Comrades,
As we enter a full year of public health restrictions to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, we are reflecting on everything this chapter has done for each other, our neighbors throughout San Francisco, and the state of California. At the outset, we called for the decommodification of survival through the implementation of Medicare for All, rent and mortgage relief, widely-available testing and vaccine access, safe working conditions, decarceration of our local jails and nearby prisons, and a moratorium on deportations to combat community spread and ensure that working-class people could safely shelter in place. With over 530,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States alone, those demands remain just as relevant today.
But despite the difficulties of navigating a pandemic, our comrades mobilized almost immediately to show up for our community. From our efforts to provide tents to our unhoused neighbors, provide hotel rooms for vulnerable unhoused San Franciscans, phonebank to raise COVID-19 relief funds for Navajo Nation, provide countless public comments to save essential workers’ jobs, distribute masks and hand sanitizer to neighbors in need—including our imprisoned neighbors, help our neighbors schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments, and many other efforts, our comrades have backed up our COVID-19 policy demands with their time, energy, and money to ensure that we can show San Francisco what is possible when we build class solidarity and fight to improve our community’s material conditions.
The pandemic isn’t over, but we aren’t done either. We remain committed to fighting for a recovery focused on building power for working-class people, international solidarity, and saving our planet.
In Solidarity,
Your DSA SF Steering Committee
Upcoming Events
Mutual Aid: Help Our Seniors Get Vaccinated!
Vulnerable seniors in District 5 need our help with getting vaccinated. Some seniors are struggling to navigate the confusing appointment system so we are stepping in to provide desperately needed mutual aid. Join the Electoral Committee and Dean Preston’s office tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. to help make these important calls. Click this link to join us on Zoom or contact Ian James at ianhenryjames@gmail.com for more information. Thanks!
Deadly Iran Sanctions: Lessons from Iraq and Palestine
Join the Immigration Committee and the No Sanctions on Iran Project for a webinar about the Iraq sanctions, the Gaza embargo, and the Iran sanctions on Tuesday, March 16, at 12 p.m. The No Sanctions on Iran Project is a group of feminist Iranian-American scholars, students, activists, and artists who are concerned about the deadly effects of the U.S. sanctions on the Iranian people. Noura Erakat, Negar Mortazavi, Assal Rad, and Zainab Saleh will be discussing the connections between sanctions in Iran and Iraq and the Gaza embargo, and asking: How do sanctions and embargoes debilitate populations and subject them to death? What possibilities exist for solidarity with people living under sanctions, and what might that solidarity achieve? This event is live-captioned for Accessibility. Register here for the Zoom link.
Questions? Email: immigration@dsasf.org
Co-sponsored by: ITSRC, AGITATE!, MADRE, Jadaliyya, MERIP, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Code Pink, Femena, NIAC, AROC, and DSA SF
Remembering Six Years of War on Yemen
Join the Yemeni Alliance Committee, DSASF, and other antiwar & solidarity groups for a webinar taking stock of the war on Yemen on Friday, March 26, at 5 p.m. This March marks six years since a U.S.-backed Saudi coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war. To understand this conflict, a range of speakers—activists, researchers, and elected officials – will be discussing the roots of this ongoing war, the impact on the Yemeni people, and how folks can join and build an effective anti-war movement. Register here to sign up.
COVID-19 Relief In Navajo Nation Solidarity Phone Bank
On Sunday, March 21, from 2 to 5 p.m., join a coalition of DSA chapters in phone banking to raise funds for existing grassroots mutual aid relief networks in Navajo Nation, which has been devastated by COVID-19. RSVP here!
See more events on our event calendar here!
Announcements
This Week on SFIJ
Hi there, DSA SF!
We think the following pieces of news from the San Francisco Independent Journal (SFIJ) may be of interest to you:
?First, a piece about D6 Supervisor Dean Preston proposing public bike share for the city.
?Second, a piece about the recent court ruling on SF Bay View editor Keith ‘Malik’ Washington after the Sunday 3/7 rally.
?Then, a report back about the Haiti Solidarity demonstration on 3/1
?Finally, a piece about CCSF proposing layoffs due to budget shortfall; hundreds protested against this decision.
If you have committee work or another story you want to be publicized by a friendly outlet, please submit tips to: writing@dsasf.org
DSA SF Trivia Night
Come join your friends on Discord on Monday, March 22nd, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. for DSA trivia night! We’re going to hang out, play trivia, and get to know each other! We had a lot of fun with this last month, so if you missed it last time this is your chance to join in. Email coordinators@dsasf.org for more info or to join the Discord!
Reading Groups
EcoSoc Book Club: Silvia Federici’s Re-Enchanting the World
Join the Ecosocialist Committee’s book club on bi-weekly Mondays in March, with the third session on Monday, March 29, from 6 to 7 p.m. We’re reading and discussing Silvia Federici’s Re-enchanting the World: Feminism & the Politics of the Commons. This reading group is open to all. Register here today!
21st Century Socialism Reading Group
Come join your comrades on Tuesday, March 30 at 6:30 p.m. for a discussion on The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born: From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump and Beyond by Nancy Fraser! More details on registration to come.
Future Economies Reading Group: Commons-Based Peer Production
If, as Marx says, “slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine,” what forms of domination can be ended with the advent of global communication networks? This month the Future Economies Reading Group will study new modes of production enabled by new technologies. Join us on Tuesday, March 30, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
We will investigate a positive vision of a future centered around the redevelopment of the commons—imagine Wikipedia but for all of production. We’ll also read an introduction to McKenzie Wark’s theory of the Vectoralist Class, a new subset of the ruling class which draws its power from control overflows of information. Find the short readings and Zoom details here.
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