From CNY Solidarity Coalition:
Next Meeting: Sunday, March 21, 2021, 3-4 PM. Zoom Link to come.
Committees will meet after Announcements:
· Indivisible NY24
· Climate Justice
· Invest in Our New York (State/Local Action Team)
Upcoming Meetings: 4/11, 4/25, 5/9, 5/23. Committee meetings will take place, after announcements, at our second meeting each month: 3/21, 4/25, 5/23
Announcement:
The Syracuse Center for Peace and Social Justice is accepting applications for their Board of Directors. The Center is a non-profit organization that houses Syracuse Peace Council, Workers Center of CNY, Public Citizen, Black Lives Matter, AGREE, Unchained, and NY Immigration Coalition. We also offer low cost meeting spaces for progressive organizations. We are a fully volunteer board seeking to expand our skill base. Applications can be found on our website at syracusecenter.org.
Invest in Our New York
Updates: The one-house budgets from the Senate and Assembly are now complete. They show substantial movement toward a more equitable tax structure, but not as much as we are asking for. Our work will continue.
Here’s a summary: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/rochester/ny-state-of-politics/2021/03/15/state-lawmakers-call-for-new-taxes-on-rich-new-yorkers
· $7 billion in new revenue
· Increase top income tax rate from 8.82% to 9.85% for single filers who earn more than $1 million and couples who file jointly earning more than $2 million.
· Two new tax brackets for those who earn between $5 million and $25 million, reaching 10.85% and 11.85% for those who earn more than $25 million. $4.3 billion in new revenue.
· Add a 1% surcharge for capital gains for those who earn more than $1 million annually, generating $700 million.
· A new 18% surcharge for corporate franchise taxpayers, corporate utility taxpayers, and insurance taxpayers.
· A 1% tax on income from capital gains, as well as an increase in the corporate franchise tax by 3%.
· Reintroduction of the capital base test for corporate franchise tax, leading to $151 million for the state.
Please notice that none of these increases affect middle and working class families – only the very wealthiest, who have seen repeated tax cuts at the federal and state level over the last forty years!
Actions: At this time, the budget process will be moving to the “three people in a room” stage. Negotiations will be taking place between the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Governor. (Read more about the budget process, here.)
Please call and email these people and demand that the tax increases on the wealthiest New Yorkers go into the final budget!
· Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Majority Leader scousins@nysenate.gov 518 -455-2715
· Carl E. Heastie, Speaker of the Assembly speaker@nyassemby.gov – 518-455-3791
· Governor Andrew Cuomo – https://www.governor.ny.gov/content/governor-contact-form – 518-474-8390
We want to thank the following legislators for their support:
· Pamela J. Hunter, 128th District: HunterP@nyassembly.gov. Co-sponsoring all six of the IONY bills. Please thank her!
· Rachel May, NYS Senate Dist. 53: may@nysenate.gov; 315-478-8745. Senator May is co-sponsoring 4 of the 6 IONY bills – Please thank her! She is working on different approaches to the other two issues.
Rally for the Invest in Our New York campaign! Link to event
Saturday, March 20, 1 PM – 2 PM. Location: State Office Building, 333 E. Washington St. Syracuse 13202
Join us for a Solidarity Rally! Saturday March 20th 1PM Syracuse downtown. We plan to come together as excluded workers, educators, tenants, healthcare workers, community leaders, students, and residents to demand a New York State budget that is JUST and puts PEOPLE first. Please mobilize your networks to attend this socially distanced outdoor rally.
IONY Planning Team Meeting: March 21 at 3 PM. Contact Peter (pmccar1100@gmail.com) or Keller (Keller.shelton@gmail.com)
To Learn more:
o https://www.cnysolidarity.org/2021/02/02/invest-in-our-new-york/
o http://investinourny.org (scroll down past the petition to the slideshow, or keep going to the Act Summary)
Articles of the Week:
Our IONY Letter to the Editor is published! Feel free to share on your groups, pages or social media.
Press NY Legislature to adopt budget that reduces inequality (Your Letters) – syracuse.com
From Brooklyn to Buffalo, Socialists are Organizing to Tax the Rich Read it in The Indypendent
The Democratic Socialists of America are challenging austerity and strengthening the ties of a statewide socialist movement. They’re also putting the Albany establishment on notice.
Biden Eyes First Major Tax Hike Since 1993 in Next Economic Plan at Bloomberg.com
“…key advisers are now making preparations for a package of measures that could include an increase in both the corporate tax rate and the individual rate for high earners.”
EVENTS/ACTIONS CALENDAR:
Syracuse City residents only: Please complete this Syracuse Community Views on Policing Survey.
From SPAARC and collaborating community groups.
It should take about 8-12 minutes to complete. It consists of mostly multiple-choice questions with a few short answer questions.
