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wait wrong thread
Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jun 23, 2016 |
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Jun 23, 2016 02:24
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hey, uh I haven't looked around CSPAM in like over a year to see this thread but wasn't this the PSL thread once or something? whatever happened to that? also hello I am with the ISO... kind of. don't really live in the states anymore. recently moved to Germany and more just doing academic union organizing stuff while getting more of a feel for the local landscape. I also organize with Science for the People which just had a re-foundation meeting just last February or so and is in the process of coming together into a coherent organization after being dormant for decades
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Aug 24, 2018 08:56
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Jewel Repetition posted:His atrocities were, at worst, occasional this makes me wonder about something. it's seriously difficult to imagine a war without war crimes. I don't think that has ever happened up to this point, even after we developed the notion of war crimes about a century or so ago anyways--nevermind before. and it seems like some kind of armed conflict is in the endgame of any ultimate confrontation with capitalism, unless you accept that we can really tame the beast through electoralism or i dunno having a lot of co-ops or something. I think Marx said something about revolutionary struggles being ugly things in a way that is really eloquent in that way he does some times, but I can't really recall enough of it to be able to google it frankly, I think it's optimistic to think that the left will seriously build enough coherence to win against capitalism. especially when thinking about how far into fascism the ruling class will have shifted by the time we get there in terms of organizing, and a dire material situation in which people can actually feel that kind of urgency. to think that we could build enough force to even initiate a serious militant pushback in that situation, on top of that, to think we would win, and on top of that, that we will have a completely morally clean victory, that seems multiplicatively more optimistic at each step. don't get me wrong, I think it's good to hope that a revolutionary struggle will be conducted ethically though. it would be nicer to be able to have rosa luxemburg's moral standards rather than lenin's/trotsky's standards, and it would be nicer to have lenin's/trotsky's standards rather than stalin's standards besides, nevermind revolution, it's an uphill battle to start a union right now anyways so it probably pays to not get too far ahead of ourselves
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Sep 3, 2018 20:45
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namesake posted:Do you mean Engels? oh that explains why I wasn't able to google it lol
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Sep 3, 2018 21:14
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Graphic posted:
Trotsky was a true poster, to the bitter end
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Sep 8, 2018 20:41
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Trotsky's writing is the most entertaining and easiest to grasp out of all bolshevik leaders. I always recommend people give their friends Trotsky first if they're interested in socialism because he elucidates everything about the socialist struggle so easily.
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Dreddout posted:I too am a leftist who believes the entirety of the USSR's succes depended on one single great man I think any serious historical materialist, regardless of what they think of Trotsky or Stalin, would acknowledge that it is specific material conditions that created the space for these two individuals to rise to prominence and carry out their particular conflict. for instance, I don't think most Trotskyists believe that if Trotsky rose to power, everything would have been peachy, there were much bigger fundamental problems at hand in Russia that would have played out in one form of tragedy or another regardless of anything else. but they would say at least some of the more authoritarian aspects of life in Stalinist Russia might have been mitigated, as the obvious thing that could have prevented Stalinist purging is if the radical democratic elements of the bolshevik party had enough political leverage to challenge the consolidation of offices and powers into top-down bureaucracies. and the question of the consolidation of power into one individual really is more the fundamental conflict of Trotskyism and Stalinism than the individual personalities of Stalin or Trotsky. well, that, and generally also Trotskyists and Stalinists tend to not exactly agree on the facts of history either, but that's somewhat orthogonal to the ideological conflict
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Sep 8, 2018 22:36
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Larry Parrish posted:the early USSR would still suck as I continue to maintain that Stalin's authoritarianism was a reaction to decades of civil war and foreign intervention and similar measures would have been taken out no matter who was running the Soviet Union. yeah that is what I mean by the material conditions that shaped the conflict. that particular situation is what created the power vacuum that was filled by authoritarianism.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:49
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I don't see a non-revolutionary solution to the ecological crises of the current times, and in my eyes it's probably the biggest threat to human life and well-being capitalism has to bear at this time, outside of perhaps the possible escalation to nuclear war in some conflict of imperialism.
