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Oracle posted:Well hey, I stand corrected. Join whatever organization you want if it makes you feel good. Just keep in mind warm fuzzies are for your benefit, not necessarily your stated goals. I'm really really feeling like time is of the essence, here, and the closer you can start to your endpoint, the faster you'll get there. I appreciate the condescension, but a lot of us have been very involved with our local parties and are now looking for ways to augment that involvement, as on its own it doesn't appear to have been working out so well.
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# ? Dec 20, 2016 13:42 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:28 |
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Veyrall posted:Also, would it be possible to pull the Tea Party at all? Seems like at least a few of them will be dissatisfied with Trump being literally the opposite of what they wanted, once that becomes clear, and they'll have the experience with rallying the parts of the country that are gonna be the hardest nuts to crack for progressive causes. I doubt it. A lot of the supporters of the tea party hate corruption, yes, but believe it to exist primarily in the government. Business corruption isn't corruption, it's just good business. With trump in charge, they have someone who they may not agree with all the time, but who is immune to governmental corruption, because he's not a politician.
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# ? Dec 20, 2016 15:39 |
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mastajake posted:I doubt it. A lot of the supporters of the tea party hate corruption, yes, but believe it to exist primarily in the government. Business corruption isn't corruption, it's just good business. With trump in charge, they have someone who they may not agree with all the time, but who is immune to governmental corruption, because he's not a politician.
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# ? Dec 20, 2016 18:15 |
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Kekekela posted:I appreciate the condescension, but a lot of us have been very involved with our local parties and are now looking for ways to augment that involvement, as on its own it doesn't appear to have been working out so well. This is not true everywhere but lots of places around the country the democratic party punches left. There are areas where the party is really closed off to new members who have labour to give but no money. You will burn out long before you could create major change within the party using the party structures. I think the DSA idea is good because it can get organised outside the structure of the democratic party. I have had trouble with activists not competing in electoral politics at all. The DSA is a nice bridge between people who want to do direct action and people who want to help out in electoral politics. The link is an example of dems not really wanting to move left. https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/811086349302398976
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# ? Dec 20, 2016 19:15 |
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folytopo posted:There are areas where the party is really closed off to new members who have labour to give but no money. Fair enough. Just don't write off the party as part of the solution. If you can get your foot in the door, you'll have access to a lot of institutional knowledge that can help. A few people voting as a bloc can really make a big difference. As an example, when the Democrats were chasing people to send to the national convention, the delegates were assigned by congressional district. One district for the state legislature is organized and has plenty of active members. Because 10 of them showed up to a vote where there were a dozen candidates and 30 voters total, they were able to dominate even though they represented only a third of the votes.
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# ? Dec 20, 2016 21:52 |
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I am continually reminding my DSA comrades that the Democrats are effectively baked in to the legal structure of U.S. campaign finance law, and I don't get a lot of push-back on it. As much as some of them would love to stay pure, the consensus seems to be that the Democrats are the necessary terrain of the struggle - not allies, but the ground of the struggle itself. I think that's a fair description. Remember that we've also endorsed Ellison, and Bernie Sanders. We aren't here to jerk off about how socialist we are, we've got poo poo to get done.
