Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter

Democratic Socialists of America
www.dsa-atlanta.org

Meetings and Activities

The Metro Atlanta Chapter has a general meeting on the last Saturday of each month. On mid-month Saturdays the steering committee meets, which functions as a committee-of-the-whole, that is, any interested persons are invited to attend. For details and agenda of up-coming, click of the "Local DSA Events" tab above.

Our Socialist Education Circle meets on the same Saturdays as the steering committee; topics, times and bibliographies are available under the corresponding tab.

There is no better way to become acquainted with the scope of our activities than to view our past Newletters: Spring 2007 edition; Winter 2008 edition. These and records of recent meetings are available under the "Organization" tab.

Re-live Highlights of Douglass-Debs Dinner

Tab to "Events Calendar" to get program book, video clips and photographs of Metro DSA's 2nd Annual Frederick Douglass - Eugene V. Debs Dinner, held November 8, 2008 at the IBEW Hall in Atlanta.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on the Economic Crisis

Today we are facing a crisis in capitalism unprecedented since the Great Depression of the 1930's. The solution proposed by the Bush Administration is a caricaciture of socialism: privatization of profit, with socialization of risk. To quote Sen. Bernie Sanders: "It should not be hard-working people who are trying to figure out how they are going to keep their families economically above water, people who are working longer hours for lower wages, people who have lost their health care, people who cannot afford to pay their fuel bills this winter. Those are not the people who should be asked to pay for this bailout. If there is a bailout that has to be paid for, it should be the people, the segment of society that has benefited from Bush's economic and tax policies over the last 8 years." To see the full text of Sen. Sander's speech click here.

DSA

Federal Theatre Project poster (ca. 1936)

Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America is one of more than 30 local DSA organizations in the US. As democratic socialists we envision a society and a world where resources are democratically controlled. In pursuing this goal, we educate the public about socialist values and policies and build progressive coalitions committed to fighting for economic and social justice. Since our formation in 2006, our local has supported the work of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Coalition for a Peoples' Agenda, Minimum Wage Coalition, Atlanta Jobs with Justice, Grady Hospital Coalition and the Up and Out of Poverty Now Coalition. Our members have led workshops at the Georgia Progressive Summit, raised money for the Benie Sanders senate campaign, participated in the planning and promotion of the US Social Forum and hosted the national DSA convention in Atlanta. We meet monthly and regularly hold forums on issues ranging from universal health care to the Employee Free Choice Act. Our other activities include issuing a newsletter, meeting as study circle to discuss readings on socialism and organizing an annual Douglass Debs Dinner.

An Agenda Towards an Economic Justice

DSA's 2007 national convention adopted the legislative platform "Towards an Economic Justice Agenda." We hope this proposal will lead to a consensual legislative and political program around which a broad coalition of progressive groups can coalesce. It is presented for use in outreach and discussion, and to elicit feedback from members and non-members alike. It is available here. A shorter version designed for easy distribution will be available soon.

What is Democratic Socialism?

Howard Bay's set design for "Life and Death of an American"

Democratic Socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically — to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives. Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well — everywhere but in the United States. Because of this, many false ideas about socialism have developed in the US. With this pamphlet, we hope to answer some of your questions about socialism. {A longer answer to this question, developed by DSA-USA, can be viewed here.}

Some History

"A Brief History of the American Left" is written by Maurice Isserman

"Promising indeed," Eugene Debs wrote in September l900, "is the outlook for Socialism in the United States. The very contemplation of the prospect is a wellspring of inspiration." Debs, a gifted and militant leader of America's railroad workers, seemed to have been granted a prophetic gift. When he ran for President in 1900 as the candidate of the newly unified socialist movement, he attracted a mere one hundred thousand votes. As the Socialist Party's standard-bearer twelve years later, he won nearly a million votes, some 6 percent of the total. In some states, such as Oklahoma, Washington, and California, the Socialist share of the vote climbed into the double digits. Over the same twelve-year period, the Socialist Party expanded its membership from 10,000 to nearly 120,000. Twelve hundred of these Socialists were elected to public office across the United States, including mayors from Flint, Butte, and Berkeley.

