TAMPA, FL — 

The Tampa chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has developed a list of demands in response to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. This decision is an affront to bodily autonomy and democracy, and poses a mortal threat to the health and wellbeing of the working class. These demands are aimed at our elected officials and community members in positions of power, and we have called on members of the community to sign on to a petition for these demands. At the time of this press release, 208 local community members and organizations have signed on in support. 

Tampa DSA demands that:

• The City of Tampa refuse to enforce laws criminalizing abortion
• Mayor Jane Castor refuse to enforce laws criminalizing abortion
• Chief of Police Mary O’Connor instruct the Tampa Police Department to refuse to act against offenders of any laws criminalizing abortion
• State Attorney Andrew Warren uphold his statement pledging to abstain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions
• Hillsborough County Sherrif, Chad Chronister, refuse to monitor or take action against offenders of any laws criminalizing abortion
• Various local institutions of power refuse to report any signs of miscarriage or self-managed abortion to the authorities, including public schools and healthcare institutions (Tampa General Hospital, USF Health, Advent Health, etc.)

“Many people in positions of power have come forward in opposition to stripping away reproductive rights, but they say very little about what they plan to do about it. Our mayor, city council, CEOs of hospital systems and clinics – they do have power and there are paths available to them to help protect our right to abortion despite this ruling. The question is: do they care enough about us to take a real stand and act?” – Alec J., member of Tampa DSA.
“Poor and working class people have long been criminalized by the local Tampa government,” said Sam M., member of Tampa DSA. “We cannot stand idly by and watch our communities face further persecution. We must demand that our local officials take action.”

Click on the Button Below to Sign Our Petition

SIGN THE PETITION

The post TDSA Abortion Rights Press Release appeared first on Tampa DSA.

From New York to Los Angeles and everywhere in between socialists have been winning in local, state, and federal elections. Daniel and Mike from the National Electoral Committee join us to discuss recent victories, upcoming campaigns, and the challenges faced by the ascendent socialist movement in the years to come.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2022

CONTACT: 
‪(414) 367-6066
mke@dsawi.org

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America calls on the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors to adopt a question onto the fall general election ballot that gauges voters’ support of abortion care in Milwaukee County.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has struck a critical blow to reproductive rights. In Wisconsin, the ruling triggered an 1849 state law that makes abortion a felony without exceptions for rape or incest. As a result, Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health organizations have stopped providing abortions statewide.

This is a brazen violation of basic human rights. Now is the time to act to protect the bodily autonomy of all Wisconsinites.

Milwaukee County 4th District Supervisor Ryan Clancy has proposed a resolution to add a question to this November’s general election ballot measuring public opinion regarding abortion access. This question would ask if the voter supports repealing Wisconsin’s abortion ban and restoring legal access to abortion.

“We are not debating abortion, nor is abortion on the ballot. Abortion is a basic human right, it’s health care, and it should not be up for debate,” Clancy said.

Milwaukee DSA joins Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in calling on the board to adopt this resolution. Abortion care is fundamental and our lawmakers must take action to defend it.

“In a truly free society, everyone would have the ability to choose when or when not to reproduce,” said Milwaukee DSA Co-Chair Anna Dvorak. “Unfortunately, far-right extremists and their capitalist allies have succeeded in destroying reproductive freedom in this country. This doesn’t just impact people with uteruses—it impacts everyone. The Milwaukee DSA urges the board to adopt this question onto the ballot and do everything in their power to take further action to restore reproductive freedom in Milwaukee County.”

Anyone interested in showing their support for this resolution should send an email to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors before they vote this Thursday, July 28, 2022.

###

Last Wednesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted to uphold the “Heartbeat” bill, signed into law by Brian Kemp in 2019, which effectively bans abortions after 6 weeks in Georgia. Atlanta DSA condemns this undemocratic, abhorrent assault on the right to healthcare and bodily autonomy for working-class people across the state.

The court’s enforcement of this 6-week ban represents a larger authoritarian campaign waged by a tiny right-wing minority against the American people, who overwhelmingly oppose abortion bans. We must demand that the US government take action to defend abortion rights for all, in addition to the right to universal healthcare, paid parental leave, living wages, childcare, college and more.

