PSL to table at Eugene Pride, call for human rights at Pride March

Presenter: While you’re at Eugene Pride this Saturday,  the Activist Coalition of Eugene Springfield (ACES) encourages you to visit with the local activists tabling there. ACES says: Find your favorite group and participate in the growing movement for human rights. One of the groups tabling will be the Party for Socialism and Liberation.  Kamryn Stringfield says they’ll be easy to spot during the Pride March.

Kamryn Stringfield: We intend to have Palestine flags next to Pride flags and a Palestine contingent there at the Pride March where we’ll have Palestine flags in the march with messages like ‘Queer people support Palestine’ and, ‘Unconditional support for Palestine, Unconditional opposition to genocide’ and to go against these pinkwashing narratives and also against rainbow capitalism in a way that also relates to these working-class LGBTQ people that come out to Pride events.

[00:00:56] In the ‘No Kings’ protest, we had the Palestine as well as the Congo highlighted in that space to remind people that the genocide was still going on. So what we’ve been preparing for this time through the Springfield Eugene Anti-Imperialist Network (SEAIN), which we are still involved with, is a Palestine contingent and with Pride, we thought that that would be a very good similar idea.

[00:01:19] These Pride events draw thousands, sometimes tens of thousands. I know in Eugene’s case, it’s been like over 10,000 people to Pride. And these are average, everyday working-class LGBTQ people that don’t always come out to rallies, either because they’re working or for whatever reason, but they do value coming out to Pride.

[00:01:40] And a lot of them have these same thoughts about rainbow capitalism and about Palestine and about ICE and we can actually like relate to them and find them in that environment and possibly get them involved in what we’re doing.

[00:01:57] So that’s something that’s coming up this Saturday and we’ll be tabling both PSL and SEAIN are tabling at the pride event itself on Saturday all day long.

[00:02:12] So you can find us there and then the next day on Sunday the 29th at the Lavender Network we’re actually having a forum on socialism and LGBTQ liberation so talking about things like the LGBT+ rights in like Cuba and eastern Germany like these examples of ways that we’re able to grow and thrive in socialism as well as talking about like pinkwashing and how our imperialist system co-opts and weaponizes certain parts of our symbolism or whatever have you to carry out its own imperialist narratives.

[00:02:57] This is something that’s been really common with Israel. Israel is like a heavily pinkwashing state. There’s, you know, all these narratives that they spread about how homophobic Palestinians or Iranians are.

[00:03:12] And of course, this is our opportunity to say, ‘Actually, for one. that’s not so true and Israel or NATO or the United States even are not these vanguards for queer rights in the world, and that truthfully, real liberation for queer people is socialism.

And really fleshing that out, that we need a system that actually gives all these people equal rights and gives us all liberation, which was actually a message that Marsha P. Johnson, a participant in Stonewall had, which is that like none of us get all of our rights until we all get all of our rights that like injustice to one is an injustice to all. So we’re involved in pride this year. We’re really excited about it.

[00:04:08] We’ll be involved in Albany Pride as well.

[00:04:12] Presenter: Kamryn said the events this weekend will close out a busy month for the PSL.

[00:04:17] Kamryn Stringfield: We have been going to the city council meetings and not just commenting about, Avelo Airlines is the main push when it comes to the immigrant defense work, but also asking questions about, is this city actually a sanctuary city?

[00:04:32] And if it is, , you need to say something to the extent of no city resources are going to go to these federal immigration efforts and to actually, vocally stand up against the Trump administration and Avelo Airlines.

[00:04:47] (Mayor) Kaarin Knudson, you know, any of these counselors, Leech, Keating, Groves, et cetera, or the city manager, Sarah Medary, they could all speak up against this stuff. And so far they’ve been silent, except for to like, be worried about what protests are going to happen around here.

[00:05:05] But nonetheless, we keep involved in that work. We find it valuable to go to City Council and see what people are saying. And I guess in that vein, with the People’s Budget events that were going on, so just paying attention to city politics and figuring out how we can intervene.

[00:05:22] Earlier this year, this fire fee issue came up. Of course, things have changed drastically since then, but we analyzed, of course, this fire fee discussion to try to figure out what was the actual like working-class analysis of it, that the city is pushing this as taking people hostage, almost: ‘You should pass this fee or all of your services will get cut.’

[00:05:48] And then of course they go to this thing of we’re going to actually cut those services anyway before you even have a chance to vote on it.

[00:05:55] But of course they came up with this fire fee with the Chamber of Commerce and then the Chamber of Commerce switched or at least a small part of it to be like, ‘You should put this on the ballot for people to vote on.’

