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The Majority Report with Sam Seder
3624 - Starbucks Workers Strike; Organizing for Climate Survival w/ Fabian Holt & Lawrence Wang
00:57:18
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- [00:00]
Emma Vigland
You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show@jointhemajorityreport.com and get an extra hour of content daily.
- [00:13]
Sam Cedar
The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.
- [00:19]
Matt Leck
It is Thursday, November 13, 2025. I am Mat Leck in for Emma Vigland who would be in for Sam Cedar. And this is the five time award winning majority. We are broadcast. Oh, I already said that. Oh no I didn't. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrial industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Fabian Holt, author of Organized or Burn and Lawrence Wang, author or organizer for New York Public Power. Talking about, talking with Emma about some ways we can address climate change. Also on the program today, Starbucks workers launch open ended strike on Red Cup Day. Folks tap in over 12,000 unionized baristas and 650 plus stores strike for contract first contract after four years citing 500 plus labor law violations by the company. Check that out. If you are a Starbucks consumer, you want to support your local workers. Also on the program today, story everyone's talking about the Epstein emails reveal that Trump quote knew about the girls and a whole bunch of other connections and conversations Jeffrey Epstein's been having with very powerful people, highly connected everywhere. We'll be covering that a lot in the next couple weeks, I think. Also Rep. Adelita Grialva finally swore in after 50 day GOP delay. The Arizona Democrat takes oath after seven weeks standoff with speaker Mike Johnson. Everything looking good there, Brian. Okay, cool. I'm just making sure Brian's. It's just me and Brian today, folks.
- [02:12]
Sam Cedar
No, you're good.
- [02:13]
Brian
You focus on hosting.
- [02:15]
Matt Leck
All right, Gotcha. Also, Operation Pedophile Distraction. Trump's administration's Caribbean military strikes are facing allied pushback. Let's hope it is. Does more than their pushback on Israel's genocide in Gaza and AI's boom. Environmental cost more than we thought. Taiwan using up a huge chunk of their water for new fabrication processes. All that and more on today's Majority Report. Hey, Brian.
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Brian
Hey, Matt. How's it going in there?
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Matt Leck
It's going pretty well. You know, I'm about to launch a show with David Griscom on the Jackman show. So I thought I'd do a little coup here for a promotion.
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Brian
Sam is duct taped to a chair in the back of the room.
- [03:02]
Matt Leck
Exactly. He'll be back tomorrow from a secure location. But I, and you know, we'll talk a lot about the Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. Now that I'm in this chair I need to actually know how to pronounce this sort of stuff. So Epstein. No, you don't.
- [03:17]
Lawrence Wang
That's actually true.
- [03:19]
Matt Leck
Actually, I'm very qualified to take this spot over the Epstein emails and not just with Trump, but with Larry Summers, with pretty much the entire cast of villains of the past, like 15 years, nasty stuff going on. We're going to talk a lot about that once we get Brandon and Binder in here. But I do want to start off with the Red Cup Day strikes that Starbucks workers voted unionized workers voted overwhelmingly to conduct. Here we have some sound from this. Brian.
- [03:50]
Brian
Yeah, yeah, this is Zarian Pouncey. He's been a barista in Vegas at Starbucks for 13 years. And this was taken from, I guess Michael Moore was interviewing him and this is just him setting up what's happening today.
- [04:09]
Matt Leck
And while you bring that up, I'll just say like the importance of baristas to an economy like Las Vegas, where you're going to need that caffeine in the morning on all days of the week. So yeah, let's see this.
- [04:22]
Zarian Pouncey
My name is Zarian Pouncey. I'm a barista in Las Vegas, Nevada. I've been with Starbucks for about 13 years and I've been with Starbucks Workers United since 2023. So currently the major demand is we just want them back at the table, staffing, scheduling, better take home pay and we're not afraid to go on strike if necess necessary. It's not just us partners, it's our customers that come in every day. It's the connections that we make and our customers care about us. So one of the biggest asks that I have for anyone that goes into a Starbucks that appreciates the barista, that appreciates the team that makes their coffee every morning and you know, checks on them when they're having a bad day. If you see us on strike on Thursday, just don't go to Starbucks. Try a different coffee shop, try something local. One of the biggest things that anybody can do to help is visiting nocontractnocoffee.org and RSVP for a red Cup Day rally, which will also be on the 13th, 4pm local times. Being in the union has been life changing to me. I used to be the kind of yes sir kind of like drank the company's green Kool Aid for years. It's like, oh, yeah, I have some complaints here and there, but you know, it comes with the job. Just deal with it. And reaching a point of no, I'm not going to deal with that. No, I'm not going to just smile and nod and just take whatever comes my way. Happily meeting other delegates across the US and you know, finding that connection in similar stories but then finding connection in some painful, traumatic things has been like the greatest thing back when I started in this union.
- [06:03]
Matt Leck
Yeah. So definitely tune in, especially if you are usually go to Starbucks and cross the picket line and look at how you can support your local Starbucks workers. This is a really important fight. Really, really, really important for what the message it sends to broader corporate America. That's really what's at stake here. The financial hit that a Starbucks corporate would take is easily manageable for having a unionized workforce that could easily give them a contract. But what that would do would be to signal to workers all across America, not just at Starbucks, but at every corporation, that they can win and we need to push them over, help push them over the goal line here. So yeah, solidarity with all these Starbucks workers. Godspeed. We have a couple ads, is that correct?
