0:00:00
Organizers who are, like, much more wise than I am have imparted, but, like, a sign of, like, a strong organizing space is when you can be, like, silly with each other because that's when you know that it really is, like, trust there. And I think that, like, online spaces are really conducive to that. And I also think that, like, we're living in a moment where, like, there's like high mobility of, like, humans. And I think that's why, like, borders and stuff are even more violent. And it's also, like, based on, like, socioeconomic and things like that. But, like, a lot of people don't have, like, homes that are geographic. But, like, we use the term digital native and that's, like, gross. But, like, it is really true where it's, like, when I think about a lot of my childhood memories, a lot of those spaces are digital spaces, not like physical spaces. Welcome to left on red where a gen x mom and gay millennial do socialism. We got left views on news you can use.
0:01:31
My name is Scott, and I'm here with Susan. And this week, we're also here with a Gen Z special guest. Yeah. My name is Kaarthika Thakker. I am a member of Gen Z and also New York City DSO say. I said I'm staring committee as the comms coordinator, and I'm a union organizer. And I live in Queens in Astoria. We love living in Queens, in Astoria. We also hear Gen Z as a pretty exclusive socialist organization to get into. How'd you get in there? Well, I was born nineteen ninety eight, which surprised Susan. Well, I'm eighteen years older. So, you know, I am like, that's like more than a generation.
0:02:16
For folks at home, We'd love to hear about your DSA journey or what brought you into DSA. And just for context, Kaarthika was talking about how She's the commerce coordinator for New York City DSA. That is a fairly new steering committee position that we created here in New York. Steering committee comes coordinator. I know those sounds like kind of complicated terms. Very simply, she coordinates communications for the entire chapter. Some of that involves a lot of work on her own part in terms of just making her own communications, and some of that involves working with others and supporting people that are putting out communications. But yeah, we'd love to hear about your DSA journey or your socialism journey and how that brought you into DSA. And how you got to where you are now? It's funny because I spent a long time thinking about this because I was also the comms coach here for the membership which is something we ran in the holidays to, like, bring people into DSA.
0:03:16
But I don't really have a great succinct answer but I guess in high school was kind of like I spent a lot of time doing kind of what I would call like charity work I, like, organized a book drive to build a library for, like, a inner city school, and I grew up mostly in Ohio. And in that process, I was like, oh, these kids, like, are just like me, but also don't have the resources. And that kind of is a thread that continues. And in high school, I also that was, like, when there was, like, this big wave of fear about the migrant crisis And thinking about Palestine, I think thinking about, like, foreign politics, like, starting to drop those threads. But then at my high school, we had, like, Gary Johnson speak. Mhmm.
0:04:05
So I felt like all the cool kids either like Gary Johnson or Bernie Sanders, and then we took like a political Spectrum quiz, and I got, like, green party, which to give you, like, context in white suburban Ohio. It was, like, everyone was, like, in a conservative thing. And then, like, they were, like, everyone's stand in, like, a row for, like, how far, like, where you are in the Pocco space experiment. Everyone's kind of, like, in this, like, conservative moderate group. And then I was, like, outside of the room. And I was, like, I don't really know about politics, but My first time I voted was for Bernie Sanders in when I was like seventeen and a half or something because I was gonna turn eighteen before the general election so I can vote in the primaries. I love that so much. I love that that Bernie Sanders was such a fundamental part of your political socialization. Yeah. Purdy Sanders in a BuzzFeed political spectrum quiz that the school administered. That's good. Yeah. But I think I was actually, like, really politicized.
0:05:05
I was still kind of in this, like, neo liberal, like, you can do well while doing for yourself and coming from like a working class immigrant family, I was like, you know, provided these options of, like, doctor and engineer. My brother was a doctor. I was like, alright. I guess I'll do computer science, and then it wasn't until kind of like my first internship in computer science where I was at Google in San Francisco and I was like, seeing kind of, like, this epitome of, like, wealth and, like, all your meals are provided, your laundry is provided, all these things. And then around us, we just saw, like, like, homelessness and, like, things that, like, didn't feel like they sat well. It was like, oh, is this a good thing to have, like, these companies come here, like, maybe it would be good for the people who actually lived here. And I think those tensions started to, like, arise.
