Sds

[ComradeAV]

What do you guys think of SDS, do you think it would be good organization for me as a Marxist-leninist to join? Does SDS promote reformism or legit revolution?

[The Vegan Marxist]

What do you guys think of SDS, do you think it would be good organization for me as a Marxist-leninist to join? Does SDS promote reformism or legit revolution?

Overall, the SDS is a revolutionary group. They're highly against imperialism and "western-styled democracy". Of the majority, from what I've noticed, are pretty anti-capitalist. Though, you'll come across some liberals here and there. The SDS were also one of the main revolutionary activist organizations during the Vietnam war protests. So, as a Marxist-Leninist, the SDS is definitely a legit organization to join up with.

[ComradeAV]

Thanks comrade, I was thinking about joining SDS when I started college, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't joining a group with a bunch of reformist liberals.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Thanks comrade, I was thinking about joining SDS when I started college, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't joining a group with a bunch of reformist liberals.

Majority are usually Communists and Anarchists. Liberals are of the minority.

[sabotage]

How is SDS even doing these days. I haven't been involved in a long time. Any clue of where some of the people graduating have been getting involved with... I know a bunch of them started a new political organization called "The Organization for a Free Society" aka OFS (www dot afreesociety dot org)

It seemed like they may have been having a bunch of internal political debates as well, just generally curious!

[Who?]

What do you guys think of SDS, do you think it would be good organization for me as a Marxist-leninist to join? Does SDS promote reformism or legit revolution?

You should definitely join, there are many Marxist-Leninists within SDS, myself being one of them. If you have any questions I would be more than happy to try and answer them, just send me a PM.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

You should probably check out their website and see if there is a chapter at the school you will be attending. If not you may want to hold off on joining anything before you get a feel for the leftist community on campus in order to decide if you should start a chapter of SDS or join an already existing group.

[Tablo]

What do you guys think of SDS, do you think it would be good organization for me as a Marxist-leninist to join? Does SDS promote reformism or legit revolution?
SDS is a great group. They promote neither since the goal of the group doesn't specifically or openly revolve around fighting for socialism, but it is inferred in their goals depending on your definition of socialism.
http://www.studentsforademocraticsociety.org/?q=node/93


Overall, the SDS is a revolutionary group. They're highly against imperialism and "western-styled democracy". Of the majority, from what I've noticed, are pretty anti-capitalist. Though, you'll come across some liberals here and there. The SDS were also one of the main revolutionary activist organizations during the Vietnam war protests. So, as a Marxist-Leninist, the SDS is definitely a legit organization to join up with.
That SDS is dead. The new SDS is very similar and far less sectarian, though it can vary from chapter to chapter.


Thanks comrade, I was thinking about joining SDS when I started college, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't joining a group with a bunch of reformist liberals.
Our chapter is small, but we only have one liberal and she never comes to meetings anymore. Don't expect everyone to have thoroughly developed politics though, because most don't.


How is SDS even doing these days. I haven't been involved in a long time. Any clue of where some of the people graduating have been getting involved with... I know a bunch of them started a new political organization called "The Organization for a Free Society" aka OFS (www dot afreesociety dot org)

It seemed like they may have been having a bunch of internal political debates as well, just generally curious!
SDS is doing good. Numbers are strong and we always have chapters at any protest in the country of significant size. Not sure what all they are getting involved in after graduation.

[graymouser]

I've gotten the impression that SDS is wildly uneven based on your area - in Philly it's almost totally inactive, in some areas it's quite reformist, in others it's quite revolutionary in rhetoric. In the midwest from what I understand FRSO (Fight Back) is quite involved. Everything I've heard seems to confirm the idea that it's not the same from place to place.

[Tablo]

I've gotten the impression that SDS is wildly uneven based on your area - in Philly it's almost totally inactive, in some areas it's quite reformist, in others it's quite revolutionary in rhetoric. In the midwest from what I understand FRSO (Fight Back) is quite involved. Everything I've heard seems to confirm the idea that it's not the same from place to place.
Yeah, our current membership is 4, but it fluctuates from year to year. We are doing some serious recruiting next week though.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I've gotten the impression that SDS is wildly uneven based on your area - in Philly it's almost totally inactive, in some areas it's quite reformist, in others it's quite revolutionary in rhetoric. In the midwest from what I understand FRSO (Fight Back) is quite involved. Everything I've heard seems to confirm the idea that it's not the same from place to place.

