Canvassing for the Maryland Reproductive Freedom Amendment continues this weekend; A History of Police Violence: DC Walking Tour; General Body Meeting this Sunday
This is the weekly newsletter of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (MDC DSA), which is produced by local members of the chapter's Publications Working Group. The Weekly Update publishes every Friday at 9am.
Paid for by Metro DC DSA (mdcdsa.org). Not authorized by any candidate or committee.
UP FRONT
Canvassing for the Maryland Reproductive Freedom Amendment continues this weekend
Maryland’s Reproductive Freedom Amendment — Question 1 — is on the ballot on November 5. If passed, it would enshrine abortion access and other rights into the state constitution. Metro DC DSA is canvassing for Question 1 in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, and chapter members and allies are invited to participate in the efforts. Reproductive rights and bodily autonomy are under attack nationwide, support is needed to protect these essential rights for the people of Maryland.
Volunteers organized through Metro DC DSA knocked on about 500 doors last weekend and will build on this momentum this weekend. Here is this weekend’s rollout:
Saturday, October 19 at 10am at Bladensburg Branch Library (4820 Annapolis Rd, Bladensburg, MD 20710) to canvass the eastern parts of Mount Rainier
Sunday, October 20 at 10am at the parking lot of Cheverly Metro Station to canvass Cheverly
Chapter members can join the Slack channel #md-repro-amendment (members can forward dues receipt to [email protected] for access), and all those looking to get involved can sign up to volunteer here.
A History of Police Violence: DC Walking Tour — November 17 at 1pm
Next in the chapter’s series of walking tours will focus on the history of police violence on November 17, brought to you by the local Abolition working group. The tour will explore downtown DC sites of historical and recent police violence. What does “safety” mean in a city where selling food, being unhoused, wearing a mask during a pandemic or protesting police violence or genocide are met with violence from the very group that many believe is supposed to keep us safe? On this tour, learn about the harm police cause, from the harassment and criminalization of youth, street vendors, unhoused folks, and protesters, to the point-blank execution of DC community members. The walking tour will explore how police, prisons and carceral logic are used to put forward an idea of “safety” that in practice only makes life harder for DC residents with the least access to resources. The tour will also explore alternative visions for the abolition of police and prisons in order to build the city we deserve where all are truly safe.
Volunteers are needed to help with wheatpasting outreach this Sunday, October 20 at 1pm at the Gallery Place Metro; next Sunday, October 27 at 1pm at the Columbia Heights Metro; and Saturday, November 2 at 2pm at the Anacostia Metro. Sign up for both the walking tour and wheatpasting outreach here.
General Body Meeting this Sunday, October 20
Metro DC DSA’s next General Body Meeting will be held October 20 from 3 to 5pm at the Friends Meeting House of Washington. RSVP here. Neither resolutions read at the last Steering Committee meeting, GR1: For an Anti-Zionist Metro DC DSA nor GR2: Anti-Zionism in Action, will be debated at this GBM, and the meeting will instead focus on upcoming chapter events and the December Local Convention. See #announcements for more details.
BRIEFS
Fundraising for Palestinian families and mutual aid by Internationalism working group
In July 2024, MDC DSA members were part of a fundraising campaign that raised over $106,000 for 21 Palestinian families and a mutual aid project serving a refugee camp of 3,500 people, with over $90,000 raised in just two days. The Internationalism working group is planning another fundraiser for over 100 Palestinian families and two mutual aid projects. Those interested in helping to fundraise can post on your Instagram stories/grid (and receive graphics like last time), please sign up here to fundraise or reach out to [email protected] for any questions or to add a Palestinian family to the fundraiser.
Learn about Reproductive Justice 101 at the next Socialist Night School — Wednesday, October 23 at 7pm
SisterSong defines reproductive justice as the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. Join the Bodily Autonomy Working Group for a dynamic conversation about this foundational framework and how Reproductive Justice is a socialist concern. This will be a hybrid session — in person at MLK Library and virtually on Zoom (RSVP for the Zoom link). Come hang out, learn about reproductive justice, and join us at our social at Rocket Bar after the session. RSVP here.
