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(CW SA) A PSL founder SA'd a Central Committee Member and the org tried to cover it up (theyeisblind.substack.com)
submitted 1 month ago* by to c/chat@hexbear.net
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Victims testimony in the link. Left the Party a few months ago but refrained from posting about it out of “discipline/not wanting to hurt the movement” on hexbear dot net but this shit is simply beyond the pale. anyone thinking about joining a socialist org deserves to know about this horrific garbage.

Obviously there’s no quick fix to patriarchy orremoved culture but the rotten, misogynistic, apologist, opportunist Becker clique has got to go if this org is going to be anything more than a hotbed of abuse and exploitation. I genuinely loved and respected my rank and file comrades, this shit makes my blood boil.

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[–] 40 points 1 month ago (11 children)

We know these people insinuate themsves into any organization of any sort. So its no surprise. The question for a political organization is how they treat it.

The link in the post is hardly at all about the initial assault. Its mostly about the subsequent manipulations. The betrayal of the physical act by 1 person vs the betrayal of the organizational act by several people. Its in the context of what came before and after.

In PSL, which is known for insisting members not air disagreements in public, what is the process for this stuff? Knowing as we do that it will certainly occur.

And that agents of the state use SA and IPV to diminish women. Class treachery one way or the other.

"but he does so much! What would we do without him?"

How to decide

  1. How to save him?
  2. Is he worth it?

Not every guy who "does a lot" is worth the drama and pain he charges as a fee.

Eventually, I was asked to move to New York City to help plan the 2019 Congress. Once there, I spent every day with Ben and his family. We organized out of his apartment. We cooked and I helped care for his young child. In those years, I was one of only two party staffers.

Well that is weird.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Organizations need offices. You shouldn't be doing stuff out of someone's house unless you're actively on the lam. PSL is big enough to rent some space, or share a union hall.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Its easy for you to say that, but as jack said, it was a long road of development and we did have to start somewhere. We'd used whatever public spaces we could scrounge up for meetings and public events, but sometimes things like equipment and rapid meetings had to be in someone's home.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm aware, I'm just getting the feeling that with this current context there may have been something else at play. My local DSA and PSL almost never met at homes and usually met at a sympathetic business or the IBEW hall.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    shrug-outta-hecks Maybe in that context, but organizing out of someone's home is very normal when there's barely resources to go around and at the start. Their level, though, was national which is kind of ridiculous to still be organizing out of one's home

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago

    Their level, though, was national which is kind of ridiculous to still be organizing out of one's home

    This is why I'm not giving them much grace (especially since we already know sex pest behavior is a thing with these 3 guys).

    If a local can keep things professional, national shouldn't have a problem. They aren't literally fighting a guerilla war. They have the ability to acquire a space to organize out of. If it is at someone's home, the other organizers shouldn't be doing housework for you either. That just reeks of abuse of power.

    Also not trying to wreck or anything, we had to deal with something similar when I was still part of my DSA local during COVID. One of the local chairmen was outed as an abuser and some others helped cover it up for a while. They also wanted to have people (mostly women) in their home. Luckily there was the IBEW hall and a co-op bookstore that hosted most meetings (same ones also hosted PSL and SRA meetings lol).

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    The party has many offices and spaces these days, but it was a lot smaller and less resourced in 2019.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    In 2019 my local PSL met at a Kava bar. This was in a small town in NC. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't like a bookstore, union hall, or small business that they could organize out of.

    Given what we know now this reeks of her being taken advantage of.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Eh, Idk. We meet at people's houses all the time for small group meetings all the time. There just isn't enough spaces that are open when the work or meeting is being done, with room, and chairs, and wifi, and close to everyone who wants to meet, and private enough to discuss things. We usually try other places first, but when no place works out, we've been lucky enough that someone is nice enough to volunteer their home.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago*

    They weren't meeting at people's houses. They were working out of the home of one member so much so that a staffer felt obliged to babysit his child.

    I've done both, and even a very small rinky dink organization can understand and at least somewhat mitigate the problems with this kind of dynamic.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago

    The PSL has a long history of knee jerk reactions to accusations of sexual assault. Historically it's been to deny, alienate, and harass the women into covering up their own victimization just to save face for the org. I kinda thought this was an open secret? I didn't think this would be that surprising for this forum.

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