Speaker 1 0:01

I got this one.

Speaker 2 0:03

Every so often the lights in this place go off and one of us has to stand up and make a motion so that the lights will come back on.

Speaker 1 0:11

Yeah, their motion sensing lights. And I know it's, and so occasionally just like everything goes dark and we're just hanging out here in the dark. CanNot see anybody. Um, you know, I'm going to take a drink. Since you've been actually playing a drinking game, we have whiskey and every time you say libertarian socialist, we take it. No. Okay. All right. Welcome. Comrade is to the left coast podcast. We have, uh, maybe a little bit of a DSA heavy one again today, but being that DSA is the big important socialist organization right now, I guess that kind of makes sense. So we'll go ahead and introduce ourselves. I am as always, Tiberius Caracas. I am communal source. I'm Erin. And today we have our special guest, a gen from DSA accountability. Go ahead and, uh, tell us what you're up to, who you are, what's going on.

Speaker 3 1:46

I'm Jen and I am helping is kind of a welcome wagon for DSA accountability. I don't have the group or anything but um, I've been helping out in there.

Speaker 1 1:58

Cool. So what does, um, what exactly is DSA accountability and have, is its goal, what is it actually doing?

Speaker 3 2:07

Sure. The main goal right now is to get a special election, a special convention going rather, um, in a preferably online, a virtual special convention. Um, so we are drafting a petition, um, uh, a call for chapters and locals to sign on and once we, um, get as many chapters as possible, um, and move toward getting the special convention done.

Speaker 2 2:36

Full disclosure, I am a member of the task force.

Speaker 1 2:38

So Jen, what will be,

Speaker 2 2:40

if we get this a special convention, what will be the, um, the thing or things that we're hoping to accomplish?

Speaker 3 2:47

Sure. So the idea behind it is to reverse the decision of the NPC. There seems to be a very strong voice that is in disagreement with the way they've done the process that was used by the NPC to retain comrade. That's on Tay. So people have joined together and formed a collaboration in order to, number one, do a recall vote to remove Conrad photography and then change, um, change amendments so that this can happen again.

Speaker 4 3:29

Okay. And for those who maybe aren't following quite as much or hadn't listened to our previous episodes sauce, can you go ahead and let us know who comrade [inaudible] is and why people are angry at him?

Speaker 2 3:44

Come right. Uh, Danny for Tante is a coach of the Austin Dsa chapter and he ran for NPC in his NPC statements, uh, when he was running. He talks about his organizing history and that he was an organizer for state workers after he was elected to the NPC. That the very evening after the election results came out, it was discovered that the state workers that he had been working on union organizing had been police, that he was a police union organizer for a particularly, well, all copy unions are unpleasant, but an unpleasant copy union called a c, l, e, a. T. And then since then, his behavior's not exactly been a shining example of comradely behavior. And I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 4 4:37

Yeah. And that's especially tough for a organization that is not only socialists but as pretty explicit about things like prison abolition and if not outright abolition of policing as we know in this country, then at least a reform that goes so far as to be considered abolition. So I kind of want to get your take gen on exactly what it is that that sort of we think went wrong with the NPC decision. Why that, why it was made in that way and you know, going forward what it is that we should be looking at changing at maybe a structural level.

Speaker 3 5:24

So let me just say, I think this is going to come from my opinion and my, my individual viewpoint. I'm not from a group standpoint, but I think one thing that went wrong is that there seem to be a clear majority that wanted to see him removed from the NPC. And it does not appear that the NPC listen to the will of majority. And in order to sort of justify what they've, what their decision was, they said, they said it was against the process. And there's a lot of people that feel that I think, you know, common sense in democratic norms should kind of coal go above process. And that if, if it's true that there was a lawsuit threatened then perhaps that should have been disclosed to members before voting on it. And that a lot of these things were done sort of behind closed doors. It's understandable that a mediation what a bit confidential, but the rest of the proceedings that would've been really helpful to know really what was going on. So a lot, I think there are some members that feel very left out. I am among them. Um, I would have liked to know more, which leads to sort of some of the problem with information dissemination. I think sort of what led to this becoming such a big deal. And Le leads kind of to this feeling, that feeling of factionalism online maybe. Right. So there's people who subscribe to our email list and there's people who are on our Facebook group and there's people who read medium posts and there's people who are on Twitter and there isn't one clear way to get all of the information at one point to all members. So it ends up being kind of its own little bubble of these groups and different groups start different forming, forming their own kind of opinion within the group. A and group kind of, some of the group thought starts to form and community starts to form there and digitally. So I think that's led to some of the, you know, bubbled up politics issues here, um, that maybe some folks feel resentment that there maybe a few years behind digitally and they don't want to sort of move towards a different platform because they're comfortable and then other folks feel like technology is important, let's keep moving forward and want to pull folks towards them. Um, so I think there's a lot of compounding factors in this and it's one thing I'm really heartened by and the accountability group is that it seems that we're trying to sort of bridge that digital gap between people and trying to, you know, it's open to all members. People can send us email, they can send a voicemail, they can with, we're starting a a Google group and we're trying to get to everyone and trying to show members that we want to make this right. We see a fault in the organization and we can do better and we care very deeply for DSA and want it to be stronger. How much of this is sort of wrapped up the structural

Speaker 4 8:56

composition of a national and specifically the MPC? Because, you know, at least from my perspective, it doesn't seem relieved that democratic, unless you consider sort of like the liberal representative democracy to be democratic, which you know, personally as a libertarian socialist, I don't, and it seems like the, for me, the, the real core issue with the way that this is playing out is that we voted on these people in the hopes that they would represent us, but without any real call ability. Yeah. Without recall ability without the ability to, uh, really enforce accountability except at the next election in 2019. Do you guys in the accountability group see it somewhat similarly or, uh, do you guys have a, a different theory, a working theory about, you know, what the, what the structural or what the core issues are. Because this is obviously not just about Danny Futterman Day.

