This is the first episode in a new series we're calling "Why we're socialists (and not liberals)." In it we give definitions of liberalism and socialism, broad overviews of the philosophical and ideological distinctions between the two, and explain what motivated us to start this new series. we hope you enjoy it and find it educational.

Why we're socialists (and not liberals): Part 1, Introduction

This is the second part of our series on why we're socialist and not liberals. In this episode we give a broad overview of the historical development of liberalism and socialism as ideologies, and then use that to explain how each is a product of their respective historical and material contexts. We also compare and contrast the two ideologies and attempt to show how socialism is a distinct ideology, and not merely the left wing of liberalism or progressivism as many people seem to believe.

Sources 
Revolutions podcast, by Mike Duncan
Episode 1.12b- Supplemental The Diggers, by Mike Duncan
Episodes 3.1-3.54 on the French Revolution, by Mike Duncan
Episodes 8.1-8.33 on the 1848 Revolutions, by Mike Duncan
Episode 10.3 - The Three Pillars of Marxism (as an alternative to the essay by Lenin)
Liberalism at Large: The World According to The Economist, by Alexander Zevin
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx
‘“Neoliberalism” isn’t an empty epithet. It’s a real, powerful set of ideas.’ Mike Konczal, writing for Vox.
The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, by V.I. Lenin
Behind the Bastards podcast, The Non-Nazi Bastards Who Helped Hitler Rise to Power, by Robert Evans.
The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick.
Philosophize This! podcast, by Steven West
Episode 132: Carl Schmitt on Liberalism, pt. 1
Episode 133: Carl Schmitt on Liberalism, pt. 2

Suggested reading
Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels
The Principle of Self-Emancipation in Marx and Engels by Hal Draper 
Marxism and Politics by Ralph Miliband
Mind and Politics: An Approach to the Meaning of Liberal and Socialist Individualism by Ellen Meiksins Wood
A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics by Hadas Thier
Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in America by Barbara and Karen Fields

Why we're socialists (and not liberals): Part 2, Compare & Contrast

Welcome to the third episode of Why We're Socialists (and not Liberals). In this episode we go discuss ultraleftism, where it came from, and what to do about it. As we will continue to do, we have included our sources so you can read them for yourself.

The Liberal to Ultraleft Pipeline, Patrick Dalton, 2021 https://washingtonsocialist.mdcdsa.org/ws-articles/21-03-breaking-the-cycle 

Liberalism, Ultraleftism, or Mass Action? Peter Camejo, 1970
https://www.marxists.org/archive/camejo/1970/ultraleftismormassaction.htm 

Anatomy of the Micro-Sect, Hal Draper, 1973
https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1973/xx/microsect.htm 	
Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Lenin, 1920 https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/index.htm 

Exiting the Vampire Castle, Mark Fisher, 2013
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/
 
Ultraliberalism: The Dominant Tendency of the American Left, Ramsin Canon, 2022 https://midwestsocialist.com/2022/02/07/ultraliberalism-the-dominant-tendency-of-the-american-left/ 

You Can’t Fake It, by Alex Gourevitch, Current Moment and Jacobin, 2017
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/02/general-strike-donald-trump-womens-march-immigration-ban-ludlow-strike 

1947 Taft-Hartley Substantive Provisions, National Labor Relations Board https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/who-we-are/our-history/1947-taft-hartley-substantive-provisions

#2: Amendment to Resolution #5 – Building Worker Power to Win Democratic Socialism: A Labor Strategy for DSA in 2021-2023, Socialist Alternative. https://convention2021.dsausa.org/secondary-amendments-to-resolutions/#P1D  

Related reading

The Poisoned Chalice of Hashtag Activism, Amber A'lee Frost, Catalyst https://catalyst-journal.com/2020/09/the-poisoned-chalice-of-hashtag-activism

NGOism: The Politics of the Third Sector, Benjamin Y. Fong and Melissa Naschek https://catalyst-journal.com/2021/05/ngoism-the-politics-of-the-third-sector

Why we're socialists (and not liberals): Part 3, Ultraleftism

My comrade from DSA Isaac Wagnitz and I are proud to share with you our latest episode of Radio Socialist Olympia. We're taking a break here from the Why We're Socialists series to interview Michael Hines, president of UFCW 367, which represents around 8,000 grocery workers in the South Puget Sound area. I couldn't make it to record this episode, so it'll just be Isaac asking the questions. The interview covers a lot of ground about the state of the grocery industry during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, and how changes in the industry have affected workers. Next up after this will be an interview with Norah and Billie, two workers from the Cooper Point Starbucks in Westside Olympia, who succeeded in winning a union 19-2! We hope you enjoy this episode and we'll try to have that next episode of Why We're Socialists out soon.