- [06:54]
Brian
Yeah. Also I was going to add we've had a couple interviews with union leaders from Starbucks that I'll post a link to throughout this fight. We've had him on like three, four times like I think since I've been here.
- [07:05]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah.
- [07:05]
Brian
Six months we've been on this one. So I'll just post links to those so you guys can get more background on it.
- [07:10]
Fabian Holt
Yeah.
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Matt Leck
And for any of those workers listening, and I've said this to like the Philly Whole Foods workers, stuff like that. Like, you're my favorite union people fighting the union fight are. I don't mean to play favorites, but you're my favorites.
- [07:26]
Brian
We got, we got ads from Oneskin and Zocdoc.
- [07:29]
Matt Leck
Yeah, we got two ads. The other two hosts are going to be here with some great products for you to check and services for you to check out. So here is either Sam or Emma. It'll be Emma.
- [07:39]
Emma Vigland
I'd like to thank Oneskin for sponsoring today's episode. Oneskin sent me the OS1 face, a moisturizer and longevity serum all in one and the OS01i, their most concentrated formula to treat the delicate skin around the. I've got sensitive skin. I get red at the drop of a hat. I need to make, make sure that I maintain my skin. And I've also been, you know, in true New Jersey fashion, a little bit way too obsessed with, with tanning. I've moved to the spray tan phase and not trying to devastate my skin anymore or the at home rub in one people may not Enjoy that. But I, it's the only way that I, I don't punish myself by laying in the sun whenever I can in the summer, but. And also One Skin helps me out with that as well. Taking care of it, trying to be proactive. And the OS one Eye in particular, that formula that you put on your eyes, it's really gentle, but you can feel that it's moisturizing. And especially when the seasons are changing, you've got harsher air, your skin gets drier. And then obviously I, in the summer I got a little sun damage and it's October and I've got to recuperate. I need a little bit. Yeah. More a consistent moisturizer. I really appreciate the OS one Eye for that very reason. And I've been using it for around three weeks at this point and I've already started to feel the benefits from it. I. I feel a little bit more brightness and I feel like the eye cream is probably the best eye cream I've ever used. And I've tried a few. Every formula is dermatologist tested, safe for sensitive skin and NEA approved, delivering powerful results with skin health in mind. The packaging is great. You've got this reusable shell for the moisturizer and it's just an easy couple of pumps. It goes on smoothly and easily this season. Don't just moisturize. Support your skin at the cellular level with one skin. For a limited time, you can try one skin with 15% off using code MAJORITYONESKIN CO. That's 15% off. ONESKIN with code MAJORITY. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please help us and tell them the Majority report sent you. Try Oneskin today. We'll put a link down below in the video and episode descriptions. And@majority.fm. get 15% off one skin with code majority@www.oneskin co.
- [10:27]
Sam Cedar
You know, folks, as I get older as I am, I'm constantly thinking to myself, I should go to the doctor more because I am getting older. I gotta deal with the stress from work, I gotta deal with my neck pain, I gotta deal with all sorts of nagging things. But it's a huge pain to go to the doctor. I want to keep myself healthy, but our medical system makes it extremely difficult and it almost like gives you a headache just thinking about it. However, I have a solution for you if you like this. It's called Zocdoc. They make it so easy to find the right fit and book an appointment for fast. So fast. And you do it directly on their website. ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click instantly to book an appointment. And not just, you know, doctor doctors, like dentists too. Zocdoc lets you book in network appointments with more than 100,000 doctors across every specialty. You can filter for doctors who are near you. You can filter from doctors who take your insurance and are near you. You can filter for doctors who are near you, take your insurance and are just like a good fit for you. Maybe you want a good side, a bedside manner. Maybe you want fast wait times. Maybe you want a doctor that listens well, all of these things you can find on zocdoc. And then the beauty of Zocdoc is there's no like can you do Tuesday at 3? No, I can't. What about Wednesday at 5? No, I can't. You go on Zocdoc and you can see their actual appointment openings. You choose a time that works for you and boom, click, you book a visit. Appointments made through ZOCDOC also happen quickly and typically fast. Like just 24 to 72 hours is the typical out lead time that you need. You can even get same day appointments. Matt's used Oct. I've done it when I was on the road, tried to get a dentist. Want to thank zocdoc for sponsoring today's episode. Check it out. Honestly makes going to see the doctor not a pain in the neck. That really should be there. That should be the, that should be the catchphrase. That should be the logo. But they can have that for free. Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to zocdoc.com majority find and instantly book a top rated doctor today. That z o c d o c.com majority zoc doc.com majority we'll put that and all the ads in Today's podcast and YouTube descriptions. Now back to Matt.
- [13:46]
Emma Vigland
We are back and we are joined now by Lawrence Wang, longtime public power New York organizer and Fabian Holt, author of Organize or How New York Socialists Fight for Climate Survival. Lawrence and Fabian, welcome to the show.
- [14:03]
Lawrence Wang
Great to be here.
- [14:04]
Emma Vigland
Oh, great to have you. Really excited to talk to you about New York DSA and the organizing successes of New York DSA in this moment in particular, given what happened last week. We're recording this a little bit after, before people are listening to it. But maybe Lawrence, you can start and just speak a little bit about Zoramdan Ghani's successful campaign. An enormous upset starting at 1% in the polls as a Democratic socialist and winning the mayoral race and what that means for DSA and the city more broadly.
