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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Someone please spell it out for me: what does anyone mean by joining an org?
Figure out the communist and communist-aligned groups in your area, get on their mailing lists, turn out to do the things they ask of you sometimes. Try to make a compromise between good politics, successfully doing things in the real world, and being a larger org. Find out which orgs meet those criteria by going to their things. Once you're sure which org(s) are good, ask them how you can get more involved.
Let's get this one out of the way: what are peoples hot takes on these orgs off the top of my head?
DSA: Libs who don't really get anything done except tell you to vote for AOC (and they can't even control their elected candidates) and Biden
WFP: Completely fucked up by supporting Warren in 2020
Local Democrats: Might as well CW yourself
CPUSA: Fed central
Got any hot takes about the IWW?
There are a few decent DSA chapters and some good people in the org but as a whole it sucks. I learned a lot from my time in it and met some interesting people so I would say if you're trying to learn it's your best option on that list but understand that they are far from revolutionary, totally undisciplined, and questionably principled at best.
DSA captured org that's sucked a massive shit ton of leftist potential and threw it away on the Does Not Care
party. Whose elected members are absolute betrayals of the ideals they set up to do. They did not bring the ruckus to the DNC they are collaborators with the prison wardens.
WFP - also
collaborators. Not very independent. Bunch of 
Local Democrats - worst
pieces of shit on the planet who have no trouble calling the 
if you call them out on their corruption and fascism. Local parties have the least amount of transparency in the country and they like to keep their gentrifying grift that way. Who do you think manipulted the 
primary votes to change for 
?
CPUSA - captured
collaborators.
An org is just a group of people that do work together and have a name. It might be a political party, it might be a group focused on a specific thing that approaches it from a socialist perspective, it might just be four people trying to figure out what they want to do but they know it should be socialist.
You join one by talking to people and asking them if you can join.
What if it's a group of people that do work together but don't have a name?
That counts as organizing but I'm not sure if it's an organization unless you can name it somehow. Seems like a necessary thing to me, eventually you've gotta call it something.
Sometimes we end up doing projects and those specific projects have names but the continuous nexus behind it does not have any recognized name.
You know, finding an organization and becoming a member of it. Attending meetings. Paying dues. That sort of thing.
Joining a political organization that fights for better rights. In this context, a socialist org/party working towards building a socialist nation
An example would be joining the IWW. You pay dues, show up to meeting, talk about politics with people, and try to organize your workplace or help other people organize theirs.
A bunch of other orgs are basically like that, except instead of workplace organizing it might be electioneering or selling newspapers.
Not really something that is going to fly these days, you'll just look like a Jehova Witness. Especially in Poland, for some reason the amount of them has skyrocketed in my city. Since we are living in the internet age, organizations should definitely learn how to use it to their benefit. Adapting to the times and all that.
That doesn't stop orgs in my area! There's even a few IWW papers, but they're more directed towards wobs and other's that already share our ideological leaning. But yeah, distributing newspapers isn't very effective.
I joined the IWW and seeing the state of my branch i'm ashamed to ask anyone else to join. it's not particularly bad, it's just been dysfunctional ever since it was (re)established
SF Bay Area GMB seems to be doing a lot of good work. Honestly, most of the organizing at my branch is dual-carders working with a different union, but that's not really that bad.
our previous one blew up because it was centered around a sex pest and his friends who all worked at the same co op grocery and they decided to withhold dues lmao. the current members are with a few exceptions disaffected young people and grad students with very little experience in politics or labor organizing, myself included. i don't want to make it sound like i'm trashing my fellow workers, this is just as much my responsibility as anyone else's there. Oh also everything is done on Discord. Infuriating.
Yeah, the reliance on zoom and Discord is annoying. WISREA is a lot more on the ball in terms of tech stuff, with SSO, chat, jitsi, and hosting interwob. We could probably be doing better, but that whole RWU ordeal happened.
Hmm interesting. So IWW is a union, and I can join it, and potentially get its support if my workplace decides to unionize?
I'm in education, but not an educator, and so not in a union. Its a small dept, and I doubt it'll ever unionize, the wage and benefits are probably the best in the state. I've never understood why the tech/office people in edu (in my state anyway) are always out of the union loop.
Yeah, that's the general idea. The IWW has quite a few education workers, maybe you could find some common ground there.
This definitely sounds more productive then the DSA.