ISO's funding source. Going broke?

[Soviet dude]

I have known for awhile now that a man named Kevin Neel gave the International Socialist Organization 1.2 million dollars (http://wiki.infoshop.org/International_Socialist_Organization) in stock in the companies Oracle and Phillip Morris, but I recently got to thinking more about it after a few posters here referred to the CPUSA as a Landlord Party (http://www.revleft.com/vb/impressions-cpusa-convention-t140660/index2.html). It had always seemed obvious to me the ISO organizes in such a way as to basically keep Sherry Wolf, Shawki, Ashley Smith, etc, from having to get a real job, but I stumbled on this while doing some internet searching:


We've seen the International Socialist Organization (ISO) at community meetings, on campus, and in rare exceptions, in the workplace. With their authoritarian tendencies, attacks on anarchism and anarchists, historical revisionism on radical labor politics, cult-like recruiting tactics, and bizarre social manipulations of groups, many anarchists have asked the $60,000 question: are these folks paid, and who pays them?

The Center for Economic Research and Social Change is the paper organization for the ISO and their activities. They are a 501c3 organization (also in Chicago) that files 990s with the IRS every year. It is a common practice amongst activists to have a non-profit act as a steward for managing funds of other groups. Activist organizations often umbrella under non-profits, in order to save the administrative and bureaucratic hassle of getting a tax exemption--even anarchists.

In the last few years, the ISO has gotten pretty consistent with their presence in various places; the International Socialist Review is a slick, professional-looking left magazine, and the ISO conventions are attended by thousands. You can set your watch to when they will show up at various spots to sell the Socialist Worker. If you think it is hard to believe that the ISO can pay for all of this with dues money and Socialist Worker sales, especially when publications with no advertising do not turn a profit, then you're on to something.

According to the 990 IRS forms filed in 2001, the Center received a large donation--perhaps a good chunk of the startup funds, from a man named Kevin Neel, who donated over 1.2 million in stock. The stock acquired by the Center is in Oracle and Phillip Morris. The Center has been selling off portions of this stock every year in excess of several hundred thousand a year, to fund a huge payroll, including $45,000 a year plus benefits to the Center's president Ahmed Sehrawy. For the year 2000-01, the total payroll in wages and benefits was $185,000 (presumably disbursed to several party organizers and staff-only $27,000 went to pay two officers of the Center.); in 2001-02, over $400,000, and in 2002-03: nearly $500,000. In 2002-03, Sehrawy made nearly $60,000 in wages and benefits.

For the past three years, the Center has also derived its funding from a handful of activists, much of it in cash. What this tells us is that the workers do not support the Center and the ISO--a few men with disposable income do. And given that fact that the Center's bottom line continues to show a net loss, these funds will soon dwindle, and magazine and paper sales will be as crucial as ever. This is in spite of a net increase of literature sales and monies raised at their yearly socialist conference in Chicago.

In the left, all one has to do is follow the money, to see who controls the politics. More research will reveal specifics on the relationship between the ISO and the Center's stock "trust fund". These "trustifarians" simply wear a blue collar. Thing is, who's on the rest of their payroll is not a matter of public record. And it would be too much to expect an organization for the workers to actually tell the workers who on the payroll.What the ISO leadership insists on people doing, having anyone sign their little red cards, trying to sell books and newspapers, and getting others to sign up, regardless of politics (they'll "win" you to their line later), seems to indicate to me that the organization basically only exists, like the CPUSA, to continue to support the lifestyle of a few people at the top, who have essentially a stranglehold on the organization.

What I am wondering is, since this piece was written in 2004, has the pressure on ISO members to sell their crap increased as they continue to sell off their stock? My personal experience with this organization doesn't go back too far, so I can't tell if it has increased, though I know that is basically all the National leaders give a shit about now. Pretty much all chapters of ISO are geared around hawking Haymarket crap and not much else.

[Q]

If this is true, it first and foremostly shows that ISO leadership figures have zero understanding of managing money... Secondly, putting fulltimers on a $60k a year salary is pretty high for a revolutionary organisation.

This points to the need to:
1. Make all party funds democratically accountable to all members (not just "trustees").
2. Rotate fulltimers, so they cannot build up a powerbasis around their personality and they just focus on administrative issues (political issues being a matter for the whole membership). Any fulltimer should be elected for a year and should only be able to be reelected once. After this fulltimers should get a "real job", so as to keep in touch with workers and build up their retirement (although I'm not sure how this works in the US), for at least a few years before being able to be elected again in a position of fulltimer.

[thriller]

I was a member of the ISO about a year ago. And their main pitch does seem to be selling the paper. Now this is not just for money, because according to the ISO, and many other Trot-Lenin groups, the paper will bring about revolutionary fervor. That's their opinion, and best of luck with that. We did do a lot of tabling to sell books and stuff, so that was my main experience. However they did organize around a gay rights rally which the SP-SCW partnered with them in, and was quite successful. I think the groups focus depends on the chapter one knows of/works with.

[chegitz guevara]

Many, many organizations receive such donations and use them in such a manner. I don't think the ISO should be singled out. Other groups are better at fund raising, though. It is how, for example, the Bolsheviks were funded (aside from bank robberies during the 1905-7 revolution) until they took state power.

I do not think a $60K salary is necessarily excessive. We do not know the circumstances behind the salary, whether that is salary alone or includes benefits, like health care, etc. A lot of organization leaders put in a lot of hours, not simply a hour hour week. Sure, most of us do this for free, but when something becomes a job, it becomes much less voluntary, and more obligatory.

There are certainly criticisms to be made about the ISO, but I don't think this one is necessarily a fair one.

[Q]

Many, many organizations receive such donations and use them in such a manner. I don't think the ISO should be singled out. Other groups are better at fund raising, though. It is how, for example, the Bolsheviks were funded (aside from bank robberies during the 1905-7 revolution) until they took state power.

I do not think a $60K salary is necessarily excessive. We do not know the circumstances behind the salary, whether that is salary alone or includes benefits, like health care, etc. A lot of organization leaders put in a lot of hours, not simply a hour hour week. Sure, most of us do this for free, but when something becomes a job, it becomes much less voluntary, and more obligatory.

There are certainly criticisms to be made about the ISO, but I don't think this one is necessarily a fair one.

That is a fair enough reasoning, but that doesn't undermine my two proposals: for transparency and for rotatable fulltimers. And $5000 a month isn't excessive? I guess I seriously misjudge the cost of living then.

[Nachie]

For 60k a year even I would join the ISO

[Adil3tr]

I still support the state capitalist theory, but might distance myself from the ISO... Goddamn it. Are you sure?

[zimmerwald1915]

I still support the state capitalist theory, but might distance myself from the ISO... Goddamn it. Are you sure?
One needn't be in the ISO to have a theory of state capitalism.

[Adil3tr]

Wait... Didn't they single out the Oracle CEO in The Case for Socialism? They really should have sold the stocks and put their money in cooperatives in Venezuela or the Amalgamated bank or some other socialistic investment.

[chegitz guevara]

There are other organizations with a much better theory of state capitalism than the ISO. Theirs basically amount to: we don't like what the USSR was, so we've appropriated an old term to call it something else, so we don't have to support any part of it.


Wait... Didn't they single out the Oracle CEO in The Case for Socialism? They really should have sold the stocks and put their money in cooperatives in Venezuela or the Amalgamated bank or some other socialistic investment.

If you do the math, they went through 1.1 million in three years, which means they pretty much sold all of it.


That is a fair enough reasoning, but that doesn't undermine my two proposals: for transparency and for rotatable fulltimers. And $5000 a month isn't excessive? I guess I seriously misjudge the cost of living then.

I agree with those points.

We don't have the full info on the situation (though I know more I'm not willing to divulge), so we can't fairly judge. I will say that Chicago is a fairly expensive place to live. We make more in America, but we pay more too.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

We make more in America, but we pay more too.

$60,000 a year is more than 85% of the population here makes.

In 2005, the overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $25,149.

Annual income at minimum wage, assuming full time work, is $15,080.

[Devrim]

We don't have the full info on the situation (though I know more I'm not willing to divulge), so we can't fairly judge. I will say that Chicago is a fairly expensive place to live. We make more in America, but we pay more too.

Actually my impression of the US is that wages are low and living standards are cheap compared to Northern Europe.

Devrim

[Raúl Duke]

For 60k a year even I would join the ISO

Me too, I'm sold. Where/how do I sign up for a full-time trot-activist job?

[OriginalGumby]

Actually we are going broke; we were thinking of putting ad space in Socialist Worker for other organizations, especially the Democratic Party. With the primary coming up they are getting worried that they might loss so they thought that since all the ISO do nothing but distribute their papers 10 hrs a day that it would be worth their corporate campaign funds, problem is the Republicans seem to have more money this time around so we decided to accept their ads to. The headline for the newest issue? Tea Party not racists; Fights for working class. The best part is that we work for no pay in terrible working conditions and are super exploited so that all that money goes to the ruling class within the ISO which promptly reinvests in more capital to make more profits through exploiting us. Clearly the market conditions for socialist literature is increasing in these trying time, its good to be a socialist capitalist. This is obviously the best strategy for organizing and that is why it has been so effective.

[Nachie]

that is why it has been so effective.

I've heard the ISO called a lotta things, but...

[KC]

$60,000 a year is more than 85% of the population here makes.

In 2005, the overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $25,149.

Countrywide medians (as well as averages) are basically meaningless because of the incredible level of variation in the cost of living throughout the country.

The median income for New York State, for example, is $53,514, with a 13% poverty rate.

[~Spectre]

Actually my impression of the US is that wages are low and living standards are cheap compared to Northern Europe.

Devrim


That depends entirely on the area.

[scarletghoul]

Don't wanna sound sectarian or anything but I really hope the ISO dies soon.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Countrywide medians (as well as averages) are basically meaningless because of the incredible level of variation in the cost of living throughout the country.

The median income for New York State, for example, is $53,514, with a 13% poverty rate.

Fine. But the fact remains that 85% of employed persons in the US make less than $60,000 annually.

[KC]

Fine. But the fact remains that 85% of employed persons in the US make less than $60,000 annually.

Fine, but that means absolutely nothing without taking into account the cost of living.

[scarletghoul]

I'm pretty sure $60,000 is waay more than enough to cover the cost of living even in the well-off areas of the US.. No one needs that much money KC and it's embarrassing to see you trying to justify it.

It makes me kinda angry because there are dedicated revolutionaries living in poverty who have to work a full time job to support themselves in addition to doing political work. Sehrawy is privileged just to not have to work another job.. Most comrades would be grateful for a simple living place and food if it meant we could spend our full time doing revolutionary work. This money should be going to the comrades at the bottom to help them carry out their political work.

[~Spectre]

I'm pretty sure $60,000 is waay more than enough to cover the cost of living even in the well-off areas of the US.. No one needs that much money KC and it's embarrassing to see you trying to justify it.

It makes me kinda angry because there are dedicated revolutionaries living in poverty who have to work a full time job to support themselves in addition to doing political work. Sehrawy is privileged just to not have to work another job.. Most comrades would be grateful for a simple living place and food if it meant we could spend our full time doing revolutionary work. This money should be going to the comrades at the bottom to help them carry out their political work.

$60,000 with any sort of significant family to support in a place like New York is not "waay more than enough".

[Saorsa]

Soviet Dude, do you have any agenda on this forum other than to stir shit and generally act like a provocateur?

You throw mud at Kasama, the FRSO, the ISO... you seek to create discord rather than engage in discussion. This is sectarian bullshit and we don't know the facts.

I'm no Cliffite. Everyone knows I'm not particularly fond of Cliffite ideology. But this is ridiculous - criticise the ISO on a political basis rather than making them out to be some kind of marketing scam.

If the ISO leaders just wanted to con people and make lots of money, there are much easier ways to do this than running a revolutionary socialist organisation.

[Devrim]

That depends entirely on the area.

The impression I get is the NYC is cheap, which I presume by US standards is one of the more expensive.

Devrim

[bcbm]

here's a cost of living survey (http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingpr)

[~Spectre]

The impression I get is the NYC is cheap, which I presume by US standards is one of the more expensive.

Devrim



NYC is one of the most expensive cities to live in the world, with significantly lower social safety nets than the only cities that match or surpass it.

[Devrim]

NYC is one of the most expensive cities to live in the world, with significantly lower social safety nets than the only cities that match or surpass it.

I'm a bit weary of all of these tables of expensive cities as they tend to focus on things for expat employees, and not ordinary standards. I have seen tables that put Tehran, which ı know personally to be a very cheap place near the top. If, however, you don't use the black market, and exchange you currency legally, pay for a private school and a luxury flat in North Tehran, I could imagine that it would get rather expensive.

The 'Economist Intelligence Unit' in a survey of 130 cities puts New York at number 28, behind Olso, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Reykjavik, Zurich, Frankfurt, Geneva, Vienna, Milan, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Stockholm, Leon, Amsterdam, and Moscow*.

Personally, I have never been to New York, but people I know who have say that generally it is cheap. Obviously they aren't paying rent, which is a big part of anybody's budget, but that is how they experienced it.

From the EIU's list it seems to be cheaper than a good number of European cities, and after all cheap is only relevant to what you are used to, and the wages you are earning. I don't think Istanbul is cheap. In fact I think it is expensive, but comrades visiting Istanbul from Northern Europe see it differently.

Devrim

*I have only included the European cities here as that is what I was comparing too.

[~Spectre]

I'm a bit weary of all of these tables of expensive cities as they tend to focus on things for expat employees, and not ordinary standards. I have seen tables that put Tehran, which ı know personally to be a very cheap place near the top. If, however, you don't use the black market, and exchange you currency legally, pay for a private school and a luxury flat in North Tehran, I could imagine that it would get rather expensive.

The 'Economist Intelligence Unit' in a survey of 130 cities puts New York at number 28, behind Olso, Paris, Copenhagen, London, Reykjavik, Zurich, Frankfurt, Geneva, Vienna, Milan, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Stockholm, Leon, Amsterdam, and Moscow*.

Personally, I have never been to New York, but people I know who have say that generally it is cheap. Obviously they aren't paying rent, which is a big part of anybody's budget, but that is how they experienced it.

From the EIU's list it seems to be cheaper than a good number of European cities, and after all cheap is only relevant to what you are used to, and the wages you are earning. I don't think Istanbul is cheap. In fact I think it is expensive, but comrades visiting Istanbul from Northern Europe see it differently.

Devrim

*I have only included the European cities here as that is what I was comparing too.

I lived for many years in New York City. It's costly, and more so when you factor in reduced state benefits.

$60,000 with a family is not even remotely close to some sort of condemnable excess in a place like New York City, which was the point being raised.

[Martin Blank]

That is a fair enough reasoning, but that doesn't undermine my two proposals: for transparency and for rotatable fulltimers. And $5000 a month isn't excessive? I guess I seriously misjudge the cost of living then.


$60,000 with a family is not even remotely close to some sort of condemnable excess in a place like New York City, which was the point being raised.

And similar is true for Chicago, where the ISO is centered. In places like that, you need at least $2,500-3,000 a month in take-home pay to have any semblance of anything above survival. I suspect, though, that they actually pay their full-timers more according to historical precedent and political program. That is, they pay their officials no more than the average wage of a skilled worker (roughly $40,000-$45,000 a year in the U.S., plus benefits). The cost of full health care (including dental and vision), vacation and sick leave pay, disability insurance, etc., would easily balloon this number to $60,000.

In other words, since they found the means to pay their officials in a matter befitting their nominal program, they are doing it. I would suspect that any political organization that found it has the financial means to live up to their public political statements would do similar. And, yes, $1.2 million is more than enough to provide that sense of ability.

(Damn! Did I just defend the ISO? Fuck, I must be really baked. :D )

[Devrim]

I lived for many years in New York City. It's costly, and more so when you factor in reduced state benefits.

But have you lived in North West Europe and can you compare? I could say I have lived in Istanbul and its costly, and compared to Ankara it is.


$60,000 with a family is not even remotely close to some sort of condemnable excess in a place like New York City, which was the point being raised.

I am not really concerned with condemning the ISO over this. I'm sure it is comparable with many other graduate jobs. I am sure the guy has a university education, and I am also reasonably certain that it is more money that workers without that sort of education earn. It probably says something about their class base. What the ISO pay their full timers is none of my business though. I was just vaugely interestdly commenting on the off topic point of the cost of living in New York.

I was once in Boston, drinking with people who were friends of friends, and there was a guy their who was a bricklayer as I was at the time. I made the mistake of asking him how much he earned, not because I had any personal interest in his finances, but just to make a comparison. The table went silent. From the reaction I got you would have imagined that I had just asked if it would be possible to have sex with his wife, not asked an innocuous question about how much he earned.

Devrim

[Martin Blank]

I was once in Boston, drinking with people who were friends of friends, and there was a guy their who was a bricklayer as I was at the time. I made the mistake of asking him how much he earned, not because I had any personal interest in his finances, but just to make a comparison. The table went silent. From the reaction I got you would have imagined that I had just asked if it would be possible to have sex with his wife, not asked an innocuous question about how much he earned.

It's considered poor etiquette to ask how much money someone makes, just like it's poor form to start discussions about politics, religion or other people's lives, in strange company.

[Devrim]

It's considered poor etiquette to ask how much money someone makes, just like it's poor form to start discussions about politics, religion or other people's lives, in strange company.

Yes, I know now. I think to a certain extent it is a particularly American thing. Sure I wouldn't go up and ask a complete stranger how much he earned, but drinking in a bar with my friends and relatives, I wouldn't think it such an outrageous question to ask. The same goes for politics. In the week before last two people started conversations with me about the referendum on public transport. I also know that in America people will think that you are a loon if you start a conversation on public transport with a stranger. Things are not the same everywhere though.

Devrim

[Martin Blank]

Yes, I know now. I think to a certain extent it is a particularly American thing. Sure I wouldn't go up and ask a complete stranger how much he earned, but drinking in a bar with my friends and relatives, I wouldn't think it such an outrageous question to ask. The same goes for politics. In the week before last two people started conversations with me about the referendum on public transport. I also know that in America people will think that you are a loon if you start a conversation on public transport with a stranger. Things are not the same everywhere though.

