This January, Salt Lake DSA renewed its participation in the national boycott campaign of Israeli and Zionist foods called No Appetite for Apartheid, launched by the Palestine Solidarity Working Group in 2022, which is itself part of the Apartheid Free Zones campaign and the larger BDS movement launched by Palestinian civil society groups in 2005. We are canvassing local stores to see if we here in Utah can help add to the number of Apartheid Free stores nationwide, which will support the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. See the chapter calendar for biweekly meetings and canvassing update, follow the guidelines in the one-pager below, and join us!

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The post Still No Appetite For Apartheid! first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

In the early twentieth century the vast majority of mass production industries were unorganized in the United States. Efforts to replicate the success of the United Mine Workers, brewery workers, and the garment trades were largely unsuccessful until the 1930s when the Congress of Industrial Organizations changed everything. Fragile Juggernaut tells this story with a narrative that spans from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1950s. Andrew Elrod joins us to discuss why this history is important and what organizers can learn from it today.

by Jay P., Electoral Coordinator

Today, March 5, is our primary election here in Travis County.

Who’s voted for our chapter-endorsed candidate, District Attorney José Garza? Have you?

There’s a list of voting locations available at votetravis.org. The good news is, if you have been to any of them, odds are that you had minimal wait time.

If you haven’t been yet, here’s some bad news: turnout through the early voting period was below 6% of registered voters in Travis County.

Here’s some good news: Travis County has got all the voters we need to win, they just happen to have been sitting on their asses this whole time. Travis County Democrats have stood by past electoral efforts towards goals like humane workplace safety regulations, criminal justice reform in 2020, and last year with the police oversight passed with Yes on A/No on B. 

Back to the bad news: as of last Friday, roughly 20% of people who voted in the Democratic primary were GOP crossovers and therefore obvious, rock-solid locks for the opponent. 

This is at least 5,800 votes the opponent had, as of last week. The right is aware that the top of our ballot is rotten. They know that local races rarely make noise in an uncontested presidential primary, and they think they can win it on the cheap. The sole candidate running in the GOP primary has said people should vote for the opponent. How the two differ in any particular way, he has not said.

Their strategy has been relentless, defamatory, and disgusting. You’ve probably seen their attack ads, but you may not have heard about the grotesque intimidation and harassment of our canvassers by the opponent’s supporters. If what they have said and done has been enough to give you pause, if you haven’t done anything yet, then I’m sad to report that they got you. If this situation holds, I can see the coverage on March 6th: “Local reformer has a few good years,” “Back to Business,” “DSA in Disarray: Lots of enthusiasts, short attention spans”. I’m not too proud to say these imagined headlines have been screaming at me for weeks.

Some history: in 2020, we worked in coalition to elect a candidate who represented a courageous and meaningful break with the past. This coalition began in 2017 as our campaign with local labor, the Worker’s Defense Project, and other community groups to win paid sick leave. In his original campaign for District Attorney, not only did José promise and pursue accountability for the violence and recklessness exercised by the Austin Police Department, its leadership, and others in response to the 2020 racial justice protest; he has overseen a double-digit drop in violent and property crimes, making Austin one of the safest big cities in the country (no matter what you heard from the online right). 

We have achieved this by focusing the office’s resources where they matter most: at the root causes of crime, especially violent crime, in our community. He has endorsed and supported ambitious mental health and criminal diversion programs because we know they work where the incarceration first (incarceration-only) policies of the past haven’t and won’t. He has partnered with local trade unions to connect people with apprenticeship opportunities that can address the same poverty and day-to-day insecurity of being without a good job and a strong union to back you up against the bosses. And the bosses, finally, let’s never forget the bosses—I am certain they would love to see our home-grown Economic Justice Enforcement Initiative go up in smoke, and not have to worry about a top prosecutor who cares about wage theft, workplace safety violations, and the kinds of labor abuses they get away with in other jurisdictions across the country and cost the workers tens of billions of dollars per year. For us, for the multiracial working class of Austin, these are priorities we’ve been working for years to realize, and while much remains to be done, we are immensely fortunate to have a dedicated fighter for that working class in office.