Sources:
Hungry at the Table, a study conducted by Economic Round Table https://economicrt.org/publication/hungry-at-the-table/

Food Retail: Financial Trends, Industry Challenges & Opportunities for Workers: a slideshow that was part of a presentation at the UFCW 367 leadership conference in January 2022 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qTlWlgwmbqsXgVyAVAiTHF72TRv0NfWy/view?fbclid=IwAR0DernkDCPaq4fSNLHv-k1rcjl9YqljNf5wsxWDGk00Sn2ZP3ZLwMJRQQw

DSA Labor: The Rank & File Strategy
https://rfs.dsausa.org/

Home in Tacoma for All platform:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/home-in-tacoma-for-all-platform/

Matt Bruening: When McDonald’s Came to Denmark
https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/

Interview with Michael Hines, President of UFCW 367

My comrade from DSA Isaac Wagnitz and I are proud to share with you our latest episode of Radio Socialist Olympia. We're extending our break here from the Why We're Socialists series to interview Billie and Nora, two of the Starbucks workers and union organizers behind the successful union campaign at the Cooper Point Starbucks in Westside Olympia. Note: we mention the Tumwater Starbucks in this episode. Since this episode was recorded the Tumwater location won their vote 12-3.

Interview with Nora and Billie of the Westside Olympia Starbucks

Welcome to the fourth, and long-awaited (we hope) episode of Why We're Socialists, and Not Liberals. In this episode we discuss why a liberalism is simply not up to the job of responding to the far right, and why a left-wing approach is needed, and what that would look like. This is an especially theory-heavy episode in which we explore the philosophical underpinnings of far right ideology so that we can better understand how to fight it. We read well over 2,000 pages of pretty dense academic leftist theory in order to produce this episode and we hope you appreciate the effort. 

Here are our sources in case you'd like to do some reading of your own.

The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin
The Destruction of Reason by Georg Lukács
The Authoritarian Personality, by Theodor Adorno et al
Breaking the Impasse by Kim Moody
Fascism: What It Is And How To Fight It by Leon Trotsky
Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Donald Trump, Lumpen Capitalist.  Samuel Farber. Jacobin Magazine, October 19th, 2018. https://jacobin.com/2018/10/donald-trump-lumpen-capitalist-class-elections
Disney Company Drops YouTube Star PewDiePie Over Anti-Semitic Jokes. Camila Domonoske. NPR. February 24, 2017. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/14/515184619/disney-company-drops-youtube-star-pewdiepie-over-anti-semitic-jokes 
Reply in the Senate to William Seward by Jefferson Davis. February 29th, 1860. https://constitutingamerica.org/reply-in-the-senate-to-william-seward-by-jefferson-davis-1808-1889-reprinted-from-the-u-s-constitution-a-reader-published-by-hillsdale-college/  
Report from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on the Douma poison gas attack. January 27, 2023. https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2023/01/s-2125-2023%28e%29.pdf 
The Rank-and-File Strategy, from the DSA website https://rfs.dsausa.org/ 
Behind the Bastards podcast, Part One: The Eternal Fascist. Also found in audiobook form on the website http://www.thewaroneveryone.com/  
Ur-Fascism, by Umberto Eco https://web.archive.org/web/20170131155837/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ 
HEGEMONY, WAR OF POSITION, & HISTORIC BLOC: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ANTONIO GRAMSCI’S STRATEGY CONCEPTS, Harmony Goldberg, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170131155837/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/ 

Recommended reading (we didn’t use these in our episode but recommend them anyway)

