DSA stands in unwavering solidarity with the students across Columbia, Yale, NYU, Vanderbilt, Cal Poly, University of Michigan and the dozens of rapidly developing encampments at campuses across the country. The victories of the student movement are incumbent upon the victories and wins of Palestinian student groups, and we pledge to fight alongside them for a free Palestine as they face increasingly unprecedented repression from the state. These wins are a precedent for our movement as a whole, and follow a decades-long tradition of students putting their bodies on the line to stop the ravages of imperialism and the military-industrial complex, such as the movements against the Vietnam War, South African apartheid, and the Iraq War.

We support the righteous message of protesters at the encampments. We call on our comrades to support efforts nationwide to force universities to divest from the Zionist occupation and call on the United States government to cease all aid to Israel. Where protests appear, we’ll appear in numbers. Where repression looms, we’ll show up and protect the whole. Where support is needed, we’ll be a support.

As socialists, we must not lose sight of our fight for the urgent stop to the genocide in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. We commend the student movement on re-igniting the streets and we will fight by their side, shoulder to shoulder, to force all our institutions to divest from the Zionist settler colonial project, end all aid and arms to Israel, and for the complete and full liberation of Palestine.

*Laws vary by state, and we encourage event organizers and participants to contact your local region of the National Lawyers Guild for guidance on how to protect protesters.

The post Solidarity with the Student Movement and the Gaza Solidarity Encampments appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

East Bay State Senate primary sets up rematch between big money and DSA-backed Beckles

In late October, 2018, East Bay DSA members and other progressives organized a pre-election rally at a Berkeley High School auditorium. A wildly cheering crowd of several thousand came to hear Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Barbara Lee.  Welcoming everyone to the event was 34 year old Jesse Arreguin, who was backed by Sanders when he ran for mayor of Berkeley two years before. 

On the platform with them was Jovanka Beckles, a former Richmond City Council member then running—with backing from DSA, Sanders, and Lee—for a State Assembly seat against a corporate Democrat named Buffy Wicks. As the SF Bayview reported, Arreguin’s “repeated mention of Jovanka’s name evoked prolonged chants and a standing ovation for JO-VAN-KA!”

When the two appear on stage again this fall, Arreguin won’t be leading cheers for Beckles. That’s because they are now competing to represent Senate District 7, covering 850,000 residents of Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond, and smaller East Bay communities.

That contest to replace State Senator Nancy Skinner has already become one of the most expensive in the state.   Super PACs funded by Uber, Lyft, PG&E, McDonalds, associations of builders, realtors, and landlords, plus the Correctional Officers union spent millions on mass mailings and TV ads to insure Arreguin’s March 5 primary victory. 

In an East Bay echo of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Democratic presidential primary positioning versus Sanders, Arreguin attributed his first-place finish to “a track record of not just being a strong progressive advocate, but getting things done. My approach to leadership is to be progressive and pragmatic.” (emphasis added) 

As CR noted in its last issue, Richmond—Beckles’ home base—is “the only city in the United States with a DSA-endorsed city council majority,” thanks to twenty years of grassroots electoral work by the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA). So EBDSA volunteers joined forces with RPA, other community groups, Our Revolution, Teamsters Joint Council 7, the ILWU, and ATU Local 192 to build a small donor-based grassroots campaign that raised $170,000 for its candidate.

 Labor Candidate Competition

Currently an elected member of the AC Transit Board and a retired Teamster, Beckles placed second in a field of five Democrats and one Republican.  (Arreguin got 32% of the vote, while she received nearly 18%.) Among those who lost were Dan Kalb, an Oakland City Councilor, who raised twice as much as Beckles, and Kathryn Lybarger, a heavily-funded first-time candidate little known outside labor circles.

Lybarger is president of the 2.3 million-member California Labor Federation and top officer of a big UC-system campus workers union affiliated with AFSCME. The latter spent a reported $1.9 million on her disappointing fourth-place finish, while other AFL-CIO unions, along with SEIU, generated nearly $500,000 in direct donations for her. (Despite his own $200,000 worth of building trades donations, Arreguin had the chutzpah to complain about this “special interest” spending on Lybarger by other unions!)