Speaker 3 10:08

Right? Right. It's not, the issues are much deeper. I think, you know, when this organization had just a few hundred people, when the convention was only a hundred people, 75 people, something like that, it was a lot easier to guarantee you that information could get to members. It's a lot easier also to do that when your chapters are primarily in one geographical area. Um, and there are you primarily when the membership is used to one particular type of communication and then suddenly it explodes in growth and suddenly that same mode of communication becomes obsolete in the matter of six months. Right. So there are ways that we can work past those and you know, help the members collaborate so that the NPC can collaborate because it doesn't seem like that's really the case right now. Right. There's because there isn't a great way for the NPC to really even talk to the general membership. They can reach out on Facebook or like I said, all of the individual things, but that's not going to guarantee their voices always heard by all of the members.

Speaker 2 11:24

Yeah. I personally, I'm not in the DSA new members Facebook group and so I rely on people, you know, taking screenshots of stuff that only happens in that, I'm not on the DSA activists list because I was getting way too many emails from it. And so I don't know what's happening on that list. And I rely on other people that I know that I talked to, you know, like one on one or in a group DM sharing this stuff with me. Otherwise like, uh, Dan Potsie said about the reason they were running for NPC, people will keep saying, oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 12:06

Exactly, exactly. And the unfortunate part, and it's kind of another inevitable when this type of communication has to be used. When you hear it from someone else, it may, you know, inadvertently not a be the exact message that was meant to be set. Um, so when we have to rely on things second, third, fourth hand, things fall through the cracks.

Speaker 5 12:31

Can I ask if the solution specifically for,

Speaker 6 12:37

okay.

Speaker 5 12:37

Issues of like procedural things like voting for the NPC or, um, making decisions that affect national, it makes sense to have a sort of centralized stream of information. But if, if one of our priorities is like decentralization of decision making and power within DSA, then having one source of information dissemination seems like it would inevitably be controlled by the biases of the people that run it. Um, it makes sense to me in the context of voting for NPC or for, you know, issues that would come up in a convention. But if we want some sort of centralized information stream or source as libertarian socialist, does that present some concerns about that information coming through? Is colored by the biases of the people disseminating the information and if we want decentralization to seems like a bit of a contradiction or is it not?

Speaker 3 13:42

So one option would be to, you know, upgrade our website, our national website and not only use it for nationals message but for chapter messages to uh, you know, it's own platform for chapters and working groups and caucuses and all of these different groups we have can have their own message, their own intro and disseminate the information that they want and use the website as a framework. It doesn't have to be. It can build without having to have the information controlled by one one small group. Right. I think there's all kinds of different web means we could do this. Web Web page means we can do that as digital ways.

Speaker 5 14:31

I mean we could just like clone a reddit instance and set that up or I do not want a DSA reddit. Right. But ease of use would be important because someone like me will be completely voiceless in this situation. Having no web design skills or any sort of like, unless it's like a interface, like a social

Speaker 4 14:52

media type thing where you type it in a box, you're cutting out like I don't know, 80% of the membership in that way. So good design. Luckily there's a lot of tech folks in Dsa

Speaker 2 15:03

but, and we have a tech committee. I think one of the, one of the divisions that we are seeing is between the newer people to Dsa who tend to be younger and more comfortable with technology and more comfortable with using things like the rocket chat or some Facebook stuff versus the older people, some of whom were previous members of DSA and some of whom are newer to Dsa but who uh, are not comfortable with the rocket chat or not comfortable with things like Twitter are not comfortable really with with much that is beyond email. And so creating something that will work as either a unified messaging platform or a unified way of getting a message out or a way of disseminating exactly the same message on multiple streams would need to be accessible for everybody on the spectrum of, of how comfortable they are with with technology or if the only interface action that they have with DSA is just through reading copies of the Democratic Left, then we have to make sure that stuff gets published in that use paper to. Sure.

Speaker 4 16:19

I think one of the other problems is that it seems like a big reason why a lot of the information is hard to follow is that, uh, especially at the national level, there isn't, as far as I can tell, maybe I might not be plugged in as some other people into the what's going on national. I've been very, very focused on our local organizing, uh, but that it seems like there isn't enough, uh, sort of like delegation of responsibility happening that there isn't quite enough and not siloing but trying to put together formal groups who are responsible for not only like their own policymaking and decision making and carrying out actions, but also are, are tasked with and responsible for putting together on a, on a regular and consistent basis what they are doing and the things that they are deciding and acting on. Is that, is that the case or am I just sort of like missing something because I'm not on Facebook or, uh, as, as maybe plugged into the, the various communications channels as I could be?

