limonov posted:Oh, I have appreciated life, how I have appreciated it, I howl and weep over life and do not fear it. On every little street I peer attentively at the people: is it he, is it she, is it they? To hope is folly, but I hope. Again and again I go out on the steets, the streets of my great, boundless city- of course it is mine, since life is happening here - I seek, watch, peer... and return to the hotel. Often I fall face down on the bed and weep, and only malice gives me the strength to get up every day at eight in the morning, clench my teeth, read the American newspapers. I curse and damn everything in the world, but I live, and oh, although love has betrayed me, I shall never cease to seek love. But it will not be a love for one person, who would betray me again, no, no more, I want no more betrayals, it will be a different love.
What do I seek? Either a brotherhood of stern men, revolutionaries and terrorists, in love and devotion to whom my soul could rest at last; or I seek a religious sect preaching love, people's love for one another, love at all costs.
My darling, where will you find it, such love?
At least at a 'theory only' type of organization you get good book recommendations.
babyhueypnewton posted:Why is action better than thought? People always advocate going to a homeless shelter or a liberal NGO or whatever here, when to me action without theory is just as useless as theory without action. Humanitarians who ignore or even reenforce the system are just as bad as the trots who are too far up their own theoretical debates to do anything at all.
At least at a 'theory only' type of organization you get good book recommendations.
well, when i was in high school a guy that i sat next to at lunch robbed a liquor store. and that was cool as shit, you know? way more influential than someone reading a book at me
tpaine posted:it's legitimately mind-boggling to me that anyone could be even slightly educated, slightly aware of current events, or even slightly aware of the station of the average human being and not be fervently wishing on a constant basis for the destruction of all things. and i say this as someone who has suspected this most of his life and tried his damnedest not to admit its truth. dog balls
actually the world is pretty cool.
getfiscal posted:prikryl posted:I quit the PSL today
dish!
\
little background:
PSL formed as a split from Workers World in 2004. The reasons for this split are usually kept pretty secret, but it is because some lower-level officials and younger comrades decided that the upper echelons of the organization had closed themselves off and prevented promotion within the organization. The PSL has essentially the same line and organization as Workers World, and nearly all of the leadership of the PSL are former WW members who took part in this split and essentially started Workers World over under new management.
Now:
I joined in October 2011, and things seemed pretty good. Last april one of our key organizers and financial backers left the branch, and there was a huge hole left by their absence both financially and organizationally. The leadership of the branch asked for increased participation of new comrades to fill the gap, and I happily volunteered for several work committees and showed up to several planning meetings of each. Very quickly the planning meetings stopped, emails stopped, and the committees were dissolved. I became a "full, dues paying member" when my candidacy ended shortly afterwards. I participated in the planning of and execution of around 17-odd demonstrations over the span of a year and a half. I helped to edit and distribute Party leafleting and the newspaper on a semi-regular basis. I traveled for the Party election campaign that I didn't believe in. I attended and participated in every single forum and every single mandatory internal meeting. The branch fell into "financial crisis" and we were asked to give more. Decisions started being made by the highest ups more and more often. The full internal meeting of the branch only made about 1 vote over the span of a year on any Party decision, with everything else being decided (and done) only by a member or two of the Steering Committee of the branch.
Eventually leadership started talking about how that key organizer "could never be replaced" and how unfortunate it was that we couldn't operate to the same standard as before. What was really going on was that the previous organizer delegated work, whereas this new group (2 people) did essentially everything themselves without informing anyone, even other members of the "highest, most advanced" Steering Committee.
We do quite a bit of work, and work is valued above everything else. "No idle theorizing" is the watch-word of the Party, and theory-production and elaboration is essentially spit upon from all except those at the National level of the Party. However, none of this work is analyzed for effectiveness, and we just essentially go through the motions month after month and year after year doing the same things hoping that one day the outcome will be different.
The financial crisis worsened. It came out that our finances department was in shambles, as was our education department, mainly due to the actions of two steering committee members. There was a huge shortage on teaching staff for our candidate classes (our intake program), which also is sitting in a room reading our newspaper articles from years ago out loud. Our candidacy classes, forums, and public programs are non-interactive to the extreme. I had volunteered to help teach classes and come up with new material within the party line and was "rejected" (read: totally ignored, not told one way or another) for this position over a span of 8 months during this same shortage. Members who had no interest were elected while I was told that "teaching was a privilege" that I hadn't earned. Meetings to inform the membership of anything were held once a month. Regular meetings we had had in the past stopped. Planning emails started going out the day of an action.
