Buffalo DSA’s new steering committee is passionate about building vibrant workgroups that check in with each other at general meetings. These workgroups give volunteers opportunities to participate in, learn about, and truly advance socialist initiatives in a variety of different meaningful ways. Please contact info@buffalodsa.org to be connected to a workgroup!

Labor: Advances political education and truly local support for worker’s rights & strikes, labor organizer training and support

IT: Facilitates internal data, safety, and technology initiatives

Healthcare: Organizes campaigns to pressure local politicians to co-sponsor legislations such as Medicare for All, the Emergency Healthcare Guarantee Act, and the New York Health Act, alongside political education on the material benefits of healthcare reform

Electoral: Organizing around a long-term political infrastructure and electoral strategy to gain socialist power

Ecosocialist: Political education and organizing around the need to center the working class in a Green New Deal to transform our climate policy and economy

Political Education: Reading and discussion groups on vital literature to the socialist project

SocFem: Organizing on local material socialist feminist issues, as well as reading and discussion groupsHousing: Advancing tenant organizing, rent control, and a tenant’s bill of rights in our communities.

Media: Developing a socialist newsletter, compiling media to advance political education of the public, and running social media channels.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our websites revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or rednet.socialists.nyc as well as on twitter @nycRPM.

The Champlain Valley DSA is excited to announce the endorsement of an excellent slate of candidates for the 2020 elections. Meet the candidates below.
We will also be hosting a Meet the Candidates webinar with endorsed candidates for the state legislature on Monday, July 27. Register for the webinar or tune in live on Facebook.
Finally, don't forget to request your absentee ballot today and help get these candidates into the State House.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com or on twitter @nycRPM

July 25, 2020 07:46

Right now, in the midst of COVID-19, we have a President, a Secretary of Education, and a capitalist class that is desperate to ignore the growing epidemiological threat that COVID-19 presents, and specifically the threat presented by re-opening schools full time in the Fall. This neglect could be a ploy to direct funds away from public education and into private schools, while at the same time putting teachers, staff, students, and their families and loved ones at risk. But not going back to full time, in-person school hasl material impacts — we lack any semblance of basic social democracy, so we don’t have sufficient subsidized child care for working parents and we won’t have sufficient unemployment income support for parents who have to stay at home because their kids are at home. Because that kind of subsidization and support is expensive, the brutal logic of capital prevails: re-open the schools, no matter how many more may die.

Like everything else about the COVID crisis, the contradictions reveal themselves and sharpen. We saw, a few years ago, an inspiring round of anti-austerity teacher’s strikes. Imagine a nationwide teacher’s strike on these demands. Imagine a nationwide strike, not just teachers, on these demands. Teachers’ unions are not interested in turning their schools into abattoirs and charnel houses for their members and charges. Organized teacher and staff labor strategy under this pandemic is a complicated issue, especially because the paramount demand — don’t open up schools in-person — if met creates massive economic harm and material consequences if not accompanied by demands for massive public spending on childcare and income assistance. But, we know the power workers, and teachers in particular, can wield when they strike. It is a massive, almost unimaginably difficult thing to accomplish. And these demands directly link to other vital demands to ensure basic social safety and health: M4A and social housing and rent control. It is enormously tricky for striking workers to coordinate the immediate need to avoid the danger of re-opening in-person school, the need for state action to replace public schools’ vital role in our meager social safety net (as they provide students food, social services like counseling, and childcare in addition to education), and the broader social demands that would blunt the harms of both this pandemic and capital in general. A nationwide teacher’s strike, if it could happen, won’t work unless parents support it. It is one thing for parents to deal with the inconvenience of teachers striking for a few days or weeks, it is another for them to support a strike to keep schools closed indefinitely. Perhaps demands must broaden further: bigger schools to make social distancing effective, hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes, hiring more staff to ensure regular disinfection, etc.

I’m a parent, so I think about this dilemma a lot. Given the absurdity of our federal system, we have thousands of different state, county, municipal boards of health, governors, mayors, city councils, school boards, making ad hoc and ill-advised decisions and rules on COVID, while the federal government’s response has been at turns incoherent, incompetent, and savage. Gavin Newsom is held up like a hero by liberals, and while less homicidal than many other governors, he’s too chicken shit to even make a proclamation on whether or how youth sports should be conducted. Parents are worried about how they can work if this crisis continues, and there is no coherence, no movement at the school level, much less at the county or state or nationally.

