antifa_ceo

by Jean allen

This speech is something i have had swirling in my head for months, as I wrote Unite The Class and then as I worked on the program process. The Fighting Socialist program ended up not passing by 45-55, and it had its flaws, but it seems that this speech legitimized it to the body. As motivations and deliberation occurred, Communist Caucus voted to change its recommendation from a No to Neutral. I hope that this forwarded the ideas present in the Fighting Socialist Program—that the path forward is to connect with all the segments of the working class who understand our struggles are connected—and that this is the start of an organization wide discussion of program.

Hello comrades, Jean Allen Rochester NY they/them.

This proposed program is trying to answer a simple question: how can the working class, as a class, rule society?

Our settler colonial history has been one of a working class divided against itself, allowing a small minority of capitalists to rule the rest of us towards their interests.

This division continues to this day. This year there was a graduate workers strike in my home at the University of Rochester. During that strike, twelve student organizers were deported for showing solidarity with the Palestinian movement. Two months later, president Trump began threatening to deport our dear comrade Zohran Mamdani for winning his election as a Muslim Socialist. That shows us—if we allow division anywhere, we are affected by it everywhere. If the state can deport organizers, they can deport our electeds. If our trans siblings are disallowed from participating from society we are all affected by their absence. And if the prison system continues as a way to disempower and enslave poor workers, it will continue the color lines within our movement.

This program is aimed at uniting the WHOLE of the US working class towards immediate demands, and the greater transformation of society. It has both short term demands every chapter can take up, but it also builds on the value of the workers deserve more program by giving it a long term horizon for socialist victory, not present in either the main motion or in our comrades’ carnation program. It also uniquely speaks to the need of DSA to unite with and support our trans and migrant comrades.

It calls for the democratization and socialization of our economy, the end of US empire, and a new, democratic socialist, republic. If passed, we can use this to organize in every field and every community, saying that your struggles are workers struggles, that every fight for democracy, every cry of the oppressed, can find its voice the struggle for socialism. Thank you, vote yes on the Fighting Socialist Program

Written by Central IN DSA

Central Indiana DSA’s Fully Funded, Fully Public Committee unequivocally stands with educators in the face of state repression of their free speech.

In recent public posts to his Facebook page, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has encouraged the targeting of educators by his constituents for their political expressions outside of the classroom. Using flimsy, minimal evidence such as screenshots of politically-tinged Facebook conversations that represent fair democratic discourse on a current issue well within the first amendment rights of those under scrutiny, Rokita is using his malicious Eyes on Education portal in an attempt to chill speech, put educators’ employment at risk, and potentially risk their physical safety.

Indiana’s Eyes on Education portal is a tool of political repression, not accountability. By encouraging anonymous reports on teachers—even for lawful activities outside the classroom—Attorney General Todd Rokita seeks to pit neighbor against neighbor for holding views he disagrees with.

As citizens and workers, teachers have the right to speak, organize, and live freely without fear of state surveillance. This portal and Rokita’s irresponsible public use of its data chills speech rights and weaponizes government power to silence dissent while ignoring the collective needs of our communities: well-funded schools, fair wages, and honest education.

Central Indiana DSA stands in solidarity with teachers against this attack on their dignity, their speech, and our children’s future.

Unhoused outreach is the act of bringing mutual aid, support, or services to those impacted by homelessness. We do outreach to reduce some of the harms that present themselves when individuals are unhoused. I have been doing homeless outreach since December of 2024 after Rochester Grants Pass Resistance’s (RGPR) first Outreach Training event. Since then, I have gone out many times. Here are some tips!

Take a friend!

• Always do outreach with a friend. It is much safer that way and an extra pair of hands doesn’t hurt.
• Join RGPR’s All Weather Crisis Team to look for an outreach partner (ask to join at an upcoming event). People are always open to team up.

Stay in your comfort zone

• Bring supplies that you feel comfortable giving out. Some people give out cigarettes, some give out cash, some give out clean needles, etc. You don’t have to give out any of those if you don’t want to. Instead, consider bringing water, clothes, food (fruits, crackers, PB&J), etc.
• Feel free to politely decline any requests from the people you meet. I have been asked for rides a few times. Most times I don’t mind, but there have been some instances where I have declined.