Speaker 2 17:45

I think you're right in some respects. Definitely. Um, there are improvements

Speaker 3 17:50

that could be made. Um, and that's a lot of the reason why I got involved with your accountability group. I think though, looking towards national, looking towards the NPC for them to solve our problems from them, for them to mandate down to us is around mind frame and something that I'm really looking to change minds on that idea because we can do this ourselves and the members, the members are what makes the organization so the membership decides what they want to do and if we want to have a group that focuses on mutual aid, we should create one ourselves. Just like one is starting to form right now. If we want to have a group that focuses on crafting, we have one of those and it just gets made and done. And instead of waiting and hoping and asking and feeling resentment, we can turn that into energy towards building what we really want to have and then mandating it to them because we are the members and that's what, that's where the mandate should come from.

Speaker 4 19:10

Right? Yeah. I wasn't trying to say that but we need is for national to get together and, and give this to us. I was um,

Speaker 3 19:19

well I run into that all the time. It definitely don't think that you were, um, as a libertarian socialist, I definitely don't think that you're wearing, but I think there is a mindset of that. I know you see it, you see it a lot in certain online spaces. Um, when folks say Dsa should come out with a forum, DSA should come out with a using that. Dsa should come out with a noun, AOL chat room, whatever it is. There's a lot of should do is, and it seems like they're looking for that mandate. They're looking forward to come down to them and say it's all right but where members and we can make that decision for ourselves and do it.

Speaker 4 20:02

Yeah. Cause um, you know, one of the things that I have been doing a lot here for our chapter is to set up a system, a governance structure whereby the general membership from a grassroots level on up gets to decide how policy happens. And it is structured in such a way that is very easy for people to uh, work together in smaller kind of affinity groups and then sort of confederate those affinity groups into, into larger and larger circles until you finally get to the end like a general membership assembly. And it, I have been really trying to build this explicitly with an eye to being a part of the general conversation about how we structure DSA at a local, regional and national level. Trying to say, here is an alternative that we can use to the same kind of like liberal democratic system that we have adopted because that's what we're used to here is here is an alternative that allows us not only to have more power at a local level, but to be able to communicate and share resources and aid more effectively at a regional and a national level. Um, are you guys working, for example, with the Libertarian Socialist caucus much because I know that they, this has been a really big issue of concern for them as well.

Speaker 3 21:38

I know that there are individual members that are in the accountability group. I can only speak for myself, I'm a member of both the Libertarian Socialist and the accountability group. It is, you know, the amount of collaboration that we're doing. And that group is certainly indicative of a Libertarian Socialism. The um, you know, the uh, decision making process, the group collaboration, the joining together, helping mutual aid, all very, very libertarian socialist types of things that we've been doing. Um, someone mentioned a great concept tonight that I didn't know about because I'm not that deep into my political science degree prefigurative politics and I don't know if he was, you're familiar with that group. Um, it prefigure it ism is the intent to enact prefigurative politics, which are the modes of organization and social relationships that try to strive to reflect the future society being sought by the group. So we do our external politics inward.

Speaker 4 22:53

Yeah. Um, and I think that that is a big thing that we sort of strive for here too.

Speaker 3 22:58

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 22:59

I speaking as both a member of the Libertarian Socialist Caucus and this, this group, it's been wonderful to attend the meetings, which, which happened on, on like a slack channel. And, and see so many people that are so committed to the ideas of, of transparency and accountability that we don't have to necessarily have the big long debates about what does transparency exactly mean. We can start from a point of kind of start from, from uh, a point of understanding that transparency is important and then work out as we're working along kind of how each member is comfortable. Each member is comfortable with collaboratively,

Speaker 3 23:50

you know, because I think it's natural in groups that they're going to be some folks who look to see what they can solve. I'll work towards being problem solvers and are other folks who are naturally like to work from a list that's given to them. And either of those things are okay. I'm either of those approaches are okay. And I think that we can all work within the framework of both. And it's great to be in a group collaborating to make that list right instead of one person making those decisions. I have worked in corporate America. Why don't anymore? I worked in corporate America for um, a long, long time, more than a decade, a long time. And I worked in a lot of different kinds of positions, a lot of different kinds of jobs. I worked in call center resolutions. So I listen to people yell at me all day long for something that was not my fault, not my problem, I didn't do it. Um, I'm not to blind. So it really forces you to listen to people and their situations. And it's interesting because you hear a lot of the same stories and the same reasons and they think that they're alone and that there may be no one understands and no one can get that this problem is it exists and you hear it in their voices and they feel really, really alone. But you hear that same exact call maybe five or six times a day. And being able to bring people together in this group and talk and figure things out together instead of waiting for someone to tell us and feeling lonely and not knowing what to do is super empowering to people. They like to be able to put their skills to use in a way that they know best

Speaker 2 25:40

to make sure that it, it is clear the task force is open to any DSA member who is interested in joining. It just happens to be that it is, uh, an interest or a topic that interests many people from the Libertarian Socialist Caucus. And that is why many of us are in both places. But it is, it is not, it is not limited by membership in a caucus. If you are interested in joining, you know, I don't, I don't believe that there is any purity test or anything. You just have to be a DSA member who's interested in contributing.

