Socdems being cringe part 4: DSA chapters act like chauvinists during Cuba trip
Socdems being cringe part 4: DSA chapters act like chauvinists during Cuba trip
Honestly its rude to be invited by a country to meet their president who decided to respond to your criticisms of their administration only to not show up and go meet the opposition.
Being invided and then no showing shows complete disregard to basic diplomatic Etiquette since it was a mission to show solidarity against the embargo
Bonus socdems being cringe part 4.5: about another member that didnt show up to the presidential meeting
Deeply unserious people
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Maria has been working non stop for as long as I've known her. She's one of the best comrades I've had the pleasure of working with. She is a machine that turns liberals into communists. She has tirelessly organized for trans rights in Florida of all places. She is an anti-imperialist through and through.
She has criticisms of Cuba's government, not the revolution. Read her article. https://reformandrevolution.org/2024/02/17/cuba-between-imperialism-and-socialism/
Did you know that as Marxists we are supposed to engage in critique instead of just parroting whatever view the online left, heavily infiltrated about 1000 ways, decides is correct? Do you think that actors of state are above criticism just because they call themselves socialist?
Maria is my friend and comrade. This is bullshit. She had done nothing but act in good faith and provided factual, well considered criticism and all she has gotten in return is vile lies, insults, fed jacketing and the worse treatment. Leaders of DSA's International Committee, who do not get along with R&R usually, have stepped forward to defend her and her criticisms.https://twitter.com/cearaos/status/1780785735055868107?s=46
This internal debate is already exhausting; to see this appear on the dunk tank, an internal DSA message board is ridiculous. You have no idea what you're posting about, clearly.
Edit: here's a recent article by MUG that criticizes some of her positions while fairly orienting it in the actual debate. Might be a lesson for young comrades who substitute the dunk tank for actual organizing or understanding an issue. https://cosmonautmag.com/2024/03/dsa-in-cuba-refining-our-international-strategy/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3iHS3zLWiURepmhi3xjQQa2Navm-Yni3sdwmblHF5Vig_sGlSCsM-wSrM_aem_ATJUeJnAi-ceSz1vIm1ecVqA3tMFP1ipJdK0lPPavGqimTyA3Zprk7EGqAVYUD657tEQxU8qucT9HMHYxnv5o3EU
Cool, why skip out on a meeting with the President of Cuba's government to discuss it in a constructive way then?
"To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type."
Maria has been working non stop for as long as I've known her. She's one of the best comrades I've had the pleasure of working with. She is a machine that turns liberals into communists. She has tirelessly organized for trans rights in Florida of all places. She is an anti-imperialist through and through.
"To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type."
Yeah reading her blog post OP posted to exculpate her that fact is pretty clear reading between the lines. Just clown shit, no investigation no right to speak.
To your first point, it seems as though her main complaint was there wasn't much of a way to dialogue with both party officials and the critical left she talks about.
To your second, no one likes when someone they know and respect is being fed-jacketed.
How useful her critiques are when even the non-government critical-voice she talked to (Maykel Vivero) said:
the most systemic change must happen through a change of policy in the United States. Absent that, the most likely possibilities for Cuba’s future would be 1.) a Chinese-style mixed economy, which would significantly increase inequality and leave workers without a democratic voice, or 2.) a full capitalist restoration, which would be a world-historic disaster for the working-class.
I think even she doesn't really see the realities, considering she thinks Cuba's standard of living can be raised and there can be less discontent if more voices are heard.
She wants the support to be more critical, but considering how bad the embargo is (and everyone in her group and the Cubans she talk to agree about), it seems as if this is largely a pointless exercise. No government is perfect, but what can you do from America where more people are pushing for an overthrow than an embargo lift. Weird not to mention Allende in this whole discussion too.
She literally posted in her critique that she met Maykel Vivero, who did positive coverage of the San Isidro movement. The San Isidro Movement leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara took money from an org that gets money from USAID and NED. Like don't do fed shit if you're gonna complain about people thinking you're a fed. And yea, fed jacketing is bad but that's like literally fed shit.
