Apr 27, 2023 08:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

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Join the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) for a discussion about the timely new book Labor Power and Strategy, a rich reflection on how the working class can exercise its potentially mighty power in various industries and sectors. In Labor Power and Strategy, renowned labor historian John Womack advances a proposal that unions should focus on organizing workers in the strategic positions and “choke points” within the economy that have maximum potential leverage and power. The book’s editors invited responses from 10 of the most thoughtful organizers and scholars in the labor movement, with a diverse range of ideas on ways forward for labor. This discussion will feature Professor Womack, book editor Peter Olney, and respondents Melissa Shetler and Gene Bruskin. This event will be 90 minutes to allow for plenty of time. Register now for this lively and important discussion!

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April 17, 2023

The Akron chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) denounces the decision of the special grand jury in question to not indict the eight officers of the Akron Police Department (APD) who killed Jayland Walker last year on June 27, 2022. We furthermore denounce the current state of affairs, in Akron and across the entire United States, where police continue to have the power to murder people–especially Black and working-class people–with near-impunity; where police continue to assume the role of judge, jury, and executioner in people’s streets, communities, and homes; and where our current institutions continue to be unable to defend us against police violence.

On the aforementioned date, Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by APD officers while fleeing from the officers on foot, following a car chase for an alleged traffic violation. According to an autopsy from the Summit County Medical Examiner, Walker suffered 46 gunshot wounds as a result of police gunfire. While police claim that they found a firearm in Walker’s car, Walker was unarmed as he fled from and was killed by police. Despite this evidence, and despite the egregious nature in which Walker’s life was taken by the police, the grand jury found it appropriate to not indict the officers who killed Walker.

In addition to being a grave injustice in its own right, the killing of Jayland Walker is a local manifestation of a much larger societal problem. On average, more than 1,000 people across the United States are killed by police each year. Disturbingly, 1,176 people were killed by police in 2022, the deadliest year on record for police killings in this country. Also disturbing and relevant to the case of Jayland Walker is that 24 percent of all people killed last year by police were Black, despite only comprising 13 percent of the general population, and nearly one-third of all people killed last year were fleeing from police. Collectively, these killings represent a national and ongoing crisis.

The grand jury’s decision to not indict the officers who killed Jayland Walker also highlights a systemic problem within the criminal legal system. Statistics show that while grand juries will overwhelmingly make indictments in most cases brought before them, a stark exception exists in the form of cases involving police killings. The decision rendered for Jayland Walker joins other unjust decisions in high-profile police killings, including those of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Breonna Taylor.

Despite the unjust decision from the grand jury, Akron DSA remains unmoved in its basic commitment to educate the community in Akron and beyond on the ongoing crisis of police violence and the underlying problem of the repressive power of police as an institution. We continue to struggle for a future world where no police anywhere have the power to harass, assault, and murder people with little risk of facing consequences; where the incentives to call upon police violence to respond to social problems are eliminated; and where the need to rely upon a grand jury to hold police forces accountable for their violence is rendered moot.

Sources

Jim Mackinnon. “Akron to release body cam footage Sunday of Jayland Walker fatal shooting by police.” Akron Beacon Journal, July 1, 2022. URL: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2022/07/01/akron-police-shooting-jayland-walker-bodycam-video-ohio/7785675001/ 

Stephanie Warsmith. “What to know about the special grand jury convening Monday on Jayland Walker’s shooting.” Akron Beacon Journal, April 2, 2023. URL: https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2023/04/02/jayland-walker-police-shooting-akron-ohio-grand-jury-to-meet/70046836007/

N’dea Yancey-Bragg, et al. “Grand jury to weigh if Akron police officers should be charged in Jayland Walker’s death.” USA Today, April 10, 2023. URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/10/jayland-walker-shooting-special-grand-jury-officer-charges/11621046002/ 

Sam Levin. “‘It never stops’: killings by U.S. police reach record high in 2022.” The Guardian, January 6, 2023. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/06/us-police-killings-record-number-2022 

Ben Casselman. “It’s incredibly rare for a grand jury to do what Ferguson’s just did.” FiveThirtyEight, November 24, 2014. URL: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/ 

James Pinkerton. “Hard to charge: investigation raises questions about whether grand jury system in Harris County favors police” (Part 3 of Bulletproof series). Houston Chronicle. URL: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/investigations/item/Bulletproof-Part-3-Hard-to-charge-24421.php 

By Claire Smallwood

During the 20th century, art was a powerful tool for protesting political injustice, as wars and revolutions made conflict and oppression visible around the world. With the onset of the Cold War, much of this oppression was imposed on leftists in particular through militarism, often with the support and assistance of the U.S. government. The violent character of these U.S. foreign affairs as well as their byproducts gave rise to a wave of protest art, one which criticized the perpetrators and honored their victims. Artwork of this sort emerged alongside the growing expressionist movement in the 20th century, though it remains prevalent in contemporary art as well. Looking at works by Oswaldo Guayasamín and Dadang Christanto, we can reflect on this history of anti-communist violence in the Cold War era, U.S. leadership within it, and how this state-of-affairs has been fought by artists then and now.

Oswaldo Guayasamin

Oswaldo Guayasamín was born in Quito, Ecuador in 1919. He was a painter and sculptor whose work was primarily in the expressionist style with cubist influences. He was largely inspired by Mexican muralism and his work was particularly influenced by José Clemente Orozco. He frequently criticized social and political issues in his artwork, “portraying rampant oppression, poverty, and political strife.” This was largely a result of his childhood experiences — as he lived through a violent coup and civil war in Ecuador in the early 1930s — and the inequity he saw during his travels across the Western hemisphere.