Speaker 3 26:17

Absolutely. We, the only, only thing that we request is that your idea is a number and be a member in good standing. That is it. We have people from all walks of life, all kinds of opinions and thoughts. There are disagreements. We have boats that don't pass. We have votes that get tabled. There are issues that we resolve together. So it's not some kind of strange, you know, it's not some kind of utopia, right, where everybody is huggy and lovey and Kissy. I am extraordinarily gushy because I like to be the welcome wagon and make people feel comfortable in their spaces. So, um, I tend to be heavy on the Mog, but there's all kinds of voices and it's really great to be able to listen to them.

Speaker 5 27:13

So I have a couple of questions. One comes from me and the other one comes from a theoretical other person that moved poverty here going forward. When we say that the majority of people wanted photography out, um, I know there's petitions going around, I saw various ones. Is that we're basing it on or is this a general sort of feeling and how, what percentage of the 30 k exists in the online space that we would take that sample size for?

Speaker 7 27:50

Hmm.

Speaker 3 27:51

Well, um, I, when I say majority that is very speculative. I don't have hard information that is, that is based on reading and following very closely all of the different online spaces that DSA is involved in and breeding. You know, for instance, the activists listservs that Facebook, the, um, the rocket chat, the, um, our site group, that Twitter, uh, there are a lot of different spaces that has express their feeling that comment for content needs to go. Additionally, you know, there's quite a lot of chapters that have signed on. We're at are not signed on about I'd signed statements calling for his resignation. That was, that was the very first option, right? That was what initially was called for was him to step down.

Speaker 2 28:50

And I believe, I'm not believe, I know that the North Bay organizing committee, we had a statement that we put out asking. That's not everybody on the oce signed, but a majority of the Osi signed, uh, asking Danny for Dante to step down and for the NPC to institute transparency guidelines and also calling for some kind of restorative justice to, to heal.

Speaker 4 29:24

And if, if I can just be, um, the devil's avocado here for a second, you know, he, uh, Dante put out a statement not too long ago in, in which he sort of called the backlash against him. I don't think he used this, this words, but it, he basically called it an extremely online thing that was not representative of the membership and was ignoring the important, I guess, skills that he brought to the table as you know, a years long organizer. And you know, personally I don't, I don't doubt that he's got a lot of skills that, that he, there are things that he can do, but I kind of wanted to sort of get your feedback on, you know, how sure really argue that this isn't just an online thing, that this really is representative of the membership. Because I think that it is important that we spell out exactly why we do feel that way. That, that this is a really truly representative and, and not just a, you know, an online tweet storm that got blown out of proportion.

Speaker 3 30:41

Well, we know that for instance, at the convention, what 75 to 80 or not, not that it's convention, the general membership. We know that 75 to 80% are new members and there are primarily coming from a younger generation. I think it is a safe, educated assumption that the vast majority of our membership now currently is online. Yeah, we do have paper members and I think there might be some, you know, disparity and how we categorize some of our membership. Right. So Dsa, what's kind of an is kind of known for being online. Lots of DSA chapters are on Twitter and they talked to each other and they have a following and they're popular. And we have members that join pay their dues online. They don't go to men, they don't go to meetings, they're paper members in a sense, but they're extraordinarily plugged in. They know exactly what's going on. So by calling them paper members, it's kind of, that's not exactly what they are. They may be digital members and maybe that's a way to characterize it. So because I feel like I feel safe and assuming that a large majority of our membership is online. And again, I want to say I'm talking from an individual viewpoint here, the failure to recognize the potential in online organizing I think is a really negative trait to have any national leadership when we can't put the cap back on online and digital and for someone to sort of bury their heads in the sand and be unwilling to recognize that even though they don't go to those spaces, there are people who feel comfortable in them and they can be productive. It's a really unfair characterization of, of our digital members. Right. And speaking as someone who is extremely online and has been, and you know, I have faced my own sort of anxiety issues and mental health issues and staying at home and um, communicating on the Internet was a way for me to help continue communicating with humans in a time when I felt really uncomfortable to go outside in real world. And it was through those communities and that support that I was able to sort of flourish and then become who I am today. And I owe a lot of that to the Internet and two online communities and to online collaborating. And I'm very thankful that those opportunities were there. Unexpected places, right? Like Ravelry for crafters or um, some random reddit sub reddit that isn't made for mental health therapy, but you end up doing it anyway. Right. Those spaces become really precious and valuable to you as a human. And it's really, it's really heartbreaking to see someone who won't recognize that or who doesn't see its potential or who kind of willingly looks the other way to that. Um, and I feel that that attitude is really unfit for a leadership of an organization has its majority online.

