This month, we will have a special presentation from the Defund MPD working group outlining the budget advocacy battle taking place over the next two months in DC. We will also go over the chapter’s steering and national delegate elections and receive updates from other working groups on campaign progress.
Want a digital place to chat about the local elections, ask questions or interact with steering and delegate candidates? Check out the #2021-mdcdsa-internal-elections channel on our chapter’s Slack. (Are you a member and not on Slack? Check out the INFO ACCESS section of this newsletter below.)
Proposed rollback of eviction moratorium in DC fails – activists organize outreach to tenants
BRIEFS
Comment period for nominated Harassment and Grievance Officers (HGOs) still open
Comrades, the comment period for nominated Harassment and Grievance Officers (HGOs) is still open. Last week, the MDC DSA Steering Committee nominated Noelle B and Kait F for the chapter's approval to be our new Harassment and Grievance Officers (HGOs)!
Last week they introduced themselves and answered questions from members at our Town Hall. Please see details and statements from:
Statements of dissent on any of the nominees are still open; Please email [email protected] with statements by Saturday, May 22. And find out more about this important chapter function; read the full account on our web-version.
Apartheid in Historic Palestine
Last week, protesters from across the DMV (including bands of socialists) stood up in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Although political leaders in the United States seem willing to absolve or ignore Israel’s appalling aggression, the apartheid state’s ambitions are not complicated to understand: Israel is executing operations intended to ethnically cleanse the people of Palestine. The DSA National Political Committee released this statement condemning Israel’s wanton aggression.
If you are looking for some immediate ways to get involved …
You can read more about BDS, the Israeli apartheid and DSA’s local and national positioning on the issue in this archive compiled from old entries in the Washington Socialist. Additionally, the National DSA BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group has a Resource Library.
Northern Virginia primaries on June 8 - Vote for Karishma Mehta!
We’re nearing the final stretch of the campaign to put a socialist in Amazon’s backyard. The primaries in Virginia are on June 8 and we’re in it to win it with NoVA branch member Karishma Mehta! The campaign is ramping up activities as we get closer to the Get Out the Vote weekend — starting up Tuesday evening canvasses, Saturday potlucks/meet & greets and of course the path to victory: doors, doors, doors!
You can find links to everything to do with getting signed up for a canvass, phonebank or recruitment call night here. One event we want to highlight is a watch party for a debate between Karishma and incumbent Alfonso Lopez on May 25 at 6pm.
Updates from the MDC DSA Defund MPD Campaign
Last call to sign up for wheatpasting! Taking place next weekend (5/28 – 5/31); sign up to get the word out and put some posters up!
Phonebank for DEFUND demands! Join us on Thursday, May 27 to get MDC DSA members to call their DC Councilmembers in support of Defund MPD demands!
Sign the DEFUND MPD petition! If you’re reading this and you haven’t already signed the Defund MPD petition, click that link and get signing! If an organization that you’re a part of would like to sign on to the petition, please do so here.
Got any questions? Reach out to us at [email protected].
Updates from the Socialist Feminist Caucus
Our team has raised $3,771 to support the DC Abortion Fund! There is still time to donate to our team page, and we have two more fundraisers to close out this year’s campaign:
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May 25, 7:30pm Virtual Trivia Night: Sign up with up to six friends! This event is cohosted by the DC chapter of the Abortion Action Fund. There will be lots of laughs, learning and prizes!
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May 23 – 29 Tattoo Raffle with Cry Baby Studios: The artists at Cry Baby Studios have generously offered their talents in support of Fund-A-Thon. Forty time slots will be raffled off for exclusive flash (to be released this week). One tattoo per slot, arms and legs only. Raffle entries are $5 per entry (enter as many times as you want) and if you win the raffle the tattoo itself will cost $40 the day of. Raffle ends Saturday, May 29 at 12pm; winners announced May 29 at 8pm. To enter, send payment via Venmo (@simbalsym) or CASHAPP ($simbalysm).
Reading Group this Saturday from 2 to 4pm on socialist feminism and labor. Also, we are joining the New River Valley, VA, DSA chapter’s reading group series on Childcare 4 ALL. These sessions welcome everyone — including men! — to participate. We missed the first session but we can catch up. E-book is $5. Final session is a panel with the author. The three remaining sessions are on Sundays, May 30, June 13 and June 27.
Unions and Worker Justice Groups Urge DC Mayor to Support DC Essential Workers Bill of Rights
On May 19th, union leaders and frontline DC workers renewed their call for Mayor Bowser to include the DC Essential Workers Bill of Rights in her upcoming FY 2022 budget proposal. At a midday press conference at Freedom Plaza across the street from the Wilson Building, the DC Essential Workers Bill of Rights Coalition (which Metro DC DSA is a member of) made the case that with the DC government recently receiving $3.3 billion in federal aid including $2.4 billion in flexible relief funds and maintaining a substantial rainy day fund, DC has the resources to improve the lives of the workers who risked their lives to keep all DC residents safe.
The DC Essential Workers Bill of Rights would ensure that every essential worker has the right to: two weeks of sick leave during an emergency; an additional $3 per hour hero pay during an emergency; presumptive eligibility for COVID-19 workers’ compensation; and stronger workplace safety measures to protect against COVID-19.
You can watch a full recording of the event here.
