Thorn West: Issue No. 176

State Politics

• Governor Gavin Newsom continues to progress through the flood of legislation that was passed at the close of this year’s legislative season. This week Newsom vetoed a bill that would have taken into account parental acceptance of trans children’s gender during custody hearings. And he signed a bill that raises the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour. CalMatters tracks more of the legislation on Newsom’s desk.

• California Senator Dianne Feinstein has died after 31 years in office. After being filmed scolding a group of children who confronted her with concerns about climate change, Feinstein came to potently symbolize a class of politicians who were holding on to power past the loss of their ability to empathize. Her replacement will be appointed by Governor Newsom. He had earlier pledged to nominate a Black woman the next time he was in the position of appointing a senator.

• Another two months, another issue of California Red, the newsletter of California DSA!

City Politics

• Wednesday, Alex Johnson’s appointment to the Ethics Commission was confirmed 10–2. Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Tim McOsker voted no, citing conflict-of-interest concerns over Johnson’s status as vice president for a consulting firm that does campaign work.

• On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School Board passed a resolution to create a district policy on charter school “co-locations.” The motion was supported by United Teachers Los Angeles, DSA-LA, LAANE, and LA Students Deserve. LAUSD Board Member Dr. Rocío Rivas elaborates.

Housing Rights

• A 100% affordable housing project in Sherman Oaks will move forward despite objections from nearby homeowners after the LA City Council voted 8–5 against revoking its permits. The project had previously been approved by-right under Mayor Bass’ executive order to streamline affordable housing and shelter, but her order was then amended to exclude single-family-zoned neighborhoods. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield brought forward the motion to revoke permission, despite the project being in his district.

• Meanwhile, an advocacy group for wealthy homeowners has sued the city to overturn some of Mayor Bass’ housing initiatives, as these new rules have made it more difficult for fringe groups to block the development of affordable housing.

• A peaceful protest led by Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment was disrupted when a California Highway Patrol officer assaulted a protester and pulled his gun on the crowd.

• Monday, October 2, is the final day for renters to apply for the Measure ULA–funded “Emergency Renters Assistance Program,” which transfers state funds to landlords to pay off rent debt accrued during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labor

• After 148 days on strike, the WGA has won a tentative agreement with the AMPTP that the WGA negotiating committee called “exceptional” in an email to members. Guild members will vote on the contract, and in the meantime, will stop picketing. SAG-AFTRA members remain on the picket line, and AMPTP leaders will meet with their negotiating team beginning next week. More details about what’s in the proposed agreement here!

• Another victory for workers! The Millennium Biltmore Hotel has become the second hotel to reach a tentative agreement with hotel workers represented by Unite Here Local 11, since the union has been holding a series of rolling strikes.

The post WGA Strike Ends With Tentative Agreement +Senator Diane Feinstein Dies at 90 appeared first on The Thorn West.

Start: Monday, October 2, 2023 at 8:30 PM ET

Join MAWG organizers from around the country to navigate distributing our long-anticipated disaster readiness plan. Our plan is being tested by 3 chapters, but we need more (and we need help following up with the ones who have started) – if disaster organizing is your passion, we really, really need your help!

Join us to talk about how we’re going to get it done, put a little work in together in real time, and strategize for a solid release plan.

We’re growing! Per the Consensus Resolution passed at 2023 Convention, our Steering Committee is expanding from 11 to 15 members. All DSA members in good standing may apply to join.

Deadline to apply: October 13, 2023, 11:59pm (PST)

FAQ

What is the Steering Committee?
The GND Steering Committee is tasked with coordinating all national Green New Deal campaign work for the Democratic Socialists of America. In this capacity, the body is responsible for designing external campaign strategy, recruiting and cultivating organizers, establishing internal campaign infrastructures, and acting as national representatives of DSA in climate and labor coalitions, with the ultimate goal of winning an ecosocialist Green New Deal.

