The past two years have been eventful ones for DSA and the world.
The immediate consequence of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was a rallying of many people to the Bush regime, and a difficult situation for left politics. But the actions of the regime since then, attacking all the social gains since the New Deal, and especially the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq, have transformed the situation once again.
The degree of liberal anger at the Bush government is unprecedented; Reagan and Nixon never managed to achieve that. For the first time since the 1960’s the best seller lists are dominated by liberal or left books (Barbara Ehrenreich, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Joe Conason, Paul Krugman, Molly Ivins, etc.)
The last two DSA conventions were at San Diego and Philadelphia. In each of those there were serious divisions within DSA. In 1999 the prospect of a Nader campaign for President filled many of our members with hope and others with dread. In 2001, there was a very great division in DSA concerning the proper response to Sept. 11 and the Taliban/al-Qaida regime in Afghanistan. There do not seem to be equally serious divisions as we move into our current convention. We can’t speak for every DSA member, but DSA seems united in our commitment to participate actively within the broad, worldwide anti-war, anti-occupation movement.
There also seems to be overwhelming support for the need to be part of the movement to defeat Bush in the coming election. If that is indeed the case, then we could strive to participate in and build an independent left presence in the campaign that not only does grassroots work like GOTV and voter registration, but helps build a multi-racial coalition that can exert pressure on whatever administration results. Defeating Bush would give momentum to labor, communities of color, the LGBT movement, and the feminist movement. Victories empower people and lead them to make more demands, not less. Defeat demobilizes, as we saw from 8 years of Reagan.
DSA is a small organization. But we want to make a case that the outgoing NPC, along with the National Director, has laid the groundwork for future growth. One reason is that this past NPC has started to implement a strategy.
We think it is fair to say that for a number of years DSA had no coherent political strategy. National DSA did good work in producing Democratic Left and some excellent literature. At NPC meetings we would pass resolutions on various political subjects, but if you asked what we were actually doing in terms of national program or in terms of providing leadership to the locals and members, we wouldn't have an answer.
In our opinion, this is no longer the case. For the past two years DSA has attempted, with modest success, to implement a strategy that was adopted at the Philadelphia convention. The strategy is to find ways for the national organization and the Locals to do joint work on issues relating to the Low Wage Economy. An obvious reason for this choice is that these issues reflect our core values as socialists. Another reason is that, as weak as we are, these issues allow us to make good use of the strengths that we do have. Among these strengths are:
** Our members, whether in locals or at-large, constitute a modest community of activists around the country. We have several hundred activists in our locals and YDS. That is not enough, but more than most groups.
** We have some standing with the academic and policy communities that think and write about these issues.
** We have ties to people in the labor movement who are organizing around these issues. In some cases these folks are alumni of YDS or DSA who are now in policy, organizing and political action positions in their unions.
** We have a web site that we can use to promote these issues.
** We have name recognition within the wider left-liberal and progressive communities.
** In addition to our activists, we have a membership of thousands who renew annually and pay their dues.
Based on these strengths, it makes sense to emphasize issues that have national importance but are conducive to organizing at the local level. Then, the work that the National Office and NPC does in producing literature, organizing conferences, making contacts with Unions, etc. can be of practical benefit to the Locals. The members and Locals know that the local organizing that they are doing is part of a national DSA project,
We made a start toward implementing this strategy with two Low-Wage Justice related issues that fit the above criteria: the Immigrant Worker Freedom Bus Rides, and the Wal-Mart project. By publicizing the Freedom Rides schedule to our locals, we encouraged them to participate in the rallies when the Rides passed through cities where we had activists. DSA also helped publicize the Rides to the progressive community beyond our own membership through our web site.
DSA Locals also participated in the Wal-Mart campaigns organized by the UFCW and NOW. Here again, they were doing this not as individual local activists but as part of the national DSA project. Wal-Mart is such a large part of the entire U.S. economy that its low-wage anti-union business model drives down the wages of the entire work-force. DSA has made an ideological contribution to the broad left thru this Wal-Mart Revolution theme. DSA members like Harold Meyerson have taken this theme into the Washington Post, American Prospect, etc. There is really only one solution: organize Wal-Mart workers into the UFCW. However, Wal-Mart workers are so intimidated that it is hard to see how this will happen without major community support, along the lines of the recent Justice for Janitors campaign. Down the line, we can envision DSA as a key ally of the UFCW in bringing this about. A first step is to help publicize the role of Wal-Mart to the progressive community and associate DSA with this issue.
