DMV

A slice of history covering DC's oft-forgotten far-left.

Medicare for All is not a fix-all solution. But it is the foundation from which an equitable and just health care system can be built.

The passing of the former labor leader's passing provides an occasion to look back on the role he played in guiding the progress of the labor movement out of the hysteria of the Cold War.

A labor contingent in PG County reviewed organizing efforts at Amazon and eco-socialist organizing around the PRO Act.

In 2021, Virginia is a much-changed state absorbed by a blue wave that foretells an opening for progressive politics from Virginia to Florida.

DC statehood is back on the nation’s agenda. With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, only a likely Senate filibuster stands in the way of adding a 51st star to the US flag.

Organizers in PG County have finally come together to help build socialism in Maryland.

Local socialists have been quietly building out an anti-capitalist technical operation for use by the DC-area left. Its impetus and activities are outlined here.

A decade of neoliberal retrenchment is finally starting to crack. Can DC's left recognize the moment?

The Police Union is a critical barrier to defunding the Metropolitan Police Department and investing in the community - here's what needs to happen.

As the Washington Teachers Union battles against reopening plans set forth by Mayor Bowser, the need for working-class solidarity is more apparent than ever.

A republished interview from 1984 with DC statehood and environmental activist Josphine Butler.

An investigation of how co-ops in DC are navigating the post-covid world reveals their resilience in the face of systemic turmoil.

Longtime DSA member Howard Croft, who died of COVID-19 in June, ran for DC Council in 1997. This article provides a concise overview of Croft’s accomplishments to that point and the vision he brought to the race for the Ward 6 seat.

Unearthed images of Occupy protests in Washington, DC.

Introduction

The latest eyewitness reporting on protesters, hostile and often brutal police conduct, and Mayor Bowser’s duplicitous and self-serving maneuvers.

In a housing market based on private pursuit of profit, the denial of the basic right to housing is a rule of business.

A guide for exploring the clash of ideologies in a compact enclave in Northwest Washington.

A wide network of activists and organizers, fueled by popular uprising in DC, provides a legitimate political opening for local change.

A history of Black radicalism on the eastern shore of Maryland.

The National Guard and police have illegally assaulted protesters in Lafayette Square (D.C.) by violating the First Amendment of the Constitution, which allows peaceful demonstrations. The demo did not violate curfew and the attack was without warning.

This article, published in the June 1992 issue of the Washington Socialist, looks at two uprisings from that time triggered by police violence: in DC’s Mount Pleasant Neighborhood in 1992 and in Los Angeles the previous year.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has failed to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 virus in a state battered by skyrocketing unemployment.

A review of Michael Raysson's book on security guard unizonization efforts in Boston.

Dr. Howard Croft, DC Statehood advocate, professor and chair of urban studies at UDC and longtime member of Metro DC DSA from its earliest days, has died. Members and activists who have long memories of his tireless work for empowerment of all residents of the District of Columbia contribute their recollections.

Following pandemic hardship and fears of displacement due to impending recession, stronger tenant protections have never been more urgent.

Hilda Mason was not only a longtime DC councilmember but also an open socialist, making her one of the few DSA members in elected office prior to 2017.

The story of Pat Wheelan and his maritime organizing in Charm City.

The special impact of the COVID-19 health/economic crisis on working-class tenants around the DMV has generated mass protests, notably in Alexandria, to defy rent collection.

This is the first entry in a larger series recounting radical labor history in Maryland.

An interview with candidate McKayla Wilkes, who is running against House Majority leader Steny Hoyer.

An eye-witness recounting of the energy surrounding Bernie Sanders' rally in Northern Virginia.

Will Gov. Larry Hogan, like Trump, make Maryland taxpayers hostages to a foreign (global capitalist) power?

If civil disobedience is needed to prick the consciences of a number of us sufficient to avert a new global tragedy, then we are obliged to practice it.

Arguably, only Nancy Pelosi is as powerfully connected and invested in the status quo of the DCCC as MD Rep. Steny Hoyer. Unseating him would send a powerful message that the politics-as-usual approach of the DCCC will no longer stand.

We look at the list of issues that many analysts say will top the agenda of this 2020 General Assembly session, and we get the itchy feeling that one sentence could clear away some of the confusion.

The Caucus mission statement cited its purpose as the exploration of “the history of DSA both locally and nationally, as well as the history of left politics and culture locally, nationally and internationally, in order to provide a historic perspective that can contribute to the present-day thinking and practices of Metro-DC DSA.”

