MDC DSA Virtual October General Body Meeting; Write testimony in opposition to “Secure” DC legislation being considered by DC Council; Sign up now: Big Tech and Capitalism: DC Walking Tour
MDC DSA Virtual October General Body Meeting — Sunday, October 1
In light of the recent COVID
surge, the Metro DC DSA Steering Committee has decided to make this
Sunday’s October 1 General Body Meeting completely virtual. You can RSVP
for the GBM, which will run from 2 to 4pm, here. Members, potential members and supporters alike are welcome to attend.
PLUS: Save the date for our chapter’s Local Convention! The MDC DSA Steering Committee has voted to set the dates for the 2023 Local Convention for Saturday, December 9 and Sunday, December 10, 2023.
Local Convention is an opportunity for the full chapter to introduce,
debate and vote live on general resolutions, bylaw amendments and other
considerations for the chapter. The convention planning team is in the process of forming and will be headed by a few Steering members. The
Steering election for the 2024 term will occur concurrently with
convention and will be managed by a separately constituted internal
election department. The convention will likely be in a hybrid format,
pending any COVID or safety concerns.
Keep
an eye out for an Action Network link to register and additional
resources about the upcoming convention. If you are interested in
following along with debate ahead of local convention, make sure to send
your most recent dues receipt to [email protected] to join the Chapter
slack. If you are interested in getting involved with convention
planning, please reach out to [email protected] or on the
#steering channel on Slack.
Write testimony in opposition to “Secure” DC legislation being considered by DC Council — deadline for submissions October 1
Councilmember Brooke Pinto (Ward 2) recently introduced a bill package
that would hyper-criminalize life in DC, particularly by reinstating
stop-and-frisk. This legislation is billed as “anti-crime,” though all
it will do is expand powers of the police to violate civil rights and
authorize racial profiling that will inflame tensions between police and
communities across the city. One of the terrible proposals included in
this legislative package would even allow the police to search parolees
or those released on pre-trial detention anywhere, anytime, without a warrant. Two DC judges have already warned that parts of the bill appear to violate the Fourth Amendment.
Metro
DC DSA and other activist and community networks across the city are
urging residents to submit testimony against this legislation.
Learn more about the proposal from this toolkit.
In this detailed report, you can read what’s included in the proposals,
why it needs to be stopped and what needs to be done to actually address cycles of violence in DC.
DC residents and other interested parties are urged to submit testimony to the DC Council. Click here to access the prompt and submission toolkit, which includes instructions on how to submit testimony. Not sure what to write? Information in the Google form will help you craft testimony that is personal and meaningful. If
you submit before October 1, members of the organizational coalition
fighting this bill can submit the testimony on your behalf.
Sign onto the city-wide letter,
organized by Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, which is being sent to the full
DC Council to demonstrate grassroots opposition to this proposal.
Talk
to friends and neighbors about what’s being considered by the Council.
Relational organizing is crucial for dismantling and interrupting mass
incarceration in America. Want to learn more? Check out this guide to relational organizing.
Members
of Metro DC DSA can discuss and get organized around this issue and
broader anti-carceral organizing projects by joining the
#defund-the-police channel on the Metro DC DSA chapter Slack.
Sign up now: Big Tech and Capitalism: DC Walking Tour — Saturday, October 7
Everyone is invited to sign up in advance for the Big Tech and Capitalism: DC Walking Tour starting at 1pm on Saturday, October 7 in Farragut Square — and
tell everyone they know about it. Walking Tours are great ways to learn
about socialism, bring friends to DSA events, learn the geography of
the area through radical education, start volunteering for events and
get connected to local organizing. The Walking Tour will explore three
sites in downtown DC connected to how tech firms undermined racial
justice, used illegal lobbying to displace existing companies and used
DC as a model to remake urban spaces around the world in Uber’s image
over the last decade. There are lots of opportunities to volunteer
before and during the tour too.
The
Walking Tour will be led by three scholars on labor in the DC region:
Katie Wells, Kafui Attoh and Declan Cullen, the authors of the new book Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City,
who will draw on material and research from the book. The tour will
adjourn at 3pm, followed by a happy hour afterward at the outdoor tables
at Penn Quarter Sports Tavern. Sign up here.
