Check out the digital version of Issue 15 of the
@dsaRandR
magazine, my first issue as managing editor.
We take on the most pressing issues facing socialists: The New Cold War, Eco-Socialism, Palestine, the labor revival, Project 2025, and building DSA.
I was at both the Emerson and Northeastern encampments when they were raided by police. I also wrote a book on the Russian student movement.
Here are 12 lessons I think we can draw so far from the student uprising🧵
The police raid started at 2am, after the news cameras had gone home. Most did not hear the dispersal order. BPD stormed both entrances, and within 90 seconds it was over.
Peaceful students arrested for no reason. Heroic students arrested for justice.
#CeasefireNOW
#ShameOnWu
1. Raise a Camp
Putting up tents turns a protest into an organizing hub.
Once tents are up, admin and authorities face tremendous pressure from right wing donors, politicians, and the media to act.
This forces them to overreact, expanding the struggle to
#FreePalestine
3. Make It Beautiful
We are building the world we wish to see. Painting banners, chalking, sharing food, singing, organizing dances, etc are all great ways to build unity and pass the hours.
It is also important to have messaging and demands visible for when the news comes.
2. Defend The Camp
Immediately set up a shift schedule, and recruit a committed team for overnights, when the camp is most vulnerable.
Whether the camp chooses to embrace mass arrest or not, defending the camp forces an escalation with police.
4. Expect the Unexpected
At both NU and Emerson the police built up a large presence off site before arriving en mass.
It is necessary to have 24/7 scouting for cops, including by car/bike to patrol potential staging areas and police buildings further from the camp.
Organize serious recruitment efforts. Phone-bank friends, members, allies, and get firm commitments. Sign up volunteers for rapid response.
Numbers are our best defense.
11. Retreat, Recoup, Re-Encamp
Students at Yale, UT, etc have shown that it is possible to re-establish camps after raids.
Consider tactical retreat as an alternative to mass arrest - pick a time the following day to return, and get some rest.
Tents are cheap. Cops are not.
9. Oppose Antisemitism Loudly
The
#1
weapon of admin is to slander protests as antisemitic. As seen at Northeastern, they will lie shamelessly.
Immediate, loud, and proactive rejection of antisemitism is a crucial defense in the fight for public opinion.
8. Slogans Matter
The student movement has many great slogans and some poor ones. Slogans like “Oink Oink Piggy Piggy” etc. take attention from the clear demands of the students and the plight of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Slogans are a weapon in our media war. Pick wisely.
10. Fight Bad Press With Good
The press is waiting for opportunities to slander protestors. Don’t let them!
Have great speakers ready. Record encounters with agitators and police. *Aggressively* follow up with reporters to correct the record.
We don’t win by ignoring the press
5. Arm in Arm, Toe to Toe
Standing arm-in-arm is the basic tactical formation at this stage. It unites the most willing in a bond of collective physical resistance and steels their resolve. It is used to encircle the camp or temporarily hold strategic positions.
7. We Keep Us Safe
Anyone risking arrest, or in the proximity of those risking arrest, is in moderate danger of injury or worse.
We can only rely on ourselves - our street medics, jail support, live-streamers, scouts, etc to protect us and hold police accountable.
By standing toe-to-toe with the police, protestors can sometimes stop police raids, as happened at Northeastern initially. This bought an extra day.
With sufficient numbers, the camp can organize blocking or distraction tactics further afield, buying for time and reinforcements
12. Center Students, Include Workers
At this stage the students should set the pace of struggle and represent the movement. It is also crucial to involve faculty, admin, and campus staff.
But everyone has a role to play - get out there!
#CeasefireNow
6. Arrests have Pros and Cons
Intentional mass arrests draw attention and energy, and they help to radicalize those arrested.
They are also dangerous and a logistical burden.
Weigh the balance with your team, and decide democratically.
If Northeastern students hadn’t immediately and loudly condemned antisemitism, we might be in a very different place today.
Basement dwellers calling me and my comrades feds - meanwhile I just learned this week that the FBI surveilled an event I organized in 2017. Pound sand.
Socialists must work to stop any expression of antisemitism in the movement as well as any slogans aligning ourselves with conservative, antisemitic forces like Hamas, the Houthi or the Iranian state. These self-marginalizing tactics are a dead end.
I made some graphs which tracks results from the 10 largest delegations to
@DemSocialists
2023 Convention on some key votes relative to convention overall. 🧵
The format is Yes/Total (Abstain) and the percentage is Yes/ (Total - Abstain).
Up first: Amendment 1 to Agenda
You can find a free link to my book “Student Radicals and the Rise of Russian Marxism” here:
Chapters 3 and 4 cover the Russian student strikes from 1899-1905 and the Russian occupation of campuses in September 1905, and are especially relevant.
