There is a difference in knowing something and saying it, especially as a part of a political platform.
I may know simply by virtue of being in America, I’ll have interacted with a Nazi as a factual matter. That is different than me saying, “Yeah, I’ll interact with Nazis,” which is different than propagandizing the fact I’ll interact with Nazis.
Is the media repeatedly going to attack this angle? Yes. It’s why when I saw the NYT article where the author alleges he doesn’t think Zohran is anti-zionist I ignored it as a nothing-burger. Getting caught up doing it yourself demonstrates this is a massive fucking misstep at best.
Do you think he’d make the same misstep if they repeatedly grilled him on whether he’d work with Klansmen? Or if they used the word Nazi or Nazi sympathsizers? I double he’s planning on grilling his sanitation workers on what they think about white genocide and replacement or asking them their opinions on the Jewish question either. But we would still look at him sideways if he said, “I’ll have white supremacists working for me,” in this hellhole of a nation.
I’ve argued with XHS about his stance on Zohran, them saying this is a result of us rawdogging a cactus due to an inability for us to form any type of militant front is fucking Evergreen.
He is just triangulating and moving right to gain greater proximity to DNC establishment types, people he is now having call shots on his campaign. This is not someone hiding their power level, these are not even remotely clever answers from someone being savvy. It is a consistent rightward rebranding per the bourgeois liberal electoralist charade.
Also, we have high standards? This is genocide and it is very fucking unpopular. If there is a pipeline here, it is to capture outrage and mollify it into status quo liberalism. DSA is not organized and it has no education program. It’s all just fucking around and pinning hopes on one guy not being more self-interested than principled and competent, and the electoralist “wing”, such as it is, is allergic to both of those things.
Folks really showing their liberalism with their unwavering belief in the secret principled leftism of the guy pulling the rug out from under them in the exact same way 5 other identical guys have done every couple years.
Nobody on hexbear should be surprised that a “left” organization with zero principled discipline doesn’t produce principled campaigns with discipline. Instead, it produces an endless litany of self-interested climbers doing milquetoast liberal reformism at best, as moneyed interests dominate their campaigns.
I mean, I advocated for wait and see because I knew from the get go they weren’t going to listen to all the people dogpiling them. I see what WildWeezing420 meant though when they said their big issue is older members still falling for the same trick. Most people I know that seemed hype for him in my age bracket (early 20s) weren’t paying enough attention to Bernie and AOC to get why it happened and no one reads theory (especially lenin!) so I kinda ignored it. Seeing people justify the need to say he’d collaborate with Nazis as some 4D chess has rattled me. Some of the people I’ve seen pulling this bullshit have been organizing longer than I’ve used two digits for my age.
I just keep telling people that without discipline you’re just leaving “candidates” to face up against the (strong) forces of liberalism with no counterweight. This means opportunists will happily take your free labor for unserious (or worse) campaigns and even well-meaning people will be prone to crumpling against media forces alone, and that’s before the cops start routinely harassing you or protecting the fashy vigilantes that keep showing up to your house.
When I say this it gets decent upbears but the electoralists never engage. I think the concept of discipline must actually threaten them on some personal level, like they don’t want to think about how much of their own time they are potentially wasting.
It’s because that discipline would then also be applied to them as well. Militancy is only fun when you’re already done the work and have leverage. Risking your job to form a union isn’t. It’s not glamorous sitting there talking to your coworkers about how collective bargaining gives you leverage.
I dunno I kind of enjoy that stuff. And unfortunately a good number of people do at least romanticize it and use labor work as caché, seeking out positions not for the cause but because of how they’d like to think of themselves in it. I’m thinking of truly incompetent labor organizers I know, folks that don’t do a very good job nor improve and it’s because ultimately they are still self-interested, even when that self-interest comes in the form of making a show of self-sacrifice. I hope that makes sense!
I doubt DSA has the gonads but if they actually pulled rank on him now less than 3 weeks til the election I bet it would change his behavior going forward.
If I was in NYC DSA would be focused on building my caucus and trying to dominate education and an onboarding process so that incoming members all had positive relationships with my caucus as well as biases towards us. Having at least one project into which to plug people would also be useful, but it should follow from embedding in community and having direct conversations with locals in targeted areas to determine what they care about most, what is hurting them most.
