Six months ago, President Biden ended the pandemic state of emergency and declared COVID over. From the way government officials and the media are – or more accurately, aren’t – talking about the pandemic, it might seem one has no choice but to believe that Biden was right.

Except that the pandemic is not over. By what metric was Biden measuring? Hospitalizations? Deaths? For the week ending September 16, the U.S. had >20,000 covid hospitalizations and >1500 covid deaths (over half the deaths on 9/11). These are both likely significant underestimates due to inadequate case testing, counting, and reporting across the capitalist world. Indeed, these inadequacies are often exacerbated by active suppression – for example, in the UK, an email was recently leaked in which hospital workers were directed by hospital administration not to test for COVID if presenting with symptoms, because it might result in workers “remaining home longer.”

Certainly Biden’s declaration wasn’t based on heartening new evidence about disability from long COVID, which, contrary to popular media coverage, scientific studies have consistently shown is both common (at a well-established incidence rate of at least 10% for each case of COVID) and debilitating (a recent study showed that many people with long COVID report a worse quality of life than people with Stage IV lung cancer). And recent data suggests that long COVID may even be more common in vaccinated people who had mild cases and were infected since the emergence of Omicron.

So why Biden’s declaration, and why aren’t we hearing about any of this?

The start of the COVID pandemic brought both a clarifying look at the failures of capitalism and a hint at how things could be different. From very early in the pandemic, we have known what interventions would be effective, and could even end the pandemic altogether: distribution and mandating of effective masks, contact tracing to understand disease spread, and quarantines in the case of actual or suspected COVID cases with guaranteed paid time off. Some countries, in particular China and other countries that have previously had to manage epidemics, implemented some or all of these interventions from the very start of the pandemic.

Unfortunately, many of these measures require political will and a government willing to intervene for people’s wellbeing; we have neither in the United States, where institutions are utterly at the command of capital and ordinary people are deservedly skeptical of those institutions. To instate these measures adequately would necessitate the nationalization of key industries, the complete transformation of our tattered welfare state (both of which we call for in the DSA national platform), and a willingness to take bold action to stop right-wing misinformation. These propositions would be utterly unthinkable to America’s capitalists, who fought tooth and nail the meager stimulus checks, rent forgiveness, and brief extension of unemployment benefits, all of which were simply too inconvenient and unprofitable to keep up. 

This is the root of the current messaging and media strategy. If it’s unprofitable and inconvenient for capital to actually address and stop the pandemic, then it becomes necessary to convince people to live with it – to continue working and spending, to keep the ever-important economy chugging along, with no regard for the number of lives sacrificed at its altar.

Despite posturing as “pro-science” while Trump was in charge of managing the pandemic, the Democrats have quickly adopted a stance of soft pandemic denialism that does nothing to substantively address, or even really acknowledge, the issue. Rather than acknowledge that adequate pandemic precautions are only possible at a societal level and act accordingly, they tell the working class that they may keep themselves safe as a matter of personal choice. This is reminiscent of the Democrats’ soft climate denialism, in which they adopt rhetoric that climate change is real while catastrophically failing to acknowledge the gravity of the situation or the radical measures necessary to adequately address it, instead shifting the burden of responsibility to people’s individual choices to recycle or bike to work.

It’s no coincidence that we have one of the highest death rates of any country in the world, at 3,331 deaths per million people for the entire pandemic – a death rate of 0.33% of the entire population. By contrast, China, a country both larger and more densely populated than the U.S., has a death rate of 85 deaths per million. Of course, COVID deaths in the U.S. are not evenly distributed throughout the population. Like many other societal inequities, COVID and its outcomes disproportionately affect poor people, people of color (especially Black, indigenous, and Latino people), people with disabilities, and other marginalized people.

In DSA, we recognize both the social inequities revealed by the pandemic and the new world it reveals and necessitates. We also recognize that we cannot follow in the footsteps of the Republicans or the Democrats, both of whom have communicated clearly that under capitalism, human life has no value except that which it is able to produce for the ruling class. We are fighting for a radically transformed world in which profits don’t necessitate the unchecked spread of a pandemic, and we must reflect that world, to the greatest degree possible, in how we organize now.