I then started this document to submit to the leadership of the branch, and tried to pull in multiple voices so it wouldn't be my own personal rant, but was shouted down as a "factionalist" and "traitor" to the Party for trying to submit a formal complaint from multiple people.
The document is here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/127897010/On-Our-Branch-Organization-Fixed?secret_password=255m83rtwumchly30uxu#page=2
I didn't end up submitting it until I met with the branch leadership to resign.
The second vote I ever undertook in the branch was to elect a new Steering Committee which was decided by a pre-selected Slate, which re-elected nearly everyone on the previous Steering Committee with an addition of 3 new members out of 9 or so. If we turned down one selection we turned down the whole slate and had to wait another 3 weeks for a new slate. The education chair was kicked out (because they did absolutely nothing and didn't even attend their own planning meetings) but the finances chair maintained their position. We then lost our organizing space due to financial mis-management and this person was kicked off the finances committee anyways 4 months later after it was too late. They did not even attend most of the Steering Committee meetings after the election.
All of this was and still is kept entirely hush from the regular members in the Internal Meeting of all comrades, and I only know about any of it because of a good relationship with someone on the Steering Committee. Newer comrades under 2.5 years of membership that do not spend all their time working for the Party are looked down upon. Branch leadership has said "it's not hard to be a comrade for 1 year, or 2 years, but talk about 5 or 10 and then we're talking about real dedication and hard work."
Despite this, every action (whether attended by 1 or 100 people), every initiative (even ones that fail), and every thing we do is a "Great Success" that "Advances the Goals of the Party" and gets a big pat on the back from everyone. There is little to no critical thought among leadership or among the rank and file of anything the Party does. Our leaders are always right, I was told in all seriousness our Party is the only legitimate way to do activism in the United States, etc.
There is also the usual "we're not sectarian, they're sectarian" sort of thing, and then we go and spend a shit ton of time and money printing a god damned Book that denounces the ISO's position on Syria and Libya (that is just a re-print of articles we already had online).
more on sectarianism from something I wrote earlier:
as we well know many of the biggest schisms in the left today (at least anarchist and ML / Maoist / Trotskyist groupings) are based upon historical splits that came about either through the experience of the Russian Revolution (Kronstadt and the Anarchists, Trotsky vs Stalin) or the Sino-Soviet split and subsequent developments, as well as the ways that those experiences shaped the further development of ideology (the Maoist "rupture" and Avakian so-called "New Synthesis," differing conceptions of the working class, insurrectionism vs "People's War," etc.) These historical conflicts that took place in Europe and Asia around eight decades ago seem to prevent many of the sectors of the radical left in the US from working together even on the most minor things. I personally was kicked out of an anarchist bookfair for distributing leaflets for an anti-Afghanistan war rally for ANSWER simply for being a part of ANSWER ("you Stalinists"), and the bookfair was full of material about the "Kronstadt betrayal" etc. fanning the flames of division, and much is the same in trying to work with the ISO.. albeit members of my party also feed into the same behavior.
in researching the modern Russian left, though, among the direct ancestors of those who experienced the conflicts, there is a stunning lack of such basic inability to act in tandem against a common enemy. the Russian left is currently largely organized into a loose "Left Front" comprising of Maoists, Trotskyists, orthodox M-L groupings (Stalinists), anarchists, and other radical groupings who can at least organize a protest together against Putin at the bare minimum even if they disagree on nearly everything else. The Left Front is also sub-organized around tendency, with a "United Labor Front - Red Front" grouping the orthodox M-L, anarchist blocs, etc. all forming sub-units of the grander coalition, which even bandied together around the """legitimate"""" rigged Communist Party in the latest elections (when they were willing to vote at all, with non-participation not suddenly ending the coalition)
we see the same things happening in greece with Maoists working alongside Trotskyists and even a smattering of radical liberals (the argument about effectiveness of the SYRIZA political electoral grouping notwithstanding -- merely even the ability to plan collectively and talk)
it makes the whole idea that the US radical left is incapable of working together on the most basic actions around these historical splits totally ludicrous.
The best we've got here in the US is the Peace and Freedom party, which is so decrepit and useless at this point I think it'd be worth letting go just to hit rock bottom so we can indeed regroup, rather than clinging to these old, ineffectual bodies.
