free_casc [comrade/them]

Unless you can easily infiltrate leadership, there’s not much you can do. Libs generally aren’t going to be swayed if their leadership isn’t on board.

In small orgs, this is easier than you probably expect. As soon as they use the word “socialism” (to mean Scandinavian social democracy) you’re able to be the coolest and most knowledgeable socialist in the room cause you’ve read theory etc. The key is to be polite even if they’re being annoyingly lib, but at that point you’re golden.

Understanding class struggle tends to make excellent leaders and even liberals can see that if you take the opportunity to get results. At that point the goal is to educate your peers and build the org, eventually developing a relationship with our even cooler comrades over at PSL (or some such).

Remember these people aren’t liberal establishment adherents or else they’d be Democrats. They’re probably undereducated potential DemSocs (assuming they’re privileged nerds who want to do non-duopoly electoral politics). If that’s your style, go for it. If you’re a direct action person or more outright revolutionary, obviously not the best fit.

If this group ever were to gain traction in CA I certainly HOPE to see a couple of Hexbearians in leadership.

Depends on a lot of things, obviously this person is revealing their ignorance to you in an obvious way. You know more than them.

As far as how to respond and communicate any further, many questions come to mind:

• Is this a person you are obligated to have a continued relationship with?
• is this a person who you want to have a continued relationship with?
• Is there a power dynamic on your relationship with this person?
• Do you think they would be hostile if any particular topics were to come up?
• Does this person have a any position of implicit or explicit social or political power/influence?

These answers would all influence my response, but I don’t particularly enjoy engaging with people who’s understanding of the world is so misaligned from mine that I usually just move on as quickly as possible.

I don’t wish to leave my comrades in red states exposed directly to the fascist US, but at the same time id like to be able to build a safe, equitable, and affordable place for them to move to.

If Hexbear has a culture problem it’s poor communication and a seeping anticipation that the person you argue with is a latent fash.

“Latent fash” give me a break.

Their position is being called “ULTRALEFT”. Agree or disagree, nobody has ever implied that ultra-leftism is fascist adjacent. I would NEVER imply that about a member of our community and I’m offended at the implication that I would ever do so.

OP is not suggesting that the protests are effective at anything, but that it is an opportunity for those of us who want to make some people effective. I fully agree with u/jack that there are tons of queer people who are stoked to get educated, and they know for a fact that these protests don’t achieve anything and they love to be given an answer.

This is like 10% of the people there, ran into a ton of empty liberalism, but 10% of 40k is far more people than my group of 5 could possibly talk to anyway. If we can get just 5% of our contacts converted into canvassers for the next event, that will more than double the size of the group (of protest canvassers, not the org as a whole). Exponential growth!

If we dig in and make personal phone calls and contacts with the couple hundred sign ups we got, the retention will be much higher than 5%! These people are now part of an org where they can develop their knowledge and skills, and have the opportunity to become true comrades who are ready to hop into PSL or something like that.

Yes that’s the same position that OP bumped into in a previous thread as well. That is what’s being addressed in this post. It sucks to put in some work and come back to our community and be presented with that feedback from those we look to as comrades. As you can see from the thread, we aren’t the only two who are frustrated by this, and we have an opportunity to address it now.

As hardcore Marxist communists socialists, sometimes it is the materially correct move to win credibility by developing a social democratic party and government. I think our history has led to a lot of “Bernie-burnout” now that it’s been 5 years, but it’s time to reject that nihilism and throw support behind Zohran and build on that, instead of being “too cool for school”.

It’s basically the same as the smug Liberal leadership who want your vote, but if you approach them for a deeper discussion, or to get more involved, you get an empty smile and nod cause they “know more about how things actually work than this ‘socialist’”.

The "ultra left " position on here is basically the same. You DO know more than the liberals and socdems, but how tf does it look when you stand off and watch, and then be like “yeah you liberals don’t know what you’re doing, try harder next time”. Dive tf in and take charge, YOU KNOW MORE THAN THEM. You won’t co-opt your local 50501 or whatever, but pulling a significant portion of them into a socialist faction and developing that into an independent group (or shove them into DSA, or into PSL, or ???) is a reasonable goal.

The way it reads sometimes is that people want to be a disciplined member of “the Bolshevik Party” or something, but the Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party!! (I don’t think our comrades literally think this or don’t know the history, just a vibe I pick up on). If we want to emulate and adapt material conditions of successful revolutions, a proven move is to have a strong social-democratic movement. Then you continue your work from there (often internal to the party).

If you went to the protest, did some canvassing/organizing work, and posted about it here later in the day, you’d know exactly where OP is coming from. I know because I did the same thing, but didn’t have enough fury to bang out 7 paragraphs about it.

It’s important to call out this ultraleft position in our community to invite our comrades to reflect and develop a different perspective.

Let’s do it!

Its difficult because there are many people who are transplants in our major cities cause they don’t want to live in chudsville or wherever. They still have family in those places. The short answer is that as much as I would love to solve Ohio and Alabama’s problems, I would also like to solve the problems of my Kenyan and Indian and Honduran comrades. I have no effective political or economic power on these places. I do have a smidge of influence in my local community so that’s what I’m able to look out for.

I could go on but I’ll pause here.

It’s like 65% a bit so don’t bother ;)

For us on the west coast we can appropriate “calexit” or “Cascadia” as progressive propaganda, but I can’t speak for socialists elsewhere in the United States. Different material (geographic) conditions may make the “balkanize the US” tactic unpalatable.

If you happen to live in the so-called “Pacific Northwest” region of the United States, you can have them DM this account for answers.

Cascadians support the liberation of our Californian comrades from the genocidal and regressive United States empire.

Don’t be a pessimistic dick, this is literally the correct tactic and would have a positive effect on the world, whether or not it’s actually successful in what it’s trying to achieve.

It’s like electoralism in the bourgeois system. You use it as a marketing platform. Socialists already know that there is no redemption for the US. The federal government is where progress goes to die. Unfortunately it’s taken two trump terms for (some) liberals to finally get the idea that all roads lead to trump.

Answer is that you don’t need to successfully secede in order to create domestic strife that will be disruptive to the U.S. economy and foreign policy.

Also, no need to assume we’re gonna want to roll with CA.

I really hope Tor’s channel continues to grow! Some great stuff lately