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UP FRONT

• New Member Orientation - this Sunday at 3 PM
• NoVa Branch Anti-Eviction Canvassing - this Saturday at 2 PM
• Medicare 4 All Working Group Weekly Meeting - this Sunday at 5 PM
• #ShutDownDC protest in support of USPS - this Saturday at 8 AM

MDC DSA New Member Orientation

Get the inside info on MDC DSA’s reach and scope – and the many areas in which YOU can participate. If you’re a new member, an established member that needs a refresher, or interested in becoming a member, please join us for this overview of our chapter. You’ll learn about the structure of our Chapter, our working groups and branches, and current projects and efforts. We hope to see you there!

NoVA Anti-Eviction Canvass
The NoVa Branch tenant rights group will be canvassing this Saturday at 2 pm to alert tenants who have received eviction court summons of their rights and to provide loss-of-income affidavits that they can present in court to receive a 60-day extension of the court hearing. With the Virginia eviction moratorium being extended to only September 7th, we know the governor is only kicking the can down the road. But we will use this month to reach out to more tenants and to continue fighting for rent cancellation.

We will meet at 2 pm in front of the 7-Eleven at Southern Towers (4901 Seminary Rd.) We will provide training and walksheets. We will also have hand sanitizer, but please bring a mask and practice social distancing! Many of our locations require travel to another site, so we advise coming by car! After the canvass, we will meet back at Southern Towers for a socially distant happy hour in the park at 5 pm.

The NoVa Branch will also be hosting an online Support Planning Meeting on Sunday the 16th at 5pm. The meeting is for planning the support of the striking tenants of Southern Towers to discuss research and canvassing work.

Medicare 4 All Workgroup Weekly Meeting
Democratic Socialists are fighting to make single-payer Medicare for All healthcare a reality. Help us fight to replace our fractured and broken health system with a unified Medicare for All system. In order to get our politicians to buck their billionaire donors and side with the majority, we have to threaten them with a mass political movement. But the movement we need cannot be built overnight. That’s why we need each and every person to get involved. Winning Medicare for All will mean establishing a piece of real democratic socialism and building a broader working-class movement to take on the elite and the billionaire class. Join us this Sunday at 5 PM! Contact info at link.

BRIEFS

Supporting the Park Morton Equity Plan
MDC DSA’s Steering Committee voted for the chapter to sign on in support of the Park Morton Equity Plan, which has been crafted by the Park Morton Residents Council to prevent future displacement of Park Morton residents, many of whom are multi-generational Black residents, during redevelopment of the housing unit (see on map). We stand in solidarity with the residents of Park Morton and ask all our members to sign and share the petition created by Park Morton residents.
-Rachel B

Montgomery County Charter Amendment B: Bad for Families and Communities
MDC DSA comrades made over 630 calls to voters to get out the word about Montgomery County Charter Amendment B, which would primarily benefit the wealthy and corporations and force cuts to the public health department, schools and other county services. We’ll host another training and phonebanking session next Wednesday, August 19 at 6:30pm. To sign up to volunteer and get updates about this session and other future sessions, sign up here.
- Nicole Z

Forming the Red Rabbits direct action group
Direct action is essential in demonstrating our collective beliefs and demands and agitating authorities. But history has shown us that the capitalist class and government agencies regularly assault protesters, striking workers, and the left during times of dissent. So who keeps us safe? We keep us safe. Learn to create an infrastructure of safety in our actions through marshaling. The Red Rabbits Working Group is a chance to form a cadre that can assist and promote direct action and help protect each other and our comrades in various movements. Register here.

Fundraising numbers for DC Council and State Board of Education fundraising numbers were released this week - and Ed Lazere has found himself way out in front with about 1.5x more raised than the incumbent Democrat in the at-large race!

But our work is far from finished. We are about 80 days to Election Day, and we need all the help we can get to make sure Ed secures a win in his at-large race. If you haven’t been trained in phonebanking yet, there are three opportunities to sign up for training this weekend. Already trained? Sign up for a Phonebanking here! And if you’d like to join the working group that is helping to elect Janeese and Ed, you can fill out this form to stay updated on meeting times and mobilizations.

If you’re interested in checking out a summary of fundraising data, you can do so at the D.C. Geekery website, a great tool for keeping up to date on D.C. electors.

So that was a lie (sorry). But please take our Member survey so we can learn about you! Deciding which workgroup to join is sort of like dating the Revolution, no? We want to learn about your interests and skills so we can help you find your dream activism match! It takes less than 3 minutes, promise!

The national Poor People’s Campaign is boosting “the Big Send,” a plan to write (by hand! Sent by mail!) messages to low-probability or infrequent voters in other states urging them to vote. Here’s how the Maryland Poor People’s campaign presents it, with a nod to a local variant as well:

A national effort, The Big Send, has been launched to get out the vote in areas of states where turnout has been low. This is being done by sending letters to infrequent voters with a hand written note telling the person why you vote in every election and asking them to join you as a voter. The message is non-partisan. Research has shown that these letters can increase voter turnout by 3%. Below is a short video explaining the campaign and a link to sign up to write letters. You can also join a zoom letter writing or learn about other voting activities through Do the Most Good (MoCo). Here is the explainer video, good for sharing both in- and outside your MDC DSA/activist networks.

MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

EVENTS FROM OUR ALLIES IN THE DMV

NATIONAL DSA EVENTS

Wednesday, Aug 19 | 9:00 PM EDT
Voter Universe Training
The National Electoral Committee (NEC) of DSA would like to invite new and experienced electoral campaign volunteers to a Voter Universe training webinar put on by the NEC’s Chapter Outreach and Training subcommittee. With Covid keeping us from running robust ground campaigns, reaching the electorate virtually will be a key skill for chapters to master.

Thursday, Aug 20 | 7:30 PM EDT
Building an Inclusive Movement for Economic Justice with Rev. Andrew Wilkes and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Join Rev. Andrew Wilkes and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, National Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, in conversation about the campaign, its faith-rooted vision, and how the movement presents a concrete way to shift our political economy, uproot white supremacy, and expand the decision-making power of workers in a way that emerges from religion.

INFO ACCESS

INFO about YOU – for all of us. We’re requesting members take our Member Skills and Resources Survey as well as our Interests and Activism Survey. As we continue to fine-tune our organization, we are trying to make sure we – that’s you – have a proper grasp of our membership’s skills and interests so we know what we are capable of!

MDC DSA’s reach and scope can be amazing when you step back and see the landscape we cover in the DMV. Get the picture with this annotated list of our activities - campaigns, working groups, caucuses and how our local chapter does organizing in a democratic socialist way. It’s a great resource for new members or existing members wondering what to do with quarantine. Check out our chapter structure here. Our branches in Montgomery County, Maryland and Northern VA as part of our coverage.

Members of campaigns are of course contacting us at #publications regularly to keep individual entries current and informative (you know who you are).

Metro DC DSA publications – one of those working groups – are intended to keep a socialist perspective and lens on events and actions both for our members and our allies, and we reach over 5,000 readers in the DMV. August updates will be sent Fridays, August 14, 21 and 28 and because Labor Day 2020 is celebrated Monday Sept. 7, this year’s Labor Day issue of the Washington Socialist will be published Friday, Sept 4…with an article deadline of Saturday, August 29.

Workers and working families are the ground from which we all struggle to overcome capitalism. So start thinking about how you will mark Labor Day with the appearance of your article in the Labor Day/September newsletter of Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America. Discuss what you think you might write about in our #publications Slack channel – a great place to exchange ideas and develop our perspective on organizing, the history of radical activism, and how socialist ideas help us shape effective action. Or check in at [email protected] and ask what’s needed. We welcome all comments, questions, or observed issues with the new site; please send notices through the Red Desk or chat us up in that #publications Slack channel.

IN THE AUGUST EDITION OF THE WASHINGTON SOCIALIST...

In our newest edition of the Washington Socialist…

• When Impossible Becomes Inevitable: The Fall of ‘Petty Racism’ - Bill Mosley recounts the social and political inertia that kept offensive Confederate statues on their pedestals in the Richmond, VA of his younger years and the startling near-revolutionary changes that came with the death of George Floyd.
• Housing is a Human Right: Dispatch on the Fight Against Evictions in Alexandria - The idea that housing is a human right is gaining ground, but the struggle in Northern Virginia between a rental-apartment behemoth and the slowly coalescing tenant movement shows the grinding social and economic issues that hamper the wheels of change there.
• Self-education and the Path of a Socialist - How to be(come) a socialist – a mental walk along the path through apathy and escapism to knowledge, empowerment and the camaraderie of the collective. A classic account of how we learn and win.
• Reflections 1986: Race and the Left - DSA has wrestled with its identity as a (largely white) organization as it tried and often failed to engage with the black freedom struggle. An account from the Washington Socialist of early 1986 presents sharp critiques by black socialists delivered point-blank at a DSA meeting.
• The Before Times Are Over. What’s Next? - How many changes brought by the pandemic will be permanent and how many fleeting – and which ones can socialists hope to shape to the task of a non-capitalist future?
• Class Struggle in DuPont/Kalorama: A Self-Guided Walking Tour - A veteran member will lead a (pandemically careful) walking tour of some of DC’s radical past.

GOOD READS

Biden’s veep pick took over the news in midweek, and who else to consult for the political nuts and bolts of the matter than our comrade Harold Meyerson in the Prospect.

Isabel Wilkerson, in an outtake from her new book, describes a remarkable moment for MLK Jr. during his long-anticipated trip to India. Is the apparently fluid concept of “caste” the bridge – or causeway – between the fraught concepts of race and class in our political terrain?

Our comrade Leo Gertner, formerly of our MDC DSA local, has this great piece in the latest American Prospect: attorney culture is being deformed by business influence, alas, as he indicates in Prospect.

Interested in getting oriented on the state of the 2020 election in DC? DC Geekery has an amazing (visual) data display across a variety of fields and metrics.

Local members were interviewed for this feature in The Forge, where they were asked to recount their perspective on building a Socialist DC.

Ages have come and gone, kingdoms and powers and dynasties have risen and fallen, old glories and ancient wisdoms have been turned into dust, heroes and sages have been forgotten and many a mighty and fearsome god has been hurled into the lightless chasms of oblivion.

But ye, Plebs, Populace, People, Rabble, Mob, Proletariat, live and abide forever.
- Arturo Giovannitti