I think this could be a great idea that would help people who are interested and considering joining but have questions and social anxiety that would make asking those questions difficult at an in-person meetup.
In support of danksobotka, I find that when I go to sit in front of somebody and let them speak for a long period of time, I'll forget all of my questions or there will be a very confident questioner who will hog all the time.
I could get someone from up in one of the Marxist DSA caucuses as well.
It's just multiple caucuses that call themselves Marxist, and use it to direct their ideas for how DSA should organize. For example there's the emerge caucus and Bread and Roses caucus (probably the most organized one).
There's a few national marxist caucuses and groups in dsa that I know of
https://communistcaucus.com
https://reformandrevolution.org
https://breadandrosesdsa.org
https://classunity.org/
https://twitter.com/revpower_dsa
These are the local chapter communist caucuses I know of
https://dsaemerge.org
https://redstarsf.org
https://redcaucus.org
I've basically been begging for something like this like a complete loser in the megathreads for a few days now.
We have to make sure it’s two parties, pussy socialists and asshole socialists there see a democracy.
Neither of these parties represent my interests. I think I'll vote for thrussy this year
DSA > PSL.
Having a membership drive for the DSA and having people actually attend meetings and steer the DSA to be less libbed up is a better usage of this communities time IMO.
The Green Party has 100x the support that PSL has, and they have yet to win a single electoral vote in any federal election. They also have no federal office holders, only local level people and a couple of state reps.
Also, asking unemployed comrades to pay $300 for annual membership dues is not praxis.
They don't publish membership numbers because there are like 2,000 members in the whole country.
The DSA has a realistic chance of getting to 100k this year, they just grew by 10k and if I am not mistaken they now have ~80k active members and growing every day
Thank you for posting this. We need a pinned post some time for visibility of these orgs if possible
This is not a membership drive. That’s not my goal. My goal is to have them come in and answer questions that people have about joining an organization. What they do, what people can do to get involved outside of joining an organization, how the joining process works, etc
What you've just described is a pseudo membership drive, the only thing missing is a goal. I think people should be encouraged to join any number of the organizations that are active and doing good work wherever they may be.
I just happened to mention DSA since they fill essentially the same role, just with a larger foot print and more recognition. I do think we as a community do need to encourage each other to get active no matter what it is. There are definitely other groups that I think people would be interested in getting together with that would also benefit from discussion on here as well.
I am not trying to discourage you from doing this, by any means :che-smile:
what would be the reason to focus our efforts on a less-developed vessel of doing electoralisms
The foremost reason is that PSL does not center electoralism in the same way that the DSA does (as far as I know). Anytime I suggest joining the DSA though, it comes with a big asterisk that you need to jump into the Marxist caucus and advocate for the DSA to become something more useful (like the PSL). The biggest appeal that the DSA has is that there are people already there (given most of them are libs, but it's up to the Marxist caucuses to start selling their regional branches on another outlook, that's step 1).
all of this taken into account, I still want a PSL organizer to come here.
Please comment on my shit, people seem to be ok with it (you and I largely agree), but I was hoping to generate discussion.
Ya but I dgaf. The national would lose that battle of the 5 biggest branches moved to a demcent model without them. It'd be a fight though.
Many members do not see the viability of winning elections on a separate party ticket right now, we don't control the ticket endorsed candidates use however not using the democratic ticket is not a good idea in most offices and so someone running on a different ticket is unlikely to win an endorsement. There's heavy internal debate over how much resources to devote to campaigns, when/how/if to stop using the democratic ticket. US elections and parties work differently compared to say Britain which changes what is viable. So if there's no push to run on separate ticket, then why run as an official party. There's also historical issues in that DSA was not founded as a party, so to become one it would take an amendment at the national convention, and I don't think such an amendment would pass.
It's not ideologically based, it's materially based in the fact that the DSA has the people power right now. I agree with you that PSL has the more sound principles, but that's pointless without anyone to actually execute them.
