By Paul Buhle A recent sneering op-ed in the New York Post was titled, “Suck it, Bernie Bros—the socialist dream is dead.” But is that dream really over? Today, as the unfolding COVID-19 crisis finds the economy in a tailspin, has the hope brought to millions by Sanders, the “Squad” of newly elected Congressional progressives, and a large peaceful army of organizers truly ended? Verso Books "Bigger Than Bernie" by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht A new book offers a reassuring message. Bigger than Bernie, written by Meagan Day and Micah Uetricht, a staff writer and editor, respectively, at Jacobin magazine, both active members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), reminds this reviewer, in form and content, of the old pre-1920 socialist popularizations: confident, good-humored, and easy to read. It shows that, minus the theoretical or dogmatic terminology and the projections of better societies somewhere else in the world, socialism looks suspiciously familiar. Maybe even American. The authors rehearse a history that’s well-known to many readers: the socialist movement’s recent return from obscurity, Sanders’s long journey toward his political apex, and the hopes now raised by today’s activists. Bigger than Bernie highlights how successful local socialist activity has been in recent years, most notably within the electoral realm where socialists have long done poorly. Since 1980, hundreds of Socialists have run for office (either as Democrats, or in nonpartisan elections) and have actually been elected, most famously in Chicago where they hold six seats on the city council. Fellow members of Democratic Socialists of America in the Bay Area have a similar tale, but with a sharper edge. Here a socialist-like Teamster activist Jovanka Beckles, a queer black Latina immigrant, made a compelling pitch to working class voters in running for the California state assembly in 2018. Though losing narrowly, she racked up 90,000 votes. It was something to build from. And build they did. The infrastructure created in this campaign allowed the East Bay DSA to play the key support role in the Oakland teachers strike a few months later. Bigger than Bernie radiates optimism, from chapter to chapter, because of the sense that American capitalism has overstepped its capacities, outraging the young in particular, who seek a path to a better future. Another recent volume on American socialism, We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style, is at once more ambitious and more distant. "We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style" edited by Kate Aronoff, Peter Dreier, and Michael Kazin A collection of essays edited by Kate Aronoff, Peter Dreier, and Michael Kazin, the book has been described by leading DSAers as the perfect compromise between “social democracy” and “democratic socialism,” lying somewhere between Hillary Clinton’s more or less neoliberal views and Sanders’s vision of a different kind of society.
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By Max B. Sawicky At the risk of exploiting unforeseeable turns of events to validate all my priors, I want to argue that the unfolding of the 2020 Democratic primaries does not invalidate a DSA, class-oriented approach to politics. An example of a contrary view is Zack Beauchamp in “Why Bernie Sanders Failed.” His basic argument is that the Sanders’ campaign strategy rested on two premises that didn’t prove out. One was to ground the appeal to the working class and youth, which fell flat because black voters supported Biden, white workers who flirted with Bernie in 2016 are now for Biden or Trump, and youth didn’t turn out. Beauchamp concludes that identity and party affiliation trumped class. He fails to consider that those things are themselves founded on material self-interest, which is to say, class. There is widespread acknowledgment that Sanders’s proposals are popular. We could imagine that voters interpreted their class interest more broadly, and more pragmatically, than by supporting ambitious proposals such as Medicare For All, etc. In other words, they could have thought that Biden was the most electable candidate, so a vote for Biden was the best guarantor of their class interest. You could disagree with that judgment, but it’s not crazy, nor is it bereft of class consciousness. Some of us in DSA think a second Trump term will be a harbinger of a more open fascism. Defeating fascism is a legitimate, class-based interest too. Similar arguments apply to questions of identity or party affiliation. It’s plausible that Trump is viewed as profoundly inimical to black material interests, over and above his class warfare. Trump screws the working class, but there’s an extra turn of the screw for minorities. In this way of thinking, class may be de-centered, but it is not irrelevant. Nor is it a stretch for POC to reason that political power depends on alliances, which points back to electability. In other words, insofar as anyone understands at least some common interests with a broader group – the working class – they could see some sense in voting for Joe Biden. The same argument pertains to women, whose gender interests supplement, but do not supplant, those of class. As for racial or religious minorities, a pragmatic choice should not be conflated with indifference to class. Sanders was often criticized for a de-emphasis on race and gender. When the choice was between him and Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, any