- [14:40]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah, no, I mean, this is a monumental win for the left at large, especially for DSA and for democratic socialism. And what is so great about it is that it actually encapsulates exactly what we did also to help pass the Public Renewables act, which is the subject of Fabian's book. And it's because basically, at the very basis of our organizing is that we don't trouble ourselves with what is possible. Instead, we focus on what we make it to make it inevitable. And Zoron, he came from, as you said, 1% behind. Nobody knew him except for everyone in DSA. But through organizing, through clever organizing, but also an unmitigated message of what is possible, of a better world that we can build. And through, of course, a fantastic field program, what New York City DSA is well known for and extremely powerful communications, is able to turn that 1% into, right now, the mayor elect of New York City, the greatest city in the world.
- [15:48]
Emma Vigland
Yeah. And Fabian, can you touch a little bit on that, on organizing as a principle? Because what we've been trying to emphasize on the show is that, you know, these candidates that come with, like, a flashy resume or with traits on paper that would make sense to become some sort of public official, they don't have DSA's organizing power behind them. And so they're more likely to rely on things like corporate donations. And that's kind of how the party, the Democratic Party, became toothless. It doesn't have what DSA has. Just. Just. If you could just speak about the importance of doing politics in that way and how that leads to actual change, not just the policies. It's the way of doing politics that moves the needle.
- [16:40]
Fabian Holt
Absolutely. I think what we are seeing now is, like, the acceleration of the collapse of the. Is it a faction of, you know, corporate Democrats? It's been. They've been able to hold on for power, to power for decades, but now, like, they become so remote from the lives of ordinary people that when you have someone who is, you know, really connected and listened to ordinary people and their needs and their grievances, it's very powerful. And what I would like to say is that also that the democratic socialist movement in New York City, and with DSA in particular, I see it as a culture. It's not just a strategy or something you would sort of develop quickly over a few months. DSA has built a culture, a culture of grassroots democracy. And it's an organization that's in some ways sort of relatively simple. It's grounded in grassroots democracy and sort of running campaigns where people are sort of motivated by having influence and being heard and not being talked to, like just hand out flyers. So they're involved in the internal democratic process. But on top of that, you also have like an organization that has sort.
- [18:08]
Sam Cedar
Of.
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Fabian Holt
Like committees who are working together across the organization, across the city. So it's actually more complicated. It's not just a simple canvassing organization, but to build that. And I think it's also interesting, why did this not happen in Los Angeles, for instance? It's another big city or Chicago. There's been some success in Chicago, but I think in New York, the movement culture really sort of has become really strong. And it took off immediately after Trump won, sort of the first time. When DSA started organizing elections, it created an electoral working group. And so New York City, DSA was leading this development, pioneering this development for democratic socialism nationally.
- [19:14]
Emma Vigland
And can you expand on that, Lawrence, a little bit? And you can even tie in some of the early work on the climate crisis and how that got started. But what is about New York and the conditions of the city and even of the state government too? Because we're seeing how influential DS has been in sending people to Albany, including, of course, Zoran Lamdani as an assemblyman. What is it about the city that has created those conditions, in your opinion, that Fabian just spoke about?
- [19:46]
Lawrence Wang
I think you have a very complex soup here that makes it all possible. One is that New York does have a well developed left organizational culture that does exist right beforehand, mostly in nonprofits and in unions. Right. New York, union town, it definitely has a presence that doesn't exist, for example, in the South. Right. You're not going to find many cities that have the same strong union cultures or union organizations or less organized groups there. But also New York has a very strong culture of socialism. And you combine that history with the many, you know, many working class people and organizers and people who come up through this world and also who move here too. You know, it's a very. It's a world of both the native New Yorkers as well as the transplants, but people who are all invested in idea of we are in the richest city in the richest country in the world. Why can't we have a better life? Why can't we envision something bigger than just what the centrist politicians, the corporate politicians will sell us? We can do bigger. We have done better in the past. We have Seen other examples around the world. Why can't we pull it in here? So I think the combination of existing culture, of course, the collection of universities and education people there, and also again, the combination of both working class and the precariat people who are coming, coming who are highly educated or won through, at least through college education, and then realize that the system as it is will not actually provide any safety net for us while, you know, those things possible. And I think that.
- [21:16]
Emma Vigland
How about Occupy too? I mean, I think that everything Occupy being central here, the shadow of that, I mean, obviously the Obama administration I think kind of defanged it a little bit, but there was still that energy there. And that has gone, it seems to me, towards dsa.
- [21:37]
Lawrence Wang
Absolutely. I think that Occupy is a great example of that energy kind of kickstarting, creating a huge movement, creating that kind of base. I think that huge energy that we saw around. Actually one of the people behind bpra, one of our chief strategists and organizers, Patrick Robbins, came up through Occupy. Right. I think it's actually the lessons of Occupy that actually helped develop the dsa because we saw that there was immen immense interest and energy and popularity around our ideas, but there was no organization. And the rise of dsa, especially during Bernie and Bernstein's first run and the Trump administrator, the first Trump administration, made us realize we cannot count on the centrist or corporate Democrats to help us. We can't count on the same nonprofits or NGOs to pick up the slack. And we can't hope for just again this hope that, that the working class masses will just spontaneously erupt each time and then be able to create formations. We need to institute real change. We're going to have to develop it ourselves. And kind of a little bit of that feeling of also I think not having the same experience with the new left right in the 70s 80s of crackdowns and being able to start something new. We're like, we don't notice the same mistakes. We also don't have the same hangouts. We can start something new and try something different. And I think that was actually essential for us to cast away the shadow of the past, to actually build something new.
