The entire article is very good and gives a solid reasoning (for baby leftists, not anyone here) of why we need to support Cuba. It also highlights the weakness of both the DSA and the DSA IC from within that allowed this to happen + the steps they need to take. Give it a read. (The more I read stuff like this plus the history of real movements I realize why things like DemCent and other hardline ML things are needed but that's not a discussion for here).
I'm highlighting just the parts relevant to the title.
Multiple delegates chose to skip out on parts of the programming, including declining to meet with the president of Cuba, who held a frank conversation with the delegates who did attend for more than two hours.
Throughout the trip, members of the delegation from the Reform & Revolution Caucus (R&R) and the Socialist Majority Caucus (SMC) criticized the Cuban government both to our Cuban hosts and other DSA members, and skipped out on multiple delegation events. Most shamefully, both Maria (representing R&R) and Renée (representing SMC, and a member of the current NPC) skipped out on meeting with President Díaz-Canel, who spent more than 2 hours in a frank discussion specifically addressing the critiques these very same DSA members brought up to their Cuban hosts earlier on the trip. This means that the Cuban hosts were listening thoughtfully to the critiques and relayed them back to the President. That our Cuban comrades would care this deeply and thoroughly about our critiques is a sign that they honor us as equals and truly want to make ties with U.S. socialists, as relatively powerless as we are.
Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups while on delegation, which when taken together with the fact of her skipping the meeting with the comrade President suggests a goal of undermining the Cuban socialist state, not defending it against U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, R&R declined to follow what few guidelines the International Committee offered around discussion of the trip after returning. Delegates were instructed to keep news of the conversation with President Díaz-Canel private until an official reportback; R&R decided instead to discuss this at their caucus panel, pre-empting the official reportback.
Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups...
Imagine going all the way to Cuba just to talk to the CIA... smdh
skipped out on meeting with President Díaz-Canel, who spent more than 2 hours in a frank discussion specifically addressing the critiques these very same DSA members brought up to their Cuban hosts earlier on the trip.
Admire Canel's patience to put up with the kind of freak that takes the opportunity of going to Cuba to backseat actual socialists. Same energy as the Weather Underground being petitioned by the Viet Minh to build a broad movement and focus on bringing along the masses, but our audacious white saviours know better than that: we must build a perfect party of 14 people instead.
Raúl Castro managed to find literally the gentlest person in the entirety of Cuba to succeed him.
Or, more likely, after decades of dealing with the US, they know what to expect, even from the “socialists”.
Canel was also incredibly popular in the country by virtue of his own actions too. He wasn't just handed power by Raúl, he had to work for it.
A recently stumbled upon some article (Wikipedia?) that listed some of the things WU did and I thought they sounded cool as hell.
I didn't look into it further and now I'm sad
Don't let that one misguided decision dissuade you, things aren't so black and white. They were mostly pretty cool, I'd recommend you watch this doc if you're interested in the history of that sort of group.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
It really is amazing that they’re given any time at all. Shit, even the Japanese Communist Party would result in more than this.
Honestly this has been a huge push in the "join an org" direction for me. If Cuba is willing to meet with these people there's an actual chance I could too
You'd be surprised where you could go if you work in a communist party.
Folks I know have been sent to every AES state in existence, a few of the axis of resistance countries, and even states not recognized by the U.N because of western fuckery. Not only that but through communist connections you can even pursue free educations in some countries for a few years and be granted financial backing into learning languages while immersed in their countries.
Like honestly if I wasn't tied down with my own life responsibilities I'd use my own connections to try and get some communist degrees and learn the language in the PRC right now.
As far as international destinations go it seems Cuba is relatively cheap (if you're privileged enough to have any time or money to travel) to get to from the US. I'm planning on going later this year if I can swing it to celebrate actually seriously learning Spanish for more than a year.
To all those people screaming "Read Settlers!" at me: you may have had a point.
