This vibes anecdotally with my local chapter. In the face of overwhelming membership solidarity with Palestinian liberation, the social imperialist reactionaries are purging themselves.
This vibes anecdotally with my local chapter. In the face of overwhelming membership solidarity with Palestinian liberation, the social imperialist reactionaries are purging themselves.
Same deal here. Working on chapter bylaws, ran into the clause nobody could explain. “Don’t worry about it”, but “National says it has to stay”. As my political education grew it became clear that, far from a “leftist big tent”, DSA was always designed to be an explicitly pro-US anticommunist organization. I left after the Bowman affair the expulsion of the i
nternational committeePalestine Solidarity Working Group. The old permanent self appointed chapter leadership has since come out in favor of sending arms to Ukraine, and came out against the local Palestine solidarity rally because it was “infiltrated by the PSL”.That’s when I finally gave up on DSA for good. What’s the point of getting these clowns elected there’s no party line and no discipline? If I wanted to knock on doors for liberals, I’d join ActBlue or whatever
What happened? I havent kept up I guess. The international committee seemed great.
They were, in fact cool, which is why they harshly criticized Bowman for voting to send Israel money for the Iron Dome and went on a visit to Israel.
The working group demanded that he break ties with Zionist lobbyists like J Street which sponsored the trip. Bowman refused. The working group demanded that DSA begin the process of expelling Bowman.
DSA National Leadership pissed its pants and dechartered the working group
Actually, you know what I hate that I know all this shit. I’m going to forget it right fucking now
One of the members of the disbanded working group, Ahmed Husain, was elected to DSA’s national political committee.
I remembered incorrectly: it was the Palestine solidarity/BGS workgroup that got dechartered around the time of the Bowman affair. I recall pretty continuous calls for the expulsion of the IC at the time, and it got conflated in my memory.