- [23:03]
Emma Vigland
Yeah. And so Fabian, take us to.
- [23:07]
Lawrence Wang
The.
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Emma Vigland
Building of something new too. And then we can really just talk about how eco socialism is so central to that, especially when we're seeing the rise of eco fascism. I mean, I don't necessarily think that movement is fully formed yet, but we see shadings of it obviously in the Ice Gestapo terrorizing immigrant communities. And because many of those communities are here forced to migrate, either due to political conditions or due to climate conditions. But even the war on Public health and the pseudo eugenicism of a guy like RFK Jr. Who basically wants to kind of hollow out our public health institutions. And so people just fend for themselves. This is the kind of thing that could preview what an eco fascist worldview could look like. And yet in New York State, the fight for ecosocialism and to build something around that greener future is very much alive and has, of course, you know, had success.
- [24:19]
Fabian Holt
Yeah, it's like, I mean, certainly like Trump's second term has really changed sort of the political environment, like enormously, I think. I mean, I really like what Lawrence said before about, you know, about the energy from Occupy. I think I would like to sort of just add to that and say, you know, so people always ask, so what's special, what's distinct about New York City, DSA and the Democratic Socialist movement? I think one way of explaining it is that behind the scenes in terms of organizational, the organizational sort of machine of DSA is this sort of the tradition of movement leadership coming from the civil rights movement. But that sort of movement leadership and sort of community organizing has been exploited, like very much in neoliberalism as sort of an apolitical tool for organizing for anything and just mobilizing people. And what DSA has done, which is really unique, I think, is that it has actually adopted that sort of organizational approach into an explicitly socialist context and into electoral politics. So where you have all these NGOs using the same methods of community organizing and to some extent movement leadership, they're mostly apolitical and they're not channeling energy and power into government into electoral politics. So I think the structural, organizational sort of outlook of DSA is very important. And it's also what sort of created sort of the long term organizational capacity of DSA. Compared to many movements that have died out of the 2010s now actually DSA has grown. And the victory with Soran just shows how, like how powerful, how important the long term organizational capacity is. And that is also what we are seeing with public power in New York, the public power campaign. It's also not just like a one year thing or like six months, it was four or five years and they were able to pass this important legislation. And I think what we are seeing now really is a question. You hear public power organizers demand like 15 gigawatts. And, and people listening to this might say, okay, so why this number? Are they pushing for the. Are they just ambitious? But this is really the question at the core of the current situation. Is Governor Hoho going to side with the climate obstructionists or is she going to meet the legally mandated goals of 2030? They were decided in 2019 with the climate and Community Leadership Act. So it's really a question of. It's not a question of a movement that is protesting or sort of all the noise that you're going to hear and some people trying to create a tension somewhere. I think the big problem is actually the opposite, is that the quiet hand of the really, really powerful climate obstructionist movement is threatening this democratically make decision for New York to decarbonize.
- [28:05]
Emma Vigland
And I probably should have started asking for a little bit more details on like this effort here. But it's really important that people understand how New York DSA is leading the way here. Can you speak a little bit about the. Gosh, I don't have it off the top of my head. Or the New York climate. And what's the name of the act? Apologies.
- [28:31]
Fabian Holt
The New York Climate and Community Leadership Act.
- [28:34]
Emma Vigland
There we go. There we go. If you could just tell our audience a little bit more about that act and DSA's involvement in pushing it forward.
- [28:46]
Fabian Holt
Yeah, so, I mean, I can start and maybe Lawrence can take over. Sure. You know, in 2018 came this really influential report from the ICCP, the International Climate Research Unit of the UN. And the report was grim. It created shock waves. It helped sort of kickstart the Green New Deal movement sort of nationally, and it kickstarted the youth climate movement globally. And so the year after New York state government passed the Climate and Community Leadership Act. It's difficult to say. Yeah, so it was a step for the state government to do some climate action. Right. So they set this goal, 2030 goal of reducing through greenhouse gas emissions and the Public Power Campaign and DSA proposed the Build Public Renewables act as a solution to reach that goal. And the problem right now, like I said before, is that we have the climate obstructionists who are intervening and trying to destroy that.
- [30:10]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah, I'll carry on this one. And also, just so we don't get crucified for this, it is the Climate Leadership and Community Protection act we always remember as the acronym clcpa. It's all acronyms. Sorry, guys. Clcpa, bpra. It's gonna keep on happening.
- [30:25]
Emma Vigland
Okay, well, that makes me feel better that I couldn't remember it then, so.
- [30:29]
Lawrence Wang
Oh, don't worry, I. That's how I go, clcpa. Someone goes, what is that? I'm like, you know what, it's just a climate law. I want to actually give a little context.
- [30:36]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [30:37]
Lawrence Wang
Because I think it's super interesting and it, everything's connected. So for people who are not as familiar with New York politics prior to 2018, then Governor Cuomo kept control of the state politics through the IDC, the Independent Democratic Caucus, I believe that one is, which was basically just Republicans dressed up as Democrats.
