For five years flight attendants have been locked in contract negotiation with American Airlines (AA) to bargain for a better contract. Since then inflation has increased by more than 30%, yet starting pay remains frozen at $27k a year. 

The flight attendants and their union have authorized a strike with a 99% majority, but government agencies won’t let them. The Railway Labor Act requires flight attendants to obtain approval from the National Mediation Board (NMB) before striking, which the NMB has refused. The NMB’s limit on the right to strike impacts more than the 27,000 flight attendants at AA. In fact, it hurts all railway and airline workers in the nation, their families, and the communities they live in.

With no legal ability to strike, negotiations have been left at a standstill, which benefits no one but AA. They get to freeze employee wages while continuing to inflate their prices and fees. This story repeats across all industries because our government prioritizes the interests of capitalists who own corporations over the interests of workers who keep them running day in, day out.

The AA contract negotiation has gone on for five years: two under Donald Trump and three under Joe Biden. Republican and Democratic politicians may strongly disagree on specific policies, but they regularly come together to keep workers down (for example, Joe Biden recently appointed a Republican to the NMB).

As socialists we recognize the ability to strike as fundamental and necessary to fight the tyranny of capital. Any and all action to restrict this ability should be opposed and overturned. 

Follow the APFA on social media to keep an eye out for how you can support their fight for a better contract.

Scientists working for the oil companies have known about climate change since the 1950s. It’s been a scientifically accepted fact since the 1980s. Millennials have grown into middle age listening to the debate between fossil fuel industry plants and reality. And while the pundits argued, climate changed. 2023 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. And 2024 is hotter than that!

Climate change is linked to more frequent natural disasters everywhere. In 2023 alone Canada lost 5% of its forest area to wildfires, China was inundated with more than 9.5” of rain in 24 hours around Beijing, and entire towns in Libya were completely destroyed by sudden flooding.

Grand Rapids had 47” of snow last year, 30 inches less than our average of 76”. Winter sports in Michigan may be a thing of the past. In recent winters, activities such as snowmobiles and skiing have been canceled due to warm temperatures.

Without radical changes, Michigan’s climate could be similar to Oklahoma or North Texas. And summers in Texas may get hot enough to cook a person. We’ll likely see climate migration in the coming decades. Given our current housing crisis, will we be prepared?

Our food systems have been developed based on existing climate patterns. What will happen when those change?

CAPITALISM IS THE PROBLEM

In North America, the European settlers who brought the concept of money had to systematically eradicate the North American indigenous cultures that revered the Earth.  If Capitalism could  save us from  climate change, it would need to somehow reconcile the parts of itself that created the issue in the first place. “Green” Capitalism presents us two options:

Individual Consumer-Based Solutions Are Insufficient

We know that individual solutions aren’t enough to prevent climate catastrophe. Just 100 corporations have been responsible for releasing 71% of greenhouse gasses. In one year, the richest billionaires each produce as much carbon as someone in the 99% would in 1,500 years.

So even if we got the entire working class to ELIMINATE their “carbon footprint” (a term created by the oil industry), we wouldn’t be anywhere close to making the change necessary! Additionally, many of the products for these consumer-based solutions require continued exploitative precious metal mining in Africa, for lithium and cobalt. 

Carbon Offsets Are a Shell Game

The world’s largest companies and Grand Rapids City Government plan on reaching net zero by using carbon offsets. Many consumers are even presented with the option to add $2 to your plane ticket to offset “1,000 air miles” or $17/year to offset your breath.

This money goes to projects like Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in PA–a nature preserve since the 1930s–or Hudson Farm Club in NJ–Billionaire Peter Kelogg’s private hunting club. Things under no threat of bulldozers. There is no additional benefit, just an excuse to continue business as usual. In fact, in a 2021 study the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change and the Environment found that carbon offsets have substantially increased pollution. And why wouldn’t they? Logging companies can just clear cut the land next door and forest fires don’t care about human contracts.

SO WHAT IS THE SOLUTION?

The solution is simple: LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND! We have pulled out enough fossil fuels that, if burned, would send us into catastrophic climate change. If we stopped burning fossil fuels today and figured out what to do without them tomorrow, the positive effects would still outweigh the negative effects. We don’t need more exploration and extraction. We need a just transition now!

