Enjoy your February 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. This month, hear about our electoral wins, phonebank for Palestine, sign up for a Green New Deal call, and more!

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 — Wins For All of Us
• Starting Tonight Thursday 2/22 — Phonebank for Listen to Michigan Campaign for Palestine
• RSVP for Wednesday 2/28 Green New Deal Building for Power February Campaign Huddle
• Support Young Socialists Today!
• Register for Palestine Strategy 101: BDS Training Saturday 2/25
• Socialism and Queer Liberation Panel Saturday 3/2
• Wednesday 3/6 — Join our Fireside Chat with National Political Committee Co-Chairs!
• Call for Submissions for Socialist Forum May Day Issue — Deadline Monday 3/11
• Switch to Democratic Left Digital!

From the National Political Committee — Wins For All of Us

One of the best things about being a socialist is that any win for the working class anywhere is a win for all of us, everywhere. We’re experiencing that joyful solidarity this month courtesy of Seattle DSA, who helped lead a coalition to raise the minimum wage in the city of Renton, WA via ballot measure. They won big. Starting in July, Renton, home to top military weapons contractor Boeing, will not only have the highest minimum wage in the country ($20.29/hour), but the minimum wage will be reassessed annually and tethered to the cost of living. It’s not just any old reform; it’s an explicitly socialist style of wealth transfer from the bosses to the workers, and we are so proud of our comrades for doing such hard work on this and bringing home such an incredible W.

The NPC was proud to approve two $5000 grants from our National Elections Commission to help fund the work that led to this win — which will now yield millions and millions of dollars for working class pockets. People power goes a long way with massive amounts of member and volunteer labor, but efforts like these can’t succeed without financial support. In order to keep our organization in a financial position to keep leveling up our member-led organizing with resources that go such a long way, we encourage you to become a solidarity dues payer — organized people and organized money get the goods! And join us for our ongoing Solidarity Dues Call-a-Thon on Tuesdays and Sundays, to keep encouraging fellow members to help keep our organization sustainable for the long haul! Callers on these phonebanks are having great conversations with fellow DSA members across the country about the collective, democratic power we are building. DSA’s power as an independent organization is especially important in a national election year, where we can show how we organize for the power we deserve against a political system stacked for the ruling class.

We’re following the lead of our DSA chapter comrades in Michigan, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and have joined a coalition to encourage Michigan residents who want to see Biden call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to vote “uncommitted” in the upcoming Democratic primary. A number of states, including Michigan, allow Democratic presidential primary voters to vote to send delegates uncommitted to any candidate to the Democratic national convention — which lets voters demonstrate that they hold the power for President Biden’s margin of victory for re-election in November. The Listen to Michigan campaign is sending a message to Biden and the leadership of the Democratic Party that working people are fed up with their government’s support for  Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault of Gaza — these horrors need to stop if they want our votes. The election is on Tuesday, February 27th, so sign up for a phone or text bank today!

In the meantime, keep fighting for someone you don’t know!

Starting Tonight Thursday 2/22 — Phonebank for Listen to Michigan Campaign for Palestine

DSA endorsed Listen to Michigan’s “Vote Uncommitted” campaign last week, an effort to get the supermajority of Democratic voters who oppose Israel’s genocide to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary to send a message to Joe Biden: demand a ceasefire now. We’re running DSA phonebanks into the state, and you can sign up here no matter where you live. Shifts are available starting tonight Thursday 2/22 at 5:30pm ET/4:30pm CT/3:30pm MT/2:30pm PT.

Can’t make it to a DSA phonebank? You can sign up to phone or textbank directly with the campaign here.

RSVP for Wednesday 2/28 Green New Deal Building for Power February Campaign Huddle

Sign up to participate in our Green New Deal Building for Power February Huddle Wednesday 2/28 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT! Comrades from Bozeman DSA will talk about last year’s Social Housing campaign. Participants can discuss and ask questions about what went well and what didn’t, and how to pivot campaign strategy or demands.

Support Young Socialists Today!

The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) Conference brings young socialists from around the country together for political education, organizing training, keynote speeches, and panels that strengthen YDSA’s national organizing. And together, we can make sure cost is never a barrier to participation. Your contribution directly supports scholarships for Conference attendees and ongoing DSA and YDSA organizing to build working class power!