Bring compassion, but don’t bottle it up

• While most interactions with people are only a few words, feel free to form a bond with anyone you meet out there. Sometimes people just want someone to listen to them, so lend an ear. When talking, look them in the eyes—they are humans just like you.
• You will see people suffering. In these instances remember that you are there to lend temporary help and you are not there to solve all of their problems. Most importantly, don’t forget to hold positive energy.
• This work requires a lot of emotional energy. Don’t bottle it up for too long. Take breaks, continue enjoying life, refresh yourself, and get ready for the next round.

Spend time thinking of the future

• Homelessness is a symptom of deeper systemic issues. Take time to think and research the root causes, such as the shortage of affordable housing, rising rents, and the lack of resources for mental health and addiction.
• By only doing outreach you will not be solving the underlining issues, and unfortunately, they will still be out there by the end of the day. Consider spending energy on the real solutions to these issues. Organizations like Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Rochester Grants Pass Resistance (RGPR), and VOCAL are putting in work to push for a future that treats all people with compassion and decency.
• Be part of the change and make a difference by signing our petition to push legislation on long term solutions: bit.ly/HousingNotHandcuffsPetition

By Caleb Strom

As Climate Week at the United Nations draws to a close, it’s worth looking at a 2001 Disney animation called Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Even as tech barons talk about strip mining the moon, Atlantis depicts an approach to technology that is relational and gives explicit obligations to humanity to act responsibly. In the film, Atlantis has technologies such as powered flight and energy shields thousands of years before modern civilization. Atlantean technology, however, is powered by energy from a crystalline entity created by the collective emotions of all past Atlanteans, completing a loop in which the technology is based on a relationship between the Atlanteans and their ancestors.

The original Atlantis, created by Plato, suffered its fate as a result of those familiar Greek tropes of hubris and overreach, concepts still valid thousands of years later in real time.

When the Disney Atlanteans try to use the crystal for their own gain, as an instrument of war, Atlantis sinks beneath the sea. Thousands of years later, a band of adventurers from the early-twentieth-century United States arrive, aided by archeo-linguist Milo Thatch. The adventurers mostly turn out to be mercenaries who are only interested in what they can gain financially from the Atlantean crystal.

The mercenaries want to sell the crystal for their own gain while the Atlanteans and Thatch see the crystal as a being with whom they have a relationship. This conflict reflects two perspectives on the universe. One sees the universe as a stockpile of resources to enrich humans, in particular capitalist humans. Read the morning headlines for examples. The other view is of the universe as a being with which we are to relate and to which we have obligations. Many religious traditions express this view, as do many Indigenous people. Even Christianity, which has long seen humans as having "dominion" over creation now speaks of co-creation and stewardship.

Modern films and books depicting the future are for the most part dystopian or apocalyptic, showing a world destroyed or wounded by violence, greed, and racism. Indeed, this is the initial plot of Atlantis as the island sinks beneath the sea. But the story doesn’t end there. The Atlanteans, who still exist underwater and cut off from the rest of the world, fight off the mercenaries and rediscover how to use their technology in a way that is more respectful toward their crystalline host.

Many religious traditions have always recognized that our natural resources are a gift from God or the universe and that humans are stewards and caretakers. Could these traditions inspire a vision of a future in which humans use technology in redemptive ways that care both for people and the planet? Can we have a future where we have space exploration not aimed at colonizing other worlds once our own is uninhabitable, where we find cures to preventable diseases, where there is enough food for all, where everyone has access to information, and where we all have a flourishing relationship with nature?

Growth as Ideology

In many ways, the ideology of growth functions as a religion itself. Silicon Valley tech barons talk about technology as a source of salvation. Although technology does not need to be worshiped, technology does have a spiritual component. Many of the major figures in the tech scene see it as a form of salvation, whether from personal death or from extinction. Religious traditions should not repudiate the spirituality of technology but redeem it so that it is about something other than infinite material expansion.

The philosopher of space exploration Frank White, in his book The Cosma Hypothesis, argues that the universe is self-organizing and that cosmic evolution might have a specific direction. What if technological progress meant alignment with the evolutionary course of the universe? What if instead of seeing technological progress as a conquest of nature, technological progress was seen in terms of how humans are participating in the evolution of the cosmos toward its intended goal?

