Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR).

The National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) condemns attacks by Governor Ron DeSantis and the right wing dominated legislature in Florida. During this current legislative session, the Florida Legislature is poised to pass legislation targeting the movements for police accountability, the labor movement, the movement to end white supremacy and remove confederate monuments, attacks on the right to organize for a free Palestine, as well as continued attacks on LGBTQ students, and a continued onslaught on the immigrant community and all oppressed peoples.

NAARPR and all our branches and affiliate organizations call for national solidarity with all the progressive forces in Florida fighting back in this political climate, including the numerous NAARPR branches and affiliate organizations who are fighting on the frontlines against these repressive forces.

One especially dangerous bill for the national movement against police crimes is Senate Bill 576/ House Bill 601. This bill, the first of its kind nationally, seeks to ban all methods of civilian oversight from local cities and counties, concentrating even more power into the hands of police chiefs, sheriffs and police unions. We understand that what racist and bigoted forces are seeking to do in Florida seeks to serve as a model for their efforts nationally.

As a national mass defense organization, we pledge to stand with those in Florida fighting against these attacks on our movements and our right to organize. We call for every section of the people’s movement to do the same.

Dump DeSantis!

Stop the attacks on the people’s movements!

Kill the bill! Defeat SB 576/HB 601!

Community Oversight and Community Control of the Police Now!!

#Florida #InJusticeSystem #NAARPR #CommunityControlOfPolice #HB576 #HB601 #DeSantis

USF SDS’s demands were that the university take a stand against House Bill 999, the latest in Governor DeSantis’ attacks against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, and that the USF administration take immediate action to increase Black enrollment and restore the Diversity department at their College of Arts and Sciences.

The Tampa 4 includes Gia Davila, Chrisley Carpio, Laura Rodriguez and Jeanie Kida. They face trumped-up charges of assault or battery of law enforcement officers, resisting an officer without violence to his or her person, and interrupting a school.

UCF students unaffiliated with Students for a Democratic Society saw the videos online and organized an event in solidarity with the student organizers. The solidarity protest consisted of protesters waving signs and talking to students about the Florida legislature's continued attacks on diversity programs, the campaign USF SDS is fighting for, and the repression of activism happening across the state, both against student and community organizations.

The arrests of the Tampa 4 are part of a string of repression aimed at activists that has swept the state of Florida in recent years. From the anti-protest law passed last year to recent moves to curtail public demonstrations at the state capitol building, Florida is seeking to quell the public discontent arising from its repressive policies. These policies include attacks on diversity programs, attacks on reproductive rights, attacks on trans rights, and attacks on union organizing. One protester said, “It’s important to show solidarity with our student comrades who were brutalized and arrested by the police,” because the police are simply trying to intimidate and silence student dissent against these policies.

Another organizer explained how important it is to “fight for our right to fight.” They continued that protesting “will become harder as DeSantis reaches further into our education system,” so now is the time to organize and unite to fight back against this repression.

Jacob Muldoon, a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), summed up that, “Building a mass movement and striving for unity among scattered organizations is a vital step to stand up, fight back and deal blows to our common enemy: the monopoly capitalists.”

Muldoon continued, “An attack on one student is an attack on all students,” and said that solidarity events like this are important to building a nationwide student movement capable of fighting and winning.

#OrlandoFL #students #Florida

Tampa, FL – On Wednesday, September 14, Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society organized a protest as a part of a National Day of Action around reproductive rights. The rally brought out about 30 students to march across campus to show their support for abortion rights. Members from many other student groups gave speeches to show solidarity on this issue.

Diego Falcon, a member of UndocUnited, said that he “saw this coming since the Trump administration” and that “the abuse of women in ICE detention centers facing forced hysterectomies” was a precursor to the loss of bodily autonomy.

Florida’s own abortion ban, House Bill 5, was passed at the beginning of this year. The bill bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy and allows no exceptions for rape or incest.

“Despite the passing of HB5 and the overturn of Roe v. Wade we are still out here to demand safe, legal abortion,” said Eithne Silva of Tampa Bay SDS. “We demand that the Florida government repeal HB5. The right to a safe, legal abortion should be available to anyone and the law should reflect that.”

Tampa Bay SDS has a long history protesting against HB5. They mobilized to Florida’s state capitol in response to the bill when it was first presented and again when it was voted on.

“We were out there to remind everyone that we are still fighting,” said Bashak Newman, a member of Tampa Bay SDS.

The marchers chanted, “My body, my choice” and “Repeal HB5”. The protest had support from students on campus, with many expressing solidarity by joining the march.

#TampaFL #students #Florida #AbortionRights #reproductiveJustice

On July 2nd, less than 100 Patriot Front members from across the country convened in Boston for a march through the downtown. Patriot Front is a white nationalist hate group that engages in street protests, offensive attack training, and utilizes American fascist imagery for propaganda and recruitment purposes. Outfitted with steel police shields and flags depicting the fasces, a symbol used by Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, the cowardly group marched with their faces covered in an attempted show of force. Additionally, members assaulted a local man, requiring him to be transported to the hospital. No arrests were made.

