Join us this Sunday for Comradesgiving, November 26 from 3:00 to 5:30pm at the Gallatin Labor Temple. We will be sharing food and continuing the conversation around Social Housing and why a Public Housing Authority is needed. We will also be practicing how to write and submit public comment in preparation for the upcoming Gallatin County Commission hearing (Tues 11/28) to determine whether a Public Housing Authority should be established at the county level. Join us for a potluck with comrades. Multiple dietary restrictions are being considered, including vegan and vegetarian options. RSVP here.

Can’t make it, but want to show your support for establishing a PHA? See here for directions for submitting public comment to the Gallatin County Commissioners. Public comment for the County is due by November 27.

Don’t be fooled: failed politicians and Proud Boys tried to spread antisemitic bile at Harvard. DSA anti-fascists won’t let them

On November 11, 2023, several members of Boston DSA, a mix of non-Jews and Jews, disrupted Shiva Ayyadurai’s antisemitic, “anti-Zionist” rally in Harvard Square. As the flier advertising it made clear, this was no rally in support of Palestinians or anti-Zionism, but a rally to support Shiva’s particular brand of conspiracy theory and the idea of Jews as all-controlling oppressors of working people.

We carried signs reading “Antisemitism is the Anti-Zionism of Fools” (a play on the old quote “Antisemitism is the socialism of fools”), “Pro-Palestine, Pro-Jewish, Antifascist” and others. We did this because we find antisemitism repellent, and we find it repellent that Shiva would co-opt the suffering and death of Palestinians for his own ends in this manner. And, we did this to send a message, in deed and not just word, that principled anti-Zionists oppose antisemitism. Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim members of the Harvard and Cambridge communities—indeed, all members—did not deserve Shiva’s spectacle, or the stress and fear that they may have felt as a result of the rally fliers. Indeed, some passers-by thanked us for helping them understand what was happening. Several people who had simply heard about a Palestine rally in Harvard Square spoke to us and were upset and disappointed about the true nature of Shiva’s rally.

We are all experienced antifascists, and we understand the difference between principled anti-Zionism and antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. John Medlar, a well-known Proud Boy who tried to crash a Drag Queen Story Hour in Fall River last year, was Shiva’s livestreamer. Another rallygoer told us that he too was a Proud Boy and a friend of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, and called a member of our group a “homo.” One of us, a Jewish survivor of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, was wearing Palestine colors with a Star of David necklace, and was asked multiple times by Shiva’s rallygoer fans what was around their neck. Another of us was told by a rallygoer that 60% of Congress has dual citizenship with Israel, a variant on a longstanding antisemitic myth. Several told us that vaccines are a “globalist” (a dogwhistle for Jewish) population control plot. In no way is any of this Palestine solidarity or helpful to the people being murdered in Gaza.

We encourage readers to attend rallies for Palestine and a ceasefire that are sponsored by legitimate coalitions and organizations such as the Boston Coalition for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, and to contact their representatives in support of the Ceasefire Now resolution. Unfortunately, right now, with the increased attention to Palestinians’ oppression and many new people in the movement, the antisemitic far right will do what it often does, and try to inject its ideas into the movement through spreading them to well-meaning people (some of them new activists, English language learners, and/or people new to North American cultural contexts) who don’t realize the full implications of certain framings, terms, or images. If you see a friend repeating things that seem off (like suggesting that Americans need to be freed from Israeli dominance, or that Israelis or Jews are “unbelievers” in some way, or using Jewish symbols like the menorah to signify something bad, or using the neo-Nazi phrase “Zionist Occupied Government”), talk to them about it! That’s how we build healthy movements.

No to antisemitism, no to anti-Palestinian hatred, no to Islamophobia, no to fascism!

We repeat here the points from the educational fliers that we distributed on site:

We are supporters of a ceasefire in Israel/Palestine. Many of us are longtime Palestine solidarity activists. We oppose antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian hatred, and fascism.