Lmao, why bother going to a country that you don’t support at all? You would think that Cuba is one of the litmus tests for leftists aside from palestine which i’m sure they fail on that part too.
The DSA doesn’t even ideologically alligned with global south countries, just go to a EU organized liberal socialist conferences in some nordic petrol-state instead. Or better, go to the Rosa Luxemberg center in Germany.
Yeah the fact that this happened is Cuba is deeply disappointing and embarassing
The fact that there are no vetting processes within the organization is embarrassing. funny enough, i don’t see organizations in the global south initiate lecturing western organizations the way they should do organization
They probably should though. Need a new Comintern to keep us in line.
That’s basically one of the things this article is arguing for. The problem with DSA is most of the committees and chapters are just making it up as they go.
I know... If I was part of that delegation, I'd literally die from embarrassment. I could never stop apologizing to my hosts. Like, even if you have criticisms of Cuba (which, as fucking Amerikkkan, how dare you?) the sheer gall of behaving like this to your fucking host like what??? My POC ass could never. Literally behaving worse than children.
Yeah, this screams "I'm a murican so I know better than you savages" lib shit
What's new? At the height of DSA's popularity during the Sanders campaign, I checked out their website. I read their history, and they celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR, thinking that it was their turn to lead lead their version of "democratic socialism" in the former eastern bloc countries. The fall of the USSR ushered in rightwing governments aligned with US imperialism in these countries, but these SocDems will keep aligning themselves with US interests hoping for the collapse of the remaining Socialist countries.
To be fair to DSA it’s not just social democrats anymore. Tons of young people joined after Bernie just because he called himself a democratic socialist. That made DSA an incoherent space full of all sorts of self identified left wing activists. The old guard with their outdated anti communism quickly became the minority. Additionally the MLs that radicalized while in DSA were unsurprisingly the ones who actually figured out how to actually run the org. The general membership recognized that and voted a lot of them into leadership positions. They’re actually the ones who wrote this article.
I saw someone from Lemmy come in here defending her as their friend and being all "she does more organizing work than you losers"
I was very happy to see them dogpiled immediately
"she does more organizing work than you losers"
That's probably 100% true if it's comparing a DSA member with forum posters but it's beside the point
It was delightful to see people quoting Combat Liberalism lmao
"she does more organizing work than you losers"
this is somewhat valid of a criticism. It's a little sad to know that despite the correct insults towards her, it is mostly from people who have never done any organizing before
She is doing counter-revolutionary organizing, it would be better to do nothing.
Honestly I feel like even counter-revolutionary shit like DSA is a step up from whatever the fuck America is right now. It's also not like there's anything to even be counter-revolutionary against right now lmao
Maria was literally being counter-revolutionary against the cuban revolution. She hold social chauvinist and pro-imperialist views.
The user mentioned how she was a "comrade factory" making comrades out of libs. I doubt this is true, but even if it was she's just making one kind of lib out of another kind of lib if she's converting them to her own ideology. And that new kind of lib is even more arrogant, imperialist and chauvinist than your default lib.
For example, on the issue of Ukraine I've found a lot more success arguing for revolutionary defeatist practice with normie libs like my mom than I've had with radlibs and succs who are invested in imperialist propaganda.
I view DSA as like a middle step/pipeline shit
Get people to start becoming politically involved and aware, and hope good folks like the authors of this inside DSA/other organizers they'll inevitably meet to push them further left
I see it as a screen. A way to stop people who would normally radicalize, redirecting them into chauvinism. Nations with strong communist parties and populations don’t require a succ dem transition stage for baby leftists, as if they are some insect that has to go into a cocoon to metamorphose, they just become communists right away instead and skip the cringe phase
Yea and we're obviously not a nation with strong communist parties?
Material conditions make it extremely hard for people here to just become pro revolution straight away
Hand waving away criticism of a party with a clearly reactionary member who met with anti Cuban government actors while having to opportunity to meet with the leader of said government and refused using "Material Conditions" is very embarrassing.
