We appreciate all our donors and volunteers who are helping make a big difference in the lives of Columbia’s growing unhoused population. These donations allow us to provide both survival supplies and material comforts for the folks we serve. During the winter, a hot cup of coffee (supplies for which were purchased by your donations!) let people wake up and feel alive again after a cold night outside, and the hand warmers we purchased and distributed helped them stay warm after we left. As we move into summer, the focus is going to shift from these warming supplies towards cooling supplies. We all know that Columbia is a brutally hot city, and if you’re living outside then things like ice cold drinks and popsicles are not just comforts, but essential for survival and are recurring operating expenses on our end.

In addition to meeting recurring needs, we have made several exciting large purchases recently! One of these was the long awaited prepaid bus tickets. These allow folks to get around the city in order to access their jobs or shelter spaces. Without access to the bus, they are forced to walk miles every day in the scorching hot Columbia sun and thanks to the city’s war on the unhoused population, services are being spread further apart, increasing the demand for bus fare. To meet this need, we started by purchasing 50 passes that allow 7 days of free transportation. As a pilot program, we have been distributing them to those who express a need for transportation, although we are currently planning to expand this by creating a more structured distribution mechanism and then purchasing more tickets. We have also begun distributing hygiene supplies in the form of 150 dental hygiene kits (a toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, and floss) and 200 hand sanitizer bottles. The population we serve is simply unable to afford healthcare, and so it is vitally important that they have access to the preventative supplies we take for granted.

GET INVOLVED: Donate to the Unhoused Benefit Fund as a one-time donation or a recurring donation. 

 

 

 

 

 

DSA at the national level has been going through a rough time. The current National Political Committee (NPC) has been hard at work preparing the budget for the next fiscal year. Unfortunately, this has been a much harder time than anyone could have expected. The NPC elected at our latest convention inherited a financial deficit of $1,054,490. This is due to a number of factors. Our last convention voted to fund a number of campaigns, such as giving more resources to locals in order to help elect DSA members to school boards, allowing YDSA to participate in dues sharing, and creating full-time paid political leadership positions like national co-chairs and NLC co-chairs. The previous NPC also hired 12 new staffers to help with the influx of members that joined in 2020 due to the Bernie campaign and the George Floyd uprising. This increase in spending, plus the loss of membership DSA has had since 2021, has caused our national deficit to become untenable. The current NPC has voted to slash many of the spending priorities I mentioned above, but even after this, the organization will be left with a deficit of over $500,000. This made the majority of the NPC propose cuts to the national organization’s staff. You may be hearing this and thinking there is nothing you can do to help the situation. But you can by signing up for Solidarity income-based dues! At our last convention, we passed a resolution titled “Give Our 1% for the 99%,” allowing members the option to give one percent of their yearly income to the national organization. Many chapters have been participating in Solidarity Dues drives to get as many members as possible to sign up for income-based dues. And we have had amazing success. In fact, our projected income was increased by $420,000! While our deficit is still large, we should do everything we can to lower it. This will allow us to fund as many campaigns as possible and hopefully lessen the number of staff we will have to lay off. You may be asking yourself, “I’d love to sign up for this, but I don’t know how!” Luckily, a member of DSA’s national editorial board created this helpful explainer on how to sign up! This link will take you to a post made to the national organization’s discussion board. Let’s all chip in our 1% for the 99% and build the socialist movement!

 

GET INVOLVED: Update your member dues to solidarity dues here. If you’re not a member of DSA yet, you can join now using the same link. 

2023 was a watershed year for the city of Columbia’s hostile response to the rising unhoused population. Spearheaded by Republican mayor Daniel Rickenmann, the city has passed several ordinances that only make life more difficult for this vulnerable population. Condemned by the SC ACLU and a large group of local advocacy groups, these new rules empower police to arrest anyone sleeping outside, using a shopping cart, or possessing the ill-defined “drug paraphernalia,” which includes simply having a metal spoon. In addition, the city has sought to move services like Oliver Gospel Mission and Transitions Shelter out of the city center, and has a projected budget of $30 million dollars for this move which could otherwise go to more constructive efforts.

 

Columbia DSA’s mutual aid working group has worked tirelessly to continue to support the unhoused population despite these challenges. We have raised $1500 in the past eight months for several projects, including purchasing bus tickets and other direct aid to members of the community. This is in addition to the weekly food services provided on Saturdays and Sundays, which include cooked hot food, sandwiches, drinks, and hygiene products.

GET INVOLVED: Do you want to help? Donate directly to the Unhoused Benefit Fund. Volunteer for weekly food distribution on Saturdays at 12pm or Sundays at 1pm by emailing dsaofcolumbia@gmail.com. If those times and days are not accessible for you, we ask that members carry necessities like food and water in personal vehicles for individual distribution, especially as temperatures climb in the summer.

