Is the West Experiencing a Left-Wing Drift? (the international left politics activism, news, and strategy thread)

It's good to know that in 2018, long after logins became required, people can still Google shit and randomly end up on ILX.

The marketplace of ideas, at least, still works.

This may be an opportune moment to note that I've been working my way through Jodie Dean's book The Communist Horizon since I stalled out with Donna Haraway in Anthropocene or Capitalocene.

The Dean book has 6 relatively short chapters, and so far I'm finding them alternately right-on on the one hand and decidedly Marx-apostate on the other. "Our Soviets" makes an interesting argument for a recovery of some of the Soviet legacy, "Present Force" is a dumb chapter that lays out communism as--you might guess--a present force. The next overlong chapter argues that 'the people' should replace the laboring class as the revolutionary subject, and sometimes I think she's onto something and sometimes I think she's just being another post-Marxist looking for a way to differentiate herself.

Next on the list is Radicals in the Barrio and How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. Gonna be a substantive end to summer reading.

Also for people interested in doing & improving organizing work, I wanna highly recommend a couple biographies I read this year, of Fred Ross (who taught Cesar Chavez) and Bob Moses (who led SNCC in Mississippi). Social Arsonist is the Fred Ross book and the Moses book is Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots. Both men with very compelling lives, both well written by people who aim to draw out the subjects' organizing methodology through biography. I learned a ton.

'The next overlong chapter argues that 'the people' should replace the laboring class as the revolutionary subject, and sometimes I think she's onto something and sometimes I think she's just being another post-Marxist looking for a way to differentiate herself.'

Isn't this basically just a variation of Maoism?

Support the National Prison Strike, y’all:

https://incarceratedworkers.org

By implying that abolishing capitalism was the point of the article you were responding to

Don't know what the point of the article is. The author clearly states socialists believe that those bleak realities are inherent to capitalist society. Doesn't that imply that you would have to get rid of capitalism to escape them?

Isn't this basically just a variation of Maoism?

― Frederik B, Tuesday, August 28, 2018 6:42 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's a way of thinking it -- she explicitly frames it in terms of our current conjuncture, that is "the super-wealthy" vs "the rest of us," but i think you're right to key into that

and like mao still held onto the importance of the laboring class as the movers of history but dean goes "actually this whole notion of an empirically delineable working class is a red herring in the age of networked capitalism where we're all producing all the time for various corporations extracting value from our posts online"

which imo is spurious

something to it but spurious

It kinda sounds like she's substituting socialist theory for just straight up anti-elitist populism, and using 'networked capitalism' as an excuse. I don't know.

usually marxists get mad when you suggest "the people" vs the rich as it deemphasizes the class relation implicit in worker v capitalist

ya when i realized that's what she was doing my notes in the margins became more and more incredulous

Obviously what the revolution needs is an even more abstract ontology of the status quo

I've often mentioned I've Got The Light of Freedom on here -- a friend uploaded an epub version here if you're into epubs. Easily the single most important book I've read.

Obviously what the revolution needs is an even more abstract ontology of the status quo

― faculty w1fe (silby), Tuesday, August 28, 2018 5:04 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hear what you're saying here, but the question she's aiming to resolve is whether organizing the so-called working class (what's that? who's in it in 2018?) ought to be the project of those who aim for an egalitarian society freed of exploitation, or if where we are today suggests a different subject of that project

i don't think the question is a waste of time, and one finds lots of arguments within the labor movement about which sectors of the economy are properly 'strategic' to pursue organizing that can build labor-stoppage-power against capital, which in essence is the same set of questions in the more restricted vocabulary of unionism

aw hoos I'm at work and posting nonsense b/c I'm bored engaging in a strategic labor stoppage I didn't think you'd be all thoughtful and shit about my snark

always be stealing time

http://knowfiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/steal-your-time-300x258.jpg

https://themilitant.com/2018/08/24/witch-hunt-by-liberals-against-trump-a-danger-to-workers/

who are these fucking racist morons

you have answered your own question

lmao trots

in my exp the kids tend to agree that the socialist workers party & their newspaper are not the leaders we need

as an IMT member the other trot tendencies just make me sad

(not that the IMT is beyond reproach but I generally find their analysis pretty sound)

correction: the SWP (The Militant is their paper) are apparently *former Trots*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(United_States)

*throws up hands wildly*

On the challenges of organizing tech folks:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/which-side-are-they-on-banks

thanks for that ^^^ very relevant to my interests

fuck yeah bjoooorn

thanks to a HOOS for RTing this, a necessary response to the Nordic fetishism we're seeing in some circles

https://bostonpewg.org/2018/09/07/one-weird-trick-to-building-socialism/

every time somebody brings up sweden's immense amounts of paid work leave i'm like "how the fuck can you even do that"

for people interested in DSA infighting, the boston political education working group is doing among the very best countering work to both Jacobin's worse takes and the new _totally unaffiliated we promise_ DSA publication The Call which is totally a genuine DSA rank and file thing and definitely not a political vehicle for Jacobin's tendency inside of DSA, even if every link on their 'about' page goes to a Jacobin article

new publication BUILD, about ongoing grassroots basebuilding work across DSA chapters, is really fucking cool and inspiring

here's a PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzX2vTL0jLbedUZXX0lLTEY4eXRYX2JaNnBQaXdzc0RlV3Rr/view

Jacobin's been breaking new grounds in trash lately so this is a welcome development

I got a doorknock/canvassing visit from some guy last night telling me about the new DSA-endorsed candidate for Supervisor in my District. He's light-years better than the other candidates so my support is not even a question.

