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How do we relate to each other, comrade?
What is a comrade in a 21st-century socialist organization? In the 20th Century it meant you were “under discipline,” a cadre in an organization of “professional revolutionaries.” But many of these organizations were based on a centralized, hierarchical model developed in Czarist Russia. They evolved hierarchies within structures of white supremacy, hierarchies that advantaged hetero-masculinity,…
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Book Review: Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas
This is an insightful and dangerous book. Its ideas have wormed their way into my consciousness and changed the way I see things. I will never again watch a TED Talk, listen to an Aspen Idea NPR broadcast, the Clintons, Trump, Bill Gates, or Joe Biden without them being colored by what I learned from…
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Reaching Consensus: Democracy and Rules of Order
Robert’s Rules of Order probably seem to many, especially the younger of us, to be ancient and nearly irrelevant. But these rules are comparatively recent, and far more modern and adaptable than you may realize. Henry Martyn Robert published his pamphlet of “Rules” in 1876, a mere 145 years ago, and almost 100 years after…
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Minnesota’s Vaccine Rollout Strategy: A Socialist Perspective
From the Twin Cities DSA Health Justice Working Group The Health Justice Working Group interviewed TCDSA member Pat for a socialist perspective on Minnesota’s vaccine rollout strategy. Pat is a PhD student studying occupational and environmental epidemiology at the University of Minnesota, as well as a graduate research assistant. Pat also works in local public…
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Marathon Refinery Strike Report
At 5 PM on Thursday, January 21, 200 workers represented by Teamsters Local 120 at the Marathon refinery in St Paul Park walked off the job in Minnesota’s first strike of 2021. They offered to return after 24 hours, but the company has decided to lock them out instead, content to continue working with scabs…
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Solidarity with Teamsters Local 120
Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America stands in full solidarity with Teamsters 120 union members striking and actively picketing at the Marathon Oil Refinery in St Paul Park. Their willingness to stand up for safe working conditions and to protect union jobs in the middle of bone-chilling winter conditions is a shining example of earnest commitment…
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A Page Out of the Neoliberal Playbook: Defunding Public Schools
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is seeking to change the Minnesota constitution so that instead of establishing a uniform system of public schools, it “guarantees a quality public education.” On the surface, the Page Amendment seems like an improvement. However, the new language strips away the mandate for the state to fund public schools.…
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Internal Organizing: Being Ready for the Next Crisis
Three political threads swept the Twin Cities this year. Presidential campaigns. Coronavirus. The police murder of George Floyd on May 25. Each of these threads intensified each other and manifested all the symptoms of the capitalist exploitation and racist oppression that characterizes the United States. Every crisis brought out millions of people with demands on…
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The Dems: An Election Analysis
Yes, they won the White House, but down ballot, the Democratic Party did not see the kinds of successes they were counting on. They lost ground in the House, may yet fail to take back the Senate, and left the Republicans in control of most state legislatures. They fell far short of expectations, and they…
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Antifascist Organizing in Minneapolis/St. Paul
The struggle against fascism has not been a pristine contest between it and antifascism. During the past decade, it has become intertwined with issues that many people on the left (and apart from the left) would not have anticipated. But all of these issues are clearly based on political forces that we have been dealing…
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Holidays are Holy
Previously published in Southside Pride, Dec. 7, 2020. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” Joni Mitchell famously sang. I have been thinking about the many local delights that are gone, or may be soon. In 2016 I was still working for Heart of the Best Theater. We put on La Natividad that…
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On “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson
The thing I have always appreciated about Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR) is that he never forgets that science is created by humans, and that humans are complicated. He is most known for his Mars trilogy and his futuristic visions of space colonization. For me, however, his books about climate change and its effect on humans,…
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