Did you know that in the 1930s and 1940s, New York City had a system of proportional representation for city elections? And that the PR-system allowed independent labor and socialist candidates to win elections? Did you know that it wouldn't take a constitutional amendment to institute proportional representation in U.S. House elections? That in fact, a bill already exists to move the U.S. to a PR-system? Join us for a CBK night school to discuss these questions and more. We'll delve into why the fight for proportional representation is a key part of socialist strategy. A fight for democracy like that waged by our predecessors in the 20th century for universal suffrage. And we'll discuss how socialists can advance the cause of more representative elections today. Background readings include "Proportional Representation in New York City: New York City's Experiment with Proportional Representation and Multi-Party Democracy" as well as this handout on how the Fair Representation Act would work. Led by CBK members Simon Grassmann and Neal Meyer.

Did you know that in the 1930s and 1940s, New York City had a system of proportional representation for city elections? And that the PR-system allowed independent labor and socialist candidates to win elections? Did you know that it wouldn't take a constitutional amendment to institute proportional representation in U.S. House elections? That in fact, a bill already exists to move the U.S. to a PR-system? Join us for a CBK night school to discuss these questions and more. We'll delve into why the fight for proportional representation is a key part of socialist strategy. A fight for democracy like that waged by our predecessors in the 20th century for universal suffrage. And we'll discuss how socialists can advance the cause of more representative elections today. Background readings include "Proportional Representation in New York City: New York City's Experiment with Proportional Representation and Multi-Party Democracy" as well as this handout on how the Fair Representation Act would work. Led by CBK members Simon Grassmann and Neal Meyer.

What is the State? How does it operate? Who runs it? What do we do about it? Together, we will try to figure out some answers to these questions. By learning about the Marxist concepts of appearances and crises, we will build a common understanding through which to tackle these questions.

Suggested Reading: “1970: Birth of the Law and Order Society” by Stuart Hall.

This talk will split the difference between a “Labor 101” introduction and a more advanced class. We aim to both address why socialists care so much about the labor movement and why we work to invigorate our unions, and to speak frankly about some of the weaknesses of the American labor movement today. We also will walk people through a rank-and-file perspective on transforming the labor movement, detailing some of the key exciting developments happening across the labor left (Starbucks organizing, EWOC, the new Teamsters leadership, etc.) and direct participants toward different avenues for getting involved. Follow the link above for discussion questions.

Readings

• Jane McAlevey, “Everything Old Is New Again”

• Charlie Post, “The Forgotten Militants”

• Robert Korstad, “Civil Rights Unionism”

• Barry Eidlin, “What Is the Rank-And-File Strategy, and Why Does It Matter”

• Kim Moody, “The Rank-And-File Strategy” [longer read]

Our Night School sessions consist of a presentation and overview of the topic at hand, often followed by smaller breakout sessions, to facilitate deeper conversation and understanding of the material, and to bring analysis to bear on present-day realities. Readings are strongly encouraged but not required, and people new to socialist politics are more than welcome!

This week CBK Socialist Night School will look at the analytic and strategic priority of working class self-organization to socialist politics, and will explore the question of who makes up the working class, as well the distinction between the class in-itself and the class for-itself.

Please join Central Brooklyn DSA's political education committee for a new series of Socialist Night Schools. The season will began on 4/4 and will run fortnightly on Mondays through the end of June. Events will be held both in-person and online.

Our first three sessions will identify the seemingly intractable problems facing socialists —Capitalism, Race & Class, and Gender & Social Reproduction. Then we will survey solutions: Topics include the centrality of the working class, the history of the US labor movement, socialist relationships to the state, and the tradition of democratic socialism.

This third session, led by Justin Freeman, will examine race, class, and capitalism.

This event will be in person, at Repair the World in Crown Heights, and on Zoom. A link to join remotely will be sent to registered guests shortly before the meeting.

Readings:

Race, Class, and Marxism by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (link)

Racism and the Logic of Captialism: A Fanonion Reconsideration by Peter Hudis (link)

Please join Central Brooklyn DSA's political education committee for a new series of Socialist Night Schools. The season will began on 4/4 and will run fortnightly on Mondays through the end of June. Events will be held both in-person and online.

