Not to pile on here but I do think it’s really important to recognize how common a problem this is. Any organization needs to have robust procedures for investigating and addressing this sort of thing. If anything it is a lack of a strong and transparent process that caused this issue in the first place. If you haven’t taking the time to read the statement in full you may want to do so. The second time I read it I did so from the perspective of how could this particular situation, not the groping but the statement and counter statement, be avoided. It seems to me that better accountability and transparency would go a long way.

I think the lesson we’re learning here is that a mechanism that is intended to protect the party seems to instead be causing harm to it. If this had been more widely known it would have defanged a number of the criticisms that have emerged here. Most of us understand that SA and other interpersonal transgressions will occur in any body of people. Being visibly proactive, taking a restorative justice approach, and having visible accountability aren’t necessarily incompatible and serve to demonstrate that the party is taking the correct line on important issues.

I think you nailed the core challenge. It’s hard to doubt that the PSL is subject to deliberate and active sabotage by motivated parties like intel agencies and factions. That said the key issue is really one of professionalism. The point about creating the NDC is a good one and indicates that they see a problem and are working to address it. The issue I see, and that this statement shows, isn’t that there’s necessarily a cult around the central committee, it’s that there are social cliques throughout the leadership. Another commenter alluded to facebook drama and I think that’s a good way of describing it.

The PSLs goal is to build a cadre of professional revolutionaries, which is a good goal and it’s something that they seem to do fairly well. What this incident and response indicate is that, regardless of hostile external parties, an organization with leadership bodies that have a number of insular social circles will necessarily be vulnerable to this sort of problem. It seems to me that it would be worth the PSLs time to investigate how other ML parties have acted to avoid these kind of issues and implement steps to mitigate against future incidents.

Last but not least, while the restorative justice angle they reference in the letter is a good one it’s still reasonable to hold leadership to an extremely high standard. I personally agree with the approach they describe in the initial response but at the same time the fact that a central committee member got drunk and acted inappropriately at a party function should be sufficient to remove that person from leadership going forward. As Mao said, “a revolution is not a tea party.” We can hold leaders to our highest standards without undermining the process of restorative justice.

Especially if you have black salt.

They can’t already buy much grain from Russia and Belarus right? Who in their right mind could increase the costs of grain right as all their other costs rise. Anyone have a read on what Latvia’s deal is here?

Anyone see this? A Twitter account going by @SprinterPress is claiming that the US used up 80 patriot missiles, not sure which generation, trying to stop the Iranian attack on Jordan yesterday/this morning. That’s all from the latest Iran War post on NakedCapitalism.

I’m very curious to learn more about what went down with the Iranian attack on Jordan and how many munitions were expended to defend US assets there.

Are you familiar with Micheal Hudson, that sounds like it’s broadly in line with his takes. He goes on a lot about Obama’s QE policies basically left all the ill effects from 2008 in the economy and goes on to relate the stock market bubble to imperialism, kind of. He has some interesting stuff about finance capitalism.

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Can anyone link the article if they see it?

So what is this, like the 13th Israeli charged with a crime against a Palestinian in the West Bank since 2000? Is anyone tracking the charge/conviction rate for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank? It’s gotta be nuts.

Anyone seeing reports of an associated AWS outage? I was looking and didn’t see anything.

Loved the response. Only thing I’d add is that there is actually a critical role for western leftists to play in time likes this. We can throw sand in the gears of the war machine through organizing and fighting back wherever possible. Anything we can do to raise the costs of the war at home helps increase the efficacy of those who are fighting on the other side of the world. The best antidote to feeling helpless is organizing. Make a commitment to get out there this week and volunteer with your local socialist organization.

I’d love for someone to point me to the wtf of all this. Why are these nations lining up with Australia against China? Where is that coming from and why is it happening? I’m assuming the answer is Capitalism but I’d love to dive in a little deeper.

Thank you for this in depth and thoughtful response!

I know that’s meant to be a joke but a guy did build a pretty cool Marx bot on top of deepseek: https://marx-bot.vercel.app/

I’ll be genuinely shocked if this holds but I’m impressed that Trump was able to accept the reality of the situation with such minimal economic pain having been inflicted on the US. I heard him say some things at that G7 conference that I would not have expected, like admitting there’s no alternative path forward or that the US has 2-4 weeks before a severe oil crisis hits.

Can you share any more context about what that is and how they source the articles? It looks really interesting but I’m relatively new to this space and would appreciate more background.

That and every day that passes reduces available oil inventories. Iran seems to be in a position to benefit from every day there is no significant opening of Hormuz. The US blockade changes the equation but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest it’s imposing unbearable costs on Iran. It looks like the Iranian stock market is showing confidence and while there are limits on what is trading it seems to suggest that locals believe things are economically on the right track. I don’t believe that exchanges are perfect proxies for the economy but it’s certainly relevant.

Caveats: I’m definitely not an expert and am relying on machine translations for Farsi language articles.

Seems like two can play at the market manipulation game. Iran announcing a withdrawal from talks and escalations in the Bab al-Mandab early on Monday gives that a lot of time to scare the markets. I don’t know what Yemen will do but I bet I know what oil prices will do while we’re waiting to find out.

My favorite part was the official having to sit there and say, “we have plenty of weapons but we’re also cancelling because we need them, but we still have more than enough.”