Diving into the Wreckage 6.4: Sometimes the Light at the End of the Tunnel is a Train w/ C. Derick Varn
Added 2022-12-14 11:00:03 +0000 UTCSean and Varn take a brief intermission from their long-running debt crisis series to check in on the state of the American Left. (Tl;dr it's not looking good.)
Where have the forces unleashed by the Bernie wave gone? Why has the social-democratic left become merely an adjunct to the Democratic Party? How come revolutionary organizations have either liquidated themselves into the DSA or remained marginal micro-sects? In what ways might these two coeval paths be overcome and what part might all of us play in this overcoming?
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Comments
The most important problem for communists right now is a lack of organization. What I want to see from communist theorists tackling the problem of a lack of organization is one or more template constitutions for hypothetical new organizations with annotations describing why all the details have been correctly chosen to produce the correct balance of power. I also want to see systematic analyses of the organizational structures and constitutions of current and past movements. Until we can treat organization and power structures scientifically we will be stuck where we are socially. At least this might change the problem for potential organizers from "where do we even begin?" to "which template constitution should we use?" which is a more concrete question and therefore easier to answer. Still hard, but definitely easier. Actually, I'm not that arrogant. This kind of stuff is probably already being done, but I, as someone who only occasionally reads theory, haven't seen it. Maybe a better question is, where is everyone who's already doing this?
Samuel Yusim
2022-12-22 02:52:20 +0000 UTCAs long as people take it seriously I dont care what they call it. I just doubt it will remain in the realm of spectacle as things deterioirate. Eventually modern people will have to decide if another round of the "american experiment" is something they can stomach or something they will decide is a breaking point. There are allies, but I suspect the majority will just metabolize this including much of the left. Given that all the other atrocities have been digested and re-written to support a liberal imperial narrative, I have a bad feeling about how things will go for trans people in red states in the coming years. I do agree though that we wont have a repeat of european style mass politics. More likely a legalistic pogrom in some way. Regardless of the pedantics of what we call it, as this is happening in the digital age, no one will be able to claim ignorance regardless of what happens, and I think it will prove a test of "the lefts" (I would argue that the left barely even exists just now) humanist credentials and will to fight if nothing else. I am prepared to be disappointed. My family is armed and ready to run if need be. EDIT: In hindsight your response has bugged me to the point that I am choosing to unsubscribe. Your political analysis is excellent, but your perspective in this response is disappointing and really really cishet white leftist debate bro-esque. If a queer person tells you its fascim on a local level (here in texas they are using the carcerial state to hunt the families of trans people) where they live, choosing to respond with that with a "but actually its not literally european mass politics" tells me your perspective is probably that of a leftist who does not actually take those communities or their concerns that seriously. If your marxist takes arent intersectional then its probably just white dude tankie bullshit like so much else of the "marxist left." This is only an acadmic debate to you as you have the privilige to not be impacted, and your response is screaming that you do not care enough to examine that privilige. Im out yall. Been a good ride.
Bilbo
2022-12-17 22:44:27 +0000 UTCnone of it is to say they aren't reactionary or dangerous, it's just to say that anti-LGBTQ+ and racism are as american as apple pie and don't need to be seen through the rubric of european reactionary movements of the early-20th century. we saw that with native genocide and an apartheid regime that predated fascism and nazism by a few generations and were, as we know, partially inspired by the 'american experiement'. so calling what's happening right now as fascism can make it seem like an aberration within american history as opposed to a clear homegrown current that goes all the way back to the 17th century and is more essential to this country than many on the left want to deal with
The Antifada
2022-12-16 18:23:30 +0000 UTCInteresting discussion. Depressing, but interesting. One thought I had with regard to the "weird" political party coalitions of the mid 20th century: For most of US history, parties were more social clubs and machines to distribute offices and spoils than strictly ideological organizations. Looking at the Social Security Act of 1935, 85 Republicans voted for it in the House, and 16 Republicans voted for it in the Senate. Can anyone imagine that happening today? The slow ideological alignment of US political parties (mostly asymetric in that Republicans tend to be more ideologically conservative), is something that's been slow to develop over a 70 year period. Sometimes I get the feeling that leftish analyists tend to dismiss "bougious politicis" as a mere epiphenomenon of deeper forces. Maybe that's correct, but don't think the above trend can be dismissed when looking at past political coalitions.
