Plus an AutoZone location unionizes, strong results in Delaware, Raman leads in the polls, and more in Chapter and Verse, Democratic Left’s monthly round-up of chapter news.

The post Austin DSA City Council Candidate Arrested After ICE Protest appeared first on Democratic Left.

By Chris W.

At the 8/7 Steering Committee meeting, a new set of guidelines for our Detroit Socialist newspaper was brought forward, including number five on internal debates:

5. We should strive to keep internal debates and disagreements internal. We should not make it a habit to air our proverbial dirty laundry. At the end of the day, we are all comrades and we all want to achieve socialism. There is no reason to give our enemies ammunition to use against us. Internal debates are important and are critical to the democratic process, which is why they are better suited to our chapter’s internal discussion platforms and processes.

This guideline was met with pushback from Steering Committee members Jon Mukes and Mohamd Z., as well as other chapter members in attendance. Comrade Mo suggested that such a contentious issue should be referred to a General Membership meeting, but that proposal was not taken up and it was sent back to the Newspaper Committee while the rest of the guidelines were passed. At the newspaper Zoom meeting on 8/13, it was proposed that articles labeled “internal debates” would be placed in the chapter Discord, rather than in the Detroit Socialist, so that they are not available for public consumption. Any debate article could be published in the Detroit Socialist only with a hidden link not visible on the site, or it would have to be published with an accompanying counterpoint article as part of the same post.

After yet more pushback from Mohamd Z., myself and others, around what constituted an “internal debate,” an extra newspaper meeting was scheduled for 8/20. That meeting was attended by nearly every Metro Detroit member of the Groundwork caucus, as well as members of Bread and Roses, Marxist Unity Group, the Detroit Democracy Coalition, and independent members. Newspaper meetings average about five attendees, including the editors. The Groundwork members favored the guidelines; the Bread and Roses, Marxist Unity Group, and Detroit Democracy Coalition members opposed them. At the August 30th Steering Committee meeting, the committee voted to adopt the updated internal debate guideline. It’s difficult to parse the actual guideline from the agitation for the guideline (full text here), but the most relevant portion is this:

For the purposes of this proposal, internal debate and discussion will be defined as follows: “Discussion that directly affects a strategic decision taken by the membership imminently.”… Should a member still wish to publish their work on an internal debate in The Detroit Socialist, they will have the option to either publish it on an unlisted link on The Detroit Socialist’s Medium page — meaning that only individuals with the link may access the work — or, members may publish in The Detroit Socialist, but it will be published on the same page of an article with an opposing view.

These guidelines would turn The Detroit Socialist into nothing more than a promotional brochure — a place to “celebrate our victories” but not to tackle any difficult political discussions. Taking political debate out of The Detroit Socialist, or trying to hide it away in a Detroit-only Discord server, will prevent uncaucused comrades from influencing national DSA politics, cut off our chapter from the national DSA movement, rob this chapter of its best forum for political discussion, and debilitate the political development of our membership and the wider working class.

The Detroit Socialist is the only place for uncaucused comrades in our chapter to set out their own political positions for a broader public audience. Whereas caucused members of our chapter (a very small minority) will be able to publish under their caucus letterhead, those without a caucus who want to publish something on internal Detroit politics will be relegated to a quiet cul-de-sac where no one in the broader organization, or the wider working class, will be able to read it. This will force chapter members to join a caucus if they want to have a voice in the wider national discourse and create a built-in privilege for chapter members who are already part of a caucus.

There is no “local issue” when DSA is involved. Many other chapters are likely engaging in similar debates as Metro Detroit, or they likely soon will be. Issues like: the adoption of email voting, how to rewrite bylaws, whether or not to endorse a candidate with only a tenuous connection to the chapter. It is important that every member of our chapter has an opportunity to write and be published in a paper that can be shared nationally, because as DSA members we are part of a national party, and as socialists we are part of a global movement. Decisions taken by Metro Detroit DSA will change the local and national political situation, influence the way DSA is perceived as a whole, and hopefully provide a guide for how other chapters can organize in their area. Internal debate in The Detroit Socialist is a vital stream of information for other chapters to understand the political conditions within our chapter and we have an obligation to openly share this discourse with them.

Transformation of the working class from political objects to political subjects is one of the most important tasks of DSA as the nascent party of the working class. We need to show people that when they are collectively organized, they can enact their will on the world. This political development requires that workers can articulate for themselves what our party is fighting for. The Detroit Socialist is a training ground for members of the working class to build themselves into political thinkers who can construct nuanced arguments in long-form articles. The current political and cultural situation shows a dire need for long-form writing to be defended as a necessary skill for human flourishing. With AI slop becoming a blight on everyday life, it’s our socialist duty to defend and develop the human ability to think for oneself (The Detroit Socialist expressly forbids AI-written articles). Writing is a unique and edifying form of thought, and by writing I mean setting down one’s thoughts in a long piece, not slapping a quip in a discord chat. There’s a reason Elon Musk spends all his time posting on Twitter: he’s a moron. And we will be condemning our chapter to moronhood if all we have for internal discourse is a Slack or Discord forum that’s essentially constructed the same way as a Facebook comment section.