The rally we are here to oppose claims to be an anti-Zionism, pro-worker rally. However fliers advertising it intertwined the Star of David with a dollar sign as the chain in a pair of handcuffs, accusing “Zionists” of enslaving workers throughout the world. The use of a plain Star of David in this way is unambiguously antisemitic.

While Zionism is an ideology and there is nothing intrinsically antisemitic in anti-Zionism, there is a long and unfortunate history of antisemites using “Zionist” and “Zionism” as antisemitic dog whistles, dating back to Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby in the 1950s.

Shiva Ayyadurai, who called the rally that we are here to oppose, has spoken at several far-right rallies in the Boston area since 2017, speaking alongside notorious figures such as the violent neo-Nazi/former Proud Boy Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, Proud Boy and convicted 1/6/21 Capitol attack leader Joe Biggs and Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson. For more on this era of fascist activity in Boston, see this 2019 piece.

One of the local rallies he spoke at was the 2018 Proud Boys rally in Concord, MA. The Proud Boys have become well-known as one of the groups that led the attack on the Capitol on 1/6/21. Massachusetts Proud Boy John Medlar is a long-time collaborator of Shiva’s.

Shiva is a conspiracy theorist who testified at “election audit” hearings to claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump

We find it grotesque that Shiva is co-opting Palestinian suffering and death in this opportunistic, antisemitic way. As principled anti-Zionists, ceasefire supporters, antifascists, we say no.

Join us this Sunday, October 29 3pm at the Labor Temple for some grilling, chilling, and organizing! We will be discussing how to mobilize and organize, and what’s the difference. Afterwards we will be grilling, and have some good ole Socialist Socialization! Workshop starts at 3 and cookout afterwards.

Grillidarity art is by local artist Gavin Herzog.

After the events of October 7th, 2023, the Israeli occupying force wasted little time in launching an indiscriminate bombing campaign against the 2.1 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza as a collective punishment, targeting ambulances¹, apartments, schools, mosques, hospitals, and media outlets, turning the existing blockade into an active and deadly siege. Israel has cut off all water, power, fuel, and food supply to Gaza, a further crime against humanity, and the specter of starvation and genocide looms. Telegraphing further escalation, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip²; only a day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Palestinian civilians in Gaza to “leave now.”³ Leave to go where exactly?

At the time of this writing, thousands of people have already been killed inside and near the Gaza Strip. International law is clear on the legitimacy of occupied peoples to liberate themselves from “colonial domination, apartheid, and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”⁴ International law is also clear on the prohibition of punishing a civilian for an offense he or she has not personally committed and the prohibition of reprisals against protected persons and their property.⁵ But since the beginning of 2023, the Israeli police, military, and armed settlers have killed, on average, one Palestinian a day. Since Israel imposed the blockade on the Gaza Strip, the occupying force has bombed Gaza a total of seven times: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023 — and Palestinians have never been able to leave for safety.

However, Netanyahu’s faux-humanitarian warning to Palestinians, “leave now,” touches the roots of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” In 1948, Zionist paramilitary groups ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians from historic Palestine and established the state of Israel, a historic event known as al-Nakba in Palestinian collective memory⁶. It is the reason why nearly 67% of Palestinians in Gaza are descendants of families that were ethnically cleansed from the villages where Israeli kibbutzim and cities stand today. It is the reason why Israel is a military garrison state that maintains an apartheid system today, where Palestinians are harassed, robbed, and murdered by Israeli soldiers and settlers every day, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.⁷ It is the reason why, despite Zionist attempts to deny their existence, Palestinians have continued to resist, persevere, and yearn for Return.

Now is not the time for supposedly balanced, measured statements that obfuscate the truth of the conflict. The failure of international bodies and leaders to hold Israel accountable to international law and to apply UN Resolution 194, the right of Palestinians to return to their ancestral homes, has resulted in what we are now bearing witness to. This has been the status quo for Palestinians for 75 years, and it must end.

Israel is able to maintain this barbaric status quo because of the diplomatic, military, and financial support of the United States since 1967. The United States uses this alliance to project its military power into the Middle East, as it seeks to do in all geostrategically important areas of the globe.

