The BDS group was established in a prior convention and was dissolved by the one this summer. DSA has no notion of officially recognized subgroups, it's just that people interested in BDS can join the IC if they want to - and the IC now has authority over actions in that name. I have friends that were in the BDS group and left DSA over this as well as ones who stayed. Everyone involved knows that this was a punishment meted out to the BDS group because DSA liberals were unhappy with the group's uncompromising solidarity. But, being cowardly DSA liberals, they came up with a mealy-mouthed framing. They pat themselves on the back for being anti-Zionist while acting in direct opposition to the explicit wishes of:
The BDS working group
Most of the IC itself
The vast majority of the Palestinian contingent
It's very generous to call those 1000 folks socialist. There were certainly many there (e.g. my friends) but DSA is also incoherent and full of absurd liberal tendencies and deeply counterproductive ultra tendencies that might as well be liberal.
You will find that the BDS group no longer has social media activity, next to zero internal organizing (my friends that remained says that membership received their first email from national about Gaza today and it did not consult them), and much less cross-org solidarity organizing. This is because the people doing that work were disciplined (and left) rather than the Zionists like Bowman that, in fact, a majority ok those 1000 "socialists" materially protected and supported to the exclusion of their own BDS group.
Out of curiosity, I went to go see what the IC was doing. They're a pretty decent group in the DSA, comparatively.
Still not even a statement on their own website: https://international.dsausa.org/statements/
No project dedicated to Palestine: https://international.dsausa.org/campaigns/ (look how rolled into the IC the BDS group is, right!?)
The DSA BDS website hasn't been updated since DSA national fucked with them last year: https://palestine.dsausa.org. Surely the definitely-existing BDS group in the IC has something to say by now, right?
I have an internal document from them that we have been using to help with our messaging. So they are still a functioning body, with increasing influence.
As for socials, the reason BDS WG no longer exists is because of their socials. Their existence wasn't snuffed out by some shady internal body, it was voted on by the delegation and they lost because they failed to win over a majority (super majority? I'd have to look it up) of the delegation. Which means that even if their positions were correct, which has proven to be the case, their politics were lagging. All the "uncompromising solidarity" got them shut down, and now the org needs them, so great job. I'm glad to see you have some familiarity with some of the details but they're still put together strangely.
Yeah the former NPC punished the BDS WG for their toxic socials, and the rest of DSA was lagging behind. But they convinced a lot of people in the end, they were really inspiring.
I'd rather not be fighting now to see them reinstated as a wg, since i voted for them in Chicago. but the NPC that punished them is also dramatically different, with a Marxist majority for the first time ever. The org is big enough to be nationally effective, but still small enough for a few determined and united cadres to steer. The proliferation of caucuses has already transformed the left wing of DSA. The org still has big problems but i stg I would never talk about other peoples work the way you and others have been. I hope its cathartic, I think it's crab bucket bullshit
So, nothing that addresses or contradicts what I said aside from a document my friends have never heard of and some circular logic that automatically excuses the DSA's liberalism and places blame on the BDS group for not convincing the liberals sufficiently. Mostly skipping over everything I said, however. I guess I have to go through it piece by piece because this is getting ridiculous.
As for socials, the reason BDS WG no longer exists is because of their socials.
Oh, is it? Not the national group dominated by liberals that dissolved them and consequently became so dysfunctional that it did basically nothing except drama for a full year? Tell us about their socials and how it's the BDS' group's fault.
Their existence wasn't snuffed out by some shady internal body
That is very much what de facto happened a bit over a year ago. Liberal goofballs at the national level went after the BDS group. I was being generous in laying it at the feet of the convention this year, as the reality is truly less flattering: undermined and attacked by a dysfunctional and liberal national, the convention body stuck their thumb in the eye of BDS organizers.
it was voted on by the delegation and they lost because they failed to win over a majority (super majority? I'd have to look it up) of the delegation.