- [31:01]
Emma Vigland
Yep. Cuomo basically incentivized through a bunch of deals and goodies that he gave to these Democrats to have the D next to their name, but caucus with the Republicans, the Independent Democratic Conference Caucus. And so there were a lot of people who were voting for Democrats and didn't realize they were essentially voting for Republicans, which gave a built in excuse for Andrew Cuomo not to do anything progressive or listening to the Democrats in his legislature.
- [31:29]
Lawrence Wang
There you go, exactly. You know, classic Cuomo. And in 2018 there was the, in 2019 there was the, essentially the dismantling of the IDC through elections of progressive politicians. Not necessarily all dsa. In fact, the only DSA one was our very own Julius Salazar, the first New York City DSA elected. But that was the first start. And actually that is the general upswell against Cuomo and of course against Trump, which is very tied together as always. That led to the passage of the clcpa, which did set out genuinely great goals for the state to become decarbonized, to go off of fossil fuels, to become renewable, to cut down our energies in a way that becomes more green and becomes also healthier for us all. The issue at hand that Fabian was speaking about was there was really no muscle behind it. It was a law. But of course if you're a legislator, you can ignore the law. Why we identified this as a terrain of struggle was twofold. One was New Yorkers hate our energy grid system as it is right now. If you live in New York, you know, it's New York City, you know, Con Ed sucks and everyone hates Con Ed. So we identify as like, this is a trillion struggle. Which makes sense because what is the one thing other people need besides healthcare and housing? Energy. And as you know, there's Medicare for all, there is housing for all, there should be energy for all, and that should be owned and operated by the people. Through that program we identified that the New York Power Authority, a state owned, publicly a public owned utility that was created by FDR with express purpose at the time to give back to the people the Water power, which is theirs. Right. It was meant to be democratizing power in a real way. But under more recent leadership over the past years under neoliberalization has become much, much more focused on corporate giveaways and less about actually giving power back to the people. So we identified it as a route, a train of struggle for us to take to create a law that would empower the state to build a renewable energy. We need to satisfy and meet the goals of the clcpa. And that's, I mean, the overall reason part of that. Not even just like from the reason of universality, which is the key to. Of course, everything with democratic socialism is even the basic idea that what good is it to have a world where the workers are in power, where we have the democratic means to really control our society if the world is falling apart, if it's burning? Right. We have the center climate in that work. That's why ecosocialism is so important to socialism, is that we have the only way to build that world, that universal world, is if we have a world in the first place.
- [34:18]
Emma Vigland
Right, Right. And I think also when you connect it to people's material experience, it's a lot, as you're saying, Lawrence, it's. It's just so much more politically salient. And that is where you can see how liberal climate do Gooder ness has been a major failure. I think, you know, there's a lot of people who want to be good people and want to be, you know, not gluttonous and not so wasteful in this environment. And they'll focus on things like, you know, composting, which is great if you can do that individually or eating the right way, not having that much red meat. But the reality is that for so many people who don't have that luxury, their personal consumption choices are not enough. And in fact, making it a personal consumption choice really hurts the political salience of a climate movement. It makes people feel like you're a bunch of nags that want them to stop eating hamburgers. And when you make it like your Con Ed. My Con Ed bill. I don't know about you guys, but the past few months has been, I get an email, it's 53% higher than. I'm like, I'm not using the air conditioning this month. Why is it 53% higher than when it was in July or whatever, when I'm using my air conditioning? And it seems like it's because of these data centers? I know I'm taking us a little afield of the book. But like all of this AI stuff and these data centers chewing up all the energy, this is going to increasingly become a political issue over the next three or four years under the Trump administration. That's just like letting AI do whatever they want and a bunch of governors being on board with it.
- [35:56]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah, no, it's, it actually is one of the biggest things. I was actually at a public power convening just a month ago where a bunch of public power organizers from across the country were brought together by a group called Public Grids to talk about, about public power and how we take back our utilities and take back also our, our energy usage. And actually one of our organizers who worked on DPRA and helped pass it, Lizish, is helping lead the fight in Arizona that actually stopped the Project Blue being built by Amazon. Right. With Tucson, she's leading, helping lead Tucson DSA's fight there. So the energy usage and ownership of utilities and ownership of the means of generation is interlinked. And I think that's something I really talk about is you what? Yeah, we have to control, we have to talk about the material reality of climate change. And the thing is people know this, right? I think when you think about it in the polls or think about on a big scale, people talk about climate, they go, I don't understand it. And actually when we did, we did very early on and when we're doing BPRA organizing, we did some door knocking, right? And you talked to somebody. I'll go to people's homes and I'll knock on it and say what do you think about the climate? And people, most people go, I don't know what it means, right. I don't, it doesn't have anything to eat. And then you go, do you know somebody who has dealt with a power outage or has been dealing with the after effects still of Hurricane Sandy or of any number of things, or if you have family or been dealing with like the blackouts in Texas or anything.
- [37:21]
Emma Vigland
Else, how about the flooding if you have a basement apartment? I mean this is like all over the city. It happens every time there's a big rainstorm.
- [37:27]
Lawrence Wang
Exactly. And people go 100%. I know it's happening. People understand that climate change and not climate change, the climate crisis is real. I think that most people, it's like when you think about a big words like climate, they don't get it or they don't understand because it's not real, it doesn't feel real until you connect it back to the mater ways. And that's when you can get at a baseline level to go from. Here's your material concerns. There's a reason behind it. There's a system that empowers and makes it possible. Here's a solution to it. And that pathway is literally how we passed BPRA against all odds and against every opposition possible.