0:05:59
And then, like, the first time I read marks was in the social theory class I took. And my professor, I found out later, also can miss for Farah, and it's like very cool. But like, I didn't know that at the time, but he presented Marx in like a very compelling way. And then I wrote my final paper about like a Marx aanalysis of the tech industry and how, like, like, Google uses communication strategies to be able to, like, combat the feelings of alienation that folks feel so you, like, redirect. So it's all kind of This is amazing. Can I read this paper? Yeah. You can. I just kind of updated it for my my slew application, so you can totally read it. Oh my god.
0:06:40
This just shows me sorry to interject like this, but Everyone always wants to say, like, the liberal arts or, like, social sciences or intellect that humanities is useless. Right? It doesn't bring value or economic growth to a community, but, you know, you or somebody who studied computer science, got a lot out of something that was outside of the field and helped, you know, shape your perspective and your identity, and clearly you got a lot out of it and like I'm hearing and learning so much about it too now. Unfortunately, they're the liberal arts. Any conservatives listening to this we'll say, oh, that's exactly what we've been warning against.
0:07:18
But, I mean, I think it's fascinating that you're talking about what out to me most about what you just mentioned in terms of your paper. One that you had professor who had canvassed for one of our DSA endorsed candidates, Farah, surfront forest, which I think is like awesome. And, you know, really speaks to that, like, personal, social connection to this type of thing. But two, that you're making these connections, like, I feel like it'd be very hard for me not that I know that much. But for me to try and make a connection of, like, Marxism in the tech industry or even understand that Google is doing things to combat social alienation under capitalism, but like not just combat social alienation, but make it livable. Or make it acceptable or even worse, make it profitable. Right? Turn it into a way to make money and, like, give you, like, a quick hit to, like, deal with those peep feelings of alienation? I don't know what's called. Like, the whatever, the endorphan hit. But don't don't mean don't mean hit, but you don't actually deal with the problem of alienation in any sort of significant way. Yeah. I mean, it's funny when you say profitable because the thing that also didn't really sit well with me. It's like, I think it's like a clear analysis to be like, oh, these decisions are being made by this, like, profit. It's incentive, but, like, The first project I worked on there was under this umbrella called Nexbillion users.
0:08:43
And it was this app that was specifically marketed to people in Brazil, India, and while I was there, China, we also launched in China because it has like no back end, whatever. But it was like a lot of people building this app where people who like like most of my family lives in India and it was really cool and exciting like I walked in and I was like I love Google. And I love the message of making, like, the world's information universally accessible and useful, and I'm excited to do that. For communities that look like the ones that I came from and people in my family. But then I was like sitting at lunch one day and everyone was talking about how they don't know how our app makes money or, like, the monetary strategy or, like, one day, we're gonna have to monetize our app. Does anyone know how we're gonna do that? Everyone's like, no.
0:09:28
And I was like, you're just paying these engineers like like hundreds of k's of dollars, like hundreds of thousand dollars just to, like, build this app that, like, essentially the purpose is, like, get market share and have everyone on Google products. But it has this, like, language of domination. And, like, this colonial language that, like, at that time, like, I didn't have the language to describe, but just felt like a little weird. And then in more thinking about, like, the ways that, like, corporations expand dominant and, like, I think, like, digital colonialization. There's, like, a bunch of writing about, like, how data is used and, like, data is mined from countries in the global south. And I think that, like, all that stuff I didn't know at that time, but was part of my journey of politicization. It really came through thinking about tech. There's, like, a thousand threads I wanna pick up from I know. I love all this. So Yeah. I like, one is, like, the concept that on these tech companies or in these tech products, you are the product. Their spending all of his money on engineers to get you and then you will get advertised to or you'll get a be a captive audience in their micro transactions or whatever. One are so and then two, this, like, language of domination and the way in which these companies are just trying to ravenously increase their market share I do not have a nice good classical training in Marxism, but I read that book.
0:10:55
Really good book. I'll I'll do another shout out for it. People's guide to capitalism by Hodosphere, whose name I remember this time. And one of the sections was about the concentration and accumulation of capital, and the need for companies to do that under capitalism. That one of their primary directives beyond just earning a profit was to concentrate that they needed to make more and more every year, and they needed to make more than their competitors. So it was just like, ever increasing competition to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
0:11:26
And in a lot of cases, and what we're seeing with these tech bubbles is That means they're spending a ridiculous amount of money on expansion, not necessarily generating revenue. And what very frequently happens is those companies then crash because they cannot sustain that amount of money, because they're not making new money fast enough in order to sustain it. And ultimately they've overproduced, and they cannot continue to pay their workers. And the people that suffer are not the executives, They're not the investors that made those decisions. They're not the people at the top. It's all of the people that either rely on the products or the people that make a living doing that work. And then on a personal note, I happen to be at the Google offices in New York this morning for a user research study, which was a lot of fun and Hopefully, Google is not listening because I'm looking forward to my one hundred dollar gift card to for the research information I provided on the Focus Group. About the play store. But Hard to say, I wanna It was in my b reel. If you see my b reel for today, you'll see the Google offices. It was a fun experience.
