The entire article is very good and gives a solid reasoning (for baby leftists, not anyone here) of why we need to support Cuba. It also highlights the weakness of both the DSA and the DSA IC from within that allowed this to happen + the steps they need to take. Give it a read. (The more I read stuff like this plus the history of real movements I realize why things like DemCent and other hardline ML things are needed but that’s not a discussion for here).
I’m highlighting just the parts relevant to the title.
Multiple delegates chose to skip out on parts of the programming, including declining to meet with the president of Cuba, who held a frank conversation with the delegates who did attend for more than two hours.
Throughout the trip, members of the delegation from the Reform & Revolution Caucus (R&R) and the Socialist Majority Caucus (SMC) criticized the Cuban government both to our Cuban hosts and other DSA members, and skipped out on multiple delegation events. Most shamefully, both Maria (representing R&R) and Renée (representing SMC, and a member of the current NPC) skipped out on meeting with President Díaz-Canel, who spent more than 2 hours in a frank discussion specifically addressing the critiques these very same DSA members brought up to their Cuban hosts earlier on the trip. This means that the Cuban hosts were listening thoughtfully to the critiques and relayed them back to the President. That our Cuban comrades would care this deeply and thoroughly about our critiques is a sign that they honor us as equals and truly want to make ties with U.S. socialists, as relatively powerless as we are.
Maria in particular met with anti-government opposition groups while on delegation, which when taken together with the fact of her skipping the meeting with the comrade President suggests a goal of undermining the Cuban socialist state, not defending it against U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, R&R declined to follow what few guidelines the International Committee offered around discussion of the trip after returning. Delegates were instructed to keep news of the conversation with President Díaz-Canel private until an official reportback; R&R decided instead to discuss this at their caucus panel, pre-empting the official reportback.
I view DSA as like a middle step/pipeline shit
Get people to start becoming politically involved and aware, and hope good folks like the authors of this inside DSA/other organizers they’ll inevitably meet to push them further left
I see it as a screen. A way to stop people who would normally radicalize, redirecting them into chauvinism. Nations with strong communist parties and populations don’t require a succ dem transition stage for baby leftists, as if they are some insect that has to go into a cocoon to metamorphose, they just become communists right away instead and skip the cringe phase
Yea and we’re obviously not a nation with strong communist parties?
Material conditions make it extremely hard for people here to just become pro revolution straight away
Ok can we at least keep the cringe babies in some type of quarantine until they have completed their metamorphosis? Maybe don’t send chauvinist idiots like this as delegations to form coalitions and do actual diplomatic work
This is valid, but DSA is still a net positive imo
I don’t really see things in such simple utilitarian terms, and I think they are bad in a very complicated way that can’t be placed on a “good to evil” gradient
we dont need another liberal party
Hand waving away criticism of a party with a clearly reactionary member who met with anti Cuban government actors while having to opportunity to meet with the leader of said government and refused using “Material Conditions” is very embarrassing.
DSA isn’t a party though and it doesn’t operate like one. It’s more like an association if that makes sense. As they become more party like and do things like send delegations to other countries it’s important they learn from their mistakes. The point of this article is to kick off a set of reforms that will prevent embarrassing things like this from recurring.
Any organization that approaches the point of being a threat to established hegemony is immediately and mercilessly crushed