While this decision is horrific, working people have the power to win back our rights by getting organized! For this reason, we have worked alongside our progressive allies to resist the Supreme Court’s decision since its initial leak. We are mobilizing for pro-abortion protests, hosting workshops and trainings, and building public support for establishing a $300,000 city abortion fund in Atlanta to ensure that all who need abortion care can get it.

In order to win abortion rights for all people we must fight back against the extremist right wing and the capitalist class that supports them. Not only should we fight for bodily autonomy, but we must fight for a world where working-class people have real democratic power to shape policy and society around the needs of the many, not the few. Join us in the struggle for abortion rights and a democratic socialist society. We stand for free abortion on demand without apology, nothing less.

Fight back for abortion rights:

• Donate to ARC Southeast and Feminist Women’s Health Center.
• Sign on to demand Atlanta City Council create a $300,000 abortion fund and speak at a City Council meeting.
• Sign up to canvass for a city abortion fund this Saturday in Cabbagetown.
• Join DSA and organize with us!

Earlier this week, a video showed Clark County District Court Judge Erika Ballou presiding over a case and speaking with a defendant. In the video, Judge Ballou told the defendant:

“You’re a Black man in America. You know you don’t want to be nowhere where cops are… cause I know I don’t, and I’m a middle-aged, middle-class Black woman. I don’t want to be around where the cops are because I don’t know if I’m going to walk away alive or not…[Y]ou should have walked away instead of staying. You needed to walk away because you knew you were on probation, you knew.” Judge Ballou then revoked the defendant’s probation due to a violation.

What we see here is Judge Ballou describing her experience as a Black woman while still upholding her duty as a judge.

Nonetheless, the Las Vegas Police Protective Association (LVPPA) quickly lived up to its name and worked to shield law enforcement from any forms of criticism, going so far as to call for Judge Ballou’s resignation. They were followed by a statement from Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) Sheriff and gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo.

This is because Lombardo and LVPPA know the facts: 

• Black people are 2.6x more likely to be arrested by LVMPD than a white person
• Black people make up 29% of the incarcerated population, despite only being 8% of the state’s population
• Black people were the subject of 43% of LVMPD’s non-deadly-use-of-force incidents and 50% of LVMPD’s officer-involved-shootings in 2021
• Las Vegas and surrounding areas are significantly overpoliced compared to cities of a similar population, and mostly arrest for low-level (not serious) offenses
• Earlier this year, LVMPD killed a young Black man in the middle of the night while implementing a “no-knock” warrant which the victim was not associated with

This is not the first time that LVPPA has attacked Judge Ballou. In 2016, the police union’s executive director wrote a statement to object to Ballou, then a defense attorney, for wearing a Black Lives Matter pin, calling it “propaganda”.

LVPPA, LVMPD, and Joe Lombardo deflect from their own egregious, racist failures because they value protecting police from criticism more than they value preserving Black lives and the dignity and well-being of Black people.

We call on community leaders and elected officials to defend Judge Ballou’s statements, and condemn Joe Lombardo and the LVPPA for their continued attacks against a fair, honest judge elected to represent and serve her community. Their attempts to invalidate the experiences of Black people, especially as it relates to law enforcement, must be denounced.

We invite all to join us in our fight to dismantle the prison-industrial complex, defund and demilitarize police, and replace them with systems that actually keep people safe so that one day we can all live without fear of police.

Tonight we’re joined live by Michaelangelo Pomarico, an organizer with Mid Hudson Valley DSA and the Public Power New York Coalition who has devoted a lot of time over the last several months organizing to elect Sarahana Shrestha, a DSA endorsed candidate for the New York Assembly. Michaelaneglo will share how Sarahana’s insurgent campaign in the Hudson Valley succeeded to unseat longtime incumbent  Kevin Cahill last month in the Democratic primary and what comes next for their DSA chapter. 

We also talk with Socialist Councilmembers Alexa Aviles and Tiffany Caban about their first six months on the New York City Council and we’ll hear in their own words why they, along with four other council members, were the only members to vote NO on the City Budget that was pushed through in a late night vote by the Council Speaker and later signed by Mayor Adams earlier this month.   

To learn more about Mid-Hudson Valley DSA follow them on twitter @MHVDSA  and visit www.mhvdsa.org 

To learn more about Sarahana Shrestha follow her on twitter @sarahana and www.sarahanaforassembly.com/

On July 2^nd 2022, a large force from Patriot Front, the largest Neo-Nazi group in America, marched through downtown Boston. They assaulted an onlooker, but the situation was deescalated by FBI agents on the scene. The Nazis proceeded to ride the MBTA Orange Line to Oak Grove, where they were confronted by antifascists. They were protected by police and allowed to exit without incident. As a Boston antifascist, I say this shit sucks.

