Red Star’s NPC Newsletter - December 2024

Hello from Red Star! Curious what we’ve been up to on the NPC? Read on to find out!

NPC Meeting

The November 2024 NPC meeting passed a number of resolutions, including inauguration day actions and inviting working class organizations to the 2025 convention, but there are two big items that we want to highlight.

First, thanks to a tremendous effort from the Budget and Finance committee and our treasurer (and Red Star member) John, we have a 2025 budget! This is the first budget in recent memory that was passed before the year started. A sustainable and predictable budget is a solid foundation to support our ongoing organizing work.

The NPC also passed the Red Star authored resolution Strengthening and Expanding DSA, which directs DSA National to take specific actions towards retaining the members gained in the recent influx, strengthening organizational security, and preparing for the next Trump term.

Newly published

With the election over, we should reflect on the role of the Uncommitted NGO and the failure of Realignment within DSA. Uncommitted is Committed to the Democratic Party by Joseph H delves into these questions and more.

Plus, Sam H-L discusses the principle of abstraction in the history of computation and its parallel to Marx’s concept of the “commodity fetish”. Read his analysis On the Commodity Fetish of Computation in DSA’s Socialist Forum.

Convention Planning Committee Updates

Convention subcommittees are meeting this month in advance of the 2025 national convention. The subcommittees are: rules and elections, credentials, resolutions, programming, tech, and accessibility and operations. Members were selected from interested applicants late last month, and these first meetings mark the start of the convention season.

In all, more than 30 members from chapters across the country were chosen, who work in coordination with staff, the NPC, and the main convention planning committee itself. Soon, delegate apportionment will be decided, the process for submitting resolutions and amendments to the constitution and bylaws will be established, and speakers and other convention events will be announced. Visit the forum for more detailed reports from the committee co-chairs, and any and all announcements about the convention. 

Now reading…

Here’s a peek into what our NPC members are currently reading!

• John: Capital Vol 1 Newly Revised
• Megan: Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers' Band and How Black Power Transformed Soul Music by Rickey Vincent, and The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
• Sam: Love and Capital by Mary Gabriel and The Third Reich at War by Richard J. Evans

Recipe Corner! XMas Day (or Whenever) Strata from the Kitchen of Megan Romer

Yes, okay, technically it’s just another casserole, but this is the perfect brunch centerpiece for when you want a bunch of people to say “ooh ahh” but you don’t want to get up early to make it happen – you have to assemble it the night before or it’ll just be chewy and gross. Pulling it out of the oven just as a bunch of relatives roll in for Christmas morning is an absolute pro move, bonus points if you can get some wows despite the fact that you made it with various freezer detritus and other memories of meals past.

INGREDIENTS

• 8 cups of (ideally stale) bread or bread products, cubed or torn into 1-ish inch pieces
• 4 cups milk 
• 16 eggs
• 4 cups cheese, shredded
• Up to 4 cups assorted add-ins (we’ll get more detailed later)
• Seasoning to taste

1. Beat your eggs into your milk. Depending on what add-ins you’re going to use, you may want to season this part more or less. At the least, you for sure want some salt and pepper. You might also want some dijon mustard, chili crisp, various herbs and spices, whatever suits you – a couple of tablespoons is plenty.

2. Put ⅓ of your bread into a buttered/PAMmed 8”x11” casserole dish, or any sort of bakeable container that’ll hold about the amount that you’re cooking.

3. Top the bread with ⅓ of your add-ins and ⅓ of your cheese.

4. Pour ⅓ of the egg mixture over the top.

5. Do this twice more until all the stuff is in the dish.

6. Cover it all and let it sit in the fridge overnight, at least 8-10 hours, probably no more than 24 for food safety reasons.

7. Preheat the oven to 350, and take the casserole out of the fridge and let it sit on the stovetop while you’re preheating, to help it come to room temperature.

8. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until it stops wiggling and the top is brown and beautiful.

A NOTE ON ADD-INS:

This is the actual important part. All your add-ins should be cooked and cooled before assembly, though it’s fine if they’re frozen. You can get extremely wild here, but a good basic go-to is a cup of cubed ham, an onion chopped and sautéed until brown, and a bag of frozen broccoli florets or spinach or both (if you use frozen spinach, make sure you squeeze liquid out). I have done really deliberate versions, like a huevos rancheros-style version with chorizo and black beans and red peppers, or a nice version with pancetta and roasted butternut squash and wild mushrooms, and I have also done messy mixes of whatever’s in the fridge. Bacon’s good, just make sure you cool and drain it. Meatless is fine too, of course. I made one once with leftover char siu pork and garlic broccoli, it rocked. Mark Bittman does a version with lox and capers and cream cheese. It works fine gluten-free, and you can literally use whatever bread products you have – stale crackers, tortillas, whatever. I like to keep a bag in the freezer to toss stale heels of bread in for stratas and stuffing, but you can also just buy a loaf of cheap french bread at the store and cut it up and leave it loosely covered overnight, or just toast slices, and it’ll work fine.

A NOTE ON CHEESE:

Pick cheese that goes well with your add-ins. Medium cheddar goes fine with pretty much everything. I lean toward harder cheeses but you can also crumble in feta or goat cheese. Or mix them – half a bag of shredded taco cheese, a weird old overly-hard wedge of gouda, three slices of sandwich provolone, literally it’s fine, just ideally get something that’ll melt and brown in that top layer, at least.

Further discussion

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