Haymarket Memorial, Chicago, erected 2004, 118 years after the massacre

Socialists were influential in the leadership of some major American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions, as well as in independent unions such as the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Socialist and non-Socialist radicals in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) pioneered in the organization of unions among immigrant workers in mass production industries in cities like Lawrence and Patterson, and among migrant workers in the lumber camps and mining towns of the far west. While the Socialist Party was not immune to the racism endemic in turn of-the-century America, Socialists were among the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The ideas of the Socialist movement attracted a growing following on college campuses, in church groups, and in the settlement house and women's movements. The key to the Socialist Party's success in the 1910s was unity in diversity. Its members disagreed with each other on some issues (whether, for example, to put their main emphasis on electoral or union organizing), but for a while the common goal of democratic socialism seemed more important than tactical or ideological differences.

In the long run, Debs's optimism proved misplaced. The year 1912 was the high-water mark of Socialist strength. The party fell on hard times with the coming of the First World War. Pre-existing internal tensions were exacerbated by debates over the party's attitude towards American involvement in the war, followed by debates over whether (or how best) to support the Russian Revolution. Official repression of antiwar dissent led to the imprisonment of Debs and dozens of other Socialist leaders, while Socialist legislators were expelled from public office and the Socialist press was banned from the mails. As a Communist Party on the Russian model split from the Socialist Party, and the IWW went into a sharp decline, the radical movement in general slipped into the doldrums in the 1920s.

With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, however, faith in American capitalism went into a tail-spin, and the fortunes of the radical movement revived. Despite the deep divisions that beset the left, radicals from a number of different groups -- Socialists, Communists, and Trotskyists among them -- played a central role in the struggles of the unemployed to win adequate relief in the early 1930s, and in the vast expansion of industrial unionism through the organization of the new Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) in the later 1930s. Socialists helped to organize Detroit autoworkers and southern sharecroppers; Communists were influential in drives to organize the auto, steel, electrical, and longshore industries, among others.

Depression era Federal Theatre Project "Living Newspaper" drama inspired by FDR's 2nd inaugural address ".. I se one third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."

While neither Socialists nor Communists were able to replicate the electoral successes of the Debsian era, the Socialists were able to attract a million votes for Norman Thomas, their Presidential candidate in 1932. Running in the Democratic primary, the Socialist novelist Upton Sinclair captured the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in California in 1934. And during the "Popular Front" era of the later 1930s, when Communists sought to build a broad-based American movement not so explicitly tied to the Soviet model, the Communists developed a considerable political base and measure of influence within the Democratic Party in such states as Washington, Minnesota, and California, and in the American Labor Party in New York. The Thirties did not usher in "the Revolution," contrary to the expectations of many at the start of the decade. Nevertheless, much had changed for the better in American politics in the space of a few years. While Franklin Roosevelt's administration was never the hotbed of radicalism it was portrayed as in right-wing propaganda, it is certainly true that radicals helped play midwife at the birth of the liberal-labor "New Deal coalition" that would shape the contours of Democratic Party politics over the next three decades.

Radicals were not, however, in a position to take independent advantage of the new political possibilities opening before them. The Socialist Party finished the decade once again in disarray, wounded by an internal factional battle with Trotskyists (with whom they shared little beyond a hatred of Stalinism), and divided over the question of whether they should abandon their long-standing refusal to back Democratic Party candidates. The Communist Party, though nominally more "revolutionary" than the Socialists, had proven tactically more flexible, and its tacit alliance with Roosevelt had helped it to grow to perhaps as many as 75,000 members by 1938 (with another 20,000 in the Young Communist League). After a bruising few years when its international guide, Stalin, was allied with Hitler, the American Communist Party seemed to emerge triumphant during the years of the "Grand Alliance," when the United States and the Soviet Union were allied against fascism and it was possible to be both "patriotic" and "pro-Soviet." But with the onset of the Cold War in 1945, radicalism of any sort was again suspect, and the Communists came under particularly ferocious attack.