0:12:36
Kaarthika, I wanna ask you I feel like we're getting so much and we could go, like, forever in terms of, like, all of these different things you're pulling out. But I wanna ask you, you talked about what brought you to socialism or how you came to these politics. How did you come to DSA specifically? Yeah. I think I spoke a little bit about the socialism piece, but I do wanna call out, like, that, like, attention economy piece that you said, where, like, the other two tensions in my life were, like, I care a lot about art and music. And also, I care a lot about friendship, which I can talk more about. But, like, those things are in that direct conflict with capitalism. And, like, parsing through that tension is when I realized I think that, like, life that I wanna live, I can't live under capitalism and the life that I feel like everyone deserves we can't live under capitalism and that's really what brought me to socialism. But to be really tangible about what brought me to DSA, Well, two main things.
0:13:32
One, I went back to San Francisco for a week to, like, study gentrification, AOL. But we met with, like, the Yimbis, and we met with nonprofit developers. And we met with, like, some folks doing really good organizing work, like, the monster mission organizing work that's still happening. But then we also went to, like, the SF or East Bay, like, DSA office, and then we did a Canvas with, like, impacted folks. And I was actually, like, oh, this actually feels like the most tangible period of change that I came across the entire time there because we walked away and we were like, oh, gentrification, that's a hard problem. Guess we're not gonna solve it. But I was like, wait, it's like one group kind of had a way to start making changes. And then the other piece is that when I was in so I went to school in Houston, so, like, Ohio and Texas, like, the main places where I, like, develop my politics, and I think they're still in development now.
0:14:31
But I did some Bernie Sanders twenty twenty organizing, and I did a Green New Deal Canvas, and it was organized by DSA. And compared to all the other Bernie Canvases, I went too. That one was the best organized, and it was also really cool to talk to oil and gas workers about the Green New Deal. So I was like, oh, these people like, that's when I became a paper member, and then it wasn't until I moved to New York to work for one of the other DSA endorsed assembly members. Ziran Mongani.
0:15:00
In twenty twenty one, did I, like, become, like, really deeply embedded in New York City DSA? I just wanna say thank you to East Bay DSA in that Texas DSA chapter for bringing you into the org because we're so glad to have you. We're very glad. Thank you, East Bay, DSA, and that Texas chapter Texas chapter, was it? I don't remember. It was Houston, DSA, and I think San Francisco PSA. So I'm sorry. No. No. No. They're all great. I don't know. Thank you to East Bay DSA anyway. And San Francisco DSA and Houston. I actually got to work with some folks from Houston DSA, oh, in twenty twenty, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty one.
0:15:42
God knows when there was that really awful winter storm that hit Texas and caused blackout for an extended period of time, we got to mobilize a lot of Texas chapters that we're working on, various utility or public power campaigns. And it was a really powerful moment for them to let everyone know The reason Texas is struggling right now. The reason all of the power is down and it's all reliant on natural gas and we're not connected to the rest of the grid in the United States. Is capitalism. Keeps coming back to that profit motive. Keeps coming back to this like fundamental backing of our society that values wealthy people and their interests and wealth over humanity.
0:16:26
I just want to ask very quickly. Tell us a little bit about what it's like. To cannabis oil and gas workers about the Green New Deal. That just sounds super fascinating. Well, I think well, when I was on that call, one of those calls, and I wrote some of those comms, and it's just cool that you can do well, your comrades, like, didn't have power down there that we could, like, support remotely, and that's really cool.
0:16:47
But canvassing workers, it's kind of like that needle feels like it's continuing to thread itself because There's a bunch of con of Con Ed right outside my house is, like, redigging their gas lines. So there's, like, twenty workers outside every day. And I've become, like, kind of chummy with them in, like, do you want some water or whatever? And the other day, a worker mentioned to me, like, it was like a really weirdly warm day, like, a few weeks ago. And I was like, it's a beautiful day out, and then she was like, Yeah. It's kind of unsettling. And I was like, do you wanna talk about climate change? So we started, like, kind of talking about those things.
