>>40852
>I noticed how clique-y they were,
One of the things they do is use the implicit promise of guaranteed social interaction to pull in and keep socially awkward people in the group.
They really do operate more as a cult than a political group in the way they recruit. They're sifting through the people they talk to looking for particular types of people, personality types even who they can draw in.
>there was clearly an upper level.
Yeah, there is. The leadership is ancient, Sandra Bloodworth and Mick Armstrong would be getting close to the end of their "careers" now and there are a handful people who've been around since the 90s who're in their 40s and 50s or so, then a bunch in their 30s and late 20s who joined up during the anti-globalization and Iraq War era, then the masses of younger ones, of course at any given time they have people going in and out, they have an insane turnover among new members as you probably know.
They definitely have a core of people who are 100% all in, not just the leadership who are much older. They have people who've been with them for 5-10 years who they can actually ask to move to take a job in a particular place or move to another city if they're needed there.
>When I was with them SAlt was very pro gay and 'abo rights', they weren't fully on the muzzie train back in 2010-11 though (at least in Perth)
The muzzie thing has been going on for a while. "Students for Palestine" was them and it's been around for ages, they've always done a lot of pro palestine stuff and tried to connect with muslims through that.
If anything I think it might have wound down a bit more recently. They were massively pro muslim 10 years ago when the Lebanon/Israel war happened, and all the jews were screaming about how SAlties said mean things to them and got the newspapers to write up articles about antisemitism on uni campuses.
But yes they're extremely pro gay.
The answer they have for any sexual/racial minority though is that ultimately the answer to all their problems is marxism and the best way to fight for gay/muslim/abbo rights is to join Socialist Alternative.
It doesn't sell well to the trannies and feminists who have their own ideology already, and SAlt has said some mean things about mainstream feminism at times too.
Also they've been doing this shit for a long time, their leaders have been commies since the 60s and in groups very similar to SAlt since the 80s, they know how to hold a band of fanatics together and what causes it to break apart, so they probably recognize that the full blown attention seeking narcissist SJWs cause far too much drama, better to have someone who'll shut up and sell some copies of redflag.