From the Boston Political Education Editorial Committee
by Andy Hyatt While the state of the healthcare system in the United States is poor all around, our mental health system is its own particular brand of horrible. Even in a city like Boston, a supposed healthcare mecca where we have more therapists and psychiatrists per capita than almost anywhere in the country, it …
Continue reading "A Socialist Approach to Mental Health and Well-being: Medicare for All and Beyond"
Recently, members of the Direct Action, De-escalation, and Security Committee of Boston DSA—better known within the chapter as DADS—have witnessed and been informed of a number of incidents within DSA that indicate the need for greater organizational solidarity around antifascist activism and the potential for internal political education on the subject. In the interest of …
Leslie James Pickering (LJP), former Earth Liberation Front spokesperson and current owner of the radical, independent bookstore Burning Books in Buffalo, NY, was recently invited to give a talk by the Boston DSA PEWG and Ecosocialism WG. The event was co-sponsored by the Grassroots Infrastructure Charitable Foundation and was held in the Cambridge Public Library …
Continue reading "Activism in the surveillance state: A follow-up with Leslie James Pickering"
by Sam Jaffe, Boston DSA On March 30, Boston DSA along with other activist organizations in the area co-sponsored a talk by George Lakey on nonviolent direct action training. Lakey has been involved with nonviolent direct action campaigning for decades, starting with the Civil Rights movement. He helped lead a successful campaign by the Earth …
By Ben S. In Brief In this essay I define base-building as political work done in such a way that it either results in creating or strengthening existing mass democratic organizations (independent of any other political organization or NGO) of the working class and that develops individuals not previously engaged in political work as organizers …
Continue reading "Losing Politics: A Proposed Definition of Base-building"
by The PEWG Blog In February 2018, a visit to Harvard University by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was met with protest by dozens of local students and residents, including members of Boston DSA. They had gathered, in part, to support a grassroots, youth-directed, adult-supported effort in Chicago called #NoCopAcademy. Here, the PEWG Blog talks with …
Continue reading "Schools For Kids, Not Cops: An Interview with #NoCopAcademy Organizers"
by Adam S, Bronx/Upper Manhattan DSA The Monday before the Democratic congressional primary in New York, I slipped out of work early to make one final canvassing push for the long shot challenge to ten-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th congressional district. Getting off the train and heading down the stairs, past a …
Continue reading "For a Truly Pluralistic, Big Tent DSA: A Response to Jared Abbott and Momentum"
by Ben M As we pass the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent descent of the world economy into the Great Recession, the horizon is once again darkening for capitalism. While economic forecasts often resort to little more than reading tea leaves, e.g.- the regular predictions of a “double dip” …
Continue reading "The Coming Capitalist Crisis and the Tasks for Socialists"
For in all of the mainstream articles and talk this past week about the centennial of the end of World War One, a particular fact is often absent. It wasn’t the diplomats, politicians, kings, presidents, emperors, generals, admirals, or well-meaning liberal journalists that finally ended the war. It was the soldiers, sailors, and workers of Germany who ended it by throwing down their weapons and refusing to die anymore for the Kaiser.
On Wednesday, August 22nd, about 50 people gathered at the Cambridge Public Library to hear four members of Boston DSA speak on an introduction to ecosocialism.This article is a recap of the concepts discussed at the panel and discusses the central tenets of ecosocialism, and ongoing ecosocialist struggles within DSA nationwide.