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I'm writing this as a response to the linked thread and realized it should be it's own post.

I'll be brief: My DSA chapter is in the planning stages of what we will focus on next year. We are a smaller chapter so we are working to pick programs that we can realistically do with a handful of people.

I read a lot on here about how orgs such as this one are doing everything wrong... so is there a step-by-step guide to doing the "right" thing?


Potential programs we may pursue next year (these are being put up to a vote in a few weeks):

  • A internal membership development program. Lots of political education including a reading group for the new translation of Capital Vol. 1

  • An agitprop program. We will teach each other how to work Canva/GIMP, design flyers, posters and other media and start being more outgoing around the area with our advertising.

  • A "mass line" project where we plan to hold community "listening sessions" in the more impoverished parts of town.

  • A Crisis Pregnancy Center awareness campaign. We would point out these centers around town, agitate against them through awareness campaigns and maybe lobby to get them banned in our area?


What would you pick and why?

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🤔

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Go shower smelly

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I keep hearing that this is frowned upon, but I cannot help it. After I share, I circle back and explain how and why I connected the two stories to try to recenter the other person. Is this annoying? How do you want ND people to respond in that case?

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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6501985

I have been considering the obvious organizations such as FRSO or PSL. However, an article really made some points that stood out to me:

https://cosmonautmag.com/2018/10/from-workers-party-to-workers-republic-2/

“What made the “Leninist party of a new type” different was not democratic centralism. Rather than simple centralism, Comintern parties had a form of ‘monolithism’ to use the phrase of Fernando Claudin.14 In other words, Comintern parties emphasized centralism over democracy or often just disregarded democratic norms entirely. While this wasn’t absent in the Second International, the Third was born as a sort of militarized civil war organization rather than a political party in the sense of a mass workers association as envisioned by Marx. While this may have been justified at a time when an actual global civil war against capitalism was on the table, this is not the case right now – we are not living in the same era of ‘Wars and Revolutions’ as the leaders of the Comintern were. When modern Leninists claim the secret of their parties’ road to success is ‘democratic centralism’, it tends to mean an overly bureaucratized group that puts heavy workloads on individual members to make them more ‘disciplined’, and a lack of actual democracy in favor of a more militarized party structure. Factions are forbidden, ideological centralism (rather than programmatic centralism) is imposed from above, and groups aim to build an ‘elite’ cadre that tails existing mass struggles, hoping to bank in on them to recruit members. The Comintern model is simply a recipe for failure in today’s conditions, just another guide to building yet another sect that will compete for the latest batch of recruits. How this actually works in practice is exemplified by the state of actually existing contemporary Leninism in the USA.

Take PSL, FRSO-FB and the ISO as case studies. Alongside schemes to take over union bureaucracy, these organizations essentially form front groups that hide affiliation to any kind of communist goals and aim to mobilize students around the latest liberal social justice issues and work in alliance with NGOs to throw rallies of mostly symbolic value. Through these activities, the cadre (or inner group) of the Leninist organization hopes to recruit parts of the liberal activist community in order to grow their base of support and garner more influence in these social movements. The organizations themselves proclaim democratic centralism, but in reality, there is no public debate about party positions allowed between congresses. At the congresses debate, takes place as little as possible and is usually led by an unelected central committee that composed of full-time staffer careerists. By using their “militant minority” tactics to act as the “spark that lights the prairie fire” in popular struggles, the modern Leninists (with some exceptions of course) tend to tail these struggles instead of fight for a class-conscious approach to issues of civil and democratic rights. One tactic often used is to hand out as many of their signs as possible to appear larger in number, when in reality this is often protesting street theater backed by NGOs connected to the Democrats who are simply using leftists as useful idiots for “direct actions” against the Republicans. Usually, the rationale for this activism is to raise consciousness among liberals. Theoretically, by ‘riding the wave’ of spontaneous activism, the militant minority group will build up enough influence to launch an insurrection. This is a delusional hope. It leads to chronic involvement in activism that takes up time and energy but doesn’t build working class institutions that can actually offer concrete gains for working people through collective action. One could describe this general strategy of tailing social movements as ‘movementism’.”