There are common sense solutions that could slash emissions today, like regulating the oil industry and heavily taxing billionaires who are making the worst climate impacts. A competent government would be banning cryptocurrency mining and closing the MPG loophole for ultra-heavy vehicles like SUVs and modern trucks, while improving and expanding public transit, which would drastically reduce emissions and simultaneously reduce traffic, transportation costs, and car accidents.

America’s green transition is moving so slowly because our leaders insist on waiting for private utility companies to switch to renewable energy at a pace that stays profitable. Instead of wasting time while these companies drag their feet, we should be creating and supporting public utilities with the resources and the will to build green energy. NOT TOMORROW BUT TODAY!

Just last year the NYC DSA won a massive campaign to pass the Build Public Renewables Act, which invests heavily in new green energy production and requires the state owned power company to go completely green by 2030. This isn’t a pipe dream, it’s already happening in this country!

The post The Time is NOW for Climate Action! appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

Our Maine Mural podcast is happy to offer this audio recording of T. Sinclair’s article, “Conservative SCOTUS Justices are Waging a Reactionary Revolution,” on the concerted takeover of the Supreme Court by far-right reactionaries and their rising threat to democracy.

The post Maine Mural: Conservative Justices are Waging a Reactionary Revolution appeared first on Pine & Roses.

In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We are in the process of taking this country back. […] We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.

– Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation, July 2024

In 1982, the Federalist Society was founded by a group of conservative law students. Its aim was to challenge what they perceived as a liberal agenda in schools, government agencies, and courts. By 2019, they had reached what the Washington Post dubbed an “unprecedented peak of power and influence.” On today’s Supreme Court five of the nine Justices are current or former members of the Society: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Barrett. The only conservative Justice missing from the Federalist’s list is John Roberts, who held positions in Reagan and G.H.W. Bush’s administrations, both conservative Republicans.

Leaving John Roberts aside, let’s look at the Federalist Society that brought up the other five conservative Justices to this point. The Federalist Society likes to play at being libertarian and demanding equal division of powers. “The separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution,” so says their website. Yet, the Justices they brought into being just dumped a heavy load of power onto the executive and judiciary at the expense of Congress. 

So, what are we looking at? The Federalist Society was started with a grant from the Olin Foundation. John M. Olin was a staunch conservative and president of Olin Industries, which manufactured chemicals and munitions. His foundation was started in 1953 and directly financed the startup of the Federalist Society as a way of raising generations of conservative lobbyists, lawyers, judges, and Justices. Olin and conservatives like him hated the American state apparatus post-New Deal. The rich had to pay more taxes, workers were entitled to more rights and, because of the advances of the working class, the wage gap was much smaller (in 1960 a CEO made roughly 22 times more than a typical worker. By 2022, CEOs made 344 times more than a typical worker). The Federalist Society, in turn, has fought against environmental rights, workers’ rights, and governmental regulatory powers. In short, the Federalist Society has fought for the supremacy of private business over the rights and well-being of American citizens.

It took years, but eventually the Federalist Society got plenty of judges onto federal circuit courts and the Supreme Court. Through appointments made by Reagan, George H.W., and George W., the Federalist Society saw an influx of federal judge appointments. But, it wasn’t until Trump when they saw their pay day. “Approximately 90% of Donald Trump’s appointments to the federal judiciary are or were members of the Federalist Society,” according to Bloomberg Law. 

So, is it no coincidence that now, when we see a Supreme Court run by Federalist Society appointees, there are a number of rulings that tear at the fabric of American society and legal precedent? One of the first major blows was in 2018 with the Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council ruling. With Federalist Society Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch in the majority, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that unions representing public workers were not permitted to require union fees by workers. This overruled a long respected precedent set in 1977 by the Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision. It would not be the last time this new radically reactionary Supreme Court overturned precedent. 

For example, Roe v. Wade in 2022’s absurd case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Scotus basically ruled that pregnant people in the U.S. do not have a right to abortion, and instead left it up to states whether they would allow abortions within their territorial domains. And, in doing so, the court stripped a person’s right to bodily autonomy.

