Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 2/27 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Turnout Tuesday (In person at 1916 McAllister)

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

Friday, 3/1 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, 3/2 (11:45 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Hands Off Rafah (In person at Harry Bridges Plaza at the Embarcadero)

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

Sunday, 3/3 (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.): Art and Propaganda Party (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Tuesday, 3/5 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Fundamentals of Organizing in DSA SF (Location TBD)

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

Wednesday, 3/6 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour at Zeitgeist (Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

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

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

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

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

Events & Actions

Turnout Tuesday for Palestine Tonight!

Join us at the office at 1916 McAllister tonight (February 27th) from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for Turnout Tuesday! The Palestine Solidarity WG will be calling members to turn out for the Hands Off Rafah rally on March 2nd. We’ll order pizza and have drinks available!

Virtual participants are also welcome! If you are unable to make it in person but would like to make calls this evening, drop a message into the #palestine-solidarity channel on Slack.

DSA SF and EBDSA Merch Design Competition (Submissions Due TOMORROW)

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

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

Hands Off Rafah Rally and March

Join DSA SF and EBDSA this Saturday, March 2nd at Harry Bridges Plaza at the Embarcadero starting at 11:45 a.m. for the mass rally and march coinciding with the Global Day of Action for Palestine. Ceasefire now!

Apply to Join the 2024 Convention Planning Subcommittee!

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

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

Behind the Scenes

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

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

Questions? Feedback? Something to add?

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

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

Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America Little Red Letter #124 Organizing Everywhere, Macalester Undergrads Want a Union, Camp Nenookaasi Today, and More! Organizing Everywhere We usually lay out events further down in the newsletter, but this edition we want to highlight some amazing actions that are going to have the Twin Cities buzzing for the […]

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When St. Paul elected their first all female and nearly all women of color City Council last year, there were high hopes this would deliver progressive change at the City Council level. On Wednesday, February 21 those hopes took a heavy blow. Council President Mitra Jalali, widely known as a progressive, refused to bring forth […]

From the ridiculous (Moms for Liberty) to the sublime (Notorious D.O.T.)  The school board beat is not usually this tabloid-worthy, but have you all been following the -ahem- “career” of Bridget Ziegler of Sarasota, Florida? This fine, upstanding lady is married to Christian Ziegler, who was ousted last year as the chair of the Florida […]

It’s time once again for our annual Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America Convention, happening on Saturday, March 23 from 10-5 at the Goodman Community Center. Please RSVP as soon as possible! This year, we’re excited to move back to an in-person convention.

At Convention, members in good standing are invited to take a look back at the past year and make important decisions about the direction of the upcoming year. Here’s what you can expect at the MADSA Convention: getting to know your comrades and team building, political discussion, voting on exec positions, working group charters, chapter campaigns, and a delicious (and free) lunch.

The 2024 About the MADSA Convention Guide has everything you know about Convention, what to submit, what to expect, voting procedures, and more. Please bookmark it.

We’re asking members to submit the following things by March 15th: 

• Nominate yourself or someone else for the executive committee! The executive committee is responsible for day-to-day chapter operations and making decisions between membership meetings.
• Nominate yourself or someone else for the Community Accountability Committee!. The CAC members help with community accountability.
• Working group report and charter. Do you want to recharter your working group? Does your charter need to change? Do you have an idea for a new working group? This year, all Working Group charters will need 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.
• Campaign proposals – What should the chapter work together on? We’ll be collecting campaign proposals and voting on one. If you have a campaign idea, please complete the Strategic Campaigns Proposal Worksheet, linked in the 2024 Convention Guide, and take a look at the slides from the 2/18 Strategic Campaigns Training. All campaign proposals will need at least 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.

More information on all of these items can be found in the 2024 Convention Guide. 

Solidarity,

Madison DSA Convention Committee 

Upcoming Convention Events

DSA Leadership Intensive┃Sat and Sun March 2&3 12-5pm ┃RSVP 
This two-day training, led by DSA’s national Growth and Development Committee (GDC), is meant for chapter leaders (or prospective chapter leaders) of all experience levels to come together, learn from one another, and return to organizing with a greater understanding of what it takes to build DSA into a mass organization of working people across diverse backgrounds. We will cover everything from how to cohere your chapter around shared projects to the basic, day-to-day work of chapter officers.

Executive Committee Q&A ┃Monday March 4 7-8pm ┃Zoom ┃Passcode 371739
Anyone considering a role on the Executive Committee is encouraged to attend.

March General Membership Meeting┃Tuesday March 12 7-8:00pm ┃Social Justice Center & Zoom 
The official Convention Agenda will be presented and discussed, along with other important convention updates.

Convention RSVP Form, Campaign proposals, Working Group submissions and officer nominations DUE ┃ Friday March 15 @ Midnight

Convention Compendium Available ┃ March 16th
A convention guide including campaign proposals, working group submission and officer statements will be shared with all members.

2024 MADSA Convention┃Saturday March 23 10am-5pm ┃Goodman Center Ironworks, Grace Room

We shouldn’t know their name, but after what has transpired, it’s important we remember our dead. Nex Benedict was a 16-year-old nonbinary, genderfluid student at Owasso High School in Oklahoma. On February 7th, while Nex was in the girls bathroom with their friend, three older students came in and beat them up. It was reported that Nex’s head was smashed into the floor multiple times. They could not walk to the nurses office without assistance. No teachers or school staff called an ambulance for them.

According to Sue Benedict, Nex’s mother, “Nex was a straight-A student who enjoyed reading, art, their cat Zeus, creating new recipes, and playing video games like Minecraft.” Nex and their family are a part of the Choctaw Nation and they lived on the Cherokee reservation.