That's the procedural dissolution from this year. A pile of cowardly liberals patting themselves on the back with an anti-Zionist statement while officially doubling down on the dissolution of the BDS group and procedurally punting on sanctions for Zionist electeds, prioritizing lunch over this. This is your very serious and socialist group that just needed better convincing.
Friendly reminder that National DSA is about 10 days late in doing jack shit. One of my friends just showed me your little packet or whatever from National for chapters to organize with. Incompetent letter-writing-to-your-Senstor type shit lol. My friends are going to ignore national and do some actually effective OTG organizing with anti-Zionists.
Which means that even if their positions were correct, which has proven to be the case, their politics were lagging.
Or it means that your 1000 "socialists" are majority liberals and cowards. The dearth of action from DSA at the national level and the little walk-backs and liberalism on display, including in Chicago, make it very clear that I'm right in this. Chicago is dominated by Bread & Roses, btw. One of the incompetent ultra groups that gunned against the BDS group along with explicitly liberal "green new deal" types. Watch them fail you in real time. Watch them care more about triangulation and atrocity propaganda than Palestinians. Learn from it.
All the "uncompromising solidarity" got them shut down, and now the org needs them, so great job.
You may want to do some self-crit on the irony of passive voicing the group that actively shut down the pro-Palestine working group with two distinct and deliberate actions separated by a year. Have you been paying attention to how Palestinians and their orgs are always to blame for the bad things that happen and that the people directly harming them get the passive voice? Israelis are killed and Palestinians die for unstated reasons? The liberals that see Israel carpet-bombing northern Gaza and say, "look what [X Palestinian group] got them"?
The fact that DSA is an incoherent body full of people with awful politics is not the BDS group's fault. The org is full of these people and they are pushing specific agendas quite hard. It is a deficiency at the heart of DSA's structures, its bylaws, its membership, its complete lack of a political education program. Its embrace of Trots and Trots trying to pretend they're not Trots but we all know they're Trots. This fact is a stain on the DSA itself and is something that should embarrass you rather than cause you to defend cryptozionism.
I'm glad to see you have some familiarity with some of the details but they're still put together strangely.
They're put together just fine, thanks.
Yeah the former NPC punished the BDS WG for their toxic socials,
Ah, so you vaguely agree with their criticism. The only question is whether this is because you actually think their socials were that bad (be specific) or out of this pattern of defending the transparently bullshit lines forwarded by folks that like how things turned out.
But they convinced a lot of people in the end, they were really inspiring.
Inspiring how?
I'd rather not be fighting now to see them reinstated as a wg, since i voted for them in Chicago. but the NPC that punished them is also dramatically different, with a Marxist majority for the first time ever.
You're counting corrosive Trots in that number. The ones that brought the Hong Kong protest loser to speak against the IC and that was part of the alliance against the BDS group.
That NPC is the one presiding over a massively delayed and pitiful response and a virtually nonexistent BDS group.
PS I know someone very close to the NPC and am aware of the language and attempts to temper DSA chapters' solidarity actions. There's a reason this shit is delayed and weak. That NPC is not majority anti-Zionist, they're fighting with each other and trying to outwit themselves. The forms of incompetence in the DSA are myriad.
There are a lot of things I haven't mentioned because I didn't think anyone here really cared.
The org is big enough to be nationally effective
Impossible. It is not organized and has nowhere near enough political coherence. The DSA is just 15 cities mostly doing their own thing and a series of national interest groups doing their own thing so long as liberal babies aren't trying to shut them down for criticizing a Zionist DSA politician.
It's a good place for someone to get started if they're going from 0 to 1 irl organizing activities and if the local chapter isn't too lib. It's not an organization that accomplishes anything except roadblocks at the national level.
but still small enough for a few determined and united cadres to steer.
