Election day was Tuesday and DSA’s 30+ nationally-endorsed campaigns were put to voters. With a nearly 70% win rate for DSA's campaigns nationally, there's much to discuss about organizing for socialism at the ballot box and the rising tensions between the left and the existing Democratic establishment. On tonight’s show,  we'll share provisional election results and an interview with a DSA-endorsed candidate for Somerville, Massachusetts City Council, Tessa Bridge.

 

Here in NYC, Eric Adams has -- unfortunately -- swept to victory as mayor. Adams has publicly distanced himself from the left and socialism, so to extend the courtesy, let us just say that *all* cops are bastards.  How are we going to beat Adams and the bourgeois, capitalist interests he represents? We discuss that question live with our comrade Robert Cuffy, a union city worker and police abolitionist who organizes with NYC-DSA's Labor Branch and Afrosocialist Caucus.

 

We also hear a report from RPM's antifascist correspondent Amy Wilson on the rise of far-right organizing in New York City around the wedge issue of mandates for COVID-19 vaccine.

 

Keep up with the results of DSA's nationally-endorsed races as they develop, thanks to our comrades at Metro DC DSA: https://washingtonsocialist.mdcdsa.org/station-z/dsa-races-2021

 

The Comanche 3 Coal Plant is the largest single source of air pollution in Colorado. It’s a massive generating station southeast of Pueblo where you can see the smoke from miles away. To avert the worst of the climate crisis we need to shut it down as soon as possible.

A Bad Idea from the Beginning

One of the tragedies of the Comanche Coal Plant is that it was built in 2010. We were already experiencing record-breaking heat waves and other extreme weather events from climate change. It was clear then that building new coal plants was a death sentence.

Yet, Xcel Energy pushed for the project and the Public Utility Commission (PUC), responsible for regulating Xcel, gave the project the green light.

The project cost nearly a $1 billion to build. Since it came on line, not only has the electricity been dirty, but it has struggled to even work. Break downs have cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. It’s one of the most expensive, unreliable sources of energy in our state.

It’s criminal that Xcel built this coal plant and that the PUC allowed the project to go through.

Glaring Example of Environmental Racism

The Comanche Coal Plant sits near the heavily working class and Latino city of Pueblo. One out of every ten adults has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, more than twice the state average. As is so often the case, frontline communities endure the worst harms of running coal while Wall Street investors reap the profits.

Join the Fight to Close the Comanche Coal Plant

Originally Xcel planned on running the coal plant until 2070. After public outcry and determined organizing, that date was pushed back to 2050, then again to 2040 and now finally 2035. However, the science is clear that coal needs to wind down by 2030.

Xcel just proposed its ten year plan to the Public Utility Commission (PUC). The PUC is responsible for listening to public comments and deciding what the final plan will be.

Hundreds of people have already submitted comments telling the PUC to close all coal plants, especially Comanche 3, by 2030.

Luckily, the PUC has new commissioners from the one that approved construction of the plant in the first place. We have a good chance of convincing them to do the right thing, but we need to show an outpouring of support for closing the coal plant to make that happen.

Three ways to help Close the Comanche Coal Plant

1. Write a comment demanding that the Comanche 3 Coal Plant close.
2. Join our DSA Climate Comment & Watch Party on December 2nd
3. Email ecosocialist.committee@denverdsa.org to join us in building power for a Just Transition

AN OPEN LETTER TO DSA’S NATIONAL POLITICAL COMMITTEE FROM MADISON AREA DSA

On multiple occasions since his election, Representative Jamaal Bowman has used his office and public stature to work against the political positions of the Democratic Socialists of America and the principles of socialist internationalism. Bowman has demonstrated that he is unfit to be a DSA member and spokesperson for our organization. The role of a socialist elected official is to be a tribune for the working class and oppressed, to project our movement’s politics and attract wide layers of our class. Representative Bowman’s recent actions and statements run completely counter to this role and are grounds for expulsion from DSA. Madison Area DSA requests Bowman’s removal as a member of DSA and by extension as a representative of our organization.

On July 28th, 2021, Bowman voted in favor of $3.3 billion in direct military aid to Israel. Again eight weeks later on September 23rd, 2021, Bowman voted with the majority of the House to approve $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. In last summer’s bombing campaign, the Israeli state murdered at least 256 Palestinians, including 66 children, destroyed residential building complexes, and displaced over 72,000 people. Bowman’s votes allow these crimes to continue and extend further. 

