Democratic Socialists had a good day yesterday

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 11/06/2019 - 4:30pm

It's not a surprise when a democratic socialist wins an election in San Francisco, but what about Bozeman, Montana?

November 5th made it official. Bozeman is once again a mecca of socialism due to the City Commission election. ‘
It’s only a matter of time before straws will not be outlawed in Bozeman.

Not since the days of Steve Kirchhoff, Marsha Youngman and Joe Frost have we had such committed leftists running the politics of Bozeman.

I've been to Bozeman many decades ago. I just can't picture it having anything to do with socialism.
In mid-2016 the DSA has less than two dozen elected officials and barely 10,000 members.
As of May, they have about 95 elected officials, from local seats to Congress, and over 50,000 members.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, DSA candidates have had more success in purple states and cities than in blue ones.

Of the baker’s dozen candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America’s national committee, at least three won their seats, in cities like Philadelphia and Charlottesville, with a fourth on the cusp of eking out a victory in San Francisco. The victories — several of which were in purple states with a record of supporting more-moderate candidates — are both symbolic and historic for a surging group that has sometimes struggled to fully execute its organizing power.
...Another DSA candidate also picked up a win on the city council in Charlottesville, Virginia — the site of the violent neo-Nazi and white supremacist rally in 2017 that left a 32-year-old woman dead. The candidate, Michael Payne, is a longtime Charlottesville DSA member who has helped organize counterprotests against the white supremacist group led by Richard Spencer.
...DSA members not endorsed by the national committee also won city council seats in Medford and Lansing; in Virginia — where Democrats won a majority of seats in the state legislature and turned every branch of the state blue for the first time in 26 years — delegate Lee Carter, a DSA member, won reelection.

Carter defeated the most powerful Republican in the Virginia legislature in 2017.

The most interesting victory of all was in the Philadelphia City Council.

Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks on Tuesday scored an unprecedented victory for a Philadelphia City Council at-large seat effectively reserved for non-Democrats, becoming the first candidate from outside the two major parties to win a seat in the 100 years since Council adopted a modern legislative structure.
“For the first time in seven decades, we broke the GOP. … We beat the Democratic establishment,” Brooks told a raucous crowd of supporters. “They said a black single mom from North Philly wasn’t the right person, but we have shown them that we are bigger than them.”

When she says "We beat the Democratic establishment", she means it.
This was the headline at the Intercept one day earlier.

Over the last few months, the city’s bosses have threatened to remove party committee members who back the third-party candidates from their posts within the party. (It’s unclear what steps the party would take to confront rank-and-file or at-large officials who don’t hold leadership positions but decided to back non-Democrats. Ward leaders risk losing their titles.)
...The twist is that Brooks and O’Rourke are each running for two at-large seats reserved for minority parties — meaning that Democrats aren’t eligible for either one. What it comes down to, in the view of the Democratic establishment, is that voting for independents could siphon votes away from five Democratic candidates running for blue at-large seats...
Democrats also appear to be applying the policy against supporting non-Democratic candidates selectively. Outgoing Council Member Jannie Blackwell, a high-ranking Democrat who also serves as leader for the 46th Ward, encouraged committee members at an event last month to support At-Large Republican Council Member David Oh for reelection Tuesday.

Once again, the Democratic Party establishment would rather see a Republican win than a leftist.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 11/06/2019 - 5:26pm

DSA spreading

fanning out

Its new recruits are fanning out across states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with a focus on people who don’t typically vote. They’re making a case for rebalancing the U.S. economy after decades of widening inequality -– also a theme of the Sanders and Warren campaigns.
Those regions have seen manufacturing jobs disappear and incomes stagnate, making them fertile ground for the DSA, according to Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He says the president himself benefited from the same discontent in 2016.

“When Bernie and Trump spoke in the Rust Belt, they pinched a nerve that I haven’t seen pinched before: ‘I know your pain, and how that pain has been ignored by Republicans and Democrats’,’’ Kaboub says.

Chicago

Meanwhile, Chicago DSA has used its organizing efforts to help elect six members to the City Council in a series of elections that have expanded its power in Chicago and effectively moved the body further left.
Following the April elections of Rossana Rodríguez-Sánchez (33rd), Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), Jeanette Taylor (20th) and Andre Vasquez (40th), members of the group now make up more than one-tenth of the council. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) and Daniel La Spata (1st), who won their council races outright in February, are also aligned with the DSA.

