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fascist rhetoric isn't somehow going to go away if trump is out of office because material conditions will still be deteriorating and the capitalist class needs to deflect the blame for their own actions onto someone else. this is why fascist rhetoric thrives and not because there's a dang cheeto in the white house.
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Oct 16, 2020 15:56
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Cerebral Bore posted:fascist rhetoric isn't somehow going to go away if trump is out of office because material conditions will still be deteriorating and the capitalist class needs to deflect the blame for their own actions onto someone else. this is why fascist rhetoric thrives and not because there's a dang cheeto in the white house. sure, but would a mass electoral exodus from the avatar of fasicsm represent something about where americans generally lie on their sympathies toward fascism? to be clear i’m not trying to argue “should” or “should not” regarding leftists voting or any of that. im just trying to think through what this election means for us strategically when we’re working to build socialism and if it makes sense to hope for one outcome vs another.
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Oct 16, 2020 16:03
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just be careful what you wish for, kamala admin will be better at cracking down leftists than trump/pence admin
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Oct 16, 2020 16:10
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jarofpiss posted:sure, but would a mass electoral exodus from the avatar of fasicsm represent something about where americans generally lie on their sympathies toward fascism? great man theory of politics is garbage, fascism rises because liberal society is clearly failing due to its own contradictions and it will keep growing as long as material conditions keep deteriorating as i already mentioned earlier in the thread the germans rejected hitler at the ballot box and about half a year later he'd already seized total power
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Oct 16, 2020 16:13
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Cerebral Bore posted:great man theory of politics is garbage, fascism rises because liberal society is clearly failing due to its own contradictions and it will keep growing as long as material conditions keep deteriorating yup
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Oct 16, 2020 16:20
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from way back but "lesser evil" voting is exactly what led to the rise of the nazis. hindenberg was a conservative who owed his victory to the social democrats who rallied to him specifically to block the nazis, and he then turned around and made hitler chancellor to shore up the right wing who he was more in line with. literally voting for the lesser of two evils and failing to build a strong opposition movement allowed the nazis to come to power.
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Oct 16, 2020 16:34
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Cerebral Bore posted:great man theory of politics is garbage, fascism rises because liberal society is clearly failing due to its own contradictions and it will keep growing as long as material conditions keep deteriorating trump isn’t causing this but i don’t think it’s great man of history theory to look at the relationship our leaders have with the people as a pulse of where the people are consciousness-wise. i’m basically trying to argue that trump represents an aspect of the american consciousness and an electoral rejection or double down on him says something about where the american consciousness is re:fascism. there’s an obvious path to explicit fascism either way. i am more looking at this election as taking a pulse of where we are as a nation. adapting either way, but i do think one result says something more dire about the state of the american mass consciousness.
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Oct 16, 2020 16:57
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apropos to nothing posted:from way back but "lesser evil" voting is exactly what led to the rise of the nazis. hindenberg was a conservative who owed his victory to the social democrats who rallied to him specifically to block the nazis, and he then turned around and made hitler chancellor to shore up the right wing who he was more in line with. literally voting for the lesser of two evils and failing to build a strong opposition movement allowed the nazis to come to power. yeah i can see how what i’m saying sounds like im making prescriptions on how people should vote, but really i think im looking at this more as a sign of how dire things are gonna get for the left here. i think there are strategic impacts either way for organizing, and im certainly not looking at a biden administration as us gaining allies in power. the administrations are going to do what they’re gonna do, but i think the result of the election could say a lot about where we are in relation to most of the country
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Oct 16, 2020 16:59
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jarofpiss posted:trump isn’t causing this but i don’t think it’s great man of history theory to look at the relationship our leaders have with the people as a pulse of where the people are consciousness-wise. you're wrong because nobody except faux-woke shitlibs and brainwormed dem fanboys thinks of this election as some kind of referendum on fascism
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Oct 16, 2020 17:09
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lol this line of reasoning inspired by a robert evans podcast, an expert on judging if fascists are taking over if there ever was one.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:12