This kind of “show of force” is not new for the group, especially in recent months. On December 4th, nearly 100 members traveled to DC to march on the National Mall while carrying shields and chanting “Reclaim America.” On June 11th, 31 members of Patriot Front from across the country were arrested outside of a local Pride event in Idaho. They were arrested with riot gear, a smoke grenade, shields and a written plan for their attempted riot.

There is a consistent trend in these actions that must be discussed: the mass traveling of people from across the country to show an inflated number of members. We know from leaked messages and police reports that the members attending these acts of intimidation have coordinated travel across state lines. Additionally, leaked chats have shown that members are required to commit vandalism and attend these events to be a part of the group. This shows that any identified Patriot Front member must be treated as an active threat to the community they are invading.

Member Calvin Stow-Ortiz, alias Arthur FL, has proven to be a highly motivated fascist; he travels hundreds of miles for events, engages in marching and hand-to-hand training activities, and is being used to further recruit at Florida State University and in the greater Tallahassee area. Stow-Ortiz, stepson of a Tampa Police Department officer Antonio Ortiz-Saldana, has traveled to DC, Georgia, and throughout Florida to engage in vandalism and fascist organizing. He was identified en route to Boston and there are reports of his being in Massachusetts over the weekend. This evidence, as well as historical precedence, leaves us with little doubt that Stow-Ortiz was present at this march.

FSU Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) will continue their calls for the removal of Stow-Ortiz from Florida State University, which would greatly hamper his fascist recruitment and propagandizing. FSU administration has been completely ineffective at protecting students from an active fascist presence on their campus. They will continue to turn a blind eye until it is too late. FSU SDS calls on all people (classmates, teachers, etc.) who know Calvin Stow-Ortiz to isolate this fascist. The university and the police will not do anything without outside pressure, which is why everyday people must act. We keep us safe!

#Florida #FL #StudentsForADemocraticSocietySDS #Antiracism #Antifascism

The Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC), along with various other local Asian American organizations such as InterVarsity, FSU’s Asian American Student Union, Asian Coalition of Tallahassee, and FSU’s Filipino Student Association spoke out at the event.

Co-organizer Tina Lu, representing InterVarsity, stated “we wanted to organize this event so that Asian Americans in our community can grieve.”

Ireland Hadley, vice president of AASU, highlighted the system oppression of racism and capitalism that we as a community need to address. He urged the crowd to fight back, pointing out “the world can be changed by one person and that person can be you!”

President of the Filipino Student Association, Sharry Solis, touched on the emotional weight of the loss of the eight victims, stating “Six is a number too big. One is a number too big, their pain is our pain!” and noted that if we, as a society, took fetishization seriously, then this wouldn’t have been possible. Solis also highlighted her disappointment in the lack of response from FSU’s leadership to rising Asian hate crimes.

Aurora Hansen, founder of Asian Coalition of Tallahassee, led the moment of silence. Everyone turned on their tea lights and held the silence for 80 seconds, to represent the eight lives that were taken, as the rally transitioned to the final performer, Kelsey Tesalona, singing Without You by AJ Rafael.

There was an open mic period to encourage members of the Tallahassee community to let their voices be heard.

The event closed with Tanvi Marulendra, co-organizer of this event, thanking people for coming, highlighting resources for grieving during these hard times.

#TallahasseeFL #PeoplesStruggles #Florida #Antiracism #Atlanta #atlantaShooting #AntiAsianHate

Tampa, FL – On May 14, Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a car protest at the University of South Florida (USF) to demand COVID-19 relief funds for undocumented students. USF has offered no financial help for undocumented students during the pandemic and the only COVID-19 aid for students is the CARES Act Fund, for which DACA and undocumented students are ineligible.

Students and SDS members parked near the USF president’s mansion on campus for socially-distanced speeches and chants demanding that USF provide relief for undocumented students. Simon Rowe, a member of SDS stated, “DACA students are more at risk for losing housing or income compared to other students. USF needs to account for the increased risk and lack of federal aid by providing aid to undocumented students using their own funds.” After the speeches were finished, the protest formed a car caravan where students drove near the mansion while honking to further their demand.

This is Tampa Bay SDS’s second action demanding COVID-19 aid for undocumented students, and SDS will continue to make these demands until USF provides funds specifically for undocumented and DACA students.

#TampaFL #ImmigrantRights #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #SDS #ImmigrantsRights #PeoplesStruggles #Florida #USF #TampaBay

Miami, FL – More than 2 million Floridians have now applied for unemployment benefits. Only a fraction of the applications have even been processed and even fewer workers have received payments. Florida’s unemployment system was already terrible before the crisis and it has completely collapsed under pressure from COVID-19.

