I’m done with my schtick that AOC is good or bad depending on the day.

She’s taking money from young progressives who want her to primary conservative dems and giving it directly to conservative dems like Conor Lamb... lmao.

She also gave money to CIA spook Abigail spanbergler who has publicly and privately talked shit about her repeatedly... lol

I didn’t realize her descent into being awful would be this quick. Wonder what her associated orgs are doing? Will justice dems just fizzle out or be wrapped into the establishment?

Yikes all around.

  • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I do wonder how much of the constant hate she gets is because of the color of her skin. People criticize Bernie and get upset with decisions he makes, but still show some support

    It could have some effect but AOC is a more prominent figure in twitter and twitch sphere in terms of appearance. So terminally online people will prefer to go after the terminally online more often lol. Also yeah Bernie sucks too but now I tend to think this (AOC, Bernie, Nitya Raman, etc) is all a result of a lack of a mass party which could impose some party discipline and principles as opposed to depending on the quixotic quest of a rag tag bunch of politicians to save the world (where these people make compromises for their careers or minor gains). With the backing of a growing movement/party they would feel more comfortable being belligerent for longer.

      • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        don’t buy that it’s some cult of personality that she’s online, they’re online, so they condemn her more. It’s just racism and sexism.

        I am not as online so I will accept it for now. In conversations with people I tend to criticize her more because she is brought up more often.

        Hmmm the way you phrase it is interesting. Germany had both a strong labour movement and a party. They failed miserably. I am not sure how a labor movement can work in America. Where is the space to organize all uber drivers? What kind of organization can bring in people from students and in atomised fields into the process to seize state power? Also why completely tie our hands behind our backs and say no to only politics, yes to labor organizing. Why can't we have a party of labor which has people in amazon warehouses forming unions and people also helping people elected if nothing else to give them a pulpit to get more people to join the party? (This is all pie in the sky but anyway).

        I do agree that labor needs to be combative, if we are being idealistic I would say that instead of demanding for what they want they should seize state power.

          • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
            ·
            4 years ago

            We don’t have the organizing currently to have a new party and a new party doesn’t just create organizing, in fact one could argue it take valuable resources and people away from it.

            I see lemme see if I understand you correctly: You think it is easier to get socialists elected as democrats (the DSA or our revolution strat) as opposed to get organizing groups together to form an electoral party. I can see your reservations about doing it nationally but I would think that new york state in a year or so could basically try to make all its DSA candidates switch into a new party. Maybe Nevada too. I have 0 idea if that is the goal because from what I understand even at the local level there is no fealty to the organization. No voting in blocks. Just find good people which are good. Which is nice but why not try to get them to form a fist?

            Anyway re forming a new party, I imagine the idea would be to get enough local orgs together to form a coalition. I am also fine for this 'party/coalition' to run people as democrats while keeping these people rooted to this now org so they can be thrown out and loose the support of grassroots organizers who share a vision with the org and not just this person's campaign. DSA could do this, I have no idea why it doesn't (well ok I kinda do they have no mechanisms in place to enforce that kind of discipline).

              • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
                ·
                4 years ago

                In my DSA there’s not even a labor organizing caucus and the people who helped elect one of the local socialists want to start a new party without even thinking to include BIPOC in the discussion.

                Lol I see. Yeah that sounds very amateurish. To me forming a new party was more like bringing in a lot of DSA chapters, unions, mutual aid groups, etc together in a conference to form points of unity in a state and then maybe try to have a congress to sell them the idea of forming a coalition.

                Learn to organize labor first. We ain’t going to start a revolution through voting in enough socialists. Although that will help, elected officials are not organizers and frankly they don’t have the time or capacity to fight the daily struggles of labor.

                How can uber drivers help with this? Students? Software engineers? Immigrants? People which are in 20 odd time jobs? The reason I said this is because I am not in a position to organize labour. That may be a very important task, thankfully amazon workers can do it themselves. Maybe we can try to form support networks and funds but is that all? I know Russia is not America but Lenin was confronted with similar questions and had come down with the opinion that organizing the movement under the banner of a single political party is the most important task at hand (this is around 1901 I think). Not saying we dogmatically copy him. The conditions in the two countries are very different but he had very compelling arguments for this imo and of why just labour organizing (while supremely important) is not enough to draw more people and bring more tactics into the movement.

