Is the West Experiencing a Left-Wing Drift? (the international left politics activism, news, and strategy thread)

On the american organizing side, I’m wondering the percentage of all the groups that exploded in membership are now hitting growing pains a year in.

My local DSA chapter is trying to slog thru bylaw revision, as the group now is far different than it was originally constituted 12 months back. Quorum reqs are a drag, for instance.

that Aziz Rana interview is really great!

re: the slog/bloat that comes with organizational expansion, do you see it as a necessary evil or would you handle it some other way if possible?

I just think that it’s expected if not necessary; we’re coming out of like 4 decades of bad political habits, and having to relearn a whole mess of shit along with translating to a modern format.

Massive cultural change has to happen, and is underway, and everybody is going to fuck up a lot because the dominant culture was/is this hyperatomizing thing, not to mention all the discursive complications borne out of academia and social media.

DSA New Orleans posted a DIY guide on how & why they chose a taillight replacement action:

http://dsaneworleans.org/img/brake-light-clinic-guide.pdf

Workers Win Big in Ontario
In Ontario, the Fight for $15 just won a huge victory.

By DAVID BUSH & DOUG NESBITT

another podcast, just launched -

http://butterflystorycollective.libsyn.com/

one thing I find interesting with the Novara people is the tension between anarchists and what for want of better terms I tend to think of as 'radical democrats' or 'democratic utopians' on the one hand, and traditional state socialsts plus fully-blown state communists on the other.

At points it has been ugly to watch. Both sides actually managed to converge amicably (so far) over at New Socialist:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/

I love the brakelight clinics so much

I don't agree that the US is more progressive on aboriginal issues. Afaict, these barely even register as an issue on the national level in the US.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, November 9, 2017 4:19 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya what's up with this? is it just that they historically killed a larger % of them?

Plenty of good arguments here

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-2/

talking US first nations though

anyways this is not the thread

Yeah, that Maclean's thing makes no sense to me. If we really need to compare the situation of Canada's aboriginal population to a US equivalent, I would think that it should be the US aboriginal population ("Native Americans"), not the African-American population. And, like I said, I'm not a US politics expert but the only Presidential candidate I observed even mentioning FN issues was Bernie Sanders, who afaict didn't do more than pay lip service in passing.

This might be the UK-version of Chapo btw:

https://twitter.com/reel_politcast

I don't listen to podcasts so this is all bits of educated guesswork.

promising new Left Coast on youth organizing in the US, starting in on it now

https://soundcloud.com/leftcoastpodcast/north-bae-004-the-dictatorship-of-the-teen#t=0:00

Meanwhile, Alex Jones is posting Rosa Luxemburg quotes. Happy American Thanksgiving!

pic.twitter.com/N18dkYTqMd

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) January 14, 2017

Ha, leftie pods are popping up quick enough to start stepping on each other’s names

Left Coast:
@leftcoastpod
podcast about leftism for west coast idiots by los angeles trash comedians @shutupandrosky and @heysarajune. new ep every wednesday, DMs open

http://leftcoastpod.libsyn.com/

Left Coast Media:
@LeftPod
Interviewing leftists from the best coast and beyond. Follow @chekainformant, @communalsauce, and @rrrrn.

https://m.soundcloud.com/leftcoastpodcast

Beast Coast Podcast:

@BeastCoastPod
East coast is the beast coast. A #leftpod covering culture and philosophy from @the_admo, @lostcosmonaut84, @rayagun19, and @garthotron
beastcoastpodcast.com

Jeeze

Somebody elsewhere mentioned about how leftie folks are taking to podcasts like RW schmucks did to YT

This is probly of heavy relevance:

Both Verso & Haymarket are now running half-off sales til year’s end, with bundled ebooks where available

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3495-50-off-all-our-books

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/55-50-off-holiday-gifts-for-the-red-on-your-list

I’m currently reading this: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2062-the-s-word

Last Verso I read:

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2465-humankind

Is anybody on Tim Faust’s health justice email list? He sent out an update today, and I had to laugh due to two things:

1. He sent it out from “T-Bone Faust,” which is a rare nickname that works for both Coen Bros collaborator and Coen Bros character

2. The opener is almost word-for-word matching a certain Onion columnist:

Hello friends,

This one's long. It’s been a minute since I got to last speak with you.