By the mid-1950s, dozens of Communist Party leaders had been imprisoned under the Smith Act, while thousands of rank and file Communists were harassed by the FBI, dragged before Congressional investigating committees, denied passports, and in many instances fired from their jobs. Several of the most unscrupulous men in postwar American political life, including Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, built their careers on the shrewd manipulation of anticommunist hysteria. In the end, the Communist Party was able to survive McCarthyism. What finally led to its demise as the most important force on the left was its own internal disagreements, brought to a head in 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of his now safely-dead predecessor Stalin. This "de-Stalinization crisis" led many American Communists to question not only their previous unquestioning support of Soviet policies, but also the undemocratic nature of Soviet-style socialism and the authoritarian nature of their own movement. Most of these dissenters left the party after 1956.

Diego Rivera "Man at the Crossroads" (1934), a 63- foot mural originally in Rockafeller Center, NY, but removed largely because of its depiction of Lenin

Even as the Communist Party disintegrated in the mid-1950s, a new wave of radical activism began to take shape. This time, however, it would not be the traditional socialist parties of the left that would lead the way, nor would the organization of the industrial working class be the main concern of the new radicals. Starting with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and accelerating with the sit-in movement launched by black students in Greensboro and a dozen other southern cities in 1960, movements emerged that were destined to change the U.S. political landscape. White students, inspired by the example of their black counterparts in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), were drawn into civil rights protests, and from there into a wide range of movements for peace, university reform, and social change. Many joined a new campus group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which became the main organizational vehicle for what was beginning to be called the "new left".

A series of developments in mid-decade -- including John F. Kennedy's assassination, the murder of civil rights activists in the South, and the mounting escalation of the Vietnam war -- spurred the growth of the new left, while tarnishing the optimism of the early 1960s. Over the years in which the war in Vietnam raged on, a loose coalition of radical activists developed the broadest and most diverse antiwar movement in American history. It was, to be sure, a turbulent and in many ways a tragic era. Some student protesters, in despair over bringing the war to an end (and sometimes egged on by government agents), turned to selfdefeating violent street confrontations and even to bombings. But it should also be remembered that, by the end of the 1960s, antiwar sentiment had spread from elite Ivy League universities to working-class community colleges and high schools, and that groups like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War were playing an increasingly prominent role in antiwar demonstrations. The general cultural and political ferment of the decade also gave rise to a revived feminist movement and a new gay liberation movement.

At the end of the 1960s the left again faltered. If the old left Socialists and Communists had been too wedded to the "New Deal coalition" of urban ethnics and industrial workers to respond adequately to the new black, youth, and women's insurgencies, nevertheless those new constituencies alone could not build a stable base for a mass new left. Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968 hastened the demise of the civil rights movement, while SNCC and SDS collapsed from sectarian excesses. The antiwar movement held on into the early 1970s but, by the signing of the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, had lost most of its momentum. And not only was the left collapsing, but this time the New Deal coalition itself -- the mass base for American liberalism -- was showing signs of increasing instability, as Richard Nixon's victories in 1968 and 1972 indicated. This liberal weakness became progressively clearer as Nixon's fall in the Watergate scandal led, not to a revival of the New Deal coalition, but to a long-term revival of radical conservatism in the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan.

