Socialist Conference Comes to Harvard

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will be coming to Harvard this weekend along with other international representatives to discuss the current direction and applications of socialism in the world.

Held at Harvard for the first time, the annual conference will feature workshops, speeches, presentations and forums designed to generate public interest in socialist causes.

The conference will discuss labor organization, radical economics, socialist-feminism and important political priorities, among other issues.

Daniel R. Morgan '99, a member of Harvard's Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM), has helped the DSA organize this weekend's events.

"The conference will deal with big issues and try to bring in public discussion," Morgan said. "There will be activities, discussions on platform issues and political priorities."

The conference kicked off with a forum addressing labor issues held in the parlor room of Phillips Brooks House last night. The forum brought together many prominent voices in the debate on radical politics.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., director of education with the AFL-CIO, addressed the relationship between politics and labor.

"We must find an alternative to the insanity and immorality of capitalism," Fletcher said.

Other speakers also discussed the empowerment of laborers. They invited those in attendance to join in a demonstration scheduled for Sunday at a nursing home in Brighton where nurses have been striking for the past eight weeks.

This demonstration will be the culmination of the weekend's events.

The conference continues tonight with an opening plenary on socialist campaigns with presentations by members of UNITE!. DSA activists will discuss socialism and how it relates to feminism, unionism and poverty.

New officers for the DSA will also be elected at the conference.

Harvard's PSLM was largely responsible for bringing the conference to the school. At present, Harvard does not have an official DSA chapter. According to Jessica Shearer, a DSA member, one of the tangential aims of bringing the conference to the College this weekend is to generate enough interest to set up a chapter at Harvard.