I know. It had to have been a kind of culture shock to get that response. It's kinda strange that, given how crude and rude Americans can be, there are some strangely rigid rules of manner.

[Q]

I think to a certain extent it is a particularly American thing.

Actually, here in the Netherlands we have the same etiquette. Talking about how much you earn is considered arrogance, asking someone else is considered rude.

[Soviet dude]

Soviet Dude, do you have any agenda on this forum other than to stir shit and generally act like a provocateur?

Talking about Leftists is something Leftists do. Would you sit down and read anything wrote by Lenin and ask him "Gee, Lenin sure spends a lot of time talking about these other guys. Was he a provocateur?"


You throw mud at Kasama

I asked a question, and Ely went hysterical. I didn't throw mud at them.


the FRSO

FRSO/OSCL is a social-democrat organization, as the resignation letter Kasama posted of Patrick Ryan more than demonstrates. Pointing this out to people isn't exactly attacking them. I don't think the leadership really cares if they are seen that way, and new members will quickly find out what they're all about, as did someone called "Doug" on Kasama that was told to organize an Obama inauguration party as his first task.


the ISO... you seek to create discord rather than engage in discussion. This is sectarian bullshit and we don't know the facts.

I know plenty of facts, and telling young people about groups like the ISO should be our duty. I've been to their events, watch all the money collected go to paying their plane tickets and for them to go to baseballs games. The organization exists to support about 10 people at the top. No money ever goes back to the branches. The leaders yell at people for messing up their books ("How can we sell this with a bent corner?" kind of garbage). It essentially is just a scam.


I'm no Cliffite. Everyone knows I'm not particularly fond of Cliffite ideology. But this is ridiculous - criticise the ISO on a political basis rather than making them out to be some kind of marketing scam.

Criticizing the way they tell people to organize, their rule-or-ruin approach to working with others, and telling people where their dues go is political, much more so than talking about some ridiculous nonsense Cliff wrote 60 years ago.


If the ISO leaders just wanted to con people and make lots of money, there are much easier ways to do this than running a revolutionary socialist organisation.

And I'm sure it took Sam Webb a long time before he finally clawed his way to the top of the CPUSA and starting getting paychecks from their rental properties. It doesn't really matter if they could do better doing something else. They're not doing something else. They're at the top of an organization that operates more like Amway than a communist organization. I'm sure they justify it in their minds because of all the "hard work" they put into the organization over the years. The ideas in their head simply don't matter.

The National Leadership of ISO basically only tells their people to sell books or newspapers. Most of the activity someone who considers themselves a socialist would engage in is actively discouraged (go on Facebook to any ISO page in the country, and go through all their "events" and see what kind of "activity" they engage in). No dues money, or money collected from book and paper sales, ever goes back to the local branch (I know this is a fact with the locals I am most familiar with). They push people to sign up and pay dues immediately, which of course leads to the rampant liberalism you see in the ISO (it is basically filled with white college-aged social-democratic material). They pick a few to groom, who they might bring in closer (this will also be the person who represents the local in their joke congresses, making sure the line of the ISO never changes on anything major). The national openly tells their members to sabotage other Leftist and mass groups. This has happened to groups in my area, and ex-ISO members their told me about the orders. If ISO can't run the show, they want to fuck it up.

I don't know if you do any actual organizing, Comrade A, but these things are a lot more important than debating their stupid theories.

[MarxSchmarx]

I don't know why the question of compensation is getting so heated. To be sure a lot of our comrades work full time jobs and do a lot of work for their orgs, but I think having somebody who can spend all their time 9-5 on administrative tasks of the organization and gruntwork that needs to get done provides the organization with a considerable resource. Maybe not 60000 USD, and scarletghoul's point about spreading the money among other individuals is a valid one, but in principle paid staff for an organization, especially if they are funded not through dues but through other means, are one way of limiting burnout and ensuring standards in a capitalist economy. There's a reason capitalist firms pay far far more for such individuals time.

There are more than a handful of ISO members who post regularly here who seem to be doing more than selling newspapers and getting bilked in a scam. I'm all for following the money trail and going after the politics of groups like the ISO, but this can't be done in a vacuum. One thing that I find somewhat troubling about those infoshop links is the dearth of sources (there's one tax return cited, nothing else), or at least mentioning how they get this information or links to some of the articles. Frankly it's shoddy reporting.

[Saorsa]

I do plenty of organising. In fact, the largest group in the city where I'm currently living is the New Zealand ISO. It's a mixed bag and I never joined as a result, and having spent some years away from my city I'm now back and building a branch of the Workers Party from scratch. You can't pull that one on me mate.

Why should the leadership of an organisation like the ISO live in poverty just to make ultracritics like you happy?

[Soviet dude]

I do plenty of organising. In fact, the largest group in the city where I'm currently living is the New Zealand ISO. It's a mixed bag and I never joined as a result, and having spent some years away from my city I'm now back and building a branch of the Workers Party from scratch. You can't pull that one on me mate.

This doesn't sound much like organizing to me, not to be offensive.


Why should the leadership of an organisation like the ISO live in poverty just to make ultracritics like you happy?

I never said anything about paid staffers being wrong in principle, or even said anything about the amount they get paid (which, by the way, 60,000 a year is ludicrous for a socialist organization anywhere in the US). The point is everything the organization does seems to be about raising money so they can be paid, which is a huge difference. Are there paid staffers to help the organization function, or do the staffers run an organization in a way that ensures they get a paycheck? The ISO focuses so heavily on revenue generation for a reason, and it damn sure isn't to give it back to the branches.

[Die Neue Zeit]

$60,000 a year is more than 85% of the population here makes.

In 2005, the overall median personal income for all individuals over the age of 18 was $25,149.

Annual income at minimum wage, assuming full time work, is $15,080.

Mean or median skilled workers' wage is a better standard. [I think it's around $50,000 in US dollars.]

What KC said ignores a more fundamental point: the variation needs to be set aside in favour of a national image.


And similar is true for Chicago, where the ISO is centered. In places like that, you need at least $2,500-3,000 a month in take-home pay to have any semblance of anything above survival. I suspect, though, that they actually pay their full-timers more according to historical precedent and political program. That is, they pay their officials no more than the average wage of a skilled worker (roughly $40,000-$45,000 a year in the U.S., plus benefits). The cost of full health care (including dental and vision), vacation and sick leave pay, disability insurance, etc., would easily balloon this number to $60,000.

In other words, since they found the means to pay their officials in a matter befitting their nominal program, they are doing it. I would suspect that any political organization that found it has the financial means to live up to their public political statements would do similar. And, yes, $1.2 million is more than enough to provide that sense of ability.

(Damn! Did I just defend the ISO? Fuck, I must be really baked. :D )

The stock management wasn't really good, though. Somebody didn't look at the rates of return associated with the stocks, compared them to other rates of return, etc. They could have switched investments to secure higher rates of return to prolong the annuity. Some corporate bonds actually combine a reasonable credit rating with high coupon rates and yields, for example.


I am sure the guy has a university education, and I am also reasonably certain that it is more money that workers without that sort of education earn. It probably says something about their class base.

No it doesn't. Skilled worker /= petit-bourgeois

[graymouser]

The point is everything the organization does seems to be about raising money so they can be paid, which is a huge difference. Are there paid staffers to help the organization function, or do the staffers run an organization in a way that ensures they get a paycheck? The ISO focuses so heavily on revenue generation for a reason, and it damn sure isn't to give it back to the branches.
The ISO focuses so heavily on revenue generation so that it can be the slickest-looking, highest-profile socialist organization around, and continue to keep the revolving door of college students coming in and out. The ISR is a great looking magazine, and Haymarket puts out some really well produced books. The ISO puts on both national and regional conferences in its name every year. Everything they is oriented toward being a big, highly visible group with a lot of young people in it. It's something of a self-perpetuating machine.

Does it move progressive politics forward? No, I don't really think so. As a former member, it was a frustrating thing because 90% of your effort really went to building the ISO, and they were sloppy about working in their front groups (Campus Antiwar Network, which is now a free-floating thing). I think the ISO members on this board should really think about what they're building, unfortunately I don't think they are creating the kind of cadre who could lead a mass revolutionary party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, here in the Netherlands we have the same etiquette. Talking about how much you earn is considered arrogance, asking someone else is considered rude.

Would it be rude for political organizations to have that question and the two preceding questions of mine (occupational background, deductions on taxable income) in the other thread? The potential member is a stranger, anyway.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Why should the leadership of an organisation like the ISO live in poverty just to make ultracritics like you happy?

Definitely. It's perfectly fine and even revolutionary to pay a party "professional" more than 85% of the employed population makes. Why shouldn't they be in the top 15%?

Better yet, they should get $1,870,000 Manhattan lofts (http://splinteredsunrise.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/jack-barnes-property-ladder/) to live in while party members are forced to work long hours in meat packing houses and coal mines (like Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and the US SWP).

Or even better still, they should transform party printing houses into multi-million dollar companies with themselves at the top (http://www.bolshevik.org/1917/no30/no30-GRPI-WSWS.html), and party members are underpaid laborers (like David North and the SEP).

All is well and good in the land of petty-bourgeois socialism, where bureaucrats rule (in their political cults for now ... aspiring for much more in the future).

[Soviet dude]

The ISO focuses so heavily on revenue generation so that it can be the slickest-looking, highest-profile socialist organization around, and continue to keep the revolving door of college students coming in and out. The ISR is a great looking magazine, and Haymarket puts out some really well produced books. The ISO puts on both national and regional conferences in its name every year. Everything they is oriented toward being a big, highly visible group with a lot of young people in it. It's something of a self-perpetuating machine.

Does it move progressive politics forward? No, I don't really think so. As a former member, it was a frustrating thing because 90% of your effort really went to building the ISO, and they were sloppy about working in their front groups (Campus Antiwar Network, which is now a free-floating thing). I think the ISO members on this board should really think about what they're building, unfortunately I don't think they are creating the kind of cadre who could lead a mass revolutionary party.

Someone denied the conferences are run at a profit. I personally think that is not true. The people who went here were charged around $150, in addition to fund raising an ISO person did that was completely unscrupulous (lying to people about who they were and what they were doing). One ISO thing I went to raised about $450 dollars, which was immediately turned over to a couple of national ISO goons, who then went to a baseball game. No food or anything was provided to people who actually attended this crap.

Not to mention, ISO gets a lot of new people to start paying dues out of these things. Even if they are temporarily run at a loss, I bet in the long run, they generate revenue to cover them.

My experience with the ISO is that they only 'engage' in mass work if there is a mass organization they can leech people from. So, for instance, they will do work around gay marriage, only to get members from a local group that actually does work around that issue. If there is no local group to leech from, they simply do "movie nights" and book-reading clubs around some shit Sherry Wolf or Paul D'amato wrote.

[chegitz guevara]

While it's true that $60,000 (which includes things like health care, which is probably $10k to $15k) is more than 85% of all wage earners, that includes a lot of minimum wage jobs, which are largely (though not exclusively) worked by young people who don't need to support themselves.

I don't think $45K plus health care is even in the remotely unreasonable range, especially given our politics. I wish the SPUSA could afford to pay our one paid full-time staffer that much (especially considering how much work he does and the fact that no matter what time of day I message him, he seems to respond very quickly), and I support raising dues in order to be able to do so.

[OriginalGumby]

Play this while reading http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sei-eEjy4g&feature=related

Soviet Dude is right. This is not at all about politics. It's about making money for the ISO elite. Actually, to be move effective at this local branch leadership is encouraged to take business management courses at the expensive schools that all of our privileged upper-middle class backgrounds allow. Some of the new things that I have learned include prostitution, making the conferences more profitable, and charging people for conversations including on web forums. You all owe me 30 dollars. Please pay soon or I will be disciplined. By that I mean I will be chained up in a dungeon and whipped until I whimper, "The ISO is the vanguard, Paul D'Amato is greater than Karl Marx" Also all of you should join the ISO immediately so we can exploit you hard in the ass while fighting capitalism.

I am confused by Soviet Dude when he says discourage people from socialist activities. We are active in many socialist campaigns such as the Obama movement and fund raising rallies to pay for glorious revolutionary proletarian sport of baseball. He is right however about our efforts to trick people. We go in there and tell them they can have gay marriage but that it will only work out if they join the ISO. Also social reforms cost money too. Won't you please give generously.

Our leaders don't get paid too much. They only have a few yachts that are only 150 feet long. That is the size of the average workers yacht in my experience. Also their private islands with bronze clad oily scantily dressed male and female servants are no more extravagant than absolutely necessary.

With the recent bank collapses we were thinking about recruiting a few executives to more efficiently manage the ISO financial empire. Also there have been recent attempts by some misguided ISO workers to organize a union. We have had to ask Wal-Mart for help busting the drive. We even have our own lobbyists and own politicians now. We are the goddamn INTERNATIONAL CAPITALIST ORGANIZATION!! Tell everyone.

Also GrayMouser is right. We don't know anything about socialism and certainly are not training cadre. I have never read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxembourg or anyone else. I don't know why capitalism is crisis prone, why the working class is the gravedigger, what oppression has to do with anything, what imperialism is, what happened in 1917, what happened in the 1930s, what happened in the 1960-70s. I don't know what the employers offensive was, I don't know what Stalinism is, I don't know what the Labor Theory of Value is, I don't know why we need a revolutionary party or a revolution, I don't know "What is to Be Done?" or democratic centralism. I have no idea what should have happened in Germany but didn't, I have no idea what fascism is, I have no clue about the Comintern, I know nothing about China or Cuba, I know nothing about Venezuela or Bolivia, I know nothing about any aspect of socialist politics or history. I have never giving a speech at a rally, I have never been involved in antiwar, LGBT, Immigrants Rights, or any other struggles. I have never organized for a national demonstration. I have never led chants at a protest. I have never been on a picket line, I have never interviewed workers on strike, I don't know anyone in a union or any proletarians at all, I have never presented at a public meeting, I have never led a study group, I have never recruited someone to Marxism, I have never led an organizing meeting, I have never led an area of work, I have never led a branch,
I don't know what the word cadre means. But I do know how to sell literature pretty well.


Also check out this new book about the Mavi Marmara we are publishing, don't worry, politics are not a serious theme.
http://vodpod.com/watch/4455071-midnight-on-the-mavi-marmara-trailer?u=sherrytalksback&c=sherrytalksback

[Animal Farm Pig]

Faulting the ISO (or any other group) for going for the money is stupid. In capitalist society, money is power. Generating income for a revolutionary group is a revolutionary act.

[Soviet dude]

Someone should inform Gumby that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.


Faulting the ISO (or any other group) for going for the money is stupid. In capitalist society, money is power. Generating income for a revolutionary group is a revolutionary actHow is selling terrible books so a few people can live comfortable lives a "revolutionary act"? In what way is the ISO a "revolutionary group?"

[chegitz guevara]

Soviet dude, when did you stop beating your wife?

[The Red Next Door]

Talking about Leftists is something Leftists do. Would you sit down and read anything wrote by Lenin and ask him "Gee, Lenin sure spends a lot of time talking about these other guys. Was he a provocateur?"



I asked a question, and Ely went hysterical. I didn't throw mud at them.



FRSO/OSCL is a social-democrat organization, as the resignation letter Kasama posted of Patrick Ryan more than demonstrates. Pointing this out to people isn't exactly attacking them. I don't think the leadership really cares if they are seen that way, and new members will quickly find out what they're all about, as did someone called "Doug" on Kasama that was told to organize an Obama inauguration party as his first task.



I know plenty of facts, and telling young people about groups like the ISO should be our duty. I've been to their events, watch all the money collected go to paying their plane tickets and for them to go to baseballs games. The organization exists to support about 10 people at the top. No money ever goes back to the branches. The leaders yell at people for messing up their books ("How can we sell this with a bent corner?" kind of garbage). It essentially is just a scam.



Criticizing the way they tell people to organize, their rule-or-ruin approach to working with others, and telling people where their dues go is political, much more so than talking about some ridiculous nonsense Cliff wrote 60 years ago.



And I'm sure it took Sam Webb a long time before he finally clawed his way to the top of the CPUSA and starting getting paychecks from their rental properties. It doesn't really matter if they could do better doing something else. They're not doing something else. They're at the top of an organization that operates more like Amway than a communist organization. I'm sure they justify it in their minds because of all the "hard work" they put into the organization over the years. The ideas in their head simply don't matter.

The National Leadership of ISO basically only tells their people to sell books or newspapers. Most of the activity someone who considers themselves a socialist would engage in is actively discouraged (go on Facebook to any ISO page in the country, and go through all their "events" and see what kind of "activity" they engage in). No dues money, or money collected from book and paper sales, ever goes back to the local branch (I know this is a fact with the locals I am most familiar with). They push people to sign up and pay dues immediately, which of course leads to the rampant liberalism you see in the ISO (it is basically filled with white college-aged social-democratic material). They pick a few to groom, who they might bring in closer (this will also be the person who represents the local in their joke congresses, making sure the line of the ISO never changes on anything major). The national openly tells their members to sabotage other Leftist and mass groups. This has happened to groups in my area, and ex-ISO members their told me about the orders. If ISO can't run the show, they want to fuck it up.

I don't know if you do any actual organizing, Comrade A, but these things are a lot more important than debating their stupid theories.


Dude You have Posted personal exchanges between you and him, that why he went ape shit.

[dearest chuck]

Faulting the ISO (or any other group) for going for the money is stupid. In capitalist society, money is power. Generating income for a revolutionary group is a revolutionary act.
i have a bridge i would like to sell you.

[syndicat]

While it's true that $60,000 (which includes things like health care, which is probably $10k to $15k) is more than 85% of all wage earners, that includes a lot of minimum wage jobs, which are largely (though not exclusively) worked by young people who don't need to support themselves.



I used to have arguments with a conservative teacher who used to make a similar fallacious argument, that it was okay for Home Depot to pay minimum wage because "they're just teenagers who don't need the money." This was not an accurate description of the workforce there, and it ignores the profit the company makes off of them. and what if they want to move out from their parents?

What about the principle that representatives of worker organizations should not make more than an average worker's wage? In the revolutionary union tradition people on paid staff or paid officers could not make more than they made on their previous job, so as to prevent careerism. There is an ATU local where an elected paid officer is required to go thru signup for a run, and is then paid by the union what they would have made had they taken that run.

