by Blair Goodman, MADSA member, co-chair of Equador Working Group on the DSA International Committee and chair of the Training Subcommittee of the DSA Growth and Development Committee

As we urgently grapple with Trump’s return to the White House, it’s crucial to swiftly understand the economic and political factors that led to this outcome. The Democrats’ failure to promptly address the real economic concerns of working-class Americans has paved the way for Trump’s populist rhetoric to once again resonate with voters.

The Disconnect Between Wall Street and Main Street

Despite the rosy picture painted by macroeconomic indicators – a booming stock market, low unemployment, and steady GDP growth – the reality for average Americans has been starkly different. Under the Biden-Harris administration, we witnessed a shocking 20% increase in consumer prices, the biggest slump in living standards since the 1930s[1]. While the rich got richer, most Americans struggled to keep up with inflation.

The disconnect between official economic data and workers’ lived experiences is staggering. According to a recent poll, 62% of respondents rated the economy as “not so good” or “poor”[2]. This “vibecession” – where public sentiment doesn’t match official economic data – has been a critical factor in the Democrats’ downfall.

The Failure of Bidenomics and Harris’s Neoliberal Approach

Perhaps most damning is the decline in real wages for union workers under Biden. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Cost Index, we see that inflation-adjusted wages and salaries for union workers decreased during Biden’s term while increasing under Trump. No wonder 56% of Americans thought the country was in a recession, with 72% believing inflation was still rising.

Going back to Bill Clinton the Democrats’ embrace of austerity policies has deeply betrayed their working-class base. They’ve continued catering to Wall Street and big business instead of pushing for transformative economic policies that benefit the majority. Harris’s refusal to support a single-payer healthcare system, her backtracking on fracking, and the maintenance of Trump-era tax cuts for the wealthy all demonstrate the party’s shift away from progressive economic policies.

The Shift of Traditional Democratic Voters

One voter’s quote summarizes why sufficient numbers switched from Democrat to Republican: “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, and I haven’t seen any benefits. Democrats have been sending funds to wars and resources to migrants rather than to Americans who are struggling. I trust Trump to put us first.”[2] This sentiment reflects a broader trend of disillusionment among traditionally Democratic voters, particularly regarding economic issues and the perception that the party wasn’t prioritizing struggling Americans.

The Immigration Paradox

Ironically, much of the US outperformance in economic growth results from a sharp increase in net immigration, twice as fast as in the Eurozone and three times as fast as in Japan. Yet, the Harris campaign failed to capitalize on this economic benefit, instead caving to anti-immigrant sentiment and supporting the continuation of border wall construction, which contradicted the economic benefits of immigration and alienated potential supporters.

The Looming Debt Crisis

Both candidates have ignored the elephant in the room: the ballooning public debt. Currently estimated at $35 trillion, or around 100% of GDP, the debt load is set to soar higher – potentially reaching $50 trillion within the next 10 years. This rising debt will inevitably lead to higher taxes and cuts in government spending, regardless of who is in power, posing a significant economic challenge for the future.

The Need for Socialist Policies is Urgent

Join a socialist organization. I prefer a mass multi-tendency organization like the Democratic Socialists of America, but if you need something more focused, go for it. Learn to be active in your organization and promote outward-facing, mass work.

To rebuild and move forward, we must embrace truly socialist policies that unite the working class:

• Implement a wealth tax on the ultra-rich to fund social programs and infrastructure investments.
• Establish a single-payer healthcare system to eliminate medical debt and ensure universal coverage.
• Enact a Green New Deal that creates millions of good-paying union jobs while addressing climate change.
• Raise the minimum wage to a living wage and strengthen workers’ rights to organize.
• Invest in affordable housing and public transportation to improve the quality of life for all.

The Road Ahead

While the Democratic Party has failed us, we must strategically consider whether it can still be a vehicle for progressive change. Our immediate focus should be building grassroots solid movements and labor organizations that can exert pressure on political institutions from the outside. Of course, we should use the Democratic line where it is strategically convenient and pursue reform that transfers power from the owning classes to the working classes. 

