes holding onto and growing power is more important than every single principal.
It's not that a mere moment of opportunism doomed SAlt or Kshama in 2015, it's that they made a mistake under opportunist pressure in 2015-2016 and then spent most of the Trump years refusing to acknowledge their mistake and correct course, instead making similar mistakes under the same pressure, thereby neglecting some of the work needed to sink roots into the working class.
The ends have to justify the means, but there are hard lines a Marxist party should never cross. Holding onto political power at the cost of tossing out foundational Marxist principles is practically the definition of opportunism, it's what turned the CPUSA and other vestiges of the 3rd International into liberal parties, and it's also what ruined the social-democratic parties left over from the 2nd International. What is even the point of winning and keeping power as a socialist party if you're not going to effectively represent the interests of the working class? Why call yourself "Communist" or "socialist" if you're going to act as the left wing of liberalism and get into the awful habit of co-signing social-imperialist and neoliberal policies?
Opportunism the way I like to approach it is be as left as you can possibly be in the political arena without totally abandoning your ability to get anything done in that space, and still remaining accountable to the socialist movement overall. I definitely have criticism for both AOC and DSA as a whole in it's ability to maintain this sort of stuff, but they are definitely trying. It's a lack of attachment to theoretical principals that is holding back the movement in a major way.
The most important thing is that outside this legislarive arena you are supporting major grass roots type efforts around mutual aid, left media, union building, and protest movements such that they become full vested parts of your left wing political machinery. The difference between the squad+Bernie and the most left wing legislative members like Barbara Lee is that they do make at least some effort in building out the above. Both the squad and DSA are far worse at doing this sort of stuff given their resources than Sawant/SAlt, PSL, ect, but they are doing it and it's why I still consider them to be left of succdem. DSA and squad democrats are much better at doing this sort of thing than a future third party like MPP or the green party does.
Also Sawant can be further left wing in the legislative arena than someone like AOC by virtue of the fact that she's one of nine in coalition with 6 other socdem legislators, rather than 1 of 435 in a split government. Someone like Sawant would be totally ineffective in a legislative body that large. The real test comes once we see a DSA type figure hold an executive office like mayor or governor, but until then, there's really not much more we can expect.
Most anger people have towards these folks is that they aren't constantly just shitting on democrats, and I don't think it's necessary that such rhetoric comes directly from them. They regularly are having their staffers leak stories to their media allies that shit on democrats.
Can we not do the “hiding their power level” shit with libs again?
We know what their goddamn power level is.
Nothing
I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s hiding her power level, or just organically moves further left in the coming years.
You're gonna be disappointed, man. We thought the same thing about Bernie and he had a much more openly radical past. People don't move left once they're in Congress.
People also gotta remember the people working for her aren't super online ML's. They probably are barely even socdems. No wonder she might regurgitate bad takes. Remember, she did respond to online criticism about her going to the Rabin event. I think she could be nudged in the right direction with some good faith persuasions, but she's in congress.
I actually literally just made a comment but I do regularly work with her in our community here in Queens and I’m a ML. I know a few others in our group who are as well and basically 1/2 of people who are working with us are significantly farther left than libs (granted we are only loosely associated with AOC but regularly coordinating community events)
When I WAS working with the campaign at least 4-5 of the people I got to know well were leftists. Obviously when not campaigning her staff is smaller and I’m not sure how big it is, but it’s for sure under 20 people and I know 3 who are leftists. I was kind of shocked when I realized how many people came out of the woodwork when one of us started pretty openly shitting on the dem party
Nah the staff is usually further left than the politicians, not the other way around. There was very likely a bunch of staffers for these folks posting to the old sub.
AOC struggle session time! My opinion, she is standard socdem likely with sympathies to the more radical wing, constrained by her worldview and in congress. Also the online left I think sometimes just imagines something they hate and project it on her (I do agree with critiques of her).
The left has so little power than a standard socdem seems like a radical and I'll take it for now
Absolutely not I completely agree with you but without the socdems the lib to left pipeline ends at lib.
