Jason Pramas
Jason Pramas
Boston DSA
In 1998 Jason Pramas was the Director of the Boston Democratic Socialists of America Social Security Action Project.[1]
Progressive propaganda event
According to Boston DSA activist Jason Pramas, a couple of months after September 11th "shattered politics-as-usual for the American left", a number of local Boston activists in the labor-welfare coalition Working Massachusetts, in Jobs with Justice, and "in my group, the Campaign on Contingent Work", thought that the economic downturn accelerated by the terrorist attacks was actually creating an excellent climate for "progressives to take the political high ground in Massachusetts".
So in November of 2001, two ideas — Jobs with Justice’s plan to hold a Faneuil Hall speakout similar to the epic Democratic Socialists of America -led “Hearing on Economic Insecurity” in 1996, and a CCW/Working Massachusetts plan to hold a conference to help further unify the work of area progressives (and not-coincidentally) relaunch Working Massachusetts.
The major difference between "our event and the 1996 event" was that the worker panels testified to the local Jobs with Justice Workers Rights Board consisting of "eminent personages like Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner and Boston College Professor Juliet Schor" (both DSA members) — rather than testifying to a panel of Congresspeople. A few politicians showed up, most notably Congressman Bill Delahunt, State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien and State Senator Warren Tolman, but the overall focus of the day was that the "area progressive movement should express public shock and outrage at the local state of economic affairs in the light of the mass media. And propose that a freshly-emboldened popular movement could change the current political equation in favor of working people."[2]
Boston Social forum
In 2004, Jason Pramas, a long-time Boston labor organizer and sometime Democratic Socialists of America member/consultant, was coordinator of the Boston Social Forum[3]
Reference
- ↑ [Democratic Left Issue 3 1998]
- ↑ Yankee Radical March/April, 2002
- ↑ The Yankee Radical, March 2004