Thomas Leposa
2022-12-16 04:13:30 +0000 UTCGreat stuff but people r def dealing with real world consequences becuz of Twitter. Obviously it's not the cause, but it's def a tool that is being used to bludgeon leftist things and endanger minorities. People r dying, doxxed, communications being cut every day.
Turtle Bugg
2022-12-15 16:55:44 +0000 UTCHey, just wondering, do you guys have a reading list anywhere or a list of sources? Specifically looking for some stuff that would be a good intro into understand modern economics and political economy from not just from more traditionally marxist perspectives.
Mark Brian Wilson
2022-12-15 14:17:51 +0000 UTCTrans woman from Texas here. My name is literally on a list being held by the AG for the sole reason being that im trans. Its not silly or too soon to call it facism.
Bilbo
2022-12-15 05:48:18 +0000 UTCOne of the most compelling Diving into the Wreckage eps yet. Maybe I just like to hear people complain?
Alex Hennessey
2022-12-15 05:39:49 +0000 UTCThe mistake in regards to fascism is treating its initial variant as a fully coherent ideology, as if Mussolini was a man of honor and great intellectual integrity. Fascism posed as a coherent ideology. It stole from the left in its presentation. Mussolini changed his opinions from day to day, contradicted himself constantly. What matters is the rightmost element of Italian society was opportunistically reaching at anything to gain leverage and assert power, ultimately in order to take over the system. To do like that dingbat Daniel Bessner and hyperfocus on the word 'fascism' itself is a mistake. What matters is what the rightmost element of our society is planning to do out in the open.
dusted
2022-12-15 02:13:32 +0000 UTCI’ve found Varn is kind of a useful source of information for some of this inside baseball news about DSA/left groups, but he has a frustratingly scattershot analysis and political perspective imo. Hard to nail him down on any kind of actual viewpoint or political argument. One moment he sounds sort of like an ultra left Marxist or anarchist, the next he sounds like he’s just offering ‘better’ parliamentary strategy…
Matt Crossin
2022-12-15 01:19:03 +0000 UTCSorry you triggered me at ~1:04:00 talking about WSWS. I'm very intimately aware of these "pro R&F/anti-union" freaks. Used to go to their meetings in college, they're literally a political cult. They would shout down in concert every new person that came to their meetings like it was a struggle session.
James Murray
2022-12-15 00:44:26 +0000 UTCAround ~43:00 isn't this just the problem of federalism in general?
James Murray
2022-12-15 00:16:14 +0000 UTCI'm glad to hear varn is sortition pilled
M.R. Alchemist
2022-12-15 00:08:02 +0000 UTCQuick correction on Varn at ~24:00, don't know if this is corrected later in the ep: Starbucks workers aren't organizing into a new union. They are newly unionzed, but they are organized under Workers United, a weird branch of SEIU that was originally a splinter from UNITE HERE.
James Murray
2022-12-14 23:09:17 +0000 UTCNot long enough.
Andrew Greenleaf
2022-12-14 14:59:30 +0000 UTCVarn is wrong about the Chinese vaccine being ineffective against later strains its just that it needs to be 3 doses to be as effective as something like pfizer. He is right about there being vaccine hesitancy as a large percentage of elderly people are not boosted. Here is the study done in Hong Kong against omicron: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/04/19/how-chinas-sinovac-compares-with-biontechs-mrna-vaccine
Yifu Jin
2022-12-14 13:56:39 +0000 UTC
