FIRST 2020 GENERAL MEETING: Friday, October 9th at 2:00pm via Zoom
As proud socialists, we understand that there are many public misconceptions about our ideology. You've probably heard bad, scary things about socialism. Whether this is the result of deliberate red-baiting propaganda, or sincere concerns about an ideology that runs counter to everything you know, we're always here to answer your good-faith questions about Y/DSA, Democratic Socialism, or how all oppressions intersect under capitalism!
Short answer, yes!
YDSA is a democratically, member-run organization, so all of our campaigns are decided on via a membership vote at our weekly meetings. Just like any other club/organization at WOU, we'll meet weekly, do tabling in the WUC, host events on campus, and make friends with one another. But unlike any organization at WOU, we'll protest and pressure our administration and local officials to freeze tuition rises, fight white supremacy, pay student workers a living wage, and cancel student debt. We're the only organization at WOU seriously fighting to reshape society for the better.
Winning College for All, Medicare for All, and defunding the police, abolishing ICE, and fighting climate change aren't easy things to do. But our greatest weapon is the collective strength that we hold when we fight together in solidarity. YDSA teaches us how to effectively politically organize for a better future, engaging each of us with the political struggles that define our lives and struggling for structural reforms. Even better, YDSA chapters have won important fights across the U.S. at their schools, including tuition freezes, disarming police officers on campus, divesting their schools from fossil fuels, and even organizing student workers into unions!
WOU students are a part of that fight too. Despite advertising itself as the most affordable school in Oregon, 79 percent of Western Oregon University students graduate with student debt, the most of any university in Oregon. This is unacceptable, and there are multiple parties to blame. WOU YDSA will target them to make WOU more affordable and accessible for all. We also fight to protect and empower students of color; just last year, WOU College Republicans hosted a white supremacist speaker (and member of the fascist Proud Boys) who has a long history of assaulting protestors fighting for social justice, endangering students and faculty of color at WOU and making the campus community threatening. President Fuller sat by and allowed it to happen, but WOU YDSA exists to prevent this atrocity from ever happening again.
We don't require club fees, but we do require you to be a member of Democratic Socialists of America in order to be a Member in Good Standing (meaning you can vote and sit on committees). The membership is only $20 a year, or we can assist you in getting a fee waiver if your financial situation prohibits you from paying. YDSA is a non-cost prohibitive organization and lack of money should never prevent students from joining. Email us at ydsawou@gmail.com to obtain a fee waiver.
We recognize that students have a uniquely busy life, working jobs to pay for school while taking classes to better your future outlook, all while balancing a social life with other clubs/organizations and a mountain of homework.
Aside from our weekly general membership meeting, we don't require participation from you at events and meetings, though we certainly want to see you as much as possible! Like a lot of things in life, you get out what you put in, and the biggest strength that YDSA has is our collective strength in numbers. We aim to engage as much of our membership as possible for meetings and events, but realize that YDSA might not always be your top priority, making it the perfect organization to slot into your life.
Democratic Socialists are aptly named; we're committed to democracy as a means to an end, meaning that, above all else, we prioritize democratic decision-making about the things that have the most impact on our lives. Capitalism, and specifically its newer strand of neoliberalism, subjects our entire lives to the whims of the market, meaning that housing, healthcare, education, and public utliities exist not to benefit the the needs of the majority, but the wants of a small minority of owners.
Our vision of democratic socialism places the power in the hands of the people; imagine corporations that are democratically-run by the workers that create its wealth, imagine a healthcare system that is free at the point-of-use for everyone (instead of our current, for-profit system), imagine an education system that is free for everyone and where all student workers are paid a living wage. This world isn't out of reach, and it encapsulates everything that democratic socialism is.