What's up with people claiming PSL shields predators? [CW: mentions of SA]
What's up with people claiming PSL shields predators? [CW: mentions of SA]
Is there any veracity to the claim that “the PSL covered up SA allegations”? I hear it from people a lot. I wanna know if this is a valid concern.
(Originally posted on Ask Lemmygrad)
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All orgs have SA issues, I think there is probably some truth to cover ups regarding external facing aspects of it, my local PSL chapter sometimes won't even give me inane details to make coordinating with them easier. The question is whether there is internal cover ups.
I'm willing to bet there are because of the way PSL structures communications keeps locals isolated from eachother, and I get the sense of paranoia/siege mentality probably making folks more inclined to avoid spreading stuff that could be damaging to the org.
However the org also allows the escalating of SA stuff past local leadership which is an exception to their command structure.
I think criticism of PSL should probably be more concerned with their lack of democratic centralism (40 percent of delegates can be appointed by the central committee), their structure not really resembling successful pre-revolutionary structures because they are a Cadre org, not a cadre org within a wider democratic organization of socialists/anticolonialists, and they waste a lot of time with the presidential campaign.
Before people say "the presidential campaign is mostly to just have a pretext to talk to people" I've seen the literature for this year, and a lot of it is solely oriented around getting your vote and not convincing you of the correctness of their positions or analysis. I've also had 1 on 1s with psl organizers and been at their educational events. They claim it is about having conversations but they treat it like the goal is to get votes. While I like talking theory with PSL comrades, they seem really underdeveloped as actual organizers and popular educators.