My diagnosis is that almost everybody who is doing IRL organizing (which involves interacting with various types of “libs”: Hasanabi heads, “vote blue no matter who” Brenda, electoralist DSAers getting their people into local office, idpol-first SJWs, people with liberal idealist propaganda about AES states still embedded, people who think Stalin did some things wrong) have been far less active on the site. They are busy with that, and it is just a very negative environment compared to actually achieving something.
Community culture gone from “voting and elctoralism are not able to solve the root issues of capitalism in a liberal democracy” to “voting doesn’t matter at all, and it’s cringe to acknowledge its existence”. This is weird for an ostensibly political forum.
Exception to the above: proletarians outside the imperial core can trash on the imperial left as much as they want, I’m not gonna police that.
What remains seems to be very online venting. I get feeling powerless, but I just don’t see this sort of conversation happening IRL, it’s very uncomradely in tone and makes me want to log off as well.
I’m not saying I’m breaking my back with my organizing work, but the people who are doing more than me would be denounced as a “bunch of liberals” by some on this community. Guess what though? They are my friends and comrades nonetheless, and I’m thankful that I sometimes get to spend time with them (for business or social reasons) and influence their knowledge of theory/history/politics with my own!
If there is a true left-wing movement (to hexbear standards) emerges in our area, these are the same people who will be in and adjacent to it! Development of one’s political praxis is a dialectical process, a revolutionary movement doesn’t just spontaneously exist!
Yeah, not gonna lie, phone banking is fairly easy work, so I’m not like I’m giving myself the or anything.
I respect the anti-electoralist currents in our comm, but the irony here is that Hasan is getting smoke for real aid and propaganda work for AES.
We can have critical support for his support of Dems who are half-measures or other blind spots around left politics, but why bring that in here when this is basically the kind of praxis that any good ML should approve of wholeheartedly. We can disagree about some of the things Hasan supports (and I should say, some of his stuff around CA politics in particular is depressing though some of that is also just the left in CA’s fault as well…), but in this case I don’t get why folks are blasting him.
Yeah I appreciate the anti electoralist tendency, but keeping the chuds off my city council/county board and doing direct democracy on state measures is not where that applies IMO.
I also think that we can still do analysis of electoral politics even if the community isn’t going to center getting involved in them in our discussion. I think if we had a healthier attitude, c/electoralism would have a mega going on election night(s). Instead the discussion around it is “Mamdani (or other elected) did something bad, you’re an idiot for expecting different” or “Mamdani (/whoever (/Hasan?)) did something good, but I don’t care cause I’m not a lib btw and I still dont like him”.
I guess one of the reasons I would like to see it is because it is an opportunity to bring new people into the community and educate them. I don’t think the site will last a whole lot longer in its current form.
My diagnosis is that almost everybody who is doing IRL organizing (which involves interacting with various types of “libs”: Hasanabi heads, “vote blue no matter who” Brenda, electoralist DSAers getting their people into local office, idpol-first SJWs, people with liberal idealist propaganda about AES states still embedded, people who think Stalin did some things wrong) have been far less active on the site. They are busy with that, and it is just a very negative environment compared to actually achieving something.
Community culture gone from “voting and elctoralism are not able to solve the root issues of capitalism in a liberal democracy” to “voting doesn’t matter at all, and it’s cringe to acknowledge its existence”. This is weird for an ostensibly political forum.
Exception to the above: proletarians outside the imperial core can trash on the imperial left as much as they want, I’m not gonna police that.
What remains seems to be very online venting. I get feeling powerless, but I just don’t see this sort of conversation happening IRL, it’s very uncomradely in tone and makes me want to log off as well.
Yeah I’m too busy phone banking org members to post here.
I’m not saying I’m breaking my back with my organizing work, but the people who are doing more than me would be denounced as a “bunch of liberals” by some on this community. Guess what though? They are my friends and comrades nonetheless, and I’m thankful that I sometimes get to spend time with them (for business or social reasons) and influence their knowledge of theory/history/politics with my own!
If there is a true left-wing movement (to hexbear standards) emerges in our area, these are the same people who will be in and adjacent to it! Development of one’s political praxis is a dialectical process, a revolutionary movement doesn’t just spontaneously exist!
Yeah, not gonna lie, phone banking is fairly easy work, so I’m not like I’m giving myself the
or anything.
I respect the anti-electoralist currents in our comm, but the irony here is that Hasan is getting smoke for real aid and propaganda work for AES.
We can have critical support for his support of Dems who are half-measures or other blind spots around left politics, but why bring that in here when this is basically the kind of praxis that any good ML should approve of wholeheartedly. We can disagree about some of the things Hasan supports (and I should say, some of his stuff around CA politics in particular is depressing though some of that is also just the left in CA’s fault as well…), but in this case I don’t get why folks are blasting him.
Yeah I appreciate the anti electoralist tendency, but keeping the chuds off my city council/county board and doing direct democracy on state measures is not where that applies IMO.
I also think that we can still do analysis of electoral politics even if the community isn’t going to center getting involved in them in our discussion. I think if we had a healthier attitude, c/electoralism would have a mega going on election night(s). Instead the discussion around it is “Mamdani (or other elected) did something bad, you’re an idiot for expecting different” or “Mamdani (/whoever (/Hasan?)) did something good, but I don’t care cause I’m not a lib btw and I still dont like him”.
I guess one of the reasons I would like to see it is because it is an opportunity to bring new people into the community and educate them. I don’t think the site will last a whole lot longer in its current form.