Sunday, December 31, 2023

Letter to the Comrades of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA)

 

Comrades,

 

The strength of Central Indiana DSA (CINDSA) has lain in its positive, non-ideological, pragmatic approach that has concentrated on such vitals as housing and union organizing, items that directly

affect the working and personal lives of ordinary working people.  This has enabled CINDSA to reach out positively into the Indianapolis community, and draw support from people who would not ordinarily be drawn to an organization espousing socialism.  With good results, as we’ve seen in the recent campaigns for seats on the Indianapolis City-County Council for its new term that starts in 2024.  While CINDSA members may not be “thoroughly informed” on the often arcane left ideological causes of DSA at the national level and in the key national chapters, and where CINDSA has also been blessed by not having warring national caucuses who are roiled on these issues, its non-ideological, pragmatic approach has paid off and enabled CINDSA to do good work, from what I can see from my limited vantage point of not being able to participate much in CINDSA.

 

I have of necessity to work a political life-killing second-shift job at Kroger, which, because it is in retail, also means not having weekends available either.  (However, politically I’m able to somewhat make up for this by being a member of my union at Kroger, UFCW Local 700, and participating in the movement to build a strong reform caucus within this union.)  I participate somewhat more at the national level through Facebook, through a network of left Friends there, and I keep abreast of what national DSA is doing.  Although I am not a formal member, politically I’m aligned with the traditional social-democratic caucus within national DSA, North Star, and a strong adherent of DSA founder Michael Harrington’s “left wing of the feasible.”  I too am essentially pragmatic, and strongly believe that positive results, far more than “correct” ideology, are what are crucial and draw ordinary working people to support DSA politics and proposals.  However, I will say bluntly that much of what comes out of national DSA and its leading chapters is ultraleft, often drivel, and is even a throwback to neo-Stalinism. 

 

CINDSA has not become embroiled on issues such as Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas War, which are very much dividing points for DSA at the national and key local levels.  That is in fitting with CINDSA’s pragmatic approach.  For myself, I do not believe the struggle in Ukraine is a “proxy war” between Russia and the US and NATO.  I support the Ukrainian drive to preserve its independence, and achieve national self-determination.  This is, to me, consistent with the Marxist principle of, above all, the right of small nations to self-determination, even independence, and to be free of Great Power bullying.  For this same reason, I support (support which is only theoretical at this time) the rights of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan to their own rights of self-determination, and to be independent of China should their peoples wish.  I wrote this up in an article published earlier this year by the excellent left group, the British Trotskyist Alliance for Workers Liberty, which is linked here, and which I hope CINDSA comrades will read.  (https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/marxist-case-tibet-xinjiang-hong-kong-and-taiwan-independence; see also, published as an addendum to my post here, https://workersliberty.org/story/2023-06-26/stalin-1913-and-national-question-note) On Hamas-Israel, I consider what Hamas did on October 7, 2023 to be atrocious and reprehensible, and although I am not at all an automatic pro-Israel supporter, I do defend Israel’s right to defend itself (which Sen. Bernie Sanders also supports), and believe Hamas must be extirpated, as it is an Islamofascist entity.  I know I differ from some comrades here, as the issue came up with two of them on Facebook, and they defriended me over my views, but that’s no matter—friendships often come and go on Facebook.  What was appalling to me was DSA’s support of the antisemitic “Free Palestine” rally in support of what Hamas did that occurred the very next day, October 8, in New York City, and which both New York DSA and national DSA doubled down in support of.  No, comrades, terroristic attacks on civilians are not, decidedly not, “resistance” and “decolonization,” and anybody who asserts so has lost both moral compass and intellectual bearing!  Some things are just simply beyond the pale; so atrocious there is no way to ever justify or excuse them.  Examples are the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941; 9/11; and the October 7 attacks by Hamas.  No one, now matter how grievous it is alleged they acted (and in the case of the October 7 attacks, all the Israeli victims did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time), certain things are never, ever justified.  We must be morally and intellectually clear on that, in my opinion.  It is to the great discredit of both national DSA and certain key DSA chapters that justified or even celebrated the Hamas attack that they did so.  Such is to be rooting for, act as cheerleaders for, unconscionable mass murderers, and far too many in DSA were simply, egregiously, wrong here.

