Tonight, we’re traveling to Arizona to learn from socialist organizers who are fighting on their home turf to make forming and maintaining strong unions easier for workers. We’re joined live by Bobby and Kaland of Arizona Works Together and Phoenix DSA to hear about their campaign to repeal so-called “Right to Work” laws in their state and what it means for union organizers in Arizona and nationwide. Plus, it’s ladies’ night once again here on RPM with Amy and Lee as hosts, so we’ll spend some time discussing why unions are great for women and feminists.

 

More info at: https://www.azworkstogether.com/

and in Spanish at https://aztrabajajuntos.com/

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.

Statement from Madison Area DSA

We stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, indigenous and colonized people everywhere, and all those here in Madison and around the world who are struggling for their liberation.

Since October 7th, Israel’s military has intensified its 17 year blockade of Gaza into a full siege, blocking off water, electricity, and basic supplies. In the first 6 days of this conflict, over 6,000 bombs were dropped on the 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip. Over 1.1 million Palestinians, half of them children, have been ordered to leave their homes. This is genocide.

This violence is not new. It is the culmination of 75 years of ethnic cleansing with support from the US government.

We grieve the thousands of lives that have been and will be lost and upended in the current conflict. There is one, and only one way to end the violence: End the apartheid. End the Israeli government’s occupation. End the genocide. Support the liberation of the Palestinian people.

The Biden administration has pledged further unconditional support for Israel, on top of the 3.8 billion dollars per year in military funding they already receive. We condemn in the strongest possible terms our nation’s continued and unqualified support of the apartheid regime in Israel. We demand the end to military funding of Israel, and an end to the blockade. There must be an immediate ceasefire and provision of humanitarian aid.

We remember the devastating results of Islamophobia and dehumanization in the wake of the attacks on September 11th, and are distraught by the militaristic and genocidal rhetoric that we are seeing yet again from our country’s political leaders and in the news media. Social media is awash with this as well, as false claims spread even more quickly and easily.

Standing in solidarity with the powerless in the face of oppression is often difficult, when so many are so eager to side with the powerful. We as socialists must not back down in the face of bad faith criticism, opposition, and disinformation intended only to silence critics and manufacture consent for the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

As Israel slaughters starving Palestinians in the world’s largest open-air prison, American liberals are waging a parallel war against language.

Revolutions Per Minute explores migrant solidarity efforts in Brooklyn, exploring the broader context of the global migration crisis as Israel continues its military offensive against Gaza. RPM interviews people who have recently arrived in New York from Mauritania, and we meet Jaz Walker from Assemblymember Emily Gallagher's office. 

On Tuesday, October 17th, 2023, the Carrboro Town Council voted to move forward with the Bolin Creek Greenway selecting the path along the Creekside sewer easement as the preferred alignment. After over a decade of unnecessary delay, Carrboro will make progress toward a green infrastructure project that will play a crucial role in fighting the climate crisis on a local scale. The expanded greenway will create shared natural spaces that everyone can safely use to get around town and help cut off our car and fossil fuel dependency. 

Our engagement with town showed that those who opposed this measure were, as expected, a small but vocal minority. Our petition for building the greenway eclipsed all others and the survey put out by the town showed overwhelming support for the creekside easement. Support for creekside by leading environmental groups like the Sierra Club show that the faux-environmentalist concerns are not substantiated. The direction of municipal governments are often swayed by the small but vocal but today, democracy won. 

We are thankful for our partners in this fight including NEXT and Triangle Blog Blog as well as efforts made by our UNC chapter of the YDSA. They showed us that when progressive groups work together we can get amazing things done. We are proud of all our chapter members whose work in postering, writing, canvassing, and engaging community members delivered a crucial win for Carrboronians. We are thankful to the town council and staff for their efforts in ensuring that the many, and not the few, guided this public policy decision. And most of all, we are beyond excited to see y’all on the finished Bolin Creek Greenway.

It is with a heavy heart that we mourn the death of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old boy who was attacked in Plainfield along with his mother by their landlord on Monday. We unequivocally condemn the hatred that led to this violence. This attack may have happened in our area, but it is motivated by a campaign of hate that is being perpetrated worldwide and championed by our own elected officials. A campaign of hate that is being waged to continue funding an Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people that has taken thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home just over the last week.

Now is the time to choose which side you’re on. Now is the time to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and use the little power we hold to tell our representatives that we demand they don’t continue funding this genocide. Join us and Chicago DSA Wednesday, October 18th at 6 pm to mobilize more people to call their reps. Now is the time to show our collective power, so come join us! Click here to RSVP: https://www.dsausa.org/no-money-for-massacres-phonebanks/

In Solidarity,

West Suburban IL DSA.

As Twin Ports DSA endorsed City Councilor Azrin Awal noted in her statement on October 16, Duluth is about the same length as the Gaza Strip. But Gaza has a population of 2 million people, compared to our 85,000. Israel has already dropped over 6000 bombs on Gaza during the past week, and an invasion is in the works. DSA has launched a No Money For Massacres phone bank campaign. Sign up to participate here.

Below is Councilor Awal’s statement in full.

In response to attack, the Israeli government has launched a genocidal war against the Palestinians. What are the roots of this conflict?

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 ︎

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