My letter “A trade unionist’s take on the US working class” was published in todays
@FinancialTimes
Replying to
@EdwardGLuce
’s opinion piece which sees only non-college workers as working class.
Working Mass has published more articles than Democratic Left in 2024.
That’s not a brag - we have a small, all volunteer staff and basically no money. We should not be out-performing the national DSA publication.
Something is not working right. We need a serious national press
Left/right discourse.
Nothing we decided on at convention will matter if we don’t help elect Biden as a critical part of defeating right-wing patriarchal Christian nationalism.
@erikmbaker
Made me lol in The Road To Serfdom ch4 where to prove that capitalism doesn’t tend to monopoly he just sites a committee that says it doesn’t. 10/10 rigorous theory 😌
Agenda change was won ON A FIELD MARGIN. Shout out to the
@MarxistUnityDSA
@dsaRandR
@redstarcaucus
and other comrades who won over comrades to a politicized agenda through discussion over the last 24 hours. When the DSA left unites - we win!!!!
The weaponization and fear-mongering of “laying off union staff” is especially obnoxious coming from folks who voted against expanding funding for DSA union organizing.
@SeanOrrMKE
I disagree - socialists have both the right and the responsibility to share their perspectives with the broader workers movement, which they develop based on experience, history, and socialist theory. They’re not twisting anyone’s arm, they’re just having conversations.
This picture from
@WoburnTeachers
rally yesterday shows why the right is so obsessed with crushing educator unions - more so than any other union, they touch every town and family in the country. Where teachers lead the nation follows, and they are leading us to revolt.
#1u
I made some graphs which tracks results from the 10 largest delegations to
@DemSocialists
2023 Convention on some key votes relative to convention overall. 🧵
The format is Yes/Total (Abstain) and the percentage is Yes/ (Total - Abstain).
Up first: Amendment 1 to Agenda
This weekend I published my first book!
“Student Radicals and the Rise of Russian Marxism” follows the role of students in the Russian revolution, including their role in kickstarting the 1905 uprising.
$9.99 on Amazon or free PDF here:
@MarxistUnityDSA
Since this tweet blew up, here are the FACTS:
1. The table was already set up, the comrades did not set up their own table. No violation of union contract.
2. Caucuses reached out to request tables BEFORE convention - and were either ignored or told no.
Can confirm that following the
@DSAWorkingMass
labor forum,
@DSANorthStar
candidate Alex H. clarified they are not only against the R+F strategy but believe rank and file caucuses like TDU are LESS democratic than existing unions. (+ r+f strategy is ‘bureaucratic centralism’)🙄🙄
At 48:40 I ask Alex Hernandez of
@DSANorthStar
about building rank and file caucuses vs socialist caucuses and he says he is against the rank and file strategy all together!
The crackdown at Columbia has sparked a nationwide movement of student protests. New encampments are springing up every day as students stand up to war and genocide.
Check out my piece in
@dsaRandR
on the unfolding protests and the way forward. 🧵
Caucuses are a vital part of DSA's democratic life. If outside groups can table and promote their organizations - then DSA members should be allowed to do so as well. We need a vibrant internal democracy - not bureaucratic censure.
NPC-8-R is fascinating because it implies a massive No vote from smaller chapters. I think we are seeing the internet reach of anti-Zionism to small chapters vs involved leaders in bigger chapters who are concerned with irresponsible behavior (I voted no to be clear).
The socialist movement cannot take a labor strategy that sets its pace by decades and generations. We have a climate emergency - we need to move with urgency.
Lenin had a lot to say about the importance (and limitations) of the student movement. He knew first hand - he was suspended himself during his freshman year for campus organizing.
I wrote a whole book about it! Check it out for free here:
We need new leadership in DSA that will fight for SOCIALISM not social democracy.
With genuine socialist leadership we can meet the moment and lead millions of working people in struggle against social and economic injustice and for a revolution against the billionaire class.
This DSA convention will have a clear choice: Elect a SMC-Groundwork NPC majority to continue on the same path OR elect a left majority to change course towards independence from the Dems, a campaigning org rooted in labor, & defending democracy in DSA.
The impact of the Metro DC DSA and LA DSA using approval voting for delegate elections (instead of STV) showed on the paid NPC co-chair vote. Total result was 51% to 49% but Metro DC voted 38/38 (100%) against and LA 49/59 (83%) against.
@centristmarxist
Boy do I have the book for you. 🤓
Agreed - not sure how anyone can argue anything besides mandatory conscription (with many caveats) as democratic. But the more pressing question is the role of arms in the pre-revolutionary period and during the revolution.
I wrote my masters thesis on FBI and CIA infiltration into the labor movement and the socialist movement. The threat is real, and I firmly believe that we are under surveillance and probably infiltrated.
But fed jacketing comrades w/o evidence because you disagree is busted af.