DSA isn’t a party though and it doesn’t operate like one. It’s more like an association if that makes sense. As they become more party like and do things like send delegations to other countries it’s important they learn from their mistakes. The point of this article is to kick off a set of reforms that will prevent embarrassing things like this from recurring.
Ok can we at least keep the cringe babies in some type of quarantine until they have completed their metamorphosis? Maybe don’t send chauvinist idiots like this as delegations to form coalitions and do actual diplomatic work
I don't really see things in such simple utilitarian terms, and I think they are bad in a very complicated way that can't be placed on a "good to evil" gradient
Any organization that approaches the point of being a threat to established hegemony is immediately and mercilessly crushed
For context, the two chauvinists were from a Trot contingent and a socdem contingent. They are behaving exactly as you'd expect them to, they have no idea how to do anything except tell other people what they should really be doing in order to be properly on the left. The SocDem contingent is the one that carried water for Bowman btw.
Trots and succdems have been lecturing the winners on how to ackshually run countries since 10000BC
Imagine turning down the chance of meeting with the president of an AES country and still calling yourself a socialist. Fucking western leftists I swear.
Lemme guess, they're Trots?
if you're an Yankee going to latin America, especially a former American colony now under siege like Cuba, you need to sit down and shut up, your settler ass has absolutely no standing to criticize their affairs. And meeting with anti-government "dissidents"? Disgusting. Might as well be freelancing for the CIA. Yankee imperialists show an ounce of fucking humility challenge (impossible)
Fucking white people shouldn’t hold any positions in an American socialist org, they should have sent a black or indigenous person, they money would be appreciated though.
Funny how people criticize the USSR of having a red bourgeoisie where the rules don’t apply to them and they have more privileges.
But here we are with sending two people who probably have the means to pay for the trip and to build their clout into the DNC.
Yankee imperialists show an ounce of fucking humility challenge (impossible)
More like show an ounce of financial savvy because if you're going to shill for empire, at least get paid for it lmao
I’d love to see them do this dumb shit in Burkina Faso to Ibrahim Traoré. Dude would not be as forgiving as Díaz-Canal has been.
Dude would not be as forgiving as Díaz-Canal has been.
He met with them for two hours addressing the criticism from the most rabid anti-communists who declined to even attend and instead met with dissidents…I can’t even imagine. If it was me, I’d have them literally jailed, not even kidding (it’s why I should not be a leader, cuz I know it would just worsen relations, but I couldn’t resist.)
God. The sheer fucking entitlement. The…I can’t. I just can’t.
Embarrassing the DSA should eject Maria at the very least from the organization.
The more I read stuff like this plus the history of real movements I realize why things like DemCent [emphasis added] and other hardline ML things are needed but that’s not a discussion for here
The article itself essentially makes that claim, just in coded language:
These shortcomings are all symptoms of underdevelopment in DSA’s diplomatic work, stemming from a lack of structure, standards, and norms [emphasis added] about how members should conduct themselves when representing the organization to foreign parties and governments, especially those much more developed in their practice of socialism than us.
In an effort to have a generative political conflict out of this situation, and to encourage positive change in how we engage in member-driven diplomatic work, we propose the following guidelines for structuring delegations and the work that follows them in the future as a way to maximize these principles and ensure that our delegations are beneficial for delegates and DSA alike.
Then proceeds to list four things that would be common sense to any "DemCent" organization.
Red Star Caucus practices democratic centralism within their DSA caucus lol
Lots of resources, good budget, does a ton of stuff that is really good (like actually connecting with the local community and helping them) but PSL doesn't, in way more cities and lots of more members than other parties
lol, but wouldn't that be grounds for DSA to kick them out? IIRC, the DSA's bylaws forbid anyone that is "operating under the direction of a democratic centralist organization" or something like that.
It's almost impossible to be kicked out of DSA, whether it's being too right wing or left wing
