As DSA’s National Political Education Committee finishes our fourth year of service, we’d like to reflect back on 2024 — a year that saw us expand our capabilities and offerings — as we prepare for a new year of challenges and opportunities for the socialist movement and political education.  

Capital Reading Group

One of the developments  we are most excited about is the debut of our first-ever national reading group, with Marx’s Capital Vol. 1. This reading group has been facilitated through a combination of Zoom calls, a dedicated category on the national discussion board, and chapter/regional groups. Our reading group doesn’t favor one translation over another, but was timed to coincide with the release of the new North and Reiter translation and has found a reinvigorated study of Marxist political economy and its application in membership new and old. We have learned much through this process and feel better prepared to facilitate additional national reading groups.  

Chapter Support

In 2024, our Chapter Support Subcommittee conducted six trainings, including a new collaborative training with San Francisco DSA focused on helping chapters establish their political education programs. We also hosted a Spring Educators’ Conference that examined political education’s role in building working-class power and how to develop our local and national programming further. Chapter Support also continued its mission of mentoring chapters as they establish and build their political education programs. Chapter educators and members can find training materials on our website here: https://education.dsausa.org/resources/trainings-catalogue/ 

Comms 

Our podcast team has kept busy pushing out 18 episodes over the last year. We have transitioned to producing our podcast Class under our Comms Subcommittee, which has experienced its highest monthly listeners and total downloads, receiving over twelve thousand in 2024 which surpassed our cumulative total downloads in history. We’ve had several prominent guests on Class, like Aziz Rana and Dr. Manisha Sinha, while producing more multi-part episodes for significant issues, like our most recent on EWOC.  Check out Class on your favorite podcast platform or our website: https://education.dsausa.org/class-the-npec-podcast/

Comms continues to post regular updates on our Facebook, Twitter(X), and Bluesky accounts, along with some of our newest platform editions, the NPEC, and Capital Reading Groups categories on the national discussion board. Our monthly newsletter, Red Letter, remains a popular repository for all things NPEC, reaching an ever increasing amount of people with each edition. We are also exploring other social media and content options for 2025, like Instagram.  

Curriculum 

This year, we are debuting two new modules: Race and Capitalism in the United States, and An Introduction and Fascism and the American Right.  We have also revamped our foundational modules for use with our Socialist Night School trainings. We also plan on re-running our Foundational Political Education Series covering our three 101 modules on capitalism, socialism, and the working class — more on that soon! Check out our newest modules on our curriculum website: https://dsa-education.pubpub.org/

Events

Over the last year, NPEC hosted eight panel events on a variety of topics, ranging from the National Capital Reading Group kickoff, to Palestine solidarity organizing, along with other essential topics to DSA right now, like Marxism and Queer liberation and examining democracy in the lead-up to the presidential election.  

You can check out recordings of all of NPEC’s events on our website here: https://education.dsausa.org/resources/events-catalogue/ 

Convention Season

Haymarket Books’ Socialism 2024 Conference in Chicago featured a large DSA presence with eleven panels and hundreds of members attending. NPEC and the NPC kicked things off with our first ever Organizers Conference before DSA members spent the weekend speaking at sessions on labor organizing, bodily autonomy, a new Red Scare, ecosocialism, and more. You can see a full list of our panels here (https://www.dsausa.org/socialism-conference-2024/), and audio recordings from the conference here (https://soundcloud.com/socialismconf). This year, DSA expects to return to Haymarket Books’ Socialism 2025 Conference in July (https://socialismconference.org/), with NPEC doing its part to contribute to DSA’s biannual convention later in the summer.

2025 Onwards

It is not lost on NPEC that this year may prove a is a crucial juncture year for DSA and the socialist movement in the United States.  We look forward to finishing the Capital Reading Group and hosting events to prepare members for the next DSA Convention while also stepping up to help chapters and new members prepare for a second Trump term with national foundational calls for new socialists and more political education trainings. We have a lot of work to do, but NPEC and DSA are better prepared and ready to onboard new members and turn them into socialist organizers for years to come. 

