Medicare for All, DSA Austin Successes
The DSA Austin chapter claimed credit for several local political victories, including a city ordinance for paid sick leave and pressuring Congressman Lloyd Doggett to support Medicare for All. A member described joining the movement to cope with economic frustrations like high rent and lack of job benefits. The chapter's growth is attributed to providing a community that relieves the "burdens of capitalism" through mutual aid.
austin· medicare for all· bernie sanders· paid sick leave· lloyd doggett
1:01:54 The final two clips. Now this was a real socialist, a member of the DSA. DSA Austin, in fact. I think he may even be the president now of the Democratic Socialists of Austin. They're about 800 members strong. And I wanted to play these two clips because this is, well, the first one is what the claim is that the DSA has done today for you in the American political system. Since our last convention in 2017, DSA members have been critical to the ongoing teacher strike wave. to the election of class struggle candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and we've made Medicare for All the most important issue of the 2020 national primaries. I didn't notice no triggering there. Yeah, where's those twinkling? So they, so the claim is that they're the ones that put Medicare for All up front in the political conversation. I don't think that's true.
1:02:55 I know it's not true. Who did that then? Anybody but them. In Austin, we've organized to win a city council ordinance for paid sick leave for hundreds of thousands of workers. That's true. We also organized to win a long-fought campaign that forced Congressman Lloyd Doggett a millionaire democrat to sign on to the medicare for all bill. We've done so much more political education, canvassing for a green new deal, standing in solidarity with organized labor and beyond. And now the chair of our health justice committee Heidi Sloan is running for congress as a democratic socialist in Texas.
1:03:35 So the thing that got me though is his description of why he joined the DSA. But mind you, he's wearing a Bernie Sanders sweatshirt. So this is a Bernie guy and I think this is where Bernie is going to get a lot of leverage from people of voting age, marginalized as they may be. But listen, because I think kids can identify with this message. You didn't hear this throughout the entire conference except this one time. My life was very different before I joined DSA. As I was becoming a socialist, I didn't know how to cope with my recognition of all the problems in society. Problems that directly affect my life and those of my friends.
1:04:14 Rent is too damn high. We couldn't get jobs or jobs with benefits. And global warming was making Texas summers even more miserable in the short term and dooming humanity. Maybe even the capitalist class in the long term. My friends also didn't know how to cope with these problems or with my constant bickering and agitating about them. I was becoming frustrated with my newfound ability to see the problems of the world alongside what I felt was my inability to do anything about it. As someone who was broke and thought about every single penny, this was a big deal to me. But it also wasn't a big deal to the table, and that's what was important because it meant that everyone had what they needed to fully participate without the distractions of just getting by in society.
1:05:01 By relieving some of the burdens that capitalism puts on us, we were able to devote our energy toward organizing together. This was so radically different than the life I was used to with my friends. We had a culture of Venmo-ing each other for every slice of pizza or six-pack of beer, and it fostered mistrust, questioning, and shame. But here, Someone who could do so just got coffee and snacks for everyone and we proceeded to have a productive meeting. What do you know? Before I knew it, I was spending 30 hours a week on DSA and trying to build a socialist movement.
1:05:36 Now I think this is really telling because this is what kids are witnessing and I'm sure that there's frustration and mistrust and distrust with this, you know, splitting up bills a thousand ways, venmoing money back and forth. I can see where kids get disillusioned by that and they also just want free food. And so when you show up with free food then you can reel them in. It's very weak. They're very easy to get. So that should be noted. I think we've noted it. This has been my constant complaint about the fact you can't get a summer job anymore. Yep. I mean, when I was a kid, I was working summer jobs when I was 15. You had to get a work permit if you're under some age. Under 16, yeah. Under 16. But at 15, if you got this permit, hey, you can go get it. You can work during the summer so you'd make money.
1:06:32 There were paperboy routes, I used to have one of those, two of them actually. And you could make money that way. There's no such thing anymore and it was actually taken over by people driving around in cars. if it even exists. The whole thing has been structured over time to like eliminate all these jobs. I think that the movement toward off-shoring and sending stuff to China, I think has a lot to do with it, which Trump has been trying to correct. which is good for him, but nobody cares about that. So they're just bitching and moaning about the fact that it's a mess, but the real causation of this situation is never addressed. It's not addressed. Where was the causation addressed to this? What are you gonna do to fix the problem? Just become socialists and take everybody's money and rip off the marginalized? I mean, this is ridiculous. But okay, I'm glad you feel comfortable there, kid.