#kshama sawant

[eelhound]

"When [Kshama] Sawant was elected on the promise of passing a $15 minimum wage, every other member of the [Seattle] City Council opposed it. Instead of writing a polite letter to her colleagues pleading with them to support it and then giving up when that failed, Sawant and Socialist Alternative created a campaign called 15 Now:

15 Now set up 11 action groups in neighborhoods across the city mobilizing in the streets and at public forums. [They] organized multiple rallies and marches of hundreds of people in Seattle, a National Week of Action in over 21 cities, and a major presence at both the annual Martin Luther King Day march and May Day march. … Critically, through the action groups and democratic conferences, 15 Now offered activists the opportunity to have ownership over the fight for $15.

Essentially, 'Sawant used her position as a city councilmember and the big media spotlight on her to build a powerful grassroots movement from below.' It was this grassroots mass mobilization — and its credible threat of a ballot initiative that would have passed an even more progressive minimum wage law — that led the Seattle City Council to reverse its opposition and pass the $15 minimum wage, the first of its kind in any major U.S. city, which quickly spread to other cities and even states and changed the national debate. The D.C. progressives, therefore, have Kshama Sawant and her mobilizing, fighting approach to thank for the $15 minimum wage being on the national agenda.

The second major accomplishment of Sawant’s tenure is the Amazon Tax — a tax on the wealthiest businesses in Seattle to fund affordable housing and Green New Deal projects. Two years after a grassroots campaign spearheaded by Sawant won the tax, big business succeeded in getting the City Council to repeal it. Instead of conceding defeat:

Sawant convened a series of Tax Amazon Action Conferences … where hundreds of activists discussed, debated, and voted on a strategy and the elements of a new proposal. … As the drive approached the signature threshold to get on the ballot, and with hundreds of activists flooding city council offices with emails, phone calls, and public testimony, and with the Amazon tax demand being echoed in the street protests, the political establishment felt compelled to advance its own Amazon tax.

The result was an Amazon Tax four times as large as the one that was repealed...

There are two interconnected and mutually reinforcing reasons that Sawant has been tremendously effective where D.C. progressives have failed — her fighting approach and her deep connection and accountability to grassroots organizing.

Her fighting approach includes the critical understanding that elected office is not a friendly arena where progressives can privately convince corporate politicians to do the right thing, but a battlefield of raw power where the Democratic establishment is an enemy that must be forced into giving concessions. Sawant is able to maintain this radical, fighting approach without being politically marginalized because she comes out of, remains accountable to, and is in consistent dialogue with grassroots social movements. The decisions made in the fights for the Amazon Tax or the $15 minimum wage were not made by Sawant herself but were voted on at action conferences where anyone from Sawant to a new volunteer had an equal say. In fact, Sawant never simply decided to run for office, but only did so reluctantly when, as a member of Socialist Alternative, the organization democratically decided that she should be the candidate they run.

Among other leftist lawmakers who have been able to effect progressive change despite being in the minority, close ties and accountability to grassroots movements have been key. In discussing how he has been able to pass over a dozen of his own bills and help make Illinois the first state in the country to abolish cash bail, democratic socialist and Illinois State Senator Robert Peters explained:

I try to tie myself to the movement as much as possible because I am the conduit for their organized power and governing position. And they are the conduit for me being able to govern the way I want to. And if those are tied together, it makes it easier to get things done under the dome. … I believe that my office should be a conduit for organizing, for movement spaces. So basically opening it up, whether it’s mutual aid efforts on the South Side, it’s hosting meetings, it’s being part of meetings. And sometimes when I’m not able to get something done, being held accountable. I try to make sure that I’m tied as much as possible. And I will ask. When we passed the bill … I was talking to the coalition about negotiations on this bill. I said 'They’re trying to do this in the bill, and I need to know: how far am I allowed to go?'… I remember saying to my colleague on the floor … 'My people won’t let me go any further. That’s it. I can’t negotiate any further.' We’re not as weak as people think.

- Jordan Bollag, from "The Left Is Losing Because We’re Not Confrontational Enough." Current Affairs, 20 May 2022.

