There seems to be a lot of opinions floating around, and PSL members seem particularly vocal though I’ve heard some rumblings of SA from leadership.
Because of the constant risk of CIA infiltration I know all orgs need to be justifiably paranoid, though I’ve no idea if any are completely CIA captured. If any are I’d assume it’s CPUSA because of their prominence.
At first glance the RCA seems interesting (Edit: misread something earlier, fuck them Trots) but I don’t know enough about their OpSec yet. That’s why this seems a really valuable question to bring to the community. In theory I’d want to join one I can join under an alias in case of infiltration.
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You are correct that CPUSA is captured, and comically so. One of our Admins is an outspoken advocate for PCUSA, though there is (imo petty) disagreement on the board about some of their tactics. I think they’re alright.
I think PSL is good and the controversy you allude to, while a real issue, got wildly overblown into a way to discredit the whole organization, which I think is wrecker shit. Moreover, that has little to do with branch membership (outside of where it happened), who I’m sure will condemn such reactionary behaviors and not tolerate it in their spaces. Like, I think it’s important to distinguish between an organization that has serious problems versus one that is top-to-bottom owned by the bourgeoisie like CPUSA or fascist like the ACP or a sex cult like whatever group Maupin formed after his old sex cult got disrupted. Or a cult cult, like the RCP (not to be confused with the RCA, which is a Trotsky cult but isn’t half as bad as the RCP)
I have a hard time recommending the RCA to a stranger, since I think they can do good work but are also likely to enculturate you to some insipid views. At that point, it’s just as viable or more so to go to an anarchist group, who probably spends more time on mutual aid and less on selling newspapers. There’s a good chance also that an anarchist group is ideologically more a group of convenience and humanitarian concern rather than abstract ideological commitments, which should make members much easier to interact constructively with (I would also say this about the DSA, though the odds are lower, and maybe also the PSL).
There’s also the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which from what I’ve seen is probably the closest ideologically to places like lemmygrad and hexbear, if that’s a good reference point for you, but I don’t really know and they’re somewhat smaller. I’ve just glanced at some of their articles.
But I think the more grounded answer that isn’t based on internet slapfights is that you should investigate the local branches yourself and see what they have to say, and they might be worth joining even if it’s the DSA or be a complete waste of time even though they’re PSL. Just stay away from CPUSA, ACP, and RCP; fuck those guys.
There’s also the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which from what I’ve seen is probably the closest ideologically to places like lemmygrad and hexbear
No, I think PSL is closer. FRSO has a very similar line overall, but they’re much softer on settler colonialism in the US context.
They reject settler colonialism and believe Indigenous people don’t have nations and that Chicanoism is he only Indigenous movement in US
Utterly pathetic position.
Unless there is something I’m missing the above isn’t true at all. They recognize Native Americans, Alaskans, Pacific Islanders, and Hawaiians as indigenous movements and call for full sovereignty of those groups:
For the statement rejection of settler-colonialism, their position is (or at least the head theorist appears to say) that America is in a state of imperialist monopoly capital which is derived and developed from settler-colonialism. This development has its own sets of contradictions and characteristics, some deprived from settler-colonial basis and others from the transition to monopoly capital in that context, however due to being at the stage of capital development it is not the case in which the multinational working class of the U.S. merely has revolutionary potential in its oppressed nationalities as white supremacist ideology under monopoly capitalism has new characteristics that make it harmful in some aspects to the white working class and this there is a basis of exploitation for them to have revolutionary potential.
In essence the U.S. is monopoly capitalism with settler-colonial characteristics.
The article people use for saying they reject settler-colonialism is the following one:
I think your initial statement was closer to correct unless there is some articles I missed or cadre only lines of ideology FRSO holds that the above user was referring to.