Our first three sessions will identify the seemingly intractable problems facing socialists —Capitalism, Race & Class, and Gender & Social Reproduction. Then we will survey solutions: Topics include the centrality of the working class, the history of the US labor movement, socialist relationships to the state, and the tradition of democratic socialism.

The second session, will look at an important aspect of Marxist Feminist social theory: gender and social reproduction .

This event will be in person, at Repair the World in Crown Heights, and on Zoom. A link to join remotely will be sent to registered guests shortly before the meeting.

Readings:

Recommended:

Video: What is social reproduction theory? Tithi Bhattacharya (Majority Report) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VbnEyILfQVQ

Article: Tithi Bhattacharya - what is social reproduction theory? (Socialist Worker) https://socialistworker.org/2013/09/10/what-is-social-reproduction-theory

Supplementary:

PDF: Lise Vogel: Marxism and the Oppression of Women: Towards a Unitary Theory, Chapters 10 & 11 http://b-ok.org/dl/2607808/5fcdef

July 31, 2021

The event will be held in the Vale of Cashmere section of Prospect Park, by the dry fountains.

Dozens of DSA candidates and electeds have made inroads into the Democratic Party on local, state and federal levels. The highest profile campaign being Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, with his first bid signifying the beginning of a proliferation of socialist campaigns all throughout the country. Meanwhile DSA has grown rapidly and we've exerted our growing size to build influence and organization. But how do we really root ourselves in the working class? How do we build effective grassroots organizations that can wield real power, and a rank-and-file labor movement that can win real gains? What are the limits of what we can achieve in the current electoral system and within the Democratic Party? How will the growing tension between our aspirations and those of the party establishment be resolved? How will our representatives use their elected offices to build our independent organizations?

We'll be meeting in the park with fellow CBK member and convention delegate Bianca Cunningham of Labor Notes, and NYC-DSA member Eric Blanc, author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics to discuss these questions.

Readings

Seth Ackerman, "Blueprint for a New Party," Jacobin

Further Reading

Adam Hilton, "Organized for Democracy: Left Challenges Inside the Democratic Party," Socialist Register

*As an amazing supplemental reading to this discussion, we are pleased to announce that Haymarket Books is offering a discounted deal ($6) for the indespensible book "The Socialist Challenge Today," by Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch.

EVENT VIDEO HERE

THE PARIS COMMUNE @ 150 SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 11:00AM-12:30 PM

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune (March 18 – May 28, 1871), Peter Hallward will join us to discuss this heroic and inspiring sequence in light of some of its problems & failings, partly by a provocative comparison with the more successful, but less regularly commemorated, insurrectionary Paris commune of 1792. He will briefly consider some of both the strengths and weaknesses of the interpretations offered by Karl Marx, Louis Auguste Blanqui & Nikolai Bukharin.

This critical review will also discuss the old but still useful/clarifying notion of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and briefly consider the main reason behind the different outcomes of the Haitian revolution (when the victors got much of what they’d been fighting for) and of Reconstruction in the United States.

Readings

• Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (excerpt), Selected Writings, pp. 584–603, (PDF)

Peter Hallward teaches Philosophy at Kingston University, London, and has written books on Alain Badiou, Gilles Deleuze, postcolonial literature, and contemporary Haitian politics. His books The Will of the People and Blanqui and Political Will are forthcoming from Verso.

EVENT VIDEO To Come

Join CBK-DSA for the next session of our Socialist Night School, "Organizing the South: Amazon/Bessemer in Context."

We will hear from historian Michael Goldfield, labor journalist Luis Feliz Leon, an Amazon warehouse worker, and more panelists TBA!

The panelists will speak on the following topics:

• The history (and future!) of labor organizing and anti-racist struggle in the U.S. South

• The recent failure of the union organizing drive at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama

• An analysis of how workers might organize unions at Amazon in the South, across the U.S., and internationally.

Readings

• "The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, and Amazon is Learning," Jamelle Bouie, New York Times

• "Why are There So Few Unions in the South?", Bryant Simon

• Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South, Neal Shirley and Saralee Staffor.