- [38:01]
Emma Vigland
Fabian, do you want to weigh in on that?
- [38:03]
Fabian Holt
Yeah, I just want to share an experience I had yesterday. I was talking to a student from. A student from, like, I had two students from Spain and one from Italy. And I asked them, so how about these, like, big fires that you had, like, over the summer? Like, has it changed the conversation, the public conversation on climate change? So, because I heard the. I said to him, yeah, I heard that the fires were particularly bad this year and they burst out. Yeah, we're burning all the time. Like, we're kind of living in a constant state of, you know, we have fires every year, like, throughout the year, basically. And they said independently of each other, like, from, like the Italian and the two people from Spain, they said, people know that this is happening. People know that climate change is happening, but no one wants to take responsibility. Politicians are just, you know, they're disgraced. They're not really taking responsibility, responsibility, and citizens don't know where to go. So I think it's an interesting perspective that climate, because it's this kind of indirect process of someone burning fossil fuel somewhere 10 years later or 30 years later. Like, we're seeing the impact of that, but the impact are hitting people all over the place. I think my point is that we can appeal. It's important to appeal to sort of, you know, daily economic issues and sort of integrate climate with economic politics, especially at the kitchen table level. But I think it's also important to build understanding beyond that. And I think humans are capable of actually understanding more. I think climate literacy can be improved.
- [40:12]
Emma Vigland
Well said. And lastly, Lawrence here, I mean, just in building off of, like, what other lessons can there be for other DSA chapters? Fabian, you touched on it a bit, but I'm talking to friends out in la, and actually, at the time of this interview, when this airs, I will be out in California. So I'm thinking about that and why maybe they're behind New York and Karen Bass having failings and not being a democratic socialist. For example, in the wake of those fires, I was frustrated by the national conversation about blaming Karen Bass for being abroad or mismanagement in certain areas. Like. Like, it was certainly, she's not my favorite type of Democrat, but it was like, not to Pardon the crude metaphor, but, like, we're missing the forest through the trees here. I understand that there are critiques of her governance, but this is about something bigger. This is about the climate crisis. This isn't about people taking shots at people of color who run cities, which is what it kind of felt like, at least on the national level. I want my friends in LA to be able to take some lessons from this fight and be able to organize there in DSA and have the effects that we're seeing in New York. So what would your lesson be on that front?
- [41:42]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that makes New York City DSA more, you know, ahead of this fight for now is that honestly, it comes down to many things, which one first thing is we're not afraid to try new things. And I want to explain that in the context of BPRA and also with regards to Zoron. Right. We started off like, you know, the fight to build up renewable, public renewables in many ways starts in like, earnest with our fight to start to stop the NRG energy plant in Queens. And that was a fight that was led by dsa, among other community groups, groups. But at the time, it was also a chief plank of Zoram Hamdani's run for assembly. He actually turned his office into an organizing space for us to reach out to neighbors who are being canvassed as also being supported during the pandemic with mutual aid support, with, hey, like, we are also organizing not just to elect Zoram Hamdani, but also to fight against this, against the building on this energy, this fraft gas plant. Let's be honest, what it was a frat gas plant run by a multinational. And Zoron was not just like, oh, yeah, you can see my office. He was front and center in his fights. Right. There's a. You look at the Queen's Queen's Chronicle articles where they're just constantly putting them everywhere already back then using Islamophobia against him. Right? There's this stuff out there and we are. It's because DSA doesn't treat our electeds as, or even our candidates as just, you know, we are just endorsing you. You are of us. You are a partner in this thing. And that is how we. That fight leads directly to 2020, when we start 2021. Sorry, when we start kicking off the new version, new organizing of BPRA in earnest, when at the time we were still navigating, this is our first time being in power at New York City DSA. Right. We had elected five socialists, six socialists. Sorry. In 2020, with Zoron Mamdani, obviously. Farah Supan Forest, Jabari Brisport, Marcella Martinez, Emily Gallagher, and re electing Julia Salazar. And we now finally have a block of people in power, but we still didn't know anything yet. We're still green behind the ears. And our bill, the bpra, was taken up by the state senator and energy chair for the state Senate, Kevin Parker. And he was telling us, oh, we need to just walk around and convince all these other legislators to sign on board and then he'll push the bill through conference. And it is actually Zoron who told us, after just being in office, he was in the office a few months, he goes like, hey, guys, that's not how it works. I'm learning now. This is not how it works. He is sabotaging your bill because the reality is if someone takes up your bill as a sponsor, they're the ones to push it through. And if you don't, if they don't do it, no one else will sign on, at least in the old rules, right? So we had Zoran and Jabari and everyone else as our DSA electives running around trying to get sponsors for our bill come up against walls, though also helping convert some people and learning this is why it's happening. And that's why we said, you know what? Again, throw the rulebook the traditional NGO nonprofit way would have been, okay, well, let's make nice. We'll play nicer with them and maybe they'll come around. We said, we're going to host direct action in front of their offices in New York City. The legislative body has office in New York City, hosted a direct action where he created these giant Venmo boards, five by eight, huge