DSA doesn't have cadres. It has clubs/social groups where allegedly like-minded folks hang out with each other, write position statements, and funnel volunteers into electoral campaigns for liberals that usually lose. It does have competent organizers at the local level in some chapters, but they are generally across these little social groups. An org with 50 active members may have 2-3 competent organizers and they're all in different groups with different priorities! A white guy reads Lenin and thinks, "hey that's how I should be!" and joins the worst reading group you've ever seen.
The proliferation of caucuses has already transformed the left wing of DSA.
Into what? Name a material change. Not a position statement. Right now we are looking at DSA continue to fail at solidarity with Palestine against a fascist settler-colonial apartheid state committing genocide. Slam-dunk socialist shit. They would literally be doing better just by having a timely, unqualified position statement! They can't even do that!
My friend showed me a left wing DSA caucus statement just now, lol. The statement is fine but it took until yesterday too come out and sure didn't translate into national action.
The org still has big problems but i stg I would never talk about other peoples work the way you and others have been. I hope its cathartic, I think it's crab bucket bullshit
What other people's work? Shuttering the BDS group? We've talked about literally zero actions taken by DSA except that and some position statements. What work am I criticizing that should be respected? It's not like I'm criticizing some competent reformist agenda, it's entirely counterproductive, cynical, and reactionary behaviors.
I'm not reading that I hope it took like 2 hours to write. I don't need any of this explained to me because its my life.
I've found this interaction demoralizing and I'm sure that your constant nay saying is driving people away from the socialist ideas. But what would I know, I'm.just a counterproductive, cynical reactionary liberal. Thank god a real leftist stood up to show me the way back to the armchair. Here my politics are immaculate and untouched from reality, where opinion becomes truth
I'm not reading that I hope it took like 2 hours to write. I don't need any of this explained to me because its my life.
It took about 15 minutes to write lol. These things aren't complicated and they don't require a lot of thinking or research if you're already familiar with them. At least, not on my part. It's handy when you have people embedded in the thing around you, something you keep claiming to have. In fact, you've use it like a cudgel, as most of what I've said was previously ignored as well. But you have certainly taken the time to say you were at the convention.
I've found this interaction demoralizing
Given that you're making piss-poor excuses for the cowardly liberal behavior of the DSA dissolving its BDS group and tiptoeing around having a good-faith engagement with anyone here on this topic, should I think of it as a bad thing if you are demoralized? Isn't that the best possible outcome if someone has dug in their heels to protect reaction? Nobody forced you to comment on defense of DSA's current incompetencies to organize in defense of Palestine. The preferable alternative would not be me accepting that DSA's national attacks on BDS and Palestinian organizing are actually okay and oh I'm so sympathetic to 1000 people being involved in it. The preferable alternative would be that you didn't dig in your heels and hold a false political line (one I've heard before from an NPC member by the way) with deflection and a revealing victim-blaming removal of agency from the DSA liberals. I felt like re-listing the blatant anti-BDS failures of DSA national just now, but that would presume you're interested in contending with them.
and I'm sure that your constant nay saying is driving people away from the socialist ideas.
On the contrary, I've been able to get several people involved in the last week by doing actually useful things in solidarity with Palestine. And all I've seen from DSA locally is tailing of the work I and others have done, including making picket signs that gave the impression they had organized rallies and marches that they hadn't.
What drives people away from DSA (which is surely what is really meant by "the socialist ideas") is its fundamental dysfunction, not valid criticism from communists. It is dysfunctional due to its ideological incoherence combined with an inability to resolve the inevitable conflicts and onboard its members into a political program. New members are left to fend for themselves to try and understand the Kabuki around who's really making decisions and what is available to them. It proceeds, ironically in our conversation, through the attrition of people who get tired of fighting about fundamentally incompatible ideas. They also leave because of how difficult it can be to get anything done in toxic chapters, which is clearly most of them (but not all! e.g. Portland is pretty functional).
But what would I know, I'm.just a counterproductive, cynical reactionary liberal.