hint of a relative shortcoming on issues of race was ridiculous. We could concede some grist for this mill in the case of gender, but only in comparison to Clinton. When it comes to party, Sanders has always rejected formal membership in the Democratic Party. But why are Biden voters Democrats in the first place? Is it possibly out of some conception of their class interest? We cannot reject that possibility out of hand. The Sanders movement may have been hampered by some misconceptions or biases. One goes to a running argument I had with those who complained that he failed to drop out in 2016 or this year when it became obvious he would not be nominated. But like DSA, the Sanders campaign is a movement, not a mere electoral vehicle. Its raison d’etre is to be self-sustaining. Sanders’s agitation for effective anti-virus policies are a current example. A presidential primary is another opportunity to preach the gospel. The irony here is that winning is not the only thing. Of course, it is better to win than not, but how you win or how you lose are equally important. You could win and be hamstrung, and discredited, or you could lose and have a lot of leverage. In either case, the table is set for future political opportunities. How you win or lose stems from how you campaign. It’s been reported that the Sanders campaign strategy was premised on the objective of beating other candidates, one-on-one, with a plurality of votes, what we could call a ‘thirty percent strategy.’ The urgency of winning this year by hook or crook, since it would be Sanders’s last rodeo, was totally understandable. But since the campaign is an ongoing movement to radically change capitalism, not just an electoral campaign, it should have been clear that this is not accomplished with 30 percent pluralities and a Congress full of meh Democrats. It’s a long-term project, a marathon rather than a sprint. Politically it requires not a thin majority, but a crushing one. Moreover, it must be about more than Sanders. There ought to be a new raft of emerging leaders. I love AOC as much as anyone, but we need more than one or four of her, and probably some with a decade or two of additional experience. The white component of the working class has played a positive political role at some points in U.S. history. It has not been uniformly negative, especially outside of the states of the Confederacy. Given the closeness of the 2016 election, it only requires the defection of a slender margin of Trump voters to swing the outcome. The usual alternative proposed to class politics is an appeal to ‘the suburbs.’ This is a bit of a misnomer. Of course, there are working class suburbs. What’s really in question is politics without a material, redistributive edge. “The suburbs” are invoked as being above class, as implicitly well-off, beyond precarity. A ‘suburban strategy’ is just a rhetorical device to evade class, an objectively anti-working-class stance. There is no neutrality in this dimension. You’re always on one side or the other. It remains the case that removing the Trump Administration is a necessary condition for progress, since progress requires democracy. Another four years of Trump further erodes voting rights, especially for youth and minorities, fills out the Federal judiciary with right-wing ideologues, and removes all regulatory constraints on capitalist predation. In that scenario, survival, much less opportunities for our revolution, look less likely. The 2020 primary campaign is over, but our movement goes on. Also See: Progressive Capitalism? Review of Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020). By Max B. Sawicky Joseph Stiglitz’s commitment to a “progressive capitalism” calls to mind the famous response of Gandhi to the notion of Western civilization: “It would be a very good idea.” Published in Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/04/progressive-capitalism-joseph-stiglitz- a review Developed by on line discussion among North Star members.,
The proposed position. On April 13, 2020 Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden for President. It is highly likely that Biden will be nominated at the Democratic National Convention. This is, of course, disappointing to the movement that coalesced around Bernie’s campaign, and to the many DSAers that have played an active role within it. At the DSA convention in August 2019, DSA adopted a resolution to not endorse a Democrat if Bernie Sanders is not the nominee (Resolution 15). We respect the decision that DSA should not explicitly endorse a candidate for president who is not a democratic socialist. We are confident that DSA members recognize the danger of further consolidation of the nativist movement and that we will work with our allies to defeat Donald Trump. Donald Trump is unfit to be president. The list of his crimes is long and well known. The most glaring failures, corruption and depravity of his presidency have become fully realized with the Covid 19 crisis. The death toll of Covid 19 has struck the working-class as a whole, and African Americans, Hispanics, and other people of color in particular, in greater proportion than people working from home. Trump’s racism in calling the coronavirus the “China Virus” has incited many racist acts against Chinese Americans and Asian Americans more broadly. Despite Biden’s shortcomings and checkered past, a full array of issues overrides our reservations about him. At stake are issues such as judicial nominations; the