The DSA is extremely flawed though (their focus on Democratic Socialism being one), but I would say that right now there is a good reason to encourage people in their direction. I would not necessarily say that PSL is a bad option, by any means though.
will seek compromise with capital
This is why some of us are suggesting that we intervene now before they get too big to change course. There is still an opening.
although the attacks in your OP
Not my attacks. My criticisms are of a different nature.
DSA fundamentally offers no anti-capitalist future.
As it currently exists, yes. I think that there is an opportunity to change the fundamentals of the DSA now (probably not on the national level, but there are comrades at the branch level for sure) while they are still "small". If it doesn't happen soon, then the Marxists membership of the DSA should figure out among themselves what to do next. I am in full agreement that the PSL is going to be more effective as it's currently organized.
Yeah. I keep spamming my more detailed thoughts on this position, so please bring more criticisms in the comments of that if you want. I like that I can tell my "socialish" friends who want to "actually do something" beyond voting to go to the same place that I'm involved in. They get an educational opportunity being around the various tendencies and working groups, and hopefully I can contribute to steering the branch in the right direction.
I'd never suggest someone do one thing or the other over PSL or any left-group (I disagree with our comrade above who opened the conversation with "DSA>PSL"). If someone has their mind set on something, I'm all for it! This is all regionally based anyway, unfortunately. Different groups are going to be more effective (or existent) in different areas). If someone is looking for an opinion on where to spend their time, however, I have one!
As soon as the DSA is big enough to meaningfully affect the American political decision making processes, it, like any other democratic socialist party in history, will seek compromise with capital.
The DSA is not a party, and it's not even gonna get to the point where it can seriously threaten the system probably (although it wasn't EVERY democratic socialist party that compromised, see Allende or Chavez, more like succ parties, which granted, the DSA would be if it was a party). But that doesn't mean there is no point in organising with them and them growing in size. We must always take into account the current situation and what the vast majority of people can stomach. When people have reached a certain level of consciousness and class struggle reaches a level of sophistication, then we can talk about revolutionary parties threatening the system etc, and then we can discuss if x organisation is gonna fold and compromise etc. I believe that for the US the DSA is the best bet for something slightly more "centralised" (although the most important thing is workplace, college, community organising), and it's definitely useful for actual socialists to have a say in what is going on in there.
A revolutionary party is not something you set up and make. It is the result of a long process that comes about when class struggle has reached a very high level. You mentioned the Bolsheviks. Well, the Bolsheviks didn't come about until very late, they were all part of other parties and coalitions up to that point.
DSA is slowly being subsumed by the DNC. I was pretty active in the DSA for the past few years and now my local branch is basically all DNC organizers who are just reformist liberals. It's super sad. Green Party might have way more support but they are social democrats for the most part. PSL runs candidates in the Leninist way which is not necessarily to win but rather to promote working class politics and try and draw people into becoming more engaged and through that, more educated in organizing and taking action. It's also useful in pointing out the contradictions of the system itself to help disillusion people's faith in it. Though, ironically, the Republican Party is doing pretty decent on that front, lol.
I think the idea that what our revolution needs is for people to be more disillusioned with the system is a bit off. Do the research, this is already happening (here is the first result if you search "faith in democracy" just as an example).
I accept psl's tactics in a live and let live sort of way, but that doesn't change the fact that dsa has done more for general awareness of socialism than any other socialist group.
Your experience with your specific dsa is sad (though i doubt these organizers are working directly for the dnc) where i live it has been the complete opposite where the dsa is becoming a predominant force in local politics.
I wouldn't discount the PSL. They have front groups that are way more visible and loud. Here in my area they are much more motivated and better at organizing that any other org, but you don't always see there name attached to everything.
Good stuff. For the amount of posters there are bemoaning the lack of organizing, its about damn time honestly.
I've been trying to find local chapters for ages. I would join
The fact that it is hard for somebody who is actually interested in joining speaks to their organizational effectiveness (which is non-existent).