Our current framework is called Building for Power (aka B4P). Steering will support and encourage campaigns that aim to win policies and collective bargaining provisions which expand public services through green construction projects with strong labor standards, including project labor agreements (PLAs) with unions and targeted hiring provisions. The campaign will train and support DSA chapters to build their own base and form coalitions primarily with four elements of the working class: public sector unions, building trades, environmental justice groups, and public service users like transit riders’ unions or tenant unions.

View the application for more about what is expected of our members in terms of time commitments, experience, etc.

Who can apply?
Any DSA member in good standing can apply. To check your membership status, email membership@dsausa.org. Please apply on your own behalf.

Who reads the applications and selects candidates?
The current Steering Committee will review all applications and submit recommendations to the National Political Committee (NPC). The NPC ultimately appoints all members by majority vote.

Will current members still be on steering?
All current members must re-apply and be appointed by the NPC.

What is the timeline?
Applications are due October 13th, 2023. The NPC must make appointments by October 30th per our 2023 Resolution.

What if I am not appointed, can I still be involved?
Yes! We have an item on the application where you can indicate that you would like to stay involved. We will be sure to reach out.

I have other questions…
Email greennewdeal@dsacommitees.org and we will help you out!

The post Join GND’s Steering Committee appeared first on Building for Power.

The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour Resistance

Edited by Paul Buhle, written by Sharon Rudahl, illustrated by Michael Kluckner, with a foreword by David Rosenberg. Between the Lines Press, 2023. (The book can be ordered in Canada at Between the Lines Press and in the United States at AK Press.) A live online interview with the creators of The Bund can be heard on October 22 at the Jewish Community Library.

From its beginnings under Russian occupation in Vilna, Lithuania in 1897, the Jewish labor association known as the Bund faced many of the challenges that are still with us:  state and factory opposition to labor unions, war in Eastern Europe, tyrants suppressing democratic and socialist movements.  The word “bund,” which means “to bind” or “alliance” in Yiddish and German, became the title of an enduring labor and cultural association formed by Jews. (The group’s full title was “The General Jewish Labor Bund of Russia, Lithuania and Poland.”)  The history of this group, and its legacy in contemporary political and cultural activism, are celebrated in a new graphic history book that deserves to be celebrated as well.

The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour Resistance, edited by historian Paul Buhle, offers a text written by Sharon Rudahl and illustrated by Michael Kluckner.  In subtly colored drawings, Kluckner introduces a bevy of Tsarist soldiers, Bundist organizers, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, farmers, scholars, workers, fascists, and resistance fighters. The men and women in this story almost leap off their pages, as their watercolor and ink images stand out against the white background. While the images are eloquent on their own, Rudahl’s concise and lively narrative moves the reader through a half-century of uprisings, arrests, escapes, suppressed publications, strikes, and underground resistance, along with the cultural and political triumphs  that accompanied Bundist activity.

Much of this history has been told at greater length in scholarly volumes. But The Bund’s highly visual presentation offers a new, inviting perspective on the past and its connection to present-day activism.  A graphic history, much like a graphic novel (minus the fiction), by its very form calls for a new approach–an approach dependent on visual images, an approach well suited to an age in which film, television, and electronic screens often steal prospective readers away from text-heavy books.  The genre of graphic history book, like the graphic novels that preceded it, should not be confused with antecedents in comic books and political cartoons.  The Bund is not a comic book, which is to say the illustrations are not shown in six or eight small boxes per page, but rather through capacious, mostly full-page drawings that offer a lot of detail.  Humor surfaces at times in the words and images; but, in general, the presentation is more panoramic than comic.  

Bund-sample-PDF

Before graphic novels gained a respectable following a few decades ago, comic book artists and cartoonists tended to offer readers worlds of fantasy, science-fiction, horror, and romance. Superheroes and talking animals were the most popular characters.  A significant change in topics and style began in the 1960s as “underground comix” by such artists as R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Spain Rodriguez, and Trina Robbins drew on alternative culture and New Left politics.   Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus proved it was possible to explore extremely serious matters such as Holocaust survival and family tragedy through “comic” art.