These sentiments are clearly reflected in La edad de la ira (the Age of Wrath), his “most expressive and politically-charged” period which he began in 1952. Guayasamín was a known leftist famously acquainted with Fidel Castro, and his opinions are made evident by his series. In it, he depicted major events from the 20th century, including the Vietnam War, World War II, and the Spanish Civil War as well as various dictatorships and militaristic neo-colonialism around the world. He “saw his works as rejecting ‘…all the violence that the incalculable forces of money have created in this world.’”

In attempting to capture the essence of this artistry, this article will analyze two paintings from this period: Reunión en el Pentágono I-V (Meeting at the Pentagon I-V) and Los torturados (The Tortured), both of which criticized United States involvement in Latin America during the Cold War era and reflected the horrors of the anti-communist violence caused by such interventions.

Reunión en el Pentagono I-V

In the polyptych painting Reunión en el Pentágono I-V, created in 1970, Oswaldo Guayasamín presents a criticism of US militarism and foreign policy during the Cold War, one which strived to fight the spread of communism. Guayasamin does this by depicting a scene of malicious US government officials meeting at the Pentagon — the headquarters of the US Department of Defense — a notable center for planning these efforts.

In the scene, five men are sitting at a table with one man situated in each panel, thus maintaining Guayasamín’s expressionist style as well as the cool-toned color scheme of his Edad de la Ira. The contrast between positive and negative space in the painting draws attention to the men, as the background is painted black while the figures and the table are painted in light gray, blue, white and beige. He creates texture by layering colors unevenly and applying his oil paints smoothly in certain places while scoring and scraping it off in others. This creates a rough and almost grotesque finish, emphasizing the abstracted depiction of the men.

The subject matter of this painting is exposed in the title, as it translates to Reunion at the Pentagon, indicating that these are militaristic men meeting at the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. Guayasamín in particular is known for criticizing US involvement in Latin America, an act clearly executed in this work. Of course, these motivations were by no means unjustified, as the period from the 1940s to the early 1990s — otherwise known as the Cold War era — “the United States deployed military force or otherwise sought to overthrow a Latin American government whenever it felt ideologically threatened by the prospects of communism.” This intervention took many forms, including the financial support of parties that opposed leftist governments, the backing of right-wing military coups, the providing of arms to anti-communist groups, and the spreading anti-communist propaganda. Several of these destabilization efforts led to violent conflicts within the countries, as their impacts aided the establishment of brutal dictatorships and even instigated civil wars. Guayasamín himself said that “the attitude of the [US] government has been quite tragic for Latin America. There are repeated examples: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico.” From his leftist Ecuadorian perspective, he believed that “we have all been more or less victims, in one form or another, of the U.S. government,” a belief which influenced the painting Reunión en el Pentágono significantly.

Guayasamín’s distorted and almost comical presentation of the US militarists aims to evoke a feeling of disgust in the viewer. Small details such as the addition of sharp teeth and fingernails have been manipulated to project the maliciousness of the characters. The blocky shape of the men’s bodies and their bland color palette make them seem inhuman and convincingly stone-like. Through these components, it seems Guayasamín is commenting “that these figures of the oppressors, in this case… the United States…, do not have human interests in mind for they themselves are hardly even human, so emotionless and lifeless are they.”

He presents the men leaning forward onto the table with their hands placed in front of them, implying “a sense of activeness and control,” while simultaneously reflecting how the US military overbearingly forced itself into Latin American affairs. Each man is painted with different expressions and body positions, in line with their respective titles. For example, painting V is titled El Político, which translates to The Politician and includes a man glaring menacingly and wearing a military style hat, perhaps symbolizing the US government’s willingness to use military force to satisfy political interests. The men also appear “larger than life”, as the upper half of the men’s bodies alone takes up almost all of each canvas. All together, the panels make up a massive work, with each panel measuring 184 x 184 cm (over 6 by 6 ft). These proportions signify “the enormous power [the men] wield,” making the viewer feel small and powerless in comparison, thus echoing the immense power of the US military over Latin American people and their politics.

The clear purpose of the painting is to provoke criticism of the US government and portray them negatively, emphasizing in particular their anti-communist militarism in the Cold War. Such a notion fits within Guayasamín’s overarching goals as an artist, as he stated in an interview that “this is my form of fighting, I cannot take up a rifle but, damn it, I fight this way.”

Los torturados

In his 1977 work, Los torturados (The Tortured), Guayasamín presents a more specific example of US military involvement in Latin America, this time placing an emphasis on the victims rather than the perpetrators. The work specifically tackles the 1973 military coup in Chile, which was followed by extreme anti-leftist violence nationwide.

This oil painting is a triptych work depicting a stylized skeleton in each of its three panels. The bones of the skeletons are painted in dull shades of yellow but they are outlined in a bright red-orange color, centering the viewer’s focus on the skeleton. Red is frequently a symbol of danger, creating a feeling of urgency and concern for the skeletons in the viewer. The depiction of bones, rather than flesh, insinuates that the people are barely alive. However, the warm colors of the skeleton and its red outline, in contrast to the dark, cool toned background, emphasize that the skeletons are the only ‘human’ aspect of the painting. Thus, the people depicted are “stripped first of all material things and then even of their very own skin, so that we feel we are looking more at their flayed insides than their outer appearance, we immediately recognize them as living and suffering beings.”