Of course, participating in the evolution of the cosmos requires knowing the direction of said evolution. White suggests that the Overview Effect, the experience astronauts get when looking at Earth and feeling a sense of interconnectedness, could be a hint. The Overview Effect emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things: the reality that we are all part of one planet and dependent on each other. He suggests that this is also true of the cosmos as a whole. What if the order that our technology was supposed to conform to and enhance was that interconnectedness, not just with Earth but the entire cosmos?

Examples of movements that try to realize this future include Buen Vivir, a lifestyle embraced by an Indigenous-led movement in South America, emphasizing a balance with nature and fulfilment of human need rather than economic growth. This is also exemplified in convivial technologies inspired by Ivan Illich, which promoted creating technology that is human-scaled and promotes human agency at the individual and communal levels.

Another example of a redemptive vision of a technological future is the Solarpunk genre, which depicts a future where technology is used to integrate humans with nature and each other in contrast to the technologically induced alienation and authoritarianism depicted in Cyberpunk settings. Examples of this genre include the books by Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild Built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy.

Will this be a century in which humanity is able to use its technology in the service of God or the universe and the benefit of creation or, like the Atlanteans, will our abuse of technology destroy us? Which story will we choose: the one that sees technological progress as conquest of nature or the one that sees technological progress as a partnership with nature?

Caleb Strom is a planetary scientist. He is also a Christian and writes about faith, science, technology, their intersection, and how they can work together to make a better world.

The following opinion piece does not represent the editorial position of Pine and Roses or of Maine DSA as a whole.

Graham Platner has broken the race for US Senate wide open while Troy Jackson promises to be the most pro-union governor in the state’s history. Less than two months ago, all bets were on Gov. Janet Mills sweeping the primary and facing off against Trump enabler Sen. Susan Collins. And, despite Maine labor’s enthusiastic support, Jackson was going to struggle to expand his base sufficiently to outpace left-leaning candidates like Hannah Pingree and Shenna Bellows. The most likely outcome appeared to be a governor one step to the left of Mills—barring an unexpected Republican gubernatorial victory— and a senate race between DNC centrism and the last vestiges of Republican “moderation.” A contest that Collins has repeatedly demonstrated she can win.

Platner’s announcement in August created a buzz, but the 7,000 who attended the joint Bernie-Platner-Jackson rally on Labor Day turned up the volume, raising the potential for a radical turn. Both Platner and Jackson’s campaigns picked up Bernie’s crusade against the billionaire oligarchy. They intend to tax the rich to fund public education, healthcare, and elder care, champion unions to grow working-class power, end the genocide in Gaza and demand freedom for Palestine, and, as Jackson put it, “finally do right by the Wabanaki people.” Platner and Jackson are clearly in it to win and are amassing an army of volunteers, endorsements, and small contributions–Platner has taken in $2.5 million in little more than a month. Mills, especially, will be a formidable primary opponent, but working-class Mainers have a pair of horses in this race and they should take the opportunity to break free from politics as usual.

As state co-chair of Maine DSA, I am speaking only for myself below. Maine DSA will follow its own procedures to decide when, and if, the organization endorses any candidate. We will have multiple, thorough discussions, we will listen to one another’s concerns—and there are always valid concerns when it comes to politics—and then we will vote democratically on our position. All Maine DSA members in good standing have the right to participate in this debate and vote on any potential endorsement. Of course, rank-and-file Maine DSA members are free to volunteer for any campaign at any time and do not have to wait for chapter authorization.

However, in my opinion, Maine DSA ought to consider endorsing both Platner and Jackson for several reasons.

1. Endorsing is good for the candidates and good for Maine DSA. We can help grow the movement as we grow ourselves. We are a small force, but we have a dedicated layer of experienced organizers and thousands of members and supporters who look to the chapter for direction. If there’s going to be a real fight against the oligarchy in Maine, we’ve demonstrated we will be a dedicated and useful part of that fight, from electing socialists to office to organizing tenants unions to raising the minimum wage. And even as Maine DSA sustains a wide array of working groups and committees, we ought to look for ways to prioritize state-wide efforts where we can become more than the sum of our parts. Where we can all move in the same direction, recruit new members, turn inactive members into active ones, and strengthen our bonds with unions and community organizations.