The Federalist Society Justices have also been doing their best to strip federal agencies of their powers, transferring it over to the courts. Earlier this year, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, our conservative Supreme Court held that courts should not defer to agencies’ expertise. Instead, judges should take the reins and rule as they see fit. There are a number of other rules that limit federal regulatory powers: SEC v. Jarkesy, Ohio v. EPA, and Corner Post v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System. 

Most recently, the Federalist Society Justices have stepped way out of bounds by vastly expanding the immunity powers of the President in Trump v. United States. After Donald Trump pressured Vice President Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and encouraged supporters to protest at the Capitol in order to get his way, he was brought up on a number of charges. These include obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the U.S., and conspiracy against rights. However, on July 1st, 2024, SCOTUS decided by a 6-3 decision along partisan conservative lines that Presidents are suddenly granted immunity for actions committed while within their official capacity. This has no precedent, and signals a clear shift in the Supreme Court’s approach to law in the United States. Before this, no one was above the law. Now, the President is above the law. What to take from this?

REACTIONARY PERSONALITIES

There is a revolution taking place quietly under our very feet. There are other decisions to be cited, but the above is enough to show that the current Supreme Court is making it up as it goes along. Ignoring past precedent, the conservative majority is taking it upon itself to reshape the American political playing field as it best suits conservatives’ interests. This isn’t just a natural shift that comes along with a majority switching between liberal and conservative. This has been a tidal change the likes we have never seen. So, it behooves us to at least look at two of the institution’s most belligerently partisan Justices.

Samuel Alito

Here’s a man who has happily accepted luxurious vacations paid for by conservative interests. A devout Catholic who has made no mystery regarding his personal stances against same-sex marriage and abortion. And, while these are worrisome, and Justices should be able to put personal biases aside during federal proceedings, Alito has gone further. His family has flown upside down American flags outside of their homes (a symbol that America is in distress), and he has refused to recuse himself from the immunity case against Trump, despite a mountain of evidence suggesting he should. And why has he done all this? 

It’s merely speculation, but Alito comes from a staunchly conservative background and was supported by the Federalist Society. The Federalists have an agenda, largely shared by Alito. For this Justice, it appears as though partisan agenda comes before precedent. They are willing to put aside decades of deliberations in order to ring in a new order of conservative values that will help the rich and hurt the working class. As he was quoted in Lauren Windsor’s undercover audio, “One side or the other is going to win.” Alito clearly is on a mission that only sees black and white, and he has the inability to judge nuance case by case. He is on the track to create a reactionary revolution in order to bring down anything and everything liberal.

Clarence Thomas

This man loves favors. He can’t get enough. His acceptance of gifts and luxury trips was the impetus for SCOTUS laying down some toothless rules around what Justices should or should not accept. But, did that cause him to recuse himself from Donald Trump’s case regarding immunity? Of course not. Thomas narrowly got through a nomination process after he was accused of sexually harassing a worker underneath him. Since then, he has gone on to be the beacon for all conservative efforts before the court, eagerly writing dissenting opinions throughout the ‘90s and early 2000’s. And now that the Federalist Society bloc has taken over, he has been loud and proud in his conservative decisions, siding against labor, against a person’s bodily autonomy, against democracy, and more. This is his moment to shine, and with his age progressing day after day, his itching to get reactionary rulings fixed before he goes is likely only to grow stronger.

REACTIONARY REVOLUTION

It isn’t just Sam Alito and Clarence Thompson we should be worried about, though. The Federalist Society also produced Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. And, even though Roberts isn’t a Federalist alum, he’s still very much in the conservative camp. There is a solid 6-3 imbalance on SCOTUS right now, favoring the radical conservatives. Sure, Roberts can be swayed here and there, but it isn’t enough to make a dent. What is underfoot is a conscious rebellion against a perceived liberal administrative state. The conservative establishment hates what it sees as a regulatory system. It identifies freedom with the freedom to exploit. Regulations curb exploitation, and therefore must go. The Federalist Society has worked decades trying to get their preferred legal minds behind benches, and now they’ve succeeded. It’s a revolution, whether they admit it or not. In fact, they have said it. Kevin Roberts, head of the radically conservative Heritage Foundation, said so himself. “Americans in 2024 are in the process of carrying out the second American Revolution to take power back from the elites and despotic bureaucrats.” He said these remarks in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that Presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for acts committed in an official capacity. Radical right-wing conservatives are calling it a revolution! Why do the rest of us not take them at their word and react accordingly? It’s the kind of top-down revolution that reactionaries love. And it won’t stop until we take back control of our courts.

