Get Involved
Milwaukee DSA offers a myriad of ways to participate. We have working groups and committees, caucuses, and coalitions. We invite you to find a group that focuses on topics that you are interested in and reach out to them to get involved! You can find out when meetings are on our calendar.
WORKING GROUPS AND COMMITTEES
Abolition Working Group
defundpolicemkedsa@gmail.com
The Abolition Working Group was formed in response to the police murder of George Floyd in May of 2020. In connecting national issues to issues here in Milwaukee, the DSA voted to work towards defunding MPD, with the ultimate goal of abolishing MPD. MPD has terrorized Black and Brown communities in Milwaukee, resulting in the senseless deaths of Dontre Hamilton, Sylville Smith, Joel Acevedo, and many others. They are beyond reform. It is clear that the police are here to protect the interests of those in power, protect property, and funnel people into the prison–industrial complex. They were never meant to protect us, and they cannot solve the problems that racial capitalism has created. DSA believes that we can build a community where the police are obsolete by diverting funds away from policing and towards resources that actually keep us safe (i.e., housing, schools, public transportation, and health services). This budget cycle, the Milwaukee DSA, along with many other grassroots organizations (BLOC, LIT, African American Roundtable), is calling to defund the police by $75 million dollars. The working group is open to all members with a shared interest in defunding the police and rebuilding our community.
Ecosocialist Working Group
dsamkeecosoc@gmail.com
Milwaukee DSA Ecosocialist Working Group
Ecosocialism is the concept that capitalism is the root cause of the earth’s ecological ills, and those ills are all too often served from corporations onto underserved communities. The Ecosocialist Working Group focuses on campaigns that will turn back the tide on climate change, pollution, and the strip-mining of our planet’s resources and human lives. We turn our ire against the City of Milwaukee for not replacing lead laterals in our oppressed communities, poisoning young children and adults at an alarming rate. We hold up our fists against the tyranny of our monopolized utility cartel, WE Energies. We pursue long-term and decisive action to achieve climate and economic justice for the working class and the benefit of all.
Education Committee
milwaukeedsa.edu@protonmail.com
Capitalism has taught us that a society structured around an endless quest for profit and the pursuit of individual self-interest is natural; as socialists, we identify capitalism as the artificially imposed set of relations that it is. The Education Committee seeks to challenge what is understood to be “common sense” under capitalism and offer ongoing opportunities to expand our collective understanding of socialist concepts, histories, and strategies. Through Socialist Night School classes and other public events, we aim to help members of DSA Milwaukee better understand their current context and their tasks ahead, gaining the fluency they need to become public tribunes for socialism.
Electoral Working Group
mke.dsa.electoralwg@gmail.com
The Electoral Working Group is dedicated to contesting elections with viable candidates to win office, raise the profile of the socialist movement, and build power for the working class. We are committed to providing material support for candidates who will proudly declare their socialism, and who will fight for all members of the working class.
Labor Solidarity Working Group
mkedsalabor@protonmail.com
The Labor Solidarity Working Group focuses on workplace organizing and wielding the power of organized labor against the capitalist class. We work to support existing unions and organizing campaigns in the Milwaukee area and seek out new workplaces to organize. In addition, the working group seeks to educate workers on how socialism and organized labor go hand in hand. The working group is open to all members, regardless of any union affiliation or lack thereof.
Milwaukee DSA Podcast Working Group
Contact
The Milwaukee DSA Podcast Working Group works together to produce a bi-weekly podcast representing Milwaukee DSA. The show features a variety of segments that touch on Milwaukee and Wisconsin politics. The podcast incorporates interviews and discussions with Milwaukee DSA members as well as local political figures. If you’re interested in getting involved with the Milwaukee DSA Podcast, please click the contact link above.
Outreach Committee
mkedsaoutreach@gmail.com
The Outreach Committee focuses on membership growth, new member on-boarding, and social media. Please email us if you’d like to get involved.