To that end, NC Triangle DSA has written and passed a resolution creating a pandemic policy that uses layers of protection – including mandated masking, air filtration, testing, vaccinations, case reporting, and staying home when sick – to keep our events as COVID safe as possible. We welcome all the most vulnerable at our meetings, and we want you to know that we will help keep you safe. We are fighting for a world where all of us can be safe, healthy, and liberated – but to do that, we must build a mass movement. Join us in our fight for a better world!

It’s been quite a few months since we last updated everyone on the work we’re doing here at Syracuse DSA – Mutual Aid Committee! We’ve been quite busy with several different projects, so here’s a look into just what’s been going on, what’s on the horizon, and how you can get involved!

Sonny’s Free Store

We’ve now successfully hosted our free store (lovingly named in honor of founding member and former chair, Sonny Fantacone) at several local events. At its core, a free store demonstrates the basics of what we as democratic socialists believe people and communities can do to provide for one another. If we are more willing to give of ourselves and our excess to our fellow humans instead of to landfills, then our society as a whole will prosper. To that end, we accept donations of food, clothing, and other goods  and, when we have enough and the opportunity presents itself, we set up a “Free Store”!

At our past free stores, we’ve primarily offered clothing, but at our recent CNY Pride Free Store, we noticed that the few books we brought flew off the shelves immediately! In order to better respond to this apparent community need, we sourced more reading material for our booth at the Westcott Cultural Street Fair. With the assistance of our newest co-chair, Amelia, we’ve also been able to work in tandem with Onondaga Food Rescue Network through the Syracuse-Onondaga Food Systems Alliance (SOFSA), which allowed us to introduce both non-perishable items and fresh, local produce to our offerings. We got a lot of questions about where our storefront was located during the Westcott Street Fair, so our members are now looking into the possibility of doing pop-up store fronts all across the city, in the hopes of  making our free stores more accessible to those in need. 

Additionally, we will be fundraising at this year’s Plowshares event for both future iterations of Sonny’s Free Store, as well as for another project we have on deck for next year, thanks to some help from Philly DSA and a couple of enterprising scientists in California (more to come on this project later!). 

If you’d like more information about our future projects, want to donate funds (and maybe buy some DSA swag?), or would like to come check out some of the amazing artists and activists from the surrounding area, come visit us at Plowshares! 

And if you’re interested in donating to our free store, have questions about when/where our next one will be, would like to have us at your event, or anything else about working with Syracuse DSA Mutual Aid, please feel free to contact us at: syrdsa.mutualaid@gmail.com

Mutual Aid Bags

Something else we’ve been working on over the past several months are our first round of Mutual Aid (MA) Bags. MA bags are reusable grocery bags that we fill with things like bottled water, single serving cereals, non-perishable snacks, first aid supplies, feminine & general hygiene products ,  combs for hair, and other staple items. We also try to include at least one “non-essential” in each bag as well—things like re-usable water bottles, sunglasses, perfume, tea, and coffee. For our first round, we successfully collected enough materials to create 22 MA bags and determined that the best way to distribute these bags would be for members to store a handful in their cars, handing them out as they come across folks in need.

We’re looking to expand this project by working with other local organizations doing similar community outreach, thereby enabling us to create further rounds of MA bags that fit the specific needs of diverse groups of Syracuse residents. At the same time, we’re hoping to pull together enough donations to do a round of bags to provide “Thanksgiving Dinner”-style MA bags to around a dozen needy families, as well as a possible pop-up store front for families or individuals that may be struggling during the holiday season.

If you would like to donate non-perishable items for traditional holiday dinners, inexpensive toys, children’s books, inexpensive gifts for adults, or any other items that might go into these holiday MA bags/free store, please contact us at: syrdsa.mutualaid@gmail.com

Check out a comprehensive list of items we’re looking for at the bottom of this post!

Care, Not Cops

In the wake of multiple deadly police encounters in Syracuse this past year, our chapter decided that we need a space within our local organization to organize around issues of policing and police accountability. We firmly believe that most emergency calls do not require an armed police response, and we should instead pursue non-violent alternatives for addressing things like mental health crises or domestic disturbances. We also need to better hold cops accountable for their misdeeds, and doing that starts with engaging the community in dialogue to determine how we can build these better alternatives to police response, together.

We focused on the idea that “we keep us safe” and came up with the name Care Not Cops. The goal is to create resource lists of individuals, organizations, and programs that a person in crisis can call for assistance in place of calling the cops. 