Yeah to illustrate that, someone like D*stiny can actually be better at deradicalizing Nazis than someone who isn't an annoying neolib psychopath. It's called a pipeline and not a catapult, for a reason.
Correct but the good news is, as I’ve commented elsewhere on this post and will say it again here, AOC attaching her name to our leftist events and organization here on the ground in her district has recruited so many leftists indirectly.
She attaches her name, OUR (ML run/organized) event gets overwhelming positive response, people feel like they’re making an impact, they ask for us to keep including them, we show them that our direct action and organization is more effective at helping the people of our community, and suddenly they are radicalized. We used to have a group of roughly 15 leftists. After AOC nominally attached her name whether for optics or genuine interest, we now have hundreds of members of an organized community. It doesn’t sound like a lot in a city with millions of people, but the group is now organically growing and winning over the hearts and minds of people through praxis, and an organized community has the ability to punch well above its weight given the ability to then field candidates to control the power of elected positions that were normally used against the left. Improving material conditions because of AOC’s (in)action have made it possible to build a left power base for the first time in a long time here
This is so cool to hear. Thanks for the small dose of hope today.
The only universally valid critique I have of her is that Bernie was much more of a populist in rhetoric, constantly going after billionaires, never really talking about himself, whereas AOC has a tone much more comparable to say Warren.
She and all of the other further left members of congress would cleanly fit into GUE/NGL type parties in Europe which are left of succdem but aren't communist. It's essentially just 1960s succdems.
Just reading the thread below, we all need to take a step back to the basics of our analysis.
Why is AOC popular or noteworthy?
Her electoral success and general popularity reflects a much broader shift in the consciousness of the US working class , and this shift has its roots in the fallout of the 2008 crisis. This is also why Bernie Sanders found a receptive audience for his message, why the DSA now has tens of thousands of members, why strikes, work-stoppages and unionization efforts are at the highest levels in decades, why more than half of people under the age of 30 in the United States prefer "socialism" to "capitalism," and so on. Class struggle is on the upswing in the US, and AOC's popularity is an expression of this phenomenon.
Your analysis has to be grounded in the class forces at play and the material conditions as they exist. The material conditions of life for the working class are a product of the productive forces we have available, and how those forces are organized socially. Under capitalism, we have tremendous productive forces, enough to produce more than enough shit for everyone in the world . But, capitalism, as a set of relations, has become literally counterproductive, because the operation of capitalist relations leads to overabundance for the few, and denigration and bare subsistence for the many. The operation of capitalist relations creates class struggle for this reason.
When someone talks about a reform, or--even worse--a politician, "improving the material conditions" for the working class, they are just using the language of Marxism to make a point that directly contradicts Marxist analysis. The way to improve material conditions is to unleash the potential of our productive forces, and the way to unleash these productive forces is to change the relationships under which they operate. Tweaking capitalism, in one country, at this stage of development, isn't going to make it work any better from the perspective of the material conditions of the working class at large.
TL; dr, socialism, the working class overthrowing capitalism, is the basis for improving the material conditions for the working class.
So, back to AOC. She has ridden the wave of rising class struggle into a seat in the Democratic Party. What are the class forces at play in that party? If you look at the party's origins, it's development/history, it's pretty obvious that it's always been a ruling class party: of capitalists, of slaveowners, of the ruling class. People like to pretend that it's like "just a ballot line," but at no point in the party's history has it functioned in any way besides being a political vehicle for the interests of the ruling class, including their interest in subsuming threats to their rule.
AOC actively governs in that capitalist party. And while she's actively governed in that capitalist party, it's not like her popularity has budged that party's position even a millimeter on the question of which class should be in power. And that is the decisive question for "improving material conditions." Instead the Dems have bent over backwards to keep any whiff of reform for the working class off of the table, and indeed the democratic party will most likely continue and expand austerity policies into the next period, to make the workers pay for the capitalist, Covid crisis.