Florida’s online application process for unemployment was designed to fail. It was created by right-wing former Governor Rick Scott with big business in mind. Its goals were to be as confusing as possible for any worker trying to submit an application and to reject as many applications as possible for minor errors. That way benefits could be cut, and big businesses could pay less in unemployment taxes.

Even those close to current Republican Governor Ron DeSantis admit as much. One DeSantis advisor was quoted in the online magazine Politico as saying: “It’s a shit sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott. It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”

Since March, millions of people have been laid off due to COVID-19 and Floridians have been reporting serious problems with accessing the system. The website had technical difficulties and was even shut down for three days to resolve the issues. Phonelines were overwhelmed as there were not enough state workers to process the huge number of calls. Even for those who actually managed to complete an application there have been big problems. 250,000 applications were wrongly rejected because simply because they filed in March instead of April. Those people were asked to reapply. Meanwhile they are left without any income for weeks, perhaps months.

Trying to ease pressure on the system, the governor brought back paper applications. DeSantis was even forced to remove some of the strict requirements, like weeklong waiting periods before money is disbursed and providing proof every two weeks that you are actively looking for work. Due to the changes, last week the percentage of applicants being paid was up to a meager 22%. This represented a dramatic increase from a week before when only 6% of those who applied for unemployment had been paid.

Even when the government pays out, the benefits offered are not enough for working people to get by. In fact, Florida’s unemployment payments are some of the lowest in the country. At most unemployed workers are given a measly $275 per week. On top of that, those benefits are only available for 12 weeks. After that you are kicked out of the system. There is a law that allows for increases in the duration of unemployment benefits based on the overall unemployment rate. That means that if the official unemployment rate goes above 5% then people can be paid for longer than 12 weeks. However, that increase will only kick in in June because the calculation is based on a three-month average. By then many workers will have been left without income, totally abandoned by the government. Meanwhile there has been no moratorium on rent payments for working families.

Florida won’t release its official unemployment numbers for April until May 22. However, there does not seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel for its workers. Some economists are calculating the national unemployment rate to be 20%. The nature of Florida’s economy means that number may be much worse. The tourism industry and farming industry are the largest sectors of the economy. Both are deeply impacted by the pandemic.

Florida has the highest concentration of service sector jobs in the country, many based in cities like Orlando where Disney and Universal are some of the largest employers. With few tourists willing to travel and the state’s significant population of elderly baby-boomers sheltering in place, the future looks bleak for the hospitality business. We have seen farms experiencing serious difficulties due to interruptions to food supply chains. Some have even been dumping milk and other produce, abandoning fields of crops and euthanizing animals. As long as restaurants remain closed, produce prices seem likely to stay low. Owners are already suggesting cutting wages for farmworkers.

As the state moves into hurricane season, a storm is brewing for Florida’s public sector workers as well. As tax revenues fall, the right-wing legislature will try to impose vicious cutbacks and layoffs to balance the budget. Without a doubt a serious fight will be on for the future of workers’ pensions, union contracts and public education in the Sunshine State.

#MiamiFlorida #CapitalismAndEconomy #PoorPeoplesMovements #Unemployment #US #Healthcare #Florida #economics #DonaldTrump #SunshineState

Tallahassee, FL – On March 20, Tallahassee Police Department Officer Zackri Jones killed 31-year-old Mychael Johnson. Mychael Johnson was the second person shot and killed by Jones, and the first since Lawrence Revell became chief of police in January. Revell’s nomination in November and his later appointment led to protests due to his killing of George Williams, a Black teenager, in September 1996.

The Tallahassee Police Department has issued statements claiming that Johnson had attempted to steal a car and had fought with Officer Justin Davidson before being shot and killed by Jones. However, the family is questioning whether the police have told the full story.

“Mychael was fun, loving, intelligent, he was a giver, and a protector, he was a son, brother, father, and a great friend to have known,” Johnson’s sister Mildred Richardson said. “I think that there is way more to the story that we aren’t getting and the small details that we have received just doesn’t sound like him at all, it’s just not sitting well and adding up with the family.”

The family is also questioning whether the police were justified in using deadly force.

“What I think happened is that he was afraid, he wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, but he didn’t want to go back and have to spend time in a broken prison system,” said Mychael Johnson’s mother Evelyn Johnson. “I feel like he was running for his life because he was scared. It’s sad that I reached out to his probation officer, the police office, the Apalachee center, and the Leon county sheriff’s department, before this point. And the only thing that they assisted with was taking his life.”

The Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC) has criticized the lack of transparency from TPD. They organized community members to call into police and city officials on March 25 to ask for the release of body cam or dash footage and for an independent investigation led by the community.

“We can’t let the police investigate themselves, as we see time and time again that the police never have a transparent process,” said TCAC President Regina Joseph. “We need an independent investigation for this case, and every case from now. That is why we are fighting for community control of the police. We need an elected body that will investigate all police crimes and bring peace and justice to our community.”