climate crisis; women’s rights and reproductive choice; people of color’s and LGBTQ rights; the assault on immigrants; and the increasing burdens upon the working class. Most troubling is the Trump presidency’s promotion of incipient neofascism and racist white ethno-nationalism, and his ongoing efforts to dismantle governmental and social institutions. We therefore ask DSA members and allies who live in battleground or swing states and congressional districts to organize for the defeat of Trump. Of course, this includes voting for Biden, but it also means much more. DSA members should work with the myriad of organizations that will seek to push Biden to the left, in terms of both his policies and his appointees, including his choice for running mate. It also means helping elect democratic socialist and progressive candidates, especially those supporting Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, and taxing the rich, to Congress and state houses across the country. Ending control of the US Senate by the current GOP majority in thrall to the radical right is particularly crucial. We understand that the nomination of Biden confirms that for 2020 we have to choose between one candidate who is far from being a democratic socialist and another who is close to being a neofascist, but it is clear that another Trump term would be horrific. The opportunity to work with other socialist, progressive, and liberal groups can further build democratic socialism in the USA. We acknowledge that during the primary season working-class voters and African American voters made a choice that they felt was paramount in saving their lives. We commit to listen to the concerns of voters of color with respect and trust. We ask that DSA members in decisive locations work to defeat Trump in broad coalitions or fronts that allow others to see that DSA members are working for the common good. By working with others and selflessly giving our talents and energies in defeating the danger of neofascism, we will awaken in the people support for democratic socialism and respect for DSA. North Star members please vote . You must be a member to vote. You can only vote once. First. Click on the link and go to the ballot. https://forms.gle/cWTQUnVPbKxYf8gt5 Fill out the forms. Submit your ballot. By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Leftlinks Trump's decision to cut funding for the World Health Organization (WHO)-which we warned about last week-is yet another example of his efforts to obscure reality and distance himself from any responsibility for the mess that the USA finds itself in as a result of his handling of the Covid19 crisis. There is a deeper problem, however, than Trump's apparent narcissism and scapegoating. We are seeing the consequences of avoiding reality and replacing reality with what can, at best, be described as wishful thinking. In the last couple of weeks very damaging information has emerged regarding the handling of the Covid19 crisis by the Administration. It now appears that as early as December 2019, the Administration was being warned about possible dangers from this outbreak. Indeed, from the early days of the Administration there were warnings from various departments of the danger arising from viral pandemics. These were ignored. The Administration brushed aside scientific evidence and concerns regarding the pandemic, downplaying its spread and the depth of the problems we were encountering. It was only in March that they were forced to shift gears. But in shifting gears the blame game started, afresh, with a focus on the Chinese, the WHO, and probably we shall soon hear that aliens from the Romulan Star Empire were somehow involved. Leaving aside the complicity of most Republican elected officials with the Administration's nonsense, it is time for a reckoning when it comes to reality. Should decisions by government in the face of crisis be based on wishful thinking? Self-aggrandizement? The wishes of the wealthy? Or should they be based upon facts, data, scientific judgement, and concerns for the population? The record is clear for anyone to see that the Trump administration blew off reliable information. One must ask why that is? Was it for fear that reality would have an impact on his election wishes? Or does he truly believe, in the words of the comedian George Wallace, that "...that's the way I see it, and that's the way that it ought to be..." Throughout the course of this Administration we have seen, time and again, a dismissal of facts and science. The clearest case is probably in connection with the environment and the efforts underway to reverse nearly fifty years of legislation and practice to address pollution and global warning. But one can also see evidence of this in the Administration's illogical withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, despite all reliable evidence of Iranian compliance with the agreement. The core of Trump's base appears to believe that if Trump says something, then it must be true. As for the rest of us, well, we will have to ensure that reality is incontrovertible, and to the benefit of the majority, in November. Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com and former president of TransAfrica Forum. As democratic socialists, you and I know that real COVID-19 relief needs to center working class needs, not prop up big business. You can help organize for real solutions now — sign up to support the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act today!