Paul Buhle has taken the art of graphic book-writing in another, highly adventurous and commendable direction, by editing and commissioning visual histories of radical political figures such as Emma Goldman (in a book by Rudahl), Eugene Debs, Paul Robeson, Che Guevara, and stories about Leftist groups such as Students for a Democratic Society, and now, the Jewish labor Bund. 

As Buhle notes in his epilogue to the new book, the Bund’s continued existence (and resistance to its adversaries) over decades became a sort of collective memory, “a collective past” that “lies hidden within all of us.”  Unknown or underacknowledged by many people, this collective past includes the radical impulses of Jews resisting oppression through organized labor and cultural activities in the first half of the twentieth century, impulses that have resurfaced and taken new form among their descendants and later generations.  

“The Bund actually found a new if limited role in postwar North America,” notes Buhle, as those in its tradition “took part in a revival of the Yiddish schools, choral, and other activities while extending their resources to help other survivors trapped abroad or recently arrived.”  More specific passing along of Bundist tradition is acknowledged in Rudahl’s brief biography of Bundist Charney Vladeck, born in Minsk, an immigrant who became “a Social Democratic giant in New Deal Manhattan.”  Current programs in social justice activism and Yiddish cultural history promoted by Workers Circle branches in Canada and the United States can be considered Bund-like actions, with many Bundist immigrants having joined Workers Circle early in the past century.

The graphic history’s two most lengthy Illustrated biographies confirm the resistant and enduring qualities of Bundism, as the narrative explains how Bernard Goldstein went from prison in Tsarist Siberia to underground resistance in World War II Poland, and from surviving the Warsaw ghetto uprising to a less trying life in the United States; and how one of the Bund’s founders in Vilna, Pati Kremer, survived several arrests under Russian occupation, and later hosted secret Bund meetings in German-occupied Lithuania.  

Some of the Bund’s long and hemisphere-spanning  life might be attributed to Yiddish, once the vernacular language of Jews across Eastern Europe. Bund speakers could be understood by Yiddish-speaking Jews in many countries, and their shared language made the Bund de facto an internationalist organization (although it favored ethnic autonomy too). Yiddish crossed many borders, and moved with its speakers to North and South America when they immigrated.

Of course Bundist ideas can be implemented in other languages, and have been.  The Bund by no means limited itself to Jewish or Yiddish culture, either.  As David Rosenberg notes in his preface to the book, the Bundists “put great stress on culture – not just Yiddish culture … but also the world of culture that other peoples had created – their art, music, literature, education.  Just as the Bund worked for a world without borders, they wanted the borders between cultures to be fluid to enable mutual understanding and appreciation.”  The Bund also sought to improve its communities with schools, dances, choral and theatrical performances, sanitaria, and self-defense units.

The book makes no reference to the Democratic Socialists of America, but it would not be unreasonable to speculate that the Bund’s advocacy of democracy and socialism, and its resistance to fascism and exploitative capitalism, anticipated some current DSA programs. In fact, Bundists were among some of the early members of DSA’s predecessor organizations. The historic Yiddish labor organization’s influence continues; and after reading this colorful and compelling book, it is hard not to want to celebrate and renew its efforts.

__________________________________________________________________

The post Solidarity Across Borders and Time: The Jewish Labor Bund appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Green New Deal Campaign Commission Bylaws

