“Most left podcasts have hitherto only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point is to change it!”
We are very excited to announce the launch of SOCIALIST SOUND, Seattle DSA’s new podcast. Please take a listen wherever you get your podcasts, or directly on our website at SeattleDSA.org/podcast. Hit that subscribe button and leave a friendly review! We’ve dropped two excellent episodes already – “Raise the Wage Renton” and “Social Housing Victory in Seattle” – with a third now in production.
SOCIALIST SOUND will dig into the strategic challenges facing frontline labor organizers, community activists, and socialists across the Puget Sound region. We will investigate both our successes and failures within the most important class battles in our region in order to politically strengthen ongoing struggles. Our aim is to help weave together today’s fights into the wider movement to replace capitalism with a democratic socialist society.
DSA Members Made This Possible
First things first: I want to wholeheartedly thank Seattle DSA members for the strong vote of political confidence to launch this podcast at our April 25th Membership Meeting. Equally important are the hundreds of working people who voted with their hard-earned dollars to make this project possible. Recurring monthly dues and donations to Seattle DSA increased from about $30,000 over the last year to nearly $60,000 projected in the year ahead, with the lion’s share of that increase coming through our staff fundraising campaign!
These financial sacrifices are funding both my staff position as Seattle DSA’s Communications Organizer, and Guillermo Zazueta’s position as our Chapter Organizer. They reflect the clarity among Seattle DSA members that any media forced to rely on advertising dollars or foundation money ends up both unaccountable and unsustainable – especially if we aim to consistently promote the struggles of working and oppressed people and fight for a socialist transformation of society.
However, to sustain our two part-time staff positions and continue to expand Seattle DSA’s capacity, we need to increase our income by another $1,500/month. Please contribute what you can today.
The politics of every organization and media project is fundamentally shaped by how it is funded. Building a viable socialist media that remains accountable to working people is only possible if we are funded by working people – and those dedicated to socialist change.
We Can’t Win Without a Strong Socialist Media
SOCIALIST SOUND is a beginning. Alongside plans for a more lively Seattle DSA blog, and other ongoing efforts to amplify the ideas and good work of DSA members, this podcast is a small step forward toward building a multi-platform socialist media in our region capable of reaching a mass working-class audience.
The local media market is full of both corporate-backed and liberal outlets, but there is a vacuum of any serious socialist media project. This is despite a clear popular hunger for a fighting left-wing voice in struggles for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice, as evidenced by consistently large votes for serious socialist candidates – from Bernie Sanders to Kshama Sawant. As the largest socialist organization in the country and across the Puget Sound region, DSA recognizes our responsibility to begin constructing a socialist media to both strengthen our organizing efforts and to popularize socialist ideas more broadly.
After all, unless we create the capacity to challenge the capitalist media lies, to raise working-class consciousness, and to popularize the potential for a socialist transformation of society, working people will never take power. SOCIALIST SOUND represents a small start to building the kind of local socialist media we need to win. We aim to bring out new episodes every few weeks throughout this summer, and move toward a more frequent schedule as our small production team learns and grows.
Stories About Organizing
After more than 25 years as a successful labor and community organizer, as the producer and host of SOCIALIST SOUND, I am excited for this opportunity to tell stories about the successes and challenges facing DSA members and allies in struggle. Too often within the labor movement and NGO circles the conception of effective organizing is depoliticized – as if the billions of people ensnared within systems of capitalist exploitation can liberate themselves without developing a coherent alternative to capitalist ideology!
At the core of my organizing work is the belief that working people’s most powerful weapon against organized capital is our capacity to understand the world as it really is – a clarity that has eluded every ruling class in history because they are compelled to shroud their exploitation of the majority in a fog of lies, self-deception, and ideological confusion. In contrast, the working class has a unique material interest in clearing this ideological fog, in gaining a precise understanding of capitalist society, as a precondition to building the power needed to challenge our exploitation and win a socialist transformation of society.
By telling stories that draw out the vital lessons from current struggles, I hope SOCIALIST SOUND will play an important role politically educating the activists in our still young socialist movement. To win, we must learn both to be the most effective fighters in the immediate struggles of working people, and from there to unite together the leading voices of every immediate fight into the wider movement for socialism.