The State of Public Power in 2023
Book Review: The Man Who Changed Colors
Why DSA? Your December Dispatch
Here’s your December Dispatch! This month, Green New Deal calls, political education on Palestine, workplace organizing trainings, and more. Read on to get involved.
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 Maria — Why DSA?
- Saturday 12/9 — Understanding the Israeli–Palestinian Colonial Conflict
- RSVP for Saturday 12/9 International Committee Okinawa to Palestine Call
- Sunday 12/10 — Empower DSA Kids Event: Building Understanding and Support for Palestine
- Join our Wednesday 12/13 Ceasefire Now for People and Planet Call
- Green New Dues Call Monday 12/18 — RSVP Today
- Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee Foundational Training — In Spanish Too! Starts 1/10/24
- New Socialist Forum Out Now
- National Budget Call Recording
- Welcome New Organizing Committees and Chapters!
From Maria — Why DSA?
Raising Expectations (And Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement is perhaps less familiar to some members than Jane McAlevey’s later books like No Shortcuts. But it opens with the gripping story about how depending on business as usual and institutions stacked against us rather than street pressure and grassroots mobilization impacted the Bush vs Gore presidential election. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote in December 2020 to stop the Florida recount.
McAlevey describes herself asking, about the labor and progressive response at the time, “the American electoral process is breaking up like the Titanic and we don’t want to rock the boat?” I think of this as we face down authoritarianism at home and genocide abroad, and I’m so glad we have DSA.
Last week’s White House vigil brought together the three arenas of DSA work — electoral, labor and community organizing — with one message: let Gaza live. We are building real working class power in our workplaces, through elections, and in the streets. We are fighting on many issues but with one core analysis, that the boss class exploits the working class however it can. We can win if and only when we unite in solidarity and actually use our disruptive mass power.
This year I ask you to contribute to DSA’s financial stability by paying Solidarity Income Based Dues, particularly as we expand our member-led structure with newly elected National Co-chairs Megan and Ashik and Labor Co-chairs Sarah and Ryan. DSA members don’t sit lonely at home as we face climate change and fascism. We’re fighting, together, for democracy and socialism. We are independent of a few wealthy individuals or foundations because we fund ourselves, but we have a fundraising shortfall we can only fill if everyone chips in.
Maria Svart
DSA National Director
Saturday 12/9 — Understanding the Israeli–Palestinian Colonial Conflict
In 1967, after the Six-Day War, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a hauntingly prescient ad signed by a dozen Israeli socialists. The ad stated in part, “Occupation entails foreign rule. Foreign rule entails resistance. Resistance entails repression. Repression entails terror and counter-terror. Victims of terror are mostly innocent people. Holding onto the occupied territories will make us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.”
How should we understand what is happening in Gaza and across occupied Palestine? How does history help us understand and interpret the present? What can we do now to shape the future? Moshé Machover and Sumaya Awad will help us answer these questions.
Moshé Machover was born in 1936 in Tel Aviv and lives in London. As a student, he joined the Israeli Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1962 with other party dissidents who challenged the ICP’s lack of internal democracy and subservience to the Soviet Union. That year, he founded the Socialist Organisation In Israel, better known by the name of its journal, Matzpen. He has written extensively on socialist theory, Israel, the Middle East, and the Israeli-Palestinian colonial conflict. A collection of his essays, Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and Resolution, was published in 2012. Many of his more recent articles were published in Weekly Worker.
Sumaya Awad is a Palestinian activist and writer dedicated to advocating for the rights of all Palestinians, immigrants, and refugees. She has been published and interviewed in outlets including The Feminist Wire, Truthout, In These Times, The Middle East Solidarity Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Slate. She is co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction.
RSVP for Saturday 12/9 International Committee Okinawa to Palestine Call
Join our reportback on the recent DSA delegation to Okinawa with ZENKO! This event will be on Saturday 12/9 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT. On this call, you’ll hear from speakers in Okinawa on their struggles against military occupation and colonialism, and the parallels to Palestine today.
Sunday 12/10 — Empower DSA Kids Event: Building Understanding and Support for Palestine
Join the DSA National Political Education Committee for a special event to empower children of all ages with knowledge, compassion, and social-emotional skills to confidently support the Palestinian people during these challenging times! The call will be on Sunday 12/10 at 12:30pm ET/11:30am CT/10:30am MT/9:30am PT.
