For Immediate Release

November 30,  2020

PRESS RELEASE: BERKSHIRES DSA TO OFFER ‘BREAD AND ROSES’ THEMED MUTUAL AID TO LOCAL COMMUNITY

Pittsfield, MA — The Berkshires chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America will offer “Bread and Roses”— shares of food pre-packed with a handmade paper rose—at Pittsfield Common on Saturday, December 12, 1-3 PM. 

The distribution event is the culmination of a month-long, countywide food drive launched in response to the increasing need for hunger relief in Berkshire County. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, 15.1% of area residents lack consistent access to food. Berkshires DSA recognizes food insecurity as a complex issue stemming from the lack of affordable housing and  tenants’ rights, universal healthcare, racial justice, universal child and eldercare, and guaranteed employment with a living wage. 

“As democratic socialists, we affirm the idea that implementing these rights would help to achieve freedom and dignity for all,” said Abby Childs, an organizing member of the Bread and Roses Drive with Berkshires DSA. “The Bread and Roses project addresses some immediate needs while we continue organizing long-term social and economic change.”

A historic rallying call of the American labor movement inspired the project’s theme. In 1912, “Bread for all, and roses too!” united the Lawrence, Massachusetts textile workers who striked for humane working and living conditions. Led by immigrants, most of whom were women, the mass demonstrations sparked poetry and song. 

“The right to food is a human right, and we deserve nourishment beyond basic necessities,” said Childs. “We also want to gesture toward beauty and our right to live creatively.” 

Each distribution will include shelf-stable food and fresh produce sourced from local purveyors, a leaflet highlighting mutual aid and community resources, and a paper rose made by members of Berkshires DSA. Local purveyors include Hosta Hill, Creature Bread, Markristo Farm, Mi Tierra Tortillas and more.

Donations to this event are being accepted through December 9. Individuals interested in giving nonperishable food can review the list of needed items on the Berkshires DSA website and email berkshirebreadandroses@gmail.com to coordinate a plan for donation pick up or drop off. Money may be donated via Venmo @Berkshires_DSA. Surplus food will be donated to a local pantry after the event.

The DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States. DSA’s members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly democratic socialist presence in American communities and politics. We believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. DSA members use a variety of tactics, from legislation to direct action, in the fight to empower working people.

For media Inquiries, please contact Amillie Coster (413) 854-5611, amilliedelphina@gmail.com

Many new members are just getting their start in socialist philosophy. For them, we aim for all of our members to understand socialism and feel comfortable talking about it with their friends.

Here are some resources for that:
What is Democratic Socialism?
ABC’s of Socialism
Fundamentals of Marxism
An Anarchist FAQ

We know that not everyone is keen on reading large books about politics, so we have a few videos to show as well.

How to talk about socialism.

You’re already an expert on talking about Socialism. Think about why you, personally, are a socialist. What made you realize you were a socialist? What have you seen or learned that has crystallized the need for Socialism and made it real to you?

The most effective way to talk about socialism happens in 2 parts:

A personal story about a problem caused by capitalism.
The socialist antidote to the problem. 

Here are some examples:

Personal story: I’m a Socialist because I was volunteering in a free clinic and realized that I could be there for ten years and there will be even more people who can’t afford co-pays then than now. I still do it, but we have to change the capitalist system.

Socialist antidote: In a socialist society, health care, along with other basic needs like housing and education would be a right that everyone enjoyed, not something only the very rich can afford.

Personal story: I’m a socialist because of my student loans. I’ve paid about $27,000 in interest on my student loans, but only $3,000 towards the principal. I’ve been paying for 10 years. I feel like an indentured servant that will never be free from my debt.

Socialist antidote: In a Socialist society, education would be seen as a right and available to everyone without needing to go into enormous debt.

Sometimes you’ll get folks with honest misconceptions about socialism asking a question you don’t know the answer to. Or bad faith folks might try to “red bait” you by asking something like “but what about Venezuela?” Here’s are some great lines that set you up to share your vision for a better society.

“I don’t know about that but I’m a Socialist because…”
“I hadn’t considered that but here’s my personal experience trying to survive under our current capitalist system…”

Talking About DSA

You’re talking to some socialist curious friends and they ask you why you joined DSA. Don’t panic – you’re already an expert on talking about socialism. Here’s a quick explainer about what DSA is.

