Why not gather?

[Roi]

If there's one thing the alt-right has been successful with it's organizing these massive protests and why aren't leftists doing the same thing? What's stopping us from holding rallies and not just counter protesting? One of the main problem for leftists is lack of information. People have a bad mental image of leftists and organizing public events would show people that this is a real political movement and not just a fringe group. Also all leftist ideologies are so different to what people are used to that it's scary and being able to go out and talk to someone about it would go a long way to have more people join our movement.

[MusicalChairs]

There exists among some the opinion that it would benefit the Left to remain a diffuse boogeyman for the Right. They can remain organized within, but from without it helps the cause in that many don't believe there exists an underlying order.

So long as Right events and protests are interrupted by a consistent, combative presence on the Left, the intended goal appears to edge closer still.

[Callum the communist]

personally i find this subject quite difficult because on the one hand obviously as a communist and just a fair and good human being I want to oppose racist, fascist and right wing ideologies as much as possible

but on the on the other hand, as a communist in modern western society i find it hard to find anti fascist events organised by radical left groups similar to my own ideology as i really don't like being lumped in with the liberals as if i were to go to a liberal anti fascist event all it would aim to achieve is to fight fascism to retain liberal capitalism

[Jimmie Higgins]

I agree that as long as the revo left does not have its own public profile, then the voices claiming stereotypes of totalitarian/aloof intellectuals/utopian dreamers/terrorists/group think lefties will get to define us to much of the public and this will create barriers and suspicion in trying to organize our class. However I think that we need to not just have a presence but to demonstrate, in practice, that we are fighting for concrete class wins. Then the media or right could attack us all they wanted but anyone who saw or worked with rads in organizing would smell the BS.

I think in the US, the young (and probably more left-leaning) DSA members are the most likely break-through point. But they - to my knowledge - are mostly hoping for a Bernie 2020 run and focused on universal healthcare. While health is a great and popular class demand, the actual organizing imo is limited (crowds to pressure government? Maybe agitating while supporting an occasional nurse strike etc). But with something like 30k members, if they focused practical activity around some things around minimum wages, the teacher strikes, and killer police policies, they’d become big and visible factions of these efforts. SoAlt probably has a few hundred members but probably ranks just below DSA in profile because they are organizing people for direct wins.

I don’t belong to either group, but I think that if people appeal to the left DSAers in comradely ways the membership would be receptive to other socialist helping and encouraging them to take a more activist/organizing direction than past leadership would want.

[The Idler]

Leftists do protest and hold rallies. It's called May Day or International Workers Day. Many left-wingers are focused on front groups because they wrongly believe workers themselves are only capable of trade-union consciousness.