On this call, author Rifk Ebeid will present her heartwarming children’s book, “You Are The Color.” This engaging story inspires young minds and promotes unity and understanding. And be the first to see a video inspired by her story “Baba, what does my name mean?” The video provides context and support for children grappling with the ongoing tragedy in Palestine.
The call will also include a teacher’s insights on social-emotional learning strategies for these difficult times. Learn how to navigate emotions, express feelings, and foster empathy in the face of ongoing challenges. In the midst of the distressing events in Palestine, it’s crucial to provide a safe space for children to learn, express themselves, and stand in solidarity with the cause.
Join our Wednesday 12/13 Ceasefire Now for People and Planet Call
In the past months, DSA has mobilized to end the Israeli siege on Gaza and its illegal, US-funded occupation of Palestine. Join DSA’s Green New Deal Campaign Commission and the International Committee Wednesday 12/13 at 4pm ET/3pm CT/2pm MT/1pm PT for our Ceasefire Now for People and Planet call!
This panel brings together organizers and experts to discuss this resurgence of a left anti-war movement in the context of the climate crisis and explore how organizers can deepen internationalism and anti-militarism within domestic ecosocialist and abolitionist organizing. Panelists will discuss how Palestinian liberation is central to the climate justice movement — and why demilitarization is not only socially necessary, but a requirement for meeting climate and environmental goals.
Green New Dues Call Monday 12/18 — RSVP Today
Team up with the Green New Deal Campaign Commission to call our comrades about Green New Dues! We’ll focus on the exciting progress we’re making across the country on the Green New Deal — like winning the Building Public Renewables Campaign in New York earlier this year — when asking members to contribute 1% of their income to DSA as Solidarity Dues. The call will be held on Monday 12/18 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT. Join us!
Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee Foundational Training — In Spanish Too! Starts 1/10/24
Trying to organize your workplace? Want to support others organizing their workplaces?
Join the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee’s Foundational Training to learn how to organize workers. This four-part series introduces workers and non-unionized shop organizers to the basics of organizing a workplace.
This winter, on Wednesdays in January, we will be hosting our second BILINGUAL training series. Sign up today, or share with Spanish-speaking coworkers, friends, and family!
In four 90-minute weekly sessions, we will discuss how workers can unite to address issues at their workplace and how to begin the process of unionization. Participants will hear from experienced organizers and other workers organizing their own workplaces. They will practice connecting with coworkers and engaging in collective decision-making around common concerns. Participants will learn how to prepare themselves and their coworkers to take collective action. Finally, they will learn how to lay the groundwork for unionization.
¿Estás intentando organizar tu lugar de trabajo? ¿Quieres apoyar a los demás a organizar los suyos?
Participa en la Serie de Capacitación Fundamental del Comité para la Organización Laboral de Emergencia (EWOC) para aprender cómo organizar a los trabajadores. Será una serie de cuatro partes que presenta a los trabajadores y organizadores de lugares de trabajo no sindicalizados los aspectos básicos de la organización de un lugar de trabajo.
Este invierno, los miércoles de enero, presentaremos nuestra segunda serie de capacitación BILINGÜE. ¡Regístrese hoy o comparta con sus compañeros de trabajo, amigos y familiares de habla hispana!
En cuatro sesiones semanales de 90 minutos, enseñamos cómo los trabajadores pueden unirse para abordar los problemas en su lugar de trabajo y cómo comenzar el proceso de sindicalización. Los participantes escucharán a organizadores experimentados y otros trabajadores que están organizando sus propios lugares de trabajo. Practicarán conectarse con los compañeros de trabajo y cómo participar en la toma de decisiones colectivas en torno a asuntos comunes. Los participantes aprenderán a prepararse a sí mismos y a sus compañeros de trabajo para emprender acciones colectivas. Finalmente, aprenderán cómo sentar las bases para la sindicalización.
New Socialist Forum Out Now
The Fall 2023 issue of Socialist Forum, DSA’s quarterly long-form publication of theory, strategy, and debate, is now live. This issue tackles a wide range of topics, including:
- Democratic socialist electoral strategy and party building
- How should DSA engage with the Latin American Left?
- Lessons learned from recent strikes at the University of California
- Reflections on the US democratic socialist tradition
As always, we welcome responses and feedback at socialistforum@dsausa.org.
