- Riverhead electsSuffolk DSA member

- Peru Update-On the Horizon

- Brentwood FoodForest Planning- COVID Update- NY LegislativeSession Results

- Record Drought- J&J OpioidSettlement

- Bread & Roses- Acknowledgements

& Attributions - Crossword

This Week inWorking Class

History:

ISSUE 7

June 27, 2021

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Last month, Suffolk DSA member Colin Palmer was elected as thenewest member of the Riverhead Central School District Board ofEducation. Colin is the first member of the chapter to win electedoffice in Suffolk County. His three year term will begin on July 1,2021. Colin ran on a platform of classroom democratization, increasedaccess to the arts and humanities, and full support for EnglishLanguage Learner (ELL) students. He defeated two candidatesbacked by the right-wing group ‘Moms for Liberty’. Colin said hewas driven to run for the Riverhead’s Board of Education after thedistrict shuttered its Classics program. “Public education is at a crossroads,” Colin said. “At a time whenreactionary forces attempt to dismantle programs on diversity,equity, and inclusion, I will not back down in fighting for educationthat is grounded in critical thinking and a deeper understanding ofour communities. Our students deserve to graduate fromRiverhead schools as well informed global citizens. That is my goalover the next three years.” The Suffolk Police Benevolent Association backed candidates whoaimed to expand School Resource Officer programs into middleschools and lost across most of the County. Dark Money networksare funding campaigns against critical-race theory and pandemicprotection in schools. These astroturf campaigns are carried outto preserve a system where racial segregation and propertyvalues determine quality of education on Long Island and stealhumanity away from our youth.

Suffolk DSA's first elected

6/21/1949: In NYC Seventhousand of breweryworkers won their 82-daystrike. They won morebase pay, increased nightpay, more holiday, shorterhours, better safety,employer-fundedpensions, better unionrights and an additionalworker on each truck.

“Colin’s win is part of the process ofdemocratizing our schools,” Suffolk DSA co-chair Tim Karcich said.“Now, the work of ourchapter and school board trustees like Colinis to advocate with and support students inthe struggle for a more just education. We arelooking forward to a better future forRiverhead and Suffolk County as a whole.” Suffolk DSA will begin to find potential schoolboard candidates who support curriculaoriented toward racial and social justice andaim to provide effective and democraticmanagement of their school districts. “I am confident there are more people likeColin in Suffolk County who are ready to getinvolved with their local school boards,”Electoral Working Group Chair Christian Araossaid. “It’s on us to give them the support theyneed to win their elections and governeffectively.”

-You can find out more about Colin and his role astrustee at: facebook.com/votecolinpalmer

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In Peru, socialist Pedro Castillo has declaredvictory after a final count of the June 6thelection showed him with a 44,000-vote leadover right-wing politician Keiko Fujimori, thedaughter of Peru’s imprisoned formerdictator. Fujimori is claiming fraud without offering anyevidence. She is calling for hundreds ofthousands of votes, mostly from poor Andeanregions, to be annulled. Thousands have takento the streets in Lima to protest againstFujimori’s claims. Fears are growing thatsupporters of Fujimori will stage a coup toprevent her rival, the socialist teacher andunion leader Pedro Castillo, from takingpower. Castillo has promised to raise taxes on Peru’slucrative copper mining industry to fundhealthcare and education initiatives and toreduce Peru’s vast income inequality. Hiscampaign slogan: “No more poor in a richcountry.”

Peru elects Socialist President

Wednesdays - 7PM (NCDSA)

- Brentwood Food Forest

Thursdays - 8PM

- Housing Justice WG

Fridays - 5PM

- BLARG

Saturdays 9:30AM Comrades @

- Bethel Hobbs Farm

Centereach

7/3 Saturday - 11AM

- Interdependence Day

7/4, 7/18 Sunday - 5PM

Political Education

7/5 Monday - 8PM

- Membership & Outreach Cm

7/9 Friday - 7PM (NCDSA)