And friendly reminder that it was Netanyahu’s strategy to support and fund Hamas in order to delegitimize the movement.
We don’t need to and shouldn’t lead with a condemnation of Hama. We should defend their right to armed resistance. But pro-Hamas chants are bad messaging.
Know it or not,
@DSA_Labor
’s work has been more influenced by one man than any other - and it’s not Marx, Debs, or Harrington - it’s Hal Draper.
In my latest piece in
@CosmonautMag
I trace the influence - and mistaken ideas - of “Draperism.” 🧵
@JonahFurman
The counter-factual: AOC using her public profile to vote against enforcing the contract and draw a clear line between corporate democrats-faux progressives and genuine socialist politics. Her calling out Biden would have gotten a massive spotlight.
Huge lost opportunity.
Excited to be reading
@JeffSchuhrke
’s upcoming book while on my way to Ireland for the RISE summer camp. Review will run in Working Mass sometime soon.
Then on to Amsterdam for the 4th International youth cadre school. A very Trotskyist August! 📦
Assaulted student confronts Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for backing the call for BPD and MA State Police to enter the Popular University Of Gaza at Emerson and enact a raid dressed in riot gear
People mad in the QTs might consider actually reading the article. It upholds armed resistance and calls for a united front with Hamas against the genocide.
The tough reality is Hamas has no path to victory in the current war. There is a reason why Netanyahu supported them.
We can’t go coffee shop by coffee shop - we must go industry by industry. Only the established unions have the muscle to do this - but they won’t if they are run by rotten leadership that just wants to ride out defeat long enough to cash in on their pensions.
📌 I (along with others on the NPC) refused to participate in a significant vote re: the new Electoral Director position. Votes that have political consequences for the org MUST, at the very least, have robust political debate among NPC members.
Alex frames his critique as the R+F strategy ignoring the millions of unorganized workers. But if we win the AFL-CIO unions to progressive, militant (+ eventually socialist) leadership this is the surest way to organize the unorganized.
@AnnissaForBos
If you don’t want to be called out for using nativism to build a conservative base… have you tried not using nativism to build a conservative base?
As we speak, the largest migration of American union activists, socialists, and otherwise unwashed and dangerous troublemakers is underway. Chicago here we come.
Sean O’Brien’s speech at RNC is a betrayal of the labor movement. But just two summers ago many in our movement were lionizing him as a courageous reformer. What happened?
In February,
@DeGreat4
gave an analysis of the labor resurgence and DSA’s response 🧵
For those keeping score at home, I’m now 2/2 for most drama-provoking tweets from convention.
First Tablegate and now…
Spectrumgate? ImNotRightWingGate? PieChartGate? Help me out here.
The marginalization of North Star corresponds directly with the growth and relevance of DSA.
Some political scientists even think it’s a causal relationship. 🙂
Since this (also) blew up:
1. This was a positive tweet and was not an attack on anyone. The word “right” wasn’t even used.
2. Nobody is calling anybody a fascist.
3. Right-Left is not a value judgement, it’s relative. Lenin identified himself on the right wing multiple times.
@WithoutJudith
The original post by Jenbo doesn’t deal in good faith with what supply-focused people argue. Increasing supply by removing barriers to production *would* lower price. Obviously that doesn’t mean the landlords will stop functioning as rentiers, or that private can be a solution.
@CarpenterLauraG
@DSANorthStar
That’s true. But at least in terms of support from the membership, it is highly marginalized. Hopefully the new NPC will take further steps to align our structures, staff, and practices with the will of our members.
Headed to Chicago ✈️ to help elected a Left DSA leadership that fights for socialism, not social democracy.
Whatever the outcome, the past few months have been a tremendous step forward for uniting the left wing caucuses into a fighting wing with a shared political vision 🚩
Shameful tailing from Sunrise of Kamala by way of Walz.
The Democrats will not go nearly far enough to save our planet (obviously). If you are serious about taking on climate change Kamala is not “for real.”
What happened to “system change not climate change” ?!?!
Tim Walz is an excellent choice for Vice President.
He's a climate champion. He's a fighter for working people and young people. He's the kind of VP that shows young people that VP Harris is for real.
@TheDuhalde
@MarxistUnityDSA
The table was already set up - the folks complaining about union scabbing are inventing controversy for political reasons.
I got subpoenaed to testify under oath by Uber. Based on the billable hours rates of their law firms, I estimate that Uber and Lyft spent some +$20,000 on just four hours of testimony. All paid by drivers stolen wages - all paid to keep stealing wages. Makes me mad 😡
We’ve seen a massive escalation between the two inter-imperialist blocs in the last two weeks.
American tanks are now rolling into Russian territory, while Netanyahu is trying as hard as he can to provoke a wider regional war in the Middle East.