                You could read 'where to begin?' and 'what is to be done?', they are pretty nice. I have just been thinking a lot about it in context of the work that I have been doing so far.

                Edit: Fair warning Lenin writes too much like a poster which can make him entertaining to read but a lot of his stuff is just dunks. I found a lot of actionable things to think about in them tho so I would still recommend giving it a read :)

                  • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    I’m not saying labor organizing on it’s own is enough. We’ve seen time and time again, having only strong unions leads to almost all of them getting knocked off by capitalists and it happens quickly. But at this moment we have next to no unions. I think union organizers, the people leading these chargers need to be in direct contact with other sharing what’s working and what’s failing. One of the biggest problems is people hate their job so they’re always trying to find a new one because at least it’s different. If Bessemer loses this will be a big reason why. It was a 59 day vote. A lot of people left the company in that time.

                    I see so there is no effective place for any work to be done by students, immigrants ,uber drivers, etc? Anyway I still think these processes can feed into each other (I really thought that was the impetus for a lot of left wingers to put energy in the Bernie campaign because his rule changes would make a lot of labor organizing which would be very cool like solidarity strikes - legal). Because to me it seems the answer is then that any other group has nothing useful to do while we wait for unions to catch up (which is still up in the air). Oh well I guess that means I have some free time now lol.

                      • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
                        ·
                        4 years ago

                        Thanks for your answer btw. This is one of the more interesting convos I have had on here lol.

                        I think immigrants, Uber drivers, and students can also help in organizing. 22 passed in CA. We need to stop it from passing in other states and countries which is what they’re trying now and is actually a good way to push for unionization of those workers. We should be fighting for unionization for immigrants. We should be fighting for all colleges to be free.

                        Ok that sounds good. What will be the vehicle of these things? We organize around an issue then slink back into the shadows? Why can't a political party be the vehicle and we stop forming new networks, phone lists, leaders, etc whenever a new issue approaches? This 'party' can even decide to not run candidates for a while but just act as a coalition to mobilize the members of their local orgs on these issues.

                        You are right that these people can phone bank and door knock for these specific issues (like if there is a prop 22 on their doorstep then find a campaign which is trying to stop it). Now I suppose I am just wondering if we can channel that sphere of organizing into a more effective vehicle.

                          • machiavellianRecluse [none/use name]
                            ·
                            4 years ago

                            A bunch of white guys screetching at black folks about Lenin is shitty and removes the solidarity we need to build. Especially when we need to focus on reaching out to BIPOC and making them feel welcomed and invaluable in these spaces.

                            Overall, there’s a lot of work to be done & and it’s about building positive relationships with people in order to build a larger coalition strong enough to take down the most capitalist/imperialist country of all time.

                            Hmm I see so my org has a dirth of white guys in it and I assure you where I live doesn't so my experience hasn't been like yours at all. I just see all of us working on fragmented projects, realizing the problems we want to solve have insane structural barriers like this federal law or this state provision and then all we are reduced to is doing bandaid stuff. That is why I feel that at the very least organization over the entire state is necessary.

                            Also I am curious many states would have BIPOC people as an incredible hyper minority right? I mean your local DSA preaches to BIPOC people about Lenin? Like I would imagine the more common thing happening would be that you tell some random unhoused person to read lenin. Which I am also inclined to thing is stupid and premature. But the idea behind reading Lenin is to learn from the people who were active in the past, had to answer a no of strategic questions and tried to give an answer to that. Reading them sounds like a decent idea to me for at least organizers who are deeply involved in their orgs and trying to figure out the best way of distributing resources and deciding on strategies? Also not just saying you only read Lenin. I am just starting out on trying to read books on organizational questions. The books I suggested just gave answers and pointed to problems which I often feel confronted with in my organizing time :)

                            Edit: Also I kinda feel there is some inherent mismatch between the ideas that the stuff to do outside of labor organizing is 'stop prop 22' and 'make colleges free' while the problem is 'we don't listen to BIPOC people' and 'people screeching at others to read Lenin'. Or maybe the latter is an answer to some different problem. I will be honest I dunno anyone around me reading Lenin but definitely a lot more reading Dean Spade, Mariam Kaba, etc (not saying that is bad but just stating that there is a lot of emphasis on reading ideas from LGBT and BIPOC people. I hardly tell anyone about Lenin because that just sounds like a terrible way to communicate his ideas in this country - there is just too much anti-communist and USSR bias so I just try to talk in terms of strats.)