- Ecosocialist WG

7/11 Sunday - 3PM

Community and Culture

7/12 Monday - 6PM

- Mutual Aid WG

7/14 Wednesday - 7:30PM

- Electoral WG

7/17 Saturday - 2PM

- Chapter Meeting

7/19 Monday - 8PM

- Music Videos On Mute

The Mutual Aid Community Food Forest on the Sisters of SaintJoseph's Campus in Brentwood will serve as a public outdoorgathering space for visitors and volunteers to enjoy the manygifts of nature. The space will rely on the principles of a “foodforest”: a garden of perennial trees and shrubs with edible andmedicinal benefits, whose design mimics a natural forest. Once grown, the site would provide edible plants such as fruits,nuts, and herbs for harvest. By working with Brentwood’s localcommunity, we hope to empower a movement toward foodsovereignty within the community at large, as well as a restoredsense of connection to the land. Our intention is to provide a grounding environment forhealing, contemplation, and putting wise environmentalstewardship into practice. We see this project as part of aholistic response to the many social and ecological crises ofour time. Call to Action: all gardeners and would-be gardeners!Nassau DSA Mutual Aid Working Group (MAWG) is in theprocess and planning stages of designing the Brentwood FoodForest and they want to collaborate with more comrades,especially in Suffolk DSA and in the community of Brentwood!We need volunteers for a variety of tasks — prior gardeningexperience is not required. This is a great opportunity for bothexperienced and novice gardeners to get involved with thisproject! We meet virtually on Wednesday nights @ 7pm. Please follow Nassau DSA's calendar for meeting link:https://www.nassaudsa.com/calendar

Upcoming Events -https://suffolkdsa.org/#events

On the Horizon

COVID-19 Update

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Brentwood Food Forest

On 6/25/21, 32 #COVID19 cases were reported (0.4%); 2 werehospitalized (total 43), 0 died, and 6 were discharged; 58.9% ofSuffolk's population of 1,481,093 have received at least onedose of COVID vaccine, 54.0% have completed their vaccineseries

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Local Legislative Results:Passed

Less is More: Community Supervision Revocation Reform ActNY currently reincarcerates more people for non-criminal technical violations of parole thanany other state in the nation, with deep racial disparities associated with the practice. In NewYork City, for example, Black people are reincarcerated for technical parole violations at 12times the rate of white people, and Black people statewide are 5 times more likely to beincarcerated for a technical parole violation. Passing the Less is More Act represent a major step forward for transformative parolereform, fighting to end mass incarceration, advancing racial equity, and strengthening publicsafety in New York- Restrict the use of incarceration for non-criminal technical violations of parole. - Bolster due process. Rather than being automatically detained in local jails, people accusedof a non-criminal technical violation will be issued a written notice of violation with a date toappear. Hearings will be held in the community, in a location accessible to the public, insteadof inside jails, as is current practice.- Require speedy hearings. Persons under community supervision shall be afforded a speedyadjudicatory hearing upon an alleged violation of their conditions of release. Hearings forpeople on parole who are in the community will be completed within 55 days. Hearings forpeople detained will be completed within 35 days, rather than taking up to 105 days as is thecase today. - Provide good time credits: Most people on parole will be eligible to earn a 30-day “earnedtime credits” reduction in their community supervision period for every 30-day period inwhich they do not violate a condition of supervision. Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA)- Provides a mechanism for NY state to finance the purchase and conversion of distressedhotels and vacant commercial office space by nonprofit organizations for the purpose ofincreasing affordable housing across the state - This new affordable housing must be made available to low-income households and peoplewho were previously homeless. Units must be rent stabilized in localities that have adoptedor opted in to the rent stabilization law. At least 50% of the units will be set aside forindividuals who experienced homelessness immediately prior to applying for converted units;the other 50% will have an 80% Area Median Income cap (AMI) for tenants, provided that theaverage income of all tenants in the projects does not exceed 50% AMI. The program wouldensure prevailing wages for building service employees in projects located in NYC conformingto New York City, parallel to the City’s current requirements. Supportive housing projects andsmall converted properties would be exempt from the prevailing wage requirement.

The West Coast of the U.S. is in the grips of an unprecedented drought that has seenvoracious wildfires and record temperatures set across the region. Around 98% of the Western U.S. is experiencing some form of drought, according to the U.S.Drought Monitor, with 26% experiencing exceptional drought, the highest level in the USDM’sranking system. These represent historic highs for the region, and those numbers arecontributing to what looks to be another devastating wildfire season through areas that werescorched just a year prior.Adding to record dryness, cities in the Pacific Northwest have hit sweltering temperatures inthe midst of a heatwave. Over the past 100 years, Seattle has seen temperatures exceed 100degrees Fahrenheit just five times—two of those times came this past week, and another oneseems imminent in the week to come. Temperatures in Portland, OR hit 112 degrees onSunday, shattering the all-time record for the city that had been set just a day before. Bread & Roses

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May Pass YetClean Slate needs revisions but Parole Reform (elder parole, fair & timely parole) - did notpass, but more to come, call for special session to pass.

Did not PassNYHA, No BPRA, No CCIA. NYHA will basebuild for the next six months starting with actions in support of retiredmunicipal workers who are being pushed off their Medicare Advantage plan this month. Base Building around public power will continue as we look for more LI support for BPRA andbegin to draft the Utility Democracy Act. These Bills would set the framework for statewidepublic management and ownership of the electric grid and would be the base of establishinghow a municipalized LIPA would operate. The chapter is reconsidering how it will campaignfor the CCIA based on revisions that may be necessary.

The simple narrative taught in every history class is demonstrably false andpedagogically classist.

