Stay ConnectedWeekly radio show from the Democratic Socialists of America in NYC, recorded live at WBAI 99.5 in Brooklyn NY, Tuesday @ 7pm EST. Listen and call-in!
Our vision for a democratic socialist future, from the minds and hearts of organizers fighting every day in NYC. Hear the latest news, analysis, and organizing experience from our members and partners and learn how to be part of a revolutionary political moment. Join the movement at socialists.nyc!
Copyright: © NYC Democratic Socialists of America
After three long weeks, Putin’s war with Ukraine has devastated the region with mass shellings of Ukrainian towns and villages, and bombings that have included hospitals and kindergartens. All of this has been under the banal guise of a [quote] “special military operation”, words which ring hollow to any Leftist familiar with the lies of Imperial Powers. This assault has taken thousands of Ukrainian lives and made tens of thousands more into refugees. With lines of Russian tanks that stretch for miles, marching onward to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, it can be easy to forget that this war carries the weight of history. To explore some of the deeper, historical complexities that led to this war, covering past, present, and future, we talked with Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist and scholar of Eastern European history. Meanwhile back here in New York City, tens of thousands suffer under the regime of mass incarceration. Starting at the age of 15, Prakash Churaman lost six years of his life in pretrial detention after being forced into a false confession by the NYPD. Authorities claim he murdered his best friend, but there is no physical or forensic evidence linking him to the crime. Only the words of a scared, young kid locked in a room. Prakash proclaims his innocence and refuses to take any plea deal. Despite limited access to the outside world, Prakash organized to gather bail money for his release. Last week we spoke with Prakash and his lawyer Jose Nieves about his story and the Free Prakash Alliance.
Tonight on RPM we continue our series of conversations with DSA’s 2022 For The Many candidate slate with Illapa Sairitupac. Illapa is social worker and climate organizer who has been endorsed by NYC-DSA for Assembly District 65, a Lower East Side district once held by the notorious Sheldon Silver. We’ll talk to Illapa about running a campaign for working class New Yorkers in a district that also includes the capital of capitalism: Wall Street.
We’ll also hear from members of the NYC-DSA Housing Working Group who were out canvassing in lower Manhattan with Illapa this weekend for the Right to Remain campaign - to pass the Good Cause Eviction bill.
Plus a breaking news update on the REI Soho Union vote with Amy Wilson.
For more info on Illapa: https://illapa.nyc/
To learn more about Right to Remain and the NYC-DSA Housing Working Group: https://linktr.ee/nycdsa_housing
The specter and reality of war haunts humanity. The imperialist expansion of NATO and right-wing Russian nationalism continue to escalate tensions in the Ukraine, where CIA backed fascist paramilitaries roam the streets. While Russian invasion would prove devastating for the workers of the world, further US intervention would only make things worse. War is only rational for the profiteers in the military industrial complex. Deescalation and peace are the only sensible pathways for those who value human life. A devastating war in the Middle East rages on with deafening silence from the corporate media. Saudi jets drop American made bombs on Yemeni civillians. Bombardment has not only reduced cities to rubble, but has shaken the economy to its core. Dylan and Kawthar join us to discuss the horrifying US backed Saudi led genocide in Yemen and the efforts by antiimperialists in the United States to organize to end it. Join the rally in front of Meeks’ Jamaica office on March 1st 12pm, 153-01 Jamaica Ave Call 1-833-STOP-WAR Ask them to oppose an FTO designation as well (this is more recent) every75seconds.org Yemeni Alliance Committee Is continuing to lobby around this, Adam Schiff’s office NYC-DSA Anti-War Working Group Email us, antiwar@socialists.nyc Follow us, @nycDSAantiwar
Considered on its own, the New York Police Department is in the top ten largest armies in the world. Why? As working-class New Yorkers struggle to stay fed and safely housed, the NYPD enjoys nearly unlimited resources and sees no issue with using those resources to oppress and surveil the city’s population. On tonight's show, we speak to Khalil from NYC-DSA’s Defund NYPD campaign on why socialists’ commitment to REAL public safety remains strong. We also take calls live from the WBAI audience.
In international news, capitalists and war-mongers are pushing for further escalation in the Russia-Ukraine dispute. We’ll hear from Gerard of the Democratic Socialists International Committee on their recent statement opposing US militarization and interventionism in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and calling for an end to NATO expansionism.
Join NYC-DSA's campaign to Defund NYPD: https://www.defundnypd.com/get-involved
Read the International Committee's statement in English, Russian, or Ukrainian: https://international.dsausa.org/statements/no-war-with-russia/
On this episode, Lee Ziesche shares a brief public service announcement about this month's sky-high ConEd bills. We will be covering this issue more in depth on future episodes, but visit bit.ly/conedbill to learn more about how this situation was created by New York politicians' climate inaction and how DSA is fighting back.
Yesterday two very different visions for the future of New York’s energy system were presented at a marathon 12+ hour long budget hearing on environmental conservation. On one hand, New York’s regulators argued to stay the course and continue to let the market and capital be the primary drivers of building renewable energy, despite the state having missed it’s renewable energy goals year after year and currently only 6% of New York’s energy comes from wind and solar. Community advocates and DSA-electeds had a different view - one where the future is a public good- and renewables are being built at the scale the climate crisis demands and are publicly-owned.