The use of dark, blue toned colors in the background presents the location in which the skeletons exist as a cold and uncomfortable space. Similarly, the overlapping of limbs between the panels and the large size of the skeletons compared to the space provided in each panel gives the impression that the skeletons are confined in a small space. According to Leonard Folgarait, “the compression of the figures into the space of the picture plane [was] a ‘…torturous compression,’” turning the panels into a “prison for these figures, which portrays them as condemned to the situation they are in.”

At first glance, this painting resembles a crucifixion, as the skeletons’ bodies are positioned with their arms outstretched and bloody. The mouth of each skeleton is opened wide, as if they are screaming in agony. They are on their knees, seemingly begging for mercy. In the first two panels, the skeletons have bowed their heads, a sign that they are weak and defenseless against this violence they are experiencing. In the last panel, the skeleton looks up as they scream, perhaps reflecting a final cry for the pain to end. The bodies are dismembered and abstracted using cubist-style harsh lines and fractured shapes, with detached limbs and exposed bones, overtly demonstrating that the subjects are (as the title suggests) being tortured.

Considering these artistic descions within the context of 1970’s Latin America, this painting is a “commentary on the torture of civilians at the hands of military regimes.” According to Guayasamín, it refers especially to the 1973 US-backed military coup in Chile which overthrew democratically elected, socialist president Salvador Allende and instated General Augusto Pinochet, beginning his 17 year dictatorship.

The US government aided in the establishment of this dictatorship through a variety of methods which began in the early 1960’s, and were accelerated in 1970 when Allende was beginning to acquire power. As the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations report on covert action in Chile explains:

“On September 4, 1970, Allende won a plurality in Chile’s presidential election. Since no candidate had received a majority of the popular vote, the Chilean Constitution required that a joint session of its Congress decide between the first- and second-place finishers. The date set for the congressional session was October 24, 1970. The reaction in Washington to Allende’s plurality victory was immediate… On September 15, President Nixon informed CIA Director Richard Helms that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States and instructed the CIA to play a direct role in organizing a military coup d’etat in Chile to prevent Allende’s accession to the Presidency… U.S. Government efforts to prevent Allende from assuming office proceeded on two tracks. Track I comprised all covert activities approved by the 40 Committee, including political, economic and propaganda activities. These activities were designed to induce Allende’s opponents in Chile to prevent his assumption of power, either through political or military means. Track II activities in Chile were undertaken in response to President Nixon’s September 15 order and were directed toward actively promoting and encouraging the Chilean military to move against allende.”

To the disappointment of the US government, Allende still managed to take power in October. However, US efforts toward a military coup continued between 1970 and 1973, as the US government maintained its connections with the Chilean military and was in direct communication with contacts that were planning a coup. It was already clear from Track II efforts that the US supported anti-Allende military action, which emboldened coup-planning groups to take action in 1973.

The US government also sponsored a massive propaganda campaign “in order to foster a ‘coup climate’ in Chile.” The main tool used during this time was the financial support of opposition media. One of the main recipients of US funding was El Mercurio, a newspaper which regularly published attacks against Allende, along with editorials which were “exhorting opposition against — and at times even calling for the overthrow of — ” Allende’s government. This spread of information was controlled by the US government, which was “putting reporters and editors on the payroll, writing articles and columns for placement and providing additional funds for operating expenses.” The goal of this campaign was to increase distrust of and unhappiness with the Allende government, to ultimately inspire military intervention. Although the CIA supported several other media outlets as well, El Mercurio had the largest impact; and “according to CIA documents, these efforts played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup.”

Immediately after the successful 1973 coup, 6000 prisoners were brought to the Estadio Nacional in Chile where many were tortured and killed for supporting Allende’s government. This continued for months, and the total amounted to an estimated 20,000 prisoners. Among them was a singer named Victor Jara, who faced brutal treatment until he was eventually killed, because his songs were part of the nueva canción movement — an artistic movement which supported socialism. Many sources have suggested that Los torturados was inspired by this event and Víctor Jara’s death, as Guayasamín dedicated the painting to him. Like Guayasamín, Jara used art to oppose violence and express socialist thought. Thus, this painting emphasizes that artwork is a powerful weapon against injustice, but that it is not immune from suppression.

It is clear through this emotive work that Guayasamín intended to criticize anti-communist violence in Chile, imposed by a US-backed military regime, while emphasizing the suffering it caused on a more personal, individual level. With the historical context of Chile in mind, the heart-wrenching scene presented in Los torturados is far more powerful. In Guayasamín’s own words: “My painting is to hurt, to scratch and hit inside people’s hearts;” which Los torturados certainly does.

Dadang Christanto

Dadang Christanto was born in Central Java, Indonesia in 1957. He is an artist whose “body of work encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and performance” art; and his work regularly depicts “human suffering and communal grief.” More specifically, he has several pieces which were made to honor victims of political violence and crimes against humanity. As he explains, “my works can be confrontational, they can be stark reminders about dark chapters in a nation’s history, but ultimately, this kind of art is also about finding a certain peace, a more somber reflection on human suffering and grief.”

His passion for this subject is largely a product of his childhood experiences in 1965 in Indonesia. That year, his father was kidnapped from his home by soldiers for being a communist sympathizer and was never seen again. It is assumed that he was a victim of the anti-communist massacres which were occurring at the time, with the covert support of the US government. “As an eight year-old boy, Christanto was heavily affected by his father’s disappearance, thus his art has become inseparable from this tragedy.”

