By Charles Lenchner. Originally posted on Facebook on August 2, 2019 under the title, “Analysis: The Central Conflicts in DSA.”
Over 1,000 delegates from the Democratic Socialists of America are meeting this weekend in Atlanta. While this is written in hopes that my fellow delegates will read it, I’m doing my best to make it comprehensible to others who might not be following as closely.
The Caucus Wars
Over the last two years, caucuses have emerged as a defining characteristic of how DSA does internal politics. To me this is a sad development; I think the overwhelming impact of caucuses is to degrade the quality of our leadership, culture, and politics. …
The latest and perhaps most egregious example of Jacobin promoting right-wing politics is the eulogy of Eduard Limonov, founder of Russia's National Bolshevik Party. Its author, Maciej Zurowski, describes himself as a Marxist yet was excited by the Nazi symbols employed by Limonov and his followers:
Pictures of “Nazbol” demonstrations were intriguing: there were black-clad Russian punk girls and skinheads marching in tight formation, extending their arms to display a cross between a Roman salute and the clenched fist of the Red Front. Their banner: essentially a hammer and sickle superimposed on a Nazi flag. Images of Stalin, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and sometimes Sid Vicious . . . …
Critics of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders began spreading misinformation about his voting record on Russia after reports emerged that Vladimir Putin’s regime is boosting his 2020 presidential campaign. Their aim? To cast him as a leftist mirror image of Republican President Donald Trump whose sycophantic antics towards Russia is one of the few constants of his otherwise chaotic presidency.
Yet Sanders’ voting record — to say nothing of his rhetoric — makes it very obvious he is no friend of Putin, the world’s wealthiest oligarch.
Date: February 25, 2020Author: @pplswar0 Comments
Critics of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders began spreading misinformation about his voting record on Russia after reports emerged that Vladimir Putin’s regime is boosting his 2020 presidential campaign. Their aim? To cast him as a leftist mirror image of Republican President Donald Trump whose sycophantic antics towards Russia is one of the few constants of his otherwise chaotic presidency. …
By Jason Hicks. Republished with permission.
Prefatory note: I’m sharing a draft because I need to turn to other projects for now, and though it’s lacking in certain connective tissue and some leads should be followed up more in-depth, I’d like to lay out the evidence and argument I’ve put together at this point for feedback.
I’ve been a leftist for twenty years and I’m committing to help Biden win the primary. The vision of a just, democratic and socialist world guides me, and I’ve followed it and the data to that conclusion.
This election is a referendum on authoritarianism. And critically, looking at the second terms of other authoritarian rulers recently shows that the second terms can be significantly worse — and Trump, if re-elected, will be taking office on the back of an acquittal by the Senate, which even more means anything goes. Neither the New York Times nor Jacobin (or similar left-y publications) seem to care about that or take it into consideration. …
There is a lot of talk about Democratic Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard potentially spoiling the 2020 president election to re-elect Donald Trump by running as third-party or independent presidential candidate, splitting the anti-Trump vote. Jill Stein arguably spoiled the 2016 election and Ralph Nader played the same role the 2000 election.
Guest post by the founder of a defunct progressive news and commentary site. Site name and article title redacted at the author’s request. Images below are for illustrative purposes only.
In May 2015, I set up a personal political blog. I honestly can’t remember why, perhaps I was just bored, looking for something to do and had a spare twenty bucks to purchase hosting. It was anonymous and virtually unread. The pieces were long-winded and inarticulate, but I enjoyed writing them nonetheless as a self-challenging exercise which allowed me to critique my own political ideas once they were digitally published. It dealt with issues I was deeply engaged with at the time: the weakness of modern-day liberalism, the difference between economic and social progressivism, the lack of ideological framework within Irish political parties and the fundamentally unjust nature of the British electoral system, to name a few. …
Address by Marvin Zuckerman at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
The Socialism of the Bund
The Bund, from its beginning, described itself as a Marxist, revolutionary party, wanting thus to place itself in the camp of those opposed to the reformist tendencies in the world socialist movement. The Bund believed the overthrow of the czarist autocracy and the establishment of a socialist order could not be achieved by the gradual reform of the existing capitalist system and would require a revolution.
In practice, however, the Bund strove unremittingly to make the lives and working conditions of the Jewish workers better. The Bund did not believe in Lenin’s dictum, “The worse, the better.” …
[The Democratic Socialists of America are holding their national convention in Atlanta August 2–4. I am a candidate in the elections for the DSA National Political Committee. This is a leaflet I wrote for the convention to explain why I am running.]
• Make immigrant and refugee rights a national priority
• Publish a Spanish website and orient to Latinx communities
• Focus on smaller cities, the South and Southwest
• Oppose U.S. wars and military bases abroad
• Transparent, participatory and democratic functioning
• Create an inclusive socialist movement for the 21st Century
I am running for the NPC in support of two resolutions, one on making defense of immigrant and refugees a national priority and the other on orienting to the Latinx communities beginning with creating a website in Spanish. …
Guest Post by a Member of the Swedish SAP: The four left/centre-left parties in Denmark have agreed to form a government and have unveiled their government agenda. The coalition is made up of the Social Democrats, Radikale Venstre (“Radical Left”, but actually a social liberal party), The Alternative (basically the Green party), and Socialist People’s Party. There is a high share of young, first-generation academics with working class parents in the proposed cabinet.
Following the austerity of the previous centre-right government over the past 4 years, the centre-left coalition all campaigned on and have promised to increase welfare spending and financed by a more progressive tax code over the next government term. …
First published on June 21, 2019 via Google drive.
In a show of solidarity with delegates who cannot afford to attend, the members of the South Jersey DSA voted to abstain from sending a delegation to the National Convention in August.
This decision comes after much discussion and takes into account several factors that were brought up at the Regional conference and after. These can be separated into three categories: safety, cost, and follow through.
Safety
At the regional conference and after, safety was a major concern. Before the convention, National has accidentally leaked the full names, locations, and other sensitive information about the candidates running to be at-large delegates. There are also safety concerns in regards to the location. While SJDSA applauds National for picking a union hotel, there is no way to prevent access to the conference rooms. The floors do not require a key card to access and thus, anyone can walk in. Recently, during a pre-conference discussion about safety, National spent the time talking about concerns with dissent among the ranks of DSA as opposed to potential outside threats. With a big tent organization like DSA, disagreement is expected. We are all different types of socialists with different goals and ideas. To focus on potential dissent as opposed to outside threats when DSA was recently on a hit list and local chapters have been invaded by alt-right antagonizers who wish to harm members shows a blind spot to safety for attendees. …
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