[Soviet dude]

Dude You have Posted personal exchanges between you and him, that why he went ape shit.

It's not like Ely's views on FRSO/OSCL and Solidarity are unknown, though they are typically less crudely formulated elsewhere.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Pretty much all chapters of ISO are geared around hawking Haymarket crap and not much else.

What do you do besides posting sectarian lies about the ISO once every 2 weeks? Trying to slander other groups in the hopes that they "die" ...


The ISO is a terrible organization that actively tries to fuck things up I do, with the most vicious sort of slander. I hope the group dies, as it would be a great burden lifted on the shoulders of the American Left. ... is sectarianism, not activism or radicalism.

Haymarket stands on it's own as far as the reason why we put effort into it - if you don't know why we think it's important to publish left-wing books (from multiple radical left perspectives, not just ISO members) in the US at a time when 1/3 or people under 30 support "socialism" but don't really understand what it means... well then you are just aint too bright. Our medium-term goal is trying to help build a broad and independent left in the US and publishing radical books (often re-printing out of print books from past groups) is a way we see doing that.

What do you suggest as a way to interject socialist politics into the broader political debate - should we just leave it to liberals to publish books that cater to people who want to know why our society is so fucked up?

And I'm sorry, but you don't know shit if you think that selling books is the ONLY thing we do. Excuse me? In my branch we were part of the Oscar Grant coalitions and movement, budget cut work at UC Berkeley as well as a community college where the coalition we helped to found was able to pressure the chancellor to quit. Our comrades were central to the movement to stop Stan Tookie Williams execution. The ISO here worked with anarchists in a counter-protest to East Bay Minutmen and ISOers and anarchists were the only groups present other than a few individual Green party members. And these are just headlines, we do a lot of other less high profile things too.

I also love that every time there is a ISO-hater fest people say "The ISO ONLY does movements and doesn't teach people politics" and then someone else will say "The ISO ONLY sells papers" and then someone else will say, "The ISO ONLY tries to control movements" and then another, "The ISO ONLY recruits people" and another, "The ISO ONLY does study groups".

Really what it comes down to is that since some people see the ISO as the biggest radical group, we have a target on our back - I mean obviously our small group in a small and weak left is what is keeping back the working class:rolleyes:.

[~Spectre]

But have you lived in North West Europe and can you compare? I could say I have lived in Istanbul and its costly, and compared to Ankara it is.

You'd have to also factor in state-benefits and the fact that part of the cost difference comes from currency in contrast to certain European states.


I can factually tell you that a person clearing $3k a month in New York City, living in a small 1 bedroom apartment in a cheaper neighborhood in Queens, barely has much of anything beyond slightly above survival after he pays to support his college son (not in tuition, but in food, books, clothing) and other family.

His costs are considerably less than what would fall on a larger family, or a younger family, let alone if he actually was on the hook for some tuition.


I am not really concerned with condemning the ISO over this. I'm sure it is comparable with many other graduate jobs.If the activists in questions have graduate degrees, they are actually taking considerable pay cuts.




I was once in Boston, drinking with people who were friends of friends, and there was a guy their who was a bricklayer as I was at the time. I made the mistake of asking him how much he earned, not because I had any personal interest in his finances, but just to make a comparison. The table went silent. From the reaction I got you would have imagined that I had just asked if it would be possible to have sex with his wife, not asked an innocuous question about how much he earned.

DevrimI made the same mistake once, but in my defense I was about 13.

You can ask the question of younger workers IMO. I'm 20 and my peers are a lot more relaxed about the issue.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Someone denied the conferences are run at a profit. I personally think that is not true.Evidence? None - we run it at a loss and do a lot of national fund-raising just to put the thing on.

Tickets were $75 for 3 and a half days or $5 for individual sessions - full tickets were $85 if you didn't pre-register. Yes, it's expensive, but we are not out to make a profit, we are trying to raise the profile of our politics and left-wing radical politics in general.


One ISO thing I went to raised about $450 dollars, which was immediately turned over to a couple of national ISO goons, who then went to a baseball game. No food or anything was provided to people who actually attended this crap.:rolleyes: I'm going to call this one as a big pile of bullshit.

Why are you such a liar? It doesn't make anyone believe anything you say when you routinely exaggerate or lie.


Not to mention, ISO gets a lot of new people to start paying dues out of these things. Even if they are temporarily run at a loss, I bet in the long run, they generate revenue to cover them.On this whole question of paying full-time organizers and full time editors of the paper and so on... they are underpaid for the work they do in my opinion. They could do this work for a union or free weekly paper and get paid better. We think some paid full-timers, publishing left-wing books, and conferences (along with movement work and building up our own skills as organizers) are important things for rebuilding the Left in the US. you don't agree? Fine, that's why you are not a member. But not agreeing with our methods does not mean that we are out to rip people off and all your other baseless accusations.

In fact, we used to have MORE paid organizers and we made a decision to get rid of these full-time activities in order to use funds to start Haymarket, so everything we do is trying to balance the resources we have both financial and political and personnel to try and get left-wing politics out there more. Maybe we are not using our resources in the best way - maybe we should not have a conference and not charge dues, but that's a political argument. Insinuations about anyone on the radical left profiteering is just bullshit. The campus Republicans at UC Berkeley have a sugar-daddy millionaire from Texas that gives them money to hire staff and produce a glossy full-color magazine... so if you want to make money - become a right-winger or even a liberal defender of the market and you'll have foundations throwing money at you.

But for those of us on the left, we are trying to compete with ruling class ideologies that have tons of books and publishers, tons of radio, television, and internet presence, most of academia and both major parties at their disposal to propagate their ideas... I think trying to put out left-wing alternatives to all that is very worthwhile.

[thriller]

Chegitz, you opened a big can of worms here. I work minimum wage and go to school full time. You think I work because it's fun? No it's called rent, heat and food.

[OriginalGumby]

Yeah I generally don't buy the young worker are fine with low wages argument. Especially when every young person I know is poor for the most part working a shitty job. The other side of the coin is that people are taking any jobs they can find in the recession. It's not just young people who work for minimum wage. Ever shop at Wal-Mart? Many people are retirees who can't retire.

[Animal Farm Pig]

I'd like to mention that I'm not a member of ISO, haven't had much involvement with them, and may have some political differences with them. That being said, I hate sectarianism, slander, and smear campaigns. That's what I'm seeing here.

So, the original post was able the ISO's funding and salaries. The ISO operates under 'The Center for Economic Research and Social Change', which is a 501c3 non-profit. The original post mentions some old 990 statements, but why not more recent ones? The 2009 990 is publicly available at Guidestar (http://www.guidestar.org[/url). Just do a search and download it.

I'm looking at the FY2009 990 right now, and I don't see anything obviously wrong with the financials of the organization. That judgement comes after six years of working and volunteering in various leadership roles for several US non-profits. During those years, I've been extensively involved with budgeting, book-keeping, and management. I'm a veteran of a couple of (probably politically motivated) IRS audits.

Looking at the FY2009 990, the only officer of the organization to receive compensation was the President-- Ahmed Sehrway. He received $44,183 in salary. From that salary, he donated $10,000 back to the Center. Benefits and other compensation came up to $16,788. Most of that is probably in health insurance costs, and part is probably also towards a pension. A $34k salary (after donating back to the Center) is certainly not exorbitant.

Total employee payroll in FY2009 was $479,968. No employee was paid more than $50,000. I don't know how many employees they have (it must be at least 10), but none of this seems exorbitant for full time workers.

Looking at the income side, there is a very health mix between cash contributions and magazine & book sales. The majority of cash contributions came in donations of less than $5,000 per person in the year. The bottom line looks good (a surplus for the year), and things look totally healthy from an income perspective.

So, what's the problem?

[Soviet dude]

Haymarket stands on it's own as far as the reason why we put effort into it - if you don't know why we think it's important to publish left-wing books (from multiple radical left perspectives, not just ISO members) in the US at a time when 1/3 or people under 30 support "socialism" but don't really understand what it means... well then you are just aint too bright.I understand the point quite clearly. The point is basically no one buys these books but the people who already pay dues. Hence references to Amway, as Amway recruits people into their organization under false pretenses that they're gonna get rich selling their products, and in the end, most of the products are sold to the people in Amway.

The masses of people aren't gonna be won over to revolution because of some ridiculous piece of crap you guys write. But it helps in fleecing the flock of college students you attract.


Our medium-term goal is trying to help build a broad and independent left in the US and publishing radical books (often re-printing out of print books from past groups) is a way we see doing that.This is bullshit, as ISO is notorious for its rule-or-ruin politics.


What do you suggest as a way to interject socialist politics into the broader political debate - should we just leave it to liberals to publish books that cater to people who want to know why our society is so fucked up?ISO is full of liberals, so it's not like we can leave it up to the ISO either.


What do you suggest as a way to interject socialist politics into the broader political debate - should we just leave it to liberals to publish books that cater to people who want to know why our society is so fucked up?I invite people to go to basically any branch's Facebook page, and look at their recent "activities" to see for themselves what the ISO concerns itself with; movie nights and book-clubs.


Excuse me? In my branch we were part of the Oscar Grant coalitions and movement, budget cut work at UC Berkeley as well as a community college where the coalition we helped to found was able to pressure the chancellor to quit.Hope you had fun hawking Socialist Worker at those demos. If my experience is generalized, your presence was probably completely unwelcome, and you probably didn't actually organize shit anyway, but slapped ISO on a lot of shit and pretend you had a part in it. That's generally how the ISO operates.


I also love that every time there is a ISO-hater fest people say "The ISO ONLY does movements and doesn't teach people politics"I've never seen one thread where this was claimed. I've also never read one testimony from an ex-ISO person where this was a complaint. Seems like something you just made up.


and then someone else will say "The ISO ONLY sells papers" and then someone else will say, "The ISO ONLY tries to control movements" and then another, "The ISO ONLY recruits people" and another, "The ISO ONLY does study groups".These last things are all basically the samething: how ISO organizes and how ISO relates to other groups. When ISO is the only game in town, the ISO does indeed only do study groups, and "activities" includes selling newspapers and crap. When they have to relate to other forces, they basically are trying to wreck other groups in anyway possible. They want to insert themselves into bogus-coalitions, stab their coalition partners in the back, take new people, and try to claim others are being "sectarian" for pointing out their bullshit. This is a very common story.


Really what it comes down to is that since some people see the ISO as the biggest radical group, we have a target on our back - I mean obviously our small group in a small and weak left is what is keeping back the working class.The ISO doesn't give a shit about the working class. National leaders have explicitly said this. The ISO focuses on campuses for a reason, and have no presence in the working class worth talking about.


Evidence? None - we run it at a loss and do a lot of national fund-raising just to put the thing on.

The people who went here were charged around $150, in addition to fund raising an ISO person did that was completely unscrupulous (lying to people about who they were and what they were doing). Tickets were $75 for 3 and a half days or $5 for individual sessions - full tickets were $85 if you didn't pre-register. Yes, it's expensive, but we are not out to make a profit, we are trying to raise the profile of our politics and left-wing radical politics in general.About 1,000 people show up to these conferences. $75 times 1000 in $75,000 dollars. Renting a conference room for a weekend, even at a place like the Hilton, is under $10,000. The ISO doesn't pay for food or hotel rooms or anything like that. So where is the other $65,000 going? To pay speaking fees for shitty celebrities that the ISO wants to attract?


I'm going to call this one as a big pile of bullshit.

Why are you such a liar? It doesn't make anyone believe anything you say when you routinely exaggerate or lie.I can name names. Doesn't bother me at all. The goons in question were Ashley Smith (who privately admits to not being a Marxist at all) and Eric Ruder (who was particularly idiotic and disgusting).


On this whole question of paying full-time organizers and full time editors of the paper and so on... they are underpaid for the work they do in my opinion. They could do this work for a union or free weekly paper and get paid better. We think some paid full-timers, publishing left-wing books, and conferences (along with movement work and building up our own skills as organizers) are important things for rebuilding the Left in the US. you don't agree? Fine, that's why you are not a member. But not agreeing with our methods does not mean that we are out to rip people off and all your other baseless accusations.I'm sure the committed members have to justify raising money to fly about 10 people around the country to give ridiculous talks to themselves somehow.


Insinuations about anyone on the radical left profiteering is just bullshit.It happens all the time. Hell, the first example I brought up was the CPUSA being a "Landlord Party." The CPUSA is the only organization that can lay claim to ever having been the true vanguard party in America, and yet its degeneration is almost totally complete today. The process by which this happened, which is another discussion in and of itself, doesn't need to be explained by reference to any handful of personalities. You think the ISO is immume to the processes that have turned once revolutionary parties into self-perpetuating entities that only exist to keep a few people at the top employed and not much else?

The truth of the matter is, the idiotic idealism and the organizational methods of the ISO naturally lend themselves to just such a degeneration.

[chegitz guevara]

I used to have arguments with a conservative teacher who used to make a similar fallacious argument, that it was okay for Home Depot to pay minimum wage because "they're just teenagers who don't need the money." This was not an accurate description of the workforce there, and it ignores the profit the company makes off of them. and what if they want to move out from their parents?

You're arguing against things I didn't write. Let's not go there.


What about the principle that representatives of worker organizations should not make more than an average worker's wage?

I think people should be paid what they should be paid, regardless of what capitalist society says. I think it's a terrible idea that people who work trying to make the world a better place should be paid shit.


Chegitz, you opened a big can of worms here. I work minimum wage and go to school full time. You think I work because it's fun? No it's called rent, heat and food.

Who said anything about fun?

[chegitz guevara]

I understand the point quite clearly. The point is basically no one buys these books but the people who already pay dues.

I'm not a member of the ISO. I've never been a member of the ISO. I have no intention of joining the ISO. I buy their books. Some of them are quite good. I highly recommend Lenin Rediscovered: 'What is to be Done?' in Context, their edition of The Communist Manifesto (it's got excellent annotation), and Subterranean Fire.

[Crux]

I think people should be paid what they should be paid, regardless of what capitalist society says. I think it's a terrible idea that people who work trying to make the world a better place should be paid shit.
The problem with high pay for full-timers is that it would lead to stratification within the organization. You don't become a full-timer because you want a hefty pay. Ensuring that never becomes the case is why I think the average-worker's wage is a good idea.

[Kibbutznik]

Well, they certainly could have done a whole lot better with the 1.2 million dollars, if they ran through it in like three years.

I won't condemn them for using stock and other assets as a means of sustaining their operation. Living in this society, that's pretty much the only stable funding source they're going to be able to get.

[Martin Blank]

This may not necessarily be the place to bring this up, but I think it's time to bust a myth that so many of us (including me) have held for a long time. Our concept of officials receiving a "worker's wage" comes directly from The Civil War in France, and we have held to that concept like a child holds on to its security blanket. But the fact is that the highest salaries paid out by the Paris Commune were well above the average "worker's wage". Indeed, they were also significantly higher than the highest paid workers.

According to Engels' 1891 introduction to The Civil War in France, the highest salary paid was 6,000 francs. This comes out to about 16.4 francs a day (figuring a 365-day workyear, which was common at that time). The lowest paid auxiliary workers for the Commune made a provisional wage (until their skills could be assessed) of 5 francs a day (about 1,825 francs a year).

According to Ballots and Barricades: Class Formation and Republican Politics in France, by Ronald Aminzade, the highest paid workers in 1869 (just before the Franco-Prussian War) were armaments workers, who made 10 francs a day (about 3,650 francs a year), but also suffered months-long periods of unemployment. Artisan workers made at most 3 francs a day (1,095 francs a year) and unskilled workers made 1.5 francs a day (547 francs a year) in 1867.

Unless there was a spike in inflation and prices that would have resulted in wage raises (something not mentioned in The Civil War in France by Marx, History of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Lissagaray, or any of the other materials readily available on the Internet), it's pretty clear that the Commune paid officials and employees more or less what it thought workers should be paid, not what they actually received. Even the wage received by auxiliary employees was 40 percent higher than what artisan workers received, to say nothing of the 60-percent difference between the wages of armament workers (which were due to their part-time work status) and the highest salary of Commune officials.

Just something to consider in the context of this discussion.

[Saorsa]

Soviet Dude:
This doesn't sound much like organizing to me, not to be offensive.

You're a sectarian dickhead... not to be offensive.

Do I have to list everything political I've ever done, just to make you happy? What about the union activism I do? Me and my comrades have built up Unite, the most radical and militant union in this country, from about a dozen members in my town to over 250 in the past year, and thats not counting the members in the surrounding smaller towns. I produce a political newsletter that goes round the membership sites as well - openly anti-capitalist and providing a class based analysis of a variety of news stories.

I'm not going to go down this track any further just to please an internet provocateur. But my record speaks for itself - you ain't going to dismiss me as an armchair revolutionary.


I never said anything about paid staffers being wrong in principle, or even said anything about the amount they get paid (which, by the way, 60,000 a year is ludicrous for a socialist organization anywhere in the US).

Why? They can afford to pay it. I assume ISO members can bring up any concerns they have with it at national conferences or whatever. And several people have made a solid case for 60,000 a year not being that exorbitant.


The point is everything the organization does seems to be about raising money so they can be paid, which is a huge difference.

Oh come on. I dislike the Cliffite method of organising as much as anyone and I have heavy criticisms of the Cliffites in NZ, but you're just throwing around baseless statements and not backing them up with evidence. "Throw enough mud - hope some sticks".


Are there paid staffers to help the organization function, or do the staffers run an organization in a way that ensures they get a paycheck?

Wow, I wonder which way your loaded questions wants us to answer?


The ISO focuses so heavily on revenue generation for a reason, and it damn sure isn't to give it back to the branches.

A national organisation should be more than just an aggregation of branches. Why would all the money go back to local efforts? As long as they receive enough money to function effectively they can and should raise anything further themselves. Fundraising is a valuable political exercise. If my organisation could afford full timers and if we were large enough to justify it, I would support it happening 100% and furthermore I would support the full timers being paid a comfortable income. Poverty makes you ineffective. I'm dirt poor at the moment and it fucking sucks - I don't feel any revolutionary kudos flowing thru my veins.

