With some of the recent discussion around it, I wanted to share this essay I wrote on Marx’s characteristic ambiguity and reading that ambiguity as an essentials pillar of his philosophy rather than as a historical accident.
https://t.co/ksAfq0bXIp
@ellonico@morematerial They have to react that way because the alternative is verbalizing that they don’t want a politics that can speak to people like grandmas or apolitical friends
The "our caucus does our thing and you do your thing" mentality of some caucuses in some chapters that will go unnamed is frankly ridiculous
All working groups and committees are simply organs in the body of the socialist workers party. All work should be cohered in some way
It is extremely shameful that it took Reynoso until he launched his congressional bid to finally call Israel’s actions a genocide.
NY-7 needs a member of congress who won’t wait until it’s expedient to their career ambitions to stand up for Palestinians. That person is Claire.
Reynoso is basically saying Hakeem Jeffries has more energy to retaliate against NY-7 residents than he does to stand up to Donald Trump. We are sick of being held hostage by a democratic establishment that you have to pledge fealty to or else.
Stuff like this always makes me think. I wonder how these people would interact with me in person. I wonder how these people would’ve felt towards me when I first began organizing publicly as a communist almost 10 years ago, doing tenant organizing and building the YCL. What I’ve realized ultimately is that there is an endless cycle of people who will act like this, treat others like this, which slides off when you’ve been around these types for years but which is immensely alienating to people new to the movement who understand, correctly, that you do not have all the answers and that truth is something we have to arrive at collectively and actively. They would correctly insult my time in the YCL, but not see the irony. I’ve seen this attitude countless times. That’s why I do what I do, ultimately. That’s why these random whatever age people you hate keep popping up on your timeline and keep growing, is because there is something real, a giant mass of quiet organizers and paper members and less than paper members who want so, so badly to be socialists and communists but repeatedly run into this culture of exclusion, hierarchy, and unearned elitism. When the most naive 18 year old comes to me and criticizes me, I just listen and engage, I tell them honestly what I believe, because those people will bring communism and am just an agent to make sure communism can reach and organize as many people as possible. Some sort of counterforce that takes marxism and mass politics seriously as a theory, not just as a slogan. That talks to the tens of thousands of canvassers who show up for mass politics but don’t make it into our activist committees. They, too, are fighting workers. The canvassers who disappeared from DSA after Zohran aren’t enemies who haven’t earned their salt, we are failures for not being their political home.
I understand that you will also dismiss this. But I implore you to think about the following: if this was not a predominant and negative culture on the left, geese would never have had any impact, no one would like us.
My entire book club is voting JLG ❤️ We had the best meeting this week. I’m so grateful for spaces with honest conversations not rooting in manipulation or fear mongering.
i think beyond just the platforming of debate, the process of editing articles itself can be a very effective form of pedagogy for both writer & editor, and a very powerful way of developing nuance and coming to understand or synthesise other points of view