When will I be able to get the vaccine?

Privatized Healthcare System Leads to Fractured Vaccine Rollout

As of this writing, only 27% of California’s vaccines have been administered, putting it at the bottom of the states. Every delay in vaccination costs lives and pushes back the day when we can finally emerge from our shelter. So why is it going so agonizingly slow, especially in a city like San Francisco which prides itself on being tech-savvy and logistically efficient?

Read more in the SF Independent Journal’s story about the vaccine rollout process in SF.

Reports

DSA Member Alex Lee Elected to Represent California State Assembly District 25

Alex Lee was elected in November to represent District 25 and its 460,000 residents. As the youngest member of the assembly, at just 25 years old, and the only openly bisexual assemblymember, he is a candidate who has based his campaign around bringing a voice to the unheard. After surviving a nine-candidate primary election last March, Alex won his district by 73 percent of the vote, including part of the Silicon Valley. He ran as a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and did not accept corporate campaign contributions.

In this interview, Assemblyman Lee shares experiences from his campaign, his first actions in office, and more.

Dean Preston Weekly Office Update, Week of January 22nd, 2021

In this issue:

• Extending the Eviction Moratorium
• Prop I Budget Follow Through on the 27th
• DSA SF Members Chris Arvin and Emily Algire Appointed to Citizens’ Advisory Councils
• UCSF Parnassus Expansion – Regents Must Delay
• Article on Dean’s Fellowship Program Published in The Activist

Have an idea or want to schedule a meeting between your caucus or committee and Dean’s office? Write either PrestonStaff@sfgov.org or lexvonklark@gmail.com with details, mention you’re with DSA, and they would be happy to set up a meeting with you.

Events & Actions

January Chapter Meeting, Wednesday, January 27th, 6:15-8:30 pm

Our next chapter meeting will be this Wednesday, January 27th, at 6:15 pm. Join us to hear what our committees and working groups have been up to and how you can get involved. You’ll also have a chance to take part in the discussion of a Statewide Single-Payer Healthcare Campaign, the Afrosocialists Working Group Charter, a Temporary DSA SF Electoral Strategy Commission, and much, much more! You can RSVP for the Zoom meeting here. If you have any questions or concerns about voting eligibility, please reach out to eligibility@dsasf.org.

Socialists on the Job: A Cross Generation Conversation, Wednesday, January 27th, 4-6 pm

In the 1970s, many left organizations encouraged their members to get traditional (however they chose to define that) working-class jobs. They hoped to play a part in amping up class struggle, leading fights against bosses, and replacing bureaucratic union leaders. They also hoped to recruit workers to socialist politics and to transform groups rooted in the student movement into groups rooted in the working-class.

As a result, a few thousand former student radicals got jobs as miners, auto workers, steel workers, truck drivers, railroad workers and phone company technicians. Others took the same class-struggle outlook with them as they became public employees, such as teachers, social workers, or public transit workers.

Join DSA for a discussion with a few who participated in that process as they discuss their experiences, what they learned from them, how their groups were affected, and what lessons there might be for a new generation of radicals looking for ways to make their jobs places where they can fight for democracy, workers’ power, and socialism.

Education

The Socialist Awakening by John Judis

“The Socialist Awakening” by John Judis is one of a number of recent books considering the questions of imagining socialism in the modern world. We will take up this short book in three sessions on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. Reading discussions for this text will resume on February 2 and February 16. If interested, please register in advance. Persons new to socialism and/or DSA welcome.

In Case You Missed It

DSA SF Member Updates a Classic 

Missed Tyler B.’s performance at our October DSA SF meeting? Not to worry.

Check out this version of Phil Och’s song “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” updated for San Francisco in 2021, by DSA SF member Tyler B.! 

Comrades,

In less than 24 hours, an administration characterized by overt mendacity, cruelty, and incompetence will come to an end. But for those of us fighting for a socialist future, the struggle will not change. Racial justice is under assault from white supremacists, while standards and protections for labor are actively being eroded, as companies like Uber and Lyft pay for laws that circumvent victories that took decades of struggle to win. This was all true before the Trump administration, and it will still be true when Biden is sworn in as president. While it is a relief to have an administration that does not stake its claim to legitimacy on the support of white supremacy, we cannot expect a Biden administration to fight for the kind of justice we demand. So, we will continue to demand it. We will demand that the Biden administration close inhumane border camps, we will demand the end to the support of a devastating war on Yemen, and we will demand protections for our most vulnerable neighbors during a pandemic in which millions of United States citizens—so let’s make sure that on January 20 and beyond, our voices are heard.