The opponent offers none of this. The opponent has never once said he would protect Travis County’s right to seek and obtain abortion, he has never once said he would protect trans kids and their families seeking lifesaving care. He has said nothing about our priorities for the enforcement and prosecution of justice here in Travis County, and so we must assume the worst.

They have money, they have the apathy of demobilized Democratic Party voters, but we can overcome—because we have people. We are the only ones who can save us, now and always. We need to step up and be comrades for our comrade, who’s given so much to make our cause a fact on the ground.

I said we’ve got people, so let’s see them. We need you to stop reading, open your phone, and find three friends, family, neighbors, or coworkers who haven’t voted yet. Tell them how to make a plan to vote: every location citywide is open from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Let them know which forms of ID are accepted at the polls (there are seven types). Offer to give them a ride if they need it, and no matter what, let them know what’s at stake in this election. 

Who are our comrades today? If you’re ready for this fight, this is only one way, but a vital and necessary way, to show your solidarity today.

The post Who’s Voted? Have you? first appeared on Red Fault.

by Sara G.. 

Austin Socialist News Bulletin – February 2024

Austin DSA has been hitting the pavement! Every weekend this month, we’ve had at least two canvasses, either for our endorsed candidates or for our Schools for All Campaign. The primary election on March 5th will decide our District Attorney, but we have more work to do campaigning for Mike Siegel for City Council and to support our public schools. We remain committed to doing everything within our power to stop the genocide and provide aid to Gazans, and continue working in coalition with Palestinian and Jewish activist groups in Austin as part of the Austin for Palestine Coalition. 

In the past month…

• The Democratic primary is on Tuesday, March 5th. We’ve had numerous conversations with voters as part of block walks for District Attorney José Garza.  The Republican money machine has gone into full force behind José’s competitor, with mud-slinging television ads and mailers. Early voter turnout has been low, and large numbers of Republicans are voting in the open democratic primary to try and defeat José. José’s advantage is people power, so we will continue to canvass and phonebank to reelect him in a landslide.
  
  
• At the end of January, the Texas AFL-CIO became the first state labor federation to call for a ceasefire after October 7th. Young Active Labor Leaders (YALL) held a teach-in about Palestine before the vote, and union members did a lot of internal organizing before the vote to activate their fellow members.
  
  
• DSA members participated in the Texas United Against Genocide in Palestine statewide rally, with a special march to the capitol for Texas labor, and later in the Hands Off Rafah rally. We have also continued writing op-eds and contacting every city council meeting to demand a city-wide resolution calling for a ceasefire.
  
  
• We created a pledge for Austin shoppers to sign saying that they won’t buy goods made in Israel. Once we have enough signatures from consumers, we can begin discussions with grocers to remove those items from their shelves.
• More than 100,000 democratic voters in Michigan cast votes for “uncommitted” in protest of Biden’s persistence in funding the Israeli military. DSA supported the campaign through phone banks and is now launching similar campaigns in WA and MN.
  
  
• We’ve continued to support Starbucks Workers United with a Valentine’s Day sip-in as a teach-in. On February 28th, the union announced that Starbucks has agreed to start discussing a collective bargaining agreement and returning cash tips and other benefits to union members.
  
  
• We joined the line at the Worldwide Flight Attendant day of Action at Austin Bergstrom airport.

The post

Austin Socialist News Bulletin

February 2024

first appeared on Red Fault.

On Sunday February 25, fellow peace activist and active-duty member of the US Air Force Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. His last words echo in our ears: “I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what the people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it is not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.  Free Palestine! Free Palestine! Free Palestine!” He also stated that he would “no longer be complicit in genocide.”

Colorado Springs DSA recognizes Aaron’s sacrifice and the deeply empathetic pain that precipitated it. Aaron clearly held foremost in his thoughts the tens of thousands of civilians and children that have been murdered by Israel since October 7th. This death count continues to climb at an alarming rate, facilitated by American funding and weaponry, despite the fact that the majority of Americans – of all religions and ethnicities – support an immediate ceasefire. We hope that Aaron’s sacrifice will wake our elected officials up to the atrocity that most of them have been supporting and continue to support through allowing the United States to continuously veto U.N. ceasefire resolutions, allowing President Biden to bypass congress in sending weapons to Israel that make the genocide possible, and continuing to supply the Israeli apartheid government with billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money. We encourage all people of conscience to amplify Aaron’s message of peace and freedom as loudly as possible and call on all elected and unelected actors who are complicit in genocide to cease aiding and abetting the fascist colonial settler state of Israel.