The 2024 YDSA Conference is just weeks away, and we’ve received over $30,000 in scholarship requests. $125 sponsors registration for one student organizer — will you pitch in today to bring young socialists together in Atlanta this March?

PS: You can make a tax-deductible donation to support the DSA Fund’s YDSA scholarship fund here!

Register for Palestine Strategy 101: BDS Training Saturday 2/25

The National Political Education Committee (NPEC) is excited to announce our first training on socialist strategy toward a free Palestine! On Sunday 2/25 at 4pm ET/3pm CT/2pm MT/1pm PT, join the National Political Education Committee and Olivia Katbi, North America BDS Policy Coordinator and co-chair of DSA’s International Committee, on Zoom for a training on strategy toward a free Palestine, with a focus on the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).

We will discuss both big-picture strategy issues (What strategies work well in which contexts? Where does BDS fit into the broader movement for Palestinian liberation? What should DSA members and chapters consider in determining their approaches?) and nitty-gritty best practices (How can DSA members most effectively work with other organizations? What should we keep in mind in terms of language, communications, and emphasis?). There will also be time for a Q&A with Olivia, so come with questions!

Socialism and Queer Liberation Panel Saturday 3/2

Join the National Political Education Committee Saturday 3/2 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT for “Marxism and Queer Liberation: Why Socialism Needs Queer Liberation and Queer Liberation Needs Socialism.”

Achieving the liberation of the queer community requires realizing the intersecting nature of all U.S. cultural oppressions — including class oppression — ties the liberation of all to the end of capitalism. Today, queer oppression is being used both to sustain capitalism and to help grow fascism. When so many people must spend their limited resources struggling to survive existential attacks, how does a socialist movement grow and build class consciousness? How has capitalism infected liberal social analysis of so-called “identity politics” and activism in those realms? How can socialism provide a better analysis and reinvent activism in those realms? What can socialism, in general, learn from queer analysis and activism? Join members of the DSA Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy campaign Saturday 3/2 for these questions and more!

Wednesday 3/6 — Join our Fireside Chat with National Political Committee Co-Chairs!

Join the March Co-Chairs Fireside Chat with the 2023 – 2025 National Political Committee Co-chairs Ashik and Megan! The call will be held on Wednesday 3/6 at 9pm ET/8pm CT/7pm MT/6pm PT. This month, we’ll feature DSA electoral work, including Seattle DSA’s work to raise wages. Join us!

Call for Submissions for Socialist Forum May Day Issue — Deadline Monday 3/11

Socialist Forum, DSA’s quarterly publication featuring articles geared toward strategic and theoretical questions, is currently accepting pitch submissions for our upcoming Spring 2024 issue. We aim to release the issue on May 1st, International Workers’ Day, with a special section on labor and international solidarity. All DSA members are invited to submit a short pitch on these or any other topics of potential interest using this form.

Pitches must be submitted by 11:59pm Pacific time on Monday, March 11th in order to be considered. If your pitch is accepted, the full article should be roughly 2000-3000 words in length. Please note that submissions are not officially accepted until after editors review the first draft of a full article. If you have any questions, please contact us at socialistforum@dsausa.org.

Switch to Democratic Left Digital!

Our new Editorial Board is working on a Democratic Left relaunch! The next issue will go to press in late March.

Many members have asked how to get their Democratic Left digitally instead of in print. This saves paper and saves member dues! To get your digital Democratic Left, sign up today with your current DSA email address.

Paid for by Democratic Socialists of America (www.dsausa.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

The post Wins For All of Us — Your National Political Committee newsletter appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Growing DSA and building socialism will require our lifelong commitment to organizing. We must develop sustainable relationships to the movement that prevent burnout and increase member engagement. Growing DSA’s membership is very important to our organization’s success. We can organize more, pay for more, and accomplish more with more people. But often, not all members…

The post For Long-Term Growth, DSA Needs Sustainable Organizing appeared first on YDSA.

Tonight, we’re talking to Claire Valdez, a NYC-DSA endorsed candidate for Assembly District 37 in Queens about what being endorsed by NYC-DSA and UAW Region 9A means to her, how she plans to bring her union organizing experience of becoming ‘more powerful than the boss’ to the halls of power in Albany and much more. 

There are currently 8 socialists endorsed by NYC-DSA serving in Albany in the Senate and Assembly. If electoral organizers get their way- that number could be 11 next year - the largest socialist block ever elected in New York.