Speaker 5 34:30

Yeah. I suppose the number of the membership is sort of irrelevant. The people that are engaged are the members that we wouldn't want to engage with. And because it's 2017, they're online in some way. So I suppose taking like worrying about sample sizes, sizes or who was where, um, is kind of a moot point because this is what, what's happening in DSA is this, this is, you know what I mean? And when I think of what people's opinion would be on Photonica, I don't think they'd all be pro cop union. I think a lot of them be indifferent, but I mean, every single space I've seen has had basically the scene opinion and um, I mean I, yeah, especially since his behavior afterwards. Um, and I guess as far as the disregarding of the value of, of online work, I agree with you a lot. I think so for calling everyone bullies was really funny. It was like so sad, but he did have a sentiment, I think, um, that I worry about a lot, which is that people spend their time online and it's like a symbolic replacement for actual work. Um, we're trying to help the working class stand up for themselves and um, basically changed society. And, um, for an old timer it might be a little frustrating because the work that this person has seen looks like meaning in, in public spaces and, and face to face and dealing with different officials and stuff. And so I get that, but I don't think that it's one or the other. And I think that a lot of the people that have come up in these online spaces, there's so much work that they could do that is valuable. That counts as organizing too. I still get pissed off when I see someone who has no life experience, like, hasn't actually had challenges in their life and know organizing experience, sort of like telling this is what left politics needs to look like. If you don't agree, then you go off to the gulag or you're a cop or whatever. It's annoying. Most of the people though I think I have so much to offer and I'm just building this sort of infrastructure and creating the way and creating the culture too of what is going to look like going forward. Not just in DSA, but the American left, um, is kind of like you're going to be spearheaded by a lot of the people that exist in these spaces cause there's a paper trail of how we interact and stuff. So I think there is a lot of value.

Speaker 4 37:15

Yeah. And uh, you know, I think that that's why I was really happy to see, uh, the DSA accountability step up and to, to see the, how active the LSC was because I think those are our two really important caucuses or at least groups within DSA. They're doing exactly what Aaron was saying to, to, you know, building those coalitions and you know, making sure that we are not waiting for someone to come in and give it to us or something to happen. And we magically step, step

Speaker 2 37:55

into place if we managed to survive long enough that historians end up looking back at our paper trail of everything that, that DSA did and DSA members did from 2016 onwards. There is going to be so much written about the anthropological and sociological implications of corn cobs. I, I think we really need to make sure that somebody writes down somewhere exactly what that means. What is, what is to

Speaker 4 38:36

be corn cob

Speaker 3 38:43

and see it's that sort of thing. Um, that I personally feel really strongly about like breaking down the wall of respectability politics, you know, and how we have to act in our organizing spaces versus how we have to act everywhere else. Respectability politics is kind of a weapon, right? And they, you know, when people come into spaces like Twitter especially, and they see, they see anchorage and a really Super Dang skeleton mean and it seems like such a weird choke and like why would you laugh at that? It's a skeleton, but in reality it is a super bonding. It brings people together. Anchorage has done a whole heck of a lot of work in their community and bringing chapters together and recruiting new members to join DSA. We can infuse all of that sort of work, that organizing work with jokes and means that's just, it's okay to do that. And it's okay to, to not know Robert's rules of order inside out 100% we can, we can work together to do that. All right. So writing down some of these four nowadays and getting rid of them and talking to people, how we would naturally talk would be a go such a long way.

Speaker 2 40:11

I have my concerns with Robert's rules of order, just feeling kind of exclusionary because the people that know how Robert's rules of order work tend to be a certain subset of people versus people who do not know how Robert's rules of order work and may not be able to pick it up so quickly.

Speaker 4 40:36

I think parliamentary procedure in general, like regardless of what the procedures are, have long been used by people who really understand the system to lock out people who don't. It is, it is, um, a way of control as much as anything else. And it's kind of this institutionalizing, as you said, of respectability politics that there are very formal rules of, of respect and courtesy that you have to follow in order for anybody to pay attention to you. And if you don't follow those, if you don't have that, you're not allowed to wield any power. You, you're locked out of that kind of power.

Speaker 3 41:18

It's systemic. Look at, look at who's allowed to, not allowed to well yeah, loud who's, who's allowed to learn parliamentary procedure. Is it in rural schools or is it a poor schools? It absolutely not. Is it a, is it available to everyone to learn? Absolutely not. It is definitely gate kept by, like you said, a sub subsets and they learn how to effectively use that language and treat it like its own language instead of talking and conversationally.

Speaker 1 41:54

I kind of wanted to get a little bit back to the immediate matter at hand, which is

Speaker 5 42:00

okay,

Speaker 1 42:01

what it is that we can and should be doing right now. Uh, and in order to effect a commercial for Tonto, his removal from NPC.

Speaker 3 42:14

Well first things first. I think if you are a DSA member, you would be very, very welcome into the slack channel. You can find it on our email or we set up a voicemail. If you'd rather, or you can send us a direct message on Twitter, that would be the quickest way right now until we have our Google groups set up. Once that's done, we can send you updates if you'd like. Right now there'll be a need a lot of help with designing some of the messaging that's been agreed upon. Um, making it look all trust, snazzy, making some imagery for us. We still don't have a Twitter header, so if any design people out there, um, we can help with that. Um, we need help with just organizing spreadsheets, right? Looking over, looking over other folks, writing, contributing yourself if you'd like. There's all kinds of rays to, uh, for folks to plug into this project.