We would also like to push back on the weaponization of psychological vocabulary as a cudgel against any message that is potentially disruptive to colonial and capitalist ideology. Despite the recurring tendency of the ruling class to pathologize people, actions, and ideas that threaten their hegemony, we have every reason to believe that Aaron was steadfastly principled, articulate, and clear-headed in his choice to use his dying act to communicate his message as powerfully as he knew how. He spoke with conviction and integrity, continuing a long history of nonviolent extreme protest in response to extreme circumstances. A genocide is an extreme circumstance, and all principled people who are paying attention can recognize what drove Aaron to martyr himself, even without taking that path themselves. All attempts to dismiss Aaron as “mentally ill” are rooted in a disagreement with his central message: stop the genocide and free the Palestinian people immediately. To be willing to die for others is an act of extreme love, not of insanity. Colorado Springs DSA will keep Aaron in our hearts and draw from his strength and solidarity with the Palestinian people in continuing to call for an immediate permanent ceasefire and a free Palestine.

It’s time once again for our annual Madison Area DSA Chapter Convention, happening on Saturday, March 23 from 10 AM to 5 PM at the Goodman Community Center. Please RSVP as soon as possible! This year, we’re excited to move back to an in-person convention (masks will be required and provided).

At Convention, members in good standing are invited to take a look back at the past year and make important decisions about the direction of the upcoming year. Here’s what you can expect at the MADSA Convention: getting to know your comrades and team building, political discussion, voting on exec positions, working group charters, chapter campaigns, and lunch. 

The 2024 About the MADSA Convention Guide has everything you know about Convention, what to submit, what to expect, voting procedures, and more. Please bookmark it. 

We’re asking members to submit the following things by March 15th: Nominate yourself or someone else for the executive committee! The executive committee is responsible for day-to-day chapter operations and making decisions between membership meetings.

Nominate yourself or someone else for the Community Accountability Committee!. The CAC members help with community accountability.

Working group report and charter: Do you want to recharter your working group? Does your charter need to change? Do you have an idea for a new working group? This year, all Working Group charters will need 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.

Chapter priority campaign proposals: What should the chapter work together on? We’ll be collecting campaign proposals and voting on one. If you have a campaign idea, please complete the Strategic Campaigns Proposal Worksheet, linked in the 2024 Convention Guide, and take a look at the slides from the 2/18 Strategic Campaigns Training.  All campaign proposals will need at least 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.
More information on all of these items can be found in the 2024 Convention Guide. 

Solidarity, Madison Area DSA Convention Committee 

Upcoming Convention Events

DSA Leadership Intensive Sat and Sun March 2&3 12-5pm┃RSVP  This two-day training, led by DSA’s national Growth and Development Committee (GDC), is meant for chapter leaders (or prospective chapter leaders) of all experience levels to come together, learn from one another, and return to organizing with a greater understanding of what it takes to build DSA into a mass organization of working people across diverse backgrounds. We will cover everything from how to cohere your chapter around shared projects to the basic, day-to-day work of chapter officers.

Executive Committee Q&A Monday March 4 7-8pm ┃Zoom┃Passcode 371739 Anyone considering a role on the Executive Committee is encouraged to attend!

March General Membership Meeting Tuesday March 12 7-8:00pm┃Social Justice Center & Zoom  The official Convention Agenda will be presented and discussed, along with other important convention updates.

Convention RSVP Form, Campaign proposals, Working Group submissions and officer nominations DUE Friday March 15 @ Midnight

Convention Compendium Available ┃ March 16th A convention guide including campaign proposals, working group submission and officer statements will be shared with all members.

2024 MADSA Convention Saturday March 23 10am-5pm Goodman Center Ironworks, Grace Room

It’s time once again for our annual Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America Convention, happening on Saturday, March 23 from 10-5 at the Goodman Community Center. Please RSVP as soon as possible! This year, we’re excited to move back to an in-person convention.