Don't you know? The world is built with blood! And genocide and exploitation!

The global network of capital essentially functions to separate the worker from themeans of production.

And the FBI killed Martin Luther King!Excerpt from "How the World Works" - by Bo Burnham from Inside, 2021

Local Legislative Results (Continued)

Western U.S. Suffering Historic Drought

Food Insecurity is bad and only getting worse. Approximately 283,700 people will suffer from hunger on Long Island at some point this year.Approximately 182,000 people will go hungry on Long Island tonight! Please check out and getinvolved with Community Solidarity who do food shares in Suffolk, Nassau, and Brooklyn everyweek:

Visit communitysolidarity.org to get involved.

Feed our community

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Saturdays: WyandanchSundays: Hempstead & BedStuy

Tuesdays: Huntington StationThursdays: Farmingville

The mutual aid nonprofit Community Solidarity (CS) is seeking donations to go towards

purchasing a new van to aid in its mission to rescue food and give it out for free across Long

Island.

Since it was started just over 15 years ago, Community Solidarity has grown into the largest

vegetarian hunger relief organization in the country. The organization operates by rescuing

food from groceries and other donors that would otherwise be tossed out due to excess

supply with an army of volunteers coordinating pickups. In 2019 alone, CS managed to

rescue nearly 10 million pounds of food and give it out to thousands of people for free at

food shares in Huntington Station, Farmingville, Hempstead, Wyandanch and Bedford-

Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

About one third of all Community Solidarity’s food is rescued by its CEO, Jon Stepanian, and

loaded into a van that serves as the nonprofit’s rolling base of operations. Since the group’s

van became suddenly inoperable back in May, Community Solidarity has relied on rentals

while it tries to raise money to purchase a new vehicle.

Anybody who wants to contribute to the fundraiser can do so by donating via this link.

Besides monetary contributions, CS also accepts donations of non-frozen, non-meat food

products, and could always use volunteers to help conduct its food shares.

Community Solidarity Needs Funds For Food Rescue Van

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Western U.S. Suffering Historic Drought (Cont.)Nine states in the West, including California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,

Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, are gripped in the midst of a drought that has been

classified as D2 (severe) to D4 (exceptional). This is creating conditions that are ripe for

wildfires in a region that has been devastated in recent years by historic blazes that burned

more than 10.2 million acres, cost almost $20 billion, and directly led to 47 deaths with

another 1,200-3,000 indirect deaths from smoke inhalation. The record drought is also

expected to further exacerbate crop and pasture loss, and add to water emergencies. A

stark example is showing in Lake Oroville, California’s second largest water reservoir, where

the water levels are so depleted that the hydro-powered Edward Hyatt Power Plant is likely

to be forced to close for the first time since it opened in 1967. The record heat dome over

the West is considered to be a major factor, as records either have already or are expected

to be broken during what is being forecast as an extended heat wave. It is believed that

climate change is a primary reason for the heat dome.

The need for climate action at all levels could not be clearer. This makes the inertia at both

the federal level, where climate action is being stripped out of the infrastructure package

currently being negotiated, and the state level, where no legislative climate action has been

undertaken in the two years since the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act

was passed, all the more dismaying. At this point, climate inaction has to be considered the

same as climate denial.

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay a settlement of up to $230 million over its role infueling the opioid crisis - the epidemic linked to nearly 500,000 deaths over the last twodecades. Attorney General Letitia James announced that as part of the deal with New York,J&J will no longer manufacture or sell opioids in the U.S. and that the funds from thesettlement will go toward prevention, treatment and education efforts in the state. Thesettlement also allows J&J to escape a major opioid trial starting this week in Long Island. Thesettlement is "not an admission of liability or wrongdoing by the company," Johnson &Johnson said. Drug companies see settling as in their best interests as it would likely not costas much as losing in court repeatedly. The settlement and similar lawsuits have drawncomparisons to the multistate litigation against tobacco companies in the 1990s.

Johnson & Johnson settle to avoid Long Island Opioid Trial

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What to do when the system is riggedDSA National Director

DSA National Director

Have you checked out the 24/7 Virtual Co-Working Space! Studying or working from homewithout peers or coworkers can have negative impacts on our mental health andconcentration. If this is something you've been struggling with, hop into this room any timeyou want while you work. You can chat with other comrades, or work quietly with the comfortof a collective energy. Anyone is welcome, you don't necessarily have to be working onanything at the time. See you there! https://meet.jit.si/247SCDSAcowork

Are you surprised to hear that billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk use perfectly legal

tricks to avoid paying taxes on their astronomical wealth? According to a treasure trove (no

pun intended) of IRS data obtained by ProPublica, the working class bears a double burden of

subsidizing the owning class — with our labor, and by paying higher tax rates. Shocking!

