Considered on its own, the New York Police Department is in the top ten largest armies in the world. Why? As working-class New Yorkers struggle to stay fed and safely housed, the NYPD enjoys nearly unlimited resources and sees no issue with using those resources to oppress and surveil the city’s population. On tonight's show, we speak to Khalil from NYC-DSA’s Defund NYPD campaign on why socialists’ commitment to REAL public safety remains strong. We also take calls live from the WBAI audience.

 

In international news, capitalists and war-mongers are pushing for further escalation in the Russia-Ukraine dispute. We’ll hear from Gerard of the Democratic Socialists International Committee on their recent statement opposing US militarization and interventionism in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and calling for an end to NATO expansionism.

 

Join NYC-DSA's campaign to Defund NYPD: https://www.defundnypd.com/get-involved

 

Read the International Committee's statement in English, Russian, or Ukrainian: https://international.dsausa.org/statements/no-war-with-russia/

 

On this episode, Lee Ziesche shares a brief public service announcement about this month's sky-high ConEd bills. We will be covering this issue more in depth on future episodes, but visit bit.ly/conedbill to learn more about how this situation was created by New York politicians' climate inaction and how DSA is fighting back. 

As recent polls show that Americans have a higher distrust of media than ever before and factionalized varieties of social media have increasingly polarized people, nearly everyone has strong opinions about the media. If you’re interested in exploring and discussing this topic, the Coulee DSA Book Club is beginning Matt Taibbi’s recent book, “Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another,” an acclaimed analysis of how today’s mainstream media lies to people and divides them by manipulating us as news consumers. 

The book club meets Thursday nights at 7 pm and will begin discussing Hate Inc. on Thursday, February 10th. Email us at CouleeDSA@gmail.com to receive a link to the book club to join in.” 

The post Next DSA Book club read: Hate Inc. first appeared on Coulee DSA.

Yesterday two very different visions for the future of New York’s energy system were presented at a marathon 12+ hour long budget hearing on environmental conservation. On one hand, New York’s regulators argued to stay the course and continue to let the market and capital be the primary drivers of building renewable energy, despite the state having missed it’s renewable energy goals year after year and currently only 6% of New York’s energy comes from wind and solar. Community advocates and DSA-electeds had a different view - one where the future is a public good- and renewables are being built at the scale the climate crisis demands and are publicly-owned. 

Tonight we’ll continue our series of interviews with NYC-DSA’s 2022 slate and are joined live by Sarahana Shrestha a candidate for Assembly District 103 in the Mid-Hudson Valley and member of the NY Public Power Coalition who is running under the slogan - the future is a public good.

 

More info about Sarahana: www.sarahanaforassembly.com

More info about Public Power: www.publicpowerny.org

Jan 6, 2021

This January 6th, as congress proceeded with the count of the electoral college votes, a mob of armed white supremacists, neo-nazis, the alt-right and QAnon conspiracy theorists, stormed the U.S. capitol intending to forcibly stop the counting of the votes.  

While acknowledging the deeply undemocratic nature of the electoral college and the nation’s electoral system as a whole, the Ithaca chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America condemns in the strongest terms the attempt of the far right to stop the process that would ensure the end of Donald Trump’s tenure in office. No election was stolen, no fraud committed.

But this is not the main lesson we should be focusing on. As socialists, what is important to recognize is not so much the assault on procedure of a broken political system that can only offer duopoly so much as it is important to recognize the alarming ascendency and growth of white supremacist / nationalist violence in America.

It is critical to understand the complicity of law enforcement and public officials in this dangerous development whether it is the Republican Party, the two recently elected representatives who publicly support QAnon, or centrist Democrats who offer only an inadequate and lackluster response. The incompetency, unpreparedness and delay seen last night on the part of law enforcement or security is certainly curious to say the least. We have seen in videos of the police or security forces giving a half-hearted defense before letting a mob of white supremacists into the capitol, being vastly outnumbered, and at times taking photos with some individuals. This is not without precedent either. The ideological sympathy of law enforcement and right wing insurrectionists is now more abundantly clear than ever before. 

