Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America: Twin Cities DSA June Meeting-Monthly Meeting for brief business, discussion, and fellowship

Monday, June 7, 2010

Twin Cities DSA June Meeting-Monthly Meeting for brief business, discussion, and fellowship

Twin Cities DSA June Meeting-Monthly Meeting for brief business, discussion, and fellowship.

Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010
Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: Davanni's Pizza & Subs Riverside
Address: Riverside 2500 Riverside Ave, Minneapolis, MN

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Twin Cities DSA History

The Twin Cities DSA local has been meeting monthly for twenty years. Up until recently meeting at the home of the late Corbin Kidder, a founder of the local. Included here is an excerpt from the press release submitted to local Twin Cities papers in memorium:

Corbin Sherwood Kidder, 84, an ardent transit consumer advocate and active DFL member, died in Saint Paul on March 11. For over thirty years, Kidder served on Metro Transit's Advisory Committee on Transit and was, for six of those years, its Vice-Chair for Operations. Kidder also served on the Metropolitan Council's Transit Accessibility Advisory Committee. Transit for Livable Communities, and the local Sierra Club's Conservation Committee. He was the Transportation Chair of the Minnesota Senior Federation, where he also served as a Trustee and Member of the Board. Kidder was Vice-Chair of he Minnesota Railfans Association during the 1950's. In 1971, he joined the Minnesota Transportation Museum, continuing in this organization as a volunteer trolley operator until his death. Within the Transportation Museum, he was also Station Master at the Minnehaha Depot in Minneapolis from 1984 until his death.

Kidder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, raised on Staten Island, New York, and educated in New York and Washington DC. He completed 26 years of U.S. Army Active and Reserve service before retiring from the Minnesota National Guard in 1982. Discharged from service in World War II, he received a bachelor's degree from Penn State University and did graduate work in Industrial Psychology at the University of Minnesota. He was a Procedures Supervisor for Federal Cartridge Corporation, a System Analyst for Honeywell, and retired as Customer Quality Audit Instructor at Unisys in Saint Paul in 1981.

Kidder was a life-long and active member of the Democratic Party where he served as a Precinct Chair, Senate District Officer, and member of the Central Committee of the Saint Paul DFL and Minnesota State DFL. He was an early and active member of the DFL's Feminist Caucus and a member of the Board of Directors of the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action.

Kidder advocated for what he called the "12 major modes" of transit: buses, electric trolley buses, LRT, urban rail, commuter rail, ferries, inclines, jitneys, monorails, PRT, People Movers, cable cars. He was an inveterate bus rider who insisted that public transit routes be included in all meeting notices and who refused to attend meetings not accessible by public transit. He rode on the last trolley to Hopkins from Minneapolis in 1951, and later on the last cable car to Mahtomedi from Saint Paul.

Besides being a political and transit activist, Kidder served as Vestry Clerk of St. Philip's Episcopal Church, in Saint Paul, a parish he joined in 1963. He was earlier a Vestry member of Holy Trinity parish at the Episcopal Center of the University of Minnesota. He was an excellent home cook and photo hobbyist, and had an abiding interest in language.

German Sister Chapter

Our sister chapter
In the spirit of international cooperation, we have established a relationship with a chapter in Europe. The Dillingen-Innenstadt community local is our "sister" organization in Germany and is part of SPD-Saar.

A letter from our friends at SPD Dillingen Innenstadt
We received the following letter from Carsten Klein who is a member of the Executive Committee of the SPD Dillingen Innenstadt (which loosely translates into the City Center Chapter for Dillingen of the Social Democratic Party of Germany). It describes the history of the town of Dillingen and the role that the SPD has played there.

SPD Dillingen-Innenstadt:
Dillingen is a small city of 22,000 inhabitants in the Saarland state and can look back on a history of over 2000 years. It began as a gallic-roman settlement called Contiomagus, in what today is Pachten suburb. In 256/57 AD Contiomagus was destroyed by Franconians; in the 4th/5th century Roman rule was replaced by those of the Merowingians. In 1357 the city's old castle was mentioned for the first time, which today serves as a cultural center. In 1685, Ludwig XIV gave permission to the owner of the castle and ruler of Dillingen, the Marquis de Lenoncourt, to establish ironworks, steel plants and melts. This was the beginning of the development of 'Dillinger Huette' [steel mills] into a global enterprise, and is today the largest employer of the city with over 5000 employees.