Now, it is clear that absent a mass popular movement pressuring the state, nothing like M4A or any of these other demands will happen. But the current crisis cannot wait for a realignment or a break, dirty or a clean, from the Democrats, nor can the protections and support students need be accomplished through electoral campaigning, because we are talking about a matter of months before schools ostensibly re-open. Regardless, the Democratic Party, institutionally incapable of working through its own contradictions, can only be pushed from the outside on these demands, because it will close ranks internally to make sure anything like M4A is off the table. The demands required of this crisis are potentially even bigger than M4A. The ruling class will oppose them more viciously than ever, because the demands require massive and unacceptable redistribution. But, the alternative is more dystopia, more failure, a deadly malaise. How can we organize a movement for a humane future?

John R. Parker, Jr.

(Maximas gratias ago to Bob Hodges for his helpful suggestions on this.)

Contact: for High Peaks DSA, Zohar Gitlis, highpeaksdsa@gmail.com; for Sunrise Adirondacks, Kayla Lodico, sunriseadirondacks@gmail.com; Fred Balzac, 518-588-7275/fredbalzac@aol.com

Co-authored by the High Peaks DSA Executive Committee, Sunrise Adirondacks Steering Committee, and Fred Balzac.

For immediate release:

High Peaks Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Adirondacks and Fred Balzac commit to work together through the Sept. 15th election and beyond for progressive reforms—for the benefit of all Saranac Lake Village residents and the region’s environment.

Sign up to volunteer for the High Peaks DSA for Fred Balzac campaign: https://forms.gle/NbNrFTVsRrtLDtVR9

Two local chapters of national political organizations that are at the forefront of the progressive movement in the United States have endorsed Green Party candidate Fred Balzac in the race for Village of Saranac Lake trustee. The election, which was postponed from its original date of March 18, 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, will take place at the Harrietstown Town Hall in Saranac Lake on Tuesday, Sept. 15, as well as by absentee ballot.

The two groups—High Peaks Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Sunrise Adirondacks—are urging village residents to support Balzac’s candidacy in a broader effort to raise a wide range of pressing issues and needed reforms at the local level, in the hopes of spurring a large voter turnout for the Sept. 15th election.

“We are seeing a record number of young people waking up to inequality in our society; simultaneously poor, historically marginalized and oppressed people are organizing mass movements with bold demands to address systemic injustices. It’s been astonishing to see how many people want to see change locally as well. In June we had about 700 people demanding racial justice in Riverside Park, which is more people than voted in each of the last two Village Board elections. We’ve seen this level of interest bleed into Village Board meetings, which have been well attended throughout the spring and summer. We’re excited to support Fred and feel confident that he can rise to the current moment, unlike some of our current legislators who have continued to fumble and play defense,” said High Peaks DSA Co-Chair Zohar Gitlis.

According to village records, 590 votes were cast in the most recent competitive race for trustee, in 2016. In the 2018 election, with candidates for mayor and two trustee seats running unopposed, only 255 votes were cast. The village has 5,400 residents, according to saranaclakeny.gov.

Among the locally relevant issues that one or both groups have been grappling with are the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, housing rights, the establishment of an anti-choice pregnancy center in the village, policing reform, the lack of widespread access to renewable energy and the effect of climate change on the local environment.

Solutions and reforms being put forth by the groups include: mutual aid; rent cancellation and an extended eviction moratorium; a shift in spending from policing to social services; local implementation of the Green New Deal; sustainable development and “smart growth”; and a diversification of the local economy (more details here).

In the race for village trustee, Balzac—whose campaign slogan is “Your struggle is OUR fight”—was either already running on these issues and advocating for these solutions or has embraced them as a result of the endorsement process. Members of the two grassroots activist groups see his candidacy as a vehicle for influencing public discourse on these issues and solutions not only during this year’s election but going forward.

“We are excited by Fred’s willingness to listen and dedication to representing the people of his community, and his urgency to take action on public concerns,” said Kayla Lodico, Hub Coordinator of Sunrise Adirondacks.

As for the candidate himself, he views the endorsements by the two groups as an opportunity to build a pro-people/pro-environment coalition throughout the Adirondack North Country. “I am honored but also humbled by the endorsement of both High Peaks DSA and Sunrise Adirondacks and take seriously our joint commitment to continue working together on issues that are so critical to the well-being of village residents and the local environment, win or lose on Sept. 15th,” Balzac said.