Jack Beal (1976), "A History of Labor in American - 19th Century", U.S. Department of Labor

From the beginning of this long period of deepening conservatism in the early 1970s, several groups continued to uphold the traditions of the American left. Two in particular sought to recreate the broad and tolerant spirit of the Debsian Socialist Party, while absorbing also the new lessons, causes, and constituencies over which the left had stumbled in the intervening decades. The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) had been founded by Michael Harrington out of some fragments of the old Socialist Party. DSOC continued to operate, in the old Socialist or Communist manner, as the left-wing of the New Deal coalition, clearly now not as a separate political party but as an explicitly socialist force within the Democratic Party and the labor movement. It met with some success in attracting young activists disenchanted with the Democratic Party's drift and seeking ways to galvanize the ailing party coalition. DSOC also drew to its banner a number of well-known public figures, such as Machinists' Union leader William Winpisinger, feminist Gloria Steinem, gay rights activist Harry Britt, actor Ed Asner, and California Congressman Ron Dellums, the first avowed socialist in Congress since World War Two.

The New American Movement (NAM) emerged at about the same time, more from the new left than from the old, though it counted in its number some former Communists who had left their party after 1956. NAM, true to these new left origins, was more skeptical about the long-term future of the New Deal coalition, and accordingly devoted its energies more than did DSOC to the new movements of the 1960s, especially feminism, gay and lesbian liberation, and local community organizing.

But neither NAM nor DSOC saw their heritages and organizing areas as mutually exclusive, and by the early 1980s -- especially considering the weakness of the American left -- came to see themselves as complementary, completing a formal merger in 1983. The merged organization, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), for the first time since the First World War brought together the various splinters of left opinion in America: former Socialists and Communists, former old leftists and new leftists, and many who had never been leftists at all. The decades of disunion had taken their toll. The hundreds of thousands of Debs's day had dwindled to mere thousands. But a new beginning now seems possible in the 1990s As the old Cold War polarities break down, DSA has an opportunity to demonstrate that the history of the American left had reached a turning-point, not an end.

Maurice Isserman teaches history at Hamilton College. A DSAer, he is author of If I Had a Hammer: The Death of the Old Left and Birth of the New and co-author of Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party.

The second annual Frederick Douglass - Eugene V. Debs dinner

was held Saturday evening (Nov. 8) in the Atlanta's IBEW Hall. Nearly 200 progressive and labor activists gathered for rousing music, speeches and award presentations. If you missed the event, you can re-live it vicariously by downloading the program, which gives biographical sketches of Douglass, Debs, the keynote spearker and the awardees.

Judy Conder of Artemis Productions videotaped much of the evening's proceedings; Bill Lucy's keynote address can be viewed at blip.tv by clicking these links: part 1, part 2, part 3.

The Metro Atlanta DSA "Action Calendar" logs not only DSA events (in blue), but also activities of other organizations (in pink) which we deem particularly worthy of support. [Point your mouse on a colored date to get a short description; click to open a sub-window with details.]

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General Membership and Social Education meetings have been suspended for the months of November and December. Notices for these meeting will be posted on the "Action Calendar" when available.

DSA General Membership meetings are held in the Decatur Friends Meeting House (check calendar for dates and topics): From Decatur: go south on Commerce Drive until West Howard, turn right (west) on West Howard for four blocks, look for parking lot on right. From East Lake MARTA station (E5 on East-West line): a comfortable walk east on West Howard, busses 22, 24 and 123 also stop at the East Lake MARTA station. Always stay north of the railroad tracks.

Metro Atlanta DSA's Socialist Education Circle meets next:

TIME: Saturdays, , 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

PLACE: Java Vino, 579 North Highland Avenue, upstairs meeting room (directions below)

October's Circle is postponed in favor of work for and learning from the Debs-Douglass Dinner (Nov. 8th; see "events calendar"). Readings for the next two sessions, however, are set:

Session #1:
1. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America [1978], Introduction & Part I. [170 pp]
2. V I Lenin, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism [1916], chapter X. [5 pp]

Session #2:
1. Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America [1978], Parts II & III. [115 pp]
2. Friedrich Engels, Letter to Karl Marx (dated 1858 Oct 07), 2nd paragraph. [1 pp]
3. Karl Marx, Letter to Meyer & Vogt (dated 1870 Apr 09). [4 pp]
4. Rosa Luxemburg, Concerning Morocco [1911]. [5 pp]

SOURCES:
1. A recent reprinting of Galeano has been available at Borders. If you purchase a used copy, be sure to obtain the 1978 version containing Part III. ABE Books at http://www.abebooks.com/ lists used copies, however, not all listings on Abebooks give a publication date. Dates prior to 1978 do not contain Part III! The desired editions have ISBN 0-85345-9908 (HB), 0-85345-9916 (PB), or 987-085345-9910 (PB) [placement and/or presence/absence of dashes makes no difference].