Christanto incorporates his emotions and experiences into his work through a recurring motif of graphic, stylized human heads and bodies. His paintings and drawings are frequently done on raw linen, and take the form of large scale installation work that makes use of multimedia applications. His use of unique materials is almost always symbolic, such as in his installation piece Slaughter Tunnel, in which he painted portraits of victims of the 1965 massacres in Indonesia on cardboard to represent how they were treated as “disposable” or meaningless. Repetition is another important aspect of his artwork. For example, Slaughter Tunnel and his piece Red Rain include repeated portraits while They Give Evidence includes 16 nearly identical statues holding clothes. Christanto’s piece M I S S I N G, which will be analyzed in this article, also maintains these themes.

M I S S I N G

Dadang Christanto’s M I S S I N G is a work of art created in 2018 to commemorate the victims of the US-backed, anti-communist mass killings in Indonesia in the 1960s. It is composed of 110 charcoal and acrylic portraits, each on individual rectangles of raw canvas which were pieced together to create a floor-to-ceiling installation. Each portrait depicts a human head on a dark background, with the faces appearing injured and bruised. While Christanto’s signature repetition is prevalent in this piece, each portrait clearly portrays a different person with varying injuries and facial expressions.

Christanto leaves a border of blank canvas around the portraits, keeping each separate from the rest — -despite them all being a part of the same artwork — perhaps emphasizing that each of the people depicted in the piece have individual identities. Only the faces of the individuals are visible in the painting, and they are covered in bruises and wounds, making them almost unrecognizable. As a person’s face is usually associated with their identity, focusing the subject of each portrait on their facial injuries could symbolize how the violence these individuals endured stripped them of their own identity.

The injuries endured by the individuals are emphasized by the color red, the only vibrant color present in the piece which is used sparingly in each portrait to depict blood. All other elements of the work are neutral, painted in a beige, gray, tan and black color scheme. These muted colors also add to the somber, lifeless tone of the work. The installation itself is massive — each of the portraits is 90 x 80 cm — totaling nearly 15 feet in height and 58 feet in width. Such proportions have the effect of overwhelming the viewer as they try to take in the piece as a whole.

The story behind Christanto’s M I S S I N G stems from the mass killings in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966 — which resulted in the deaths of anywhere between 100,000 to 2 million Indonesians — this is an approximation, as lack of documentation complicates the estimation of the total deaths. These massacres were a systematic effort to exterminate communists and anyone who was deemed an affiliate of the communist party. They were orchestrated by General Suharto, the Indonesian dictator who came to power via a coup in 1965. These anti-communist actions, which were carried out by the Indonesian military, were covertly supported and even aided by the US government.

Prior to the massacres, which were called “Operasi Penumpasan — Operation Annihilation,” the US had developed a strong relationship with members of the Indonesian military, including General Suharto. The US government was therefore well aware of, and even excited about, the massacre of alleged Indonesian communists. This was made clear when the US ambassador in Indonesia expressed that the “army has nevertheless been working hard at destroying PKI [Indonesian Communist Party] and I, for one, have increasing respect for its determination and organization in carrying out this crucial assignment.” The US also directly assisted the Indonesian military effort to “destroy [the communists] down to their roots,” a framing which had become the operation’s slogan. The US also provided small weapons to the military during this time, though their most significant contribution was intelligence, as the CIA provided “lists with the names of thousands of communists and suspected communists, and handed them over to the Army, so that these people could be murdered and ‘checked off’ the list.”

The massacres were characterized by a veil of secrecy, as they remained unofficial and never occurred in public. This meant that the victims simply went missing, leaving their family and friends with no information or sense of closure. The secrecy continued into contemporary times, as the Indonesian government had blocked public discussion of the massacres until 2016, when a tribunal found Indonesia guilty of crimes against humanity. The locations of mass graves from the massacres are still unknown, as is any confirmation of the victims’ identities. For Christanto, whose father was kidnapped during this period and never found, the lack of knowledge influenced the purpose of M I S S I N G. Its content was inspired by a news photographer who claimed to have accessed images of people who were tortured between 1965 and1966 but died before Christanto could contact him. Christanto “had always wondered if his father was amongst those in the photos”. This curiosity — and the subsequent search for the images — inspired him to depict the portraits of the 110 imagined victims in this piece.

Considering such a history, the overarching purpose of the piece is to oppose the silence surrounding these massacres and to commemorate its victims. This is most notably created by the overwhelmingly large size and number of portraits in the piece, both of which force the viewer to confront the extensive violence and suffering caused by the communist purges. The composition of the piece, which unifies the various portraits into one work of art, highlights how the victims of the 1965 tragedy are remembered as a group rather than as individuals with unique identities. Christanto’s emphasis on the individuality of each portrait draws attention to this lack of awareness and encourages the viewer to remember the individuals accordingly. This contrast between unity and separation creates a feeling of discomfort regarding the memory of the 1965 massacre and pushes the audience to criticize the limited attention it has received. Such is the case with many of Christanto’s works, which “are imbued with an aura of silence, precisely referencing the political silence that enveloped the injustices that have shaped his childhood.”

Though Christanto created M I S S I N G in 2018 — more than 50 years after the massacres — the piece functions as a reflection of the lasting impact this event had on both Christanto and the Indonesian community as a whole. It also criticizes how US-backed anti-communist sentiments led to unjustifiable violence and have since blocked the victims and their families from receiving well-deserved justice and closure.

In Reunion en el Pentagono, Los torturados, and M I S S I N G, a violent history of anti-communist militarism unfolds, notably one perpetuated by the US government during the Cold War era. Guayasamín and Christanto are only two of the many artists who used art as a means of resisting this violence. Yet, their works encapsulate the sentiments of the protest art category as a whole, always striving to criticize political violence, portray the suffering it causes, and honor its victims.

