Tweet

Article

DSAqin-shi-huangdi-fireball

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

    • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      61
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      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 doubt then she should focus on revolution within the US

      • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        51
        ·
        7 months ago

        Her 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.

        • immuredanchorite [he/him, any]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          47
          ·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            42
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

          • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            27
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          42
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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

          • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netM
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            46
            ·
            7 months ago

            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.

            • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              27
              ·
              7 months ago

              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

          • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            26
            ·
            7 months ago

            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

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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:

            • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              41
              ·
              7 months ago

              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.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              10
              ·
              7 months ago

              Not saying to do entryism, I think the org is organically moving left as left folks have more success.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  16
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  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.

                • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  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.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              ·
              7 months ago

              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.

              • Alaskaball [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                18
                ·
                7 months ago

                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.

                • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  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.

                  • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    7 months ago

                    Not having a vehicle to do effective political work makes converting those people pointless. You change people’s minds by being the party that does effective work. Join a real org.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  7 months ago

                  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

                  • jack [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    7 months ago

                    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.

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          62
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          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

    • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      7 months ago

      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.