Talk:Socialist Action (United States)

POV?
This entry for Socialist Action was obviously written by someone who is quite hostile to the organization and what it stands for. It paints the history of Socialist Action as consiting of nothing but splits. It totally ignores the numerous contriubtions that the group is very well known for, such as SA's work in the anti-war movement, the fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and in the labor movement. It also fails to mention the numerous fusions with other groups that SA has gone through over the years (something which needs to be included if one is to be fair about the splits the group has gone through - since some of the splits were simply the result of raids and of failed marriages, so to speak).

In closing, the current entry for Socialist Action is a terribly biased and hostile piece, and should be radically redone.


 * The article has actually been written by a large number of people, although I suspect none of them are members of Socialist Action. Splits tend to be remembered and allow the article to link to many others.  Perhaps the editors haven't been as well aware of the current activities of Socialist Action.  As you appear to know more about these, why not edit the article and improve it? Warofdreams talk 10:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

--Does a sentence like "The history of Socialist Action has been one of factionalism and marginality despite the roots the group has within the workers movement." belong in an encyclopedia entry? That hits me like a pretty loaded phrase.

Major undiscussed revision.
I have reverted a major undiscussed revision, which another editor has also reverted. At first glance, it looks like someone was removing material for no reason and replacing it with material cut and pasted from SA's own website. The SA material will be their copyright, and lifting it conflicts with out policies. Plus, you can't remove material without a reason. --Duncan 13:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I had an email from Socialist Action to ask for clarification about how they can help develop this page. That's really wonderful -- the page needs a lot more information about their actual work. I also understand that even they are unfamiliar with one of the 'splits' listed. For that reason, I will add a refs neded tag to that section. My reply to them follow...
 * Wikipedia works by a consensus policy that is outlined fully here:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines
 * Each page has a 'talk' page behind it on which editors discuss possible changes. When there's a very substantial edit that isn't explained and motivated on the talk page, then it come under close scruitiny. In this case, I seem to recall that material had been removed that had not been agreed as being to be untrue or not notable. Furthermore, material had been added in which was just a wholesale lifting of text from SA's website. There are more concise ways to summarise that: in essence a link to the page on Trotskyism is all that's needed to indicate SA's polcies. Since SA presents itself in a similar way to other socialist groups, that wholesale lifting duplicates information found elsewhere and does not give any insight into SA's distinctive positions. Furthermore, lifting text wholesale breaches your copyright and does not give a neutral standpoint: Wikipedia aims to take a neutral standpoint.
 * If you look at the entry for other socialist groups, you'll see that the proposed edits would have take the page some way from the direction Wikipedia takes.
 * Of course, the page will benefit from some more work. However, that process requires agreement on the Talk page.
 * Any comments? --Duncan 12:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

An-SA POV?
I would like to help in re-working this entry. Since there seems to be some dispute between members and non-members of Socialist Action in what this entry should say, I'd like to submit my proposed changes/additions here first, and see what people say, before I add them to the entry. While there are a lot of things I'd eventually like to see added or changed, I'll start by making two suggestions. One is that the sentence "The history of Socialist Action has been one of factionalism and marginality despite the roots the group has within the workers movement. Like its parent the SWP, its history can in many respects be written as a record of the many factional struggles and splits which have wracked the group." under the catagory "Splits" be immediately removed. This doesn't meet NPOV standards. And second, I'd like to propose that we add a section on Socialist Action's electoral campaigns. How is this for at least some preliminary text: "Socialist Action has run candidates for elected office on a number of occasions. It views electoral campaigns as a way to promote socialist politics, as well as to advocate on behalf of issues that the organization is promoting.  Currently, Socialist Action is the only Trotskyist group in the United States with an elected official.  SA member Adam Ritscher was elected to the Douglas County Board of Supverisors in northern Wisconsin in April of 2006, and he continues to serve in that office [citation: http://www.ballot-access.org/2006/060106.html#15 ].  Another example of recent Socialist Action election campaigns is Jeff Mackler's 2006 write-in campaign for U.S. Senate in northern California.  As a result of legal challenges, Socialist Action does not have to disclose who the financial supporters of its election campaigns, since it has been able to demonstrate government harrasment of socialist candidates in the past [citation: http://www.ballot-access.org/2004/0801.html#7 ]. Examples of SA election campaigns of the past include Sylvia Weinstein's 1988 campaign for San Francisco Board of Education, in which she won 21,000 votes [citation: http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200109/sylvia.html ]."

