This article is by YES member Josh Lorenzo

Prohibition: what was supposed to be an alcohol-free dream soon turned into a vicious nightmare. When Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment in January 1919, many saw alcohol as an evil force that caused nothing but crime, poverty, and violence. Few expected that banning it would only inflame the issues. In this four-part series, we'll examine Prohibition, why it failed, and what we can learn from it.

Written by: Daniel Bumbarger, Noah Martin, Charlie McVicker, Shannel Pittman, Josh Lorenzo, Manuel Lopez, Avery Seal

The Young Ecosocialists condemn the actions that took place at the Capitol Building today, both those taken by protesters and by a complicit police force. Having clearly lost the election, President Trump has continued to embolden white supremacists, fascists, and other far-right radicals. This is nothing new for President Trump. He has a long pattern of embracing his fascist followers with comments of “very fine people on both sides” after the white supremacist Unite The Right Rally in 2017. He has repeatedly encouraged violence and failed to condemn these groups, famously telling the Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by” in the first presidential debate of 2020. This behavior has predictably incited right wing violence all across the country.

Are community land trusts a viable solution to housing crises and gentrification in America’s big cities?

Written by Josh Lorenzo

Housing is becoming more and more costly, and the working-class is being given the short end of the stick. Let's face it – current housing policies put profits over people. Millions of people are severely rent-burdened, meaning they spend over half their income on rent. A significant amount of them spend over 80% of their income on rent. Millions more have 30%-49% of their income going towards paying rent.

An untold amount of people live in poor housing conditions, including a lack of sanitation and overcrowding. Hundreds of thousands of people, including tens of thousands of children, are homeless in cities where architecture is becoming more anti-homeless. These issues disproportionately affect racial minorities, especially African and Latinx Americans. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only further exposed how deep these inequalities run.

The Young Ecosocialists Caucus (YES) of the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) gives our support to Intersex Day of Solidarity, also known as Intersex Day Of Remembrance, and we ask the entire GPUS to join us in this support.  This event fits with the Pillars, Values and Platform shared by both the GPUS and the YES.  In addition to respect for diversity, respect for feminism, respect for gender self-determination and social/economic justice, these include reproductive rights.  These include the rights of pregnant people to carry intersex fetuses without interference by anti-intersex medical professionals.  These include the rights of intersex babies and children to be protected from unnecessary genital surgeries which amount to forced sterilization of minority children.  These include the rights of all intersex people to bodily autonomy and fully informed choice in medical decisions about their bodies.

The Youth Caucus Steering Committee certify (through an SC majority of at least 5 approval votes below) our selection of the caucus's four allocated (4) delegates to the 2020 Presidential Nominating Convention. We will have no alternates.

Those four delegates are:

1. Francisco Correia
2. Mike Gamms
3. Christopher Lopez
4. Eric Graf

Pursuant to Youth Caucus bylaw 8.5.2 and in accordance with our caucus primary results (published at yesgp.org/2020_results), these four delegates are bound to vote for Howie Hawkins on the first round of voting but are not bound beyond the first round.

Thank you to our delegates and all who applied!

By Reece Evans

5/27/20

On Monday, May 25 another case of racist police terrorism has resulted in the death of a Black man in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The victim was George Floyd, a 46 year old resident of the community. He was murdered by a lynch mob of Minneapolis police officers.

What was the supposed crime that was worth taking the life of a human being? The police were called by a business after a customer allegedly tried to use a counterfeit form of payment. Another illustration of how the capitalist system works in hand with the police to commit genocide against poor and working class people.

These officers shouldn’t have been there in the first place. They are neither workers nor are they essential. The act of calling the police on Black and Brown people is complicity with white supremacy and the injustices that occur against oppressed peoples. The racist white police officer who responded to the call murdered Floyd with the assistance of three other officers by kneeling on his neck while knowing damn well he was killing him.

The victim was already restrained and wasn’t resisting in any way. Floyd had cried out for the officer not to kill him and repeatedly told him he couldn’t breathe. Floyd reported the pain on his neck and stomach that eventually caused him to start bleeding out of his nose. The police officer never budged, applying harder pressure in order to murder Floyd.

Like the pig who murdered Eric Garner this arrogant police officer clearly didn’t give a fuck about the life of a Black human being. Members of the community gathered in horror demanding that the officers stop the execution of Floyd. They yelled out that the officers were killing him and pointed to the blood pouring out of his nose as evidence that the use of force was causing severe bodily harm to the victim.

Minneapolis police policy allows for its officers to use cruel tactics like this on its citizens. The police chief, Medaria Arradondo has said that the department will review the use of these tactics in their policy. That isn’t good enough. The current and historical institution of policing in the United States is and has always been a tool of repression that must be abolished in its entirety.

Chief Arradondo was appointed after the resignation of the previous Chief Janeé Harteau. Harteau resigned under pressure against the department for the police murder of Justine Damond in 2017. The Minneapolis Police Department has no regard for the safety of its citizens and acts as the judge, jury, and executioner of innocent people without accountability falling where it should: the white supremacist system of policing.

The department is willing to symbolically sacrifice the officers that act on their behalf in order to maintain their continued oppression and domination of the communities that make up Minneapolis. The four police officers have been fired but have yet to be charged and arrested for the murder they committed.

Nominations for the 2020 YES Caucus Steering Committee will be open through April 28 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Voting will take place between Friday May 1  through Sunday, May 3 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

If you are a dues-paying member before May 1, when voting opens you will receive an e-mail with voting instructions.

Email your nomination form to [email protected] -- see yesgp.org/election for more info.

To become a member of the caucus, can pay annual dues at https://www.yesgp.org/donate.
Or, become a monthly sustaining donor at https://www.yesgp.org/sustain

The Youth Caucus recognizes the importance of Proposal 835 passed in 2016 to amend the GPUS Platform, which definitively laid out the party's opposition to capitalism. 

It has been four years since the Youth Caucus SC put out its unanimous endorsement of the proposal, which was authored by one of its members. That statement asked Young Greens across the country to lobby their National Committee delegates. We are proud that this endorsement and call to action helped spark the momentum which ultimately helped 835 pass the National Committee with over 70% support.

You can find the original statement re-posted below. 

This past week (7/25/19-7/28/19), saw the Green Party US Annual National Meeting in Salem, MA.  Below is a list of the workshop videos for our members and fellow Greens to view.