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jarofpiss posted:yeah i can see how what i’m saying sounds like im making prescriptions on how people should vote, but really i think im looking at this more as a sign of how dire things are gonna get for the left here. i think there are strategic impacts either way for organizing, and im certainly not looking at a biden administration as us gaining allies in power. the key in terms of what marxists should do is which points towards building a mass working class fight back. like political perspectives arent just nice to think about, they inform action. so youre standing on the street corner or canvassing and trying to organize and mobilize people to build a working class fightback. which position leads to that conclusion and program? saying "vote for biden, give him all formal power of the state and then fight him when hes super powerful and strong" doesnt do that, saying "make this protest vote as a means to demonstrate stronger disaffection with the current system" isnt the strongest or best way to do it necessarily either but its a lot better than the previous
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Oct 16, 2020 17:13
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like it cant be said enough, political perspectives are where political action flows from. nice ideas are worthless if they dont inform action and point towards your ultimate goal. mobilizing votes for biden does not in anyway help build organization or power for the working class. my opinion on the issue anyway. and by building power and organization i dont mean in the sense like "it will be easier to organize, face less repression, etc." or some what if or nebulous idea, but in the hear and now, right at this moment, which position is more likely to move someone to embrace a radical socialist politics, get involved in political activity and think beyond elections? again, just my opinion (and my parties too i guess) but voting for bidena nd calling for votes for him doesnt achieve that in anyway. even those arguing for lesser evil voting realize this, its why so many in the dsa who are voting or support voting for biden arent just coming out and endorsing him because they know it would have a halting effect on the movement. thats a whole other can of worms i could complain about and how i think they should endorse someone even if its biden cause it would at least lead to a clarifying debate and discussion on the matter on the left instead of just having a non answer to the question that most everyone is grappling with right now.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:17
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like, if trump loses the election it's not because the country had some sorkinesque come to jesus moment and stood up as one to protect the liberal system and reject fascism, it's because there's a pandemic and mass unemployment and things are generally hosed and trump has botched the response to all of these things real bad.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:18
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is there a book or a pamphlet for the year 2020 that puts together organizational goals and strategies that are effective and easy to put together/grow? what i mean is, so often we feel like there's a TON of energy, but no meaningful way to direct it to ends that keep people engaged in hell world, (which means they need to feel rewarded in some way for giving valuable things like their time and attention) so what is the smallest organized venture you can put together that can regularly do material/tangible good? how do you keep it together and how do you grow it to the next level? are there strategies for putting together modular groups that can easily coordinate larger events together in loose coalitions? i have a bit more material resources/time these days, and i want to do more than shitpost and wheatpaste sometimes
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Oct 16, 2020 17:31
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apropos to nothing posted:like it cant be said enough, political perspectives are where political action flows from. nice ideas are worthless if they dont inform action and point towards your ultimate goal. mobilizing votes for biden does not in anyway help build organization or power for the working class. my opinion on the issue anyway. and by building power and organization i dont mean in the sense like "it will be easier to organize, face less repression, etc." or some what if or nebulous idea, but in the hear and now, right at this moment, which position is more likely to move someone to embrace a radical socialist politics, get involved in political activity and think beyond elections? again, just my opinion (and my parties too i guess) but voting for bidena nd calling for votes for him doesnt achieve that in anyway. even those arguing for lesser evil voting realize this, its why so many in the dsa who are voting or support voting for biden arent just coming out and endorsing him because they know it would have a halting effect on the movement. thats a whole other can of worms i could complain about and how i think they should endorse someone even if its biden cause it would at least lead to a clarifying debate and discussion on the matter on the left instead of just having a non answer to the question that most everyone is grappling with right now. this is helpful. organizing for biden is not something that builds power for the working class and so it isn’t a political project worth pursuing. i dont see gotv for biden translating into radical political engagement and it’s not something anyone i know is doing. that’s different than the question of what do posters in this thread actually hope happens? i think that the biden/trump question is something worth grappling with in the sense that it’s where the nation is politically and so having a clear position to engage from is useful in bringing people into the larger political project. i dont know what i’d like dsa to do but i’m pretty sure it’s not endorse biden, but i think like you said i would prefer we have a clear position to engage from. im likely just voting downballot to stop republicans from capturing local positions but if i’ll debase myself to vote for dems there, why not on a national level? Cerebral Bore posted:like, if trump loses the election it's not because the country had some sorkinesque come to jesus moment and stood up as one to protect the liberal system and reject fascism, it's because there's a pandemic and mass unemployment and things are generally hosed and trump has botched the response to all of these things real bad. yeah fair but i’m more talking about an (unlikely) re-election in spite of the material fuckups and does that mean anything
