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DSA North Star Caucus blog

In Support of DSA’s Democratically Elected Leadership

3/21/2022

2 Comments

 
(We urge all DSA members to sign on to this letter. A link for that purpose is here.)

We, the undersigned DSA members, support the NPC’s unfortunate but necessary decision to decharter the BDS Working Group and move DSA’s critical BDS and Palestinian solidarity work to the International Committee. The BDS Working Group’s actions, as detailed by DSA’s National Political Committee, undermine legitimate decisions made by the NPC and are straightforwardly antidemocratic.  Whatever one’s position on the calls to expel Jamaal Bowman from DSA—indeed, on any of the hotly contested internal debates within the organization— national working groups and other similar entities must be subject to democratic governance.

DSA’s working groups and committees do crucial work carrying out democratically decided priorities, resolutions, and strategies. Some of these bodies are appointed by the NPC; others are self-selecting; all are subordinate administrative bodies that do not have the right to set DSA’s policy on behalf of our over 90,000 members, or to make strategic and tactical decisions that directly undermine the elected leadership of the organization.
While informal caucuses and individual members are rightly empowered to dissent from official organizational decisions, the use of official working group resources to undermine DSA’s official positions damages our capacity to function as a coherent political entity and makes us vulnerable to attacks from our enemies. As DSA matures as an organization, we must guard against the possibility of small factions co-opting and weaponizing official DSA bodies to undermine the democratic integrity of the organization. That is why the NPC’s decision to create social media guidelines for all national working groups, committees, and similar bodies was one we welcome; that is why every other DSA national working group, committee, and similar body accepted those guidelines and timely shared social media passwords to staff, as mandated by those guidelines.
What is apparent from the NPC’s statement is that some leaders and some members of the BDS Working Group have taken advantage of people’s genuine devotion to the struggle for Palestinian liberation to paint a false narrative about DSA, its leaders, and those members that have political, strategic, or tactical disagreements with them. The BDS working group members have not been elected by DSA as a whole; they have not been appointed by the NPC or any other generally elected body; they are a self-selecting group of volunteers. Any such group must be subject to elected leadership or we cannot claim to be a democratically run organization. The official BDS working group Twitter account has made posts attacking individual members for participating in chapter debates, endorsing particular NPC candidates, publicly questioning the motives of DSA members who have disagreements with them, and waging a campaign to undermine the NPC’s decision not to expel Jamaal Bowman. Simply put, it is not up to any national working group whether a member should be expelled; it is the decision of the democratically elected NPC. In the face of this repeated unwillingness to respect the democratic norms of the organization, the NPC had no real choice but to take action. 

DSA is full of committed members who are dedicated to working democratically and cooperatively to build a mass movement capable of winning socialism and international liberation. Wherever we stand on the question of expelling Jamaal Bowman, we have to be able to disagree without resorting to these destructive tactics. There is a cost to such disruption that goes beyond publicly embarrassing DSA—it takes time, energy, attention, and capacity away from DSA’s volunteer membership and leadership when they are forced to continually relitigate democratic decisions and defend themselves against bad faith attacks. In this critical historical moment, it is important for leaders and rank and file members to stand up to undemocratic actions, both for the health of our organization and the success of the socialist movement.
​
SIGN ON TO SUPPORT


For background information on these events see
https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/inside-baseball-for-dsa-part-1-2022
​
2 Comments
Fiorello Santos
3/21/2022 02:48:53 pm

From what I know, the BDS Working Group was completely in compliance and working with the NPC to resolve this basically to the day it was dissolved. Although I agree that there has to be internal discipline, calling this anything less than a complete power move by NPC to crush dissent is not genuine. By no means did the BDS WG's actions warrant this type of punishment. They were in complete compliance, held calls with NPC members to make sure this was resolved, handed over passwords to their social media accounts, etc. The fact that the International Committee DIDNT EVEN KNOW that they were being given the responsibilites previously allocated towards the BDS working group until the day the working group was decharted proves this. There was no democracy here. The NPC massively overstepped their power and this is setting us back years.

Reply
Thomas Wells
3/29/2022 03:19:57 am

I have been a member of DSA since 1982 and when I learned the organization was taking a stand in favor of BDS, I strongly approved. I had been active in the Jewish Voice for Peace and supported its stance on BDS. However, when I learned of DSA's attempts at expulsion and censuring of Jaamal Bowman, I was shocked and horrified. There are fundamental political rules to which any aspiring political group must conform, if it expects to hold onto the power and influence it enjoys. The first one is that it will have to compromise on certain principles it believes in order to preserve the power it needs to realize larger collective goals. The second is that publicly vilifying an influential, loyal ally for not meeting your ideological litmus test will guarantee that all other influential leaders with similar leanings will always distance themselves against you. The third is the recognition that there is usually nothing to be gained politically from becoming so sanctimonious on certain issues that we are intolerant of other opinions, or in allowing for debate. In an organization touting itself as multi-tendency, this is especially important. Thus, by becoming so doctrinaire, we isolate ourselves and render the organization useless. When I thought the attacks on Bowman originated in the NPC, I could hardly believe it. Later I learned they had originated in the BDS working group. Thus, we had a self-anointed clique deciding to speak on behalf of 90,000 members. What an outrage! That is why I support this step which unfortunately has to be taken.

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