Syracuse City Redistricting Commission – apply by 3/31
This year, our city will make history with a redistricting effort that will be one of the first in the nation to have citizen led, independent, bipartisan maps. Thus far, overwhelmingly, the applicants have been white, male, and from Districts 3 and 5.
We need a citizen led redistricting board that represents our city. We really need women, people of color, and folks from Districts 1,2, and 4 to get involved! Please share this, and if you are interested in helping to make the committee more representative of the city, please apply here, at the City Auditor’s page on the city’s website: http://www.syrgov.net/City_Auditor.aspx
You can also view a current list of applicants on that site. More info:
General Ordinance No. 3-2021: Independent Redistricting Commission
https://www.syracuse.com/news/2021/01/syracuse-lawmakers-unanimously-adopt-independent-redistricting-plan.htmlWh0 is eligible? “regular voters who have lived in the city at least five years. People with ties to city government, like major political donors, city employees or elected officials, cannot serve.”
Immigration Reform should be a vehicle for human rights, not a cover for labor exploitation. Please join Farm Workers to oppose the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would create a long, complicated path to permanent status, expand the exploitation of immigrant labor, impose a mandatory e-verify system and require background checks that could exclude workers from eligibility for the smallest of crimes. We want a just immigration reform, legislation that continues to criminalize and exploit immigrants is not reform…it’s just more of the same. #FarmworkersDeserveBetter.
Indivisible-RISE & Common Cause: For the People Phonebank
Wednesdays, 2pm EST
We’ll be calling voters in targeted districts and connecting them to their Senators to support the For the People Act (S1).
People’s Agenda for Policing Community Forums.
Thursday, March 18 from 6-7:30pm Register here.
The Syracuse Police Accountability and Reform Coalition (SPAARC) has organized three public forums – this is the second.The first forum was “The Warrior Cop Mentality.” This one is “Police Transparency: Ending Obstruction and Demanding Accountability.” The third will be on Revisioning Policing in Syracuse is Thursday, March 25 from 6-7:30; register here. The conversation comes as public scrutiny of police officers and state-sanctioned violence is growing nationwide due to more extensive police reform and calls for accountability. Forums are free and open to the community.
Progress on Blueprint 15: FOCUS Forum
Friday, March 19 at noon (12:05 p.m.)
Blueprint 15 is a new not-for-profit working collaboratively with the Syracuse Housing Authority to advance a bold vision for holistic redevelopment of the East Adams neighborhood in Syracuse bordered by I-81. Panelists for the next FOCUS Forum are Syracuse Deputy Mayor and Blueprint 15 Board Chair Sharon Owens, Vice President of Purpose Built Communities Mikki Anderson, Syracuse Housing Authority Executive Director William Simmons and Stephanie Pasquale, who is Interim CEO of Blueprint 15 and Director of Neighborhood Advancement for the Allyn Family Foundation.
Join in the next free virtual FOCUS Forum noon (12:05 p.m.) on Friday, March 19. Register for the Zoom webinar by computer AT THIS LINK or call 315-448-8731 for FOCUS staff to register you. Registrants get an email with a Zoom link and can pose questions in advance. You can join in the webinar by computer or phone.
Rally for the Invest in Our New York campaign! Link to event
Saturday, March 20, 1 PM – 2 PM. Location: State Office Building, 333 E. Washington St. Syracuse 13202
Join us for a Solidarity Rally! Saturday March 20th 1PM Syracuse downtown. We plan to come together as excluded workers, educators, tenants, healthcare workers, community leaders, students, and residents to demand a New York State budget that is JUST and puts PEOPLE first. Please mobilize your networks to attend this socially distanced outdoor rally.
Black Revolutionary Thought for Our Times? Link
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2021 AT 7 PM EDT
Event by Shelter & Solidarity: A Deep Dive with Artists and Activists
Throughout modern history, struggles against Black oppression have generated some of our most powerful and persuasive radical voices, often resonating across lines of race and nation. How do black revolutionary thinkers of the past—from black communists like Richard Wright, to Black Panther participants like Fred Hampton only Assata Shakur, to contemporary voices like Mumia Abu Jamal— help us to grasp our present and shape our collective future? How do contemporary accounts of the ‘Black radical tradition’ illuminate our current situation, and paths for transforming it? What in this tradition can still be applied today and what needs updating or discarding? In what ways do black revolutionary voices from the past still challenge or inform modes of theory and practice in 2021? How do contemporary film representations (such as the new Fred Hampton film Judas & the Black Messiah) and influential books like Cedric Robinson’s book *Black Marxism* create new openings (or obstacles) for mass radical engagement?
Panel and community discussion, featuring guests:
Kazembe Balagun, Bronx-based author, artist and organizer, long-time director of the Brecht Forum and now with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
Johanna Fernandez, author of the recent book The Young Lords, a Radical History as well as editor Writings of the Wall: Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Eric Mann, author of several books and veteran organizer of the Civil Rights and anti-imperialist movement, and director of the Los Angeles-based Strategy Center.