Reports

Comrades Rally in Solidarity to Demand Justice for Jamaica Hampton

Last year, SFPD shot and nearly killed Jamaica Hampton, a man in crisis, and caused the amputation of his leg. After suffering this brutal and extrajudicial punishment at the hands of police, Jamaica is being put on trial again—this time at the hands of the criminal system. On January 11, the DSA Justice Committee joined the Do No Harm Coalition and Defund SFPD Now to demand that district attorney Chesa Boudin drop charges against Jamaica at a “Justice 4 Jamaica” event. Solidarity with Jamaica and his family and thank you to all comrades who have demanded justice.

Reports & Actions

? Intro to DSA SF

New to DSA SF and don’t know where to start? Our chapter will host an introductory meeting for all new members and potential new members on Wednesday, January 20 at 6:30 p.m. We will go over who we are, what we’re about, how we do things, and why we do them. RSVP for the Zoom meeting here.

January 25th: Take Action to Stop the War in Yemen

With the war approaching its sixth year, we must hold Biden to his pledge to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Their blockade and bombing campaign have devastated the country, leaving over 200,000 dead and over 85,000 children starved due to famine.
 
The Saudis, with US support, are committing war crimes, including the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. US corporations like Lockheed and Raytheon have made billions from the slaughter.

Join us in demanding that the new administration

• Stop foreign aggression on Yemen
• End weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and cease logistical cooperation on the war
• Lift the blockade on Yemen and open all land and seaports
• Restore and expand humanitarian aid for the people of Yemen
• Reverse the Houthis’ designation as a “foreign terrorist organization”

How you can help:

• Join the car caravan in SF. Meet at 12:00 p.m. at 444 Spear St.
• Call the Biden White House and join the phone blitz
• Join the global online event on January 25 
• Sign up here to help build January 25 and connect with the campaign 

Press for Single-Payer Healthcare in California

DSA SF, working with the Healthy California Now Coalition, is fighting to help win guaranteed comprehensive, high-quality healthcare for all Californians in 2021. The first tactic is calling upon Governor Newsom to fulfill his campaign promise to implement single-payer coverage in California by requesting federal funding for our state to do so. You can watch the “video petition,” read the demands, and sign at www.petition.healthcare.

Education

Red Start Educational Series – Two More Essays On Philosophy by Mao Zedong

For those who have already attended Intro to DSA SF (register here if you haven’t attended an Intro to DSA session, as it overlaps with this week’s discussion!), the Red Star caucus of DSA SF will be hosting a discussion of “On The Correct Handling Of Contradictions Among The People, and Where Do Correct Ideas Come From” by Mao Zedong.

In the first two essays of “Four Essays on Philosophy” that we read last week, we learned a framework for how theory and practice go together, and what a contradiction is. Mao expands on these ideas in the final two essays of this collection. Now that we know what contradictions are, how do we work with them? Find out, with the conclusion of our education sessions for “Four Essays On Philosophy” by Mao on Wednesday, January 20 at 6:30 p.m.

Register here!

*******

Red Start is a new education program from Red Star San Francisco, a revolutionary Marxist caucus of DSA SF. Every Wednesday (except when there’s a chapter meeting) we’ll be reading and discussing texts that are foundational to the socialist movement. These are texts that might be hard to work through alone, so we’re creating a space for us to read and discuss how we can apply them to the work that we do here in DSA SF. We’ll start with five key readings and move on to modules that relate to key themes that we see within the chapter and the broader world. We’ll make copies of the texts available and we highly encourage you to read along and comment in our collaborative Google Docs with key questions for discussion.

Future Economies Reading Group – tonight at 6:00 p.m.