There are several DSA caucuses that parrot US State Department and NED-funded talking points uncritically.
I think they're mostly naive, selfish, and chauvinist, i.e. true believers in wrong ideas rather than feds. Though in effect it doesn't really matter.
As soon as she has finished writing her response, I will share it with you. The idea that Maria has been slipshod in any way in her work is fucking slanderous. Don't quote Mao to me. I included an article of her criticisms so she isn't saying anything behind anyone's back either.
If you became 1/10th of the organizer that Maria is, you would look at these comments and feel great shame.
Her criticisms come from an incredibly idealist perspective and are divorced from any understanding of power or how a communist party functions. Even lauding Fidel, but ignoring him: "within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing". introducing "alternative leftist voices" for its own sake accomplishes nothing but sating the unending liberal tendency to act indecisively and fight amongst each other, even when facing an existential threat. Constantly railing against the "bureaucracy" and constantly trying to create a distinction between the communist party from the masses, from the perspective of an outsider... from the imperial core... from the US no less, the primary enemy of the Cuban revolution... It is incredibly telling that that is what she spends her time on. If she is such an incredible organizer and ardent communist
then she should focus on revolution within the USHer criticisms come from an incredibly idealist perspective and are divorced from any understanding of power or how a communist party functions
I'll emphasize again, and not a attack on the person who wrote it but a reminder of reality, DSA is not a communist party.
It is not a leninist party of the new type, it is a social democratic party in function regardless of whatever form they or anyone else claim to be.
I agree completely. The DSA has been an anti-communist project from its conception. This person claims to be giving a "marxist critique" though, and that is what I was addressing. The unfortunate reality is that many people with revolutionary aspirations end up being siphoned into DSA and believe that they are communists. But in reality, most people who join the DSA are exposed to these garbage takes, the incessant factionalism, and ineffectual action, and think that that is what socialist organizing is. They become disaffected and it drives people away from communist parties and organizing in general when the goal should be to bring people in and change their understanding of democracy into a participatory, socialist one. Most DSA members are just members on paper because of this.
Yep. I joined DSA back in 2016 and quickly got burnt out on the backbiting, drama and liberal signaling and stopped attending after just a few meetings and events. I went on to go to other communist groups, but if I had stuck around there I would still be sitting around in meetings with people bickering about whether Cuba is an autocracy or not.
Hello fellow comrades, like you I am a lover of communism, but we must keep in mind that activates John Kirby mode, recites State Department briefing verbatim
I encourage anyone reading this to revive this discussion I started about improving DSA on a local level.
Yes, truly one of the two sheepdog tailers for the DNC, regardless of how many ride-alonger fleas there are trying to change its course by tugging at its hairs.
But there is a second aspect of the crisis which we did not focus on during this delegation: a crisis of political legitimacy. Cuba’s government is a regime where decision-making power rests in the hands of the Central Committee of the PCC (the only legal political party) alongside its bureaucracy while the elected legislature is a disempowered rubber-stamp committee. Legally recognized mass organizations we met with on this delegation, like the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, Federation of Cuban Women, and the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba, are loyal to the bureaucracy, while independent political organizing is repressed.
This is from that "comrade" who skipped the meeting with the president. Tells you all you need to know about them. The DSA didn't focus on this "second aspect" but she really wanted to hijack the trip and make it about this instead of the blockade, so she pulled some immature stunt to get attention for her idealist bullshit
Bloviating about your concerns and then refusing to meet with the President of the fucking country to address those very concerns shows that it’s just a bad faith stunt to put yourself on a pedestal above the unclean impure real-life socialist country that has to deal with matters of practical governance.
Vague critiques of “authoritarianism” betray a total lack of understanding as to the functioning of literally any state on the planet.