According to multiple sources, Lybarger’s campaign relied too heavily on local union officials, their paid staffers, and a controversial political consulting firm. Its founder is a Sacramento lobbyist who has worked not only for unions but also for Chevron and other foes of California property tax reform. (This bad move was reminiscent of Wick’s campaign use of a San Francisco consultant whose past clients  have included Airbnb and, in 2018,  the city’s Chamber of Commerce.)

In the East Bay, some young workers like Antonio Gomez decided that Lybarger was not their preferred labor candidate. Gomez first got involved in electoral politics as a community college student in Stockton. After moving to Oakland to be closer to a job in Walnut Creek, he learned about Beckles’ campaign from social media posts by the EBDSA electoral committee.  Even though not yet a DSA member, he liked what he saw on Jovanka’s website and decided to canvass for her throughout the district. “It was a scramble,” he says. “Everybody else spent all that money. But, at the end of the day, it’s knocking on doors that gets results.”

That’s an opinion shared by Beckles’ campaign manager, Otto Pippinger, who coordinated a crew of well-trained and highly motivated volunteers like Gomez. “Progressive campaigns don’t come easy,” Pippinger says. “They depend on tireless outreach—in countless personal conversations at the doors and on the phone.”

A Rematch Against Big Money

The SD-7 primary outcome sets up a re-match between Beckles and some of the same corporate interests whose unlimited spending prevailed six years ago in AD-15, when Beckles lost to Wicks by a 54 to 46 percent margin. A former director of Hillary Clinton’s Super-PAC, Priorities USA Action, Wicks now represents AD-14 and favors Arreguin. For more on the $3 million worth of independent expenditures (IEs) and direct donations that enabled big business to buy an Assembly seat for Wicks in 2018, see this still informative EBDSA website, https://buffywicks.money/.

Pundits from Politico to local commentator Steven Tavares agree that in, the latter’s words, Beckles “faces an uphill battle against Arreguin, who will have nearly every aspect of a campaign on his side—endorsements, fundraising, powerful IEs, and most unions.” By that Tavares means more conservative labor organizations—affiliated with state and local building trades councils and the Northern California Council of Carpenters. They’ve already spent heavily on Arreguin, along with employers in their industry.

The Berkeley mayor comes with his own family ties to organized labor, via the United Farm Workers (UFW). He is the son of farm workers and was mentored, as a ten-year old, by legendary UFW leader Dolores Huerta (who has endorsed him). By age 20, Arreguin was an elected member of the Rent Stabilization Board in Berkeley. Four years later, he was elected to the city council. At age 32, he beat a business-backed candidate for mayor by portraying her as someone “in the pocket of developers, real estate interests, and landlords.”

Ironically, that’s how local critics view Arreguin today. As Jack Kurzweil, a retired engineering professor at San Jose State and officer of Berkeley’s Wellstone Democratic Club told me: “Jesse’s become an obstacle to everything pushed by the progressive community. After getting elected, he did a 180 degree turn on development and housing. He went from extremely conservative NIMBY politics to becoming a conservative YIMBY in the blink of an eye.” (Arreguin prefers not to use such "pejorative acronyms,” he told Business Insider three years ago when interviewed about his evolving views on housing.)

A Fighter from Richmond

Working in Beckles favor, Tavares believes, is the fact that she’s “a fighter and hands-down more progressive than Arreguin.” Ten years ago, running for a second term on the Richmond City Council, Beckles and her fellow RPA candidates (one of whom is now mayor) overcame $3 million in corporate spending against them and in favor of a pro-Chevron slate. That media blitz was funded by the city’s biggest employer, its building trades allies, the Richmond police and fire-fighters’ unions, a story told in Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City.