There have been a few writings published about this incident. Some are in the genre “Oh my gosh Boston is better than this!!! WTF?” Boston is not better than this. Another common genre is “Oh my gosh look at these scary Nazis why won’t somebody do something! Here’s a bunch of descriptors to make them look tough!” Boston antifascists need to set the record straight and make sure well-meaning liberals don’t end up just reproducing Nazi propaganda for Patriot Front. Patriot Front is actually very shitty, and not even in the “they’re dangerous Nazis” sense: they’re a bunch of angry children trying to look tough. They are not tough. 

Moreover, their display on July 2nd does not represent the amount of force that Patriot Front can reliably bring to bear in Boston or anywhere in the Northeast. Patriot Front locally is much more of a “stickers and graffiti” type of organization, not a marching one. 

What is Patriot Front?

PF grew out of the ashes of Vanguard America, after one of VA’s members committed a vicious car attack at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. This left Heather Heyer dead and many others wounded and traumatized. This was a turning point in the alt-right movement. It was a public relations disaster and many alt-right and alt-lite organizations fell into infighting. Patriot Front sprung from the remnants of VA and appeals to the same demographic of angsty fascist teen boys and their desire to feel like big men.

Patriot Front has been active in Massachusetts for years. Their appearance is not new. Chris Hood, their original main organizer locally, showed up to protest Mark Bray (author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook) at the Harvard Coop in 2017, alongside members of Boston Free Speech. After that, Hood showed up to several local fascist events, trying to network with, organize with, ally with and recruit from the likes of BFS and Resist Marxism.

The first time I ran into Patriot Front they were attempting to disrupt the Boston Anarchist Book Fair in 2018. Likely, the local PF had chosen the book fair as a target because PF in Texas, where it originated and has typically had its largest concentration of members, had more successfully disrupted a similar event weeks earlier. But the attendees of the BABF quickly mounted up to eject the fascists, and we chased them off without further incident.

In early 2019 Patriot Front stirred up intimidation and anxiety by flyering East Boston, a largely immigrant neighborhood. After what seemed to be great success the first night they went out and flyered again the next night. This led to a police officer confronting PF, and one of them panicking, which then forced the cop to search them. Several of them (including their local leader, Chris Hood) were carrying illegal knives and were arrested. The lesson here is that oftentimes, a fascist has to make a mistake—like annoying a cop—before the cops will arrest them. Ultimately, the charges against these PF people were minor. Catching a charge did not deter Chris Hood, who is still a fascist organizer (although not with PF, since he was later ejected for stealing money that was supposed to go toward sticker printing and instead buying weed with it).

Patriot Front’s modus operandi is to spread Nazi propaganda and deface things. As I said before, Patriot Front is the largest Nazi organization that exists in America. But it’s also important to note that the vast majority of their work is putting up stickers and going out into the woods to hit each other as “training.” Members of Patriot Front only tend to get violent when they think they can win, and in Boston we have out-organized them and left them too afraid to directly confront the “scary antifa communists.” 

One of Patriot Front’s primary tactics, which has been adopted by other Nazi groups such as Hood’s PF Spinoff, The Nationalist Social Club, is to suddenly arrive at a location in force, do a photo op to prove they went to the location, and then leave. This has the advantage of looking very scary, while also having extremely limited risk for the Nazis doing it. It’s not easy to counter events that are not announced ahead of time. But the risk level for this sort of action is not zero, as Patriot Front discovered when they attempted this trick in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Thirty-one of their members ended up arrested, including their Texas-based founder and leader, Thomas Rousseau. Nationalist Social Club found this out, too, last summer, when their attempt to march around Manchester, NH was countered: antifascists found their rally point, and the Nazis fled without any hesitation. 

What happened July 2^nd

At about 12:45pm a large group of Patriot Front Nazis appeared near Haymarket in downtown Boston. From there they marched toward the Boston Public Library in Copley. One thing is clear: two FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force managed to catch up to them in short order, and followed along with them.