We already had an online forum for political discussion: the Slack channel, which many members already avoid because the level of discourse was usually low, poorly constructed, and at times devolved into ad hominems. This is not necessarily the fault of the participants. The medium is simply unsuited for intellectually rigorous debate. The Discord will likely experience all of the same problems. I challenge anyone to say they gained more intellectually from reading a 100+ reply Slack thread than from reading an article. I can say as the Political Education Co-chair, we do not ask people to read forum posts before attending New Member Political Education; we ask them to read articles.

The writing in The Detroit Socialist comes from the same intellectual tradition as the pieces we do read as part of the curriculum. Marx, Lenin, Luxembourg– take your pick. They developed their thinking and the politics of the working class as a whole by debating political points in publications that were freely available to the masses. These were not writings that were hidden away for only party members to be able to view (as long as they weren’t censored by the state); they were shared and discussed by members of the working class who were not necessarily formal members of a socialist party. These writings are still read and discussed today. The great socialist theorists never feared airing their “dirty laundry,” because there’s nothing dirty about disagreement in a democratic organization. We should be proud of a robust culture of political debate and of our transparency as an organization. A pair of articles debating a political point are not a pair of dirty socks, they are red banners. It is not shameful that we debate, it is our socialist honor.

There is concern that allowing certain points of view to be expressed in The Detroit Socialist will make our chapter look bad. For example, when Anthony D. argued against endorsing Donavan McKinney, it was said of the article, “It was bad for Donavan and it was bad for us.” The article was shared by a Metro Phoenix DSA page. Critics argued that this article confused readers and made it seem as if the chapter opposed Donovan’s endorsement. I think that confusion was cleared up when we voted to endorse him. But, if that doesn’t assuage these concerns, perhaps The Detroit Socialist can do what literally every other newspaper does and put a big “OPINION” above articles that aren’t meant to reflect the views of the chapter.

If there is still concern over disagreements in this chapter making Metro-Detroit DSA look bad, I encourage the supporters of these restrictive guidelines to address disagreement the democratic way: make your case to membership and win your comrades over to your point-of-view through well-reasoned arguments.

Maybe write an article in The Detroit Socialist?

Chris W. is a law student and an uncaucused member of the Democracy Coalition.

The Detroit Socialist is Not Dirty Laundry was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

U.S. federal law provides certain protections to workers against retaliation and surveillance. Knowing these rights can strengthen your organizing campaign.

The post Your rights to privacy in the workplace appeared first on EWOC.

Sixty candidates and some sitting U.S. Congress members signed a pledge saying “we are capitalist, not socialist.”

The post JD Vance Says Angie Nixon Doesn’t ‘Belong in America;’ Democrats Run From ‘Socialism’ but Voters Warm to It appeared first on Democratic Left.

Let’s ETOC: HJC on the Class podcast!

HJC Steering Committee members, Sebastian of Triangle DSA and Triangle Tenants Union, and Kelly of Boston DSA and the Boston local ETOC branch join the crew of the National Political Education Committee’s own Class podcast. They discuss the Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) and the exciting rise of tenant unionization on the socialist left.

How does it fit into the broader scope of working class organizing for the crucial fight for decent housing? Listen here and find out!

Apple podcast link

NPEC Class Podcast link

Contemporary authoritarianism and exploitation of the country’s working class are rooted in its past as a U.S. colony.

The post U.S. Imperialism Resulted in a Forgotten Genocide in the Philippines appeared first on Democratic Left.

A member of Brazil’s Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) discusses their alliance with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party (PT) to beat the far right — and the stakes riding on the defeat of Trumpism for Brazil and the rest of the world.

The post Brazil Faces a Crucial Choice on Oct. 4 appeared first on Democratic Left.

Thousands of New Yorkers protest Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations.

The post “You Are Wanted for Genocide!” appeared first on Democratic Left.

Portland DSA resolutely denounces the political coercion by Texas State police of DSA member and Austin City Council candidate Misael Ramos, who was wrongfully arrested the morning of September 26. Ramos had recently attended a protest decrying ICE brutality, particularly the violence against Venezuelan immigrant Wilber Rafael Garces Perez who still remains critically injured after being shot by immigration police.

Misael is one of many people in Texas being targeted for exercising their free speech in rightfully condemning state violence against the immigrant community. What we’re seeing is a racheting up of state repression, now targeting citizens and socialist political candidates.

We will stand by our people, immigrants and poor alike, against this violence. Portland DSA demands the charges be dropped against Misael and that Wilber be released to his family. We also echo calls by DSA to the following:

No one is free until everyone is free.

In solidarity,
Portland DSA