At the first meeting of the Future Economies Reading Group, we will be joined by Ra Criscitiello, deputy director of research at the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), to discuss the Cooperative Economy Act (CEA). The CEA creates a new form of labor market intermediary, the Cooperative Labor Contractor (CLC). CLCs create a new employment paradigm where workers not only receive employment protections but also own and govern their workplaces. The CEA is a worker-centered response that offers both a sustainable long-term arrangement for formerly misclassified workers and accelerates their economic recovery during this difficult economic time.

The reading group will meet tonight at 6 p.m. online. Learn more or register for tonight’s session here!

The Socialist Awakening by John Judis

“The Socialist Awakening” by John Judis is one of a number of a recent books considering the questions of imagining socialism in the modern world. We will take up this short book in three sessions on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m., starting tonight and continuing on February 2 and February 16. If interested, please register in advance. The first session tonight will discuss the preface and first chapter. Persons new to socialism and/or DSA welcome.

Comrades,

Last week, we witnessed a fascist power grab that made the urgency of building an organized socialist movement ever clearer. Rightwing instigators stormed the nation’s Capitol building, showing how emboldened they’ve become. Law enforcement at the Capitol also demonstrated that they at best enable and condone the white supremacist violence on display and at worst actively celebrate and participate in it. Check out DSA National’s statement on the events.

Our response to fascism must be firm and swift, and it is clear that our elected officials are not sufficient to the task. We support our national organization’s We support Congresswoman Cori Bush’s action to expel GOP members who incited and encouraged right-wing violence, but these electoral changes are not enough. We want to be clear: The storming of the Capitol was not a unique aberration in American democracy – it was a bare expression of the white supremacist capitalism that lays at the foundation of our government.

It will not be enough to punish individual actors when the history of this nation was built upon the genocidal, settler colonialist dispossession of indigenous land and the exploitation of enslaved, immigrant, and waged labor. The entire structure of our political system encourages the inevitable capitalist consolidation of power and the inexorable slide towards fascism. The police do not protect us. They act as the enforcement arm of capital. Our government is not working for us. They serve at the behest of the ruling elite.

Power will not concede willingly. We must build a multiracial mass movement working together in order to win against these forces of capitalism. We must build alternative structures invested in our collective well being and not just the needs of the wealthy few. We must build a truly democratic future, which is necessarily a socialist future.

Society should reflect all our voices. To make that possible, we must meet our basic needs to create the freedom necessary for full political participation. We need food, housing, medical care, and a world without climate threat. Thank you for building with us. Thank you for standing with us against fascism, white supremacy, and capitalism. Thank you for being a part of our organization and working with us to make this future. We can win this world together.

-In solidarity-

Events & Actions

This Weekend: Direct Action Training

Want to learn how to plan and hold effective Direct Actions? Join our comrades at East Bay DSA on Saturday, January 16 and Sunday, January 17 from 2- 4:00 p.m. for a two-day direct action training. The content is spread across two days, so try to come to both. Register here. This event is open to all, so please invite your non-DSA friends from all over. If you have any questions, you can email Robb at robb@robb.cc.

January 25th: Take Action to Stop the War in Yemen

With the war approaching its sixth year, we must hold Biden to his pledge to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Their blockade and bombing campaign have devastated the country, leaving over 200,000 dead and over 85,000 children starved due to famine.

The Saudis with US support are committing war crimes, including the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. US corporations like Lockheed and Raytheon have made billions from the slaughter.

How you can help:

• Join the car caravan in SF. Meet at 12 Noon at 444 Spear St.
• Call the Biden White House and join the phone blitz – TBA
• Join the global online event on Jan 25
• Sign up here to help build Jan 25 and connect with the campaign

Support Emergency Workplace Organizing (EWOC)

The EWOC distributed organizing model relies on people like you who are fighting to win big demands right now. But if EWOC is to sustain this work over the next year, they need more than volunteers — they need to build a base of grassroots donors so that they can cover basic costs. If you’ve yet to share this campaign with friends, family, or colleagues, now’s your chance. Together, let’s bring in the resources we need so that we can head into 2021 stronger than ever. Emergency Workplace Organizing is a joint project between DSA’s DSLC branch, and the UE. Contributions to EWOC are tax-deductible.

