Left Coast Media
Left Coast Media
Wherein We Air Our Convention Anxiety
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Wow. I just, my train of thought, just completely Brecht. Um, where is my brain today?
Speaker 2Oh, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho Ho. Hello.
Speaker 3Mini-Sode which I'm going to call them even though Tai areas is probably going to roll his eyes at that of the left coast podcast. Hope is to get this out on or before the Friday of the 2017 convention,
Speaker 1which is going to be a fun editing session for me. But you know, it shouldn't be too difficult. Uh, I think, um, we can pretty much get this started right away, uh, with, uh, just a really general question of sort of where, where you see yourself standing in, in terms of the DSA, a national council and sort of, um, why you felt the need to run, um, especially this late in the game.
Speaker 3Well, thank you for stealing my thunder. You're welcome. I have decided that I am running for the National Political Council, uh, which is kind of like a steering committee kind of thing of DSA. Uh, I decided that about two hours before the window for nominations closed. So my candidate statement on the website is an evidence of just how quick I can turn things around. Uh, I'm running for NPC mostly because I feel the autonomy of locals is one of the strengths of DSA and, and Dsas federated structure. And I want to preserve that or to enhance that and aid that in any way that I can. And I think it's important that there are people on the NPC who, off from, from the anarchists side of the political compass, who will, will resist any, any tendency towards centralization of power or any tendency towards, um, a small group of members becoming the seat of a lot of, um, a lot of power. Uh, the real thing that gave me the kick in the pants, uh, to, to actually submit my, my candidacy was on Friday evening when a convention bulletin seven or maybe 7.5 went out with a debate schedule. A poll had gone out to a delegates asking for their opinions on changes to the convention schedule in order to allow more time for debate because, um, some, some delegates, um, East Bay and momentum and people that have come up with, with resolutions, especially we're saying that there's not enough time to debate resolutions and amendments and the Paul for delegates was to choose whether to extend debate time by cutting some things like different amounts of things to be cut, to increase debate time or to leave the schedule as it was. The email that went out gave the results of the poll and the two top vote getters were to not extend debate time and to extend debate time a small amount, which was choices a and B. So the choice made for the convention schedule was choice seat. So this especially coming kind of late on a Friday night and being, being near the bottom of a long email with a lot of details. Um, I mean assume good faith and, and everything. And later they explain their rationale for it and it kind of made sense. But it Damien, this feel of why did you ask us, why do Paula's, why did you ask us to vote? If you were not going to honor the results of that vote, if you were just going to use it as an advisory, why not label it as an advisory? Um, and that kind of was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. That convention is going to be great. It's going to be amazing, but it's running by the seat of its pants and I feel like I have the power to maybe help make sure that that doesn't happen again. If you would like to know more about my candidacy for NPC type areas is going to put a link to my candidate statement in the show notes. Although if you're listening to this on Friday and you are a delegate, I'm amazed that you found any time to listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1So you had brought up, um, something that we have talked about before, uh, both on and off the podcast. Um, you know, in terms of sort of the importance of, um, communicate like inter chapter communication and communication between, um, the chapters and national and, and the, the role that national plays in that, um, of if you could maybe speak to how you see national's role sort of as maybe the way to facilitate this, um, and less so to sort of guide or dictate it.
Speaker 3Well, I think you, you pretty much summed it up that that national I feel should be, um, should be a conduit for locals to discuss and share information with each other, um, to, to make sure that the communication within the organization is robust. Because, um, when we have problems communicating, we end up being closed off in our own little enclaves. And that's when we end up doing duplicate work. That's why when we end up maybe repeating mistakes, um, that's when we, we become, we become less open to each other because we don't know where our interests and our, where our interests may align. And I feel that communication has been one of the hardest things for a DSA at this point. And I know, you know, Twitter's good girl mentioned it too, because the current systems that we have were developed for a very small organization. And I think, um, NPC candidate, Dan posy said outright, and I endorse this statement completely, that we need to work on building better communication challenge channels between chapters and on creating things like document libraries, forms, procedures and methods to get them, which if we are both elected, I look forward to working on that because that's very much my jam procedures. Um, for an anarchist. I sure do love procedures.
Speaker 1Well, you know, I like to say that anarchy means no rulers, not no roles. Uh, and then there's also the traditional, you know, anarchy is order symbol and that kind of stuff. So I, I think it's, um, I, I think it's liberal liberal propaganda that anarchy is chaos. Um, so kind of one of the problems of, uh, creating a, um, uh, you know, channels and, uh, uh, procedures for, um, intergroup communication and national to local and local to national communication is that we have a ton of new people in Dsa I, and I think the majority of whom really have little to no sort of political organizing education. So, um, you know, as, as a delegate for or as a candidate for NPC and you know, as a delegate as well for the San Francisco chapter. Um, how do we sort of address this while still maintaining our position of, uh, independence? How does, what does political education mean in a decentralized and horizontals list application?
