We can do better than SDG&E
DSA San Diego has endorsed Power San Diego, a ballot measure to move the City of San Diego to its own municipal electric utility.
The measure is currently gathering signatures to qualify for the November 2024 ballot. DSA members are helping gather signatures, including at some of the events you can find on the Power San Diego Events Calendar. The signature gathering has a deadline of May 7th, so sign as soon as you can!
You can also request a mail-in petition.
Find out more about the work our chapter is doing on Energy Democracy.
April 2024 Newsletter
Dear comrade,
In this newsletter, you will find information on:
- Open applications for a Steering Committee Vacancy
- NTC membership general meeting – April 27
But first, we have a request for our members…
Switch to Solidarity Dues today!
Our 2023 convention passed a resolution asking members to opt into Solidarity Income Based Dues, pledging 1% of their income to DSA. This is common in working-class organizations like unions, and helps ensure we have the collective, democratic power to grow sustainably for years to come. The best thing you can do to help in this effort is to switch to Solidarity Dues yourself, if possible, and encourage others in the org to do the same.
Switch to Solidarity Dues here!
For more information on what NTC members are doing to make the switch easier in the future, check in on Slack or the discussion board!
Steering Committee Vacancy:
Applications open
The NTC Steering Committee has a vacancy for an at-large member, filling in for various roles across the committee to keep things running smoothly. This position will be effective from the time it is approved by our National Political Committee until the end of September 2024. Expect a consistent and varied workload, with meetings every other Wednesday evening. Members who applied in the past should feel free to submit another application now!
Applications are open through May 11, 2024 – Apply here!
April 27: General membership meeting
It’s been a while since we had a gathering for the entire NTC general membership. At this meeting we’ll have some time to:
- Talk about open source and how it relates to our mission
- Talk about and with NTC membership: and how we see this evolving over time
- Review new ways to connect the work we do back to our chapters, committees and working groups
- Review our 5-year plan
It’s happening on April 27 at 3pm Eastern/12pm Pacific time. Register here!
Get involved in the NTC
If you are interested in joining the NTC, please fill out this form or email us at ntc+newsletter@dsacommittees.org.
Join us!
Questions? Comments?
Email us at ntc+newsletter@dsacommittees.org
Tenant Unionism is the remedy to the Ills of our Cities and our Organization: A Prescription for TCDSA
2024 State of the Chapter Address
2024 State of the Chapter Address
This address was given by DSA-LA Chapter Co-Chair Jennifer Macias at the local convention on April 20th, 2024.
Today demands a moment for solemn reflection and a resounding call to action. In less than six months, we have seen the heart-wrenching toll of over 34,000 Palestinian lives lost, a staggering 70% of which were women and children. The harrowing violence seen today across Occupied Palestine, is one of the most recent and atrocious genocides initiated by Right-Wing Fundamentalists worldwide. As we confront these harsh realities, it is clear that the Left must cohere on strategy and expand our Party Infrastructure.
Our socialist project is not an academic exercise or a lifestyle. We are urgently strategizing on how we get from our current, capitalist conditions, to conditions freeing everyone from exploitation. We put that strategy to work through mass politics: at the ballot box, in the workplace, in our neighborhoods and in the streets. We organize to win socialism in our lifetimes by attempting to take State Power.
To take state power, we must act like a real political party. And building a party requires *all* of us — DSA members to think seriously about how to build and wield collective power. It requires the masses of workers in this room, and across LA, and in this country. *We* are the ones who *shape* the party through our organizing.
This past year presented new challenges for us as a Chapter. Together, we wrestled with our firm commitment to ending imperialism and the need for humane homelessness policies in LA. We rose to this challenge, and made hard choices to address substantial concerns about Nithya’s campaign and her alignment with our values. Despite disagreements in the chapter on these choices, we move forward with comradery and respect for the democratic will of the membership. Our hard choices allowed our campaign for a city ceasefire resolution to blossom, under the strong leadership of the Palestine Solidarity Working Group. This underscores our commitment to principles beyond elections. The Political Education Committee notes that almost 300 people engaged with the Palestine Readings and events series. It is clear that our membership is learning to destabilize imperialist power from inside the imperial core.
This year also presented us new opportunities to win. We won when our members went on strike against the boss. Our members participated in strikes with UNITE HERE Local 11, the California Faculty Association, and Writers Guild/SAG-AFTRA. Even while at our National Convention, DSA-LA’s Labor Committee sent delegates to the picket line at Berlin Night Club, a Night Club harassing its workers.
We also won in our electoral campaigns. Our Electoral Committee campaigns kicked ass! We knocked on over 8,000 doors for Ysabel Jurado, coming in first place with 24.52% of the vote! We knocked on over 5,350 doors for Nithya Raman, narrowly defeating fascist Ethan Weaver with 50.67% of the vote. We knocked on 5284 doors for Karla Griego, who won in first place with 36.72% of the vote.
This past year’s accomplishments have taught us new skills to use as we continue to build collective power. These wins guide us away from an isolationist path where we only talk to ourselves, and they engage us in a positive path toward the transnational coordination of a global workers movement against capital.