BRIEFS
Support UAW strikers in Winchester, Virginia
UAW workers are on strike against
Stellantis in Winchester, Virginia. Comrades are working to mobilize
Metro DC DSA members to support the workers on the picket line — please
fill out this carpool form to help organize caravans to Winchester. Picketing is taking place every day from 6am to midnight.
Rally with workers at MOM’s Organic Market in College Park — Saturday, September 30
Workers at MOM’s Organic Market,
along with elected officials and community leaders, will rally to
protest the company’s efforts to dissuade organizing by discriminating
against workers who are active in the union. RSVP for Saturday’s rally.
Take action for migrant justice in NoVa
Join NoVA Migrant Justice in
attending tonight’s ICE Out of Arlington event, which promises to be a
powerful evening dedicated to understanding the harms of criminalization
and the importance of removing section 7 from the Trust Policy in
Arlington. Speakers from El Salvador and Guatemala will share stories of
the impact of criminalization and forced migration. More info here. Then, make calls, write emails and sign the petition to shut down ICA-Farmville Detention Center before September 30 (tomorrow). On
September 13, under pressure from more than 80 community members, the
Farmville Town Council voted unanimously to investigate the impact of
withdrawing from their contract with ICE. Yet, they signed an extension
to the contract until at least September 30, which gives time for ICA
and ICE to extend it further. The Free Them All VA coalition is asking
people to keep up the pressure so we can end the contract for good.
After the Storm is tabling at Art All Night in Mt Pleasant — TONIGHT, September 29
Metro DC DSA’s hope punk magazine After the Storm
will be tabling at Mt Pleasant’s Art All Night tonight, September 29
from 5:30 to 10pm. The table will be located on Mt Pleasant St on the
sidewalk in front of DC Credit Union. Copies of the publication’s
anthology Storms of the Revolution will be available for sale along with merch, free zines, anticapitalist writing prompts and more.
Canvass with the Social Housing working group at Georgia Avenue Open Streets — Saturday, October 7
Have you told your DC Councilmembers
that we need a strong Green New Deal for Housing Act yet? Sign the
petition and then join us to canvass at the Georgia Avenue Open Streets
event on October 7th, starting at 10am. Meet up at the statue by
Petworth Metro station — RSVP here. And visit our campaign homepage for educational materials and all upcoming meetings and canvasses. Email us at [email protected] to get in touch.
New Metro DC DSA 101 training session and series — Starts Thursday, October 12
Have you ever wondered how the
chapter is structured, what kinds of work we are pushing forward and
what steps you can take to get more involved? Sign up
to attend the first session in our new Nuts and Bolts training series
to learn more about the everyday details of how the chapter functions —
and how you can navigate it. You’ll learn how the chapter and its
formations are structured, how debate happens and decisions get made and
get familiar with some of the tools and procedures that we use on a
regular basis. There will be plentiful opportunities for questions, and
we hope you will come away ready to get involved in one of the many
exciting areas of work the chapter is pursuing. This is the first
session of six in the Nuts and Bolts training series, which will meet on
Thursdays in October and November, with all sessions providing
practical training designed to empower people to organize better within
the chapter. Make sure to sign up here for this first session or others in the series.
DC Free Brake Light POSTPONED to October 14
Metro DC DSA’s Brake Light Clinic event — originally scheduled for last weekend — has been POSTPONED to October 14.
At
the DSA’s brake light clinics, socialist mechanics fix people’s tail
and brake lights for free to educate the public on removing police from
traffic enforcement. Need a repair or know someone who does? Fill out this form so mechanics know what to plan for.
The process for fixing brake lights is simple, but will help in
reducing community interactions with police and help educate the
community on legislation that activists are interested in passing in DC
in the near future. DSA members, neighbors or anyone in need of a repair
are invited to attend. If you would like to request a repair for the
October 14th event or would like to volunteer to learn about the
process, follow through to the appropriate link on this form.
Montgomery County Decriminalization Coalition Relaunches — launch event on Sunday, October 22
Since 2020, Montgomery County DSA
has organized in coalition with other social and racial justice
organizations to get police out of Montgomery County Public Schools and
to end the practice of treating students — especially Black and Brown
students — as criminals. That coalition is relaunching as the Montgomery
County Decriminalization Coalition, and you are invited
to the launch party. Join the new coalition on Sunday, October 22 at
3pm at Gene Lynch Urban Park in Silver Spring (8410 Colesville Rd) to
learn about what we can do together to forge a path towards safer
traffic enforcement, a fairer education system and a community where all
residents can live and thrive without criminalization.