Coronavirus relief bills have largely gone toward bailing out big corporations. And neoliberal Democrats want to keep it that way. Their plan for keeping laid-off workers insured during the pandemic is to give away massive subsidies to COBRA. Using tax dollars to cover increased premiums under COBRA for already expensive insurance plans is a massive bailout for private insurers. DSAers are leading the way for a relief package that centers the working class. That includes an emergency Medicare for All bill, which is why we are excited to endorse the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act. Sen. Bernie Sanders just introduced this act as part of his coronavirus relief priorities. This emergency legislation would empower Medicare to cover all healthcare costs for the uninsured and all out-of-pocket expenses for those with insurance for the duration of the coronavirus crisis. We are launching a nationwide campaign to call on our representatives to support these priorities, and the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act specifically. No sick person, regardless of immigration status, should be afraid to seek the medical treatment they need during this pandemic. We are asking you to participate in virtual phone banks to mobilize DSA members and pressure your representatives to support Bernie’s legislation. Sign Up to Make CallsWe know that this is a difficult and uncertain time. But we need to do everything we can to ensure that the next relief bill puts the working class first. We’re working on creating resources for chapters. And here’s some resources you can use for your calls:
If you want to get involved in this work but aren’t sure how, reach out to your chapter leadership, or let us know by signing up here. Solidarity, Maria Svart DSA National Director
Dissecting DSA’s battles to define its role in American politics By Harold Meyerson August 9, 2019 (Ed.: No, you are not reading an outdated piece. It is reposted here to clarify and explain the role of some caucuses and some “militants” in DSA.) It's a good thing that organizations don't have children or grandchildren. If they did, you could envision little tykes (well, little infant prodigies) 50 years from now asking their grandparent—the Democratic Socialists of America—“What did you do in the war against the neofascist Donald Trump?” only to be met by an awkward pause. At its biennial convention last weekend in Atlanta, DSA (which, with 56,000 members, is now the largest American socialist organization in the memory of anyone under 80) passed a headline-grabbing resolution declaring that it would not endorse any Democrat save Bernie Sanders in next year's November presidential runoff. The vote on the resolution was actually fairly close, though support for Sanders in the primaries is overwhelming within the organization. And its proponents provided a number of qualifications and caveats, making clear that DSA members are free to campaign for the eventual Democratic nominee if they so choose, and that in 2016, DSA locals did campaign against Trump (and members for Hillary) in swing states. Still, inasmuch as DSA locals work closely with immigrant-protection groups, and the national organization has called for the abolition of ICE, it could be difficult to explain to undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, facing deportation and family separation, why the group won't join its allies in a forthright fight to dump Trump. However, I find myself of two minds in assessing DSA's position. As a member of the organization and one of its predecessors (the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee) for the past 44 years, I'm embarrassed and regretful that my organization hasn't grasped the primacy and urgency of joining, in a public and full-blown way, the battle to rid the world of Trump. In 1944, the U.S. Communist Party effectively, if temporarily, self-abolished so its members could support Franklin Roosevelt's re-election bid, as part of the fight against fascism. To be sure, that move came at the behest of Joseph Stalin, whose nation was allied with ours in the existential battle against Hitler. But for all its myriad and ultimately fatal flaws, and granting that its self-abolition was a typical CP overreaction, the U.S. Communist Party understood the gravity of the fascist threat. Why not DSA? That's the reaction of my DSA mind. But partly through my long-ago work with DSOC, which led to my political work for some left-wing unions, which led to my own work for left-wing candidates and causes, I also seem to have a political-consultant mind. And that mind tells me that the eventual Democratic presidential nominee needs the formal endorsement of DSA like a hole