To be a little less opaque for folks who don't follow the factionalism, and hopefully not condescending to those that do, here's a breakdown of the internal stresses I'm aware of in the org rn:

- Last year at the convention there were several slates for leadership positions on the National Political Cmte, the national leadership body

- These slates as such no longer exist, but the names for the slates continue to be used for the tendencies they represented that are now basically factions

- "Momentum" and "North Star" factions lean heavily toward prioritizing canvassing as a tactic to pursue Medicare for All and electoral volunteer work, typically angling for the deliberate exclusion of other kinds of work. There are lots of people who think like I do, that Medicare for All is a necessary idea that we need grassroots work to win and that cold-canvassing ala Greenpeace-on-sidewalks is the stupidest possible nonstarter to build a serious campaign.

- In many chapters, like East Bay DSA or Philadelphia DSA and others, there have been allegations that Momentumites have aggressively gamed votes and other processes to ensure their agenda is the only one pursued. There's understood to be significant overlap between Momentum/NS and Jacobin--partly because much of what appears in Jacobin either argues in favor of Momentum positions or attacks positions held by Momentum opponents.

- Jacobin has rather plainly been used as a mouthpiece for views representative of Momentum faction while stridently maintaining they don't advocate for any faction--helping along this argument, now the new publication The Call appears poised to be the standard bearer that's inside the organization.

- Other tendencies & caucuses, generally those further to left (and so they call Momentum et al "the right" of DSA) are aligned in opposition to Momentum's approach as much as their politics. While Momentumites tend to hold that their priorities should be the only ones forcefully pursued by their chapters, opponents hold that simultaneous ongoing approaches within chapters, from M4A to work on housing to brake light clinics, are a good thing. These factions, like Refoundation (who's especially strong in Boston, hence Boston PEWG's strengths) or the LibSoc caucus (strong in the Pacific NW), are much more interested in the kind of base building work you see in the BUILD zine above, but don't make a concerted effort to block work by the opposing gang. That's where I tend to place myself, if anywhere.

Also a report was released yesterday regarding a long investigation of an alleged assault by an NPC member -- it's very damning of the org's internal dysfunction at the national level, and raises thorny questions about the leadership's approach to resolving this issue, even as it paints the accused in an unflattering light.

In solidarity with Billings #plaidshirtguy who was escorted off the risers after wearing a @DemSocialists sticker for 20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/wNH08GzMU4

— Billings DSA (@Billings_DSA) September 7, 2018

i...cant see the sticker?

HOOS do you think a formal DSA split is inevitable?

https://www.dsausa.org/weekly/identities-mistaken-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road/
Oh lovely

Naschek’s caucus opposed a reading group on Haider’s book and Naschek, as co-chair of the Steering Committee, then censured a committee of the Local whose members independently organized said reading group.

HOOS do you think a formal DSA split is inevitable?

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Friday, September 7, 2018 8:47 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think rather than a split we're gonna see attrition; my gf often says that her fear is 'after we win medicare for all, DSA is over, all the 2016 new members go home'

I thought about that, but I dunno; it’s not like folks are going to be _less_ stressed by that point

fair! i don't tend to think things will unfold in that way either -- i think just the stream of amateurish administrative dysfunction plus legitimate political conflict is going to burn a lot of people out

xps all the tools in the toolbox, all the time, I don't trust any approach that valorizes/prioritizes/excludes

ya same

Also a report was released yesterday regarding a long investigation of an alleged assault by an NPC member -- it's very damning of the org's internal dysfunction at the national level, and raises thorny questions about the leadership's approach to resolving this issue, even as it paints the accused in an unflattering light.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, September 7, 2018 4:33 PM (forty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is also a perennial issue in local chapters, fwiw -- I've said this before but this is my number one hesitation about being involved. even without actual assault, I wish there was a way to get involved in this sort of thing while completely avoiding the bro/"dirtbag left" atmosphere*

* a perennial complaint, I've found, of women involved in this stuff throughout history

To be a little less opaque for folks who don't follow the factionalism, and hopefully not condescending to those that do, here's a breakdown of the internal stresses I'm aware of in the org rn:

I had to lie down with a hot towel over my face after reading HOOS's post

i would like to be organized but I only trust Hoos to do it

See here's a little hit of the madness --

East Bay DSA: hey guys here are our voting recommendations, make sure you vote *against* a measure that would levy taxes on million plus dollar homes to find affordable housing

Everyone Else: you what now

We try not to wade into internal DSA squabbles, but this is #actually appalling. Not really sure how you can claim to be a socialist and oppose raising property taxes to fund affordable housing. https://t.co/BTpSDbwLC0

— Stomp Out Slumlords! (@StompSlumlords) September 7, 2018

I’m anti-solidaristic with homeowners