PCUSA is very much not alright, they post nazbol shit on their twitter and they yell at you when you interview.
oup Maupin
Waiwaiwait what’s up with that sex cult story wtf
While this should not be taken as me broadly endorsing prolewiki, they have a good article summarizing his shitty career: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Caleb_Maupin
*Maupin’s fetish for spanking is well-documented, and it is something that he brings into seemingly every conversation he has with people for his own sexual gratification. *
i have no words
the one that’s actually active where you live, and you should probably widen that to any anti-capitalist anti-imperialist group. If trots are doing the work and not just selling newspapers go hang out with the trots.
just vote democrat every 4 years
🤣
otherwise you might get another tyran and he’s gonna be even meaner!!! vote for us we bomb civilianz
Locally, join whatever is available. Make connections with like-minded people and do good things in your community. If the vibes are bad, join a different one.
Find the one that most closely aligns with your ideological tendency and jump if to see if the water’s fine. Make sure you make whatever meetings there are, listen first for a few weeks to before diving into whatever party culture you’re entering. Nobody likes a self-styled vanguard of the masses walking in day one and trying to command their way to revolution. See what skills you can learn, be that organizing and running meetings, taking efficient notes, learning a bit of digital art to make agitprop, working on your journalistic writing for whatever party web-paper you’re writing for, etc. If nothing else, spend whatever time in whatever party you join productively. Also don’t be a wrecker shitheel that steals shit from your by then former party.
Also we’re more worried about the FBI domestically. If you’re a traveling delegate, then you’d be more worried about the DHS-ICE.
I agree with psl posters. But side note
People rightfully shit on dsa but the local orgs can vary pretty wildly from shit lib to ml anti imperialists. There is a certain amount of whichever local group is near you bc a lot of places don’t have a lot of choice.
Gonna be honest none of the orgs have really matured to a point of real political viability. Nyc dsa is a force in nyc but also full of shit libs so yeah.
This really comes down to where you live and who has members. Communist orgs in the states are incredibly small. I’ve worked with at least a dozen and I’ve never encountered a branch with more than 10 active members.
And also it seems standard that American communist org branches have a high degree of autonomy compared to something like more robust national parties in other countries. So one branch in one city might be full of cool folks and a branch of the same org elsewhere might be full of doofuses. That’s just how it goes sometimes.
Best way for you to figure out how to get organized is email/call orgs and see which ones have branches in your area and figure out which one you feel most comfy with.
The two orgs I see most often supported on Lemmy in the US Empire are PSL and FRSO. Both seem among the best of what’s available. RCA is Trotskyist, so if you’re looking for an ML org they’re a terrible option.
Personally, I prefer PSL. FRSO has had some questionable takes on settler-colonialism in the US.
Does anybody actually know where the PSL came from just curious
Putting this socratically so I do not get banned for sectarianism
RCA is Trotskyist, so if you’re looking for an ML org they’re a terrible option.
Ah shit I think I mistook them for a different one then. There was a revcom one I was reading about but I probably mixed up the names in my head, thanks for telling me. I don’t even need an ML one as long as it’s Marxist but also not Trostkyist.
Yea, actually saw them IRL and guessed they were trots because they were selling newspapers, lol.
And yea, I’ll say it again, in the US Empire PSL seems to be the best bet.
no idea but I do know PSUCA is nazbol and is awful to prospective members. When I did a phone interview with the party chair he spent half an hour yelling at me before I told him to go fuck himself.
PSL
It depends on where you live and what the local chapters are like. I’d try going to whatever public events each of them has and talk to a few people, see what the vibe is like, and see what they’re doing. For example, if you want to do tenant organizing and PSL is the only org doing that in your city, then join PSL.
BTW keep in mind that becoming a full member of PSL is about a year-long process. To join DSA you just need to pay dues and send an email. Other orgs are somewhere in between.
Also recommending the PSL, but if you don’t want to take the commitment of becoming a full member, the PSL Action Network is a lower-commitment option.
The SA controversy IIRC refers to someone who was investigated and stripped of their membership for their actions.
Lots of good advice here about linking up with whatever’s local to you, but I do want to say that PSL won’t let you join with an alias. I have the same kind of concerns you do, though I also respect their reasons for it.
What are they going to do, ID you? Just give them a name they won’t know
I run recruitment for my branch and there’s no fucking way you’d get through onboarding with a fake identity. If we couldn’t stop that, we’d be nothing but cops.
Do you demand ID? I don’t have social media and haven’t gone by my legal name in years, would I just get rejected on those merits alone?