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# ? Dec 22, 2016 07:37 |
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:I am continually reminding my DSA comrades that the Democrats are effectively baked in to the legal structure of U.S. campaign finance law, and I don't get a lot of push-back on it. As much as some of them would love to stay pure, the consensus seems to be that the Democrats are the necessary terrain of the struggle - not allies, but the ground of the struggle itself. I think that's a fair description. Get poo poo Done is my motto. It's even printed on my bag that I got from a Shopify conference booth . I'm willing to start investing in something that actually changes the world around me, instead of just throwing my brain cells at bullshit financial web apps. 🌹
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# ? Dec 22, 2016 07:45 |
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Oh my goodness, okay, let me summarize what happened at the Strategy & Campaigns committee meeting with the East Bay DSA. As one goon mentioned Richmond, I thought I should mention it came up that Richmond is a sanctuary city, but still suffers harassment from county police. I joined a breakout group addressing homelessness, and we did a People's Movement Assembly style of round robin discussing what brings us to this issue and what we think we can do about it. We talked about various things and there are existing organizations to work with, but one concrete thing I'll mention is raising funds to hire contractors to bring buildings similar to Ghost Ship up to code in order to prevent people there from being evicted or endangered. Our group was led by an MIT-educated woman who has done a lot of community organization in Orlando, and teaches in Oakland or Berkeley now, and she is an inspiring leader whom I wish to emulate. She also brought up the matter with the rest of the group that our organization has failed to bring in a great number of underrepresented groups, and she explained that it takes deliberate effort for an organization to make its meetings accessible to people who won't be at the table by default, so I'm bringing that wisdom to the new Silicon Valley chapter as well. Other breakaway groups focused on such campaigns as electing Keith Ellison for DNC chair, sanctuary cities/state, and fighting to keep the Alta Bates medical center open, without which a whole bunch of people will live over an hour away from the nearest hospital. Obviously there's a lot to do once we're into the new year, and it'll be a while before the next major legislative campaigns pick up. Until then, there are roots to set, city council meetings to attend, and communities to foster. To me, we are a grassroots movement that's going to be the change we wish to see. Gov is not enough. Stinky_Pete fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 26, 2016 |
# ? Dec 26, 2016 04:20 |
Stinky_Pete posted:Oh my goodness, okay, let me summarize what happened at the Strategy & Campaigns committee meeting with the East Bay DSA. Sending a PM, I'm very interested to hear more about this.
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# ? Dec 26, 2016 04:28 |
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Well, I wasn't any more certain after I read the responses but I wound up signing up for the DSA as a volunteer a few days ago and I'm starting to feel like it was the right call although I still haven't met with my local chapter. I already supported Keith Ellison before I joined but now I'm starting to feel like he's really our best chance to make reforming the party from the inside a possibility and to mobilize the grassroots support we're going to need. I reached out to my friends and family to get them to add their names and I donated a bit of money. I also pulled up the names and contact info for my local DNC members but I noticed on that keithfordnc page, it says not to contact DNC members directly. Is there a reason for that? I won't do it if it says not to but I don't really get how it could hurt.
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 02:09 |
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stinky_pete, is East Bay DSA doing anything for the ADEM? The SF chapter is collating a list of DSA members running for DSA seats - if you're on the DSA slack, hop into #bayarea and see if you can benefit from our work.
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 06:55 |
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yellowyams posted:it says not to contact DNC members directly. Is there a reason for that? quote:Keith is working non-stop to reach out to DNC members, elected officials, and grassroots activists across the country, but he can’t do this alone. That’s where you come in. Given the context, I think he's saying "please don't go dogpiling the committee members while I'm trying to work this"
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 10:48 |
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Is there something more I can do for the DSA? I would love to get a local chapter here in Peoria, but I'm unable to convince anyone qualified to get involved. On a different note, I sit on a mountain of idle time at work on my 3rd shift job, and I really feel like I could be using it for data entry or whatever.
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 11:40 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Is there something more I can do for the DSA? I would love to get a local chapter here in Peoria, but I'm unable to convince anyone qualified to get involved. On a different note, I sit on a mountain of idle time at work on my 3rd shift job, and I really feel like I could be using it for data entry or whatever. They've got a list of skills on the volunteer signup page, I don't see data entry but there's phonebanking etc and you could probably just write something in comments.
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 11:59 |
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Kekekela posted:They've got a list of skills on the volunteer signup page, I don't see data entry but there's phonebanking etc and you could probably just write something in comments. Thanks!
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 12:01 |
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Jonas Albrecht posted:Is there something more I can do for the DSA? I would love to get a local chapter here in Peoria, but I'm unable to convince anyone qualified to get involved. On a different note, I sit on a mountain of idle time at work on my 3rd shift job, and I really feel like I could be using it for data entry or whatever. Join the Slack channel, and we can probably find something useful for you to do.
