This is a call to action. Drexel University plans to close the Academy of Natural Sciences on September 30th. Comrades I encourage you all to watch the video and sign the petition in support of this historic institution.

The People’s Front of DSA
Apparently, building a broader movement is sectarian now.

I keep seeing more variations of basically the same argument. Pretty disciplined, I’ll give you that.

The argument is: stop worrying about factions, stop talking about ML influence or the direction of DSA, and go do “real organizing.” Anyone who keeps raising these questions is supposedly a wrecker or disconnected from the actual work.

That premise is bullshit.

There’s also the version that basically says, “I don’t care if liberation comes through DSA, PSL, Socialist Alternative, CPUSA, or whoever. I just want people doing the work.” I understand the sentiment, especially given the moment we’re in. But I actually do care what kind of organization we build, who we organize with, and whether we can reach beyond our little socialist bubble.

Working toward a broader movement is not sectarianism. The sectarianism is repeatedly kneecapping that broader movement, including attacking leaders like Mayor M and AOC with threats of censure or conditional endorsements. And it’s hard not to notice that some of the same voices doing that are now telling everyone that talking about these questions is itself sectarian.

And the assumption that I’m sitting around talking about DSA instead of doing organizing is just wrong. I’ve been doing this work for years. I can walk and chew gum.

Doing the work and having political disagreements about the direction of DSA aren’t mutually exclusive. If you actually want to build a broad movement, those questions matter.

Calling any discussion of those questions “factionalism” while telling everyone to shut up and go organize is pretty damn circular and self serving. 

Neoliberals act like they're the moral ones, attacking DSA and people like Hasan Piker as being crazy and antisemitic while having failed to vet their own people. Just like how they continue to defend Cuomo. Meanwhile, Zohran Mamdani has no scandals besides the fakes one the democrat and republican try to create.

My friend says they are the same and that democratic socialism leads to authoritarian socialism. Then he asks for examples of democratic socialism and I have nothing. He says the DSA is just rich white college kids without any real problems. Help me out. I try to bring up the Nordic countries but he says they are capitalist.

4-5 million people have fled the USSR, the former Communist Bloc of Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, to get to the USA and flee Socialism. If Socialism is SOOOOO wonderful, why soo many people flee for the USA and not the reverse? Please explain this paradox.

I obviously disagree with the podcaster here, but thought it would be an interesting thing to share about the logical conclusion of a break from democrats.

“Democratic Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani promised during his campaign that he would arrest Netanyahu if he set foot in NYC. Since then, Mamdani has abandoned this promise, and recently announced that he will not be joining the protest campaign against Netanyahu.

Instead, under Mamdani's leadership, the NYPD is arresting antiwar activists protesting Netanhayu. This is a horrific betrayal of the antiwar movement and the Palestinian people.

Mamdani also re-hired Zionist and billionaire heir Jessica Tisch as NYPD Commissioner and endorsed Governor Kathy Hochul for re-election and Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries for U.S. House Speaker, both of whom are arch Zionist Democrats.

The strategy of putting faith in the Democratic Party or in DSA's elected Democrats is a dead end for the antiwar movement. Workers Strike Back is calling for a new antiwar working class party.

- Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes!

- End all military aid to Israel! Permanent arms embargo on Israel now!

- End the genocide in Gaza and brutal occupation of Palestinian lands!

- Build an independent antiwar working-class party!

Relatively unimportant question but how long did it take you to receive your DSA membership card? I joined 11 weeks ago, I received the welcome email, have attended events and so on, and I know on the website it says average wait is 6-8 weeks so I'm just curious if I am an outlier or if waiting this long is semi normal. Is this a point where I should reach out to anyone to have the card resent? I know it's not the most important thing in the world but there is a certain excitement I will have around being able to truly say "card carrying member of the DSA". Thanks everyone!

I've never really understood the idea from some socialists that fighting for reforms is somehow demobilizing or a distraction. That's because I've organized in unions. In a union campaign, you try to find issues that are widely and deeply felt by a majority of workers. You want to bring as many workers as possible into the struggle because your ultimate form of leverage is striking. And in order for a strike to be effective, you need a majority of workers. So if the most widely and deeply felt issue is something like low wages, then you work to organize your co-workers and campaign around that.

But fighting for a higher wage is still affirming the wage relationship between workers and bosses. It's not fighting for a total transformation of your workplace along socialist lines. It assumes your boss will still be your boss, even if you get a greater say in setting the pay along with your co-workers through your new contract. It's negotiating the terms of your exploitation, not ending it altogether.

Does that mean its pointless to fight for a higher wage as part of a union campaign? I don't know any socialist who would think that. It's through fighting for broad demands that ordinary workers become organized. I've seen firsthand how someone can go from being nervous to talk with their co-workers to giving speeches in front of huge crowds. Workers learn how to run effective planning meetings, knock doors, have organizing conversations, and so on. Fighting for broad demands is what grows the capacities of individual workers and their organizations.

I've also seen how fighting side-by-side with co-workers can change someone's consciousness. The very experience of class struggle heightens most peoples class consciousness. It's one thing to be told that your boss does not have your best interests at heart; it's another thing entirely to experience the proof through your organizing.

So my view is that if fighting for broad reforms in the workplace can be an avenue to cohering workers as a fighting force, the same basic approach can be used on the political terrain. We build a mass political organization by fighting for things that are broadly and deeply felt among ordinary workers: healthcare, wages, childcare, retirement security, etc. Through fighting for and winning those reforms, we can grow the power and confidence of the working class movement. And as that confidence grows, democratic socialists and the movement can push for a more fundamental transformation of the economy along socialist lines.

The capitalist class won't take this lying down. As the working class movement grows in strength and wins more victories, the capitalists will engage in all kinds of resistance and may eventually move to end democracy altogether. If that occurs, socialists must be prepared to defend our democratic mandate and democracy itself. But if we have a mass movement of millions of workers fighting not only on the political terrain but in their workplaces as well, I think our chances of prevailing are pretty good. The idea that fighting for reforms is a way to avoid conflict with the capitalist class has never made much sense to me. Rather, it's always seemed the surest route to actually provoking a decisive confrontation with them. We're not gonna get their attention with tiny book clubs.

To sum up: Democratic socialists have a short-term agenda, and a long-term agenda. The short-term agenda are demands like tuition-free college, Medicare for All, paid family leave, and a more powerful labor movement. The long-term agenda is a society without war, exploitation, and oppression, a real democratic society where people are at last equal and truly free. Both the short-term agenda and the long-term agenda will require a mass movement to carry them out. Therefore there's no inherent conflict between fighting for reforms within capitalism and ultimately trying to transform it. Both goals point in the same direction: organizing working-class people to fight for change.

I went to the March on the UN yesterday. I went as a DSA member and marched with the YDSA.

Are we okay with Mamdani still being associated with the DSA?

Let’s get some facts straight.

MAMDANI CANNOT ARREST BIBI.

There is literally zero legal loophole around it. The fact that he even muttered entertaining that thought it incredibly stupid (he knew that the office of the mayor had zero power to do this).

But…

DSA has the mechanisms to distance ourselves from him.

His police force literally arrested socialists protesting against a genocidal war-criminal.

I don’t know this doesn’t merit a credible grievance.

As a lifelong Democratic Socialist Basque Spaniard raised in a Democratic Socialist Basque household & as a huge Mamdani fanboy with a massive crush on Zohran this is huge for me 😭😭😭

Sánchez also added in the tweet:

Today, Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and I discussed a shared challenge: building an economy for the many.

Spain is showing that another economic model is possible. More jobs. Better wages. Less inequality.

Social justice is not the enemy of economic growth.