After the SD-7 primary in March, Beckles was endorsed by former State Assembly member Andre Swanson from Oakland, the only other African-American in the race. In early April, she won the backing of U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, a House champion for labor law reform, Medicare for All, and the Green New Deal, who is a leading critic of corporate PAC influence in politics. 

Within the labor movement, Beckles is seeking to expand her base of support by signing up more small donors, volunteers, and individual endorsers here. She is also wooing the local unions and central labor bodies that backed Lybarger in the SD-7 primary or, in the case of NUHW, remained neutral. Most of them—like the UAW, CNA, SEIU, CWA, CFT and CTA—endorsed and donated to Beckles general election campaign against Wicks six years ago. 

Lybarger’s own AFSCME Local 3299 was among those labor allies then. At the time, she hailed Beckles—a Panamanian immigrant and fellow union member—as someone “strongly aligned with our values and so representative of our members…We are utterly confident that she will continue to fight for us when she gets to Sacramento.” So far, AFSCME has yet to make a similar post-primary endorsement of Beckles in this year’s senate race. (Lybarger did not respond to several email requests seeking comment for this story.)

An Under-Represented Working Class

Whether a labor candidate rises like Lybarger, from being a UC-Berkeley gardener to statewide union leader, or remains a rank-and-filer, like Beckles did, during her career as a child protection worker for Contra Costa County, winning election to public office is not easy.

Successful candidates for the legislature tend to have professional, managerial, or ownership class backgrounds, with accompanying personal affluence or ties to others with greater wealth. They leverage their law, business, consulting, or incumbent office-holder connections to build big campaign war chests, filled with contributions from industry associations, corporate PACs, and wealthy individuals. With far greater ease than any blue-collar or service sector worker, they can take time off to campaign, particularly if they’re already on the public payroll as an “elected.”

Due to class and race-based disadvantages, only 116 out of 7,400 state legislators in the entire country come from working class backgrounds, according to a recent academic study. Just 2% of the Democrats and 1% of Republican legislators “currently or last worked in manual labor, service industry, clerical, or labor union jobs.” 

Amanda Litman, who recruits young progressives to run for office, says this data confirms “it’s really hard for people who aren’t already rich—or already independently wealthy, have rich partners or rich families—to enter politics. And the gatekeepers at the state level have typically recruited candidates who were safe bets, which is a candidate who can independently raise money.”

Uber’s Safe Bet

Business-backed front groups—with names like JobsPAC, Housing Providers for Responsible Solutions, and the Keep California Golden Ad Hoc Committee—definitely view Arreguin as their safest bet in Sacramento. While these corporate funders were demonizing and drowning out Lybarger’s pro-worker message, some also paid for unauthorized mailers touting Beckles, on the apparent theory that she would be a weaker general election opponent against Arreguin.

According to Tavares, a veteran political reporter in the Bay Area, Arreguin’s corporate funders conducted “a master class in negative campaigning that bordered on character assassination,”  One of their main smears against Lybarger involved public safety. A glossy mailer from the JobsPAC, a “Bi-Partisan Coalition of California Employers,” painted her as “too extreme” for the East Bay because she “put the community at greater risk” by “calling for defunding local police.” 

According to this hit piece—paid for by Uber, McDonalds, the California Building Industry Association, and other big donors—Arreguin has a “blueprint for safety” that involves “work[ing] with law enforcement to keep families safe” and better reflects true “progressive leadership.”  Anti-union Uber alone spent at least $250,000 on pro-Arreguin messaging like this, while buying $800,000 worth of negative ads and mailers against Lybarger, according to the San Jose Mercury News.  

Healthcare and Housing Differences

To counter a similar propaganda offensive against her this Fall, Beckles will try to shift the debate to voter concerns about healthcare and housing (which Arreguin cites as his “number one issue”). To make medical coverage universal and more affordable, she has long supported a single payer system. Arreguin is backed by the Political Action Committee of the California Medical Association, which does not favor replacing job-based medical insurance with a government-run universal healthcare program of any type.