Speaker 5 43:14

I like that a lot. I like having as big of a group as possible and when it gets large enough you can split into different subgroups. Um, I'm learning a lot about these sort of procedural, I guess horizontal type ways of working and it's just growing up in America, it's so different. It's anyway. Um, okay. So a very common sentiment from occupy was that the consensus method meant that no one could get anything done. And when there was a person that disagreed with the group for whatever reason, the basically everyone would just start a new group without them or like very ruthlessly and nastily exclude them. And, um, so that's what happened then. And I think, um, a lot of folks feel that we have some serious stuff to do. We are actually in a crisis in this country and they want to see things be able to plow ahead, um, in DSA. And so to a lot of people, I think that means having a body that says, this is what we're doing and say, if I'm like on board in some way, great. And if I have my own concerns, like I'll try and get the voice. But like I said, we grew up in America, most of us were taught that this is how things move forward. And so I think a lot of people are going to be more comfortable with like, okay, the NPC made that shitty decision on photography, but um, you know, I don't want to disrupt anything and have like basically a giant long 30,000 person conversation. Um, with all these different voices, I want Dsa to say, you know, we're going to start making like doing x, y, and z because let's be frank, we are in an emergency situation right now. Does that make sense? So what would be the response to that? Aaron, if I, if I may, I'm hearing, um, maybe two different concerns. One of them is, um, you know, we have more important things that we should be focusing on. Um, I think everyone thinks we need to focus on the same. Noah did nothing to do with photography. Actually. It's more about the structure that if we smashed the sort of centralized, um, structure centralizing, we still elected these people, but they're going to sort of set the agenda that it will be harder to focus. Oh, okay. So with, without something, yes. That can, the can give instructions will kind of write and especially because a lot of people have that sentiment after occupy, like we need leaders or we need like an agenda of some sort. So what would be the response to that?

Speaker 3 46:02

So my first response to to that, let me start with the last point that you made. So we'd know that there has been great success in feminist leaderless movements when they're kept relatively small, um, in the hundreds and they are tasked based, um, we can get things done, we can achieve consensus and we can collaborate. Those ideas are somehow called radical, but there's a lot of women who organized that way naturally. Um, I'm not, I cannot speak for all women obviously as myself and from the reading that I've done, right? Organizing in a flat way with a collaborative method for me and the spaces that I've been in means that consensus is reached more quickly and that actions get done. I think it can be really difficult when one person disagrees with an entire group, but that's where people like me who have had a large amount of experience talking to a very wide variety of people when they're mad at me comes in kind of handy. Um, and why should we, why we should recruit every single call center worker into DSA because they will help us. But there are ways that we can discuss things with people. There are, you know, many committees like the welcome wagon idea or people that want to focus on little things within a group subgroups, subcommittees, and where people can plug in and get their voice heard. Because sometimes it feels, sometimes for some folks it's not just that it's not the disagreement part that hurts, it's that they don't feel like they were heard. They don't feel like they're, they contributed at all because there's such a, my such a small part of a minority of the vote. But if there are a lot of different ways for people to contribute and do things, then those opportunities are a lot lessened and people can feel really empowered by the work that they're doing and feel less discouraged when, when things don't go their way. But it was all done democratically

Speaker 4 48:21

full

Speaker 2 48:21

members who perhaps do not have the time or the bandwidth to be a part of the accountability task force, but are interested in, in supporting the work of the task force. What could those uh, people do? Is it a matter of of watching the Twitter and talking about it with, with comrades in, in local chapters?

Speaker 4 48:44

Okay.

Speaker 3 48:45

Yes. Getting the word out in their local chapters is going to be crucial. Uh, we will need to see support from a large amount of chapters. So, uh, we need you to go back to your chapters and talk about this issue and explain to them what we're doing, why we're doing it, and the opportunities that can arise from, from doing this sort of work and supporting the work that we do.

Speaker 4 49:15

I did want to touch really briefly on Nina, what you're saying about the sort of like leaderless organizational strategy and in response to Aaron's, um, Devil's avocado. I, and I, I kind of want to say that leadership is kind of a natural human trait that when people feel that they are able to step forward and take more responsibility or have more to input or are able to get people around them to work together with each other, I think that that is leadership. And I think that we have to, in a way divorce the concept of leadership from the concept of authority that that we have to say we are not going to vest any one person or any small body with the authority to decide for other people. But we are going to allow people to step forward into leadership roles where their voice is no more important than anybody else, but where we can invest them with responsibilities that maybe other people aren't able or as willing to take. And, and I think that it's, it's a maybe a little bit of a nuanced point, but for me that's, it's, it's kind of an important distinction because, because I want leaders, you know, and, and I think that if we set up the way that we govern ourselves to allow for a fluid and dynamic process, so, uh, reaching out to our, uh, base and, and our grass roots and allow people to sort of like bubble up as leaders in, in various ways, we will get more and better leadership. And, and not just, you know, this kind of like sclerotic, you know, authoritarian model where we just have to pray the right people get into leadership.

Speaker 2 51:18

So you would end up with people who are in leadership because they want to do the leadership stuff. Rotha then people who are in leadership because they want to do the power and authority stuff, right. And maybe people taking leadership roles who would not be comfortable with the power and all authority kind of stuff. Interesting. I, that sounds like, uh, a difficult kind of needle to thread, but one that we should, we should try to, to threat. Yeah.

Speaker 3 51:56

I think that one thing that we can do is erase the word leadership and leader altogether because it has such connotations under liberalism and maybe replace it with the word facilitator.

Speaker 2 52:12

Oh yes.