Many have noted that last night's events are an example of white privilege. This is true, but it may be more accurately described as a display of white power in American society. Figures and members from the fascist Proud Boys, European Heritage Association, Nationalist Social Club, Matthew Heimbach of the now defunct Traditionalist Workers Party, men with white supremacist tattoos dressed in garb glorifying “camp auschwitz”, and so on, were let into the capitol building with little to no resistance. 

Compare the response of law enforcement last night with the response given to anti-racist protesters that we saw this past summer which was met with disproportionate, swift and brutal force. Make no mistake, if this were Black Lives Matter or any anti-racist protest, the full force of the state would be used immediately. One only needs to recall the use of riot police, teargas, and beatings to clear Lafayette Square in Washington D.C., the illegal abduction and questioning of activists by unidentified federal agents, or any of the other police violence that happens everyday. 

The rise of this sort of white-supremacist violence did not happen in a vacuum and neither did it start with Trump. Rather, the phenomenon of Trumpism revealed and gave confidence to those tendencies that were always there in American society and they will certainly not disappear with the end of the Trump presidency. The events that took place on January 6th are a clear indication that an organized left and working class is needed that can defend against any instances of authoritarianism and bring a more humane future in a deeply fragmented society. This includes workplace organizing and growing a militant labor rank-and-file, mutual aid for the most vulnerable, protecting one another from evictions and homelessness, preventing the worst of the climate crisis, and what is perhaps most immediately needed: taking a principled stand against white supremacy, racism, and fascism.

Ithaca DSA Steering Committee

Starting late last year in Buffalo, NY, a union wave has spread all over the country as workers at an ever-increasing number of Starbucks coffee shops are getting organized and making demands on their boss and on the multi-national corporation that employs them. This movement is gaining speed every day - and to help us understand what’s going on from a worker perspective, we’re joined live in the studio by James, a worker-organizer with Starbucks Workers United in Buffalo.

 

Another national movement is mobilizing to defend access to abortion as the right-wing assault on this fundamental right continues to escalate. With landmark legislation Roe V. Wade on the verge of being rolled back, socialists are continuing to organize for grassroots solutions to this national crisis that center anti-racism, abolition, and a no-holds-barred approach to guaranteeing access to safe abortion. We’ll hear from Ali of Chicago DSA and Chicago for Abortion on this crucial struggle.

 

On this show, Jack makes a brief announcement about the New Deal for CUNY. Learn more and get involved at bit.ly/action-nd4c.

 

Find a local abortion fund to support if you can: https://abortionfunds.org/funds/

 

Follow along with James and the Starbucks partners at @SBWorkersUnited. Current Starbucks partners can email sbworkersunited@gmail.com to get connected to an organizer.

 

This episode is dedicated to the memory of our NYC-DSA comrade, Alex Z. 

Tonight on our show we will be talking about our host Desiree Joy Frias' home of the South Bronx where capitalist interests and government failures are continuing to cost lives.

 

In the middle of brutal winter weather and yet another Covid spike, tenants are once again mobilizing to defend against evictions and build working-class power with all of New York City’s residents, including the 1 in 12 New Yorkers who live in public or section 8 housing. Last week’s tragic and preventable Twin Parks fire on 181st street in the Bronx and yesterday’s Con Edison explosion on Fox Street less than two miles away are just the latest examples of the ongoing violence of landlord neglect and failures by the federal and local government to provide adequate public housing and public infrastructure. Con Edison is responsible for yesterday’s explosion that killed one, injured seven  and  leveled an entire row home in the South Bronx. This exploitative monopoly spends millions in lobbying fees to fight green projects and remain the sole provider of power to over 12 million customers.  

 

To discuss these preventable tragedy and how socialists are organizing for tenant power, we're live in the studio with RPM comrade and fellow Bronx/Upper Manhattan DSA member Bernard  Goyder and an organizer from NYC-DSA’s Brooklyn Housing Working Group, Isaac. Tonight you’ll learn about NYC-DSA’s Right to Remain campaign to pass Good Cause Eviction, transformative legislation that will protect millions of tenants just like us. Keeping with the uptown theme, we’ll also hear an update on the successful strike by the Student Workers of Columbia.