National Budget Call Recording
DSA is a membership-led and membership-funded organization, with the vast majority of our funding coming from membership dues. This guarantees that our resources come from our source of power: organized people. Our funding and our power are inextricably linked. Dues allow our organization to be accountable to our members and our members alone. On 12/5, members of DSA’s Budget and Finance Committee and national staff reported on DSA’s 2023 budget and projected financial position at the end of the calendar year.
Understanding our financial health as the National Political Committee prepares to decide the 2024 budget will aid in building sustainable funding models that can support our collective work for the long haul. As DSA members, we have a responsibility to make strategic decisions about where, when, and how we use our resources. How we raise and spend our money has political consequences for our work. That work includes grassroots fundraising: it’s part of building solidarity and power. We can’t build an independent working-class organization without the financial support of working class people.
Welcome New Organizing Committees and Chapters!
A warm welcome to our latest Organizing Committees (OCs) and chapters!
New OCs:
- Big Island, Hawaii
- Palouse, Washington
New chapters:
- Salina, Kansas
- West Sound, Oregon
The post Why DSA? Your December Dispatch appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
‘No Contract, No Coffee’: Starbucks Workers United Strike Hurt Holiday Sales
By Vanessa Bartlett
At the start of the holiday season, unionized Starbucks workers at hundreds of stores went on strike to demand that Starbucks sit down at the bargaining table with workers. Community members also mobilized to hand out fliers in front of non-union stores, encouraging customers to call Starbucks and share their support for workers.
Red Cup Day is an annual event where Starbucks locations give out reusable red coffee cups to customers who order holiday-themed drinks. This promotion is highly anticipated by ‘Bucks aficionados, and is typically one of the most profitable days of the year for Starbucks.
This year, Starbucks experienced a noticeable decrease in sales on Red Cup Day in comparison to last year. This dip in foot traffic may have been caused by the Red Cup Rebellion and other efforts to boycott Starbucks as a part of a BDS strategy for supporting Palestine.
Due to chronic understaffing, employees say this day is also one of the worst days to work at Starbucks. Cody Hale, who works at the Newton Corner Starbucks, said that the location experienced a high volume of orders–over 80 orders every 30 minutes on the morning of Red Cup Day.
Pre-covid, Hale said that Red Cup Days might have been adequately staffed, but post-covid, “not so much”.
Hale said “We didn’t have as many campaign supporters [on the picket line] this time, as opposed to our first strike back in January. But it was still pretty productive.”
“We did our best to inform and educate the customers about what’s going on with the strike… and we managed to get a lot of people to walk away, and go elsewhere, like Dunkin,” Hale said.
Long lines and wait times for drinks are issues that Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) hopes to address in a contract with Starbucks. But two years after the first Starbucks unionized in Buffalo, NY, the company has dragged its feet in bargaining.
“All these strikes wouldn’t be happening if [Starbucks] didn’t delay,” said Hale. “I just wish that they would get it done faster, and actually come to the bargaining table.”
Matthew Schreiner, a member of Boston DSA who participated in a flyering event at a Starbucks location in Medford, said that customers responded positively to workers’ demands. “The Boston area seems to be pretty receptive,” Schreiner said. “They were quite enthusiastically accepting the cards. Various people ran out of cards. So I’m guessing they gave away a couple hundred [flyers].”
Despite feeling the pressure from community members, Starbucks has played the tough guy in the press, and shows no indication of being willing to come to the bargaining table any time soon.
As their tally of unfair labor practices against union stores grows, Starbucks can certainly expect SBWU to continue catching the public eye (and hurting their bottom line) with tactical protests like this year’s Red Cup Rebellion.
Vanessa Bartlett is a staff organizer for UAW, and a member of Boston DSA. She has a background in print and radio journalism, but please don’t hold that against her.
North NJ DSA to Join CAIR-NJ and Ceasefire JC Coalition in Support of Jersey City Ceasefire Resolution
North NJ DSA to Join CAIR-NJ and Ceasefire JC Coalition in Support of Jersey City Ceasefire Resolution
On Wednesday, December 6th, North NJ DSA (NNJ DSA) will join the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ), American Muslims for Palestine NJ (AMP-NJ), Jewish Voice for Peace NNJ (JVP-NNJ) at a press conference calling on the Jersey City Council to pass Res. 23-903 calling for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine.
WHERE: City Hall of Jersey City, 280 Grove St., Jersey City, NJ 07302
WHEN: Wednesday, December 6, 11 a.m.