We must also concentrate our defenses against the coming onslaught of right-wing policies. Concentrating our defenses means making choices about where we can protect voting rights, defend reproductive freedom, and safeguard the rights of marginalized communities. We must recognize that unions will likely face a much more hostile environment under a Trump administration, forcing labor into a defensive position. We will need to find a strategy to resume the offensive. 

As we move forward, we must remember that the underlying forces of capitalist production, investment, and profit are much more powerful than any particular policy adopted and implemented by a government. However, this doesn’t mean we should give up on political action. Instead, we must work tirelessly to build a movement that can challenge the foundations of a system that continues to fail most Americans.

The road ahead is challenging, but we must channel our anger and sadness into organizing and action. Only by uniting the working class around a truly progressive economic agenda can we hope to reverse the tide of right-wing populism and build a more just and equitable society for all.

Sources: 

Kamala Harris Is Not Doing Well With Union Voters

How Bad Would a Trump Presidency Be for Labor? 

The US presidential election: part one – the economy – Michael Roberts Blog

The US election part two: Trump v Harris:  

NOTE: This review contains spoilers

In his latest film, Anora, director Sean Baker has broken through from indie credibility to mainstream success with a frenetic look at the layer of American workers that toil amongst the ultra-rich, doing their dirty work and cleaning up their messes. While the camera follows the arc of the title character, it lingers on the maids, hotel concierges, exotic dancers, and hired goons who bear witness to the realities of 21^st-century income inequality. Through the protagonist (and audience proxy), exotic dancer Anora, we wrestle with the hope we cannot seem to give up that maybe, if we play our cards right, we can gain access to the world of luxury and ease inhabited by people no better than us. 

As soon as we meet Anora (Mikey Madison), it becomes clear that she is an able and confident worker. Her job involves both physical and emotional labor that she navigates easily. Baker aims a nonjudgmental lens at the club where Anora works; the lighting is warm and sensual and the shots that linger on the dancers are sexy but not prurient or seedy. Anora’s club is a classy establishment that serves high-value clients, and Anora is assigned to Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. What follows –flirting and touching, listening and laughing, deep stares – could look, from a distance, like two people falling in love; but those of us who have worked in the service industry know that performance is what we are paid for. 

When Ivan invites her to spend a week with him, it is a professional achievement more than a romantic one for Anora. She maintains her power and sets boundaries even as she enjoys the work and the perks, which include lavish parties and designer drugs. She dances for Ivan and holds him while he plays video games because her job is to fulfill the full range of his desires for companionship. They fly to Las Vegas and visit parts of it only seen by the ultra-rich, and when Ivan ‘jokingly’ screams at a hotel concierge, Anora laughs along with him — as does the concierge, because they both serve at his pleasure. 

When Ivan asks her to marry him, it is again proof of her skill at the job of companionship. The transactional nature of the proposal couldn’t be more clearly spelled out (she gets a ring, he gets a green card), yet we are all so wrapped up in the performance of romance and the ecstasy of a decadent lifestyle that it kind of feels like love. 

Then, as they always do, the drugs wear off, and reality sets in.

In the back half of the film, we meet a new set of characters and shift back into the world of people who must make a living doing what someone tells them to do. When word starts getting around that Ivan has married a ‘prostitute’, the fragile plans that he and Anora made during their honeymoon period immediately disintegrates. Men hired by Ivan’s family to keep an eye on him come knocking, and Ivan bolts, leaving her to (impressively) resist them until it becomes clear that she must ally with them to try to track him down. When they physically assault and restrain her, it is with visible reluctance and shame. These hired strongmen, especially the one who seems to be the sole caregiver to his grandmother, are driven by the paychecks they rely on, but also by the knowledge that their bosses are so powerful that disobedience could be punished with the destruction of their professional and personal lives. 

This looming power haunts the whole sad crew as they embark on an involuntary tour of Ivan’s favorite hangouts, wreaking havoc through their pursuit. The next hour of the film unfolds with a manic but humorous energy comparable to the Safdie Brothers film Good Time. Baker’s pacing pulls us from location to location with the driving force of economic anxiety, but skillfully inserts moments of humor and humanity. 