If actions are not enough, his public statements reveal his thinking. On Monday, October 18, Jamaal Bowman tweeted in response to the death of George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell: “As a Black man just trying to figure out the world, Colin Powell was an inspiration. He was from NYC, went to City College, and rose to the highest ranks of our nation. Sending love, strength and prayer to the family and friends of Secretary Powell. Rest in power sir.” These comments legitimize one of the top architects of the criminal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, who in turn is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis, the plight of countless refugees, and the many working-class veterans killed, disabled or driven to suicide. Bowman’s comments here and elsewhere demonstrate a conscious commitment to reinforce the political order and ingratiate himself with its rulers.

Career aspirations should not be allowed to compromise DSA’s strong stance of support for Palestinian national liberation. Our conventions, platform, and national working groups have repeatedly placed us in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and in favor of the tactics of boycott, divest, and sanction. A statement released on behalf of DSA on May 13th made this explicitly clear. We have no reason to expect different from Bowman in the future, and this is simply not compatible with our aims in DSA.

Madison Area Democratic Socialists of America calls for the revocation of Jamaal Bowman’s membership as demonstrative of “substantial disagreement with the principles or policies of the organization”. Bowman’s further association would only serve to misrepresent our politics as democratic socialists and move us away from our political goals.

You’re listening to Revolutions Per Minute live from the new WBAI studios, a socialist radio show and podcast from members of New York City Democratic Socialists of America. The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States, with 95,000 members nationwide and NYC-DSA is its biggest chapter. We are run by our 9,000+ members and organizers who are working together to build democratic socialism in all five boroughs. A UAW worker on strike at a John Deere facility in Iowa was killed on the picket lines early this morning. We send our love and solidarity to his loved ones and his ten thousand union brothers and sisters still out there fighting for a dignified life. His sacrifice will not be forgotten. Unionization efforts and the strike wave continue to spread. Amazon workers in Staten Island announced an NLRB petition earlier this week. Thousands of academic workers unionized at the University of Pittsburgh while thousands more at Harvard today launched a three day work stoppage. Columbia academic workers walked out today are prepared to hit the picket lines next week here in New York. 45,000 healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente have authorized a strike. NYC-DSA members this past weekend stood in solidarity with 2,000 healthcare workers on strike at Catholic Mercy Hospital in Buffalo. We’ll hear from Charlie Baker on this struggle and the rally for DSA endorsed Mayoral candidate India Walton. Dozens of DSA candidates are running in races across the country from Massachusetts to New York to Florida. Jorge from Joel Brooks campaign in Jersey City joins to discuss their city council campaign in its final week. We’ll also hear a special report from Lee on the victorious struggle led by NYC-DSA Ecosocialist Working Group to prevent a fracked gas power plant from being built in Astoria.

As regular listeners of Revolutions per Minute know, we are living in a time of many overlapping campaigns for justice for the working-class. Sometimes, organizing campaigns result in victory and opportunities for celebration while looking toward the next goal. Other times, campaigns require strategic escalation. On tonight’s show, we’ll speak to New York for Abortion Rights about a key victory in the struggle to protect access to abortion for all.  We’ll hear from NYC-DSA member and Assemblymember from District 36 in Astoria Zohran Mamdani on the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sit-in at City Hall and why he’s going on hunger strike alongside taxi workers to demand debt forgiveness.

Finally, we travel to Little Rock, Arkansas, with Malik, a former NYC-DSA organizer, who is using lessons learned from NYC to build socialism in his hometown.

Follow New York for Abortion Rights at abortionrights.nyc.

Follow Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani at @ZohranKMamdani and learn more about the New York Taxi Workers Alliance sit-in at @NYTWA. 

Follow Central Arkansas DSA at @CentralARKDSA.

Thank you for using our 2021 municipal voter guide for the Nov. 30th runoff elections! This guide was written by the Atlanta DSA Electoral Committee and is limited in scope to address the Atlanta elections for Mayor and City Council. Authors approached writing this guide with socialist values and a progressive, pragmatic lens. We see this as an opportunity to share information with fellow Atlanta DSA members, Atlanta voters, and other community members about the central questions shaping Atlanta politics.

Key issues that resurface throughout this voter guide include the vote to clear-cut the South Atlanta forest and build an 85-acre, $90 million Cop City, the long-running campaign to close the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC), and grassroots efforts to defund the Atlanta Police Department, including the Rayshard Brooks Bill and the vote on the FY22 police budget. Where applicable, we assess the candidates based on their stances and votes on these topics. (Special thanks to Mainline Zine for their thorough coverage of these issues!)