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Sep 23, 2018 08:22
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R. Guyovich posted:always has been. no idea why he had the career he had even before being outed as a sex pest If I'm not mistaken it's because he comes from a wealthy background and has connections You know, the reasons most anyone who ever writes should ever get any publicity Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Sep 25, 2018 |
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Sep 25, 2018 07:05
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Phi230 posted:Vanguardism is elitist bullshit; prop of the deed doesn't work; zines > newspapers how is vanguardism elitist? maybe it's just because I come from a different political tradition, but the idea of a political vanguard, as it was explained to me, is that there is always going to be some section of the working class that comes to radical conclusions sooner than the rest, and that they should work to spread those ideas in a principled, deliberate, and organized fashion. that seems like common sense to me, unless you want radicals to just sit on their hands and just wait for class consciousness to dawn spontaneously on the rest of the working class somehow. to say the least, that is a highly optimistic thing to anticipate
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Sep 29, 2018 16:49
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Phi230 posted:See that's how vanguardism is sold but not how it works in practice. In practice its a bunch of armchair revolutionaries who view themselves as superior, elite and "knows better" than working class people. In practice it creates a hierarchy of the so called vanguard and everyone else. suppose it's true that any vanguardist effort is going to end up in this kind of stratification. what do you propose instead?
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Sep 29, 2018 16:54
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anyway I reject on its face the idea that vanguardism, as I described it, inevitably leads to some kind of armchair leadership thing, because the most radical and influential political people I've ever known, the people I would describe as "vanguardists", have been on-the-ground unionists and organizers. the work they do is mostly unglamorous, and they take serious personal risks and have serious personal stakes in what they are doing. I also cannot imagine we can succeed without people like them. but then, I don't think I'm describing whatever this PSL or whatever model of vanguardism is.
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Sep 29, 2018 17:01
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Infernot posted:You getting your theory from internet weirdos? I am grateful to say that I managed to radicalize offline. in general I kind of hate any kind of "doing politics" online, because the internet has a way of bringing out the worst in people. for example, this forum is about the highest level of political discourse I've seen on the internet. this statement is not complimentary. Mr. Lobe fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2018 18:11
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I kind of enjoyed selling newspapers when I lived in the US and was active in the ISO. granted, it wasn't just papers, we also always had a stock of Haymarket books and fliers for various political actions taking place in the near future and other things (I liked to make buttons at the time), but I think there is a certain kind of political training you get out of actually trying to pitch someone on buying a political newspaper. it gets to a certain core truth about being an advocate of a political cause: you are fundamentally trying to sell people on an idea. you have to be able to communicate in ways that appeal to them. this is not something people are born being able to do, and it comes to some people more easily than others. I have never seen a better way to train this capacity than being a salesman. it was often the case that even when I tried to pitch someone on buying a paper, even if they didn't take one it led to some kind of a political conversation taking place in which I would have the opportunity to share a political perspective maybe the other person had never heard before. would it radicalize them? probably not in itself, but I like to think that maybe it fertilized the ground for that person to question some of the political assumptions that society conditions us to have.
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Sep 29, 2018 18:35
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:You'd get more engagement passing out cool flyers that direct people to an online publication and then charging them for "premium" content than expecting them to buy a newspaper every time they see you. It's better to be where people are, and these days people are always online at least once a day. They're not always going to be on your street corner. I mean, they can get the contents for the paper for free by going to the website. and the link to the paper was generally on the fliers we had for the stuff we did. regardless, and maybe I'm just old fashioned here, I find there is a kind of anachronistic appeal about something like a socialist newspaper. like, before I lived in a big city, the idea of such a thing existing in the US was just completely outside the realm of my imagination. I'm sure that appeal isn't universal, and that's where the fliers and the other materials we had on hand at tabling was more useful (the buttons were pretty popular). and anyways, if someone actually pays money for something like a paper, they're probably more likely to engage with the material than if they're just given a link.