“Both of these groups are comprised of smart, dynamic and dedicated individuals—many of whom are two, three or four decades younger than me—and they really represent the future of our village and region. I’m pleased to report that, as long as these good people stay involved, the future is in very good hands.”

To learn more about: Balzac’s candidacy and voting in the village election, including by absentee ballot, contact Fred at 518-588-7275 or fredbalzac@aol.com; re: High Peaks DSA, email the Executive Committee at highpeaksdsa@gmail.com and/or visit highpeaksdsa.org; and re: Sunrise Adirondacks, email the Steering Committee at sunriseadirondacks@gmail.comand/or visit facebook.com/sunriseadirondacks.

About the Candidate

Fred Balzac has more than 40 years of professional experience as a journalist, medical writer-editor, publicist-promotions writer, innkeeper, nonprofit/community organizer and grant writer. He earned a B.A. in English from Columba University in 1983 (graduating with the same class as one Barack Obama!) and, 30 years later, went back to college to earn a Multimedia Journalism Certificate at SUNY Plattsburgh, where he continues to take a class each fall & spring semester.

Since moving to the Adirondacks full-time in 1993, he has been involved as a volunteer in numerous causes and community efforts. As co-organizer and president of Bridge Beyond in the Town of Jay, he led a 15-year effort to protect the Jay rapids and swimming hole and preserve the historic (circa 1857) Jay Covered Bridge (JCB)—resulting in a million-dollar restoration plan that renovated the JCB as a pedestrian-bike crossing and saved the scenic-recreational upstream river corridor from desecration via the placement of a new bridge downstream, while also restoring reliable emergency-vehicle protection to the eastern side of the Ausable River. This pro-environment struggle by Balzac and comrades was recognized early on by the Adirondack Council, which bestowed its Community Action Award on Bridge and Beyond in 1995.

Following his opposition to the creation of an occupancy tax in Essex County out of a concern that it would largely benefit the county’s richest community, Lake Placid/North Elba, and shortchange most of the county’s other 17 towns, Balzac was named by then-Jay Supervisor Thomas O’Neill to the county Occupancy Tax Advisory Committee and briefly served as its chair. A registered Democrat for most of his adult life, Fred served on the Essex County Democratic Committee from 2008-2011 before changing his registration to the Green Party.

Balzac’s reasons for switching included his alignment with the Green Party’s Four Pillars and Ten Key Values (see gpny.org), the continuing influence of corporations and the wealthy on the Democratic Party at the national and state levels and the inability of the Party to endorse unions at the county level.

A formative influence on Balzac was his temporary position as a FEMA-funded crisis counselor in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene, which helped open his eyes to the impoverished living conditions of many North Country residents. Ideologically, Fred has consistently moved to the left as he has watched inequality grow under the leadership of mainstream politicians, and he is now proud to be a dues-paying member of DSA.

Issues And Solutions

Here’s how Fred Balzac’s candidacy for Village of Saranac Lake trustee aligns with some of High Peaks DSA’s concerns and aims:

Housing rights: One of the group’s earliest actions was a call for rent cancellation in the face of the COVID-19 economic shutdown. Balzac, who is a dues-paying member of DSA, supports rent cancellation or mortgage cancellation for all tenants, landlords and homeowners adversely affected by the pandemic and is calling for a local extension of New York State’s moratorium on evictions through at least the end of 2020. If elected, he is committed to at least beginning a discussion of the village implementing rent-control/rent-stabilization policies similar to what exists in New York City.

Mutual aid: As a response to the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, High Peaks DSA initiated an active mutual-aid campaign that is ongoing (see highpeaksdsa.org/campaigns). Balzac supports this campaign and endorses the pandemic-response platform of Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins (see howiehawkins.us/platform), including the implementation of such “COVID-19 emergency measures for the duration of the crisis” as “Medicare to pay for COVID-19 testing and all emergency health care; a “moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shutoffs”; suspension of “student loan payments with 0% interest accumulation”; and “a 10-year, $42-trillion ecosocialist Green New Deal for economic recovery through a just transition to 100% clean energy by 2030.”

Crisis pregnancy center (CPC): As an active member of High Peaks DSA’s CPC working group, Balzac helped draft the group’s position statement opposing the establishment of the Adirondack Pregnancy Center in Saranac Lake and vehemently opposes the center on the grounds that “It will harm women.” He believes the village Development Board may be in violation of its own Development Code and is calling for the board to reverse its decision in March approving the center’s establishment. Balzac is also calling for the Development Code to be revised to enable the Village Board of Trustees to override Development Board decisions. “Elected officials should have the final say, not people who are appointed to boards and who are not directly accountable to the People,” Balzac said.

