Howdy Comrades!
Welcome to issue 19 of the Houston DSA Newsletter! There aren't many pithy references to being 19, unless you're a Steely Dan fan, which I am not, so I'll save you the time and not make a joke. I'm Stephen Adkison, Houston DSA's Communications Secretary. Thanks for reading, and for doing all the work that I'll be writing about in these newsletters.
This is intended as a way to stay updated on the many things that our chapter does, so I think you should share the subscription link with a friend, and bring them out to anything we do!
Without further ado, here is issue 19 of the Houston DSA newsletter!
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- Election 2019
- El Real Workers
- Last Week in Houston DSA
- Upcoming Events
- Signing off
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Houston has a municipal election coming up this Tuesday, November 5th, and Houston DSA has endorsed two candidates and two ballot proposals! Click here to read our full breakdown and to find a voting location near you! Special thanks to everyone who canvassed or phone banked for these candidates! Now it's very important to go out and vote, and pay attention to see if there is a runoff.
Ashton Woods, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Houston, is running for City Council At Large 5. He wants to re-imagine public safety as community care, looking to things such as health care investment especially for populations without, housing justice, and public transportation guided by constituent, and not donor, inputs and needs. Click here for more info, and a link to donate to his campaign!
Rob Block, firefighter and experienced organizer, is running for Texas House District 148. He looks to constituent engagement as a foundation for issues such as responsible infrastructure development, defending and strengthening public education, community health and safety, and repealing anti-immigrant legislation. Click here for more info, and a link to donate to his campaign!
We have also endorsed a NO vote on Texas Constitutional Amendment #4. If passed, this would prevent our future elected officials from considering a
progressive income tax to make sure the rich pay their fair share. Finally, we endorsed a YES vote on Harris County METRO Prop A, “METRO Next” Transit Proposal. METRO’s plan is the result of months of community input. It’s a good first step: a $3.5 billion investment in light rail, bus rapid transit, dedicated regional bus transit, and local infrastructure.
Don't forget to do your part to help these campaigns in the next week (keep an eye out on emails for more opportunities) and to vote November 5th!
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This past week, El Real, a Tex Mex restaurant in Houston, shuttered without notice to the workers. When we learned that the workers were alleging unpaid wages, we quickly acted. We organized support for the workers, including sending people to their picket, having Judge Franklin Bynum come bring pizza, training them how to organize and escalate for their demands, and raising over $6,000 from the community in financial relief! Thanks to all of you that donated in support. It meant a lot to the workers worried about making rent November 1st. Many of the workers have contacted us expressing their thanks to DSA. Some want to keep doing this kind of political work! We hope to use this as an opportunity to do more work in labor, especially with our new found comrades from the El Real staff.
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Next Reading Group we will cover Stafford Beer's "Designing Freedom". This selection is six 30 minutes radio lectures Beer gave in 1973 after a managing the development of Project Cybersyn for Democratic Socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile in the early seventies. The lectures can be found here.
We recently talked about Beer in our discussion on "The People's Republic of Walmart," and while it's not necessary that you have read that, Beer's lectures will give us an opportunity to dive a little deeper into the work it will take running a planned socialist society. There's a big gap between "The Revolution" and Fully Automated Luxury Communism, and its time we thought about how to get from our capitalist hellscape to the rose emoji future.
The lectures were also collected into the book as "Designing Freedom" with added illustrations well worth checking out, a PDF of which is available here. Of course, the book is also available for purchase online from various sources.
The Houston DSA Reading Group is open to members and non-members alike and aims to be accessible to all attendees regardless of background knowledge or expertise. We hope to see you there!
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Last Monday, the Reading Group had their Halloween special and discussed spooky socialism. As we all know, the real horror is capitalism, and Halloween poses an opportunity for the left to point out the solutions to our current hellscape. As mentioned above, make sure to come out to the next reading group Monday, November 11!
Earlier today, a group of us met to phone bank for Ashton and Rob! We had a great time, and I'd recommend that anyone interested in making a difference keep an eye out for future phone banks. As mentioned above, there is a decent chance that the campaign season will continue in a runoff election, so keep an eye out for more opportunities to build power for socialism here in Houston!
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7pm-9pm, Coral Sword (1318 Telephone Rd)
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Steering Committee Meeting
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7pm-9pm, Bohemeo's (708 Telephone Rd) (Members Only)
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7pm-9pm, Bohemeo's (708 Telephone Rd)
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Thanks for reading! It's always a blessing to talk about the wonderful work our chapter has been doing. Y'all are awesome, and I'm glad to call you comrades!
Solidarity Forever,
Your Communications Secretary, Stephen Adkison
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Paid for by Houston Democratic Socialists of America, Inc. (houstondsa.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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