I will screenshot it, but only to print it, frame it, put it by my bed, and have it be the last thing I fall asleep to and the first thing I wake up to

Holy shit I thought I was the only one who used “Wimp Lo” like this.

western imperialism

Imperialism is international capitalism. I’m sure this is well understood but its important to start by defining it. The USA is the seat, the core of global capital since WW2. But prior to that, the seat of imperialism was the UK, basically where capitalism was first fully developed.

After WW1, the Ottoman empire was busted up and split into various countries. It was clear that the middle east was extremely mineral rich, and British capital wanted to control it. Its easier to exploit many geographically divided states, as they can be made to compete with each other. But given their closeness and shared interest, they can not become united. Something has to destabilize the region, and the imperial powers can’t get their hands dirty with direct colonial control.

The Zionist nationalist movement, led by Lord Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, was well established and well connected within the UK ruling capitalists. Enter the Balfour declaration. The UK had already identified a strip of land on the Mediterranean, that could function as the base for imperialism in the region, under the guise of an independent but westerns friendly nation. For the next 40 yeats, the UK and their allies aided Zionists to settle in the region of Palestine which already had a fairly large Jewish minority.

WW2 and the holocaust gave the impetus to create “a nation for the Jewish people.” In 1957, the Naqba and the establishment of the nation of Israel. The UK however was decimated after WW2, whereas the USA had drastically increased industrial capacity before and during the war. They also gutted the power of the legal unions established 13 years earlier. When the USA took up the mantle of the center of global capital, they also took on the existing imperialist projects, such as ensuring a destabilized and exploitable middle east, with a major part of that project being to ensure the existence and continuity of Israel as a destabilizing base for global capitalist imperialism.

A lot of the political realities you describe are downstream of the persistence of this project.

There are a ton of debates constantly happening inside the org, and lots of public-facing internal stuff getting published all the time. Practically every caucus publishes stuff on their website, and more independent outlets like Geese magazine and Cosmonaut (oh shit Cosmo publishong a criticism of Geese on the front page, cant wait to read it) also offer tons of great insights, without having to like join a caucus or even be a DSA member.

I’m not a Seattle comrade, hell, most of the people I know from the Sawant campaign moved away from Seattle since then. But I have been in some discussions about her with Seattle comrades.

Seattle DSA did not endorse her, and wrt Sawant, at least Sawant never wavered in her support for Palestine, unlike Wilson. I understand her endorsement survey form was incredibly weak, esp wrt support for BDS.

Interestingly, from what I understand, Seattle DSA had to send out a memo to their members threatening disciplinary action after coordinated campaigns by Wilson, and then Sawant, tried to do entryism to gain the chapter’s endorsement. I actually have a copy of an email from Wilson’s husband, who used member lists form Seattle Transit Union, which KW served as director, to encourage STU members to join DSA in order to vote for endorsing her. Gotta love politics. MUG organized hard against endorsing her.

Even so, Seattle comrades I have been in touch with who were opposed to SDSA endorsement, still critically supported her and voted for her.

Then again, there is always

It’s a shame, I think there’s a much more interesting analysis to be had, but instead just deranged hand-wringing.

Its so bad I might actually start a substack.

We created a fork of woke 2.0 called Wonk, that our team of volunteer contributors are super excited about! Check it out!

Thank you!

Under capitalism what is good and makes sense to the workers is bad and makes no sense to the capitalists. Our interests are fundamentally opposed. I’m all for electoral campaigns as a tactic, since it builds engagement and develops consciousness. But the strategy is to build for power, which means a mass movement and a worker’s party.

Okay, I’ll edit out what I can’t verify with hard evidence and try a self post!

Hey recent quitter here too, keep it up! Its been nice having a working brain again, after 2-3 months I feel pretty good! Keep in mind it might take a while to return to baseline, but you’ll get there. I was a daily, almost constant smoker from before covid until several years after, with a few remissions or whatever. I’m really hoping it sticks this time!

Working out can help, flood your system with some natural dopamine and work out excess frustrations. But honestly, you might just need to rest, if possible. The first few days can be very unpleasant. You’ll get your appetite back and start having crazy ass dreams. Get plenty of sleep if you can! Try some brain teaser puzzles or read, working out your brain will help it find a new baseline, and maybe distract you.

Try to limit booze or other substances, IMO a hangover can like lower my willpower to where I decide I have to run to the dispensary. At least until you’re through the woods. Maybe try to schedule a therapy sesh if possible, or hang out with a sober friend, go see a movie.

If you wanna talk, feel free to DM me

What kind of post? I usually comment, and I might want to check some of docs to make sure my facts are straight.

I’m not good at like making up posts but I can write pretty well

Wow, what a trip. Let’s talk about what absolutely, positively, did not happen.

As the editors of Left Voice reminded us, Sawant was a member of the ultra-left Trotskyist group Socialist Alternative, which splintered over the irrelevant question of endorsing Bernie Sanders in 2016.

