Permanently Deleted

  • TossedAccount [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Rest assured that my org is not chapo.chat, which I acknowledge is not an "org" at all but a public forum for different tendencies to put their ideas forward and discuss news and theory while attempting to avoid sectarian flame wars.

    My org's current approach acknowledges we're in the "put wood together" stage and most of our current praxis is wood-gathering and doing united-front work/critical support when possible, but we follow one of the blueprints very closely to guide our wood-gathering effort, and emphasize teaching the blueprint in internal education and attempting to win people within that broader united front that can agree on the "build a house" part over to our specific blueprint. My understanding is this is typical for a single-tendency org that hasn't gone off their rocker and fallen into the "everything is a nail" trap, though some may go further and promote popular-frontism, which my org doesn't (else we'd take the DSA more seriously).

    Regarding my comment about the DSA, the qualifier "in part" deserves more emphasis. It wasn't my intention to imply that was the only reason. Their big-tent "let's stop at gathering wood, at most" org clearly has other problems, some of which you've listed.

    I should probably have been more explicit about this: right now, in a western context where the old left is only beginning to recover from its old wounds, for the purpose of united-front organizing, a lot of these irreconcilable issues aren't important enough to be life-and-death in our local context. If this weren't true, chapo chat would probably settle towards a single tendency and alienate everyone else. However, as the left continues to grow, precision becomes increasingly important. Being 95% correct is good enough right now. But it might be make-or-break at some point in the future when the organized left is developed enough to be approaching the capacity to build towards dual power, when the stakes dramatically increase and the responsibilities of the working-class leadership grow as they prepare to take on the capacities of a state. At that point, perhaps mere decades from now, continuing to be 95% correct could become more dangerous than being only 50% correct. Reaching this crucial point has historically happened faster outside of the west than inside it.

    You’re the one trying to say that being right on chapo.chat is tied to being a member of life saving organization where the difference in opinion can kill millions or something. I’m not making that argument, you are.

    This is not the case I was trying to make at all. I was explaining why I specifically have to consider my organization when expressing my position online, because part of my membership involves persuading people to my position.

    Of course clearly I can't do a very good job of this individually, because I'm stuck at home and can't talk to people who aren't already politically educated and in the same position I am but in a different organization/tendency. Chapo chat isn't and shouldn't be my primary audience (especially because it's an anonymous site, and I don't use my real name on social media) but posting while involuntarily glued to the armchair was I habit I've fallen into for lack of any physical social interaction with even my own comrades, with whom I used to go out and join for protests, rallies, etc. on a regular basis before covid forced me to move.

    Your reminder is a useful one; there are serious limitations to posting in online left spaces that I need to overcome through other uses of my time.