things with their faces on it, with their names on it. And Flame designed as a Venmo so you have their donations from all the fossil fuel corporations and energy utilities on it. And we made it sure that whenever they took a picture of this action, you saw those boards in the background. And that did more than anything else. We were door knocking, we were canvassing, we're calling, we're doing all these things. But it was that moment of mass media activation that made them go, oh, crap, we should call you guys, right? And again, that kind of led to the next thing where we realized, okay, we can do direct actions, we can do media moments. But now we need to go beyond that because we knew there's a certain wall. And that led to us running an electoral operation in 2022 where basically the eco socialist working group dissolved itself into the electoral working group headed up the campaigns of David Alexis who was challenging Kevin Parker directly so that we could pass BPRA as well as in like the Midheaven Valley. We had members go there to help elect a public power champion. And MH Midheaven Valley DSA member Sarahana Strema take on Kevin Cahill, a 30 year incumbent. And that was a slate of I forgot how many people, but it was what we called the Green New York slate. It was deliberately a mission where we said electoral will be focusing on climate as our motivational issue. And though we didn't win David Levins fight, we did force Kevin New Parker just be so scared that he went into neutrality, let the bill pass the state Senate and eventually when a bill is passed, he now is touting it as one of his wins. Right. So I think the main thing we come back to is like if we can learn from. And there's more to this story, right? Like we. Then there's the whole fight we had in 2023 to take on Governor Kathy Hochul to pass the bill which again you see Zoran front and center with helping us there too. But the thing I want to point out there is like the real lesson is that, that it is about trying new things, not playing by the rule book, confronting power every opportunity, not being afraid to try new things, making sure that combined. I think Zoron is the best encapsulation of it, which is why I think he's our public power champion as well as the mayor of New York, is that he is somebody who is now afraid to not just go with the orthodoxy even within DSA of oh, we need to run big field campaigns. He paired big field campaigns with community building with as we know, amazing communications. Right. This kind of trifecta of things really transformed the campaign is what we did in miniature on a statewide level with the Build Public Renewables act campaign and how we were able to go year on year winning and winning over, you know, beating new enemies. It's almost like a video game. We were beating new bosses at every stage of the level every year. And we took this bill that was literally like in 2019 when it was introduced, called the Lefty Loony Bill. No one thought it would ever pass to becoming the number one climate bill. And passing and beating, passing in 2023 over Governor Kathy Hogle's objections. She didn't want this bill. She tried to water it down. And we still overcame that incredible stuff.
- [48:15]
Emma Vigland
You guys really appreciate your time today. Lawrence Wang, longtime public power New York organizer Fabian Holt. The book is called Organize or How the New York Socialists Fight for Climate Survival. So thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
- [48:30]
Lawrence Wang
Thank you.
- [48:52]
Sam Cedar
Sam.
- [49:19]
Matt Leck
Welcome back, Majority Report listeners. Joining us, Brandon Sutton. Hey, Brandon.
- [49:25]
Brandon Sutton
Hey, Matt. How's it going?
- [49:27]
Matt Leck
It's going very well. Also, before we get into what's coming up on the Fun half and our plugs, people might have noticed presentation was a little bit different for that. And we're in this little grace period before Emma realizes she has to be mad at technology for how it sort of skipped around a little bit and was changing in size, which made it impossible for me to edit into the normal chiron that we usually present. So if people were a little bit confused by the video presentation there, just know that that's not our new new style. But yeah. Brandon, what's going on over at the Discourse?
- [50:03]
Brandon Sutton
I mean, we're doing a show every day and you know, I like to thank everybody who shows up so early in the morning between 9 to 12pm Eastern to talk about the happenings, not the M. Night Shyamalan movie, although sometimes, yeah, actually M. Night Shyamalan movie because I'm a big M. Night Shyamalan fan. But this week we've been discussing the newest Epstein reveals. I say it like a reality TV show, but it's much more disturbing than that. We've been going through the shutdown news and I think tomorrow we'll maybe do more of the Maha summit. I don't know if you been watching the Make America Healthy Again summit, but it's happening.
- [50:43]
Matt Leck
I missed this. What's who is this RFK led? I assume he's going to be there.
- [50:48]
Brandon Sutton
Oh, yeah, no, like they had like the opening, I guess salvo, but between him and JD Vance yesterday. And so I'm looking forward to the rest of the programming. I hope it's not just that one thing.
- [51:01]
Matt Leck
Is J.D. vance Maha?
- [51:03]
Brandon Sutton
He's trying to be.
- [51:06]
Matt Leck
He might just be on Ozempic judgment on that.
- [51:08]
Brian
We have been to here, but I'm having some layout issues. So give me a second. But oh good because you're in a different chair. So Thursday's layout is different.
- [51:18]
Matt Leck
Oh, you can't find the Sam one because I'm in Sam's chair. You want to cut to break a little bit and then we'll bring binder in.
- [51:28]
Brian
Yeah.
- [51:28]
Sam Cedar
All right. It.
- [52:18]
Matt Leck
And there's all the boys Bender plug away.
- [52:23]
Lawrence Wang
Yeah, sure. Great to be here with the the guys today. And as I choke.
- [52:29]
Sam Cedar
YouTube.com mattbinder Tonight, 8:30pm for Leftist Mafia.
- [52:35]
Matt Leck
And I believe, I believe next week is. Is it.
- [52:38]
Sam Cedar
Is this true?
- [52:39]
Lawrence Wang
Brandon, you're going to be joining us next week on Leftist Mafia.
- [52:42]
Brandon Sutton
I thought it was the week after next, but now I think I that that would be Thanksgiving. So that would be things. You convene. Well, maybe.
- [52:49]
Lawrence Wang
We'll see.
