In part two of our two hour Earth Day special we’ll talk about what a Green New Deal could look like at a state level and right here in New York City.

We’ll have Thomas Niles in the studio to talk about New York City Democratic Socialist of America Ecosocialist working group’s new People Power NYC campaign. Our discussions highlights the absurdity of private ownership of our collective resources and how democratically owned energy is necessary for a sustainable future. Additionally we’ll also hear from climate reporter Alexander Kaufman about the historic Climate Mobilization Act that the City Council passed last week.

In part one of our two hour Earth Day special we’re talking about what everybody is talking about these days, the Green New Deal and how it relates to the broader movement for democratic socialism.

We begin with a historical analysis of the original New Deal and how class struggle forced capitalists to give in to workers’ demands for a more just society. Then we’ve got Sarah Lyons in the studio with us right now to break down a recent Green New Deal town hall that happened in the Bronx with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We’ll also be hearing from Tom Pike, a Democratic Socialist of America organizer in Los Angeles about their campaign to shut down fracked gas power plants.

The Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America recommends its members and the Allegheny County Community vote for Turahn Jenkins for District Attorney in the May 21st Primary Election.

Incumbent District Attorney Stephen Zappala has caused irreparable damage to the people of Allegheny County, especially Black and Brown communities, who face higher rates of incarceration and a terrifying lack of justice regarding police brutality in Allegheny County.

As a direct consequence of Zappala’s work, the Allegheny County Jail imprisons more than 2,000 people, and sees upwards of 100 new arrests per day. Zappala has also chosen to prosecute sex workers, as well as those charged with so-called “crimes of existing” such as loitering, public urination, and other behaviors necessary for survival that have been criminalized under the capitalist system. If re-elected, Zappala would continue and deepen the harms faced by Allegheny County’s most marginalized residents.

If we had a District Attorney committed to rehabilitative justice, communities all across Allegheny County would see improvements in their day to day lives. A District Attorney who believes that Black lives matter and is committed to abolishing cash bail, decriminalizing sex work, holding police accountable for their crimes, refusing to cooperate with ICE, and stopping the school-to-prison pipeline could save thousands from being forced into the criminal justice system and save lives.

The Primary Election on May 21st is our opportunity to choose that District Attorney by voting for Turahn Jenkins.

In his responses to our endorsement questionnaire and during the Q&A session at our meeting, Mr. Jenkins pledged to implement a slew of policies that would reduce the criminal justice system’s destructive role in Allegheny County communities.

First and foremost, he pledges to massively reduce cash bail through a presumption of release policy. He views cash bail as “essentially criminalizing poverty.” Additionally, Turahn Jenkins plans to create a conviction review unit to identify wrongful convictions and free the innocent, and to end the practice of overcharging defendants in order to secure plea deals. He promises to never cooperate with ICE or any other immigration enforcement agency. Further, he has pledged to help unhoused people access treatment and other non-carceral services, and to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline by opposing police presence in schools and favoring restorative justice initiatives in cases involving juveniles.

Turahn Jenkins is committed to the decriminalization of sex work, and promised to examine the predatory practices of the Pittsburgh PRIDE court.

Mr. Jenkins wants to expand the Citizen’s Police Review Board to be county wide, and says that he would handle cases of police brutality much differently than Zappala’s office has. Mr. Jenkins believes that no profession makes you above the law, and that being a police officer is not an exception to this rule. In regards to the recent trial of Michael Rosfeld, Mr. Jenkins has said that he would have done a number of things differently than Zappala’s office. Zappala did not try the case himself, and Mr. Jenkins said that he would have handled the case personally. He also would have called in an expert on police use of force, which Zappala’s office failed to do.

During our chapter Question & Answer session with Turahn Jenkins, many of our members expressed concern around Mr. Jenkins’ hurtful comments towards the LGBTQ+ community last year. Our members asked whether Mr. Jenkins had taken deliberate steps to educate himself around issues impacting the LGBTQ+ community, and whether he would support policies important to the LGBTQ+ community. He answered “yes” and shared with us how he has been educating himself and seeking education from the queer community. Turahn told us that he opposes conversion therapy and is committed to using his position as District Attorney to pressure Allegheny County Jail to treat LGBTQ+ people with the basic respect they deserve. This includes policies that improve the material conditions of those currently incarcerated, such as housing trans people in prisons that match their gender. Mr. Jenkins also pledged to have queer people on his staff and understands that he will be a better District Attorney with the queer community having a seat at the table.

Turahn Jenkins apologized to our LGBTQ+ members who were harmed by his remarks and actions. He acknowledged that he still has lots of learning to do and is actively working to do so. Because we know so many of Allegheny County’s LGBTQ+ community have felt torn deciding how to approach this race, we are hopeful that Turahn Jenkins will share publicly the steps he has taken to unlearn homophobia and transphobia, and the ways that as District Attorney he could reduce harm done to the LGBTQ+ community – in particular, because we believe it is important and commendable that those entrusted with power in an unjust justice system demonstrate an ability to recognize wrong in themselves and work to change, as he is doing and has done. With so much at stake for all of Allegheny County’s marginalized and oppressed communities in this election, we hope that everyone will get to hear about his commitment to justice that our membership so appreciated.

Turahn Jenkins understands well that the present criminal justice system and its old guard leadership like Zappala have undermined and incapacitated the poor and marginalized, thus sabotaging safety, solidarity, and justice. Together, his policies and stances reflect a  commitment to push back against this system of criminal injustice, institutional racism, and mass incarceration. As socialists, we admire a candidate who shares these commitments with us.

Electing Turahn Jenkins is the moral choice, one that would reduce the daily and ongoing violence waged upon the people of Allegheny County by Stephen Zappala’s unjust and racist term as District Attorney, particularly for the Black community.

