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What's up with people claiming PSL shields predators? [CW: mentions of SA] (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Is there any veracity to the claim that "the PSL covered up SA allegations"? I hear it a lot in discussions surrounding the PSL. I wanna know if this is a valid concern

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Essentially I believe PSL is not the vanguard because leadership and cadre are largely not proletarian. I don't believe the settler population ought to be twiddling their thumbs, but they need to be led by the proletarian vanguard and PSL is largely led by fellow labor aristocracy and petite bourgeoisie.

I spoke vaguely of orgs because many are localized and focus on their specific communities because they simply do not have mass appeal under settler colonialism. The Black Panthers studied Juche for good reason as they were made up of the community they were trying to liberate. These orgs like Chunka Luta Network are housing and organizing the proletariat, having an active impact in their communities that PSL cannot say the same for.

The "left" in America has problems gaining traction for material reasons. To me it says a lot that this "left" we're referring to when it comes to PSL is not rooted in the communities its saying they are the vanguard of. I can think of a few orgs that are focused on protecting and aiding sensitive hyper exploited communities that have cut ties with PSL over anti-blackness, misogyny, and anti-indigineity (I am not listing them because of the orgs opsec but for my own, as they are local to me). These orgs and communities don't need a labor aristocracy to guide them on action, they're already doing more effective work even among the less theoretically advanced populace due to their material conditions.

There are settlers in these organizations, but they are guided by those with that material interest in liberation. What strikes me as particularly "labor zionist" about PSL is that they say they're speaking for people that have their own organizations, have their own communities, that they are not a part of and don't want them involved in. The theoretically objective analysis of material conditions is used to put the leadership above the people and disconnected from the actual struggling masses, of which the leadership should actively be a part of and not simply "speaking for".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Interesting, thanks for explaining your thoughts on it. In terms of the specific view that "hyper exploited communities that have cut ties with PSL over anti-blackness, misogyny, and anti-indigineity (I am not listing them because of the orgs opsec but for my own, as they are local to me)", I hope you will understand I have to take this with a grain of salt unless there are non-opsec-sensitive examples you can share sources on. I would not want you to put any org in danger just to prove a point to someone on the internet, but also, from my perspective, you can probably understand that simply taking your word for it that "hyper exploited communities have cut ties with PSL [because of prejudicial views/treatment]" is kind of vague as a thing to go on. One of the problems with it being that even if true in X instance, it doesn't say anything about the circumstances surrounding it; whether the treatment came from the top down, or from local PSL branches; what form it took; etc.