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UP FRONT

• DC Electoral Campaigns update
• An update from MDC DSA’s Cyber Command
• DSA Recruitment Drive

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DC Electoral Campaigns Update

After DC Council at-large candidate and MDC DSA member Ed Lazere joined our Defund MPD working group for a chat, our chapter encumbered a record-breaking week of phone banking, blowing past our original goal of 10,000 calls! If we want to build a city that works for all of us – not just corporations and real estate developers – we must elect leaders who advocate the interests of workers, organizers and activists, and it’s why we’ve dedicated so much energy to making sure Ed Lazere joins Ward 4’s Janeese Lewis George on the DC Council.

We’ve set a new goal of 15,000 calls for Ed. Want to join us? Head over to bit.ly/callsfored to join the effort!

Want to catch up on the state of DC Elections? Here are some of the most recent updates…

• We released a thread emphasizing the importance for candidates to respect the will of voters and stand up to corporate interests
• Working Families Party DC released a great voters guide that summarizes the endorsements and donor details that stand behind candidates
• Black Lives Matter DC released a scathing video calling out one candidate’s pro-corporate views.
• And you can watch the first ever DC at-large race on the DC Board of Elections youtube page (watch with Spanish interpretation here). If you don’t feel like watching, Washington City Paper covered the debate.\
• We also did a little flexing on Instagram…

And don’t forget to stay in touch with MDC DSA’s other endorsed candidates – Mysiki Valentine for at-large Board of Education, and Janeese Lewis George for Ward 4.

An update from Metro DC DSA’s “Cyber Command”

You may have noticed some technical changes when interacting with Metro DC DSA. Our Tech Team has been building out our internal systems to be more efficient, accessible and secure. Here are some of those changes…

• All events will now be created and promoted on Action Network; however, we will still make sure events are published on Meetup and Facebook as well. Action Network because it helps us centralize attendance information, lets us track interaction meta-data in more detail, and is a generally easier platform for our admin volunteers to use when creating MDC events.
• Our website uses a new framework. We’ve moved away from the old engine to one built on WordPress. This new engine makes it easier to edit, add collaborators, and build off different parts of the site. We anticipate some bugs as we move forward, but these will be smoothed out over time.
• Our historical weekly updates are temporarily down. We are planning to get those back up within the next week or so for reference’s sake.
• The new calendar of events is here! We are still smoothing out the bugs, but we hope this will make it clearer what events are happening. Not every event is on here – but all events that have a scheduled Action Network event will be on here.

DSA has committed to recruiting 100,000 members by the end of the year. Imagine what 100,000 members would mean: 100,000 organizers building power and solidarity in the multi-racial working class, each defending democracy against the rising tide of authoritarianism. You can sign the DSA 100k Pledge today.

Not a member? Now’s the time to sign-up! Click here to join the DSA and help us build a better future.

IN THIS ISSUE OF THE WASHINGTON SOCIALIST...

Our October issue is now live. The Washington Socialist is a member driven consortium of articles and thinking on socialism, communism, dissent and anarchy…

• A (long) history of Metro DC DSA, provided by longtime member Bill Mosley. The multi-page history covers MDC DSA’s activity from 1982 to 2016. This long history provides context on how far organized socialism in the DMV has come.
• In a DC-grounded exploration that also appears in national DSA’s Socialist Forum, our local member Morgan Fecto examines the ways co-op workplaces in the DMV are surviving via interdependence and community building during the COVID-19 crisis.
• Good judges but also good laws – what leftists really need whether we get a Justice Barrett or not.
• Learn how to use anti-concepts in this article that shows how to bring theories of discourse to practice.
• A 1997 article from the Washington Socialist endorses our late comrade Howard Croft for Ward 6 DC Council.
• And a series of never before seen photos from Occupy DC – a reminder of the movements that have come and gone.

BRIEFS

More than 100 people signed up to testify at Tuesday’s utility commission hearing about Pepco’s needless and destructive price hike, which ignores DC’s climate goals and hurts working class Washingtonians struggling from the economic crisis. The speakers–including union members, disgruntled former Pepco contractors, climate activists, retirees, and unemployed millennials–overwhelmingly opposed Pepco’s proposal and mounted a vigorous call for public power in the District. To get involved in our energy democracy campaign email [email protected] or post on the #ecosocialism Slack channel.

