Lisa Bergmann

From KeyWiki

Lisa Bergmann, was, in 2011, working as an organizer for the Young Communist League USA.^[1]

Bergmann Studied at Wesleyan University, and lives (2011) in New Haven, Connecticut.

She is from Lexington, Massachusetts.^[2]

Education

• Lexington High School School year 1999
• Wesleyan University, School year 2003^[3]

Employer

As of 2011, The Youth Day Project, with Sabir Askari Abdussabur.^[4]

Campaigning for Dolores Colon

In September 2011, in New Haven's The Hill’s Ward 6, three women were trying to get voters out for incumbent alderwoman and Local 34 member Dolores Colon in the Church Street South housing complex, a privately owned complex of 301 federally subsidized apartments across from Union Station. The volunteers were Lisa Bergmann, a former Connecticut Center for a New Economy organizer; Esther Martinez, who has lived in Church Street South for six years; and Jisette Chona. “I’ve lived here since I was 17,” Chona, 37, said. “I got married and moved out. I got separated and moved back in.”

According to Bergmann, Alderwoman Colon had been instrumental in pushing for residents’ participation in the plans for the complex and in trying to assure that current residents will have a chance to live in the new buildings. That made Church Street South a critical site for Tuesday’s get-out-the-vote drive.

“There are 100 people we want to pull out of here today so we need to hunker down and focus,” Bergmann said to Martinez and Chona as they tromped through the dingy cinder-block complex painted in various ugly shades of tan. Only a few straggly trees interrupted the blacktop pathways. Chona’s smiling 4-year-old daughter was in tow.^[5]

WFDY conference report

Lisa Bergmann gave a report, on behalf of the Young Communist League USA to a gathering of the communist front World Federation of Democratic Youth, Lisbon, Portugal, 2011. She dealt with the Occupy Wall Street movement and the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama.^[6]

My name is Lisa Bergmann from the Young Communist League USA. On behalf of our organization I would like to thank WFDY and the JCP for hosting this inspiring, well-organized event and for ensuring that the YCLUSA could be here with all of you today. The Young Communist League USA stands firmly, as it always has, united with all of you against U.S. imperialism, greed, and war...

Inspired by the “Arab Spring” and other youth movements in Europe and Latin America, the Occupy Wall Street Movement began in the heart of the U.S. capitalist system, and has now spread to more than 300 cities in the United States. Occupy is predominantly a youth movement, calling attention to the unprecedented wealth inequalities that exist in our country. Indeed, in the U.S. right now, the wealthiest 1% of the country’s population owns 35% of the nation’s wealth. While the participants in the Occupy movement are members of a wide variety of groups, they all identify as part of the “99” percent of people who do not have access to the country’s wealth. The labor movement in the U.S. has been one of the strongest allies to the Occupy movement. Other participants in the Occupy movement include peace activist groups, veterans, elected officials, immigrant rights groups, and of course the Communist Party and the Young Communist League! The Young Communist League, even though we are in a re-building phase, has participated in Occupy in every city where we exist, and has even initiated the Occupy chapters in some cities. Leaders of the Young Communist League and leaders of the Communist party have been arrested in Chicago on two separate occasions during police raids on the Occupy movement.

Finally, I will speak briefly about the 2012 elections in the U.S. The election of Obama in 2008 was a tremendous victory for the people of the United States and indeed for people all over the world. The election of our first African American President has been a huge blow to the entrenched racism in our country. Young people are the reason that Obama won the presidency, as he earned 66 percent of the youth vote. Obama continues to push policies that benefit working-class people in the United States. And Republicans continually block these policies to make Obama look ineffective.

That said, the fight for jobs and for real solutions MUST include re-electing Obama in 2012. It is the role of the YCL to emphasize this wherever we go, and to try to push youth in the Occupy movement and elsewhere who do not want to work with any politicians to understand that being absent from the political process is only allowing the ultra-right wing to build power. This is also so that working people can continue to focus on building a viable movement for themselves in the United States, that will be in a position to stand in solidarity with working people throughout the world. Angela Davis, when visiting Occupy Wall Street on October 31st, said that “It is up to US to build a movement. And it is up to Obama to respond to that movement. But he cannot do it on his own.”

References