Democratic Socialists of America

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the US. It is one of two official U.S. affiliates of the Socialist International. It was formed in 1982 from a merger of the Michael Harrington led Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the smaller New American Movement.

About DSA

Circa 2000, DSA was a national organization of about 7,000 members. There were about 15 local chapters. New locals had just formed in Oregon and Arizona and a long dormant local in San Francisco had a new organizing committee. In California locals existed in San Diego, Sacramento and East Bay, as well as San Francisco. The Los Angeles local had declined to non functioning in the last 6 years.

Over 50% of total DSA members lived in areas without locals.

In addition the national and locals, there were several Commissions. These groups dealt with specific issues and are not geographically organized. For example there is currently functioning Latino, Anti Racism, Feminism, Labor, and Religion and Socialism Commissions. The eco-socialism and African American Commissions are currently not functioning. Sacramento DSA, hosted both the Anti Racism and Latino Commissions.

Leadership/personnel

The DSA leadership structure in 2009 consisted of;

National Political Committee

• Theresa Alt

• Virginia Franco

• David Green

• Michael Hirsch

• Barbara Joye

• David Knuttunen

• Simone Morgen

• Michele Rossi

• Joseph Schwartz

• Timothy Sears

• Herb Shore

• John Strauss

• Corey Walker

Honorary Chairs

• Bogdan Denitch

• Barbara Ehrenreich

• Dolores Huerta

• Eliseo Medina

• Gus Newport

• Frances Fox Piven

• Gloria Steinem

• Cornel West

Vice-Chairs

• Elaine Bernard

• Edward Clark

• Jose LaLuz

• Steve Max

• Harold Meyerson

• Maxine Phillips

• Christine Riddiough

• Rosemary Ruether

• Joseph Schwartz

• Ruth Spitz

• Motl Zelmanowicz

Staff

• Frank Llewellyn, National Director

• Fatou Camara, Financial Coordinator

• Erik Rosenberg, Youth Section Organizer

Long term goals

In 1997 DSA goals by 2017 included:

A U.S. President from the Progressive Caucus, a 50 member socialist caucus in Congress, successful programs of the likes of universal health care, progressive taxation, social provision and campaign finance reform.

Commissions

The DSA has several project commissions under its umbrella. Those include: Religion and Socialism Commission, Anti-Racism Commission, Labor Commission, and the International Commission.

Environmental Commission

The DSA Environmental Commission is no longer a project of the DSA, but it was once the Environmental arm of the DSA.

Radical Scholars & Activists Conference

In 1993 the Democratic Socialists of America was an endorser/sponsor of the Midwest Radical Scholars & Activists Conference. The theme of the conference was, "Popular Empowerment in the Clinton Era". The conference was held between Oct. 29 - 30, 1993 at Loyola University, Chicago.

Twenty-First Century Socialism conference

An "insurgent" Hilda Solis was a keynote speaker at the 2005 Democratic Socialists of America national conference "Twenty-First Century Socialism" in Los Angeles, with DSA leaders Peter Dreier and Harold Meyerson.

Saturday evening delegates recognized the contributions of DSA vice chair andWashington Postcolumnist Harold Meyerson, Occidental College sociologist and longtime DSAer Peter Dreier and insurgent California Congress member Hilda Solis (D) who in turn provided in-depth perspectives of the political scene.

Other speakers included ACORN chief organizer Wade Rathke, Kent Wong of the UCLA Labor Center and Roxana Tynan of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

Congressional Progressive Caucus

DSA helped form and continues to work closely with the Congressional Progressive Caucus;

Since 1982, DSA has been working for progressive change. As a national organization, DSA joins with its allies in Congress' Progressive Caucus and in many other progressive organizations, fighting for the interests of the average citizen both in legislative struggles and in other campaigns to educate the public on progressive issues and to secure progressive access to the media.

According to the DSA website;

No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus...Maybe sometime in the future, in coalition with our allies, an alternative national party will be viable. For now, we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats

DSA, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Institute for Policy Studies formed a triple alliance.

The "Back to Basics Conference"was held Oct. 9-11, at Chicago's Congress Hotel. Several hundred people attended the conference, which In These Times magazine sponsored and managed. In practice the conference urged the Left to abandon its dead-end, self-destructive course toward cultural politics and return to class politics.

DSA leaders, Chris Riddiough and Joe Schwartz, organized a panel to discuss "Building a Better Left", a call to work for greater Left unity and organizational strength. DSA is working with the Progressive Caucus in Congress and the Institute for Policy Studies. Labor is essential for an effective Left, along with people of color and women. What is envisioned is not a uniting of organizations, but a broad coalition willing to speak with one voice on issues of common concern. No consensus emerged from discussion, but the proposal remains alive.