in the head. Where DSA is strong and where socialist and progressive candidates can win—generally, in cities with substantial populations of millennials, immigrants, and minorities—a DSA endorsement can make all the difference, producing scads of the most tireless precinct walkers and dedicated phone-bankers. It has made that difference in New York, Chicago, and any number of smaller cities. In nearly every state, and certainly in the nation at large, however, a DSA endorsement would be one more item on the bill of particulars the Republicans would hurl at the Democratic nominee in hopes of revving up more of their right-wing base. In every encounter with reporters, the nominee would be pressed about DSA's endorsement. Just as well, says my consultant mind, that DSA takes a pass—particularly since I have no doubt most of my fellow members will end up helping that Democratic nominee in states where that help matters. I wouldn't be of two minds about DSA's electoral stance if the convention had passed one other resolution put before it last weekend, which laid out a list of conditions that candidates seeking DSA locals' endorsement for elected offices had to meet. Most of those conditions were unexceptionable; some could be met by nonsocialist progressives (Medicare for All) and some even by most mainstream Democrats (card check for union recognition, more-progressive taxation). The sticking point, though, was the condition that a candidate must publicly declare that he or she was a democratic socialist. Fortunately, DSA now has locals in 49 states, and delegates from some of those states noted that they came from terrains that didn't politically resemble Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's congressional district in Queens and the Bronx. If a candidate's self-identification as a socialist was a requirement for their local's endorsement, they pointed out, they'd likely make no endorsements at all for the foreseeable future. Happily, the measure was defeated. Realism always welcome. How to explain that such measures nonetheless were backed by a core of more sectarian delegates, a number of whom make no bones about the fact that they'd prefer DSA to devote resources to building an explicitly socialist third party rather than back Democrats? That requires a look at the ideological makeup of DSA's activists, many of whom are affiliated with fairly well-defined caucuses. For most of its long history, DSA (and DSOC before it) didn't have ideological caucuses. It was at once both a small membership and big-tent organization. If you believed in democratic socialism, and thought that founder Michael Harrington made sense when he argued that socialists should be publicly active within the Democratic Party (thereby gaining more visibility for socialist candidates and causes, avoiding the third-party spoiler role, and easing outreach to progressive groups compelled to work in real-world politics), that sufficed as a minimal ideological and strategic orientation. Within those parameters, members had all kinds of different beliefs, orientations, and priorities, but not to the point of forming hard and enduring caucuses. (I do recall some particularly hefty guys in DSOC forming a “Mass Caucus,” with the slogan “One pound, one vote!” but its appeal was weightily limited.) Beginning with Bernie Sanders's declaration of his candidacy in 2015, DSA membership began to surge, and that was followed by two subsequent surges when Donald Trump was elected president and then when AOC ousted a prominent congressman in a 2018 Democratic primary. By early 2017, it was clear that DSA was fast becoming the largest socialist organization—by far—that America had seen in many decades. Which prompted a number of longtime socialists with perspectives substantially different from DSA's historic Harringtonism to join as well. DSA had become the arena where the future of American socialism was to be shaped; it provided an opportunity not to be missed. Among those who joined was a cadre of what Charles Lenchner has referred to as Post-Trotskyists, though I think a better, if even more obscure, characterization would be Neo-Draperites. No American left tendency has been more fissiparous than the Trotskyists, who repeatedly have split over differences in doctrine, strategy, and sometimes personality, into various subgroups and sects, most demanding their members tithe a portion of their income to the group, some becoming hermetically sealed off from larger political arenas. Hal Draper was a democratic socialist who became a Trotskyist in the 1930s, followed Trotskyist heretic Max Shachtman into the Workers Party in the 1940s, and left to found the Independent Socialist Club in the 1960s, which became