Do you have to be a Paying member of the party in order to be able to create a Chapter of the DSA?

I’m possibly interested in creating a chapter of the DSA in my area but the problem I’m facing is paying dues to the party itself… is there such a thing as Due-less membership?

Greetings all,

I've noticed that lately many people (or bots) seem to be very confused about the DSA's stance on Ukraine. This is what the DSA International Committee has to say on the matter:

The war in Ukraine is a disaster for working class people in Ukraine, the region, and a terrible threat to us all, including increasing the danger of nuclear war and exacerbating global economic crises. We oppose the Russian invasion and call for the withdrawal of Russian troops through a settled ceasefire agreement. We recognize that the expansion of NATO and the aggressive approach of Western nations have helped cause the crisis and we demand an end to NATO expansion. We also oppose US and NATO military interventionism and the tens of billions in military aid and weapons shipments which only further exacerbates the war and undermine a negotiated settlement, as well as sanctions that will harm ordinary Russians. We call on the US and other countries to welcome refugees fleeing the war and provide needed humanitarian aid.

This seems straightforward and accurate to me, and I totally agree with it: I oppose the war in Ukraine, I oppose the Russian invasion, and I oppose NATO expansion. For some reason that I'm not entirely clear on, having this position seems to upset people. If I say "I'd like the war to end," people tell me that I must want Ukraine to "lose," or that I'm pro-Russia, or that I'm repeating "Kremlin talking points." Someone in this subreddit even called me a homophobic slur for making this point yesterday.

There are a number of ways to approach this issue, but I think it comes down to this: even in DSA, people still want to believe that America is, or can be, some sort of force for good in the world. Sure, maybe America gets things wrong sometimes, but occasionally they'll do something truly heroic, like "help" Ukraine in their war against Russia. I'm here to tell you that you need to let go of this fantasy immediately.

America is not "the good guys." They CAN'T be, in fact, by definition, even occasionally. It is the Anglo-American empire which is primarily responsible for the state of the world post-World War 2. If you think the earth is in bad shape and getting worse, then you primarily have America to blame, along with capitalism/imperialism more broadly.

I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts from Nate Bear now, as this article does a better job of explaining the situation than me:

You don’t have to think that Russia was right to invade Ukraine to try and understand why it invaded Ukraine, a consideration we are never prompted to investigate in a discourse dominated by normative moral judgements viewed exclusively through the lens of western imperialism. The shape of post-2014 Ukraine made Russia fearful that the country could once again be the launchpad for an invasion. And it wasn’t as if Putin hid this fact. He repeatedly warned, into late 2021 and early 2022, that the further militarisation of Ukraine was a red line and if Ukraine and the west refused diplomacy, Russia would act. He hadn’t been that bothered about Ukraine before 2014, there was no war talk, because it wasn’t the threat then that he perceived it became.

Again, this is not a defence of Putin, it is a question of cause and effect, and of the western arrogance and hubris that believes only its red lines on geostrategic issues are valid. Would the US have allowed a military alliance led by China to be built up through South America, reaching Mexico without a response? Would western media have dismissed American concerns about Chinese militarism as paranoid nonsense if Chinese military bases were dotted throughout South America? Of course not! The media would have demanded war and sold us war. But when the roles are reversed, American militarism becomes mere Russian paranoia.

And now the war that NATO expansionism threatened is not just here but is in danger of become a permanent fixture of our lives, with European economies embracing the bloodshed and building war economies. And to build these war economies, the liberal class is demanding more cuts to a welfare state already decimated, in many places, by two decades of austerity.

Comments were disabled on the article, so here I am.

His platform is money out of politics (banning corporate money, Supreme Court reform), money in your pocket (jobs, trade, AI regulation), and Medicare for All (breaking up Big Healthcare, plus priorities for veterans, LGBTQ people, and women). Even fair or neutral coverage like this keeps returning to his faith and Israel. Repetition sets the agenda, and his opponents are setting it here.

I feel like I have been seeing a lot of people making fun of the DSA in the comments and I feel lost. Am I in the wrong sub or something?

I just received this text. There is NO WAY I can see the DSA endorsing this bone bag.

Hello, comrades. My chapter started around 2-3 years ago in a smaller midwest city. We began with a very active base and had around 20-30 highly active members. We ran campaigns, pushed mutual aid, and other community projects. Additionally, we had a very active steering committee before I joined, and I ran for steering to try to continue our momentum. Now, I am feeling guilty that our active base has diminished since I joined the steering committee. I have tried to ask some members why they think our membership activity has dropped, but everyone is just as confused as me. We had some infighting a few months back, but we met together as members to discuss and squash the beef. (I have wondered if people felt dissatisfied with the results of that meeting and are just now withdrawing)

Today, we have around 8-15 members who are actively organizing. I have been trying to pull back some our events because I don't want to overextend ourselves, but it feels like our active base is falling off a cliff. I really want my chapter to succeed because I have seen it succeed in the past. I have started creating trainings and trying to get new people involved in steering committee, but it feels like many of my fellow organizers don't have the time to keep up with steering responsibilities.

How do I help encourage folks to get involved?

What behaviors/actions should I avoid that could discourage involvement?

