Comrades,

Many Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, but not all. In Montgomery County, we reside on the land of the Piscataway Conoy tribe. Europeans first started colonizing this region in 1608 and began converting the tribe to Catholicism in 1634. Read more about the Piscataway Conoy here and here. Native Americans in a number of places hold a "National Day of Mourning" on Thanksgiving day, including the descendants of the Wampanoag Tribe in New England, where they will recall the genocide of millions of Native Americans and the theft of their land in the shadow of the annual commemoration of pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock.

 Our next MoCo DSA branch meeting will be held at the Silver Spring Library on Sunday, December 15 at 2:00 PM! Maryland state delegates Gabriel Acevero and Vaughn Stewart (who are DSA members) will be guest speakers, sharing their experiences in the General Assembly so far and discussing plans with us for the upcoming legislative session, including bills on police accountability, funding public housing, and more. More info is below - don't miss it!

 Speaking of state legislation, we will once again turn our attention to the property tax breaks that private country clubs in Maryland receive for maintaining golf courses. No, this is not a joke - it is real and it's outrageous. For the past two years, Delegate David Moon (district 20) has attempted to repeal or mitigate these tax breaks in Montgomery County, but the majority of MoCo delegates have voted down the legislation each time. DSA held protests outside country clubs last session to raise public awareness - stay tuned for more actions this year. People in Montgomery County need housing, food, more public transit, and have many other needs. It is unconscionable that elected officials are not providing these public goods and instead continue to give private golf courses these tax abatements. 

Upcoming events:
 Monday, December 2 from 6:30 pm-8:30 pm at the Mt. Pleasant Library: Socialist Night School - Social Reproduction
What is the connection between gender and class? Why must socialists be feminists, and feminists be socialists? The question of social reproduction is the question of how workers are "reproduced" in order to keep capitalism surging along. Come study the feminist Marxist concept of social reproduction with us, and think through how this concept can help us make larger demands for a better society. Details here.

 Sunday, December 15 from 2 pm-4:30 pm at Silver Spring Library: MoCo DSA Branch Meeting
Please join us at our monthly branch meeting to hear about state-level legislation from DSA members and state delegates Gabe Acevero and Vaughn Stewart! Details and RSVP here. 
 

 Wednesday, December 18 from 7 pm-9 pm in downtown Silver Spring: Rent Control campaign meeting
We'll meet to discuss the next steps in our rent control campaign - we are gaining support from organizational and elected allies in the County, and will be making plans for our public launch of the campaign in 2020! Email us for exact location info.

 Check out the Metro DC DSA Meetup page to find plenty more DSA events throughout the Washington Metro region!

Good Reads:
 From truthout: "No Thanks: How Thanksgiving Narratives Erase the Genocide of Native Peoples" by Joanne Barker. "I have nothing to say about Thanksgiving. Or maybe I should say, Thanksgiving has nothing to say to me. Like sports mascots and hipster doofus celebrities wearing faux headdresses, Thanksgiving has nothing to do with Native American and Indigenous people in the United States. And try as Native people might, we can’t seem to get rid of it or change the way it is perceived or represented. This is because Thanksgiving, like mascots and faux headdresses, serves the capitalism of empire."

 From Jacobin: "Why Rent Control Works" by J.W. Mason. "Neoliberals are wrong: rent control protects tenants, is good for the housing market, promotes lively cities, and reduces one of the biggest sources of rising inequality today. We need to expand it dramatically."

 From the Hampton Institute: "Socialism, Popular Education and the Fight Against Racism in the Soviet Union" by Derek Ford. "While in the U.S. the veil of anti-communism is beginning to lift and the word "socialism" isn't as dirty as it once was, the Left still has a lot of recuperating to do. The virulent campaign against communism in the U.S. is deep and multi-faceted, and it has taken on many different forms... These examples document the seriousness with which the Soviet Union - its people and its state - took racism. When racist incidents occurred, they were not explained away or swept under the rug. Instead, they were put in the spotlight, becoming the subject of dialogue, deliberation, and justice."


In solidarity,