BRIEFS

AfroSoc Reading Group

The DSA National Political Education Committee is hosting a two-week reading group, the Socialist Legacy of Black Feminism, with Lux Magazine and the DSA AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Caucus. The reading list includes chapters written by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Leith Mullings, Robin D. G. Kelley, Erik S. McDuffie and Angela Davis.

Week 1: Tuesday, February 16th at 8pm
Week 2: Tuesday, February 23rd at 8pm

RSVP here.

moveDC Transportation Survey

DDOT is conducting a survey to ensure moveDC, its long-range transportation plan, reflects the needs and priorities of residents and visitors across all eight wards. To determine what DDOT will work toward over the next two decades, input is needed. The survey will be open through Friday, March 5.

Environmental Activism in Prince George’s County

First, the PG County Virtual Environmental Forum takes place Saturday, February 13 from 3:30 to 5:30pm. View the event flyer posted in the #ecosocialism chapter Slack for details on guest speakers and topics of discussion. Register here.

Second, a day of action on Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 14th at 2pm, will demand Prince George’s County Council pass legislation banning the construction of future power plants in the county. This event will have speakers and community members impacted by the power plants to discuss the issue, and there will be time to email/tweet at Councilmembers to encourage them to push legislation through. Registration for the event can be found here.

Supporting workers fighting Walmart

The workers at the GE lightbulb plant in Bucyrus, Ohio are fighting closure of their plant. They make LED lightbulbs exclusively for Walmart, and are demanding Walmart pressure the company into bringing in the union’s proposed outside help to make the plant more efficient. On Saturday, protests around the country at Walmarts will occur, including in DC at the H St NW Walmart. If you’re interested and able, reach out to Elissa ([email protected]) to get plugged in (no pun intended).

Additionally, the MDC DSA Labor Speaker Series kicked off last month with APWU member Arion Brown. You can watch the replay here, where he discusses how he got involved in unionizing and how it’s made a difference before and during the pandemic.

Publications Team Update

A few updates on some of the work our Publications Team’s has been engaging in over the past month...

• Our February Washington Socialist went live last week. A strong edition this month outlines happenings in DC and PG County, a review of the insurrection, a recap of January, and even some movie discussions.
• Last month, we quietly released Stories Hub, which organizes articles dating back to 2017 based on issue/topical area. Categorization is incomplete — we’ll be uploading all of our 2016 articles over the next month or so. (If interested in helping to arrange our collections, reach out!)
• The weekly update continues to perform strong — with weekly opens routinely staying over 3k (!!) a week, with an open rate that hovers in the range of ~35-40%. As always, this space is open to all chapter members and allies. You can always fill out a request on our chapter’s Red Desk to submit a request for entry.
• Our Linkhub, released two months ago, acts to organize and corral links — allowing us to rapidly redirect interest from social media posts (particularly for Instagram use) to necessary information/events. To get your events/actions on there, please reach out in the #publications channel on Slack.

If you’re interested in getting more involved or connecting, please join our #publications channel on the chapter Slack, or jump on our mailing list to make sure you don’t miss a wire.

Panelists discuss DC political landscape

On Wednesday, a panel organized by Georgetown’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor discussed political challenges in the coming year. The panel included DSA member Ed Lazere, Makia Green (organizer for DC Working Families and Black Lives Matter DC), Parisa Norouzi (Empower DC), and Maurice Jackson (historian, Georgetown). The panel provides a good census on DC’s local political landscape.

MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

NATIONAL DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Thursday, February 11 | 5 – 6:30pm
The Ballot and Community Control Over Police
Explores the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table 2016 platform that intervenes in this political moment, advances a more radical Black-centered policy vision, and addresses the systemic devaluing and destruction of Black lives. Join IPS ally Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership for a forum about the platform’s call for “community control over police” as a means of shifting power, enforcing democracy, deconstructing the historic relationship between the police and the Black community, and re-imagining a social force designed to actually protect and serve. Register here.