 

Get organized, get involved, help your neighbor, call your legislator: https://linktr.ee/nycdsa_housing

 

Read more on South Bronx Mutual Aid and others' efforts to support tenants in the Bronx: https://twitter.com/booksandrose/status/1483854067457826822?s=20

Last week, against the backdrop of the most dangerous period of the COVID-19 pandemic, City Council voted to increase our CPS Energy rates. During a period that has found teachers, students, service workers, and the highest rate of city employees out on COVID leave, we are being urged to stay home, to stop the spread, but no further federal assistance is coming. Instead, residents of San Antonio are being forced to bear the brunt of CPS Energy’s mismanagement.

We commend our DSA endorsed City Councilmembers, Jalen Mckee-Rodriguez and Teri Castillo, for voting against the rate hike. Other Council Members gave lip service to the idea of reforming CPS Energy, without using their power to force any committed change. The Council discussion made clear who is listened to: it’s the CEOs and business executives who run a utility which we, the people, own. Who knows if Rudy Garza will be here to see any of these commitments through? Former CEO Paula Gold Williams certainly isn't, but we, the working class ratepayers of San Antonio will be here.

Since the fallout of Winter Storm Uri, it was clearly only a matter of time before the cost of the storm would be pushed onto working class people. On the first CPS Energy Board of Trustees call following the storm, over 140 people delivered public comments identifying the failures of CPS Energy. At nearly every single CPS Rate Adjustment Town Hall, the choice of the people was overwhelmingly clear, no rate hike. Instead, a majority of City Council voted against the will of the people. We are repeatedly told that our public input is valued, and like clockwork, our representatives vote against our interests. It’s made obvious again that the majority of our City Council is unwilling to govern with the tenacity our living conditions call for.

This is why the only action the people of San Antonio have left is direct democracy. Last year, Recall CPS nearly collected enough signatures to put CPS Energy reform on the ballot. Next year, it appears we have no other choice. If our elected officials refuse to represent the will of their constituencies, we need a ballot measure that allows the voters of San Antonio to choose the best way forward for CPS Energy. We hope you will join us in that fight. DSAUSA.org/join

In an effort to exert its power over the Americas, the United States has enforced an embargo on Cuba ever since its revolutionary struggle for independence from American imperialism. The blockade is an effort to force regime change against the will of Cuban people who want to improve their society without foreign interference. Despite the immense suffering caused by the embargo to this very day, socialists in Cuba have made remarkable achievements in education and healthcare. DSA members Rolando, Tom, and Patrick as well as Daniel Montero, a journalist from Cuba, join us to discuss the movement to end the embargo and the fight to preserve Cuban self-determination.

Over the past few months, a situation involving the calls for expulsion of Rep. Jamaal Bowman has brought to light a series of organizational issues that we should not be distracted from, namely:

1. How do we seek to build DSA as a Socialist membership organization with commitments to our democratically decided principles? 
2. How does our national political leadership (NPC) carry out that will?

The first issue speaks to the long-standing electoral approach that embodies much of DSA’s strategy, past and present. Electoralism alone is not a solution to our struggle, but a necessary component when applied carefully. The endorsement of Rep. Bowman has exemplified a set of problems with our electoral approach. First, the premature endorsement of candidates who are not tied to the organization in a meaningful way, and in turn their subsequent connection to the Democratic Party once elected, which places us in a precarious situation. These issues have consistently allowed for careerist and opportunistic behavior to flourish, relegating DSA to a mere mobilizing branch for vague progressives that attach us to the Democratic Party, as we attempt to horse-trade for watered-down reforms. What ought to be clear is that both the Democratic and Republican parties are our enemies. Such as here in Buffalo where the attempt to unseat a local Democratic Party leader was met with vicious reactionary politics from the Democratic Party itself, and a joining of hands with Republicans and conservatives. Moving from Local/State level to the Federal level we see these contradictions are even greater. This should give us serious pause about issuing endorsements to candidates such as Rep. Bowman who we have little to no reason to put out support behind. Vague progressive values are abundant, socialists with principles tied to our organization and a working class base less so. Second, the issue this also addresses is the nature of DSA – its size, its influence, and its relation to a fighting labor movement necessary to extract concessions from the capitalist class. As James Connolly put it:

“a socialist political party not emanating from the ranks of organized labor is, as Karl Marx phrased it, simply a socialist sect, ineffective for the final revolutionary act, but that also the attempt of craft organized unions to create political unity before they have laid the foundation of industrial unity in their own, the economic field, would be an instance of putting the cart before the horse.”