Speaker 3One of the things that I think it looks like is the national training team. Uh, the National Training Team are the group, um, including an amazing organizer, Ravi, who's also running for NPC on the praxis slight. Um, they put together the trainings that were offered at the People's summit and that will offer through the Ella Baker, uh, training in New York. And those trainings are going to be offered at convention as well. Uh, if you, or your, if you are a delegate from the bay area, look forward to taking one of those trainings with me as a trainer. And in fact, you probably already taken it by this point and I hope that I was good, uh, offering that to every single member I think can, can give us a baseline. Um, especially if we then pivot that into, into mentorships.
Speaker 4MMM.
Speaker 3Because part of, part of this organization is that we, we built our solidarity with each other and we build each other's skills.
Speaker 4MMM.
Speaker 3I'm not so sure about how to make sure that every local gets the same opportunities for the same trainings. Um, there might be some technological solution for that, but I, I don't know. Um, I'm a big believer in training as well as just getting out there and doing shit.
Speaker 4Okay.
Speaker 1Eh, you know, for myself, um, I really believe that chapters and regions that typically have seen a very little leftist presence and are, tend to be more rural and less, have less sort of activist experience in general. I think that we probably want to target those first because I think that we could use our limited resources to a lot greater effect because I think that places like for example, the bay area here, we have a lot of comrades who have a lot of experience down in La. There, there are a significant number of people who come out of union organizing and such. So I think that there is, um, in, in some of the more, um, you know, urban places, places that are coming out of, you know, progressive activism. Those probably need it a little bit less than, than targeting sort of rural regions, regions in the south and Texas, Indiana, these places.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah. And I, I want to give a shout out to the rural and small town working group and the amazing organizer Chloe, who has put that together and also was the one who created the socialism fortune teller. Um, she's unfortunately not able to make it to convention because of a Bun. She's not able to make it to convention. Um, and I wish that she was there because I want to see her in person. And tell her how much of an inspiration she has been to me. Um, and how much I'm, how excited I am for the rural and small chapter working group and who knows, caucus group, whatever, to do some amazing stuff because a small chapter has such, um, such a different set of challenges and things that are important than a giant chapter. And, and yeah, I, I do think that that focusing on, on rural, um, and shit that isn't the coasts for once would be, would be important.
Speaker 1Yeah. And I think that I, you know, we would probably benefit a little bit from, you know, a little bit more of a rural focus, but I think that a lot of the resources that we would need, um, are probably better coming from sort of a, a regional group working with East Bay, South Bay and SF as, as her like the nine county, um, uh, regional DSA, um, uh, organization that we can, there's a lot of resources that we have locally that we could share that we don't need to be pulling as much from, uh, from national. I think that a lot of the stuff that we would need in terms of rural organizing is really more, um, information and communication, things that, that take time and effort, but not necessarily strictly resources. I think that other places like, um, you know, rural Texas or you know, uh, deep south they probably need a lot more actual like resort monetary resources then, then we would, we do.
Speaker 3And, um, Chloe is with the New Hampshire Dsa. Ah, I'm going to shout out to New Hampshire. Democratic Socialists of America. Yola doing amazing. Uh, love you.
Speaker 1Last I heard we're in 49 states right now. Which one are we missing? I can't remember, but, um, yeah, we have, we have chapters or ocs and, um, basically every state now, which is really cool
Speaker 3as I like to see DSA in, in Puerto Rico as well and Guam and other, um, places that the American imperialist boot is currently stomping upon. But I, I don't know how easy that would be to do.
Speaker 4Yeah,
Speaker 1that's a good question. And it sort of, um, I think kind of foreshadows a little bit. The series that we're about to start on anti imperialism. Um, I think we're going to kick that one off with bds. I think we decided and, yeah, and the, you know, that's, that's a question of does a, an American socialist group trying to reach out to, um, places like Puerto Rico. If, you know, we have to be careful if we do that and when we do that, that we aren't in a sort of a continuing imperialist, uh, uh, methods of outreach essentially trying to say, Hey, uh, you should be in Dsa because we are going to do these things. It should be, you know, it much in the same way as we feel about national tool, towards our own sort of local chapters. It should be, hey, um, we're socialists and we want to help build working class power. What is it that you need as a local organization to do that?
Speaker 4Okay.
Speaker 3So you mentioned upcoming episodes and series. So this gives me a chance to segue into what's coming up that you are particularly excited about.