[00:06:07] And I think our position was not whether or not you should support the fee, but that like the working class wasn’t having its interests articulated by either side here and that we needed to come forward and think about what our needs would be for a people’s budget.

[00:06:24] And so we had the event, The People’s Budget, where we looked at the multiunit property tax exemptions, the debate over the fire fee, the way that the funding works with EPD and the fact that there were cuts to EPD, but they were cuts to things like public records reporting and animal welfare officers and not drones and Guardian towers and these new Flock cameras that they’re putting up.

[00:06:50] And so we invited people in and of course, this was at the library, which at the time was partially on the chopping block, at least in terms of the days that it was open and the funds that it got. And we had people really agitated there about it and they went, of course, to the City Council and these Budget Committee meetings, articulated the things that we were saying as well as some of the things that they had done in terms of their own research.

[00:07:14] But we went to these Budget Committee meetings. Our PSL members went to all three of them. I went to all three of them myself just speaking up and I think speaking more to the people in the room than the actual City Council itself in terms of: ‘Here are working-class interests and these city council members are representing the business interests and we need to make sure that that is known and make sure people understand why: Things like multiunit property tax exemptions have led to that supposed budget shortfall to begin with.

[00:07:53] So we went through that whole process of the Budget Committee came up with the stormwater fee to, you know, like ‘Save These Services’ that they threatened to gut in the first place. And it still ended up a cut budget. It still was in a worse position than we started out with. But what we saw was, of course after the community came out and said you know, ‘Hell no, you’re not going to cut our library and our pool and our community centers and our like only animal shelter.’

[00:08:30] That was what really pushed the City Council to reconsider and try to save those main services.

[00:08:37] And of course ever since the CAHOOTS contract fell through, CAHOOTS workers have been trying to figure out some sort of replacement and inform their Willamette Valley Crisis Care, which I kind of sympathized with them and wanted to also show up and make sure that alternative response was included.

[00:08:56] And not in the milquetoast way that Eugene City Council was talking about it, which was like making the Lane County mobile crisis unit respond to Eugene, like bogging them down in Eugene when they have a county the size of Delaware to do this crisis response for.

[00:09:18] So that’s been going, we were going to have another People’s Budget event on June 22, but then this war in Iran, of course, the bombing happened and so we had to have an emergency demonstration. Keep an eye out on PSL Eugene socials for the next People’s Budget event when we have that to reflect on what we learned with the Budget Committee.

[00:09:43] And of course, we’ll keep on going to the City Council. I know they’ve only got one more meeting before they go on recess for the summer, which good for them, the workers don’t get a recess this summer, but we’re still involved in that.

[00:10:00] And of course, asking them questions about these Flock cameras that have gone up without any sort of vote from the people like now, like all of Eugene is under the mass surveillance. It’s the largest mass surveillance system in Eugene history. You’re being tracked by license plate readers, drones, Guardian towers, your cell phone pinging off of cell phone towers. And it’s just, like, ‘This is not helping the people of Eugene.’

[00:10:28] And we have the biggest housing crisis we’ve ever had here. We’ve had our health care services be eviscerated. And the only health care services we seem to be getting are like for-profit ones.

[00:10:38] And so, why are we spending all this money on the police and especially on systems that are not even regulated and that are vulnerable to ICE and out-of-state authorities like Texas authorities trying to prosecute out-of-state abortions, etc. We’re trying to make sure that we raise those concerns and continue to be involved in that.

[00:11:08] And, you know, appearing in these other places as we grow, even outside of Eugene itself. So, very exciting stuff to come.

[00:11:19] Presenter: That’s Kamryn Stringfield with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. They’ll be at Eugene Pride Saturday and then at the Lavender Network Sunday. For more, see PSLEugene on Facebook and Instagram.

Intersection and street closures set Saturday for Pride march

In conjunction with the Pride event June 28, several intersections in downtown Eugene will be closed briefly as participants march from Kesey Square to Eighth Avenue, west to Jefferson Street, and then south to 13th Avenue and the Lane Event Center.

Community members should expect closures between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. at these intersections:

• Willamette Street and 10th Avenue
• Willamette Street and Eighth Avenue
• Broadway and Olive Street
• Broadway and Oak Street

Brief closures will also occur along Eighth Avenue between Oak and Jefferson streets, and along Jefferson Street between Eighth and 13th avenues.

Drivers should find alternate routes during this time and exercise patience and caution for community members.