While the goons are fully aware from the outset that they are in a race for their lives, it only dawns on Anora slowly, piece by piece, as she comes to realize that any expectations she had of becoming part of Ivan’s family was a complete fantasy. After dozens of ignored calls and the ransacking of a candy shop, she realizes that Ivan is not a person she can rely on in even the most basic sense. Following a fight at the club where she met him, it becomes clear that he is a pathetic, dependent child completely unable to escape the authority of his parents. When Ivan’s mother (Darya Ekamasova) tells Anora that if she does not give him a divorce, they will destroy her life and the life of everyone she knows, she is just putting words to the feelings we have felt for the whole film. In a system where money buys power, the ultra-rich can make us all do whatever they want.

On her last night in the mansion she allowed herself to believe was hers, Anora attempts to restore some sense of her own power by belittling Igor (Yura Borisov), the henchman who has never stopped trying to show her his humanity. Anora is telling the truth when she calls him a thug and a kidnapper, but even as she says it, she knows that he, too, was just doing his job. They recognize each other as workers. 

The next day, Igor drops her off, carrying her bags to the door in a way that would never even occur to Ivan. When he gives her back her engagement ring — in a much less transactional way than when she first receives it — her instinct is to make good on his investment with her body. She responds with a sexual advance, because for her, the line between transactional sex and genuine attraction is even more blurred than it is for most women. In a moment when rejection would hurt her but enthusiasm would compromise her, Igor just lets things happen. His passivity is a sign of his care and a continuation of his efforts to support her that has been built up over the course of the film. 

In that moment, Anora struggles against her attraction to him. It is a response to what he has done to her, but also to the prospect of attaching herself to who she sees as a man of low status, as opposed to the elite husband she just lost. Their final encounter triggers an emotional release, and she breaks down when her need to be vulnerable momentarily overcomes her instinct to stay strong. This isn’t love any more than her relationship with Ivan was, but it is at least something real.

Anora is a movie with a sad ending, but it’s not a tragedy. It’s a movie about failing to achieve the American dream, but it’s not the story of a woman defeated. It’s about realizing that who gets to have money and who doesn’t is based not on merit or skill, but rather on luck and ruthlessness. Anora gets a taste of this unreal world, where power and pleasure are limitless. For an interloper like her, though, it has hard limits; it’s a sugar rush followed immediately by a crash. Because she is 25, this experience, though traumatizing, will fade; it isn’t the end for her, but a painful lesson that we all learn at some point.

The majority of American workers hold out hope that something will happen to ensure they won’t have to work anymore. This can be seen in the rise of sports betting, crypto prospecting, and voting for a presidential candidate who promises to magically make groceries cheaper. Anyone can see that those who work the hardest in our society tend to get paid the least, while a small minority at the top have nothing but time and endless resources; so why would anyone want to work hard? Unfortunately, none of us will be pulled out of a life of toil by a generous billionaire because the generous billionaire is a myth. For most of us, no amount of savvy speculation or cozying up to rich boys will ever get us into that stratospheric level of wealth. 

Instead, we have to work — not only at the wage jobs that keep food on the table, but at building working-class organizations to contest the power of the billionaire class. It sucks. It is nothing but the promise of hard work forever. But building something with our fellow workers is the only way out of this mess, and there is the potential to find dignity in the work we do, despite the scorn for hard work inculcated by capitalist culture. Sean Baker’s direction and editing allow us, the audience, to see the work of Anora and her coworkers for what it is: the provision of a service by professionals. By adopting this perspective, not only nonjudgmental but celebratory, on the work of exotic dancers, Baker opens the door for us to rediscover the dignity in the physical and emotional labor we all do.

The post (Sex) Work Won’t Love You Back: A Review of Sean Baker’s Anora appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

In the abject chaos of the aftermath of the 2024 election, there is one extremely stark contrast from 2016: The liberal response to the results. There were very few election night mass protests, if any. The events that went forward the day after were smaller than in 2016, and organized almost exclusively by left-wing groups. For now, the mass liberal revolt against Trump appears to be a thing of the past.

The fact that Trump’s victory was decisive, with mass rightward shifts across all regions including blue-state metropolitan areas, might be one factor. You can claim that 2016 was an aberration. But to be honest in looking at 2024, you have to be honest that Trump is popular and voters overwhelmingly chose him. This fact exists alongside the successes of socialist candidates and left policies, including multiple ballot initiatives that protected abortion access in red states.