I have definitely observed this within FRSO's seeding of cadre in "front" "mass" organizations such as New SDS, anti-war groups, or various NAARPR chapters to recruit other cadre.

There is also a strange divide and turf war between otherwise similar programmatic unity between PSL, FRSO, and WWP. Like, UNITE!

Open to feedback and thoughts, need to talk it out with other comrades.

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I don’t use it or Twitter so I’m out of the loop, why is everyone bailing on bs so quickly

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Imagine how cool it would be to see some person yelling about Lenin and Marx, waving their arms around like crazy, newspaper in hand. Wearing one of those old caps, like the one Lenin had.

I know we kind of have a version of it online, but it's much more atomising and lame. Yelling on internet forums will never compare.

The only people who do soapboxing these days are ultra religious nutters, screaming about the apocalypse or whatever. How the great have fallen, truly.

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Politics related, niche interest related, meme related - surprise me.

E.g. "what's the temperature going to be like today?"

I'll answer "it's going to be pretty cold."

Then you edit the question to be "can you give me a hint about which layer of hell Henry Kissinger is going to?"

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Do you like owls? owl-pissed

Yes border-square

No border-square

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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6484299

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-image/

America’s image is mostly positive among the Asian nations polled. Particularly large majorities see the U.S. favorably in the Philippines (92%), South Korea (84%) and Vietnam (77%).

It's from 2015 but more recent polls have found similar data IIRC

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/comparing-global-views-of-the-united-states-and-china-during-the-trump-and-biden-administrations/

79% of people polled in Vietnam chose the US in the "Preferred alignment choice in U.S.-China rivalry" which is a different metric obviously but still points towards the same idea

Edit: According to Luna Oi, Pew Research Center is a neoliberal think tank that cannot be trusted on anything about Vietnam

https://youtu.be/hPCoDz_CPCc

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by InevitableSwing@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I feel like my twitter feed has gotten worse lately and a lot of accounts I follow have made the move over there.
I am so set in my doom scrolling ways tho.

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Are there other leaders who have intro pics nearly as drippy as this? Like this shit goes stupid hard

Also Schools for Chiapas, an organization run to help support the Zapatista community, has recently expanded their online store and has some new cool and unique items! Consider purchasing from there especially if you need bath/body products or coffee. Additionally, many of the donations on the site are now able to be written off on your taxes, so check those out as well!

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by borschtisgarbo@lemmygrad.ml to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
 
 

truthI'd rather eat literal shit than anything made by an Anglo barbarian

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We (two people) are moving from the west coast USA to the east coast soon. I'm looking for ideas on how to do this as cheaply as possible. Renting a uhaul looks like about $5k before gas costs. Seems like a lot. Anyone have creative ideas?

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by glans@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
 
 

Can someone point me to the transphobia / racist information? Or whatever else is being alluded to constantly here. When or where was it posted?

just as I post a comment to the mod thread referencing to such info to ask about it, the thread is locked.

Edit: so far the only thing is 1 retweet of a very obnoxious article praising Richard Dawkins. Surely there is more?

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Caption this. (hexbear.net)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by InevitableSwing@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
 
 
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Saw someone claim Xi's net worth is like 1.2 billion dollars. No one idea where they got this, but i seriously doubt it's true

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My sincerest sympathies to anyone who gets seasonal depression...but I don't get it. I actually loves the winter season. I love dressing in layers and going for morning dog walk breathing in the cold air. Doing a run in the cold with the air slicing through my lungs is the best. Slow cooker meals and soups. Staying indoors under thick covers with warm coffee and tea. Holiday decorations and movies/my music. God I love this time of year and I swear my mental health improves a whole grade level.

Anyone else on this site feel the same???

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I am working with a mutual aid org which has some resources at its disposal (money & labor) to help the folks who live there.

Of course, the people living there know best what they need, and with their current setups they mostly need wood for their stoves, or fuel for their generators, which are running electric heaters. But not all of them have stoves or generators.

I think the next most obvious option is warm clothing and blankets, which it seems like they have in good supply thankfully.

My org has done some building projects in the past and is considering doing more, possibly with a rocket stove type design, though I'm wondering if that's worth the effort, and our money/time would be better spent providing the residents with more food/clothing/fuel.

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