NHIA:
Definitely. It's perfectly fine and even revolutionary to pay a party "professional" more than 85% of the employed population makes. Why shouldn't they be in the top 15%?

I think this question has already been well answered by many other people. The US has cost and income disparities depending on where you live.


Better yet, they should get $1,870,000 Manhattan lofts to live in while party members are forced to work long hours in meat packing houses and coal mines (like Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and the US SWP).

You really are the king of strawmen NHIA. Nobody is talking about the SWP, which is a cult pure and simple. Nobody is defending the practice of that organisation. We are talking about the ISO. If it's not too hard for you, try to stay on topic?


Or even better still, they should transform party printing houses into multi-million dollar companies with themselves at the top, and party members are underpaid laborers (like David North and the SEP).

Poor dear, you're obviously very confused. I'll speak slowly. WE - ARE - TALKING - SPECIFICALLY - ABOUT - THE - ISO. Tell me if that got through to you...


All is well and good in the land of petty-bourgeois socialism, where bureaucrats rule (in their political cults for now ... aspiring for much more in the future).

There are much easier and more socially acceptable ways to make money than rising through the ranks of a Marxist organisation.

Honestly people, it's very annoying to be in a position where I'm forced to defend Cliffites. But the attacks on the ISO are just so ridiculous and obviously unfounded that I can't stay out of it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This may not necessarily be the place to bring this up, but I think it's time to bust a myth that so many of us (including me) have held for a long time. Our concept of officials receiving a "worker's wage" comes directly from The Civil War in France, and we have held to that concept like a child holds on to its security blanket. But the fact is that the highest salaries paid out by the Paris Commune were well above the average "worker's wage". Indeed, they were also significantly higher than the highest paid workers.

The first myth to be busted here is the conflation between "average worker's wage" and "average skilled worker's wage," something which Nothing Human Is Alien has to grasp. Clearly the work performed by revolutionary careerists (like Bebel and Liebknecht) or even pseudo-revolutionary careerists (like the ISO identity politics militants) is skilled.


Unless there was a spike in inflation and prices that would have resulted in wage raises (something not mentioned in The Civil War in France by Marx, History of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Lissagaray, or any of the other materials readily available on the Internet), it's pretty clear that the Commune paid officials and employees more or less what it thought workers should be paid, not what they actually received. Even the wage received by auxiliary employees was 40 percent higher than what artisan workers received, to say nothing of the 60-percent difference between the wages of armament workers (which were due to their part-time work status) and the highest salary of Commune officials.

Just something to consider in the context of this discussion.

I think Lenin may have been privy to the beyond-myths info above when he tolerated a pay scale with a multiple cap of four (highest pay no more than four times lowest pay).

[RED DAVE]

Salaries for teachers in Chicago:


Starting Salary (Bachelor's Degree) Starting Salary (Master's Degree) School Year -- 40 Weeks/193 days School Year -- 40 Weeks/193 days $48,631 $52,000

CPS Starting Salary Ranges* (School Year -- 40 Weeks/193 days):

$48,631 - $53,894 (B.A.) (Lane 1, Step 1 – Lane 1, Step 3)
$52,000 - $57,262 (M.A.) (Lane 2, Step 1 – Lane 2, Step 3)
$53,684 - $58,946 (M.A. +15) (Lane 3, Step 1 – Lane 3, Step 3)
$55,368 - $60,631 (M.A. +30) (Lane 4, Step 1 – Lane 4, Step 3)
$57,052 - $62,315 (M.A. +45) (Lane 5, Step 1 – Lane 5, Step 3)
$58,737 - $64,000 (Ph.D./Ed.D.) (Lane 6, Step 1 – Lane 6, Step 3)http://www.cps-humanresources.org/careers/salary.htm

RED DAVE

[Jimmie Higgins]

like the ISO identity politics militants

One of the things that attracted me to the ISO was the take and criticism of identity politics which dominated the broad US left in the 1990s (I first began looking at radical groups in 2000). So what is the basis of saying that the ISO supports Identity Politics?

ISR Issue 57, January–February 2008 (http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-identity.shtml)
The politics of identity (http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-identity.shtml)
SHARON SMITH argues that identity politics can't liberate the oppressed (http://www.isreview.org/issues/57/feat-identity.shtml)

Come on DNZ, you are so much better than this sloppy kind of name-calling.

----------------------------------------------------------

In regards to the question of average working wages - first of all the ISO is not the socialist society in microcosm - it is a revolutionary group. I support average workingman's wages for union officials and for any elected delegates or representatives or similar positions in a transition by revolutionary workers from capitalism to a classless stateless society. We do not live in such a society, we live in capitalism. This means that if a revolutionary group needs someone to do something full-time, then it needs to figure out how to make sure that person can do what they need to do without also having to work 40-50 hours doing something else.

Agree?

If so, what is the appropriate amount that the handful of paid ISO organizers should get? $20,000? $80,000? $12,000 and some food stamps? How far from ground-zero does the ISO mosque need to be for some of you critics to be satisfied? You say 2 blocks is too close - 3 blocks, 10 blocks?

Get it? Aside from people like DNZ and Miles who have turned the conversation into a more general and political one, critics like the OP wouldn't be satisfied no matter what the ISO does (other than "to die").

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why do they prioritize campus work over something like organized labour work? They can talk the talk against identity politics, for sure, but their identity is the Student Left.

BTW, I'm not sure "militant" is name-calling (apologies if otherwise). :confused: I used that word to denote something that's open to interpretation. Whether the reader views it to mean "revolutionaries" or otherwise, it's up to them.

[Q]

Would it be rude for political organizations to have that question and the two preceding questions of mine (occupational background, deductions on taxable income) in the other thread? The potential member is a stranger, anyway.

On first sight, yes, it would be rude. In the context of a political discussion, I'm sure one can go beyond that.

[graymouser]

Why do they prioritize campus work over something like organized labour work? They can talk the talk against identity politics, for sure, but their identity is the Student Left.
The ISO originated in a split from the International Socialists, the left-Shachtmanite group that would be one of the main forces in founding Solidarity a decade later. The International Socialists were embedded in rank-and-file committee work within the unions (the most successful being Teamsters for a Democratic Union and New Directions in UAW), and the people who left to form the International Socialist Organization saw more potential to build an organization in campus work. This coincided with two things: one, the International Socialists in Britain (then co-thinkers of the ISO) were orienting to the campuses and had renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. Two, the Socialist Workers Party in the US was moving away from its long-term campus work and into the unions, which left an opening for someone to come in and be the on-campus socialists. The ISO grabbed that opening and never looked back.

[Devrim]

I lived for many years in New York City. It's costly, and more so when you factor in reduced state benefits.

$60,000 with a family is not even remotely close to some sort of condemnable excess in a place like New York City, which was the point being raised.

I am not quite sure what you mean by state benefits. I would be very surprised though if life in London or Paris wasn't more expensive than life in NYC.

Devrim

[redasheville]

The ISO originated in a split from the International Socialists, the left-Shachtmanite group that would be one of the main forces in founding Solidarity a decade later. The International Socialists were embedded in rank-and-file committee work within the unions (the most successful being Teamsters for a Democratic Union and New Directions in UAW), and the people who left to form the International Socialist Organization saw more potential to build an organization in campus work. This coincided with two things: one, the International Socialists in Britain (then co-thinkers of the ISO) were orienting to the campuses and had renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. Two, the Socialist Workers Party in the US was moving away from its long-term campus work and into the unions, which left an opening for someone to come in and be the on-campus socialists. The ISO grabbed that opening and never looked back.

I have a question Graymouser. What union local are you building a rank and file caucus in? What's funny is we probably have more union activists IN THE BAY AREA than "Workers Power US" has members.

[graymouser]

I have a question Graymouser. What union local are you building a rank and file caucus in? What's funny is we probably have more union activists IN THE BAY AREA than "Workers Power US" has members.
Ah, the ad hominem attack. You may be correct there, since I'm not in a union shop (seriously you try finding union work as a computer programmer) and WP/US is very small - but what about my summary of the ISO's history is incorrect? Did it not orient to the campuses during the late 1970s and has it not been so oriented ever since? Or is it just a huge coincidence that most ISO branches happen to be located on campus, work on campus, hold meetings on campus, and the average ISO member is a student?

[redasheville]

Ah, the ad hominem attack. You may be correct there, since I'm not in a union shop (seriously you try finding union work as a computer programmer) and WP/US is very small - but what about my summary of the ISO's history is incorrect? Did it not orient to the campuses during the late 1970s and has it not been so oriented ever since? Or is it just a huge coincidence that most ISO branches happen to be located on campus, work on campus, hold meetings on campus, and the average ISO member is a student?

What ad hominem attacks? I was simply asking you, since you're an expert on the ISO's activities, what union activism that you were involved in because I'd like to get some feedback on my experience building rank and file power in my local. The thing about the size "Workers Power US" was simply speculation which is precisely what you are doing with the ISO's activism.

We are oriented to many struggles. Over the last several years we have built union bases in serveral cities. We are central to the immigrant rights movement in the Bay Area (the left wing of it anyway). We have played an active role organizing an event with the ILWU (one of the most militant unions in the country) to demand justice for Oscar Grant. We have led successful rank and file caucuses in SF and in Chicago. We are building more such caucuses in NYC, LA and Seattle. Our members led unofficial work stoppages at schools all over the city on March 4th, involving thousands of workers, working class students (almost entirely students of color) and parents.

And yes, we also have a student orientation. In California, the assaults on public education, especially at the working class CSU and CC schools, has become ONE OF THE CENTRAL POLITICAL ISSUES THAT THE LEFT IS ORIENTING AROUND. And we are playing a leading role in that struggle as well. Literally every single left group is building on campuses here. Still, in the Bay Area, we have more union activists than we have students.

[~Spectre]

I am not quite sure what you mean by state benefits. I would be very surprised though if life in London or Paris wasn't more expensive than life in NYC.

Devrim


Health care, vacation time, maternity leave, sick days, unemployment insurance, subsidies for child care, food, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why do they prioritize campus work over something like organized labour work? They can talk the talk against identity politics, for sure, but their identity is the Student Left.

BTW, I'm not sure "militant" is name-calling (apologies if otherwise).Ha, no - it was the identity politics label that I took offense to. If there was such a thing as "student identity politics" it would mean that we would think that students should lead the revolution or have some kind of inherent cross-class power in society different than workers. We don't see things this way and we don't ONLY organize students.

Regarding the campus orientation - this is very true (moreso in the past than today) and was a conscious political decision to organize there in response to a hostile environment and decline of labor in the 1980s and so on (both red-baiting and hostility from the emboldened conservatives in workplaces and hostility from other left-groups who had already established themselves in particular unions). ISO members were still involved in pickets and union activity where they could (one of the members of my branch joined in the 1980s because Paul D'Amato and others helped her and her co-workers organize and start a union).

If you were in workplaces in the 1980s, your experience was a series of defeats. If you were on campuses on the other hand, you were in the place where the anti-apartheid movement was, affirmative action struggles were, LGBT movements, and the anti-sweatshop movements and other pre-Seattle WTO actions were happening. This allowed a tiny group, the ISO, to be able to build a base, make alliances with other activists, and grow to a size where we could then later relate to the UPS strike, and the anti-globalization movement and so on. Groups like the US SWP and Solidarity have some kick-ass union radicals and do good work, but their organizations bear the scars from going through a long downturn in worker's struggles and their members tend to be the same people who were radicalized in the 1970s - no offense if I am misrepresenting these other groups, I'm not trying to talk shit, this is my impression based on my interactions in the Bay Area - so if I am incorrect, don't hesitate to bring it up :).

So far from being an anti-worker stance - as argued by Soviet Dude - it was a decision based on what ISO members saw going on at the time. Since I have been a member, the ISO has been consistently working on how to move into more systematic union and labor work - and the past campus focus has, IMO, made that a difficult change in orientation to make. But overall I think that it was the right decision at the time and has allowed us to grow in size and experience and get our politics out to more people. So is a decision that has resulted in some strengths as well as some weaknesses, but few decisions don't have trade-offs.

Groups similar to us that remained only focused on labor had - despite good work or good politics - a much rougher time and have stagnated as the labor movement has stagnated and workers came under attack and were demoralized. So people give us shit for having a youthful membership and attracting a lot of people new to politics to our meeting and events (that is criticized as being a "revolving door") but most groups would probably kill to be in the same position. And college students are not the elite that they were before the 1970s anyway - most even at the more hoity-toity schools still end up as skilled workers somewhere - so organizing students is really organizing the people who will then be the new generation of workers. Radical students don't talk about "prolitaritizing themselves" anymore mostly because the economy has done it for them. And considering that 1/3 of adults under 30 have a positive view of "socialism" - being on universities and community colleges ain't a fucking bad place to be positioned right now.

Luckily now is not like the 1980 (or isn't as of yet anyway) and so I think the success that the IWW has had organizing service workers, the Immigrant rights movement, and things like the Republic Windows and Doors strike, stirrings of an anti-austerity movement led by public sector workers (though this is mostly strong on campuses now) show that in the next decade workplaces are potentially going to be the locations of big the working class struggles (though campuses will continue to be important especially since young people seem to be radicalizing faster than the rest of the population right now).

[Soviet dude]

Why? They can afford to pay it. I assume ISO members can bring up any concerns they have with it at national conferences or whatever.

This is actually not true, and the National refuses to answer these questions to members. I could give more detailed stories in this regard.


And several people have made a solid case for 60,000 a year not being that exorbitant.

The case depends on supporting family members. I'm pretty sure most of them don't have a family to support. There are people millions of people in Chicago and NYC making way less than $60,000 and getting by.


Oh come on. I dislike the Cliffite method of organising as much as anyone and I have heavy criticisms of the Cliffites in NZ, but you're just throwing around baseless statements and not backing them up with evidence.

What do you mean, no evidence? No evidence for what? What have I not produced evidence for? Pretty much all the points I've brought up are taken pretty much as a given even by ISO supporters. There is nothing controversial about saying ISO spends a lot of time trying to hawk Haymarket books.


A national organisation should be more than just an aggregation of branches. Why would all the money go back to local efforts?

The question is, why does it appear that none of the money goes back to the local branches?

[graymouser]

redasheville, Jimmy Higgins:

I think the difference here is location. For the left in general, San Francisco is tremendously different from anywhere else in the United States. The ISO branch I was a member of in Philadelphia had 13 members, but could barely maintain a profile with that, had (and continues to have) very few initiatives and basically shows up at things organized by other groups. Most other groups, given 13 members, would be a dominating force on the Philadelphia left, but with the ISO it was a modest branch and accomplished little beyond selling that horrid newspaper. San Francisco is the exception, not the rule.

[Animal Farm Pig]

The case depends on supporting family members. I'm pretty sure most of them don't have a family to support. There are people millions of people in Chicago and NYC making way less than $60,000 and getting by.

It's dishonest to continue throwing around $60,000. The actual money-in-the-pocket (before tax) salary of Ahmed Sehrway in FY2009 was $44K, and he gave $10,000 of that back.

[redasheville]

redasheville, Jimmy Higgins:

I think the difference here is location. For the left in general, San Francisco is tremendously different from anywhere else in the United States. The ISO branch I was a member of in Philadelphia had 13 members, but could barely maintain a profile with that, had (and continues to have) very few initiatives and basically shows up at things organized by other groups. Most other groups, given 13 members, would be a dominating force on the Philadelphia left, but with the ISO it was a modest branch and accomplished little beyond selling that horrid newspaper. San Francisco is the exception, not the rule.

Any proof to back up your assertion (Other than the health of a single, relatively small branch?) In what ways is SF different? How does that translate into the ISO magically being a competent organization as opposed to anywhere else? Turns out all the organizing I do magically falls into my lap because I live in Peoples Soviet Republic of San Francisco. What utter crap! Since you seem to know so much, please enlighten us.

In Santa Cruz we lead the organizing efforts to organize the only successful student/worker strike at UCSC? What about in LA where we are also imbedded in unions and in the immigrant rights movement? What about our ILWU steward in PDX or teacher union comrades in Seattle? What about our members who led a successful rank and file caucus in the Chicago Teachers Union? What about our organizing in SEIU in San Diego (where we also have strong ties to the immigrant rights movement). What about the innocent men on death row we have helped save? What about the leading role we played in the mobilizations against Islamophobia in NYC, Gainesville FL and Murfreeboro TN? But none of that REALLY matters because all we REALLY do is sell books and audit classes.

[RED DAVE]

In Santa Cruz we lead the organizing efforts to organize the only successful student/worker strike at UCSC? What about in LA where we are also imbedded in unions and in the immigrant rights movement? What about our ILWU steward in PDX or teacher union comrades in Seattle? What about our members who led a successful rank and file caucus in the Chicago Teachers Union? What about our organizing in SEIU in San Diego (where we also have strong ties to the immigrant rights movement). What about the innocent men on death row we have helped save? What about the leading role we played in the mobilizations against Islamophobia in NYC, Gainesville FL and Murfreeboro TN? But none of that REALLY matters because all we REALLY do is sell books and audit classes.But what about Trotsky and Kronstadt?

RED DAVE

[graymouser]

Any proof to back up your assertion (Other than the health of a single, relatively small branch?) In what ways is SF different? How does that translate into the ISO magically being a competent organization as opposed to anywhere else? Turns out all the organizing I do magically falls into my lap because I live in Peoples Soviet Republic of San Francisco. What utter crap! Since you seem to know so much, please enlighten us.

In Santa Cruz we lead the organizing efforts to organize the only successful student/worker strike at UCSC? What about in LA where we are also imbedded in unions and in the immigrant rights movement? What about our ILWU steward in PDX or teacher union comrades in Seattle? What about our members who led a successful rank and file caucus in the Chicago Teachers Union? What about our organizing in SEIU in San Diego (where we also have strong ties to the immigrant rights movement). What about the innocent men on death row we have helped save? What about the leading role we played in the mobilizations against Islamophobia in NYC, Gainesville FL and Murfreeboro TN? But none of that REALLY matters because all we REALLY do is sell books and audit classes.
I'm telling you about my personal experience with the ISO, where I live and organize. San Francisco is objectively different from anywhere else in the US in terms of left organizing, and to be honest I take any of your assertions about your level of activity with a grain of salt (as I would any other left group's). I was at the 9/11 demonstration in NYC and I didn't see so much as a Socialist Worker being sold, nor hear a word of the ISO's role in building it, so if you were "leading" it that fact was not visible from here. My experience with the ISO is nothing like the group you are describing - maybe it's hidden away but I have not seen the evidence.