Across social media, I’m seeing many well-meaning liberals and progressives state their desire to become “internal émigrés,” a term for a person living under a repressive government who chooses to disconnect from politics altogether. Many Americans have already chosen to “check out,” to focus on themselves and their families. There is little interest in #resisting this time around. People got what they wanted and they deserve what they’re going to get.

This, frankly, is an unacceptable attitude that will get people killed.

People simply do not have the luxury of checking out right now. Trump is promising mass deportations on Day 1 of his second term. Biden is refusing to use the expansive new powers granted him by our rogue Supreme Court to commit “official” acts as President to delay and complicate the transfer of power. You cannot claim your opponent is a fascist and then send a congratulatory call and aid and abet his transition. This means that Biden either doesn’t believe Trump is a fascist or he thinks fascism is good and normal. Every guardrail is broken. Everything is up to us.

Trans people scrambling to figure out HRT access during a Trump administration do not have the luxury of “checking out.” Working parents with trans children desperately trying to make the math work on a sudden move to a sanctuary state don’t have the luxury of “checking out.” 

Immigrants of all statuses do not have the luxury of “checking out”. Yes, that includes the ones who voted for Trump who are going to be targeted by his policies.

Teenage girls subjected to pro-rape taunts from right-wing Gen Z boys do not have the luxury of “checking out.”

Palestinians across the world do not have the luxury of “checking out.”

Parents with disabled students who rely on the IDEA Act do not have the luxury of “checking out.”

“Authoritarian regimes rely heavily on
self censorship and popular demobilization
to exercise control over society.“

Anyone engaging in public-facing left organizing does not have the luxury of “checking out.” Because guess what, folks? We’re targets, too. Take Trump’s threats to go after political enemies seriously.

It is important to prevent burnout, know your boundaries, and be selective in what battles you choose to fight in order to preserve yourself. But that is profoundly different than retreating to false pastoralism because it finally dawned on you that right wing politics has mass appeal. I saw this attitude firsthand growing up in a conservative town during the Bush years. Instead of retreating into apathy, I used that experience to change minds and dedicate my life to fighting for people I don’t know.

Authoritarian regimes rely heavily on self-censorship and popular demobilization to exercise control over society. One person is easy to single out for harassment, arrest, or worse. Such tactics are logistically impossible to use against a million people standing together. The far right wants us to cede the political sphere to them. Conscious disengagement from struggle to preserve oneself is a gift to the fascists. Uniting to protect one another, to defend our democracy, and ultimately to win the world we deserve is the only way forward.

The answer to this crisis isn’t unilateral disarmament. The answer is organizing together to throw every bit of sand into the gears to keep as many people safe as possible. It means having very awkward water cooler conversations with your coworkers who aren’t convinced that Trump will do all the bad things he says he’ll do. It means telling your daughters and nieces that they should beat up any boy that taunts them – and having their back when they face punishment for doing so. It means not throwing trans people under the bus in order to score midterm victories. It means mass meetings and making phone calls and writing postcards and thinking seriously about the fights we pick at the ballot box–and organizing to win those fights. It means meetings with legislators and making demands. It means sharing Know Your Rights information around ICE and CBP. It means all of the unglamorous and tedious work that goes into resisting fascism.

And above all, it means doing this without flinching and apologizing for our politics. Now is not the time to rationalize anti-trans rhetoric as legitimate concern about equity in school sports. Nor is it the time to be border hawks. If immigration and trans rights are unpopular, our task is to make them popular through constant education and agitation. 

In 2004, a number of gay men and women made the case for marriage equality on Fox News and in conservative media. While this strategy involved a great deal of respectability politics, it worked. People understood that gay people were in fact just like them, and people explaining in plain language about all the ways not having access to marriage impacted their daily lives to mass audiences did in fact move the needle and built popular support for marriage equality. There has not been any recent attempt to publicly identify asylum seekers, immigrants, or trans people as people simply seeking dignified lives without government scrutiny in the US. And the liberal “resistance” movement has zero interest in doing so. Likewise, when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast there was no gloating that residents “got what they voted for”. There was mass outrage and efforts to save lives and fight a deliberately incompetent FEMA.  Both of these examples, from Bush’s second term, show that mass action and constant agitprop do force change in a politically hostile environment.