And they push austerity not just because they are greedy or inept or whatever, they push austerity because capitalism doesn't work, it is in profound crisis worldwide, and that is literally the only way out for them. Capitalism just can't sustain big reforms anymore, it is not capable as a system.
Here's how Bernie can still win? That's why Bernie was never going to win.We need independent fucking working class politics, class struggle politics, politics that actually are on the trajectory of improving things for working people. We don't need socialist politicians pretending like the Democrats are somehow an avenue for working class politics ,while the Democratic Party grinds our faces into the dirt a little further. These are not questions for later, these are questions for now. There is no halfway position, no incremental step, on the question of which class should rule.
AOC has been the perfect indicator that we need to work far, far, far away from the democratic party. You're right, they haven't moved a bit and have nothing but contempt for her. It's a lost cause. Let the party rot, let electoral politics be a minor focus and build our own shit from the ground up.
they haven’t moved a bit
Of course one first-term congressperson isn't going to force the whole party left. Who ever claimed AOC and a few fellow travelers -- who make up 1% of the House -- could somehow pass bills over bipartisan opposition? For electoralism to work you need, you know, votes.
What AOC can do (and has done) is put left entry points out in the political mainstream.
And they push austerity not just because they are greedy or inept or whatever, they push austerity because capitalism doesn’t work, it is in profound crisis worldwide, and that is literally the only way out for them. Capitalism just can’t sustain big reforms anymore, it is not capable as a system.
More people here need to get this through their heads. I don't care what you read about MMT or debt, the state our economic system is in, the fucking incoherence between exchange and use value, it is set to fucking implode. If a socdem got in charge of the economy rn it would just inflate and implode faster. Austerity is mandatory, all the new deal and Keynesian tricks operating on aggregate demand don't work until we open up more markets through imperialist conquest
Seeing people in this thread and others talking about AOC supporting the Bolivian coup based on that photo with coup supporters - didn't it come out that they asked to take a picture with her without explaining who they were? Don't have a source on hand so could be mistaken, but I do remember her making a statement against the coup at the time. There's a ton of legitimate criticisms to be made of entryist succdems (and conversations to be had about whether it's a tactic that's even worth pursuing) without spreading misinformation.
Right - I think that tweet calling it a coup is the statement I was thinking of.
She wasn't just photobombed.
And the Tweet she made after the coup:
1. Didn't refer to it as a coup.-
Did not express any support for Evo or MAS.
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Called for "free and fair elections", the implicatiom being that there hadn't just been free and fair elections.
Contrast with Corbyn's statement or even Bernie's. Ilhan Omar was identically disappointing.
Here's the original tweet: https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1193973410793238528?lang=en. She definitely calls it a coup. I'm also personally skeptical of the firsthand accounts of pro-coup dipshits, which best I can tell is the only source that she "supported their grassroots movement."
I agree that her statements about free and fair elections are weaselly and disappointing - but succdems gonna succ, especially in the imperial core. It's still a far cry from supporting the coup (Bernie's statement also fell back on vagueries about "respecting Bolivia's democratic institutions" rather than offering Evo and MAS full throated support).
Corbyn's position was head and shoulders better, but he's always been a more principled anti-imperialist and supporter of global socialism than the social democrats we have here.
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I am once again asking chapos to link the dang tweet https://twitter.com/the_vello/status/1321435262023536641
Can we please stop with this? We already know she doesn't like neoliberalism, but she's still an imperialist. We've been over this a million times before. She doesn't get it. She's not a Marxist and she sure as fuck isn't a communist. She literally can't even define socialism or capitalism.
She's a social democrat who thinks Canada is socialist. She isn't good. We need to move on from her. Please.
As somebody replied "no different than Bernie".... which I agree with.
Are you denying that Bernie has had a positive impact on Socialism in the US? You're talking to a former libertarian chud who is now a Dem Soc with sympathies to Marxsm and Maosim here who was flipped by Bern.