Direct Aid support in MoCO
While corporate-owned politicians play power games, too many of our neighbors can’t pay their power bills. On top of the coming wave of evictions, Maryland faces another crisis: the statewide moratorium on power disconnections ends on November 15, and utility turnoff notices will resume in October. Marylanders cannot count on Governor Hogan to extend the moratorium into the winter, let alone provide real relief to families with mounting overdue bills.

MoCo DSA is raising money to provide direct aid to individuals and families in Montgomery County, MD who are having difficulty paying their energy bills. 100% of donations (minus transaction fees) will be credited to recipients’ Pepco accounts. Due to the volume of requests, we had to turn off requests for support – but we have outstanding requests for payment that we are trying to cover. Please follow this link to contribute or learn more about this support program.

Updates from the Defund MPD Campaign
The Defund Working Group wants you to join other DSA members and BLM DC to testify about police violence in DC! On October 15th, the Judiciary Committee of the DC Council is hearing oral testimony on 3 “reform” bills and we need you to testify virtually on how the Council can go further and why MPD needs to be defunded. Please sign up before October 7th!

The Council wants to pass these bills and tell themselves that “continuing education” and “Police Complaint Boards” will solve police violence. These bills are not enough and we need DSA members to tell them. Sign up to receive around 3 minutes to testify virtually. Over the next 2 weeks, members of DC DSA’s Defund MPD Working Group will be coordinating with BLM DC to provide more information about the bills and helping members coordinate testimony. Non-DC residents may testify.

For more information about the Defund MPD Coalition, including on the substantive ways the DC Council can reduce police violence, see their website. For more information about testifying, please contact Chris Bangs at [email protected]

And here are some upcoming Defund and allied events:

• Defund MPD Button Making – Sunday, October 4th, 3-5 pm
  The Defund MPD group will have a socially distanced button-making gathering in Alethia Tanner Park on October 4th, 3-5pm. RSVP here, and see the button designs here!
• DC protests: March for Justice
  A march beginning at Malcolm X Park on Saturday October 4th. White accomplice training at 2 pm, march at 3 pm.

Apply for the Progressive Talent Pipeline
As some of you know, Demand Progress and CEPR started the Progressive Talent Pipeline program in 2018 to try to help get good progressives into entry- and mid-level jobs on the Hill. More than 40 people who went through it went on to find such jobs, and some of them are already among the best organizers on the Hill. Info is here.

Our comrade David Duhalde reports: “We just opened up the applications for this cycle. Also hoping to expand it to encompass certain exec branch jobs depending on how November goes.”

SocFem Caucus Reading Group
The reading group discussion on “This Bridge Called My Back” by Rosario Morales this past Sunday was a success! Our next meeting is Tuesday, October 13 from 7-9. Hope to see you all there *open to marginalized genders only.

DC Jobs With Justice — 2020 “I’ll be There” Awards evening, Wednesday, Nov. 18 6-8 PM
Every year our I’ll Be There awards are a chance to come together, honor some of the outstanding leaders in our work, and remind ourselves of our values as a community. It is our single largest event of the year, and our most important community gathering. This year’s event will be different than ever before. We’ll be online for the first time ever in the midst of some of our most challenging times as a city. Join us, I’ll Be There Awards, Wednesday November 18th at 6:00 pm.

— Nikko Bilitza, Organizer, DC Jobs with Justice

NoVa Tenant Organizing
We are officially on the website! If you are interested in fighting for tenant rights and organizing buildings across Northern Virginia, join us for a canvass this Sunday.  The NoVa Branch Tenant Organizing Working Group will be canvassing to provide support to tenants facing evictions and discussing the possibilities of organizing against their landlord. The team will meet at Southern Towers and then travel to a second location for canvassing. We are postponing our weekly planning meeting until next Sunday, October 11th. Finally, if you are not able to canvas but would like to get involved, the working group needs volunteers to help pull court records in Fairfax County and Loudon. Find us on slack at #nova-tenant-organizing or fill out this interest form.

