On the results of the DSA convention: exhilarating but a little frustrating

This is what the future looks like: a convention of millennials committed to transforming the United States.

Some 1,000 delegates and I'm not sure how many volunteers and other members met in Atlanta August 2-4 for the biannual convention of the Democratic Socialists of America.

On the daily radio show I co-host, I said that as a delegate I found the convention incredibly exhilarating although at times frustrating -- and, ironically, for the same reason.

The DSA has grown explosively over the past few years and is now more than ten times the size it was when the Bernie phenomenon first exploded in the summer of 2015. That growth shaped the convention.

For a life-long socialist who first read the Communist Manifesto in high school more than half a century ago, and after a few years of radical upsurge had to live through decades of retreats, it was just incredible seeing this completely new generation of fighters grappling with how to advance a movement now looked to by literally tens of millions of people in this country.

Especially because this is a totally new generation, overwhelmingly without experience in the socialist or any other movement not weighed down by the mistakes of 20th century socialism. But this freshness also showed in so much time consumed by procedural wrangling, instead of political discussion. Yet the way the DSA is today, that was inevitable.

The main contested issue at the convention as I saw it was between a layer of comrades that wanted to foster greater decentralization by taking financial resources away from the National Office and giving them to local organizations. I think the claim to help especially the smaller Locals is legitimate and many delegates su[ported them. But the main resolutions proposed went beyond that, promoting a dis-empowering of the DSA as a national organization. But a more cautious resolution on the same issue (also by an Atlanta delegate) was approved.

The decentralizers lost by around a 55 to 45 margin on their resolutions, although I did not keep a close tabs on the exact count, and the margin might have been a little bigger. But a more cautious resolution on the same question (by one of our Atlanta delegates, by the way) was approved.

Dues sharing may seem like a strange main issue. But there was overwhelming consensus at the convention on the practical tasks and priorities for the DSA, things like medicare for all, an ecosocialist green new deal, tenant justice, immigrant and refugee rights, and, of course, backing Bernie -- to name just a few causes that DSA'ers are involved with.

On the resolutions I felt most strongly about, the one I wrote on orienting to the Latinx community starting with a Spanish-language web site, received the highest vote (88%) on the "consent agenda," a list of resolutions with so much support in a pre-convention delegate poll that they are voted and ratified as a group at the beginning of the convention.

The second-highest vote on that "consent agenda" was for an immigration resolution calling for open borders, which I also supported even though I would have changed some of the wording.

Another resolution also approved on that list was a resolution I co-authored on immigration work. It said, in part, "The National Immigrant Rights Working Group shall approach immigrant rights organizations ... to help to organize national-scale mobilizations" against Trump's immigration policies, and indeed the steering committee of the working group has already met and started to aggressively implement this provision.

A third resolution from Atlanta approved on the consent agenda was by City of South Fulton councilman khalid, demanding presidential candidates support reparations for Black people.

I did run for the national leadership but was not elected, nor did I expect to be. As the convention drew closer I realized that I wanted to focus on how the way I view things is very different from most other comrades, and on explaining why.

So among other things I wrote extensive comments on the Open Borders resolution, dealing with imperialism and Latino identity even though those were side issues and I supported and voted for the resolution.

I explained my overall priorities for changes in the DSA in a piece I published here and as a campaign leaflet that was distributed at the convention. That stressed the DSA needed to focus on the Latinx and Black communities, not mainly as a question of organizational resources but a political orientation. I also insisted this meant focusing on the South, and the real situation on the ground in these and other Republican-dominated areas needed to be taken into account in our national projects.
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Language justice and the DSA's internal culture in relation to the Latinx community were central topics in a blog post also published on an internal forum. The piece explained why I was refusing to sign a "motherhood and apple pie" transparency pledge that was backed by almost all other NPC candidates. My explanation also had an extensive polemic against the factionalism that was being promoted by the way most caucuses were functioning (and still are).

This may seem like a Quixotic campaign. But my original motivation in running for the NPC was to make sure that the Spanish-language web site and immigration resolutions were implemented if approved.

With the overwhelming support they received and seeing a number of millennial Latinx comrades who are strongly involved in the fight for immigrant rights running, and some were sure to be on the incoming NPC, that was no longer a big issue. So I decided to switch to a propaganda campaign that I hope started to raise some issues I care deeply about and I think will be important for the DSA going forward.

Why I didn't sign the 'transparency pledge' of DSA national leadership candidates

[The Democratic Socialists of America is holding their convention in Atlanta August 1-4. As I've already explained, I am running for the group's National Political Committee. The majority of other NPC candidates have signed a Transparency Pledge, but I refused to sign. Following is what I posted in the internal DSA Discussion Board explaining my decision. I will add that although I raise a number of issues with the pledge, just the first one was more than enough for me to reject it.]