At Convention, members in good standing are invited to take a look back at the past year and make important decisions about the direction of the upcoming year. Here’s what you can expect at the MADSA Convention: getting to know your comrades and team building, political discussion, voting on exec positions, working group charters, chapter campaigns, and a delicious (and free) lunch.

The 2024 About the MADSA Convention Guide has everything you know about Convention, what to submit, what to expect, voting procedures, and more. Please bookmark it.

We’re asking members to submit the following things by March 15th: 

• Nominate yourself or someone else for the executive committee! The executive committee is responsible for day-to-day chapter operations and making decisions between membership meetings.
• Nominate yourself or someone else for the Community Accountability Committee!. The CAC members help with community accountability.
• Working group report and charter. Do you want to recharter your working group? Does your charter need to change? Do you have an idea for a new working group? This year, all Working Group charters will need 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.
• Campaign proposals – What should the chapter work together on? We’ll be collecting campaign proposals and voting on one. If you have a campaign idea, please complete the Strategic Campaigns Proposal Worksheet, linked in the 2024 Convention Guide, and take a look at the slides from the 2/18 Strategic Campaigns Training. All campaign proposals will need at least 5 chapter members to sign on before submission.

More information on all of these items can be found in the 2024 Convention Guide. 

Solidarity,

Madison DSA Convention Committee 

Upcoming Convention Events

DSA Leadership Intensive┃Sat and Sun March 2&3 12-5pm ┃RSVP 
This two-day training, led by DSA’s national Growth and Development Committee (GDC), is meant for chapter leaders (or prospective chapter leaders) of all experience levels to come together, learn from one another, and return to organizing with a greater understanding of what it takes to build DSA into a mass organization of working people across diverse backgrounds. We will cover everything from how to cohere your chapter around shared projects to the basic, day-to-day work of chapter officers.

Executive Committee Q&A ┃Monday March 4 7-8pm ┃Zoom ┃Passcode 371739
Anyone considering a role on the Executive Committee is encouraged to attend.

March General Membership Meeting┃Tuesday March 12 7-8:00pm ┃Social Justice Center & Zoom 
The official Convention Agenda will be presented and discussed, along with other important convention updates.

Convention RSVP Form, Campaign proposals, Working Group submissions and officer nominations DUE ┃ Friday March 15 @ Midnight

Convention Compendium Available ┃ March 16th
A convention guide including campaign proposals, working group submission and officer statements will be shared with all members.

2024 MADSA Convention┃Saturday March 23 10am-5pm ┃Goodman Center Ironworks, Grace Room

Once again, we find ourselves in an election season, and once again, our Electoral Working Group has sprung into action to weigh in.  We’re tasked collectively to grapple with the political realities of San Diego. We’ve seen a slow shift from a primarily Republican-run city to a primarily centrist Democrat-run city. Many of the races [...]

Read More... from 2024 Primary Election Voter Guide

The post 2024 Primary Election Voter Guide appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America | San Diego Chapter.

DSA San Diego sadly shares the news of the passing of Herbert Shore, one of the co-founders of our chapter and a former member of DSA’s National Political Committee. Herb was 83 and is survived by his wife, Virginia Franco. Members and friends are invited to participate in a memorial event celebrating Herb’s inspiring life [...]

Read More... from In Memoriam: Herbert Shore, 1939-2024

The post In Memoriam: Herbert Shore, 1939-2024 appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America | San Diego Chapter.

For City Council…

This election season, Champlain Valley DSA has focused on our two endorsed City Council campaigns: Marek Broderick for Burlington’s Ward 8 and Nick Brownell for Winooski.

As CVDSA members, Marek and Nick have attended countless rallies, pickets, meetings, and canvasses. We know the depth of their commitment to socialist politics and have the utmost confidence that, as elected officials, they will always put workers and tenants first. If either appears on your ballot, please support them.

CVDSA members vote on the chapter’s endorsements based on candidates’ answers to our Electoral Working Group’s questionnaire. We have not endorsed any other candidates for the March election. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be leaving the rest of our ballots blank.