RWF will present to representatives of team owner Daniel Snyder a sort of holiday gift: the petitions collected during the year with signatures of members of the public demanding a name change.

The Check Your Complicity campaign calls out Virginia elected officials who continue to benefit from violence against migrants, largely thanks to generous contributions from ICE contractors, while making a show of being on our side.

Maryland needs a system that treats addiction and substance abuse as a health care, instead of criminal issue.

Mckayla Wilkes has been endorsed by MDC DSA membership in her run for the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District. The primary is April 28, 2020. The incumbent: Steny Hoyer.

The Assembly passed a bill creating a panel to examine and if necessarily lower prescription drug prices in Maryland. The GOP governor, whose veto of the bill was overriden, has refused to release the funds appropriated, kicking off a nasty fight.

With Maryland’s multi-member districts, the costs of running a race and the time needed to cover the 125,000-plus population districts are too much for all but the most well-funded insurgent candidates. In many parts of the state, particularly Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, the only way to win is by joining the incumbent slate.

Hogan, as Treasurer Nancy Kopp acutely suggests, is becoming rapidly more Trump-like as he wallows in second-term freedom, acting out the Maryland equivalent of the Obama-obsessed Trump’s attempt to erase the work of his predecessor, in Hogan’s case Democrat Martin O’Malley.

The DC Office of Planning, proposed in early 2018 to amend the Comprehensive Plan’s all-important preamble section in such a way as to make it virtually impossible for residents to use the provisions of the plan as the basis for challenging bad land-use decisions in court.

The administration's brain-dead war against science is a reason why “Deep Time,” the new permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, is so refreshing.

All of these Green New Deal goals will need a broad bottom-up mobilization of the residents most impacted, DC’s working class along with their allies, and must be planned and implemented by the same.

For ecosocialists and mainstream environmentalists anxious to rally support for a Green New Deal, we'll have to take the task of educating voters into our own hands.

After Arlington County's vote, “For Us, Not Amazon” coalition will refocus around the issues we learned were the foremost concerns in the community.

Members of a DC anti-gentrification alliance are scrambling at press time to read through Mendelson’s proposed rewrite of the Comp Plan preamble.

Intrinsically valuable in and of themselves, a reentry council, an office of returning citizens, and community-based halfway houses can also open up a pathway for changing a system that is too willing to throw away the lives of too many.

Sine Die was, to say the least, complicated by the death of House of Delegates Chair Mike Busch the weekend before, followed by a dismal and unseemly contest to succeed him.

In 2015, the Arlington County Board also adopted a resolution condemning the Washington football team’s name as racist. But two jurisdictions that have shown interest in luring the team have remained mum on the issue.

The Fair Budget Coalition — which advocates for a District budget and public policies that address poverty and human needs — included “offset federal tax cuts locally” in its platform for fiscal year 2020.

DSA climate activists might conceivably play an important role in saving the Tidal Basin that could win grudging support from a host of different local and national organizations.

The ostensibly sunny-day Hogan budget puts a heavy load on the General Assembly to adapt it to what Marylanders actually need.

On February 14 an advocacy transportation group denounced a quiet move by Hogan’s ethically compromised transportation agency (MDOT) to formally drop all mass transit options from his big plan to add toll lanes to the I-495 Beltway and to I-270.

The changing ideological disposition of the Maryland General Assembly is the result of wide range of actions organized by visionaries in the state.

The Socialists of Faith Caucus formed in 2018, has operated in the tradition of radical social movements of the past.

Virginia's DSA Statewide convention, recounted here.

With only two weeks to go before the Arlington County Board is set to vote on its $23 million incentive package for Amazon, the fight is more important than ever, and there are plenty of opportunities for comrades to get involved.

As political Maryland swings into another General Assembly session where Democrats face a second-term GOP governor, the shape of things political in a divided state is sketched by a variety of examples.

The next big battle to persuade the local NFL owner to Change the Name – the racist name of the football team – will be fought in Montgomery County, and it may represent a tipping point.

In Prince George’s County, a far too comfortable Democratic Party apparatus shuts out dissident voices and relies on low voter turnout to maintain power.

Environmental activism has been hampered by political boundaries in the DMV. A singular, multi-state public initiative could allow DMV socialists to engage in cross-jurisdictional ecosocialist work.

