by Max Barry

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Region: Democratic Socialist Assembly



Community Magazine of The Democratic Socialist Assembly

Special Tenth Anniversary Edition


Hello People of the DSA!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is April 7th, 2021. Today we as a region celebrate our 10th anniversary! As part of the celebrations, I have been tasked to chronicle our history, relearn the significance of our existence, and rejoice in our achievements. Before we can begin, I'd like to take a look at the DSA by the numbers:

1. The Democratic Socialist Assembly was established on April 7th, 2011.
2. Our current population numbers 172 nations, at the time of this publication.
3. The highest ever population count, 512 nations, was recorded on April 25th, 2020.
4. The lowest ever population count, 157 nations, was recorded on August 13th, 2017.
5. The longest-running period of growth, which I consider to be a population count of 250 or more, was from September 30th, 2017 to September 21st, 2020. (That is almost 3 years of solid growth!)
6. In the 10 years of our existence, we have passed 117 pieces of internal legislation. From Charter Amendments to Commendations, we pass an average of 12 legislative bills per year.
7. From Cryptoids lurking in our borders to expeditions to the Edge of the World, we have had no less than 18 major roleplaying events in the last 3 years alone.
8. Our longest-serving, active government official is Student Loan Debt He has served an astonishing 14 cabinets. He is currently serving as Director of Cartography, Director of Community Affairs, Director of Sports Leagues, and Administrator Emeritus.

As you can see, we have been quite active in our 10-year history. If you'd like to know the history of the place, please visit the next section.

The History of the DSA

The following has been compiled by myself, using what others have already done as a reference point. Please note: This Section is under review.

The Great Split

The Great Split is an event that occurred in early April 2011. Originally our region was part of another. The Mother Region was called the Democratic Socialist Alliance. Around that time, a dispute boiled over in total anarchy. The dispute was over the newly made Embassy Feature in the NationStates platform. The WA Delegates and the founder of the DSAlliance, Cynthia McKinney, were fighting over control of the feature. Fractures began to emerge long before this with each nation duking it out over simple procedures. The was such that WA Delegate would create an embassy, and McKinney would delete it and create her own. Not only did this sow confusion in those outside the DSAlliance, but also served to widen the rifts already present.

The height of the conflict came when McKinney removed the powers of the WA Delegates. This caused an uproar in the region, with the WA Delegates claiming McKinney breached the Charter and had become a Dictator; and with McKinney and her supporters claiming that the region founder was the only one you should have the power to create embassies. Notably, She claimed that the Executive WA Delegate, Bazlantis, was in direct violation of the Charter. Moreover, she claimed that she was justified in the removal of the WA Delegate powers.

The end of the conflict occurred on April 7th, 2011, when Opalaland created the DSAssembly with the help of Bazlantis. With its creation, Opalaland took over half of the DSAlliance with her.

The Christmas Coup and the Second Exodus

Following the events of the Great Split, McKinney allowed her nation to cease to exist or CTE. While this left the DSAlliance open to attack by raiders, this also allowed those that remained to establish a post-McKinney future. They began at once to create a new charter. This one would include checks and balances to stop McKinney from happening again. Sometime later, they reestablished relations with the DSAssembly and the SLU. Talks were even being held to create a regional alliance between all three regions. Sadly, this golden age was not meant to be.

Sometime in December 2012, an election being disputed by several of McKinney's former supporters. It was then that McKinney was stirred from her slumber. Seeing the changes that were made in her absence, she began a campaign of terrorizing the members of the DSAlliance. Arguments erupted on the regional message board. She would eject members that disagreed with her and then briefly move her nation to The Internationale. She would then come back to the region and banject anyone that disagreed with her, stating that they were disrespecting the Founder. McKinney claimed several times that the Charter was void because she didn't agree to the changes, even though there was Charter Amendments stating the contrary.

The conflict reached it's peak around New Years Eve 2012, when McKinney banjected the entire elected government, including the democratically elected WAD Delegate, Conpatraia. She claimed that the region was invaded by foreign forces. The only nation which was still in the government was Gullud. We can only speculate that this was an oversight because his position as ambassador was not yet posted on the WFE. The WA Delegacy was stripped of their powers and also banjected. McKinney closed all of the embassies and reopened them with ones of her choosing. The Ambassadors that protested, like the representatives for SLU, were also banjected.

These actions led to the drafting of a Security Council Condemnation by the members of the DSAssembly. The resolution ultimately failed to garner enough support, but the DSAssembly made sure their voices were heard. Within the DSAlliance itself, nations that spoke out were threatened with banjection. Under this tyrannical rule, the population of the region declined rapidly. Many of the departing nations would find refuge in the DSAssembly.

To this day, the DSAssembly has yet to recover. It remains a former shell of what it could have been.

The Ivory Years

Over the next few years, the DSAssembly (from here on referred to just as the DSA), grew and became a vibrant online political community. We flourished under new leadership and made new laws to strengthen and democratized the Charter. In the worlds of a real-life Constitution: we were forming a "more perfect union." However, a group of radicals came to nest in our region.

This group was led by the one we call Ivory Rohdes. He and his ilk believed that the DSA should be run like a political science major's fever dream. They trafficked in bullying, consternation, and apathy. Several members of the DSA choose the leave the toxic environment, vowing never to return. They themselves were a contradiction, believing that all leftist groups should come together (even the authoritarians), and yet peddling in thinly veiled transphobia. The region has to suffer their kind for over three years.

