With the failure of the Redistricting Commission to meet yet another deadline, the state of Ohio is in a constitutional crisis. Redistricting is an inherently undemocratic act. Drawing arbitrary borders decade by decade determining which communities, municipalities, and counties are “together”, and therefore represented by a single person, always disenfranchises someone. The votes of entire communities are discarded from both the state legislature and U.S. Congress as party insiders draw boundaries to benefit themselves and only themselves. In Ohio, those in the Statehouse pick their voters, creating an undemocratic system of one-party rule which has passed reactionary laws the majority of Ohioans do not want or support.

Now, as of the last Redistricting Commission meeting, every voter in the state is being discarded, as Ohio’s “leaders” fail – for a third time – to create any map at all, plunging our state into a constitutional crisis just months before this year’s Primary. What limited voting rights our communities do have are further being eroded, and our representation at both the state and federal level is now uncertain. Picking their voters was apparently not enough, and now the Statehouse has left us in political limbo completely ignoring what Ohioans called for in 2018: fair representation. It is clear that the solution offered in 2018 is not enough, and Ohio’s legislative and executive leaders will stop at nothing to solidify their own power at the expense of working Ohioans.

The power of choosing our representatives must be taken away from those already in power and given back to the voters. Redistricting will not do this, no matter how you constitute a committee to draw the lines. “Fair maps” are not possible, and those in power will always create
a system to maintain their power and disenfranchise whoever they must to achieve their ends.

The only answer to solve Ohio’s current crisis is proportional representation. Proportional representation is a truly democratic system where every vote is heard and legislative seats are proportionally determined by the number of votes cast, not undemocratic, first-past-the-post districts arbitrarily determined every decade. A system not based on power, but a system based on math that fairly represents every vote. No communities will be disenfranchised, no party may determine their voters, and Ohioans will be one step closer to having a representative body that truly shares their interests.

Therefore, we call for an end to the redistricting fight and for Ohioans to support a system of proportional representation to determine our elected members in the General Assembly and Ohio’s Representatives to the U.S. House. We call for the Ohio General Assembly to make the necessary changes to create such a system for the 2022 election, and we call on the Redistricting Committee to publicly support and facilitate those changes immediately.

Democracy will not be given to us; we – the voters – must fight for it. The power to be represented by our government, not a government represented by entrenched party politics, must be fought for, and we call for all Ohioans to join us in the fight for proportional representation.

Who We Are & What We Do

We are the officially chartered local chapter in Charleston, SC, of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the largest socialist organization in the United States. DSA believes that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few. We are a political and activist organization, not a party; through campus and community-based chapters, DSA members use a variety of tactics, from legislative to direct action, to fight for reforms that empower working people. Charleston DSA was founded in 2017, became an official DSA chapter in 2018, and incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)4 in 2021.

A better world is possible. Join the fight today!

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. 

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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

Las Vegas DSA condemns, in the strongest terms, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for the cold-blooded murder and subsequent dehumanization of Isaiah Tyree Williams.

At about 5 a.m. on Jan. 10, LVMPD arrived at Isaiah’s apartment complex in East Las Vegas to serve a search warrant for someone else, and murdered the 19-year-old Isaiah, who was not connected to their investigation in any way. Officers announced themselves once when they arrived. Four seconds later, while announcing themselves a second time, officers threw flash bombs through windows, and forced entry through the front door of the apartment. Isaiah, apparently asleep on a couch just inside the front door, returned fire on the armed intruders pouring into the apartment. LVMPD fired 23 shots, killing Isaiah.

After murdering Isaiah and realizing that he was not the person they were looking for, LVMPD immediately began dehumanizing him during their press conferences, listing off the charges he would have faced for protecting himself during an armed break-in.  LVMPD only highlighted that two of their officers were shot, and not how they had murdered a Black teenager. The complicit media repeated these talking points.

These execution raids are common in predominantly Black neighborhoods across the country. Three weeks after Isaiah’s murder, Minneapolis police killed Amir Locke under similar circumstances. This cyclical pattern of injustice must end.

According to MappingPoliceViolence.org, LVMPD has killed 78 people since 2013. This includes Jorge Gomez in 2020 and Byron Williams in 2019. Combined with North Las Vegas and Henderson, over 100 people have died in Southern Nevada because of police deadly force since 2013. Violence is endemic in policing, and our BIPOC community is at a greater risk of harm while police continue to exist.

LVMPD’s budget for fiscal year 2021-22 is nearly $700 million. Via PoliceScorecard.org, the department has received at least $470 million per year since 2010. These funds would better serve our community in the form of free housing, improving our underfunded public school system, and building community-based interventions that address harm without relying on police or prisons.

We firmly believe in defunding and abolishing the police and prisons, and replacing them with services that prevent and repair harm in order to protect our communities. Until then, we support measures that disarm police, redirect police and prison funding to social goods, increase civilian oversight and transparency of police, and offer reparations to victims of police violence that don’t drain from public funds (i.e. paying civil damages from police pensions).

Our thoughts are with Isaiah Tyree Williams’ family, and with every person of color who has to fear that they may find themselves wrongfully victimized or murdered by police. We support Isaiah’s mother, Latia Alexander, in her pursuit of justice and hope our community can soon live without fear of police.