Green Corn Rebellion

Seminole County was also the center of the last armed and organized insurrection against the U.S. government. This dramatic, quixotic uprising of impoverished tenant farmers—mostly white, but including African-Americans and Native Americans—made front-page news across the nation in the summer of 1917, but is now almost forgotten, even where it took place.
...
In early August 1917, several hundred rebels gathered here by the farm of John Spears, who had hoisted the red flag of socialist revolution. Socialists are about as common as Satanists in rural Oklahoma today, and regarded in much the same light, but in the early 20th century, poor farmers flocked to the anti-capitalist creed. Most of the men on Spears Mountain, and at other rebel gathering places, were members of the Working Class Union (WCU), a secret socialist organization that vowed to destroy capitalism as well as resist the military draft for World War I. The rebels planned to rout the forces of law and order in Oklahoma, and then march to Washington, D.C., where they would stop the war, overthrow the government and implement a socialist commonwealth. The rebel leaders had assured their followers that two million working men would rise up with them, forming an unstoppable army.

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Wed, 11/06/2019 - 8:25pm

Satanists

@gjohnsit

Socialists are about as common as Satanists in rural Oklahoma today, and regarded in much the same light,

I wonder what Lucien Greaves thinks of these developments....

fanning out Its new recruits are fanning out across states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia, with a focus on people who don’t typically vote. They’re making a case for rebalancing the U.S. economy after decades of widening inequality -– also a theme of the Sanders and Warren campaigns. Those regions have seen manufacturing jobs disappear and incomes stagnate, making them fertile ground for the DSA, according to Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He says the president himself benefited from the same discontent in 2016. “When Bernie and Trump spoke in the Rust Belt, they pinched a nerve that I haven’t seen pinched before: ‘I know your pain, and how that pain has been ignored by Republicans and Democrats’,’’ Kaboub says. Chicago Meanwhile, Chicago DSA has used its organizing efforts to help elect six members to the City Council in a series of elections that have expanded its power in Chicago and effectively moved the body further left. Following the April elections of Rossana Rodríguez-Sánchez (33rd), Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th), Jeanette Taylor (20th) and Andre Vasquez (40th), members of the group now make up more than one-tenth of the council. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) and Daniel La Spata (1st), who won their council races outright in February, are also aligned with the DSA. Green Corn Rebellion Seminole County was also the center of the last armed and organized insurrection against the U.S. government. This dramatic, quixotic uprising of impoverished tenant farmers—mostly white, but including African-Americans and Native Americans—made front-page news across the nation in the summer of 1917, but is now almost forgotten, even where it took place. ... In early August 1917, several hundred rebels gathered here by the farm of John Spears, who had hoisted the red flag of socialist revolution. Socialists are about as common as Satanists in rural Oklahoma today, and regarded in much the same light, but in the early 20th century, poor farmers flocked to the anti-capitalist creed. Most of the men on Spears Mountain, and at other rebel gathering places, were members of the Working Class Union (WCU), a secret socialist organization that vowed to destroy capitalism as well as resist the military draft for World War I. The rebels planned to rout the forces of law and order in Oklahoma, and then march to Washington, D.C., where they would stop the war, overthrow the government and implement a socialist commonwealth. The rebel leaders had assured their followers that two million working men would rise up with them, forming an unstoppable army.

—

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 11/06/2019 - 8:26pm

Harlan county miners win a small victory

I wrote about this last month

last week it got settled

Coal miners in Harlan County, Ky., have won a historic victory for more than 1,000 workers fired in July by the bankrupt Blackjewel coal company. In an unusual bankruptcy settlement, the Harlan County miners, as well as others in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia, were awarded $5.47 million in wages the company owed them. Usually workers fired by bankrupt companies get little or nothing.
This victory was not at all based on the generosity or good will of a federal judge, but solely on the willingness of the Harlan County miners to fight back against Blackjewel. These miners had no union to back them — in fact, there are no union miners left in Kentucky. What the workers did have was the backing of family, friends and communities surrounding the shutdown mines. And because of social media, their struggle was broadcast around the U.S. and the globe.

A few days after the July 29 firings, Blackjewel, along with CSX railroad, tried to move a $1 million coal train off mine property. Miners heard about this brazen act, and five of them, connecting through social media, went to and stood on the tracks as the train bore down on them. Warned by company security guards that if they didn’t allow the train through, guards would call the cops and have them arrested, the angry miners stayed on the tracks. When the Harlan County Sheriff’s Department came, followed by the Kentucky State Police, the miners agreed to move — not off, just farther down the tracks.

The miners took photos, texted and called fellow miners, family and friends. As supporters by the carload arrived, the miners kept saying they would leave, but only moved farther down the tracks. Finally, a crowd of people stood on the tracks. The cops pulled back.