What do you guys think?--Adamritscher 21:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)Adam Ritscher
 * Hi Adam. The section on elections looks okay to me. I've italicised the sentence you would like to remove. Why do you think it's POV? Do important disputes in SA not tend to resolve themselves in factional disputes? Is the group notably less marginal than similar organisations?--Duncan 13:47, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in replying to you Duncan, but yeah, I definetly think that there is a problem with the section called "Splits". The most obvious sentence that I take issue with is the one that says: "The history of Socialist Action has been one of factionalism and marginality despite the roots the group has within the workers movement." All U.S. Trotskyist groups are small, so one could make an argument that they all are "marginal" relative to the big capitalist parties, yet no other Wikipedia entry for other U.S. Trotskyist groups describe them as "marginal". This seems unfair to me. Plus, SA is not the smallest of U.S. Trotskyist groups, and in terms of influence on the rest of the left I think a very strong case could be made that SA is more influential than many similar sized groups [it's role in the movement to free Mumia, the anti-war movement, a number of trade union locals, Lynne Stewart defense, defending Kevin Cooper, defending immigrant rights, U.S. Labor Against the War, the Labor Party, election campaigns, etc. I think speaks for itself - SA members are in leadership roles in all of these movements].

As for the splits themselves, I think too much emphasis is put on it. What criteria is used for what should be listed? If one wants to count every time two or more people left Socialist Action, there's one or two incidents that aren't on the current list. But is it worth listing every time two or three people leave SA on a wikipedia entry? And that's how big some of the splits currently listed are! There have only been 3 splits in SA's history where the number of people leaving hit the double digits. And the the current wording fails to mention anything about the numerous fusions SA has had - a number which approaches the number of splits the groups has had. In fact, a number of the splits were actually the result of failed fusions, some of them were little more than raids, in my opinion. But I don't think any of this needs to be listed in a wikipedia entry. I would suggest simply a sentence or two that says something to the effect that Socialist Action has had a number of dramatic splits and fusions since it was founded.

For what it's worth, I think it's unfair to characterize the defining feature of SA as one of constant splits. That may be how some bitter former members wish to portray the organization, but it's not how the average activist, worker or student who comes into contact views the group. Most of SA's splits were tiny, and not unusual for the Trotskyist movement. Small movements often have many splits - it's a side effect of frustration in the overall small size of the revolutionary movement. In any event, in summary, I think the current wording of the SA entry, especially the section called "Splits" puts way too much emphasis on these splits, and gives the entry a far more negative tone than entries for other U.S. Trotskyist groups. -AdamRitscher —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamritscher (talk • contribs) 22:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Adam. You makes some great points about the group's good work, and that would be useful in the article. I take your point about splits as a point of balance, but they are meaningful and do partly reflect the ability to deal with divergence of the majority and minorities (Personally, I feel the difficulty in maintaining co-operation despite disagreements in the past might also reflect SA's cooperation with the Fourth International over the last decade). Reducing that down to a sentence seems to lose the balance. What do you think? --Duncan (talk) 21:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Duncan, hi Adam. Yeah, I think some stuff could be put in about the leadership role SA played in the 1980s around the Jobs, Peace and Justice Coalition that became the biggest mobilizer against the war in Central America on the West Coast. They've lead in Mumia work more recently. Again in the 1980s they played a key role, if not THE key role in supplying solidarity to the embattled UFCW Local P9 in Austin, MN AND providing the closest thing to a mitliant tactical perspective for the leadership of that local. Lastly, if we are going to talk about splits (and I left with the "Lambetist" one mentioned in the article) the very many fusions and unfications should also be mentioned. A split from the Morenoist LIT section in the US brought some members into SA. The fusion with the Vargarites in Detroit occured when I was in it. The recent addition of members of Labor Standard (ex-FIT) joined SA. And I'm sure there are others. Oh, and, very interestingly, the 'exchange' of cadre with Spark, the US supporters of the LO in France where SA put on staff a full time Spark member who was invited to all the political committee meetings, received all the documents internal or not, etc. She was on staff for about 1 month and then, after discussions with the leadership of Spark, agreed that any further collaboration was in neither organizations interests and we part amiicably. Lastly, but not incronilogical order....the Global Class War tendency joined SA around 1989 or so, I think. This was group of Trotskyists who had been previously known as the International-Communist League and were "Marcyite Trotskyists" oriented, previously, to the Workers World Party. So...it should be "Splits AND Fusions".66.77.107.100 (talk) 07:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)David Walters, ETOL.