I've also found that my leadership and the leadership (or general body) of other parties and groupings in the US tends to portray the inability as inevitable, ideas of rapprochement being naive, etc. however this was a question ("what of left unity") that was asked multiple times in the most recent PFP election debates, is a question that is asked among the broader left nigh daily, and weighs heavily as groups on the US left continue to organize against each other (with some parties organizing splitting counter-rallies for the same cause at the same date and time in a different location, competing on conferences, trying to push their materials on someone in front of another communist trying to push their materials on that same person, getting kicked out of radical spaces for being the "wrong" tendency regardless of organizing issue, etc.)
in practice, leading actions jointly with ISO and speaking at length with an RCP member, although they've been taught to hate for tendency, in communicating with the "common membership" further in the street, ISO members have told me that "we stand to gain from tactical cooperation" and indeed we both gained from it in the action I spoke with them at. the RCP member continually tried to assert that the RCP and my organization were fundamentally different but couldn't actually manage to differentiate it for me, and we ended up agreeing that there needs to be further discussion among the left in the US, and she admitted she actually missed the big debates and student meetings of different tendencies that led her to the RCP back in the 1970s.
This is mainly relating to the LA branch, but most of the other branches have their own unique issues, with the SF branch being the only one that seems to be able to function. I've heard of NY comrades that have done tons of tremendous work being kicked out for missing a meeting or two or having a job, many branches with only a few people that fail to grow year after year (personality issues that I've experienced first hand working on the election campaign), etc.
When I tried to bring my complaints to the branch leadership right before I quit, I was told that I couldn't make these criticisms (and there were a lot more personal issues I had, much of this meeting was dedicated to that and these organizational and theoretical issues didn't even come up in this meeting) "without being involved/immersed in the work" that I had the wrong attitude and that "I had to believe that the Party was mine, take some ownership" etc. essentially dismissing everything I had done for the Party up until that point and saying that I didn't care. I was told to "come back when you've been here 5 or 10 years" before speaking up with any criticisms or suggestions, that I didn't know because "I didn't have the experience working in the Party."
One of these criticisms was that they criticized me in this meeting for not having enough zeal to just work hard and shut up, essentially. This leader said, with a straight face "there is no material benefit to being a member" which I pointed out as an issue for our poor and (only rarely) working membership, with material benefits being a PLUS rather than a Minus for membership, used the Black Panthers lunch program as a successful example. Was scoffed at by the leadership member, and then criticized for "having my head in theory, in history all the time, that has no bearing on what's going on right now, just idle theorizing." Meetings and actions are also often held at 12 noon on a weekday or 8am on a Monday, with members expected to attend, or members who did attend lauded and granted additional room to work in the organization. Sometimes work sessions are "held" in the evenings and nobody is there.
What pushed me over the edge was our recent Party Congress. 41 delegates (out of a Party of several thousand members) were elected to decide our strategy moving forward in this "new period." In the report back to the membership, we were essentially told that what had happened was that they had "discussed the issue and decided to form a committee to decide whether or not to use Q in LGBTQ" and had also "discussed" First Nations issues. The grand new strategy "which showcased the advanced level of thought and great skill of our cadre" was summed up as RPI -- Recruitment, Propagandize and Internationalize (search for "other parties" internationally to "work with" and "share/publish materials with"), with R and P being already existing cornerstones of our constitution decided 6 years ago and somewhat assumed imho. This is 9 years in at this point. We spent lots and lots of money and time transporting, housing, feeding, etc. these delegates to do this. They also elected a new national central committee, which, surprise, was essentially all the same people. This happens often, with Central Committee members flying themselves around to do things that many times could have been done over the phone or aren't productive for what it costs again imho.
We're essentially built back into the same problem that led to the split with Workers' World all over again
notes from some Trot and Mao people I generally disagree with but that tap a nerve in this context, interesting that this has all come up with the SWP fiasco:
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=5319
http://216.14.115.219/theory/2450-82marxism-is-not-a-layer-cake
http://kasamaproject.org/threads/entry/maoism-rupture-and-continuity
http://moufawad-paul.blogspot.com/2011/09/dogmatism-in-left.html
http://rethinkingtheleft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/lenin-versus-leninism-for-revolutionary.html
http://links.org.au/node/2735
http://rethinkingtheleft.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/learning-not-lecturing-why-left-doesnt.html
http://links.org.au/node/3229
I'll write some more later + ASK me Anything!!!!
