Victims testimony in the link. Left the Party a few months ago but refrained from posting about it out of “discipline/not wanting to hurt the movement” on hexbear dot net but this shit is simply beyond the pale. anyone thinking about joining a socialist org deserves to know about this horrific garbage.
Obviously there’s no quick fix to patriarchy orremoved culture but the rotten, misogynistic, apologist, opportunist Becker clique has got to go if this org is going to be anything more than a hotbed of abuse and exploitation. I genuinely loved and respected my rank and file comrades, this shit makes my blood boil.
Still reading through the blog, and this stood out. I don’t think it’s healthy at all to have some family be the head of the org. Why is Ben’s father and wife privy to private party matters?
Also, what is up with PSL NYC being as shitty as DSA NYC apparently? Did the feds saw that the NYC branch of the BPP was the best branch and decided to run a COIN operation to make sure that every NYC branch of subsequent socialist orgs would be the shittiest branch?
The family head of the org thing is old lore, and only partially true as there are other very important members not part of their family… Before reading all this I will say that my impression of the Beckers are that they are/(were?) all genuinely kind and earnest people. But this issue comes from before the PSL existed…. The Workers World had a rule, they deny it, but it was one of the unstated reasons for the split: You could only be romantically involved with other members of Workers World. So many of the senior leadership cut their teeth in WW, so there has been some inertia. On top of everyday people meeting and dating from working together in the party.
Brian’s son Ben is married to Karina. Brian’s brother Dick (I believe he wrote their book on Palestine) is married to Gloria La Riva. I want to add, Gloria and Karina are genuinely nice people and highly dedicated and principled as far as I can tell, and they both have their own independent organizing backgrounds and work- so I wouldn’t really characterize the family itself as the clique necessarily, or single minded. I think that sort of belittles their own accomplishments. I think Dick and Gloria live on the other side of the country. This is partly why I am sort of reeling over this- I am having a hard time believing just how much damage Ben and Brian have done- so many others have poured endless hours of work for the party only for them to mistreat Marissa- who from this letter, seemed like family to them before all this, but also an employee, which imo makes this even more upsetting
So, the comma is being used to mean “Brian, who is Ben’s father” rather than listing two separate individuals, “Brian and the father of Ben.”
NYC was deliberately chosen as the center for organizing the party, like the party capital. It’s less of a center among many and more like central, its actions tend to reflect national direction.
NYPD has sooo many COIN operations going on i imagine