#+title: Articulating and Organizing the Social Body with Asad Haider | Cosmopod

- tags :: [[file:../20200707204901-political_party.org][political party]] [[file:../20200707204913-organizing.org][organizing]]
- [[https://cosmopod.libsyn.com/articulating-and-organizing-the-social-body-with-asad-haider][source]]

- [[file:../20200707204946-alain_badiou.org][Alain Badiou]] said that because [[file:../20200707205002-state_socialism.org][state socialism]] wasn't able to achieve
  [[file:../20200707205056-communism.org][communism]] it should no longer be considered emancipatory
- Badiou says that what's missing from popular movements is a positive visiion
  (i.e. a communist horizon)
- Before [[file:../20200706092621-vladimir_lenin.org][Lenin]], politics was considered to have occurred under specific social
  conditions, rather than political parties making such conditions
- After the [[file:../20200707205243-bolsheviks.org][Bolsheviks]] took power in [[file:../20200707205320-1917_october_revolution.org][1917]], the party gradually became less
  revolutionary
  - The task of carrying out the revolution fell onto civil society
    organizations, such as the [[file:../20200707205429-proletkult.org][Proletkult]]
  - The [[file:../20200707205517-soviet_workers_council.org][soviets]] eventually became transmission belts to the party after the
    revolution
- [[file:../20200707205547-cuba.org][Cuba]] has civil society organizations that are separate from the official
  communist party
- [[file:../20200707205638-cultural_revolution.org][Cultural revolution]] is something that can only go on for so long before people
  get tired and want life to go back to normal
- Political parties should be able to carry on past the phase of insurrection
  where people are getting burnt out and tired
- Political organizations must be flexible to change, as the masses are ahead of
  the organizations (as we're seeing with the [[file:../20200625222115-george_floyd_protests.org][George Floyd protests]])
- A worthwhile workers party needs the trust of the people, otherwise it won't
  go anywhere
- [[file:../20200707210224-mutual_aid.org][Mutual aid]] and [[file:../20200707210234-electoralism.org][electoralism]] should not be seen as exclusive political actions
  but tactics that a broader socialist movement could use
- Emancipation is only emancipatory if everyone is free
- The struggle against racism is also a class struggle, and the class struggle
  should be a struggle against racism. In the last 50 years or so, these
  struggles have been co-opted
- A party should assume that the masses are capable of learning things for
  themselves. Our task as the "intellectual vanguard" is to "bring people the
  good news of communism", but we should not condescend people