• "The Roots of Class Struggle in the South," Ken Lawrence

• Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, Robin D.G. Kelley

EVENT VIDEO HERE

Join CBK-DSA for the next session of our Night School, featuring NYC-DSA member and academic, Edwin Ackerman.

Edwin will be giving an overview of the so-called "Pink Tide," which was the rise of a variety of left-wing governments in Latin America across the 1990s and 2000s, as well as some of the history of those governments' successes, contradictions, and defeats. We will also be assessing the presidency of AMLO in Mexico, and situating him in the broader context of Mexican politics, and Latin American politics more broadly.

Readings/Resources

• Edwin Ackerman, "Does the Left Rule in Mexico?" (English version) (Spanish version), Jacobin América Latina

• René Rojas, "What Happened to Latin America's Pink Tide?," (video)

Join CBK-DSA for the next session of our Night School, featuring Daniel Aldana Cohen and Jay Wu on "Building Power to Win a Green New Deal."

Millions of Texans lost power last month because their power grid isn't ready for the climate emergency. Here in New York, we're fighting for a public power grid and joining the national movement for a Green New Deal. How do these struggles intersect, and why is this the moment for socialists to win a new planet and a new economic system? Join us to hear from Daniel Aldana Cohen, author of the Green New Deal for NYCHA report, on what the current political landscape looks like, and New York City DSA's Ecosocialist working group to learn how you can be part of the fight!

Readings

• We Can Waste Another Crisis, Or We Can Transform the Economy, Daniel Aldana Cohen et al, Jacobin

• Texas's Energy Crisis is America's Future, Kate Aronoff, The New Republic

• On Fire This Time, John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review

Additional Resources

• Green New Deal for Public Housing, Data for Progress

• Planet to Win, Dig Podcast

• Public Power campaign site

Guiding Questions

1. What are the political conditions that have made the Green New Deal such a popular demand? How are conditions different now than in the early days of the Obama presidency?

2. What opportunities has the coronavirus pandemic created to shift toward public investment in sustainable energy? How can we push the Biden administration to take the necessary action to address climate change, disempower corporate polluters, and implement a just transition?

3. Why is it important to tie renewable energy investments to new housing and job opportunities? Isn’t addressing climate change enough?

4. Why is capitalism so dependent on fossil fuels and environmental destruction, even though they ultimately threaten the conditions for capitalist production and growth?

5. How does the Public Power campaign advance the principles embodied in the National Green New Deal movement?

Join CBK-DSA for the next session of our Night School, featuring our very own Chris Maisano on "Why The Constitution Sucks."

Liberals and conservatives alike venerate the U.S. Constitution as an ingenious document that preserves individual freedom and ensures democratic governance. In reality, the Constitution was a charter for a decentralized and fragmented state that could be wielded by the ruling class to protect property, while insulating the state from demands of popular movements.

What, exactly makes the Constitution so undemocratic? What did the Framers intend when they wrote it?

And most importantly: how should socialists confront the Constitution in our struggles for working-class power and a more just society?

Readings (optional but recommended)

• Chris Maisano, “The Constitution and the Class Struggle”[short]

• Chris Maisano, “Why We Should Care About American Federalism” [medium]

• Corey Robin, “The Gonzo Constitutionalism of the American Right,” [short]

• Aziz Rana, “Who Owns The Constitution?” [longer]

• Daniel Lazare, “A Constitutional Revolution” [longer]

Additional Resources

• Seth Ackerman and Meagan Day, “Burn The Constitution” [video]

• Kit Wainer, “A Very American Coup” [longer]

Join Central Brooklyn DSA for an interest meeting around reading Karl Marx's Capital Vol. 1.

In this first session we’ll get to know each other and figure out an approach to the book as a group. We will also take a look at a few overview texts and read aloud excerpts from Vol. 1.

All are welcome, amateurs and experts alike, and no reading is required for this session.

Readings (optional but recommended)

• Michael Heinrich, Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital, Ch. 1 "Capitalism & Marxism" & Ch. 2 "The Object of Critique in the Critique of Political Economy"

• Duncan Foley, Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory, Ch. 1 "On Reading Marx: Method"

• Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1, Prefaces

Join Central Brooklyn DSA for a branch-wide political education event with Brendan O’Connor to discuss his new book "Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right."

