Coulee DSA cares about creating a connection amongst our members, where we can form bonds that uplift one another, and our greater community. And there is no better way to build connections than spending time with one another!

Come join Coulee DSA for a late afternoon potluck at Chad Erickson Park, Sunday July 25th at 4 PM! (Facebook event here) It’s been a long year, and we hope that relaxed time together outside and with a good meal will help us connect!

CDSA will be providing the main course (vegetarian options also available) and we’d love for members and friends to bring sides, sweet treats, and drinks to share, as they are able.

If you have questions about the event, or upcoming socials and service activities through Coulee DSA, e-mail couleedsa@gmail.com

The post Coulee DSA Potluck 7/25 first appeared on Coulee DSA.

Are you suffering from chronic anxiety as our planet burns around us while our politicians act without any sense of urgency? Coulee DSA book club has the book for you!

The reading group is starting a new book, Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book focuses on the climate crisis and how much damage has already been done, as well as the cutting edge of technology and geoengineering that will be necessary if human civilization as we know it will survive.

The group is now meeting on Thursday nights at 7 PM online. Next Thursday, July 8th will be the first night with reading from the new book.

If you are interested in hearing more, email us at couleeDSA@gmail.com. We are looking for feedback on possible barriers to participation. If you don’t like our book selections, or don’t feel invited to participate for any other reason, please reach out to us. We will keep your information confidential.

The post CouleeDSA’s Next Reading: Under A White Sky first appeared on Coulee DSA.

India Walton will be the 63rd Mayor of the City of Buffalo. She won by inspiring and organizing people through a plain-spoken, class-conscious message. She will be one of the most significant executives in the country to be a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the first woman to hold this office. 

The Buffalo chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, a socialist organization driven by member dues and decisions, backed India Walton in February with a unanimous vote. We recognize Walton as of and for the working class. We admire her intentional organizing on healthcare as a proud nurse. We value her focus on labor agitation, police and justice reform, community housing, the rights of tenants over landlords, and leadership development.

“All that we are doing in this moment is claiming what is rightfully ours. We are the workers. We do the work. And we deserve a government that works with and for us.” – India Walton

Buffalo will be the largest American city to have a socialist mayor since Milwaukee in 1960. In 1917, the Socialist Party mayoral candidate won over 30% of the vote on an anti-war platform in Buffalo. Over 100 years later, we are proud to support the mayor-elect’s platform that rejects austerity and places the class interests of workers and tenants over the extractive private interests that have run our government.

India Walton’s organizing approach was rooted in the working class. She united left groups and volunteers in canvassing and phonebanking to discuss values like the demilitarization of police, removal of predatory fines, and prioritization of community infrastructure and public education. This campaign overturned Byron Brown, a corrupt stooge, after 16 years. The ruling class all over the country flooded his campaign with more than $100,000 in the week before the election, hoping for the charter school lobby and billionaires to advance their interests in our city government. But as India shouted with her supporters Tuesday evening, “when we organize, we win.”

We applaud the efforts of all involved in this campaign, and thank the Buffalo DSA Electoral members who maintained an independent strategy and support system to petition, canvas, phonebank, and get out the vote for mayor-elect India Walton. We invite all Buffalonians who want to continue member-directed organizing at the point of class conflict, such as in labor, healthcare, and housing, who want to receive and grow socialist political education, and who want to participate in developing our electoral strategy, to join DSA and be part of the life of this organization.

Buffalo DSA is looking forward to proudly working alongside the executive of our city in our collective fight against capital, and we extend our most heartfelt thanks and congratulations.

The city and county of La Crosse are each receiving over $20 million in stimulus funding. The broad left community must act together to ensure that public oversight and input are the driving force in spending this funding. This level of funding is a once in generation opportunity to pay for projects that can save lives and uplift our community as a whole. Please get involved in the decision making process.

Coulee Tenants United, CouleeDSA’s tenant organizing working group, is participating in 2 nights programming at the La Crosse Public Library on Housing and Homelessness this month. CTU is a working group dedicated to educating, organizing, and empowering renters in the Coulee region.