Yes, in the midwest, the FRSO organizes quite frequently with the SDS. Plenty of FRSO cadres in the SDS.

[The Douche]

In my town it was all radical liberals, and it no longer exists.

Interestingly enough, when it was first being reformed there were a lot of people from SPUSA involved in restarting it, and since I was in an SP tendency at the time somebody sent me an old text from the 60s talking about organizing student unions based on syndicalist principles, and asked if I wanted to help restart SDS and push forward using that theory, I wasn't a student at the time though, so I declined.

[Jose Gracchus]

Yes, in the midwest, the FRSO organizes quite frequently with the SDS. Plenty of FRSO cadres in the SDS.

In the south as well. My local SDS chapter has most of the leading figures being FRSO(FB), though they don't really publicize their affiliation. I had heard there used to be more anarchists and libertarian socialists but they were ran out or left, so there's a majority of Marxist-Leninists and a minority (but more capable) of Trotskyists, predominantly of the ISO variety.

[sabotage]

when i was involved in SDS mostly around 2007 locally things were pretty big but it was towards the end of the very active anti-war movement and stuff around mobilizing for the DNC/RNC and lots of folks were dropping out cause folks didn't focus on school/student issues enough. most were either radical liberals or "anarchists"

it was also fairly alienating cause SDS mostly focused around Brown University and I went to state school...i didn't want to go to meetings where everyone just got drunk and were play acting as revolutionary... idk apparently they are sorta reinvigorated at brown and at least focusing on their school now, but no one hears much about their organizing, maybe it is cause i am not a student anymore.

[Ravachol]

In my town it was all radical liberals, and it no longer exists.

Interestingly enough, when it was first being reformed there were a lot of people from SPUSA involved in restarting it, and since I was in an SP tendency at the time somebody sent me an old text from the 60s talking about organizing student unions based on syndicalist principles, and asked if I wanted to help restart SDS and push forward using that theory, I wasn't a student at the time though, so I declined.

It is interesting that you bring this text (http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/sds_documents/student_syndicalism.html) up, because I recently stumbled upon it when scouring the internet for texts on the Student movement from a Syndicalist point of view.

I, for one, thought the text was pretty weak.

While the introduction about the University's structural function and it's role as a knowledge factory is pretty good.

However, it goes on to say:



How will this radically alter the lives of every student on this campus? With this in mind, I offer the following proposals for action.

(..)

2) That the student syndicalist movement take on one of two possible structures: a Campus Freedom Democratic Party (CFDP) or a Free Student Union (FSU).

a) Campus Freedom Democratic Party. This is possible on those campuses where the existing student government is at least formally democratic (that is, one student-one vote). The idea is to organize a year-round electoral campaign for the purposes of educating students about their system; building mass memberships in dormitory and living-area "precincts"; constantly harassing and disrupting the meetings of the existing student government (for instance, showing up en masse at at a meeting and singing the jingle of the now-defunct "Mickey Mouse Club"); and, finally, winning a majority of seats in student government elections. As long as the CFDP has a minority of seats, those seats should be used as soapboxes to expose the existing body as a parody of the idea of government. It should be kept in mind that the main purpose of these activities is to develop a radical consciousness among all the students in the struggle yet to come against the administration.

What happens if a CFDP wins a majority of the seats? It should immediately push through a list of demands (the nature of which I will deal with later) in the form of a Bill of Rights or Declaration of Independence or both. The resolution should indicate a time-Iimit for the administration (or regents or whatever) to reply. If the demands are met, the students should promptly celebrate the victory of the revolution. If not, the CFDP should promptly abolish student government or set up a student-government-in-exile. Second, the CFDP should immediately begin mass demonstrations: sit-ins in the administration buildings, in faculty parking-Iots, in maintenance departments, and so forth; boycotts of all classes; and strikes of teaching assistants. In short, the success of these actions (especially when the cops come) will be the test of how well the CFDP has been radicalizing its constituency during the previous two or three years.


The idea that participating in 'student representation bodies' is anything but the hollow legitimization of these farces of supposed 'student power' is folly. The very nature of these bodies, if they held any revolutionary potential at all, is the delegation of struggles. They are spectaclist in nature.