If you think the election of Joe Biden means the defeat of fascism, think again. In what ways does the twenty-first century American fascist beast feed off of the monstrous rot of neoliberalism? How does border fascism emerge from the particular history of settler colonialism and capitalist development in the United States? Why is this form of politics in reality a reactionary response to the crisis of capitalism?

We’ll discuss these pressing questions and much more.

Brendan O’Connor is a NYC-DSA member, journalist and a union organizer.

If you’re interested in buying his book, check it out here!

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1519-blood-red-lines

Readings (optional but recommended)

• Brendan O’Connor, “A Preview of What’s to Come,” The Nation

• Peter Berard, “The Rise of Border Fascism,” Dissent

Further Listening

Brendan O’Connor interview, Revolutions Per Minute

Thursday, January 7, 5-7 pm

Video recording here

Join Central Brooklyn DSA for a branch-wide political education event on the recent history of austerity, and considerations on how socialists can and should fight back.

How did the working class of New York win major concessions during the mid-20th century, and how did the ruling class begin to claw them back? Why do finance and real estate have such immense political power in the city? How do Albany and Washington shape the politics and economy of NYC? And what can socialist and workers do to fight back?

This panel conversation feature the historian Kim Phillips-Fein, who will discuss themes related to her book Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics, and Jenny Zhang, an NYC-DSA activist who will be discussing our Tax The Rich campaign and the current-day political landscape of austerity and fights against it in New York City, in Albany, and beyond.

Readings (optional but recommended)

• Kim Phillips-Fein, “How The Rich Seized Control of New York,” The New Republic

• Chris Maisano, “The Fall of Working-Class New York,” Jacobin

• Paul Heideman, “Incubators of Austerity,” Jacobin

• Joshua Freeman, “Democratic socialism all around: What Bernie Sanders’ New York can teach us about America’s future,” NY Daily News

Further Listening

• Kim Phillips-Fein interview, The Dig (Jacobin Radio)

Join CBK-DSA and special guest Cinzia Arruzza for a discussion on how to understand the struggles of the past year, and those facing us after the election, through the lens of Social Reproduction Theory.

This year has witnessed a myriad of desperate struggles: massive unemployment due to COVID, rent strikes and eviction defense, and the fight to keep NYC schools closed have all been interwoven with an uprising for Black Lives that has expressed working class determination to fight back against austerity. And with an election result that promises deadlock in Congress and budget cuts in NYC, we continue to be in the fight for our lives. Social Reproduction Theory is a Marxist-feminist framework that can help us understand the relationship between working class struggles in profit-based workplaces, public institutions like schools, and outside of the workplace. No prior knowledge is necessary, just a desire to learn!

Cinzia is a member of CBK-DSA and co-author of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto.

Before coming to the session, we encourage reading the following articles:

• Thesis 5 from Feminism for the 99 Percent: A Manifesto by Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser (2019), pages 21-25

• “What is social reproduction theory?” by Tithi Bhattacharya

• “Making a Living” by Asad Haider and Salar Mohandesi

For additional reading, check out these longer pieces!

• “Crisis of Care? On the Social-Reproductive Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism” by Nancy Fraser

• “Without Reserves” by Salar Mohandesi and Emma Teitelman

• “How Not to Skip Class: Social Reproduction of Labor and the Global Working Class” by Tithi Bhattacharya

Guiding Questions:

• Tithi Bhattacharya calls social reproduction a "a tremendous underdeveloped insight at the heart of Marx's analysis of capitalism." What is “social reproduction” in the Marxist sense? In what way does Social Reproduction Theory claim to expand on Marx’s insights about capitalism?

• In Feminism for the 99%, the authors argue that capitalism's key move in establishing new gender relations "was to separate the making of people from the making of profit, to assign the first job to women, and to subordinate it to the second. With this stroke, capitalism simultaneously reinvented women's oppression and turned the whole world upside down." How might this help us understand the relationship between capitalism and gender oppression? Do we think they are two separate systems, or one interwoven system?

