Next Left

The records of the State Historical Society of North Dakota contain a bland notation of an infrastructure project from almost seventy years ago. They tell us that the Garrison Dam was built by the US government to control flooding, and for continuity of downstream barge traffic. They also mention that strong opposition to this dam came from those who lived on the banks of the Missouri River, primarily American Indians, who were forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods when the waters rose to create Lake Sakakawea. Ruth Buffalo was not alive in 1953, when the decisions of a federal government upended the lives of the Three Affiliated Tribes, also known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, on North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, but what happened has shaped her activism and now a political career that has seen her elected to the North Dakota State Legislature. In this interview with Next Left she recalls the impact of federal decisions that transformed the lives of her family and her community, with the flooding of 94% of the agricultural land the tribes had worked for generations, and the dislocation of Native people from their historical homesteads. Ruth Buffalo’s personal story offers a reminder that the struggles of Native Americans with an indifferent and often destructive federal government are not issues of the past, but of the present. So too does the story of another struggle she’s been involved with, that of the people of Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Ruth Buffalo’s election in 2018 to the state legislature came at a time when the nation’s attention was focused on efforts to suppress the vote of Native Americans in North Dakota. She actually beat the legislator who made it harder to vote, and now she is working to open up the process. She ran for the legislature to put a host of of issues on the agenda: healthcare, education, and human rights. And now she’s having a lot of success in doing so, because as her campaign proudly reminds us, Ruth is in the House.

SHOW NOTES

MMIWG an epidemic in U.S. as well as Canada, says North Dakota legislator CBC Laura Sciarpelletti

Native Students should not have to worry whether they will be allowed to wear eagle feathers and plumes during school-sanctioned events Indian Country Today Ruth Buffalo

Three challenges for Ruth Buffalo: She’s a woman. She’s Native. And she’s a Democrat. Indian Country Today Jourdan Bennett-Begaye

The 2018 Midterms Have Exposed a Democracy in Crisis The Nation John Nichols

Finding Aid: The Garrison Dam and Lake Sakakawea The North Dakota State Historical Society 

Now & Then - Mandaree Singers

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The US Congress has historically been defined by a seniority system that has too frequently rewarded members for the length of their tenures rather than the strength of their ideas. But that’s changing, as young progressives are getting elected to the House and demanding to be heard. The change is occurring at least in part because progressives like Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal have joined new members in forcing it. They have made the Congressional Progressive Caucus a force for opening up the process and getting newly-elected members on key committees and in the thick of essential debates.Congressman Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat elected to the House in 2012, co-chairs the caucus and he is our guest this week on Next Left. A gay man who traveled to Canada to get married before the laws changed in the US, a trade unionist with deep skills as an organizer and activist, and an ardent advocate for altering US foreign policies to place an emphasis on diplomacy rather than war making, he has with CPC co-chair Jayapal (a Washington Democrat elected in 2016), made the caucus a place where the next wave of progressives are being welcomed and given leadership roles from the start. New members such as Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Deb Haaland and Katie Porter all hold key positions associated with the caucus. Pocan works with them, as he does with veteran progressives such as Barbara Lee, to advance an economic and social and racial justice agenda that demands an end to needless wars and a Green New Deal to save the planet. He’s an advocate for abolishing ICE, a champion of Middle East peace—and a magician.

SHOW NOTES

The DCCC’s Plan to Punish Democrats for Backing Primary Challengers Is Sparking Major Backlack The Nation John Nichols

Behind the Scenes of the House Democrats’ Twitter War The Nation Joan Walsh

Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-CHairs Call for an Impeachment Inquiry The Nation John Nichols

Mark Pocan is waging a lonely fight for deeper thinking on Israel and Palestine The Cap Times John Nichols

Magic Monday with Mark Pocan

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Tiffany Cabán started 2019 as a 31-year-old public defender in her native New York City. She knew that the criminal justice system wasn’t working for her clients or for the city. Something had to change, and she decided that she would be the change agent.

With encouragement from a small circle of friends and fellow reformers, she entered the race for District Attorney in Queens. There were other candidates running in the Democratic primary, better known candidates with more money and more political connections. But Cabán embraced a movement politics that took its cues from grassroots activists and policy specialists. She declared, "I am a public defender. I have spent my career working for people who did not have resources to defend themselves against the brutal system of mass incarceration. I am running to transform the Queens District Attorney's office after years of witnessing its abuses on the front lines.”