MDC DSA CALENDAR OF EVENTS
Saturday, May 22
2 – 4pm | Socialist Feminist Reading Group
Sunday, May 23
3 – 5pm | General Body Meeting | May
5 – 6:30pm | Medicare for All Work Group Weekly Meeting
Monday, May 24
6 – 8pm | NoVA Branch Picnic | Arlington – Quincy Park
Tuesday May 25
7 – 9pm | Fund-A-Thon Trivia Night
7 – 9pm | Biweekly Steering Committee Meeting
Wednesday, May 26
7 – 8:30pm | Workplace Organizing Workshop
8 – 9pm | Why You Should Join DSA / New Member Orientation
Thursday, May 27
5:30 – 7:30pm | Defund MPD Phonebank
Saturday, May 29
2 – 3:30pm | (How) We Keep Us Safe! Red Rabbits Support Role and Protest Safety Training
Sunday, May 30
2 – 3pm | MoCo DSA Member Orientation
4 – 5:30pm | AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus Monthly Meeting
5 – 6:30pm | Medicare for All Work Group Weekly Meeting
5 – 7pm | Defund MPD Phonebank
Tuesday, June 1
6 – 6:30pm | Medicare For All Working Group: Research Team
Wednesday, June 2
5:30 – 7:30pm | Defund MPD Phonebank
8 – 9pm | Why You Should Join DSA / New Member Orientation
Monday, June 7
7 – 8:30pm | June Labor Speaker Series — AFSCME members, U of Maryland
Saturday, June 19
7 – 8:30pm | NoVA Book Club — People’s Republic of Walmart
Monday, June 21
7 – 8:30pm | June Labor Working Group Organizing Meeting
NATIONAL DSA HIGHLIGHTS
Sunday, May 23
4pm | Fighting Postal Cuts and Closures
In the sixth of a series of webinars on saving and improving the postal service, this panel takes up the emerging struggle to defend post offices and postal processing plants from cuts and closures. Jess Campbell, director of Oregon’s Rural Organizing Project; Debby Szeredy, Executive Vice President of the American Postal Workers Union; and Jonathan … more at link
Tuesday, May 25
8pm | Building a Mass Working Class Organization
Why build a mass organization and what will it take? This training includes historical context, discussions, and breakouts to explore the idea of building a mass organization, and why DSA is committed to becoming a mass working class organization. … more at link
COMMUNITY BULLETIN + ALLIED EVENTS
A new section to amplify smaller notices from allied organizations, community groups and mutual aid formations.
INFO ACCESS
The final Update for May will be sent Friday, May 28, and the June newsletter issue will be published Friday, June 4. Send submissions for June to [email protected] and be sure to join our #publications Slack channel to join the chatter about how to write our socialism.
Your personal socialist kick-start — a continuing project in the Washington Socialist. Somewhere embedded in all of our socialist souls is the memory of that first book — fiction or nonfiction — that set us on our course to socialism. You might have encountered it well before you actually decided to join DSA. But without it you wouldn’t be a socialist. Tell us about it, in a few paragraphs or more, and send it to [email protected] with the subject line MY KICK-START — we’ll collect/curate them in upcoming issues of the Washington Socialist. If you want to discuss the project, visit our Slack channel, #publications. We read, we write, we act, and this is how we extend our socialism to the world we live in and work to change. Check out what we published in the May issue.
GOOD READS
For starters, here’s a recent talk to our San Francisco comrades on DSOC/DSA history and its founding spirits.
Every year, the US sends over $3 billion in aid and an additional $8 billion in loan guarantees to Israel, while continuously defending its existence and “right to self defense” whenever conflict arises in occupied Palestine. But why? What is the root of all this endless support to the apartheid state? Jacobin tackled the question “Why Does the United States Support Israel?” this week, starting with the early developments of Zionism in the late 19th century until the solidification of the “special relationship” between the two countries.
Damon King of Legal Aid DC explains why limiting the emergency ban on utility shut-offs to people enrolled in safety net programs is a terrible idea.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott delivered a victory to housing justice advocates when he vetoed a bill that would have created alternatives to the traditional security deposit for renters, opening up a new market for predatory financial schemes. Now, advocates, including Baltimore DSA, are shifting their attention towards stopping the Baltimore City Council from overriding Scott’s veto.
The Fight for $15 signaled Wednesday that it would not dwindle away, McConnell or no, and Sarah Jaffe (Work Won’t Love You Back) in the Prospect shows how the false narrative of UI benefits as disincentives to return to the workplace is slithering into the discourse — and how it needs to be fought at every level.
NYT’s Tom Edsall again with a wide take on how a recent research piece that showed discussion of race as reducing support for progressive policies created a furor among left academics and illuminated how important careful discourse can be to the project. One leading academic in the Race-Class Narrative Project argues, “if the left chooses to say nothing about race, the race conversation doesn’t simply end. The only thing voters hear about the topic are the lies the right peddles to keep us from joining together to demand true progressive solutions.”
Tax talk (unglaze those eyes!) from our economist comrade and frequent GOOD READS contributor Dave R: “‘Unless the stepped-up basis loophole is closed, we will soon have a large class of hugely rich people who have never worked a day in their lives.’ PS Every dollar a wealthy person has that he/she didn’t work for is a dollar that a worker worked for that he/she doesn’t have.”
Inspired by protests for racial justice last summer, a six-step DIY guide to steering institutional change. The animating idea: since racism is systemic, all institutions must change and each of us is well-positioned to advance racial equity in the institutions we are already part of. Prepared by a local comrade.
And just yesterday (Thursday), our comrade Jimmy Tarlau outlined in Maryland Matters why Maryland’s Dem power structure still jumps through hoops held by the business community and has left wide swathes of public sector workers unable to join unions.
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