I explained my reasoning here:
Bernie helped reintroduce class politics to a lot of the country, but he’s not useful anymore now that the public has already begun radicalizing. 36% of millennials said they supported communism last year. Not just socialism, which as we all know at this point doesn’t mean a whole lot in the public discourse, but communism. You combine this with months of periodic uprisings and I think we’re well past the point of needing social democrats to open the door. She’s a tailist.
She's there for the 64% who don't support communism, or even Socialism, yet.
And at that point we'll have enough support to democratically elect outright commies.
Did some math, Millenials are the furthest left generation based on volume (percentage of generation which are leftists) and they make up 22% of the population. Sure people say "Gen Z is to the left" and that is true on an individual basis (more outright commies, but also way more chuds)
So that's really just ~8% of the population, aka we have a long way to go yet.
My point is that, if one third of millennials (and in all likelihood more Zoomers, based on polling showing them consistently even more left wing) are responding well to literal communism, we in all likelihood don't actually need social democrats to funnel people to "the left".
The risk with AOC is her holding back radicalization by placating people with social democracy, opposing anti-imperialism, and misinforming people about what constitutes socialism, which is pretty important to building socialism.
I am heading out, but can you find some of those polls? I have read that Leftist Zoomers tend to be much further to the left, but there is a more even distribution of leftists vs rightists in the GenZ vs Millenials..... like Millenials have way more people who consider themselves leftists, but they're less likely to be communists or socialists and more likely to dem soc or soc dems... hope that makes sense.
GenZ = Deep Leftist
Millenial = Wide, but shallow leftism
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/polls-millennials-and-gen-zers-are-dystopian-socialists.html
In particular, they're the first generation to respond more positively to socialism than capitalism. Admittedly I don't know of any polls measuring Zoomer preference for communism, but it would track if they're generally more opposed to capitalism.
Some other stuff here, although the differences are mostly small.
Meanwhile 16 yr olds are joining my party with a deep understanding of Marxism and the labour movement
The so-called people in the 'lib to left pipeline' are gonna be swept away in one swoop
Based zoomers are what you get when the previous generation of socialists actually preserves the memory of their struggle for the next to learn from. No thanks to the majority of lousy boomers and gen Xers who gave up and threw Marxism out the window and forced us to learn most of what we know almost from scratch and to repeat the mistakes European socialists (in reality, mostly succdems) were making over a hundred years ago.
Thank you for reminding us of this. Marxists must always draw the line at (preferably before) endorsing or supporting candidates with social-imperialist policies. This is the same sort of opportunist nonsense that wrecked the 2nd International when succdems in both Axis and Allied/Entente countries voted to start World War I and forced Lenin and friends to split off and form the Comintern.
Literally no different than Bernie. She's not the one and only solution but she would be able to crack to the door open a bit
I really don't think convincing people that Scandinavia is socialist while condemning actual socialist countries is going to help with anything.
Bernie helped reintroduce class politics to a lot of the country, but he's not useful anymore now that the public has already begun radicalizing. 36% of millennials said they supported communism last year. Not just socialism, which as we all know at this point doesn't mean a whole lot in the public discourse, but communism. You combine this with months of periodic uprisings and I think we're well past the point of needing social democrats to open the door. She's a tailist.
[Excuse the hastily crafted, disorganized reply here.. have to rush out the door]
People have a hard time distinguishing True SocialismTM and socialist goals and methods, at least when you're referring to democratic socialism.
Is Scandinavia socialist? No. Do they have a pretty strong socialist movement and tendencies in their public policy? Yes.
Just one example: The Danish Social Democrats explicitly say they are a democratic Socialist party. They don't nationalize shit, but they do have a 67% unionization rate, great wages, and nearly no homelessness, higher rates of cooperative ownership of businesses and housing etc.
I don't think anybody here would argue that Danish Democratic Socialism (which can also be called Social Democracy) is worse than American Capitalism.... or even close on the spectrum of equality and erasing class distinctions.
As a Democratic Socialist, I share the many same goals of Communists (moreso than Neoliberals for damn sure)... and if a communist revolution were to pop off I'd jump on the band wagon, but until then I am going to be supporting socdems and Demsocs as they also materially benefit the working class as well.