“I want people to know what type of person that he was, I don’t want his name to go in vain,” said Mildred Richardson. She continued, “And I also want people to be more aware of the police violence against the Black community, and that if we all stick together so many things can be accomplished.”

#TallahasseeFL #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesStruggles #Racism #Florida #BLM

Tampa, FL – On January 4, Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a protest against U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. The event was in response to recent aggression from the Trump administration against Iran following the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. “Shortly after we heard the news, we decided that it was important for us to organize a demonstration against a new war as quickly as possible,” said Matthew Wheat of Tampa Bay SDS.

Students and community members held signs and chanted on the corner of a busy intersection in Temple Terrace, home to the University of South Florida, which has many contracts with the U.S. military and is complicit in funneling students into the war machine. Temple Terrace is also home to a large Middle Eastern community, many of whom immigrated to the area as a result of the destruction of their homes due to previous U.S. military intervention in the Middle East. The protesters received an overwhelming show of solidarity from passersby, including honking, thumbs up and shouts of support.

During the protest, speeches highlighted the United States’ pattern of military intervention across the globe, which has resulted in countless civilian casualties throughout the years. Additionally, speeches emphasized that the American people have nothing to gain from wars abroad, echoing the chant: “1, 2, 3, 4! We won’t fight a rich man’s war!”

The event was successful in forwarding the anti-war movement in Tampa Bay and pushing back against pro-war rhetoric in the media. According to Matthew Wheat, Tampa Bay SDS, “hopes to continue to raise public consciousness about the inevitable catastrophes that would result from a war with Iran.”

#TampaFL #AntiwarMovement #StudentMovement #SDS #PeoplesStruggles #Iran #Florida

Jacksonville, FL – The outcome of Jacksonville’s 2019 runoff elections looked remarkably like the general election back in March. Even fewer people participated in the runoff, which saw voter turnout sink from an already dismal 24% in March to just 14.35% two months later. By all accounts, Republicans came out on top. Dixie money ruled the day again, with the candidate who raised and spent the most money winning every single runoff.

