On August 18th, the Political Education Committee hosted a Socialism 101 event aimed at new members and socialism-curious non-members. Our Socialism 101 events invite participants to consider questions about the nature of capitalism, the struggles and organizations necessary to overcome it, and what sort of Socialist future we want to build.
Participants take part in large and small group discussions, hopefully learning from each other more than the facilitators. We were fortunate to have twenty engaged participants for our two hour session, mostly new members, but with a few familiar faces joining as well.
Virtual political education sessions aren’t easy. We miss the vibrant conversations that can take place in person, and the chats afterward as we stack chairs or find a nearby bar or restaurant to decompress at. That said, our Zoom political education events have been well attended and accessible to people who might have trouble making an in-person event. One facilitator’s politically-curious mother even joined from out-of-state!
We are looking forward to being back in person in the future, but our mission carries on in the meantime! If you are interested in contributing to the chapter’s political education work, join us at our next planning meeting, Wed, September 9th at 6pm on Zoom. Details on the chapter calendar. Whether you’re a Neo-Kautskyite know-it-all or you learned all the class-war you need from your crappy landlord, we can all contribute to the political development of ourselves and our comrades.
-Ian R
The TCDSA Political Education group is working on a project to help guide comrades on how to talk effectively about socialism – and we need your help! We’re asking everyone to take a survey on your views surrounding socialism, and to share a second survey, aimed at building a profile of non-socialists. Using these, we hope to identify some common misconceptions, in-roads to understanding, and talking points to remember when discussing socialism with non-socialists.
The first survey, for avowed socialists, can be found here.
Anyone who is interested in having a good-faith discussion of political ideas is invited to take our second survey here. The more diverse the group, the better!
-Miquel M