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Oct 16, 2020 17:37
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dex_sda posted:i understand the delay point but i think it's quite likely liberals become complacent and completely ignore political news once they "save america from trumpism." I don't think the left should be trying to appeal to committed liberals in the first place. (not pulling a rudatron here) The reasoning being that if we look at voting percentages the majority of americans are checked out of politics and don't really pay attention either way. The vast majority of this demographic is on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. To the point that being involved in the horserace that is American electoral politics is reserved as a hobby for the upper 50% of american society. Most members of the working class are already checked out of politics because they rightly understand neither party represents them. The left should be working to reach these people and not the ones currently watching Rachel Maddow and John Oliver.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:45
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smarxist posted:is there a book or a pamphlet for the year 2020 that puts together organizational goals and strategies that are effective and easy to put together/grow? we restarted our local dsa chapter in 2015 with like 6 people and now my partner spends like 10 hours a day on zoom calls organizing and it seems like people are developing and working on campaigns (not in the electoral sense). it honestly seems like there are a lot of groups growing around the country. now literally my entire social group are socialists and ive made lifelong irl friends. i think for me the most valuable part of political organizing has been developing community to navigate hell world together, this goes beyond just trying to fix the world and into supporting each other as it burns around us. iknow this isn’t a pamphlet or a book but it might be something to think about whether your local campaigns will be super effective or not. i have no idea what that translates into on the ground now because i try to spend what time we have outside work together on things that arent politics so we dont get completely consumed and brain damaged. i have heard if she can get 3 people to join dsa during this drive she gets a pink hat (not gonna happen, everyone we know is already a member lol)
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Oct 16, 2020 17:47
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jarofpiss posted:i think this is a pretty fair take for the nojoe position in normal circumstances but i just got finished listening to the latest two episodes of behind the bastards about "how nice normal people made the holocaust happen" and it did a good job of making me really nervous about where we may be on the timeline toward an explicitly fascist society. the closer we get to the election the more i find myself hoping there is a massive repudiation at the ballot box of trumpism just for the sake of a signal that the american society isn't too far lost to be organized toward socialism. i don't think this has much to do with how i personally feel i should vote or not or whatever, i've kind of made my bed no matter where history heads, but the historical parallels seem so close that it makes me really nervous to try and actively persuade people to not vote for biden or the democrats. i dont know how what behind the bastards said (isnt it run by some bellingcat guy?) but in general there's been a lot of insane revisionism behind the nazi victory. the nazis and the kpd were the only major parties against austerity, they both made electoral gains at the expense of the austerity loving centrists; the centrists had to decide to form an accord with either the nazis or the left to govern, and they chose the nazis.
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Oct 16, 2020 17:51
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mila kunis posted:i dont know how what behind the bastards said (isnt it run by some bellingcat guy?) but in general there's been a lot of insane revisionism behind the nazi victory. the nazis and the kpd were the only major parties against austerity, they both made electoral gains at the expense of the austerity loving centrists; the centrists had to decide to form an accord with either the nazis or the left to govern, and they chose the nazis. idk anything about him either but his basic premise was that we have this narrative that it was these economically disenfranchised working class folks that supported hitler but that those folks mostly broke communist and it was the small business owner that really made the nazis taking power possible. the series was basically about how it was normal middle class people broke fascist saying stuff like “he’s not serious about the jew stuff” and “the office will settle him down” that made it all possible, not his hardcore street fighter base.
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Oct 16, 2020 18:01
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jarofpiss posted:yeah fair but i’m more talking about an (unlikely) re-election in spite of the material fuckups and does that mean anything it means that nobody outside the dem team politics brigade believes that biden and his coterie of perverts and ghouls would do any better
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Oct 16, 2020 18:04
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Ardennes posted:I think in foreign policy terms, both are nearly the same with Biden open to moderately more internationalism. A "dirty' Trump victory would seriously put the US on the backfoot internationally since his legitimacy would be openly questioned. I have absolutely zero faith that a less-legitimate president would meaningfully impact American power overseas. I think that American "allies" would nearly all prefer to not rock the boat and destabilize their economies, and "adversaries" would still be under threat of missile barrage or economic sanction.