Adopted: September 27, 2023

1. Membership
   1. The Green New Deal Campaign Commission (GNDCC) Steering Committee (SC) shall be composed of 15 DSA members and up to two National Political Committee (NPC) liaisons. The GNDCC SC term will continue for two years from the date of appointment or until the appointment of a new GNDCC, whichever is later.  
   2. The GNDCC SC shall elect, from among its members, two co-chairs via Acclamation, or via Approval voting should elections be competitive. The co-chairs shall be the primary points of contact between the GNDCC and the NPC and its liaisons, and shall plan and chair GNDCC meetings and otherwise lead administration of the GNDCC in accordance with these Bylaws. The NPC liaisons will be voting members of the GNDCC but ineligible for co-chair positions.
      1. An interim co-chair may be elected by the SC, should the need arise.
   3. Prior to the end of the term, the GNDCC will write and publicly circulate an application for membership to serve the next term. Applications shall be open for at least two weeks. All DSA members in good standing are eligible to apply. 
   4. From the pool of applications, the GNDCC will submit a list of recommended candidates to the NPC for approval based on the capacity, skills, and knowledge needed to carry out its mandate.
2. Scope of Work
   1. The GNDCC is tasked with planning and executing the national GND priority campaign as approved by the DSA Convention.  
3. Meetings
   1. The GNDCC shall meet at least three times per month, generally weekly. 
   2. Asynchronous voting outside of meetings may be carried out by the GNDCC co-chairs when needed.
   3. Quorum is a simple majority (50%+1) of GNDCC SC members.
4. Accountability
   1. As requested by the NPC, the GNDCC shall make regular reports to the NPC that detail progress on projects and requests for support or coordination with other parts of DSA. The GNDCC will make available summaries of these reports on the GNDCC website. 
   2. Votes shall be recorded in Google Forms or similar software.
5. Subcommittees
   1. The GNDCC shall appoint such subcommittees as it determines are necessary to carry out specific campaign tasks. 
   2. Each subcommittee shall have one or more chairs, selected from and appointed by the Steering Committee, who shall be responsible for planning and chairing subcommittee meetings and strategies, and reporting back to the SC.
   3. Subcommittees may bring in DSA members from outside the GNDCC to assist with their work.
   4. Forming or dissolving a subcommittee requires a ⅔ vote of the GNDCC SC.
   5. Subcommittee Procedures
      1. Subcommittees shall meet at least once per month.
      2. Subcommittees shall keep and make available minutes to the GNDCC.
6. Participation
   1. GNDCC members are expected to be regular participants in weekly GNDCC meetings and in at least one subcommittee along with carrying out asynchronous work, as needed.
   2. If a member of the GNDCC is absent for more than two meetings in a row, the GNDCC co-chairs will have discretion to contact that member to gauge their capacity and if they would like to continue their role, and if so, how their capacity for work/meetings/availability may have changed.
7. Removal and Replacement
   1. Any member may be removed with a ⅔ majority vote by the GNDCC. Reasons for removal may include continued absence from GNDCC work and meetings, continued failure to follow through on commitments, disruptive behavior, and actions that violate the principles or policies of DSA. 
   2. In the event of a resignation or removal of a member during the term, the GNDCC shall recruit and nominate a replacement to be approved by the NPC.
8. Amendments to the Bylaws
   1. These bylaws may be amended by a ⅔ vote of the members of the SC or by resolution at DSA’s national convention.
   2. No Bylaw amendment shall be considered by the SC unless notice of the amendment language is provided to the SC at least 72 hours prior to a vote. 

The post Green New Deal Campaign Commission Bylaws appeared first on Building for Power.

This past August, Cleveland DSA sent our 7 delegates to the National Convention. Our Education Committee asked these delegates to write up reflections on their experience, which will appear here over the next month. Our next reportback is from Kevin N, who also serves on Chapter Steering!

I’m not sure if I really knew what solidarity meant before the convention. I thought I did, belligerent know-it-all that I am, but I don’t think I’d ever actually experienced it as a visceral emotional response to collective action.

And in reality, the convention had all the makings of an uncomradely affair. It was a hotly contested agenda, with deep-seated oppositional tendencies that had been organizing for months around their respective stances. Emotions and passions were running high, and the convention was not without an occasional outburst.

Both the so-called left and right wings of the convention had enthusiastic, hard-fought victories, and equally bitter, disappointing losses. And the tactics were occasionally of a questionable nature: a premeditated motion to reconsider by the sponsors of the controversial “Democratize DSA” resolution sent the delegation chamber reeling into jeers and groans, a manipulative procedural move that became the subject of complaints and criticism among much of the body, or at least among those with whom I spoke.

