A summary of Democratic Socialists of America’s Strategy Document – June 2016 Download PDF 2016 was a game changing year for leftists and progressives. We are finally reemerging as a vital and powerful force after an extended period of stagnation and demoralization, and we face a political landscape more favorable than perhaps at any time…
by Mark Schaeffer The global environmental crisis, together with growing inequality, is the great challenge of the 21st Century. Fossil fuel combustion and deforestation are destabilizing the global climate, and extreme weather events are accelerating. Renewable resources such as topsoil and groundwater are being consumed far faster than they regenerate. Species and entire habitats are disappearing…
By Michele L. Rossi Today, most of us are only too painfully aware of leftists’ worldwide difficulty in winning and exercising power. Capital’s enhanced global mobility, legal challenges by undemocratic transnational bodies like the World Trade Organization, and the explosion of service jobs that offer little chance for wage and revenue growth sabotage states’ tools…
by Maria Svart I’m told that Michael Harrington once wistfully commented to colleagues that he had written sixteen books, and on the dust jacket of the sixteenth, the publisher had put, “By the author of The Other America.” It is entirely fitting that Mike should be best remembered for his first work. It influenced President…
Ever wonder what a realistically achievable, fair and egalitarian society would look like, or how we might go about moving society in that direction? What would it mean to have democracy not only at the polling place, but also at the work place? What would politics, the economy and society look like where no person’s…
by Joseph M. Schwartz Republicans and conservative Democrats are whipping up public hysteria about the debt ceiling and the size of the federal deficit to justify cutting social programs that benefit the middle and working class. These scare tactics are hypocritical because conservatives militantly pushed for these same cuts when the federal budget was in…
by Chris Maisano Frances Fox Piven has spent decades writing about and participating in social movements in the United States. She was gracious enough to sit down for an interview with Chris Maisano, a writer and activist in the New York local of Democratic Socialists of America, to discuss the Occupy Wall Street protests, the…
by Maurice Isserman "Promising indeed," Eugene Debs wrote in September l900, "is the outlook for Socialism in the United States. The very contemplation of the prospect is a wellspring of inspiration." Debs, a gifted and militant leader of America’s railroad workers, seemed to have been granted a prophetic gift. When he ran for President in…
Where We Stand was written by organization-wide discussion from 1990-1995 to update the original founding DSA document of 1982. While circumstances have somewhat changed and some of the references are dated, it still reflects DSA’s basic political analysis and values and remains strikingly relevant in its viewpoint. Table of Contents Preamble Section 1: Democracy, Liberty…
by Peter Frase and Bhaskar Sunkara Mitt Romney was ridiculed by the liberal media when he complained to wealthy donors, “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.” To Romney, these voters are united by a dependency on government and a belief that “they are entitled to…