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Oct 16, 2020 19:04
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Succ thread lol
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Oct 16, 2020 20:23
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Dreddout posted:I don't think the left should be trying to appeal to committed liberals in the first place. (not pulling a rudatron here) The reasoning being that if we look at voting percentages the majority of americans are checked out of politics and don't really pay attention either way. The vast majority of this demographic is on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. To the point that being involved in the horserace that is American electoral politics is reserved as a hobby for the upper 50% of american society. i think im here with you on this. most of my political engagement with normal people centers around how we’ve been completely abandoned by the state. you still have to address the two party stuff because that’s the lens their limited awareness of politics is, but it’s more about getting them to think politically in terms of their jobs than anything to do with democrats or republicans. the most productive conversations ive ever had with normal people have completely centered on getting them to understand themselves as members of a large working class, and almost nothing to do with who they’re gonna vote for
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Oct 16, 2020 20:30
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I have absolutely zero faith that a less-legitimate president would meaningfully impact American power overseas. I think that American "allies" would nearly all prefer to not rock the boat and destabilize their economies, and "adversaries" would still be under threat of missile barrage or economic sanction. It won't change the general dynamics, but weaken the US' hand especially versus many of its allies who are already having their own goals: look at the recent battle for 5G or the Nordstream 2 pipeline.
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Oct 16, 2020 20:47
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THS posted:lol this line of reasoning inspired by a robert evans podcast, an expert on judging if fascists are taking over if there ever was one. for real what are some history/politics podcasts that are interesting that i can listen to at work when im doing demo or carpentry or whatever? i do not want to listen to smug nerds
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Oct 16, 2020 21:04
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jarofpiss posted:for real what are some history/politics podcasts that are interesting that i can listen to at work when im doing demo or carpentry or whatever? i do not want to listen to smug nerds mike duncans revolutions. very good and informative. duncan is a liberal but his history and analysis are still useful and really good
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Oct 16, 2020 21:09
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apropos to nothing posted:mike duncans revolutions. very good and informative. duncan is a liberal but his history and analysis are still useful and really good thank you im going to check this out
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Oct 16, 2020 21:13
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Duncan is slowly sliding left after the Haiti series and will come out of finishing the russian rev as a comrade
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Oct 16, 2020 21:15
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revolutions series on china then he will uphold Gonzalo thought 
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Oct 16, 2020 21:18
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Trash Ops posted:revolutions series on china then he will uphold Gonzalo thought lol
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Oct 16, 2020 21:21
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jarofpiss posted:for real what are some history/politics podcasts that are interesting that i can listen to at work when im doing demo or carpentry or whatever? i do not want to listen to smug nerds Radio War Nerd is a delight, most of its stuff is Patreon but it has an incredibly long backlog of shows and since 90% of it is history instead of current events it never feels dated. worth it imo. Find an ep with a topic you are interested in, then check to see if the audio of the heavily accented guest is better than a wire over a string before you commit to what’s often a 2 hour long conversation. As mentioned before Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast is great I’d also recommend The Age of Napoleon podcast ALAB (all lawyers are bastards) is really fun, it’s self-hating lawyers discussing why the legal profession and system is completely hosed up. The episodes about Alan Dershowitz are spectacular and the best place to start. Chaos option of Moderate Rebels if you want the spiciest anti-imperialism takes possible from people who deeply hate America and are constantly accused of being on Vladimir Putin’s payroll.
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Oct 16, 2020 21:22
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History of Rome by Duncan is good too. I like Age of Napoleon, but it's even drier than Duncan. Fall of Rome by Patrick Wyman is also pretty decent, it gets an audio improvement towards it's official end when the creator gets a sponsorship deal that pays for a producer. Inward Empire has some long episodes about topics in US history. The early episodes about colonial New England are a little rough, but starting with the episode on the 1877 strike I think it's fantastic content. All of those are more or less one guy reading a script, so if you can't handle that here's some other options. In Our Time is a BBC panel show that covers a lot of topics, I mostly listen to the political and historical ones to find out the British ruling class opinion on a topic. They still hate the French Revolution over there apparently. Blowback is an Iraq War "retrospective" by two guys in the Chapo orbit. It's one of the best produced podcasts I've listened to, but they by necessity sort of speed through the topic.
