Upcoming events

Mar
9

CA-DSA State Council Meeting

Join California DSA’s State Council for its December 2023 deliberative meeting. All DSA members in good standing are welcome to join this meeting, though voting and debate will be reserved for elected delegates. The meeting will feature several California chapters, reports from CA-DSA's State Committee and its issue committees, and deliberation on several key business items.

View Event →
California DSA 101
Mar
7
California DSA 101, Labor, Electoral

California DSA 101

Are you new or newly returning to DSA? To California? To the Left? Then join us for DSA 101!

At this orientation, we’ll talk about what capitalism is, how it functions, and why socialism is ideologically opposed to it. We'll also talk about the structure of DSA and California DSA in particular, our analysis of the political conditions in California, and how we can organize for a better future. This is not a lecture, but a meeting for new and veteran organizers to ground ourselves in socialist theory and discuss together how we can put it into action. We’re excited to chat with you!

View Event →
Jan
23

"Drug Cartels Do Not Exist" by Oswaldo Zavala

Join East Bay DSA for the newest installment of EBDSA’s Mexican Solidarity series! This will be a night school on Oswaldo Zavala’s book, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in the US and Mexican Culture.

With the recent escalation of Republican Party candidate demands to forcibly deploy US troops across the border, all in the name of “managing the drug trafficking problem” (what critics identify as a call for invasion), the need for a thorough assessment of narcotrafficking — and the underlying economic and political factors at play — stands more urgent than ever. In reading and discussing excerpts from Zavala’s 2022 text, we hope to discern the actual history of narcotrafficking in Mexico, its role in Mexican politics, its connection to US imperialism and foreign capital interests, and how Mexico’s more recent leftward political shift (with president AMLO calling to end militarized intervention in the “War on Drugs” and to increase social welfare resources for the Mexican people instead) has elicited US political aggression and, in some cases, full-on threats for invasion.

Readings

  1. our selected excerpts from the book:

    1. Zavala, Oswaldo. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in the US and Mexican Culture. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 2022.

  2. further supplemental articles for those interested:

    1. Jose Olivares. “The US Is Unhappy That Mexico Is Spending Money On Its Own Citizens.” The Intercept, 26 May 2023.

    2. Rafael Bernal. “GOP Talk Of Military Action in Mexico Sparks Dire Warnings.” The Hill, 25 August 2023.

      This will be a hybrid event at the EBDSA office and Zoom.


View Event →