Part 1 on June 21st at 6:30 PM is focused on homelessness, while part 2 on June 28th at 6:30 PM covers housing, development, market and non-market solutions, and tenancy struggles. Follow the links to get registered. Program recordings will be available for those who can’t make it in person.

Long-term, systemic solutions to the housing crisis require large up front investment. Demanding that this historic stimulus bill is leveraged to better our community through permanent projects should be a priority. Reach out to us at CouleeDSA@gmail.com or at our Facebook page if you want to get involved.

The post Housing and Homelessness programming with CTU: Systemic problems and Solutions first appeared on Coulee DSA.

June 1st marked the start of a newly elected SC, contact buffalodsa@gmail.com to get involved and subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay up to date >>>>>

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Seven Catholic plowshares activists entered Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia on April 4th, 2018. They went to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” The seven chose to act on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who devoted his life to addressing what he called the “triple evils of militarism, racism, and materialism.” Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood, the seven attempted to convert weapons of mass destruction. They hoped to call attention to the ways in which nuclear weapons kill every day, by their mere existence and maintenance. One of those seven, Mark Colville (pictured back right), talks with Colleen Shaddox about his resistance to the weapons economy and his life at Amistad Catholic Worker House in New Haven, Connecticut. Mark talks about how he and his comrades argued that their Catholic faith compelled them to act against Trident - a defense that the jury was never allowed to hear. Now he looks forward to serving his sentence for the action. As he says, much of the Bible was written inside a prison - what better place to read it?

“The Coulee DSA books club will begin reading Michael Parenti’s “Blackshirts and Reds” beginning Tuesday, May 25th at 7 PM. Parenti’s 1997 text is considered a classic among many on the left. Among many themes, the book explores how corporate power has embraced fascism throughout history, how historical revolutions freed populations from the forces of exploitation, the enduring power of Marxism, and the importance of class analysis in understanding and comprehending the political realities of our time. 

The Coulee DSA Book Club meets every Tuesday night at 7 PM, It doesn’t require regular attendance, so feel free to stop by or drop in and out as you have time. Reading is strongly encouraged but not required. The discussion often goes off on tangents and covers a broad array of topics, and we would love you to add your voice to the discussion! Reply to this email if you are interested in joining and we will connect you to the group. “

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How would your life change if you no longer had to worry about healthcare? Maybe you would quit that job you hate and start a business, or work part-time so you could spend more time with your kids. Maybe you could finally get that dental work you have been putting off, or use the money you save on insurance premiums to pay off debt.

We say “healthcare is a human right” because it is a moral and practical imperative to ensuring people can live lives of value, and because providing it would eliminate unnecessary suffering in all our communities. Ensuring universally accessible healthcare would literally SAVE LIVES.

Just as importantly, it would break the shackles that our current for-profit healthcare system places on average Americans. In the “freest nation in the world”, many of us are beholden to jobs we hate, working long hours to pay up to a third of our income for insurance (if we are lucky enough to have it), never able to reach the financial or life goals we set for ourselves. A universal, single-payer healthcare system will open up opportunities for the average American. It will give everyone more flexibility in employment, prevent crippling medical debt, and ensure care to marginalized populations.

Right now in Wisconsin we have an opportunity to take a step closer to this goal, by accepting federal Medicaid expansion funding and using it to expand the WI BadgerCare program to cover those making between 0-138% of the poverty line. This would provide affordable healthcare to an additional 91,000 Wisconsinites, while saving our state approximately $630 million in taxes. While Governor Evers has proposed this expansion in his biennial budget, our legislature does not currently support accepting these federal funds.

Coulee DSA is fighting in coalition with other groups across the state to demand the WI legislature include BadgerCare expansion in their next budget. You can help by reaching out to your local legislator to let them know you support this legislation or by helping CDSA spread the word at our upcoming canvassing events in Viroqua.

Coulee DSA’s Health Care Justice working group meets every other Wednesday at 7 PM. Contact us at couleedsa@gmail.com if you are interested in learning more or joining up.

The post Demand BadgerCare Expansion Now! first appeared on Coulee DSA.