DSA post reply

In response to https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/the-proposed-dsa-platform-is-class-reductionist-and-should-be-rejected?dsa

From the DS "But ask yourself: what has been more significant in the last couple of years in the United States: strikes and union organizing drives or Black Lives Matter? So why does the platform explicitly bring up teachers strikes but does not even mention the George Floyd protests?"

I totally rationalize or get where  the DSA is coming from here and it is easy to fall into this type of thinking. But ......

What has BLM or the "George Floyd protests" materially accomplished? Yes BLM and the George Floyd protests has accomplished things like police reform and similar things, but they have not accomplished anything material, with the exception of great corporate jobs/funding for its black 'Marxist'/'radical' leaders, though support for it has plummeted: https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/samuels.POLICE-REFORM.0414.png?w=700

They have latched the complete liberal 2.0 and a few leftists here and there to a blatantly racially charged framework that is so religious in its presentation as to be in the ballpark of being totalitarian. If we ever manage to escape from this rhetorical dead-end, the whole liberal 2.0 and a few of their lefitst allies will be discredited for a generation.

Strikes and union organizing have gone down since their time in the sun and that's THE REASON we've  observed such a decay of working conditions and a slide into working class. precocity 

 "The phrase “in the terms of its most oppressed members” is a fabel.

 That’s never been the case of the US. labor movement, which has thrown black Latinos and women under the bus at every opportunity to secure gains --or at least the mirage of gains-- for unionized laborers."  (This is your brain on "Settlers")

This person is legit offbase... the US labor movement was pretty much thee most influential factor in the gains in civil rights for poc! 

The AFL-CIO set down a lot of the framework of the Civil rights movement during the 1960s. MLK Jr's autobiography mentions this. Jacobin just posted a video showing an older clip of another video of a union that would show to develop antiracism in like the 1950s. 

In Jane McAlevey's writings, like about organizing for power she has many chapters talking of solidarity overcoming racism... A relatively decent antiracism training is a union...just 15 minutes long. https://youtu.be/pCf2AjYWWAc

The past couple of years, I've seen a lot of people phrase stuff. George Orwell had an essay where he said that if we allow people to talk in vague terms, it provides cover for atrocities. 

For example, if a military claims "mistakes were made" or "there was collateral damage," they are really saying "we killed a lot of innocent people."

I see many people using vague phrases in two types of ways

Firstly, they appropriate a passive voice: Instead of coming out and saying "Hold that door open," they say "That door is to be held open," which takes out the person who has to do the action. 

And secondly, they transform verbs into nouns adjectives: "Depends on," "relies on," and "concludes" have morphed into "Is dependent upon," "Is reliant on, and "comes to the conclusion of," which takes out the idea that action might even take place in at square one. Verbs aren't occuring to objects, everything merely is.

I think that this verbal decay came straight from academia: People assume that if they read a thing that confuses them and has a bunch of syllables, it has to be intelligent, so they decide mimic such a thing

And I believe we should speak out about this stuff wherever we see it.  AIDS and the current Joe Biden inflation "have been significant," yet that doesn't translate to those events being good, it simply means they impacted many people. The vital question is, what have those movements materially accomplished? And the answer is nothing to write home about or even that good.

The DSA caucus statement is materially accomplished the explicit and implicit retraction of class based politics and any urge for wealth redistribution or structural reform that happens on that basis.

Instead people are have their attention on how they may benefit their race at other races' expenses. Or on the way they can form a BLM elite that exploit African American but which doles out a psychic wage of pseudo-solidarity, of empty threats of racial separation and its attendant aggression, etc.

All of which make people easier to split and control in the confines of their own affinity group. Easier to put people against each other for the opportunity of more good spoils that are awarded to smaller groups, etc.

The heat has been lifted off of the capitalist system as so, and rather it has been redirected to a straw man racialized type of offshoot that is simultaneously simple to defeat with petty public gesturing and though remains infinitely powerful and in need of consistent reform, i.e. the promise of down the line petty gestures made the next year

What more could a person expect from a fully fledged capitalist?  They just dodged being decommissioned by actually promising to go back to overt racist capitalism. Who had any idea that it would be that simple and that people would be that compelled to return to this old system, just as long as the emphasis was altered a bit.

Also, the majority black bus drivers in one city refused to drive prisoners and they went on a walkout. Not to mention the leaders and a big section of the organizers in BLM were economically privileged people with university degrees.

African Americans aren't united as a "class". Because that's now how this stuff functions. 

The political/economic desires of a black small business owner is not going to be like that of some youth in a housing project, even if said business owner himself/herself grew up in a housing project. That's a harsh and disturbing reality but you'd be ridiculous to deny it if you engaged in anything years back. All the fights, the fractioning, the debates about whether or not to smash a glass door on a store.

A poor youth is going to see the utility of smashing the windows of the corner drug store that calls the police on them for no reason much more than a person who escape such conditions with a business degree and then opened a mom and pop store in their neighborhood. .

At least a few studies that shown that unionized white workers are noticeably less racist than non-unionized white workers, so they're also more likely than not to be supportive of universal programs.

BLM has been missing the boat in a lot of regards other than enriching a small pocket of the world's most cynical people (and possibly some things that backfired). Chicago Teachers Union, at the same time, has secured one of the most important wins of the last decade.

