Benjamin J. Davis, born on this day in 1903, was American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. Davis was persecuted by the state via the anti-communist Smith and McCarran Acts.

Davis became radicalized through his role as defense attorney in the 1933 trial of Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old black communist who had been charged “attempting to incite insurrection” because he tried to organize a farm workers’ union.

In 1949, Davis was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1962 Davis was charged with violating the Internal Security Act (also known as the McCarran Act), but died before the case could come to trial.

“Whether one agrees with the Communist Party or not, one must at least know the truth about it. One must not permit his ideas to be shaped by the hysteria which now passes as a ‘crusade against Communism’… For example, the canard that every Communist has his pockets lined with ‘Moscow gold.’ If that were true, one could be sure that there would scarcely be any room in our party for workers. The capitalists, to whom gold is god of the universe, would crowd them out.”

  • Benjamin J. Davis

I hope you nerds have a good month of September cuddle

Remember no crackers

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  • homhom9000 [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    14 days ago

    CW: alludes to SA

    I’ve been reading a bit on the new PSL allegations and it’s got my mind spinning (mostly cause I only heard rumors and never saw anything explicitly written out).

    Socialist orgs in the US are treated as social clubs formed by people who know of theory. It’s unserious organizing. There’s no reason for members to have relationships amongst each other and if some naturally develop there is no way it should mix with organizing. The org should only be discussing and planning actions, mutual aid, agitation. And the org needs to clearly have that laid out and enforced to prevent social abuse. Orgs need strong discipline or else people will just play around all day, abuse people, be infiltrated, etc. There should be a zero tolerance policy for “developing relationships” (getting friendly with intent to pursue, not so much making friends) and everyone across the org levels should understand that clearly and understand it will be enforced. There’s should be no reason abuse keeps happening and then gets brushed aside besides unserious neglect.

    The left is nowhere near power so I think publicly airing out grievances is useless. Mostly because what is expected of the public to help in situations like this when the public doesn’t know what PSL is, nevertheless socialism? But I don’t think that means never air out grievances, I think it means being more serious as an org and enforced strict policy against abuse/unnecessary relationships. Strict accountability.

    The note on relationships is about another substack I read of someone saying they joined PSL then started dating someone 12 years their senior and didn’t get protection from the org. I’m not saying the org should have broke them up but should have heavily discouraged any romantic relationships at all.

    Bit incoherent but my point is, socialist organizing shouldn’t be a social club and the way to make that happen is having clear strict and enforced discipline by the org that reinforces the reason we organize is to fight for a future, not make friends.

    • Blockocheese [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      13 days ago

      I agree that an organization in and of itself shouldnt be a social club, I also think they should try to have leftist forms of social clubs for agitation and recruitment

      There should be a zero tolerance policy for “developing relationships” (getting friendly with intent to pursue, not so much making friends)

      I dont think this could meaningfully be enforced and id worry about it being weaponized against more marginalized comrades like trans femmes. But I do think serial dating in orgs should be at least looked at if it’s between two people with an imbalance of power, whether that is age, or social capital, or actual leadership position

      We’re in hell since it needs to be said but any org should have a zero tolerance policy against sexual violence. Unfortunately, due to living inremoved culture there’s always a chance it will happen but as seen in this case, how people respond to it can be more traumatic than the actual act of violence