In as long of an onboarding process as PSL has, it doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to suss people out. I don’t think cops are going to be able to discuss most leftist positions without revealing themselves as reactionaries pretty quickly. If it takes over a year of classes and showing up to do work just to become a member, it would be very surprising if a cop would even make it 6 months
Do you demand ID? I don’t have social media and haven’t gone by my legal name in years, would I just get rejected on those merits alone?
Not really concerned specifically about legal names, since so many people in the party are trans and use their chosen names. That’s not an alias, it’s your name. If you’re trying to hide your identity, that breaks the fundamental trust needed to be comrades. Anonymity for some opens up enormous security vulnerabilities for everyone.
In as long of an onboarding process as PSL has, it doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to suss people out. I don’t think cops are going to be able to discuss most leftist positions without revealing themselves as reactionaries pretty quickly. If it takes over a year of classes and showing up to do work just to become a member, it would be very surprising if a cop would even make it 6 months
Sure, the initial recruitment is not the only filter for bad actors. You would eventually get sniffed out if you snuck through and you’d be unable to do anything in the meantime. If it turned out six months in you’d been lying about your identity, that would be a betrayal of your comrades and you’d be immediately removed. It’s all about collective security based on trust over individual security based on secrecy.
The org I work with encourages aliases as op sec and it has helped many of us from getting doxxed and attacked by reactionaries. I guess if you have some idea that everyone has to use their names and not an alias, one person doing that is breaking that rule and someone disharmonious, but I don’t understand how using aliases is somehow a trust issue if it’s something your comrades are aware of.
We need to be able to be public facing. In order to grow the revolutionary movement, we have to display the courage to be open with our names and faces. We give public speeches, go door to door and introduce ourselves, we advance our politics among our neighbors and coworkers. That just doesn’t work if you’re anonymous. There are some exceptions, of course - cases where a member’s specific circumstances require their involvement to be much less public for security or strategic reasons. But they aren’t secret to their comrades.
We also have a far better understanding of what people can bring to the struggle. If you know where someone lives, what their job is, where they went to school, etc, you know all of the levers they have available to advance the struggle.
I don’t understand how using aliases is somehow a trust issue if it’s something your comrades are aware of.
Because how do you know who they really are? How do you know they’re not misrepresenting themselves in order to infiltrate? Maybe someone with great skill and patience could slip through PSL’s systems, but in an internally anonymous org, all it takes is walking in the door and saying everyone should call you Lizard. Anonymity is a gift to the state’s disruptive apparatus (under the current circumstances in the US) because it protects them from us much more than the inverse.
All the work we do is public facing and works directly with the community.
Because how do you know who they really are? How do you know they’re not misrepresenting themselves in order to infiltrate? Maybe someone with great skill and patience could slip through PSL’s systems, but in an internally anonymous org, all it takes is walking in the door and saying everyone should call you Lizard
From a very brief surface view: First there is an onboarding process where the new person answers a lot of questions which include class background, work history, etc. they don’t need to give details of exactly where they worked or who they are related to but this process typically reveals a lot.
Then they will be volunteering with the org doing entry level stuff, this is hours of time spent with them where more sussing out happens.
Additionally there is a cadre program where each new recruit goes through mandatory internal education in a cohort of other new members and led by a couple of cadre mentors.
These things combined mean that within the first year, a newer person is spending dozens of hours with cadre who are all evaluating them and paying close attention, while the new recruit is never really given any responsibility or access to anything they could misuse.
Didn’t PSL hand over a list of all members to the feds recently? That’s really my biggest concernI’ve been misinformed
No, what are you talking about?
Sorry friend, I read somewhere that after Elias Rodriguez was arrested the government requested a list of members from the PSL
My main concern is any electronic records. Please tell me y’all don’t use Google docs or unencrypted email…
No, all encrypted stuff.
How would they even know if they don’t demand ID?
Checking publically available sources. If they are skilled liars who want to break the party’s security protocol and expectations of comradely trust, then I suppose they can keep the lie going as long as they can deceive everyone around them.
It’s hard to think of a bigger betrayal of your comrades than lying to them about who you are from day one.
Tell that to Stalin and his alias lol
They want to vet people.
