Our choice: we can maintain a tiny navel-gazing subculture, or build a vibrant mass movement for socialism. Let’s build a mass movement.... Jeremy Gong, DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)
Michael Fiorillo:
Interesting piece from a DSA insider: you will all be shocked, shocked to read what the author says is the divergence within the group ...
At the ICEUFT meeting on Friday, one of the founders, John Lawhead, said that any labor movement must speak to all members, not a select few. Otherwise it becomes a club of like thinking members, clearly a contrast to what is occurring in so many teacher movements in red states. Something some people on the left, who want to aim their appeals at a narrow group of people, are glossing over.
I described some of the tensions within MORE on Friday when we were facing ICE and MORE meetings less than 24 hours apart.
Exploring Caucus Fault Lines: ICEUFT Meets Friday, MORE Meets Saturday. I will delve into what happened when I sort everything out.
I'm Rephrasing Gong's comment:
Our choice: we can maintain a tiny navel-gazing subculture or build a
vibrant mass movement inside the UFT to challenge Unity Caucus. Let’s build a mass movement..
Gong:
We are a “big tent” organization and a democracy, meaning there is no
party line we must adhere to, no cabal of leaders deciding our
direction. We have to sort out among ourselves what kind of organization
we want DSA to be. I see two paths forward emerging for us.
Over the decades in the UFT opposition movements people with the "big tent" idea of challenging Unity across the UFT have been frustrated as the potential of big tents with a wide range of views shrinks to the size of an igloo. Then along come the party liners - not only on the left - Unity is a party liner.
Gong:
They would rather be big fish in a small pond, posturing with their
correct answers, than part of a millions-strong movement that can
actually change the world.
Oh boy does this sound familiar.
Michael F. has come up with an interesting piece on DSA. MORE has had an influx of DSA people - I don't know enough to say which wing of DSA - but they seem to have aligned themselves with the ISO and Labor Notes view, people who want to build a safe space in MORE comfortable for young, activist oriented teachers, many of whom are connected to groups like DSA. On the surface this makes a lot of sense. But aiming at what is a relatively small segment of the UFT does not lead to a broad tent. I see a lot of party liners who want caucus discipline alla Unity.
What some people don't understand it that both ICE and MORE were
basically founded by people who view themselves as socialists. I've
always been in the edge -- never a Marxist though most of the people
who influenced me were Marxists -- I'm too leftarian for that --
I'm more social democrat like Bernie with some belief that Marx was right about so much.
Gong gets to the core that boils things down to the essence of the internal battles in many movements bordering on the left.
On the one hand are those of us who are tired of both the useless compromise politics of the liberal center and the dead-end wheel-spinning of the activist left.
We know that while it’s incredible and historic that 30,000 people
have joined a socialist organization, we are still a tiny fraction of
the US population. We have to grow many times over and consolidate the
democratic socialist movement into an effective weapon against
capitalists and elites before we can really transform our society. This
is the DSA that reaches out into the non-DSA world to fight class
enemies and bring in thousands of new members.
On
the other hand are those who are not interested in the millions of
working people who are not yet active socialists. Instead, they fixate
on the purity and homogeneity of their own in-group and attack other
members of DSA for not meeting their standards. This is the DSA that
looks inward and fights with itself, disappointing and exhausting
activists who joined DSA in order to change the world, and scaring off
those not in DSA from joining.
I was looking to join the DSA myself but don't want to get into the same wars we have been fighting in the UFT over so many decades.
Gong begins by describing two DSAs. We are seeing that there are also two MOREs with some very parallel threads.
