"For those who choose to advance to meet Fate determined to mould it to their purpose that future may be as bright as our picture is dark." 💪 😎 https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/01/newyear.htm

Lane Kirkland (AFL-CIO president at the time) was the perfect labor bureaucrat and Cold War warrior who passively oversaw the decline of the US labor movement from 1979 to 1995. But even he could spot the giant red flags — and not the good kinds! — in the Democrats' economic strategy decades ago.

That doesn't mean there won't be conflict in DSA. Democracy is impossible without conflicts. But they can be temporary, surmountable, and not feel like existential battles between justice and injustice. We're just debating about different wagers about how to achieve our shared goals.

But that's not true in DSA. DSA does not have rival classes. Members are not divided by big differences in material interests. There's no exploitative relationship. The org *can* be much more harmonious than it currently is because we're part of an organic whole that is moving in the same direction.

In a society with exploitation and rival classes, differences and conflict are inevitable, can be quite serious, and can't just be talked through. The whole point of the socialist project is to say: "yes we want a society that is harmonious but you have to abolish classes first to get that."

One of the things that's frustrating though totally predictable about the NYT piece I took those screenshots from is that it ignores the fact that in a class divided society, some serious ideological differences cannot just be accepted as "we just see things differently."

Those are important parts of internal democracy but they need to be part of a broader vision for a healthy, vibrant, and non-factionalized political organization.

I wonder what can be done to adjust internal DSA life to get us to a more mature and sustainable place. I think we're overdue for a serious conversation about the role of ideological tendencies and temporary slates for elections.

Bernie taking some steps back to the old Bernie and the electoral model he developed in the 80s and 90s. I support it! www.left-notes.com/p/the-real-b...