2. The works by Engels, Marx, Luxemburg, & Lenin can be read and/or downloaded on line at marxists.org.

[Java Vino is across from Manuel's Tavern. You can park behind Java Vino, next door or across the street.]

Bibliography of past readings discussed by the Education Circle:

Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, by Frances Fox Priven, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers (2006). New and used copies available at www.abebooks.com, or your favorite progressive book shop.

"Towards Freedom: Democratic Socialist Theory and Practice" by Joseph Schwartz and Jason Schulman. The article is available to view or download here.

Harrington, Michael; Socialism Past and Future; Arcade Publishing, New York (1989). Used copies at www.abebooks.com, and elsewhere.

Marx, Karl; Value, Price and Profit (1865). {Copies are available at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/value-price-profit} MS-DSA member Charles Pierce has prepared notes on this speech Marx gave to the London Workingmen's Association.

weekend_cover

Murolo, Priscilla and A.B. Chitty, From the Folks Who Brought the Weekend: A Short Illustrated Historyof Labor in the United States;
The New Press, New York (2001). {New copies at www.amazon.com; used copies at www.abebooks.com}

And now for a little music... (everyday)

Your socialist education is hardly complete without learning the Internationale; here's the English version. You can almost imagine Delacroix' Ms. Liberty leading the chorus.

The Internationale

Eugène Delacroix "La Liberté guidant le peuple" (1830)

Stand up, all victims of oppression
For the tyrants fear your might
Don't cling so hard to your possessions
For you have nothing, if you have no rights
Let racist ignorance be ended
For respect makes the empires fall
Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all

Chorus:
So come brothers and sisters
For the struggle carries on
The Internationale
Unites the world in song
So comrades come rally
For this is the time and place
The international ideal
Unites the human race

Let no one build walls to divide us
Walls of hatred nor walls of stone
Come greet the dawn and stand beside us
We'll live together or we'll die alone
In our world poisoned by exploitation
Those who have taken, now they must give
And end the vanity of nations
We've but one Earth on which to live

And so begins the final drama
In the streets and in the fields
We stand unbowed before their armour
We defy their guns and shields
When we fight, provoked by their aggression
Let us be inspired by like and love
For though they offer us concessions
Change will not come from above

Words: Billy Bragg Music: Pierre Degeyter

Local Chapter

The Metro Atlanta chapter of Democratic Socialists of America provides an opportunity to meet, discuss and act with DSA members in the Atlanta area. Anyone interested is invited to join our regular meetings (click on "Local DSA Events" tab) , which often include outside speakers on some special topic, and our Social Education Circle (click on "Socialist Education" tab). We are locally self-supporting, and do not receive funding from the national organization.

DSA-USA

To become a regular member of the local chapter you must become a member of the national organization, DSA-USA. The easiest way to accomplish this is to visit the national organization's website and join up there. Alternatively, you can download, print and mail in an application form.

join_us

photo credit: Reid Freeman Jenkins

photo credits: Reid Freeman Jenkins

Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America

Local publications and meeting protocols

The drop-down menu gives you access to MA-DSA's newsletters and records of past meetings.