Transdev fires ATU leader in “Blatant union-busting move”
ATU Local 1764 reports that Transdev, the company which operates the Fairfax Connector bus service, is back to its old union-busting ways. Transdev has fired ATU Local 1764 shop steward Vance Young in retaliation for his union activities, the union says. Young was first brought up on charges by Transdev after he raised safety concerns about clean buses with a County official, and when the company couldn’t justify disciplining him for that, they scheduled an investigative interview during his regularly-scheduled shift. After Young missed the meeting because the company did not relieve him from operating the bus, they fired him for insubordination. “The Union will fight to win Vance’s reinstatement and is confident it will prevail,” said Local 1764’s John Ertl. “This disgraceful conduct by Fairfax County’s contractor is a perfect illustration for why public services should not be entrusted to for-profit companies like Transdev.”

— from Union City

MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

EVENTS FROM OUR ALLIES IN THE DMV

INFO ACCESS

Publications Schedule: MDC DSA’s Weekly Updates will be published Fridays, October 9, 16, and 23, and the November issue of the Washington Socialist will be published Friday, October 30 with an article deadline Saturday, October 24. Send contributions to [email protected] if you have words of wisdom in advance of US history’s longest Election Day ever.

Are you an MDC DSA campaign activist and want to keep our ~3,000 local members as well as ~3,000 other local left activists up to date on your campaign actions and events? Contribute to the aptly named MDC DSA Weekly Update, which reaches those 6,000 folks every week. But how? An accessible doc created by Pubs WG stays open every Monday through Thursday so you can make your contribution when it’s convenient for you (spoiler alert: we might edit your deathless prose). But you can only contribute if you are “invited to edit.” Join the activists who get that (sometimes annoying) invite every week; request access at [email protected] .

But I already DID the Member Survey…”
We are once again asking you to do the Member Survey. It’s ok if you already did it. We’ve added new questions! We just love getting to know you. If you haven’t yet done the survey, please do so now! We are sending invitations and alerts to members based on those responses and you don’t want to miss out! Non-members are also invited. Complete it HERE.

Are you an MDC DSA member who wonders how to get on our chapter Slack? Just email [email protected] and identify yourself as a member. Put “request for #Slack” in the subject line. Use the email address by which national DSA knows you. If you are a new member, forward the email that national DSA sent you acknowledging your status. Our Slack platform, with numerous channels for all our caucuses, branches, campaigns and working groups, is a great place to get connected with the kind of socialist work YOU want to do in DSA.

GOOD READS

• In Popular Resistance newsletter, Dr. Margaret Flowers examines the centrality of racist health systems in many aspects of the uprising, as even the minimalist neolib remedies of the Affordable Care Act are threatened.
• Here’s a digital show-and-tell on the THRIVE Agenda, an eightfold path to converge good, union-accessible jobs with the climate effort, designed by our Takoma Park comrades, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and endorsed by many of the unions we count as closest allies.
• From Portside and the LA Review of Books: In this new book, “The People, No!,” Thomas Frank is challenging himself “to rescue the terms ‘populism’ and ‘populist’ from the mouths of those he deems unfit to use them: the anti-populists.” Note that Tom Frank is a featured guest Saturday noon at the Philly DSA GBM which our comrades there inexplicably call a “General Meeting”…
• In City Paper, Amanda Michelle Gomez writes about Pepco’s destructive price hike and the need for public power in DC. “We want to own our utility. We want to break ties with Pepco completely—kick them out of D.C.—and institute our own publicly owned utility that then would be run for the people of D.C., would be nonprofit … and, as a publicly owned utility, would also not have that same influence over politics,” says Johanna Bozuwa of We Power DC.
• A long, but entertaining and informative video essay from the Youtube channel Folding Ideas: Without spoiling an excellent mid-video twist, “In Search of a Flat Earth” explores the connection between flat-earth conspiracies and the proto-fascist movements many of us are observing today.|
• In Socialist Forum, MDC DSA member Morgan Fecto examines the ways co-op workplaces in the DMV are surviving via interdependence and community building during the COVID-19 crisis.
• No accident that the Obama gang never got around to installing card-check for union organizers — the New Republic reports that Uber and Lyft “push regressive labor and transportation policies—and they’re stocked with Obama alumni.” — makes us worry what kind of touch they might have on Biden, eh?

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