I haven’t had the chance to read the manifesto yet, but the vibe I’ve gotten from Sunkara and Jacobin as a whole is front window store socialist recruitment, with some exceptions, Cedric Johnson writes some great pieces. But strictly based on interviews I’ve listened to with Bhaskar, I’d say Greene’s criticisms ring correct, great essay. My 2 part question to Greene would be, is the DSA program, for all its historical dead end predecessor resemblances, something still worthwhile as a recruitment tool for ordinary masses to get them through the door of anti capitalist thought and practice, and if so, would it behove more radical leftists and communists to break with DSA ranks after we’ve amassed power and not before?
Full disclosure, I self identified for almost 20 years as an anarchist but now that I’ve gotten older I’m realizing my politics between 1996 and 2014 was actually a growth from right to left collapsetarian. Doing research work in the Philippines pre-MAGA America broke me of that shit. Typhoons, earth quakes, dilapidated infrastructure, deprivation, plantation heir great grand-fail-children as the political aristocracy, goon police, open air septic systems, human beings walking about with visible tumors, but you know what else I saw, people doing heavy city scale industrial work in flip flops, no helmets, no high visibility vests etc. (Side note: labor activists in the PI who’s activism is strictly based on a progressive~OSHA~hazard pay praxis get disappeared) My point is people don’t lie down and die in apocalyptic situations. I think the US decay and decline will honestly resemble the USSR’s deterioration, implosion and fracturing mixed with the class divide of a banana republic. So circling back to Greene’s essay, I’m not a dues paying member but through labor and immigrant organizing I work with my local DSA, as well as some other anarchist and communist orgs, ought we be open to whatever recruitment brings people to socialism, and from there pull our comrades towards communism? Would it be easier to push towards communism from within DSA than it would be to drag DSA towards communism from outside sects. I welcome critique and push back because my ideas aren’t settled but are in motion with the changes I observe daily.
Great pieces in Cosmonaut, keep it up!
Bo