As American socialists, we understand the fight for socialism is international, and we understand the unique role the United States plays in administering a global capitalist empire. To assist Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination, our primary role is to pressure the US for a change in its foreign policy. To this end, we unequivocally support the BDS movement and call on American civil society to join the targeted boycott of Israeli goods, companies, and institutions.

The response of the Biden administration to these events still unfolding has been to supply Israel with more money and weapons.^{8 9}The United States must end its policy of arming the apartheid, settler-colonial ethnostate of Israel. We fully condemn the capitalist Republican and Democratic parties, who are largely culpable for the continuation of violence and dispossession perpetrated upon Palestinians. America’s expanding military-industrial complex continues to act as a force of destabilization and oppression throughout the world, and major arms and military technology manufacturers like Raytheon make billions of dollars in profits from exploitation and war.

As socialists living in the heart of a global capitalist empire, we stand in opposition to the imperialism of the American ruling class, and we stand in solidarity with all oppressed people.

Palestine will be free — from the river to the sea.

In solidarity,
Central New Jersey DSA

1. https://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-without-borders-hospitals-ambulances-targets-israel-hamas-gaza-2023-10 ︎
2.  https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza ︎
3. https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/israel-palestine-conflict-more-than-530-killed-after-hamas-launched-unprecedented-attack-on-israel-netanyahu-retaliates-declares-war-1.1696670798153 ︎
4. https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-184195/ ︎
5. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-33 ︎
6. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ethnic-Cleansing-of-Palestine/Ilan-Pappe/9781851685554 ︎
7. https://jacobin.com/2023/10/west-bank-apartheid-israel-idf-oslo-accords ︎
8. https://themessenger.com/politics/biden-administration-discussing-military-aid-package-to-israel-after-hamas-attack ︎
9. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67049196 ︎

The post From the River to the Sea! appeared first on Central NJ DSA.

Denver DSA unequivocally stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine in their fight for liberation from the apartheid regime of Israel. Palestinians have endured 75 years of dispossession, colonization, desecration, torture, and confinement at the hands of the Israeli government, enabled financially, politically, and culturally by the United States. The path to liberation must include ceasing all U.S. aid to Israel, lifting the blockade of Gaza, ending Zionist settler-colonialism, and ensuring the right for Palestinians to return to their homeland.

Yesterday, a wealthy and well-funded nuclear power with the financial, political, and cultural support of the United States began forcibly evacuating 1.1 million civilians from Gaza City during an ongoing indiscriminate carpet-bombing campaign which has already killed thousands of civilians, injured tens of thousands, and displaced hundreds of thousands. Israel has cut off food, water, fuel, electricity, and medical care from Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens, half of whom are children. These civilians have been deemed “human animals” by the Israeli Defense Minister overseeing these attacks, who committed to “treat them accordingly” – an open declaration of genocide. Yet even now, the American war machine readies itself to ship more weapons and send more military funding to support Israel’s extermination of the Palestinian people for daring to resist their brutal, unlivable conditions.

Border walls, military checkpoints, crippling sanctions, restricted water and electricity, food scarcity, impoverishment, denial of medical care, and routine bombings are the material conditions that Palestinians have been forced to live under for over 75 years. Backed by the US, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) brutally murder Palestinians with impunity, over 8,000 since 2000 and thousands since October 7. The IOF detains 600 Palestinian children every year and keeps over 5,000 Palestinians imprisoned, a quarter of whom are held without charges or trial. For 16 years, Gaza has been transformed into an open-air prison, wherein the IOF concentrates 2.3 million people in an area smaller than Denver and bombs them in politically-motivated campaigns they sadistically term “mowing the grass.” 