Growing the Communist movement cannot only be about punching right 100% of the time, you have to lay out a vision for people to reach for. Any movement which exists soley on the premise of nagging the opposition is self-limiting by nature.
(end mental diarrhea)
It’s basically showing you have no actual idea on how to seize what’s going on and apply theory to the current moment.
That's true for all of us regardless of whether we like AOC or denounce her. The solution is the same: in-person organizing and probably media for agitation and counter-propaganda.
I'm not convinced that AOC will prime people for actual socialism who wouldn't already respond positively to actual socialism. Critcizing her and clarifying that she's an imperialist who misrepresents socialism can help push people in an actually revolutionary and anti-imperialist (i.e., actually effective) direction.
Even if she isn’t converting people to Communists, she’s guiding people to be more sympathetic to our cause. Not everyone will be a revolutionary
I don't think so, since our cause isn't just healthcare and because we aren't social democrats. You couple that with the anticommunism that comes from denouncing existing and historical socialist states and I think she's just reinforcing hostility and opposition to actual socialism by offering it a left-wing outlet. See NJR's "actually Cuba isn't socialist because it's an authoritarian dictatorship" as an example of this kind of thing. It poisons attempts at international solidarity and drives a wedge between simple demands for healthcare and the necessity of dismantling and rebuilding the system entirely.
People want their material needs met, and social democrats offer them solutions for their problems in the short term which only prolong capitalist exploitation in the long term, especially for the workers in the global periphery.
We can offer solutions to the same problems that don't throw the global proletariat or our own futures under the bus, but they get in the way of that by rebranding their imperialist welfare states as socialist.
Demsocs guide people to understand what Socialism is, we aren’t doing that effectively today as a bloc so I’m all on board on having louder voices out there that are actually getting people to start thinking
But that's the problem: she misleads people about what socialism is, which is actively counterproductive. It waters down our demands into social democracy which hurts the movement.
Critical support is different than bashing and a lot more valuable
We shouldn't be supporting imperialists whatsoever. Imperialism is the glue that holds the whole global capitalist system together, and we can't under any circumstances support it if we want to see both ourselves and those outside the imperial core liberated. It's the primary contradiction of global capitalism, and has to be prioritized in order to defeat capitalism.
Malcolm X said "When you keep the Democrats in power, you're keeping the Dixiecrats in power."
Well it was 1964, so on the eve of the Nixon/Johnson election. But Carter was governor of Georgia and Clinton was governor of Arkansas, so...
Are you suggesting there wasn't a massive shift from Democratic representation to Republican representation in the South?
I can't argue with the fact that southern settlers largely vote R and once voted D. But in his time Malcolm could see further left forces being sheepdogged into a blue imperialist tent that they wouldn't control. LBJ was being presented to the black community as someone who could make a deal with the reactionaries.
AOC does not determine policy. But she does drive younger people to vote for those who do.
AOC does not determine policy. But she does drive younger people to vote for those who do.
I see her driving way more people to the left of the Democratic Party than to its establishment wing. We need that.
Yes. More votes for Biden, a senate majority for Schumer, a house majority for Pelosi. That is what we need.
What's the difference between a left D ballot and a centrist one?
More votes for Biden, a senate majority for Schumer, a house majority for Pelosi.
How do you read "she's driving way more people to the left of the Democratic Party than to its establishment wing" and come up with this?
What’s the difference between a left D ballot and a centrist one?
Ask yourself which is more likely to produce Medicare for All: a Congress full of Pelosis or a Congress full of AOCs?
What would that require
I don't know what you mean here. Are we assuming we have that Congress or are we taking about how to get it?
As for what would be next, at minimum we'd be looking at M4A, a greatly increased minimum wage, serious criminal justice reform, and a sea change in how we pay for higher education. None of that is farther left than Bernie's platform, and any one of those policies would mean an enormous improvement for hundreds of millions of people. We'd also likely see significant pro-union legislation, which would make further left progress easier.