#jordan bollag #quote #quotations #american politics #governing #political organizing #grassroots organizing #democratic socialism #leftism #progressivism #social movements #kshama sawant #robert peters #activism #$15 minimum wage #labor movement #neoliberalism #democratic party #capitalism #realpolitik

[anarchistin]

The fight against caste discrimination is deeply connected to the fight against all forms of oppression, and against the economic exploitation of the vast majority of people under capitalism.

Sign the petition today and join the struggle against all oppression and for a different kind of society!

#seattle #kshama sawant #caste apartheid #brahminism #hinduism #capitalism #usa #jai bhim

[kaydub80]

Damn fucking right, Kshama!

#kshama sawant #rail strikes #general strike

[marktaylor-canfield]

My Testimony City Council Gaza Ceasefire Resolution - CPJ: Gaza Most Dan...

#youtube #seattle #usa #gaza #ceasefire #israel #palestine #kshama sawant #mark taylor-canfield

[seriousbusinessforhumans]

Apr 19, 2023

PLOT TWIST: Seattle City Council Voted Not to Screw Over Renters

Council Member Andrew Lewis Repents for His Sins

In a reversal, the Seattle City Council voted 7 to 2 to set a $10 limit on the amount landlords can charge tenants who do not pay rent on time. 

Since the City did not previously regulate late fees at all, the law amounts to a huge victory for renters who have been at the mercy of their landlords when they fall behind. According to the Housing Justice Project, which provides free legal aid to tenants facing evictions, landlords sometimes get so charge-happy that late fees add up to more than the tenant’s rent, doubling what they owe.

The win did not come without council members attempting to make small concessions to landlords. In a committee earlier this month, council conservatives Sara Nelson, Debra Juarez, and self-described progressive Council Member Andrew Lewis attempted to water-down Council Member Kshama Sawant’s effort with a last-minute amendment to raise her proposed $10 cap to the lesser of 1.5% of the tenant’s monthly rent or $50.

In response, progressive Council Members Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda, and Sawant proposed an amendment to restore the original cap in the final vote Tuesday. With all eyes on the supposed progressive, Lewis switched sides because, as he said, he got pushback from his friends.

Lewis, Working People Would Like a Word with You

#Seattle #Seattle city council #Housing Justice Project #Andrew Lewis #rent #landlords #affordable housing #seattle housing #Kshama Sawant #Tammy Morales #Teresa Mosqueda #2023 #seattle 2023 #the stranger

[thenewdemocratus]

The Real News: Video: Jaisal Noor Interviewing Kshama Sawant: The Socialist Response to the State of the Union

T. The words socialist and federalist tend to not go together. It would sort of be like calling someone a Atheist-Muslim, or a Neoconservative-Libertarian. It’s generally one or the other, because those things tend to be at opposite sides of each other. A Marxist-Capitalist would be another one, but Kshama Sawant seems to me at least and what I took away from this interview is that Socialists…

View On WordPress

#2015 State of The Union #Barack Obama #Democratic Socialists #Far Left #Federalism #Federalists #Grassroots Movement #Jaisal Noor #Kshama Sawant #President Barack Obama #Social Democrats #Socialist Party #Socialists

[n0thingiscool]

Quote for the day.... maybe even the year:

"That no meaningful progressive change can be won under capitalism without the vicious opposition of the rich and their political servants. And that instead of backing down, we need to build the unity of working-class people and fight back fiercely and proudly."

-KSHAMA SAWANT

#capitalism #right wing #america #evil #billionaires #cronyism #republicans #worker's rights #kshama sawant

[eightyonekilograms]

A couple people have mentioned this in the notes of the previous posts, but I should append to my anti-left-NIMBY rant that their wrongness is not a question of how far left they are. Seattle's socialist party and Kshama Sawant explicitly support upzoning and more apartments, and in this position they tend to be fighting against the city's more centrist Democrats from NIMBY-heavy areas like Magnolia. I don't know how and why we got the smart socialists as compared to San Francisco's really dumb socialists, but I'm grateful for it.

Left-NIMBYs aren't wrong because they're too far to the left, they're wrong because they refuse to learn how housing actually works and inadvertently align themselves with the interests of capital. There are a bunch of smarter and more effective leftists out there.

[vomitdodger]

Kshama Sawant, the Seattle City Council member who led the charge to defund the police department is now requesting police to protect her home in response to repeated scatological vandalism.

Hilarious.