 

 

 

 

Peninsula DSA Supports Single Inclusive Democratic State for Palestinians and Israelis

SAN MATEO, July 16, 2024 - Following the leadership of our comrades in Chicago DSA, Peninsula (CA) DSA voted at our June 2024 General Membership Meeting to declare our support for a political vision of one democratic state in Palestine. We identify Zionism’s politicization of identity and Israel’s nature as a state exclusive to Jews as a root cause of the suffering and injustice which Israel has inflicted upon the people of Palestine, and we believe that true peace and liberation can only be achieved by the dismantling of the apartheid, settler-colonial state and the establishment of one democratic state in its stead.

The material reality is that a two-state solution is not feasible, and it has long been more of an aspirational myth rather than a serious policy proposal. In the words of Jewish Currents contributing editor Joshua Leifer, the idea is little more than a “political fiction” which gives liberal Zionists a way “to reconcile their seemingly contradictory commitments to both ethnonationalism and liberal democracy.” Since the 1970s, when Palestinian intellectuals first proposed a “mini-state” on 22% of historic Palestine, Israel has continuously redefined the conceptual Palestinian state to include ever-less territory and to hold ever-less sovereignty. By the 1980s, there were already 100,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, prompting former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti to warn that it was “five minutes to midnight” for the two-state solution. Now, there are over 650,000 settlers in the West Bank, and settlers, emboldened by Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, are committing even more violence and stealing more Palestinian land. The two-state solution—which has come to mean a fragmented Palestine under de facto Israeli control—cannot generate a movement powerful enough to bring liberation to Palestine; it only provides cover for ongoing ethnic cleansing.

For this reason we support a movement for a single, inclusive state between the river and the sea that is:

• Democratic. All citizens would be equal in the eye of the state, including its laws, institutions and policies, regardless of identity. This includes the right of those who have been ethnically cleansed from Palestine to return and enjoy full citizenship.
• Secular. Freedom of worship would be guaranteed, and one’s religion or identity would not be a factor in granting or denying rights to citizens or non-citizens.
• Socially just. Stolen land, homes and property would be restituted to all victims of dispossession. Resources and social welfare would be allotted fairly to all citizens. The income, poverty and education gaps would be bridged.

Finally, we call on national DSA to likewise declare its support of one democratic state in Palestine: a “one-person, one-vote” state in which everyone is represented equally, regardless of ethnicity, religion, origin, etc. As socialists it is our responsibility to imagine what a just world would look like and share that vision with the world. Without democracy, self-determination is impossible, and without full equal rights under a secular state, there can be no democracy for the Palestinian people. Separate can never be equal.

Further reading:

• “What Does ‘From the River to the Sea’ Really Mean?” (2021), Jewish Currents
• “Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return” (2021), Jewish Currents
• The Resilient Fiction of a Two-State Solution” (2020), Jewish Currents
• “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” (2020), Jewish Currents
• “The Case for the One Democratic State Initiative as a Counter-Hegemonic Endeavor” (2023), Mondoweiss
• One Democratic State Initiative

Thorn West: Issue No. 210

State Politics

• Following President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek a second term, Vice President Kamala Harris has secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to have essentially locked herself in as his replacement.The California Democratic Party played a crucial role on behalf of the former California Senator.

Housing Justice

• Governor Gavin Newsom issued a \executive order demanding that state agencies immediately begin clearing encampments on state property. The order does not appear to directly impact policy within Los Angeles or other cities. Mayor Karen Bass was among those who criticized it. The order cites the recent 6–3 Supreme Court decision that stripped legal protections from people experiencing homelessness, which Newsom submitted a brief in support of.

Labor

• The California State Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of Prop 22, siding with Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, and allowing them to continue to classify their workers as independent contractors.

• This week, Metro voted to expand a public restroom pilot program that is currently operated by a contractor that relies on gig-workers. Following the advocacy of DSA-LA and others, the motion was amended to include a feasibility study on bringing the program in-house and staffing it with Metro employees.

• Los Angeles vendors have declared victory after a settlement in their lawsuit against the city over a municipal policy of “no-vending zones,” which were out of compliance with a 2018 state law. The settlement eliminates the last of these zones, after a City Council motion eliminated most of them earlier in the year. It also provides restitution for fines issued against vendors for operating in these zones.

• Members of a coalition of unions representing workers at Disney’s Southern California theme parks voted to authorize a strike, with 99% of members in favor. Later in the week, the union reached a tentative agreement with Disney.

• Effective today, video game performers and voiceover artists represented by SAG-AFTRA are on strike. At stake are worker protections against AI. Statement from SAG-AFTRA here. Petition of support here.

Local Media

• California will consider AB-886, the California Journalism Preservation Act, which would require tech platforms – which siphon money away from media outlets when they link to news items – to pay a fee to support local journalism. The LA Times reports on similar efforts in other countries.

The post Governor Issues Executive Order Demanding Sweeps + Video Game Performers on Strike appeared first on The Thorn West.

A version of this article was originally published in the Nokomis Messenger. MPRB Arborists maintain 600,000 trees that cover 29.8% of Minneapolis with an urban canopy. Recent rain, hail, and wind gusts, as well as the LiUNA 363 labor union strike, has highlighted the precarity of our tree canopy, as well as how much work […]

With turnout slightly above average, Democratic voters opt for status quo in local and federal primaries.