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Week of June 28, 2021 |
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ANNOUNCEMENTS |
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Fill out the DSA-LA Member Survey! |
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Although our chapter has tripled in size since early 2020, we know very little about our members (you!) Please complete this survey, which has questions about yourself, your background, your skills, and your interest in getting more involved. We can’t guarantee that we will be able to follow up with everyone who expresses a willingness in getting involved, but we are excited to be able to use this onboard more people to expand our capacity to help make this member-driven organization run smoothly. THIS SURVEY IS TO BE COMPLETED BY DSA-LA MEMBERS ONLY. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BECOMING A MEMBER, CLICK HERE. |
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Provide input on the Democratic Socialist Program |
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Last summer, DSA-LA members approved a resolution to prioritize building a new strategy for our electoral work to include engaging in the neighborhood council races in the City of LA, researching strategic races throughout the county, creating political education resources to help members understand the powers of non-federal elected offices, and developing a Democratic Socialist Program. At our June 2021 branch meetings, we discussed the development of that program and members talked about priority sectors to engage in, potential demands to address working class issues, and opportunities for constituency building in strategic districts. We aim to adopt the program through chapter ratification by the end of this summer and need your input-- please take 5-10 minutes to fill out this form and let us know what you think our program should reflect to be a tool for both our electoral strategy and our organizing in Los Angeles County. Wondering what a program is? Political programs are a set of priorities and goals that a political organization uses in order to communicate with the general public. A program demonstrates a coherent vision articulated by the organization and makes the case why the organization deserves the support, votes, and membership of everyday working people-- inviting them to join and take up the fight to realize those priorities and goals. If you have any questions or would like to get more involved in the Electoral Committee's efforts for the Democratic Socialist Program or other projects, email us at [email protected]. |
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NIGHT SCHOOL – Lost Angles Part 1: The Horizontal City |
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Thursday, July 1 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm |
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South of the 10 Freeway. Going North on the 405. The 110 South. Freeways denote racialized and classed geographies of Los Angeles in profound ways. But who decided how, when, and where to build Los Angeles freeways? Which communities were torn apart when they broke ground? And, importantly, how did working class Angeleanos fight back in their dream to envision a Los Angeles built for everyone? In this class we’ll explore the important histories of working class struggle around the Los Angeles Freeway system. By exploring resistance to our current vehicle regime, we will also begin to imagine a future where public transportation, sidewalks, and other public spaces feature prominently in our vision for Los Angeles.
Join the DSA-LA Political Education Committee for our first class of the Political Education Committee’s 5-Part Night School Series: Lost Angles The Horizontal City on Thursday, July 1 at 6PM.
Each session features a brief, informal presentation followed by facilitated discussion designed to engage all levels and connect current events to foundational socialist concepts and debates.
Comrades are encouraged (but not required) to review recommended readings linked in the class reader aligned with session topic found here.
Check out more classes in this series:
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Housing for the Working Class: Winning Social Housing in California |
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Friday, July 2 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm |
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Across CA, housing justice organizers are using a diversity of tactics to overcome the failures of the for-profit housing market and fight for the housing we need. These fights have in common a longer-term vision of housing that is permanently affordable to working people of all incomes, democratically controlled, and forever free from private profit and speculation. That vision has been realized in different ways in many places around the world, dating back to working-class tenants organizing in interwar Vienna over a century ago. It is called social housing, and it is gaining political traction across America. Join this town hall discussion and panel in the first of a series of political education on social housing. Through panel discussion and small group breakouts, we will talk about what social housing actually is, how it is connected to the local housing justice struggles we are waging, and how we can build together a campaign to win it. Our first session will feature Leilani Farha, the former United Nations special rapporteur on housing, and Shanti Singh, the legislative director for Tenants Together. We’ll have breakout groups and share local struggles for housing justice. Organizers welcome! |
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CALENDAR |
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The following list is only a highlight of what's happening this week with DSA-LA. Please check out our online calendar for full list of committee meetings & chapter events! Be sure to also follow our Instagram & Twitter for real-time announcements and calls-to-action! |
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Mutual Aid Committee Meeting |
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(TODAY) Monday, June 28 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm |
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Join the Mutual Aid Committee for our twice-monthly committee meeting, where we’ll be discussing ongoing and upcoming committee work, as well as helping folks get plugged into other work throughout the city. New members always welcome! Please RSVP for meeting connection information. Mutual Aid Committee meetings are held on the second and fourth Monday of each month. |
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DSA 101 |
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Tuesday, June 29 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm |
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Are you new or newly returning to DSA? To Los Angeles? To the Left? Then join us for DSA 101! At this orientation, we’ll talk about what capitalism is, how it functions, and why socialism is ideologically opposed to it. Participants will also learn about the history of our organization and our chapter in particular, the current projects we’re working on, and how you can get involved. This is not a lecture, but a meeting for new and veteran organizers. We’re excited to chat with you! Preregistration for this event is required. After RSVPing, you will receive a confirmation email with the information on how to join this meeting via Zoom prior to its start. |
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Neighborhood Council Monthly Organizing Meeting |
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Tuesday, June 29 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm |
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Over 114 DSA-LA recommended candidates won their Neighborhood Council races in 2021. We’re inviting all of these candidates as well as all DSA-LA members in good standing to our next meeting where we collectively decide how to bring about transformative change to LA residents. If you’ve been curious about the project and want to get involved, this is the perfect meeting to start. See you on Tuesday, June 29th at 7pm! |
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Healthcare Justice Committee Meeting |
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Tuesday, June 29 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm |
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Please RSVP here to join us for our Healthcare Justice Committee meeting! We’ll be discussing updates on our committee priorities for the year and several upcoming events so we encourage everyone to attend! Zoom link will be provided to RSVPs, and an agenda will be sent prior to the meeting. |
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Palms & Culver City Neighborhood Meeting |
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Wednesday, June 30 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm |
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Neighborhood Meetings are part of DSA-LA’s Neighborhood Solidarity Program—our chapter’s campaign to strengthen and grow socialist organization by uniting with our neighbors through tenant organizing, mutual aid work, and political study. This and all other Palms/Culver City Neighborhood Meetings are open to new and long-time comrades who live in Palms & Culver City. Our fourth Palms & Culver City Neighborhood Meeting will build on discussions and projects outlined in last meeting — including our community benefits workshop dedicated to the benefits available through (and the failings of) the American Recovery Act. Continuing our study of Class Struggle and Socialist Strategy across different terrains, our study topic for this meeting will be Socialist Struggle for Decommodified Goods, with a focus on housing. Short recommended readings to ground the discussion are included below.
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DSA-LA Child Watch Parent Survey Working Meeting |
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Thursday, July 1 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm |
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Please note new time and date! The DSA-LA Child Watch program wants to know more about the parents of DSA-LA (and parents not-quite-yet-of DSA-LA!) in order to make sure that our focus and work is most effective. To this end, we are working on a survey to help us better understand where parents are located, and what sorts of things (active or passive) our chapter could do to make organizing more accessible to them and their children. At this meeting, we will be going over all of the suggestions and feedback we’ve gotten and putting together one final, official survey for distribution. If you can’t make it to this meeting, or if you’d just like to give feedback in the meantime, please email [email protected] and we can get you early access to it, or answer any other questions that you may have! |
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