Honestly its rude to be invited by a country to meet their president who decided to respond to your criticisms of their administration only to not show up and go meet the opposition.
Being invided and then no showing shows complete disregard to basic diplomatic Etiquette since it was a mission to show solidarity against the embargo
Bonus socdems being cringe part 4.5: about another member that didnt show up to the presidential meeting
Deeply unserious people
Honestly how is that? This is always so vague. There was one high profile case that the organization was slow to respond. The accused was suspended and left during their suspension. Then we established a national-level body composed entirely of survivors to investigate and adjudicate these cases. We learned from a structural failure and adjusted how we operate to prevent that from happening again.
Please elaborate.
Are you referring to the Steven Powers case? Because the issues there go further than failing to respond, they straight up used disciplinary measures to protect an abuser. And the Steven powers case isn’t the only one.
I will admit my bias on this issue though, I’ve had several encounters with PSL members where they’ve disrespected my bodily autonomy in mild-moderate ways to the point that I feel it is a pattern and am more inclined to believe specific reports of abuse.
Can you give me any details on this?
From what I’ve heard they use the idea of democratic centralism to shut down debate during the democratic process instead of after a decision has been reached democratically.
The result of the internal process around Steven Powers is that it was poorly handled at all levels and structures needed to be put in place to ensure that never happened again. The body I referred to above has final authority on any cases related to sexual impropriety, harassment, and abuse. Comrades are able to directly contact this body if they feel the need to go around intermediate leadership bodies for any reason.
I’ve been in the party for two years and never seen anything like this. Our practice of democratic centralism is extremely democratic, and even candidates who don’t get a formal vote are given significant say in the process. I don’t know how else to repudiate something so vague.
What other changes happened beyond being able to go to this body directly and skip intermediate leadership? Because that sounds like a good idea but also completely inadequate on its own.
https://fashbusters.wordpress.com/2020/12/30/psl-stalked-doxxed-harassed-steven-powers-accuser/
this goes into some misuse of democratic centralism in the Steven case. Not sure about the politics of the site but the evidence provided seems pretty damning. You’ll note that the issue with the case wasn’t a delayed reaction, the response by women in national leadership was pretty overtly anti-feminist.
What more would you suggest? Any accusation is an immediate suspension. Then it goes to this body. The system is simple and direct.
The politics of the site is it’s an anarchist who hates PSL and exclusively writes about how PSL is and why tankies are bad.
The problem is that being able to escalate it to another committee doesn’t really resolve the organizational issues that allow abuse? Abuse takes a lot of grooming of accomplices, how does PSL inoculate against that and how do they determine what organizational failures within a group allowed for abuse to happen and correct them?
Oh, well fuck them then. The evidence from the org they present still paints a very shitty picture of the org. Is the letter from women in national leadership doctored?
The Powers instance was an established romantic relationship - not something that came as a result of an organizational power structure. We clearly and strongly oppose any instances of abuse, have structures in place to report, investigate and punish it, and have a clear political explanation of why a serious revolutionary organization must aggressively oppose abusive, exploitative, and chauvinistic behavior within its membership. We also do our best to identify these behaviors during our month-long onboarding process, though of course people can hide that stuff. I would again need an example of what the structural issues are in order to suggest a solution.
I don’t deny that the case was badly mishandled; that is the position of the party. I believe those issues have been corrected and we have a very strong feminist line.
it is pretty common for people in orgs to get involved, it is something that should be planned for
it seems like in this case the abuser was using people as accomplices, otherwise the response from the local org wouldn’t have been what it was.
How?
Genuinely what would you suggest?
Yes; there was no mechanism to go around local leadership. Now there is.
Explain the policy, talk a great deal about comradely behavior and expectations of conduct, and do our best to get their vibe. If that’s not sufficient I would again ask for a concrete suggestion.