impartial_fanboy [he/him]

Are you an anarchist?

You actually made me laugh, thanks. This isn’t productive anymore though.

wen ur a srs anti-imperialist

Oh please. A school board member has absolutely no bearing on foreign policy, sacrificing your political capital on performative displays of anti-imperialism will only alienate the people you are trying to get to join and make other potentially sympathetic board members not want to be associated with you or your policies (even if you’re just voting in the negative). The people you are trying to reach do not engage with party literature, they hear about PSL from twitter or some local news article which regurgitates whatever the party’s take is in the least flattering way possible. Playing into that by using the platform a (very) minor presidential bid gives you is just … naive at best.

Maybe take one second to actually read about the rationale and tactics of the campaign.

I did. I just disagree.

One example. We raise a platform position - nationalize the 100 largest corporations, for example - and libs say “that will never happen even if you win, which you won’t because the system is stacked against you”. We say, “correct - we need a socialist revolution and the only historically proven way to do it is a Marxist-Leninist party”.

Why would anyone believe that? Genuinely. Not to mention nationalization isn’t even a uniquely socialist policy. The only even nominally socialist state of any significance is China and, at the very least, their economy is as capitalist as apple pie. Promises are cheap. Change people’s material conditions for the better and then they will believe you, not before. I understand its hard work and doesn’t have the glamour of a protest or a presidential bid, but if we actually want things to change for the better then it must be done.

No I consider it a vanity ticket because they have no intention of really winning. You can’t use the same strategy as every other 3rd party and expect people to not just assume that your party is exactly the same as every other grifter.

Pivoting to actually trying to win state ballots is a step backwards

Then you gotta do institution building which, as far as I’m aware, PSL does not do.

The goal of participating in bourgeois elections is to draw attention, nothing more.

I fully agree. And the best way to do that is to win seats so you can throw a wrench (or three) into the system and block any policies that would harm the working class. Then propagandize on those tangible achievements so that you can demonstrate to people that you can actually offer them something beyond just having the ‘correct’ opinions. All the while trying to build parallel institutions which can eventually take over the functions of the state you are trying to dismantle so people aren’t afraid society will collapse if you take power, electorally or otherwise.

It’s fundamentally about utilizing the massive attention driven towards the presidential circus to promote a socialist platform

This “massive attention” is fleeting and far more likely to produce a negative impression than a positive one. I understand they think they’re being clever. I’m saying its dumb and is counterproductive and makes them look just like every other bourgeois 3rd party and does in no way

demonstrate the necessity of a Marxist-Leninist communist party

Getting even just one measly school board position to fuck with conservatives to demonstrate that they’re actually serious about defending the principles they espouse and not just shouting foreign policy positions people find cringe would generate far more public goodwill than a presidential bid that can’t get full 50 ballot access (and even where they do get it they can’t even get their party name on the ballot) ever could.

Really wish they would start smaller and try to become a real alternative in even one state, not do these pointless vanity presidential tickets. Hard to take them seriously when they waste so much money on these every 4 years.

Books by politicians always have inflated sales, it’s a (not so) backdoor way to influence them. This isn’t a new thing. I’m not saying no one is buying it, just that it’s a sort of meaningless statistic without more context.

Bought by whom? Actual people or Super-PACs?

Well take a gander at his twitter but lets say he’s a fellow traveler of LaRouche. More importantly for this though, degrowth is a bit of a bugbear for him. He complains about it constantly so I wouldn’t believe he’s being honest about his criticism of Saito.

Leftists and bad slogans, name a better duo. The non primitivist degrowth people are generally pretty alright but those who take it literally are … scary. Obviously capitalist growth will have to cease, but society needs to be fundamentally reorganized which is going to take a lot of ‘growth’ in the productive forces. Because people conflate capitalist growth with technological development the arguments for degrowth sound asinine and they dismiss them out of hand.

However I just realized the article is cowritten by Leigh Phillips. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Jacobin would still publish something of his now but its disappointing nonetheless.