Electoral flexibility

While sometimes regarded as a leftist pressure group inside the Democratic Party, DSA's electoral tactics are in fact far more subtle and flexible. DSA members may join the Democratic Party and work closely with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but also may work through the Green Party, the Working Families Party, or support local "progressive" coalitions or independent candidates such as Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders.

From a DSA's Democratic Left;

Electoral Politics As Tactic — Elections Statement 2000

The National Political Committee consciously chose not to endorse any major party presidential candidates. While understanding that for pragmatic reasons many progressive trade unionists, environmentalists, and African-American and Latino activists have chosen to support Al Gore, DSA’s elected representatives believe that Gore...represents a centrist, neo-liberal politics which does not advocate the radical structural reforms — such as progressive taxation, major defense cuts, and real universal health and child care — necessary to move national politics in a genuinely democratic direction...

Some DSAers may support Ralph Nader for president, if he appears on the ballot in their state. Others may support our Socialist Party comrade David McReynolds. Nader’s campaign is likely to appear on more state ballots and it has the potential to harness the energy of the protests in Seattle and Washington against the WTO and IMF...

But in states where the presidential race appears close next November, it is likely that DSA members with ties to mass constituencies will engage in pragmatic lesser-evilism and hold their nose and vote for the Democrat... DSA Vice-Chair Harold Meyerson’s electoral analysis in this issue concludes with a case for “critical support” of Gore. This position is by no means an official DSA “line,” but a perspective held to by many in the organization, but dissented from by numerous others.

It is inaccurate to describe DSA as primarily working within the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party.” The 1993 DSA convention in fact resolved “that the imperative task for the democratic Left is to build anti-corporate social movements which are capable of winning reforms which empower people...The fundamental question for DSA is not what form that electoral intervention takes...Rather, our electoral work aims at building majoritarian coalitions capable of not only electing public officials, but capable of holding them accountable after they are elected.”

DSA’s main task is to build grassroots, multi-racial, progressive coalitions...Neither flying the flag of a third party which lacks a mass social base, or placing uncritical faith in isolated progressive Democratic politicians will build a powerful Left...

DSA is no more loyal to the Democratic Party – which barely exists as a grassroots institution –than are individuals or social movements which upon occasion use its ballot line or vote for its candidates...Veterans of the left will remember that the 1968 Peace and Freedom Party and the 1980 Citizens Party arose at moments of greater left-wing strength and did not significantly alter the national electoral landscape. Nor has, unfortunately, the New Party, which many DSAers work with in states where “fusion” of third party and major party votes is possible (such as the DSA co-sponsored Working Families Party in N.Y. State).

DSA recognizes that some insurgent politicians representing labor, environmentalists, gays and lesbians, and communities of color may choose to run under Democratic auspices, as in the 1988 Jesse Jackson campaign, or operate as Democrats like Senator Paul Wellstone, and the 59 Democratic members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one-half of whom are Black and Latino and all of whom possess strong labor backing and operative social democratic politics.

Electoral tactics are only a means for DSA; the building of a powerful anti-corporate and ultimately socialist movement is the end. Where third party or non-partisan candidates represent significant social movements DSA locals have and will continue to build such organizations and support such candidates. DSA honored independent socialist Congressperson Bernie Sanders of Vermont at our last convention banquet, and we have always raised significant funds nationally for his electoral campaigns. At the same time, we were pleased to have Democratic Congressperson and Progressive Caucus member Bob Filner of San Diego introduce Sanders at the convention, and note that Progressive Caucus member Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) will be honored at our annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington dinner this Spring in Chicago.

DSA is a modest, sometimes effective organization, whose members have greatest influence in community-level electoral politics. DSA is not an electoral organization, but rather a democratic socialist political organization which aims to bring socialism into the mainstream of American politics. We endeavor to do so through a two-pronged strategy of education and organizing. Much of our work is cultural and ideological: forums, debates, publications. But our voice can only be heard if we simultaneously play a central, activist role within struggles relevant to working people, communities of color, women, gays and lesbians and other oppressed constituencies. We operate within progressive coalitions as an open socialist presence and bring to these movements an analysis and strategy which recognizes the fundamental need to democratize global corporate power.

DSA strives to be a crucial socialist leaven within a mass movement for social justice. In the 2000 elections, most electorally-active, progressive constituencies will endeavor to elect progressives to Congress and to the state legislatures.

DSA will continue to be a voice inside — and outside — the electoral process, to argue against panaceas of ‘fixed’ markets, and for a bottom-up democratic, decentralized and environmentally sane economy.

