dank_xiaopeng posted:

not lending qualified support and engaging with left-liberal movements like this is a lost opportunity for reds to provide leadership and a viable alternative for disaffected participants.

Again, the same reason that I support this other active left-liberal movement, the NYPD

dank_xiaopeng posted:

not lending qualified support and engaging with left-liberal movements like this is a lost opportunity for reds to provide leadership and a viable alternative for disaffected participants.

every action a red organization takes should be designed to strengthen its position in the class struggle. these upheavals, while bound for failure or at best meaningless reforms, are a chance for a party to provide leadership, gain members, and insinuate the correct ideological line into the broader consciousness. we should embrace the broad sentiments that underly upheavals like these, participate in collective actions, and devote resources to the cause. all the while the org should be gently pointing out flaws in liberal logic, presenting concrete demands that further the material position of the party and broader movement, and be ready to pick up the pieces and carry on when the liberals inevitably lose their resolve and the "movement" fails.

This isn't compromising on principles or being reformist, it's just smart organizing. standing apart and yelling i told you so after the fact is a road that will lead communists right into the dumpster, and deservedly so.

Since I haven't bothered reading about these protests at all, I don't necessarily disagree with your position in this instance, but I'm not really sure you should follow this as a rule.

Like in general, besides the potential waste of time and resources, there's the question of what do you want to associate your organization with? How do you want people to think about your organization? What kind of people do you want to attract to your organizations? I mean, it would be nice to believe otherwise, but if you're an organization that constantly associates itself with liberal movements and attracts liberal support, there's a good chance your organization is becoming liberal.

There are enough causes out there to fight for that you don't need to ally yourself with everyone. You don't want to find your organization shilling for the Democrat party in 30 years in bid for continued "relevance."

elemennop posted:

dank_xiaopeng posted:

not lending qualified support and engaging with left-liberal movements like this is a lost opportunity for reds to provide leadership and a viable alternative for disaffected participants.

every action a red organization takes should be designed to strengthen its position in the class struggle. these upheavals, while bound for failure or at best meaningless reforms, are a chance for a party to provide leadership, gain members, and insinuate the correct ideological line into the broader consciousness. we should embrace the broad sentiments that underly upheavals like these, participate in collective actions, and devote resources to the cause. all the while the org should be gently pointing out flaws in liberal logic, presenting concrete demands that further the material position of the party and broader movement, and be ready to pick up the pieces and carry on when the liberals inevitably lose their resolve and the "movement" fails.

This isn't compromising on principles or being reformist, it's just smart organizing. standing apart and yelling i told you so after the fact is a road that will lead communists right into the dumpster, and deservedly so.



Since I haven't bothered reading about these protests at all, I don't necessarily disagree with your position in this instance, but I'm not really sure you should follow this as a rule.

Like in general, besides the potential waste of time and resources, there's the question of what do you want to associate your organization with? How do you want people to think about your organization? What kind of people do you want to attract to your organizations? I mean, it would be nice to believe otherwise, but if you're an organization that constantly associates itself with liberal movements and attracts liberal support, there's a good chance your organization is becoming liberal.

There are enough causes out there to fight for that you don't need to ally yourself with everyone. You don't want to find your organization shilling for the Democrat party in 30 years in bid for continued "relevance."

well, yeah, no shit. i wasn't saying orgs should canvas for bernie or support improved VA benefits for the Troops, i was saying that broad, nebulous anti-racist actions like these can be a fertile ground for organizing

babyhueypnewton posted:

The options are not 'do nothing' and 'support everything'. The radicalism of the BLM movement derives from the existing material conditions of 2015 America. that's gonna happen with or without a BLM movement. In fact, the BLM movement, which in structure is identical to this liberal garbage, is an attempt to coopt and channel this energy into liberal politics:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/movement_needs_to_say_what_it_wants?page=1

Movements are defined by their demands – a truth that appears to have been widely forgotten in the two generations since Black America experienced a mass movement. There are Revolutionary Demands, such as for the abolition of prisons, which cannot occur absent a thorough social transformation. There are genuine Reformist Demands, which can be achieved without an overthrow of the rulers, but restrains them, while enhancing the power of the people and materially improving their actual conditions. An example: a demand that the U.S. Justice Department bring the number of Blacks incarcerated on drug charges down to the level of white drug offenders in the federal system, within a given time period. And then there are “reforms” that amount to tinkering around the edges without effecting real change in the essential status quo. Such “concessions” may actually make the prevailing order more palatable, and give a false impression of progress and popular empowerment. Examples include more training for police, without altering the core police mission in the Mass Black Incarceration State.

Glen Ford forgets a new form of demands: reactionary demands in which a movement refuses to make demands at all. Since demands naturally rise form political struggle, the insistence on having a lack of demands in order to be as inclusive as possible is in reality a reaction against politics and the aspirations of the oppressed without access to the informal social capital that makes up these Occupy-lite political movements.

This movement, like the BLM movement, is not just liberal but reactionary because it is not the real movement but the movement as it is being presented to the media by those who can shape the narrative. There's been a form of ultra-movementism here recently as a reaction against the ultra-leftism that one sees among bourgeois first world leftists and social chauvanists. But supporting anything and everything, particularly if it tickles our racism funny bone in America (which is the only american discourse one can be proudly revolutionary and not be socially shamed), is equally absurd

here we have an example of the baby-like newtonian practiced ignorance in action. glen ford is describing exactly groups failing to make demands as being brought into the standard consensus discourse. he's not "forgetting" anything, he's describing the process you think you're describing but is actually talking about concrete events, which you totally miss because you don't know what materialism is. on top of that, this movement actually has a concrete list of demands! wow! if you actually had put in a minimal amount of effort into understanding the actual event you're talking about instead of just quoting people saying things you don't understand you could have avoided this embarrassment. if you paid any attention you would know that part of the demands are collective control of the selection of the next president, for example, which at the very least is near the edge of Ford's definition of a "reformist demand" as a demand that can be achieved without gross changes to the system defining the status quo (in case you didn't know, university presidents are selected by a group much like an executive board).

RedMaistre posted:

CUA.

Two of my cousins are enrolled there

c_man posted:

swampman posted:

Great. The students should try to be critically supportive of the KKK regarding their several shared issues, all the while gently pointing out flaws in the backwater racist logic. If the students become active participants in Klan rallies, it's possible they can get the correct line into the discourse, and when the KKK fails/gives up, the students will be there to take control of the broader movement.

its really telling that you put black students protesting racism on the same footing as the kkk

I am feeling really, really strawpersoned by this post.