Day One – Socialism Conference: US Tech complicity in genocide and Tenants organizing for Social Housing

In the No Tech for Apartheid session there was a Google worker who talked about when they and other Google workers began organizing to demand that the company end their relationship with Israel, the occupation and the current genocidal campaign against Palestinians. Google threatened them with termination if they continued.

Another speaker talked about target software and spyware companies that are working with Israel to support the ongoing Apartheid policies, like the Pegasus program.

All of these types of surveillance fits within the realities of racial capitalism, where the Palestinians are the primary target because of their ethnicity. The tech tools are being used precisely as a mechanism of control of the population that they seek to contain, which are the Palestinians. 

Facial recognition tools are being used to both target Palestinians and restrict their movement within the occupied territories, much in the same ways that the US is using facial recognition to target dissidents and people who have been involved in resistance work, including those who are doing civil disobedience. For Palestinians the facial recognition is often categorizing people as Hamas militants and potential militants.

The reason that Google and Amazon are justifying these contracts is that it is to lay the groundwork for regional contracts to track and categorize people throughout the Middle East. These companies want to use their contracts with Israel as a showcase for the rest of the region. 

All of these tools are being used and are linked together for the purpose of targeting and killing Palestinians that we are currently witnessing in real time with the Israeli genocide. 

In terms of resistance, the speakers talked about the need to find “strategic levers” – to collectively disrupt production at the supply chain level. 

For more information, see No tech for Apartheid.

Tenants organizing for Social Housing

In this session there were tenant organizers from all over the US talking about their work, but mostly focusing on the need for Social Housing.

I woman from New York City had gone to Vienna last year to see a fabulous model of social housing. She said they were amazing and all of the amenities what we normally see in high-end apartments in the US. One thing that she noticed while in the city of Vienna, was the fact that she couldn’t find people who were unhoused. 

The New York City organizer ended her comments by say that NYC has 76,000 unhoused people, but 96,000 empty housing units. She talked about tenants taking buildings from landlords and building them up specifically for tenants. Her tenant union and others in New York City are demanding $40 billion for social housing.

Another tenant organizer talked about the importance of connecting with other unions, specifically labor unions, since many of their members are also tenants. For this tenant organizer, Social Housing means tenants are in charge, with high quality housing, with universal access – income, race, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. Social Housing needs to be total, not just one house or 1 block, because Capitalism will always try to kill it.

Another tenant organizer talked about Mobil home organizing, which is important, since there are more people living in mobil home parks in the US than there are people living in apartments. One of the critical issue with mobil home living currently, is the growing interest of speculative capital entities buying up mobil home parks.

There were other great examples of Social Housing happening in the US, and another California tenant organizer referred to a recent report entitled, Building Our Future: grassroots reflections on social housing. This report has tons of great examples of tenant organizing examples, plus places where Social Housing policies are being implemented.