BRIEFS

Defund MPD Updates

DSA’s Defund MPD working group, which is working within the citywide Defund MPD Coalition engaged by organizers across the city, will be going into the new year intent on persuading politicians and the public on the need to defund the PD in order to foster safer communities. Here are some recent updates on the effort:

• DSA has been pushing councilmembers to initiate a collective bargaining agreement with DC’s police union. You can read about the areas of reform needed to reduce the power of the police union as published early this month in Washington Socialist.
• MPD’s Police Chief Newsham announced he was stepping down – and his replacement has finally been announced. Robert Contee, the Assistant Chief over at the Investigative Services Bureau, which houses the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division (NSID). Black Lives Matter DC released a long thread in response to the news, as did Stop Police Terror Project DC.
• Last week, we released a Twitter thread expressing support for Charles Allen to continue serving as chair of the Judiciary Committee. He has shown himself to work in good-faith with residents and local activists in the Defund MPD Coalition. While we don’t agree with him on everything, we believe he’s willing to listen to our demands in good faith.

MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

NATIONAL DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Sunday, December 27 | 1:00pm EST
DC Antifascist Meet and Greet
Lincoln Park, 13th St NE and East Capitol Street NE
Join DC’s activist community to meet, greet, eat and learn about local anti-fascist organizing and the abolitionist community.

Tuesday, January 12 | 5:30pm EST
Join ONE DC for our Shared Work Training, a workshop with direct testimony from DC residents around Black unemployment, learn about the Shared Work program from NELP Staff Attorney Nzingha Hooker and hear from Addy Baird, a Shared Work participant, on best practices when approaching an employer about the program.

More information about the program can also be found here. Register here for Zoom access and more info LINK.

INFO ACCESS

Publications Schedule – The New Year’s 2021 issue of the Washington Socialist will appear on Friday, January 1, 2021. The article deadline for the January issue is TOMORROW, Saturday, December 26. The Publications Working Group will publish MDC DSA’s January weekly Updates on Fridays — January 8, 15, and 22 — and the February issue of the Washington Socialist will be emailed Friday, January 29. To submit articles for the monthly Washington Socialist newsletter, send them to [email protected]. Contact us at that email address OR join the #publications Slack channel if you are interested in joining the Publications Working Group — to get vital information to ~3,000 local chapter members and another ~3,000 nonmember activists in the DMV who get the Update too.

And speaking of Slack — 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 receipt that national DSA sent you acknowledging your status. Please be patient; our admin committee is loaded with chores and shorthanded to boot. 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

The Canadian socialist intellectual and academic Leo Panitch died of Covid-19 on December 19 at age 75, the Toronto Star reported. An appreciation has appeared in Jacobin, “Leo Panitch and the Socialist Project,” noting “His writings have carried us through some of the most difficult periods in the history of the socialist left, as wave after wave of the neoliberal onslaught broke workers’ organizations … [throughout that struggle] he devoted himself to demonstrating the necessity of a democratic-socialist society that would neither fall prey to the shortcomings of social democracy nor those of Soviet-style Communism.” In April 2020, Panitch and Sam Ginden published an updated The Socialist Challenge Today, in which they noted it was time to stop avoiding discussion of “the need to turn the whole financial system into a public utility.”

The holiday season has not been particularly kind to anyone other than the billionaire class — emphatically, Jeff Bezos. But delivery workers in and out of unions are taking a special high-risk hit, as Labor Notes outlines here.

From StreetsBlog — Nominee Buttigieg Vows to Dismantle ‘Racist’ Freeways – Mayor Pete has the sentiment, but this is now a huge trove of public right-of-way that should be kept public, not sold off to “public-private partnerships.” How about a national “high line” policy that preserves the foundation of these structures so they can be repurposed? Imagine mass transit and bike/walk lanes, community gardens, wildlife corridors and social housing of all sorts? These were considered monstrous intrusions in their day but are now part of the landscape of each neighborhood. Even when the system was first planned in 1956, the total pavement was estimated at 400 square miles — and that doesn’t count right-of-way. Big opportunities for public use if we can keep it public.

Pepco wants to raise rates. There’s a cheaper, greener alternative. As Washingtonians struggle with skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, a historic economic recession, and a worsening climate crisis, Pepco wants to raise electricity prices by almost $136 million over three years. Pepco’s heartless proposal reveals the danger of corporate control over our energy system — revealing the need for a community-run utility distribution system that prioritizes the public good instead of corporate profits. From 730DC’s blog.

For those interested in DSA internal politicking – from Partisan, an interview with Austin Gonzalez, a great comrade from Richmond DSA who is on the National Political Committee (DSA’s highest elected body). The piece provides a great lay of the land regarding the developments of NPC (a DSA member faction) and some of the internal/political dynamics they are navigating within. Austin was also pivotal in the recent reorganization of DSA’s International Committee, which handles international questions on behalf of the organization. He discusses some of the history behind the organization and the work that has gone into shifting their efforts to be more solidly grounded in anti-imperialism. We strongly recommend comrades give it a read, especially if you’re a newer comrade or trying to get a better sense of DSA’s internal politics at the national level and what that work looks like.

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