After a flood of calls and emails from DSA members, City Council’s Finance committee advanced a bill to create the first municipal public bank in the country this winter.
GENERAL MEETING UPDATES: If you didn’t receive an email with the subject line “Philly DSA February GM Important Links,” please let us know by emailing [email protected] ASAP! Our February GM this Sunday will feature endorsement recommendations from our Electoral Committee, the election of our new Vice Chair (submit candidate questions in our #gm-feb-2021 Slack channel), and breakout room discussions on various organizing projects (including a Q&A with a Starbucks organizer!) Check out our Electoral Committee’s endorsement recommendations and submit questions for candidates. RSVP for the GM here.
Friend –
After a flood of calls and emails from DSA members, City Council’s Finance committee advanced a bill to create the first municipal public bank in the country this winter. Now that bill’s on the floor of Council, and could come up for a final vote as soon as Thursday, March 3. The voices of our comrades, raised in unison, are the tools we need to break the power of Wall Street by creating public financing that can pick projects based on the needs of our communities – not the profits of banks.
The bank would take tax-dollars currently invested in Wall Street, and instead fund projects that benefit our city’s residents by building green infrastructure, creating union jobs, rebuilding our toxic school buildings, constructing permanently affordable housing, forming worker co-operatives and Black and Brown small business – among others in the bank’s mission statement. And we can do this while ending the city government’s reliance on Wall Street banks that overcharged us hundreds of millions in fees, but continue to get city contracts to invest our tax dollars and issue new bonds.
To end the predatory control that private capital has over our tax dollars, we need to stand together urging Councilmembers to pass the bill. Most urgently, we need our comrades to testify before City Council on March 3. Here’s a guide for signing up to testify and for drafting testimony.
If you can’t testify, you can call, email and post at Councilmembers whose votes we need using this guide.
I’m proud to be in this fight with you for a future where public dollars are used to meet the needs of everyday people – not fill the coffers of Wall Street banks. With your help, we can build that future together.
–Greg Windle, Philly DSA member and representative on the Public Banking Coalition
On the calendarUnless otherwise specified, all events are held via Zoom. Movie Night: Judas and the Black Messiah, TONIGHT at 7pm, Kung Fu NecktieJoin us for a screening of Shaka King’s 2021 film and a subsequent discussion.QUIZZO Trivia Night - Electoral Fundraiser, TONIGHT at 7pmCome with a group of up to 5 or let us find you a team for this night of fun-raising! Suggested donation is $10, but all are welcome.Phone Zap for the Patient Safety Act, tomorrow at noonJoin Philly DSA, SEIU HCPA, and PASNAP for a phone zap to support the Patient Safety Act! This act would set safe staffing standards for all PA hospitals.
Canvass for Paul Prescod, Saturday February 26 at 12pm, Sherwood ParkCanvass for our endorsed candidate, Paul Prescod for State Senate in the 8th District! Masks are required and if you’re feeling sick, please stay home.
Housing Justice Canvass, February 26 at 1pm, Palmer ParkTalk to renters in Fishtown about rent control and good cause, collect signatures on a petition to win these protections, and develop skills for organizing conversations.Accessibility Committee Meeting, February 26 at 2pmIf you’re interested in helping make our organizing accessible to all, this meeting is a great place to find out what we’re up to and how you can get involved. All are welcome!
Post-GM Happy Hour, February 27 at 4:30pmHang out with comrades after the General Meeting this Sunday in South Philly!
Green New Deal for Public Schools Meeting, March 7 at 6:30pmOur campaign fights to fund a master plan to create a safe and modern school in every neighborhood – prioritizing remediating toxins, decarbonization, and more.
Ben Fletcher Campaign Meeting, March 1 at 7pmOur RJC is working with comrades across the city, councilmembers, and Mural Arts Philadelphia on a mural to commemorate Ben Fletcher and the legacy of interracial labor organizing in Philly.
Communications Committee Meeting, March 2 at 6pmJoin us to talk about all things Philly DSA media and communications, including continuing our "socialist propaganda" work.
Marxism Reading Group: Understanding History, March 2 at 7pmDiscuss Walter Benjamin's essay "On the Concept of History." Written as fascism seemed ready to conquer Europe, this famously cryptic text turns orthodox Marxist notions of progress and history on its head.
Delivering Democracy: Rank and File Teamsters in America’s Strongest Union, March 3 at 7pmPhilly DSA joins a panel of 3 Teamster rank and file activists to talk about the history of reformism in the union, the prospects for the OZ term, and about unions as a site of socialist struggle in the 21st century.Electoral Fundraiser, March 5 at 7pm, GojjoCome join us at Gojjo to help fundraise for our locally endorsed socialist candidates!
View the full calendar.
Updates from the branches
BuxMont DSAPolitical Education: No Shortcuts Reading Group, March 2 at 7pmEach session will include listening live to the “No Shortcuts” audiobook with interspersed open discussion. No homework necessary!
View all BuxMont events or all Delco events
This week in unions
To get involved: If you’re interested in supporting workers who want to organize, organizing your workplace, supporting workers and unions taking collective action, or in building relationships with rank and file union members and leaders, email [email protected].
In solidarity,
Philly DSA
http://www.phillydsa.org/
“They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.” - Eugene V. Debs
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