2. United front defense in a purple state. Maine is one of a handful of so-called purple states in which organized labor, community organizations, and the broad left have not been decimated by neoliberal attacks. That is, we have retained an important capacity for self-defense. This puts a target on our back from the Trump administration, but it also gives us the chance to serve as an example of how to resist the destruction of our hospitals, nursing homes, VA hospitals, and schools. To do so, we’ll have to organize against ICE across the state, continue to speak out against the genocide in Gaza, and defend our LGTBQ+ siblings. Additionally, we’ll have to build a united front movement capable of demanding and winning real taxation of the rich in Maine. Trump wants to defund Maine. We will have to pry open Maine’s own oligarchs’ wallets and stock portfolios if we want to promote job-creating renewable energy projects, fully fund our public schools, and use the legislature’s muscle to embark on an affordable and workforce housing construction boom. Platner replacing Collins provides us one more measure of defense nationally and Jackson has pledged to fight for the kind of budget and reforms that working-class Mainers so desperately need. We have to shift the balance of forces in our favor in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, in our schools, and in Augusta. It’s not enough to defend democracy and civil liberties against attacks, we need a positive economic program to improve working-class lives.

3. Don’t rely on the corporate Democrats. Trump and Stephen Miller declared war on the working class in Arizona this weekend. If Trump demonstrated his desire to tamper with elections in 2020, today he is organizing the (semi)legal and extralegal means to retain Republican control in 2026 and beyond. Unfortunately, the national Democratic Party appears incapable of confronting this reality. If they spent as much time fighting Trump as they have sabotaging Zohran Mamdani and Omar Fateh, we might be in a different position. Unfortunately, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have neither the interest nor the knowhow to oppose Trump. MAGA is becoming a mass fascist movement, the DNC is a fundraising operation for lawyers-turned-politicians. The DNC does not have the tools for this job, instead, unions, community organizations, and the left will have to forge them ourselves.

4. Don’t throw out Platner and Jackson with the DNC bathwater. DNC paralysis should not blind us to recognizing certain places where a real fight against the billionaires is developing within the old form of the Democratic Party. 2026 in Maine is, I believe, one such place. This does not mean we should look to Platner and Jackson to “fix” things for us. As Eugene V. Debs put it while running for president, “I would not be a Moses to lead you into the promised land, for someone would lead you out again.” That is, Platner and Jackson are not, by themselves, the movement we need. All indications are that they want to play a part in a much larger working-class movement for radical change. They will have to prove that in practice, but the movement has to prove itself capable of sinking deep roots, bringing in workers from all over the state, and developing mechanisms and institutions for democratic input and decision making. If we don’t do that, then even if they win, Platner and Jackson will be left high and dry.

5. Focus on building power in the medium term, but start with 2026. We know that 2026 is not the end of the fight. Our long term vision is to free humanity and the planet from capitalism’s destructive drive. We are not naive. Trump is strong. We expect that MAGA will be in power—or very close to it—for the next decade and they will only leave if a stronger force arises. The oligarchy has no intention of giving an inch. In order to change the balance of forces, we need a strategic, medium term vision.

What does medium-term success look like? It means 25 percent of Maine workers winning union contracts (we’re at 13 percent now). It means a real fight inside and outside the Democratic Party to elect twenty-five or thirty socialists (we have 1 now), labor leaders, and genuine defenders of tribal sovereignty, LGTBQ+ equality, and freedom for New Mainers to seats in the Maine legislature. It means electing dozens of town, city (we now have 2), county, and school board officials who ground their legislative work in union and community democracy. It means a continuous process of united front action between working-class and progressive forces to expand our areas of influence. It means Maine DSA learning how to act like a socialist party.

For any of those medium-term dynamics to stand a chance, we should look for short term opportunities that provide our side with maximum opportunities for partial victories and stronger unity. Helping elect Platner and Jackson is one such chance. Not only to win their seats, but to ensure that unions, grassroots communities, and left-wing organizations emerge stronger from the campaigns. Not simply as names on a donor list for the candidates, but in real terms for working-class organization.