This time around, the organizations I see immediately moving to host mass meetings, rallies, skillshares, and logistical planning events are all socialist or firmly to the left of the Democratic Party. It will be up to us to lead the resistance, to absorb both the disaffected people who did not vote (mainly in “safe” blue and red states), and the people who do want to polish off their knitted beanies and get back to work. The path ahead starts with fighting a return to isolation and a mentality of “protecting me and mine.” And it starts now. 

The post You Do Not Have the Luxury of Checking Out appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

A Statement from the CA DSA State Committee about the 2024 election

Donald Trump, Republicans, and their billionaire backers have won the presidency and control of Congress along with it. Though we woke up Wednesday morning to this terrible news, these results were not decided overnight.

Trump and Republicans across the country have run disgusting campaigns marked by fascism, racism, misogyny, and placing the blame for our suffering on immigrants, trans people, and workers.

In turn, the Democratic establishment thought it wise to pivot to the right, chasing an imaginary constituent at the expense of people’s lives and livelihoods.

In California, our statewide election results were also not what we’d hope for or worked towards. Our statewide organization endorsed and campaigned for Prop 5, which would make building public infrastructure and housing easier, and Prop 33, which would have removed California’s strict limits on rent control. 

Just like in our federal elections, billionaires, landlords, and developers spent hundreds of millions of dollars across the state to lie to voters about these measures, and both failed. Though this is the case, as democratic socialists, we are more committed than ever to continue fighting for justice for tenants and workers. 

Amid all this news, it is understandable to be overwhelmed. But, as Dr. King reminds us, “Revolution, though born of despair, cannot long be sustained by despair.” In these moments, for the sake of our communities and our planet, we are called to keep hope alive, and work like hell to turn things around. And there is reason to be hopeful.

Across California, where our members came together, organized, and knocked on doors, working class champions won. We took on moneyed interests and won seats on city councils, school boards, and other offices. That work matters and will make a material impact on many lives.

We have to keep methodically organizing in our cities and towns toward larger and larger victories. We must also act immediately upon Trump’s return to the White House to protect our community members he has demonized and put at risk. Every life we save will be worth it.

It is our responsibility to move forward thoughtfully and with nothing less than solidarity.

California DSA will soon be hosting an introductory lesson to democratic socialism and how it is the solution to our current crisis. It will be open to anyone who is interested in or new to our organization. We’ll also be announcing plans for our statewide organization moving forward. Stay tuned.

We can and must push forward; our futures depend on it.  

How do we fight Trump? With a united front of working class organizations.

On November 5, Donald Trump was elected, again. How did this happen? At the heart of the disaster is the failure of the Democratic Party. For decades, Democrats have operated as just another party of big business, corporate policies, and the status quo.

While corporate Democrats fell to crushing defeat, socialists won elections across the country. Portland was a bright spot. We elected two endorsed city councilors after an incredible campaign of door-knocking and organizing — and voted in four democratic socialists to city council. Five of the twelve winners signed our Renters’ Bill of Rights.

But our victories exist against the context of a wider victory for the right-wing. What to do now? In Portland DSA we passed an emergency election response with a clear goal: build a coalition to fight for left-wing policies in Portland, and to oppose Trump, and the hard right, conservative, capitalist policies of the Republican Party.

To build a strong coalition, we will invite unions, Palestine solidarity organizations, sympathetic local and state officeholders, and labor solidarity groups to an activist conference to discuss our strategy.

This plan is unified around a set of demands: No abortion ban, no genocide, no deportations. DSA chapters across the country are already making these demands. In Portland, we are also looking ahead to a socialist vision for city council: A Green New Deal for Portland, a Renters’ Bill of Rights, and a jobs program for Portland.

Together, we will work with a coalition of Left organizations to plan a joint forum on the strategy for Portland’s Left, an inauguration day protest, and a longer term left-wing, anti-Trump coalition.