• Further down in Feminism for the 99%, the authors write, "Capitalist societies have always instituted a racial division of reproductive labor. Whether via slavery or colonialism, apartheid or neo-imperialism, this system has coerced racialized women to provide such labor gratis---or at a very low cost-for their majority-ethnicity or white 'sisters.'" Is social reproduction exploited differently for white women and women of color in the US? Does this complicate the focus some feminists have placed on women's exploitation in the home as the main site of gender oppression?

• Haider and Mohandesi argue that today, "the capitalist assault on the terrain of reproduction taken the form of austerity," and that "many of today’s lines of political contestation are thus being drawn squarely through the terrain of social reproduction – soaring rents, crumbling buildings, underfunded schools, high food prices, crippling debt, police violence, and insufficient access to basic social services like water, transportation, and health care." As DSA members, how might social reproduction theory help us talk about all the different organizing project that our organization has taken on over the past years? How does it claim to explain the connection between, for instance, struggles to cancel rent, win Medicare for All, fight police brutality, and against dangerous COVID conditions in workplaces like schools?

Thursday, October 22, 7-9 pm

Join CBK-DSA and Hadas Thier for a book talk and Q&A on her book, A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics, recently published by Haymarket Books.

Any movement for socialism needs to first understand the nature of capitalism: what are its engines, how did it develop, and where are its points of dynamism and weakness? If we want to dismantle it, we need to take a look inside to see how it really functions. No prior knowledge necessary, just a desire to learn!

Hadas is a writer, activist, and a member of DSA.

Before coming to the session, we would highly encourage you to read the following articles, which are all excerpts from Hadas' book!

• "Under Capitalism, There’s No Such Thing as a “Fair Day’s Wage for a Fair Day’s Work," Jacobin

• "The Working Class Is the Vast Majority of Society," Jacobin

• "The Problem Isn't That People Are Greedy—It's That They're Capitalist," In These Times

And if you are interested in buying the book, check it out here!

VIDEO RECORDING OF THE EVENT HERE

As DSA continues its growth in the electoral sphere and elsewhere, socialists have been confronting "the party question" anew.

Join us for a panel discussion featuring three leaders in NYC-DSA (Fainan Lakha, Justin Charles, and Sam Lewis) to hear multiple perspectives on some of the central question facing our movement.

What's a party for, anyway? How should the socialist movement relate to the existing Democratic Party? What could the relationships and structures of accountability between elected officials and our party/organization look like?

After hearing opening statements and some pre-selected questions, participants will be able to submit their own questions to the panel. No experience or expertise required, just a desire to learn more about these important issues!

Link to audio recording

Readings

• Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter 1, “Bourgeois and Proletarians”

• Vivek Chibber, “Why the Working Class?,” Jacobin

• Natasha Fernandez-Silber, “Why We’re Socialists, Not ‘Progressives’,” Jacobin

• Socialism 101 pamphlet from CBK-DSA

• Neal Meyer, “What Is Democratic Socialism?,” Jacobin

Key Questions

1. How does capitalism destroy - or at least severely limit - human flourishing?

2. Why is class conflict an inherent part of a capitalist society?

3. What are some of the key features we’d want to see in a democratic socialist future?

4. What are some of the key methods that our movement needs to use to get from our current capitalist moment to a democratic socialist future?

5. How do these political commitments differ from those of liberals or “progressives”?

Readings

• Robert Greene II, “The Legacy of Black Reconstruction,” Jacobin

• Heather Cox Richardson, “Killing Reconstruction,” Jacobin

• W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, excerpt from Chapter 16, “Back Toward Slavery”

Reading/Discussion Questions

• What were the different historical “phases” of Reconstruction, and how did they differ?

• Did the Civil War and Reconstruction represent a “revolution?” Why or why not? In what ways did Reconstruction offer the possibility of multiracial, democratic labor solidarity?

• How was Reconstruction defeated? How did its enemies attack it, and how did its supposed allies end up betraying or abandoning it?

• How can we assess the legacy of Reconstruction politics? In what ways do the politics of “race and class” that we can still see today emerge from this period of revolution and counter-revolution?

• In what ways did Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction represent an important shift, both for the author himself as well as the broader scholarship on this era?