The stakes are high in 2026. Maine DSA needs a plan to help our class defend itself, and we need a plan to grow stronger. We have work to do beyond the Platner and Jackson campaigns, but they can serve as a unifying element we need to get to the next level of organizing and influence. It would be a serious mistake to stand aside or to support the campaigns in a purely individual and disorganized manner. Now is not the time for a bylaws fight, now is the time for serious debate, honest disagreement, democratic decision making, and united action.

by Ida Bly

David Rovics and Kamala Emanuel sang a concert in Madison on September 4th.They call their duo “The Ministry of Culture.” Madison DSA and WORT-FM helped sponsor this performance. This evening of folk-style music offered abundant moments of truth-telling and authenticity.

There were about 35 people in attendance, in a range of ages, at Muso on Winnebago Street. Muso hosts acoustic music events without amplification. In this case, the pleasing harmonies contributed by Kamala Emanuel greatly enhanced the songs David sang while playing guitar. Attendees responded warmly to Rovics’ songs, including his most well-known song, “St. Patrick’s Battalion,” with driving rhythm and a refrain containing the lyrics: “we witnessed freedom denied…we fought on the Mexican side.” It’s the story of Irish immigrants who switched sides during the Mexican-American war of the 1840s. Having recently faced the choice of “death, starvation or exile” in Ireland, they found the Mexicans’ cause more compelling, staving off an invading army, in a parallel to their struggle against the British.

Rovics and Emanuel also sang the tongue-in-cheek “I’m a Better Anarchist than You,” encouraging us to poke fun at ourselves, and to work across sectarian lines. Another popular song with a singable chorus was “If Only it were True,” which recounts the absurd right wing charges against Obama as being a tree-hugging, socialist, immigrant-loving, peace-loving Muslim. DSA members can identify with the song’s sentiment, given the bizarre, fact-free accusations of socialism slung as an insult toward various and sundry figures who are anything but.

There were also new songs about Gaza, including “From Auschwitz to Gaza.” Another brand new song was “Zahid” about a US Veteran who is a beloved long-time local resident of Olympia Washington, and uses a wheelchair, lingering now in ICE detention in solitary confinement in Tacoma. The concert also included the song, “In Wisconsin in 1854 (Song for Joshua Glover)” (see sidebar article).

Prior to the main act, local singer Tom Wernigg opened the night with his country-tinged, humanistic, singable, and informative songs that have a deep vein of humor. He sang, “I don’t like genocide…under any guise”. The sarcastic “My Minivan…it’s my best friend” included the line, “I like my burgers with freedom fries.” We hope Tom in his signature hat will perform more often in Madison.

Rovics and Emanuel concluded their performance to applause. Returning to the stage for an encore, they sang “Behind the Barricades“ [2001] acapella with the passage: “As the movement grows there will be hills and bends—But at the center of the struggle are your lovers and your friends—The more we hold each other up the less we can be swayed—Here’s to love and solidarity and a kiss behind the barricades.” It was a tremendous and satisfying finish to a great night.

Muso performance space

Muso created a magical and whimsical backdrop for the event. The proprietors have roots in the Act 10 uprising and long-running Solidarity Sing Along at the Wisconsin Capitol since 2011. Muso puts a strong emphasis on pure musical experiences, especially participatory events. The venue has continued to improve over the last year. We enjoyed comfortable seating augmented by luxurious sofas piled with comfortable pillows, a bookshelf-lined wall, fanciful stenciled woodwork and colorful paper mobiles. There was even a break between sets to enjoy refreshments and visit with others at the event. Muso has great potential for more political and socialist-themed gatherings.

Music in Social Movements

David Rovics is a singer with anarchist politics, connecting many movements over the decades. He describes his “songs of social significance” as being “about life on earth” or, variously, as “songs to fan the flames of discontent.” His works touch on dozens of contemporary struggles including immigration, war, labor, gentrification, capitalism, environmental struggles, high rents, and so on. He is particularly notable as a prolific song writer. Never shying away from difficult subjects, he also writes about bicycles, bonobos, and visions of a better world we can create.

One of my favorite songs is “We Just Want the World” [1998]. It speaks to our fondest wishes: ”closing down munitions plants…shutting down the oil rigs/ And turning towards the sun…we don’t want your dead-end highway/ We just want the world.”