0:17:27
And I think that, like, something that might surprise folks is, like, what I experienced down in Houston is, like, a lot of folks, like, really think, like, the climate crisis is real and they feel the impacts of it, but and they also know that their job is complicit in it, but they're really just like, I need money, I need to be paid, and like this is the work that I have. So, like, being able to talk about things like adjust transition and, like, what do you think adjust transition would look like for you? Like, what skills you think that you could have, that you'd still have in a renewable economy. I think, like, opening conversations that way and, like, asking questions because I don't know what it's like to work in oil and gas. Like, I think folks are actually really open to that kind of conversation. That's awesome because, you know, Republicans and all kinds of, like, regular conservative Democrats will be like, oh, you know, it's their culture, you know, it's a like taking away pride of work, and they act like it's a huge violation to threaten the livelihoods of oil and gas workers, whereas what you're telling us is that oil and gas workers want to be workers and they want to be paid and they want to be respected and they want to have like, decent work. And I think that that's something that we can include in our just transition, not that I'm a just transition expert. So but maybe we can have one on the show, though. I don't know if we'll ever have an expert until we actually get at the beginnings of a just transition. Although there's some people that know a lot more about it than we do. And we will eventually get them on the show, I think, actually.
0:18:55
But that also just like always hearing that it's for oil and gas workers, but it's for almost every worker in this economy, which is it's set up so that you have all of these pressures on you all the time. You have to pay rent. You have to buy food. You have to pay for your energy. You have to provide for your family. You have to spend money in order to live. On all of these basic needs. And the way you can make money is if you work for someone else who's probably running, maybe business that's not good for your neighbors or the environment or the country or another country. Right? There are so many ways in which all economic activity in this country is sometimes tied to some form of oppression or exploitation. And you too are often too impressed to be able to worry about that.
0:19:45
That these oil and gas workers that you're talking to us about, Garthika, are So, like, they they can be aware of what's going on. They can be aware of how their jobs are complicit, but they have their own families and lives and things they have to work to make money for, it's this like insidious nature of capitalism that it forces you to make a living and pay I mean, absorb it an amount of money for your basic needs. And then it also says the only way you're gonna be able to pay for your basic needs is if you do these terrible things. Or work for a job that's just not good for society. So I'm not a very positive note.
0:20:22
We'd love to ask about, like, you mentioned you're a labor organizer and you're doing a lot of work right now in terms of helping workers for unions. What is that like? Especially, I think, you work with, like, tech unions or tech workers. Right? Yeah. I love my workers. They're amazing. No. And I think that, like, it is kind of It's interesting because in fact, bread and butter issues are important, but I think that, like, what brought me to tech organizing was actually, like, when I was at Google, there's, like, project mavis and, like, tech for ice and, like, Also at YouTube, I was at YouTube a second summer.
0:21:07
For some reason, I didn't learn after my first summer and then I went back for a second summer. And I was like, maybe I would like this butter. And then I decided not to go back after graduation. But my second summer, there was also a lot of stuff that happened around child safety. But there was internal organizing and workers were like, I don't wanna be complicit in this in my workplace.
0:21:28
And I think that something that's really cool about tech is that there's actually these really, I think, one, that it's an opportunity to rewrite the rules because it's like a really new industry to organize in. I think, two, it's where the money is. Like, that's where the billionaires are. And like three, I think there's just like really natural opportunities for solidarity, the kinds of unions we build our wall to wall, which means there are folks that are making four times as much as another worker that they're in the same union for and they're fighting for things like not just like more pay or raises but like transparency and like like, leveling, pay transparency, things like no intrusive monitoring, things like don't call, like, unarmed licensed professionals instead of cops if something happens in our workplace. Like, there's a whole spectrum of things, trans inclusive healthcare. And, like, I think that that's something's really cool. And it's also cool to be organizing with a lot of, like, upwardly mobile, immigrant, working class people, trans people, crazy people who, like, feel like me, which is really cool.
0:22:37
I want to say really quickly that as the old in the room, Right? So true so when I was in grad school, we were trying to organize the grad assistants. And traditionally, we had a really our time in getting the research assistance that came from engineering to join our union because there was traditionally an understanding that engineers as sort of applied scientists really identified with management. And they saw their interests as being very closely tied to corporation interests. And so there was a deep socialization happening, you know, from the beginning of their undergraduate experience that, you know, you don't you're not critical of capitalism, you don't engage in politics, you don't worry about like social inequality's and differences. You're there to do the science, do the applied science, do the engineering.