Tonight we’ll continue our series of interviews with NYC-DSA’s 2022 slate and are joined live by Sarahana Shrestha a candidate for Assembly District 103 in the Mid-Hudson Valley and member of the NY Public Power Coalition who is running under the slogan - the future is a public good.
More info about Sarahana: www.sarahanaforassembly.com
More info about Public Power: www.publicpowerny.org
Starting late last year in Buffalo, NY, a union wave has spread all over the country as workers at an ever-increasing number of Starbucks coffee shops are getting organized and making demands on their boss and on the multi-national corporation that employs them. This movement is gaining speed every day - and to help us understand what’s going on from a worker perspective, we’re joined live in the studio by James, a worker-organizer with Starbucks Workers United in Buffalo.
Another national movement is mobilizing to defend access to abortion as the right-wing assault on this fundamental right continues to escalate. With landmark legislation Roe V. Wade on the verge of being rolled back, socialists are continuing to organize for grassroots solutions to this national crisis that center anti-racism, abolition, and a no-holds-barred approach to guaranteeing access to safe abortion. We’ll hear from Ali of Chicago DSA and Chicago for Abortion on this crucial struggle.
On this show, Jack makes a brief announcement about the New Deal for CUNY. Learn more and get involved at bit.ly/action-nd4c.
Find a local abortion fund to support if you can: https://abortionfunds.org/funds/
Follow along with James and the Starbucks partners at @SBWorkersUnited. Current Starbucks partners can email sbworkersunited@gmail.com to get connected to an organizer.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of our NYC-DSA comrade, Alex Z.
Tonight on our show we will be talking about our host Desiree Joy Frias' home of the South Bronx where capitalist interests and government failures are continuing to cost lives.
In the middle of brutal winter weather and yet another Covid spike, tenants are once again mobilizing to defend against evictions and build working-class power with all of New York City’s residents, including the 1 in 12 New Yorkers who live in public or section 8 housing. Last week’s tragic and preventable Twin Parks fire on 181st street in the Bronx and yesterday’s Con Edison explosion on Fox Street less than two miles away are just the latest examples of the ongoing violence of landlord neglect and failures by the federal and local government to provide adequate public housing and public infrastructure. Con Edison is responsible for yesterday’s explosion that killed one, injured seven and leveled an entire row home in the South Bronx. This exploitative monopoly spends millions in lobbying fees to fight green projects and remain the sole provider of power to over 12 million customers.
To discuss these preventable tragedy and how socialists are organizing for tenant power, we're live in the studio with RPM comrade and fellow Bronx/Upper Manhattan DSA member Bernard Goyder and an organizer from NYC-DSA’s Brooklyn Housing Working Group, Isaac. Tonight you’ll learn about NYC-DSA’s Right to Remain campaign to pass Good Cause Eviction, transformative legislation that will protect millions of tenants just like us. Keeping with the uptown theme, we’ll also hear an update on the successful strike by the Student Workers of Columbia.
Get organized, get involved, help your neighbor, call your legislator: https://linktr.ee/nycdsa_housing
Read more on South Bronx Mutual Aid and others' efforts to support tenants in the Bronx: https://twitter.com/booksandrose/status/1483854067457826822?s=20
In an effort to exert its power over the Americas, the United States has enforced an embargo on Cuba ever since its revolutionary struggle for independence from American imperialism. The blockade is an effort to force regime change against the will of Cuban people who want to improve their society without foreign interference. Despite the immense suffering caused by the embargo to this very day, socialists in Cuba have made remarkable achievements in education and healthcare. DSA members Rolando, Tom, and Patrick as well as Daniel Montero, a journalist from Cuba, join us to discuss the movement to end the embargo and the fight to preserve Cuban self-determination.
The formation of the United Auto Workers in the 1930s represented the upsurge in organized working class militancy that pushed forward a New Deal. Since that time the UAW has been a base of support for its members that collectively provides workers with a better life. Yet the UAW has weakened as its corrupt leadership has chosen compromise with the bosses over a robust internal democracy. That’s all about to change. The successful One Member, One Vote referendum has forced open the democratic process and created space for new leadership to rise up. We’ll discuss that and much more with UAW members Kay and Chris. The UAW is much more than just autoworkers. After threatening to strike, the 17,000 member Student Researchers Union of the University of California system won recognition and officially became the newest UAW local. How did these academic workers build a new organization? We hear directly from Kat and Laura of the SRU on how they made it happen.
It’s never been easy to be a front-line retail or customer service worker at the holidays, and with a dramatic surge in COVID cases affecting New York City, this year is even harder. For our Revolutions per Minute holiday special, we’re joined live by Eric Dirnbach of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, DSA’s national project in partnership with the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, as well as Aria, a retail worker who participated in a successful strike last year at the Good Vibrations sex shop in Massachusetts with support from EWOC.
Plus, a special correspondent, Shen, visits the picket line in Chinatown to speak with Liang, a restaurant worker at the historic dim sum restaurant Jing Fong.
We are fundraising for the WBAI end of year Tower Fund with some help from our NYC-DSA chorus, Sing in Solidarity. Give to the Tower Fund at towerfund.wbai.org and follow our chorus on Twitter @nycdsachoir.
Sign the petition to support Jing Fong workers and stop displacement in Chinatown at bit.ly/stopdisplacement.
Are you a retail or service worker looking for support organizing your worksite? You are not alone. Support and help is available. Visit https://workerorganizing.org/support/.
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