Socialist Night School Materials
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
Why the Working Class materials
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.
Broad-Based Organizing & Sacred Values | Aaron Stauffer
No Greenwashing Genocide
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.
Tell Common Council to Pass a People-First Budget
November 9, 2024
This coming Wednesday 11/13, Common Council will be voting on the City's budget. Conservative Common Council members are introducing amendments that would defund and eliminate essential city services like youth programming and critical infrastructure. We're calling for Common Council to reject these cuts and pass the budget.
These cuts would completely paralyze the city’s ability to do its basic functions: repairing streets and sidewalks, promoting affordable housing and supportive services, and providing childcare for young children and working families. Not to mention, they would reverse so many of the progressive initiatives we have fought for these past few years. Here are some examples:
Defunding of a city attorney position would disrupt the city's ability to enforce regulations that serve residents' interests, like stopping apartments from being turned into AirBNBs.
Defunding the city's health insurance would make it even harder for working class people to run for local office
Defunding the city's contribution to dozens of nonprofits who provide essential services which include food banks, childcare, support for senior residents, and legal aid.
We are calling on members of Ithaca DSA to join us this Wednesday at 5:30 PM at City Hall (108 E Green St, Ithaca) and tell Common Council to reject austerity amendments and pass a People-First Budget. The people first budget implements:
Substantial funding to address homelessness
Planning how to implement reparations for Black Ithacans
Low-cost improvements to winter sidewalk maintenance
These amendments are capitalizing on the legitimate concern Ithacans are feeling about higher taxes, but they're false solutions and the costs will be borne in working people's lives. Our DSA-endorsed council members have identified and proposed cost-saving cuts of half a million dollars for unfilled staffing positions in the police department. Right now, the City is planning to unnecessarily tax residents for positions that have been unfilled for years.
In Solidarity,
Ithaca DSA
Ithaca DSA Condemns Cornell University’s Authoritarian Crackdown on Student Activists
October 21, 2024
Cornell University targeting anti-genocide protestors with suspension, as well as the threat of expulsion and deportation
Ithaca, NY — On October 17th, four Cornell students, including the former Co-Chair of Cornell YDSA and the President of Cornell Jewish Voices For Peace were suddenly notified of their suspension from the university for participating in anti-genocide protests on campus before promptly being arrested by Cornell University Police and taken away in handcuffs.
"Cornell's recent suspension of four students for their involvement with a protest was a harsh, unaccountable, and repressive act of administrative violence," said DSA-endorsed Tompkins County Legislator Veronica Pillar. "Rather than protecting students, Cornell's actions further endanger the community. I urge Cornell administrators to reverse their decision, and I stand in solidarity with the multitude of students, faculty, staff, and alumni calling for due process, human rights, and an end to investments in genocide. Free Palestine."
"Cornell University claims to uphold values like free inquiry, expression, and community, yet its retaliatory actions against these students—suspending, arresting, and banning them for participating in a peaceful protest—directly contradict these principles," said DSA-endorsed Alderperson Kayla Matos of the Ithaca Common Council. "Cornell can practice these principles by reversing these suspensions and respecting students' right to free speech and assembly.
This comes after Cornell's suspension of Graduate Student Momodou Taal, who the university had threatened with deportation before public backlash caused his suspension to be walked back. After Taal's initial suspension, Joel Malina, Cornell's VP of University Relations, in a private meeting with students and parents, affirmed that Cornell University is comfortable with inviting the Ku Klux Klan to university campus. Cornell University's willingness to deport a Black immigrant student for exercising his right to free speech while simultaneously welcoming white supremacists onto campus is blatant white supremacy and we condemn it unequivocally.
“As of late Cornell University appears more concerned with surveilling and policing its students than with educating them,” said Jorge DeFendini, Chair of Ithaca DSA. "I urge the university to adhere to its mission of 'Any Person, Any Study,' and allow all students to exercise their right to free speech without vindictive retaliation from the administration."
