WORKING GROUPS
DSA Ventura County is currently composed of various working groups, which attend to the essential functions and missions of the organization.
REVOLUTIONIZING COMMUNITY SAFETY (RCS)
Previously Police Oversight Working Group that seeks to: expand the power of VC residents, defund & eventually abolish the police, de-colonize our community, & build alternatives for community...
LABOR
DSA-VC Members are overwhelmingly members of the working class. Spread out across economic sectors, a few unionized and many not, our members work for a living. Socialists understand that we can’t build power for our class without building power in the workplace. A key charge of the Labor Working Group then is to have DSA-VC members not only canvass on weekends and join meetings weeknights, but take their socialist politics with them to work and see the workplace as a key site of political struggle. The Labor Working Group is the organizational form in which DSA-VC can carry this out.
MUTUAL AID
Mutual aid is a voluntary exchange of resources and services for the mutual benefit of all people involved. It involves comrades coming together to work as equals for the common good by assessing what people need and what people can provide. Mutual aid projects come from and are run by the community rather than nonprofit workers, foundations, or charity programs created by the ruling classes. No one is made to feel inferior for receiving help, as it is fundamentally an organic and egalitarian social relationship, not a material one based on hierarchy, and everyone provides what they can rather than separating into “givers” and “receivers.”
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
There is no denying the scale and urgency of the environmental crisis we face. Climate change, deforestation, pollution, and habitat destruction are all leading to a catastrophic collapse of our natural world that will have devastating effects not only on various ecosystems but on humans as well.
The degradation and exploitation of our environment is a social justice issue. Working class, low income, and marginalized people disproportionately bear the brunt of industrial pollution responsible for destroying the environment. Power plants, landfills, slag heaps and toxic industries are routinely located in their communities. They must endure the pollution yet receive very little, if any, economic benefit from them.
Capitalism is addicted to a perpetual cycle of pillaging natural resources, exploiting the labor of the working class then dumping the wastes of industry on to the people it exploits. The logic of capitalist accumulation works directly against sustainability and efforts to advance environmental protections. Eco-friendly capitalism is not possible. When our economy is judged by growth and the furthering of private profits it is clear that our planet cannot sustain such a burden. We believe that democratic socialism can provide the means to work toward a sustainable environment and an economy that works for all, not just the 1%.
Eco-socialism is a vision for an economy and society that exist harmoniously with nature. One in which natural resources are held in common by all people. In this new economy industry is controlled democratically to ensure that pollution is mitigated and the abundance of the earth is distributed equitably.
Winning this alternative is a long struggle, one that must be fought locally. VC DSA is under no illusion that we’re winning at the moment. Our current work is predominantly defensive. We are fighting to rid Ventura County of dirty industry. We are fighting to end pollution in the working class and marginalized communities who have borne the burden of capitalist pollution for too long.
HEALTHCARE JUSTICE
The Ventura County DSA believes that comprehensive, quality healthcare is a human right. As democratic socialists, we believe that every human being is entitled to have his or her basic needs met, regardless of race, gender, orientation, age, national origin, religion, disability, citizenship status or economic status. We reject a healthcare system that is based on profit and results in Americans spending more on healthcare while having the least favorable outcomes compared to other industrialized countries. We reject a healthcare system that is financially unattainable by millions of Americans while a few unregulated insurance and drug companies rake in billions of dollars per year in profits. We are fighting to create an inclusive healthcare system.
The Ventura County DSA is committed to the education, training, and organization of the masses to fight for guaranteed healthcare for all Americans. We work in solidarity with a coalition of millions of grassroots and labor organizers who are going door to door, spreading the word and engaging our neighbors to join in the fight to not only make guaranteed healthcare in California a reality, but to also fight for Medicare for All on the national level.