Remembering Fred Ross Jr.

https://stansburyforum.com/2022/11/27/remembering-fred-ross-jr-one-of-nations-leading-labor-and-social-movement-organizers?

Power, Electoral, DSA

 

UC Strike. An Injury to one is an Injury to All

 

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To the UC Academic Workers: Your Fight is Our Fight!

NOVEMBER 19, 2022

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) stands in unwavering solidarity with the 48,000 academic workers walking picket lines across the University of California system today as three United Auto Worker locals (UAW 2865, SRU-UAW, and UAW 5810) declare an open-ended unfair labor practice (ULP) strike. Some of our highest concentrations of DSA members in unions are in these locals. For as long as you are in the fight, we will be by your side. Strike action is never easy. It is a zero-sum game. Either the workers win and advance, or the bosses win and push us back. Knowing that all you have is the strength of your organization and your solidarity for one another, you and your coworkers jump into the fight. 

When the cost of living crisis collides with your poverty wages – when you watch your administrators live lavishly while you choose between child care and rent, when you work in overcrowded classrooms of students planning for their futures while you don’t have enough money for the bus ride home, when you find out that your coworker is sleeping in their car because their wages were not enough for that month’s rent and then the university chooses to bargain in bad faith  – then the decision to strike  becomes much easier. 

UAW members voted for this strike with 98% approval. This action is one that all working people in this country can understand. If we let the bosses have their way, unchallenged, we will be whittled away to nothing. If we want to survive, then we have to fight. The academic workers in the UC system are fighting like hell. Your common good demands of affordable housing, free public transit and serious anti-racism and anti-harassment protections show us something. When workers take on the bosses, we can build a world worth living in. Thousands of academic workers have already learned this, and we count them among our comrades in the largest socialist organization in U.S. history. Now, as you and your coworkers hit the streets, we look forward to many more young people realizing that we do not have to keep living like this. That the present is not written in stone. And that we can live in a democratic and socialist future if we’re willing to fight for it.

Through the combined donations of the DSA Labor Solidarity Fund, DSA Chapters, and DSA members, we raised more than $20,000 for the UAW-UC strike fund in one day. DSA members who are not on strike are encouraged to continue donating using this form and to use this Chapter Toolkit to learn other ways to support.  Victory to the strikers!

In Solidarity,

National Political Committee, DSA

Steering Committee, DSA National Labor Commission

PRIORITIES
Democratic Socialist Labor Commission

Tamale Sale - fund raiser for Students- LULAC

 

Democracy on the Ballot : It Won !

 

Democracy Was on the Ballot—And Won Tom Nichols  November 9, 2022 The Atlantic The American crisis isn’t over, but the midterms were a good sign.

American flags in the US Capitol. , (Samuel Corum / Getty)

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: In yesterday’s midterm elections, a fair number of odious candidates managed to buy tickets to Washington. Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson is going back to the Senate, where he will be joined by Ohio’s would-be hillbilly whisperer J. D. Vance, whose campaign will stand for years to come as a monument to cynicism and hypocrisy. We don’t know yet if Kari Lake—or as my friend Tim Miller calls her, the “Empress of Trollistan”—will become governor of Arizona. And we still don’t know who will control Congress. Nonetheless, yesterday was a good day for democracy. Some of the worst election deniers and kookiest candidates were sent packing, in many cases by larger margins than anyone—including me—expected. Among those who must now go back to writing angry Facebook posts and griping on conservative podcasts were such notables as Don Bolduc, the retired general who promised to get to the bottom of the Great Kitty Litter Mystery, and Mehmet Oz, the carpetbagging celebrity doctor. At the state level, things look even brighter for the protection of democracy, as voters turned back a fleet of extremists and outright weirdos. Michigan, whose Democratic governor was the target of a bizarre kidnap plot two years ago, is now under a unified Democratic government for the first time in nearly 40 years. A crackpot running as the GOP candidate for governor in Pennsylvania was drubbed in a double-digit loss to an utterly conventional Democrat. And let’s even give a cheer as well for one Republican: Brad Raffensperger, who had to endure death threats for defying Donald Trump’s demands to upend the 2020 vote in Georgia, was reelected as secretary of state. As the elections analyst Sean Trende said today on Twitter: “It turns out that selecting your candidates from the Star Wars cantina might not be a recipe for electoral success.” If you want to know how bad a night it was for Republicans, check Trump’s temperature, which apparently zoomed last night past “boiling,” through “molten lead,” and is now somewhere near “the surface of the sun.” And rightly so: Some in the GOP are holding Trump responsible for their party’s losses and are now trying to push him out of the way. Even Trump’s conservative hometown paper, the New York Post, twisted the knife this morning with a cover photo of Governor Ron DeSantis and a one word caption: “DeFuture.” The best news in all of this is that the pundits and advisers who told Democrats to talk only about the economy and inflation and avoid any boring yakety-yak about democracy were wrong. As my colleague McKay Coppins tweeted after looking at an AP VoteCast poll, “it’s striking how many voters were motivated by concern for American democracy.” I have been arguing for months that voters are in fact capable of thinking about more than one thing at a time, but I admit that I also was starting to wonder whether fears about GOP authoritarianism could break through the noise.

