I appreciate everyone’s responses a lot. I also think it was good to remove the post because there was some reactionary stuff in the google doc I linked. I found it through one of the articles that Bad Mouse’s link led to, not in any of the other comments. I only looked at the “first hand accounts” links in the doc and didn’t even double check what else there was so that’s my error.

I had a feeling the take would be that there are certainly big flaws, as there are in any org, with any group of people, but PSL is still one of the few vehicles for socialist agitation that there actually exists, and by joining it we can help improve it.

I’m likely going to be moving to San Francisco when I’m back in the states in case anyone has recommendations about specific orgs in the bay that are certainly good.

Also I got to say Bad Mouse’s ultra turn also bummed me out a little. It seems like such a baby leftist thing to do to just shit on a socialist party from across an ocean and then refuse to elaborate.

  • Greenleaf [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    101·
    6 months ago

    Respectfully, the takes I have seen from Socialist Alternative Socialist Workers Party regarding international issues are beyond the pale. Like “unwavering support for Israel against the capitalist regime in Tehran” level shit.

    I don’t have a huge problem with Trots in theory (if they put Trotsky’s ideas on a pedestal and express distaste for Stalin, for example). But my problem is when Trots start taking positions that happen to perfectly align with the US State Dept, then we have a problem.

    • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      21·
      6 months ago

      SAlt doesn’t do “unwavering support for Israel”. They’re more guided by a knee-jerk “neither Washington nor Moscow rise up workers” characterization of every geopolitical question.

      A relevant example regarding Israel and Iran: https://www.socialistalternative.org/2024/01/31/gaza-crisis-unfolds-into-deadly-regional-war/

      From that article:

      “Amidst the New Cold War conflict for global domination between US and Chinese imperialism”

      “Many working people correctly see the diplomatic efforts of the US-aligned Arab and Islamic capitalist dictatorships like Qatar, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as completely ineffective in stopping Israel’s massacre of the Palestinian people. However, the militarism of the China-aligned Iranian regime and its allies do not pose a way out.”

      “However, the regional imperialist mullah-regime of Iran, backed by China and Russia, and its allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, have shown time and again that whenever they are confronted with the threat of working people and youth fighting against their immiseration, they won’t hesitate to use bloody measures similar to what the IDF uses on Palestinians. Any wider war would only use the working class as cannon fodder for the interests of each of these imperialist blocs.”

      Articles like these are nearly always rambling, hitting a series of criticisms in order to distinguish SAlt itself. Everyone else does it wrong, only our bottom-up class struggle will ever solve the problem, etc etc. Material analysis is clearly not a priority and there is no real point to these articles aside from what serves the org itself. Standard stuff for Trot newspapers. It’s incredibly formulaic and amounts to, ironically for self-described Marxists, attempting to confirm reality to a very particular idealism.

      • SunforgedEnglish
        11·
        6 months ago

        Those are valid criticisms, you just disagree with them.

          • SunforgedEnglish
            11·
            6 months ago

            You can’t even refer to them without using your little nickname, it’s childish, petty and extremely off-putting for any point you are attempting to make.