I would not describe you as such. I would infer that you are unreasonably optimistic about the state of the DSA and the convention, so presumably part of one of the caucuses with seats on the NPC and potentially close to the NPC yourself. I have heard your line before from people on the NPC. I know very well that it is a political one intended to support (what you believe is) the organization, not one that is actually true.
I'm sure we could slap some epithets on that but they would not describe the primary issues in the roadblocks to this engagement.
Thank god a real leftist stood up to show me the way back to the armchair. Here my politics are immaculate and untouched from reality, where opinion becomes truth
A truly incredible thing to say. Do you not see the irony in saying that to a person whose irl organizing you know nothing about? That you had to lie in order to say it? lol
The BDS group was established in a prior convention and was dissolved by the one this summer. DSA has no notion of officially recognized subgroups, it's just that people interested in BDS can join the IC if they want to - and the IC now has authority over actions in that name. I have friends that were in the BDS group and left DSA over this as well as ones who stayed. Everyone involved knows that this was a punishment meted out to the BDS group because DSA liberals were unhappy with the group's uncompromising solidarity. But, being cowardly DSA liberals, they came up with a mealy-mouthed framing. They pat themselves on the back for being anti-Zionist while acting in direct opposition to the explicit wishes of:
The BDS working group
Most of the IC itself
The vast majority of the Palestinian contingent
It's very generous to call those 1000 folks socialist. There were certainly many there (e.g. my friends) but DSA is also incoherent and full of absurd liberal tendencies and deeply counterproductive ultra tendencies that might as well be liberal.
You will find that the BDS group no longer has social media activity, next to zero internal organizing (my friends that remained says that membership received their first email from national about Gaza today and it did not consult them), and much less cross-org solidarity organizing. This is because the people doing that work were disciplined (and left) rather than the Zionists like Bowman that, in fact, a majority ok those 1000 "socialists" materially protected and supported to the exclusion of their own BDS group.
Out of curiosity, I went to go see what the IC was doing. They're a pretty decent group in the DSA, comparatively.
Still not even a statement on their own website: https://international.dsausa.org/statements/
No project dedicated to Palestine: https://international.dsausa.org/campaigns/ (look how rolled into the IC the BDS group is, right!?)
The DSA BDS website hasn't been updated since DSA national fucked with them last year: https://palestine.dsausa.org. Surely the definitely-existing BDS group in the IC has something to say by now, right?
I have an internal document from them that we have been using to help with our messaging. So they are still a functioning body, with increasing influence.
As for socials, the reason BDS WG no longer exists is because of their socials. Their existence wasn't snuffed out by some shady internal body, it was voted on by the delegation and they lost because they failed to win over a majority (super majority? I'd have to look it up) of the delegation. Which means that even if their positions were correct, which has proven to be the case, their politics were lagging. All the "uncompromising solidarity" got them shut down, and now the org needs them, so great job. I'm glad to see you have some familiarity with some of the details but they're still put together strangely.
Yeah the former NPC punished the BDS WG for their toxic socials, and the rest of DSA was lagging behind. But they convinced a lot of people in the end, they were really inspiring.
I'd rather not be fighting now to see them reinstated as a wg, since i voted for them in Chicago. but the NPC that punished them is also dramatically different, with a Marxist majority for the first time ever. The org is big enough to be nationally effective, but still small enough for a few determined and united cadres to steer. The proliferation of caucuses has already transformed the left wing of DSA. The org still has big problems but i stg I would never talk about other peoples work the way you and others have been. I hope its cathartic, I think it's crab bucket bullshit
So, nothing that addresses or contradicts what I said aside from a document my friends have never heard of and some circular logic that automatically excuses the DSA's liberalism and places blame on the BDS group for not convincing the liberals sufficiently. Mostly skipping over everything I said, however. I guess I have to go through it piece by piece because this is getting ridiculous.