The whole “how can you criticize X when they’ve been doing things in real life while you just sit there with your stupid books”, aside from being presumptuous, is just bog standard anti-intellectualism that friend of the site Roderic Day does a much better job of taking apart than me.
friend of the site Roderic Day does a much better job of taking apart than me.
I thought people were joking about that until I saw him actually talking about hexbear and saying our doomers are dooming too much
You saw the other comment I made about if I pulled a diplomatic faux pas like that I would want to resign out of embarrassment?
I really hope she feels embarrassment on a whole different magnitude
I’ll emphasize again, and not a attack on the person who wrote it but a reminder of reality, DSA is not a communist party.
Not a communist party, yet
Hopefully the more effectively organized left wing can succeed in eventually taking it over, this last wave of elections seems promising to that effect.
:bloomer:
entryism has never worked a single time in history i'm pretty sure
The only time it worked was when Kenyan communists took over a socdem party, and the very big difference between their entryism and virtually every other instance of entryism is that Kenya had banned communist parties, so there was no way to openly organize as communists. After Kenya lifted the ban on communist parties, there was a line struggle between social democrats who wanted the Social Democratic Party to stay a social democratic party and communists who used the Social Democratic Party to get around the ban on communist parties with the communists winning out. Once they kicked the socdems to the curb, they changed the party's name to the Communist Party of Kenya.
Big fucking W for our Kenyan comrades
Not saying to do entryism, I think the org is organically moving left as left folks have more success.
i'm not holding my breath.
I'm definitely coming at this through rose tinted glasses (pardon the pun) because my local chapter are actual communists who disagree with the bernsteinist politics of DSA at large.
I just don't see any alternative orgs to hop onto at the moment tbh.
I mean one of the two current cochairs of DSA is in an ML caucus. It’s not a sure thing they’ll maintain power long enough to corral the libs towards a better politic but it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility.
The trots that infiltrated the DNC thought the same thing back in the day, but look how that turned out.
I guess the question is is the DSA hopelessly captured by the dems or not? I know my local chapter isn't, I know some who are, I'm not sure about nationals.
Personally, I would say it's a completely reformist institution with about as much hopes for achieving socialism as the eurocommunists of the EU do.
I'm not particularly against people being a part of it or other organizations as long as they are gaining good experience and education that they can carry on with them in their life and other more professional parties should try chose to move on.
Well that’s kind of the key isn’t it. DSA’s structure is going to be worthless in any sort of revolutionary crisis. However, communists in DSA have access to an audience of underdeveloped but sometimes open minded libs that are willing to listen and learn. They can help convert them into the kinds of organizers with good politics that will be necessary for any future party to succeed.
It's not going to become one. The only similar outcome would occur due to a split.
I'd settle for a split that creates a national communist organization
Just join
, why waste your time in an organization whose structure necessitates constant pointless factionalism?The way they respond to sexual abuse allegations, I've also heard they have a very non-leninist idea of what democratic centralism entails.
Also the ones in my area seem more interested in recruiting than doing literally anything at all outside of recruiting
The way they respond to sexual abuse allegations
Honestly how is that? This is always so vague. There was one high profile case that the organization was slow to respond. The accused was suspended and left during their suspension. Then we established a national-level body composed entirely of survivors to investigate and adjudicate these cases. We learned from a structural failure and adjusted how we operate to prevent that from happening again.
've also heard they have a very non-leninist idea of what democratic centralism entails
Please elaborate.
She could save others from Liberalism but not herself
Trotskyists attacking the CPC while the country is being invaded by the genocidal IJA vibes
I'll pass your message along
You are posting extreme liberal cringe
Wow great critique, Marx would be so impressed. Let me make this clear. You don't know what you are talking about, like no clue whatsoever. The lengths that you are going to try and deny this fact is concerning. You've known about this debate for an hour while we have been having it for months. Look in the mirror, comrade. Please disengage
Blah blah blah, she’s a representative of an organization and she acted undiplomatically, unprofessionally and in a disrespectful way that is consistent with chauvinist actions. You haven’t presented a single argument why this is acceptable behavior just went off on insults and “she’s a million times more of a comrade than you” bludgeoning. This was a disgrace to internationalism and socialist solidarity.