Art as Protest: Opposing Cold War-Era Anti-Communist Violence was originally published in The Michigan Specter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Find a running list of resolutions and bylaw/constitutional amendments here.

If you’d like to support our delegates getting to Chicago, please donate here!

Congratulations to our elected delegates and alternate!

• Brian Escobar
• Amber Ruther
• Jermaine Covington
• Eric Cortes-Kopp (alternate)

Candidates (Alphabetical by Last Name):

Hi! My name is Gabriel Bit-Babik (he/him), a student at Hamilton College and co-chair of Hamilton YDSA. I’ve been organizing in DSA since my first year, helping found my college’s chapter and working with students nationwide on key labor campaigns, including the Student Worker Alliance and Red Hot Summer. I’ve also been involved with housing activism in New York, collaborating with Housing Justice for All and the Met Council on Housing to fight for Good Cause and tenant protections. I am deeply passionate about the work Syracuse is doing with housing and labor and hope to represent it at convention!

Hi I’m Eric (he/they). I joined DSA back at the end of 2021 when I unionized my workplace and re-founded Hamilton College YDSA. I currently serve on YDSA Labor Committee and as Syracuse DSA Secretary. I also work at UFCW Local One. I’ve been involved in the local STOP! Coalition, starting the group newsletter, and frequent Mutual Aid meetings.

Although I am relatively new to DSA, I will continue to support the important work being undertaken by YDSA, and help build our labor solidarity & organizing capabilities.

Jermaine Covington has been a member of DSA since 2017 and of the Syracuse chapter since moving here from Tampa in 2021. He has previously served as Vice Chair of the DSA National Tech Committee and as president of the University of South Florida YDSA chapter. Most recently, he has been an active member of the unionization effort among graduate student employees at Syracuse University. In keeping with his tech background, Jermaine aims to further the use of technology within DSA in pursuing an unashamedly socialist political agenda. His favorite color is orange and he makes pretty good muffins.

Brian Escobar: I’ve been involved in leftwing politics since the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011. Not seeing many ways to learn about socialism locally I started a local socialist reading group in 2014 and worked for and volunteered with the Syracuse Peace Council. I was involved in the local Sanders campaign in 2016, when DSA started to grow exponentially. I co-founded the Syracuse chapter of DSA in 2017. I’ve been a chapter co-chair all but 15 months in that time and since March have been taking a refreshing partial break (I’ve been able to focus more energy on the national organization).

Amber Ruther (they/she) I’ve been in DSA since 2016 – first in NYC-DSA, now in Syracuse DSA. I helped organize for and win the Build Public Renewables Act, which will ensure a just transition to renewable energy built with union labor. I’ve also canvassed for Mo Brown, canvassed with Families for Lead Freedom, and helped organize mutual aid free stores, member socials, and political education discussions around achieving peace in Ukraine and Palestine. As a delegate, I’d support resolutions that strengthen internal democracy and electoral accountability, reform the NPC and NHGO, and support all types of work in DSA – from labor to anti-imperialist organizing.

Image Caption: Amber Ruther (left) and Clayton Terry (right) canvassing for Maurice Brown, a DSA Candidate running for the Onondaga County 15th Legislative District

Syracuse DSA Delegate Election Timeline (Updated May 30, 2023)

• May 21st: Nominations Period Closes
• June 2nd: Deadline to Confirm Candidacy
• June 3rd to June 5th: Election Period Open using Rank Choice Voting
• By June 6th: Announcement of Results

What is the DSA Convention?

The DSA Convention is the highest decision making body in DSA. Every two years, chapters and at-large members elect Delegates to vote on resolutions, make changes to DSA’s national bylaws and constitution, and set the vision for the work that DSA will be doing for the following two years.  

The 2023 Convention will run from the morning of Friday, August 4 through the early afternoon of Sunday August 6. Delegates must arrive on Thursday, because Friday will be a full day starting at 9 am.

Why discuss the Convention?

In order to participate in the democratic processes of our organization, it is imperative that chapter leaders communicate to members about the Convention, its role in our work, how to participate, and what will be voted on at the Convention.

Chapter leadership should include information about Convention in general meeting agendas and in chapter communications in the lead up to Convention. 

All members in good standing should be afforded the opportunity to run as delegates and give feedback on Convention proposals. 

What happens at Convention?

In order to participate in the democratic processes of our organization, it is imperative that chapter leaders communicate to members about the Convention, its role in our work, how to participate, and what will be voted on at the Convention.

Chapter leadership should include information about Convention in general meeting agendas and in chapter communications in the lead up to Convention. 

All members in good standing should be afforded the opportunity to run as delegates and give feedback on Convention proposals. 

Who attends the Convention?

Delegates are elected to attend the convention. Most Delegates are elected by their chapter’s membership. Others are elected by the at-large membership to represent members who are not currently in a chapter. 

Chapters will also elect alternates in case their Delegates cannot make the Convention. Alternates have the opportunity to attend Convention, but they do not vote unless they are filling in for a Delegate from their chapter. 

For more detailed information on delegates here.

The post 2023 National Convention – Important Information appeared first on Syracuse DSA.

By Zoe Thomas

In 2023, over two decades after 9/11, the US military is facing a recruiting crisis. Without the fear of terrorism or threat of war to push young people into service, a strikingly low number of those eligible have expressed interest in joining the military. To combat this, the US Armed Forces have begun to make various appeals to the next generation of soldiers centered around the gamification of war. To do this, the military has employed video game style marketing tactics including commercials, military ESports teams, and their own privately-developed video game to minimize the violence of war, romanticize military action, and focus recruiting efforts on young men and boys.