I have to be a little bit coy discussing the details here. Fascists do not like that we resist them. Likewise, we know Boston antifascists are under surveillance by state forces. The state doesn’t necessarily like Nazis, especially ones who call for the overthrow of the government. But they treat Nazis very differently from how they treat antifascists. Often, if a Nazi is caught with an illegal weapon, their charges will go up in smoke very quickly, while just as often an antifascist who has the temerity to stand against white supremacy can very easily end up in a years-long cycle of court dates on trumped-up charges. Indeed, the JTTF agents have convened grand juries to harass local antifascist-sympathetic filmmaker Rod Webber and his family and friends. It’s also very interesting that the FBI agents from the JTTF managed to catch up to the march so quickly. Interesting and very lucky indeed, because agent and Boston cop Andy Creed was seen calming Patriot Front while they assaulted an innocent bystander.

From various news articles it appears that calls to 911 from bystanders fell on deaf ears. If the role of police in society were to protect people from violence you would expect them to come as quickly as possible and dissuade the Nazis from committing acts of violence. Instead 911 operators ignored and disconnected calls from people who saw these Nazis. For those wondering why emergency services didn’t respond to Patriot Front assaulting people on the streets, remember that when fascists organize openly in Boston the police always operate as their private security team.

The Patriot Front march was all over Twitter. Unfortunately, Twitter is a terrible source of real time information. For my part, I jumped on the Orange Line, came to the conclusion they were going toward Copley and made my way to Back Bay. By the time I reached Copley they were already long gone. By that time, there were images of them at Back Bay station on Twitter, so I jumped back on the Orange Line. I assumed they were traveling north (where they came from). Patriot Front ended up on a train which went out of service at Community College. It’s unclear if the MBTA’s rotting infrastructure is to blame or if the T wanted time to make sure there was a police welcome for the Nazis at their destination. Regardless, I managed to confirm their presence at Community College. It was still unclear exactly what their destination might be: the last three stops on the Orange Line all have large parking lots, convenient for out-of-town fascists and their cars. 

It turned out they were going to Oak Grove. When they arrived, there was a significant police presence at the station to ensure the safety of Patriot Front. There were also many counter protesters at Oak Grove. Widely available videos give a bit of a false impression that it was only Rod Webber shouting at them, which is not the case. This is because Rod has a semblance of operational security and does not want to aid the police and Nazis in their attempts to doxx antifascists. But even so, it is very difficult to organize enough people to travel to and confront a march of 75 or so Nazis with zero forewarning. That’s why Patriot Front uses this tactic.

The cars that drove Patriot Front away from Oak Grove were largely from out of state. Patriot Front is indeed active in Massachusetts, as it has been since late 2017, but this particular event was an attempt to give a false sense of scale and power. The Patriot Front marchers came from all across the country, with a few positively identified as coming from as far away as Texas (such as Thomas Rousseau himself). Patriot Front has done similar actions in other cities on past July 4th weekends, and they have been more active lately. Incidents of stickering, flag drops and other stealthy propaganda distributions have increased nationally. But unlike with other fascist groups that get less mainstream attention, this was a one-time attempt to project power, rather than part of an ongoing campaign aimed at the Boston area. 

In short: Patriot Front in the New England area sucks, both in our terms because they are Nazis, and in their terms, because they are weak. This was a puffed-up attempt to show strength, and we all can see through it once we know the facts. 

Antifascism is a long game

Fighting fascism is a long, slow process and it’s a bigger problem than just Patriot Front. Throughout late 2017, 2018, and early 2019, Resist Marxism tried to turn Boston (and then, as they started losing ground here, Providence) into an East Coast version of what Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys established in Portland, Oregon: a place to go to beat up “commies” with reckless abandon. Through the work of Boston DSA and many other organizations and comrades, we successfully repelled their efforts. Resist Marxism’s successor org, Super Happy Fun America, will now rarely show their face in Boston because they know they’ll be humiliated. I have been involved in this work since 2018 and spent many hours disrupting fascists and protecting leftist groups and events from far right attempts at disruption. It takes a lot of effort and organization, but it is worth it.

Boston DSA has been deeply ingrained in the struggle against fascist organizing for years, of which the struggle against Patriot Front is only one very small part. Social media is not nearly the whole story here. To those who weren’t at Oak Grove on July 2nd, who posture online about what they would do if they saw PF, now is the time to stop posting and start organizing. Antifacism works in numbers, and we need those numbers in the street.