Portland DSA is calling on other chapters to pass the same resolution! We are experiencing an enormous moment of opportunity, as liberals and progressives question their approach of the last 8 years. The strategy of lesser-evilism, and running within the two-party paradigm has left us without a clear response to Trumpist populism. As people begin to question the role of the Democratic Party, it is the job of socialists to convince them of the need for a new party for the working class.

Our chapter is asking DSA to convene the same sort of coalition nationally. The Left is growing, workers deserve more, and together we can build a party and defeat the Right!

November 9, 2024

This coming Wednesday 11/13, Common Council will be voting on the City's budget. Conservative Common Council members are introducing amendments that would defund and eliminate essential city services like youth programming and critical infrastructure. We're calling for Common Council to reject these cuts and pass the budget.

These cuts would completely paralyze the city’s ability to do its basic functions: repairing streets and sidewalks, promoting affordable housing and supportive services, and providing childcare for young children and working families. Not to mention, they would reverse so many of the progressive initiatives we have fought for these past few years. Here are some examples:

• Defunding of a city attorney position would disrupt the city's ability to enforce regulations that serve residents' interests, like stopping apartments from being turned into AirBNBs.

• Defunding the city's health insurance would make it even harder for working class people to run for local office

• Defunding the city's contribution to dozens of nonprofits who provide essential services which include food banks, childcare, support for senior residents, and legal aid.

We are calling on members of Ithaca DSA to join us this Wednesday at 5:30 PM at City Hall (108 E Green St, Ithaca) and tell Common Council to reject austerity amendments and pass a People-First Budget. The people first budget implements:

• Substantial funding to address homelessness

• Planning how to implement reparations for Black Ithacans

• Low-cost improvements to winter sidewalk maintenance

These amendments are capitalizing on the legitimate concern Ithacans are feeling about higher taxes, but they're false solutions and the costs will be borne in working people's lives. Our DSA-endorsed council members have identified and proposed cost-saving cuts of half a million dollars for unfilled staffing positions in the police department. Right now, the City is planning to unnecessarily tax residents for positions that have been unfilled for years.

We're petitioning council to keep funding for community, youth, and infrastructure, but cut the excess from the police department — and most importantly, pass this people-first budget.

In Solidarity,

Ithaca DSA

October 21, 2024

Cornell University targeting anti-genocide protestors with suspension, as well as the threat of expulsion and deportation

Ithaca, NY  — On October 17th, four Cornell students, including the former Co-Chair of Cornell YDSA and the President of Cornell Jewish Voices For Peace were suddenly notified of their suspension from the university for participating in anti-genocide protests on campus before promptly being arrested by Cornell University Police and taken away in handcuffs. 

"Cornell's recent suspension of four students for their involvement with a protest was a harsh, unaccountable, and repressive act of administrative violence," said DSA-endorsed Tompkins County Legislator Veronica Pillar. "Rather than protecting students, Cornell's actions further endanger the community. I urge Cornell administrators to reverse their decision, and I stand in solidarity with the multitude of students, faculty, staff, and alumni calling for due process, human rights, and an end to investments in genocide. Free Palestine."

"Cornell University claims to uphold values like free inquiry, expression, and community, yet its retaliatory actions against these students—suspending, arresting, and banning them for participating in a peaceful protest—directly contradict these principles," said DSA-endorsed Alderperson Kayla Matos of the Ithaca Common Council. "Cornell can practice these principles by reversing these suspensions and respecting students' right to free speech and assembly.

This comes after Cornell's suspension of Graduate Student Momodou Taal, who the university had threatened with deportation before public backlash caused his suspension to be walked back. After Taal's initial suspension, Joel Malina, Cornell's VP of University Relations, in a private meeting with students and parents, affirmed that Cornell University is comfortable with inviting the Ku Klux Klan to university campus. Cornell University's willingness to deport a Black immigrant student for exercising his right to free speech while simultaneously welcoming white supremacists onto campus is blatant white supremacy and we condemn it unequivocally.   

“As of late Cornell University appears more concerned with surveilling and policing its students than with educating them,” said Jorge DeFendini, Chair of Ithaca DSA. "I urge the university to adhere to its mission of 'Any Person, Any Study,' and allow all students to exercise their right to free speech without vindictive retaliation from the administration." 

