Sanders Releases a Real Immigration Plan !

antiracismdsa: Sanders Releases a Real Immigration Plan !: Sanders on Immigration By far the most progressive plan of any of the candidates. Key Points ·         Institute a moratorium ...

Pozole Breakfast - Fundraiser for Students

On the Coup and Repression in Bolivia

antiracismdsa: On the Coup and Repression in Bolivia: Statement on Human Rights Violations in Bolivia Evo Morales – the democratically elected President of Bolivia from the MAS party (...

Red for Ed - Indiana

Indiana is a leader among the 50 states in shifting resources from public education to vouchers and charter schools

Tuesday’s statewide walkout of teachers in Indiana could lead to an illegal strike, (Photo via Facebook / Central Indiana DSA)

“Red for Ed” is the slogan that animated 15,000 teachers, students, and trade unionists to  attend a huge rally at the Statehouse in Indianapolis, November 19.  147 school districts were shut down around the state because teachers felt obliged to attend this statehouse rally, one of the biggest ever in Indiana history. Core demands involved compensation (incoming teachers earn just $35,000 in a state where 37 percent of households have earnings below a livable standard); an end to 15 hour professional training for all teachers to keep their accreditation; and an end to evaluating teachers on the basis of questionable test scores of students (which obliges teachers to teach for the test rather than wholistic learning). Teachers marched around the Statehouse and waited in long lines to enter the Capital building, waiting as much as an hour during drizzling weather. Once inside 6,000 teachers sitting on the floor or standing against railings on the second or third floor  listened to teachers from around the state talk about the lack of compensation (many teachers have had to take second and third jobs), inadequate supplies (teachers have to bring pencils, crayons, and paper for their students), and unmanageable class sizes. Indiana is a leader among the 50 states in shifting resources from public education to vouchers and charter schools  embracing what is called a “Mindtrust” model of education, using a profit/loss market model to evaluate the educational process. Because public education has been underfunded (“starving the beast”) performance often has stagnated. Then privatizers have advocated for charter schools. However, charters have often had deleterious effects on teachers, students, and communities. These school policies involving defunding public schools, investing in charter schools, privatizing, defunding, and attacking teachers and communities have spread all across the country. But now Indiana teachers have become the latest to say “No.” They have been inspired by teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, California, Arizona, Illinois and elsewhere. And this round of mobilizations is broadly supported by families and communities that see educational institutions as the anchor of society. In addition, teachers increasingly see themselves as workers and trade unionists see teachers as allies. As in the case of Indiana, the trade union movement supported the November 19 mobilization. The Threat to Public Schools Since the dawn of the twentieth century the anchor of most communities in the United States, has been its public schools. Schools help raise, nourish, mentor, and educate the youth of America. Parents, as best they can, participate in supporting school systems and provide input on school policy. Teachers and school administrators sacrifice time and energy to stimulate the talents of young people. And teachers through educational associations and trade unions organize to protect their rights in the workplace, always mindful of the number one priority; serving the children and the community.

No One Is Illegal -

DSA webinar: No One Is Illegal 

When:             November 21^st, 2019, 8:30pm EST, 7:30pm CST; 5:30pm PST

Register:          https://act.dsausa.org/signup/no-one-illegal-webinar-capitalism-imperialism-and-borders/

Sponsor:          Immigrant Rights Working Group – Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

Borders throughout the world have become sites of state violence, racist discrimination, and policing of workers freedom of movement. Governments from the US to Mexico, the EU and Israel to name just a few have militarized their boundaries, policed them with guards, forced migrants to take dangerous routes where they are losing their lives in record numbers, jailed those that survive in concentration camps, and exploited others as cheap labor denied the rights of workers with citizenship. On this webinar, experts on capitalism, climate change, imperialism and migration will explain the systemic roots of population displacement, the nature and function of the new border regime and present a case for working class unity against the oppression and scapegoating of migrants in the U.S. and throughout the world. 

Speakers:

Justin Akers Chacon, author of No One is Illegal and Radicals in the Barrio.

Todd Miller, author of Empire of Borders, Border Patrol Nation, and Storming the Wall.

Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism, cofounder of No One Is Illegal.

Jorge Mújica, author of Voces Migrantes: Movimiento 10 de Marzo, DSA member and Organizer with Arise Chicago, National Council member of the National Writers Union.

To get involved in DSA, become a member, join the Immigrant Rights Working Group, and find out more about activist campaigns. 

Webinar : No One is Illegal

antiracismdsa: Webinar : No One is Illegal: DSA webinar: No One Is Illegal  When:             November 21 st , 2019, 8:30pm EST, 7:30pm CST; 5:30pm PST Register:           htt...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘It's Bad.’ | All In | MSNBC

DACA Goes To Supreme Court

DACA BEFORE SCOTUS: The Supreme Court tomorrow morning will hear oral arguments over the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program . The high court will debate whether it can review President Trump's decision to phase out work authorization and deportation protections for 669,000 Dreamers who were illegally brought to the U.S. or overstayed a visa as children. 