One of DSA’s flaws is that it continues electoral thought towards putting the cart before the horse, e.g. revolution through resolution. A good resolution is secondary to building good org members. It would follow naturally from the organizing work that has to happen first. Finally creating discipline requires having enough trust and support for the idea in advance, otherwise even if you manage to pass the resolution, which is difficult if the org itself is too electoral or incoherent, you will have a hard time actually enforcing it.
But once at an organized stage like that, discipline would look like needing to follow key org lines or get sanctioned/removed on top of unendorsed, requiring that all campaign resources come from grassroots sourcing, primarily org work, requiring that candidates come from the org itself and after a period of onboarding, education, and various pledges and interviews, and a requirement that electoral work rotates such that members do not regularly get their paycheck from the mere existence of campaigns. Some amount of this may run counter to election law, but would be worked around in the same way bourgeois parties do, relying on one main carrot/stick to enforce the “soft” rules, e.g. being very strict about support snd endorsement and volunteer labor such that running foul is actually damaging to the candidate.
needing to follow key org lines or get sanctioned/removed on top of unendorsed, requiring that all campaign resources come from grassroots sourcing, primarily org work, requiring that candidates come from the org itself and after a period of onboarding, education, and various pledges and interviews, and a requirement that electoral work rotates such that members do not regularly get their paycheck from the mere existence of campaigns.
My general understanding is that except for the last thing about rotating that’s what they’ve got going on.
The question is whether the membership is really brave/united enough to pull the plug when they can practically taste the sweet victory of an election in less than 3 weeks.
They should have some sort of mechanism to act that quickly or at least make a credible threat as I heard somewhere that mamdani has to attend weekly (general membership?) meetings
I’ve only seen a couple examples of left organizations with good discipline in my life and none that were involved with electoralism. They were created with the idea of a very strongly democratic practice where the expectation is that everyone gets their fair voice but once the vote is cast, you follow the group even if you personally wanted something else. Requires A++ meeting skills to have everyone feel they had the chance to participate.
And, it will always happen that the leadership who are often more dedicated revolutionaries, must adhere to decisions that don’t meet their ideal. It has to be actually democratic so sometimes you lose. But by doing that they set the example and expectation and everyone gets bolder and moves on collectively.
I don’t know how that could be integrated into an elected position like mayor, really. He can’t be micromanaged by hundreds or thousands of people. And the fact of the matter is, there is no way he will be able to perform his duties to their satisfaction for years on end. Because he’s subject to many outside competing forces.
Maybe DSA should only put people up for election if they sign a contract stating they will leave elected politics, lobbying and all associated industries for at least 10 years after. Like a super harsh non compete. Oh wait those are not valid in most places anymore.
It’s all just fucking around and pinning hopes on one guy not being more self-interested than principled and competent, and the electoralist “wing”, such as it is, is allergic to both of those things.
That is a good point. False hope, like gambling, often emerges from not having a strong embedding in something real that is paying off. Indulging the fantasy instead of confronting the reality.
The reason that Americans resort to so much adventurism is the same reason why so many pin hopes on bourgeois politicians that owe them nothing: no other political outlet for hope. They are not organized, they are not active.
The state the left is in is embarrassing. The fact we’re at baby-steps of “proving a socialist mayor can run a city while making democrats look rightwing” is a terrible state of affairs, but we should probably play that hand. I don’t think he’ll have the effective power to purge every zionist in new yorks affairs.
I think it’s better to shake hands with a zionist for a while before personally cutting their throat at a later date than to remain powerless.
I don’t think he’ll have the effective power to purge every zionist in new yorks affairs.
Again, I’m not even saying that much is the ask! But if we’re arguing optics, which is the only argument anyone makes in defense of the failures of his entryism attempt, he has repeatedly shown a willingness and savviness to stay on message and dodge the damn question.
If we’re arguing that he needs to fear almighty Zion because we’re too weak to face them, I wanna see him go apologize like he apologized to the pigs. No half measures.
The only hopes I have from this campaign is primarily staked on the hardening of his base that will come about when this goes sideways, again, because entryism is a failed tactic, and hoping the number hardened outweigh those that fall into nihilistic doomerism. Hopefully there are enough people that are spared from worsening conditions that it outweighs the harm and deaths done by our pathetic attempts at international solidarity.
I agree you must engage in the arena, if not simply for the ability to engage with the masses. I’m not arguing against strategic electoralism in that sense.
There is a difference in knowing something and saying it, especially as a part of a political platform.