[redasheville]

I'm telling you about my personal experience with the ISO, where I live and organize. San Francisco is objectively different from anywhere else in the US in terms of left organizing, and to be honest I take any of your assertions about your level of activity with a grain of salt (as I would any other left group's). I was at the 9/11 demonstration in NYC and I didn't see so much as a Socialist Worker being sold, nor hear a word of the ISO's role in building it, so if you were "leading" it that fact was not visible from here. My experience with the ISO is nothing like the group you are describing - maybe it's hidden away but I have not seen the evidence.

Is this the best you can do? You stated in this thread, as if it was an objective fact that we organize on campuses and "never looked back", implying that all we do is organize on campus (even brought in the history of the IS and Solidarity to give some "authority" to your argument). Then you imply that I am lying about the activity of my organization. Then you justify it by saying that it was just your personal impression! Funny how you left out that qualifier in your earlier posts. That is called back pedaling.

How is SF different? How? Be concrete. How has the success of the ISO here been exclusively, or mostly, or even significantly been because being in SF? Again, be concrete.

[Devrim]

In what ways is SF different?

Wow, I was reading this thread with sort of vague interest, and I just sort of assumed that San Francisco would be different because it is a really big massive city. I just checked the size on Wiki, and it turns out that it is really small, population 815,358, and only the 12th biggest city in the States. Compared to the size of cities in Turkey it also wouldn't get into the top ten. It really is a small place...and it is so famous.

Well you learn something new everyday.

Devrim

[redasheville]

It's different because everyone here is actually a leftist so all the ISO and other radical groups need to do is sit around and not actually organize anything.

[Soviet dude]

What about the leading role we played in the mobilizations against Islamophobia in NYC, Gainesville FL and Murfreeboro TN? But none of that REALLY matters because all we REALLY do is sell books and audit classes.

lol, what a crock of shit! ISO in all those places played a terrible, awful role. The real organizers of literally all three of those places did nothing but complain about the shit ISO was pulling.

[Homo Songun]

Wow, I was reading this thread with sort of vague interest, and I just sort of assumed that San Francisco would be different because it is a really big massive city. I just checked the size on Wiki, and it turns out that it is really small, population 815,358, and only the 12th biggest city in the States. Compared to the size of cities in Turkey it also wouldn't get into the top ten. It really is a small place...and it is so famous.

Well you learn something new everyday.

Devrim

You can't throw a stone without hitting a dozen Trots in San Francisco. I think even normal liberals make icepick jokes there.

[syndicat]

Actually my impression of the US is that wages are low and living standards are cheap compared to Northern Europe.

your impression is correct. the average wage rate in the USA is midway between northern Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia) and the Iberian peninsula (Spain, Portugal). German auto makers move production to the U.S. because they can pay 50 percent less than they do in Germany.

the real wage rate for men with only high school education -- the great majority of male workers -- has fallen by 25 percent since early '70s, and by 17 percent for females. The real unemployment rate here in California right now is 24 percent. altho the rate of imprisonment is 50 percent higher in southern Europe than in northern Europe, the rate in the USA is five times higher than Spain. there are now 50 million people with no health insurance coverage (including me). There is a record number of people who have been unemployed for over six months.

if that ISO dude is getting paid $34,000 a year, that's not much. that's about what i have to live on and i'm just scraping by.

[thriller]

You can't throw a stone without hitting a dozen Trots in San Francisco. I think even normal liberals make icepick jokes there.

HAHAHA that is so great/true.

@redashville
Ohh come on, don't be so naive. You think San Fran, S.C. and Nor Cal got the rep for being so liberal just out of the blue??? California is not like the rest of the world.

I lived in Santa Cruz for quite a few years. It is NOTHING like Wisconsin or the rest of the US for that fact. Everyone in Santa Cruz smokes weed, everyone supports gay rights, everyone seems very respectful of the Latino community. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I liked the community very much. But come to Wisconsin and fly a red flag. Some guy chased me across a highway for having a hammer and sickle shirt. In fact many ISO'ers here got upset with me for wearing a red bandanna and flying the hammer and sickle. VERY VERY different atmosphere out here in the Midwest compared to the west coast. I'm glad that you are getting shit done (honestly). But do not try to act like the Bay Area is some farm town populated by right-wing homophobes and it's so hard to recruit people. I guess maybe it would be hard to recruit people given the fact that there are many different socialist organizations on the Left coast, so the ISO prolly has to make an effort to stand out. Best of luck.

*Side note: I did not meet a single person in Santa Cruz who didn't smoke weed. I even knew a cop who'd smoke out, so that is not a fabrication.

[redasheville]

HAHAHA that is so great/true.

@redashville
Ohh come on, don't be so naive. You think San Fran, S.C. and Nor Cal got the rep for being so liberal just out of the blue??? California is not like the rest of the world.

I lived in Santa Cruz for quite a few years. It is NOTHING like Wisconsin or the rest of the US for that fact. Everyone in Santa Cruz smokes weed, everyone supports gay rights, everyone seems very respectful of the Latino community. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, in fact I liked the community very much. But come to Wisconsin and fly a red flag. Some guy chased me across a highway for having a hammer and sickle shirt. In fact many ISO'ers here got upset with me for wearing a red bandanna and flying the hammer and sickle. VERY VERY different atmosphere out here in the Midwest compared to the west coast. I'm glad that you are getting shit done (honestly). But do not try to act like the Bay Area is some farm town populated by right-wing homophobes and it's so hard to recruit people. I guess maybe it would be hard to recruit people given the fact that there are many different socialist organizations on the Left coast, so the ISO prolly has to make an effort to stand out. Best of luck.

*Side note: I did not meet a single person in Santa Cruz who didn't smoke weed. I even knew a cop who'd smoke out, so that is not a fabrication.

Wait so your point is that California, especially the Bay Area, is a liberal sort of place? Wow, what a keen insight! Unfortunately, that is not what is being debated here.

However, the point Graywhatever was making was that since things are sooooooo much different in SF than everywhere else, the ISO was magically able to do the organizing that it has accomplished simply by virtue of SF being "like totally different than other places!". This of course is an weak, impressionistic argument that he/she has not been able to defend. Not to mention a profoundly smug, condescending, pretentious argument that has zero political content.

[redasheville]

Also, not sure what parts of SC you've seen but places in OC and the Inland Empire may as well be Alabama.

[RED DAVE]

lol, what a crock of shit! ISO in all those places played a terrible, awful role. The real organizers of literally all three of those places did nothing but complain about the shit ISO was pulling.Uhh, Comrade, you may be right, and you may be wrong, but, in any event, a post like this requires verification.

RED DAVE

[Jimmie Higgins]

lol, what a crock of shit! ISO in all those places played a terrible, awful role. The real organizers of literally all three of those places did nothing but complain about the shit ISO was pulling.I thought we only sold books. So we are messing up "real organizers" by spending all of our energy selling books?


Also, not sure what parts of SC you've seen but places in OC and the Inland Empire may as well be Alabama.Yeah, shit. There was a rally in support of a killer cop in Walnut Creek; weekly rallies of Minutemen in a Pakistani/Indian community in Fremont; I saw a NAZI on the BART (subway) and a racist skinhead in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland - and then there's the Bay Area National Anarchists. And I grew up in Sacramento where my middle school was locked down because of a fight between two racist white gangs, Rush Limbaugh got his first radio show and popularity, a synagogue and mosque were bombed in the early 90s, there was a string of violent attacks on gay men 2 years ago, and white jocks at my High School used to brag about driving around and shooting migrants working in fields with a pellet gun. This state passed prop 187 against immigrants, prop 8 banning marriage, "progressive" San Francisco is pushing out all working class communities and the main concern of the liberals in power is how to hide San Francisco's homeless population. SF is not what it was a generation ago and it's not the radical working class city it was after the General Strike although there is the legacy of this history like the militancy of the ILWU or the living history of the Black Panthers.

[~Spectre]

Wow, I was reading this thread with sort of vague interest, and I just sort of assumed that San Francisco would be different because it is a really big massive city. I just checked the size on Wiki, and it turns out that it is really small, population 815,358, and only the 12th biggest city in the States. Compared to the size of cities in Turkey it also wouldn't get into the top ten. It really is a small place...and it is so famous.

Well you learn something new everyday.

Devrim


To add to what others have said. San Francisco has a reputation here. So for instance, if a politician wants to dismiss another politician as being too "left", it is not uncommon to hear him say "oh, he/she is a San Francisco liberal".

[~Spectre]

The case depends on supporting family members. I'm pretty sure most of them don't have a family to support. There are people millions of people in Chicago and NYC making way less than $60,000 and getting by.


1) There is no reason why they should just 'get by'.

2) You haven't addressed the point Devrim alluded to. If they are college graduates, they are probably taking a pay cut. If they went to grad school, then they are taking significant pay cuts.

[Soviet dude]

I thought we only sold books. So we are messing up "real organizers" by spending all of our energy selling books?

I quite clearly stated early that where ISO is not the only game in town, they try to join bogus coalitions for the purpose of either controlling everything, or purposefully trying to sabotage it. The purposeful sabotage is what went on in all those cities.

[Soviet dude]

1) There is no reason why they should just 'get by'.

Not if ISO is a serious revolutionary organization, which it ain't. So there is no reason not to fleece the flock.


2) You haven't addressed the point Devrim alluded to. If they are college graduates, they are probably taking a pay cut. If they went to grad school, then they are taking significant pay cuts.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? What does it matter if they could make more doing something else? They don't do something else, they do ISO. Talking about the reasons in people's heads about why they do shit is worthless idealism.

[syndicat]

Wow, I was reading this thread with sort of vague interest, and I just sort of assumed that San Francisco would be different because it is a really big massive city. I just checked the size on Wiki, and it turns out that it is really small, population 815,358, and only the 12th biggest city in the States. Compared to the size of cities in Turkey it also wouldn't get into the top ten. It really is a small place...and it is so famous.



That's just the old central city. There is a large metropolitan area surrounding that city with a population of about six million. The old central city is probably the most heavily gentrified central city in the USA with a majority of the employed residents working professional and managerial jobs. The black population has shrunk from 14 percent to 6 percent and much of the white and Latino working class has been forced out also. I'm moving soon to the East Bay for financial reasons. I can't afford the high housing costs anymore.

The city is liberal...or "progressive" as they say here...but that is superficial. The professional and managerial and some of the capitalist elite here tend to be socially liberal. But underlying this there is systemic class bias as you would expect in capitalist USA.

The labor movement here is relatively moribund. Highly bureaucratized. Little in the way of grassroots worker collective self-activity.

[~Spectre]

Not if ISO is a serious revolutionary organization, which it ain't. So there is no reason not to fleece the flock.

Can you provide anything other than an assertion?




What the hell does this have to do with anything? What does it matter if they could make more doing something else? They don't do something else, they do ISO. Talking about the reasons in people's heads about why they do shit is worthless idealism.It just shows that you're a bit detached from reality if you think that paying people less than what any other college graduate, and significantly less than any grad school degree holder could earn, is some kind of noteworthy excess. Especially considering that the amount in question isn't excessive even in a vacuum.

It's the type of nonsense that capitalists use to try and attack socialists. OH HE'S A SOCIALIST, EH? WELL I NOTICE THE HYPOCRITE DOESN'T COMPLAIN WHEN HE USES THAT NICE SONY LAPTOP! WHY NOT MOVE TO CUBA!!?!?!??!mckwejfkjwesjgsevfjgvjersjgsrjgkpsrjg @!!!!1111

[redasheville]

That's just the old central city. There is a large metropolitan area surrounding that city with a population of about six million. The old central city is probably the most heavily gentrified central city in the USA with a majority of the employed residents working professional and managerial jobs. The black population has shrunk from 14 percent to 6 percent and much of the white and Latino working class has been forced out also. I'm moving soon to the East Bay for financial reasons. I can't afford the high housing costs anymore.

The city is liberal...or "progressive" as they say here...but that is superficial. The professional and managerial and some of the capitalist elite here tend to be socially liberal. But underlying this there is systemic class bias as you would expect in capitalist USA.

The labor movement here is relatively moribund. Highly bureaucratized. Little in the way of grassroots worker collective self-activity.

Not to mention that TWO HUNDRED immigrants have been deported from SF since the summer, and the local corporate newspaper is going on a smear campaign against the transit union here (whose membership is overwhelmingly non white) and they are trying to make being homeless illegal, among countless other things.

In a word, SF isn't that different, except that its a sanctuary city...for the rich.

[Soviet dude]

Can you provide anything other than an assertion?

It's not my problem if you don't know anything about the ISO.


It just shows that you're a bit detached from reality if you think that paying people less than what any other college graduate, and significantly less than any grad school degree holder could earn, is some kind of noteworthy excess.

1. The entire education system is in a massive state of change. Graduate assistants, who make around $15,000 a year if they're lucky, teach most of the classes and do all the shit grunt work. There is little hope for tenure positions for the vast majority of who go to grad school (almost all of the ISO's leading people have advanced degrees).

2. The extreme repression found in academia to any radical Leftist ideas makes this much harder. Norman Finkelstein taught in NY as an adjunct professor for years, for about $18,000 at Hunter College. I suggest reading Michael Parenti's Repression in Academia for a more thorough reading on this subject.

3. If you're already been in ISO for a long time, doing their almost-exclusive student organizing, making 40,000-60,000 a year for the ISO looks a hell of a lot better than working some shit job as an adjunct professor for a university.

I think the exact opposite is the case; you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and trying to turn this into an irrelevant discussion about why people are doing X instead of Y. Why isn't the CEO of some company making more money at some other competing company? Maybe the paths that opened themselves up to him might have a wee bit of an effect on his life decisions, no?


Especially considering that the amount in question isn't excessive even in a vacuum.

I would bet a $100 the people saying "60,000 a year isn't excess" come from petty-bourgeois families. It just goes to show how detached you are from the working class in America.

[graymouser]

How is SF different? How? Be concrete. How has the success of the ISO here been exclusively, or mostly, or even significantly been because being in SF? Again, be concrete.
Seriously? You are actually demanding concrete explanations for why San Francisco has a more robust radical movement than Philadelphia? The Bay Area has a long established far left; the only other city comparable is New York. While SF no longer has the incredible union density it once had (it was over 50% during the 1950s) it is an institutional bastion of liberalism and leftism. Among other things, there's Berkeley - one of the most famous universities for radicalism, but by far not the only one. California, which still has a lot of flaws, remains a totally different political landscape than the rest of the United States. If you told anyone that the San Francisco branches of the ISO were much bigger and more active than the one branch in Philly, no one would bat an eye. Quit trying to make this an issue.

[dearest chuck]

i guess its not only the big american unions that are basically rackets. the most successful american socialist party is a racket too! that's a shame.

[redasheville]

Seriously? You are actually demanding concrete explanations for why San Francisco has a more robust radical movement than Philadelphia? The Bay Area has a long established far left; the only other city comparable is New York. While SF no longer has the incredible union density it once had (it was over 50% during the 1950s) it is an institutional bastion of liberalism and leftism. Among other things, there's Berkeley - one of the most famous universities for radicalism, but by far not the only one. California, which still has a lot of flaws, remains a totally different political landscape than the rest of the United States. If you told anyone that the San Francisco branches of the ISO were much bigger and more active than the one branch in Philly, no one would bat an eye. Quit trying to make this an issue.

I haven't made this an issue. You have. Nobody denied that SF has a more progressive leaning culture (duh, I grew in the former plantation South so its not like the superficial cultural differences are lost on me). What you argued was that it was "totally different" than other parts of the country, and that this difference accounted for the ability for the ISO to organize here. This is the only way you could account for the ISO not fitting in to your absurd characterization. I asked you to explain yourself, and you've failed.

[Animal Farm Pig]

I would bet a $100 the people saying "60,000 a year isn't excess" come from petty-bourgeois families. It just goes to show how detached you are from the working class in America.

I would bet a $100 that the people complaining about the modest salaries for the full-time workers at the ISO have never run a non-profit with a turn-over of more than a million dollars. It would explain why you're totally ignorant of the work that goes into it and the necessity to have paid full time workers.

Otherwise, you're just an asshole.

[RED DAVE]

i guess its not only the big american unions that are basically rackets. the most successful american socialist party is a racket too! that's a shame.(1) The $1000 Jeopardy question: "An American socialist organization that's a racket."

(2) Your answer, "What is the ISO?"

(3) You will not win the $1000.

RED DAVE

[Martin Blank]

Wow. I'm learning something here, too. I'm learning that, when someone tries to raise a discussion to a higher political and theoretical level and transform it into a discussion that affects the programmatic formulations of every self-described Marxist, comrades respond by ignoring the political point and concentrate on dime-a-dozen slagging off over perceived doctrinal differences.

[~Spectre]

It's not my problem if you don't know anything about the ISO.

You're simply making assertions like "Revolutionary organizations shouldn't pay 60,000!" and leaving it at that. That's baseless.




1. The entire education system is in a massive state of change. Graduate assistants, who make around $15,000 a year if they're lucky, teach most of the classes and do all the shit grunt work. There is little hope for tenure positions for the vast majority of who go to grad school (almost all of the ISO's leading people have advanced degrees).
I wasn't referring specifically to work in academia. Graduate assistants are still getting their degrees, and receive free tuition.

People with graduate school degrees make significantly more than 60,000.



2. The extreme repression found in academia to any radical Leftist ideas makes this much harder. Norman Finkelstein taught in NY as an adjunct professor for years, for about $18,000 at Hunter College. I suggest reading Michael Parenti's Repression in Academia for a more thorough reading on this subject.Adjunct professors usually make on average at least 60 grand. I'm not sure what you are referring to with the Finkelstein thing, but I suspect that it was probably very many years ago, and he had a low course load.

Either way, I'm starting to get the impression that you believe people with graduate degrees can only work in Academia, which is to say the least - misguided.





3. If you're already been in ISO for a long time, doing their almost-exclusive student organizing, making 40,000-60,000 a year for the ISO looks a hell of a lot better than working some shit job as an adjunct professor for a university.