You can read his missive and sign up for the list here

I earnestly love that dude so much

<3 beavis wallpaper

All eyes on Illinois

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/28/politics/illinois-house-dsa-carlos-ramirez-rosa-chuy-garcia/index.html

^ strategically this makes no sense to me

because there's already a "progressive" running?

yes. why go after an early Sanders supporter who's an automatic yes vote on single-payer?

what is gained?

I would guess that they feel particularly strongly about Rosa's local popularity but otherwise I can't speak to the wisdom or lack thereof. Single payer isn't the only issue to be concerned about. (Then again, as yet, DSA has yet to officially endorse him AFAIK.)

What is the podcast equivalent for those of us who prefer music to podcasts and therefore never listen to podcasts? I mean, apart from hardcore punk lol

xp Garcia and Ramirez-Rosa are going to vote the same on practically every issue of consequence. What's the point of replacing a guy who's 95% left with a guy who's 100% left?

think you're right, there must be some local angle

What is the podcast equivalent for those of us who prefer music to podcasts and therefore never listen to podcasts? I mean, apart from hardcore punk lol

What about Algiers and, uh, Downtown Boys(who are more post-hardcore, really)?

If I understand correctly, I think imago is looking for short podcasts.

I doubt that

imago have u ever deep-listened to Crass' Penis Envy? That's my suggestion.

i was a big fan of motherfucker, aka m-f. episodes about 10 minutes long. it was the realest. they stopped doing it after about 10 episodes though. it was really hard to search for.

I doubt the q is "what is music that I can listen to instead of podcasts and get the same political insight", or at least I hope it isn't, 'cause that's a crazy question.

m-f feels (felt?) pretty punk rock. stripped down to the barest nub of honesty and humor and conversation and swearing. short eps. an ineffable sense of what the kids today call "moving the culture forward". it's not political in the way this thread is looking for in general though

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/m-f/id1241489297?mt=2

I was listening to Flux of Pink Indians yesterday and Rudimentary Peni today. I suppose it makes sense to listen to Crass next

socialist economic darling/enfant terrible Matt Bruenig made an appearance (his first, I assume?) in the NYT today:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/opinion/inequality-social-wealth-fund.html

RE: DSA/Garcia/Rosa, I don’t think a DSA endorsement of Rosa would matter very much. Gutierrez has endorsed Garcia and that counts a lot. Gutierrez is overwhelmingly popular in IL-4 and hasn’t gotten less that 74% of the vote in the last two primaries. I can’t imagine his constituents going against anyone he anoints as a successor.

I gotta say, while I agree (mostly) with their platform, I don't understand what the DSA is trying to do strategically.

The tea party template would seem to be the best approach—obtaining guarantees of support for single-payer, education debt reform and "no" votes on Near Eastern wars from center-left candidates under credible threat of a primary.

But this looks like typical progressive infighting.

AFAICT they haven't run any candidates that have served to prevent Dem-identifying candidates from getting elected

Any chance they can take to run someone and promote socialist ideals and proposals without getting republicans elected is fine by me

Well, that's the thing—they don't actually run anyone. They just endorse them. So they should use *that* as a bargaining chip—in safe districts, obviously—to pull the libs further left.

It worked for the right.

That was their old model, more or less, as I understand it. With the influx of new blood less interested in trying to "reform" or influence the Democratic party, that's changed somewhat. One of the major national slates discussed the difference between electoral strategy vs "electoralism" here https://www.dsamomentum.org/platform/

More broadly, the electoral plank is (again, this is based only on what I've read) just one thing they're interested in and not the principal focus.

From that link:

Rather, we propose an approach that could be called building a “party beyond the party,” one that formulates a clear political program and develops, runs, and disciplines candidates in select campaigns.

Sounds like a Tea Party model to me. I also notice that Medicare For All is explicitly endorsed, not only as a policy (duh), but as a rallying cry:

Medicare for All has become a key working class demand and enjoys strong majority support across the country.

I would note it's a key middle class demand as well. So why go after Garcia, an automatic "yes" vote on Medicare for All? It would seem to make more sense to target the center-left, making it politically unacceptable for any Democrat to hold any other position.

I agree that it's questionable, but a) I'm not sure it's indicative of a larger problem and b) it doesn't seem like it'll make much of a difference - Garcia seems like more or less a sure thing

LanaDelRaytheon outed as harasser?

🤭

https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/lana-del-raytheon?page=20