You don’t get to make a huge comment with insults and get the last word, then disengage. This is abuse of the feature
Don't quote Mao to me.
those who don't want mao quoted to them need mao quoted to them the most
And what’s OP’s problem with Mao? Is he not white enough?
Ummm this random DSA organizer has done ten times more praxis than Mao ever could!!!
Organizing is about building capacity to engage in action. Recruiting, educating, and getting other people involved and connected.
If you're really good at doing that for the purposes of chauvinism, ignorance, and toeing the line of the NED constellation of bullshit, you are not doing a good thing and are doing something that is actually very easy in the context of an the American supremacist liberal environment in which everyone has been raised.
I gotta memorize all the types of liberalism so I can drop them for devastating rebuttals like this
Damn I just witnessed a murder lmao
You're arguing in extremely bad faith. Deliberately skipping out on the discussion session (refusing to actually engage in critique) and then posting a giant screed (literally being the online left, infiltrated in about 1000 ways) is absolutely not constructive and absolutely should be called out. Disengage now.
I will leave your post up only because the receipts you provided are actually arguing the opposite of your awful point.
Maria's post: https://reformandrevolution.org/2024/02/17/cuba-between-imperialism-and-socialism/
DSA international committee defending Maria for this chauvinist shit, which should be seen as proof that it is western chauvinism: https://twitter.com/cearaos/status/1780785735055868107?s=46
By "thousand blossoms" is this person referring to the thousand bucks CIA Front groups allegedly paid to the person Maria talked to?
Bullshit she skipped a meeting with the president. You can jabber all you want but actions speak louder than words. She has no grounds to criticize the Cuban government as an American she needs to shut the fuck up and get her priorities in order. It is pathetic chauvinism and you should relay to her how pathetic this was. She’s incapable of turning herself into a comrade and acts like a Liberal so I doubt your words
Oh another chauvinist part of the DSA “stepped forward to defend her criticisms” of Cuba? Who cares? Libs defending libs doesn’t make it less lib
I agree. The US government has levied untold suffering onto the Cuban people and the Cuban President was still willing to sit down with them. The US is Cuba's oppressor and despite that there are people in the DSA who would like to waste their breath pretending that they have a principled Marxist critique rather than combat their own governments cruelty. Imperial Chauvinism. I am sure that Maria thinks that she has a better understanding of Cuba's conditions than Cubans themselves, but she is just wasting people's time and hurting the movement she pretends to espouse.
ITT we uncritically love heads of state
If you hate heads of state, why would you go on a delegation who plans on meeting one? Organize your own shit instead of riding coat tails losers
from my reading of this, the "comrade" wanted to make the trip about the "crisis of political legitimacy" in Cuba and how the leadership are autocratic and bureaucratic. From her article:
But there is a second aspect of the crisis which we did not focus on during this delegation: a crisis of political legitimacy. Cuba’s government is a regime where decision-making power rests in the hands of the Central Committee of the PCC (the only legal political party) alongside its bureaucracy while the elected legislature is a disempowered rubber-stamp committee. Legally recognized mass organizations we met with on this delegation, like the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, Federation of Cuban Women, and the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba, are loyal to the bureaucracy, while independent political organizing is repressed.
so instead of going to the delegation as planned, she pulled an immature stunt as "protest" to get attention to her "cause" and center the conversation in the DSA about Cuba's "crisis of political legitimacy". This is just open and naked chauvinism, and when the groups she met with didn't conform to her idealist chauvinist pigheaded view, she shits on them and calls them "loyal to the bureaucracy"
Having an oppressive bureaucracy is when the head of state is able to take time off his busy schedule to personally meet with you.