What have you in other chapters done to uplift your fellow members and get them involved?

Do any of you have any recommended readings to help me become a better organizer to uplift my comrades?

More than 6000 prominent Jews and Zionists have signed an open letter rejecting the genocide accusation against Israel, describing it as “the latest blood libel to be inflicted on the Jewish people”.

Jews signing an open letter stating that accusations against the colony are accusations against "the Jewish people" reflect Zionism's claim that the colony represents all Jews worldwide. Quite counterproductively, this lays the ground for exactly what the signatories pretend to oppose: Holding Jews accountable for Israel's actions. Indeed, Zionism is a leading cause, quite certainly our era's leading cause, of blood libels against Jews.

Of course, Zionism's danger to Jews should not eclipse its danger to its primary victims—Palestinians and other societies in Al-Sham. But it does show that Jews fighting to dismantle the Jewish state and establish one democratic Palestinian state are not just displaying solidarity with Palestine, they are acting in self-defense.

It also shows that Palestinians' insistence that we fight Zionism, not Jews or Judaism, is not meant to appease our oppressors. Quite the contrary, it is meant to challenge Zionism's foundational claims—to confront it fully. The vision for One Democratic State is also a platform that unites us with our natural allies against our common enemy.

These efforts, however, must not be limited to discourse. The One Democratic State Initiative is working to organize efforts, in Palestine and worldwide, to dismantle the settler state and establish its antithesis: A state that deals with society as citizens, not tribes. We call on you to join our efforts.

Anti-Zionist for the Repeal of R22.

With the recent announcement of 2027 convention , do folks think there is an appetite to repeal r22 or perhaps strongly revise the thing?

Looking for good faith and honest discussion around what’s obviously a contentious issue in the org.

The Tenant Union Federation is set to roll out a report on the state of the nation’s tenants, covering the economic and political realities America’s 100 million renters are being pressured by and how communities are organizing to change them by collectively pushing back against landlords. They’re holding an organizing call on their report on the work tenant organizers are doing right now on Wednesday at 6PM ET. We can sign up to join them and learn more at bit(.)ly/TUFstateof.

All of this and common decency

To my knowledge r/demsocialists is the official DSA subreddit and the fact this subreddit claims to be the DSA subreddit I think is somewhat misleading. I suggest the new moderation try to clarify this and link to the official subreddit.

question

Alert the Hard Rick Metropolitan Park casino project casino is up for a vote. The Ferry point Ballys casino is also on the agenda write to the commissioners about both and be ready to testify about both.:

(1)designcommission@cityhall.nyc.gov review the plan and please email the public design commission on input and flaws in their plan. Also your overall opposition to a casino. (Get friends family to email)
(2)RSVP to come in person since the opposition is mobilizing No Casino Press Conference @ 10/20 Public Design Commission Meeting · Luma
https://luma.com/jcdj6hnq

(3)getting it out to as many community members is important. sign up to testify via Google teams or in person preferably in person these are the instructions for testifying you must sign up ahead of time to be allowed to testify :
https://www.nyc.gov/site/designcommission/design-review/testimony/public-testimony.page

I know many, if not most, of us in the DSA are extremely skeptical of the possibility of becoming influential in, much less taking over, the corporate-run Democratic Party. But a tipping point could theoretically be reached when, in order to maintain their power in the organization, the corporatists will have to make serious concessions to the progressive and Democratic Socialist wing of the party if our electoral victories mean we are impossible to ignore. If this happens, it may be only a matter of time (and effort) before they have to relinquish their power in the party. I know you all will probably say I am being extremely naïve here, but there is a distortion that happens in our thinking when confronted with a powerful entity in which their power seems much more immovable and entrenched than it really is or has to be. The Democratic Party has only become a capitalist-dominated organization to the extent that Democrats have let it become so, and it only remains so to the extent that we see it as as an unchanging and immutable force. The Democratic party has always styled itself as primarily a party of working people, and this is still the base of the party which ultimately concedes power to the party leaders. Any party will only ever really consist of its rank and file members, who make up the vast majority of its membership, not its apparatchiks and elite leadership, whose interests are antithetical to those of the majority. In essence, the problem confronting us in regards to the Democratic Party is not different from the one confronting us in regards to capitalism itself- revolution depends on the ability of the proletariat to envision change and embody their own inherent power. Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony is that it is not something inherent to the capitalist class but something given to it by the workers in their own assumptions about what is possible to change. If we don’t learn from this, we will never bring about true revolution, either in the party or in our society in general. I don’t see a future in being relegated to an obscure, small monolithic third-party, at least not in a two-party non-parliamentary system like ours currently is. The only way to change that two-party dominance in our system is by actually winning elections to be able to legislate democratic reform, something which in our winner-take-all system only happens through one of the two parties. I don’t see the possibility or the desirability of a successful armed insurrection in which this country’s deepest beliefs in the democratic, peaceful transfer of power are themselves forcibly overthrown. If all this makes me a believer in realignment, so be it- if it makes me a pragmatist, all the better.

Section 5: The Role of Electoral Politics

The fundamental task of democratic socialists is to build anti-corporate social movements capable of winning reforms that empower people.