The People’s Lobbying Group is lining up clients that work on tax issues, economic justice, labor, consumer rights and local Prince George’s County matters.

Where do Northern VA socialists go in 2019?

On December 8, activists pressing for a change to the Washington football team’s racist name take their campaign to the club’s headquarters in Ashburn, VA.

A community forum held in Crystal City/Arlington showed that many NoVA residents are worried about the impact that Amazon will have on their home towns.

The progressive faction on the council has largely pursued policies to benefit the majority of DC residents, but Reeder’s rise shows they have not made necessary connections with the District’s lower-income minority communities.

DC has been playing an increasingly assertive role in facing down the hostile occupier sitting in the White House. Now we need to ask for a favor from those outside the District.

In Places Journal, Alex MacGillis writes about the legacy of highway-fueled white flight in Baltimore, and the sheer resentment suburban residents feel toward transit serving the city (‘loot train’).

Woody Woodruff analyzes the duplicitous stealth-centrist posture of GOP Gov. Larry Hogan as he seeks a second term in November – and the conservative and pro-corporate administration he leads.

Kim Lehmkuhl explains the many ways that a public bank for public funds would benefit all of DC’s residents, rather than just the wealthy who benefit from the city’s funds being kept in the scandal-encrusted Wells Fargo bank.

Ben Jealous’s primary victory puts Maryland within striking distance of the progressive governor Maryland deserves and needs.

Some of [what happens in ANCs] is minutiae that you may not be interested in, but it is the real nuts-and-bolts of self-governance at work.

Today’s galloping gentrification is only the latest chapter in a decades-long saga in which the powers that be have sought to remake Washington, DC at the expense of the people who have made it a living, breathing city.

Local DSA members have been involved for more than a year now in the Grassroots Planning Coalition's monthly organizing meetings around protecting the DC Comp Plan and making it better able to protect low-income housing in the District.

As a corporation, Amazon’s interests begin and end with their own wealth and influence. Any promises of corporate responsibility or community benefit not nailed down in ironclad legal contracts should be considered empty.

Our local leaders have shown time and again that they are unable and unwilling to fight for what's best for the marginalized in our region

Radical tourism is not merely about passing a day while visiting another city, but rather looking at the world from the viewpoint of those who challenged the status quo of profit, patriarchy, white privilege and homophobia.

The artists we now call modern increasingly adopted the world around them as their subject matter, a world being reshaped by industrialization and revolution.

Every significant development in the history of the district has had a racial component. This is a city whose very existence is steeped in racial geography.

A useful intercity rail system is in reach for Maryland if it defers the maglev and hyperloop dreams in favor of the needs of today's travelers.

For the past three years, the grassroots group Rebrand Washington Football (RWF) has been circulating petitions calling on the team to adopt a new name.

Democrats hone their strategy for sending Governor Larry Hogan back to private life while Hogan postures for his base.

If Puerto Rico is cursed by federal Washington's indifference and neglect, the District of Columbia has the opposite problem: suffocating micromanagement

Prince George's DSA members met with allies from Our Revolution PG and Progressive Prince George's to begin forging a progressive agenda for the Maryland General Assembly session in January.

A roundup of headlines and news clips commenting on election night, 2017.

Hogan's highway plan encumbers an enormous cost and short state revenues.

The convention will offer more than just the grind of voting on proposals, but the opportunity to shape a socialist organization for a nimble and substantive future.

Our local chapter is enjoying excellent timing for this public outreach as the Senate's last-gasp Graham-Cassidy attempt at ruinous health care changes implodes.

While the removal of racist monuments is on the agenda, we need look no further than in our own backyard for examples of memorials that should never have been erected in the first place.

Emboldened hate groups followed Trump's example in a march on Charlottesville. Thousands, including dozens of members of Democratic Socialists of America, marched in a counter-demonstration to show with their presence that hatred and intolerance cannot go unanswered.

Austin Kendall and Jared Catapano discuss chapter solidarity actions with DCPS teachers, who have worked without a new contract for five years.

The 100th birthday celebration of a founding member of DSOC/DSA in our local and a Northern Virginia activist for over 70 years.

Andy Feeney outlines the proposed DC Comprehensive Plan amendments that DSA members, in concert with allies, have submitted.

The local branches, while still under the umbrella of the Metro DC chapter, give current members opportunities bring the socialist vision to bear on a wider range of issues.

A report on DSA's activism in the Virginia primary election, from a Charlottesville DSA comrade.