Edited by prikryl ()
I like how you learned to speak the language, and even writing in the stilted, archaic language of the party and referencing the constitution as the most important document ever (rather than actual marxist writings of value) wasn't enough to get attention. Being stupid is actually a positive quality and they even had the gall to criticize you for theorizing and actually caring over dumb loyalty. Maybe it started out that the smart people feared other smart people but by now I'm sure only the stupid people are left.
I always wondered why the PSL was considered a post-trotskyist party since their positions have nothing to do with trotskyism, but now it all makes sense. All of the problems that are coming to light about the SWP are there. Also how strange that the meetings are specifically designed to exclude workers, poor people, and people with lives. I wonder if that's on purpose or simply inertia from those without real lives gaining more power.
Keep writing, this kind of stuff is very rare and very valuable. Most people who have enough perspective to really diagnose a party have either already had blind loyalty drilled into them, have lost the enthusiasm to even care anymore, or have been around long enough that all their friends are still in the party anf they wouldn't betray them. Also something like the rhizzone, where you can vent mostly anonymously, is pretty rare. Maybe front page is too much heat, but when you feel satisfied with all the stuff you want to get out you could think about writing something for the frontpage (there's a frontpage??!
)
Also I could tell in that letter you wrote you were getting more and more heated by the end lol.
babyhueypnewton posted:meetings are specifically designed to exclude (...) poor people,
one more quick note: dues were minimum $40/month for working members, with unemployed or students giving "what they could," dues being a requirement but not a strict rule
also the RevLeft trot criticism of the PSL being "pan-socialist Brezhnevites" is entirely true because we had members who espoused market socialism, hard line Stalinism, hard line Trotskyism (albeit not the NATO supporting kind, but the Stalin denouncing "deformed state"ism kind), Maoism, third-worldist nationalist supremacist positions etc.. there was really no consistent theoretical line because it was so rarely actually discussed. Not to mention that very often the correct anti-imperialist defense of China, al-Assad and Qadaffi would often slip into beaming adoration of the totality of their glorious history (in front of the public) and back to anti-imperialist defense again, and all totally without any understanding the troubled history of all these entities with actual socialism. Many of these people have been "the movement" in for a decade or longer.
Edited by prikryl ()
The second part of what you said is no surprise, even the one meeting I went to veered into adoration for Qaddafi over tactical anti-imperialism (which I guess is functionally the same for someone in the USA but becomes a serious problem when there's no theoretical work in the party at all). But the first is very surprising, I always assumed ANSWER was a front for the real communist line of the party. But it appears the 'communism' of the party is actually the front and ANSWER and the electoral campaigns are what matters, ideology is totally unimportant.
Crow posted:Welp, I guess it really is time to start the Rhizzone party
alright i'll run for the senate in the august federal elections here:
Rhizomatic Tendency of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
Edited by Ironicwarcriminal ()
Crow posted:What I'm interested in is, what are these financial backers? Rich people? Socialists from Old money families?
When our office was broken into, we got several thousand dollars in donations. "Collection plates" are passed around at forums and actions and usually get close to $100 per meeting. We sell T-shirts for a markup, books are $5-7 donation, and our branch has two guys who brew beer and sell it... the Party leadership forced them to overcharge. All dues paying members must pay for entrance to fundraisers and all merchandise and refreshments, even if they're working the event. I did security for a few fundraisers and was forced to pay for entry, food, and beverages. Nonetheless, people generally tend to like the work that ANSWER does and generally support it, as ANSWER/PSL pretty much the lesser of most evils when it comes to the US left for the ML crowd. Many of our key National leadership members, including the one that left, are or were gainfully employed as lawyers, some are banking officers, etc.
so Rich People, Labor Aristocrat Donations, and Dues (one member in my branch who lives at his parents house donated several thousand of his savings to our internal Fund Drive)
Edited by prikryl ()
Ironicwarcriminal posted:Crow posted:Welp, I guess it really is time to start the Rhizzone party
alright i'll run for the senate in the august federal elections here:
Rhizomatic Tendency of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
okay, my 19 year old gf just whipped this Rhizzone Party Constitution up in Tumblr
prikryl posted:One of these criticisms was that they criticized me in this meeting for not having enough zeal to just work hard and shut up, essentially. This leader said, with a straight face "there is no material benefit to being a member" which I pointed out as an issue for our poor and (only rarely) working membership, with material benefits being a PLUS rather than a Minus for membership, used the Black Panthers lunch program as a successful example. Was scoffed at by the leadership member, and then criticized for "having my head in theory, in history all the time, that has no bearing on what's going on right now, just idle theorizing." Meetings and actions are also often held at 12 noon on a weekday or 8am on a Monday, with members expected to attend, or members who did attend lauded and granted additional room to work in the organization. Sometimes work sessions are "held" in the evenings and nobody is there.
lol
babyhueypnewton posted:Why is action better than thought? People always advocate going to a homeless shelter or a liberal NGO or whatever here, when to me action without theory is just as useless as theory without action. Humanitarians who ignore or even reenforce the system are just as bad as the trots who are too far up their own theoretical debates to do anything at all.
