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?

Dear Father Leahy,

We are writing to ask that you make a public statement condemning the Israeli military assault on Gaza. This is not a conflict between two equal belligerent parties. Israel maintains one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful militaries, while two million Palestinians have been under siege, locked in an open-air prison in the Gaza Strip for over a dozen years, and denied access to many basic necessities. Over the last 12 days, the Israeli military killed 231 people, including 65 children. About 91,000 Palestinians have been displaced.

On Sunday, Pope Francis made an appeal for peace in the region and specifically described the death of children as terrible and unacceptable. He called for an end to the violence:

In the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters, I appeal for calm and, to those that with the responsibility, [I appeal] to stop the sound of the arms and to walk on the path of peace with the help of the international community.

We believe that in times of great injustice, it is important for leaders everywhere to speak out in the name of peace and justice. We ask that you use your platform as President of one of the foremost Jesuit Catholic universities in the United States to speak out on behalf of the oppressed. Although we are relieved that a ceasefire has been reached, we believe that now is not the time to become complacent. Rather, we encourage you to use this moment to demonstrate your commitment to peace and human rights worldwide. 

Last summer, the Pope called on Catholic institutions to divest not only from fossil fuels but also from the armaments industry. It is a subject he has spoken about throughout his pontificate. In 2017, he stated, 

It is an absurd contradiction to speak of peace, to negotiate peace, and at the same time promote or permit the global arms trade. Is this war or that war really a war to solve problems? Or is it a commercial war for selling weapons in illegal trade and so that the merchants of death can get rich?

In a speech to the US Congress in 2015, he asked,

Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.

In the spirit of these declarations, we ask that BC sever its ties to the military industrial complex to ensure it is not complicit in any way in supporting atrocities in Gaza or anywhere else. The CEO of Raytheon, Thomas Kennedy, sits on the Board of Governors of the BC Chief Executives Club. Raytheon is a major supplier of arms to Israel. In 2014, Israel used F-16s armed with the company’s missiles during its assault on Gaza, killing 1,462 civilians, including 550 children. Defense for Children International found that 225 of those children were killed from missiles fired from fighter planes. Raytheon munitions were also used to shell a UN school inside of the Jabalia refugee camp in 2009, killing between 30 and 40 people. In 2019, the Young Democratic Socialists of BC documented how Raytheon’s weapons have been used in war crimes against civilians in places like Yemen. In 2015, the US-backed Saudi coalition used Raytheon munitions to bomb a funeral at a community hall in Sana’a, killing 140 people and wounding 525. In the spring of 2019, Kennedy hosted an event for the BC Chief Executives Club with the CEO of General Dynamics, another arms manufacturer whose weapons have been used to kill civilians in Yemen and Syria. That same year, Kennedy told investors that increased tensions with Iran were good for the company’s business prospects. Boston College should not associate itself with people and corporations that profit off of war.

No institution that associates with these arms manufacturers can claim to adhere to any set of moral principles. There is no ambiguity in this, just as there is no ambiguity in the Pope’s denunciation of the profit motive behind the death and destruction these corporations enable. 

BC must cut ties with people like Kennedy.

We hope you will add your voice to the chorus of those speaking out in the face of oppression and injustice and not remain silent during this crisis.

With only three weeks left in the New York State legislative session and city primaries following up close behind, socialist are in the streets! Tonight we’ll hear from comrades in Astoria who are fighting to pass Public Power as well as comrades in Sunset Park, who are working to elect DSA-endorsed candidate for city council Alexa Avilés. And we’ll also talk with Alexa herself about how her mother’s  struggle for Puerto Rican liberation and being a mother fighting for her own kids’ education has shaped her politics and about her community’s vision for District 38.

 

To get involved with Alexa's campaign: www.alexaforcouncil.com/

 

To get involved with the campaign for Public Power: https://ecosocialists.nyc/events/

“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. “

The post DSA book club is starting ‘Blackshirts and Reds’ first appeared on Coulee DSA.

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.

Do we live in a secular age? Is capitalism a religion? In this episode, Stephen Crouch asks author and professor Eugene McCarraher about the "misenchanted" qualities of capitalist society. Dr. McCarraher is the author of the 800-page tome entitled, Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity (2019). During the episode, Dr. McCarraher discusses the shortcomings of Marxism and the Protestant work ethic, and suggests a better path forward through the anti-capitalist Romantic tradition with its "enchanted" view of the world. Dr. Eugene McCarraher is a Professor of Humanities and History at Villanova University and the author of Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought. He has written for Dissent and The Nation and contributes regularly to Commonweal, The Hedgehog Review, and Raritan. His recent work, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, was supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Resources listed include magazines, publishers, podcasts and other project that should to educate you in organizing, theory, and history. Outlets Democratic Left : A Publication of Democratic Socialists of America Viewpoint Magazine : A militant research magazine that “aims to understand the struggles that define our conjuncture, critically reconstruct radical history, and reinvent Marxism for […]

This weekend, OCRA coalition partners and comrades, namely OKC DSA, For The People OK (FTP), Autonomous Brown Berets of Oklahoma (ABB), Student Socialist League OK (SSL), and Scissortail Defense Network (SDN), operated a mutual aid fair at the storefront of Nappy Roots Books in east OKC. FTP provided groceries, Central OK IWW + OK Tenants […]

We are in shock at the news of the passing of Nikeeta Slade, a founding member of Black Lives Matter Syracuse, former organizer with the Workers' Center of CNY, co-host of Queer WOC podcast, and long time socialist. She was a proud Black, queer socialist-feminist organizer and thinker who made Syracuse her home for most of a decade. Her curiosity, warmth and brilliance have shaped local left politics in major ways through her fundamental contributions to many projects and organizations and unwavering belief that we must overthrow capitalism, racism, ableism and heteropatriarchy, and all oppression. She was the best of the local left and a good friend to many of us and its difficult to think about about how to proceed without her in our community. We'll strive to do our part to live up to her legacy.