I think the exact opposite is the case; you don't know what the hell you're talking about, and trying to turn this into an irrelevant discussion about why people are doing X instead of Y. Why isn't the CEO of some company making more money at some other competing company? Maybe the paths that opened themselves up to him might have a wee bit of an effect on his life decisions, no?
That's nice. That still has nothing to do with anything.



I would bet a $100 the people saying "60,000 a year isn't excess" come from petty-bourgeois families. It just goes to show how detached you are from the working class in America.What do you feel is a better figure?

[thriller]

@redashville
By S.C. I meant Santa Cruz, not So Cal. Sorry for the confusion. I have been to bakersfield, and holy shit talk about EXTREME right wing, yeah so cal sucks.
My point was that it is a very different atmosphere organizing on the west coast compared to the Midwest, that's all.

[redasheville]

@redashville
By S.C. I meant Santa Cruz, not So Cal. Sorry for the confusion. I have been to bakersfield, and holy shit talk about EXTREME right wing, yeah so cal sucks.
My point was that it is a very different atmosphere organizing on the west coast compared to the Midwest, that's all.

Thanks for the clarification. Be safe.

[graymouser]

I haven't made this an issue. You have. Nobody denied that SF has a more progressive leaning culture (duh, I grew in the former plantation South so its not like the superficial cultural differences are lost on me). What you argued was that it was "totally different" than other parts of the country, and that this difference accounted for the ability for the ISO to organize here. This is the only way you could account for the ISO not fitting in to your absurd characterization. I asked you to explain yourself, and you've failed.
I think you're mixing things up. My critique of the local ISO is that with thirteen or more people in the branch - larger than any other Trotskyist group in the city by a good measure - the ISO has barely been able to keep up a public profile in Philadelphia. What I see is a group that is much less effective than it ought to be for its numbers, and ridiculously focused on internal growth with little result. San Francisco gives you the opportunity for a much larger membership base, so the expectation should be even higher.

[redasheville]

I think you're mixing things up. My critique of the local ISO is that with thirteen or more people in the branch - larger than any other Trotskyist group in the city by a good measure - the ISO has barely been able to keep up a public profile in Philadelphia. What I see is a group that is much less effective than it ought to be for its numbers, and ridiculously focused on internal growth with little result. San Francisco gives you the opportunity for a much larger membership base, so the expectation should be even higher.

First you said that the ISO organized on campuses and "never looked back".

I gave you examples of the kind of organizing that the ISO has done locally, that contradicted your assertion. Jimmie Higgins did the same. You explained this by the fact that this was in the Bay Area, so obviously the ISO would different and that SF is the "exception, not the rule" (did you go on a national tour of ISO branches or something?)

I asked you to answer to the organizing we have done all around the country that contradicted the above assertion. You implied that I was being dishonest, and that you were merely commenting on that about your personal experience, something which you did not consider important to mention when you gave a sweeping statements about the ISO's organizing.

So your "critique" was never about your personal experiences with the Philadelphia branch, until you back peddled there.

If you want to continue to discuss this, PM and I will send you my phone number and we can have a chat.

[graymouser]

First you said that the ISO organized on campuses and "never looked back".
Just for clarity: This was in a response to a general inquiry as to why the ISO has taken the campus route to organizing. I do take the history of such questions seriously and attempted to give a historically accurate answer; this was not meant as a polemic against the ISO but simply to state the facts about why they developed their campus orientation, which is still ongoing. Maybe that's changing in a few places, but it hasn't been hugely visible yet. If you're ok with leaving it at this, I am as well.

[chegitz guevara]

What about the leading role we played in the mobilizations against Islamophobia in NYC, Gainesville FL and Murfreeboro TN? But none of that REALLY matters because all we REALLY do is sell books and audit classes.

Well, your own group will highlight its own role and downplay the roles of others, but I've hear differently. I'm led by different sources that the lead organizer in Murphrysburo was a member of Solidarity. In NYC, Workers World was the primary organizer. In Gainesville, I haven't heard anything good about the role the ISO has played in general.

The ISO has done some amazing work, like around the death penalty in Illinois, so I don't see the need of the ISO to exaggerate it's work.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I would bet a $100 the people saying "60,000 a year isn't excess" come from petty-bourgeois families. It just goes to show how detached you are from the working class in America.Got your wallet ready?

Let's just say they actually get paid $60,000 - well my dad climbed polls and did dispatch for Pac Bell and was a member of CWA and my mom was a teacher and a member of her union too. My dad was drafted in Vietnam and layed off in 2001.

I worked my way through college and have worked a series of service jobs, I worked as an assistant at a school, worked as a temp in an office, I currently make about $1,200 a month and pay $550 to rent an apartment in Oakland. I went to shitty public schools and haven't had health coverage since I was covered by my parent's plans almost 10 years ago.

Detached from the working class in America - screw you you snotty shit. Is that prol-y enough for you?

I'd prefer a cash payment so I can send it to the main ISO office quicker.:D

-------------------------------

And for the record, I really don't care what background someone comes from if their politics are good. Does Soviet Dude also think that Marx was just out to collect money from Engels by spending his time writing some awful books?

[Palingenisis]

Why do they prioritize campus work over something like organized labour work? They can talk the talk against identity politics, for sure, but their identity is the Student Left.

BTW, I'm not sure "militant" is name-calling (apologies if otherwise). :confused: I used that word to denote something that's open to interpretation. Whether the reader views it to mean "revolutionaries" or otherwise, it's up to them.

I think their flirtation with political Islam is even more serious than their focus on student politics. Political Islam is a real threat to working class unity in the council estates of the Imperialist nations and actually kills communists in the oppressed nations.

And NO political Islam is NOT Islam anymore than Joseph De Maistre represents the average Roman Catholic.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Wow. I'm learning something here, too. I'm learning that, when someone tries to raise a discussion to a higher political and theoretical level and transform it into a discussion that affects the programmatic formulations of every self-described Marxist, comrades respond by ignoring the political point and concentrate on dime-a-dozen slagging off over perceived doctrinal differences.How long have you been on revleft comrade - you should know better.:lol:


I think their flirtation with political Islam is even more serious than their focus on student politics. Political Islam is a real threat to working class unity in the council estates of the Imperialist nations and actually kills communists in the oppressed nations.

And NO political Islam is NOT Islam anymore than Joseph De Maistre represents the average Roman Catholic.Flirtation? I've been to Mecca and pray to it 5 times a day.

Lol, what are you talking about? Do you mean to say, we have solidarity with people who have been targeted and had their religion scapegoated, then yes we do. If you mean that we advocate some religion, then you are mistaken.

[Devrim]

your impression is correct. the average wage rate in the USA is midway between northern Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia) and the Iberian peninsula (Spain, Portugal). German auto makers move production to the U.S. because they can pay 50 percent less than they do in Germany.

the real wage rate for men with only high school education -- the great majority of male workers -- has fallen by 25 percent since early '70s, and by 17 percent for females. The real unemployment rate here in California right now is 24 percent. altho the rate of imprisonment is 50 percent higher in southern Europe than in northern Europe, the rate in the USA is five times higher than Spain. there are now 50 million people with no health insurance coverage (including me). There is a record number of people who have been unemployed for over six months.

Thanks Syndicat, you are always very informative with facts about the condition of the US working class.


That's just the old central city. There is a large metropolitan area surrounding that city with a population of about six million.

Yes, but you just sort of take it for granted that city population figures are like that. Istanbul for example, which is a big city is down on Wiki with just 12.8 million, but really it is about 20 million.

Devrim

[Devrim]

You haven't addressed the point Devrim alluded to. If they are college graduates, they are probably taking a pay cut. If they went to grad school, then they are taking significant pay cuts. What the hell does this have to do with anything? What does it matter if they could make more doing something else? They don't do something else, they do ISO. Talking about the reasons in people's heads about why they do shit is worthless idealism.

Actually that wasn't the point that I was making at all. What I was trying to say was that the fact that most of the senior cadres were university educated suggests something about the class basis of the organisation.

Now personally I am a communist and I understand that people like teachers etc are obviously workers. Nevertheless, I would feel uncomfortable in an organisation where the leadership was entirely made up of full-timers who came from the sociological 'middle class'*.

Syndicat stated before that 'the great majority of male workers only have high school education', which just looking up what high school means in the US on Wiki, is a few more years of schooling than I have.

Now, as I said before I want to clearly say that of course most people in what is termed the 'middle class' are actually workers, but to me it seems somewhat strange that virtually the entire leadership of people in the organisations of the 'Cliff current' comes from this social strata.

I am old enough to remember when the CPs were still large organisations, and generally their full-timers were people who had the respect of workers as they had generally been militant workers themselves who had been blacklisted. I remember discussing of one the UK SWP's election candidates with a friend there who was asking what she did for a job, and she was quite astounded when I said that the candidate was a full time party worker, who had done that since leaving university. My friends reply was something like "You mean to say that she is talking about socialism and the working class and that she has never done a days fucking work in her life".

Politically it is not a point. Of course there can be people from that sort of background working for a political organisation. However, when the vast majority of the leadership of an organisation comes from this sort of background, I think that it says something about the organisation, and makes many workers feel uncomfortable.

The same think struck me about JH's 'more-proletarian-than-thou' rant:


Let's just say they actually get paid $60,000 - well my dad climbed polls and did dispatch for Pac Bell and was a member of CWA and my mom was a teacher and a member of her union too. My dad was drafted in Vietnam and layed off in 2001.

I worked my way through college and have worked a series of service jobs, I worked as an assistant at a school, worked as a temp in an office, I currently make about $1,200 a month and pay $550 to rent an apartment in Oakland. I went to shitty public schools and haven't had health coverage since I was covered by my parent's plans almost 10 years ago.

Detached from the working class in America - screw you you snotty shit. Is that prol-y enough for you?

Now I think this is working class, but most of the people I drink with would say something like 'University educated teacher's son. That's pretty middle class isn't it'.

This reflects lots of things including a sociological view of class, not a communist one, but I can imagine that many working class people would feel uncomfortable in an organisation whose leadership were all university educated people many of whom had never had a job, but always worked full time for the organisation.

It is not a 'political point'. I think that organisations should be considered on their political positions and activity. Of course, if you are going have full-timers to run an organisation, they must be paid, and there are always people who will say they are paid too much. Similarly events need to be paid for, meeting halls need hiring, and papers need printing etc. Organisations need money. I don't see any problem with selling tickets for a large scale event, and I am not going to get into a foolish argument about whether a specific price is 'too much'.

Despite all that though it would still make me feel uncomfortable if I was in an organisation whose leadership was like this.

Devrim

*I know that the 'middle class' is not a Marxist concept, and as I have already stressed these people are workers, but I think that people understand what I mean.

[Devrim]

I think their flirtation with political Islam is even more serious than their focus on student politics. Political Islam is a real threat to working class unity in the council estates of the Imperialist nations and actually kills communists in the oppressed nations.

Although the ISO is not connected with the SWP anymore, the Turkish Prime Minister, a right-wing conservative Islamicist, congratulated his friends in the Revolutionary Socialist Workers party (IST section in Turkey) for their recent support on TV last week.

Devrim

[~Spectre]

your impression is correct. the average wage rate in the USA is midway between northern Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia) and the Iberian peninsula (Spain, Portugal). German auto makers move production to the U.S. because they can pay 50 percent less than they do in Germany.



Can you cite that?

I was under the impression that foreign automakers build factories inside the U.S. to get around tariffs, etc.

In general, foreign autoworker labor is less expensive for the manufacturer in terms overall per worker cost, as the state bears the cost of health insurance.

[Palingenisis]

Although the ISO is not connected with the SWP anymore, the Turkish Prime Minister, a right-wing conservative Islamicist, congratulated his friends in the Revolutionary Socialist Workers party (IST section in Turkey) for their recent support on TV last week.

Devrim

Oh sorry I was thinking that they were the US version of the SWP.

I was thinking of the whole Respect farce and their support for the Taliban.

[Palingenisis]

Although the ISO is not connected with the SWP anymore, the Turkish Prime Minister, a right-wing conservative Islamicist, congratulated his friends in the Revolutionary Socialist Workers party (IST section in Turkey) for their recent support on TV last week.

Devrim

WOW!

The thing is though that I have found that the nearer "leftists" are to political Islam the more disdain and even fear they have it....Seeing it as progressive seems to be very much a western thing.

[Devrim]

Oh sorry I was thinking that they were the US version of the SWP.

Their roots are there:


The ISO originated in 1976 among a number of groups in the International Socialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Socialists_%28US%29) (IS) that were growing increasingly critical of the organization's leadership. Among them was the self-identified Left Faction, which was led by Cal (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cal_Winslow&action=edit&redlink=1) and Barbara Winslow (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barbara_Winslow&action=edit&redlink=1) and supported by the IS's Canadian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Socialists_%28Canada%29) and British (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_%28Britain%29) members. The Left Faction and its international supporters maintained that the IS's leadership had acquired a top-down style of operating that depoliticized the organisation and that it placed too much emphasis on sending student activists into working class employment (a tactic referred to as "industrialization"). These disputes followed the disagreements over the 1974 revolution in Portugal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution). In 1977, the Left Faction was expelled from the IS, and immediately formed the International Socialist Organization.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Socialist_Organization#cite_note-Fisk-2) The ISO began publication of its paper, Socialist Worker, shortly after its formation, and continues to rely on it as an organizational resource.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Socialist_Organization#cite_note-3)
Some of the political theories adopted by the ISO had been developed in the British Socialist Workers Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_%28UK%29) (SWP), including that of state capitalism. State capitalist theory identifies the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as exploitative class societies driven by military competition with private Western capitalism, rather than as the deformed workers' states (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers%27_states) that Trotsky maintained they were in The Revolution Betrayed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_Betrayed).[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Socialist_Organization#cite_note-Cliff-4)




WOW!

The thing is though that I have found that the nearer "leftists" are to political Islam the more disdain and even fear they have it....Seeing it as progressive seems to be very much a western thing.

Yes, it is a very strange position for leftists to take in Turkey, and I think it says something when the Prime Minister makes a point our thanking 'his friends' in a leftist organisation, in a list of people he thanked, which also included fascists and an extreme religious party.

Devrim

[Martin Blank]

How long have you been on revleft comrade - you should know better.:lol:

Damn me and my sense of political principle! How foolish must I be to expect political people to discuss political theory? Oh well, I guess I'll go start another thread on MaoistRebel in Chit Chat, just to fit in. :D

[dearest chuck]

full-timers should receive $10K a year. if that is not up to the cost of living in a commercial mecca, then they should move somewhere cheaper. there is no reason they should be paid as much as a teacher or a garbage man, for doing virtually nothing.

[RED DAVE]

full-timers should receive $10K a year. if that is not up to the cost of living in a commercial mecca, then they should move somewhere cheaper. there is no reason they should be paid as much as a teacher or a garbage man, for doing virtually nothing.Don't give up your day job yet for your career in stand-up. :D

RED DAVE

[Soviet dude]

Well, your own group will highlight its own role and downplay the roles of others, but I've hear differently. I'm led by different sources that the lead organizer in Murphrysburo was a member of Solidarity. In NYC, Workers World was the primary organizer. In Gainesville, I haven't heard anything good about the role the ISO has played in general.

The ISO has done some amazing work, like around the death penalty in Illinois, so I don't see the need of the ISO to exaggerate it's work.

I know the lead organizer for it in TN, and the guy is definitely in Solidarity. In NYC, it was Worker's World, and when ISO found out they couldn't control the whole thing, they purposefully tried to sabotage it by supporting an alternative candlelight-vigil rally. In Gainesville, the event was basically completely organized by SDS, with ISO trying to fuck it up because they couldn't get media publicity out of it.

[redasheville]

I know the lead organizer for it in TN, and the guy is definitely in Solidarity. In NYC, it was Worker's World, and when ISO found out they couldn't control the whole thing, they purposefully tried to sabotage it by supporting an alternative candlelight-vigil rally. In Gainesville, the event was basically completely organized by SDS, with ISO trying to fuck it up because they couldn't get media publicity out of it.

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to back up the assertions that the ISO's role was to "fuck up" and "sabotage" organizing efforts?

Also, you are right (well Chegitz is anyway)...the lead organizer for the Middle Tennessee protest is a Soli comrade. I was mistaken. Apologies.

[Soviet dude]

You're simply making assertions like "Revolutionary organizations shouldn't pay 60,000!" and leaving it at that. That's baseless.

I never said anything about should or shouldn't. A revolutionary organization wouldn't pay anyone that amount, because it is excessive in basically every case but needing to support a family. 60,000 for a single person means living a very comfortable lifestyle anywhere in the US. Comfortable meaning living in a good apartment, driving a new car, eating out when you feel like it, going to bars, etc.


I wasn't referring specifically to work in academia. Graduate assistants are still getting their degrees, and receive free tuition.

Graduate assistants don't receive free tuition everywhere, especially in places they have no union representation.


People with graduate school degrees make significantly more than 60,000.

This highly depends on the degree, doesn't it? Try getting out of college with a PhD in English and see how quickly you end up working as an adjunct for about the pay of someone in fast food.


Adjunct professors usually make on average at least 60 grand.

I'd like to see a source for this, as I've never even met one that made 60,000 a year. Even a quick googling confirms this is bullshit. Here is a 2001 article on saying which states the average adjunct earns about $25,000-30,000 a year:

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/01/11/adjunct/index.html

And the situation in academia has only gotten worse. Graduate assistants are basically becoming the new teachers at all major institutions, and work for significantly less than even adjuncts do. Only fools think there are any serious career prospects in academia in the future.


I'm not sure what you are referring to with the Finkelstein thing, but I suspect that it was probably very many years ago, and he had a low course load.

No, he didn't have a low course load. I don't think you understand just how much shit you have to eat in academia. I hope you aren't planning a career in that shit, as you're gonna have your bubble burst.


Either way, I'm starting to get the impression that you believe people with graduate degrees can only work in Academia, which is to say the least - misguided.

People who get degrees in sciences and engineering are not gonna lead ISO. All those people have degrees in history, political science, etc; i.e. worthless liberal arts degrees.


That's nice. That still has nothing to do with anything.