Umm have you considered authoritarianism Orwell 1984? Exercising power is bad, we must let our enemies steamroll us and let the state completely fall apart while being targeted by the US, for that is the ultimate expression of freedom
some annoying random american, no less
I haven't had time to read the articles but sounds about right. Self centered behavior on part of the "comrade". Pure sabotage.
Meeting with someone is definitely the same thing as loving them
Diaz Canel was a fierce supporter of LGBT+ rights, he send doctor missions during the covid pandemic to help other countries like Mexico and Italy, continue support of palestine, he is not Biden, he responded to their criticism and hosted the DSA in Cuba, at least they should have meet the guy
you cannot in the same breath levy criticisms and refuse to entertain the head of state specifically trying to meet with you to discuss said criticisms. it is petty and chauvinistic and betrays an idea that your aim of criticism is destructive rather than constructive–an attempt to jettison ideologically from the project rather than contribute to it. if they truly wanted to see the communist experiment in Cuba succeed, they would jump at the chance to communicate their ideas with the people currently running it.
Ultra chauvinists like Maria call for debate but they really just want to platform their own ridiculous positions and listen to no one. This is par for the course in what counts as debate among this brand of Trots.
Socialist ones? Yes. Are you some fucking chauvinist too or what? Even reactionaries like Kissinger met with socialist heads of state for diplomacy. Your friend is more of a chauvinist arrogant unprofessional idiot than fucking Kissinger, let that soak in
In prior decades the party could rely on the gains of the revolution and the formidable leadership of Fidel Castro as a source of legitimacy. But as the economic crisis threatens the country’s social programs and leadership has passed to the less-popular Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cubans increasingly show dissatisfaction with life on the island. We see this in the mass protests of 2021, smaller localized demonstrations against shortages, and nearly 5% of the population emigrating away in the past two years.
of course a fucking loser like this would cry about cuba suppressing an attempted queerphobic color revolution. she's lucky diaz-canel didnt throw her off a cliff
Meanwhile, a notably large “No” campaign against the Family Code was led by the churches and right-wing dissident groups through social media. While the referendum passed, “No” received 33% of the vote, which is remarkably high for a government initiative in a one-party state.
Meanwhile that loser was bloviating about the 33% "No" vote while defending their political movement and whining about the Cuban government not being able to magically fix something that is the result of her country's blockade, absolute definition of an opportunist snake just looking for wrecking angle
Amazing, managed to sneak in a jab at totalitarianism 1984 when discussing a vote with vocal opposition.
Anyway, why didn’t Diaz-Canel press the button that magically eliminates all reactionary opinions? Is it because he’s secretly Hitler?
Of course if he did press that magical button, he would still secretly be Hitler
It's not democracy if the right-wing religious minority doesn't get what it wants!!!
While the referendum passed, “No” received 33% of the vote, which is remarkably high for a government initiative in a one-party state.
Lol. LMao, even. Based on what? As someone who lives in the west, I don't think I've ever seen a government initiative pass without just meeting the majority threshold.
She may do good work elsewhere. She may have some valid criticisms (I cannot speak to this as I have not evaluated them).
However, when you're sent as a delegate of an ostensibly Socialist organization to one of very few actually existing Socialist countries and you get the immense privelege and oppurtunity to meet with the President of the country and First Secretary of the Communist Party YOU MEET WITH THEM.
To do so otherwise - again as a delegate of a supposedly Socialist org trying to make international connections - is so far beyond a faux-paux I'm not sure what to call it.
To do so otherwise - again as a delegate of a supposedly Socialist org trying to make international connections - is so far beyond a faux-paux I'm not sure what to call it.
It's called sabotage. She skipped out on the meeting to deal with people who participated in the abortive color revolution from a few years back. She's an op.
