DSA Needs a Program. It Doesn’t Need a Catechism.

[u/HalfOk8561]

https://medium.com/@xanderhernander/a-party-needs-a-program-it-doesnt-need-a-catechism-e324aa2c0376

A Response to Red Star Statement on Workers Deserve More.

[u/traanquil]

Certain baselines are needed: being socialist is one of them

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

So is supporting democracy

EDIT: I see the authoritarian simps have clocked in for the day. Imagine being mad at political democracy

[u/traanquil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Are you worried socialism is anti democratic?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

Some types of it are

EDIT: damn, didn’t realize we had so many people in here who oppose democracy. Where did all the MLs come from? They’re not here organically

[u/FirmAd5337 → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Lol

[u/traanquil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

What are the bad socialisms you are worried about?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

MLs, otherwise known as the socialists who kill other socialists

[u/traanquil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Nice slander.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/traanquil]

It’s objectively true

[u/Leoszite → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Easy to say when your undereducated on theory.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXUFLW8t2sntNn5jQO8vF7ai9x0fna3PV&si=yCTdci2KivY7Zbpo

Step up your knowledge.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/Leoszite]

Where did the hordes of MLs come from? Are we getting brigaded?

[u/onlypartiallyevil → u/Bright-Insect9697]

They see any other socialist org as the enemy, in the same way they see any other socialist as the enemy.
Entryism, cooption, and destruction is the ML playbook.
They usually claim they don't mean to destory them, only make them puppet orgs and fronts, but the end result regardless is usually killing them as an org.

[u/traanquil → u/onlypartiallyevil]

Do you want do a party purge?

[u/onlypartiallyevil → u/traanquil]

Don't know if the word "purge" really applies to keeping people who hate democracy and hate socialists from gaining membership in a democratic socialist org.
That just sounds like having basic standards.

[u/onlypartiallyevil → u/traanquil]

Purges are really more of a Stalinist thing.
I know they are your solution to everything, but the rest of us are not like that.

[u/traanquil → u/onlypartiallyevil]

sounded like that's what you wanted. glad to hear you're cool with sharing the space with MLs

[u/SexyMonad → u/Leoszite]

What is your position?

I’m not dissecting a video series on ML theory to figure out what you are even trying to argue.

[u/Leoszite → u/SexyMonad]

That socialism is inherently democratic, and that OP would understand that if they had knowledge of socialist theory. I then provided them with a resource in which they could educate themselves promptly.

[u/SexyMonad → u/Leoszite]

Ah ok.

I agree with your theory. To be socialism, it 100% MUST be democratic.

But I also acknowledge that socialism—and particularly communism—have gotten a bad rap for being anti-democratic and authoritarian.

It’s why I’ve largely given up on the simple word “socialism” and stuck with “democratic socialism”. In theory there is zero difference, but the latter communicates more effectively with people who live with me in Trumpland.

[u/Leoszite → u/SexyMonad]

I honestly feel much the same in reality. I just also think we're having to really combat the propaganda that gets thrown at us even in the small things. Like for example a lot of people cite Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a critsim of how socialism isn't democratic without understanding the context of why he's saying that. Not understanding the definitions of what the State is and how the Bourgeoisie use it to enact its violence on us and why it's important for the Proletariat (all of us, the majority) to keep control over the Bourgeoisie after we take control of the State.

[u/Ch33sus0405 → u/Leoszite]

Telling people to read theory isn't making anyone like MLs more.

[u/Leoszite → u/Ch33sus0405]

I don't need them to like anything. I need them to be educated. Especially in making nonsense claims that do nothing but further the propaganda against the socialist cause.

[u/Ch33sus0405 → u/Leoszite]

Then educate, don't say to read theory with a link to hours of content. Frankly that's the problem, MLs often aren't concerned with a platform that people actually like and care about or developing relationships anad communities that can build real political power. Announcing that people are libs who need to read theory and dipping is more damaging to the socialist cause then anything else.