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# ? Dec 27, 2016 17:49 |
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Neo-Nazis are planning an open, armed march in Montana. What are the local groups there we can call on to stage a counter-march/demonstration. It occurs to me we may also need to get in touch with sympathetic tough guys and anti-fascists. This has a very real chance to turn ugly.
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# ? Dec 29, 2016 05:33 |
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Does anyone know of any activist projects I could get involved with where I could use my job skills? I'm a software developer. Also interested in any other ideas for how I could use code for lefty causes.
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# ? Dec 29, 2016 23:25 |
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n4 posted:Does anyone know of any activist projects I could get involved with where I could use my job skills? I'm a software developer. Also interested in any other ideas for how I could use code for lefty causes. Yes. Join the DSA slack chat. There are several active projects going on to create internally-facing 'sharing economy' type tools to help us more effectively mobilize existing assets. Note that the slack is only open to actual DSA members. If you're not interested in that, consider reaching out to the Tech Solidarity movement that the pinboard guy is doing. RiotGearEpsilon fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Dec 29, 2016 |
# ? Dec 29, 2016 23:48 |
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How long does it usually take to get an invite back from DSA slack?
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# ? Dec 30, 2016 00:17 |
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Baby Babbeh posted:How long does it usually take to get an invite back from DSA slack? An obnoxiously long-rear end time; a couple weeks, maybe more. You gotta get verified by the national and those guys are victims of their own success right now. Never in their wildest dreams did they imagine this sort of viral surge of membership. If you need to get in the fight right-the-gently caress-now I can see if there's anything I can do to accelerate it. Here's a project LarryWebsite is workin' on. https://twitter.com/LarryWebsite/status/814641848996294656 RiotGearEpsilon fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Dec 30, 2016 |
# ? Dec 30, 2016 01:55 |
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:Yes. Join the DSA slack chat. There are several active projects going on to create internally-facing 'sharing economy' type tools to help us more effectively mobilize existing assets. ah rad, thanks for pointing that out - Maciej Ceglowski has Cool and Good views from what I've seen in his various presentations/talks. More here: https://twitter.com/TechSolidarity
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# ? Dec 30, 2016 05:46 |
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So the local government here in Northern Ireland has just collapsed. (For foreigners: Our First Minister refused to resign over her role in a botched scheme to reduce fossil fuel use that allowed claimants to run up effectively unlimited subsidies. Rather than allow her to continue her opponents have forced a collapse of the local parliament.) Although we don't have any sort of date yet this is now pretty much guaranteed to force a snap election. If any of you are in Northern Ireland and would like to know more about what's going on or advice about what do in the election then give me a shout and I'll help as best I can. Hint: DON'T VOTE FOR THE loving DUP.
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# ? Jan 9, 2017 20:18 |
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Veyrall posted:Neo-Nazis are planning an open, armed march in Montana. SOOOO did they do it?
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# ? Jan 9, 2017 20:39 |
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Race Realists posted:SOOOO Also, good things happening in my state. I wasn't able to attend this one, but I'm liking the Steps Coalition right now.
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# ? Jan 10, 2017 06:02 |
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Captain Fargle posted:So the local government here in Northern Ireland has just collapsed. This seems like a big enough deal that I shouldn't be learning about it in an obscure thread on a dead internet comedy website.
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# ? Jan 10, 2017 14:22 |
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Kekekela posted:This seems like a big enough deal that I shouldn't be learning about it in an obscure thread on a dead internet comedy website. Yeah, it's sad because I do see articles about this situation if I know to look for them, but at least on Google News it's buried under 10+ TRUMP things. Nothing on the front page of Washington Post or CNN.
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# ? Jan 10, 2017 14:31 |
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:Join the Slack channel, and we can probably find something useful for you to do. Joined, finally.
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# ? Jan 12, 2017 09:50 |
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I keep seeing this guide making the rounds on Facebook. Does anyone else think it could be useful?