If you’re a DSA member that ever thought of contributing to our organization’s national political education efforts, applications will be opening in the next few months. If you haven’t yet joined DSA, there’s never been a better time to: https://dsausa.org/join

Follow us here and join our listserv so you can keep up with the latest! 

This speech was given on January 20, 2025 by BRDSA member Jacob Newsom outside the Governor's mansion.

The incoming Trump administration promises a daily onslaught on the state’s capacity to build the future we’re fighting for, which is why our strategy makes more sense than ever. DSA will be organizing to protect people and fight strategic battles, while not losing sight of the long-term horizon we’re building toward in our communities. We will continue to build power on the local level alongside unions to win public goods for the working class, such as social housing, robust transit, and union-built renewable energy. Read on for our end-of-year recap!

Building for Power campaigns

Our last huddle of the year focused on our two social housing campaigns: Metro DC’s Green New Deal for Housing and NYC’s House the Future. Comrades from these chapters presented on their campaigns that provide a plan for truly affordable social housing that also prioritizes a move away from fossil fuels by retrofitting existing buildings and ensuring that new buildings are electrified and near transit. Along with providing much-needed housing, these campaigns would also bring good union jobs to each city. The discussion that followed made it obvious that our chapters across the country are all experiencing a housing crisis in their cities and there is a huge need to make robust social housing a reality. View the presentations.

Stay tuned in 2025 when we will be meeting on a quarterly basis to hear updates from all our active B4P campaigns. We currently have 8 campaigns across transit, public power, social housing, and public spaces:

Louisville Get on the Bus
Chicago Fix the CTA
Los Angeles Power Mass Transit
Milwaukee Power to the People
Metro DC We Power DC
Metro DC Green New Deal for Housing
NYC House the Future
St. Louis Green New Deal for Public Schools

If you’re thinking about starting a Building for Power Campaign in your chapter, fill out the interest form to let us know!

Brewing in Texas

A huge shoutout to Austin DSA for hosting a Public Power Town Hall that brought together over 70 attendees passionate about a just renewable energy transition. With participation from key labor and community leaders and elected officials, the discussion highlighted the intersection of climate action and workers’ rights. Dozens of rank-and-file union members attended, sparking conversations about the future of labor and renewable energy in Austin. These are exactly the kinds of coalitions we need to build to win a Green New Deal, and we’re excited to see this campaign take off.

We’re also excited to see the revitalization of Houston DSA’s Ecosocialist Working Group, formally approved by the chapter at this month’s general body meeting. Our comrades have been meeting to research their local terrain and discuss possible campaign demands, and creating excellent educational content along the way.

Stay tuned: all signs point to ecosocialists across Texas building their power in 2025.

What’s next for the Green New Deal

If you missed the panel at this year’s Socialism conference An Ecosocialism that Builds: What’s Next for the Green New Deal?

It is well worth your time to hear about rebuilding the labor movement with eyes on May Day 2028, with unions like UAW leading the charge. DSA’s post-election mass call Workers Deserve More: Organizing for 2025 is also worth your time. We know multiple crises are converging and the coming years will be difficult, but we will weather the inevitable storms by protecting each other and building power to win the future we deserve.

See you in the new year, comrades, we have a world to win!

The post 2024 End-of-Year Recap appeared first on Building for Power.

Charlotte Food Not Bombs (FNB), an organization we have collaborated and share cross membership with, recently released a statement platforming allegations of sexual violence. These allegations regard an individual involved in several activist spaces in our city.

Charlotte Metro DSA stands in solidarity with FNB in their pursuit of restorative justice for the survivor(s) as they come forth. Our organization has zero tolerance for sexual assault and harassment and will refuse to work with anyone credibly accused of such—or the organizations which uncritically harbor them. We recommend that everyone check out @clt_food_not_bombs on Instagram for details on the developing situation and how to support the survivor(s).

As a reminder, per DSA's Resolution 33, we have a grievance policy in place to seek justice for survivors and hold perpetrators accountable in our organization. If you would like to file a grievance or learn more about our process, please check out https://charlottedsa.org/grievance-policy.