Seven of Burlington’s eight wards host competitive races for City Council. The Vermont Progressive Party, which CVDSA has traditionally supported electorally, has a candidate running in every part of the city (if we include a Prog-endorsed independent in Ward 5). Our own Marek Broderick is one of them.

With the rest, we don’t always see eye-to-eye. This year, several of the candidates’ policy platforms center not merely a strategic retreat from the Progs’ circa-2020 emphasis on the failures and injustices of city policing but, more troublingly, a full about-face, with prominent assertions that public safety demands robustly funded and fully staffed local law enforcement.

In some cases, too, the Progs appear to have capitulated to conservative calls to solve Burlington’s crisis of affordability by slashing property taxes for qualifying homeowners, even as badly needed public services grow more expensive. Broad proposals to sensitize municipal property taxes to income fundamentally represent rejections of the concept of a wealth tax, which leftists tend to favor (and generally wish to expand) in other contexts. All but the very narrowest of such plans would serve to shift the city’s tax burden away from relatively high-wealth retirees – who, in a town where houses don’t come cheap, inevitably comprise the bulk of “low-income” homeowners – and onto working Burlingtonians.

But there are bright spots, as well, among 2024’s batch of Progs, which includes just one incumbent (the redoubtable Gene Bergman). Going against a longtime tendency within the party toward a “small is beautiful” politics, all of them have evinced a commitment to expanding Burlington’s housing stock significantly by allowing denser residential and mixed-use construction. Several of them also have bold, detailed plans for municipal decarbonization.

And the Democrats are worse than ever. For City Council, we recommend Carter Neubieser in Ward 1, Gene Bergman in Ward 2, Joe Kane in Ward 3, Dan Castrigano in Ward 4, Lena Greenberg in Ward 5, Will Anderson in Ward 6, and Lee Morrigan in Ward 7. Most of all, we again urge you to vote for CVDSA’s Marek Broderick in Ward 8.

Winooski, meanwhile, holds nonpartisan elections, but the Progs have endorsed not only Nick Brownell but also incumbent Aurora Hurd for the two open seats on the at-large council. Alongside Nick Brownell, our own enthusiastically endorsed candidate, we recommend Aurora Hurd in Winooski.

For Mayor…

While Winooski doesn’t have a competitive race for mayor (or water commissioner or school trustee, for that matter), the top of Burlington’s ballot, of course, features a four-way contest to replace Democrat Miro Weinberger. Practically, it is a two-person race between State Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak and South District Councilor Joan Shannon.

It’s an easy choice – not because one candidate is very good, but because the other is very, very bad. The post-2020 forces of reaction that have made municipal politics crueler, stupider, and more paranoid in liberal cities across America have found their local culmination in Shannon’s nomination by the Burlington Democrats, who chose her over a relatively moderate Karen Paul, the wealthy South End’s other representative on City Council.

Shannon has spent decades as the right flank of Burlington’s right-wing party. Having avoided the momentary lapse of judgment that led most of her Democratic colleagues to join the Progs in a call for racial justice four years ago, she now stands to benefit. Her coalition of angry homeowners knows that only an increase in state violence and incarceration can wipe away the recent unsightliness in our downtown, and they may soon have their chance.

Hoping to win over Burlington’s political center, Mulvaney-Stanak has taken care not to distinguish herself too dramatically from her opponent. Joan leads by talking about “public safety”; for Emma, the main subject is “community safety.” On other issues, Mulvaney-Stanak’s platform trafficks in assurances that she will “convene stakeholders and experts” to develop appropriate policies, instead of articulating concrete ideas that could be debated seriously.

If Mulvaney-Stanak wins, her defensive posture may persist for the duration of her mayoralty. Still, she is a Prog. She may not have a forward-looking vision of her own for Burlington (let alone a radical one), but if a left-leaning City Council seeks to implement one, she probably won’t veto it. Joan Shannon would.

The stakes are too high for a protest vote, and neither of the two non-competitive independents is a lefty in any case. For Mayor of Burlington, we recommend Emma Mulvaney-Stanak.

Other races and ballot questions…

For Burlington School Commissioner, only Ward 7 features a competitive race. We recommend Monika Ivancic over anti-trans activist William Oetjen.