Bloodshed is a universal tragedy. But under apartheid and occupation, some lives are deemed more precious than others. The negative blowback of apartheid should come as no shock; people who are oppressed will perpetually seek ways to free themselves from that oppression. The murder of Palestinians has been a systemically invisibilized occurrence for decades. When Palestinians quietly suffer the daily violence inflicted on them, the West calls that “peace”. Denver DSA recognizes that the only true and lasting peace must be predicated on liberation from occupation, and it is towards that goal that we resolve ourselves today.

We call on all DSA members and endorsed DSA electeds to stand unequivocally in support of Palestinian people’s right to resist. We encourage all DSA chapters to stand with the people of Palestine and organize turn-out to local demonstrations.

May Palestine be free, from the river to the sea.

In the face of over 75 years of settler-colonial violence and genocide, the will and spirit of the Palestinian resistance burns brighter than ever. The state of Israel has ethnically […]

The post Statement In Support Of Palestinian Liberation appeared first on Houston DSA.

In this episode, we interview activist Chuck Collins on his new novel, "Altar to an Erupting Sun." His book addresses the work of activism, the value of community, and the question of what tactics are on the table as we face the destruction of the planet. Find his book and more resources at chuckcollinswrites.com. Don't forget to join us for theologybeer.camp on October 19–21st. Use promo code HEARTGODPOD for a discounted ticket and to support this podcast. Hope to see you there!

Have you been thinking about joining DSA, but haven’t gotten around to it?
Is it time to renew your dues?

DSA is a member-based organization committed to increasing power for the working class and fighting capitalism. All members decide how much and how often to give, and dues-paying members democratically decide the direction of our chapter locally and DSA nationally. To be a truly democratically controlled and explicitly anti-capitalist organization, we can’t rely on big donors or grants, which can often push non-profits into running certain projects or campaigns as conditions of receiving money. Dues – especially monthly – go to running local campaigns, training organizers, and sustaining a nation-wide infrastructure.

Join today!

Today we submitted a petition to both the City of Bozeman and Gallatin County to establish a Housing Authority. This is the first step to building Social Housing and lowering the cost of housing in Bozeman.

With a Housing Authority, we can take an active role in increasing the supply of affordable housing. We cannot continue to look for remedies from the status quo. The reality is that when housing is tied to profits, it is more profitable for developers to maintain scarcity. Meanwhile, non-profit developers statewide fight over a small pot of LIHTC and Section 8 vouchers to serve a growing need. With a public housing authority, the city could use its tools – the same ones that build our schools and fire stations – to access bonds to start building Social Housing.

With Social Housing, we can have local control of development to meet the needs of our community in Bozeman – including deciding the cost of rent, developing in a way that meets crucial sustainability standards, and creating communities welcoming to workers, students, pets, and families. Social Housing is a sustainable model of publicly owned and publicly developed mixed-income housing that would remain permanently affordable. With our own housing authority, the city can set the rents for their own developments and the reasonably-priced rents can go back to maintaining the building, rather than being pocketed by for-profit developers.

The city cannot mandate requirements for private developers to have more low-income units, meaning that we continue to use public funds to subsidize landlords and developers to maintain their profits. The city cannot mandate that LIHTC units are kept affordable in perpetuity, meaning there is always a threat that we will lose affordable units each year. But the city CAN have local control on development if the city establishes a public housing authority and starts creating its own supply of Social Housing.

Want to learn more about the concept of Social Housing? Join our Topical Discussion on Sunday, August 20 to learn about how the model of social housing could work in Bozeman. https://www.facebook.com/events/214570914505353

Scholar, philosopher, and prolific author Dr. David Bentley Hart joins the podcast to discuss Bible translation as an act of resistance, the Christian sources and support for social democracy, and the moral demands of human and creaturely relations to care for one another. Don't forget to join us at Theology Beer Camp (www.theologybeer.camp) and use the promo code HEARTGODPOD for a discount! – Check out his New Testament translation (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300265705/the-new-testament/) – For essays on his theological and political ideas, check out "Theological Territories" (https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268107185/theological-territories/) – And per Hart's own request, check out his works of fiction like "Roland in Moonlight" (https://angelicopress.org/roland-in-moonlight-hart)