It has everything to do with a discussion about why someone would take leading the ISO as their job, if they are faced with the alternative of almost certainly not getting a tenure track job, or working long hours for garbage pay as an adjunct professor for years, and facing repression in academia for having Leftist views. Doing ISO, for an already-existing ISO cadre, would seem like the obvious choice, even if they were completely self-interested in their decision. Now they get paid to fly around the country, talk to people about State Capitalism, go to baseball games, and feel like a big shot, and get $40,000 a year plus heath insurance.


What do you feel is a better figure?

Something that doesn't allow me to live in a great apartment and drive a new car.

More to the point, the vast majority of cadre of any organization do a lot of work for absolutely nothing. If you can't depend on them doing the duties to keep your organization functioning and growing, they are not serious communists. ISO is an organization full of people who are not serious communists, so I can understand why they might need a few National organizers to try and keep the branches in line.

[redasheville]

We do have comrades with degrees in science and engineering. One comrade here builds things that get to be shot INTO SPACE! It's neat!

[Soviet dude]

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask for you to back up the assertions that the ISO's role was to "fuck up" and "sabotage" organizing efforts?

Also, you are right (well Chegitz is anyway)...the lead organizer for the Middle Tennessee protest is a Soli comrade. I was mistaken. Apologies.

That would involve going into more detail than I care to.

I know for a fact Sherry Wolf and others from National ISO have personally instructed people to fuck up competing organizations in this fashion. Ex-ISO people have told me this personally. The ISO's behavior that I am aware of more than demonstrates it. They do a rule-or-ruin approach to working with others.

[redasheville]

That would involve going into more detail than I care to.


How convenient!

[Devrim]

We do have comrades with degrees in science and engineering. One comrade here builds things that get to be shot INTO SPACE! It's neat!

He didn't say that you weren't going to have them. He said:


People who get degrees in sciences and engineering are not gonna lead ISO. All those people have degrees in history, political science, etc; i.e. worthless liberal arts degrees.


I am not surprised that you have them. I wouldn't be surprised if there were one or two in the leadership. What would absolutely astonish me is if the central committee, or whatever you have, didn't have a majority of people on it who were university educated, and I would expect a very large majority.

Devrim

[redasheville]

Thanks for your critique of my 100% serious post.

[chegitz guevara]

That would involve going into more detail than I care to.

I know for a fact Sherry Wolf and others from National ISO have personally instructed people to fuck up competing organizations in this fashion. Ex-ISO people have told me this personally. The ISO's behavior that I am aware of more than demonstrates it. They do a rule-or-ruin approach to working with others.

Honestly, I do not believe you.

[Soviet dude]

Honestly, I do not believe you.

That doesn't bother me. Have you ever met Sherry Wolf? If yes, what on Earth about this women would lead you to believe she wouldn't say something like that?

[chegitz guevara]

I've met most of the leadership of the ISO, actually, long ago. I worked side by side with a number of them.

[mossy noonmann]

this thread is bollocks!

[Comrade Ian]

I hear the Bolshevik Party is really just a scam for Lenin and his buddies to hang out in fancy cafes in Switzerland all day long and talk about marxism and the worker's struggle. I mean come on, that guy's a Lawyer and you know as soon as making money on that front wasn't good enough he just jumped at the opportunity to both mislead the working class and rake in the big heaps of money all those poor reading circles and local committees send into help Pravda out. You'll never see Pravda sending out cash to help the locals, hence reinforcing my claim that really it's all just a big scam. And have you seen a picture of the guy? He's usually wearing a suit with a tie, dressed quite formally and is clearly sending all the Bolshevik's funds straight to some fancy Swiss Tailor. I mean sure he does some work writing and developing theory, but you know there's nothing orignal or relevant about any of it, really he's just rehashing Marx and using his vast network of duped bolsheviks to distribute illegal pamphlets and books that will just rake in those publishing royalties for him.

[RED DAVE]

I hear the Bolshevik Party is really just a scam for Lenin and his buddies to hang out in fancy cafes in Switzerland all day long and talk about marxism and the worker's struggle. I mean come on, that guy's a Lawyer and you know as soon as making money on that front wasn't good enough he just jumped at the opportunity to both mislead the working class and rake in the big heaps of money all those poor reading circles and local committees send into help Pravda out. You'll never see Pravda sending out cash to help the locals, hence reinforcing my claim that really it's all just a big scam. And have you seen a picture of the guy? He's usually wearing a suit with a tie, dressed quite formally and is clearly sending all the Bolshevik's funds straight to some fancy Swiss Tailor. I mean sure he does some work writing and developing theory, but you know there's nothing orignal or relevant about any of it, really he's just rehashing Marx and using his vast network of duped bolsheviks to distribute illegal pamphlets and books that will just rake in those publishing royalties for him.And the dames; don't forget about the dames. And don't forget he traveled from Switzerland to Russia first class and paid for by the Germans!

RED DAVE

[Palingenisis]

Although the ISO is not connected with the SWP anymore, the Turkish Prime Minister, a right-wing conservative Islamicist, congratulated his friends in the Revolutionary Socialist Workers party (IST section in Turkey) for their recent support on TV last week.

Devrim

The more I thought about this the weirder I found it...

1. What about the issue of Kurdish self-determination? From a Leninist point of view they would be praising a goverment of occupation, a colonial power.

2. My understanding is that the present Turkish prime minister is in no way friendly to working class interests internally or makes much of an effort to appear to be such as a social democrat might....As you put it he is a right wing Islamicist.

On what possible grounds can they critically support him? Is it out of an obessesion with Israel?

[Hater of Dilettantes]

The latest records I saw were $45,000 per yr with benefits. Benefits include employer contributions to social security, unemployment and disability insurance which is 17-20% of pay, or in this case over $8,000 which coincidedes for benefits for 2009. Also in the list of contributors over $5,000, this individual gave back $10,000. Also the question is this person in a family situation? Does he have children? If so, in Chicago, $45,000-$10,000-taxes, no longer seems like such a princely sum. It just shows how desperate some ass holes are to attack the ISO. Since the figures for 2001 or anything prior to 2007 from the site that shows non profits financials are not available without a membership of $350 per month or $1500 per year we have no proof for some of the other ridiculous figures bandied about by professional ISO bashers.

[dearest chuck]

$45K - $10K donation = lower tax bracket

[syndicat]

Not to mention that TWO HUNDRED immigrants have been deported from SF since the summer, and the local corporate newspaper is going on a smear campaign against the transit union here (whose membership is overwhelmingly non white) and they are trying to make being homeless illegal, among countless other things.

In a word, SF isn't that different, except that its a sanctuary city...for the rich.

yep. the sense of superiority of affluent liberals here makes we want to puke.

for months the local corporate rag has been scapegoating working class riders for the problems of the transit system, alleging widepread fare cheats. i ride the buses here. people do get on thru the back doors but usually they have a pass or transfer. and even if they don't, why not tax the rich to lower the fucking fare? it's $2 now. that's what the elite here don't want people to think about. so it's blame the victim.

so now they do SWAT-style raids on the buses, and various immigrants have been deported through that.

in regard to the comparison between auto manufacturing in U.S. versus Germany. under the union contract in Germany auto workers make $28 an hour. in the various non-union plants of German and Japanese auto companies in the south the typical wage is $14 an hour.

however, it is certainly not true that college adjuncts make typically $60k. last time I did part-time adjunct work at CSU i was paid $3,500 per sementer per class. I had a friend who was a full-time part-timer at CSU Long Beach, several classes per semester, making less than $30,000 a year.

in general I would say that for a political organization large enough to merit having staff, the same principles should apply as with unions. in regard to a union I would say that no one should make more working for the union than on their job for the employer....otherwise unionism is turned into a careerist avenue for escape from the working class. and there should be mandatory term limits as well.

[Jimmie Higgins]

That doesn't bother me. Have you ever met Sherry Wolf? If yes, what on Earth about this women would lead you to believe she wouldn't say something like that?So it's personality that determines politics? So you see a woman from New York who has an accent and think - well, she'd only fuck things up? When you go into coalitions, do you look around and say, well I can work with them because they look like they won't fuck things up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA_kky3hyMEOh my God! You're right - she's trying to fuck up the Democratic party!:blink:

When are you going to pay me that $100 by the way? I can take a check.

Ok, ok, I won't give it to the ISO just to spite you - you can just donate the $100 to RevLeft instead. But I want to see the carbon statement or bank statement for proof.


Now they get paid to fly around the country, talk to people about State Capitalism,I think this is the most illuminating thing you have said in any of your posts ever. So you equate talking to people about state capitalism and promoting that kind of politics with seeing baseball games - in other words, you think it's worthless to try and promote the kinds of politics the ISO has. So that, is the reason behind all the slander and various accusations. You're like George Bush arguing to bomb Iraq - it doesn't matter what evidence or lack of evidence you have, your goal is to use whatever you can (including, lies, hearsay, rumor, exaggeration) to get to your goal. In your case the goal is to make the ISO look bad and to raise suspicion about our politics by raising suspicion of our organization or various leaders or the books or whatever.

So why not tell the truth: you love Stalin (or Mao or think the USSR was a degenerated worker's state) and every-time you go out talking about how great Stalin is, workers run away from you. So then you look around in frustration as young people and radicalizing people show up to ISO or Haymarket events and you think - Damn, they must be evil because they are having sucess with politics I don't agree with.

So what are your politics SovietDude? From everything I've seen you have not offered up one constructive criticism of any group - you have never said "X group does this and it's bad, they should do it like this, in my opinion". Your main political outlet seems to be talking shit about various other groups and radicals? Are you with a group? Do you have a political tradition that you support? Are you just a cop who likes to try and create infighting among radicals in his spare time?

At least when the Sparts lie about the ISO, they counter our imagined political stance with their own: "The ISO wants Cops to kill puppies! The Sparticist League says: No to police puppy killers and yes to power to the soviets!"

[chegitz guevara]

I've been very uncomfortable during this entire thread. It is quite unprincipled to be discussing a socialist organization's finances in a public way. Because the article was public information, it's not completely unprincipled to discuss that (just really bad form), but any further information that comrades might have should be withheld. We should not be doing the state's dirty work.

[Saorsa]

Soviet Dude is a provocateur. Don't let him do his job.

[Soviet dude]

Soviet Dude is a provocateur. Don't let him do his job.

I don't have time right not to respond to other posts, but I'd just like to say, first one to yell "cop" usually is one.

[Animal Farm Pig]

I don't have time right not to respond to other posts, but I'd just like to say, first one to yell "cop" usually is one.

So, essentially, what you're saying is "He who smelt it dealt it." Deep, man. :laugh:

[Koba the Other Mugabe]

This is not a political issue, and this attack feels very opportunist. Although the person who raised the idea about revolving leadership positions had a good suggestion.

[Saorsa]

I didn't say you were a cop. I said you're a provocateur - i.e. you're here to stir shit and be destructive and you have no other agenda.

[Devrim]

On what possible grounds can they critically support him? Is it out of an obessesion with Israel?

Turkey has recently held a referendum on altering its constitution, a constitution which was written after the 1980 military coup. On a superficial level the referendum was about the 'modernisation, and demilitarisation' of the constitution. The Turkish section of the IST supported this, as they have supported 'democratic reforms' in general. In reality this is a squalid little faction fight between two different wings of the bourgeoisie, who we will typify as the Islamicists, and the Kemalists for terms of simplification, which has been going on for years.


1. What about the issue of Kurdish self-determination? From a Leninist point of view they would be praising a goverment of occupation, a colonial power.

On this issue the main Kurdish party advocated a, very successful, boycott with ten of the Kurdish provinces registering a voter turn out of less than 50% and one just over 6%. I think this was a very pragmatic decision in that they were unable to side with the Kemalists, and unwilling to side with the government.


2. My understanding is that the present Turkish prime minister is in no way friendly to working class interests internally or makes much of an effort to appear to be such as a social democrat might....As you put it he is a right wing Islamicist.

Yes, though to put in in perspective, their party is more like a Muslim version of the Christian Democrat Party in Germany. However much the Kemalists may try to scare people with it, I don't think there is any danger of them 'turning Turkey into another Iran'. That said their economic policy has been viciously and openly anti-working class.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I didn't say you were a cop. I said you're a provocateur - i.e. you're here to stir shit and be destructive and you have no other agenda.

No you didn't, but it has been suggested:


Are you just a cop who likes to try and create infighting among radicals in his spare time?

I think that the ISO doesn't help itself here. They should know that as the biggest leftist group, they will come get stick from smaller leftist groups, and that this will happen constantly.

If I were an ISO member, I would think that one well argued considered reply would be enough rather than allowing themselves to be drawn into long slanging matches where they end up suggesting that people are cops. To a certain extent their responses fuel this type of thread, which isn't wasn't very political at the start, and has lost any political content it may have had, and turned into a slanging match.

There are political points on how organisations should organise here, such as Syndicat's:


in general I would say that for a political organization large enough to merit having staff, the same principles should apply as with unions. in regard to a union I would say that no one should make more working for the union than on their job for the employer....otherwise unionism is turned into a careerist avenue for escape from the working class. and there should be mandatory term limits as well.

They are drowned in the general abuse though.

Devrim

[Jimmie Higgins]

No you didn't, but it has been suggested:
Please look at that in context. The point was not to accuse anyone of being a cop:


So what are your politics SovietDude? From everything I've seen you have not offered up one constructive criticism of any group - you have never said "X group does this and it's bad, they should do it like this, in my opinion". Your main political outlet seems to be talking shit about various other groups and radicals? Are you with a group? Do you have a political tradition that you support? Are you just a cop who likes to try and create infighting among radicals in his spare time?Maybe I wasn't clear enough but my point was the lack of political content in his posts, I was not seriously suggesting that he is a cop.


They should know that as the biggest leftist group, they will come get stick from smaller leftist groups, and that this will happen constantly.Yes, I have essentially said this in earlier posts in this thread. I generally agree with what you are saying, but I think this case is a bit different because SovietDude's has repeatedly made these threads and has stated that he is trying to discredit the ISO and make it look bad. That's not just a case of normal RevLeft one-off sectarian comment that can be ignored or laughed at.


If I were an ISO member, I would think that one well argued considered reply would be enough rather than allowing themselves to be drawn into long slanging matches where they end up suggesting that people are cops. To a certain extent their responses fuel this type of thread, which isn't wasn't very political at the start, and has lost any political content it may have had, and turned into a slanging match.Except SovietDude has made 3 slanderous threads in the last few weeks. If we didn't respond, SovietDude would still continue and just use our silence as "proof" that his accusations are correct.

If someone from RAAN or some other group says some off-the-cuff thing or some joke I generally would only respond with a joke if anything, but SovietDude obviously has an agenda and I would not stand by and let him spread slander without responding to it.

I would much rather talk with comrades like Q or DNZ who have political differences with the ISO and can talk about them in a reasonable and comradely - and political - way, then to have to respond to SovietDude's crap, but as long as he keeps trying to discredit the ISO and other groups with unpolitical Glenn Beck tactics, then I'm not going to be passive about it.

[Devrim]

Edit: and if you are going to talk about me or posts I made, please do not call me "The ISO" - that is an organization, I am an individual who is a member of that organization.

I wasn't referring to you alone, but to posts made by you and other ISO members. Yes, I could have said 'members of the ISO', but I think everybody understands what I mean and nobody thinks that I believe the ISO has made some official pronouncement on it.


Except SovietDude has made 3 slanderous threads in the last few weeks. If we didn't respond, SovietDude would still continue and just use our silence as "proof" that his accusations are correct.

There has to be a balance. I don't have any political sympathies with the ISO, and have no reason to try to make you look better. I merely comment on a personal level, and from personal experience as with the ICC being the biggest left communist organisation, which of course is a much, much smaller pond, we get similar criticisms and handle them equally badly.

In my opinion, the behaviour of ISO members and supporters on this and similar threads does not in any way make you appear in a good light. Yes, you are right to respond to 'slanders' and repeated 'slanders' have a tendency to stick*.

The question is, and not just for the ISO, but in general, how to respond to these sort of allegations. In my opinion, as I stated earlier, one coherent well argued response is sufficient. What has happened in this thread is that it has degenerated into sarcasm and personal abuse, which in my humble opinion, only serves to give people a bad impression of your organisation. The reason that these thread run for so long is that people, and more specifically ISO members and supporters, keep replying to them, and often fall into abuse and sarcasm. I think that on a forum like this people don't reply when nobody else is replying, and basically if somebody ends up just having a conversation with themselves, they look rather 'sad.

That said, I can understand that when you are being criticised, it can be difficult to show the necessary levels of restraint and decorum, and I certainly would pretend that our own organisation has always dealt with things well. I don't think that comments like this following one, posted by a member of the IS group on here, and thanked by yourself, reflect well at all:


this thread is bollocks!

I mentioned before that if you slander repeatedly it does tend to stick. To talk specifically about the allegations in this thread, I have the impression, which doesn't just come from this thread or the three that you refer to, but from others over a period of time) that there are people in America who think that the ISO is basically a money making operation. Now, I am not inclined to believe this at all. On a very basic level if you wanted to make money, I think there are a lot more profitable careers than in the ISO. Also, incidentally, the UK SWP has a very similar mode of operation to the ISO, and as you know very similar politics. Lots of the criticisms of the ISO and the SWP, for example about the way they relate to single issue campaigns, are the same. However, I have never once, despite living in England heard it suggested that the SWP is just a money making scam. Nevertheless, those allegations have been made on here against the ISO, and while I personally don't consider them to be true, some people must have that impression.

The way that you deal with this is obviously your choice. I don't think that the way ISO members and supporters are reacting to it currently does you any good at all. I think that the sarcasm, aggression and swearing make you look pretty bad, and more importantly to me , make RevLeft a less pleasant place to be.

Of course these are just my personal opinions and you are free to consider what I say or not.

Devrim

*I use inverted commas as I am not sure of the truth of any allegations made, though I believe they are generally non-political in tone.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What threads don't I swear in?:D

[redasheville]

We are not obliged to respond to the kind of unprincipled sectarianism of people like sovietdude. It is a waste of time because he has explicitly stated that he has an agenda and that he hopes the ISO "dies". Not to mention he even said that he couldn't be bothered to back up his accusations. It is impossible to have a real debate. Such crap doesn't deserve a serious response.