Ithaca DSA condemns Cornell University's retaliation against its students and stands in total solidarity with these brave protestors in their principled stance against the genocide of Palestine. We call on the university to reverse these suspensions, drop arrest charges, and adhere to the student body's resounding call to divest from companies complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza. 

Solidarity Forever & Free Palestine.

Steering Committee of Ithaca Democratic Socialists of America

May 29, 2024

Over 48,000 members of UAW 4811, higher ed workers in the University of California system, are standing up and striking back against unfair and illegal repression by their universities. These workers make the university system run with their labor, by instructing classes and bringing in grant money with their research. The wealth they create is then invested in weapons manufacturers and other companies that supply, support, and enable the genocide in Gaza, the illegal settlement of the West Bank, and the day to day violence of Israel’s apartheid regime. This Monday, May 19, they began their strike. 

These workers heeded the call put out by their fellow students, joining the movement for a ceasefire in Gaza and Palestinian liberation. Union members were tear-gassed, beaten, and intimidated – first by counter protesters and then by police called by the University of California.

The response to students and workers exercising their right to free speech was repression and violence. But these academic workers are unionized, and have legal protections from unfair labor practices like this. And they have a tool to protect their rights: the strike.  

With this strike, UAW 4811 makes the following demands:

1. Amnesty for all academic employees, students, student groups, faculty, and staff who face disciplinary action or arrest due to protest.

2. Right to free speech and political expression on campus.  

3. Divestment from UC’s known investments in weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza. 

4. Disclosure of all funding sources and investments, including contracts, grants, gifts, and investments, through a publicly available, publicly accessible, and up-to-date database.

5. Empower researchers to opt out from funding sources tied to the military or oppression of Palestinians. The UC must provide centralized transitional funding to workers whose funding is tied to the military or foundations that support Palestinian oppression. 

UC academic workers are fighting against repression on behalf of students and workers everywhere, from California to Palestine! Their fight is our fight, and we stand with them!

As DSA members, we know that the workers at the University of California are fighting not just for their own safety and right to peacefully protest, but for workers all across the world, especially in Palestine. Workers at UC are taking a bold step, striking not only for better working conditions, but to defend their fundamental political rights and freedoms. After all, it is our collective power to withhold our labor by which these very rights are guaranteed. We know that the struggle for a better future begins on the shop floor, and as democratic socialists, we stand loudly and proudly alongside all workers who demand political freedom and an end to the genocide in Palestine.

Therefore, as Ithaca DSA members we commit to:

• Amplify the demands of the rank-and-file through public statements of support

• Hold UC accountable to meet the just demands of their workers

• (IF APPLICABLE: We will join striking workers on the picket line and provide material support to help them stay strong)

When workers, students, and social movements stand together demanding an end to US complicity in Israel’s genocide, we will win!

First Published October 29, 2023

Ithaca DSA supports Professor Russell Rickford and is disgusted by the attacks being leveled at him. He has been accused by Cornell campus groups and media outlets of celebrating Hamas’s violence against Israeli civilians and promoting hate speech. These accusations are based on a short and decontextualized video clip of a much longer, 19-minute speech that was given at a rally in support of the Palestinian people, co-organized by Jewish Voices for Peace and the Ithaca Committee for Justice for Palestine and co-sponsored by the Ithaca DSA and other local organizations. Professor Rickford did NOT support or glorify violence against civilians. In fact, he stated "I hate violence. I hate violence. I can’t stand guns. I come from a deep tradition of peace. I come from a deep tradition of resistance to militarism, and to war. I would never presume, on principle, I would never presume, to tell an oppressed people how they should seek their liberation... I abhor the killing of civilians. It’s horrific," (full transcript of speech here). 

The deliberate misrepresentation and decontextualization of his speech is an affront to open dialogue and free speech, which Cornell purports is a key value of the university. We call on Cornell to take the side of Professor Rickford, instead of those making bad faith attacks, undermine free speech, and distort others’ viewpoints for political gain. 

Professor Rickford is a wonderful scholar, teacher, community member, and activist who does not deserve this incredible outpouring of hate and disinformation. 

Sign a petition to support him here.