NYC-DSA has voted to endorse three new-insurgent candidates this year- Claire in Queens, Eon Huntley in Brooklyn and Jonathan Soto in the Bronx. 

As we do every year, we will talk to all of the new-dsa endorsed candidates here on Revolutions Per Minute and tonight is the first in that series of interviews with the NYC-DSA’s 2024 slate. So stick around to hear from Claire, a union organizer running for Assembly District 37 in Queens - stretching from Long Island City, Sunnyside and Maspeth to Ridgewood. 

To learn more visit  https://claireforqueens.com/ and to sign up for a canvassing shift https://claireforqueens.com/events/

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 2/20 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, 2/21 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): HWG Reading Group – Mean Streets (In person at 1916 McAllister; Zoom)

Thursday, 2/22 (6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): DSA SF x League of Pissed Off Voters Pub Crawl on Divisadero

Thursday, 2/22 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): February Tech Workers Meetup (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, 2/23 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Special Edition Office Hours with DSA’s National Political Committee (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, 2/23 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Gumbo Dinner with the NPC and Dean Preston (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/24 (11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.): February Office Cleaning/Organizing (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/24 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group (HWG) Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/24 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): HWG Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 2/24 (7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.): [Hosted by East Bay DSA] Social: Meet Your National Political Committee! (In person at 2344 Webster Street, Oakland)

Wednesday, 2/28 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): DSA SF Labor Night School: Why the Working Class? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 3/2 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Tenant Organizing Movie Night – Redevelopment: A Marxist Analysis (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, 3/6 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): HWG Reading Group – Mean Streets (In person at 1916 McAllister preferred; Zoom)

Thursday, 3/7 (6:00 p.m. – 7:40 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, 3/9 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): HWG Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 3/9 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): HWG Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events/ for more events.

Events & Actions

DSA SF and EBDSA Merch Design Competition!

DSA SF and EBDSA are hosting a design competition! Submit your design and it might get featured on our next DSA sweatshirt! The winner will get a free sweatshirt with their design along with a DSA SF enamel pin and an EBDSA poster!

Entries are due by February 28th. The full rules and submission form are available at ebdsa.us/merch-contest.

Apply to Join the 2024 Convention Planning Subcommittee!

The 2024 Convention Planning Subcommittee is tasked with setting the timeline, putting together the agenda, leading the coordination, and handling the logistics for the chapter’s 2024 Annual Convention in June. We are starting early because its a big operation! The cadence will be light at the beginning of the process and naturally pick up the pace as we get closer to the main event!

Comrades with event planning experience are especially encouraged to apply! This is also a great place for newer members who are interested in jumping into the chapter to get involved. You’ll have plenty of support and see how the sausage is made for one of the biggest productions and most important cornerstones of our chapter’s democratic practice.

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

Questions? Feedback? Something to add?

We welcome your feedback. If you have comments or suggestions, send a message to the #newsletter channel on Slack.

For information on how to add content, check out the Newsletter Q&A thread on the forum.

The following is a recording of a speech delivered by Lokotah Sanborn at the December rally for a ceasefire in Palestine outside of Bath Iron Works in Maine. For more coverage of the protests against the ongoing genocide in Palestine by the Pine & Roses Editorial Collective see:

1. Portland Rallies for Palestine After Rafah Bombed and Maine Coalition for Palestine Blocks Traffic, Protests Genocide in Gaza, By T. Sinclair 
2. Pro-Worker, Anti-War, by Isaak Spain.
3. Letter to the Editor: Portland’s Ceasefire Resolution is Good First Step, by Sam Spadafore.

The post Lokotah Sanborn Speaks at Bath Demonstration appeared first on Pine & Roses.

On Tuesday, February 13, Cuban ambassador to the United States, Lianys Torres Rivera, met with a room full of activists at the Teamsters Hall in South Portland. Delegations from Maine Democratic Socialists of America, the Communist Party of Maine, Veterans for Peace, and Let Cuba Live were all present as were unaffiliated friends and family. Ambassador Torres Rivera explained that Cuba was experiencing a second Special Period, the first having occurred after the loss of aid from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Isolation caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic–-especially the loss of tourist revenues–-and an economic embargo enforced by the United States devastated the Cuban economy. 

Torres Rivera explained that Trump tightened the sanctions back to a Cold War level in 2016. While President Biden could ease those sanctions significantly with a pen stroke, has chosen not to. Congress could act to eliminate sanctions whole-cloth but refuses to do so. However, dozens of cities and many trade unions have passed resolutions to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and to end the economic blockade.