Ward 7 also has the only competitive race for Inspector of Election. Regrettably, we haven’t learned enough about Linda Belisle or Larry Holt to offer a recommendation. Holt is the incumbent, but Belisle has also served as an inspector in Ward 4.

Ward 8 doesn’t have a candidate for Inspector of Election; we recommend that you write in Jack Sparr. Trust us on this one.

The rest of Burlington’s ballot is conspicuous for what it doesn’t contain. As recently as January, we expected a chance to vote on a new police oversight proposal – a legislatively referred charter change that would have strengthened the city’s existing Police Commission, rather than creating a wholly new disciplinary entity as last year’s somewhat more daring citizens’ initiative sought to do – but City Council decided at the last minute that it wasn’t ready for primetime. In a rare and especially shameful move, the Council also shot down an advisory question that would’ve allowed Burlingtonians to declare their collective opposition to Israeli apartheid, even though residents had gathered more than 1,700 signatures from voters in support of the measure.

Without any popular causes to rally Progressives to the polls, the Democrats may benefit from depressed turnout. We hope voters won’t reward them for their bad behavior.

What remains on the ballot is a trio of articles containing a school budget, a public safety tax rate increase, and a proposal to increase the bonding authority of the Burlington Electric Department.

We recommend a yes on Question 1. Last year, Burlingtonians approved the construction of a new high school, and now it’s time to start paying for it. People may not like it – especially at the very moment when Vermonters have to fill in the gap left by the end of the federal COVID-19 dollars that temporarily propped up our state education fund – but that’s how it works.

We recommend a no on Question 2. Because the police and fire tax pays only for a fraction of our police and fire budgets (with most of the rest coming out of the city’s general fund), a rate increase could, theoretically, serve as a politically expedient way to expand Burlington’s overall resources, since voters already rejected an increase to the general city rate two years ago. In reality, the money will go to Chief Murad’s typically dysfunctional, sometimes barbarous, and (thanks in part to City Council) always unaccountable Burlington Police Department, which already spends more than it ever has before. With a few extra million, they’ll still probably claim to have been defunded when residents call for help.

We recommend a yes on Question 3. We want our municipal electric utility to have access to the capital it needs to make good investments. BED hasn’t yet put forward a plan for any major new projects; a separate nonprofit will issue debt to pay for the controversial “district energy” pipeline from the McNeil plant, irrespective of BED’s bonding authority. In the immediate term, approving this ballot question will serve to improve BED’s credit rating.

Winooski’s ballot questions don’t offer much to get excited (or upset) about, either. Due to procedural missteps by the city, a second vote on Just Cause Eviction, which voters approved last year, still needs to happen before it can progress to the state legislature, but the responsibility for correcting 2023’s administrative error lies in the hands of the same people who committed it in the first place, and apparently, it’ll have to wait.

Starting at the top, 2024’s Winooski articles ask voters to approve the municipal budget, to approve the spending of city revenue derived from sources other than property taxes, to approve the spending of leftover funds from an old water infrastructure bond, to authorize a new $4.6 million bond to help reconstruct the Burlington-Winooski Bridge, and (this time on behalf of the Champlain Water District) to approve the spending of leftover funds from yet another old water infrastructure bond.

In other words, should Winooski residents allow their city government to continue to perform normal governmental functions? We recommend voting yes on all articles in Winooski.

Advocates for pedestrians and cyclists have rightly called the proposed design for the new Burlington-Winooski Bridge outdated and car-centric, and Winooski officials continue to hold out hope that additional contributions from state or federal sources will reduce the city’s prospective share of the project’s final cost. Approving Article 7 won’t foreclose these discussions. Ultimately, the century-old bridge must go.

On a separate ballot, Vermonters can vote in the Democrats’ presidential primary. We’d advise voting symbolically for a left-wing challenger if Biden faced one, but we don’t think Cenk Uygur or the defunct campaign of Marianne Williamson counts. CVDSA offers no recommendation. While Burlingtonians receive municipal ballots automatically by mail, they must request presidential primary ballots online or in person.

Town Meeting Day is March 5. Vermont offers same-day voting registration. Click for information about voting in Burlington or Winooski.