Patronizing tokenization
The pledge commits signers to ensuring that "all text is translated into spanish within a reasonable timeframe." That's bunk: it is not going to happen. I'm a professional translator and interpreter. I guarantee you: the cost is prohibitive and the product is worthless. We have no use for it.

Language justice for Spanish-dominant people is an extremely important, serious matter that the resolution I wrote on orienting to the Latinx communities barely takes the first baby step in broaching. And it is not a question of translation, but of creating spaces where Latinx people --and especially immigrants and the sons and daughters of immigrants -- feel at home.

I can't possibly express my disappointment that concern about the Latino community has been expressed this way, through patronizing tokenization, nor how much I resent having to write something like this once again.

Transcription is not the way to get highly accessible transparency
The translation promise is put in the context of "Ensure that all audio communication is transcribed, and all text is translated into spanish within a reasonable timeframe." Well, everything said in a meeting is "audio communication." Is this serious? A day-long meeting will produce a book-length transcript (+/- 50,000 words).

And does this include translating the transcript of every meeting? Both the transcript and the translation are very expensive undertakings and by far not the best way of guaranteeing transparency.

One thing that could be done instead is to have a good quality video transmission and recording of the meeting. This means multiple mics, an audio board or mixer, multiple cameras (2 or 3) to have a good view of the speaker, and use of a computer program like Vmix that basically gives you the capacity of a small TV control room. It might cost a couple of thousand dollars for the equipment.

And, yes, it is possible and not that hard. We do it every day at Radio Información. You do need trained people, but tons of students are learning this in college.

Wrong-headed or misworded provisions
I disagree with "Ensure final meeting agendas are published no less than 72 hours prior to the meeting." I have no problem with updated agendas going out three days before, but the "final agendas" should be those voted by the NPC itself at the beginning of the meeting. I would refuse to be locked in or censored by whatever the agenda-makers decide is worth discussing.

I also object to "Refrain from holding NPC/SC calls, votes, or other discussions of official business outside of official NPC/SC meeting settings." A National Political Committee has to react to real-world politics, a role the current committee has failed to fulfill. That is going to mean holding meetings on short --even very short-- notice or continuing to abdicate that responsibility. Since the statement doesn't make it clear, I don't know if that falls outside the "settings" the email refers to.

I can't support "Hold office hours remotely for 2 to 4 hours each month, which are scheduled at least two weeks in advance and published to membership" without a lot more being said. We are not officers individually empowered to deal with matters. Our function is as members of a committee. There would need to be strict guidelines, mechanisms and safeguards that all matters that properly belong before the committee are communicated to the entire committee. And let's not be disingenuous: everyone knows that certain NPC members have used their positions to build caucuses and uncaucuses. [We have one internal grouping called "Build" that claims not to be a caucus but has resolutions and candidates before the convention].

And I can't "Commit to the work being done by the membership to improve the grievance process and handle those in a timely manner." without knowing which members are being referred to or what improvements they propose. Otherwise, it is just a blank check.

The elephant in the room: factionalism
I believe the real motive for the pledge is trying to do something about the paralysis and lack of transparency that has resulted from factionalism in the NPC. Other points were added --like the translation point-- in an effort to face up to the blatant failures of the previous NPC.

Transparency measures are very much needed but as I tried to illustrate with the video proposal above, there are other solutions that have not been analyzed. A hastily thrown together pledge drafted by a small number of comrades is likely to be flawed. These things need to be seriously analyzed in a process that is open to the entire membership, in order to develop and refine proposals.

The previous NPC was completely irresponsible in failing to deal with issues like transparency, dues distribution, regionalization, the structure of the national leadership, language justice and many others.

Serious proposals for a convention in 2020
In my opinion, except for amendment 15 enlarging the size of the NPC, ALL of the resolutions on structure, dues, etc., should be tabled to the incoming NPC with a mandate to form open, broad-based commissions to draw together ideas and create one or more proposals in each area for a convention a year from now to consider.

We will clearly need a convention then anyways to decide what to do about the fall election, and if we decide to actively intervene, to organize and mobilize for that effort.

I make an exception for amendment 15 to enlarge the NPC. It may not be ideal but it is the most direct, immediate measure we have available in an attempt to prevent factionalism from dominating the incoming NPC the way it has the past one, and to make it more representative.

The pledge I want: dissolve the factions
The pledge I would have liked to have supported is one demanding that all the factions --including Build-- dissolve. I call them factions because that is what they are: highly structured membership organizations seeking to put their people in the leadership and thereby impose their politics as the politics of the national organization.