The Anatomy of Fascism, by Robert O Paxton
Against the Fascist Creep by Alexander Reid Ross
Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Neo-Nazi, by Elizabeth Sandifer
The works of Kim Stanley Robinson
Conspirituality Podcast

Why we're socialists (and not liberals): Part 4, Responding to the far right

In this episode, Isaac speaks again with Mike Hines, President of the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 367, which represents about 8,000 grocery and retail workers in Southwest Washington. They discuss events in the union since their latest contract went into effect, staffing cuts in the stores and the union’s response, state and local legislative efforts, and the status of the proposed Kroger-Albertson’s merger. They then talk about 367’s plans for the future, including a new Organizing School, Workers’ Bill of Rights legislation, and preparation for the next round of bargaining with the big grocery chains.

UFCW 367
Website: https://www.ufcw367.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ufcwlocal367

SB 6007
https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2023-24/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Passed%20Legislature/6007-S.PL.pdf?q=20240703095153

ESHB 1893
https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2023-24/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1893-S.E.pdf?q=20240703131420

New tenant protections
Olympia: https://www.olympiawa.gov/community/housing___homelessness/tenant_protections.php
Tacoma: https://www.tacoma4all.org/initiative01

DSA’s Rank-and-File Strategy
rfs.dsausa.org/

DSA’s Strike Ready Campaign (2023, supporting UPS Teamsters)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17z9-sMHBGG4p2Q8aGtod6zsLHd54l3ODr0m3y72L6C4/view

367’s Member-Driven Model
[Upload image file]


South Sound Organizing School
https://www.southsoundorganizingschool.org/ 

Workers’ Rights Summit - Olympia, Saturday, July 20th, 2024
RSVP: https://secure.everyaction.com/rM3M8dKJWUWsZPbYaHallg2
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1961382314279452/

Previous interview with Mike Hines
https://soundcloud.com/user-252886254/rso-ep05

RSO Ep 07

In this episode, Isaac talks with Syd Locke, longtime Olympia DSA member and our endorsed candidate for the Washington State House of Representatives for 2024. They discuss Syd's campaign, DSA's approach to electoral politics, the current political moment in our country, and what our tasks will be going forward.

Note from Isaac: Apologies for the audio quality in this episode, there was some background noise in the recording that I couldn't account for, and filtering that out also made our voices sound a bit muffled and produced some odd artifacts. I tried to correct for that, it's still not perfect, but should be clear enough.

Interview with Syd Locke, Candidate for WA LD-22 State Representative

 In this episode, Isaac speaks with Rachelle Martin, candidate for Tumwater City Council, who has been endorsed by Olympia DSA as well as a number of labor unions and progressive organizations. They talk about the issues facing Tumwater,  Rachelle's ideas for advancing the interests of the city's working people, and how these play into larger questions of strategy.

Rachelle's campaign website: https://www.martinfortumwater.com/

Donation link: https://wecure.actblue.com/donate/rachellemartin

Interview with Rachelle Martin

In this episode, Isaac talks with Jenny and Colton from UFCW 367 about Proposition 1, also known as the Workers’ Bill of Rights, which will be on the ballot for Olympia residents this November. They discuss the impacts the initiative will have for working people in our city, and what listeners can do to help get it passed.

Prop 1/WBOR campaign website: https://www.olyrising.com/

Prop 1 - Olympia Worker's Bill of Rights

In this episode, Isaac interviews Mary Ellen Biggerstaff and Marianna Everson, endorsed by Olympia DSA for LD-22 and LD-19. The candidates discuss why they are running, what brought them to socialist politics, and several other questions. Listen to the podcast to find out what else they talked about! 

This is the first episode of Radio Socialist Olympia, the official podcast of the Olympia chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. In future episodes we hope to interview other local candidates and bring a socialist analysis to local issues and history.

RSO Ep01 - Interview with Marianna and Mary Ellen

This is our second regular episode, in which we interview Jazmine Fox-Stern, the now-outgoing Chair of Olympia DSA's Defund OPD working group. She announced she would not be seeking re-election after we recorded this episode.

Radio Socialist Olympia

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