As many of us know, having several officers respond with guns drawn often escalates many of these already tense situations, often leading to tragic consequences. In the past year alone, there have been multiple instances of officer-involved shootings, all of which must be investigated by the Attorney General’s office as per a law that was established on April 1st, 2021. At the time, advocates argued that this would improve police accountability. However, since its inception, the law has often served as a stall tactic rather than as a legitimate means of holding out of control officers truly accountable for overstepping the bounds of their legal responsibilities. Over the past 6 months alone there have been at least two notable cases where body-worn camera footage was either withheld from the public (even after internal investigations were concluded) or cameras were never activated prior to (or during) the incident. Shockingly, investigations carried out by the AG’s office found no wrongdoing in either case. 

Unavailable camera footage is just one of the worrisome details in these cases and going into all of the gritty details would require a long update in and of itself. For now, we’ll say that due to Syracuse’s history of policing, as well as its history of racial & social inequity, many of our members feel it is necessary to begin working on expanding the space for abolitionist organizing, starting with promoting better alternatives to call during an emergency than cops. 

To that end, we have an available resource called the 911 Alternative Sheet that we are always updating and expanding. If you have any suggestions for resources that you think should be listed, please reach out to us at: syrdsa.mutualaid@gmail.com

Items needed for Holiday Mutual Aid bags/Pop-up Store Front

• Inexpensive children’s toys
• Children’s books/coloring books
  • Crayons, markers, colored pencils, watercolor paints and brushes
• Inexpensive gifts for adults
• Hats, gloves, mittens, scarves, socks, balaclavas, etc. for kids and adults
• Small blankets
• Small craft kits
  • Craft paper, construction paper, plain writing paper, etc.
  • Tape, glue sticks, white glue
  • Yarns, threads, crochet hooks, knitting needles and other common crafting items that can be used by folks to make their own holiday gifts.
• Common holiday decorations
• Holiday greeting cards & envelopes
  • Stamps for mailing cards
• Non-perishable items for holiday dinners
  • Stuffing mix
  • Canned vegetables
  • Quick bread/Cake mix
  • Gravy mix
  • Canned berries/other canned fruit
  • Instant mashed potatoes
  • Powdered milk

The post Come See What We’re Up To At Mutual Aid! appeared first on Syracuse DSA.

Regular listeners of Revolutions per Minute will be familiar with our coverage of Palestine solidarity work within the Democratic Socialists of America. We recognize that the struggle for Palestinian liberation and the violence of settler colonial displacement are both ongoing. Tonight, our coverage continues with a live conversation with Sumaya and Daphna, two NYC-DSA members and organizers with deep experience in Palestine solidarity work.

We discuss this month’s outbreak of violence in Palestine and Israel, which has led to the genocidal and illegal bombardment of Gaza happening as we speak. Socialists in New York and across the country have joined forces with the multi-cultural, international movement for Palestine solidarity, with hundreds of thousands flooding the streets of major cities, conducting civil disobedience, and calling on the country’s leadership to end United States support for Israel and a ceasefire now. Join us to learn more about why Palestine liberation is a priority for socialists. 

Visit https://socialists.nyc/no-money-for-massacres/ to find an upcoming NYC-DSA-endorsed solidarity phone bank or action. Visit gazaispalestine.com to find or post an upcoming protest in your city anywhere in the United States.

Every day, billions of working people on Earth toil to maintain a capitalist economy they never asked for. While technological advances and general prosperity have spread beyond the borders of the most advanced countries, the “golden age” of capitalism is over. For the majority of people on the planet, including in the United States, life is getting harder. Capitalism is working overtime to preserve the power and profits of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

In light of this, DSA’s goal is to fight for all working people’s ability to democratically control their own lives in all areas of society and the economy. To achieve that goal, we need two things: the involvement of millions to make a mass movement, and the leverage to win back power from the capitalist class. The only way DSA is going to get what we need to win is by organizing as workers and uniting with organized labor, so we can attack the source of capitalists’ power: their profits.

Labor unions represent the only organized force with the capacity and the leverage to win against capitalists outright. Millions of union members run a collective, dues-funded project to organize and fight for a better life for all working people. So this year, Atlanta DSA has prioritized building relationships with labor unions, educating our members and the public on the centrality of workplace organizing and the importance of determining our own path, independent of big-money donors and politicians.