On February 24th, local trans artists and organizers in Greater Portland saw that the Trans Advocacy Coalition of Oklahoma was holding a vigil for Nex Benedict. It was a swift decision to hold space for our grief and rage here in solidarity. Roughly 60 people joined on the very cold Sunday evening with less than 24 hour notice. A testament to the need for community in this difficult time.

Speakers at the Portland vigil included Sampson Spadafore (they/he) and RBoots Shertzer (they/them), lead organizers in the vigil, as well as a local trans and queer youth, and Osgood (they/them), the executive director of Portland Outright. Because of the short notice, members of the Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance could not be in attendance, however it was an honor to share their words of grief at the event.

After our moment of silence, organizers opened the mic to allow community members to speak. Members of all ages and backgrounds, different experiences, both trans and allied, came to the mic to share about their grief, their fears, their justified rage, and their solidarity. 

The following are some of the words shared by Spadafore, who acted as emcee for the evening.

***

When we lose a trans person somewhere, that loss is felt everywhere. We are here in solidarity with them. We grieve this loss and we share the deep sorrow they are feeling.

Nex suffered a long history of bullying. First, they were bullied for their indigeneity, then for their gender identity. Their death came after the Oklahoma Education Department superintendent Ryan Walters confirmed that Chaya Raichik, otherwise known online as Libs of TikTok, would serve on the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee. For those who may not know, Libs of TikTok is a rightwing account and has gained an extreme rightwing following across multiple platforms. Raichik calls teachers, schools, queer and trans activists, and our supporters “groomers.” Multiple times, when teachers and schools are being put on blast by Libs of TikTok, they receive bomb and death threats. And now this person is to be a Library Media Advisor for the entire state of Oklahoma.

It is clear that there is a direct correlation between the state legislators’ false, inflammatory rhetoric about trans people and physical harm on the streets to our community. We have seen this before. It is a tale as old as this settler colonialist, patriarchal, capitalist hell hole of a country. But our demonization must stop today.

We are here to stand against oppression, to stand up for safety and the ability to thrive for all trans youth everywhere, and to fight for our collective liberation. We use the time honored tradition of marching in the street to pay homage to those who came before us, who are no longer with us, as we come together in solidarity with Nex and their family.

When I say we are fighting for our collective liberation, I do not just mean trans folks, not just white trans folks. I mean all of us who experience oppression under these systems and structures created for and by Rich White Cis Hetero Men. Our Collective Liberation does not happen without the liberation of Two Spirit people. Our Collective Liberation does not happen without the liberation of Black and Brown Queer and Trans people. Our Collective Liberation does not happen without the liberation of Palestine. Our Collective Liberation does not happen without liberation of Queer and Trans Palestinians who are on their land or in the diaspora. Not without all of those oppressed by settler colonialism.

Our liberation does not happen without you.

We all need each other in this fight, because we are all connected. The oppressor will have you thinking that your fight for education, or your fight for reproductive health, or your fight for a livable wage, or your fight for universal health care, or your fight for gender liberation, or your fight for reparations, or your fight for disability justice, or your fight for immigrants, or your fight to end homelessness isn’t tied up together in the same damn knot but it is. 

We need each other and we need each other now!

In the state of Maine and across the U.S., trans people everywhere deserve safety in school, work, and all aspects of life. We deserve dignity and protection from violence. This is a call for our legislators, our city councilors, our teachers, our doctors, our community leaders, to take trans safety seriously. We are under attack and we all must fight back.

There was a recent initiative to make Maine a sanctuary state for trans youth seeking refuge from other states where it’s become hostile or even illegal to transition. Places like Oklahoma. Unfortunately this bill had some flaws, so they decided to vote it down to rewrite and resubmit this bill with stronger, more accurate language. We need to let our Maine legislators know that we want this bill put forward again and that we support its passage. We demand that Maine becomes a safe place for Trans people everywhere!

Maine legislators are currently considering a tribal sovereignty bill, LD 2007, to restore the inherent right of the Wabanaki Nations in Maine to self-govern within their respective territories in accordance with the same federal laws that govern tribal lands elsewhere in the U.S. This Bill addresses long-standing issues with a land claims act passed in 1980 that governs the relationship between the state and the tribes in Maine. The Wabanaki Alliance has created an incredible toolkit for supporting this bill. I am asking everyone here to go to wabanakialliance.com, find out more about the bill LD 2007, and call your representatives. We are here to demand the Wabanaki People in Maine gain their longer overdue tribal sovereignty!

Keep fighting, keep grieving, keep showing up for your community. Love to you all and stay safe.

***

The following are organizations we encourage you to donate to in support of Oklahoma’s Queer and Trans community.

Trans Advocacy Coalition of Oklahoma, Freedom Oklahoma, Oklahomans for Equality, and The Rainbow Youth Project.

The post Mainers hold Vigil for Nex Benedict, deceased trans teen from Oklahoma appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Once again, we find ourselves in an election season, and once again, our Electoral Working Group has sprung into action to weigh in. 

We’re tasked collectively to grapple with the political realities of San Diego. We’ve seen a slow shift from a primarily Republican-run city to a primarily centrist Democrat-run city. Many of the races are handpicked (or uncontested) by a Democratic establishment that favors a status quo that has long stopped working for San Diegans. But, we do see some bright spots and opportunities worth highlighting.

The candidates named in the guide are simply recommendations. They are not socialists, but there are planks of their platform we believe will materially benefit the working class—especially in comparison to other […]

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DSA San Diego sadly shares the news of the passing of Herbert Shore, one of the co-founders of our chapter and a former member of DSA’s National Political Committee. Herb was 83 and is survived by his wife, Virginia Franco.

Herb and Virginia were members of Students for a Democratic Society and subsequently the New American Movement, which in turn merged with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee to form the Democratic […]

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