Five city council seats went to a runoff after no candidate received a majority of the vote in March. While Democrats elected three city council members, only three of the five runoffs pitted a Republican against a Democrat. In those competitive races, Republicans won two of three. Districts 8 and 10 featured two Democrats facing off against one another.Lenny Curry will go into his second term with a Republican supermajority on the city council. In actuality, his level of support goes beyond party affiliation. Two of the Democrats elected, Tommy Hazouri and Ju’Coby Pittman, owe their wins to Republicans. Hazouri, a former mayor of Jacksonville from a business family, proved that class lines run deeper than party lines by openly endorsing Curry for re-election. While Democrats declined to field their own candidate for mayor, most backed former city council president Anna Lopez Brosche. Hazouri’s gamble paid off, drawing ire from progressives and mountains of cash from Curry’s donors. Pittman, on the other hand, owes her meteoric rise in city politics to Republican Rick Scott, the former governor and current U.S. senator from Florida. Scott selected Pittman to replace District 8 Councilwoman Katrina Brown, who lost her seat after getting indicted for fraud in a federal investigation. Brown, who represented one of the handful of majority-Black districts in Jacksonville, drew the fury of Curry and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office after refusing to vote for the mayor’s massive budgetary handouts to the police. Her indictment soon followed, allowing Scott to appoint Pittman in her place.The Duval Democrat catastropheMay’s runoff proved devastating for the Duval County Democratic Party, already on life support from the March election. Lisa King, a real estate developer and former Democratic Party committeewoman, has spent half a decade trying to win local office. When Republican Anna Lopez Brosche ran for mayor, King hoped to take her vacant seat on the council. Some have speculated that the two worked out a formal deal to this effect. But Curry soundly crushed Brosche in March, leaving hundreds of thousands in leftover campaign contributions to funnel into King’s opponent and fellow political insider, Terrance Freeman. Out-raised and out-spent, King lost to Freeman 46% to 54%.The most heartbreaking loss for Democrats came in District 14, which comprises a wide and diverse swath of neighborhoods on the westside. It was won by Andrew Gillum in the state’s 2018 gubernatorial election. Democrat Sunny Gettinger, a tech industry professional formerly with Google, ran on a platform of infrastructure development against Republican Randy DeFoor, a vice president for Fidelity National Finance. DeFoor out-raised Gettinger almost two-to-one in campaign contributions, drawing a total of $424,000 between her campaign and political action committee, versus Gettinger’s $213,000. With the full backing of Curry’s well-oiled machine, DeFoor flooded voters’ mailboxes with deceitful attack ads and squeaked out a 51% victory over her opponent.Why do the Democrats lose so badly in Jacksonville, a city where they enjoy a 28,000 registered voter advantage over Republicans? For one, they usually get out-spent on the campaign trail. Like the rest of the country, the candidate with the most money wins their election most of the time. But just 87,318 people voted in the May runoff – just over 14% of registered voters – meaning the vast majority of people in Jacksonville aren’t swayed either way by attack ads or campaign mailers.It’s a problem of class. The Democratic Party may offer a more centrist approach to capitalist rule, but it represents the same ruling capitalist class interests as the Republicans. We can see this plainly in the type of candidates who they field locally: small business owners, upper-middle class professionals and mid-level developers. Unfortunately for these Democrats, big business and developers already have a party to push their interests locally, namely the Republicans, and most are quite satisfied with Mayor Curry’s more authoritarian pro-business policies.Curry and the Republican-dominated city council push policies that help big business and developers at the expense of the working-class majority. During the mayor’s first term, child poverty rose 12.2% and more than half of all students in Duval County Public Schools are ‘low-income.’ Roughly one in six residents live in poverty. Wages lag behind the national average. Schools are falling apart. Rent costs are the fifth fastest growing in the country. Scant public transportation leaves many workers cut off from better jobs, and many Black neighborhoods on in the city’s northwest quadrant lack basic sewage infrastructure.But rather than running on a platform to make life better for the working class, the Democrats hardly run on a platform at all. The candidates generally put forward vague calls for more ‘development’ or ‘supporting law enforcement’ to reduce the city’s rising crime rate. All of these broad planks fit perfectly with the party leadership’s own class interests, namely those of capitalists. But to the vast majority of working people, this makes them virtually indistinguishable from the Republicans. With no reasonable prospect of their lives substantially improving, the working-class majority sits it out. This allows tools of big business, like Curry, to win re-election despite receiving support from just 14% of the total registered voters.Labor and the working class in JacksonvilleTwo serious progressive forces exist in Jacksonville that can mobilize a mass base to challenge the power of Dixie capital: organized labor and the Black community.Since the end of the civil war, Jacksonville has served as a major logistics hub in the southern United States. Its large port and access to the Saint Johns River made it a significant shipping center for international trade and the site of two large naval bases. When railroads opened the rest of the state to northern investment, Jacksonville became a central junction for feeding rail loads in and out of Florida. Today, the city sits at the crossroads of Interstate 95, which stretches from Miami to New York, and Interstate 10, which stretches across the southern states to Los Angeles, California. Jacksonville’s heavy concentration of logistics gives the city a huge industrial working class, numbering around 500,000. The logistics industry itself employs about 60,000 workers, and workers in three of the four largest logistics employers – UPS, CSX railroad, and Crowley Maritime Corporation – are unionized, mostly with the Teamsters. Roughly 40,000 workers and their families are represented by unions in north Florida, according to the North Florida Central Labor Council. The biggest unions in the city are Duval Teachers Union, Teamsters Local 512, the building trades unions, and AFSCME, which represents city and state workers in Duval County. Dock workers at JAXPORT, represented by the Longshoremen, also remain a powerful section of Jacksonville’s working class.That said, the vast majority of workers in Jacksonville are non-union, owing in part to the state’s anti-union policies and the city government’s hostile attitude towards labor. This has serious ramifications for the power of the working class in city, state and national politics. In the absence of organization, most workers don’t vote. Among the city’s unions, labor leaders have a difficult time turning out their members to vote for endorsed candidates. Like much of the country’s unions, top labor officials will endorse and cut checks for candidates with little member involvement.Black JacksonvilleThe Black community is the other major progressive force in Jacksonville – one that overlaps significantly with the working class as a whole. African Americans make up about 31% of the city’s population and an even larger percentage of the city’s working class. Staggeringly, they also comprise about 44% of those living in poverty, which is particularly concentrated on the city’s majority-Black north side. Facing decades of systemic underdevelopment in their neighborhoods and discrimination, it’s not surprising that Black workers make up a disproportionate section of north Florida’s labor movement. Black small businesses, too, face a strangulation by city planners, who restrict the flow of loans and capital to the north side. Gentrification programs, masked under the banner of ‘re-development,’ aim to displace Black working class and poor residents from their homes. Springfield and other neighborhoods in the city’s ‘urban core’ remain the target of developers, who hope to buy up prime real estate they themselves abandoned in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. Jacksonville ranks second on the top ten cities with the lowest Black neighborhood property valuation, which declined 47% from 2012 to 2016. When the market and rising rents won’t do the trick, the city relies on an outsized, bloated police force, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), to brutally repress the community. From 2015 to 2017, African Americans made up 63% of those shot by police. Based on the windfall of campaign donations by commercial and real estate developers in the 2019 local elections, Mayor Curry’s second term will step up this offensive.Shared interests and the possibility of a strategic allianceBoth the entire working class and the Black community as a whole have an overlapping interest in ending the rule of Dixie capital in Jacksonville. The city’s Chamber of Commerce boasts “positive tax advantages” and “affordable construction and real estate” for employers. This is just business-speak for “we pay little to no taxes for social programs to help working families” and “wages are lower here.” They’re not wrong. Wages lag $2.50 per hour behind the national average, and even further behind in major occupations like nursing and construction. There are two main reasons for this: One, the low union density in the city. Curry and the Republican-dominated city council promote this by favoring non-union construction companies for city building projects, which rely on low-wage, no-benefit, out-of-state labor. Second, the presence of a section of unemployed for under-employed workers, who employers can call back into the workforce to drive down wages. Because of ongoing discrimination, inequalities in education, over-policing and underdevelopment, Black unemployment remains stubbornly high at around 7 to 9%, even as total unemployment numbers hit record lows.Police accountability remains another important area of united interest between these two forces. Under Curry, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has seen its budget substantially increase every year despite a rising violent crime rate and the state’s second-lowest crime solving rate. Under the 2018-2019 budget, a staggering 36 cents of every dollar went to the JSO. African Americans are disproportionately arrested and prosecuted, but poor and working-class white neighborhoods, particularly on the westside, also suffer from the city’s expansive police state.In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized the U.S. war on Vietnam, drawing an explicit link between the amount spent on military and the poverty experienced by the country’s working families. “Despite feeble protestations to the contrary,” he said, “the promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the promises of a better life for the majority of families are shot down on the JSO’s own battlefields on Jacksonville’s north side. The JSO wages a war on the working class and Black community that drains the resources necessary to fix public schools, expand public transportation, rebuild and expand infrastructure, and reduce poverty.Strong unions and mass movements are the way forwardDuval Democrats can call all they want for more ‘modern’ development. So long as they continue voting for expanding the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, they make improving our conditions impossible. The JSO will have to be reduced and put under community control to actually tackle crime and its social causes. It’s naive nonsense from professionals and technocrats to say otherwise. With Dixie capital firmly in control of the city government, activists and organizers will have to look outside the Democratic Party to confront their offensive. Unions will need to energize their rank and file and get them directly involved in the fight. Powerful mass movements will need to expand their reach and deepen the struggle for community control of the police.To that end, the Jacksonville Community Action Committee announced a mass protest of Mayor Curry and Sheriff Williams’ inauguration on Monday, July 1 at 8 a.m. at the Florida Times Union Center. In a few months, the new Republican-dominated city council will convene to discuss a new budget. The few Democrats on the council would do well to stand against any expansion for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and push an alternate program designed to strike at poverty, underdevelopment and crumbling schools. Whether they do or not, Jacksonville’s growing people’s movements are up to the challenge.Dave Schneider is a union worker and community organizer in Jacksonville, Florida.