Apart from that, the idea that there can be such a thing as a 'democratic' micro-institution within an institute so firmly integrated into capital as the university is as insane as saying there is a possibility for pockets of 'true' democracy to exist within Capitalism or the State. The final arbiters with regards to the university are still those who have de-jure and de-facto ownership of the university and those who make it function through control over it's resources and facilities: Capital and the State. Any pretentions micro-organs within the university might have are mere facades aiding the legitimization of the structure.

Furthermore, the idea that a 'platform of ideas' creates revolutionary change is turning the nature of struggle upside-down. Revolutionary potential emerges from subjectivities formed through direct struggle, not adherence to a body of ideas on a pamphlet.



b) Free Student Union. The difference between an FSU and a CFDP is mainly tactical. On many campuses, existing student governments are not even formally democratic; rather, they are set up with the school newspaper having one vote, the interfraternity council having one vote, and so on. In a situation like this, we ought to ignore or denounce campus or electoral politics from the word go, and, following the plan of the Wobblies, organize one big union of all students. The first goal of the FSU would be to develop a counter-institution to the existing student government that would eventually embrace a healthy majority of the student body.


Copying the idea of 'one big union' one-on-one from labour struggles to student struggles is a serious misunderstanding of the class-nature of students. Not all students are working class and a large part will never be. As such, their interests are firmly opposed to those of working-class students. How can one expect, for example, those who study in order to become a workplace administration official who goes over hiring and firing and the workrate, to have any revolutionary aspirations or interest?



3) That the student syndicalist movement adopt as its primary and central issue the abolition of the grade system. This is not to say that other issues, such as decision-making power for student government bodies, are unimportant. They are not; and, in certain situations, they can be critical. But to my mind, the abolition of grades is the most significant over-all issue for building a radical movement on campus. There are three reasons why I think this is so:

a) Grading is a common condition of the total student and faculty community. It is the direct cause of most student anxieties and frustrations. Also, it is the cause of the alienation of most faculty members from their work. Among our better educators and almost all faculty, there is a consensus that grades are, at best, meaningless, and more likely, harmful to real education.

b) As an issue to organize around, the presence of the grade system is constantly felt. Hour exams, midterms and finals are always cropping up (whereas student government elections occur only once a year). Every time we see our fellow students cramming for exams (actually, for grades), we can point out to them that they are being exploited and try to organize them. In every class we take, throughout the school year, every time our professors grade our papers and tests, we can agitate in our classrooms, exposing the system and encouraging both our classmates and our instructors to join with us to abolish that system.


The jargonistic swapping of 'the abolition of the wage system' for the 'abolition of the grade system' is just ridiculous. It shows a serious misunderstanding of the functioning of the university. First of all, grades simply aren't wages, grades aren't a 'source of exploitation'. When students are schooled and trained they do not produce surplus value which is somehow partially 'compensated' by grades. Sure, some student research produces surplus value and many students have to resort to part-time jobs in order to pay for their studies and are thus directly workers as a by-product of their condition as students. But their conception of the 'knowledge factory' shows a serious misunderstanding of the role of educational institutions.

The educational apparatus serves as a disciplinary apparatus, it's function is a molding one. It takes student subjects as it's raw input and through a process of repeated examinations and accompanying discipline molds them into the desired end-result: functional cogs in the machine of capital, whether as workers producing surplus value or as functionaries of the machine itself (those administrating the surplus-extraction, those producing it's ideology and cultural hegemony,those operating the disciplinary apparatus itself,etc.).

And while surplus-extraction occurs more and more within the university as it merges more and more with the 'traditional' workplaces, the university still produces subjects with certain qualities as it's main activity.

[Zeus the Moose]

It is interesting that you bring this text (http://www.antiauthoritarian.net/sds_wuo/sds_documents/student_syndicalism.html) up, because I recently stumbled upon it when scouring the internet for texts on the Student movement from a Syndicalist point of view.


This is something that was written in any sort of seriousness? That all sounds incredibly fucking stupid (referring to the Davidson text, not your comments. Yours seem pretty accurate.)

[The Douche]

As I recall I don't think I even read the text back then, I just printed it out and gave it to some friends who were still in school, who probably just used it to roll joints on.