As socialists, we recognize sexual violence as an outgrowth of patriarchy, itself one of the principal ways our capitalist society divides the working class and furthers our collective exploitation. The fight for socialism is inseparable from the fight for women's liberation. We have to look out for our comrades and allies by fostering welcoming and inclusive organizing spaces. This will require us to seriously reflect on how we can set an example of feminist community and organization as we fight for the overthrow of class society and its systemic perpetration of patriarchy.

In solidarity,

Charlotte Metro DSA Steering Committee

Links from our Socialist Night School training and other links to materials that NPEC feel is helpful for chapters to set up their own basic Socialist Night School program.

Previous SNS Training Recordings

Catalogue of our other recorded trainings 

Reasons Why We Do Political Education

What is Democratic Socialism materials

What is Capitalism materials 

Why the Working Class materials 

Facilitation Guide Slides

Backwards Planning Slides

Our Curriculum Module Website

Chapter Created Materials and Other Resources  

If you have any other questions or inquiries about materials, please email us at politicaleducation@dsausa.org, and if you’d like an NPEC member to help troubleshoot any chapter Political Education issues or help you set up a political education committee, please Submit a mentor request using this form.

In this episode, Aaron Stauffer (Associate Director, The Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice) joins to discuss faith, the strategies of broad-based community organizing, and the role of sacred values in organizing work. For more on the topic, check out his book: Listening to the Spirit: The Radical Social Gospel, Sacred Value, and Broad-based Community Organizing.

The Democratic Socialists of America rejects all efforts to greenwash genocide including the hosting of the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan. COP29 is the United Nations Climate Change Conference for all signatories of the Paris Climate Accords. This institution should be an opportunity to create international cooperation to combat climate change. As exposed by the devastating impacts of climate change in Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene, it is more important than ever that the world come together to combat climate change. 

This type of collaboration cannot be possible in Azerbaijan, a nation committing ethnic cleansing of the Armenian people and providing Israel with the energy required to commit its genocide of the Palestinian people. 

In September of last year, the Azeri military invaded Artsakh, an ethnically Armenian de facto autonomous region in Azerbaijan, killing and injuring hundreds and displacing thousands after intense shelling. That was the culmination of years of Azerbaijani aggression including its invasion in 2020 and imposition of a blockade in 2022. Since then, with Artsakh lost, Azerbaijan now attacks Armenia itself claiming ownership of Armenian towns. This genocide is enabled by the United States, which provides Azerbaijan with hundreds of millions of dollars in “security assistance.” Further, the US pet state Israel hosts military bases inside of Azerbaijan and provides nearly 70% of Azerbaijan’s weapons. 

As Azerbaijan attempts to complete a second Armenian genocide, they also play a significant role enabling the US and Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. The aforementioned export of Israeli weapons to Azerbaijan bolsters the Israeli economy and military industry, and Azeri oil represents more than a quarter of Israel’s oil imports. This is not to mention the intense environmental damage committed through Israel’s relentless bombing on the entirety of Gaza and across the region. 

Obviously, this does nothing to combat climate change. The U.S. Military-Industrial complex with tentacles around the world is the greatest contributor to climate change humanity has ever seen. The US, Israel, and Azerbaijan’s use of environmentalism is merely a means to cover up the crimes they commit. For centuries colonial projects have established narratives of environmental emptiness to justify colonial expansion and dispossession of indigenous people from their land. The Zionist project’s century-long claim to “make the desert bloom” exemplifies this simultaneously removing Palestinians from their land, justifying the expansion of a settler colonial project, all while committing enormous environmental destruction. 

DSA rejects all attempts at international cooperation against climate change premised on colonialism, disposession, and genocide. We commit ourselves to heed the BDS National Committee and other Palestinian’s call to organize for an energy embargo on Israel and endorse the call to free Armenian political prisoners held by Azerbaijan. Free Palestine. Free Armenia. 

DSA has launched a campaign #StopFuelingGenocide targeting Chevron’s complicity in apartheid and genocide in Palestine. Given Chevron’s status as Israel’s largest natural gas supplier and Azerbaijan’s position as a major oil supplier, this is the most effective way to build the campaign towards an energy embargo on Israel. Use and share these links to sign our petition pledging to boycott Chevron and get involved in the campaign.

The post No Greenwashing Genocide appeared first on DSA International Committee.