Socialist Feminist Working Group
facebook.com/groups/MKEDSASocialistFeminists
Patriarchy and capitalism reinforce each other. By recognizing that the capitalist structure oppresses various groups in different ways, we work to further each person’s perspective, particularly those of female-identifying and non-binary people. We wish to empower our members and our community through solidarity-building activities such as book chats and Facebook discussions. We also engage in activism around such issues as reproductive justice and childcare. Within our chapter, we pool our efforts in mutual endeavors, such as women’s economic empowerment through women-owned worker cooperatives.
Solidarity Economy | Mutual Aid Working Group
dsamkemutualaid@gmail.com
Milwaukee DSA Solidarity Economy | Mutual Aid Working Group
The Solidarity Economy initiatives are dedicated to seeding worker-owned cooperatives, economic democracy projects, time banking, community land trusts, publicly owned and democratically self-managed socialist enterprises, and a variety of cooperative economic endeavors federated throughout the country & internationally.
The Mutual Aid Working Group is a working group dedicated to projects of mutual aid. Mutual aid is the cooperative provision of goods and services where the capitalist market and state fail to provide. Our goal is to help foster and engender a network for the provision and institutional building of cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity and support.
CAUCUSES
Black Socialist Caucus
brandyislucy@gmail.com
The newly created Black Socialist Caucus (BSC) of the Milwaukee DSA is a safe haven for all Black socialists and socialists of African descent to meet, speak and be heard, and work towards a better world. If you’re interested in getting involved or would like to know more, please feel free to contact Brandy Johnson.
Bread and Roses Caucus
breadandrosesdsa.org
The Bread and Roses Caucus (B&R) is a Marxist, national DSA caucus organizing for a democratic socialist world. B&R regards class struggle as a central element of the liberatory struggle of all people. As such, the caucus focuses on the defeat of ideologies that keep the working class fragmented,the construction of working class political institutions, the building of rank-and-file democratic labor unions, a politics that recognizes the common struggle being waged by the working class across the globe, and an internally democratic organization.
Ethical Socialist Caucus
info@ethicalsocialism.org
ethicalsocialism.org
Ethical socialism refers to the view which holds that one ought to be a democratic socialist because human dignity can only be respected under democratic socialism. Arguments in favor of democratic socialism based on historical, efficiency, philosophical, or other concepts will always be secondary to the moral imperative to respect human dignity. We organize political education, organizing training, policy analysis, and mutual support guided by our belief that socialist organizing involves mutual understanding and appreciation of comrades. If you agree that socialism is a moral imperative and you want to join us as we unlearn the bad habits of capitalism together, we encourage you to reach out to us.
Libertarian Socialist Caucus of Milwaukee
dsamkemutualaid@gmail.com
Local – Milwaukee DSA LSC
National – dsa-lsc.org
The Libertarian Socialist Caucus is an organization of members of the Democratic Socialists of America who believe that libertarian socialist values are the fullest embodiment of this democratic socialist vision. We cherish the DSA’s status as a multi-tendency mass socialist organization and wish to create a space within the DSA to discuss and organize for the development of socialism beyond the state. Our caucus is committed to the strategy of dual power which builds liberated spaces and creates institutions grounded in direct democracy. Together these spaces and institutions expand into the ever-widening formation of a new world “in the shell of the old.” As the movement grows more powerful, it can engage in ever-larger confrontations with the ruling class—and ultimately a contest for legitimacy against the institutions of capitalist society. Please join us for discussion, debate, dialogue and action related to building this new world.
COALITIONS
Close MSDF
dsamkemutualaid@gmail.com
closemsdf.org
Milwaukee DSA is a member of the #CLOSEmsdf coalition, led by Ex-Prisoners Organizing (EXPO). The campaign aims not only to close the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility and end crimeless revocation, but to reimagine how we invest in people caught in the penal system.
Get the Lead Out
leadfreemke@gmail.com
leadfreemke.com
As a member of the Get the Lead Out coalition, DSA Milwaukee is fighting for the right of all people to have access to safe, clean drinking water. Along with a variety of other groups in the city, we are demanding that lead infrastructure is removed from our pipes and our homes.
Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union
outreach@matunion.org
matunion.org
facebook.com/mkematu
The Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union is an all-volunteer organization fighting to end housing insecurity and the commodification of housing altogether. Through direct action, we organize to challenge evictions, win demands from negligent landlords, and work towards community control of housing for everyone.