The most prominent example of this are commercials that air both on TV and online platforms like Youtube. Video game imagery, both subtle and not, has become increasingly common in recruitment ads, most notably an ad from 2007 that opens with two men playing video games. More recent commercials are much more subtle in their video game integration, using bright colors and electronic-looking graphics to give war the appearance of a video game without explicitly making the comparison. Nevertheless, these advertisements depict an action-packed, gamified vision of war with none of the consequences. The real realities of war — violence, PTSD, death, destruction — are conveniently glossed over. Online and TV ads are the most easily recognizable forms of US military advertising, but they account for just a fraction of the military’s $400 million a year advertising budget.

Another way that the military markets to young men through video games is the emergence of ESports teams that now exist in every branch of the military. According to the Defense Department, these teams are highly publicized and used for recruitment; the almost comically transparent DOD website boasts that “​​for some of these service members, […]it’s actually their job to play video games.” In that same article, Navy Lt. Aaron Jones describes how the military runs tournaments in the high schools and colleges where they recruit. Not only does this further link war-like video games to actual combat, it also demonstrates how the US Army is directly using these programs to appeal to their youngest recruits.

Unfortunately, this kind of marketing is not new: a last case study of this tactic comes in the form of the game America’s Army, produced in 2002 by the United States military for the purpose of recruiting “tech-minded teenagers.” The game is a standard first-person shooter, similar to games like Call of Duty, although it claims to be extremely accurate to real military weapons and combat. A notable exception to this is a lack of blood and gore common in this style of game, allowing the America’s Army to be marketed to an even younger audience (rated T for teen). Released around the time of US intervention in the Middle East, the game is modeled after the war on terrorists in the fictional country of Czervenia; it was available for free online download for 20 years, with multiple iterations, before being shut down. Not only was the game created as a way to get young people interested in joining the military, but by making an account to play the game the US Army got access to the contact information of an estimated 13 million players. With the average cost of recruiting standing around $15,000 per soldier, the dissemination of America’s Army proved to be one of the most cost-effective ways to get into the homes and minds of young Americans.

All of these tactics, from traditional advertising to ESports to an entire video game, have one thing in common: their target audience. Marketing to children is a well documented issue, but it becomes even more dangerous when the product isn’t a Barbie or a Happy Meal, but a delusional, jingoistic military fantasy that has the opportunity to cost a parent not a few dollars, but the life of their child. Many kids, especially young boys, start playing video games as early as elementary school, some also gain unbridled access to the internet around this time. By using video games as a catalyst, the Army is purposefully reaching out to an audience at a time in their lives when they are most vulnerable and easily persuaded by thinly veiled military propaganda. Not only that, this new child-friendly, brightly colored, gamification of war masks the horrors and crimes that older Americans are more equipped to be aware of. The children and teens being fed this misinformation don’t have an understanding of war that involves death and exploitation and colonization — everything they know comes from these games. They are being taught that war is not bloody, that the enemy is a team wearing another color, that getting killed in battle just means you have to start the level again. These measures by the Army are not only desperate and immoral, but another example indicative of how the United States military complex will go to terrifying lengths to remain in control of our people, our country, and the world.

Commercials, ESports, and America’s Army: A Modern History of the US Military Marketing to Children was originally published in The Michigan Specter on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As workers, tenants, and families settled down in the late hours of Thursday April 13th, after a long day of our labor being used to keep Florida running, Governor DeSantis signed a wholly unpopular bill into law that aims to escalate the unwanted exclusion of Floridians from access to abortions. This action has been decades in the making. As money from the evangelical elite poured into the Republican Party, and as the Democratic Party stood idly by on the sidelines while focusing their hate towards us as democratic socialists, the State of Florida has intensified its attacks against a person’s right to basic healthcare.

We are continuing our struggle as a chapter to force local policymakers and law enforcement to decriminalize abortion and protect citizens in the Tampa Bay Area from some of the most draconian laws in the country. We need to mobilize to apply pressure on these forces with popular public will. Join us to fight back.

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The post Tampa DSA’s Statement on the 6 Week Abortion Ban appeared first on Tampa DSA.

The US Labor Movement and the Socialist Role

A DSA National Political Education Committee Course

NPEC is excited to announce our newest course about socialist and our historical role in the Labor movement in the United States. In this packet, you will find everything you need to host this lesson with your chapter; the organizers’ guide for how to run the lesson, a handout for participants and the lesson’s slide show.

1. The vital role socialists of various kinds have played (and can still play) in the US labor movement. To thrive, labor needs a strong socialist movement.
2. The critical role powerful labor organization and strikes play in shifting the power balance between labor and capital to realize political and social objectives. A thriving socialist movement needs a powerful labor movement.

NPEC US Labor Movement and the Socialist Role Organizers’ Guide

NPEC US Labor Movement and the Socialist Role Handout

NPEC US Labor Movement and the Socialist Role Slides

The Tampa chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has voted in favor of signing onto a resolution from the National DSA International Committee in support of Cuba. The resolution, among other things, insists that the obscene, deadly blockade of Cuba be lifted so that people on the island can have the same access to food, medical supplies, and other essential goods the United States cut off from the Cuban people. Read the resolution by the IC, below.