Starting in 1766, the Dillingen citizens became subjects of the French king. Dillingen was elevated to a duchy in 1789 under the duchess Katarina Kest, the second wife of the sovereign of Nassau-Saarbruecken. The French revolution meant an early end to the duchy. In 1815, Dillingen, Diefflen and Pachten became Prussian. The rise of Dillingen to a modern city began at the end of the 19th century. As the supply of sheet metals from the iron works to the navy grew, so did the number of persons employed, and thus the number of inhabitants of Dillingen. After WWI Dillingen, as part of the 'Saargebiet' region, was under the administration of the League of Nations. 1919 saw, for the first time, a local chapter of the SPD, which in 1920 already had 120 members. The first chairman of the Dillingen SPD was Johann Schneiderloechner. In the same year the party garnered 10 seats in the Dillingen city council elections thereby becoming the strongest party. In 1923 the 'independent socialist party' split off. The years 1934/35 were characterized by the struggle of the so-called 'status quo' movement, consisting of Social Democrats, Communists (Dillingen was at the time a stronghold of the KPD) and a few catholic politicians against annexation of the Saarland state into Nazi Germany. In spite of this, over 90% of the Saarland residents followed the Nazi slogan "Heim ins Reich" [back home to the empire]. After the reintegration into the German Reich, Pachten became a suburb of Dillingen in 1936-not voluntarily. The antisemitic policies of the National Socialists found support also in Dillingen and its suburbs. In 1938 the local synagogue was burned down, and Jewish fellow citizens became victims of persecution. Some of the Dillingen Social Democrats were persecuted by the Nazis as well, such as Jakob Burger who was executed in 1944 for 'preparation for high treason and undermining of the military strength.' Today, the Jacob Burger Place reminds us of the fate of this Social Democrat. The designation took place on the initiative of the Dillingen Young Socialists. In WWII Dillingen suffered a high number of war-dead, evacuations, and the destruction of large parts of its industrial plants, public buildings and private homes.

In 1946 the SPD was refounded as the Social Democratic Party Saar, Dillingen local, under the chairmanship of Alois Scharf. In 1949 Dillingen received municipal rights. The following year resulted in a split within the Saarland Social Democrats, again over the issue of affiliation to Germany or autonomy. The SPS (Social Democratic Party Saar) supported the 'Saarstatut', meaning independence but with integration into the French economic area, whereas the DSP (German Social Democratic Party) supported reunification with Germany. Again, 2/3 of the Saarland citizenry opted for Germany. After the referendum, DSP and SPS were unified as SPD Saar. In 1969, Diefflen became a Dillingen suburb. In 1977 the Dillingen SPD was divided into 4, later 5, local chapters,i.e., Innenstadt [city center], Pachten, Ueberm Berg, Diefflen, and later North. To coordinate the local chapters, a local confederate committee was created whose first chairman was Dr. Rudi Peter. In 1984 a Social Democrat, Lothar Grund, became city manager and thus deputy to the mayor. In 1989 the SPD received 21 of the 39 city council seats; the absolute majority for the first time, which was repeated in 1994. In 1990 Dillingen celebrated its 2000th anniversary. In 1994 Erwin Planta, a Social Democrat, became mayor of the city for the first time. Large political projects of the Dillingen SPD in recent decades include the improvement of the Saar harbour,the redesign of the market place, the creation of a city bypass, the (internally controversial) establishment of an aluminium foundry, the realization of a bicycle traffic concept, and the promotion of renewable energy.

Two prominent Social Democrats are closely connected with Dillingen: Oskar Lafontaine, the former Saarland Prime Minister and SPD chairman, grew up in Pachten suburb; and Dr. Brunhilde Peter, the former Saarland minister, has been and still is politically active in Dillingen including being a former chair of the SPD Innenstadt local. Also noteworthy is Guenter Mittermueller, a long time party activist, who recently received the 'Freiherr-von-Stein' medal for his volunteer work in local government and the community. Today, with its 275 members the SPD Dillingen Innenstadt is the largest of the 5 Dillingen locals, and also the one with the largest membership in Saarlouis county. Since 2004, the SPD is again in the opposition in the city council; it has 14 members , the CDU (Christian Democrats) 20, the OEBL (Environmentalists) 3 and the FDP (Liberals) 2. The SPD Innenstadt has five delegates in the city council, the local's chairman is Christian Wein, the deputy leaders of the parliamentary group Guenter Mittermueller, Rita Lorenz, Carsten Klein, and Cesira Zumia Bologna. Likewise, the local is represented in the Saarlouis county council by Olaf Papesch; by Christian Wein in the SPD executive committee, with Ahmed Koektas in the county executive committee of the Young Socialists, and with Karsten Klein in the regional party council of the Young Socialists. Rita Lorenz also serves as chair of the Dillingen SPD women's caucus.

Current projects taken on by the local range from discussion of a 'Business Improvement District (BID), to a 'Hundertwasser Solar Park' project, a youth center in an old railway assembly hall, and integration related issues concerning the many Italian, Turkish, and German-Russian citizens of the town. In addition, the local supports efforts to preserve the city's west wall bunkers from WWII for reasons of historical documentation.

Hopefully, we will be able to accept your invitation to Minneapolis/St.Paul some time soon. In return, as a matter of course, we invite our American comrades to visit us in the Saarland anytime.

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Twin Cities DSA June Meeting-Monthly Meeting for brief business, discussion, and fellowship

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Twin Cities DSA History

German Sister Chapter

Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America

Twin Cities DSA on Facebook

Other Socialist and Progressive Links

Blog Archive

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Twin Cities DSA June Meeting-Monthly Meeting for brief business, discussion, and fellowship

0 comments:

Twin Cities DSA History

German Sister Chapter