Why not just abolish the committee? What benefit is there to having a permanent committee that is known to serve no purpose other than to produce braindead negative PR? Is there some reason the DSA needs to have an International Committee?
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Basically, it seems like there's 4 answers people have. 1. "I agree, let's get rid of the IC and focus on other stuff"; 2. "I don't care, do not make me think about the IC"; 3. "The IC currently does good work when its not making statements" (will elaborate further below);
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
And 4. "Socialism is a global movement, and we live in the global hegemon, so we need *some* body to do international work and articulate a foreign policy vision for DSA. We need an IC, we just need to change it, or change its ideological makeup".
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Back to #3, most of the ICs work seems to be opaque or behind the scenes, but apparently they do stuff to build relationships with socialist parties in Latin America and Europe, and they send DSA delegations to other countries. I dont think its super-helpful, but most of it seems benign.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
So there's 2 issues you run into trying to abolish the IC. First is that its not feasible. Factions 1 and 2 consider IC a secondary issue. They would need to organize a majority at the convention to defeat factions 3 and 4, who are more likely to prioritize the issue.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
That's just a really difficult fight people aren't interested in having. The second problem is that outright abolishing the IC runs counter to DSAs culture. What makes the big tent possible is that everyone can build socialism by focusing on the tactics and areas they think work.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
You can focus on labor, or renters unions, or ballot initiatives, or mutual iad, or electing people, or whatever as long as you get people to organize with you. So saying "do not pursue this tactic" without a very good reason rubs people the wrong way.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
And frankly, I'm not sure we have a good reason anymore. IC statements were made subject to NPC approval maybe a year ago at this point, and the IC hasnt released a controversial problematic statement since, to my knowledge. I haven't seen new IC discourse probably at all this year.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
The bad PR we're still getting was baked in when we failed to address the problem for so long. We just have to deal with it, and not fuck up again in the meantime. I also think its worth mentioning that the most difficult members of the IC have lost influence within the IC since this all went down.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
Once you take away the power to make inflammatory official statements and focus the IC on boring work, I think you're less likely to attract committee members who want to spend their time making radical pronouncements, so I expect the IC to become healthier over time.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view
And who knows, they may even become more useful as the makeup shifts.
aug 30, 2025, 2:24 pm • 0 0 • view