Will you see it as such? Will you accept that there is a quiet reactionary revolution happening under our noses? There is little time left. They have already turned back labor laws, regulation laws, sexual orientation and bodily autonomy laws. What will it take for you to not just open your eyes, but step up? We only have one tool that cannot be taken away, our voice. 

Join the Democratic Socialists of America. Help us combat conservative offensives and liberal paralysis. There is no one coming to save us but us. We can only do it together.

The post Conservative Justices are Waging a Reactionary Revolution appeared first on Pine & Roses.

by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

This month the United States will observe the Fourth of July, our annual celebration of “freedom.” Undeniably, it’s worth paying tribute to the sloughing off of hereditary monarchy, a form of government which “ha[d] laid . . . the world in blood and ashes,” according to Founding Father Thomas Paine. Yet the continuation of slavery and settler colonialism following the victory over these “crowned ruffians” constitutes no state of freedom.

The 2024 presidential election is pitched as a battle for the maintenance of American freedom. According to a recent email from the Biden campaign, “Trump and MAGA Republicans have an ambitious laundry list of unconstitutional and authoritarian ‘tasks’ with one goal in mind: to take away our fundamental freedoms and destroy democracy as we know it.” 

At what point did America become free? Freedom is denied to countless people incarcerated in a racialized prison system representing a continuation of slavery. Freedom is denied to victims of U.S. foreign policy attempting to flee their homeland. Freedom is denied to all who are forced to sell their labor to survive. While these circumstances persist, we do not live in a free society. As labor leader Eugene Debs recognized, “While there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

The freedoms offered by political elites today are a limited set of bourgeois freedoms. They mimic an ideological commitment to processes and institutions supposedly designed to deliver freedom, while upholding material conditions that perpetuate exploitation and the division of society into unequal classes. When one of these freedoms conflicts with this state of affairs, it is the freedom that is sacrificed. “Free speech” deployed in opposition to U.S. imperialism, for example, is met with brutal repression, employment consequences, and actual canceling. This is not new—for speaking against the First World War, Eugene Debs was sentenced to imprisonment.

The one freedom that is truly fundamental to the capitalist order is free trade. As Marx recognized, “[capital] has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade.” 

Any remaining freedoms are limited to individualist terms, defined by consumer choice. As critical theorist Herbert Marcuse argued, these choices provide only the illusion of freedom: “Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear—that is, if they sustain alienation.” Workers are free to sell their labor power to the employer of their choosing, but they are compelled to do so, and to further surrender their freedoms once they step foot in the workplace. 

This hegemonic capitalist ideology is proselytized by a ruling class seeking to convince workers there is nothing better to hope for. Much of the working class has absorbed these lessons, developing a false consciousness that identifies with their oppressor and perpetuates a system defined by exploitation and class division. On the Fourth of July, they can celebrate only the aesthetic freedoms of flying the American flag, grilling meat, drinking beer, and blowing stuff up. 

Individualist definitions of freedom are easily perverted for reactionary demands. In the hands of American conservatives (frequently supported by liberals), they are transformed into tools of oppression. Racial segregation, same-sex marriage, and patriotic indoctrination have all been defended in terms of “freedom.” To reactionaries, freedom is a zero-sum game: Freedom must be hoarded by a white, patriarchal, and cis-gender society lest it be appropriated by immigrants, feminists, and queers.

True freedom cannot be realized under capitalism. As Marx identified, “In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labor which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production.” We will celebrate an actually free society only once production is reoriented towards meeting necessity, rather than generating profit. 

Such freedoms as are enjoyed by workers today—leisure time following an eight-hour day, weekends, compensated retirement, and medical care—have only come as the result of generations of struggle. In the face of violent pushback, unions captured these pockets of freedom from the workplace. We must now recall this militancy, and continue this struggle until the sphere of freedom has broken free from the chains of capital.

The post The Perversion of Freedom first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Students are organizing encampments to support Palestine all across the country. DSA can and should stand in solidarity with them.