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Oct 16, 2020 21:24
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appreciate the recommendations! i actually prefer someone reading a script usually. i dont mind audio books when im working. i dont know what the criticisms of robert evans are but i enjoyed the series on the west virginia mining strikes. i havent gone that deep into btb.
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Oct 16, 2020 21:37
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Strictly from a history perspective, Tides of History and Fall of Civilizations are each very good. For the latter, the Aztec episode was especially well done.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:18
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So, I just started listening to the Red Menace podcast and got finished on their analysis of Lenin's What is to be Done. Does anyone know how accurate their take was? https://redmenace.libsyn.com/what-is-to-be-done-vi-lenin Warning, it's like 90 minutes.
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Oct 16, 2020 22:24
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Trash Ops posted:revolutions series on china then he will uphold Gonzalo thought That smilie kicks rear end
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Oct 16, 2020 22:41
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jarofpiss posted:i think this is a pretty fair take for the nojoe position in normal circumstances but i just got finished listening to the latest two episodes of behind the bastards about "how nice normal people made the holocaust happen" and it did a good job of making me really nervous about where we may be on the timeline toward an explicitly fascist society. the closer we get to the election the more i find myself hoping there is a massive repudiation at the ballot box of trumpism just for the sake of a signal that the american society isn't too far lost to be organized toward socialism. i don't think this has much to do with how i personally feel i should vote or not or whatever, i've kind of made my bed no matter where history heads, but the historical parallels seem so close that it makes me really nervous to try and actively persuade people to not vote for biden or the democrats. hitler was never made dictator or president by vote biden is an explicit fascist who will support death squads and rightwing militias and the further suspension of civil rights if domestic struggle gets too uppity
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Oct 16, 2020 22:46
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smarxist posted:is there a book or a pamphlet for the year 2020 that puts together organizational goals and strategies that are effective and easy to put together/grow? no this sadly doesn’t exist
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Oct 16, 2020 23:31
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namesake posted:If you're hard on Trump but soft on the causes of Trump then you aren't averting anything, at best you're delaying it. Yeah. Treating it as a moral imperative to vote for Joe Biden in order to oust Trump is just another example of responsibilization.
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Oct 16, 2020 23:53
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i'm curious what the theory of change is for various posters in this thread and what their organizing toward that goal looks like. i'm familiar with the general dsa approach is and i see salt members around at a lot of the same events as dsa. i've been to one psl meeting here and we took turns reading paragraphs through the latest copy of their newspaper pausing to discuss them in turn. in 2016 i attended an attempted coalition at organizing a march after trump was elected that included local frso, wwp, salt, cpusa, hsm (houston socialist movement), new black panther party, and some various other even smaller orgs. that split into two separate events before our second meeting. i think the split was over whether we include organized labor in the march. i was still pretty new to the scene so i was under the impression a lot of these orgs were larger than they actually are. one of the meetings was at "the institute for marxist leninist studies" or something along those lines and it turned out to be a guys apartment in a fourplex. i liked him but i couldn't tell if that was ironic or not. i didn't dislike anyone there it was just really sectarian and esoteric given how new i was to organizing on the left. i don't know what their actual work looks like outside of these kinds of interactions i've had with them. as i understand, the general theory of change the dsa works under is that we work towards reforms that undermine the power of capital with the goal of either winning material change or further exposing contradictions. working for something like medicare for all gives a specific tangible goal to organize people around to either give them a taste of winning when they exercise collective power, or to further expose the inability of the bourgeoise state to meaningfully address these concerns. either way the outcome is hopefully a more organized and politically developed base that is able to direct collective action toward taking power. i've done specific work on harvey relief (which i feel was a missed opportunity for us), lots of tabling at events, canvassing for bernie & medicare for all, canvassing for local dsa judges and candidates, etc. i know nationally we also have a labor working group pushing the rank and file strategy (and this is something i may get in to if i decide to take up a trade again). the thing i actually like doing is talking to new people that show up to happy hours and making friends (when that was still a thing we did). i'm just curious about is what the actual work looks like to y'all if you aren't in one of the larger orgs. i'm also curious about what psl work is like in places that have more than 4 active members because i think my experience was more related to the limited size of the group than anything else
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Oct 17, 2020 00:34
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