In Houston, we know that we are not alone in our struggle for economic, social, and housing justice. We are  not alone in the struggle for liberation from capitalism, colonialism, […]

The post May Day Statement appeared first on Houston DSA.

(This statement is from April, 24, 2024) We stand with unwavering solidarity with the students in Rice University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, and all campuses, as they demand […]

The post Student Encampment Solidarity Statement appeared first on Houston DSA.

(This post is from November 8, 2023) For the last 11 weeks, our members have been on the ground talking to Houstonians all over the city about the importance of […]

The post Houston voters overwhelmingly pass Proposition A! appeared first on Houston DSA.

Students here in New York and across the country are staging protests and encampments on university campuses in solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza for over 200 days. The student movements are united by a common call for their institutions to divest and boycott the state of Israel, companies, and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation and ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response to this vast mobilization of students, the university administrations at Columbia, NYU, CUNY and elsewhere have handed out mass suspensions & even threats of expulsion to students involved in the encampments, in addition to unleashing NYPD to arrest students protesting peacefully on their campuses. Tonight, we will hear from the students themselves. We will hear from Britt, a student organizer at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at CUNY City College, about the ‘Five Demands’ of the students to the CUNY administration. We will also be joined in-studio by Erin, a student at NYU and a member of the National Coordinating Committee of YDSA, to hear the latest from the NYU encampment and what YDSA is doing to meet the national moment. 

 

*This episode was recorded at 7pm Tuesday night before the NYPD sweep and mass arrests of students at Columbia and CUNY. Go out and provide jail support for the arrested students & comrades opposing genocide at One Police Plaza  

 

Link to CUNY Gaza Solidarity Statement: https://twitter.com/cunygse/status/1785677626431934751/photo/1

In this episode, we sit with Dr. Tim Conder and Dr. Daniel Rhodes of the Black Mountain School of Theology and Community to discuss a marxist, community-centered mode of theological research, organizing, and education. Visit their website at https://blackmountainschool.org

The Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee (DSA IC) affirms Iran’s right to self-defense in response to the illegal Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. DSA IC reiterates our firm opposition to providing any military or diplomatic assistance to the Zionist project, which is currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians and reckless attacks on neighboring states, posing a serious risk of escalating into a full-blown regional conflict. We oppose any U.S. participation in or support of Israeli strikes against Iran and denounce punitive measures such as sanctions and travel bans enacted by the Biden administration or Congress in response to Iran’s defensive strikes on Israel. 

Despite western attempts to paint Iran as the aggressor, DSA IC recognizes that Iran has long been targeted by the U.S. and its allies for its efforts to establish national self-determination and champion Palestinian liberation. Since the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, the US and Israel have wrought war on the Iranian people by murdering millions in the Iran-Iraq war, carrying out regular assassinations of its leaders, scientists, and top-commanders on diplomatic missions, and depriving the Iranian people of necessary medical supplies through sanctions. This is part of the U.S.’s imperial policy: destruction and de-development against any country that exercises sovereignty or opposes U.S. hegemony. 

The Israeli Occupation Force’s (IOF) April 1st strike against the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, which killed at least 16 people including a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander, represents an extremely serious violation of international laws and norms governing diplomatic relations between states, including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and 1963 Convention on Consular Relations. The Biden administration’s “iron-clad” support of the Zionist project has allowed Israel to operate with total impunity, resulting in gross violations of international humanitarian law and military provocations against regional allies of Palestinians which threaten to destabilize the whole of West Asia. 

Not only has the Biden administration refused to deescalate the current crisis with a denunciation of  the Israeli strikes on the Iranian consulate, but it also blocked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) from doing so. Likewise, President Biden did not act on the purported Iranian offer to forgo a retaliatory strike on Israel in exchange for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. On April 13th, Iran launched a limited defensive strike against Israel, hitting several Israeli bases including the Netavim Air Base from which the attack on the Damascus consulate was launched. The strike was telegraphed in advance, allowing for ample preparation by Israel and the U.S. The strike’s success highlights the ability of Iran to defend itself against Zionist aggression and restore crucial deterrence against increasingly rogue Israeli actions. Additionally, the Iranian defensive strikes have helped to further undermine the mantle of invincibility which the Zionist project has constructed in order to allow its continual ethnic cleansing and genocide in their colonial occupation of Palestine. 

While it is reported that the Biden administration will not participate in Israeli strikes against Iran, continued statements of “iron-clad” support for Israel leave the door open for runaway escalation. With Israeli Occupation Forces crossing the Lebanese border in recent days, intensifying bombing of southern Lebanon, and their continued genocide in Gaza, Israel is dragging the U.S. into a larger death spiral. DSA IC reiterates our demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all military aid to Israel and an end to sanctions against the people of Iran. The power to stop this genocide and end this rapidly escalating regional crisis remains in Biden’s hands. The Biden administration bears full responsibility for every death that follows. No war with Iran! Free Palestine!

The post DSA IC Affirms Iran’s Right to Self-Defense appeared first on DSA International Committee.