These are the conditions in which we begin our 2024 convention. We are winning, but in the context of what feels like a perpetual struggle. It is easy to fall into pessimism and fail to plan how we get to socialism. For us to regain a sense of grounded optimism, we must continue to develop our capacities, mature as an organization, be bolder and more ambitious in our campaigns, and act with unity to advance our ideology and program.
Every DSA success will be met with greater resistance and increased attempts to divide us. We must remember to trust one another and believe that a new socialist world is possible within our lifetime and we must fight as though that world is just around the corner. In the words of the great Langston Hughes “America never was America to me, and yet I swear this oath — America will be!” I have faith in us. We’re already making strides toward that future.
Radical Theological Education | Tim Conder & Daniel Rhodes
DSA IC Affirms Iran’s Right to Self-Defense
The Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee (DSA IC) affirms Iran’s right to self-defense in response to the illegal Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. DSA IC reiterates our firm opposition to providing any military or diplomatic assistance to the Zionist project, which is currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians and reckless attacks on neighboring states, posing a serious risk of escalating into a full-blown regional conflict. We oppose any U.S. participation in or support of Israeli strikes against Iran and denounce punitive measures such as sanctions and travel bans enacted by the Biden administration or Congress in response to Iran’s defensive strikes on Israel.
Despite western attempts to paint Iran as the aggressor, DSA IC recognizes that Iran has long been targeted by the U.S. and its allies for its efforts to establish national self-determination and champion Palestinian liberation. Since the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the US and Israel have wrought war on the Iranian people by murdering millions in the Iran-Iraq war, carrying out regular assassinations of its leaders, scientists, and top-commanders on diplomatic missions, and depriving the Iranian people of necessary medical supplies through sanctions. This is part of the U.S.’s imperial policy: destruction and de-development against any country that exercises sovereignty or opposes U.S. hegemony.
The Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) April 1st strike against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, which killed at least 16 people including a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander, represents an extremely serious violation of international laws and norms governing diplomatic relations between states, including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and 1963 Convention on Consular Relations. The Biden administration’s “iron-clad” support of the Zionist project has allowed Israel to operate with total impunity, resulting in gross violations of international humanitarian law and military provocations against regional allies of Palestinians which threaten to destabilize the whole of West Asia.
Not only has the Biden administration refused to deescalate the current crisis with a denunciation of the Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate, but it also blocked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from doing so. Likewise, President Biden did not act on the purported Iranian offer to forgo a retaliatory strike on Israel in exchange for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. On April 13th, Iran launched a limited defensive strike against Israel, hitting several Israeli bases including the Netavim Air Base from which the attack on the Damascus consulate was launched. The strike was telegraphed in advance, allowing for ample preparation by Israel and the U.S. The strike’s success highlights the ability of Iran to defend itself against Zionist aggression and restore crucial deterrence against increasingly rogue Israeli actions. Additionally, the Iranian defensive strikes have helped to further undermine the mantle of invincibility which the Zionist project has constructed in order to allow its continual ethnic cleansing and genocide in their colonial occupation of Palestine.
While it is reported that the Biden administration will not participate in Israeli strikes against Iran, continued statements of “iron-clad” support for Israel leave the door open for runaway escalation. With Israeli Occupation Forces crossing the Lebanese border in recent days, intensifying bombing of southern Lebanon, and their continued genocide in Gaza, Israel is dragging the U.S. into a larger death spiral. DSA IC reiterates our demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all military aid to Israel and an end to sanctions against the people of Iran. The power to stop this genocide and end this rapidly escalating regional crisis remains in Biden’s hands. The Biden administration bears full responsibility for every death that follows. No war with Iran! Free Palestine!
The post DSA IC Affirms Iran’s Right to Self-Defense appeared first on DSA International Committee.
CT DSA statement in solidarity with Beinecke Protest at Yale
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 4/23/2024
Connecticut DSA (CTDSA) condemns the arrest on Monday morning, 4/22/2024, of over 40 protesters by the Yale Police Department (YPD) and New Haven Police Department (NHPD) at Yale University’s Gaza solidarity camp in Beinecke Plaza. We stand in solidarity with those who were arrested and all students calling for Yale to divest from apartheid Israel and its genocidal actions in occupied Palestine. We celebrate the efforts and leadership of student organizers, including National Students for Justice in Palestine, SJP chapters and other Palestine solidarity formations, Yale YDSA, and National YDSA in the growing wave of college occupations.
This protest, taken alongside students and faculty in over 10 universities nationwide, is an act of civil disobedience with a long history, both at Yale and across the United States. In 1968, Columbia University, the site of the first encampment in solidarity with Gaza earlier this month, was occupied by students protesting the school’s connection with the United States’ genocidal war in Vietnam.
In 1986, students at Yale occupied the same Beinecke Plaza with a shanty town in protest of the school’s connection to apartheid South Africa. Yesterday’s events were a repeat of that moment, with Yale and the police acting as protectors of apartheid and the financial interests which serve it.