Torres Rivera implored activists to continue this work, to make sure that your town, your union, your state, your representatives, and your senators adopt or support similar resolutions. The passage of these resolutions is big news in Cuba and people appreciate reading about solidarity with Cuba in the United States. However, the resolutions alone are not enough. The Cuban people need material support. This material support can come in the form of opening trade relations with Cuba, cultural programs, or academic programs. Portland could trade fish with Cuba, which is currently struggling to maintain certain fish populations due to climate change and overfishing. Brunswick could strengthen its sister city relationship with Trinidad, Cuba and invite the townspeople to learn about life in Trinidad. The University of Maine system and the private colleges could initiate academic relations with Cuban universities and biotech companies in Maine could partner with researchers in Cuba who are developing treatments for Early Onset and Mid Stage Alzheimer’s (NeuralCIM), Lung Cancer (CIMAvax), and other critical medical treatments (diabetic foot ulcers, vitiligo, psoriasis, etc). 

The Cuban people are going to make it through this new Special Period, regardless of its relationship with the United States. Torres Rivera recognized however that a good relationship with the United States will drastically reduce the time needed to recover from the current economic crisis. The ambassador emphasized that Cubans believe that Americans are a good people who want peace. She encouraged activists in attendance to begin the work of building solidarity in Maine in whatever form possible. 

As activists in Maine DSA, we must not allow for our comrades in Cuba to face this special period alone. We must show that we have them in our hearts. We must continue our international solidarity work, including our efforts to turn the tide on genocide in Palestine and supporting our comrades in Cuba by fostering economic, cultural, and social connections. If readers are interested in getting connected with Cuban Solidarity work please email steering@mainedsa.org, and we can connect you to these growing activist networks.

The post Cuban ambassador visits Maine appeared first on Pine & Roses.

On January 25, 2024 the Steering Committee of ROC DSA voted unanimously to withdraw as a member organization from the Police Accountability Board Alliance (PABA). The following statement was sent to the PABA to announce this decision, and is now published here to communicate our reasoning to membership and the community, and to encourage reflection and growth.

Rochester Democratic Socialists of America (ROC DSA) has stood in solidarity with the broader Rochester community in the fight for the Police Accountability Board (PAB) from the beginning. Our chapter campaigned, knocked doors, and spread the word when the creation of the PAB was on the ballot. We have been a member organization of the Police Accountability Board Alliance (PABA) from its creation. ROC DSA believes in the PAB and the importance of the work it strives to do in this city.

Despite the critical role of the PAB and the need for independent police oversight in Rochester, ROC DSA has made the decision to resign as a member agency of the PABA. This decision was not made lightly. Over the last several years, the PABA has become a challenging and, at times, deeply toxic environment. Our organization’s departure is far from the first and, unfortunately, it will almost certainly not be the last. We urge the leadership and remaining members of the PABA to take a critical look at the state of the alliance and find the lessons that must be learned. This city needs the PAB, and the PAB needs a functional PABA.

While we will no longer participate in the PABA, ROC DSA remains a staunch supporter and ally to both the PAB and the unionization efforts of the PAB staff. It is our hope that the PABA leadership can course correct and truly become the alliance that this community deserves.

Rochester Chapter
Democratic Socialists of America

The post Chapter Statement: Letter of Resignation from the Police Accountability Board Alliance first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

This piece is intended as the formal motivation for the resolution: Endorse House Our Neighbors Initiative to Fund Social Housing (I-137)

House our Neighbors (HON) is a coalition of housing advocates and organizations that began in 2021 as an effort to defeat business backed efforts to pass an amendment to the Seattle city charter enshrining sweeps of homeless encampments.  Fortunately, King County Superior Court struck the amendment from the ballot on legal grounds. 

With Seattle facing an unrelenting housing and homelessness crisis, the HON coalition decided to run an initiative to establish a model of social housing. The initiative, I-135, established a new Public Development Authority (PDA) to acquire, build, and manage housing in the City of Seattle.  The housing will be open to residents making less than 120% of the area median income, with residents paying no more than thirty percent of their income on housing, and prohibiting financial eviction.  All housing built and acquired will be permanently public, and governed by residents of the housing. New housing would be built to passive house standards with union labor. This campaign was successful, establishing the new Seattle Social Housing Public Development Authority (PDA) in February of 2023. 