DSA International Committee: Chapter Call to Action

ince 1959, the United States has restricted trade, travel, remissions, and even the foreign relations of Cuba. Although opponents of U.S. imperialism refer to this hostile orientation as el bloqueo, or the blockade, the US restrictions are actually a patchwork of congressional acts and executive orders initiated during the Eisenhower administration and expanded by virtually every administration since. Despite a temporary thaw in relations during the Obama administration, Donald Trump reversed all progress and imposed even harsher restrictions on Cuba’s economy. Make no mistake: the blockade of Cuba is a multi-generational economic war. 

Today, the US blockade on Cuba touches every facet of the lives of the Cuban people. The threat of secondary US sanctions prevents international businesses and financial institutions from doing business with Cuba, cutting off not only credit and investment, but also crucial industrial and manufacturing equipment. The blockade prevents Cuba from purchasing life-saving medical equipment and basic goods, and even prevents Cubans in the US from sending remittances to family members. As a result of Trump’s escalation during the global pandemic, Cuba has been hindered in its plans to produce and share its locally-developed vaccines with the world. President Biden has failed to deliver on campaign promises to return to Obama’s Cuba policy and has instead continued the Trump policy of collective punishment.

At the 2019 convention, DSA adopted a resolution to support Cuba Solidarity work and to join the National Network on Cuba, of which we are a proud member today. In 2021 we further adopted a commitment in the DSA Political Platform to push for normalizing relations with Cuba and lifting sanctions. Our position has been to unite a broad front to oppose the blockade and to fight locally and nationally to dismantle its key components including the sanctions, travel ban, and the baseless designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terror. Learn more about DSA’s fight against the blockade: https://international.dsausa.org/cuba-solidarity/ 

Now is the time for DSA and YDSA chapters across the country to get involved with this vital work to end the blockade! The Cuba Solidarity Working Group, working through the IC Americas Subcommittee, is calling on local DSA and YDSA chapters to commit to fighting to end the US Blockade on Cuba by supporting the following goals:

• Our chapter will select a liaison to contribute to national Cuba organizing and coordinate the sharing of information, resources, and calls to action back with our chapter. 

• Our chapter will promote and sign on to coordinated national statements and campaigns with other DSA chapters and partner organizations that seek to dismantle key elements of the blockade, including congressional pressure campaigns. 

• Our chapter will seek to support local, municipal, and state government resolutions for Cuba normalization.

• Our chapter will participate in national political education events about the blockade and seek to organize events for members locally.

• Our chapter will share and promote opportunities for members to travel to Cuba on trips coordinated by DSA and partner organizations.

DSA and YDSA chapter leaders, please fill out the form below to sign your chapter up to participate:

The post Tampa DSA Signs Resolution to End Cuba Blockade appeared first on Tampa DSA.

by Isaac Jiménez, New Jersey Monitor
April 14, 2023

As cities nationwide see staggering housing prices and tenants priced out of metro regions, workers are fighting back.

This week in Jersey City, residents spent five hours at a council meeting to demand that city officials give tenants a universal right to counsel to protect them from eviction, displacement, and neglect from landlords. This means if a tenant needs legal defense and can’t afford it, one will be afforded to them, like in criminal proceedings.

Much of the council struggles to understand the gravity of the housing crisis, even after a DSA-led coalition spelled it out for them. A media report on the council’s initial reaction to the plan suggests they do not understand how to protect tenants from eviction and hold all landlords accountable.

For residents in Jersey City — or any municipality in New Jersey — to see true housing justice, tenants’ rights need to be universal in theory and in practice. In New Jersey, you need good cause to evict a tenant. We’re now pushing for this to be universally administered.

This is not a fight seen in Jersey City alone; everyone is feeling the squeeze. This week, Rutgers University faculty members, who have worked nearly a year under an expired contract, began a strike to demand job security, equal pay for equal work, and a living wage. Some of the issues we’re hearing on the Rutgers picket lines are the same we’re experiencing in Jersey City: workers struggling to pay for basic necessities like rent in a state with an ever-increasing cost of living.

A version of the Jersey City right-to-counsel ordinance proposed by council members aligned with Mayor Steven Fulop — a newly announced candidate for governor in 2025 —would protect just those making under $64,000. But that would mean even some public school teachers struggling to have rent control enforced in their building wouldn’t qualify. For any right to be a right, it can’t bank on means tests that spend more energy on gatekeeping aid than administering it.

Some council members suggested that tenants’ right to counsel would harm landlords from “justifiably” evicting someone, or that we should provide guaranteed counsel for landlords. While we may disagree on the politics here — I and others say housing is a human right and there are no just evictions — the right to counsel is intended to change the existing power imbalance. The National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel found that, on average, 80% of landlords are represented in housing court, while only 3% of tenants are. When tenants get representation, they get more time and money, and can avoid an eviction record, as lawyers often successfully negotiate settlements with landlords.Jersey City residents lobby for a right to counsel at the city’s April 12 council meeting. (Photo by Nicolas Wolfgang Arango)

The legislation proposed by the Right to Counsel JC coalition — legislation that could see final approval next month if enough council members vote in favor — would defend tenants at Portside Towers, a building on Jersey City’s waterfront whose landlord wrongly claims is not rent-controlled. This version of the ordinance would be universal, for all tenants, and cover proceedings like taking a landlord to court for rent control violations. Many Portside tenants earn significant incomes, yes, but they are being failed by the current city’s tenant-landlord office. The reason council members would attempt to means test tenants’ right to counsel is becoming clear: They don’t want to target landlords of luxury rentals that are violating tenants’ rights. We should question whether this is because many of their donations are from the developers that build these rentals.