DSA is the largest socialist organization in the United States. We’re an activist organization, not a political party. It’s a big tent which welcomes many different anti-capitalist perspectives. We use a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action to win a better world for working people.

After that, a really natural place to is talk about how you first heard about DSA and why you joined. Here are some common examples:

I knew about DSA for awhile but I was really impressed with their fight to win a universal right to counsel for all tenants in San Francisco. I joined because I wanted to work on things that make life easier for working people.
I heard about DSA from a friend. I used to think that socialism was a good idea, but impractical because the United States seems so conservative. Then I saw Alexandria Ocasio Cortez win her primary on a socialist platform and I decided that I wanted to get involved.
I heard about DSA because someone was canvassing for Medicare 4 all. Talking with them made me feel like we can win universal healthcare in the United States. I joined and started volunteering after that.
I saw a DSA contingent at a rally. It was refreshing to see a lot of people my age organizing and I started going to meetings to see what I could do to get involved.

The post All About Socialism (In Progress) first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

The winter holiday season of 2020 begins this week, bringing with it opportunities for challenging and fruitful conversations about the hot topics of religion and politics. On this week’s show, we speak with members of NYC-DSA’s Religion and Socialism Working Group on how faith and spirituality blend with our socialist organizing efforts. We also hear an update from our South Brooklyn branch and Sunset Park Popular Assembly on the inhumane conditions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, a Federal prison in our backyard, and the organizing to demand justice for murdered inmate Jamel Floyd.

To contact the RS Working Group, you can email: religious.socialism@socialists.nyc or follow @ReligSocialism on Twitter or @religoussocialism on Instagram. 

RSVP for the next working group meeting  https://actionnetwork.org/events/religion-socialism-december-2020-meeting

The RSWG is also co-sponsoring a Tax the Rich teach-in on Tuesday, December 1st: https://actionnetwork.org/events/nyc-dsa-121-tax-the-rich-campaign-teach-in

For more details on the December 4th action at MDC and the demand for Justice for Jamel, follow https://www.instagram.com/sunsetassembly/

The post North NJ Democratic Socialists Join Historic Public Outcry Against ICE first appeared on North NJ DSA.

Jewish Traditions of Socialism Our latest episode of ‘Heart of a Heartless World’ is a recording of our October 26th webinar conversation between Rev. Andrew Wilkes and Rabbi Andy Bachman, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Project and former senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, about how Jewish traditions of socialism, from Martin Buber’s reflections on Utopia to the labor organizing and organic intellectuals of the early twentieth century, have helped create a political economy where workers’ dignity and decision making power is prioritized and can, going forward, inform and inspire contemporary movements of religious socialism.

Note: this post is written by our members to generate debate and discussion and is not an official branch statement. Want to be part of the conversation? Join our mailing list.

By Simon V

Marin is a unique site of struggle for those looking to build a liberated world. It has the highest wealth gap in the state of California: some of the United States’ richest people own vacation homes here, while some of our country’s most disenfranchised live in what are little better than slums owned by corporate landlords headquartered far away. This all plays out along very clear race lines. 

Our county’s progressives focus on issues outside of Marin – in the American “south” – or are tied by foundation funding or liberal norms. Marin has an incredible quantity of not-for-profits dedicated to all sorts of causes, yet these have not been able to affect real meaningful change. Some institutions do amazing work, scraping by with barely enough funding to make their services available, often kept running by volunteers. Changes like the just-cause eviction and minimum wage clauses – pushed through electorally – have been piecemeal and crumbs, largely superseded by state-wide laws. Supervisors, the sheriff, and city councilors are happy to sit through 11 hour public comment sessions and ignore everything that was said by the public because they know that when elections roll around, they can rely on the status quo to keep their seats, or appoint their replacements.

Why is that? What is it about not-for-profits and the legislative strategy that has been incapable of affecting real long-lasting systemic change in our county, towns, and cities? Must we continue to wait on the state of California to enact laws that our county’s landlords and business owners can continue to ignore? Why do we let our housing prices soar, pushing those of us who mow the lawns, make the coffees, and staff our hospitals further and further out of the county?