Given this circumstance, some good things actually came out of this time. Toward the end, roleplayer participation was at an all-time high. We were negotiating peace with many regions and had become a founding member of the NSLeft Alliance. This alliance was the pinnacle of Pan-Leftist unity. Give the real-world outbreak of Right-wing Authoritarianism, to the members of the DSA, it felt like a natural step. Good things do come to an end, however. Ivory and his groupies subverted the natural course of order within the NSLeft Alliance. They got themselves elected into positions of power within the Alliance. It should be noted that while a lot of services are free, Ivory paid for several serves for the DSA, like a special forum, to help us.

Toward the end of the Ivory Years, many voices of dissension were raised. The community at large became displeased with the running of the simulation. Ivory didn't like anyone with a differing point of view, going so far as to ejected several members on trumped-up charges. This would only lead to further dissent. Eventually, Ivory and his people lost all their power through hard-fought democratic elections. With his loss, he announced that he would no longer be active within the region. This would be only the beginning of the trauma.

The Post-Ivory Period

With the Groupies gone, the following cabinets began the process of de-Ivorizing the government and Charter. Through several successful charter amendments, the balance of power was once again firmly held within the hands of Congress. For the most part, Ivory would keep his promise, though occasionally popping up to debate the usefulness of eliminating certain parts of the charter. Without Ivory, his people lost power as well.

With the government secured, the trauma began to dissipate. The community itself, having suffered terribly before, began to get more assertive. It was noted at this time, that the community was distinctly leaning toward the roleplayer end, with several members of the government itself expressing a preference to abolishing the Charter and indeed the whole political aspect of NationStates. Several times, members of the old Guard would crop up and talk about the need for a political system. Some would become so dissatisfied that they would leave the region altogether. Several of the old Guard stayed, instead opting for dual citizenship with other regions.

The Great Schism, the Impeachment of the Entire Cabinet, and the Great Migration

For this, I will directly quote the judgment handed down by the Republic of Xingal:

'The Impeachment procedure was first set into motion by former Minister of Justice, Daophi, after a controversial Cabinet decision on April 9th, 2019. All dates used in this ruling are based on GMT time.

On April 9th, a debate in the Real-Life channel of the old DSA Discord led to MoC Mauvemarke temporarily leaving said Discord. In a closed-door Cabinet vote, Cabinet decided that Discord members Gribelt, The Illyrian States, and Misley are to be excluded from the channel in question, the former two for a week, the latter permanently due to a repeat offense. The verdict was “extraordinary misconduct” as defined by the Administrative Omnibus Act (AOA).

In the ensuing argument in the Congress-channel, many felt that the parties in question had mocked Mauvemarke, who had temporarily left the Discord. Others, including the punished parties, voiced their displeasure with the Cabinet decision, sparking the first in a long line of heated debates that would carry on for the next few days. An Impeachment recommendation was then handed out by former MoJ Daophi and published on the Discord as well as the official DSA forum, concluding that Cabinet overstepped its boundaries by excluding the members listed above from the channel.

The AOA was used by Cabinet as the basis for punishment of Gribelt, The Illyrian States, and Misley. The AOA, or the 63rd Amendment to the Charter, aims to “strengthen the administrative response to extraordinary events and formalize previously informal administrative structures in the DSA” and, among other things, outlines what courses of action Cabinet can take in the case of violations against Discord rules.

Sanction is clearly what was intended by the actions taken by Cabinet. It was, however, executed poorly and resulted in former MoJ Daophi arguing that Cabinet overstepped their boundaries by stripping the parties in question of their right to post in Real Life Channel. The basis for this argument is that the parties in question were not stripped of all roles aside from pronoun roles and given different roles limiting their access to certain channels, but simply stripped of their access to the channel the violation happened in. This, however, is a failing in procedure which renders the punishment null and void, but not an overstep of privileges since sanctioning is a privilege granted to Cabinet via Charter.

This action caused most Cabinet members, except for President Student Loan Debt, Minister of Justice Daophi, and Minister of Domestic Affairs Dekks to step down from their posts and sparked a heated debate involving most of the Discord. It further led to unrest as well as several MoCs, including former President and Administrator Emeritus Ivory Rhodes as well as the originally punished nations Gribelt and The Illyrian States leaving the DSA, the latter over a disagreement with a proposal made by Dankass Communes to improve the Discord server and quicken the speed at which misconduct could be punished.

It also led to the unilateral closure of the original DSA Discord by Ivory Rhodes as well as the creation of another server. Ultimately, former MoJ Daophi also stepped down from their post and left the Discord server.

Post Ivory Crisis

In the waning days of 2019 and into early 2020, we experienced the last throws of Ivory's gang. Having been a signatory for NSLeft for many years, the DSA community began to see tensions rise between us and the other signatories. Our community takes a hard look at those who we define as "Tankies', a sometimes derogatory word used to describe left authoritarianists. After the expulsion of several members of this group by our Discord Moderator, Dankass Communes, several regions closed embassies with us. Notably, The Internationale and Social Liberal Union or SLU claimed that their Moderation bordered on authoritarianism, and "perverting the rule of law." They claimed that we were abandoning the principles of the NSLeft Pact. In response, the Community voted on a bill to leave the NSLeft Pact, which we had felt was run by ex-Ivory thugs. Ultimately the bill would fail to reach a supermajority. NSLeft unanimously voted for us the be expelled from the Pact.

Post Migration Period

Since the closure of the original discord and the final farewell of Ivory, the DSA has reinvented itself. After suffering such trauma at the hands of so few, the community has taken a more active role in governing. We have further democratized the government, moving even to eliminate the position of President. The Ministeries are now transitioned over to Councils. Overall we have finally reached some stabilization.

Forum Links

For those who wish to view a list of major roleplaying events, please visit our forum:

https://thedsa.proboards.com/board/14/major-rp-events

Feel free to visit our forum for much more information:

https://thedsa.proboards.com/

From Your Counciler of Domestic Affairs: La Pays De Soliel
Read dispatch

Its finally done!

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