His pieces have been called “song stories,” and in many cases use a specific event to symbolize a much larger issue. Rovics’ historical references have also been compared to what folk singer Utah Phillips called The Long Memory, a connected view of history that can help us see where we want to go. In this moment especially, we need singers and cultural workers to help illuminate our history because it is intentionally obscured by the ruling elites. David Rovics has a large catalog of music on Palestine (see https://www.davidrovics.com/palestine/), dating back at least twenty years but particularly voluminous in the last few years, with new songs coming out regularly on the topic.

For his troubles, Rovics has suffered the demonetization of his YouTube channel in the last year, a major threat to a performer’s financial stability. Just this week, YouTube removed his song “I Support Palestine Action.” His events have been cancelled for political reasons, and he has endured government surveillance during his stops, even in New Zealand and Scandinavia. This reminds us of something we know very well from TV’s top comedians lately: cultural workers put themselves at risk. If our enemies know how powerful cultural workers can be, why don’t we?

I first saw David Rovics perform in Madison at the First Congregational Church on the corner of University Avenue and Breese Terrace in the early 2000s, as part of the Earth Day to May Day events. He also performed at Wil-Mar Community Center around 2009 — on that visit his friend and legendary labor troubadour Anne Feeney was in the audience (his tribute to her: “I Dreamed I Saw Anne Feeney”). On August 25, 2024, Rovics and Kamala Emanuel played on the Madison Labor Temple lawn, with sponsorship of the Family Farm Defenders, with the Raging Grannies as an opener (See the Grannies’ video clip and lyrics listing from that event here).

David Rovics was interviewed by Brian Standing on the WORT-FM show, The 8 O’Clock Buzz in 2024, touching on the role of music in protest gatherings, and that interview can be heard here:

More recently, host Martin Alvarado interviewed David Rovics on Global Revolutions on WORT-FM radio on Mon. Sept. 1, 2025, in the 3rd hour, minute 2:04-2:27. The archive of this brief interview is still available for a while. In this interview, David reported witnessing a Labor Day Parade in Rockford, Illinois, on their way up to Madison to perform this year. Although it was a massive nationwide day of protest with the theme “Workers over Billionaires,” these cultural workers did not get invited to participate, enjoying it instead as spectators.

It was a notable omission, especially because Rovics has made remarkable contributions to the labor movement’s songbook, writing original songs on topics such as Mother Jones (“Pray for the Dead and Fight Like Hell for the Living”), May Day (“The First of May,” and “When the Workers of the World Unite”), “The Battle of Blair Mountain,” the IWW “Ballad of a Wobbly, the Depression (“Union Makes Us Strong” [2010]), the Wisconsin Uprising “We Will Win (Song for Wisconsin)” [2011], and “Tax the Rich” [2011]. Rovics’ bluegrass classic, “Minimum Wage Strike,” is at least as relevant today as when he wrote it in 1998. His song “Joe Hill,” (written on the 100th anniversary of Joe Hill’s death in 1915) is about a labor organizer who was condemned to death by the state of Utah, and was executed by a state firing squad. How strange it is that the state of Utah may again execute someone by firing squad, if recent events at Utah State University play out as expected. The Death Penalty Information Center wrote a post about this. The current case is nothing like Joe Hill’s, and yet it is amazing how history echoes!

Rovics’ song “Everything Can Change,” about organizing, has a valuable message. We need our organizations of course, but these are just part of larger movements. Our organizations ebb and flow, and only partly contain our capacious aspirations. We need art, music, feasts, festivals, and culture that can carry us from one organization, movement, and phase of life to the next. We need to build deep community that can sustain us for the long haul.

It’s a mistake when our organizations forgo art and music. We deprive ourselves of the succor of music and poetry when our protest events do not include them. Author Barbara Ehrenreich, who was active in DSA, made the point that movements are more than their organizations, and need vital cultural elements to make them strong. The Poor People’s Campaign has made art and music an important component of their work. Preaching to the choir is not pointless, and even left-brained people need encouragement, connection, and learning –- preferably in handy formats to integrate into daily life, such as songs you can sing in the shower or while cleaning the house, as well as before the city council, at a protest, or on a picket line.