0:23:21
And I think that one of the things that I've noticed as somebody who's quite far, I used to have an engineering boyfriend though because I went to University of Illinois, which is like a big engineered engineered school. And, you know, it was definitely an interesting experience because he was like your classic Allen Rand reading, Yes, sorry, libertarian engineer guy. And I think now he's a what's it called? He's a defense contractor with a PHE and astrophysics for some base. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a journey. Anyway yeah. Right. Right.
0:23:50
But still hates but still hates governments. The government, federal government. Don't tax me, bro. But anyway, so what I what I've noticed is that younger people, they don't bit that stereotype, and I think that part of it reflects the diversity of the workplace. But I think also what there's also this political socialization in which younger people, millennials, Gen Z's are much more aware of these inequality's, even if they come from relatively privileged positions or they're gonna go into privileged occupations. And I think that what you're talking about here really speaks to that huge generational difference. Even if it's only eighteen, twenty years. Like, a lot has happened during that time. Yeah.
0:24:30
And I think, like, another thing worth calling out there is, like, with tech workers and engineers specifically. It's like a lot of times they see management because also management is a lot of these younger people who don't know what they're doing. And they see management being like younger people who don't know what they're doing and making decisions that are not only like counter to, like, the worker's interest, but also their user's interest. And just, like, corporate interest, they're, like, this is not profit motivated. Why would you scrap a project we've been working on for, like, months. It's just a waste of time and effort. And they're like, workers should really have a say because we're the ones who are closest to the usaries. We're the ones who, like, do this work. And I think that, like, I could talk about that more, but, like, the Kickstarter oral history project has, like, a lot of really good examples of how that happened in the workplace where there were, like, Actually, maybe one dude should not be making these decisions for our entire company.
0:25:23
I don't know if you know two comrades in New York City TSA, Roksha, and blue, but I'm assuming you do, you don't. Just on Twitter. I mostly on Twitter with Roxha, but I have met her once. And I just wanna give him a quick shout out because they're both alphabet workers, United folks. And I know, Rock show was an in integral part of organizing that not yet wall to wall, but powerful union here at Google, which is really awesome. She's doing great things. Shout out to her. If you're looking her up on Twitter, it's a great account and you should follow her.
0:25:57
But what struck me about meeting both of them in different context was a lot of things that you guys are both bringing up right now, which was like the diversity of experience that they talked about. Lou is an immigrant from China, Rakeshay's children of immigrants. And it was really interesting the different cultural context that they had and that they brought to Google and the way in which they talked about organizing with their coworkers and the way in which they post business. And they're obviously both, you know, fairly young folks. And all of these different cultural contexts seem to be diverge converging right now for folks in generation z and a lot of new workers entering the workplace or who've been in workplace for a few years. And I don't know, I'm feeling mildly hopeful that it's really, really positive. And we're getting a strong wave of leftist, pro union, pro worker types into the American workforce, and they're really looking to raise hell.
0:27:00
One of the things I wanted to also make sure that we get a chance to talk about is this disagreement that we might have, and I'm here to learn from our young's about in person versus online organizing. We would love to hear your thoughts about that. We were talking about this before because I just I've been working as, like, a staff organized on my first campaign, and it's Ban Camp United, and they went public last week, and they're actually at full year remote workplace. So I was talking about how amazing it is that y'all could they can organize remotely without having met probably like half the OCS met each other or something like that. So I think that part of what remote organizing is is there's also different tools to be able to communicate.
0:27:47
I think it it goes a long way to send someone like a meme and just be like thinking about you or just like think about, like, the level of productization that you can have when you when you do send something across, like, a meme that's, like, really pointing it. In explaining like, oh, like, this is the same kind of power structure we've already seen with management. Or, like, a lot of Gen Z is being politicized toward through, like, TikTok or Twitter or, like, these comms things. And I actually think those are their double edged sword. I think the Twitter is really bad. But I think that there's, like, those things to call out, but I also think that, like, it's real like, it's still real interaction with people. Like, when you get a phone call from someone, when you are able to, like, hop on a Zoom with someone, I think some of my best friends like growing up were through Neo Pets when I had no friends in real life.