For too long Marinites have focused on liberal technocratic solutions. Knowing the right things and the right people will get things done. A committee or a task force will come up with the right fix. If we just make them hear and understand, they’ll do what we ask. They see the county’s poor and working class as victims of a system without agency to create their own solutions. This is reflected in the Housing Authority’s attitude towards residents of public housing, advocacy group’s attitudes towards building actual tenant power, in actions that mobilize already convinced people for one-off events, and calls to the police and sheriff’s department to “deal with” someone who looks out of place in our neighborhood. 

This model of activism is appealing because it supposes a “quick fix”. It avoids the hard work of actually organizing a base, of building engaged and empowered citizens who can confront power in their homes, in their workplaces, and in their public life.

There is no quick fix to the multiple systems that oppress us. We need a strategy.

What is to be done?

We must confront patriarchy, colonialism, racism, and ableism wherever we find them. We must bring those struggles together to demand an end to all institutions that oppress us. While we can press forward with short term demands, we must do more. We must build our base. 

We must do the hard work. We must learn how to organize in our workplaces. We must learn how to confront our landlords and make demands as groups of tenants. We must focus on our block, our neighborhood, and our town. Talk to our neighbors and find out what is important to them. Talk to our co-workers and find the shared oppressions we can organize around.

We must look to models of organizing – theory and praxis – that are rooted in feminism, communities of color, and working class resistance to white supremacy and colonialism. We must build our own directly-democratic spaces and institutions that we can leverage against the capitalist and ruling classes when the time is right.

Industrial and workplace struggles

In Marin service workers can organize to demand a larger share of the corporate profits. Day labourers can organize for a living wage and better work days. They can organize for more time off and better working conditions. Care workers can organize around their work hours and their pay, as well as their patients’ health. Office workers must organize in their own workspaces while organizing in solidarity with the service workers that cater to their work environments. Teachers can organize to demand better funding for our schools, and students can organize for a better curriculum and liberated learning environments.

We must learn that we are the ones doing the work, and together we are the ones who have power over how it gets done, when it gets done, and how much we get paid for it.

We must learn that our bosses and those that oppress us are already organized. They have wealthy associations and meetings that argue for their needs. They operate within the halls of power, which is what keeps us out of them.

Solidarity economy

We must start building the institutions that lift each other up. We can look to networks of worker-owned cooperatives like Arizmendi here in San Rafael and Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi that provide good working class jobs while building housing and liberated spaces for their employees and their neighbours. These cooperatives are unique because they support each other, funding the creation of new cooperatives in a network that challenges capitalist and patriarchal notions of hierarchy and agency. 

Cooperatives on their own are not enough. We must bring education into these spaces to ensure that they continue to strive against oppression and towards liberation. As Fred Hampton said – without education, you just have neo-colonialism. But cooperatives can provide good paying jobs where the workers retain control over their work environment, while giving them the breathing space to build the communities that they want to see.

But we don’t have to focus on just workplaces. A solidarity economy relies on community gardening efforts to supply us with food, it relies on rapid response and mutual aid to build resilient communities. All these efforts have long histories of being rooted in the struggles of people of color. 

Tenant and neighborhood councils

Forty percent of Marin’s residents are tenants, while a large chunk of the remainder pay off mortgages on homes they can barely afford.

We must fight rising rents, evictions, and harassment at the hands of landlords. We must fight the system that gives some of us no option but to live unsheltered and at constant risk of police harassment. We need to confront landlords, developers, and cops when they loot our communities on the path to gentrification.

Housing communities in Marin are already organized and we must join in their struggle against corrupt public housing agencies, while initiating tenant councils in our own buildings and rental units. 

We must come together in block and neighborhood assemblies. We can look to the block organizations in Detroit for models of organizing around hyper local issues, while looking just across the bay in Oakland for models of organizing tenants in corporate buildings.

A liberated press

Marin’s news sources are beholden to liberal politics at best and corporate coffers at worst. We need news outlets that don’t hide behind curtains of apoliticallness and reporting on the status quo. We need space that gives voice to citizens, controlled by citizens. We need a forum of debate and conversation that moves beyond the norms set by Marin’s elites.

Solidarity is how we win

This is not the first crisis that has been dumped upon us by a system that thrives off of crises, and as the climate disaster deepens, it will not be the last. If we do the hard work of real organizing now, we will be better prepared to handle the next one. 

When we all contribute to the hard work, we give voice to struggles of marginalized people.