 It was a freakishly warm day in early May when I went to my first Palestinian student encampment on the Auraria campus, a conglomerate of three separate universities that share one central campus. I lathered myself in layers of sunscreen and dressed in long sleeve clothes to protect my pale skin from the harsh Colorado sun. Wrapping my keffiyeh around my neck and backpack full of essentials with four cases of water in my trunk to donate to the students, I set off for the hectic drive downtown, and to the first major protest of my life. 

I had joined DSA in early 2024 as I became disillusioned with the callous response from both parties on the issue of Palestine. The more I opened my eyes to the two party system, the more I saw how alike Democrats and Republicans were in keeping the status quo. My bleeding heart couldn’t imagine how anyone could look at the horror I had seen on social media of Palestinians being murdered and still believe in the lies the government was pushing in backing Israel. I was apparently mistaken. 

In the mainstream news, student encampments had become a hate speech buzzword. Columbia, Cal Poly Humboldt, and City University of New York had already experienced immense police pressure and mass arrests. On both liberal and conservative sides, the kids were considered extremists, “Little Gazas” — as Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, so lovingly put it — trained rioters, antisemitic nazis  and a slew of other blatant xenophobic, racist lies. 

When I pulled up, I saw the small smattering of tents and quickly found my way around. Many of the people there were students, but other members of the community had shown up to show their solidarity. Denver DSA had been sharing posts from the encampment’s Instagram account to our Slack, where I had first heard about the camp.

I couldn’t fathom the idea that these students were violent extremists. What I saw in front of me were exhausted 20-year-olds, living on coffee and free food, rushing to turn in assignments at the last minute — something I could relate to as a college graduate of less than two years myself. In everyone I met, behind the tired eyes and jokes about finals hell, I saw hope.

The positive energy was palpable. Nobody wanted “death to America” as Fox News and MSNBC wanted everyone to believe. Speakers talked about a future that saw universities used for comprehensive liberation and learning, not destruction and colonization. One student told me “I don’t know what I’m going to do when this all ends. I haven’t felt this supported in all my life. I wish we could live like this all the time — the world out there doesn’t care about me.” There is a way to live like this, I thought: we just have to fight for it. 

Other conversations focused on the human toll in Palestine. I distinctly remember an enlightening conversation with an older gentleman who had been born and grew up in Jerusalem as a Palestinian. He came to the encampment everyday to stand with the students in solidarity, but I got a chance to talk to him in a small group setting in the camp’s memorial library. There were only about four of us gathered around in camp chairs, hanging on to every word he said. 

He talked about his father and what it was like before the Nakba started, when the first Jewish settlers and Palestinians lived in harmony until the Zionists moved in. He explained what his life was like growing up, why his family had to pay more for food and water. He said that Israel owns everything for Palestinians except for the air. The group listened quietly as he talked about the restrictions of his youth, where he could and couldn’t go, why he moved to America. One comment he made seeps into the front of my mind to this day. He said, “I didn’t expect all of these students and strangers to come out and support my people, the Palestinian people.” 

His people. That’s why we were all there. It still weighs on my heart. I have the privilege to distract myself from the crisis, even if it is just for a few hours. On that day, however, this stranger sat less than five feet from me and thanked all these kids for caring about his homeland. I could reach out and hold his hand. At that moment, everything became that much more painful for me. This man had done nothing but show me and these students compassion, and yet, I knew if he still lived in Jerusalem, he would be considered a third-class citizen. I know if he was still there, he could very well just be another sacrifice in the war. Those moments weigh on my heart. I can’t imagine not fighting for Palestine with those words ringing in my ears. 

While 95% of my experiences were peaceful, there were moments when I felt unsafe. I had been there less than an hour on the first day when a student said the police were coming. We had seen the brutality that other law enforcement had inflicted on protesters. Suddenly, I saw the swathes of blue marching down the street. Ten police cars had parked on the lawn to contain the less than 100 protestors currently in the camp, while a bus pulled up to take us to jail behind them. A sea of cops in riot gear stood in lines like row after row of racist corn stalks. We intertwined our elbows and sat on the ground, circling the tents.

I looked into these cops’ eyes and all I saw was a callous, indifferent sneer. We weren’t worth the time it would take them to arrest us. Over the next two hours, I saw people get arrested for speaking out, for telling cops to stop physically touching them — and we were considered lucky in Denver. We were far from the most violent use of police force nationally, and still I watched kids get body slammed to the ground, dragged off in zip-tie cuffs and shoulder checked left and right by law enforcement for two hours.