Further Reading

• Keeanga-Yamhatta Taylor, “Review of Black Reconstruction,” International Socialist Review

• Alex Gourevitch, “Our Forgotten Labor Revolution,” Jacobin

Readings

• Karl Marx, Address of the International Working Men's Association to Abraham Lincoln

• W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, excerpt from Chapter 5, “The Coming of the Lord”

• Bruce Levine, “The Second American Revolution," Jacobin

Reading/Discussion Questions

1. 1. What was Marx’s motivation for sending a letter to the Lincoln administration to congratulate them for reelection? In what ways did Marx recognize a connection between the struggles for emancipation in the United States and for working class liberation in Europe?

   2. Was the American Civil War a class war? How were the social relations of the United States revolutionized during this struggle?

   3. Who were the crucial revolutionary agents in the American Civil War? What power did the slaves hold in their hands? How did self-emancipating black labor transform their condition of violent exploitation into a collective force against the tyranny of the master class?

   4. What does the American Civil War reveal about the importance of the struggle for black freedom to the collective liberation of the working class? Why must socialist struggle against the racist division of labor?

Further Readings

• Kevin Anderson, Marx at the Margins, Chapter 3, “Race, Class, and Slavery”

• Neil Davidson, How Revolutionary Were The Bourgeois Revolutions?, excerpt from

• CLR James, The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the United States

How did anti-slavery politics go from a morally righteous but fringe position to becoming a mass politics that helped found a new political party and sparked a revolution?

Readings

• Matt Karp, “The Mass Politics of Antislavery,” Catalyst

• Adam Gopnik, “The Prophetic Pragmatism of Frederick Douglass,” The New Yorker

Further reading/listening

• Jacobin Radio, The Vast Majority

• James Oakes, “The War of Northern Aggression” Jacobin

Key Questions

• What made the abolitionist movement a mass political movement, rather than a more obscure policy tendency?

• What were some of the key turning points in the antislavery movement leading up to the Civil War?

• How did radical abolitionists like Frederick Douglass create pressure on and within the Republican party to take stronger positions on abolition? What was Douglass’ relationship with abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown?

• What was the role of the Homestead Act in generating support for abolition? What are some of the successes and contradictions of this approach?

• Are there any lessons we can draw for contemporary struggles?

Learn about different eras of Black liberation organizing in the Communist Party USA.

• Alan Wald, "African Americans, Culture, and Communism," Against the Current

• Charlie Post, "The New Deal and the Popular Front," International Socialist Review

• Peter Lamphere and Gina Sartori, "A Different Kind of Teachers Union" International Socialist Review

Discussion Questions

• What were the debates among Black communists about black liberation in the 1920s?

• What inroads did the Communist Party make in the anti-racist struggle during the Third Period, at the start of the Depression?

• In what ways was the Communist Party's anti-racism affected by its turn to the Popular Front? To what extent did the Popular Front enhance the party's fight toward social equality? Compromise it?

• How does the Communist Party's anti-racist work throughout the Depression compare to its efforts during the Second World War?

Additional Reading and Viewing

• Michael Goldfield, "The Decline of the Communist Party and the Black Question in the U.S.: Harry Haywood's Black Bolshevik," Review of Radical Political Economics

• Charles Martin, "The International Labor Defense and Black America," Labor History

Learn about the major labor and social upheavals of 1934, as we take a particular look at the San Francisco General Strike of 1934 and the leadership role that Communist Party USA cadre took both in the longshore worker organizing, and the strike more generally.

Readings (Required)

• Jeremy Brecher, "San Francisco General Strike," from Strike

• Todd Cretien, "The Communist Party, the Unions, and the San Francisco General Strike," International Socialist Review

Discussion Questions

• In what ways do the conditions of longshoremen in 1934 parallel the situation of workers today?

• How did the conservative leaders of the San Francisco Labor Council take control of the General Strike and use it to undercut the Longshore workers?

• What does NRA Chairman General Johnson's and Labor Department officials’ efforts to derail the strike say about the character of the New Deal in 1934?

