iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Watching Barton Fink for the first time and I don't appreciate being doxxed like this

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

OC in NYC generally means what I'm told SC means elsewhere. OC is the highest leadership of a given body generally, so like Branch OCs are the highest leadership of the branch.

000

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

I could never do it till recently, they're very finicky lol

100

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

Ok so it's broken containment so not gonna bother to keep asking people to take it down, but for the record I would rather not be a football in a pissing match over whether MUG really helped on Zohran or not. Helped some as I have for half a decade the less we could talk about it the better.

000

Reposted by Ben

holden m. accountable @noahs.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

DSA-LA elections are happening—I’m asking all DSA-LA members to vote for me and the Left Coast slate— @socialistmajority.com and Communist Caucus members as well as a slew of independents running on a unity slate to turn our chapter into a mass movement, fight fascism, and win socialism! More below:

1156

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Man I can't wait to be a washed up old crank. The wheels on this puppy are very wobbly.

🕷️Spectre of Communism🕷️, MSW (NOT A MAN) 🥯🌹 @acabcalloway.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Reposted by Ben

"Hello! Please correct your reporting to reflect the fact that Brandon Johnson is not a DSA member and was not endorsed by Chicago DSA" -Me for two years.

072

The priorities aren't the issue, it's further evidence he's a weird liar. The political incoherence of his internal DSA coalition is astounding to behold.

It is enervating that the GW chieftains have convinced themselves because Chi will talk to them that he'll be Bowman 2 (affair aside he was a different level). Otoh genuinely unhinged that the IC thinks this guy is going to be their guy on Campism. How do you not get that this is a weird liar guy?

020

It's super dumb that meditating kind of works

And more specifically our analysis is very much drawn from roughly this moment. I think we'll continue to hold the coherence or our politics together, but it will be interesting to see how the next hand off works out.

Yes, though we both have significantly longer political histories pre DSA, us in the macnairite wing of Cosmo and R&R as the pro DSA split from SALT. But nonetheless you have a point in that the most prominent voices in both caucuses are much younger and homegrown DSA.

(I would've said this more carefully with a longer word limit 😅)

And compounding that we also vote on like... everything. We're the only caucus I'm aware of that does general meetings (monthly, 25% quorum, anyone can submit business) and our congresses are like 95% voting business. The result all of which is a lot of organic pressure to develop shared positions

And if anything I would say our penchant for near permanent and (preferably) public debate continually smooths out edges as new questions emerge. Debate doesn't always resolve things but it forces people to put their position in shared terms, and if people don't like it they often leave.

Not to special pleading but we (and maybe R&R) aren't that eclectic. Like obviously there's been a lot of thinking and disagreement within the caucus, but between the reader and Macnairism we're mostly all bought in on arguing our positions within a well established framework.

210

Unironically MUG are the only Social Democrats in DSA

120

University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent

Looked up what Chibber has to say on this and found this article which looks cool, but pay walled 😞 journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

journals.uchicago.edu

Basically it goes like: socialism requires majority->majority requires reforms->reforms requires appealing to a cross class coalition-> cross class coalition requires constitutionalism and in fairness those arguments are pretty broadly accepted in some form almost everywhere.

I guess to pinpoint where they retain the Bernstein through Chibber it is in their pessimism about the possibility of anti constitutional electoral politics in what Blanc calls "high participation democracies."

rose @breadnrosie.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Yeah it's lurking there for sure, but the eclecticism and the weird formation history muddles everything. Like I'm no expert but I feel like Miliband's position (which is their canonical view on the reformism question) is closer to the Austro-Marxist's than Bernstein's. Maybe that's splitting hairs.

210

Reposted by Ben

expanding on this (and i realize that its opaque) but like even among the "rightist" caucuses, you have SMC who are basically a fusion of dem socialism with post-Maoism, while GW came from a merger of ecosocialists with some folks who are (for lack of a better term) post-Stalinists

191

Yeah but honestly that's mostly from ignorance. Theory people do identify with Gøsta Esping-Andersen, Adam Przeworski, and Chibber who are quiet about it but do affirm Berstein's position.

Oh field vs comms is another big element here.

Idk y'all can believe whatever, but anyone actually involved knows Mamdani isn't trying to protect Jeffries. I wish Mamdani's strategy was more oppositional, but this is a debate about state vs federal/governance vs agitation/patience vs opportunism, not a mask off moment. Fuck him on Brad though.

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Man it would be really nice, it I got to take the occasional break form my various neuroses

000

It's good Zohran speaks at our forums when he disagrees; it's because he views himself as a member. He's not perfect, but I have absolute confidence he's doing this out of a belief that this is what's best for the project. Alexa thing is some goody two shoes shit though and he can fuck off.

040

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Renee isn't wrong here but let's be clear this is a direct consequence of the political incentives produced by 1m1v. NYC has kept much bigger secrets than this in member meetings, because voting synchronously meant you had to convince active members. Going to the press didn't help you.

040

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

"Look we all agree about the constitution, that's why some of us think it's unimportant!"

020

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

I'll leave the real response to our SPA scholars, but I do find it funny Blanc's MUG Derangement Syndrome pushes him to contradict himself in one sentence.

120

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

There's no such thing as tiered endorsements. All endorsements eventually fall to the lowest standard at which resources are available. A mass party like DSA, cannot possibly show the deftness in resource allocation required for both categories to be meaningful and different.

020

Reposted by Ben

Socialist Majority Caucus @socialistmajority.com · 15/11/2025

Socialist Majority believes in a majoritarian movement for democratic socialism: we work together toward a bigger and unified DSA. We support the updated NYC-DSA dues page and applaud our SC members for voting to ensure there is only one standard of membership: national dues.

14910

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Why is it every choice I make eventually leads to me deciding I need to read the Phenomenology of Spirit again?

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

You bet your ass we will!

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

We should be loud about our internal debates but not in the bourgeois press

000

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Peter Sterne seems like a fine guy but City and State is the enemy. If you're gonna leak scoops send it to Hell Gate

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Nadler is the ur Resistance lib

000

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Whether DSA or our electeds' defend abolitionism or not isn't a tactical question it's a strategic one. There is a profound cowardice involved in believing public sentiment can be read off polls. It saves you the dangerous tricky work of actually figuring out how to speak to anyone.

050

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Saying "no you shouldn't lie about what I believe" = "an absolute opposition to compromise" is really telling on yourself lol

000

Ben @augiebebel.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

This gap is why we need a Min-Max program. The inability to walk and chew bubble gum on this stuff was one of the major failings of the 20th century left.