DACA, which was established in 2012 as an executive-branch program by former President Barack Obama, provides deportation relief and work permits to Dreamers brought to the United States as children. Trump, arguing that DACA would not withstand legal challenges, moved to phase out the initiative in September 2017. But federal courts blocked the decision. 

"All eyes will be on Chief Justice John Roberts when the court hears arguments Tuesday," Mark Sherman reports for the Associated Press. "Roberts is the conservative justice closest to the court's center who also is keenly aware of public perceptions of an ideologically divided court."

He points out that Roberts sided with the high court's four conservatives on upholding Trump's travel ban and it's four liberals in rejecting the administration's move to add a citizenship question on the census. "His vote could be decisive a third time, as well," Sherman writes. Read more on Washington Post. 

Chile Awakens

Chile Awakens

BY

ANDREW RICHNER 

ABIGAIL GUTMANN-GONZALEZ

Last week, in response to a four-cent rise in the price of the metro fare, mass protests fed by dissatisfaction with thirty-plus years of post-Pinochet neoliberal consensus erupted in Santiago and then across Chile. In response, students organized mass fare dodging, the government escalated with heavy police presence, and mass protests ensued. The right-wing government of President Sebastián Piñera reacted swiftly and severely, imposing a state of emergency and toque de queda (curfew), a legacy feature of the 1980 Chilean constitution deeply reminiscent of the most turbulent days of the military dictatorship.

The youth of Chile, and in particular students, have been at the forefront of popular resistance, not just in the present moment, but as far back as the mass mobilization of students in 2007 and 2011 against privatization and the for-profit education system. These earlier mobilizations led to the formation of the Frente Amplio (or “Broad Front”), a broad left electoral coalition composed of distinct left parties and social movements whose principal aim is to challenge the neoliberal consensus.

Collapse of the Neoliberal Consensus

Despite its reputation as a relatively wealthy Latin American country, Chilean society is deeply divided between the rich and poor. Income inequality is worse in Chile than in any other OECD nation. Meanwhile, public services ranging from the pension system to water remain privatized — as much a legacy of the Pinochet years as the 1980 constitution and the state of emergency.

“Economically, Chile continues to do the same thing it’s been doing for twenty years, namely following an extractivist model, which relies heavily on copper but also has to do with forestry, fisheries, etc.,” explains Emilia Ríos Saavedra, a Revolución Democrática (a member party of Frente Amplio) militant and city councilor in Ñuñoa, a suburb of Santiago. “This creates a tension and a feeling of helplessness where the political system cannot respond. There is no capacity on the one hand, and on the other hand, the political and economic elites, above all, are not capable of thinking about the larger needs of the country.”

As the center-left coalition that led Chile through the transition to democracy failed to address the growing crisis caused by the economic policies of the Chicago Boys who collaborated with Pinochet in the 1980s to dismantle Chile’s social democratic legacy, their popular support has collapsed. In the 2017 presidential election, the right-wing billionaire who introduced consumer debt to Chile, Sebastián Piñera, was elected.

See more: 

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/10/chile-protests-sebastian-pinera-frente-amplio

Chicago Teachers Didn’t Win Everything, But They’ve Transformed the City—And the Labor Movement

Rebecca Burns
November 1, 2019
Working In These Time

Chicago teachers and staff returned to the classrooms Friday after more than two weeks on strike. Their walkout lasted longer than the city’s landmark 2012 strike, as well as those in Los Angeles and Oakland earlier this year.

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike also lasted long enough for the season’s first snowstorm to blanket thousands of teachers and staff who surrounded City Hall Thursday morning to demand Mayor Lori Lightfoot agree to restore missed instructional days as a final condition of their returning to work. After a few hours, the union and the mayor arrived at a compromise of five make-up days—a move Lightfoot had resisted until the eleventh hour, despite the fact that it’s a standard conclusion to teacher strikes.

Over the course of an often-bitter battle, CTU and its sister union, SEIU 73, overcame a series of such ultimatums from the recently elected mayor. Before the strike, Lightfoot had refused to write issues such as staffing increases or class size caps into a contract at all. Following a budget address last week, Lightfoot vowed that there was no more money left for a “bailout” of the school district. But a tentative agreement approved by CTU delegates Wednesday night requires the school district to put a nurse and social worker in every school within five years and allocates $35 million more annually to reduce overcrowded classrooms. Both unions also won pay bumps for support staff who have made poverty wages.

Yet these substantial gains still fell short of what many members had hoped to achieve, given that they were fighting for basic investments already enjoyed by most suburban school districts—investments that Lightfoot herself had campaigned on this spring.

“It took our members 10 days to bring these promises home,” CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates told reporters after an agreement was reached over instructional days. “But I want to tell my members: They have changed Chicago.”

Race, Borders and Belonging

Barack Obama has a message about being politically woke