Most excitingly, with the United States having just experienced its third “Hot Labor Summer” in a row, our chapter has prioritized strike support. Following our solidarity work last year with workers at Nabisco, John Deere, and Starbucks, this summer Atlanta DSA democratically voted to prioritize supporting UPS Teamsters fighting to win higher wages and respect on the job in the largest private-sector contract this country has seen in decades. Atlanta DSA worked for months, in coordination with the DSA National Labor Commission, to show up for the UPS Teamsters. The Teamsters we supported organized to build strong shop-floor support for the contract fight, while the whole of our chapter has met with rank-and-file leaders to learn how we can best provide key support. We hosted educational panels, talked with and interviewed rank-and-file Teamsters, showed up to practice pickets, and canvassed to build community support for the contract fight. In the end, 86% of voting Teamsters approved the new contract, which included raises, air conditioning in trucks, and an end to two-tier jobs.This was only won through a concerted strike campaign that scared UPS into concessions to avoid responsibility for a costly strike.

Our strike solidarity campaign provided an avenue for friends of labor from all across the Atlanta metro area to become involved, and we organized supporters across the community to understand the stakes of this fight. In a word, we’ve helped begin rebuilding the connections between labor unions and the communities they fight for in Atlanta. Now, with UAW Big 3 workers on strike across the country, we are also mobilizing to join workers picketing at the Chrysler parts distribution center in Morrow, GA.

As our members gained experience and our organization gained credibility for the material solidarity we showed to Teamsters, Atlanta DSA’s Labor Committee has worked hard to build positive relationships with other unions, both rank-and-file member-leaders and staff alike. While many unions are still struggling under the weight of repressive governments and hostile corporate management, it becomes a common refrain that “we need to organize our own members before we can devote resources to other groups”. However, as socialists know, an injury to one is an injury to all. A strong labor movement is one that moves together, in solidarity with workers everywhere, because it makes us stronger in the long run. Capitalists love to divide and conquer, so when we can pull a variety of groups together to go to bat for the Teamsters,  Starbucks Workers United, United Campus Workers, and the railroad unions, we can show we are stronger than them.

As we’ve helped lay the groundwork for stronger community-labor connections, and a more coherent labor movement, Atlanta DSA is also providing support for workers looking for help organizing at work, even before they are ready to approach a union. We plan to encourage more of our members to volunteer and receive training with the Emergency Workers Organizing Committee (EWOC) (a joint effort between DSA’s National Labor Commission and United Electrical Workers) and use those skills to support new organizing drives across Georgia, including food and retail service workers.

We also support our own members and allies through a monthly Workplace Organizing Roundtable. By providing a space for groups of workers from different industries to come together and talk shop, Atlanta DSA has deepened our institutional knowledge of the organizing terrains in various sectors of the economy. Education, tech, food service, manufacturing, and logistics workers share ideas and learn together, forming a nucleus of organizing knowledge so we can transform the struggle for workplace dignity and democracy. 

Through these roundtables, members have been able to discuss methods and techniques for organizing, the history of different kinds of labor struggles, and our plans for organizing in our respective industries. In the coming months, we will expand and deepen our efforts so we can bring in even more people from around the Atlanta area and fight to create a powerful, democratic labor movement.

Just this last month, Atlanta DSA led and organized a labor contingent to the Atlanta Pride Parade, alongside the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council, Starbucks Workers United,  United Campus Workers, the Teamsters LGTBQ Caucus, Unite Here, AFA-CWA, IAM, and more organizations. As workers in the South, who are subject to a right-wing and repressive state government, it’s important to not just build democratic and militant unions, but also progressive unions, willing to champion racial justice, trans rights, bodily autonomy, and more!

Atlanta DSA’s labor work this year has laid a lot of groundwork that we can use to strengthen the organization of working people into a working class, capable of fighting for itself. We’ve brought together groups that haven’t worked together in the past, beginning to heal the divides wrought by decades of neoliberal attacks on working people. DSA members have advocated for a more militant, democratic, and progressive labor movement in the Atlanta area – one that allows us all to fight for political and economic power, free from the influence of big money institutions that don’t have our best interests at heart. Through our work, Atlanta DSA is helping to once more cohere a working class movement that can fight for all of us. It’s exciting to be a part of, and you should be a part of it, too.

So what’s next? Get involved in our labor work by joining a weekly meeting, checking out a monthly workplace roundtable, get organized with Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), and learn more about what we do!

The post Building a Socialist Labor Movement appeared first on Red Clay Comrade.