LIVESTREAM: North NJ DSA Facebook, CAIR-NJ Facebook, AMP-NJ Facebook
SEE: Jersey City council to vote on resolution calling for cease-fire in Gaza
SEE: NY Mag: The Pro-Palestinian Left Is Booming
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza is nearing 16,000. The overwhelming majority of casualties are civilians. At the same time, Israel has doubled the number of Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank.
SEE: Israel-Gaza war updates: 100s killed in last 24 hours in Israeli strikes
SEE: Israel arrests almost as many Palestinians as it has released during truce
North NJ DSA stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine. Our chapters across the United States are helping pass resolutions, push members of Congress to support a ceasefire, and are united in this struggle.
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The post North NJ DSA to Join CAIR-NJ and Ceasefire JC Coalition in Support of Jersey City Ceasefire Resolution first appeared on North NJ DSA.
DSA IC Stands in Solidarity with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) UAW Local 2325
The DSA International Committee stands in solidarity with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) UAW Local 2325, who have been wrongfully silenced by the New York State Supreme Court which barred Local 2325 from voting on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The IC calls on Judge Felice Muraca of the Nassau County Supreme Court to immediately lift the Temporary Restraining Order and allow the ALAA to fairly and democratically vote on this resolution. Additionally, the IC affirms its support for the passing of the resolution, which uplifts Palestinian trade unions’ calls for divestment from the Israeli military, condemns the Israeli government’s genocidal actions and rhetoric since October 7, demands an immediate ceasefire, calls for the end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and rejects craven attempts to silence and repress support for Palestine among workers’ organizations.
Supporters of the Palestinian people have long faced unjust retaliation for voicing their support in the US. As a result of a ceasefire resolution even being considered, two of ALAA’s shops, The Bronx Defenders and the Legal Aid Society are now facing threats of defunding from management and private individuals that would put their ability to operate at risk. The IC calls on the management of these shops and their legal counsel to immediately retract these repressive threats which undermine their workers’ right to democracy and free expression.
Since October 2023, the Israeli Occupation Forces have relentlessly bombarded and invaded Gaza, killing over 15,000 Palestinians including at least 5,000 children. An additional 7,000 are missing. This invasion has come with the full backing of the United States government, despite strong majority support among the American public for a ceasefire.
The NYSSC’s decision to prevent ALAA UAW Local 2325 from voting on a resolution in support of a ceasefire and an end to the death and destruction being carried out in Gaza, and the threats to defund both The Bronx Defenders and the Legal Aid Society are but two of many instances we have seen across the past two months wherein supporters of the Palestinian people are being wrongfully repressed and retaliated against. We express our support and solidarity with ALAA UAW 2325 members attempting to pass the resolution, with the people of Palestine, and with the workers around the world calling for a ceasefire, the end of the occupation, and total divestment from the Israeli war machine.
The post DSA IC Stands in Solidarity with the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (ALAA) UAW Local 2325 appeared first on DSA International Committee.
DSA-LA City Councilmembers Support Ceasefire
DSA-LA City Councilmembers Support Ceasefire
On November 28th, 2023, all of DSA-LA’s endorsed Los Angeles City Council members, Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman, and Hugo Soto-Martínez, publicly joined the growing number of calls for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, at the previously negotiated temporary pause in hostilities is set to expire.
Through our chapter’s Socialists in Office program voted on at local convention this year, we have been able to work with our electeds to move DSA priorities through offices and win material gains through city council and are actively coordinating to advance new legislation. Appointed liaisons meet regularly with our offices, and the consistency of these meetings create a foundation of trust and support between our chapter and our electeds. Sometimes there are differences in tactics and analyses, but our SIO framework allows these differences to be proactively addressed because this is how we must organize in order to win socialism. DSA members may always submit questions, concerns, or messages to DSA-LA’s Socialists in Office committee using the DSA-LA Red Desk.
While our City Councilmembers do not have the ability to directly impact aid or funding carried out by our National representatives, their voices are critical to add to the public pressure on President Joe Biden and our congressional representatives from California who have the authority to demand that our government halt its unconditional military aid to Israel, but have so far have fallen short in their responses.