The candidates are also likely to clash over rent control, given Arreguin’s backing by the California Apartment Association and California Realtors Association.  The Tenants Union in Berkeley, which endorsed Beckles in the primary, argues that the mayor is “a danger to tenants, affordable housing, and every progressive issue.” In contrast, Beckles will have the chance to champion a ballot initiative that would, among other reforms, abolish current state-wide restrictions on the ability of cities like Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland to expand the scope of their existing rent control measures. (Arreguin did not respond to a CR request for clarification of his position on this.)

In early April, Beckles joined housing activists at a two-day strategy session in Los Angeles that included Sanders, Khanna, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and Michael Weinstein, whose AIDs Healthcare Foundation (AHF) helped get rent control expansion on the ballot again. (It was defeated in 2018 and 2020.) "There are 17 million renters in California—that's 45% of the population," Weinstein reminded the group. He called the Justice for Renters campaign “a battle for the poor and working-class people” who find housing in the state increasingly unaffordable.

Beckles is also the candidate most opposed to the Biden Administration sending billions of dollars to the Israeli military at a time when there are so many unmet social and economic needs in the East Bay. Throughout months of turmoil on the Berkeley City Council, Arreguin has blocked passage of a pro-cease fire resolution—quite a departure from the city’s past official stances on controversial foreign policy issues.

Looking ahead to November, Beckles sees the general election in SD-7 as a contest “between a corporate-free and a corporate-funded candidate”—with her campaign being labor’s only hope of stopping big business from buying another seat in the legislature. It will be up to Beckles’ supporters who belong to unions—which bet heavily on Lybarger and lost—to remind their leaders that the fight is not over. Otherwise, organized labor in the East Bay will be handing a second-round victory to arch-enemies like Uber.

On March 9, 2024, the California DSA State Council adopted a ballot measure slate proposal for three state-wide ballot measures centered on housing as the organization’s first state-wide Priority Campaign. Titled the Affordable, Rent-Controlled Housing (ARCH) Campaign, this proposal was developed following months of research by the CA DSA Ballot Measure Working Group whose membership included comrades from multiple DSA chapters in California. The ARCH Campaign includes the following state-wide ballot measures:

1. Prohibit State Limitations on Local Rent Control Initiative (2024)
   This ballot measure would overturn a 1995 California law called the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Costa-Hawkins dramatically limits the scope of rent control laws in the state and has three main provisions: First, landlords cannot be prohibited from raising the rent of a unit to “market rate” once a tenant vacates. Second, rent control in CA must exempt condominium and single-family units. Third, rent control cannot apply to units built after 1995, or earlier if a city had already enacted rent control.

2. Remove Voter Approval Requirement for Public Low-Rent Housing Projects Amendment (2024)
   Article 34 is a part of the California state Constitution that requires voter approval to build public housing. This explicitly racist and anti-socialist provision was written by the California Association of Realtors, who argued that voters should be able to prevent the construction of housing, and by extension the influx of nonwhite residents who threatened their neighborhoods and property values. Article 34 passed with a very slim majority, but its impacts have been massive.

3. Lower Supermajority Requirement to 55% for Local Special Taxes to Fund Housing and Public Infrastructure Amendment (2024)
   The infrastructure “special tax threshold” refers to California laws that require taxes allocated for specific purposes to be passed by voters with a two-thirds margin. This ballot measure would reduce that threshold to 55% for affordable housing and infrastructure projects. 

It is no secret that the cost of housing in California is unaffordable, but we did not get here by accident. Our current reality is the result of decades of policy meant to strip the working class of wealth and redirect it towards the capitalist class. This November, California voters will have the opportunity to reverse some of these disastrous pieces of legislation at the ballot box.

Those interested in signing up can do so by submitting the CA DSA Ballot Measure Working Group Interest Form.

For local chapters that would like to get involved with this campaign, our campaign working group has created this sample resolution. Members in their local chapters can decide to submit this proposal in accordance with their local bylaws and endorsement processes. 