SDSA joined the coalition and contributed significantly through efforts led by the Housing Justice Working Group (HJWG) by:

• Collecting over 4000 signatures to qualify the initiative for a vote by Seattle voters.
• Hosting over 40 signature gathering events.
• Knocking on over 3500 doors during the get out the vote campaign.
• Using public data to identify likely renters used to send texts to over 200,000 Seattle voters.
• Contributed $3,000 to HON.

As HON’s policy and advocacy director, Tiffani McCoy, stated, “We recognize the vital need for solidarity across movements, and know that we couldn’t have accomplished this monumental win without the dynamic organizing of SDSA.”

Due to the limitations of the citizens initiative process in the State of Washington, the initiative did not include funding for the PDA to begin to acquire and build housing. HON determined that the optimal means for obtaining the funding is through a new  ballot initiative. The initiative will need 26,521 verified signatures of registered voters in order to secure a place on the ballot. Given validation rates, it will likely be necessary to gather at least 35,000 signatures.

HON’s ballot initiative includes a five percent excess compensation tax paid by employers who employ individuals whose income is greater than $1 million dollars/year. This would generate an expected revenue of $50 million annually for the developer, allowing PDA to build or acquire an estimated 2,000 – 3,000 units over 10 years. The construction of these units is expected to open the door to other future funding sources, including public bonds.

There are several reasons why SDSA should endorse this initiative:

• There is a clearly recognized need for affordable housing that is not being met. Our endorsement while doing the work to get it passed is an opportunity for SDSA to deliver housing justice through the de-commodification of housing, and economic justice through the redistribution of wealth. This gives us a chance, as an organ of the Seattle working class, to take a stand on an issue the whole class regards as important.

• Seattle’s social housing model is the first of its kind in the nation. It provides a welcome alternative to both the overpriced corporate cartel owned private housing market, and the current model of “affordable housing” that provides little actual housing while it segregates low income people in substandard units. This effort will provide us with opportunities to differentiate DSA’s brand of politics from that of the Democratic establishment’s insufficient response to the housing crisis. 

• This will be a hard fought campaign that will be directly opposed by the reactionary business community, especially real estate interests and their lobbyists. SDSA will greatly increase its local profile if it takes a prominent role in the campaign, and will increase Seattle DSA’s profile amongst the working class. Participation provides opportunities for recruitment and a chance to further educate our members on the issue of housing.

The success or failure of the Seattle Social Housing Developer will depend on its funding, and our comrades across the nation are watching our progress.

The post Let’s Endorse House Our Neighbors Initiative to Fund Social Housing (I-137) appeared first on Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.

Collaboratively Written by: Carl T, Shiloh B, and Sean C

This piece is intended as the formal motivation for the resolution: Toward an Anti-Zionist Seattle DSA.

The Palestinian people, the global status quo, and our socialist movement all find themselves on a knife’s edge. In October, the Israeli settler-colonial regime unleashed the most intense phase of the genocide against Palestinians since the slaughter and expulsion of 80 percent of Palestine’s Arab population in the Nakba of 1948. Since then, the Israeli army has murdered more than 30,000 Palestinians and driven 2 million people out of their homes under a rain of bombs and bullets — weapons often designed and built right here in the Puget Sound region. When 80 percent of the global population facing acute famine conditions live in Gaza, an area the size of Seattle, there can be no uncertainty: This is a genocide.  

But as bad as things are now, if we don’t build a powerful movement to shut down the war machine, we could end up somewhere much darker. The leadership of both capitalist parties in the US have made it clear that they are in full support of this campaign of ethnic cleansing. That’s why, even after the International Court of Justice determined grounds to investigate Israel for genocide, the Biden administration continues to push for $14 billion in “aid” for the Israeli regime. The US uses their UN Security Council veto to block further international condemnation of Israel. The imperial US state and major US corporations like Boeing and Raytheon don’t just actively support the war on Palestine by providing arms and aid: these big capitalists and their political lap dogs lead the charge in widening this war as the US and Israel recklessly and murderously bomb Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

Although to many people in the US and across the globe these evil and dangerous actions seem completely irrational, as socialists we understand that capitalism creates and relies on imperialism and war. Not only do war profiteers buy off our politicians at home — like our very own Congressman Adam Smith — but the global capitalist system only functions because imperialist states like the US and Israel enforce conditions of exploitation and oppression onto the vast majority of the planet. The opulence of the international capitalist class flows from the export of capital, military conquest, and the seizure of land–all dynamics playing out right now in occupied Palestine!