Policing reforms: High Peaks DSA has taken a leadership role on this issue, having organized the recent “Black Lives Matter” demonstration in Riverside Park that drew the largest number of protestors seen in Saranac Lake in recent memory and also meeting recently with Chief of Police James Joyce, and the group has launched a multi-pronged campaign focusing on policing and justice system reforms. Balzac, who attended the meeting with Chief Joyce and was impressed by his openness to working with the community, supports shifting Village funds from policing per se to social services—in terms of things like 911 calls about mental-health-related or other non-criminal matters. The candidate is also calling on the Village to enact a totally transparent process open to all members of the public in fulfilling Governor Cuomo’s recent executive order on reforming local police policies and practices.

Budget priorities and political transparency: Several community members, including High Peaks DSA members, spoke out and/or attended the June 22 Village Board meeting at which the board, by a 3-0 vote (with Trustee Patrick Murphy absent and Mayor Clyde Rabideau not voting), approved a $12,500 contract with the Lake Placid-based Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) for destination-tourism marketing services, along with an additional $12,500 for the creation of a community enhancement fund available to the village’s Arts & Culture, Downtown and Parks & Trails advisory boards. While Balzac supports the latter funding, he says the funding of ROOST raises serious questions about the wisdom and transparency of the Village Board’s action.

“ROOST already receives a couple of million dollars a year in bed-tax money to do things like manage saranaclake.com,” Balzac said. “For it to enter into a contract with the village that includes managing saranaclake.com is double-dipping and, in my view, bad public policy. Given that ROOST has been dropped by both Franklin County and the Town of Harrietstown, I question why Mayor Rabideau and Trustee Shapiro in particular pushed to give ROOST work in Saranac Lake—at a time when New York State is facing billions in revenue loss that the state seems likely to pass on to localities in the form of cuts in state aid.

“We also need to rethink the whole approach to tourism that ROOST and its CEO, Jim McKenna, have been pushing in the region. Lake Placid is now facing a crisis in affordable housing due to the advent of Airbnb and other short-term rentals and is becoming overdeveloped and unlivable thanks to an over-reliance on tourism that benefits the big hotels and not necessarily the residents of the community. I don’t want to see that fate befall Saranac Lake and will fight it.”

An Affinity with Sunrise Adirondacks for Going Green

The alignment of Balzac’s candidacy with Sunrise Adirondacks is evident from the group’s rigorous endorsement process that encompassed a detailed questionnaire and conference-call interview with the candidate, including such questions and responses as:

Regarding the requirement that he take the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge and the Sunrise Movement’s Green New Deal Pledge to use your office to support and advance the Green New Deal through all legal avenues, Balzac affirmed that he made both pledges.

Other Important Issues To Fred Balzac

● “Working to enhance our current housing stock, protect the rights of tenants while being fair to landlords and ensure more & better affordable housing—e.g., by requiring developers of high-end housing to set aside a percentage of units for medium-to-low-income housing….”

● “Push for ecologically sustainable development and SMART growth—bearing in mind always the potentially catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis on our community”

● “A MORATORIUM on any further waterfront development: I remain hopeful that the new hotel on Rte. 86 will prove to be beneficial to the Village economy but believe the project was not well-thought-through concerning its placement, oversized mass, and impact on traffic patterns & water quality—and that similar future projects should not be allowed on our waterways.”

● “Go Green: work toward more renewable energy, preservation of open space, and local food production in both the public and private realms—while connecting local government with area schools to expand educational opportunities for all, including adults”

● “Expand local tourism efforts while diversifying our economy so that Saranac Lake never becomes too dependent on tourists and we can avoid, for example, the adverse effects Lake Placid is experiencing with short-term rentals/Airbnbs. I’m also a strong supporter of the arts as an economic driver.”

● “Enthusiastic support for Franklin County’s choice of the Franklin County Local Development Corporation (LDC) to handle marketing the region—a choice the Village Board should go with”

● “Maximizing municipal services while keeping Village taxes down as much as possible”

● “Most of all, honest, open and transparent local government, serving the interests of working people, families with school-age children, seniors, renters, property owners, the economically disadvantaged, small business owners and permanent residents—not the special interests (defined as any entities that seek consideration from government that’s not in the public interest)”

The post Press Release: HPDSA & Sunrise ADK endorse Fred Balzac for Village Board appeared first on High Peaks DSA.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com / https://rednet.socialists.nyc/rpm/ or on twitter @nycRPM. 