Oh, is it? Not the national group dominated by liberals that dissolved them and consequently became so dysfunctional that it did basically nothing except drama for a full year? Tell us about their socials and how it's the BDS' group's fault.
That is very much what de facto happened a bit over a year ago. Liberal goofballs at the national level went after the BDS group. I was being generous in laying it at the feet of the convention this year, as the reality is truly less flattering: undermined and attacked by a dysfunctional and liberal national, the convention body stuck their thumb in the eye of BDS organizers.
That's the procedural dissolution from this year. A pile of cowardly liberals patting themselves on the back with an anti-Zionist statement while officially doubling down on the dissolution of the BDS group and procedurally punting on sanctions for Zionist electeds, prioritizing lunch over this. This is your very serious and socialist group that just needed better convincing.
Friendly reminder that National DSA is about 10 days late in doing jack shit. One of my friends just showed me your little packet or whatever from National for chapters to organize with. Incompetent letter-writing-to-your-Senstor type shit lol. My friends are going to ignore national and do some actually effective OTG organizing with anti-Zionists.
Or it means that your 1000 "socialists" are majority liberals and cowards. The dearth of action from DSA at the national level and the little walk-backs and liberalism on display, including in Chicago, make it very clear that I'm right in this. Chicago is dominated by Bread & Roses, btw. One of the incompetent ultra groups that gunned against the BDS group along with explicitly liberal "green new deal" types. Watch them fail you in real time. Watch them care more about triangulation and atrocity propaganda than Palestinians. Learn from it.
You may want to do some self-crit on the irony of passive voicing the group that actively shut down the pro-Palestine working group with two distinct and deliberate actions separated by a year. Have you been paying attention to how Palestinians and their orgs are always to blame for the bad things that happen and that the people directly harming them get the passive voice? Israelis are killed and Palestinians die for unstated reasons? The liberals that see Israel carpet-bombing northern Gaza and say, "look what [X Palestinian group] got them"?
The fact that DSA is an incoherent body full of people with awful politics is not the BDS group's fault. The org is full of these people and they are pushing specific agendas quite hard. It is a deficiency at the heart of DSA's structures, its bylaws, its membership, its complete lack of a political education program. Its embrace of Trots and Trots trying to pretend they're not Trots but we all know they're Trots. This fact is a stain on the DSA itself and is something that should embarrass you rather than cause you to defend cryptozionism.
They're put together just fine, thanks.
Ah, so you vaguely agree with their criticism. The only question is whether this is because you actually think their socials were that bad (be specific) or out of this pattern of defending the transparently bullshit lines forwarded by folks that like how things turned out.
Inspiring how?
You're counting corrosive Trots in that number. The ones that brought the Hong Kong protest loser to speak against the IC and that was part of the alliance against the BDS group.
That NPC is the one presiding over a massively delayed and pitiful response and a virtually nonexistent BDS group.
PS I know someone very close to the NPC and am aware of the language and attempts to temper DSA chapters' solidarity actions. There's a reason this shit is delayed and weak. That NPC is not majority anti-Zionist, they're fighting with each other and trying to outwit themselves. The forms of incompetence in the DSA are myriad.
There are a lot of things I haven't mentioned because I didn't think anyone here really cared.
Impossible. It is not organized and has nowhere near enough political coherence. The DSA is just 15 cities mostly doing their own thing and a series of national interest groups doing their own thing so long as liberal babies aren't trying to shut them down for criticizing a Zionist DSA politician.
It's a good place for someone to get started if they're going from 0 to 1 irl organizing activities and if the local chapter isn't too lib. It's not an organization that accomplishes anything except roadblocks at the national level.
DSA doesn't have cadres. It has clubs/social groups where allegedly like-minded folks hang out with each other, write position statements, and funnel volunteers into electoral campaigns for liberals that usually lose. It does have competent organizers at the local level in some chapters, but they are generally across these little social groups. An org with 50 active members may have 2-3 competent organizers and they're all in different groups with different priorities! A white guy reads Lenin and thinks, "hey that's how I should be!" and joins the worst reading group you've ever seen.
