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THE MAGAZINE OF THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA • SUMMER 2020 • VOL. XLVIII NO. 1 • dsausa.org SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS FREE PUBLIC COLLEGE INCOME SECURITY MEDICARE FOR ALL FREEDOM FOR DETAINEES MORATORIUM ON EVICTIONS everywhere creating lists of people From the National Director and organizations to call on when your friends, neighbors, or someone you don’t know strikes for their safety or 'risis equals opportunity hazard pay. Because the strikes are &= 1%6-% 7:%68 condo work sites or UAW workers coming. They have already started. back to make cars that no one can buy. Here is a brief sampling of what nly a Police will continue violence as always your fellow DSAers are doing across crisis— in communities of color. And the virus the country to build grassroots working actual “O will spread, with a hospital system class power. or perceived—pro- decimated by decades of Republican duces real change. NEW ORLEANS DSA built a coali- and Democratic austerity cuts and re- When that crisis tion of unions and community structuring to maximize profi ts and a occurs, the actions groups to demand the conven- growing pool of patients without health that are taken de- tion center spend $100 million insurance— including 27 million who pend on the ideas for laid off hospitality workers. lost it since COVID-19 struck. that are lying The stage is set for a crisis of legiti- NORTH JERSEY DSA organized around. That, I believe, is our basic macy. It could allow us to build a new “phone zaps” and car caravan function: to develop alternatives to ex- world on the rubble of the old, if we protests demanding the local isting policies, to keep them alive and make the choice to fi ght for socialism. ICE detention center release de- available until the politically impossible But it will not happen naturally. tainees while also doing mutual becomes the politically inevitable.” Friedman’s ideological descendents are aid to provide food for hundreds This quote is not from Italian Marx- hard at work manufacturing consent. of families. ist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, but They say relief makes workers lazy, that LOS ANGELES DSA Ƽ lmed a di- rather our late arch nemesis, neoliberal we want to be the canaries in the coal rect action stunt at the Ritz Carl- economist Milton Friedman. He and his mines, that half measures are enough, ton with its 900 empty rooms acolytes were responsible for the mur- and that the government cannot afford and $270 million in taxpayer der of our comrades abroad and built to save our people, though it was able subsidies to highlight how the think tanks and astro turf operations at to hand trillions of dollars to corporate mayor made ultimately empty home for the same reason DSA has long interests. And when we cannot “save” promises to move unhoused fought to bring socialist ideas back to the global economy through sacrifi cing residents into hotels during CO- the center of political conversation in lives, hawks in both parties will defl ect VID-19. this country: Ideas have power. With the blame and push for war with China. help of Bernie Sanders and his millions From CHICO, CA to NYC, many Socialists have two tasks: to envi- of supporters, socialists are back. chapters are doing aid work sion the alternative world we can build Now a crisis is upon us, the scale of directly or via Solidarity Funds together, and to organize. which is almost unimaginable. Will we to raise and distribute relief. A vision of safety and abundance, of move in the direction of democratic so- TWIN CITIES DSA effectively in- cooperation and care means lifting up cialism, or barbarism? tegrated its aid work as a tactic workers demanding to make ventilators, I write this piece as the govern- to support those in need while farmers giving their produce and dairy ment is on the cusp of forcing millions also enlisting people to pressure to hungry people, and hospital workers of people back into danger, absolv- their local and statewide govern- providing care—all by printing money ing bosses of liability and accepting ments to halt evictions. the way most politicians seem happy to the coming deaths. In fact, the choice do for the already fi lthy rich. PHILADELPHIA and PHOENIX they prefer we make is between dying A fi ght to build that world means DSA organized call-Congress at work or starving at home. Donald joining mutual aid networks rooted in phone banks to push for the Trump’s horrifi c handling of the pan- our communities, organizing tenants to Emergency Health Care Guaran- demic will be compounded by a global withhold rent, fi nding creative ways to tee Act, empowering Medicare economic crisis whether or not we force pressure politicians for relief, or build- construction workers back to luxury ing support for our candidates. It means CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 Executive Editor: Maria Svart Founding Editor: Michael Harrington Editor: Maxine Phillips Democratic Socialists of America promotes a Editorial Team: Laura Colaneri, Christine humane international social order based on equitable Lombardi, Stephen Magro, Don McIntosh, distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy Christine Riddiough environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial Democratic Left (ISSN 1643207) is published quarterly at equality, and non-oppressive relationships. Equality, NPC Liaisons: Marianela D’Aprile and solidarity, and democracy can only be achieved through P.O. Box 1038, New York NY 10272. Periodicals postage paid at Tawny Tidwell international political and social cooperation aimed New York, NY (Publication No. 701-960). Cover Art: Val Ross, primroseworkshop.com at ensuring that economic institutions beneƼ t people. Subscriptions: $25 regular, $30 institutional. We are dedicated to building truly international social Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 1038, New Layout: Don McIntosh movements—of unions, environmentalists, feminists, York NY 10272. (212) 727-8610. Signed articles express the Book Review Editor: Stephen Magro and people of color—which together can elevate opinions of the authors and not necessarily the organization. Online Editor: Christine Lombardi global justice over brutalizing global competition. 4%+) 2 ()13'6%8-' 0)*8 7911)6 2020 )pidemics are powerful agents of change Yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox left behind improvements in government and health. &= J9(-8H ;%0Z)6 0)%:-88 %2( 0);-7 %. 0)%:-88 s it true that some clouds have silver linings? When it comes to epidem- Iics, the answer is yes. With a few notable exceptions, epidemic infectious diseases, even as they caused suffering and death, have enhanced government’s ability to control future outbreaks and protect the public’s health. The traditional examples of positive and long-term public health responses are yellow fever and cholera. These two diseases brought intermittent terror and death to U.S. cities in the 18th and 19th centuries. They also successfully stirred Boston Red Cross workers making anti-inƽ uenza masks in 1918. (National Archives) cities to spend money for needed, yet In 1947, when smallpox threatened ics wreaked in the past. COVID-19 has expensive, projects to tame the un- New York, the health commissioner exposed cracks in our public health sanitary urban environment, which was embarked on a public information cam- system that cannot manage disease test- thought to cause disease, such as sewer- paign that combined isolation of cases ing or even provide protective gear for age and water-supply systems and gar- with free vaccination for all New York- health workers. bage disposal works. Without the high ers. Frequent and honest multilingual As with past outbreaks, the corona- degree of fear engendered by the sud- messaging and equity in vaccine distri- virus epidemic exposes opposing social den onset of epidemics (as opposed to bution, with help from the U.S. Public and political forces. COVID-19 has endemic diseases such as tuberculosis), Health Service, led to public trust and produced a public health crisis in the lethargic city governments would never a just and effective intervention. People United States, which is ripe for positive have spent such large sums of money on waited patiently in long lines that reform, but it has also produced some projects of such magnitude. Epidemics wound around city streets, and within of the fi nger pointing toward Asians also increased the power of public of- weeks, 6,350,000 city residents were that could signal insidious inequities. fi cials to control infectious diseases by vaccinated and the epidemic averted. If historical precedent holds, we have allowing them to forcibly place patients The history of epidemics teaches us a chance to use this crisis for sweeping deemed dangerous to the public health two important lessons. First, because changes in public health institutions. We in isolation hospitals. It took the shock epidemics elicit fear and focus the pub- must seize this opportunity to mount of epidemics to force the changes. lic’s mind, they can energize govern- a concerted effort to use the public’s This power was not always used pos- ment actions. But second, those govern- fears and the focus generated by them to itively. During a smallpox epidemic in mental actions can elicit ethnic, class, promote new, fair, and just investments Milwaukee in 1894, for example, health and racial strife as “others” are identi- in public health programs. As we work offi cials forcibly seized children from fi ed as carriers of infection, as in the to create robust and equitable public their mothers’ arms in the immigrant Milwaukee example or when gays and health, we could fi nd a silver lining. sections of the city while allowing mid- Haitians were blamed for HIV/AIDS. dle-class, native-born families to harbor A movement to promote public health Judith Walzer Leavitt, professor their sick children in their own homes.