Tens of thousands joined in. This movement campaign electrified activists not just in Queens and New York City but across the country. On the primary election night in June, Cabán finished narrowly ahead. An extended recount cost her the nomination. But she has not stopped building the movement to transform a criminal justice system that fails to deliver justice.

SHOW NOTES

Tiffany Cabán Was the Next Progressive Hope. Now What? New York Times Jan Ransom and Jeffery C Mays

How Tiffany Cabán Lost the Vote But Won the Fight in Queens Jacobin Amir Khafagy

Public Defender Cabán Enters Crowded DA Race Queens Daily Eagle David Brand

Tiffany Cabán’s Rebel Campaign in Queens New Yorker Jennifer Gonnerman

Tiffany Cabán Wants to Transform What It Means to Be a DA The Nation Isabel Cristo

What Tiffany Cabán’s Concession Means for Queens The Nation Ross Barkan

Good As Hell - Lizzo

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The smarter politics that is emerging in America recognizes that every elected position has the potential to serve as a platform for transformational change, and that is especially true of city council posts. City councillors govern from the intersection of grassroots engagement and policy. If they do it right, they can remake local, state, and national debates. Few city councilmembers know this better than Austin’s Greg Casar. Casar came to Austin as an activist, he recognized quickly the potential of the city council, and got elected at the age of twenty-five, the youngest city councillor in Austin history. Since then, he has pursued groundbreaking struggles for worker rights, immigrant rights, and economic justice, and there have been amazing victories. This week, Greg Casar is our guest on Next Left.

SHOW NOTES

Internal Emails Show ICE Agents Struggling to Substantiate Trump’s Lies About Immigrants The Intercept Alice Speri

Greg Casar FIghts to Change Austin Austin Monthly Elizabeth Pagano

Austin Just Brought Paid Sick Leave to the South The Nation Jimmy Tobias

Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) - K’naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC, Residente Hamilton Mixtape

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Donald Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to diminish, disempower and smear Rashida Tlaib. The President has been ranting and raving about the Democratic congresswoman from Michigan since she took office earlier this year. He has lied about her. He has misconstrued and mischaracterized her statements and actions. And, now, the president has intervened to prevent Tlaib--along with Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar-- from making an official visit to Israel and the West Bank. Under pressure from Trump, the Israeli government announced last week that it was barring the two congresswomen.

Tlaib has pushed back mightily, declaring, as the first the daughter of Palestinian immigrants and one of the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the U.S. House that, "When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions." And so she has.

Amidst all the wrangling with Trump, Americans have learned a little bit abou Rashida Tlaib--about her family ties to the West Bank, about her Palestinian grandmother. But there is so much more to this lawyer, legislator, civil rights and civil liberties activist, mother and daughter.

This special edition of Next Left repeats our interview with Rashida Tlaib because we thought people should have an opportunity to get to know her better.

********

SHOW NOTES

This is A New Low The Nation John Nichols

What Is Israel Trying to Hide? Reps. Omar and Tlaib Blocked from Taking Official Trip to West Bank Democracy Now!

Johnson & Johnson Hit With $300 Million in Punitive Damages in Talc Case The Wall Street Journal Peter Loftus

No, Rashida Tlaib Is Definitely Not Antisemitic Jacobin Megan Day

Now is the time to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump Detroit Free Press John Bonifaz and Rashida Tlaib

The Constitution Demands It by John Bonifaz, Ben Clements, and Ron Fein

Smooth Criminal  by Michael Jackson

Follow John Nichols on Twitter at @NicholsUprising

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You may have seen Philadelphia City Council Member Helen Gym rallying recently with Senator Bernie Sanders to save Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital from closure. That fight earned national headlines. But it was typical of how Gym serves.

Gym is always rallying and marching, picketing and petitioning. She’s an activist and an organizer who sees her service as part of a movement politics that is rooted in her community but that forges networks that are global in scope and character. Gym understands cities as laboratories of democracy that spin out ideas that other cities, states, and nations can adopt. And she’s got a lot of ideas, as you’ll hear on this week’s Next Left podcast.

Gym got her start in journalism, but soon turned to teaching and organizing. She’s been involved with a remarkable group of activists and organizers in Philadelphia, Asian Americans United. With them, Gym has fought to defend public education, empower workers, and prevent the displacement of working class families by developers. Her candidacy four years ago for an At-Large City Council seat extended from that activism. She won, and she’s been so effective that this spring she was the top vote-getter among more than two dozen candidates in the citywide Democratic primaries. Helen Gym is proving that activism and political success go together, which is part of what makes her such a fascinating—and important—guest on Next Left.