I found it refreshing that the general consensus was that attempts at procedural manipulations like that were roundly condemned; the aforementioned vote to reconsider was voted down by a wider margin than the failed motion itself.

Not that such machinations stopped completely, however. Towards the end of the convention, as it became increasingly clear that the allotted time was going to run out before some of the more controversial items on the agenda could be voted on, motions to extend debate on less controversial items proliferated, in addition to other delaying tactics, much to the consternation of the sponsors of those resolutions. The effort to stall was successful, however, and these resolutions were, in the end, passed to the incoming NPC.

However, when it *actually* came time to vote to adjourn (which was itself a contested motion), as soon as the convention was declared closed, the entire convention rose and applauded one another in a show of mutual respect and admiration — a spontaneous outburst that lasted longer than any celebratory display over that three day period, of which there were many.

The mood throughout the hall was unmistakably one of deep, sincere pride in and gratitude for the convention’s devotion to comradely collective decision-making, and surmounting the true logistical challenge of coordinating nearly 1,000 individuals without any major disruption throughout the three-day proceedings. Instantly, in that moment, members of the delegation dropped any animosity or frustration they may have felt toward their erstwhile opponents, and all were comrades again. With jubilant tears in our eyes, our Cleveland delegation embraced one another and the entire convention hall rejoiced in the accomplishment of collective, participatory democracy; we had all proven to ourselves through direct experience that it was, indeed, possible. That, to me, is what solidarity means.

Personally, I fall into the left wing of the restructuring effort within DSA; I’d like to see the organization move, to use the oft-repeated and generally misunderstood phrase, in a “party-like direction” (which does *not* mean immediately running candidates on our own ballot line, a common misconception amongst opponents both at the convention and after). This tendency saw its share of wins and losses at the convention, but overall, I’m very proud of its strong showing.

Moving in a party-like direction does not mean that we wish to move away from our commitment to grassroots organizing, growing our class base, or securing material victories for the working class. These goals are still paramount. It means holding DSA’s elected officials — regardless of what ballot line they run on — accountable to DSA’s platforms so that a DSA membership is more than a meaningless scout badge donned by a candidate in an attempt to gain favor with the far left electorate. We’ve seen DSA members in congress repeatedly vote directly against the interests of the working class, and we as an organization have no recourse but to impotently wag our fingers at them. What is the power in having a DSA member in elected office if they have no responsibility to uphold the democratically decided platforms of our membership?

On a more theoretical level, a fundamental transformation of society is impossible without a Socialist organization that can operate independently of the capitalist class, as any hard-fought material gains won for the working class are but temporary, revocable concessions from the ruling class. If our goal is Socialism and not mere progressivism; if we are to serve as an alternative political structure by and for the working class; if we want material, political, and hegemonic gains for the working class to be permanent and irrevocable; we will eventually have to break from the liberal confines of the Democratic Party (to reiterate, not immediately or even in the near future), and the groundwork for such a movement needs to be laid ahead of time or we will lack the structural capacity to do so if/when the historical moment to do so becomes clear. Otherwise, we will remain nothing but the left wing of a bourgeois political party and a Socialist movement in name only.

I’m confident that these principled arguments will win out in the long run — votes in favor of this tendency saw a substantial increase since the previous convention and the current NPC is now majority “partyist” — but on a more personal level, I left the convention with a new appreciation for our organization’s commitment to *actual* democracy and its capability to build an organization that will produce great, positive change for the working class.

