Before discovering this community, I was in a different community that proudly calls itself leftist. I posted a documentary; Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang which was very eye-opening for me.

Anyway, posting that started to really upset people, saying that the documentary is PSL propaganda. That PSL is authoritarian, backed by a Chinese Maoist billionaire and that PSL is riddled with sex abuse scandals. That of course PSL would simp for DPRK because it’s authoritarian. I was even called a holocaust denier for defending DPRK.

So is PSL bad? Where can I find better information on this? I’ve already tried looking into PSL and it all seems okay? The sex abuse scandals I am not sure about, is there more information on this? Am I being too critical on this?

    • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
      7·
      5 months ago

      What I find on him at a glance so far suggests that he’s consistently on the side of anti-imperialist messaging and defense of AES states. What does that have to do with being a democrat?

      Edit: Watched an episode of what I can only guess is the show you’re referring to (this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-dtDQ2yrPo&list=PLwZtBKjGSMzU5sfEXGAUcC-ZqOINABYNi) and in one episode, he already mentioned Marxism and socialism explicitly and quoted Engels, so I dunno what you’re on about comparing him to democrats.

        • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
          10·
          5 months ago

          Is this making any sense,

          Not really to me because 1) it’s a lot of broad claims without receipts and 2) it doesn’t reflect what they appear to be doing in actuality.

          It’s one of those weird moments where like, I don’t think anybody here has a super high opinion of them like they are the proven vanguard of the US working class (idk maybe I’ve missed the sentiment if such was expressed), but they are doing something. And you’re arguing like they’re actively harming instead. So it comes out sounding like it’s a debate between whether they are saviors or villains, when it’s surely more complex than that.

            • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
              7·
              5 months ago

              Okay, then maybe we can have a separate discussion another time on if we think tricking people into doing fake revolutionary activity is good or bad.

              What? Of course it’s bad, the question is not whether it’s bad, the question is whether that’s what PSL is doing (so far, your only evidence of that I can discern is that they do protests and that you believe they should put their focus on other things). Protest culture has its problems, but you have not demonstrated that PSL is discouraging people from doing more than that and you have not demonstrated that PSL is only doing that.

              Thought that someone else might find the experience of listening to Becker and Prysner shoot the shit a bit jarring after interacting with PSL accounts.

              Well, I’d have to see the clip because I don’t know what interaction you’re talking about and if you want to talk about limited time, I don’t want to spend my time trying to hunt down exactly what you’re referring to because a single person on the internet says an entire party is misleading people. I already went and watched an episode of a show with Brian Becker, in which nothing particular seemed off about him. Other than maybe that he’s not exactly Lenin, but my expectations for the US left are pretty low.

              I have read Blood In My Eye, though it was a while back. I don’t remember it well enough to guess at what connection you’re making between it and protest culture.

              The continued comparisons to ACP seems rather disingenuous to me. The reasons why the ACP is a problem has come up many times here in detail, the most basic of which is that they’re patsoc. I have not seen evidence that PSL shares that tendency, or other corralling or wrecking tendencies that you’d expect to see from a party that is there to divert revolutionary energy, and given the willingness on this forum to call out issues with western parties and investigate what is going wrong with them, I would expect to have seen such by now.

              I usually post on my phone when I shouldn’t post at all, so I’ll definitely get back to you after sorting out my bookmarks.

              I would rather you do it as its own sourced thread if you’re going to do it at all, so it’s more visible and people can work through the claims collectively.

                • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
                  7·
                  5 months ago

                  I did not get the impression people were putting PSL on a pedestal in this thread, but maybe it comes across that way just from the hope of the US having any notable organization that is not shit on imperialism/AES/colonization. I guess the way I see it, the consequences of the Red Scare and the downfall of the Black Panther Party put the bar pretty low for not being shit.