The successful struggle for telework, transit subsidies, alternate work schedules and similar programs was the result of the hard work of federal workers and their unions.

In this episode we meet Jonathan Soto, the DSA endorsed candidate running for New York State Assembly in the North East Bronx. Jonathan is a public school parent, an inter-faith organizer and a democratic socialist, campaigning to unseat longtime incumbent Michael Benedetto in Assembly District 82. 

This commentary by CVDSA member Tanya Vyhovsky originally appeared in VTDigger. A clinical social worker and former school services clinician, Vyhovsky represents the Chittenden-Central District in the Vermont State Senate.

Ordinarily in Vermont, we in the Senate give the governor great deference when it comes to whom he appoints to serve in his cabinet. While we may have policy differences with an appointee, the governor was elected by the people, and he deserves the benefit of the doubt when making appointments.

Not this time.

After years of methodically hinting at his preference for private schools, Gov. Phil Scott made it crystal clear where he stands when it comes to education funding here in Vermont. By choosing a former executive of a for-profit charter school company to be his next education secretary, he is finally saying the quiet part out loud — public education money should be able to flow freely to private and religious schools.

After meeting with the nominee, it is clear to me that she is very smart and accomplished. However, she is not qualified to lead the Vermont public education system past this inflection point and into the future. The nominee’s scant experience in public schools does not give me confidence in her ability to strengthen our public schools in this time of turmoil, and it further shows the governor’s lack of commitment to our public schools. 

Couple that with a State Board of Education that seems willing to at the least be complicit in the governor’s agenda to privatize our schools. This nomination raises alarm bells that should give every one of us who cherishes our local public schools great pause.

I have always been proud that in the state of Vermont, the Constitution guarantees quality public education for all children. That imperative has been carried out over the centuries by dedicated educators, volunteer school boards, administrators, parents, communities and others who believe — rightly — that education for all Vermont children is a valuable asset to all of us.

Indeed, our local public schools — despite assertions to the contrary — deliver the goods year after year, preparing our children with the tools to be happy, healthy and successful in whatever life they choose.

But that egalitarian opportunity is in danger as private and religious schools ramp up their ongoing efforts to co-opt taxpayer dollars for private gain. 

This comes with the tacit approval of the governor and, as of two years ago, the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. Those justices, in Carson v. Makin, made it clear that states like Vermont that give publicly funded vouchers to private schools must also open the public purse to religious schools as well. 

I am profoundly disappointed that we as a Legislature have failed to address this very real threat to our public schools.

It will further undermine our public education system if the charter school company executive chosen by the governor becomes the next guardian of Vermont public schools. If confirmed by the Senate, she will have a compliant pro-private-school State Board of Education to remake rules that will not only allow those schools to become even more unaccountable to the public, but to expand the amount of public resources flowing in their direction and further undercutting our top-in-the-nation public school system.

I am not alone in my deep concern over this nominee. Many of my colleagues have expressed reservations about this appointee, and I’ve heard from hundreds of Vermonters who say charter schools and the further privatization of public education are just plain wrong. 

The governor and those who work in his cabinet want us to believe that opposition to his appointee is personal, sexist or based on where she came from. But those accusations — taken directly out of the D.C. GOP handbook — are meant to distract from the nominee’s deep experience as an executive for a for-profit charter school company that has siphoned public education dollars from students and into the pockets of shareholders, and her utter lack of experience leading a public school system.

We will, as promised, fully explore the nominee’s record. We will conduct hearings and respect the nomination process. But as we do so, we must ensure that the next education secretary is dedicated to protecting, preserving and supporting our local public schools and the 90% of Vermont kids who rely on them every day.

DSA International Committee congratulates the people of Bahrain on the release of 1,584 prisoners from the government cages. This constitutes the largest release of political prisoners since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain, approximately 0.2% of the entire citizen population. We echo the calls of civil society in Bahrain for the further release of all political prisoners in Bahrain, including all opposition leaders, and a genuine start to the reconciliation process following the aftermath of the Arab Spring. 

We commend the people of Bahrain in their fight for the release of the political prisoners, particularly following the death of Hussain Khalil who suffered from torture by state security and was murdered by medical negligence. The escalating weekly protests in Bahrain in support of Gaza and rejection of the normalization deal played a large role in pressuring Bahrain and its primary sponsor, the US, to offer this concession. The normalization deal, struck during the so-called “Abraham Accords” in 2020, ended a long-standing policy of rejection of the Zionist settler-colonial project by Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and Sudan under the sustained pressure of the US’s threat to suspend aid and arms sales to all non-compliant Arab countries. In the context of escalating regional geopolitical pressures and the risk of a broader regional war, we call on the US government, which has its Navy’s fifth fleet stationed on the Bahraini islands, to listen to calls from Bahrain’s streets and withdraw its military bases lest it further endangers the people of the region with its dangerous acts of political brinkmanship and its support of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

.#الحق_يؤخذ

#RightsAreTakenNotGiven

The post DSA IC Congratulates the People of Bahrain on Prisoner Release appeared first on DSA International Committee.