Despite attempts by Zionist agitators to distract from their goals, student protesters have remained resolute in their demands for Yale to divest from the Israeli occupation of Palestine and have drawn both faculty and their neighbors in New Haven into the fight. Despite the attempts by the police to break the demonstration with violent arrests, protesters reconvened to receive their comrades upon release with cheers, dance, and song.
We ask all our members, allies, and supporters to join and support the Yale divestment protests and the growing swell of support for Palestine at campuses nationwide in any way you can as they continue this week until universities divest from war and until the liberation of Palestine.
“Disclose, divest,
We will not stop
We will not rest!”
Steering Committee of Connecticut DSA
Fighting for benefits: One local union's successful battle for transit subsidies
Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing — Your National Political Committee Newsletter
Enjoy your April National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 18-person body (including two YDSA members who share a vote) which functions as the board of directors of DSA.
And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.
- From the National Political Committee — Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing
- Sunday 4/21 — Come Phonebank with Socialists in Office for the Choose Solidarity Bonanza!
- Disability Working Group Relaunch and Disability Justice 101 Presentation Series
- Subscribe to our Democratic Left Newsletter!
From the National Political Committee — Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing
A few days ago, we received Jane McAlevey’s heartbreaking announcement that she has ceased treatments for an aggressive form of cancer and is entering hospice care in her home. The loss of McAlevey’s writing, teaching skills, and contagious hard-nosed willpower will be widely and acutely felt across the labor movement and the broader left, where her critical organizing and analysis played an outsize role in our recent growth after many decades of retreat. Our thoughts are with her and her loved ones as they navigate this transition.
If you are newer to DSA, you may not realize how transformative Jane’s guidance has been to our organization in particular, especially in the post-Bernie-Bump era. In 2019, Jane hosted a training series specifically for DSA organizers based on her groundbreaking book No Shortcuts. You can watch videos of her three sessions here — and we encourage you to do so, especially alongside comrades from your chapter.
Our methodology as DSA organizers largely comes directly from Jane’s synthesis of best labor organizing practices, painstakingly researched back to the earliest days of the US labor movement: how we approach listwork, organizing conversations, and structure tests; our entire framework of campaign-focused organizing with clear win or lose conditions that help us figure out what actually works; the importance of relational organizing and power-mapping, and on and on and on.
Jane’s model of whole-worker organizing encouraged us to organize as hard as possible as workers in our workplaces, and to see this as tied intimately to organizing to change conditions in our community as a whole — that in fact, organizing for any lasting change on any particular issues we care about requires that workers figure out how to organize their power with an expansive sense of their own self-interest in solidarity with many others. Many of us who participated in her trainings remember pieces of sharp advice she offered, like: “Stop talking and get into a win or lose campaign, and let people rise or fall with their actions.”
Losing her mind and spirit and whip-smart analysis is devastating, but so much of her work will live on for as long as it takes to win the whole world. Jane concluded her announcement with a quote from the brilliant Audre Lorde: I am deliberate and afraid of nothing. May we all find such grace and courage for the fights ahead.
In Solidarity and Sadness,
Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer
DSA National Co-Chairs
Sunday 4/21 — Come Phonebank with Socialists in Office for the Choose Solidarity Bonanza!
Join New York State Assembly Members Zohran Mamdani, Marcela Mitaynes, Phara Souffrant Forrest, Sarahan Shrestha, and NY State Senator Jabari Brisport this Sunday 4/21 for our ALL DAY Choose Solidarity Bonanza! Hear campaign updates and hit the phones to ask comrades to switch to Solidarity Dues so we can build the powerful working class organization we need to win!
Every hour a member spends on a Solidarity Dues phonebank raises approximately $1000 for DSA over the year. We’ll start calling at 12pm ET/11am CT/10am MT/9am PT and go until 6pm ET/5pm CT/4pm MT/3pm PT. Hop on for a shift or stick around for the whole day!
Can’t make it on 4/21, but ready to make some calls? Check out upcoming Solidarity Dues phonebanks here and get signed up for a time that works for you!
Disability Working Group Relaunch and Disability Justice 101 Presentation Series
The Disability Working Group (DWG) is reorganizing after a period of inactivity. We invite DSA chapters and committees to reach out and engage with us in the work of making DSA a more welcoming and inclusive space for your disabled comrades!
Relatedly, the DWG is relaunching our Disability Justice 101 presentation series, which aims to educate our fellow comrades on the tenets of Disability Justice and the indispensable role which disabled people have to play in our socialist movement. Chapters interested in the Disability Justice 101 presentation, or in working more generally with DWG, please contact disability@dsacommittees.org.
Subscribe to our Democratic Left Newsletter!
Our national publication, Democratic Left, is relaunching. Subscribe to our online monthly newsletter today! You’ll receive new pieces from members across the country, including reports, reviews, profiles, and so much more.
The post Deliberate and Afraid of Nothing — Your National Political Committee Newsletter appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Socialism in the Bronx with Jonathan Soto
In this episode we meet Jonathan Soto, the DSA endorsed candidate running for New York State Assembly in the North East Bronx. Jonathan is a public school parent, an inter-faith organizer and a democratic socialist, campaigning to unseat longtime incumbent Michael Benedetto in Assembly District 82.