• What were the most important ways in which radical activist longshoremen raised the consciousness of the longshore workers and built both broad support and strong fighting unity which made their victory possible? What application of these organizing approaches could DSA begin to employ today?

Additional Reading and Viewing

• Bloody Thursday (film)

• Irving Bernstein, excerpt from The Turbulent Years

• Sample issues of Waterfront Worker, a newsletter for longshore workers edited by CP-aligned members.

Join the Central Brooklyn Branch of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America for a three-part session on the history of the Communist Party in the United States during the Great Depression.

We will take a deep dive into the history of the Party, its milieu, and the broader upheavals of the 1930s so that we can learn lessons both negatively and positively from this moment of working-class upsurge and organization.

Readings (Required)

• Maurice Isserman, “When New York City Was The Capital of American Communism”

• Vivian Gornick, “When Communism Inspired Americans”

• John McCain, “Salute to a Communist”

• John Earl Haynes, “The Cold War Debate Continues” Pp. 76-93

Discussion Questions

• What is your evaluation of the Communist Party’s place in US history? Did it play a positive role in American politics?

• What contrasts in ideology, constituency, historical context and organization differentiate the CPUSA and the DSA?

• What practices of the CPUSA would DSA do well to emulate? Which missteps of the CPUSA would DSA benefit from avoiding?

Additional Reading and Viewing

• Movie: Seeing Red

• Michael Goldfield, “100 Years of American Communism”

• Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes, The American Communist Movement

• Harvey Levenstein, Communism, Anticommunism and the CIO

• Nathan Glazer, The Social Basis of American Communism

Join the Central Brooklyn DSA political education committee on Thursday, July 2 at 7:00 pm for the final session of our three-part discussion series on police, prisons, and riots. For our third installment we will look at recent rebellions against racism and police brutality in historical and global context. We will also consider the ways similar uprisings in the recent past have been understood, and misunderstood, by leftist intellectuals, and how this relates to the current situation. Opening remarks by writer Tobi Haslett and Central Brooklyn organizing committee member Ciarán Finlayson will be followed by discussion in small and large groups.

Readings:

• Paul Heideman, When Rioting Works (Jacobin)

• Joshua Clover, Introduction to Riot.Strike. Riot.

• Paul Gilroy, 1981 and 2011: From Social Democratic to Neoliberal Rioting (South Atlantic Quarterly)

Further reading:

• Grace and James Boggs, The City is the Black Man's Land (Monthly Review)

• 闯 Chuǎng, Welcome to the Frontlines: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence

• Sergio Villalobos-Ruminott, Chilean revolts and the crisis of neoliberal governance (Radical Philosophy)

• Guy Debord, The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy (Situationist International Online)

Join the Central Brooklyn DSA political education committee on Thursday, June 25th at 7:00 pm for the second in a three-part discussion series on police, prisons, and riots. In our second session, we will continue the discussions started in session one and examine the US prison empire, perhaps the largest and most heinous in world history. We will also discuss abolitionist campaigns like No New Jails and the ongoing Free Them All campaign, and the way socialists can promote a vision beyond the liberal call for “prison reform.” Opening remarks by NYC-DSA abolitionist organizers will be followed by group discussion in small and large groups.

Readings

• Angela Davis, Intro to “Are Prisons Obsolete?”

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Prisons and Capitalism: An Interview With Ruth Wilson Gilmore” Verso blog

• John Clegg and Adaner Usmani, “The Economic Origins of Mass Incarceration,” Catalyst

Further reading/listening:

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the case for Abolition,” The Intercepted (podcast)

• Rachel Kushner, "Is Prison Necessary? Ruth Wilson Gilmore Might Change Your Mind," The New York Times

• John Washington, “What is Prison Abolition?” The Nation

The introduction to Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? makes the fundamental case against prison reform and for prison abolition. Davis overviews the history of prisons in the US and their rapid expansion in the 1980s and 90s, using the example of California, where the number of prisons tripled during these decades. She interrogates how such a relatively short lived penal system can now seem so “natural,” and asks us to imagine alternative solutions to social problems.