the International Socialists in 1968 (a heady year for the left), which he then left three years later, saying the group had become a sect. The International Socialist Tendency and groups like the International Socialist Organization soldiered on, never claiming much more than 1,000 members, if that, and sharing Hal Draper’s perspective that the Democratic Party was an arena to be shunned while third-party insurgencies provided opportunities for consciousness-raising and growth. These groups also believed that members should focus their labor involvement on rank-and-file activism and generally viewed union leaders and staff as bureaucrats retarding whatever embryonic revolutionary impulses could be found or nurtured among the workers. Under the banner of DSA's Left Caucus, renamed Momentum, then re-renamed Bread and Roses, a number of Neo-Draperites joined and came together in the newly vibrant DSA. In an organization of tens of thousands of new members, the vast majority in their twenties with little or no history of involvement in socialist groups, the Neo-Draperites were often the most experienced, and clearly the most organized, of DSA's new members. The problem was, their experience had been life in or around a small, disciplined sect. At the 2017 convention, for instance, they proposed a dues structure that amounted to tithing a portion of a member's income. That was how sects sustained themselves, but DSA was not an organization of professional revolutionaries (or even of professional evolutionaries), and the motion lost badly. At last weekend's convention, the motion to require all candidates that the organization endorsed to pronounce themselves socialists was also an expression of this sectarian impulse, and it lost badly, too. The irony here, of course, is that the Neo-Draperites would not have joined DSA in the first place if the group's Harringtonian strategy—calling for socialist activism within the Democratic Party rather than in ideologically purer third parties—had not been so clearly vindicated by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose campaigns were what persuaded tens of thousands of young people to join DSA. The anti-establishment politics of the Neo-Draperites clearly had appealed to many younger members, and doubtless had some effect on the group's decision to withhold backing from any Democratic presidential nominee save Bernie. But it's hard to argue against any involvement in the Democratic Party when it was Bernie’s and AOC’s successes in Democratic primaries, and such successes in contests like those for the Chicago Board of Aldermen (five of whose members are now DSA members, too), that prompted thousands of young people to join DSA. The Neo-Draperite resistance not just to the Democratic Party but to the labor “establishment” as well had limited purchase on the delegates' sentiment. One such resolution, commending only rank-and-file involvement, passed narrowly, while a somewhat contradictory second resolution commending a more flexible involvement with the labor movement on multiple levels passed overwhelmingly. As one veteran DSA activist of decidedly Harringtonian perspectives told me, the Neo-Draperites “are a good group of people to have in the organization, given how deeply they commit themselves to the group's success. But they're constitutionally incapable of running a broad-based organization; their entire frame of reference is to life in a cadrefied movement.” In various locals, where Bread and Roses caucus members have been in leadership positions, members have revolted against top-down policies. At the national level, one anti-Momentum (then anti–Bread and Roses) Caucus, initially called Praxis, now called Build, has appeared to reject any form of central organization, calling variously for cutting back dues payments to the national organization, or even eliminating dues altogether. Fortunately, just as convention delegates rejected tithing two years ago, so last weekend they rejected shutting off the dues spigot to national DSA. Though Build favors maximal decentralization for DSA, it appears to be a disciplined and centralized caucus itself—as does Bread and Roses, but at least Bread and Roses is consistent in its commitment to organizational discipline. In the face of these two disciplined caucuses, other caucuses have formed to keep DSA from morphing into anything other than a broad-based, big-tent, democratic organization. Making plenty of errors along the way, like many of the youth organizations that DSA demographically resembles, I think the majority of DSA members will succeed in keeping the group from descending into the Scylla and Charybdis of sectarianism and anarchy. The electoral successes of DSA