As socialists, we know this genocide is not merely a moral issue. The weapons manufacturers who fund politicians like Adam Smith do so because those politicians propel the US war machine. As Smith fights and votes for ever-increasing military budgets, his buddies at Boeing and Raytheon rake in money from those budgets — money that comes from our tax dollars. Meanwhile, working people in the US suffer from a housing crisis, crumbling infrastructure, an expensive and inaccessible healthcare system, and a spiraling climate emergency.

The vast riches of this system are poured right back into the war machine which perpetuates this system all over again. It is a vicious feedback loop of violence and subjugation designed to concentrate all wealth and power into the hands of capital. It does this by exploiting its workers. It does this by parasitically extracting value from the Global South. It does this by waging war and genocide against the people of Palestine. It is the same system that crushes us all, and the same struggle which will free us all!

But socialists know another world is possible. If poor and working people organize, we can build this world. We can build the power to scream a collective ‘hell no!’ If we don’t cooperate, the whole militarist system crumbles. We must build a mass socialist anti-imperialist movement that recognizes the shared interests of the people in Palestine, in the US, and throughout the world. Solidarity is not just some abstract ideal of support: It is a recognition that their fight is our fight, and that the people united will never be defeated.

As part of that organized struggle we applaud the leadership of Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush, both DSA members in Congress. In the face of fierce opposition from both major political parties, the mainstream media, and the powerful Zionist lobby, they’ve called for a ceasefire in the Israeli state’s US-backed war on Gaza from the beginning of the siege. Their courage in fighting for Palestinian liberation is exactly the standard we should hold for all DSA electeds! Rank-and-file DSA members have been showing up in the streets for Palestinian liberation for months, from New York to the Bay Area. Many are spearheading displays of solidarity, and in their struggle, are building a version of DSA that is anti-Zionist in its actions.

But if we are to be a principled anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist organization, today’s DSA must recognize its own historical complicity with the Zionist project. DSA’s main predecessor, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), was founded in a spirit of profound anti-imperialism sparked by the horror and injustice of America’s war against Vietnam. In 1973, a group of socialists led by Michael Harrington split from the Socialist Party of America because of the latter’s failure to endorse an immediate US military withdrawal from Vietnam. Paradoxically, despite anti-imperialism being its reason for existing, DSOC and then DSA were originally led by supporters of the Zionist project of an exclusionary ethno-religious state in Palestine.

How could this be? In the 1970s, the racist image of Israel as a heroic underdog fighting against the barbaric hordes was firmly fixed in the Western imagination. As a socialist, Harrington cited his belief in every people’s right to national self-determination as reason to support Israel, despite this being inherently contradictory with the rights of the Palestinians living in the region. Israel’s founder and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was a self-identified socialist who led the the primary Jewish labor federation in Palestine, Histadrut, from 1921-1935. The most famous “pioneers” of the early Zionist settler-colonial movement were socialists who lived in collective farms while holding all property in common. All this made Zionism an enticing prospect for anti-Communist socialists like Harrington and his comrades.

In other words, Harrington believed that the liberation and self-determination of the Palestinian people was something which could be sacrificed in order to establish a type of socialist project. But we have seen the last 75 years of history unfold, and it is more obvious than ever: The Zionist project is not a socialist one, and it never could have been a socialist one while also participating in the ethnic cleansing and mass deportation of the people indigenous to the region. Any socialist project which treats the principles of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism as something to be compromised on can never succeed at building socialism.

Instead, it leads to what we see today: A Nakba which has been ongoing for over 75 years. The Israeli regime expelled almost 300,000 more Palestinians from the Occupied Territories in 1967 and has expelled thousands of Palestinians from their homes every year since. Since 1973, the US military-industrial complex has been Israel’s primary source of military hardware and technology. Since the end of the Cold War, the security of Israel has been the driving motivation behind America’s support for dictatorships like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and their success in crushing democratic movements in the region. Israel teaches surveillance, crowd control, and torture techniques to US police officers so they can unleash them on the domestic population. That’s why we as socialists truly mean what we say: None of us are free until Palestine is free.