Pack the Rockville City Council to support rent stabilization — Monday, October 21 at 6:30pm
Tenants in the City of Rockville, Maryland, are not covered by Montgomery County’s new rent stabilization law and are demanding that the city pass its own law to protect tenants from exorbitant rent increases and displacement. This Monday, October 21, the Rockville City Council will discuss housing subsidies. Before the discussion, tenants and allies will share why the city needs to pass rent stabilization. Community members are invited to attend the hearing and show their support. RSVP here.
Green New Deal working group launch party — Thursday, October 24
Metro DC DSA is launching a new Green New Deal working group to coordinate our existing Social Housing and We Power DC campaigns in DC, foster new campaigns on other GND topics like transit, public spaces, schools and more, and expand our GND organizing across the DMV. After all — climate change knows no borders, and neither should our organizing. The Green New Deal working group plans to host regular socials to foster space to gather and strategize as ecosocialists and organize regular coordination meetings for existing and new campaign members to think through our work together. RSVP here for the GND working group’s launch party at Lyman's Tavern on October 24 from 6:30 to 8:30pm.
Northern Virginia DSA voter guide released for general election
General elections are coming up on November 5, and voting downballot can often be mystifying. Voters in Northern Virginia can consult the newly released voter guide — REDBUG — to clarify where candidates running in local elections stand on questions vital to socialists. This voter guide covers the Arlington County Board, the Alexandria City Council, the Alexandria Mayoral race and Alexandria school board elections. Socialists have not endorsed any candidate running in these elections, but local labor unions and progressive organizations have marked endorsements in these races. The REDBUG guide is designed to be mobile friendly, so Virginia voters can take this guide to the polls with them for consultation.
Virginia absentee ballot requests are due on October 25, and mail-in ballots are required to be postmarked by October 25. Early voting in Virginia begins on November 2.
Virginia DSA Charter Committee seeks amendments by October 24
The Virginia DSA Charter Committee voted on a draft charter on September 24 (charter, summary), and Virginia DSA members have until October 24 to propose amendments and gather the required 10 signatories for debate. Please reach out to Aura K (they/she) or Alex H (he/him), the two delegates from NoVA Branch, if you have any questions or want to propose an amendment. The Charter Committee is tentatively set to meet on Tuesday, October 29 to discuss amendments and potentially vote on a final draft of the charter.
Support Compass Coffee workers as retaliation from management escalates
Since August, Compass Coffee has fired at least six employees, most of whom were outspoken to the press about their unionization campaign. Nearly all of the workers in their media team have been fired, while the remaining two have had their hours cut to almost nothing. This comes a few months after the vote; the NLRB is currently evaluating the multiple disputed ballots due to Compass's mass hiring campaign to crush the union. Workers are asking community members to email upper management and come into unionizing stores to request to speak to management. Click here for more information.
INFO ACCESS
Learn more about our local MDC DSA chapter — structure, campaigns and working groups, Night School and reading groups — HERE. And live from our studio, Wednesday, October 23, 7 – 8pm, Why You Should Join DSA / New Member Orientation (with Q&A). MDC DSA members: Join our all-member Slack for real-time info on working group and campaign events, convo and inspiration. Email [email protected] with your most recent DSA dues receipt to get Slack access. Chapter members are also invited to read — and edit — MDC DSA’sinternal wiki. Email [email protected] to get set up, or ask in #helpdesk on Slack. Members are also invited to Steering’s recurring Ask Me Anything hours on Thursdays, including October 24 and 31.
MDC DSA Publications is information central for not just MDC DSA but the entire DMV left. #publications (our working group’s Slack channel) is always ready to onboard new socialist communicators.
Weekly Updates like this one are scheduled and emailed on Fridays; current and past Updates are on the web here. Not subscribed? DSA member or not, sign up to get the Update here. Submit your Update suggestions or chapter political blog REDBUG tips to the tip line. The Washington Socialist, published since the 1970s, offers articles on a quarterly schedule; the Fall 2024 edition is now live and will be updated on a rolling basis. Check our archive to see what we write, and what you can write. Anyone, MDC DSA member or not, interested in contributing to the Washington Socialist can email submissions or questions to [email protected]. Get your socialist self on the record. Donate to our Comradery page if you would like to financially support socialist publishing in the DMV.