Saturday, February 13 | 3:30 – 5:30pm
Prince George’s County Virtual Environmental Forum

Thursday, February 18 | 7:30pm
Aesthetic and political strategies of contemporary Mapuche Art
Love + Solidarity Collective, Unidos DMV
Presented in both Spanish and English, this workshop will cover how Mapuche artists have generated strategies of decolonization through art. The creation of contemporary Mapuche art will be contextualized through the history of different periods of colonization, the problems with the Chilean state and Mapuche resistance.

INFO ACCESS

Publications Schedule — Updates in February will be sent Fridays, February 12 and 19, and the March issue of the Washington Socialist is scheduled for Friday, February 26 with an article deadline of February 20. Send submissions to [email protected].

What’s there to write about? Well, everything — we are socialists, after all, and part of our task is to trace the connections between what appear to be our disconnected lives. But nitty gritty discussion on what’s hot and what to write about is on the #publications Slack channel; get into the mix there.

GOOD READS

Our local comrade Jules Bernstein shows in The American Prospect the rich variety of impeachable offenses embedded in the charges against Trump coming up in the Senate.

The parallel development of direct democracy and representative democracy is often discussed as a unique feature of Italian communism and rooted in the work of Antonio Gramsci. On the PCI’s centenary, the discussion goes on.

When vaccines are funded entirely with public money from beginning of development to injection into recipients, aren’t they owned by the public, not Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna? The Nation has a discussion, touted by our comrade Dave R.

A history of organized Black power in Washington DC — mapped between 1961 and 1998 — by historian George Derek Musgrove. Compiled with extraordinary detail.

The enablers, in two acts: The NYT developed this “tik-tok” timeline for the January 6 assault on the Capitol. It demonstrates what we probably already knew in our guts — there was a collection of knowing and (often) skilled enablers spearheaded by Trump that built the event into an inevitability. The political model has been perfected for many years by an even more moneyed and skilled influence machine, the collective practices of the alleged rugged individualists at the commanding heights of the economy. Robert Reich recounts in “Sedition by other Means” how this push-button marvel of influence mechanics swings into action whenever corporate America needs to get its political puppets twitching in the same capitalist direction. Our comrade Dave R touted the Reich companion piece here.

Regarding vaccine rollout — one of the problems with allowing hospital centers to distribute the vaccine rather than state and local health agencies: “The troubled rollout came after Mr. Cuomo declined to use the longstanding vaccination plans that the State Department of Health had developed in recent years in coordination with local health departments. Mr. Cuomo instead adopted an approach that relied on large hospital systems to coordinate vaccinations not only of their own staffs, but also of much of the population.” View the NYT article, highlighted by our local M4A working group.

The distinct failures of the scattershot local and national vaccine rollouts (looking at you, Larry Hogan) highlight a problem that preceded Trump and persists now, Robert Kuttner argues in the Prospect: “Government needs to restore the competence of public systems and not wait for crises.”

For otherwise allied folks who are horrified at the possible off-putting impact of the slogan “Abolish ICE,” here is your answer: It’s ICE “where the gung-ho culture has long favored the get-tough policies that Mr. Trump embraced. … a department that was unmatched in how closely it aligned with Mr. Trump.

Prepared by a Metro DSA member — How to Make Joe Biden’s Budget Better — and published in the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s website. Good accounting of how something like a Green New Deal would (and could!) be financed.

In 730DC — Does ‘Meaning’ Substitute for Money? — a Georgetown graduate in month 10 of the job hunt examines what concessions nonprofit workers are willing to make in time and wages in order to feel a sense of purpose in their jobs. With DC’s high concentration of nonprofits burning out its well-intentioned workforce, she reminds us that “nonprofits exist in a for-profit system that leaves them struggling for resources” and advocates unionizing as “a way to make purpose-driven work pay fairly and empower employees.” She closes with these words from the late Toni Morrison: “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.”

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