 

Comrades of CINDSA, you are youthful for the most part, far younger than am I, 77 years old now.  I am a veteran of the 1960s left, an active left force that existed long before many of you were born, and which also petered out from both an onslaught from the right (Nixon, Reagan) and, just as tellingly, from its own inadequacies, principally its substitution of moral indignation for concrete political programs.  Comrades, the great US early 20th Century philosopher, Santayana, tells us so well:  “Those who do not remember history are condemned to relive it.”  So, please, Comrades, I urge you—learn the history of earlier left movements, both for the positive lessons they can give us, as well as for the negative ones.

 

On a positive note, youth is a time of vitality and questioning; however, it is also a time of know-it-all arrogance and stupidity.  Be willing to learn from older comrades, many of whom are resigning now in disgust from DSA, despite being members for decades, because of DSA’s present de facto pro-Hamas attitude.  This, Comrades, is no time for “Good riddance!” flippancy.  One of the great failures of the 1960s New Left was the great youth of its activists and leadership.  We of the New Left were young and arrogant, and so we made a lot of mistakes we needn’t make.  And in the end, following the fiasco of the 1969 SDS National Convention, literally went “poof!” overnight—from an organization 100,000 members strong to nothing!  That could happen too easily to DSA too—already it has lost 20% of its membership.  The youthful enthusiasm of those under 35 who are now drawn to DSA because of Israel-Hamas are not enough to make DSA grow if DSA alienates those of the population 35 and older, who are far more pro-Israel than those younger, with ignorance notable among the young, I’m sad to say.  A recent poll indicated that 20% of Gen Zers believe the Holocaust was a hoax!  67% believe that Jews as a class are “oppressors.”  Far too much of the US public believes there was an independent country called Palestine before the creation of Israel (as a fact, there was no such entity).  Comrades of CINDSA, “left” antisemitism is a big problem, every bit as significant, or even more significant, as Islamophobia. 

 

Which brings one more point.  What can I do now to participate well in CINDSA given my work limitations?  Well, for one thing, I could serve as an intellectual resource.  I’m well read on left literature, am a university graduate, am an extensively published writer in left magazines and on left websites, and have also taught adult education courses on China after Mao, Marxism, and the Communist Manifesto.  I also have a BlogSpot blog, “Politically Incorrect Leftist,” (politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com), which I urge all of you to check out.  This Letter will also be posted there.

 

Finally, to end on a positive note, you Comrades of CINDSA are so much better than the hidebound, tired old leadership you replaced!  A leadership that no longer gave a damn about DSA, and certainly didn’t give a damn about you, young Comrades who wanted to carry on the organization.  You will be interested to know that these hidebound oldsters also were against me too.  Even though they had participated positively in my Marxism and Communist Manifesto classes, and was not the ogre I had been portrayed as being by the equally hidebound “peaceable religious progressives” of Indianapolis (with whom several of these old DSAers overlapped), I had committed the “unpardonable sin” of criticizing one of their cronies for designing and installing for Indianapolis DSA a most inadequate website.  In Indiana, overgrown high school clique that it is, one just does not criticize cronies!  And so, these hidebound “leaders” plotted against me.  I’ve published two blogs on what happened with them on my “Politically Incorrect Leftist” blog, the first one on August 14, 2010, “Dregs” (linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2010/08/dregs_14.html), and a second one that drew on the critical testimony of a lifetime resident of Indianapolis pointedly noting he’d never even heard of DSA here before meeting me.  This second blog, published on February 17, 2011, with the pointed subtitle, “Letter from One of ‘the Masses’” is linked here:  https://politicallyincorrectleftist.blogspot.com/2011/02/dregs-aftermath1-letter-from-one-of.html, I bring up this old history not to re-fight old sectarian battles, but to let you know, much younger Comrades, that roiling conflicts with the hidebound “old ‘progressives’” are nothing new here in Indianapolis, or in Indiana, truly a State of Mediocrity!  (Which the dictionary tellingly defines as “not good enough.”)  I hope you young Comrades will check out these blogs of mine, and realize the fight for a good, effective left confronts many obstacles, some of them even internal.  So, thank you, Comrades, good luck, and keep up the good fight!

 

In solidarity with you,

Comrades of CINDSA! 

 George Fish,

DSA member

since 1996