It is a necessity, then, that we do not compromise on our support for anti-Zionism within DSA. When DSA has compromised, and when DSA members in Congress and the national DSA leadership have opportunistically caved into electoral pressures, it hasn’t brought us power. Instead, these compromises have weakened our membership, caused division in our movement, and damaged our relationships with Palestinian organizations. When electeds like U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, and Nithya Raman take stances that are unaligned with our principles — whether it be condemning BDS, accepting endorsements from Zionist lobbies, or voting in favor of military funding to Israel — it is critical that we speak out and take concrete action to bring them back in line with our anti-Zionist commitments.

If our electeds choose to continue behaving in a manner unbefitting a socialist in office, then they do not represent us and must be unendorsed and unequivocally condemned. To do otherwise is to say that anti-Zionism is a lesser priority, something that can be compromised on in order to advance towards socialism at a local level. But we know that no socialism can be built on the back of the rejection of socialist principles! It could not be done by the settler-colonial Zionist project in Palestine, and it cannot be done here either. DSA has struggled with this issue and has failed several times. It has failed with Bowman. It has failed with Raman. But these failures do not have to be the end of the matter.

Despite DSA’s stumblings, anti-Zionism is a principle which we are committed to following. Our 2019 national convention passed several resolutions reaffirming that as an organization, we are anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-Zionist, and that we stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Simply affirming these stances will never be enough, but these resolutions are a guiding light: When DSA is at its best, we will find ourselves fully aligned in action with anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-Zionism. Where we do not find ourselves aligned, we know with certainty that such unalignment is a failure we must rectify.

Seattle DSA holds these principles to be central: where DSA nationally faltered, our chapter did not. In 2022 the NPC at the time illegitimately and anti-democratically dissolved the national BDS Working Group. Seattle DSA condemned the NPC’s actions, resolved to continue working with the BDS Working Group, and firmly declared that standing in support of Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism must be a non-negotiable red line for our electeds.

This brings us to the present. We write this text as an accompaniment to the first resolution which we plan to pass as part of concretely aligning ourselves with anti-Zionism. It is by the actions that we take that we demonstrate exactly where we stand: With the people of Palestine and with oppressed and colonized peoples around the world. Here in Seattle, DSA members have been a visible and active presence in the local anti-war movement. We’ve marched, we’ve protested, and we’ve been arrested. And we’ve been escalating our involvement further, from participating to organizing. Just last month, Seattle DSA’s Palestine Solidarity Working Group organized a successful sit-in in Congressman Adam Smith’s office, calling on Smith to commit to three demands: sign onto Cori Bush’s ceasefire bill, block military aid to Israel, and oppose any escalation by the US in the Middle East.

This is just the beginning. We are in this for the long haul. Even if a ceasefire is called today, we cannot rest until Palestine is free. So it is critical that we build solidarity and coalition across the Seattle area, across Washington state, and across the United States to fight the war machine. When we fight together, we win! But we cannot win standing alone.

It’s imperative that DSA chapters across the country continue to build the anti-war movement, and bring our socialist, anti-imperialist politics into the movement in order to strengthen it. We call on DSA’s national leadership to deepen our engagement in Palestine solidarity work and provide chapters with the resources needed to accomplish this work. We must treat this like the priority it is.

We are in dire times. Each day, it seems more and more as if the central contradictions of the era of capitalism and imperialism are clearer than they have ever before been. It is in times like these, where everyone sees the mask of decency fall off of the liberal-capitalist project, that we often have the greatest opportunities for change. It is more apparent by the day that barbarism is here, and that socialism is the only solution.

This presents a strong opportunity for successful socialist electoral projects which can demonstrate the thorough brokenness of our current state of affairs and the severe need for something better. But with this opportunity comes the struggles we have seen take place throughout DSA: How do we interact with our electeds? How do we hold them accountable and ensure that they are in line with our principles and our platform? Where should our red lines be?

We do not have all the answers yet to these questions. But with this resolution, the ones following it, and the open discussion in-between, we hope to make one thing clear: We will never abandon our solidarity with the fight for Palestinian liberation. Compromising on our principles to achieve a victory is no victory at all in the final analysis, for we cannot build a socialist project nor a socialist future if we abandon that which makes us socialist. So we are resolved: We will stand by the people of Palestine against the Zionist project, and we will stay in this fight until one day Palestine is finally free!

The post Their Fight is Our Fight: Palestinian Liberation and the Struggle for Socialism  appeared first on Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.