Speaker 1Oh, smooth transition. Um, well we have, uh, I believe, uh, probably going to be next on the docket because it's the one, the episode that I am, uh, most into editing right now. Uh, which I'm really excited about is John Down in DSA, La talking about socialism and media and political analysis. And you may know him on Twitter as Groucho Marxist, which is such a great, there's so many comrades with such good, he was like, um, cop cemetery, Groucho Marxist, you know, these, these guys who just like your names are so good and I chose such a bad name for this podcast, but what are you going to do about it? Shout out to the other left coast podcast. Yes. Yeah. Well you'd have song. Yeah. You know, um, collaboration and, and solidarity. I'm not, I'm not precious about the name left coast podcast. It's a pretty generic, um, I'm more concerned about, you know, sharing, sharing resources and information to make sure that we are making as much agit prop as we can.
Speaker 3All right. So is that anything else that you would like to cover in this? Mini-Sode because I've given my stump speech. So, you know, I'm, I'm pretty much out.
Speaker 4Um, yeah, and
Speaker 1I think I just want to sort of reemphasize that, um, you know, in these, in these past couple episodes, uh, I have been pretty critical of DSA. Um, I just want to say again, the reason I am is because the DSA is really, I think a really important organization and what comes out of this convention is going to, it's going to define the left sort of for the next probably generation. So what we do now as the, the biggest socialist organization right now in a time of, um, uncertainty and upheaval is incredibly important. And we need to make sure that the way that we approach our organizing and what we're doing is in line with the world that we want to build. And so we need to make sure that our national organization is one that is, is one that is not recreating the, the kind of, you know, centralized liberal power structures that are currently oppressing us but is more liberatory and really builds, um, the strength and solidarity of the working class.
Speaker 3And I don't know about you, but I am equal parts excited and terrified. It's, um, I, I didn't think that I would end up involved in this sort of thing. And every day I face these, these two warring emotions. One is that life continues exactly the same. I get up, I drive to work, I shit post on the Internet in between doing actual work and I drive home and then there's this other half where shit is falling apart while we're trying to build up new shit. And it's really hard to reconcile those two things. I, I try, but I don't know if anybody else has, having that difficulty of the world keeps moving even though it feels like it should have stopped because enough crazy shit has happened that we can't, this can't be real.
Speaker 1Yeah. Um, I, I know what you mean. It's, it's been kind of a, it's, it's, I would like to get off of Mr Bones as well at ride, uh, the election that has just been absolutely bonkers. Um, and, and it, but in a way I'm kind of grateful because, you know, there was such a feeling of sort of relief and elation when occupy happened. Um, and it felt like we were doing something and then we were paralyzed internally and crushed externally. And it was incredibly disheartening for me because I ended up sort of like a alienated again from basically the all, you know, any kind of real political movement. The occupy Sonoma feels a little out to basically like five people who sat around and never talked about anything important or did anything. Um, and you know, having, having the response to Trump be this, um, primal scream where we all sort of collectively shatter our pants and then looked around at each other and said, well, we have to do something now. And so now we're organized and now we have a goal and a mission and a real sense that it's possible for us to do something about the world that we live in. So, you know, for me it's an, it's an both incredibly, incredibly anxiety inducing, but at the same time, like incredibly heartening.
Speaker 3I do want to say to calm rights who are listening to this, even if you don't consider yourself a common writer of mine, uh, please be gentle with yourself because these are crazy times and we can, we could all do with loving ourselves a bit more. Um, if you have medications, make sure to try and remember to take them. If it's bed time, try and go to sleep. And if you haven't moved your body recently and you can move your body, maybe take a little bit of time to do that. Maybe type areas. We'll put some music on the end of this episode that, that you can move your body too.
Speaker 1And, and also remember that the, the comrades that are in our group right now that we are working with and we might have disagreements with, they want a better world too. So even if even if you have really strong disagreements with them, remember that day, care as much as you do. And to approach them, approach them with the feeling of true solidarity. We can't afford to be, um, to be so parochial. We have to, we have to really be able to, to reach out and work with other people who are trying to build a better world with us. And, and we have to remember that even as we have disagreements and are a lot of places where we can work together, it doesn't mean that we have to have, um, everybody always involved in everybody else's work. Um, it doesn't mean that we have to have every single organization, um, even within the DSA, not all of our caucuses or organizing efforts need to involve everybody from an our kiss to Marxists. Lennon this to Social Democrats. Um, sometimes different work requires different people or different people have different work that they want to do and that's okay. But we need to remember at the end of the day, what we are all fighting against is an incredibly oppressive system and institution that is a lot more powerful than us right now. And we need each other.
Speaker 3So before you start throwing punches, maybe make sure that your back is to the comrade and your fists are towards the opposition. Yes. So on that note, we're going to close out this mini-sode. Yup. Uh, I have been communal sauce and I've been Tiberius Caucus. And remember the,
Speaker 1we love you. We love you. Comrades. Go in peace and be, yeah.
Speaker 5Solidarity.
Speaker 1Yeah.