Regarding the PSL Post
Regarding the PSL Post
I appreciate everyone's responses a lot. I also think it was good to remove the post because there was some reactionary stuff in the google doc I linked. I found it through one of the articles that Bad Mouse's link led to, not in any of the other comments. I only looked at the "first hand accounts" links in the doc and didn't even double check what else there was so that's my error.
I had a feeling the take would be that there are certainly big flaws, as there are in any org, with any group of people, but PSL is still one of the few vehicles for socialist agitation that there actually exists, and by joining it we can help improve it.
I'm likely going to be moving to San Francisco when I'm back in the states in case anyone has recommendations about specific orgs in the bay that are certainly good.
Also I got to say Bad Mouse's ultra turn also bummed me out a little. It seems like such a baby leftist thing to do to just shit on a socialist party from across an ocean and then refuse to elaborate.
No idea what this is about but the Republicans and Democrats both secure unlimited financing for business partner nations' genocide, and enable/coverup JeffEp-style intelligence operations. Whatever grievances one can find regarding PSL, probably the only organized socialist political body in the country that stands to attract even 1,% in the polls, rest assured they will probably be made moot by whatever scandals would come about if a hypothetical PSL ever actually gets a single politician into any office at any level.
Okay, wtf did I miss
OP asked about PSL the other day, one of their links linked to some reactionary sites. ButtBidet's comment
If I were to give you a personal rec it would be to feel comfortable joining PSL but also don't lose yourself in any problematic behaviors a given local chapter might have. There's a risk in any (imo prematurely) Demcent org to feel a need to follow the line lest you lose your friend group / organizing group and it's okay to give yourself permission to say no to bad ideas and to raise issues. I've seen plenty of folks stay in places they don't really feel safe because of those fears, including a trans comrade that felt completely alienated by a class reductionist org but didn't want to remove themselves from their friends/comrades by leaving and joining a different org. They're still having a hard time with this.
I see. It's something I'll definitely look into and I think I'll give it a shot in the case that I can actually make it past the onboarding phase. I'll always have family and friends outside the org so that is probably a good boundary to keep myself from getting swept up in any organizational drama.
Do you think it's worth any of our time to try to steer DSA into a better direction? I feel like if they could sever their ties with the Democrats it could become a vehicle for some real agitation and organizing. Again it just takes involvement. It's funny how "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" actually applies to socialist organizing because we are trying to change the world for the better but not to voting for genocidal capital-simp freaks because they are, you know, actually trying to do bad.
Nice! Glad to hear you're still interested in joining an org! For most people just taking that first step is the major inflection point in becoming an organizer. You can do it!
Re: DSA, imo it's in decline and continues to be full of liberals and old semi-reformed Trots with completely unrealistic ideas. It varies wildly by locale, though. There are chapters that are dominated by Trots, chapters dominated by MLs, chapters dominated by environmentalist SocDems, etc etc. The most common DSA member is one that forgot to cancel their dues and has never been to a meeting. I would rate DSA as middle of the pack in terms of a first org to join. You probably won't learn any theory through it and it probably won't give you proper training in anything, but you can also craft your own direction and self-teach without others getting in the way and there's a decent chance they're involved in some labor stuff (but probably not in a particularly powerful way). It will waste your time on drama if you pay attention to it. Luckily, it's very easy to leave the DSA lol.
The major issue with the DSA is that it mostly grew due to Bernie so it's people whose leftward transition more or less arrested at "slightly left of Bernie" or went off in one of several disillusionment pipelines and these people do not agree with each other about anything and most of them haven't read basic theory or are media illiterate. So there's two issues: it's aimless as an org overall, with many liberal tendencies, and they have absolutely no idea how to grow the org, having benefited from an event that will probably not happen for them again. It is possible to join groups trying to make DSA better overall, but to be realistic you're looking at a decade of struggle and no guarantees. Also the few decent subgroups tend to be specific to a given city. Just don't want you to burn out on that reform project - so enter it with clear eyes!
Re: pro-capital genociders, DSA struggled for like 1-2 years with merely criticizing Bowman for funding the iron dome. DSA's resolution to this was, over time, to disband its Palestinian-focused working group, punt on censuring Zionists and support for Zionism within its org, and spreading a bunch of nonsense about how they've gotta support their few elected members. Bowman then said he'd left the DSA a year earlier lol. That's the kind of stuff you'd be forced to observe. But you also won't be joining a culty org or one that actively teaches you incorrectly so just take all of this as a suggestion to engage critically if that's the org you try first.
Finally, the best org to join will often be the one that is active and large in your area. At least you know it's doing things. It might be none of the ones we discussed. I would recommend looking at the orgs that are active in Palestine solidarity actions, including protests, because that will rule out a number of opportunist orgs and put you in the general orbit of the "best" org in your region, whatever it might be. If an org is coordinating those actions and does well-regarded labor work I recommend joining that one.
PSL good. Listen to the socialist program.
The is going to be a bit of a controversial take but it's my own and I'm willing to die on this hill:
I put BadMouse into the same category as BadEmpanada tbh. Both make/tend to make good video essays. That's all I'm willing to engage with and give them credit for.
They are not people who I look up to as people who I should follow. I neither trust them nor respect them enough for that.