Into what? Name a material change. Not a position statement. Right now we are looking at DSA continue to fail at solidarity with Palestine against a fascist settler-colonial apartheid state committing genocide. Slam-dunk socialist shit. They would literally be doing better just by having a timely, unqualified position statement! They can't even do that!
My friend showed me a left wing DSA caucus statement just now, lol. The statement is fine but it took until yesterday too come out and sure didn't translate into national action.
What other people's work? Shuttering the BDS group? We've talked about literally zero actions taken by DSA except that and some position statements. What work am I criticizing that should be respected? It's not like I'm criticizing some competent reformist agenda, it's entirely counterproductive, cynical, and reactionary behaviors.
I'm not reading that I hope it took like 2 hours to write. I don't need any of this explained to me because its my life.
I've found this interaction demoralizing and I'm sure that your constant nay saying is driving people away from the socialist ideas. But what would I know, I'm.just a counterproductive, cynical reactionary liberal. Thank god a real leftist stood up to show me the way back to the armchair. Here my politics are immaculate and untouched from reality, where opinion becomes truth
Wow you've sure proven that the DSA isn't useless
It took about 15 minutes to write lol. These things aren't complicated and they don't require a lot of thinking or research if you're already familiar with them. At least, not on my part. It's handy when you have people embedded in the thing around you, something you keep claiming to have. In fact, you've use it like a cudgel, as most of what I've said was previously ignored as well. But you have certainly taken the time to say you were at the convention.
Given that you're making piss-poor excuses for the cowardly liberal behavior of the DSA dissolving its BDS group and tiptoeing around having a good-faith engagement with anyone here on this topic, should I think of it as a bad thing if you are demoralized? Isn't that the best possible outcome if someone has dug in their heels to protect reaction? Nobody forced you to comment on defense of DSA's current incompetencies to organize in defense of Palestine. The preferable alternative would not be me accepting that DSA's national attacks on BDS and Palestinian organizing are actually okay and oh I'm so sympathetic to 1000 people being involved in it. The preferable alternative would be that you didn't dig in your heels and hold a false political line (one I've heard before from an NPC member by the way) with deflection and a revealing victim-blaming removal of agency from the DSA liberals. I felt like re-listing the blatant anti-BDS failures of DSA national just now, but that would presume you're interested in contending with them.
On the contrary, I've been able to get several people involved in the last week by doing actually useful things in solidarity with Palestine. And all I've seen from DSA locally is tailing of the work I and others have done, including making picket signs that gave the impression they had organized rallies and marches that they hadn't.
What drives people away from DSA (which is surely what is really meant by "the socialist ideas") is its fundamental dysfunction, not valid criticism from communists. It is dysfunctional due to its ideological incoherence combined with an inability to resolve the inevitable conflicts and onboard its members into a political program. New members are left to fend for themselves to try and understand the Kabuki around who's really making decisions and what is available to them. It proceeds, ironically in our conversation, through the attrition of people who get tired of fighting about fundamentally incompatible ideas. They also leave because of how difficult it can be to get anything done in toxic chapters, which is clearly most of them (but not all! e.g. Portland is pretty functional).
I would not describe you as such. I would infer that you are unreasonably optimistic about the state of the DSA and the convention, so presumably part of one of the caucuses with seats on the NPC and potentially close to the NPC yourself. I have heard your line before from people on the NPC. I know very well that it is a political one intended to support (what you believe is) the organization, not one that is actually true.
I'm sure we could slap some epithets on that but they would not describe the primary issues in the roadblocks to this engagement.
A truly incredible thing to say. Do you not see the irony in saying that to a person whose irl organizing you know nothing about? That you had to lie in order to say it? lol
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