Position on "reparations" for African-Americans

DSA Statementon Reparations

DSA joins in solidarity with the position expressed by the Black Radical Congress (April 17, 1999):

Reparations is a well-established principle of international law that should be applied in the US...As the descendants of enslaved Africans, we have the legal and moral right to receive just compensation for the oppression, systematic brutality and economic exploitation Black people have suffered historically and continue to experience today.

Thus, we seek reparations from the U.S. for its illegal assault on African peoples during the slave trade; its exploitation of Black labor during slavery; and its systematic and totalitarian physical, economic and cultural violence against people of African descent over the last four centuries.

DSA, as a socialist organization, rejects the proposition that corporate wealth and individual property are the same. The wealth that we plan to re-distribute is corporate wealth not personal private property.

The wealth of the U.S. corporate class was developed from the exploitation of vast numbers of Africans and a great many indigenous peoples by slavery and the theft of indigenous wealth and land by the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the English-speaking peoples. The current wealth of the ruling elite and the poverty in African-American and indigenous communities are direct consequences of this incorporation by force and terrorism of these and other dominated communities into the capitalist system. And we, along with the Latino Commission of DSA, further call for reparations for the assaults and despoliation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and their descendants, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and others, for the loss of their lands and the attempted destruction of their cultures and institutions. This includes supporting the land claims and other treaty-related social justice cases of the Native American tribal nations.

In pursuit of these reparations, we take the following steps:

1. DSA supports H.R. 40, introduced by Representative John Conyers, to study the issues related to slavery and to make recommendations to Congress.

2. We further recognize that reparations are fundamentally a social rather than an individual process. It is clear from a number of studies that the underdevelopment of communities of African Americans, indigenous people, and their descendants continues to this date. We recognize that this underdevelopment is a direct result of the crimes of the past, and the forced subjugation of these people and their incorporation into a White Supremacist society based upon the unfair and inequitable extraction of labor and capital from the work, and death, of these people.

We therefore call for monetary reparations to be in the form of public ownership of utilities and means of production. And we call for the investment of compensatory funds into publicly owned institutions for the development of their communities.

And public funds shall be used to promote the general welfare, education, health care, public transportation and infrastructure targeted on those communities historically denied lack of access to capital and education by prior governmental and corporate actions.

3. DSA will conduct internal and public education around the issueof reparations.

Adopted by the National Political Committee, October 6, 2002.

Support for 'Single Payer' health care

DSA is a driving force behind the campaign for socialized medicine in the US. It works closelywith allies such as U.S. Congressman John Conyers and Senator Bernie Sanders to move the debate in the appropriate direction.

DSA reaffirms its support for single-payer health insurance as the most just, cost-effective and rational method for creating a universal health care system in the United States.

In the House of Representatives, John Conyers has introduced H.R.676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. This bill has 77 co-sponsors. In the Senate, Bernie Sanders has introduced S.703, the American Health Security Act of 2009. His bill has not yet attracted co-sponsors.

These two pieces of legislation take different approaches to universal health insurance, but both take forprofit insurance companies out of the picture.

DSA asks our locals to contact their senators and representatives, and encourage them to co-sponsor these bills if they have not already done so.

The Employee Free Choice Act – A DSA Priority

In an article in DSA's Democratic Left, Spring 2007 DSA National political Committee member David Green of Detroit wrote in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)-or "card check".

What distinguishes socialists from other progressives is the theory of surplus value. According to Marx, the secret of surplus value is that workers are a source of more value than they receive in wages. The capitalist is able to capture surplus value through his ownership of the means of production, his right to purchase labor as a commodity, his control over the production process, and his ownership of the final product. Surplus value is the measure of capital’s exploitation of labor

Green went on to write;

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace...

In the short run we must at least minimize the degree of exploitation of workers by capitalists. We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power...

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) provides an excellent organizing tool (i.e., tactic) through which we can pursue our socialist strategy while simultaneously engaging the broader electorate on an issue of economic populism.

Green explained how DSA could play a role in getting the Act passed through the Senate after the 2008 elections.

The fact that we face an uphill battle in the Senate does not detract from the value of DSA doing organizing work around EFCA. At a minimum, we can force conservative senators to place themselves on record as opposed to EFCA. This would then make these incumbents even more vulnerable in the 2008 elections. If we replace only a few of these anti-labor senators in 2008, we should be able to pass EFCA in the next Congress.

DSA could play a role in organizing support for EFCA. We have locals and activists across the country capable of organizing successful public events – as demonstrated by our Sanders house parties. We have “notables” capable of attracting non-DSA members to public events. We have academics, writers and speakers capable of elucidating public policy issues in clear and simple language. We have a solid relationship with several major unions-UAW, USW, IAM.

