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In this newsletter:
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Message From The Executive Board:
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Comrades!
Hot on the heels of the PRO ACT, the most sweeping revitalization of worker's rights in almost a century, passing in the House of Representatives this week, DSA has committed to a national campaign to support getting it through the Senate. As our top external-facing priority at the national level, mass actions like this demonstrate the power of DSA to mobilize as the largest socialist organization in the United States. However, like all our campaigns, it can only thrive if based on organizing at the local and state level. The Sacramento DSA Executive Board, national organizing staff and the PRO Act campaign team are coordinating on a strategy for involving members at the local level for this incredibly crucial work. With phone banks (already available here!), weekly trainings, and actions escalating throughout the year leading up to a major action on May Day, DSA members will once again be at the forefront of the fight for workers rights.
Labor issues are not the only place DSA has seen a victory in the last week. A year after Bernie Sanders swept the state in the 2020 Democratic Party Primary, Nevada's Democratic Party leadership elections have been swept by a slate of DSA members. Thanks to a "tightly organized" campaign lead by DSA, the party can now begin to address the need to organize Indigenous people in Nevada’s urban and rural communities. Thanks to DSA members having democratic control over their chapters and membership dues self-funding their activities, we can use that independence from big donors to fight on issues an establishment, capitalist party could never challenge.
Finally, in the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some draft bylaws for a California DSA structure in order to get your feedback. At our general meeting later this month, we’ll be providing some in-depth info on how local government works and what seats are available to target in the next election cycle. We hope you can join us!
In Solidarity,
Sacramento DSA E-Board |
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Campaign Launch For The PRO Act! |
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From now until May Day (Biden's 100th day in office), DSA, through our national Green New Deal campaign and Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) is joining the national campaign to pass the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act.This transformative legislation:
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We can only win transformative reforms with a much stronger, radicalized, and organized working class. Sign up for updates from the national campaign here.
We are planning public action(s) locally around PRO Act, along with the national campaign and local labor allies (including a possible May Day action). These can include rallies, sit-ins, escalating nonviolent direct action, etc. based on capacity and risk factors for participating members and allies. Get involved at our next General Body Meeting and sign up at the links above for more information! |
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Our CalCare Campaign in California is in Full Swing -- Join Now!
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DSA continues to mobilize for Calcare, a program that would essentially create a Medicare For All system in California
How to get involved:
Phone banking will be continuing every Saturday and Sunday from 3-5. We do a training at the beginning of each session, for those who need it - and you stay on the zoom call while you do your calls so that if you run into any problems, you can get support right away. To join the phone banks this weekend, use these links:
If you can only make one call, feel free to call or email your own representative (Kevin Cooley or Jim Cooper) to tell them your health care story and that they need to support AB 1400. And if Kevin McCarty is your representative, you can also call and email him to also tell him your health care story and to thank him for being a co-author. Please encourage your family and friends to do likewise. It’s an easy thing to do, and every call/email is important!
Besides phone banking every weekend, the campaign plan includes the formation of 3 volunteer teams that folks can join:
And here's the page to donate to the campaign (hosted by Inland Empire DSA) because it costs money to run the phone banks and to print the door hangers.
There are also opportunities to get involved with the nurses union (CNA) campaign as well:
DSA Turns Out to Pressure Ami Beri on Indian Farmers Protest
DSA members joined a car caravan and rally in Sacramento in support of the ongoing farmers and farmworkers’ strike in India, which has now been sustained for over a hundred days. The Sacramento action was organized by local Sikh groups, who have strong family and community connections to agricultural states like Punjab which have been the main force behind the strike. Hundreds of cars passed by the state Capitol before arriving at Congressman Ami Bera’s office in South Sac.
The protestors -- many of them young people -- demanded that Bera drop his unconditional support for the right-wing Modi government in India, which has responded to the farmers protest with beatings, arrest and torture of demonstrators. They also called out Bera for his refusal to recognize the scale of violence perpetrated by various Indian governments over the years against religious minorities, as he prioritizes trade with India’s economic elite over recognition of human rights. In their speeches to the crowd, the Sacramento activists noted that the farmers’ strike, while sustained in large part by Sikh farmers, is a multi-religious movement for economic rights, and that the Modi government is seeking to paint Sikhs as violent separatists in order to divide the movement on religious grounds. Speaker Harmandeep Sandhu told the crowd about the dismissive response she got from Bera when asking him to speak out, and said, “I’m guilty of voting for him before. I obviously didn’t know better, and definitely won’t be doing it again.”
Sacramento organizers are asking people to contact Bera’s office to keep the pressure up. They also have a letter that people can copy and send to Governor Newsom, asking him to express solidarity with the strike. DSA Sacramento has its own poster of support (seen in our photo above) that you can print here to hang up or distribute. It features the image of Punjabi revolutionary Bhagat Singh, and they were so popular at last weekend’s protest that we quickly ran out! |
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Mutual Aid Opportunities This Week |
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VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO CANVAS X ST CAMPS
This Sunday, March 14th at 11:00 am, DSA Sacramento members will join our comrades from Sacramento Homeless Union, Sacramento SOUP, and other local organizations to work with unhoused folks in the X Street camps to assess their needs and inform them about impending moves due to the upcoming Caltrans construction. If you can come out, please meet up at the stage at South Side Park. |
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International Solidarity Updates: Brazil, Venezuela
This part of the newsletter is for updates on international situations that national or Sacramento DSA has identified as priorities for our organization. If you would like to write any of these updates, please email us or consider joining our international committee!