members running as Democrats—and there are now roughly 100 DSA members in elected office—will not just build the organization but help anchor it in the real world. And the presidential runoff of 2020? I think DSA's national political committee might take a leaf from the group's Atlanta local during Stacey Abrams's 2018 campaign for governor. At the time, the local wasn't endorsing nonsocialists, and some of its members likely believed—rightly, I'd say—that a DSA endorsement would be one more cross Abrams would have to bear in her bid to carry Georgia. Nonetheless, every other progressive group inside and outside the state was enthusiastically backing her, and many DSA members were eagerly working on her campaign. Here's what the local said: For many reasons, we cannot endorse Abrams ourselves, but neither can we stand aside while our friends and allies fight for something they know will make their lives better. We voted to encourage our members, if they feel so moved, to stand up and fight in this election cycle. In 2020, DSA's friends and allies—in immigrant communities and communities of color, in groups seeking to combat the climate crisis and save the planet, in organizations of working people seeking a radically more equitable economy and society—will be fighting for their lives to replace Trump with a Democrat. It won't be a battle between socialism and barbarism, but it will be a battle against barbarism, and the Atlanta statement offers a way that DSA can join it. (Ed.: Here is the original: https://www.google.com/amp/s/prospect.org/api/amp/power/socialists-just-did-and/) You’re invited to their A Planet to Win webinar this Sunday, 4/26 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT! DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group invites you to join us for a national webinar with Thea Riofrancos, Daniel Aldana Cohen, and Alyssa Battistoni, the authors of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, in conversation with Sydney Ghazarian, member of the DSA Green New Deal Campaign Committee and founding member of DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group. RSVP here for the webinar on Sunday, 4/26 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT. Join us to talk about organizing in the midst of a global emergency heightened by a trio of ongoing crises — ecological breakdown under global warming, social breakdown under massive racial and economic inequality, and public health breakdown under threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. What can a radical Green New Deal look like? How can we connect the politics around these three civilization-threatening crises to build and win power to make a better world? How can DSA organize for a Green Stimulus and ensure that any Green New Deal incorporates radical demands around ecosocialist principles? This panel will be an opportunity to hear the authors’ thoughts on these topics and to ask your own questions about strategy and organizing for this moment. After discussion and Q&A we’ll outline a series of Next Steps that will get you plugged in to our ongoing Green New Deal campaign. This will include the release of our Chapter Discussion Guide for the book, which will help chapters run political education around Green New Deal organizing as applied to your local conditions. You can find A Planet to Win at Verso Books. Grab it now, read it twice, and get ready for an hour (or so) of careful socialist analysis and intelligent inspiration for your own organizing projects. And if you’d like to get involved on a regular basis, please become a member of the national Ecosocialist Working Group by filling out this form. Solidarity and we'll see you on Sunday, 4/26 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT. |
Principles North Star caucus members
antiracismdsa (blog of Duane Campbell) Hatuey's Ashes (blog of José G. Pérez) Authory and Substack of Max Sawicky Left Periodicals Democratic Left Socialist Forum Washington Socialist Jacobin In These Times Dissent Current Affairs Portside Convergence The Nation The American Prospect Jewish Currents Mother Jones The Intercept New Politics Monthly Review n+1 +972 The Baffler Counterpunch Black Agenda Report Dollars and Sense Comrades Organizing Upgrade Justice Democrats Working Families Party Poor People's Campaign Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism Progressive Democrats of America Our Revolution Democracy for America MoveOn Black Lives Matter Movement for Black Lives The Women's March Jewish Voice for Peace J Street National Abortion Rights Action League ACT UP National Organization for Women Sunrise People's Action National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Dream Defenders |