After the cops arrested 47 students and forced the tents to be moved on threat of destruction, they retreated to the sound of cheers after a group of pro-Palestinian protesters had marched to the campus from another protest to provide the bodies needed to avoid any more arrests. I learned afterwards many DSA members were part of the march, coming to stand with their YDSA comrades in need. 

One of the students arrested was a trans girl I went to high school with. When I heard of the conditions she was kept in, I was enraged. She was locked in a brightly lit glass cell by herself for 23 hours, where the fluorescent lights didn’t shut off at any time. Her wrists were swollen and sore from the zip cuffs, and she stated to me later that her cuffs were loose compared to other arrested protesters. She couldn’t call anyone, even legal help, for four hours. Other protesters were kept in crowded holding cells. She said one of the protestors lost feeling in his hands because of how tight the cuffs were on him.

This is how the police decided to treat kids who were quietly protesting on a lawn. All it did was galvanize the movement. The camp would grow to take up most of the quad. No matter how many students they threw in jail, the larger community, including DSA, rallied around to help the protesters in any way we could. 

Denver DSA and the Auraria student encampment worked hand in hand. Many of the leaders of the encampment were YDSA members, and our local DSA chapter even held our monthly May meeting at the encampment to show solidarity. Many members who are not part of our internationalism group hadn’t gotten a chance before to go out to see the camp, and many left with promises to return with supplies. 

The ending of the school year saw the dismantling of the encampments that hadn’t been forcibly removed. For some, it looked like a loss for the pro-Palestine side, but it’s not. The pro-Palestinian movement isn’t slowing down. It’s just begun, and with the encampments came a huge learning curve. Many young adults saw a world where socialism can be attainable. It wasn’t a dog-eat-dog world that the bourgeoisie want everyone to think is acceptable. People’s needs were met and treated with compassion in that camp, not indifference. What the student encampments have taught my generation is that adults are afraid of us when we come together.

As an organization DSA should support any and all encampments that spring up in the future, especially before the election in November. DSA and the encampment leaders have the same goals for both a permanent ceasefire and the liberation of Palestine. From what I saw, these students and community members want the world that DSA is fighting for, no matter how long it takes. 

DSA should have a three pronged approach to strengthen our relationship with the encampments and the student protestors in general. The first prong is clear lines of communication. DSA, both national and local chapters, need to promote the encampment and their needs both publicly and in the chapter ranks. We can stage more solidified, targeted protests if we work together. Having DSA or YDSA members on the ground at every or almost every encampment could keep both organizations open to ask for help or communicating needs. 

The second prong is working with the encampments that plan to move off campus grounds, at least for the summer break. I believe that the Palestinian movement can still gain traction if we set up encampments in highly public areas, like state capitol grounds, outside Israeli embassies, businesses on the BDS boycott list, and homes of political leaders, including the White House. If YDSA and DSA can join with the organizations that worked to set up the campus encampments to make more of a public statement this summer, the message of Palestine will still be in the public eye. This means direct action that the media can’t ignore and large scale actions that bring attention to Palestine. 

The third and last prong is support. I can’t stress this enough. DSA has to be on the ground with these student protests. There’s safety in numbers, and more bodies means that encampments can keep themselves safe. If DSA members can’t physically show up, we need to push the student’s bail funds, food and wellness needs, and other ways to support the students with physical or monetary donations. 

The student protesters aren’t going to be intimidated into leaving because of the threat of police presence. I know my generation is resilient. DSA has to stand on the right side of history by linking up hand in hand with the student encampments, or the people of Gaza will lose everything. 

The post DSA can Support Student Protests for Palestine appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Last Tuesday was election night across New York State. The night highlighted both the enduring challenges and promise of the rising Socialist movement. In the most widely covered race of the night, Reactionary forces across the Right and Center, including AIPAC, funneled tens of millions of dollars into the 16th Congressional District to secure the defeat of DSA-endorsed incumbent, Congressman Jamaal Bowman by George Latimer. While at the state-level, all eight DSA incumbents in the State Senate and Assembly won their reelection bids, and they will be joined by DSA-endorsed candidate, Claire Valdez, who won her insurgent campaign to represent the 37th Assembly District in Queens. Tonight, we will hear from David Vibert, a steering committee member of DSA’s National Electoral Commission, to give his perspective on last week’s elections and their ramifications for the socialist movement in New York state and beyond. We will also hear from RPM’s own Jack Devine and Alex Randazzo on their breakdown of Bowman’s defeat, and what his loss tells us about the evolution of the 16th district since he first won the seat in 2020 and what we can learn in his loss 4 years later.