#JacksonvilleFL #PeoplesStruggles #Florida

Tampa, FL – On March 10, over a dozen Tampa community, student and labor leaders gathered at Lykes Gaslight Park for a protest against President Donald Trump’s anti-woman agenda. Since coming into office, Trump has led an all-out assault on women’s rights, including defunding abortion services, erasing sections of Title IX that protect women from sexual assault and discrimination, and locking asylum-seeking women and children in cages in the southwestern United States. In the spirit of the women’s marches that occurred in response to Trump’s inauguration, protesters chanted “Pro-life is a lie, you don’t care if people die,” and “When women are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!”

Angelica Schreifer, member of Tampa Students for a Democratic Society said, “I’m opposed to Trump’s policies because they’re negatively impacting the lives of women everywhere. It’s important to make a stand against him and his administration and bring awareness to these issues. By organizing and speaking out we can encourage others to get together and do the same.”

The protest was among the many across the country marking International Women’s Day.

#TampaFL #PeoplesStruggles #Florida #WomensDay

Tallahassee, FL – On January 26 dozens gathered at the Florida State Capitol building in protest of Donald Trump's recognition of the right-wing self-appointed presidency of Juan Guaido in Venezuela. The democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has called this a coup attempt ordered by the U.S. government.

“We should value the voices of the people. Juan Guaido did not run in the previous election and was not voted in. It’s imperative to recognize leaders who were democratically elected, not political figures who seek to undermine the masses and simply declare themselves president,” said Isabela Casanova, a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and organizer of the rally. Casanova continued, “Donald Trump does not care about the people of Venezuela, he only wants to take their oil and help his friends on Wall Street.”

Protesters held a banner stating, “Hands off Venezuela: Say no to Trump’s coup!” and signs reading “Respect Venezuelan sovereignty” and “No blood for oil.” Jamila Lorde, a member of SDS, led the crowd in chants including “No wall, no detention, no U.S. intervention” and “Trump wants war, Trump wants oil, hands off Venezuelan soil.”

“I protested because I’m fed up with the interventionism and destruction the U.S. causes in their never-ending quest for money and power,” said Denzel Pierre, an FSU student who spoke at the rally. “I think people in the U.S. should know the similarities between U.S. intervention in Venezuela and U.S. intervention in the past. I wish more people understood the damage of U.S. sanctions to the Venezuelan people and how the U.S.’s past policies have helped sabotage Venezuela.”

