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DSAqin-shi-huangdi-fireball

Honestly its rude to be invited by a country to meet their president who decided to respond to your criticisms of their administration only to not show up and go meet the opposition.

Being invided and then no showing shows complete disregard to basic diplomatic Etiquette since it was a mission to show solidarity against the embargo

Bonus socdems being cringe part 4.5: about another member that didnt show up to the presidential meeting

Deeply unserious people

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[–] 94 points 2 years ago (58 children)

Cool, why skip out on a meeting with the President of Cuba's government to discuss it in a constructive way then?

"To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type."

Maria has been working non stop for as long as I've known her. She's one of the best comrades I've had the pleasure of working with. She is a machine that turns liberals into communists. She has tirelessly organized for trans rights in Florida of all places. She is an anti-imperialist through and through.

"To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type."

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    To your first point, it seems as though her main complaint was there wasn't much of a way to dialogue with both party officials and the critical left she talks about.

    To your second, no one likes when someone they know and respect is being fed-jacketed.

    How useful her critiques are when even the non-government critical-voice she talked to (Maykel Vivero) said:

    the most systemic change must happen through a change of policy in the United States. Absent that, the most likely possibilities for Cuba’s future would be 1.) a Chinese-style mixed economy, which would significantly increase inequality and leave workers without a democratic voice, or 2.) a full capitalist restoration, which would be a world-historic disaster for the working-class.

    I think even she doesn't really see the realities, considering she thinks Cuba's standard of living can be raised and there can be less discontent if more voices are heard.

    She wants the support to be more critical, but considering how bad the embargo is (and everyone in her group and the Cubans she talk to agree about), it seems as if this is largely a pointless exercise. No government is perfect, but what can you do from America where more people are pushing for an overthrow than an embargo lift. Weird not to mention Allende in this whole discussion too.

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  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago (51 children)
  • [–] 61 points 2 years ago* (42 children)

    Her criticisms come from an incredibly idealist perspective and are divorced from any understanding of power or how a communist party functions. Even lauding Fidel, but ignoring him: "within the revolution, everything; against the revolution, nothing". introducing "alternative leftist voices" for its own sake accomplishes nothing but sating the unending liberal tendency to act indecisively and fight amongst each other, even when facing an existential threat. Constantly railing against the "bureaucracy" and constantly trying to create a distinction between the communist party from the masses, from the perspective of an outsider... from the imperial core... from the US no less, the primary enemy of the Cuban revolution... It is incredibly telling that that is what she spends her time on. If she is such an incredible organizer and ardent communist doubt then she should focus on revolution within the US

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  • [–] 51 points 2 years ago (38 children)

    Her criticisms come from an incredibly idealist perspective and are divorced from any understanding of power or how a communist party functions

    I'll emphasize again, and not a attack on the person who wrote it but a reminder of reality, DSA is not a communist party.

    It is not a leninist party of the new type, it is a social democratic party in function regardless of whatever form they or anyone else claim to be.

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  • [–] 47 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I agree completely. The DSA has been an anti-communist project from its conception. This person claims to be giving a "marxist critique" though, and that is what I was addressing. The unfortunate reality is that many people with revolutionary aspirations end up being siphoned into DSA and believe that they are communists. But in reality, most people who join the DSA are exposed to these garbage takes, the incessant factionalism, and ineffectual action, and think that that is what socialist organizing is. They become disaffected and it drives people away from communist parties and organizing in general when the goal should be to bring people in and change their understanding of democracy into a participatory, socialist one. Most DSA members are just members on paper because of this.

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  • [–] 42 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Yep. I joined DSA back in 2016 and quickly got burnt out on the backbiting, drama and liberal signaling and stopped attending after just a few meetings and events. I went on to go to other communist groups, but if I had stuck around there I would still be sitting around in meetings with people bickering about whether Cuba is an autocracy or not.

