At our chapter’s first Annual Convention in April, we voted to join the fight for Proposition 10 as a way to challenge the unilateral control that capitalist private property relations hold over nearly every aspect of our lives. Winning Proposition 10 would not only offer the chance to mitigate the brutality of capitalism in a city where the median renter spends nearly half of their income on rent, but the passage of Proposition 10 would have the potential to spark many simultaneous fights against landlords and developers all across California. Continue reading

Hello, and welcome to the DSA-LA Electoral Politics committee’s voter guide to the 2018 general elections!   Download it as a nifty PDF!   There’s a lot to vote for this year, so we decided to do the research on every race on the ballot (OK, almost every race) so you could know who and what you’re voting for when you mark those little dots in the polling booth. Given the huge number of races in LA county, we decided to create a cheat sheet with our recommendations—many of those represent “lesser evil” calculations, and in some cases, there simply isn’t anyone else to vote for. Continue reading

STEERING COMMITTEE NOMINATIONS! This month, DSA Los Angeles will be holding elections for the next Steering Committee term, which begins at the end of the month. Nominations are officially open today. If you're interested in running for any Steering Committee positions, or for the YDSA Coordinator position (full details below), please fill out the below forms, which are managed by your elected Nominations Committee. If you are nominating yourself, the nomination form includes two open-answer questions, which will be posted alongside the list of candidates as a candidate statement. You may also fill out the form to nominate another member for a position. Continue reading

One of the many pernicious ways that capitalism manifests its contradictions is the despoliation of the earth. Built into capitalism’s DNA is the necessity for constant growth, and the extensive networks of production and distribution that have been built to support this growth are based on sources of energy that are either directly derived from fossil fuels or generated by burning fossil fuels, with few exceptions. The well-touted consequence of this endless thirst for oil and energy is the warming of the climate, which contributes to climatic, political, and social destabilization all over the world, and has an outsized impact on the global South on populations that, because of the already-extensive economic inequality generated on a global level by capitalism (superintended by the United States and its corporations and financial institutions), are already extremely vulnerable. This leads to environmental disasters that largely impact poor, working-class people of color who have no means of restitution. Continue reading

It’s that time of year again — time to elect a brand new set of Local Officers — the DSA-LA Steering Committee and the YDSA Coordinator! But before we elect the Local Officers we need to elect a Nominations Committee. So we present: Continue reading

WHEREAS incarcerated and formerly incarcerated members of the working class called for a Nationwide Prison Strike in the United States from August 21 to Sept 9, 2018;WHEREAS the prison industrial complex and the police exist to secure the power of a white supremacist, capitalist state through violent arrest, incarceration, forced labor, and torture; WHEREAS Los Angeles County is home to the largest incarcerated population in the US, the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world;WHEREAS a resolution affirming “the eventual goal of…[the] abolition of prisons” was passed via the consent agenda at the 2017 DSA National Convention, such goal being central to the liberation of all members of the international working class;Be it RESOLVED, the Los Angeles Local of the Democratic Socialists of America endorses the Nationwide Prison Strike, pledges our support, and commits to future organizing towards prison abolition. Continue reading

In  recent years, DSA-LA has spent a lot of time focusing on the growth of our organization. What is not stated enough is how our members would not be here if not for the people who kept our organization alive before the membership surge in 2016, who nurtured and built DSA so that we could seek refuge in it. Continue reading

In the past 5 years over 400 people have died at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department, and District Attorney Jackie Lacey has not prosecuted a single officer. Every week for the past 9 months Black Lives Matter - Los Angeles has held space outside the Hall of “Justice”, along with White People for Black Lives, American Indian Movement-SoCal, March and Rally LA, Ground Game LA, California For Progress, Defend Movement and others. The purpose is to honor those who have been taken from us, to call on the spirit of all of those who have suffered and died at the hands of white patriarchal capitalism, and to demand justice and a future where everyone is truly liberated. On Wednesday, July 25th, we at the Los Angeles Local of the Democratic Socialists of America were humbled to support them. Continue reading

To support our ambitious political goals and fulfill our mandate to maintain and grow chapter funds as outlined in our Organizational Priorities, the DSA-LA Steering Committee is opening up a call for interested members to formally join a Finance & Fundraising Committee through the end of 2018. Continue reading

This Saturday morning Los Angeles’s occasional mayor, Eric Garcetti, was rudely awoken by a contingent of DSA Los Angeles members who were — and still are — truly disgusted with his conduct and recent statements. Even though he identifies as the “tip of the spear” of the resistance, Garcetti’s positions on many issues is closer to Trump than it is to his own set of alleged progressive values. Under Eric Garcetti’s leadership, White Supremacy continues to reign in Los Angeles. Led by members of the Housing and Homelessness Committee and NOlympics LA, the group protested outside the Mayor’s mansion in Windsor Square and called out Garcetti for a litany of toxic policies, statements, and positions he’s recently rolled out regarding housing, homelessness, criminalization, and immigration: Continue reading