May 1 Events Across the Golden State

International Workers Day is approaching, and socialists and union activists are ramping up for events around California. As is often the case, the celebrations are joined with ongoing struggles for justice on a number of fronts. Below are the events that we know about. There may be more! For background on why we celebrate May Day, go here. 

For a fun pre-May Day event, City College of San Francisco’s Rosenberg Library is holding a reception for a May Day graphic art exhibit by noted artist Jos Sances. These graphics were created for the video documentary We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day. Come to the reception Tuesday afternoon, April 30, 4 pm, at the fourth-floor exhibit space in the Rosenberg Library.  Artist and filmmaker in attendance!

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Los Angeles

LA May Day Coalition 
Starting Location:  6100 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90028
Ending Location:  6927 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028

*The route is a little over one mile so please plan accordingly.

2 p.m. Rally near Sunset and Gower 
3 p.m. March Begins
4 p.m. Program near Hollywood and Highland

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San Diego

Hospitality Workers fighting for a minimum wage! 

San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council, SEIU, IATSE 122, UNITE HERE Local 30
Starting Location: San Diego Bayfront Park (corner of Gull St. and Park Blvd.)
Ending Location: San Diego Civic Center
4 p.m. - March from Bayfront Park

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Bay Area

(Three events — look for the Bay Area Labor for Palestine banner)

SF Jobs With Justice
Starting Location: 24th Street BART Plaza
10 a.m. March
2 p.m. Rally

San Francisco Labor Council, UNITE HERE Local 2, SEIU 87
Starting Location: 415 Mission Street
Ending Location: Port of Oakland
2 pm   March
4 pm   Rally 

Oakland Sin Fronteras
Starting Location: 1301 Clay street, Oakland Federal Building
Ending Location: West Oakland BART
2 pm   Rally and March
4 pm   Port of Oakland Shutdown

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San Jose

South Bay Labor Council
Starting Location: Roosevelt Park, 901 E. Santa Clara Street
Ending Location: Plaza de Cesar Chavez, 194 S. Market Street
4 pm - Rally

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Inland Empire

SEIU 2015, IEDSA, community organizations
Starting Location: 17080 Arrow Blvd., Fontana
10 am - begin march

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Sacramento

Sacramento Labor Council, SEIU 2015, SEIU 1000, UAW Region 6, UAW 2350, UNITE HERE, community organizations
Starting Location: State Capitol, 10th Street, between L&N
10 am - street mural community action

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For more info: California Labor Federation

DSA San Diego has endorsed Power San Diego, a ballot measure to move the City of San Diego to its own municipal electric utility.

The measure is currently gathering signatures to qualify for the November 2024 ballot. DSA members are helping gather signatures, including at some of the events you can find on the Power San Diego Events Calendar. The signature gathering has a deadline of May 7th, so sign as soon as you can!

Find out more about the work our chapter is doing on Energy Democracy.

In this episode, we sit with Dr. Tim Conder and Dr. Daniel Rhodes of the Black Mountain School of Theology and Community to discuss a marxist, community-centered mode of theological research, organizing, and education. Visit their website at https://blackmountainschool.org

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 4/23 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Mutual Aid Priority Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, 4/24 (6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): DSA SF Karaoke Night at TaishoSF (In person at TaishoSF, 1161 Post Street)

Thursday, 4/25 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity Working Group (Zoom)

Friday, 4/26 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, April 27 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Extreme Dean Door Knock Mobilization (Meet at Kimbell Playground at the corner of Geary and Steiner St.)

Sunday, April 28 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Jackie Fielder Campaign Mobilization (Meet at Coleridge Park)

Sunday, April 28 (1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.): May Day 4 Palestine Art Build (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Tuesday, April 30 (1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): SFMTA Hearing – Stop the MUNI Fare Increase (In person at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 400, Floor 4)

Wednesday, May 1 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): International Workers Day March and Rally (Meet at 24th St. BART)

Wednesday, May 1 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour at Zeitgeist (In person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, May 2 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity Working Group (Zoom)

Thursday, May 2 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Ecosocialist Monthly Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, May 2 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, May 3 (12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, May 4 (10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Jackie Fielder Campaign Mobilization (Location TBD)

Saturday, May 4 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Sock Distro (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events/ for more events.

