Status of World Socialist Party (US)
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But perhaps you could undertake the role of translating or double-checking translations and while on your web travels, post a few links.
I know you do a lot more activity that ten-minutes a month, Marcos, but the project needs your help. 😀
When the funds start to flow, these advertising links will be useful
I’ll start with Dissent Magazine since they have actual prices which gives an idea on costs
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/dissent-ad-rate-sheet-updated-2019.pdf
Truthdig also shows prices
Another print and online magazine is In These Times
http://inthesetimes.com/advertise/
Counterpunch
If you are interested in placing an advertisement on the CounterPunch website, Becky Grant becky@counerpunch.org.Alternet
https://www.alternet.org/advertise-with-alternet/
https://www.alternet.org/contact/Not for me to say but I think any web ad lay-out should be designed to promote both the WSPUS and the SPC and if you also decide on print issues, maybe just devoted to the WSPUS
Some new (old) material added to the archive section of the WSPUS website:
Some new (old) material added to the archive section of the WSPUS website:
Several articles have been translated or re-written to the Spanish ( Castilian ) language they should be also added to the WSPUS website.
Just a brief report on developments with the American Party.
Membership: A recent applicant for membership was accepted on the Party’s decision making forum – a google discussion list. There are no outstanding applicants but future applicants will be processed by the SPGB Membership Committee by agreement. The WSPUS Gen Sec has contacted the Committee to sort out the details of the arrangement. There are 2 other members – or apparent members – who had not been included in my original Report who are being contacted with a view to getting them involved again.
Literature: The revived WSPUS has got off to a flying start with 2 new pamphlets published via Kindle Direct publishing (hardcopies also available) These are the first two in a planned pamphlet series with several writers contributing
How the drive for profit devastates our environment: World Socialism Pamphlets 1 (World Socialist Pamphlets)
Employment — a form of slavery?: World Socialism Pamphlets 2
by WSPUS (WSM)The link is as follows https://www.amazon.com/s?k=WSPUS+WSM%27&rh=n%3A154606011&ref=nb_sb_noss
Other literature include a possible stock leaflet for distribution at events such as the big Socialism2019 event in Chicago (where we have some members)
Website: This is being revived an updated with some fresh material included
The Link is follows: https://www.wspus.org/
Comrade Jordan Levi is working on a YouTube facility
Publicity Drive: Plans have been made to embark on a substantial publicity drive thanks to the injection of funds (£5000) approved by the EC of SPGB recently . Provisionally four types of outlets have been selected: left-wing journals, science/ecology journals, student newspapers, social media, allocating $1,500 to each of the first three types of outlet, $1,000 to social media, and the remaining $900 toward the cost of distributing free literature (with the expectation of covering the latter partly from the WSPUS’s own funds).
The hope is that this will generate a very significant increase in publicity contacts out of which future applications for membership might emerge. People contacting the WSPUS will also have the option of taking advantage of the trial subscription offer to the Socialist Standard so this could also benefit the SPGB as well in terms of an increase in the number of subscribers to the SS
Cooperation with the Canadian Party: Discussions are presently taking place about possible forms of cooperation between the two parties. The EC is due to discuss next month providing similar support for the Canadian party to enable it to likewise embark on the kind of publicity drive that the WSPUS is planning.
All in all the position that the WSPUS finds itself in now is a lot more upbeat and positive than it was a few months ago…
A very promising start. All involved should get a pat on the back.
Hopefully the World Socialism pamphlet series will be expanded – and feature on the WSPUS website. The SOYMB blog will help as much as it can so don’t neglect to inform it of developments. It receives more page-views from the USA than the UK (but that isn’t saying much)
I did look at the ISO organized Chicago event on the web
Not wishing to derail the thread…but a quick question, what does No Binaries mean? Transgender politics?
Anyways, we have to go where we can attract attention, even if it does mean piggy-backing on the activities of others.
Our opposition also see an opportunity for growth
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/23/communist-party-usa-chicago-cpusa-convention
Came across this link on Libcom and gives us some measure of hope although our sights are a lot lower than DSA’s 100,000 members by 2021
http://www.rosalux-nyc.org/wp-content/files_mf/dsamoritzwichmann.pdf
“…In 2013, the average age of DSA members was 68 years. By now the “old guard” has become a minority as the organization has grown drastically younger with a current average age of 33 year…”
The 2019 convention had 1056 delegates representing 56,000 members in 200 chapters but as always the devil is in the detail. A large membership but in the NYC-DSA, for example, there are 5,000 paper members with only an estimated 750 regularly active members.