Syracuse DSA Solidarity Statement, May 7, 2021

The Democratic Socialists of America Syracuse chapter stands in solidarity with the
people protesting and striking in Colombia and suffering under the hands of an
oppressive government and, especially, a repressive police force.

The unprecedented protests that started on April 28 against a regressive tax reform bill
eventually led to its withdrawal. The United Nations and human rights organizations are
condemning rampant police brutality after the current government ordered the
militarization of major cities. In Cali, southwest Colombia, almost 20 people are reported
killed, bringing the total estimated number to 31. Citizens have registered over 1400
instances of police abuse, including arbitrary detentions, physical injuries, and sexual
violence. The government continues to push aggressive law and order narratives while
refusing to de-escalate and dialogue and is contemplating declaring a state of internal
disturbance, which would give the military forces extraordinary powers.

Background

In Colombia, a long history of violent armed conflict and decades of neoliberal reforms
have left millions of surviving victims and deepened the gap between the rich and the
poor. Even though in 2016, then-President Juan Manuel Santos signed a peace treaty
with the FARC guerrilla, and laid out an ambitious transitional justice system,
conservatives of the Centro Democrático, the dominant right-wing political party, have
opposed its implementation from the beginning.

Current President Iván Duque, from the Centro Democratico, has made sure to
undermine this agreement, and political violence has risen significantly during his term.
Violent territorial disputes among new paramilitary and dissident guerrilla groups have
increased in several regions, leaving the civilian population vulnerable, particularly in
rural indigenous and Afro-Colombian lands. Right-wing ideologies animate these illegal
military forces, often in alliance with legal ones and local government officials. These
groups continue to target men, women, and LGBT community leaders with nearly total
impunity. Duque’s government has proposed a series of tax reforms to favor extractivist
companies, the entrepreneurial and financial sectors while furthering people’s
precarization.

The United States is a close military ally of the Colombian Government; it has funded
and trained its military and special police forces for decades. This aid peaked during the
repressive government of strong-man Alvaro Uribe Vélez. Many tactics of abuse and
stigmatization of the social movement were recorded at this time and continue trickling
down into the current militarized police (ESMAD). They infiltrate marches to delegitimize
protesters through violent escalation and sabotage.

Today’s Context

In Colombia, as in much of Latin America, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted
extreme social inequalities and made apparent incompetent and corrupt governance.
Duque’s government has failed to create an adequate response and has instead
resorted to disconnected, expensive, and ineffective solutions, increasing the national
deficit. In a country already rife with widespread poverty, high unemployment, massive
foreign debt, and ongoing political violence, the slow rollout of the vaccines and an
unpopular tax reform pushed the citizenry to the edge. The reform significantly sought to
raise the prices on essential items, including basic food staples, while leaving the rich
untouched.

Protests began on April 28th, with multiple groups calling for action but spearheaded by
the opposition, unions, students, indigenous, and feminist groups. Pressed by the
protests, Duque withdrew the tax reform, but the people continued to protest the killings
of protesters and mismanagement from the government. The response of the Duque
administration was military suppression, which has risen in violence as the national
protests continue, leaving dozens dead, and thousands more injured. Most critically, in
Cali, a major city in the southwest, the military commander has ignored the mayor’s
authority, leading to the most civilian deaths in any city and various cases of police-led
arson. Though many local authorities have rejected military intervention, the national
government has incited military personnel to shoot at will in the name of law and order.
Calls for de-escalation and a new social agreement are growing from multiple sides as
the discontent grows into the capital city, Bogotá. Although the mainstream media have
attempted to stigmatize the protesters as responsible for property destruction and covid
spread, it is clear that most protests have remained peaceful but frequently instigated by
the police.

Our Demands

We, as socialists and allies, stand with the demands of our siblings on the streets of
Colombia to call for:

1. Respect for the legitimate right to protest and the de-stigmatization of the
   citizens exercising this right.
2. An economy that works for the people: The Colombian Government must
   altogether remove the proposed neo-liberal tax reform and all of its parts off of
   the legislative agenda and instead engage directly in subsidy and aid for the
   people most impacted by the pandemic and economic crisis to begin the process
   of creating an equal economy
3. Nationwide Police Reform: Starting with an immediate, unilateral
   de-militarization of the streets and commencement of a genuine national dialogue
   with all affected parties, culminating in a complete transformation of policing
   forces in Colombia. This view must directly address cases of sexual violence as
   one common but underreported case of state violence.
4. Implementation of the Peace Process: That the government of Ivan Duque
   reverse its hostility to the peace process with the FARC and recommit to be a
   genuine partner in building a peaceful Colombia
5. International Solidarity: The Government of the United States must cease the
   funding of or provision of supplies and equipment to Colombian police and
   security forces.

[The upside-down Colombian national flag pictured above is used in protests the signify the dead.]

Further Readings

• Colombians Are in the Streets Against a Violent Neoliberal Order (Jacobin)
• In Colombia, 19 Are Killed in Pandemic-Related Protests (New York Times)
• Colombia braces for further unrest after police react violently to mass protests (The Guardian)
• More anti-government protests in Colombia after deadly clashes (France24)

Statement prepared by Carolina Arango-Vargas, Jesse Harasta, and Julian Velandia Arango

Adopted by the Steering Committee, May 7, 2021