The Wal-Mart campaign could easily spread to college campuses, following the examples of the grape boycott and JP Stevens. The sweatshop economy is right down the street at Wal-Mart, and even exerts downward pressure on the wages of service and maintenance and secretarial workers, including adjuncts and grad student instructors, right on campus.
As part of the strategy of linking national and local low-wage activism, DSA held three regional conferences that brought policy people and leaders together with DSA activists. These conferences allowed us to reconnect with speakers and resource folks from unions, organizations of people of color, etc. These conferences also gave the DSA locals in a region an opportunity to meet with each other, exchange best practices, and develop stronger ties. The attendance wasn't as good as we would have liked, but I think the participants felt this was a model that we should build on.
The strategy we have been following has not yet produced an increase in DSA's membership, but we have only just started to implement it. Unlike two years ago DSA does have a national strategy. So, building toward the future, we need to figure out how to focus it, help locals that have not come on board combine what they are already working on with the national campaign – or perhaps just reframe what they are doing in terms of the low-wage justice concept. In addition to developing the Wal-Mart project there are other low-wage issues that need work: health care, TANF, living wage legislation, affordable housing. Individual Locals are active in some of these, but for the national organization the important question is how to create the national-local mix. DSA has a commitment to become a more diverse organization and to fight racism. Our low wage work has not yet resulted in a more diverse membership, but the work we do in these areas results in joint work with a multi-ethnic labor movement and community organizations such as ACORN.
DSA has participated in anti-war activities, the Feb 15 march, and has been a participant in United for Peace and Justice. This reflects our coalition approach, and the commitment to have National DSA provide organizing tools to our membership. Our membership in the Socialist International may permit us to play a unique role in international work in the future. Again, we are trying to make use of the strengths we have to permit us to make a special contribution. Within the Socialist International, we represent the anti-war, anti-Bush U.S. position. We are planning to make use of our SI connections to Europeans and folks in the 3rd world who are developing a multilateral political and economic alternative to US global neo-liberal unilateralism, by inviting parliamentarians to visit the U.S. and present an alternative perspective.
Not mentioned till now, but the defense of reproductive freedom may become a major national issue in the coming year. This again is not a struggle we can initiate, but the next NPC should be open to looking for ways we can contribute.
We expect these initiatives to have an effect on membership, but we must place special emphasis on growing YDS. We have an excellent new Youth Organizer, Lucas Shapiro, whom everyone should get to know. DSA can help YDS with contacts among friendly progressive faculty (who know progressive students) and locals should get to know the campus left in their vicinity and get contacts for Lucas and YDS.
Finally, a little internal NPC stuff.
Our NPC committees have done excellent work: Democratic Left with Kathy Quinn as chair, and Local Development with Theresa Alt as chair and Virginia Franco’s active participation. The Finance Committee, again chaired by Kathy Quinn has clarified the budget and implemented procedures to review our financial performance. The Personnel Committee, chaired by Susan Chacin has done outstanding work, including working with Frank Llewellyn on the process that brought Lucas Shapiro to the National Office as Youth Organizer. Herb Shore chaired the Electronic Communications Committee. This committee has made a start on implementing a Key List which will provide detailed information on DSA national activities to core activists. We have begun this process by putting NPC minutes on the web. The web site is now updated on a regular basis, and has special sections on the low-wage campaign, including Wal-Mart.
The outgoing NPC has functioned in a collegial atmosphere. The members have diverse politics, but we have worked well together for the benefit of DSA. We think we have left DSA in better shape than it was two years ago, though our total DSA membership doesn’t yet reflect that. The NPC is a working body. NPC members are key to actually getting projects to happen. We write and edit DSA literature including DL, maintain the website, communicate with locals, and plan conferences. We need the next NPC to work, and to be committed to working together.
DSA is a membership controlled organization, unlike other staff or leadership controlled organizations. The convention is the highest decision making body of DSA. However, in the excitement of a convention, and based on our analysis, it is easy to overreach our actual capacity. So we urge the delegates to take account of the limited financial, staff and local resources available to carry out the mandates of the convention. If a convention mandates us to bring Socialism to the U.S. within two years, that won’t happen. If you see things that were passed at the last convention which didn’t happen, or happened in incomplete form, please take that into account. We will be more productive if we leave this convention having a clear idea of what we really intend to accomplish in the next two years and how all of us will participate in making it happen. Let us engage in the work of this convention in that spirit.