Hearing Difficult Truths

One of the motivations for listening to Rovics’ music is that hearing the truth brings cleansing release, even when it is challenging. Particularly now, one longs for the truth, as science is being sidelined, and the gains of the Enlightenment erode. One’s mind and senses feel polluted, as the disgusting residue of falsehoods accumulates. The obsequious worship of power pervades our airwaves and hardens our souls. There is also a struggle to make meaning of our experiences, living here in the heart of Empire, passing people sleeping on the street, taking in the horrors on TV and the crossing of red lines around the world. It is helpful to gather together to seek shared understandings.

While cringing at the sorrows, we reach for the serenity of wisdom. I often think if I understood better how things got so bad, it might help me know how to move forward. This is why learning about socialism is so important now.

David Rovics’ culture work includes essays published in Counterpunch and other places. David’s archive of music is accessible for free at www.davidrovics.com. He also has a presence on Blue Sky, Tiktok, X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Substack, YouTube and Songkick. Tou may tune into his podcast “This Week with David Rovics” – with music, history and current events at http://www.davidrovics/com/THISWEEK”. He also has a new memoir out in the form of an audiobook, called My Life as a Protest Singer. To get full access to this and other special material, there is a subscription-based Community-Supported Art program available through his website.

The morning after his performance in Madison, Rovics and Emanuel left for Woodruff, far in the north of Wisconsin, to continue to bring this music to new places, and new people. Rovics often performs for free in parks, at protest gatherings, and on picket lines. Having wrapped up the Midwest tour for now, the next stop is a tour of New York and New England starting in October.

Sidebar: Song for Joshua Glover

Rovics’ and Emanuel’s concert included a song written last year about Wisconsin history, “In Wisconsin in 1854 (Song for Joshua Glover).” It is about the Fugitive Slave Act period when the federal government forced local police to cooperate with slave catchers. But it is also a triumphant tale of rebellion by the local population against this unjust law. After a mob of Wisconsinites helped Glover escape from jail and leave the country, the state of Wisconsin declared the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 unconstitutional in 1854. The people of Wisconsin made a singular, definitive pushback, and effectively ended this law through this one instance of cross-racial solidarity, and public collective disobedience. It usually takes more than one.

Phil Busse (a Madison native) wrote a guest column that ran in the Wisconsin State Journal on May 5, 2025, “Arrest of Milwaukee judge hearkens back to 1850s” explaining how the Joshua Glover incident has important parallels to the immigration struggle embodied by the Judge Hannah Dugan case, set to go to trial in Milwaukee in December.

In 2021, the city of Toronto commissioned a statue of Joshua Glover for a city park. The design is well worth looking up online, and includes Glover in a top hat and with Afrofuturist elements. After escaping the US, Glover lived out the rest of his long life in Canada but also suffered a short bout of imprisonment there, and was denied a proper burial. There have been recent tributes to Glover, including a commissioned song called “Freedom Heights” with a video version spliced with images of Toronto’s pro-basketball Raptors team members. There is also a new mural to Joshua Glover on the I-43 underpass in Milwaukee. There is a new mini-documentary film (“Liberty at Stake”) too. The Republican Party intentionally highlighted the Joshua Glover incident during their convention in Milwaukee in 2024, aiming to claim the abolitionist roots of their party’s founding in Ripon, Wisconsin. But it is an open question whether the Party would make the same effort today, less than one year later. In any case, it is an important historical incident that is too little known, even here in Wisconsin.

Also relevant is David Rovics’ song “In Between Milwaukee and Chicago” written in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha.

On the topic of statues and murals, it is truly remarkable how many long-overdue historical markers went up only after the protests spurred by George Floyd’s death in May 25, 2020. I saw three examples of this on a recent visit to Jackson, Tennessee. Historical markers were recently put up there to the late-1800 lynchings on the courthouse lawn, the 1960’s Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-ins, and to honor their native son, Gil Scott-Heron, the world famous jazz poet and spoken word artist (“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”). This history languished, ignored in plain sight, until the Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd forced local communities to rectify their long silencing of history.

by Elizabeth Henderson

Our long-tailed rodent neighbors, the squirrels set an example for us humanoids to imitate—when harvests are plentiful, they stash food away for the winter, much to the annoyance of city gardeners who find their veg and flower beds full of holes. We have many more storage choices—we could dig a deep hole, but we can also dry, can, juice, freeze and root-cellar the foods we wish to preserve.