DSA chapters around the country are organizing for a Green New Deal – campaigning for social housing, public power, and mass transit. Hear from Building for Power campaigns about organizing for mass public transit with labor and socialists in office!

Panelists:

• Anne Marie Drolet (TWU 320 Los Angeles)
• Richard Marcantonio (People’s Transit Alliance campaign, East Bay DSA member)
• Samantha Evans (Fix The CTA Campaign, Chicago DSA Member)
• Lillian Brents (President of ATU Local 1447, Louisville)

Download files:

• Video (.mp4)
• Audio only (.m4a)
• Transcript (.vtt)

With recent Supreme Court rulings further criminalizing homelessness and stripping government authority to enforce major 20th century reform legislation, we are belatedly publishing this resolution from our 2024 Chapter Convention on the undemocratic nature of the first US Constitution and the place of the battle for democracy in our organization’s socialist vision.

Whereas

The United States is run by and for the capitalist class, and this class rule takes the specific form of the liberal-constitutional regime outlined in the Constitution.

This Constitution was imposed undemocratically by an alliance of slaveowners and capitalists in order to secure their property against popular democracy, and yet the working-class majority who would not even have been eligible to vote on it at the time of its ratification have been forced to live under its provisions ever since.

The political institutions established by the Constitution are intended to be an obstacle to democracy at every step, including, but not limited to: the outrageously unrepresentative Senate, the Electoral College, and the glut of the imperial Presidency and the surrounding bureaucracy.

The Constitution has allowed for further usurpations of popular sovereignty, including, but not limited to: judicial review by a panel of unelected judges who serve for life, the establishment of a repressive standing army, and the sale of elections, public officials, legal services, and the press to the highest bidder.

The process the Constitution provides for its own amendment is intentionally very difficult, stultifying, and anti-majoritarian.

The historical tendencies towards the concentration of capital in few hands and the concentration of people in few states has rendered any constitutional paths that may once have been open to the socialist movement forever closed, obstructing progressive reform and leaving those reforms already won through historical mass struggle defenseless as the political servants of the capitalist class conspire to strip them away.

The DSA has pledged to fight for a “a world organized and governed by and for the vast majority, the working class,” which is clearly impossible under the current Constitutional regime and cannot be won through the antidemocratic channels of reform laid down by the Constitution.

DSA’s platform affirms that DSA is an antiracist organization dedication to the abolition of white supremacy yet the Constitution was written by slaveowners and to this day serves to deny self-determination to Black, Indigenous, and other oppressed populations,

We understand that the fight for socialism is the fight for democracy but, with no democratic means of reforming the undemocratic Constitution, we must follow the revolutionary path to democracy in order to take the democratic road to socialism.

Therefore, be it Resolved, 

Cleveland DSA affirms, from the DSA Political Platform, that “the American political system was not made to serve the working class” and that “the nation that holds itself out as the world’s premier democracy is no democracy at all” by officially raising the demand for a new and radically democratic constitution, drafted by an assembly of the people elected by direct, universal and equal suffrage for all adult residents with proportional representation of political parties, and rooted not in the legitimacy of dead generations of slaveowners and capitalists, but that of a majority consensus of the working masses. 

Additionally Cleveland DSA urges DSA as a whole to take up a stance of opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as antidemocratic and oppressive, encouraging all DSA members in elected office to do the same, taking concrete actions to advance the struggle for a democratic republic such as agitating against undemocratic judicial review, fighting for proportional representation, delegitimizing the anti-democratic U.S. Senate, and advancing the long-term demand for a new democratic Constitution. We declare that to be a socialist is to fight for an expansive working-class democracy in which the state and society are democratically managed by the majority. In the U.S. this means demanding a new Constitution.

Be it finally Resolved, this resolution shall be published on the Cleveland DSA website.

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