As far as debate in general, I am willing to have a debate with anyone on this board when it comes to real political differences in a comradely way (simply meaning that we can at least give each other the benefit of the doubt that we are all leftists because we want to see a better world).

I have had several of these debates with Syndicat. The debates were constructive, comradley and I learned a lot. To blame the ISO members here for notmaking revleft a pleasant place is a joke.

[Soviet dude]

So it's personality that determines politics?

I would guess she might have been a better person before getting involved in ISO, which if that is the case, politics determine the personality.


So you see a woman from New York who has an accent and think - well, she'd only fuck things up?

Who said anything about her accent? What I did talk about was her instructing people to deliberately sabotage other groups.


When are you going to pay me that $100 by the way? I can take a check

Generally teachers are thought of as the lower-rung of the petty-bourgeois, and union jobs like amongst the upper-rungs of the working class. Your background still sounds petty-bourgeois to me, but whatever.


I think this is the most illuminating thing you have said in any of your posts ever.

The fact that you think it is "illuminating" is more 'illuminating' than anything else.


So you equate talking to people about state capitalism and promoting that kind of politics with seeing baseball games - in other words, you think it's worthless to try and promote the kinds of politics the ISO has.

Lots of people with terrible politics can do worthwhile activism to advance the class struggle. While I do think the ideology of the ISO has a profound effect on their organizing, they are separate. It is possible to (at least) imagine a group of Cliffites who actually did good work and didn't try to sabotage other groups. It is the way ISO organizes, first and foremost, that make it is a terrible group that objectively hurts the Left in America.


So that, is the reason behind all the slander and various accusations. You're like George Bush arguing to bomb Iraq - it doesn't matter what evidence or lack of evidence you have, your goal is to use whatever you can (including, lies, hearsay, rumor, exaggeration) to get to your goal.

I haven't lied or exaggerated anything about the ISO.

But speaking of more stories about the ISO, a union buddy of mine was telling me about his experiences running an anti-war group in Chicago. Apparently ISO got seriously pissed after he argued against joining CAN, and not showing up to their events, and eventually ISO sent out letters slandering him, as a way to try and fuck up his mass group. These sorts of experiences are so common with ISO, one need only mention them at any large Leftist gathering to evoke scorn from basically everyone. And it has nothing to do with people giving a shit about "State Capitalism."


So why not tell the truth: you love Stalin (or Mao or think the USSR was a degenerated worker's state) and every-time you go out talking about how great Stalin is, workers run away from you

Workers don't give a shit about Stalin, Mao, Trotsky, or anarcho-dumpster diving. I don't talk about it with them. The ISO is the one who typically makes fools of themselves, trying to hawk Socialist Worker to people who couldn't give less of a shit. I know dozens of people in my city alone who were completely alienated by the ISO's ridiculous bullshit approach to recruitment.

It's fascinating you imagine I do the same shit the ISO does, except talking about Stalin and the USSR instead of 'Permanent Revolution' and 'State Capitalism.'


So then you look around in frustration as young people and radicalizing people show up to ISO or Haymarket events and you think - Damn, they must be evil because they are having sucess with politics I don't agree with.

ISO has no success in my area, though it is considered one of the best chapters in the region by the National. What they do is try to steal people from other groups, and if they can't do that, completely alienate people altogether with their slander. They do have some success attracting a few liberals who show up to a meeting or two, and then never come back after they try to get them to start paying dues.


So what are your politics SovietDude? From everything I've seen you have not offered up one constructive criticism of any group - you have never said "X group does this and it's bad, they should do it like this, in my opinion".

I would say it speaks volumes to say you don't think what I am saying is constructive criticism, but then again, I can't really expect you to look honestly at the practices of your own organization. You still seem very caught up in an idealistic understanding of what radical politics is about, which is all too common with kids in the ISO.


Except SovietDude has made 3 slanderous threads in the last few weeks. If we didn't respond, SovietDude would still continue and just use our silence as "proof" that his accusations are correct.

I don't need to say anything is "proof" of anything. ISO's finances speak for themselves. ISO-resignations speak for themselves and don't require much in the way of interpretation. And I will continue making posts pointing out to a broader audience when someone resigns for the ISO. In fact, I plan on compiling some stories together, as there is always a common theme that emerges from them; the ISO is not democratic, the ISO is extremely hostile to any disagreement with their line, the ISO doesn't care about anything but campus organizing, the ISO doesn't play well with others, emphasizes selling books and newspapers above real activism, the ISO is a revolving door, etc. You can pretend it is just some guy named Soviet dude saying this about your organization, but this is largely the summation of ex-ISO people, of which there are thousands, and probably several dozen resignation letters or stories available online, going back years.


Not to mention he even said that he couldn't be bothered to back up his accusations.

Some of your questions would involve going into people's identities that I don't care to.

[blake 3:17]

I never said anything about should or shouldn't. A revolutionary organization wouldn't pay anyone that amount, because it is excessive in basically every case but needing to support a family. 60,000 for a single person means living a very comfortable lifestyle anywhere in the US. Comfortable meaning living in a good apartment, driving a new car, eating out when you feel like it, going to bars, etc.


Are we to suddenly apply means tests to workers? I have fewer dependents than some of my co-workers have. Does that mean I should be paid a lesser wage? There are other means of redistribution of wealth which make more sense.


* * *

Part of the problem of bureaucratization in the English North American Left (and points beyond but that's what I know) is that staffers are either on poverty salaries or on super flush salaries.

In the movements here in Ontario, full time staffers and academics make 1) poverty wages, 2) slightly less than average worker but with certain top ups (per diems, gas allowance, other bits of refund) in some unions or union endorsed orgaizations or 3) two or three times as the average worker.

In any of these cases, the staffer or Left academic is not in any kind of equilibrium with the average worker -- wages, working conditions, working hours, etc.

They are either way up or way down and are on very different schedules.

A number of Left labour folks have put demands on their staff unions to reduce wages. Those generally end badly, create acrimony politically, and don't really resolve the issues. The way the Lefties justify themselves is through working too much and donating a lot to social movements.

All this stuff is super effed up.

A socialist demand within the unions and professionalized movement organizations would be to keep a salary indexed to slightly less than a skilled workers waged with fewer hours, which would mean a greater rotation of leadership ability.

Anyways I could go on and on about trying to do union work as a part timer and working multiple jobs but that's another story.

[RED DAVE]

Let me point out that the salary of the forementioned ISO worker has been going down steadily. We started at $60K, down to $45K, and now down to $35K. Even for a single person, $35K in Chicago is not much. It's less than the starting salary of a teacher.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

Part of the problem of bureaucratization in the English North American Left (and points beyond but that's what I know) is that staffers are either on poverty salaries or on super flush salaries.

In the movements here in Ontario, full time staffers and academics make 1) poverty wages, 2) slightly less than average worker but with certain top ups (per diems, gas allowance, other bits of refund) in some unions or union endorsed orgaizations or 3) two or three times as the average worker.

In any of these cases, the staffer or Left academic is not in any kind of equilibrium with the average worker -- wages, working conditions, working hours, etc.

What's wrong with #2? I don't see problems with per diems, certain trip expense allowances, etc.


They are either way up or way down and are on very different schedules.

OK, so the scheduling part is problematic. You should have emphasized this in your critique of #2.


A socialist demand within the unions and professionalized movement organizations would be to keep a salary indexed to slightly less than a skilled workers waged with fewer hours, which would mean a greater rotation of leadership ability.

When I get around to "Revisiting the Party Question," which will touch upon this stuff, feel free to chime in. :)

[blake 3:17]

I may have misread a part of the post above. Will clarify later.


What's wrong with #2? I don't see problems with per diems, certain trip expense allowances, etc.

Those top ups shouldn't be a problem at all. Over all they make it easier and less daunting to doing union work.

What they can turn into is something like overtime pay -- people basically get addicted to the extra $20, or $30, or more per day. In large locals, regional bodies, etc folks on staff or on book off can start to rely on relaitvely meagre expense accounts.

Access to those funds is something I'm about 92% for -- the other 8% is less on any moral or legalistic grounds but the bureaucratic inertia that those funds support.

Issues in this thread have come across make money issues, but the more challenging problems of leadership, democratic controls on leadership, and processes of rotating leadership.

[theblackmask]

Let me point out that the salary of the forementioned ISO worker has been going down steadily. We started at $60K, down to $45K, and now down to $35K. Even for a single person, $35K in Chicago is not much. It's less than the starting salary of a teacher.

RED DAVE

If $35k isn't that much, why is it ok for the ISO to basically force me, as a member, to fork out hundreds of dollars a year for dues alone, let alone spend hundreds more at conferences, on books, on the required "3 for me" papers every week, etc, when I am barely making $15k?

[Saorsa]

Out of commitment to the organisation and what it's doing?

Ffs, if you don't want to pay the money don't join. Nobody's forcing you to and if someone joins ISO they are probably happy to pay it. If they're not, they can leave. Nobody's forcing them to stay.

This whole thread is absurd.

[chegitz guevara]

Plus, most organizations have reduced rates for people with money problems.

[RED DAVE]

If $35k isn't that much, why is it ok for the ISO to basically force me, as a member, to fork out hundreds of dollars a year for dues alone, let alone spend hundreds more at conferences, on books, on the required "3 for me" papers every week, etc, when I am barely making $15k?Because that's what it takes to be a member of the ISO. If you think they are forcing you to do something you don't want to do, either work it out with the leadership or fucking quit!

RED DAVE

[theblackmask]

I did leave the ISO. I'm just calling bullshit on those who are claiming that $35k is not that much money.

[chegitz guevara]

Just because you're fine living in poverty doesn't mean $35K is livin' large.

[thriller]

@theblackmask
I was in your same position a while ago. I thought that it was very odd that the reduced student rate for ISO members is $20 a month. If people do their math right, that is $240 a year, which is quite expensive for full-time students who work as well, IMHO. I decided to quit because I realized I couldn't afford to be in the ISO, among other reasons. I think that raises an issue here (and if it's been raised already in this thread, sorry, just don't have time to read everyone's post). When socialists can't AFFORD, monetarily, to be in a REVOLUTIONARY group, how revolutionary is the socialist group?

[Comrade Ian]

If you're actually seriously committed to the ISO and it's political project then dues shouldn't be a problem, no ones asked to leave because they can't pay dues they really can't afford. Hell I remember when I first joined I was talking to Sherry Wolf at one of our conferences and mentioned I didn't plan to officially join for a couple months till I would be able to pay dues, and she just said that it shouldn't be a problem and that it could be worked out with the local leadership, etc. The issue is when people aren't paying dues, aren't active in study groups, political activities, less because they can't afford it then because they're not actually very committed to the organization. A real Leninist organization can't be built on a foundation of people who only vaguely sympathize with the goals and program but by people who will take an extremely active role in promoting and debating within it. Democratic Centralism only works when the membership is equipped with the right theoretical tools and political commitment to intervene and advance debates within the organization, if there's a lack of political commitment you can be a sympathizer but membership should require serious commitment.

[chegitz guevara]

@theblackmask
I was in your same position a while ago. I thought that it was very odd that the reduced student rate for ISO members is $20 a month. If people do their math right, that is $240 a year, which is quite expensive for full-time students who work as well, IMHO.

It's less than a dollar a day.

[syndicat]

my organization's dues are $12 a quarter ($3 a month) if you're making less than $8 an hour. dues are graduated by income. but we don't have high expenses at the moment. I would be in favor of higher dues if there were projects that required the funding. paying dues is an important sign of commitment.

[theblackmask]

Just because you're fine living in poverty doesn't mean $35K is livin' large.

Yes, because I'm totally fine with being poor. I choose to make barely above minimum wage and couldn't be fucking happier.

All this talk about "commitment" to organizations is bullshit. An organization should be committed to its members and to the working class, members should not be committed to an organization. The revolution is not a party affair.

[Martin Blank]

All this talk about "commitment" to organizations is bullshit. An organization should be committed to its members and to the working class, members should not be committed to an organization. The revolution is not a party affair.

I've been in enough organizations to know that the "commitment" canard means commitment to keeping your mouth shut and uncritically supporting the existing leadership. It rarely means having a commitment to the organization, the class, etc., although it is often cynically couched in those terms. We tell our new members that their first commitment is to themselves, their class and their principles, and if that coincides with our organization, then they should join us.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think Q asked the same question rhetorically: Ask not what you can do for your party; ask what your party can do for you.

[Chimurenga.]

iso


a real leninist organization



lol wut?

[Comrade Ian]

Commitment to an organization in my definition is as much a commitment to wage a struggle within the organization were something wrong or unhealthy, as it is a commitment to the organization's principles. My point is someone who is not seriously committed to Revolutionary Marxism is not capable of waging any struggle within or without an organization, and hence if there were bureaucratic tendencies would be the passive base on which bureaucratic tendencies could rest and grow despite the struggle of a minority of members. That's why there are membership requirements, duties, etc. That's why the Leninist Party is theoretically capable of resisting the degeneration which seized the SDP and others, it limits itself to those willing to actively participate in debate.

I would also point out that the Bolsheviks expected members to be capable and willing to do things like rob banks to finance the party, a $20 donation per month if you can afford it (With alternatives existing if you can't) is nothing compared to the risk and sacrifice revolutionaries have had to undergo in the past.

[Martin Blank]

I would also point out that the Bolsheviks expected members to be capable and willing to do things like rob banks to finance the party, a $20 donation per month if you can afford it (With alternatives existing if you can't) is nothing compared to the risk and sacrifice revolutionaries have had to undergo in the past.

Look, don't get me wrong. If I had the money to give, I'd give it. But even $20 a month is hard for most workers these days. For me, for example, that's the difference between getting the medications I need every day and not. I make roughly the equivalent of minimum wage, and it doesn't even last two weeks for me and my family. Nevertheless, I will give well above what I can afford to my organization if it needs it. Then again, there are also ways to trim administrative costs so that the organization's work and administration do not become a financial burden. It does neither the organization nor potential members any good if the latter are legitimately priced out of meeting the former's membership standards.

[Wanted Man]

@theblackmask
I was in your same position a while ago. I thought that it was very odd that the reduced student rate for ISO members is $20 a month.

Holy shit, that's actually pretty expensive. And that's reduced for students? What does a worker pay? Anyway, perhaps the organisations that I'm in are ridiculously cheap to join, but that's always better than being too expensive:

Communist Youth: €10 a year.
Student union: €7 a year (insanely cheap, actually - students who join during the introduction week only have to pay one lousy euro for the first year).
Trade union: €10 a month (IIRC - completely free for students during the first year).

On the other hand, if you wanted to join the International Socialists (Dutch member of the IST) as a student or welfare recipient, you'd have to pay €14 a month. Workers pay a minimum of €26.50 ($35.50!) a month or 6% of their income.

I wonder what other organisations are like in this regard. At the moment, it unsurprisingly looks like the most expensive activity for an activist is to be in a Cliffite busin-- err, revolutionary organisation.

[Devrim]

I wonder what other organisations are like in this regard. At the moment, it unsurprisingly looks like the most expensive activity for an activist is to be in a Cliffite busin-- err, revolutionary organisation.

The ICC is 5% of wage though adjustable according to conditions.

Devrim

[Martin Blank]

I wonder what other organisations are like in this regard. At the moment, it unsurprisingly looks like the most expensive activity for an activist is to be in a Cliffite busin-- err, revolutionary organisation.

Depends on the organization. The U.S. SWP used to (still does?) charge insane dues rates -- like $20 a week. The Spartacists were/are similar. Both also drop your subscription to their papers and make you buy their pubs at "supporter rates" (read: double their normal price). On the other hand, the CP has a low starting rate for members (IIRC, it's now $5 a month; it used to be $1), and the SPUSA's beginning rate is $25 a year, or something like that.

The WPA has a one-time $20 initiation fee (paid in installments during the first year) and a base dues of $1 a month -- as well as an "in-kind" option. But then, we've cut down on most of the overhead an organization usually has.

[theblackmask]

Holy shit, that's actually pretty expensive. And that's reduced for students? What does a worker pay?

It depends on income, but as a worker that makes just under $15k, my dues came out to $25 a month.

Again, the dues themselves are only one part of what ISO members are expected to pay as part of being an active member, and this is what many people have problems with paying. In addition to dues, members are expected to buy 3 copies of the newspaper every two weeks, as well as a copy of the ISR every two months. Not to mention the numerous fundraising events, and the regional and national conferences each year. These things add up to the point that you are almost required to spend money to play any sort of meaningful(I use the term loosely here) role in the organization.

Yes, the ISO will negotiate about paying for certain things, but when you do ask anyone about reduced rates for dues or conferences, their reply is always "Well, how much can you afford?" Again, "Ask not how how much your party can afford for you. Ask how much you can afford for your party."



I would also point out that the Bolsheviks expected members to be capable and willing to do things like rob banks to finance the party, a $20 donation per month if you can afford it (With alternatives existing if you can't) is nothing compared to the risk and sacrifice revolutionaries have had to undergo in the past.

The ISO isn't anywhere near as close to the Bolsheviks as they wish they were. The Russian Revolution happened almost 100 years ago. Get the fuck over it and start developing revolutionary tactics for today.

[Devrim]

In addition to dues, members are expected to buy 3 copies of the newspaper every two weeks,

Why?

Devrim

[theblackmask]

Why?

Devrim

Members are told to buy the papers every biweekly issue, and distribute their 3 copies to friends/family/whoever. I guess they think it's a good way to generate readership for the paper?

[thriller]

The ISO isn't anywhere near as close to the Bolsheviks as they wish they were. The Russian Revolution happened almost 100 years ago. Get the fuck over it and start developing revolutionary tactics for today.

Fucking Right!!
The Russian Revolution is dead and gone. It happned a long time ago in a pre-"modernized" country. It's twenty-fucking-ten, let's move forward.

[redasheville]

In the ISO you basically set your own dues. Nobody is kicked out because they can't afford dues (which was already pointed out by Comrade Ian). 20/month for students is a "suggested" dues rate, and not a rigid parameter. I was unemployed for almost 2 years and in the ISO. Now I make a little over 20K (and I live in one of the most expensive cities in the US). *shrugs*