Press for Single-payer Healthcare in California

DSA SF, working with the Healthy California Now Coalition, is fighting to help win guaranteed comprehensive, high-quality healthcare for all Californians in 2021. The first tactic is calling upon Governor Newsom to fulfill his campaign promise to implement single-payer coverage in California by requesting federal funding for our state to do so. You can watch the “video petition,” read the demands, and sign at www.petition.healthcare.

Education

Red Start Educational Series – Mao Zedong: On Practice and On Contradiction

Are we not reading enough? Or are we reading too much? What’s the relation between theory and practice? What’s the point of reading theory anyways? Mao Zedong has some ideas on how to answer these questions in his essay On Practice. In its companion piece, On Contradiction, Mao writes his major essay on dialectical materialism in order to challenge dogmatism within the Chinese Communist Party. We’ll be using these two pieces to see how treating socialism as a science applies to the work we do as organizers in the US today.

Register at https://bit.ly/redstartreg.

Future Economies Reading Group

At the first meeting of the Future Economies Reading Group in January, we will be joined by Ra Criscitiello, deputy director of research at the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), to discuss the Cooperative Economy Act (CEA). The CEA creates a new form of labor market intermediary, the Cooperative Labor Contractor (CLC). CLCs create a new employment paradigm where workers not only receive employment protections but also own and govern their workplaces. The CEA is a worker-centered response that offers both a sustainable long-term arrangement for formerly misclassified workers and accelerates their economic recovery during this difficult economic time.

The reading group will meet Tuesday, January 19 at 6 p.m. online. Details can be found at https://futureeconomiesreadinggroup.github.io/2021-january.

The Socialist Awakening by John Judis

“The Socialist Awakening” by John Judis is one of a number of a recent books considering the questions of imagining socialism in the modern world. We will take up this short book in three sessions on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m., January 19th, February 2nd, &16th. If interested, please register in advance. The first session will discuss the preface and first chapter. Persons new to socialism and/or DSA welcome.

Comrades, 

Happy New Year! Can we be real with you for a second? 2020 was HARD. Within our state, as well as nationally and globally, we faced new and challenging threats. A global pandemic cast its long shadow over us, highlighting the inequities of wealth and health that we have seen for so long. Alt-right groups were bolstered and fueled by our nation’s leadership, and posed dangers to those fighting for justice for Black lives in the wake of brutal and senseless acts against humanity by the state, as well as those fighting to ensure access to the electoral process. Here in San Francisco, these challenges were amplified, as our elected leaders denied moderate limits on policing and told us that pandemic housing for our unhoused was “expiring.”

And last, but certainly not least, many among us have been struggling with job loss, and for those who were lucky enough to obtain unemployment, that may now have expired — and now we have our single-payment $600 “stimulus” checks, which, for San Franciscans, might cover a fraction of rent for a single month, leaving no money for food, transportation, or other costs of living. It is not enough to survive.

And you, DSA SF, pulled together, pushed back, and said, what? That the people united can never be defeated. In 2020 we saw more of you more mobilized where our attention is needed the most. We figured out how to run smooth and consistent meetings — for our chapters and committees. Many cross-chapter meetings allowed voices across a multitude of disciplines and perspectives to be heard. New initiatives across housing, justice, elections, and many others came to the forefront throughout the year. Our Healthcare Committee was re-formed and is building strong statewide ties. And, there’s a lot more going on that we haven’t included here — the newsletter would be too long for inboxes! We feel tremendous gratitude for all that you do, each and every one of you. And your steering committee has faith that we, DSA SF, will carry this momentum into 2021.

Several cross-chapter projects are aiming to enhance our interconnectedness so that we can advance collectively, including the formation of labor circles (including an unemployment council) and neighborhood affiliate groups. These models have served leftists in other spaces (including, recently, other DSA chapters) well, and we hope they will enable you to be more deeply engaged with organizing work that applies more specifically to you.

We are organizing our first General Meeting in several years, so that members can be more directly involved in the structure, strategy, and direction-setting of the chapter, and to facilitate democracy. We are continuing to engage across statewide coalitions, to plan more coordinated activity with chapters across California.

Hotels Not Hospitals is continuing to house the unhoused; as the pandemic surge rages on post-holiday, please consider donating if you have the resources.