0:28:38
I love that so much. I literally I don't I don't love that you didn't have friends, but I love I love that Neo Pets was like a a connection for you. I love that you didn't have friends. I really, like, tweeted the other day, like, like, having friends only through Neo Pets is really prepared day for remote organizing. Like, really resonated with a lot of folks. And I was like, maybe that's it. Like, we really did grow up in this age especially for folks who were like POC or queer, like, growing up in like predominantly white areas. I've seen with a lot of my friends that it's like oh, like, I only had friends that were, like, gaming. So I think we have those skills of, like, communicating through text, and communicating through phone calls and things like that.
0:29:17
My embarrassing Neo Pets anecdote is I really wanted to get into it, but I don't think I realized And I I was not that young. I was old enough to get this. I was in my, like, I must have been, like, twelve, eleven. I didn't realize that you had to play the mini games in order to earn currency. And so I never had currency in NeoPets, so I can never buy food for my NeoPets. And so there's no idea what's going on here. But there's a Neo Pet Soup Kitchen. If you didn't have enough food to feed your Neo Pets. I'm always going to the Neo Pets soup kitchen. This is why young people love mutual aid. Yeah. Yeah. And the only Neo Pets game I wanted to play was I thought I was gonna make my Neo Pets fight and there's like a fighting option, but you had to like level up your Neo Pets significantly. And I never could because I didn't play any games and I was feeding them with the soup kitchen. So I had a negative experience in the OpEx, but That's the silly part.
0:30:17
One thing I wanted to pull out from what you were saying, Kaarthika, which actually did resonate with me from what you were just saying right now. You talked about sending a meme to your coworkers, and I realized that I see my coworkers in person, and I thought that would be very powerful and help facilitate some organizing conversations, but I realize now I don't talk to them at all outside of the workplace. And I don't have the type of familiarity where I might text them or send them over Teams chat a meme or a joke. And I'm now realizing I'm thinking about it that if we were a fully remote and if we were a lot more used to having kind of those sidebar chats, those little chats on your phone or on your computer throughout the day that it might have helped develop that long term familiarity. Whereas, instead, I kinda feel like I do have a bit of like a stilted formal relationship with most of them. Yeah.
0:31:11
And I think that, like, that resonates a lot because, like, you're in a group meeting and you're in Zoom. You can just, like, direct message someone be, like, hey, sorry that management responded to you in that way or, like, thanks for bringing that up. Or you're in, like, a captive audience meeting and then you have this, like, group chat going on, like, making fun of management. Like, they're, like, room for that. And I think organizers who are, like, much more wise than I am have imparted, but, like, a sign of, like, a strong organizing space is when you can be like silly with each other because that's when you know that it really is like trust there. And I think that like online spaces are really conducive to that.
0:31:48
And I also think that, like, we're living in a moment where, like, there's, like, high mobility of, like, humans. And I think that's why, like, borders and stuff are even more violent. And it's also, like, based on, like, socioeconomic and things like that. But, like, a lot of people don't have, like, homes that are geographic. But, like, we use the term digital native and that's, like, gross. But, like, it is really true where it's, like, when I think about a lot of my childhood memories, a lot of those spaces are digital spaces, not like physical spaces.
0:32:19
I'm committing to send more memes and chat with my coworkers more on We're so happy to have you here Kaarthika and listen to your journey into socialist politics and labor organizing and tech organizing. You know, we always end an episode with encouraging folks join the Democratic socialist of America, and we'd love to hear your take on why someone listening to this who might be interested in any of the topics that we brought up why they should join the DSA? Yeah. Well, I talked a lot about, like, not having a home or whatever, like, a physical space, but, like, I think that in the past few years of living in Astoria, Stylianos is my neighbor.
0:32:59
But like because of DSA, I feel like I know a lot of my neighbors. We've done a lot of local organizing. I know the folks that work at Starbucks that are unionizing. We the power plant in our neighborhood. And I feel really, like, deeply invested in, like, the health and well-being of my neighbors. And I think that, like, if you are feeling, like, lost or without a home or without hope, I think DSA is a really good place for you to be.
0:33:29
Thank you, Kaarthika. You really should join if you're listening. You can just Google join DSA. You can send us an email. I will just say, I have never felt more powerful than I do in DSA. It is one of the best feelings I didn't realize we could have so much ability to influence and change the world until I met people like Kaarthika. And yes, we are supporting Starbucks organizers, and we stopped power plant in our neighborhood. And we're doing so many other amazing things here, and citywide and state wide. So you should do that too. Find your local chapter, check them out, send us an email left on red, left in the direction, red like the color, n y c at gmail dot com. Don't forget to subscribe and to rate us and see you soon.