Reflections

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To understand how to get to a socialist future, we need to know how we got here in the first place. This listing chronicles entries from old editions of the Washington Socialist.
Kurt Stand
September 2021
Famed union leader Richard Trumka died suddenly last month at age 72. Socialists should remember his legacy to ensure labor's revival.
Pleasant Mann
May 2021
A slice of history covering DC's oft-forgotten far-left.
Woody Woodruff
December 2020
A retrospective article republished from 1997 - this piece illustrates that the question of what to do about meetings transcends time, the size of the organization and the social and political context.
Stu Comstock-Gay
November 2020
A republished interview from 1984 with DC statehood and environmental activist Josphine Butler.
Bill Mosley
October 2020
Introduction
Pleasant Mann
October 2020
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.
Chris Riddiough
September 2020
This article, reprinted from 1984, reflects on the nomination of Geraldine Ferraro to become Walter Mondale's running mate. The Mondale-Ferraro ticket, of course, lost the 1984 general election to Reagan-Bush, but will Harris go beyond past woman nominees and become the first member to be elected to national office?
Woody Woodruff
August 2020
Just as today, DSA 35 years ago was wrestling with how, as a predominately white organization, it could effectively work across racial lines and forge ties with communities of color.
Bill Mosley
July 2020
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.
Stu Gay
June 2020
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.
Bill Mosley
May 2020
This piece from Fall 1987 draws parallels between that year’s crash and much more significant one of 1929 and offers predictions of how it might affect U.S. politics going forward.
Bill Mosley
April 2020
Labor’s present-day struggles against capital – and sometimes, amongst itself – are reflected in this 1985 Socialist interview with Victor Reuther, brother of the late United Auto Workers’ President Walter Reuther and himself a longtime UAW leader.
Bill Mosley
Febrary 2020
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.
Bill Mosley
October 2019
Reflections on democratic socialism from 1984.