Brazil: LULA LIVRE! |
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After years of kangaroo courts and sham trials orchestrated to discredit the Worker's Party (PT), Brazilian Supreme Court judge Luiz Edson Fachin has annulled all of former president of Brazil Lula da Silva’s convictions on corruption charges. The politically motivated trials, run by a judge who was illegally colluding with prosecutors, lead to Lula being prevented from competing in the 2018 elections, which lead to the election of the far-right wing president Jair Bolsonaro. This ruling represents an important step forward, as Bolsonaro's rule has been defined by an unflinching expansion of corporate power, destruction of the lives and land of native people, and the brutal repression of his enemies on the left wing.
Read more about this trial and its impacts on Brazil here!
Venezuela: DSA Condemns Biden’s Recognition of Right-Wing, Would-Be “President”
On March 2, 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with right-wing opposition leader Juan Guaidó and, illegitimately and against the wishes of the Venezuelan people, recognized him as interim president of Venezuela. This act by the Biden administration is just the latest in a long history of feckless and illegal U.S. interventions in the region, carried out with bipartisan consent. We take this occasion to reiterate our condemnation of historic and ongoing meddling by the U.S. in Venezuelan internal affairs, as well as our broad support for movements for democracy and socialism in Venezuela.
DSA implores the U.S. to do unto others as it would expect for itself: Allow Venezuelans to determine their own political future. We reiterate our strong condemnation of U.S. sanctions, which amount to war by other means. We also offer unequivocal solidarity with the 30 million Venezuelans who are suffering the devastating consequences of these sanctions. By cutting the state’s access to oil income, international trade, and foreign financing mechanisms, the sanctions have caused grievous harm to the Venezuelan people.
DSA broadly voices its support for political movements for democracy and socialism in the region. The Venezuelan situation is extremely complex for us, as socialists in the United States, to analyze. What responsibilities the PSUV (President Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela) and the state have for setting the conditions for the ongoing political and economic crisis, or for failing to address it, are severely disputed, but it is indisputable that the sanctions and coup-mongering have had nothing but a destructive effect on the situation; as socialists within the United States, it is these broad attempts at political destabilization and deleterious sanctions that are within our power to change.
DSA IC calls on DSA-endorsed candidates and elected officials to use their positions to decry all U.S. interference in Venezuela, and on its chapters and members to organize protests against this interference and hold educational events to learn more about how to support movements for Bolivarian socialism in the 21st century. |
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Upcoming Meeting Announcements:
Upcoming Sac DSA Meetings
All meetings taking place on Zoom, due to Covid. Open to all members! Some meetings require pre-registration so we can verify your DSA membership; just click the link and provide the email address you used when you joined DSA.
Labor Committee meeting, Sunday, March 14 @ 11AM, Zoom link
Executive Board meeting (all members welcome), Tuesday, March 16 @ 7PM, Zoom link
Healthcare Committee meeting, Thursday, March 18 @ 7PM, Zoom link
Missed a Meeting? Here are the Notes!
General membership meeting notes, 2/20/21
Upcoming National DSA Events & Programs
These events are hosted by National DSA or chapters outside Sacramento. As with all DSA events, they are free and open to anyone!
“DSA PRO Act Campaign Training” Sunday, March 14th @ 10:00 AM PST, RSVP Here
DSA’s highest national priority for the first 100 days of the new presidential administration is to pass the PRO Act (Protect the Right to Organize), which would strengthen unions, the power of the working class to organize on the job, and our collective capacity to win a just transition to a green economy for all.
Organized by the Green New Deal Campaign and the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission, and endorsed by the National Political Committee, the campaign is an opportunity to unify and grow DSA around a common mission — to end climate catastrophe, powerlessness on the job, and social, racial, and environmental injustice through an emboldened and militant working class movement united across differences.
To learn how to get organizing around the PRO Act in your DSA chapter, attend a session of this weekly skills training for orientation on outreach and action planning!
You can choose to attend one or more of the following sessions:
If you'd like to get familiar with the campaign, check out DSA's PRO Act campaign website. |
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What We're Reading (Or Viewing, Or Listening To...)
This is a space where we link to interesting articles, videos, podcasts -- whatever -- that our members have shared with each other on our chapter Slack. We are re-sharing them here in case others are interested; they do not necessarily represent “official” positions or endorsements of DSA.
“HUGE news from the comrades in Las Vegas: Every single staffer for the Nevada Democratic Party has quit due to DSA members SWEEPING ‘all five party leadership positions in a contested election.’ Incredible show of force against establishment Democrats and an amazing demonstration of what DSA has been fighting against in the electoral field.”
“This Is What the Beginning of a Climate-Labor Alliance Looks Like” by Kate Aronoff
“Here’s some great stuff on the relationship of the PRO Act and the Green New Deal with lots of DSA quotes.”
“This song fits here”
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Copyright (c) 2020 Sacramento Democratic Socialists of America, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you expressed interest in updates from Sacramento DSA. |