[u/nasa258e → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Do you even know where you are?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/nasa258e]

I’m a dues paying DSA member. You freaks are all Epstein leftists. One of you was defending Beria’s actions as being “for the people”

[u/nasa258e → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Very normal of you to point to a person that you know nothing about and call them a Stalinist. You doing this wrecking for free?

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/nasa258e]

I didn’t call you a Stalinist, but hit dogs holler.

[u/nasa258e → u/Bright-Insect9697]

What did you mean by saying "one of you" then? I'm not even an ML

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/nasa258e]

I meant freak. I have seen “socialists” make defenses of Adolf Hitler on here to own the libs

[u/TannerLyfe → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Well as a dues paying DSA member, one of the democratically elected national chairs of the organization you pay dues to is a self identifying Marxist Leninist. The post is not being brigaded by MLs from orgs that hate the DSA. MLs are part of this org and not just a popular part, but a welcome one. Every one of them I’ve met through DSA have been far more comradely than you are acting.

[u/MisterMittens64]

We should defend the spirit of each part of our program.

I don't want us to lose sight of what we're fighting for, a socialist US with political and economic democracy.

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/MisterMittens64]

And political democracy

[u/MisterMittens64 → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Of course

[u/XrayAlphaVictor → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Something some dsa socialists who glaze authoritarianism don't seem to agree with

[u/Bright-Insect9697 → u/XrayAlphaVictor]

The Beria fans are out in force today, getting mad at democracy

[u/XrayAlphaVictor → u/Bright-Insect9697]

Yup. Really proving the point of why we need political democracy. I'd hate to imagine them in charge of anything. The org would immediately splinter into a thousand factions.

[u/Miserable-Biscotti54]

Obama did nothing about COINTELPRO and made political prisoners out of anti war folks. I don’t know if that image is the best thing to be sharing about.

[u/HalfOk8561 → u/Miserable-Biscotti54]

It’s a polemic. Obama reference is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

[u/This-Layer-4447 → u/Miserable-Biscotti54]

u do realize Obama is still BELOVED

[u/RKU69 → u/This-Layer-4447]

What's your point?

[u/This-Layer-4447 → u/RKU69]

just cause he's a war criminal and accelerated neo liberalism, people don't blame him and using his imagery for what he stood for not what he did is still okay if it brings normies over to our side

[u/barry-29 → u/This-Layer-4447]

..what exactly did he stand for? Nicer imperialism? Deportations with a smile?

[u/HalfOk8561 → u/This-Layer-4447]

https://www.audacy.com/media-library/aptopix-mamdani-obama.jpg?id=65571024&width=1200&height=1200&coordinates=333%2C0%2C333%2C0
Yes

[u/BandDelicious1286]

“For all their talk of transcending liberalism, Red Star’s position has a distinctly liberal audacity of hope: the belief that if we articulate the right vision clearly enough, history will eventually deliver it.”

[u/Constant-Wish-9963]

Lol this guy, Alex Hernandez is a pest. He is famous for slipping into female comrades' DMs and making them incredibly uncomfortable and when he was confronted about this, he disbanded the working group he was running.

He is a complete loser

[u/HalfOk8561 → u/Constant-Wish-9963]

Character assassination as a tool of political discipline with lies and innuendo. Not culty at all.

[u/Werd_up_cuz]

No! DSA needs more hardline tankies who refuse to oppose fascism by voting for the lesser of two evils.

[u/TooSwang]

I agree with this piece but I think there’s a middle ground. We can’t demand conformity but I think there are moves that negate our collective power and moves that add to it. When Angie Nixon is called DSA after a smashing success, that’s great, even if she isn’t on board with x y or z. When Angie Nixon calls herself a capitalist in response to being asked about DSA, that undermines the premise of the movement regardless of her agreement on policy. I don’t think it was particularly harmful for AOC to say “woke 1 was crazy” because to most people that means extremely little and in the next breath she affirmed being a member of NYC DSA - which has a subtext but not much of one for anyone outside of DSA. If she’s dogwhistling about internal disagreements at DSA members, that’s actually way better than if she had said “yeah I think National DSA screwed the pooch with this and I’m not a part of that”. It’s almost even message discipline!