A right to counsel does not have to be cost-prohibitive. New Jersey towns and cities could use federal and state funds that have restrictions like means tests, fund the “unqualified” themselves, and still save money in the end. Universal programs administered by local governments can fund the portions that development fees can’t, and in the end, would save governments a lot of money in building shelters, health care, foster care, and other social safety net services. This sets New Jersey on a path to other important universal programs in the future, like statewide single-payer health care.

As workers across New Jersey demand higher wages, we here in Jersey City are demanding fair housing practices and, by extension, lower rent! When landlords know tenants have a right to counsel, eviction filings go down altogether. It’s as if many evictions aren’t justified after all. With a deep court backlog, tenants often call it quits and scatter. A right to counsel in every New Jersey municipality experiencing increases in both rent and luxury housing development should look to Jersey City at this moment. We are bargaining for the common good, as one working class, one union in one fight.

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New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and Twitter.

The post From Trenton to city hall, workers are demanding more first appeared on North NJ DSA.

On Saturday, April 22nd, Chicago DSA’s Political Education & Policy committee will host a walking tour that will bring together speakers from across the labor movement to highlight important sites in Chicago’s rich labor history. Our path will illuminate the political forces that shaped, and were shaped by, the city of Chicago. It also tells a bigger story, tracing the arc of the labor movement over its 150+ year history in the United States: A history where socialists have been at the forefront, driving the movement forward, inspiring the ire —and often violent retaliation— of the capitalist class by demanding labor’s due.

The fates of the socialist movement and the labor movement are historically intertwined. The first American mass labor movement was born of class struggle in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Because of the city’s rivers, railroads, position on the Great Lakes, and access to raw materials, Chicago saw dramatic growth. Leveraging their wartime contracts, the capitalists, oligarchs and robber barons consolidated power and deployed world-changing industrial technology at scale, and the city swelled with immigrant labor. German, Irish, British, and Scandinavian working and peasant classes powered Chicago’s booming industry in the 1860s and 70s. Some were steeped in the international socialist movement that had emerged on the European continent.  And as the turbulent, brutal inequality of the Gilded Age advanced across a fractured nation, labor became ever more militant in its demands.

Some of the most iconic struggles occurred in Chicago’s meatpacking industry, where the mass production of livestock transformed America’s food system, as well as the conditions of labor for its workers. Socialist muckraker Upton Sinclair brought infamy to the industry with his 1906 novel The Jungle, describing the grim realities of Chicago’s Union Stockyards. The national campaign for the eight-hour workday took shape in the Stockyards, fueling socialist and anarchist agitators, and ultimately producing the bloody events of the Haymarket Affair in 1886.

People-powered movements require the exercise of solidarity; America’s first surging labor movements often broke themselves against the seawalls of exclusionary racism and xenophobia. Karl Marx himself understood that the racialized social hierarchy of America was an impediment to labor becoming organized, let alone amassing and exercising political power. “In the United States of America, every independent workers’ movement was paralyzed as long as slavery disfigured a part of the republic,” he wrote in Volume I of Capital. “However, a new life immediately arose from the death of slavery. The first fruit of the American Civil War was the eight hours agitation, which ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from New England to California, with the seven-league boots of a locomotive.” 

At the turn of the century, labor organizers grappled with these forces in Chicago. Campaigns in the stockyards were sundered as craft unions refused to admit Black workers, and the bosses hired Black and immigrant workers as strikebreakers. Efforts collapsed as racial antagonism and white supremacist violence roiled Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. In the 1930s, Black worker-organizers took the lead, laying the foundations for intentional, multi-racial mass organizing drives. The Congress of Industrial Organizations, under the influence of the American Communist Party (CPUSA), successfully organized tens of thousands of Stockyard workers across racial and ethnic lines.

But the 20th century also saw waves of successful Red scares, pinning the blame for social upheaval squarely on the Left, and resulting in the expulsion of CPUSA organizers from their leading roles in organized labor. Mid-century developments in logistics opened the way for the meatpacking industry to decamp from the city to rural areas, bringing in yet another wave of non-unionized immigrant labor. In 1971 the Union Stockyards closed for good, and within a matter of years, deindustrialization began to sweep across the Midwest. America’s overall union density has declined dramatically since then for many reasons, including globalization & offshoring, business unionism & concessionary bargaining, anti-union legislation such as right-to-work, unchecked corporate monopoly power, the dominance of finance capital in the modern economy, and a political class largely untethered to the realities of working-class life.

Today, the vibrant heart of organized labor is in public sector unions. In particular, the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators that gained control of the Chicago Teachers Union has led the way for educators across the country to wield their power through strategically withholding their essential labor. Through their strikes in 2012 and 2019, CTU flexed their power by bargaining for the common good, including strike demands like social workers and affordable housing for the 17,000+ homeless students in Chicago Public Schools. And in recent years, as runaway inequality leaves more and more people behind, service and logistics sector organizing has surged, driven by the rank-and-file. With victorious reform caucuses making waves in powerful unions like UAW and the Teamsters, labor power is on the rise again.

As Democratic Socialists, we envision socialism as Eugene Debs described it: “merely an extension of the ideal of democracy into the economic field.” The union is the working-class institution that allows working people some measure of control over the places where we spend a third or more of our precious time. We know the world does not function without the workers caring for our children, delivering our packages, preparing our food, and providing our healthcare.

Please RSVP to join us on Saturday, April 22nd at 1 pm to see where the world as we know it was made: in the streets, where the socialist movement and labor movement came together in militant action.

The post A Union Town: Walking Through Chicago’s Labor History appeared first on Midwest Socialist.