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Sep 29, 2018 18:48
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if the internet has taught me anything, it's that it isn't that far of an arc to go from ironic mockery to sincere appreciation. and if all that's happening is that we're radicalizing the weirdos, well, someone has to radicalize the weirdos, right?
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Sep 29, 2018 19:03
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Helsing posted:My main issue with the Trot group I'm most familiar with is that after a few months it just seemed like the organization only really existed to perpetuate itself, with its main focus being to publish and sell their poorly written newspaper and to get people to come to their reading groups. I think there were lots of practical organizational lessons you could learn from them but after a while the org started to feel a bit like a benign cult, with a handful of people at the top drawing full salaries from the dues paying membership and very little work seeming to happen other than constant recruitment drives to bring in more people to write and sell the newspaper. I can only speak to my personal experience, but I felt like when I was in the ISO I did a lot of organizing over specific actions taking place where I lived, or worked to make coalitions happen for protests or solidarity actions with strikes or things like that. I'm sure different organizations (or hell, probably different branches of the ISO) are more or less successful at actually striking a good balance between organization building and engaging with existing struggles. and if there are no struggles to engage with, it's very difficult for a socialist organization to be anything more than a reading group. see: the past 5 decades of US history before 2016
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Sep 29, 2018 19:15
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like, at the end of the day, it's material conditions that are going to do the heavy lifting when it comes to building movements. the best we can hope for is to train ourselves to be able to act on that initiative when the time comes, and to try to fan the sparks of that struggle now as best we can in the hopes that something bigger will come of them.
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Sep 29, 2018 19:18
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:No a lot of tankies are fine with that too. She really pisses people off because she can't help but step on peoples' toes and emotionally abuse her followers for no apparent reason. Her slap fights with Phil Greaves are worse than pointless. my limited interactions with the children of obscene wealth leads me to believe that viscerally repellent ways of interacting with people in general, but especially your peers and hangers-on, is typical rich girl behavior
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Oct 3, 2018 11:46
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THS posted:you have to be halfway personable and likable, otherwise everyone’s going to think you’re a lame goober Yeah, the major dividing line between the serious and the unserious activist, whether they are willing to actually work on developing interpersonal communication skills. The internet, for instance, is bloated with self-styled socialists who have zero interest in actually talking to another human in any case, especially if they don't see eye to eye on all of their political perspectives. The idea that our task is to win over people to new, emancipatory political perspectives is lost on them. That task, in practice, is not a glamorous one. But it is central to any possible success for the left.
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Nov 2, 2018 16:18
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apropos to nothing posted:agreed but it goes deeper than a lack of interpersonal skills imo, it's rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of marxism and what it means to be a marxist/socialist/communist Yeah, I should have been more clear, this is an ideological problem rather than a problem of having or lacking specific skill sets. It's not that they can't learn to communicate, it's that they don't have an ideological basis that would drive them to want to
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Nov 2, 2018 17:20
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To a revolutionary, few skills are more important than being able to effectively manage your own frustration. This is probably true of most things you could do with your life, though.