Labor Organization has been dismanded by both political parties over the last half century because they represent an authentic counterbalance to oligarchy. BLM, though, has been aggressively embraced by the DNC along with major banks and multinational corporations who operate in the US

You just know republican strategists can only dream of having something as effective as BLM to union bust for their side. Right now the democrats are better at political movements than the republicans are known for and it’s sort of funny situation. Republicans in their playbook has them act incompetently sinister

The wording “in the terms of its most oppressed members” is a lie. That’s never been true of the U.S. labor movement, which has thrown Blacks, Latinos and women under the bus at every opportunity to secure gains --or at least the mirage of gains-- for unionized workers

"Well there friend, check your union privilege, your union dues should instead be used to pay for reparations, not for the people that you elect at your place of work to represent you"

I believe that conspiracy about the Occupy Wall Street movement leading to BLM and identity politics so much more every passing day.

Ideological messing around. Plain and simple. DSUSA are carrying the jockstraps of the shitlibs. or are now shitlibs

So accordnig to DSoA Class war is out and Race war is in? This truly makes sense once we conclude they've baked class into race. Class struggle is now replaced with race struggle due to the fact that they've created a worldview in which blacks and whites are classes--so hence Joe Biden claiming that "poor kids can be as smart as white kids". Or Bernie Sanders claiming that whites don't know what it's like to be poor"

Obviously this is just politicians pandering, but we have to keep in mind the quite widespread view of race as class they are speaking towards. This all sounds frighteningly sensible. 

Through an analysis, at least a scalar -some racial scholars claim they see the way that housing policies, redlining, etc has made the economic gap larger. They then commonly follow that up with true class analysis to from their guesstimate and prism see where the sources of exploitation come from. This is what they mean when they talk about what systemic racism normally encompasses.

OFC odd people took that one over and then overemphasized the role of the propagandists as opposed to the people/systems that make such things to be seen that way

The DSoA are basically gatekeeping here with this shift (or maybe 'quality control')  

If Vladimir Lenin was in charge of the DSA he would have ex communicated these wokesters who shifted the DSA to become woke

.Have the Democrat Socialists of America even bothered to look up the definition of the "S" portion of their name?

This stuff is offputting, watching unchecked capitalism sic us on our fellow Americans. Instead of a $17.5 minimum wage or Medicare for All a some unfortunate people get workplace training to teach them that the working class schlubs are actually history's greatest monsters.(which is a hateful lie, whites are not evil and certainly not history's greatest monsters)

Republicans always use the same "we redefined all the terms" rhetoric against us leftists. If we can't agree on simple definitions, debate is pointless since we will not be able to make ourselves understood.

Historically (pre-just now) modern notions of existing socialism mostly come from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian_class_theory

Class consciousness is vital in the socialist struggle.

So YT people may contribute to unions and vote for the Democrats to be a good ally rather then having better wages and benefits? And the left wing marginalized themselves out of their powerhold. 

This DSA statements looks like a straight-up argument for ethno nationalism. The DSA person who wrote it is in the wrong organization.

"But think of how much focus and care it must have taken to produce an 8,000-word, 21-page putatively “socialist” platform in the United States in 2021 and not have the phrase “Black Lives Matter” pop up anywhere in the document."

Why would that be so out of the ordinary (I do sympathize with this quote)? BLM has turned into corporate controlled opposition.

"The defeat of Trumpism and the Republican majorities in Congress and state and local legislatures is a strategic imperative for democratic socialists. we must work with broad democratic movements and organizations seeking progressive change" These DSA people are literally only edgy Democrats

“the multiracial working class,” which in reality is dominated by white people and white interests.

I love this stuff by the DSA because, in actuality, this is only a woke, backdoor way of repeating Ronald Reaganite welfare queen rhetoric 

Because clearly the only people in the US who work are white, the rest, well they only collect welfare checks and eat pez and skittles in their cadillacs. /s

Seriously this DSA quote wrongly makes it appear that there is not a single poc in the working class

"But there is another side to the platform, its strategic core, and that is denying the agency of oppressed people except as part of “the multiracial working class,” which in reality is dominated by white people and white interests."

Any person who can't understand that we need huge pluralities of people on our side to get anything done should really be put in a large playpen marked "Special Kiddies"

If the DSA is attempting to win nonwhites to their agenda by using race based signaling, they are doomed strategically. The Democrats already do such b.s and they do it better with the added bonus of having more history to it.

Does this DSA person believe that the DSA is somehow going to win over older minorities by saying they support BLM and that they stand against AAPI hatred?

Certainly not, the Democrats already do such signaling very much aggressively and voters know who they are. If it's down to an established Democrat politician that says that sort of rhetoric and a rando DSA person saying the same things it's logical to pick the Democrat, because they are both signaling themselves in the same way but one has truly done stuff before (Democrats), whereas the DSA haven't.

What if the DSA ends up becoming the biggest tent?

Chapo was schilling for the DSA when they were rightfully campaigning for Bernie. Now the Chapos mock the lameness of the DSA

Outside of police reform which is certainly a great accomplishment the only material thing the protests by BLM and George Floyd acolytes in 2020 accomplished was getting Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben's to rebrand.

Along with giving Dr Kendi and Robin DiAngelo and the other BLM grifters a platform to make tons of money (along with leading to a rotten, warmongering segregationist to become President)

This stuff by the DSA is what wokeness and radlib-ism is all about, using their own and others “oppression” to gain special treatment and to wiggle their way up to the top of the hierarchy. (well can't blame that for that since all of us want to be at the, but such things are still wrong from a religious perspective and a left wing perspective)

It is said that complaining and lamenting about peoples own personal challenges is sad and that’s the largest thing that annoys me about wokeness, that they could get all of this stuff through doing that and all I got when I used to do this stuff was being ignored and not understood and people seeing me as a oddball

At first look, the proposed DSA platform appears to be a semi-organized collection demands Typo in sentence one!

More of that alluring poetry over here:. How not to unite a class: A response to DSA’s Class Unity caucus https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/07/how-not-to-unite-a-class/

I guess DSA is a psych op