Abolitionist and scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore speaks about prisons and capitalism in a deep and far ranging interview that recounts some of the major arguments in her book, Golden Gulag. Gilmore presents a thorough look at the expansion of the prison system in California, arguing that a large program of prison construction was the local response to surpluses of capital, land, labor, and state capacity borne out of economic downturns and a failure to utilize or expand the welfare state. In addition to her analysis, Gilmore recounts her time spent organizing broad coalitions to slow and stop the construction of new prisons in California. (For more on Ruth Wilson Gilmore, check out her profile in the New York Times or her appearance on last week’s Intercepted podcast.

For a deep dive on the origins of mass incarceration, John Clegg and Adaner Usmani argue that “the story of American mass incarceration is the story of the underdevelopment of American social democracy.” Specifically, they suggest that the failure of the federal government to solve problems of racial and economic inequality with large redistributive social welfare programs (and the weakness of political forces that could’ve forced such a program) meant that cities and local governments found a much cheaper alternative in extreme policing and prison expansion.

And for further reading on the prison abolition movement, check out John Washington’s article “What is Prison Abolition?” in The Nation, where he overviews the loose set of groups and thinkers who “share an idea—a vision—more than a structure: a future in which vital needs like housing, education, and health care, are met, allowing people to live safe and fulfilled lives—without the need for prisons.”

Join the Central Brooklyn DSA political education committee on Thursday, June 18th at 7:00 pm for the first in a three part discussion series on police, prisons, and riots. In our first session, we will examine the function of police in our racist, capitalist society, and the failures of liberal “police reform.” Central Brooklyn organizing committee member Rachel Himes will lead off by analyzing the current wave of uprisings against police violence, and the energy animating the Defund NYPD campaign. Her remarks will be followed by a group discussion.

Readings

• Keeanga Yamhatta-Taylor, “How Do We Change America?” The New Yorker

• Alex Vitale, “Police and the Liberal Fantasy,” Jacobin

• Abigail Savitch-Lew, “In New York City, Momentum Behind Cutting the NYPD Budget Is Growing,” Jacobin

• Cinzia Arruzza “Of Beauty and Rage: Dispatch from a Protest in Brooklyn”, Viewpoint

Further reading/listening:

• Ruth Wilson Gilmore, “Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the case for Abolition,” The Intercepted (podcast)

• Shawn Gude, “The Bad Kind of Unionism,” Jacobin

Some questions to consider for discussion:

• How can we describe the social function of the police in a racist, capitalist society? What do police actually “do,” and how does this fit into our broader analysis?

• What are some of the “reforms” that get proposed by the liberal wing of the ruling class? Why are they insufficient, or in some cases completely ineffective?

• How does a vision for defunding the police, and for deeper decarceration, fit into our broader program for changing society?

• What is the state of the “DefundNYPD” movement right now? How should we relate to elected Democrats who are now claiming to support defunding? What is our strategy for winning in the short term, and how does this connect to our longer-term goals

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s article “How Do We Change America?” contextualizes the current wave of uprisings in the history of the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement of the past decade. Taylor cautions against limited solutions like police reform, invoking the disastrous 1994 crime bill championed by Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. Instead, she calls for a “new politics” with which to assault the deep roots of racial and class inequality in the U.S.

Alex Vitale’s “Police and the Liberal Fantasy” investigates the function of the police, arguing that they exist to manage, and even produce, inequality. Criticizing liberal attempts to improve the police, Vitale insists instead that the answer can never be more police and jails.

To this end, Abigail Savitch-Lew reports on the current pressure in NYC to cut the NYPD’s outrageous budget of nearly $6 billion. Progressive groups across the city are demanding at least $1 billion of cuts to the NYPD and are determined to continue the uprising until their demands are met.

In a brief dispatch from the uprising, DSA member Cinzia Arruzza reflects on the action on June 4th at Barclays Center, where a large, multiracial crowd gathered in an impromptu general assembly, demonstrating the collective power and self-organization being born in the current movement.

For those who prefer audio material, or for extra listening, check out abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore on the Intercepted podcast, where she “offers a sweeping and detailed analysis of the relentless expansion and funding of police and prisons, and how locking people in cages has become central to the American project.”

And for bonus reading on the history of police unions, take a look at Shawn Gude’s “The Bad Kind of Unionism.”