I want the list of the 15 people who upvoted their comment so I can add them to my block list
It’s probably people you’ve already got on there, the radlibs on here show their whole ass constantly. For instance I had completely forgotten about zifnab having had them blocked for months. I’d even considered clearing my block list but then I discovered through this thread that he’s still on his bullshit.
lmao same, this thread is remarkably pleasant seeing only one lib showing their whole ass cause we're being mean to their friend or something
Permanently Deleted
also, what the fuck is a Q&A session if not explicitly an open exchange of ideas, tactics, and advice?
I love it when I, a communist who actively does not (or at least should not) subscribe to liberalism and its thought-terminating cliches, gives a speech which is 90% undiscernable from a United States government statement on Cuba
I genuinely don't think I can take a single person who unironically uses the term "Stalinism" seriously at this point. Maybe there's some extremely specific usage revolving around the leadership of the Josef Stalin (and not every single slightly "authoritarian" leader) where it could still have some value, but I doubt it. For non-leftists, it's just another thought-terminating word that liberals fling around to refer to anybody they don't like, like "tankie". For people who purport to be leftists, it's a way of preserving anti-communist brainworms in situations where Stalin is viewed positively - sure, Stalin might have been a generally good, even great, figure, but Stalinism implicitly invokes the American propaganda about gulags and clapping for hours during his speeches and execution for saying even the slightest thing wrong.
I genuinely don’t think I can take a single person who unironically uses the term “Stalinism” seriously at this point.
Like my PFP, they're not meant to be taken seriously. This person was in Cuba. Did they seriously not bother to have a conversation with a single Cuban person?
20 year old Americans do have something to offer Cuba:
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Money
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Apologies
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End of list
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Maria is my friend and comrade. This is bullshit. She had done nothing but act in good faith
Did she or did she not snub the president of Cuba to bloviate about some contradictory criticisms of the Cuban government that had already been addressed by said Cuban officials?
That is not good faith argumentation let alone good faith organizing, it is the definition of wrecking and undiplomatic behavior, and is made all the more egregious by the fact it is her country whose polices act as the Janus key to answer her idealist arguments as to why Cuba isn't where SHE thinks it needs to be
And putting a bunch of weasel sentences like "are state actors above criticism" or "she organizes for trans right in Florida" deliberately ignores the main point of contention and is ironically in itself a common tactic of anti-communist infiltrators who usually seek to turn debates into arguments over character and not political substance and motivation, it's dishonest
This is bullshit. She had done nothing but act in good faith and provided factual, well considered criticism
Maybe she should have then attended the meeting with the President of Cuba who offered to address her criticism then instead of declining the meeting and running off to speak to the opposition while giving credence to Miami gusanos
Anti-imperialist while meeting with people working with NED. Fuck out of here. Hope she never shows her ass south of the border again. Stay the fuck out of Latin America and let us continue to make gains while people like her keep getting cucked by the Democrats and their geriatric leadership.
The level of disrespect is absolutely disgusting and it’s clear she views Americans as being above Cubans and Latin Americans. She apparently doesn’t support Cuba’s trans rights by stupidly opposing how they managed to make it happen.
Does she want the Cuban left to be more like the Guatemalan left who despise trans people and regard them as subhuman? After all, they’re being more “Democratic” by taking in the opinions of Evangelical chuds and incorporating them into the party as a “bottoms-up” approach.
Miss me with that “parroting the online left” bullshit. This childish nonsense is why the American left will never be taken seriously if they keep doing this shit.
Maria has been working non stop for as long as I've known her.
So what? That's only slightly above the minimum bar for being a political activist. She could have shown up to the meeting, or is her critique worth so little that she can't even back it up with a little eye contact?
I thought this was a bit lmao
Maria is an embarrassment and an idiot and defending her makes you culpable in the chauvinism she displays.
Edit: PS I should mention that she's a Trot and "making liberals into communists" really means, "make liberals into counterproductive ultras". Literally an entryist caucus.
This is bullshit. She and you believe in nothing but securing Democratic Party staffer jobs for yourselves. You are a counter-revolutionary.