I may know simply by virtue of being in America, I’ll have interacted with a Nazi as a factual matter. That is different than me saying, “Yeah, I’ll interact with Nazis,” which is different than propagandizing the fact I’ll interact with Nazis.
Is the media repeatedly going to attack this angle? Yes. It’s why when I saw the NYT article where the author alleges he doesn’t think Zohran is anti-zionist I ignored it as a nothing-burger. Getting caught up doing it yourself demonstrates this is a massive fucking misstep at best.
Do you think he’d make the same misstep if they repeatedly grilled him on whether he’d work with Klansmen? Or if they used the word Nazi or Nazi sympathsizers? I double he’s planning on grilling his sanitation workers on what they think about white genocide and replacement or asking them their opinions on the Jewish question either. But we would still look at him sideways if he said, “I’ll have white supremacists working for me,” in this hellhole of a nation.
I’ve argued with XHS about his stance on Zohran, them saying this is a result of us rawdogging a cactus due to an inability for us to form any type of militant front is fucking Evergreen.
He is just triangulating and moving right to gain greater proximity to DNC establishment types, people he is now having call shots on his campaign. This is not someone hiding their power level, these are not even remotely clever answers from someone being savvy. It is a consistent rightward rebranding per the bourgeois liberal electoralist charade.
Also, we have high standards? This is genocide and it is very fucking unpopular. If there is a pipeline here, it is to capture outrage and mollify it into status quo liberalism. DSA is not organized and it has no education program. It’s all just fucking around and pinning hopes on one guy not being more self-interested than principled and competent, and the electoralist “wing”, such as it is, is allergic to both of those things.
Don’t you know? Not wanting someone to say they’d collaborate with Nazis, sometimes knowingly, is purity testing.
They’re National Socialists and we need left unity!
/iwanttoenditalldealingwiththesepeople
Folks really showing their liberalism with their unwavering belief in the secret principled leftism of the guy pulling the rug out from under them in the exact same way 5 other identical guys have done every couple years.
Nobody on hexbear should be surprised that a “left” organization with zero principled discipline doesn’t produce principled campaigns with discipline. Instead, it produces an endless litany of self-interested climbers doing milquetoast liberal reformism at best, as moneyed interests dominate their campaigns.
I mean, I advocated for wait and see because I knew from the get go they weren’t going to listen to all the people dogpiling them. I see what WildWeezing420 meant though when they said their big issue is older members still falling for the same trick. Most people I know that seemed hype for him in my age bracket (early 20s) weren’t paying enough attention to Bernie and AOC to get why it happened and no one reads theory (especially lenin!) so I kinda ignored it. Seeing people justify the need to say he’d collaborate with Nazis as some 4D chess has rattled me. Some of the people I’ve seen pulling this bullshit have been organizing longer than I’ve used two digits for my age.
I just keep telling people that without discipline you’re just leaving “candidates” to face up against the (strong) forces of liberalism with no counterweight. This means opportunists will happily take your free labor for unserious (or worse) campaigns and even well-meaning people will be prone to crumpling against media forces alone, and that’s before the cops start routinely harassing you or protecting the fashy vigilantes that keep showing up to your house.
When I say this it gets decent upbears but the electoralists never engage. I think the concept of discipline must actually threaten them on some personal level, like they don’t want to think about how much of their own time they are potentially wasting.
It’s because that discipline would then also be applied to them as well. Militancy is only fun when you’re already done the work and have leverage. Risking your job to form a union isn’t. It’s not glamorous sitting there talking to your coworkers about how collective bargaining gives you leverage.
I dunno I kind of enjoy that stuff. And unfortunately a good number of people do at least romanticize it and use labor work as caché, seeking out positions not for the cause but because of how they’d like to think of themselves in it. I’m thinking of truly incompetent labor organizers I know, folks that don’t do a very good job nor improve and it’s because ultimately they are still self-interested, even when that self-interest comes in the form of making a show of self-sacrifice. I hope that makes sense!
If you were in NYC DSA what would your proposal be to create discipline?
I’d vote to censure Mamdani over this statement and force him to publicly denounce it or get booted from the org.
I doubt DSA has the gonads but if they actually pulled rank on him now less than 3 weeks til the election I bet it would change his behavior going forward.