Executive Officers

Four elected officers of the chapter comprise the Executive Committee; officers are elected at the September general meeting for a term of one year; current officers are:

Chair: Milt Tambor (phone 770.313.4628; email chair@dsa-atlanta.org

biographical sketch: Milt Tambor moved to Atlanta from Detroit in 2001 and is currently retired. He worked for Michigan American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 25 as a staff representative and education coordinator. As staff representative he represented public sector workers in collective bargaining and grievance appeals. As labor educator he conducted classes in collective bargaining, steward training, labor history, economics, strategic planning and health and safety. With a Ph.D. in Sociology, Milt also taught classes as an adjunct faculty at Wayne State University's School of Social Work. He has served as Metro Atlanta DSA chair since 2006.

Membership Secretary: Norm Markel (email membership@dsa-atlanta.org)

biographical sketch: Norm Markel received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1960. He was Professor of Communication, Linguistics & Anthropology at the University of Florida from 1964-99. He is currently Professor Emeritus and resides in Decatur, Georgia. In 1975 he was elected the first president of the United Faculty of Florida (AFT/NEA), which represented faculty in all 10 state universities. He has served as Metro Atlanta DSA membership secretary since 2006.

Recording Secretary: Barbara Joye

biographical sketch: Barbara Joye moved to Atlanta from New York City in 1966. She taught college English for several years before serving in a series of public policy research and communications jobs for government and nonprofit agencies, including a year in Washington DC with the Safe Energy Communications Council. In Atlanta she volunteered for the city’s “underground” newspaper, The Great Speckled Bird; the Atlanta Independent Media Center; and (for many years) the community radio station WRFG-FM. She recently retired from the State of Georgia’s Department of Human Resources, Office of Communications. A veteran of SDS and Movement for a Democratic Society in the ‘60’s, she has been active in various progressive groups, including an affiliate of the Mexico Solidarity Network; Amnesty International; Women’s Action for New Directions; and the U.S. Social Forum. She is now in her second term as recording secretary for MA-DSA, and serves on the National Political Committee of national DSA.

Treasurer: Austin Wattles

Webmaster: for comments on site presentation please email webmaster@dsa-atlanta.org

We are not alone!

While socialism informs our perspective on politics and the economy, we act in concert with socially and politically progressive people in the Atlanta area. Listed here are websites of organizations with which we have a strong working partnership.

www.dsausa.org: The national organization of DSA is a rich resource of socialist history, literature and position papers.

www.atljwj.org: Atlanta Jobs with Justice was founded in 1988 as a committee of the Atlanta Labor Council, and currently has a focus on promoting affordable and accountable public transportation in Atlanta.

www.gcpagenda.org: The Coalition for the People's Agenda, convened by Dr. Joseph Lowry, is active in Atlanta and throughout the Southeast. It sponsors a weekly Stand for Peace and works for voter empowerment.

www.gpjc.org: Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition - "We believe there can only be peace in the presence of justice, so as we oppose war, we also work for justice and the protection of human rights for all."

georgiapeace.org is the independent website of the Atlanta group of GPJC, with the banner "No War on Iran".

georgialivingwage.org: The Minimum Wage Coalition addresses the causes of poverty and its detriment to democracy.

www.wrfg.org: for 35 years WRFG-FM - Radio Free Georgia - has been serving the Atlanta community with progressive news and grassroots cultural programming at 89.3 FM.

www.atlantaprogressivenews.com: Atlanta Progressive News is your web source for new stories you won't get in the AJC

www.atlanta.indymedia.org: Atlanta Indymedia brings a progressive perspective to news stories from the whole world.

keepgradypublic.org: is the web face of the Grady Hospital Coalition. Health care is a human right, and Grady is essential to health care for all in Atlanta.

www.atlantawand.org: local chapter of the Women's Action for New Directions throws a sharp light on the relationship between excessive military spending and unmet human and environmental needs.

www.gps2008.org: Georgia Progressive Summit pulls us all together. This site is ad hoc to the January 2008 Summit, but watch it for news of Summit 2009.

Local chapter members Barbara Joye and Barbara Segal at joint retreat with Young Democratic Socialists, August 2008