If
you are unable to make this event but interested in policing and
abolition work in Montgomery County, email
[email protected].
INFO ACCESS
MDC DSA Publications Schedule: The October Washington Socialist appears
with the Update next Friday, October 6. Article deadline for October’s
newsletter is TOMORROW, September 30. Please send article submissions to
[email protected].
Would
you like to participate in MDC DSA’s publications? We write, we edit,
we design, we do the tech — there are so many ways your hand could
lighten the load. Check us out on #publications and let us know what you
would like to write, or write about, or …?.
If you would like to see something included in the Update, suggestions can be submitted to the tip line.
DSA Feed, an RSS feed that aggregates multiple DSA publications — including our own Washington Socialist — in one convenient place. More from the National Tech Committee here.
Art All Night registrations open | Congress Heights Arts & Culture Center (CHACC) The MLK Corridor in SE DC will be
alive all night (and into the morning!) on Saturday, September 30 with
arts and cultural events, including the CHACC party
at 3200 Martin Luther King Jr Ave SE. From 6pm to 2am, CHACC is
bringing over 40 vendors to Art All Night, along with live painting,
live music, free workshops, a dynamite kids zone and so much more.
Volunteer on the Farm | Byrds Nest Box
Local farmer and AfroEcologist Falani Spivey is looking for volunteers at her farm,
Byrds Nest Box (501 Watkins Park Dr. Largo, MD), this Saturday, September 30 from 11am to 3pm. Volunteers will work with Falani to get collard
seedlings and fall cover crops into the earth. Please wear long sleeves
and comfortable clothing, the farm will provide gloves, water and
snacks.
Takoma Park Street Festival | Takoma Park Farmers Market
Sunday, October 1 from 10am to 5pm head north to enjoy the annual Takoma Park Street Festival
on Carroll Ave NW! Enjoy a full day of music, local makers and vendors,
community groups and kids activities. You can also pick up some fresh
goodies from the Takoma Park Farmers Market, which will run during its
normal hours, from 10am to 2pm. Organizers recommend that you walk or
Metro as congestion may be high and parking limited.
Antiracist Reading/Action Groups | Showing Up for Racial Justice DC
SURJ DC is launching antiracist
reading groups to discuss racial justice by creating safe spaces for
people to learn, develop skills and build capacity for organizing
against white supremacy. If you are interested in participating in a
group, please sign up here by October 6. Please note that reading groups are in person or virtual.
GOOD READS / ESSENTIAL TRAFFIC
The Wages of No Wages — Only the richest 20% of Americans have any pandemic-era savings left while everyone else has less cash than in 2019, according to new data [from a Fed report]. “The
figures point to dwindling firepower available for US consumers, whose
resilience has kept the economy growing at a rapid clip this year and
staved off the recession that many expected. Some analysts warn a
downturn is still in the cards as households run low on spare cash.” Bloomberg via Reddit
High interest/mortgage rates suppress home building, allow rents to skyrocket — Landlords can freely raise rental rates and still stay under the current ceiling for most home buyers. Slumlords wallowing. From Stateline Daily
What America Can Learn From Canada’s New ‘$10 a Day’ Child Care System — Canada’s launch of a national child care system shows what it takes to improve child care across a country. The Hechinger Report via Portside
The Hollywood writers strike is finally over after 148 days. Leaders of the Writers Guild of America have unanimously voted to authorize its members to return to work following the tentative agreement reached Sunday
between union negotiators and Hollywood’s studios and streaming
services, effectively ending the months-long strike that has paralyzed
the industry. “The WGAW Board and WGAE Council also voted to … allow
writers to return to work during the ratification process,” CNN reported Wednesday.
PLUS SAG-AFTRA has X-blasted to members Thursday that “SAG-AFTRA and
the AMPTP [bosses] will meet for bargaining on Monday, Oct. 2. Several
executives from AMPTP member companies will be in attendance. …”
The flame of thought, the magnificence of art, the wonder of discovery, and the audacity of invention all belong to revolutionary periods when humanity, tired of its chains, shatters them and stops inebriated to breathe the breeze of a vaster and freer horizon.
- Virgilia D'Andrea
Sent via ActionNetwork.org.
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