The national Emergency Workplace Organizing project, which is a joint operation of DSLC and UE, has been operating on a shoestring budget and is looking for support. Please consider donating. Additional localization, to tailor outreach and support to the working people of the communities of current EWOC organizers, is a goal of this project in 2021.

Take some chances to grow your leadership skills in 2021 by taking on a project, stepping up in a small section or group, or taking a short course in one of several flavors of organizing this year. It takes a lot of hands to sustain our efforts!

It is up to us, individually and collectively, if we are to create the next socialist revival, and we can tell that many among our ranks are energized to take leadership as we move into this next chapter. Now, let’s get out there and kick some (metaphorical) butt!

Events & Actions

? EBDSA Direct Action Training

Want another chance to learn how to plan and hold effective Direct Actions? Join our comrades at East Bay DSA Saturday, January 16 from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, January 17 from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. for a two-day direct action training. EBDSA has already held direct action trainings in October, November, and December – if you didn’t end up making it to those trainings, EBDSA are holding another one, and would love to see you there. Maybe you did make it and want to tell your friends! These very exciting training sessions have been pretty popular, and you don’t want to miss it. The content is spread across two days, so try to come to both.

Click here to register. This event is open to all, so please invite your non-DSA friends from all over, including far-off lands like SF and the South Bay. If you have any questions, you can email Robb at robb@robb.cc.

Bay Area Car Caravan for Yemen

Join us on Monday, January 25, at a location to be announced here, for a car caravan protest against the war on Yemen. The war is only possible because Western countries — and the United States and the United Kingdom in particular — continue to arm Saudi Arabia and provide military, political, and logistical support for the war. The disaster in Yemen is man-made. It is caused by the war and blockade. It can be ended.

Over 115 organizations from the US, UK, Yemen, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and across the world, are coming together to call for an end to the war in Yemen and solidarity with the people of Yemen.

We demand that right now our governments:

• Stop foreign aggression on Yemen
• Stop weapons and war support for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
• Lift the blockade on Yemen and open all land and seaports
• Restore and expand humanitarian aid for the people of Yemen.

We call on people around the Bay Area to join our car caravan protest against the war on January 25, 2021, just days after the U.S. presidential inauguration and the day before Saudi Arabia’s “Davos in the Desert” Future Investment Initiative. The Day Of Action has been endorsed by the DSA International Committee and DSA SF. The Bay Area action is anchored by the Yemeni Alliance Committee, Yemeni Freedom Council, AROC, DSA SF, and the SF Bay Area Anti-War Network. 

Reports

UCSF Development

UCSF has plans to add another 1.5 million square feet to its Parnassus Heights campus, bringing nearly 1,000 units of housing, offices, and research facilities, and a new hospital expected to open in 2030 to increase patient capacity at the foot of Mount Sutro south of Golden Gate Park. As a state entity, UCSF only has to get approval from the UC Board of Regents to expand, and currently wants to push this plan through without any oversight or input from the SF Board of Supervisors. The city has negotiated an agreement, purportedly to secure benefits for the community, but the terms of which the community has yet to see. We need to make sure that this giveaway to big developers also gives to affordable housing community benefits and transit improvements in our city! While we don’t have the date of the hearing formally set yet, once it becomes available we’ll immediately share it with the chapter. Hope to see many of you there!

Hotels Not Hospitals Demands No More Evictions

Hotels not Hospitals held an action Sunday December 27th to protest for NO MORE EVICTIONS of human beings from any shelter. Together, we have demonstrated that the people of San Francisco demand that the City work for PEOPLE not PROFITS. Huge thank you to everyone who joined us for and a special shout out to our comrades at #DefundSFPDNow for their support and solidarity. If you missed it, check out the speeches and art install on our Instagram!

In order to put our demands into action, you can do the following to support Hotels not Hospitals:

1. Follow Hotels not Hospitals on social media (Twitter | Instagram | Facebook).
2. Donate (CashApp | GoFundMe).
3. Share our work with your network (click-to-post templates).
4. Join the movement by filling out our interest form. Sign up to organize with us, receive alerts for upcoming protest actions, or get general updates about what we’re doing!
5. Donate directly to HnH member Rosibel, who spoke at our action. (CashApp | GoFundMe).

Our hearts are full and we are ready to fight for more. The movement continues!