Whatever Left Voice says about it, the split did not come from a debate over endorsing Bernie. The split came when Sawant’s faction purged a large number of their most active members, including her own campaign manager from her Seattle city council race, from Socialist alternative. Why were they purged? Because they wanted to dual card in DSA. The CWI, which is SAlt’s tradition, stems from the “deep entryism” of the British Militant faction of the labor party in the 80’s. In carrying on with that tradition, a large group of SAlt’s leaders surmised that entering DSA in order to build a Marxist tendency within it, was an important task to combat the reformist nature of DSA. The Sawant faction disagreed and purged them, calling them opportunists, liquidationists, etc.,

The purged faction did join DSA and formed Reform & Revolution caucus, which succeeded, along with other caucuses that emerged around the same time, to establish a left wing majority on the NPC and many central committees. The former SAlt faction published a rather good book on DSA, which gathers views from all over the org and is being used in education programs all over the country.

Like okay, its a criticism of the sectarianism of Sawant, and I agree, she is a sectarian crank. Her campaign was run like a fucking cult, which we discovered when we met a group of very well meaning volunteers for her campaign, who she purged for working with DSA.

But I find it interesting that there is then this long diatribe against Trotskyism which makes up the majority of the article. And I’ve read almost this exact article before, several times in fact: when the purged SAlt faction tried to join DSA. All of the sudden, these DSA rightists become the most stalwart defenders of Stalin. And to be clear, R&R currently has two members on the NPC, and was deeply involved in, not sectarian ultraleft opportunism, but instead, organizing the first NPC majority in 2023, passing the anti-zionism and partyist resolutions in '25 (actually the R&R partyist amendment took a much more confrontational posture toward the Dems, but MUG’s “party surrogate” orientation won out, still a partyist direction though) , and co-writing the Workers Deserve More program which is stirring up political discourse among the working class in the media in a way we haven’t seen other than with electoral wins. Always pushing for a more revolutionary message, and a break from the Democratic party.

Hardly sitting on the sidelines and complaining. This is the same tradition as Sawant, different approaches, but two very close strains of American Trotskyism. But does the author care about any of these very real dynamics in DSA? No, instead he decides to call PSL Trotskyist (LMFAO, what is credibility even), and spin a yarn of abstract doom and gloom portent about Trotskyism and ultraleftism.

Also important to note that Trotsky never appeared at the Dies commission, and rejected the commission’s offer to send a rep to visit him in Mexico.

Any valid criticism of Sawant gets lost in his utter derision for accuracy, opportunistic left gestures, and incurious agenda. And frankly, that’s just how deranged the DSA rightists are.

Never judge another person until you’ve shit a mile in their pants

Idk I get what the author is trying to say, but like, trying to pin these tendencies on this or that “tradition” just feeds into the sectarian impulse and buys time for any negative forces situated around these dynamics. Calling out third campism and sectarianism, and some of the silliness around Rockhill’s arguments is fine and good, and yeah, sectarian tendencies desvended from Marcyism have problems. But that’s for the Marcysists to work out. PSL is in crisis, which has generated some like renewed interest in Marcyism. Frankly if you’re involved in any leftist partyist project, you’re probably in crisis, and if not, recovering from one or heading toward one.

By all means, call out third campism and sectarianism, criticize it into absolute obscurity. But the task is not to become third campist and sectarian in the process. It is to engage more deeply and meaningfully in struggle, and from that engagement, develop the party. These tendencies are worthy of critique, as is every single thing. But these tendencies are not the problem, we are just now beginning to understand the problem and if you ask me, placing the blame on another tendency while failing to develop a practical alternative is the real problem.

Personally, I believe we have reached a structural tipping point in the nature of the struggle against capitalism for a working class party that is forcing these tendencies to critically develop and unalterably change. PSL, SAlt, maybe even CPUSA, and virtually very other left tendency were long stable and traditionally sound, now are racked by splits and revision of long held political limes. DSA, itself once a very particular and stable org has grown rapidly in recent years, driving the development of internal caucuses and tendencies, which frankly are practically all in crisis as well. The forces that developed the basis for DSA to become a mass party are dissolving into the mass. Meanwhile, the middle class nature of DSA is pushing the org back toward reformism.

It is much less interesting to me what troublesome tendencies of this or that left sect, than it is to identify and disseminate actual conditions of the struggle, toward a resolution of the fundamental challenges facing the organization of the working class against capitalism and the class interests of the capitalists.

You can swap out “Israel” for “China”

Of course, communism is an ideology about swapping words around in order to suit this or that political utility, to launder this or that viewpoint, to be convincing to the people I want to convince.

I fucking loathe these word games that people play. It is bourgeois bullshit that tries to substitute abstraction for concreteness. Rather than teach, it confuses. It declares absolute correctness, when communists have a prerogative to engage and build deep roots within the toiling classes. It strives with puritanical fervor toward the ideal, and punishes anyone who fails to meet it, and hides the fact that ideals are created and maintained by power and violence.

It’s always just bourgeois/fascist aesthetics.

Stalinism is objectively the moderate wing of social democracy

He’s a bougie pos, comes from money, went to some elite school for monsters, is notorious for being an unmitigated ass hole