Oh..small point...hmm...the 1991 Lambertist 'split' was actually a voted on expulsion. If you attended the Lambertist organized meeting in Barcalona, you were expelled for breaking discipline. My view is that it should be noted as a "split/expulsion" or an expulsion. "Expulsion" are, btw, totally justified if they are...justified politically. Groups tend not to like to use that word and opt for 'split' as if the organization actually didn't do anything, they woke up to find their opposition no longer in the group. Yeah :)66.77.107.100 (talk) 07:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)D. Walters

Counting Members
The recent change to the member count strikes me as odd. Socialist Action doesn't go around publishing its counts of members, and the 130 number actually seems a bit high to me. I don't think it's a necessary or fruitful thing to include in the encyclopedia article. There aren't counts of members for any other groups of comparable size. The group has been growing, but I don't think at its size we should include the inevitably gossip-y attempts to get to numbers. However, I wouldn't object if they were verified and sourced. Cadriel (talk) 10:51, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and removed this, since it's been two weeks since the citation note went up and no one's even bothered to discuss the matter. SA's recent article on their convention didn't publish member counts, so there is nothing from that end.  Unless they care to volunteer the info, or someone moderately verifiable posts it, the member count is not a relevant part of the article.  Cadriel (talk) 10:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have another suggestion. Up until a few weeks ago the article stated that the group has around 70 members. Why don't you revert it that, rather than delete the whole sentence?--Duncan (talk) 16:58, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, there wasn't a reference for that number, and it should have had a citation needed tag as well. The size of the group is not public common knowledge, and while I have good reason to believe it's between 70 and 130, neither count is referenced in the way that facts need to be in Wikipedia.  This article claims members in 31 cities, which would support text like "Socialist Action claims to have members in 31 cities."  Would this be a good addition to the article?  Cadriel (talk) 17:12, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think that would be a much better point to add, since it has the benefit of being both true and referenced! --Duncan (talk) 17:33, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improving Page
I'd like to make some suggestions for improving this page. As it currently reads there is very little about what Socialist Action does as far as political work, and there is too much emphasis on splits. I propose creating a new sub-section on the page dealing with the groups current political work. SA was one of the main initiators, and has members in the leadership bodies of, the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars & Occupation. The National Assembly is a network of national and local anti-war groups trying to encourage more unity in the U.S. antiwar movement, and for a focus on a mass action strategy to end the war (mass demonstrations). SA also is very active in the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, U.S. Labor Against the War, the Climate Crisis Coalition, the immigrant rights movement, a variety of campus struggles and in several trade unions. In saying "very active in" I mean that SA makes these issues priorities, and there are SA members in leadership positions in the movements.

On the section on splits, I suggest re-naming it something like "Organizational History", or something along those lines. Right now it's a list of splits, most of which were very tiny and of little significance (socialist groups of all stripes often suffer from such tiny splits - and if you look at other entries for socialist groups you rarely find this kind of list, no matter how many splits they've had). Since this has been discussed before on this page, I'll be more specific as to why I think this section needs a major re-write. For example, the "Trotskyist Continuity Tendency" split was a tiny affair - it may have been significant for those in in that tendency, but it hardly was a defining moment for SA. A husband and wife team split for the Socialist Workers Party and joined SA. They then split from SA and joined the Bulletin In Defense of Marxism/Labor Standard current, before splitting from them and starting their own magazine (Revolutionary Marxism Today), which no longer exists. And there have been other tiny splits of that order in SA's history. The point is some splits are listed and some aren't. Some of the splits listed represented a sizable minority of the group's membership, and some did not. And there isn't any context provided about the split. For example, by my study of SA's history, the majority (though not all) of SA's splits were the result of failed fusions. SA has had several splits over the years (most during the late 80s/early 90s when the socialist movement was in a lot of turmoil), but its also had several fusions (the Vargaites in 1985, the Barry Sheppard group in the late 80s, a tiny grouping from the Trotskyist League in the 90s, the TCT mentioned above, Leftist Youth in 1997, a small group of ex-Spark members in the late 90s, a Connecticut group and the Labor Standard comrades in 2005-2006, etc.). If one were writing a wiki entry for SA in the early 90s, I could see possibly having a section like this, but these splits are old history and are hardly how most activists who currently come into contact, whether they're friendly or not to SA, would view as defining of the group. Ideally I'd suggest removing this section, or at the very least giving it some balance that reflects that there have been both splits and fusions (after all, the number of people involved in the splits and fusions is almost exactly the same if you tally it up).