In the case of BadEmpanada, he has some unhinged behaviour on social media and he just has some garbage takes that increase in inverse proportion to the proximity to his main channel. In the case of BadMouse, he is so self-assured that I feel like the only right thing is to make up for his lack of skepticism by having enough skepticism of him for the both of us - he cycled through ideologies like a westerner window-shops for new outfits to wear and I'd argue that he's more of a convincing speaker than he is a person who has done the reading and put in the effort to enact his politics (I can't speak for his more recent turn away from being on YouTube to primarily being a grass-toucher but everything that is visible in his YouTube era is representative of him spending his time on creating online hot takes so...)
So I will listen to what each of them have to say, and most of the time I really appreciate what they have to say and the way they formulate their video essays. But the more they start straying out of their lane, the more I start taking them with a pinch of salt; I'm not about to start taking organising advice from BadMouse lol.
With regards to the PSL - they do not operate in my country and I am not personally familiar with them. I have definitely heard about some of the concerns with the organisation and how it deals with matters. This is based on second-hand reports and it should be taken into consideration but it should also be taken with due skepticism because it's easy for a wrecker to concoct a story to sway sentiment against an organisation baselessly (not saying that this is the case here but we should always have a healthy skepticism about these claims against organisations and comrades unless we have good cause to believe it.)
As the PSL matters are internal and they are contended, I am happy to sit this one out - it's not my place, it's not my organisation, it's not my struggle.
If I were considering the PSL personally, I would observe the organisation for a while and read their statements etc. while engaging with the local branch and its members as a fellow traveller. Very often with large or national organisations, the people on leadership are not reflective of the people in your branch and there are questions about organising and strategy that people need to hash out with themselves like whether they think the org itself is good enough on sufficient matters that you can deal with disagreements etc., whether you want to be part of driving a cultural change within the organisation, if you are satisfied with how the organisation resolves conflict and how the leadership addresses their own flaws and fuck ups etc. etc.
Ultimately, this is my position: I am not perfect, organisations are not perfect, and whatever party I'm in or associated with is not perfect either.
I have a hierarchy of things that are most important to me and I seek alignment with enough of the most important issues. With the lower priority matters, I'm interested in seeing if or how the organisation's line has developed on that and how/if it has managed to develop on other issues where it has had a bad line; an organisation that is willing to change and admit past errors is more important to me than perfect ideological alignment because I see that as a crucial sign of a healthy org.
Idk where I'm going with this ramble but it's just some of my thoughts.
In the case of BadEmpanada, he has some unhinged behaviour on social media and he just has some garbage takes that increase in inverse proportion to the proximity to his main channel. In the case of BadMouse, he is so self-assured that I feel like the only right thing is to make up for his lack of skepticism by having enough skepticism of him for the both of us - he cycled through ideologies like a westerner window-shops for new outfits to wear and I'd argue that he's more of a convincing speaker than he is a person who has done the reading and put in the effort to enact his politics (I can't speak for his more recent turn away from being on YouTube to primarily being a grass-toucher but everything that is visible in his YouTube era is representative of him spending his time on creating online hot takes so...)
There's an opportunist streak about BadEmpanada, especially how he treated BayArea, and honestly, he's still a sexpat until proven otherwise just like all Anglo male immigrants in Global South countries.
And as for Bad Mouse, I just don't trust some dude who constantly changes ideology. It's one thing to do so when you've just been exposed to leftist thought, but at this point in the game, he has heard the arguments and talking points of all the major tendencies. There's absolutely no way he would have experienced consecutive life-shattering events that would cause him to reevaluate his core beliefs over and over again, which makes me think he was never sincere in the first place.
Agreed on both fronts.
There are people like Socialism For All who call out people on the left but it's not about drama at all.
I'm sure there are people who engage in drama farming for clout in a principled way (idk any examples because I honestly do not care for it).
But then there's BE who really seem to relish in drama farming and use it to chase clout for its own sake and I have a strong distaste for all that.
I went a bit easy on BM above because I don't want to stir up drama here but there are a few archetypes of characters you see that end up following particular paths and tbh he's the kind of person that I could absolutely imagine taking a "How I left the left" arc sometime in the future. Not saying that it's guaranteed or that I'm accusing him of being a rank opportunist but I've seen people who bounce between ideologies or who rapidly cycle through them and it's not unusual for them to settle on a position that makes outsiders go "Huh??" while jaded people like me go "Yeah, they were never truly grounded in radical theory/principles in a deep way so I'm really not surprised to see this new development..."
For me, I was an anarchist for basically all of my adult life until fairly recently and, if I'm being completely honest, it pains me to talk about it because I still grieve for the loss of my old politics (and it really was pretty life-shattering, like you said) and so I look at people who cycle the way that BM has and I simply cannot fathom doing that myself. If I was going to put an analogy to it, I'd say that I approach my politics like it's a marriage whereas people like BM seem to approach politics like it's a hookup app.
There are active branches of Socialist Alternative in the Bay Area.
Current organization priorities are building a viable working class party through Workers Stike Back and supporting the union drive at Amazon's KCVG airhub.
As a heads up to others this is a Trot org with the worst international takes you've ever seen
Super solidarity comrade.
It's an active organization that has a made a number of material gains for the working class, more so than other organizations in the modern imperialist core as far as I am aware. It's democratic centralism to the core, so there is solid reasoning behind the things you might disagree with.