COMMUNITY BULLETIN
Direct Action Training | DC4Palestine | October 19
Over the month, the DC for Palestine Coalition will be leading a series of trainings for Palestine solidarity activities and campaigns across the city. The coalition’s next campaign, in coordination with the Movement Infrastructure Project, will cover a variety of topics including action roles and affinity groups, brainstorming, planning and strategy and decision making methods. RSVP here, and check out DC4P on Instagram for direct updates from the campaign.
W1MA Halloween Party + Fundraiser | W1MA | October 31
There’s nothing spookier than late-stage capitalism. Ward 1 Mutual Aid is shaking off the scaries and celebrating Halloween at classic neighborhood dive Lyman’s Tavern on Thursday, October 31 at 7pm. The party will feature a costume contest, handmade W1MA swag and other spooky fun and games. All proceeds from DC Brau sold on Halloween night will go straight to mutual aid efforts in the neighborhood like food and income redistribution, eviction defense and support for our unhoused neighbors. (The DC Pinball League will also be hosting a partners split flipper tournament starting at 8pm.) RSVP here.
Paul Robeson Peace & Justice Awards Gala | Claudia Jones School | October 26
For the first time since 2007, the DC Friends of the People's World will be organizing a community gathering to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of People's World (formerly The Daily Worker) and to honor a local leader with the Paul Robeson Peace & Justice Award. This year’s awardees include Rev. Graylan Hagler, populist journalist Chuck Modi, abolitionist organization Harriet’s Wildest Dreams and the DMV chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite.
ESSENTIAL PERSPECTIVES
ESSENTIAL PERSPECTIVES are articles and opinion pieces of interest to DMV leftists but not, generally, appearing in local media. They should have links without paywalls. Readers are invited to submit candidates at our tip line.
Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn writes on the day (October 12) of major worldwide marches for peace in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East: “What seems to me to be so badly lacking in the media and the debates in our Parliament is the language of peace and diplomacy. All wars have to end with some kind of negotiation, diplomacy or conference. It is to the credit of the UN general secretary that he’s been trying to do that. It is to the shame of Israel that they have banned him from even entering the country. It is also to the credit of Latin American presidents and the African Union that they too, have tried to bring about a diplomatic end to these horrific wars.” Morning Star via Portside
From Comrade Stuart Schrader: “The cop city is an increasingly widespread phenomenon of US urban political development as a result of masochistic YIMBYism. The cop city produces conditions it cannot abide and offers hit-and-run police tactics as the only response to social crisis. Police fail to hold territory but instead create what the late social theorist Randy Martin might have called their own self-perpetuating risk environment, affording opportunities for future law-enforcement interventions instead of resolution of the causes of violations.” LA Review of Books
The Most Prominent Historian of Palestine on What the Last Year Has Meant Professor Rashid Khalidi on Israel’s growing wars in the Middle East and the United States’ complicity in them: “I don’t really think [Biden] sees the Palestinians at all,” Khalidi said. “He sees the Israelis as they are very carefully presented by their government and their massive information apparatus, which is being sucked at by every element of the mainstream media.” Mother Jones via Portside
“On the surface, learning about the origins of the methods people use to bring order to their lives—such as time, weights and measures, and our financial systems—seems like just another history lesson, one ancient practice leading to another, resulting in guesswork of what people did before the last Ice Age. But the more we can parse out and extrapolate the beliefs and attitudes of previous eras, the more we might be able to step out of present behavior patterns and perceive social problems we keep creating because we thought we had to.” An interview with economic historian Michael Hudson on his collaborations with the late anarchist intellectual David Graeber [The Dawn of Everything]. IndyMedia Fair Observer
This is the weekly newsletter of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (MDC DSA), which is produced by local members of the chapter's Publications working group. The Weekly Update publishes every Friday at 9am.
Paid for by Metro DC DSA (mdcdsa.org). Not authorized by any candidate or committee.
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 vast and free horizon. - Virgilia D'Andrea
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