You might say that doesn't happen in the DSA but I contend there is no other explanation for the failure of national DSA to deal adequately with what Trump has made the top ongoing political issue in the country, immigration, and the failure of our national organization to reach out to Latinos, the largest oppressed minority. It is a reflection of the narrow, economist, class-reductionist politics of the leading faction in the NPC.

I think comrades who want to advocate a particular point of view should function instead as an ideological current, putting forward their ideas through a web site or blog, maybe with an editorial board but without an elected leaderships that serves as a board or executive committee for the group, membership requirements, bylaws, polls and elections and all the rest of it.

The organized factions and their paralyzing squabbling are alienating big sections of the membership: it needs to stop or we are going to pay a very heavy price, and possibly destroy the DSA as it exists now.

Why I am running for the DSA's NPC

[The Democratic Socialists of America are holding their national convention in Atlanta August 2-4. I am a candidate in the elections for the DSA National Political Committee. This is a leaflet I wrote for the convention to explain why I am running.]

• Make immigrant and refugee rights a national priority
• Publish a Spanish website and orient to Latinx communities
• Focus on smaller cities, the South and Southwest
• Oppose U.S. wars and military bases abroad
• Transparent, participatory and democratic functioning
• Create an inclusive socialist movement for the 21st Century

José G. Pérez, NPC candidate

I am running for the NPC in support of two resolutions, one on making defense of immigrant and refugees a national priority and the other on orienting to the Latinx communities beginning with creating a website in Spanish.

The DSA needs to focus on working with people of color and their organizations, understanding that our role is to support, not supplant, the struggles of oppressed peoples themselves.

This also implies orienting to the South and Southwest where the majority of people of color live. It means taking conditions there into account in our national policies. The electoral policy, for example, says nothing about giving non-socialist candidates critical support. It ignores important battles, like for control of state legislatures ahead of reapportionment in 2021. The policy works for heavily Democratic cities, but not for smaller cities, rural areas or the South.

Yet the South and Southwest are essential to transformative change in the United States: the reactionaries have to be fought and defeated where they are strongest.

And a focus on the South means the global South also. International solidarity should be a hallmark of our organization. We must demand lifting the blockade on Cuba, independence for Puerto Rico, an end to the economic attacks on Venezuela, immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and dismantling of the network of U.S. military bases that have spread across the globe like a cancer.

The NPC should function as a political leadership, not just an administrative body. We need to defend and expand our place in national politics. The NPC should encourage chapters to take initiatives in fights like the defense of the “squad” of four righteous Congresswomen of color against Trump’s diatribes by protesting at Republican headquarters or confronting Congressional Republicans at town halls during the August recess.

But consolidating the DSA also requires participation, transparency and democracy. Issues like dues sharing, creating regional structures, electoral tactics and national priorities should all have been handled by creating wide-open ways for members to take part in thinking them through together to come up with one or more options for the convention to consider.

The outgoing NPC’s inaction has led to an unwieldy set of resolutions that have neither been tested by, nor benefited from, a multifaceted discussion.

Finally, I am running against factionalism. We need to channel our discussions and collaboration through structures and spaces which are open to everyone in the DSA.

Members have a right to form caucuses, but caucuses carry a price. Separate discussion lists, private zoom calls, by-invitation-only conventions, “whipping the votes” through one-sided phone conversations, these practices undermine the cohesion of the DSA and can even compromise the integrity of the organization.

And we should remember we are not a consolidated organization. We did not find most of the people who joined in the last three years: they found us. And like them, there are tens of thousands more who just haven’t paid dues yet.

We have to bring together all those comrades to create the socialist movement of the 21st century, and we need everybody's participation to achieve it.

About José G. Pérez
I am an immigrant from Cuba and a life-long socialist, but a relatively new member of the DSA. I am the Treasurer of the Atlanta Chapter and a member of the National Immigrant Rights Working Group Steering Committee. 

Throughout my life I have been involved most of all with Latinx communities. Since 2002, I have been associated with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), and currently I produce and co-host "Hablemos con Teodoro," a daily 2-hour news, analysis and call-in show on Radio Información, a streaming station founded by people from GLAHR.
I have worked as a journalist both inside and outside the movement. Until the mid-1980s, when I moved to Nicaragua for several years during the Sandinista Revolution, I was editor of the Spanish-language socialist magazine Perspectiva Mundial. Before helping to launch Radio Información in 2012, I worked at CNN en Español for two decades. I am also an accredited translator and interpreter.
Hatuey's Ashes is my blog. You can check out “Hablemos con Teodoro,” at facebook.com/RadioInformacion.