Events & Actions

DSA SF Endorses Jackie Fielder for District 9 Supervisor!

We are excited to endorse Jackie Fielder for District 9 Supervisor! A Democratic Socialist, renter, water protector, and climate advocate, Jackie is dedicated to social housing, community safety, and a public bank. Join us to get Jackie to City Hall! We’ll have mobilization events every weekend leading up to election day, so keep an eye out for opportunities to lend a hand.

Extreme Dean Door Knock Mobilization on Sunday, 4/27

We’ll be having a mobilization this Saturday, April 27th starting at 10:00 a.m. at the Raymond Kimbell Playground on the corner of Geary and Steiner Street. The voters we’ve talked to love Dean’s record of tenant protections and taxing the wealthy to provide funds for affordable housing, and we’re hoping to reach even more people to get Dean re-elected so he can continue to deliver results for tenants! Join us and show the billionaires that just like Dean, San Francisco is for the people, not the powerful!

Jackie Fielder Campaign Mobilization at Coleridge Park!

Join us this Sunday, April 28th for a mobilization for Jackie Fielder’s campaign at Coleridge Park at 10:00 a.m.! We’ll be getting the word out for District 9’s future socialist-in-office.

Organizing for Power: Core Fundamentals Training Registration Closes Friday!

Registration for the Organizing for Power: Core Fundamentals training is closing  this Friday, April 26th! This training focuses on how working people can use the strength of our numbers to build majority-led disciplined structures that come together around shared goals and win campaigns in our workplace, including:

• leader identification: understanding who can move people, and that it’s often not who you first think;
• semantics: recognizing that the words we use matter – they must center each worker’s active participation as key to winning;
• structured organizing conversations: preparing what it takes to win over the hardest-to-move leaders;
• charting: incorporating a simple method to understand human social relationships, and to prioritize and systematize outreach;
• structure tests: developing mini campaigns to build solidarity and site structure, and to know when you are ready to win.

If you’re interested in learning how to become a better organizer, register using the form below!

Spring Socials with DSA SF

Come hang out with your friendly neighborhood socialists this spring! For the next few months we will be having a variety of outings and you are invited – be sure to mark your calendars and watch this space for more details! Our next event is a karaoke night at TaishoSF this Wednesday, April 24th from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and we can’t wait to see you there!

The 2024 Chapter Convention is Coming Soon!

It’s all hands on deck as we prepare for the 2024 Chapter Convention this June 15th and 16th! Here are some handy reminders for the next few weeks to help you get ready.

• Nominations for Steering and Grievance Officers are open! Submit your nominations here. Nominations will remain open until the May 8th chapter meeting, and elections will be held at the convention in June.
• April 24th – Deadline to submit bylaws amendments for voting at Convention
• April 28th – Deadline to submit priority resolutions for feedback from Steering
• May 1st – Pre-Convention Info Session and Workshop #2
• May 8th – May Chapter Meeting
  • This is the deadline to submit priority resolutions to steering
  • Bylaws amendments concerning voting at Convention must be read to the chapter for consideration at this meeting.
  • Annual reportbacks from all chapter bodies
  • Nominations close for Steering Committee and Grievance Officers
  • First reading on proposed bylaws amendments
• May 16th – Deadline to notify all members of the upcoming convention

Tenant Organizing Movie Night Boom: The Sound of Eviction

Join the DSA SF Tenant Organizing Working Group for our next movie night on Saturday, May 11th at 5:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister! We’ll be watching Boom: The Sound of Eviction. While our city’s rulers and the fawning media celebrated the Dot-Com Boom of the ‘90s, the reality was different for thousands of tenants who were evicted or priced out. From the dot-com party crashing at one end of the economic spectrum to painful moments with evicted families at the other, this documentary features interviews with dot-com workers, real estate developers, and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, as well as those who challenged the new economic order through community organizing, electoral politics, and direct action.