It's unbelievable to me that anyone can compare "your healthcare and college are now free" to "nothing will fundamentally change" and ask if there's a real difference.
My point is that what you’re describing would take a mass organized movement of protests and activism bordering on insurrection to accomplish.
The Bernie campaign didn't require anything this unprecedented. And just because it got kneecapped by the establishment doesn't mean they'll be able to pull that off every time against every candidate.
And it would still leave the global south exploited
We don't know what that type of government's foreign policy would be, and the risk of being no better than we currently are in that area is not a reason to write off all the other benefits that government would produce.
democracy in the workplace a long ways away
We'd be a lot closer to it than we are today. A union-friendly government would be a huge help, and many of those other policies (e.g., getting healthcare independent of your employer) would also increase worker power.
It was half a century ago, and both parties have changed significantly.
When will chapo dot chat learn that leftist leaders do not hand down infallible, eternal prophesies. They have incisive takes that stand the test of time better than most, but things do change.
switching from tolerating overt racism to tokenist and shallow identity politics isn’t a “significant change” in the Democratic Party
You're confusing a half-measure for nothing at all. Yes, taking big steps towards legal equality and dismantling the most obviously racist practices was a significant change from open segregation. Denying that real progress has been made -- however far we still have to go -- is out of touch.
Nor was embracing the religious right a significant change for the Republican Party
It was enormous change, and there were other enormous changes in the party, too. Compare the Eisenhower-era Republican Party, which had a strong isolationist wing and which was on board with significant infrastructure projects, to today's Republican Party, which is willing to crusade at the drop of a hat and which is far more opposed to the government doing almost anything else.
she doesn't speak a word against the yaas qween pelosi...that all you need to know all the libs on here need to get a grip and quit worshiping her - she is going to let you down hard
that's just the thing - Pelosi will never know what it feels like to struggle the way people struggle today. Nor will any of the boomers.
These takes are so narrow minded. Having folks across the spectrum of power and influence is a good strategy. On their own it’s futile. Keep stacking everywhere with center left and lefties. Business. Government. Grassroots. Armed forces.
Anyone is going to bend in these institutions. It’s in the nature of the institution to destroy personal integrity.
There should be some kind of bell that signals the start of the AOC struggle session.
She gets it that saying a load of emotional nonsense whilst wanting you to VOAT BLUU NO MATTER WHO
She gets it, also, when she wants to fund her green new deal by treating Bolivia as a colony
Shit-Lib gonna Shit-Lib so hard that anti-imperialist activists said Joe Crowley was far more receptive of them than AOC ever was
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez symbolically embraced the coup by posing for a photo with this group as they brandished the tricolor Bolivian flag, which during that period had become a signal of support for the golpistas (as opposed to the Wiphala flag, which symbolized popular resistance to the takeover). She told them that she supports their “democratic grassroots movement” and offered them “direct lines of communication.”
In sum, a gang of coup supporters, not constituents, were granted instant access, a photo op and promises of ongoing support. Actual constituents, opposing the coup, were shown the door.
Our reception by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was radically different from that I received from her predecessor, Joe Crowley. When, in 2004, I requested a meeting on behalf of the Queens Antiwar Coalition, we were granted prompt and respectful access to the Congressman. We did not have high hopes of changing his vote on the Iraq, but we felt it was important that he hear from his constituents.
So, apparently, did he. We were greeted warmly in his rather funky local office – a striking contrast with AOC’s soulless corporate-style digs, where underlings refer to her as “the Boss” – and were encouraged to speak our piece. Crowley never pretended to be an opponent of US imperialism, but he gave us a respectful hearing, stated his position, and engaged in what felt like meaningful discussion of the war. At a minimum, as Twitter’s bluecheck pundits would say, we felt “seen.”
AOC, by contrast, has no time for people who cannot help her to burnish her brand as she prepares to run for higher office. As a local staffer (who declined to introduce himself) proudly informed us: “She refuses 99 percent of meeting requests from constituents.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/14/ocasio-cortez-to-constituents-on-bolivian-coup-drop-dead/