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  • [–] 42 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    But there is a second aspect of the crisis which we did not focus on during this delegation: a crisis of political legitimacy. Cuba’s government is a regime where decision-making power rests in the hands of the Central Committee of the PCC (the only legal political party) alongside its bureaucracy while the elected legislature is a disempowered rubber-stamp committee. Legally recognized mass organizations we met with on this delegation, like the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, Federation of Cuban Women, and the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba, are loyal to the bureaucracy, while independent political organizing is repressed.

    This is from that "comrade" who skipped the meeting with the president. Tells you all you need to know about them. The DSA didn't focus on this "second aspect" but she really wanted to hijack the trip and make it about this instead of the blockade, so she pulled some immature stunt to get attention for her idealist bullshit

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  • [–] 46 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Bloviating about your concerns and then refusing to meet with the President of the fucking country to address those very concerns shows that it’s just a bad faith stunt to put yourself on a pedestal above the unclean impure real-life socialist country that has to deal with matters of practical governance.

    Vague critiques of “authoritarianism” betray a total lack of understanding as to the functioning of literally any state on the planet.

    The whole “how can you criticize X when they’ve been doing things in real life while you just sit there with your stupid books”, aside from being presumptuous, is just bog standard anti-intellectualism that friend of the site Roderic Day does a much better job of taking apart than me.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago

    friend of the site Roderic Day does a much better job of taking apart than me.

    I thought people were joking about that until I saw him actually talking about hexbear and saying our doomers are dooming too much

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    You saw the other comment I made about if I pulled a diplomatic faux pas like that I would want to resign out of embarrassment?

    I really hope she feels embarrassment on a whole different magnitude

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (28 children)

    I’ll emphasize again, and not a attack on the person who wrote it but a reminder of reality, DSA is not a communist party.

    Not a communist party, yet

    Hopefully the more effectively organized left wing can succeed in eventually taking it over, this last wave of elections seems promising to that effect.

    :bloomer:

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    entryism has never worked a single time in history i'm pretty sure

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  • [–] 41 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The only time it worked was when Kenyan communists took over a socdem party, and the very big difference between their entryism and virtually every other instance of entryism is that Kenya had banned communist parties, so there was no way to openly organize as communists. After Kenya lifted the ban on communist parties, there was a line struggle between social democrats who wanted the Social Democratic Party to stay a social democratic party and communists who used the Social Democratic Party to get around the ban on communist parties with the communists winning out. Once they kicked the socdems to the curb, they changed the party's name to the Communist Party of Kenya.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Not saying to do entryism, I think the org is organically moving left as left folks have more success.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    I'm definitely coming at this through rose tinted glasses (pardon the pun) because my local chapter are actual communists who disagree with the bernsteinist politics of DSA at large.

    I just don't see any alternative orgs to hop onto at the moment tbh.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    I mean one of the two current cochairs of DSA is in an ML caucus. It’s not a sure thing they’ll maintain power long enough to corral the libs towards a better politic but it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    The trots that infiltrated the DNC thought the same thing back in the day, but look how that turned out.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I guess the question is is the DSA hopelessly captured by the dems or not? I know my local chapter isn't, I know some who are, I'm not sure about nationals.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Personally, I would say it's a completely reformist institution with about as much hopes for achieving socialism as the eurocommunists of the EU do.

    I'm not particularly against people being a part of it or other organizations as long as they are gaining good experience and education that they can carry on with them in their life and other more professional parties should try chose to move on.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Well that’s kind of the key isn’t it. DSA’s structure is going to be worthless in any sort of revolutionary crisis. However, communists in DSA have access to an audience of underdeveloped but sometimes open minded libs that are willing to listen and learn. They can help convert them into the kinds of organizers with good politics that will be necessary for any future party to succeed.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    It's not going to become one. The only similar outcome would occur due to a split.

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  • [–] 37 points 2 years ago (3 children)
  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    those who don't want mao quoted to them need mao quoted to them the most

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Organizing is about building capacity to engage in action. Recruiting, educating, and getting other people involved and connected.

    If you're really good at doing that for the purposes of chauvinism, ignorance, and toeing the line of the NED constellation of bullshit, you are not doing a good thing and are doing something that is actually very easy in the context of an the American supremacist liberal environment in which everyone has been raised.

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