Let’s build the new world in the shell of the old.

If you think the election of Joe Biden means the defeat of fascism, think again. The twenty-first century American fascist beast feeds off the monstrous rot of neoliberalism. DSA member and union organizer Brendan O’Connor joins RPM to discuss his new book, Blood Red Lines: How Nativism Fuels the Right. We also hear directly from organizers who experienced police brutality at the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1519-blood-red-lines

Jersey City, NJ (November 18th, 2020) – On Tuesday, North New Jersey DSA Member Joel Brooks witnessed US Customs and Border Patrol agents openly and conspicuously staking out a site in Jersey City – a sanctuary city where local law enforcement are not supposed to collaborate with US CBP or ICE.

“Jersey City is a sanctuary city, so imagine my surprise to see US Customs and Border Patrol openly operating in broad daylight. I was shocked and horrified,” Brooks said. “I snapped a few pictures, took some video and alerted local elected officials. I could not help but think of the human rights violations ICE and CBP have committed all over the country as well as here in Hudson County. In the last days of the Trump administration, I hope we will all look out for each other as a community. Let your neighbors know – CBP and ICE are not welcome in Hudson County!”

While the Jersey City Police Department told reporters they were not assisting CBP in any way, the relationships between New Jersey cities and counties and ICE/CBP remain far too close for comfort, according to North Jersey DSA. Hudson County contracts with ICE to detain immigrants in the county jail. When the freeholders renewed their contract with ICE in 2018 over loud community protest, it was with a promise to end the contract in 2020. As this year draws to a close, they seem unwilling to fulfill that vow, despite an overwhelming consensus from the immigrant-justice community, seen in a statement organized this month by the Abolish ICE NY/NJ coalition and signed by 61 activist and advocacy groups. 

Meanwhile, Essex and Bergen counties also contract with ICE, detaining people in conditions so squalid, inhumane, and Covid-unsafe that those in the Bergen jail are currently on a hunger strike, the most recent of several this year in New Jersey’s four ICE detention camps. 

A just-released report on  adherence to Attorney General Grewal’s Immigrant Trust Directive shows that as of the end of 2019, Hudson, Essex, and Bergen counties all continued to cooperate with ICE in various ways, from allowing ICE access to detained individuals, notifying ICE of upcoming releases, and holding people past their eligibility for release to assist ICE. This inexcusable collaboration with ICE inspires great distrust in our local officials’ assurances that they do not assist CBP or ICE. 

North New Jersey DSA condemns CBP’s and ICE’s presence in our communities, and all cooperation with their racist violence against immigrants. Funding our counties with revenue derived from carrying out ICE’s cruel and unnecessary caging of human beings is a particularly odious method of governing in our diverse and progressive region. 

The post North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Denounces Customs & Border Patrol Presence in Jersey City and ICE Collaboration in Hudson County first appeared on North NJ DSA.

John D'Emilio joins "Heart of a Heartless World" to discuss the history of Bayard Rustin, a Quaker and democratic socialist who introduced nonviolent tactics to the civil rights movement and organized the March on Washington. After years of organizing protests, Rustin argued after Lyndon B. Johnson's election that the left needed to move "from protest to politics" and engage directly with the political system while building broad-based coalitions. In this episode John D'Emilio charts the similarities between Rustin's engagement with LBJ's administration and the left's challenge with an incoming Biden administration. John D’Emilio is a pioneer in the field of gay and lesbian studies and is professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he taught in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program and the Department of History. He is currently president of the board of the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, a Chicago community-based LGBTQ history archives and cultural center. Resources: John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (2003): https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3644370.html Interview with John D'Emilio with Meagan Day, "Capitalism made gay identity possible. Now we must destroy capitalism." (2020): https://jacobinmag.com/2020/08/gay-identity-capitalism-lgbt John D'Emilio, "Capitalism and Gay Identity" (1983): https://sites.middlebury.edu/sexandsociety/files/2015/01/DEmilio-Capitalism-and-Gay-Identity.pdf John D'Emilio, Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago's LGBTQ Archives, (2020): https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/Q/bo44312771.html

We extend our appreciation to everyone who came to our general meeting last Thursday! For those that don’t know, our monthly general meetings are where we gather to discuss ongoing […]

The post November 2020 General Meeting Recap appeared first on Houston DSA.