Ithaca DSA condemns Cornell University's retaliation against its students and stands in total solidarity with these brave protestors in their principled stance against the genocide of Palestine. We call on the university to reverse these suspensions, drop arrest charges, and adhere to the student body's resounding call to divest from companies complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Solidarity Forever & Free Palestine.
Steering Committee of Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America
Ithaca DSA Stands with UAW 4811 in ULP Strike Against Violent Repression
May 29, 2024
Over 48,000 members of UAW 4811, higher ed workers in the University of California system, are standing up and striking back against unfair and illegal repression by their universities. These workers make the university system run with their labor, by instructing classes and bringing in grant money with their research. The wealth they create is then invested in weapons manufacturers and other companies that supply, support, and enable the genocide in Gaza, the illegal settlement of the West Bank, and the day to day violence of Israel’s apartheid regime. This Monday, May 19, they began their strike.
These workers heeded the call put out by their fellow students, joining the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza and Palestinian liberation. Union members were tear-gassed, beaten, and intimidated – first by counter protesters and then by police called by the University of California.
The response to students and workers exercising their right to free speech was repression and violence. But these academic workers are unionized, and have legal protections from unfair labor practices like this. And they have a tool to protect their rights: the strike.
With this strike, UAW 4811 makes the following demands:
1. Amnesty for all academic employees, students, student groups, faculty, and staff who face disciplinary action or arrest due to protest.
2. Right to free speech and political expression on campus.
3. Divestment from UC’s known investments in weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza.
4. Disclosure of all funding sources and investments, including contracts, grants, gifts, and investments, through a publicly available, publicly accessible, and up-to-date database.
5. Empower researchers to opt out from funding sources tied to the military or oppression of Palestinians. The UC must provide centralized transitional funding to workers whose funding is tied to the military or foundations that support Palestinian oppression.
UC academic workers are fighting against repression on behalf of students and workers everywhere, from California to Palestine! Their fight is our fight, and we stand with them!
As DSA members, we know that the workers at the University of California are fighting not just for their own safety and right to peacefully protest, but for workers all across the world, especially in Palestine. Workers at UC are taking a bold step, striking not only for better working conditions, but to defend their fundamental political rights and freedoms. After all, it is our collective power to withhold our labor by which these very rights are guaranteed. We know that the struggle for a better future begins on the shop floor, and as democratic socialists, we stand loudly and proudly alongside all workers who demand political freedom and an end to the genocide in Palestine.
Therefore, as Ithaca DSA members we commit to:
Amplify the demands of the rank-and-file through public statements of support
Hold UC accountable to meet the just demands of their workers
(IF APPLICABLE: We will join striking workers on the picket line and provide material support to help them stay strong)
When workers, students, and social movements stand together demanding an end to US complicity in Israel’s genocide, we will win!
Support for Professor Russell Rickford
First Published October 29, 2023
Ithaca DSA supports Professor Russell Rickford and is disgusted by the attacks being leveled at him. He has been accused by Cornell campus groups and media outlets of celebrating Hamas’s violence against Israeli civilians and promoting hate speech. These accusations are based on a short and decontextualized video clip of a much longer, 19-minute speech that was given at a rally in support of the Palestinian people, co-organized by Jewish Voices for Peace and the Ithaca Committee for Justice for Palestine and co-sponsored by the Ithaca DSA and other local organizations. Professor Rickford did NOT support or glorify violence against civilians. In fact, he stated "I hate violence. I hate violence. I can’t stand guns. I come from a deep tradition of peace. I come from a deep tradition of resistance to militarism, and to war. I would never presume, on principle, I would never presume, to tell an oppressed people how they should seek their liberation... I abhor the killing of civilians. It’s horrific," (full transcript of speech here).
The deliberate misrepresentation and decontextualization of his speech is an affront to open dialogue and free speech, which Cornell purports is a key value of the university. We call on Cornell to take the side of Professor Rickford, instead of those making bad faith attacks, undermine free speech, and distort others’ viewpoints for political gain.
Professor Rickford is a wonderful scholar, teacher, community member, and activist who does not deserve this incredible outpouring of hate and disinformation.