Reportback Motions
Earlier last week, a tweet went viral claiming that CM Raman had seconded a motion “making littering a hate crime”. The motion is seconded by CM Raman, meaning the content of the motion is entirely CM Blumenfield’s. The relevant motion, which was submitted over a month ago, was actually requesting a report back on whether or not “littering in mass” – a tactic that has been used repeatedly over the last year by neo-nazi groups in Southern California – those actions could be prosecuted as a hate crime under current law, and asks for methods by which it may do so. This tactic is a hallmark of neo-nazi groups in the United States to target Jewish as well as Black and Armenian communities, and is not commonly used by leftist or pro-Palestinian organizing.
The motion as written does not make any immediate changes to city code, nor would it affect other tactics that are more commonly used by leftists, nor does it introduce any changes in the definition of a hate crime, which is defined by California state penal code. Additionally, a large amount of report backs that are requested in motions never come back. Still, many DSA members and allies were alarmed about the possibility that such a motion would lean further into carceral “solutions” to hate speech or be abused by local police to target leftist organizing.
Accordingly, at this week’s Public Safety meeting, CM Soto-Martinez introduced an amendment to the resolution to ask the city’s Office of Race and Equity to report back on non-carceral options to combat neo-nazi flyering, without further empowering LAPD. His amendment passed unanimously, and this motion will still go through many additional meetings and department report backs before it could affect city law, a process that could take months. We will follow this legislation through the process, and urge our elected officials to fight any legislation we consider contrary to our values. Though we recognize the imperfections of the original motion, we also cannot allow the rise of real anti-semitic and Islamophobic actions to go unacknowledged. As socialists, we have to condemn far right hate when we see it. In the weeks following the motion, our chapter has facilitated meetings with anti-occupation organizers to bring our electeds closer to our position.
If you’re interested in learning more about our chapter’s electoral and Socialists in Office program, come to the open electoral meeting on December 4.
National Political Education Events and Resources on Palestine for DSA Chapters
NPEC has been developing several political education resources and events on Palestine over the last few months. This page has all the latest for chapters and their educators to let them know what’s ahead and how to get engaged.
First, to assist chapters as they plan their political education events on Palestine, we have a Google Drive folder to centralize DSA-created political education materials. If your national DSA committee or chapter has any educational materials on Palestine to share, please submit them to NPEC using this form. Note: the inclusion of any resource in this collection is not an NPEC endorsement of its contents – we encourage you to look through the folder and use whatever materials are useful to you at your discretion. The folder with collected materials can be accessed here and will be continually updated. For a basic primer on Palestine from a socialist perspective, check out our Palestine and Socialism episode on NPEC’s Podcast, Class. In a more recent episode of Class, we also spoke with members of the Chicago Teacher’s Union about their and other unions’ call for a ceasefire.
Recordings of our educational events and trainings include Understanding the Israeli–Palestinian Colonial Conflict panel (audio version), Empower DSA Kids Event: Building Understanding and Support for Palestine (recording forthcoming), and Palestine Strategy 101: BDS. Whether you’re able to join us for our trainings or not, we encourage you to check out our sample lesson plan for organizing educational discussion spaces on Palestine in your chapter. For other events organized by other national DSA bodies, follow us on Twitter to keep up with the latest.
We are also expanding the events calendar on our website! Chapters can now add their upcoming virtual and hybrid events to a national calendar so DSA members and non-members around the country have no shortage of political education to learn from. This is an excellent way for us to show the fantastic events that our chapters are putting on while also opening those events up to a broader audience, especially right now with the urgent need for education on Palestine. If you want to add your chapter’s political education events to our national calendar, please write to us at npeccomms@dsacommittees.org or reply to this email for more info.
November 2023 Newsletter
Dear comrade,
In this newsletter, you will find information on:
- Testing OpenSlides for Chapters,
- How to get involved in the NTC,
But first, we have a new report to share with you…
The Discussion Forum Report
After the NTC was given stewardship of the Discussion Forum in the beginning of September, the committee immediately announced a Maintenance window scheduled for the morning of October 1 to begin the three years of maintenance updates the forum was behind on. This process involved tasks ranging from server maintenance, application updates, and configuration of the initial new features on the Discussion Forum. These updates have transformed the platform!
Testing OpenSlides for Chapters
and National Bodies
The NTC is testing using OpenSlides, the same tool we used at Convention, for chapters and national bodies. The National Political Committee (NPC) has approved our work plan for this wider roll out of OpenSlides. DSA members will soon be able to use OpenSlides to read introduced resolutions, propose amendments, and finally vote, both at the chapter level and as part of national working groups and committees.
Get involved in the NTC
Questions? Comments?
Email us at ntc+newsletter@dsacommittees.org