#TallahasseeFL #AntiwarMovement #Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #Florida #Maduro #Trump

Doral, FL- Fifty passionate activists gathered on a sidewalk across from the Univision TV station in Miami, January 26, to denounce U.S. attempts to overthrow the democratically-elected government in Venezuela. The protest targeted the overt and illegal coup plans being hatched by Donald Trump and the U.S government, and media stations like Univision and CNN who continue to spread propaganda pushing for intervention and regime change.

The energized crowd shouted, “Hands off Venezuela!” and “I,2,3,4 intervention no more!” They held signs and banners in English and Spanish along with pictures of late-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and current President Nicholas Maduro. Venezuelan flags waved in the air as cars and people passed by. One protester held a sign written in Spanish that read “Venezuela does not have a dictatorship, it has oil.”

This bold action was held in the heart of Doral, a city in the Miami area known for being home to Trump National golf resort and an extremely right-wing, wealthy Venezuelan community. In fact, Doral has the highest percentage of Venezuelans than any other U.S. city – several of whom shouted obscenities and derogatory cries, as well as threats to the protesters as they walked or drove by.

Those in attendance represented many backgrounds and nationalities. Speakers representing Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, and Nicaragua were some of those who addressed the crowd by denouncing U.S. intervention in their respective home countries. The event was organized by the Emergency Hands Off Venezuela Committee, a coalition the represents several progressive South Florida organizations, and that will continue organizing against any U.S coup attempts in Latin America.

#DoralFL #AntiwarMovement #Venezuela #PeoplesStruggles #Florida #Maduro #Trump

Jacksonville, FL – AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) held a rally and march to end the government shutdown on January 19. Over 10 unions were represented, including teachers, electricians and nearly a dozen rank-and-file Teamsters. Several speakers gave personal accounts of how they and their families had been affected. The 70 union members marched down to a busy intersection while chanting “End the shutdown, call the vote!”

Protesters held signs that read “29 days without pay” and “Do what is right.” They stood and waved to honking cars and semi trucks. Bike police couldn’t resist coming over to harass the members near the end of the rally, but protesters stood fast. Union members gave several testimonies to local media that covered the downtown rally.

Joyce Westley, CWA retiree, gave her thoughts on the shutdown: “I think it’s unfair to those workers affected because they are just being used as pawns. It is inconsiderate to those families, the hardships that are being caused. And not just for the workers who are going to be paid, there are more who will not get to be caught up with their money so I’m standing out here for them. I hope our congress; the senate and the president can come together to get this resolved. The wall – that’s not a major issue here. It's terrible to cause so much hardship for so many people. It needs to stop now.”

#JacksonvilleFL #PeoplesStruggles #furlough #governmentShutdown #Florida

This is part two of a two-part series. View part one here. The specter of socialism in South Florida

It’s notable that Gillum saw narrower margins of victory in the three largest counties in South Florida, which typically go big for Democrats. He won, but he needed to win bigger to overcome DeSantis’ mega-margins in rural Florida. Some have pointed out that DeSantis’ better-than-expected performance in Miami-Dade and Broward came from his Cuban-American, Spanish-speaking running mate, Representative Jeanette Nunez. Neither Gillum nor his running mate, Chris King – nor Bill Nelson, for that matter – speak Spanish, precluding them from direct appeals to many Latino voters.

The far more decisive factor in DeSantis’ performance in South Florida was blatantly pandering to the right-wing Cuban exile community, along with wealthy Venezuelan and Colombian expatriates. Elections analyst Giancarlo Sopo estimates that DeSantis won 66% of Cuban-American voters in South Florida to Gillum’s 33%, accounting for a 160,000-vote difference. Remarkably, DeSantis improved on Trump’s 2016 vote totals among Cuban-Americans and picked up 78,000 more votes than his master.

How did he do it? From the minute DeSantis clenched the Republican nomination, the former congressman sought to label Gillum a ‘socialist.’ Scott and the GOP joined in, sending out mailers and running TV ads comparing Gillum to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and the late Fidel Castro. It earned DeSantis the support of reactionary Cuban exile organizations like the Inspire America Foundation and the Bay of Pigs memorial society, Brigade 2506.

Gillum ran on the most left-wing platform Florida has seen from a gubernatorial candidate in decades, but he is not a socialist. He sidestepped the question in a primary debate and moved away from more left-wing issues, like Medicare for All, during the general election. At one point, Gillum even tweeted out condemnations of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega and Maduro – a move ridiculed by left-wing activists. But these ham-fisted attempts did nothing to downplay the fears of Cuban exiles.

Of course, the anti-socialist attacks on Gillum worked well among white small business owners too – another natural mass base for the GOP in Florida. DeSantis coupled his ‘Red scare’ rhetoric with blatantly racist dog whistles, which the Dixie ruling class has historically used against unions, communists and the Black liberation movement. It reflects a growing fear of socialism by the ruling class, and I suspect Florida was a test-run for the GOP’s national rhetoric to come.

Amendment 4: Game-changer, or too-little-too-late?

