A Day At the Beach With DSA

There are now numerous elected officials from congress to school boards who classify themselves as socialists, something we hadn't seen in this nation since the late 40s.

I've been posting stories about the remarkable 10x growth of the Democratic Socialists (DSA) in the last three years due to Bernie and Trump. The local DSA groups certainly keep their people busy with a constant list of things to do, both political and social. Yesterday they had a beach party at Fort Tilden beach and since it is so close I decided to take a ride over in the afternoon to check it out.

This is possibly the most beautiful and somewhat secluded beach in the city - a federal beach with no lifeguards - and a place not known to many people despite being contiguous with Riis Park. The lack of food services (though there are porta potties) keeps the place quiet but no longer on weekends. It attracts mostly young people on blankets, not chairs - since most come by public transportation - and young and mostly white.

The beach was crowded yesterday but I found the DSA people under a banner that said "Refugees Welcome". I was there for about an hour engaging in some very interesting conversations with a few people, most of whom are recent converts to socialism of one flavor or another. I seemed to connect with people whose views were somewhat aligned with mine - the libertarian/anarchist crowd who eschew democratic centralism which binds everyone to the will of the majority no matter how slim that might be. One of the guys said he hoped to be a teacher and did I hear of MORE? Oy!

They like a big tent socialist group like DSA. I did talk to one woman who had the only chair and was somewhat within a decade or two of my age -- very nice and someone who also joined post Trump. Turns out her son is a teacher and in MORE and I know him - he came from the DSA crew. A second year high school teacher who I was glad to tell his mom I happened to like. I told her I was no longer interested in MORE and she asked me why. There is no way I could get into the whole story so I was brief.

It is exciting to see a renaissance on the left among that generation and will be interesting to see if they get ripped apart like the left tends to do to itself. The guys I spoke to didn't seem to be very worried about that.

Here is a story about a DSAer who has played a role in Denver.

Denver’s City Council, Led by Democratic Socialist, Stuns For-Profit Prison Operators by Nuking Contracts