DSA operates on a budget of 4 million dollars of which a large portion is spent on the organization’s eighteen full-time employees
But, of course, our problem is that we don’t engage with or participate in reformist struggles and so deny ourselves a potential recruiting ground so I think we have to identify where our potential audience is.
i wouldnt suggest joining the DSA or trying to work with them, but maybe passing out pamphlets at some of their get togethers might be smart. or even attending some of their meetings to ask questions intended to show them the fact that marx and engels were anti-reformist cuz its just running in place. which im willing to bet most of their members arent aware of there being a difference between genuine, marxist socialism and theyre brand of “socialism”, being reformism. i know i wasnt aware of that before i read anything from him. i was a huge bernie supporter in 2016, so i was basically reformist at one point, i just didnt know it. i think its just about showing the average DSA member that
If there is a local DSA chapter or any other leftist organization eg Socialist Alternative, I would definitely make some sort of comradely contact (no point in antagonizing a prospective new recruit by being too hostile) and as you say express the alternative, stating our case for socialism and explaining the critique of reformism. Bringing attention to the WSPUS existence and history (as well as Keracher’s Proletarian Party and to much of what Debs wrote and said) would be equally as educational and instructive and of value.
It is a long process and begins with baby-steps which means listening patiently as they endeavor to convince you of their strategy – which will be the lesser of two evils, most likely. It means being a part of their audience at public meetings and protests.
Providing resources to back ourselves up is important. Regardless whether it is classed as a fallacy or not, argumentation from authority works.
No need to undermine Sanders qualities or credentials but to question if elected what would actually happen politically. The rest of the Democrat Party forming bipartisan opposition with the Republicans to oppose any reform, his need for more and more presidential executive orders, the need to dismiss personnel and dismantle department bureaucracies…and then the salient fact that many of his policies will begin to falter and fail as either capitalist relations impose themselves or factors outside his control begin to impact. Even FDR was not unable to fix the Great Depression. It took a global war to do that.
Again another tactic as I have suggested on the other forum topic, latch on to some aspect from local labor history and draw attention to it with relevance and comparison to today. Letters to the editor. Comments at websites. I always think name recognition is important as the very first stage in a publicity campaign.
Another sign of the resurgence of the Left in the USA
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/09/sara-nelson-flight-attendants-union-interview-labor
Union leader addressed the DSA convention and talked the talk.
“No one is born with sexism, racism, ageism in their heart. These are the tactics of the boss, of those who want all the money and all the power to deny us solidarity, the greatest force for good. Expose it. Call it out. Deal with it. And in our unions and on our picket lines we can do exactly that.”
“The labor movement is not something that we have to rebuild,” Nelson said. “The structure already exists. It’s just something that has to be put into fourth gear and supercharged.”
“What’s exciting is that this year we actually have some real choices for labor,” she said. Nelson urged the audience not to wait until then [2020] to get involved.
“Change comes fast when the risk becomes too great for those in power,” she said.Another view on the DSA and race
The AFL-CIO is part of the labor bureaucracy and collaborator of the ruling class. There is a big criminal investigation taken place against the Auto Workers Union who have stolen millions of dollars from the union funds, and they have used the strike funds for their own personal use. At the present time they have reduced the weekly salary of the workers going in strike in $250.00 instead of $750.00 which means that they are forcing the workers to capitulate with their own bosses due to economic hardship, and they have used the funds without the workers going into a strike for several years to satisfy their own personal luxury. The so called left in the USA is just another collaborator of the ruling class, and another distorted term to indicate that the USA is a society divided between left and right instead of being a society divided between bourgeois and proletarian, or capitalists and wage slaves. There is not such thing as a labour movement, and most of the workers are supporting their own rulers and capitalism. The only political institution with real socialist principles in the USA is the WSPUS but they are invisible at the present time, and reformist institutions are taken their place
https://www.wspus.org/2019/09/revolution-not-reform-by-jordan-levi-swami-netero/. Revolution not reform
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