This issue has long burdened DSA since its foundation as little more than an organization to “push the Democratic Party left”. The premature – and often questionable – focus on electoralism has always been a series of contradictions that we will not overcome with candidates such as Rep. Bowman. This does not mean we should reject any electoral approach altogether, but that we must be more decisive and develop more consistency with our principles. We are happy with the NPC’s decision to develop a Socialists in Office committee, and to bolster our electoral standards at minimum. Serious thought should be put into the weaknesses of a horizontialist approach that deems any vague progressive candidacy useful to building Socialism. Though none of us are members of the Marxist Unity Group, we endorse their call for the following requirements to our electoral standards:

• The candidate must be a member of DSA.
• They must accept and pledge to promote and fight for the DSA national political platform if one is passed.
• If the campaign is successful, any staffers hired by the legislator will also be subject to the first two requirements.
• Legislators must agree to at least quarterly meetings with DSA leadership of the appropriate designation: for example congresspeople would meet with the National Political Committee, state legislators would hold meetings with leadership of all state chapter leaders (or leadership of a state/regional body if one were created), city councilors would have meetings with local chapter or branch leadership, etc.
• All DSA members in legislatures must form a caucus that votes as a block and rejects de facto discipline from any other party caucuses, regardless of which ballot line they were elected on.

To the second major issue, we are seeing a genuine problem with our national political leadership. The decisions of the NPC – the majority we should say – throughout this process have been dismaying and counterproductive. The lack of conviction to even censure Rep. Bowman illustrates as much. We also cannot help but notice that a level of secrecy in these discussions occurred that leads to reasonable doubts about the integrity of the decision making process. Additionally, the subsequent response to reign in the BDS & Palestine WG has also been an issue of concern. Though the NPC is the highest decision making body elected to carry out our political aims in-between conventions, the NPC’s disregard on our democratic commitments to Palestine, and the move to effectively censor the BDS & Palestine WG shows a vulnerability in our organizational coherence. We do not support this decision, even as we also have criticisms of BDS & Palestine WG’s decisions and level of independence, we have signed on in support of their statement of dissent. The Buffalo Chapter of DSA has voted in overwhelming support on the issue of Palestine and dissent on retaining Rep. Bowman as a representative of our organization. As leadership we see it fit that we should convey our resolve to uphold that message. The NPC has failed to act in the best interest of our organization’s democratically decided principles, and instead has demonstrated a vague strategy in supporting an elected representative who has not demonstrated the tenacity of a socialist in office. While we understand the weight and difficulties that the NPC is being presented with, we find it necessary to convey that this does not absolve the NPC of due criticism. 

Furthermore, and most troubling of all, the revelation that an NPC member threatened to split and denounce DSA as a racist organization for upholding our principles of support for Palestine is particularly egregious and cannot be ignored. Whomever this NPC member is, we cannot have confidence in their leadership much less the NPC’s integrity as long as this behavior goes unanswered. We ask that this NPC member be made public to DSA membership, and that they resign from national leadership on grounds of malfeasance.

The formation of the United Auto Workers in the 1930s represented the upsurge in organized working class militancy that pushed forward a New Deal. Since that time the UAW has been a base of support for its members that collectively provides workers with a better life. Yet the UAW has weakened as its corrupt leadership has chosen compromise with the bosses over a robust internal democracy. That’s all about to change. The successful One Member, One Vote referendum has forced open the democratic process and created space for new leadership to rise up. We’ll discuss that and much more with UAW members Kay and Chris. The UAW is much more than just autoworkers. After threatening to strike, the 17,000 member Student Researchers Union of the University of California system won recognition and officially became the newest UAW local. How did these academic workers build a new organization? We hear directly from Kat and Laura of the SRU on how they made it happen.