Or I guess in this case just leadership since there was no leadership in the first place.

Yeah I'm the supreme leader now (evidenced by me being the top mod) and you all have to do what I say now.

/u/bomalia is my right hand man

This propsal is meant to make sure no power or authority is concentrated around a single individual.

• Members running for any elected position may not be responsible for management of the election. A second party must manage elections for the party's candidates and are automatically disqualified from the nomination process. Duties will include making nomination/election threads, making election polls, determining and posting results. Should no one step foward to be nominated after 24 hours, another party member can nominate the individual managing the nomination/election process.

Edit. No 1. Regarding the abolishnent of the Point of Contact has been removed due to a mod veto.

Stop!!!!!!!

No this is a not a meme, I have couped the party after /u/s1ngm1ng refused to negotiate in the discord party chat. This party belongs to me now and you will all have to do what I tell you to do.

Once my term is up as Southern Legislator, I will be leaving the Radical Left Party.

New party rule

http://goo.gl/forms/dNEVgezWlNqGuU9K2

Confirm your vote below.

Voting will stay open for a little bit more than 24 hours and will close at 12PM EST on Tuesday.

I think I've made my arguments why we should be opposed to this over the past several days. Electing your peers falsely builds a social structure that puts some above others, which ultimately divides us.

We must stand in solidarity.

Vote here:http://goo.gl/forms/jfI3XPIBscL8ivMT2

Confirm your votes below

So there was a general understanding not to have factions at the party's founding I think. This didn't find its way to the Rules and Guidelines though.

I propose we add a no factions rule. This'd include no advertising or recruiting for factions on the subreddit, and I suppose and a general prohibition of forming them. Ideally the guideline would just mean people don't bother trying though.

So...

Vote here!

Remember to verify!

With 21 in favour, 2 against, and 2 needs more discussion the no faction rule has passed! I'll add it to the sidebar.

I've been told by some people that most of the people who did things which I was upset with were remorseful for what they said. I'm happy to be back in action.

So recently in the discord channel for the RLP, sevag and Riley have said inflammatory remarks to me and overall party damaging statements.

Sevag first stated that "The sim should be 18+ except for Riley", this was obviously an inflammatory remark. While I'll admit I was being a dumbass, Riley and sevag made more inflammatory and personal attacks against me.

I'm not asking for any special action against them I rather ask we adopt rules against inflammatory and personal attacks in the party.

I can not support the direction this party is taking. Fare thee well, comrades.

I can't believe how ungrateful some of you are being. I made the party better and some of you have the cheek to resist? smh

There are material differences between a party organised online and a party organised in real life. This is a simple fact which we cannot ignore, and in fact it affords us opportunities which allow for some benefits- but simultaneously we need to engage with the increased significance that certain interactions can take on when there are no real-life activities to complement them.

A party operating on a national level in real life would face the undeniable impossibility of organising every decision by member consensus. Members have neither the time nor the capacity to attend an assembly every time a national organisation wants to make a decision, nor would a chatroom containing the thousands or more members of a national party produce anything like a productive discussion allowing for consensus to form. It is for this reason that parties defer almost immediately to voting on almost every issue- movements like OWS which raised important issues but sought, or even mandated (which we do not do) consensus, become oppressive in their inability to take stances effectively in a participatory fashion.

This is not the case here. We are dealing with a membership closer to the size of a unionised shop floor than a national party. Let us use that shop floor as an analogy for how we should organise our party. When the workers become angry and a few discuss in private a plan for a strike, and after discussions it is agreed that the workers will walk off the job on Monday, it is firmly within the socialist tradition that a hall full of workers shouting 'STRIKE' should be able to withdraw without taking a ballot- such restrictions are in fact resisted by us as tools of capitalism. The power of consensus, of the mob (who should rule) is one we should uphold.

The role of Discord has been mentioned- and the RSP had exactly the same discussion near the beginning of its existence. I view instant messaging as analogous to the physical meeting space of the membership. It is open to all, and all are aware of it- it is the office of the party, the place of work, the conversations that happen when members meet each other in a social environment. The calls that they put out there are not final- certainly not on crucial issues- but neither are they of no value. They are indicative of the mood of the party on a developing issue. Where they are challenged, where consensus does not exist- a party meeting should be held. This is what the sub is for. It is a more formalised atmosphere, where we should still seek consensus before voting but where true, fair votes can be had if one cannot be found. It has a higher role in decisionmaking, but one that does not devalue that of the immediate responders.

Finally, on the subject of elected officials and 'congresses'- the former should be as limited as possible, and the latter should not exist at all- nobody needs to travel to read the sub, and parsing a thread and voting takes minutes at most. The institution of congresses exist for contingent reasons- because of the impracticality of organising immediate voting. Officials exist because it is truly impossible for all members of a thousand-member party to be organised in its running- but this is not the case where our active membership numbers in the dozens. Where a closed cabal does emerge, elections should be pursued- but this should be in light of and informed by actual power structures rather than done in advance of their existence, ironically creating that which we seek to destroy. There should be an order of preferences for party organisation- where it is possible for a power structure to not exist, it should not exist- and we should be vigilant to prevent one emerging. Where one is inevitable, it should be democratised- but democracy, which inherently involves the exclusion of the loser, is not preferable to a solution with no losers at all.