- [52:49]
Emma Vigland
Let's see.
- [52:51]
Lawrence Wang
I know, I know you don't celebrate thanks anymore.
- [52:54]
Brandon Sutton
But that's because I'm thankful 24, 7, 365 or 366 days a year, depending on if it's a leap year or not. You know, sometimes some people like to be thankful, like all the time. But I suppose that's a, that's a high bar for the average American.
- [53:15]
Matt Leck
I think. Yeah, well, you, you need to be unthankful to really appreciate being thankful. You need to be a selfish. Speaking of being selfish, I have plugs. Tomorrow, I'm very pleased to announce the Jacobin show is returning, produced by me and I'm also on it. And David Griscom is hosting. So at 10am tomorrow, folks, be ready for the first show with Eric Blanc and Ashik Sadiq, two prominent DSA aligned, in fact, DSA socialist thinkers talking about Zoran's victory and what it portends. And go subscribe to Jacobin now because, you know, we want to look good to the people at Jacobin that gave us this opportunity. And so I'm very excited about that. That'll be Again tomorrow at 10:00 Eastern on the Jacobin YouTube channel.
- [54:06]
Lawrence Wang
Very cool.
- [54:07]
Matt Leck
And with that, thank you guys. With that said, let's go to the funhouse.
- [54:13]
Sam Cedar
All right. Left is best. Jamie and I may have a disagreement.
- [54:24]
Emma Vigland
Yeah, you can't just say whatever you want about people just because you're rich.
- [54:27]
Sam Cedar
I have an absolute right to mock them on YouTube.
- [54:30]
Zarian Pouncey
He's up there buggy whipping like he's the boss.
- [54:32]
Sam Cedar
I am not your employer. You know, I'm tired of the negativity.
- [54:35]
Lawrence Wang
I'm sorry.
- [54:36]
Sam Cedar
I didn't mean to upset you. You're nervous. You're a little bit upset. You're riled up.
- [54:41]
Emma Vigland
Yeah.
- [54:41]
Lawrence Wang
Maybe you should rethink.
- [54:42]
Sam Cedar
Drink your defense of that, you idiots. We're just going to get rid of you.
- [54:46]
Lawrence Wang
All right, but dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude.
- [54:50]
Sam Cedar
You want to smoke this joint?
- [54:52]
Zarian Pouncey
Yes.
- [54:55]
Sam Cedar
Do you feel like you are a dinosaur? Good. Exactly. I'm happy now. It's a win, win.
- [55:04]
Fabian Holt
It's a win, win, win.
- [55:06]
Sam Cedar
Hell yeah. Now listen to me. 2, 3, 4. 5 times 8? 4. 7, 9, 0650145, 7 2. 38, 56, 27. 1 half. 5, 8. 3.9 billion.
- [55:23]
Emma Vigland
Wow.
- [55:23]
Sam Cedar
He's the ultimate math nerd. Don't you see?
- [55:26]
Lawrence Wang
Why don't you get a real job.
- [55:27]
Sam Cedar
Instead of stealing vitriol and hatred?
- [55:28]
Lawrence Wang
You left wing Limbaugh.
- [55:29]
Sam Cedar
Everybody's taking their dumb juice today.
- [55:31]
Lawrence Wang
Come on, Sammy.
- [55:32]
Sam Cedar
Dance, dance, dance. Grandpa, I had my first post coital.
- [55:43]
Fabian Holt
Scene with a woman.
- [55:44]
Sam Cedar
I'm hoping to add more moves to my repertoire. All I have is the dip and the swirl.
- [55:48]
Fabian Holt
Fine. We can double dip.
- [55:49]
Sam Cedar
Yes. This is a perfect moment.
- [55:52]
Lawrence Wang
No, wait.
- [55:53]
Fabian Holt
What?
- [55:54]
Sam Cedar
You make under a million dollars a year. You're scum. You're nothing.
- [55:56]
Zarian Pouncey
Excuse me?
- [55:57]
Sam Cedar
Fuck you, you fucking liberal elite. I think you belong in jail.
- [56:02]
Zarian Pouncey
Thank you for saying that, Sam.
- [56:03]
Lawrence Wang
You're a horrible, despicable person.
- [56:05]
Sam Cedar
All right, gonna take a quick break. I want to take a moment to talk to some of the libertarians out there. Take whatever vehicle you want to drive to the library. What you're talking about is jibber jabber.
- [56:19]
Emma Vigland
Classic. I'm feeling more chill already.
- [56:23]
Sam Cedar
Donald Trump can kiss all of our asses.
- [56:28]
Lawrence Wang
Hey, Sam. Hey, Andy.
- [56:29]
Brian
You guys ready to do some evil?
- [56:32]
Sam Cedar
Hitler was such an idiot.
- [56:36]
Emma Vigland
Agree.
- [56:37]
Zarian Pouncey
No.
- [56:38]
Sam Cedar
Death to America. You.
- [56:43]
Fabian Holt
Yes.
- [56:45]
Emma Vigland
Wow.
- [56:47]
Sam Cedar
Wow. That's weird. No way.
- [56:51]
Fabian Holt
Unbelievable.
- [56:52]
Sam Cedar
This guy's got a really good hook. Wow. I want to just flesh this out a little bit. I mean, look, it's a free speech issue. If you don't like. Hey, shut up.
- [57:11]
Lawrence Wang
Thank you for calling into the majority report. Sam will be with you shortly.