SHOW NOTES

Activists in Philadelphia Have Reclaimed Control of the City’s Schools The Nation Jimmy Tobias

How Medicare for All Would Stop Hospitals Like Hahnemann from Closing The Nation Adam Gaffney

Bernie Sanders and Helen Gym: Philly’s fight for Hahnemann represents the need for health care for all Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Just Passed the Strongest Fair Scheduling Law in the Nation In These Times Bryce Covert

What does Helen Gym’s resounding vote total mean for Council and Education? The Notebook Greg Windle

(Something Inside) So Strong - Labi Siffre 

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Congresswoman Deb Haaland has some ideas about what it means when President Trump tells newly-elected congresswomen to go back where they came from.

Haaland is, herself, a newly-elected member of Congress from New Mexico, where her long history of activism includes stints as chair of the New Mexico Democratic Party and a bid for statewide office. A lawyer with great organizing skills, she has hit the ground running in the House, as a key member of the Armed Services and Natural Resources committees. She's the co-chair of the Congressional Native American Caucus, and on March 7, 2019, during a debate on voting rights, she became the first Native American woman to preside over the United States House of Representatives.

That's right. It took 230 years before a pair of Native American women - Haaland and Sharice Davids of Kansas - were elected to the people's house. For Haaland's part, she's an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo people. Archeologists tell us that the Laguna Pueblo people have lived in western New Mexico since around 6500 BC. So when right-wingers talk about sending congresswomen who disagree with the president back, Haaland reminds them that her roots run a lot deeper than their's do.

SHOW NOTES

Meet Deb Haaland, Democrat for Congress The Nation Joshua Holland

‘They’re Gonna Rock It’: The First Day Native Woman Served on Capitol Hill The Nation Julian Brave NoiseCat

Go back where? Trump’s racist tweets hits panel that included Deb Haaland Indian Country Today

How to Indigenize the Green New Deal and environmental justice High Country News Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Trump Wants Immigrants to ‘Go Back.’ Native Americans Don’t. New York Times Deb Haaland

It’s Been 70 years since court ruled Native Americans could vote in New Mexico Santa Fe New Mexican Andrew Oxford

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A new episode

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A new episode

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When Women Disobey activists sat in at the Senate Hart Office Building in the summer of 2018, Pramila Japayal was asked to address the protest against the Trump administration's brutal approach to border and immigration issues. Instead of delivering her remarks and exiting, the Democratic congresswoman from Seattle said, "I decided that I, too, would sit down with them and submit to arrest." So Jayapal settled in. "We chanted and sang and talked about the need to reunite these families and to end the president's zero-tolerance policy," she recalled. Then she was taken into custody, along with more than 575 others. When the news broke, the congresswoman announced that she was "proud to have been arrested" for challenging "inhumane and cruel" policies.

No one in Seattle was surprised that Jayapal was willing not just to talk the talk but to walk the walk. She has for decades been one of the most outspoken and engaged advocates for women, people of color, and immigrants in Washington state and nationwide. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, she formed the organization Hate Free Zone to push back against the targeting of immigrants. The group sued the Bush administration to prevent the deportation of over 4,000 Somali immigrants. It launched education and voter registration campaigns and, eventually, under the name OneAmerica, was recognized as a model for the type of advocacy organization that was needed to take up the range of economic and social justice issues that needed to be a part of the broader struggle for immigrant rights.

Jayapal turned to electoral politics only recently, winning a seat in the Washington state Senate in 2014 and then winning an open US House seat in 2016. And she has maintained her ties to her own immigrant roots—as an Indian-born student who arrived in the United States on her own at age 16—and her activist organizing. She's already the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a chief sponsor of Medicare for All legislation. We talked about her work in Congress for this week's Next Left, but we focused much of our attention on the remarkable personal story that underpins Pramila Jayapal's congressional service.

Show notes

Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Call for an Impeachment Inquiry The Nation John Nichols

How Pramila Jayapal’s Inside-Outside Strategy Is Changing the Future of Progressive Politics The Nation Joan Walsh

Pramila Jayapal Wants Democrats to Know That Resistance Is Not Enough The Nation Joan Walsh

Rep. Pramila Jayapal arrested at D.C. protest of Trump’s ‘zero tolerance border policy The Seattle Times Jim Brunner

Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Pramila Jayapal Join Airport Protests to Free People Detained Under Muslim Ban Democracy Now!

Melanie Charles How Glad I Am 

Mima La Princesa

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