The post DSA Convention Reflection #2 – Kevin N appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

The City University of New York improves the lives of millions. Founded in 1847 with the purpose of providing higher education to working class New Yorkers, CUNY today has 25 colleges spread across New York City’s five boroughs, serving 243,000 degree-seeking students of all ages and awarding 55,000 degrees each year. Like many other institutions built to serve the public good, CUNY faces multiple intersecting crises. The university system could not function without its 30,000 strong unionized labor force. Many professors, graduate student workers, and staffers are underpaid and overworked. The Professional Staff Congress, of which I am a member, is currently in negotiations to improve the material conditions of workers across the board. CUNY has also suffered from decades of underfunding by New York state and city elected officials. This has not only forced thousands of educators into precarious employment, but led to decaying infrastructure. As funding has gone down, tuition has been increased at the once free public university system. We’ll discuss how PSC union organizers and their allies are fighting back to build the People’s University that this city deserves. Later in the show we’ll hear from Amy Wilson and her interview with Wren, a healthcare worker struggling to materialize reproductive rights in a capitalist society.

By Curt Ries, Marin DSA Co-Chair
Published Sep 7, 2023 in the Marin Independent Journal

Marin is in the midst of a housing crisis, with tens of thousands of renters struggling to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads. Rent control and tenant protections are our best tools for keeping our neighbors in their homes.

More than one-third of all Marin County households are renters, approximately 37,000 families, or 87,000 people. More than half of those renters are rent-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly a third are severely rent-burdened, paying more than 50% of their income on rent.

According to Zillow’s “observed rent” index, Marin County has the highest rents in the entire state of California and the third highest among all counties nationwide.

A renter in Marin needs to earn over $50 per hour to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2023 “out of reach” study. However, the average Marin renter earns just $30 an hour. California’s minimum wage is $15.50.

These renters — I am one of them — include some of the essential workers who make our communities such wonderful places to live. Some are our teachers, nurses, maintenance workers, grocery workers and restaurant workers. Many are retired seniors who are trying to age in place with dignity. They include young people trying to start families and put down roots.

With rents through the roof and absurdly expensive house prices making home ownership all but impossible, we are barely able to survive here in Marin. Countless renters are forced out each year by the relentlessly high housing costs, tearing families out of their communities, kids out of their schools, and seniors out of their support networks.

Rent control and tenant protections stop this from happening. They are designed to keep renters in their homes by doing three things: placing a reasonable cap on annual rent increases, prohibiting arbitrary evictions and ensuring tenants have support if they are evicted due to no fault of their own.

These laws provide basic, commonsense protections for huge swaths of our community. Without them, renters are left never knowing if and when an exorbitant rent increase will force them out of their homes.

Opponents of rent control and tenant protections will say that we already have rent control at the state level. They are referring to the 2019 Tenant Protection Act, which caps annual rent increases at 5% plus the change in the Consumer Price Index, up to 10% total. The historic average for CPI is about 3%, meaning state law typically limits annual rent increases at 8%, though recently it’s been at or close to 10% because of high inflation.

This extremely weak state rent cap — and the toothless tenant protections that accompany it — are almost meaningless. Virtually no tenant can afford 8% or 10% rent increases year after year. For perspective, a $3,000 rent payment would balloon to almost $3,800 after just three years of 8% rent increases. It would nearly double after nine years.

In California, passing local rent stabilization and “just cause” eviction ordinances is the only way to provide real housing security to the working families and seniors who live in our communities. These laws have existed for decades and have successfully kept hundreds of thousands of people in their homes in neighboring areas, from San Francisco and Berkeley to Mountain View and East Palo Alto.

Claims that these policies meaningfully lower housing supply or drive up rents have no empirical evidence to back them up. They are empty talking points endlessly repeated by well-funded landlord and real estate lobbies who have a vested financial interest in seeing rent control and tenant protections defeated.

At the end of the day, the debate over these policies largely boils down to a simple moral question. Do we as a community think it’s more important to ensure safe and secure housing to our friends, families and neighbors, or do we think it’s more important to maximize profits and control for a small number of landlords and real estate interests?

It’s time for Marin’s elected leaders to pass rent stabilization and just cause eviction ordinances that put people before profits.

Curt Ries, of San Anselmo, is co-chair of the Marin County Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The post North NJ DSA Calls for Senator Bob Menendez’s Resignation first appeared on North NJ DSA.