[arizonaconservativegal]

Andrew Miller, Emma Colton

Sun, October 23, 2022 at 11:27 AM

A progressive member of the Seattle City Council who has been a vocal critic of law enforcement amid the "defund the police" movement is criticizing police for not sufficiently pursuing reports of multiple instances of feces being thrown into her yard.

Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, a self-described socialist, sent a letter to police in Seattle this week claiming they are "failing to investigate" what she says are six separate instances of a politically motivated person throwing feces into her yard," KCPQ-TV reported.

"There is obviously a glaring inconsistency between this approach and the way in which former Mayor Durkan, after a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest was held a short distance from her mansion, was provided with a 24-hour stakeout for a full year," Sawant wrote in her letter, suggesting she deserved police protection as a result of the incidents. "As a socialist City Councilmember who has participated in Black Lives Matter protests, I am being told that my case of six threatening incidents involving human excrement doesn’t merit even a serious investigation, let alone protection."

The Seattle Police Department, where staffing has dropped to a 30-year low as officers left the force in droves amid the Defund the Police movement, asked the public for help catching the suspect this week by releasing photos of the individual.

I love how Democrats always feel everything that happens to them is a major threat to their physical safety that should be at the top of everyone else's priority list

#as someone who has been on the wrong end of credible threats a few times #my advice would be to toughen up buttercup

[tattooed-alchemist]

The office of Mayor Bruce Harrell, who has proposed giving thousands of city employees a “cost of living adjustment” significantly below the rate of inflation, sent out an email to city workers this week containing tips and tricks for spending less money.

The email, titled “Financial Self-Care,” informs employees that “Making small changes to your money mindset and habits can have an immediate impact on your financial picture.” For example, it says, city workers could get rid of subscriptions that can add $12 to $30 to their monthly costs; consolidate their debts; and “pay yourself first – set aside money for emergency funds or long-term savings every paycheck before paying bills and spending.

The council did approve a $20 million increase in the tax to pay for mental health care services at public schools, with Council President Debora Juarez joining Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda, Lisa Herbold, and amendment sponsor Kshama Sawant to vote for the increase

“Pay yourself first” is a concept popularized by the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series of self-help books, which argues that people should put money toward investments before paying for rent, food, electric bills, and other immediate needs.

The email also advise workers—who are seeking an annual wage increase that at least keeps up with inflation, instead of a sub-inflationary increase that will amount to a significant annual pay cut—to start thinking about whether they really need the things they’re buying. “Start defining wants and needs – Ask yourself: ‘Is this a need or want?’ with each purchase, to avoid impulse buys,” the email says.

#another millionaire who doesn't give a shit about workers #seattle #mayor bruce harrell

[azspot]

But we have to be clear. If we are going to be clear about the Democratic Party, then we also have to call out the role played by the so-called progressives. The Congressional Progressive Caucus – So-called progressive as I called them – The Congressional Progressive Caucus of the Democratic Party in the US Congress is 100 strong. The chair of that caucus is Pramila Jayapal, again, another so-called progressive. Then you have all these members of the so-called Squad, who were elected with these high expectations that they will show courage in the face of Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer, and all the power brokers on behalf of Wall Street. What you have seen again and again is repeated betrayals of working people. The betrayal of the railroad workers and the breaking of their strike, obviously, was one of the starkest moments, and I think really crystallized for millions of people.

Kshama Sawant

#labor #democrats #livingwage

[kaydub80]

A line has been drawn in the sand

Anyone who claims to be a leftist, socialist or progressive now has to choose: You're either with the rail workers or you're with the Progressive Caucus.

The time for making excuses for Bernie, Pramila and The Squad is over. Most of them sided against the railroaders.

Biden is not going to sign an executive order to make things right for the workers.

#rail strikes #the squad #kshama sawant #general strike #democrats #dump the duopoly #demexit #democratic socialists of america #socialist alternative #progressive caucus

[marktaylor-canfield]

City Council Audience Cheers Rent Control Song By Seattle Musician

#youtube #rent control #seattle #usa #economics #kshama sawant #music #protest #mark taylor-canfield #video #city council #vote #real estate

[notwiselybuttoowell]

In news, a former tumblr blogger is among the leaders to take over Kshama Sawant's city council seat in Seattle

[bighermie]