YDSA of BC is calling on Boston College to divulge details about the money it received under the CARES Act earlier this year, and for BC to promptly disburse the money to students as intended under the law. We have serious concerns about the handling of this money by the university, money that was specifically designated by the congress of the United States for relief of students.

Under the law schools were required to disburse at least fifty percent of the money they received directly to students. Boston College reportedly received $6,448,576, meaning at a minimum $3,224,288 should have been given out in grants. This money was not intended to be commingled with financial aid, used to supplement existing support programs. BC cannot give this money to students in August and then determine the students need less support in the coming year. It was to be given to students to help cope with school closures and to survive during the pandemic. President Trump signed the bill into law on March 27th. It is now mid July and BC students do not appear to have received much of this money.

On May 1st Boston University announced it created a web page for students to apply for payments ranging from $500 to $6000. Students had until May 8th to apply. Salem State University set up a webpage with information about the act and instructions on how to apply for grants. UMASS  Amherst set up a similar website.

The University of Chicago announced it would be giving 100% of the $6.2 million it received to students. Harvard, before succumbing to political pressure to return the money, announced in April it would was going to  allocate 100% of the $8.6 million it received to students as well. Georgetown announced that as of July 9th it distributed $3.055 million, giving grants of $2,600 to 1077 students. We are now four months into the pandemic and students at BC are still waiting for news of any kind related to this money. Almost comically, the only mention of the CARES Act on any BC webpage is on the alumni center’s page where BC explains how the law provides incentives for people to donate money to BC.

BC closed in March. It kept several hundred students with demonstrated needs on campus until the beginning of May, but then forced them to leave campus stating it wasn’t providing summer housing to students, even those it determined just a month and a half earlier were in need of a place to stay. Then in June BC moved football players back into the dorms. Many of those students forced to leave in May faced hardships and could have used this money then for food, housing, and travel. And past information related to students’ financial aid status does not accurately reflect the situations they may be facing now. That’s why other institutions set up processes for students to apply for the money based on current needs during the crisis.

BC needs to produce a full accounting of the money it received and immediately disburse 100% of the funds to students who need financial support and  who are entitled to this money from the government. An institution with a $2.5 billion endowment and an active donor base does not need to be keeping any of this money for institutional spending.

You’re listening to Revolution Per Minute on listener sponsored WBAI in NYC broadcasting at 99.5 FM and streaming on your favorite podcast app. To connect with us after the show you can email us at revolutionsnyc@gmail.com. You can find us on our website revolutionsperminute.simplecast.com / rednet.socialists.nyc or on twitter @nycRPM.

YDS of BC officially condemns BC for its total lack of leadership and its inaction in response to the guidelines proposed by ICE targeting international students. One hundred and eighty universities from across the country filed an amicus brief in support of Harvard and MIT’s lawsuit against ICE. Boston College was not part of this group.There is no excuse for this abdication. Read the statement from the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration here.

The UAW, the union that includes the Boston College graduate worker’s along with grad workers from Harvard, Northeastern, and Boston University, is filing an amicus brief in the case. The UAW previously filed an amicus brief in the case against Trump’s travel ban in 2018. On Monday graduate students from across Boston hosted a rally at the Massachusetts State House in opposition to ICE’s potential ban on international students. Why are graduate students doing more to fight for international students at BC than the actual university is?

BC claims to be a leading Catholic Jesuit university, but fails at almost every turn to take a moral stand when faced with the opportunity. From refusing to divest from fossil fuels, it’s association with weapons manufacturers, employing a police Chief who collaborated with ICE. continued discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, and it’s failure to confron racsim and hate crims on campus, BC fails to live up to its own claim of adhering to some set of moral values.

On BC’s website, on the page of the Office of International Students and Scholars, the school states that others have filed lawsuits and thus hopefully ICE’s proposed guidelines will not go into effect. This is completely outrageous. To say in the face of great injustice that others are doing something so hopefully it will be taken care of is morally indefensible and unacceptable.

We reiterate the call made by the BC Asian Caucus for BC to file an amicus brief in opposition to ICE’s guidelines. The fact that so many universities have done so and we are left demanding once again that BC take action in the face of a moral outrage is sadly not surprising, but it is nonetheless disheartening and unacceptable.