International Observers on U.S. Elections,- Polorized

 

WASHINGTON DC, 9 November 2022 – The 8 November mid-term congressional elections were competitive and professionally managed, with active voter participation, but also with threats against election workers and efforts to undermine voters’ trust in the electoral process by baselessly questioning its integrity, international observers said in a statement released today. Candidates could campaign freely, but many contests were highly polarized and marred by harsh rhetoric, and partisan redistricting resulted in many instances of uncompetitive constituencies, the statement says. Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Capitol dome in Washington, D.C. (Shutterstock)

PRESS RELEASE United States Mid-Term Elections Competitive, but Polarized and With Efforts to Undermine Trust, International Observers Say WASHINGTON DC, 9 November 2022 – The 8 November mid-term congressional elections were competitive and professionally managed, with active voter participation, but also with threats against election workers and efforts to undermine voters’ trust in the electoral process by baselessly questioning its integrity, international observers said in a statement released today. Candidates could campaign freely, but many contests were highly polarized and marred by harsh rhetoric, and partisan redistricting resulted in many instances of uncompetitive constituencies, the statement says. The economy, inflation and abortion rights were prominent issues across the country. Political campaigns by both major parties were intensely divisive, and the inflammatory rhetoric was accompanied by racist and transphobic tropes invoked by some candidates and prominent commentators. A number of Republican candidates in key races, including those who, if elected as secretaries of state, will have direct responsibility for overseeing future elections in their states, challenged or refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 results. “The American people once again demonstrated their commitment to democratic elections in a hard-fought campaign and professionally run process,” said Margareta Cedefelt, the OSCE Special Co-ordinator and Leader of the short-term observers. “Unfortunately, we also noted that baseless allegations of fraud continued to have a serious result, in harassment of and threats against election officials. Certain systemic challenges, such as gerrymandering, enabling politicians to choose their voters, rather than the opposite, and the outsized influence of money on campaigning, must be addressed to ensure real equality of the vote.” Disclosure mechanisms for campaign finance are generally comprehensive, but loopholes in the regulatory framework make the impact of money in politics less transparent, the observers said. Following the 2020 population census, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives were reapportioned among the states, and electoral districts were redrawn. Redistricting is highly political, with state legislatures responsible in 33 states, and external commissions in the remaining 11. A total of 78 legal challenges were filed against congressional district maps, often alleging partisan or racial gerrymandering, and court decisions changed district maps in 8 states. In designing the maps, competent bodies use algorithms that at times took into account politically favourable variables, including past voting results and racial demographics at the precinct level. As currently implemented, redistricting does not fully ensure competitiveness, representativeness and the fair representation of minorities.

Elections: Which Side Are You On ?

We’re one week out from this election, and it comes down to recognizing who is on our side. Ask yourself: Who are the candidates trying to solve problems, and who are the ones just trying to stoke fear and division? Who supports public education, and who is trying to ban books and engage in culture wars? Who is protecting freedoms like a women’s right to reproductive health, and who is undermining our democracy?  Check out the GOP plan for the economy. They want to: Raise prescription drug costs. Increase healthcare premiums. Cut Medicare and Social Security benefits. Cancel student loan forgiveness. Drive up inflation and the deficit by cutting taxes for the rich. Look how well that worked for the last U.K. prime minister. The AFT has endorsed the problem-solvers—the lawmakers and candidates who are working to solve the problems that keep us up at night: inflation, the costs of prescription drugs and gas, the struggle for a better life, potential cuts to Social Security and Medicare, global climate change, the need to strengthen public education, and threats to and our freedoms and our democracy. On the other side, we have the problem-makers—the lawmakers who use anger and fear to divide people and want to slash Social Security and Medicare, roll back freedoms, allow Big Oil to gouge us at the pump and Big Pharma to gouge us at the pharmacy, and stop student debt forgiveness. Their answer to everything seems to be to cut taxes for the rich.  We need problem-solvers who will work for us. We need lawmakers who are on our side. That means turning out and voting in this election and getting our families and friends to do the same.  Everything is on the ballot this year. Thank you. In unity, Randi Weingarten AFT President