Another thing that I think needs changing is the opening sentence in the "Splits" section. Right now it reads "The history of Socialist Action has been one of factionalism and marginality despite the roots the group has within the workers movement." Defining a group as factional and marginal are POV, in my opinion. This should be easy to fix, all it needs is some more neutral language.

I'll conclude with a few minor suggestions for improvements. In the beginning of the entry it mentions how SA has recruited a layer of youth since 2001. Not sure why that year was used. I joined SA in 1997, and brought with me a group of students from Northland College. That marked the beginning of SA's recruitment of youth (SA has always had young members, but by the mid-90s the majority of the group was middle aged). Today SA is majority youth. And while this recruitment of young people began in the upper-Midwest, there are more SA youth in places like Connecticut. Perhaps we should drop the reference to the upper-Midwest, or mention that SA's youth membership now spreads from coast to coast.

It also seemed odd to me that in the "Origins" section it says that SA developed differences with the leadership of the Fourth International in 1992. SA led an opposition current at the 1992 World Congress of the FI, but SA has had differences with the FI leadership almost since it's founding. SA looks back at the Lenistist-Trotskyist Faction of the FI of the 1970s as its heritage, and while the FI majority and LTF faction fight formally ended in the late 70s, the central point of contention - the question of building Trotskyist parties in every country - re-emerged in the mid-1980s when the FI leadership's resolutions started advocating left regroupment. This is a minor point, since 1992 was an important date in this long running disagreement, but it wasn't the beginning of it.

Anyway, that's it for now. I don't mean to come across as hostile or bossy. I appreciate the work that has gone into this entry so far. But I do feel it needs some work. I'm curious to hear what others think, and will hold off on making any changes until I get some feedback. -Adam R. Wainosunrise (talk) 21:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Youth for Socialist Action
Youth for Socialist Action (YSA) is a nation-wide youth group associated with Socialist Action who's program is based around 10 points of unity :

"1. We stand for workers' democracy & socialism. We are active partisans in the class struggle!" "2. We fight against racism in all its forms. We are supporters of Black and Chicano liberation, full sovereignty for American Indians, and we defend the right of self-determination of all oppressed nationalities."

"3. We are opposed to any and all discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. We support equal rights for all!" "4. We fight to protect the environment from the ravages of capitalism."

"5. We fight to empower young people, on campus, in the community, and in the workplace."

"6. We fight against police brutality, and any measures by the state to take away or restrict our democratic rights."

"7. We stand for free quality education for all, from pre-school to graduate school."

"8. We denounce imperialism, and oppose all U.S. foreign interventions, regardless of the given justification." "9. We denounce the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and stand in solidarity with the Cuban people & their revolution."

"10. We advocate independent working class political action. Break from pro-business politics!"

The goal of the organization is "of recruiting and educating young revolutionaries. We don't feel it's enough to simply be an activist. Nor is it enough to simply read a lot of books and study political theory. You need both - and being both educated in political theory, and active in the struggles against capitalism, is what being a revolutionary is all about!"

This two-tier goal has lead the Youth for Socialist Action into the leadership into various committees and struggles. Most recently, the YSA at Central Connecticut State University played a central role in the defense of Marissa Blaszko, the Opinion Editor of the campus paper who was fired for her affiliation with YSA. The following semester, the group worked with black, Latino, GLBT and other clubs and sororities on campus in defense of a Kenyan student who was harassed by the university's cross country team and victimized by the university. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.89.13.192 (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2010 (UTC)