All but one of the twelve constitutional amendments on the ballot passed. The most important of these, Amendment 4, passed with 65% voting yes to automatically restore the right to vote for non-violent ex-offenders. Amendment 4 can, in theory, restore the right to vote for over 10% of eligible voters – and over 20% of Black voters, which significantly reshapes the electorate.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that these gains will be offset by the Trump-directed census and redistricting process, which will begin in 2020. Florida’s electoral maps are heavily gerrymandered, despite passing two constitutional amendments to supposedly fix the issue in 2010. Gillum as governor could have vetoed a new set of gerrymandered district maps. DeSantis will do no such thing. The Republicans have the institutional power to counter the effects of Amendment 4 with a more aggressive gerrymandering process or Georgia-style voter suppression laws.

What’s next? The people’s movements after the midterms

Gillum’s campaign aroused a lot of enthusiasm in the people’s movements, which proved instrumental in his primary victory over four better-funded Democratic candidates. It remains to be seen what will happen to that energy. There’s a great likelihood the Democratic establishment will use Gillum’s loss to rebuke progressives in the party – wrongheaded, since centrists like Alex Sink and Charlie Crist lost by even larger margins with less turnout than Gillum. If this happens, it will cement the bankruptcy of the Florida Democratic Party and probably push away many activists. Conversely, that may also open an opportunity to push for the formation of a mass labor or workers party in cities and eventually the state.

Florida has seen an explosion of activism in the last decade, much of it originating from former student organizers. The Black freedom movement, in particular, has grown significantly and developed in a more radical direction. Immigrant rights work remains uneven – heavily dominated by non-profits and weakened by large, right-wing exile communities from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin American countries.

Without the benefit of data, it’s hard to know what effect, if any, organized labor had on the election. Anecdotally, it was very difficult to mobilize our base of Teamsters to vote. For one, many part-timers and likely Gillum voters were demoralized from having their votes “not count” weeks before in the UPS contract vote. But another factor – the low credibility of the union’s endorsement with the membership – also made things difficult. Many militants who voted no on the UPS contract see the union, locally and internationally, as having so little credibility that they vote the opposite way the union suggests, almost as a matter of reflex. Combined with the very poor political education done by our Teamster leadership and their coddling of reactionary attitudes by high-seniority white workers, I have no doubt that a large amount of the Teamsters who did vote went for DeSantis.

Florida

DeSantis’ win over Gillum – and to a much lesser extent Scott’s win over Nelson – reveals that the contradiction between Florida’s rural counties and its urban centers continues to deepen. In general, the GOP has represented big business in the cities and the Dixie capitalists of the rural counties. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, represents the state’s finance sector, real estate and commercial developers, and some key parts of the tourist industry – all located in the state’s metropolitan centers.

Both candidates won their respective nominations by defeating others backed by their party’s traditional capitalist supporters. Gillum drew major donations from liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer and George Soros, the bete-noire of the far-right, but he was by no means the choice of the establishment Democrats. DeSantis, too, won the GOP nomination without Big Sugar and large agricultural companies, who backed his opponent. But while Gillum’s victory represented a popular upsurge, DeSantis’ win was more a top-down affair orchestrated by Trump.

As the third-largest state in the U.S. by population, Florida and its 27 electoral votes will continue to play a large role in presidential elections and primaries. Socialists in Florida should carefully consider the field of Democratic presidential candidates in 2020. While unsuccessful, Gillum’s unlikely primary win and electrifying campaign proved that a large mass base of African Americans, Latinos and young workers of all nationalities exists in Florida that support a progressive program. If Bernie Sanders or a similar ‘democratic socialist’ runs, mobilizing that mass base could make the difference between winning the nomination and not.

Duval County

The unprecedented voter turnout in Duval County that won it for Gillum has many in the Democratic Party convinced that they can win the 2019 mayor and city council elections. GOP Mayor Lenny Curry and Sheriff Mike Williams claimed wins on election day for endorsing their fellow Trump acolyte, DeSantis, early on. But while both may curry favors from the governor’s mansion for their loyalty, they could easily find themselves out of office in the next year if the same voters return to the polls.

Significantly, Gillum won Duval County by both driving up turnout in the city’s Black community – heavily concentrated on the Northside – but also by flipping key precincts on the Westside, including some majority white, working-class precincts. It suggests that Gillum’s platform, which avoided typical centrist issues in favor of more direct appeals to the working class (health insurance, raising wages, criminal injustice reform), resonated with younger workers of all nationalities in Jacksonville.

With its large, struggling, multinational working class and its enormous Black community, Jacksonville has the potential to become a major site of class struggle in Florida. It’s impossible to imagine a successful mass workers party, even locally, without the support of a major section of organized labor. But if Jacksonville’s unions pursued a third party in alliance with the city’s Black community, it’s equally impossible to imagine they wouldn’t make huge inroads.

#Florida #FL #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #FloridaElection2018