Joseph G. Ramsey, UMass Boston scholar-activist and organizer, author of recent articles engaging Cedric Robinson and Richard Wright as well as *Judas and the Black Messiah*
Sacred Waters – Trauma of the Erie Canal
Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 11 am
Info/Registration: Sacred Waters – Trauma of the Erie Canal
Event by Erie Canal Museum, American Indian Law Alliance and 2 others
Join Jake Haiwhagai’i Edwards and Dr. Philip P. Arnold for a free webinar about about the impact of the Erie Canal on the Haudenosaunee.
For millennia, waterways in Haudenosaunee territories have been profoundly important. In the Haudenosaunee cosmology, water is sacred as fundamental to all life. Therefore, while waterways were used for transportation, as food resources, and as locations for settlement, it was widely agreed among Indigenous peoples that they also be protected. The Erie Canal disrupted the natural flow of water, essentially damming watersheds so as to flow in an east-west direction. As Laurence Hauptman has discussed in Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State, the creation of the Erie Canal corresponded with the dispossession of the Haudenosaunee. Transformation of the landscape throughout the 19th century had profound environmental effects and traumatic consequences on Haudenosaunee relationships to their lands.
This event is a free Zoom webinar with a recommended donation of $10 to help support the museums’ missions. You can register for the webinar here: https://us02web.zoom.us/…/reg…/WN_CJIQow82S4-Kzz8YAkz4mg
To make a donation please visit this link:https://eriecanalmuseum.org/…/sacred-waters-trauma…/
DEADLOCKED AND LOADED: Disarming America Curated by Karen M. Gutfreund
February 11 to April 18, 2021
ArtRage Gallery – https://artragegallery.org Make your reservation for in-person gallery viewing HERE!
The need to address gun violence is more urgent than ever and in response, artists from across the United States have used their artistic voices to address issues related to our culture of gun violence particularly how it affects women, children and marginalized peoples.
Deadlocked and Loaded: Disarming America is a “locked and loaded” conversation through art, showcasing art in all media that addresses the culture of violence, systemic racism, police brutality and gun issues in the United States—particularly in how it affects women and children with lasting impacts.
This exhibition is presented in collaboration with Community Folk Art Center and Point of Contact Gallery in Syracuse. A catalog representing all 36 artists exhibiting in the three galleries can be viewed HERE.
VERY BUSY? BUT WANT TO DO YOUR PART? JOIN STREET HEAT!
EXPOSE KILLER DRONE TERROR: join our decade-long protests against the piloting of reaper drones over the Islamic oil lands…across from the main gate of Hancock AFB, 6000 East Molloy Rd (east of Mattydale)…4:15 to 5 p.m. every Tuesdayfrom April 6 thru the end of October.
STAND WITH PALESTINE expose IDF terrorism, Occupation and apartheid in Gaza and West Bank…intersection of Erie Blvd E and E Genesee in De Witt…4:15 to 5 p.m every Friday
BRING YOUR OWN PEACE AND JUSTICE SIGN*…opposite the Regional Market main entrance On Park ST.. every Saturday 9 to 9:45 a.m. beginning April 3 *or use one of ours. (Ann or Ed 315 478-4571 home)
*Social distancing***Legal***No meetings, no obligation, no cost***Easy parking***Rain or shine*
From ArtRage: SERRV international spring sale fundraiser
Since 1949 Serrv International has been fighting global poverty through fair and ethical trade. One of the first fair trade organizations in the world, SERRV International began its mission by helping displaced European refugees trade their handcrafts for income after the Second World War. Since then, they’ve extended their reach to 24 countries worldwide, working to empower over 8,000 artisans and farmers every year by selling their beautiful handcrafts.
You can support these artisans and ArtRage this spring by shopping fair trade at SERRV International!
Shop from https://www.serrv.org/?a=artrage, and we’ll earn 20% for our organization.
PLUS: Use promo code SESPRING21 for FREE SHIPPING on orders $50+ when you place your order March 3-17*.
Save the Cayuga SHARE Farm: Support the Sovereignty of Native Nations
Our friends at NOON (Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation) forwarded this appeal, last week: From the letter: “We hope this announcement finds you well. You are invited to support an online fundraiser to save the Cayuga SHARE Farm in the interest of the traditional people of Cayuga (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ- People of the Pipe), a sovereign nation of the Haudenosaunee confederacy. It is an urgent need to ensure that Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ traditional leadership of chiefs and clan mothers can keep SHARE Farm, the only land which they currently have stewardship rights to within their people’s homeland. Donations made through Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming will be used to ensure the farm continues to be a place for education, healing, and Haudenosaunee culture….” Continue reading. See also the website, the GoFundMe page or the Facebook page.
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Peter McCarthy
pmccar1100@gmail.com