Atlanta DSA’s membership votes on endorsements, and we only campaign for endorsed candidates. However, many people already plan on voting and want guidance from a socialist perspective. Where we can, we provide assessments of candidates and identify those we believe are likely to cause the least harm. These assessments come from Atlanta DSA’s Electoral Committee, not the entire Atlanta DSA chapter.

Read the Full Guide Here:

Read our original November 2 2021 Voter Guide here.

Updated November 18, 2021

If you're a listener member, in order to maximize the power of our small collective, we're asking you to vote in this order: 1. Nicodemus Nicoludis 2. Dylan Saba For the rest of your ballot, we recommend looking into these candidates who are not members of Red Wave but are aligned with our goals: Eleanor Elizabeth Forman Bruce Greif (DSA Member) Philip DePaolo (DSA Member) If you're a staff member, we recommend ranking board incumbents R. Paul Martin, Max Schmid, and Shawn Rhodes in any order. Thanks as ever for your support for Red Wave’s project to build a powerful working class radio station in service of our shared socialist movement. All power to the transmitter, the Red Wave Collective

A strike wave is spreading across the United States. Thousands of nurses, carpenters, miners, factory workers, teachers and other workers are taking a stand against the big shots who steal the fruits of our labor. Unionization drives of academic, healthcare, and media workers have brought tens of thousands of new brothers and sisters into the organized labor movement. 60,000 IATSE film workers have authorized a sector strike in the entertainment industry as the hundreds of thousands of members in entertainment unions like SAG, WGA, and the DGA alongside the Democratic Socialists of America have committed to standing in solidarity. Has labor begun to turn the tide against capital in the United States? While Red for Ed and higher education unions across the country have launched major strikes of hundreds of thousands of workers united with their students over the past three years, the public sector stasis has yet to be broken in the heart of American social democracy. DSA members and other socialist labor organizers are preparing to bring the education strike wave to New York City. A huge coalition is building for the New Deal for CUNY. PSC, NYC-DSA, and YDSA organizers at CUNY campuses are uniting for a plan that will pay academic workers a living wage and make CUNY tuition free. As a historian and union worker and organizers at CUNY this fight is personal to me. NYC-DSA Assemblywoman Phara Souffrant Forrest spoke with us at NYC-DSA convention about the New Deal for CUNY and a potential political strike to make that happen. We’ll also talk with my comrades in PSC and hear from YDSA organizers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 6, 2021

Media Contact: Julia Tache, North Jersey DSA Immigrant Justice Working Group communications chair. Email: jat2167@columbia.edu , Phone: 201-707-5203. 

Kearny, New Jersey– On October 7th, 2021 at 6 PM, immigrant rights activists from the North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America and the Abolish ICE NY/NJ coalition will be rallying outside of the Hudson County Detention Center to demand releases not transfers for those currently detained by ICE. Although contracts with ICE have been canceled across the state, the fight is far from over. 

“We demand the release of all immigrant detainees at Hudson County Correctional Center prior to the scheduled November 1 end of ICE detention. It is unconscionable that the long-awaited end of ICE detention in Hudson County would lead to the cruelty of forced transfers,” said Brett Robertson, an organizer with both the Immigrant Justice Working Group of the North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America and the Abolish Ice New York New Jersey Coalition.

Approximately 34 people are currently in Hudson County detention. There are plans for the center to be “depopulated” by November 1st. Individuals were only given TEN days to submit a release request by October 4th, which will be reviewed by several ICE offices. Talia Peleg, Associate Professor of Law at CUNY, characterizes Hudson’s release request process as “manifestly unjust. The process is opaque; ICE rarely provides a decision on release requests (or at best, a cursory decision) and there is no mechanism through which an individual can appeal a denial.” Folks who are not released will be transferred to Orange County. We demand  ALL those in detention be released  back to their families and communities. The pandemic continues to wage war on those in close quarters in ICE facilities, which are notorious for inhumane and unsafe conditions. Our communities are far from “safe” if folks continue to live in fear that ICE will tear their families apart and those imprisoned face awful treatment and isolation.

Releasing everyone is the right thing to do, a widely popular policy that immigrant justice activists have been demanding for ages. Both New Jersey Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez wrote a letter in support of releases from Hudson. We reside on colonized and occupied Lenape land and any declaration that deems people “illegal” is illegitimate. There will be representatives and speakers from the immigrant community as well as testimonies from folks in detention at this event. 

The North Jersey and New York City community is invited to join this action and show support for releases from ICE detention and immigrant rights! 

The post PRESS RELEASE: Rally for #ReleasesNotTransfers October 7th, 2021 first appeared on North NJ DSA.