Green went on to explain how DSA's EFCA campaign could work-DSA could organize public meetings in coalition with other groups, including the AFL-CIO’s Voice at Work Department, state AFL-CIOs and central labor councils, American Rights at Work, America Votes, Progressive Democrats of America, Committees of Correspondence, ACORN and state Democratic parties.

He listed individuals who could be invited to speak in support including John Edwards, John Sweeney , Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Leo Gerard, Ron Gettlefinger, David Bonior and Bernie Sanders.

We could have literature tables emphasizing DSA’s low-wage justice pieces. We could invite the state’s senators and urge them to sign a pledge to support EFCA when it comes before the Senate.

Each of the sponsoring organizations could distribute postcards to their members which the members would then mail to their senators urging support for EFCA. We could also circulate an on-line petition in support of EFCA through the website and email list of each participating organization. We could publish op-ed pieces on EFCA in local newspapers prior to each public meeting. Finally, the coalition in each state could organize members to lobby those senators who do not sign the pledge.

The benefits for Democratic Socialists of America?

How does DSA benefit from this campaign? First, as with the Sanders campaign, a campaign on behalf of EFCA will allow us to activate our locals – giving them a project that is achievable, practical, and will bring our work to a larger audience. Second, DSA should be able to recruit new members from those attending the public meetings in support of EFCA. Third, the campaign will strengthen our ties with organized labor – allowing us to solicit resources for future activities more easily.

Our challenge is to convince the public that the ability of working people to organize unions has a direct and positive impact on everyone’s wages, job security, pensions and health care. Walter Reuther once observed that powerful social forces are unleashed when altruism and self-interest intersect. EFCA offers such an opportunity

Backing Barack Obama

On March 3rd 2007, Barack Obama was a featured speaker at a meeting of labor unionists in the Hyatt Regency Chicago Loop Grand Ballroom.

Speaking in a vernacular and cadence that showed the Harvard Law School and Columbia University trained Barack Obama can connect with working class people, the third year U. S. Senator wowed and energized a mostly labor union crowd of about 1600 supporters this morning...

The event attracted some of Labor’s big hitters to join Obama on the dais and speak, including John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO and Gerald McEntee, President of AFSCME. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky [D-Evanston, 9th CD], an early and big-time supporter of Obama’s in the 2004 Senate Primary and Senator Dick Durbin [D-IL] also spoke...

Eight other individuals spoke at the rally, including local labor leaders and health care workers, as well as a local favorite for liberals, Dr. Quentin Young.

Cong. Jan Schakowsky [D-Evanston, 9th CD]: … Employers can intimidate, fire, threaten to move people from the day shift to the graveyard...it is a new day in our nation’s capital, it’s a new day for Resurrection workers and their friends, it’s a new day for immigrant workers, it’s a new day for all our working Americans who dream of the justice that ONLY the Union Movement can deliver. And, to the doubters I say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait until we have a Labor Department under President Barack Obama.

Of those speaking with Obama, John Sweeney and Quentin Young are confirmed Democratic Socialists of America members. Gerald McEntee is a reported member and Jan Schakowsky is at least a supporter. Only Dick Durbin has no known DSA ties.

Support for Obama Presidential campaign

Most DSA members actively supportedBarack Obama in the November 2008 Presidential election;

DSA believes that the possible election of Senator Obama to the presidency in November represents a potential opening for social and labor movements to generate the critical political momentum necessary to implement a progressive political agenda...

An Obama presidency will not on its own force legislation facilitating single-payer health care (at least at the federal level) or truly progressive taxation and major cuts in wasteful and unneeded defense spending. But if DSA and other democratic forces can work in the fall elections to increase the ranks of the Congressional Progressive and Black and La-tino caucuses, progressive legislation (backed by strong social movement mobilization) might well pass the next Congress.

DSA concentrated its forces on where it could servethe Obama cause best;

For the past year, especially following the nomination of Barack Obama, many DSA members worked energetically on the presidential campaign, especially in swing states

Most DSA locals committed themselves fully to the Obama campaign in 2008.

Sacramento DSA worked intensely on the Obama campaign through Super Tuesday and continues electoral work with the Sacramento Progressive Alliance.

New York DSA members were especiallyactive;

Some got up “at the crack of dawn,” says Jeff Gold, to take buses to support Obama in various locations in Pennsylvania, sometimes side by side with experienced trade unionists from Working America and at other times with first-time campaign volunteers...Another member traveled all the way to south Florida to help turn out Jewish voters for Obama...

"Progressive" Democrats such as Mary Jo Kilroy also benefitted; In Columbus, Ohio, DSA members campaigned for both Obama and congressional candidate Mary Jo Kilroy, who, after a suspenseful count of provisional ballots was declared the winner in December, raising the Democrats’ majority in the House to 257.

External links

• Democratic Socialists of America website

References

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