Although many members were out of town canvassing for Bernie in South Carolina, our monthly meeting was lively as always. We were delighted to welcome comrades from the new Morehouse College YDSA. We heard a report on electoral activities, especially our independent Bernie for Georgia campaign, and announcements of many important upcoming events, and we passed the bylaw changes (as amended) that were tabled last month. We also met in working groups to get updates and engage with other members active in political education (see photo above), mutual aid, local elections, ecosocialism, Afrosocialism and immigrant justice. Chair Councilman khalid announced that he will be taking a month-long leave of absence to work directly on Bernie’s campaign; Membership Secretary Brandyn Buchanan will serve in his place. We ended by singing the traditional labor anthem “Solidarity Forever” before regrouping for a post-meeting social hour at a friendly Edgewood restaurant. Photos: Barbara Joye

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.

Jay Forth is a graduate from Duke Divinity, a director of homeless outreach at a nonprofit in DC, previously he was the executive director of Festival Center, a faith-based space for organizing. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sarah talks with Jay about a paper he published linking the book, The Making of the Indebted Man: An Essay on the Neoliberal Condition by Maurizio Lazzarato and Jonathan Edwards’s sermon on sinners in the hands of an angry God. He also shares what it was like to grow up with black Jamaican immigrant parents, tenant organizing, and why queerness should not be just an identity, seamlessly connecting threads from racism to queerness to capitalism to the gospel.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.

Over 100 MADSA members turned out for our first general meeting of the year on Jan. 25, a record high (thanks to the Membership Committee phone bankers!).This meeting was all about DSA looking for ways we can have a direct impact on the policies of our state. After a brief presentation on how bills are passed by the Georgia legislature and how citizens can lobby and track those bills, a distinguished panel including Sen. Nan Orrock, Rep. Park Cannon, and leaders of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the Labor Council, SPARK, the Feminist Women’s Health Center and others, clued us in about what to expect from the upcoming legislative session; who is fighting for working people’s interests in Georgia; and how to get involved.

A breakout session provided an opportunity for members to connect with our working groups and committees that help us take action, among them Immigrant Justice, Afro-Socialism, Ecosocialism, Political Education, MADSA for Bernie, Anti-war, Women’s Caucus/Reproductive Rights and Mutual Aid (which had held a brake light clinic earlier that day and provided refreshments for the meeting).

After a lively debate, we voted on whether to endorse two candidates for Georgia congressional seats. A separate blog post on the results will follow soon. The proposal for bylaws revisions was tabled to February’s meeting due to lack of time.

Following announcements of upcoming events and singing “Solidarity Forever,” we adjourned and many of us gathered for more solidarity at a friendly bar and restaurant on the Edgewood strip.

MADSA’s monthly general meetings welcome everyone, although voting is limited to dues-paying members.W

Photo: Michael Roberts

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.

Bernie inspired a generation, but who inspired Bernie? Labor organizer Eugene Victor Debs led the United States socialist movement in the early 20th century. He received almost one million votes for president in 1920, running from his cell in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he had been jailed for protesting World War I — when our population was one third the size of today’s! Debs was a charismatic, extremely popular figure during his lifetime but this history, like so much of our radical history, is rarely taught.

Debs famously declared: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison I am not free!”

Metro Atlanta DSA and Georgia State U. YDSA are proud to present this film, produced by Yale Strom and Elizabeth Schwartz, two San Diego DSA members. Discussion will follow the film, so please plan to stay.

We also plan to have some copies available of Eugene Debs, a Graphic Biography, by DSA members Paul Buhle and Steve Max, at half price. You can order a copy at half price online from national DSA.

Admission is free, though donations to help pay for the screening fee and theater rental will be welcome.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM.

As we do every year, a contingent of MADSA members joined the Martin Luther King Jr. Day march on Jan. 20, along with hundreds of others from peace and justice organizations, labor unions, community groups, churches and schools, and individuals. The lead marchers chanted “Ho, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” and many other concerns were voiced, including demands for peace, reparations, and police accountability. Photos: Reid Freeman Jenkins.