At least at a 'theory only' type of organization you get good book recommendations.
holy fuck grow up and actually learn to organize
no matter how much theory you know if you don't get how praxis works in the material conditions of your country you are not a marxist your just some person who has read books
like how do you read ANY lenin or ANY marx without getting that?
prikryl posted:Crow posted:What I'm interested in is, what are these financial backers? Rich people? Socialists from Old money families?
When our office was broken into, we got several thousand dollars in donations. "Collection plates" are passed around at forums and actions and usually get close to $100 per meeting. We sell T-shirts for a markup, books are $5-7 donation, and our branch has two guys who brew beer and sell it... the Party leadership forced them to overcharge. All dues paying members must pay for entrance to fundraisers and all merchandise and refreshments, even if they're working the event. I did security for a few fundraisers and was forced to pay for entry, food, and beverages. Nonetheless, people generally tend to like the work that ANSWER does and generally support it, as ANSWER/PSL pretty much the lesser of most evils when it comes to the US left for the ML crowd. Many of our key National leadership members, including the one that left, are or were gainfully employed as lawyers, some are banking officers, etc.
so Rich People, Labor Aristocrat Donations, and Dues (one member in my branch who lives at his parents house donated several thousand of his savings to our internal Fund Drive)
even with the alleged benefactors, this is just a cult. also
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/dealing-psl-and-answer-1
prikryl posted:also the RevLeft trot criticism of the PSL being "pan-socialist Brezhnevites" is entirely true because we had members who espoused market socialism, hard line Stalinism, hard line Trotskyism (albeit not the NATO supporting kind, but the Stalin denouncing "deformed state"ism kind), Maoism, third-worldist nationalist supremacist positions etc.. there was really no consistent theoretical line because it was so rarely actually discussed. Not to mention that very often the correct anti-imperialist defense of China, al-Assad and Qadaffi would often slip into beaming adoration of the totality of their glorious history (in front of the public) and back to anti-imperialist defense again, and all totally without any understanding the troubled history of all these entities with actual socialism. Many of these people have been "the movement" in for a decade or longer.
to be fair the reason PSL was impressive is because it seemingly could contain this whilst still outwardly holding anti-imperialist lines rather than holding trot lines and just being a churn for these types to join hate and then quit and become individualistic "marxist" losers
for that reason it seemed fairly unique in the imperialist states generally as a party and that made it odd as fuck to analyse since it seemed Americas inability to have a legitimate social democratic party was finally paying off
i totally get why you quit though but hopefully contacts you made means you can still organize just without the noose of ABC party nonsense built for a situation that doesnt exist
SariBari posted:prikryl posted:Crow posted:What I'm interested in is, what are these financial backers? Rich people? Socialists from Old money families?
When our office was broken into, we got several thousand dollars in donations. "Collection plates" are passed around at forums and actions and usually get close to $100 per meeting. We sell T-shirts for a markup, books are $5-7 donation, and our branch has two guys who brew beer and sell it... the Party leadership forced them to overcharge. All dues paying members must pay for entrance to fundraisers and all merchandise and refreshments, even if they're working the event. I did security for a few fundraisers and was forced to pay for entry, food, and beverages. Nonetheless, people generally tend to like the work that ANSWER does and generally support it, as ANSWER/PSL pretty much the lesser of most evils when it comes to the US left for the ML crowd. Many of our key National leadership members, including the one that left, are or were gainfully employed as lawyers, some are banking officers, etc.
so Rich People, Labor Aristocrat Donations, and Dues (one member in my branch who lives at his parents house donated several thousand of his savings to our internal Fund Drive)even with the alleged benefactors, this is just a cult. also
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/dealing-psl-and-answer-1
lol at all this danged shit
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/dealing-psl-and-answer-2
also, i think that marcial guy commented on this second article