*Please RSVP so we can get an accurate headcount and communicate changes if necessary!*
Weather permitting, we'll meet outside of Northampton Brewery, and will move inside if necessary.

River Valley DSA's Political Education Committee and Membership Committee invite you to join us for Socialist Summer School, a weekly series where members can learn, discuss, and debate how we organize and build a socialist future here in the Valley and beyond. This curriculum is not cumulative, so please feel free to join any session!

Session #2 will be about "Internal Democracy".
As socialists, we seek to disrupt and dismantle the hierarchical, undemocratic structures that are one of the hallmarks of capitalism. Creating these changes requires that we work together to build power by forming, joining, and growing organizations and movements that are up to the task and whose members feel empowered to do the work needed within the organization.
But how do we prevent those organizations from replicating the same hierarchies and top-down structures that we're fighting against? How do we maintain a disciplined, coherent message and also foster open, honest debate among comrades? And how do we maintain accountability in our decision making while resisting internal fractures?

To help us discuss these questions, we'll be reading Jo Freeman's seminal essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness." Originally written within the context of radical feminist struggles of the 1960s-70s, Freeman's essay still has much to teach us about what is needed to build and sustain an effective, democratic movement.