For the past year, our streets have seen protest after protest demanding change, demanding justice, and making clear: Stephen Zappala has got to go. We do not believe one election or a different District Attorney will bring total justice. We do believe that District Attorney Turahn Jenkins would materially improve the lives of everyone in Allegheny County, particularly those disproportionately targeted by a white supremacist police and prison system.

We strongly encourage our membership to vote for Turahn Jenkins.

We also strongly encourage them to volunteer for or otherwise support the Jenkins campaign, which they can do by clicking here.

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Today, April 19th, is the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It was the largest single revolt by Jews during WWII and it was mostly organized by the Bund, a secular Jewish socialist movement. Irena Klepfisz was born in the Warsaw Ghetto and fled with her mother to the United States when she was eight. She is now a noted poet, writer, Yiddish translator, anti-occupation activist, known for her work in lesbian, feminist and Jewish spaces. This personal interview touches on Irena's childhood, the "zeitgeist" of American Jewish bundist life, coming out in the 1970's, her activism against Israel's occupation, and how she makes sense of the contemporary resurgence of interest in Yiddish. Part 2 of this interview series will feature Daniel Soyer, who will provide a historical and academic perspective on the Jewish Labor Bund.

The foundation of any city is its housing. Everyone needs a place to live. In New York state the only way we can ensure this is to pass a Universal Rent Control campaign that will expand and strengthen our existing rent protections. Our existing laws expire on June 15th, and we must make them better. Join our host Desiree Frias for a conversation with Dennis Osorio, and Cea Weaver who are working on our Universal Rent Control campaign with NYC-DSA.

With NY nurses threatening to strike, millions still uninsured and without care, and politicians co-opting our language to describe their capitalist solutions to our healthcare problems, our fight for universal healthcare is at a crossroads. What does advocating for universal healthcare mean for us as people, as workers, and as socialist organizers in an intersectional left movement? Host Amy Wilson will talk to organizer Emma Claire Foley of the NYC-DSA Healthcare Committee about this pivotal moment for universal healthcare in the United States. Get excited for the campaign for universal healthcare in New York State.

It was illegal to be queer in 1969. Homosexuals – as we were all called then – were labeled dangerous and subversive deviants. We were tracked and surveilled by the FBI, considered security risks by the national security apparatus, and rounded up and driven out of cities and into ghettos. Queer spaces were regularly raided by the police; their arrestees humiliated, brutalized, and even tortured. Many of our people lived in abject poverty, especially those who did not conform to the narrow gender constructs of a hostile society.

This was America on June 28, 1969, when ten police officers entered a bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn with the intent to arrest anyone suspected of “deviancy.” The patrons of Stonewall were divided along perceived gender lines. Cross-dressers, a dated term which included what we now call drag queens and transgender individuals, were separated from the rest and forced to expose themselves to police officers. Women in butch clothing were groped and violated under the guise of frisking; a common practice, as wearing an insufficient number of feminine items of clothing was considered a crime. Anyone found to be in violation of rigid gender norms was arrested on the spot.

When the arrestees refused to cooperate, they were brutalized. When one woman protested her treatment, she was beaten over the head with a baton. As outrage grew among the crowd gathering to witness this injustice, what began as a routine crackdown quickly escalated to two days of violent resistance we now call the Stonewall Riots. It is this event we commemorate every year with the celebration of Pride.

Standing on the shoulders of generations before it, Stonewall marked the beginning of the modern struggle for LGBTQ+ equality and, ultimately, liberation. Though Obergefell v Hodges opened the door to an unprecedented era of queer rights and visibility, reactionary efforts to erase these victories have grown just as pronounced. From a ban on transgender people in the military, to a multitude of religiously justified discrimination bills, to homegrown attempts to roll back marriage rights, all under the watch of an increasingly conservative judicial system, we stand to lose everything we have fought so hard to win.

At every stage of this ongoing struggle, the police, as the sanctioned enforcers of the state, have been our opposition and our oppressors. Indeed, it will be the police who drag us out of bathrooms and business places in shackles, who will harass us when our name or gender markers don’t match our “biological sex,” who will drive us into ghettos when we can’t find work. Why, then, are the police permitted a place at the 50th anniversary of the riot that birthed our movement?

The Nashville Metropolitan Police Department has ridiculed transgender members of our community; fought viciously against community oversight voted by a majority of our city; targets, oppresses, and murders black and brown people; and works in direct cooperation with ICE to tear families apart. We refuse to welcome our oppressors at a table ostensibly set to celebrate our hard-won and still-besieged liberties. It is therefore, in the spirit of the Stonewall Riots that we, the undersigned members of the Middle Tennessee Democratic Socialists of America, call for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s booth to be disinvited and summarily ejected from Nashville Pride.

Middle Tennessee Democratic Socialists of America Queer Working Group

Socialist candidates don’t take money from real estate or corporate PACs, but these campaigns still need money to function. This week Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign fundraising staffers Michael Carter and Simone Norman talk about grassroots fundraising: what it looks like and how to do it.

The media industry is in peril, but this is felt most acutely for exploited workers and for the audience who are left wanting for real journalism and genuince content. In this show, we talk with @hunterboone, @jamie_elizabeth (from @the_antifada) about the current problems in the media industry, unionization efforts, and the capitalist contradictions in media/journalism.

There’s been a ton of buzz around the proposal for a Green New Deal, on today’s show we’ll break down DSA Ecosocialists’ principles of a Green New Deal and see how the NYC DSA Ecosocialist Working Group is organizing an Energy Rights campaign and getting involved in the ConEd Rate Case to solve the climate crisis and the inequality crisis together.