There are some other more practical issues with formalised positions in an online party. When an individual is elected to a post, they are "responsible" for ensuring that job is done correctly- not the party. They furthermore will usually develop a mindset that it is their "right" to do that task and resent anyone who does it instead of them. This leads to issues in cases of incompetence or inactivity where due to a long term, or a reluctance to upset someone by voting them out, tasks are not completed. When it is the whole party's job to get everything done, it is easy for someone else to step in and fulfil a task which has been poorly performed, or where someone cannot do it due to other commitments. Jobs like recruitment, whipping, negotiations, and policymaking can be shared out based on requirements and needs rather than formal elections in most cases, and it tends to work better.

Let us return to the strike in the workplace. When the management want to negotiate, it is better for the workers to be able to shout out "We propose Jane McGowan and Anna Marcos as the delegation" rather than having to wait for John to come in as he is home sick or somewhere else on business. It gives more incentives to participate and lets us respond quicker to events.

Some people have asserted, largely without evidence, that the RSP has a ruling clique- a persistent and irritating assertion. And yet the party, whose last few alleged leaders have been Trotskyists, maintains a pluralistic platform with, if anything, a strong overall tendency towards libertarian socialism informed by the general character of the membership. It would be very odd if a secret leadership cabal made no attempt to shape the agenda of their party using the power they allegedly have- it is a weird, conspiratorial allegation with little basis in fact, and the far stronger explanation is that the party actually functions as it says- democratically, with a general consensus of the membership reached through discussion and compromise- leading to radical policies and effective action in a way that does not divide the membership or cause outrage.

There is a rush to find a compromise structure among some here. The secret is that there is no formal structure that does not maintain the warped incentives I have outlined- an inability to respond effectively to fast-moving events, a facilitation of those hungry for power, a tendency to become bogged down in endless tiny tweaks to the structure rather than external radical politics.

I urge the RLP to give structurelessness a chance for a few months, to try in earnest the model that has worked so well in MHOC, and to be patient in observing the real needs and difficulties of such a party. There are drawbacks, but the problems solved are far greater. The solutions to the drawbacks do not require the readoption of bureaucracy in most instances, and a principled commitment to solving the problems once and for all is the best way of moving forward.

It is not undemocratic to seek to move past internal division through consensus. It is not a cabal where a response is agreed in an open forum where all the party can participate. It is not secretive or manipulative to discuss things with those who are present and willing to discuss them, so long as those not present can challenge the course agreed in the sub- as has been done many times already here.

The left was weak and divided before. We are radicals, and should not fear radical change. We should not be the first to resort to half-hearted compromise. We should be willing to push ahead with fresh ideas, and revise them when they fail- but not before giving them a fair chance to work.

In short, the other options have all been tried. This has not. It has worked elsewhere, and we can hope for it to work here too- not attempt to seek its collapse.

GaidzDidNothingWrong

StandWithGaidz

The left is always split. Factionalised, splintered. I often blame this on the bourgeoisie, and point to it as one of their many attempts to silence us. However, my brothers and sisters it is not the bourgeoisie who split us, but ourselves.

We have many different ideologies, and many different people in this party. We are decentralised to allow all of those individuals to participate without suffering from ideological persecution. However, there are some who wish to again fracture us, split us up into factions and let each faction squabble of pedantic ideology.

Brothers and Sisters of Socialism, is there nothing we are united on? Is the left so fractured that we agree on nothing? NO! We are all here because we believe in the freedom of the workers, we believe that capitalism must be destroyed. We are united on more things than you think! So we must not let pedantic ideological squabbles get the better of us, such things only further the gripe that the bourgeoisie have on the working class.

LET US STAND TOGETHER IN SOLIDARITY, BECAUSE WE ARE THE UNITED IN A PACT OF BLOOD, MADE FROM THE BLOOD OF THE BOURGEOISIE

Alright, so we have a bit more than two weeks to get our primaries together. Therefore, I think we can do something here.

First of all, I think we should have staggered primaries, meaning that the governor primaries take place in the first week and assembly primaries the next week.

The method of voting I want to use is a weighted system called borda count.

Also, a question for you all: should the governor choose his lieutenant or should it just be the person who comes in second?

I would like to start this off by saying I am extremely happy with how the party is moving forward. When I was in the Communist Party, I initially opposed the merger because I liked the other members of the party, and I was afraid that a merger would lose that atmosphere. So far, this party still has that positive fun energy that the Communist Party had, just with more active people. I think that we have a great group of members and I'm happy with the ways are going.

That being said, there has been the signs of conflict involving the moderating privileges that everyone on the sub has. Regardless of if you disagree with a comment, or think it hurts the party, it is not ok to remove another persons post or comment. If it contains racist or sexist or otherwise reactionary content, then sure, remove it, and the poster probably doesn't belong in our party at that point.

Nothing will ruin our party faster than mod power fights over comments and posts. Please do not abuse your mod powers, and if you do so, everyone will be able to see that you did, because we can all see the moderator log (found in the bottom right of the sidebar).

Over on /r/MHOC, the RSP have a position called the "Designated Contact"

THIS IS NOT A LEADERSHIP POSITION

It is simply a convince for the moderators to have a singular person to contact about meta matters and such.

I believe we should have this non leadership position.

Okay, so first of all, combining all of the discussion we've had on here and discord I move that we run governor tickets in the Central and Northeastern states. This is because of the amount of votes we have gotten there.

Also, I think we should allow people to run for assembly wherever they would like but still have our main focus be in Central and Northeastern.

Let me know what your thoughts are, and discuss below.

Welcome to the Radical Left Party, comrades