If I was in NYC DSA would be focused on building my caucus and trying to dominate education and an onboarding process so that incoming members all had positive relationships with my caucus as well as biases towards us. Having at least one project into which to plug people would also be useful, but it should follow from embedding in community and having direct conversations with locals in targeted areas to determine what they care about most, what is hurting them most.
One of DSA’s flaws is that it continues electoral thought towards putting the cart before the horse, e.g. revolution through resolution. A good resolution is secondary to building good org members. It would follow naturally from the organizing work that has to happen first. Finally creating discipline requires having enough trust and support for the idea in advance, otherwise even if you manage to pass the resolution, which is difficult if the org itself is too electoral or incoherent, you will have a hard time actually enforcing it.
But once at an organized stage like that, discipline would look like needing to follow key org lines or get sanctioned/removed on top of unendorsed, requiring that all campaign resources come from grassroots sourcing, primarily org work, requiring that candidates come from the org itself and after a period of onboarding, education, and various pledges and interviews, and a requirement that electoral work rotates such that members do not regularly get their paycheck from the mere existence of campaigns. Some amount of this may run counter to election law, but would be worked around in the same way bourgeois parties do, relying on one main carrot/stick to enforce the “soft” rules, e.g. being very strict about support snd endorsement and volunteer labor such that running foul is actually damaging to the candidate.
My general understanding is that except for the last thing about rotating that’s what they’ve got going on.
The question is whether the membership is really brave/united enough to pull the plug when they can practically taste the sweet victory of an election in less than 3 weeks.
They should have some sort of mechanism to act that quickly or at least make a credible threat as I heard somewhere that mamdani has to attend weekly (general membership?) meetings
I’ve only seen a couple examples of left organizations with good discipline in my life and none that were involved with electoralism. They were created with the idea of a very strongly democratic practice where the expectation is that everyone gets their fair voice but once the vote is cast, you follow the group even if you personally wanted something else. Requires A++ meeting skills to have everyone feel they had the chance to participate.
And, it will always happen that the leadership who are often more dedicated revolutionaries, must adhere to decisions that don’t meet their ideal. It has to be actually democratic so sometimes you lose. But by doing that they set the example and expectation and everyone gets bolder and moves on collectively.
I don’t know how that could be integrated into an elected position like mayor, really. He can’t be micromanaged by hundreds or thousands of people. And the fact of the matter is, there is no way he will be able to perform his duties to their satisfaction for years on end. Because he’s subject to many outside competing forces.
Maybe DSA should only put people up for election if they sign a contract stating they will leave elected politics, lobbying and all associated industries for at least 10 years after. Like a super harsh non compete. Oh wait those are not valid in most places anymore.
Also this was funny timing:
https://hexbear.net/comment/6591284
That is a good point. False hope, like gambling, often emerges from not having a strong embedding in something real that is paying off. Indulging the fantasy instead of confronting the reality.
The reason that Americans resort to so much adventurism is the same reason why so many pin hopes on bourgeois politicians that owe them nothing: no other political outlet for hope. They are not organized, they are not active.
The slot machines will eventually reward you with electoral Sankara if you just sit there long enough.
The state the left is in is embarrassing. The fact we’re at baby-steps of “proving a socialist mayor can run a city while making democrats look rightwing” is a terrible state of affairs, but we should probably play that hand. I don’t think he’ll have the effective power to purge every zionist in new yorks affairs.
I think it’s better to shake hands with a zionist for a while before personally cutting their throat at a later date than to remain powerless.
Again, I’m not even saying that much is the ask! But if we’re arguing optics, which is the only argument anyone makes in defense of the failures of his entryism attempt, he has repeatedly shown a willingness and savviness to stay on message and dodge the damn question.
If we’re arguing that he needs to fear almighty Zion because we’re too weak to face them, I wanna see him go apologize like he apologized to the pigs. No half measures.
The only hopes I have from this campaign is primarily staked on the hardening of his base that will come about when this goes sideways, again, because entryism is a failed tactic, and hoping the number hardened outweigh those that fall into nihilistic doomerism. Hopefully there are enough people that are spared from worsening conditions that it outweighs the harm and deaths done by our pathetic attempts at international solidarity.
I also hope people are afforded some respite, and that some are simply hardened.
I agree that entryism is a failed tactic, but engaging in the arena is a must, otherwise you’re simply conceding power while still remaining a target.
I agree you must engage in the arena, if not simply for the ability to engage with the masses. I’m not arguing against strategic electoralism in that sense.