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# ? Jan 12, 2017 18:53 |
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The political situation in Northern Ireland remains deadlocked. If some kind of deal isn't brokered by the beginning of next week an election will be called. I'm unsure as of yet who I'll be voting for but it will either be SDLP or Alliance.
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# ? Jan 12, 2017 19:13 |
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Veyrall posted:I keep seeing this guide making the rounds on Facebook. Does anyone else think it could be useful? Yeah, it's been a big thing for a while. Link up with their twitter account, link up with their facebook account, and look for a local branch; if you don't find one, try making one.
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# ? Jan 12, 2017 19:41 |
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Veyrall posted:Neo-Nazis are planning an open, armed march in Montana. Local IWW are organizing the defense https://itsgoingdown.org/missoula-iww-calls-solidarity-organizing-resistance-whitefish-neo-nazi-march/
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# ? Jan 12, 2017 22:59 |
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Surprising that nobody's pushing for repeal of Taft Hartley and other laws that limit the effectiveness of organizations like IWW
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 03:59 |
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So...how effective might it be to run fake political ads pretending to be a Republican candidate that states their awful opinions in the straightest ways possible? Like, say, an ad that says, "I'm Rich White Guy, and I think it's time to stop Obamacare in its tracks and totally scrub it and any other trace of socialism out of America. I promise to destroy Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other big government conspiracies to keep health care out of the free market." It would, at the very least, rile some of the old folks who normally autopilot vote for the R. Annual Prophet posted:Surprising that nobody's pushing for repeal of Taft Hartley and other laws that limit the effectiveness of organizations like IWW
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 05:29 |
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Veyrall posted:So...how effective might it be to run fake political ads pretending to be a Republican candidate that states their awful opinions in the straightest ways possible? Like, say, an ad that says, "I'm Rich White Guy, and I think it's time to stop Obamacare in its tracks and totally scrub it and any other trace of socialism out of America. I promise to destroy Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other big government conspiracies to keep health care out of the free market." Only if you are, yourself, the candidate running in the GOP primary.
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 05:45 |
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I'm curious to hear from people who have attended meetings DSA or otherwise, what sort of tools are they suggesting? What other organizations are they promoting? Anything besides the usual protests and marches and meetups worth mentioning?
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 05:56 |
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yellowyams posted:I'm curious to hear from people who have attended meetings DSA or otherwise, what sort of tools are they suggesting? What other organizations are they promoting? Anything besides the usual protests and marches and meetups worth mentioning? curious about this as well, though, as an aside, i tend to think rallies can be an effective tool would also be interesested to know how closely they work with / are integrated with SI
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 06:37 |
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Veyrall posted:So...how effective might it be to run fake political ads pretending to be a Republican candidate that states their awful opinions in the straightest ways possible? Like, say, an ad that says, "I'm Rich White Guy, and I think it's time to stop Obamacare in its tracks and totally scrub it and any other trace of socialism out of America. I promise to destroy Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other big government conspiracies to keep health care out of the free market." http://www.citylab.com/politics/2012/06/book-burning-campaign-saved-public-library/2412/
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 07:01 |
Veyrall posted:So...how effective might it be to run fake political ads pretending to be a Republican candidate that states their awful opinions in the straightest ways possible? Like, say, an ad that says, "I'm Rich White Guy, and I think it's time to stop Obamacare in its tracks and totally scrub it and any other trace of socialism out of America. I promise to destroy Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other big government conspiracies to keep health care out of the free market." It would almost certainly backfire horribly. Look up the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog clips where he tried to find some parody position Trump Republicans wouldn't support, and couldn't. Or read Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (currently the book barn book of the month!)
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 14:17 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:28 |
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Veyrall posted:I keep seeing this guide making the rounds on Facebook. Does anyone else think it could be useful? Just read the guide. Definitely sounds practical and workable. There's no chapter in Florida apparently, but If I could get our Dems chapter to adapt those tactics I feel like we could get something done.
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# ? Jan 13, 2017 14:41 |