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Nov 9, 2018 17:06
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Graphic posted:The real left supports Assad insofar as he's a target of imperialist aggression but also thinks Assad should be decapitated by the Syrian proletariat after the imperialist marauders are ejected. that's the stuff
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Nov 18, 2018 21:19
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Trotsky's great grand daughter is a neuroscientist who has done a lot to destigmatize addiction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1AEvkWxbLE
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Nov 26, 2018 10:05
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:stalin's granddaughter runs a vintage boutique in portland called three monkeys:  she seems cool, she did a Tank Girl cosplay once that got circulated around about a decade ago and got some hardline tankies (irony lol) upset that she is not living in a way appropriate for Stalin's grand-daughter I wonder if she was even aware of the term "tankie" at the time
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Nov 26, 2018 10:22
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Stickfigure posted:Lol pretty sure it's some sadbrain commie pretending to be a chud to "give money to women". Or just her from a different phone. Perhaps, but it's nice to dream
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Nov 27, 2018 13:25
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I bet a lot of people itt listen to Citations Needed. They put out an episode about Neoliberal Optimism bullshit (Pinker and Gladwell etc) that is very sharp. In general I think they set a very high standard of journalistic analysis, they really are the muck-rakers of the 21st century, but my god it is getting to the point where I can't listen to a whole episode without getting impracticality angry.
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Nov 29, 2018 12:19
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Yeah, that was the point where I got so mad I had to take a break. The wholesale robbery of the global south juxtaposed with the barely veiled racial narratives of their poverty is just so evil, and hearing those figures just made it all so concrete.
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Nov 29, 2018 13:12
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Victory Position posted:when everyone recognizes that you're unimportant so they don't bother to ratio your tweet even having been a member of the ISO when I lived in the US 9 months ago, it is hard to feel anything but mild bewilderment when seeing a take like that. I assume it is the product of some kind of mental illness
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Nov 30, 2018 08:32
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Graphic posted:http://socialistworker.org/search?text=%23metoo I was referring to the WSWS being nutty, not the ISO haha. I just mean, it's so bizarre that it's hard to be offended on behalf of the ISO, whom I would still be organizing with if I still lived in the US.
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Nov 30, 2018 14:12
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THS posted:when i was in the ISO i could always look at WSWS to assure myself that we werent the crazy ones The left is full of freaks and weirdos, the question is whether the freaks and weirdos you happen to surround yourself with are useful or, if useful isn't an option, good company. I am guessing you and I had different experiences in one or both of those regards.
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Nov 30, 2018 15:43
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Rated PG-34 posted:didn’t the cia fund the iso if the WSWS is to be believed, apparently so
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Nov 30, 2018 17:10
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GalacticAcid posted:Interesting praxis here of electoral-revolutionary fusion: huh... not used to reading FEC filings and feeling like I'm reading posts
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Nov 30, 2018 17:50
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gradenko_2000 posted:did the Soviet Union ever get better at LGBT rights over time? I only ever hear of the recriminalization of homosexuality, but nothing after that until you get to Putin being really repressive CPRF, the successor party to the Communist Party in Russia is totally behind Putin's gay rights suppression, so... probably not
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Dec 2, 2018 17:01
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BULBASAUR posted:tanks for introducing me to weed republican b/c it definitely is a thing traditionally they are called libertarians
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Dec 8, 2018 22:37
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is this that borderline personality disorder I hear tell about?
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Dec 16, 2018 23:38
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so I'm assuming there is some kind of yet untold interpersonal drama at the core of this, yes?
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Dec 17, 2018 18:11
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GunnerJ posted:Nah just Austin PD tightening the belt, shouldn't have handed them a blank check for their pig head budget. I mean, the drama COULD be cops. their composition have been a combination of dupes and cops, and perhaps one of the dupes found out just enough to realize someone else was a cop, and things just escalated from there. it invites a lot to the imagination, to think too much about that group. which probably should not be done in any case especially now lol
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Dec 17, 2018 18:20
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ShriekingMarxist posted:I'm gonna put my chips down on RGD being an insane 4chan puppet theater for showcasing the LOONY LEFT I dunno, are the chuds really that committed? on the one hand, they can gather enough numbers when one of their stupid subcultural celebrities is doing something, but to act independently and in such a coordinated fashion? that seems a little beyond them
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Dec 17, 2018 18:34
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like say what you will about the austin red guard, but they went in rather intense on the things they did. they had chutzpah and cultlike enthusiasm, if regrettably and severely misdirected. that seems like a rather intense act
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Dec 17, 2018 18:36
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