Or is it? We already know that the owning class structures the entire economy to squeeze the

rest of us, like how Republicans in half the country are ending pandemic unemployment

benefits. Since the bipartisan handling of COVID-19 has killed nearly 600,000 people in the

U.S., according to the CDC, and University of Washington researchers say the numbers are

closer to 900,000. That means there are fewer workers to fill jobs, which puts each of us in a

stronger negotiating position to demand better wages and working conditions. The bosses

can’t have that!

That’s why DSA needs YOU. We see what’s happening, and we know nothing will change

unless WE make it change. We’re not the only ones who know the system is stacked against

us, but we are the ones with a vision of taking on the billionaire class and grassroots chapters

across the country to do it.

Look to our comrades in Peru for inspiration! Using the simple slogan “no more poor people

in a rich country,” left wing teacher and union leader Pedro Castillo won more votes for

president than the powerful daughter of a right-wing political dynasty who is out on bail

pending a money-laundering investigation.

The capitalist class everywhere rigs the political and the economic systems for their own

profit. But the working class can fight back, and we can win.

Maria Svart, DSA National Director

We often hear about decolonizing, but what is it? A very simplified definition is that it aprocess of removing the very harmful western and white supremacist ideologies brought bywhite settlers that permeate every aspect of our society. What can we as white people in thisall too segregated area do to hold ourselves accountable and move forward with our Black,Brown, and Indigenous comrades and fight for a better world? A small way to start is a landacknowledgement. We offer an acknowledgement of both the historical and present day oppression; SuffolkCounty itself is situated within a network of historical and contemporary relationships withIndigenous tribes and communities. As Suffolk DSA doesn't operate out of any one town,village or hamlet; the county itself is a part of Long Island (known as Sewanhacky,Wamponomon and Paumanake). Most of the earlier historians describe thirteen tribes orgroups having existed on Long Island when the first white settlers arrived. We honor all thosewho were and ARE still here. But a land acknowledgement needs to go further than just words; actions are needed; notonly in our organizing spaces but across every aspect in our society. It is within Suffolk DSA's responsibility to acknowledge and learn more about Nativepeoples on LI and the county’s, state’s, and federal government’s dealings with them (both inthe distant past as well as currently) and to stand with them in their struggles. Our commitment is to our relationships with our Indigenous comrades and the Nativecommunities here through radical solidarity with the Indigenous populations and Nationsboth locally and across Turtle Island (also known as North America).

Here are some causes you can donate to directly to support our indigenous comrades:Help Lisa and Lily Rebuild: https://www.gofundme.com/f/2b64xbt89c Rammapough family GFM: https://www.gofundme.com/f/2b258uyjaoShinnecock Nation GFM: https://www.gofundme.com/f/p72wbj?qid=155dafa10d06bfa8e80227df08f5fddb Ma’s House GFM: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mas-house-studio?qid=55867d5473cceb852678cc0e88add622

(LI Tribal Nation info gratefully gathered from jeremynative.com/onthissite and thisacknowledgement advised and looked over by our Indigenous comrade Matt B.)

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

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Suffolk Rose is for us and by us: we want YOU to contribute; what are the issues locally,nationally, and globally? We depend on members and comrades to tell us what they'reinterested in. If you feel the call, or if you have a comrade who might want to submit to SuffolkRose, check out our submission form here: https://bit.ly/SCDSA-SuffolkRoseSubmissionForm

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Across1. Invented the personal carbon footprint, to shift global warming blame from oil companiesonto consumers3. New York Court suspends his law license over 2020 Election Lies5. In 1971, he led a one-man filibuster to protest the Vietnam-era draft and he read into theCongressional Record 4,100 pages of the 7,000-page leaked document known as the PentagonPapers9. Connects people, creates green union jobs, could get you from Albany to NYC in 36 minutes,and we can build it across the country10. In recent years, historic blazes in the Western U.S. have burned more than 10.2 million acres,and cost almost $__ billion11. With 4-Down, 70% of this tax gap is from the top _%

Issue 6 Solution

Suffolk Rose is a publication of the collective efforts of the Suffolk County Chapter of DSA.Special thanks to Jeremynative.com, Twitter accounts: @wrkclasshistory, @SuffolkCoHealth,@DemSocialists, and @DemocracyNow. Contributing members: Mike A, Mike B, Mike G, Christine M, Christian A, and Charles N.

- Bring socialism to the suburbs, join Suffolk DSA -

Crossword

Down2. Socialist Pedro Castillo wins presidency in__ running on funding healthcare andeducation initiatives as well as reduce vastincome inequality. 4. $380 billion of owed taxes go _6. Socialist who beat a 4-term incumbent inthe democratic primary in Buffalo.7. Union voted in favor of a resolution tomake "building worker power at Amazonand helping those workers achieve a unioncontract"8. audits poor EITC recipients more thancorporations

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