Speaker 3 52:12

So I, in in the chapter I'm in, I'm, I was elected the chair, but I feel very strongly that I am not a quote unquote leader. I'm a facilitator. I help people get information from one place to another. I help people talk to each other effectively in meetings. And I help talk to people in the public when our group hasn't messaged to send. What I don't have is, you know, I can't make motions where they had meetings. I don't have power. Really. I can't really make, I can't make unilateral decisions. Um, any power that I have is, is sort of honestly, it's kind of imaginary because I don't, you know, I have to sign as the chair, you know, if I'm declaring it on a national document, but I'm not, I don't provide a mandate. And so divorcing the ideas behind what makes a great leader, um, and all those, those sorts of tasks that don't place someone on a pedestal above another person. Take those things and reframe it completely. Because when you think about it now, um, and I don't have, I'm not a social scientist, but, um, I've talked to a lot of people in my life and I, I consistently hear that, you know, people go to school now in a much more authoritarian looking, building. People go to school now in a much more authoritarian atmosphere and rules. And there is a teacher who is in charge who stands in front of the students who are, you know, looking at her and she can see them. And then we transitioned to college. Same thing. There's always someone telling us what to do and it doesn't have to be like that. That person that's up in the front of the room could just be the person that is guiding him towards greatness.

Speaker 2 54:22

Some, some real, um, I think maybe chapter two of pedagogy of the oppressed, uh, happening there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 54:31

Fuko Co is that out photo pan off their calling? Yeah. The factory, the prison in this school are all from the same.

Speaker 3 54:39

Absolutely. And then we go to corporate America where people are looking, you know, they want to make a couple dollars more. So yes, they'll take that supervisor role and then it leads to a manager role and those people are tasked with, with things and they're looked to as leaders and they're put on these pedestals and we have this certain image of what a leader looks like, you know? And then we get this mentality, uh, that kind of Nasik Robert Nozick mentality, right? That these leaders deserve all of these great things when really they could have just been in the right place at the right time. Right? Like,

Speaker 2 55:15

and look at how many of these leaders end up being CIS head white men. I mean, is it, is it purely that all of the, all of the power and ability to be a great leader is just innately in these, these men? Or could it be that perhaps they were more likely to be in the right place at the right time?

Speaker 3 55:37

I think it's an important thing to acknowledge. Moral luck. And more, I hope that more people will start to recognize those sorts of things and maybe read some Thomas Nagel or something and understand that there are those kinds of situations that can happen to anyone.

Speaker 1 55:56

So what should we be expecting from the uh, Accountability Task Force? What are the immediate next steps that that we're going to be taking a in this specific instance with commerce? [inaudible]

Speaker 3 56:12

okay. So we have a meeting tomorrow on Wednesday, uh, at 8:00 PM eastern 5:00 PM Pacific that starts group collaboration time following followed by the kind of general meeting at 10:00 PM Eastern. Um, during that meeting we're going to be working on the response to Jared Abbott's latest post in medium. We have a comrade who has drafted a letter, uh, that we are hopefully going to improve as a group on Wednesday. Um, additionally we have a list of anticipated questions, an Faq if you will, that we are voting on to release to the wider public on Wednesday. Um, we also have a website in progress which will answer a lot of questions and help be a spot for folks to come and sign up. And disseminate information, uh, that are, that's going to be worked on on Wednesday. We are debating internally on the best method to release this information. How should we get it out to everyone? What's the best way to do it, what time, what, what mechanism? So all of those things need to be discussed and we are doing that as well. Uh, we anticipate that the day that everything would be released in perhaps a week, but with all collaboration, we are flexible and we work until we all vote and, or Tel about is, is made on the document and then, um, we can still look at it. Everything is flexible, it documents are flexible and we can look at them. So that's the primary work that's going to be happening on Wednesday. And then we'll decide from there when our next meeting will be and we will start the work on, uh, a more heavy outreach to local chapters.

Speaker 4 58:12

This is really fantastic work and I'm really happy

Speaker 3 58:15

it's being done. Yeah, it is incredible. What has happened in a week. There are, um, we're verging on 300 members in the stock channel. All contributing. We have over 1100 followers on Twitter. Um, we did that in less than a week. We have seen a lot of response on Facebook and in the email listserv, there is currently an informal poll on Facebook right now in the new members group. Um, and it is to hold a special national convention. Right now I want to say that it's at 300 people for it and 50 against it. And I've seen that say they don't know. So I really think this is something we can do and it is a great step forward in collaboration for Dsi.

Speaker 4 59:11

Yeah. I think if there's one good thing that's going to come out of this, it's going to be that, you know, a lot of these new excited activated young DSA members are seeing

Speaker 1 59:22

that, uh, it really is up to them and, and up to us to, to work together, to collaborate together and not to rely on any kind of, you know, top down bureaucracy or anybody else, but us, the, you know, the comrades that we've got are all we've got and we just have to work with them together to make sure that we are moving forward on our revolutionary agenda. So is there, um, any other projects that you want to make sure that we know about that, um, people's blog yeah. That you want to plug that people need to be involved in? I had something about a crofting group.

Speaker 3 1:00:07

I'm kind of mentioned crafts in a little bit. If it's alright. I'd love to talk just for a second about the DSA DIY caucus.