This event is free and open to the public, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Kickball(s) for Abortion Access on May 18th

Connect with your neighbors on Saturday, May 18th at 1:00 p.m. while raising money for abortion access!

San Franciscans don’t need to be reminded that the struggle for bodily autonomy is universal. Or, that when someone is denied an abortion it’s more than a hardship for the individual and their family—it’s a test of our community and our commitment to basic human rights. So, let’s put our money where our mouths have been, are, and always will be: BALLS DEEP FOR ABORTION!

We’ll have a friendly fundraising competition, kickball tournament, snack bar, prizes & more! 100% of proceeds will be donated to Texas grassroots abortion access orgs Frontera Fund and Buckle Bunnies (recommended by our comrades at DSA Austin).

For more information about how to get involved, RSVP below!

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

Questions? Feedback? Something to add?

We welcome your feedback. If you have comments or suggestions, send a message to the #newsletter channel on Slack.

For information on how to add content, check out the Newsletter Q&A thread.

The Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee (DSA IC) affirms Iran’s right to self-defense in response to the illegal Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. DSA IC reiterates our firm opposition to providing any military or diplomatic assistance to the Zionist project, which is currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians and reckless attacks on neighboring states, posing a serious risk of escalating into a full-blown regional conflict. We oppose any U.S. participation in or support of Israeli strikes against Iran and denounce punitive measures such as sanctions and travel bans enacted by the Biden administration or Congress in response to Iran’s defensive strikes on Israel. 

Despite western attempts to paint Iran as the aggressor, DSA IC recognizes that Iran has long been targeted by the U.S. and its allies for its efforts to establish national self-determination and champion Palestinian liberation. Since the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the US and Israel have wrought war on the Iranian people by murdering millions in the Iran-Iraq war, carrying out regular assassinations of its leaders, scientists, and top-commanders on diplomatic missions, and depriving the Iranian people of necessary medical supplies through sanctions. This is part of the U.S.’s imperial policy: destruction and de-development against any country that exercises sovereignty or opposes U.S. hegemony. 

The Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) April 1st strike against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, which killed at least 16 people including a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander, represents an extremely serious violation of international laws and norms governing diplomatic relations between states, including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and 1963 Convention on Consular Relations. The Biden administration’s “iron-clad” support of the Zionist project has allowed Israel to operate with total impunity, resulting in gross violations of international humanitarian law and military provocations against regional allies of Palestinians which threaten to destabilize the whole of West Asia. 

Not only has the Biden administration refused to deescalate the current crisis with a denunciation of  the Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate, but it also blocked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from doing so. Likewise, President Biden did not act on the purported Iranian offer to forgo a retaliatory strike on Israel in exchange for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. On April 13th, Iran launched a limited defensive strike against Israel, hitting several Israeli bases including the Netavim Air Base from which the attack on the Damascus consulate was launched. The strike was telegraphed in advance, allowing for ample preparation by Israel and the U.S. The strike’s success highlights the ability of Iran to defend itself against Zionist aggression and restore crucial deterrence against increasingly rogue Israeli actions. Additionally, the Iranian defensive strikes have helped to further undermine the mantle of invincibility which the Zionist project has constructed in order to allow its continual ethnic cleansing and genocide in their colonial occupation of Palestine. 

While it is reported that the Biden administration will not participate in Israeli strikes against Iran, continued statements of “iron-clad” support for Israel leave the door open for runaway escalation. With Israeli Occupation Forces crossing the Lebanese border in recent days, intensifying bombing of southern Lebanon, and their continued genocide in Gaza, Israel is dragging the U.S. into a larger death spiral. DSA IC reiterates our demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all military aid to Israel and an end to sanctions against the people of Iran. The power to stop this genocide and end this rapidly escalating regional crisis remains in Biden’s hands. The Biden administration bears full responsibility for every death that follows. No war with Iran! Free Palestine!

The post DSA IC Affirms Iran’s Right to Self-Defense appeared first on DSA International Committee.