Moreover, most of the media sources who have seen fit to opine on the Patriot Front march have been less than helpful to local antifascism. The editorialist in the Globe who made the July 2nd march more about the use of masks than about the violence and fascist beliefs of the marchers seems to have missed the last two and a half years entirely. I thought we were past the “masks are for cowards” thing. DigBoston requested in their “annoyed Starbucks customer” way for someone else to make an early warning system for fascist actions…but the editors have made a policy of not covering antifascism in Boston for years. Antifascist organizers, including some who have written for DigBoston in other capacities, have offered to write about antifascism for the paper, and to offer inside access to Dig reporters, and the editors have consistently rebuffed them for vague reasons pertaining to their “not naming fascists” policy. If the media would like to cover fascist stunts like the July 2nd march, they should be careful to put these events in context, and use local antifascists as their sources.

For the sake of our safety, many antifascist organizers must work anonymously. The state meets us with tremendous violence for the crime of protecting our communities, far more harshly than they come down on the fascists for terrorizing those same communities. Anonymity is important, but only goes so far. Our work is amplified when we work together, and to do that takes the sort of trust built only by shared struggle and shared vision of a better future. I have spent many years working with Boston DSA. Here, and in other organizations, is where you can find the people you can work with to make a difference. 

If you were horrified by the display Patriot Front put on, that’s the right response. The next step is to join up with comrades, find an organization in the struggle, and get involved in the work. 

Vinnie M

NC Triangle DSA condemns the anti-democratic, dishonest attempts of the Democratic Party to block the Green Party from the 2022 midterm ballot.

After the Green Party collected nearly 16,000 verified signatures on a petition to appear on the ballot this year, far exceeding the required number of signatories, the Democrats immediately set out to invalidate this work. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee contractors, in some cases claiming they were affiliated with the Green Party, canvassed petition signatories to coerce them into removing their names from the petition. Last week, the Democrat-controlled NC State Board of Elections voted 3-2 not to certify the petition, in defiance of the wishes of tens of thousands of voters.*

While the unelected, unaccountable political aristocracy of the Supreme Court strips away our right to bodily autonomy, the Democratic Party exploits this tragedy for its own gain, offering us nothing but fundraising emails and toothless half-measures. Rather than putting their considerable resources into fighting the rising right wing, they smother any grassroots fight that has not been pre-approved by their donors. In doing so, they flout democracy, paying canvassers to harass petition signatories and turning certification of ballot access into a partisan weapon.

The Democrats feel threatened by the possibility of socialists like Green Party candidate Matthew Hoh appearing on the ballot, rightly recognizing that their claimed mandate as a party of the working class is increasingly tenuous. Rather than responding to a threat from their left by fighting boldly for basic human dignity, they engage in dishonest tactics to crush their competition. As socialists, we know why: the Democratic Party’s ultimate allegiance is to oligarchy, and the oligarchy fears working people fighting for our interests far more than they fear any rollback of our rights. Their continued success is predicated on remaining the “lesser evil” for the marginalized and working class while never straying too far from the interests of their big business donors. Any attempt to upset this balancing act incurs the wrath of the party elite who understand the party’s purpose: providing liberal cover for the atrocities of capitalism and our current social order.

This is just the latest example of how limited our so-called democracy is in practice, even when Democrats are in charge: it is a democracy for the wealthy, not for ordinary people, and as such it cannot bring about our liberation. The Democratic Socialists of America aims to build a true democracy: a system where the working class is at the helm and ordinary people have a real say. Our working-class, socialist organization is building a grassroots movement here in the Triangle, by engaging our fellow tenants to take on our landlords, by talking to coworkers in our workplaces to build unions, and by conversing with other transit riders to win fare-free transit. In our democratic organization, neither the ruling oligarchy nor their mouthpieces in the political establishment have any say in how we fight for the interests of ordinary people. To those who seek an alternative to politics as usual, we ask you to join the movement for radical democracy and real change.

*The Green Party is requesting volunteers to challenge the Board's decision. If you were contacted by the DSCC to have your name removed from the petition, you may contact the NC Green Party, which is filing a lawsuit against the State Board of Elections to gain ballot access before November.

Ever thought about organizing your workplace? Curious about the hype around labor unions? Want to learn how to build and support a fighting labor movement? This workshop series is for […]