Speaker 1 1:00:17

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 1:00:19

Awesome. Um, so the DSA DIY caucus came directly out of Twitter one night. Um, there was a group of us online talking about crafting and it's just how it gets intertwined with socialism, things that we do, et Cetera, et cetera. And one thing led to another and we said we should form a caucus. And this was before the convention when things like the cat caucus were coming out and a lot of great joke caucuses. And so, you know, we thought let's do a DIY caucus. So a few of US started a Twitter DM chat and we started a Google group and we made it happen. We reserved a table at the convention and we set it up and I colored it a whole bunch of stuff from Oregon to Chicago and setting it up at this table and got people interested. And we ended up making a little craft relaxation corner for delegates to come during the vote sessions and the debate sessions if they wanted to stay in the loop, but they just needed to get away from the table and do something else, they could come to the craft corner. There's been some amazing art that was created at the craft corner is really great. So we have received, um, some sign ups through our, um, our Google form signing and our Twitter is going gang busters. We have some members who have released some patterns online and we have cross chapter collaboration now with other members taking those to their locals and learning to make them and sell them as, as swag. So it's a really great way for a smaller chapters to get in, plugged in with bigger chapters for new chapters to learn to make things and sell them on their own instead of, uh, ponying up cash to pay for tee shirts to sell. Cause that can be really expensive for super poor people like me. And another, um, kind of thing we have talked about is introducing men to, um, gendered crafts. So the idea would be to take kind of these red roses that are crocheted or knitted and how to group of men from our, from your local chapter come and sit and you teach them how to do this work and through them learning how this works and how to make their own, they contribute to that process. And it's feels like it could be maybe a teachable moment to show that like this is real work. This isn't just kind of throwaway casual hobbies for women. This is serious work that we put into and say it is essential labor in our communities. So, um, we want to do things like that. We have discussed a longterm project for a collaborative quilts that we would love to release that the next, um, uh, 2019 convention and it would have squares for all of the chapters done. Geograph don't geographically because I am a mapmaker in real life. So, um, away from the DSA when I get away from the DSA, I am on that maker. So, um, we are also looking at doing a cookbook community cookbook in the style of those old seventies, sixties cookbooks that churches and local groups used to put together and doing something like that as on a nationwide level for chapters to come together and share their recipes and their stories, um, and then use it as a fundraiser for DSA. So that's essentially what we've been doing right now. We're just kind of spreading the word and talking to a lot of people. Um, I think more towards winter time we'll start talking about getting a little more of formal things going. I'm like, no, the longs and craft alongs, coco loans and things like that. And if you're excited to join, like I think everyone should be, um, stop by our Twitter and we are at DSA underscore DIY, um, and um, or send us an email@adsadiyatgmail.com and we will get you plugged in. It's Super Fun and I think everyone should do it.

Speaker 1 1:04:46

Excellent. Very exciting. Yeah, I think that pretty much wraps us up for the, uh, the episode here. So if people want to get a hold of the DSA accountability, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3 1:05:02

Sure. So we have a Twitter and um, it is at d, s a n, t, a, B. I, l. I, t, y. So accountability, but without the O and they, you in there. So at DSA accountability

Speaker 1 1:05:24

and I'm pretty sure that Tiberius, we'll put a note in the, in the show notes so that you can get to the Twitter as well.

Speaker 3 1:05:29

Okay, great. That was really complicated. Um, and then we have an email address. It is DSA that ACC t. Dot task force@gmail.com DSA accountability task force. Um, and then we have a phone number as well, which I don't remember off the top of my head. Um, shame on me, but um, I think that Siberius would be such a generous comrade and maybe put that in the link.

Speaker 1 1:05:53

Okay. At the bottom it will absolutely be in the link at the bottom and a speaking of telephone numbers, we actually have one for the show now. So if you want to call us in, you know, leave a question or a voice mail, uh, that we can put onto the episode and an episode where it makes sense to do so. You can call us at (707) 800-9221 and a amazing segue. We're thank you. Yeah. And, um, you know, you can, you can catch all three of us on Twitter. I am at Checka informant, I am at Commonweal sauce and I'm at just some of them out of ours in the end. Don't worry about it some year round. Start putting in hours and then, um, try not to click on our Nessa and right because it's true. She's going to come up. But you'll probably be next on the list and you're gonna hit up this show at left-pad Lef t p. O. D. You can also get to us on email, uh, that is left coast podcast@gmail.com. Uh, our soundcloud page is the same soundcloud.com/left coast podcast. Our subreddit is a slash r slash not go. Yeah, you probably shouldn't go to read it, but we're there anyway. Oh, what are you going to do about it? Uh, it's slash rs slash left coast and um, we should, I think by the time this episode comes out, we'll probably have the, um, official webpage set up. Uh, if not, it'll be coming up pretty soon. So, uh, that's, I really happy to have you on Gen. Uh, it's, it's been a fantastic talk and uh, I think one that is maybe not long overdue, but something that maybe more people should really be focusing on. Uh, I think it's a very key time for this to be happening. So thank you for joining us.

Speaker 3 1:08:04

Thank you so much. This is a really, really great opportunity. I think this is going to make DSA only stronger and thank you again and it's good to see you. I seen you since convention.

Speaker 1 1:08:17

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. And with that comrades in solidarity, we love you for you

Speaker 8 1:08:50

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