At area farmers markets or direct from farmers, you can buy large quantities of locally grown produce at much lower prices than when you buy a single pound of fruit or head of broccoli. Bulk prices are lower for a few reasons. When every local farm has tomatoes, the large supply lowers the price, especially since tomatoes are also still coming in from points west and south. Selling a large quantity costs a farmer less in time and materials for packaging and marketing. Often, farmers sell the very best-looking produce at the highest price they can get and then sell “seconds” for less. Produce that appears perfect is not necessarily any better to eat. In fact, it may have more residues from the chemicals used to achieve that perfection.

There are many good sources of information on putting food by—books, videos, classes at the Monroe County Cooperative Extension, Taproot and 490 Farmers. The easiest way is to learn from someone who knows how—volunteer to help a skilled friend. (I will keep DSA Ecosoc posted on when I plan to can!) Or you can hold a canning party where friends make sauce or prep veggies to freeze together. You have to cook most vegetables for a few minutes before you freeze them. I have posted my CSA Cookbook: Food Book for a Sustainable Harvest on the DSA Slack. Along with recipes, I include information about storing vegetables short and long term, a bit of history of each crop and what nutrients it provides.

Although canned tomato sauce is relatively inexpensive, I like to make big batches of my own sauce. I can the sauce in quart bell jars using the hot-pack method. I boil the jars and fill them while still hot with hot sauce. As the sauce cools, you can hear the lids click as a vacuum forms at the top of the jar.

According to Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, investing in a chest freezer pays for itself faster than almost any other investment you can make. During the warm months, I fill our freezer with enough jars of berries that I pick myself to liven up my oatmeal all winter. A few nights a week, I cook twice as much for dinner as we can eat so that I can freeze half to eat later. In good years, we eat summer-cooked meals out of the freezer into March or April. Since you have to cook low-acid vegetables like cucumbers for a long time to prevent botulism, I freeze the dill pickles I make in quart jars. I also keep a 25-pound sack of rice in the freezer to prevent grain moths from getting into it.

If you have a cool space in a cellar or a section of a porch or garage that does not freeze, you can store bins of potatoes and other root crops. Onions and garlic need a drier space that is also cool.

Two of my favorite crops—red peppers and leeks—are very expensive most of the year. In September, you can find both vegetables at lower prices. Peppers are easy to freeze. You just wash them, clean out the seeds, cut them up and freeze them without any cooking. Leeks will keep for months with their roots in a bit of soil in a bucket in a cellar or garage. You may have to peel off an outer leaf that has turned yellow, but the center will still be good.

Renters with small or shared apartments might be able to partner with comrades who have more space. If ROC DSA ever gets an office, it could include a big chest freezer and shelves to store members’ canned food. A place to store your squirrel bulk might be a great benefit for the chapter to offer!

Remember to sign up for the Soil Health Field Day, Tuesday, September 16, 3:00pm – 6:00pm at the Foodlink Community Farm, 585 Lexington Ave, Rochester. You will get free cover crop seed if you a part of a community garden!

Register: bit.ly/roc-soil. The program will start promptly at 3:00 PM. Light refreshments provided

Topics include:

• Cover cropping in small spaces- species selection, seeding and termination strategies
• Cover crop demonstration plots
• Building soil health in raised beds
• Best practices for dealing with heavy metals soil contamination in the urban environment
• Soil health demonstrations on impacts of cover crop and other management practices from NY Soil Health

COST: FREE, but pre-registration is required. Space is limited!

On July 28th 2025, the Freelizabeth campaign clenched victory in the first of two initiatives in Elizabeth, NJ by reinstating the $20 rent cap for rent controlled buildings. After two months of petitioning, DSA members presented to City Council, with the expectation of the question going to ballot in November, an amended ordinance returning the cap after its removal at the behest of landlords in 2022. After 6 days of deliberation by the Council and pressure from tenants, the Council voted unanimously to bring back the cap.

As of this moment, tenants in rent controlled buildings (those older than 30 years and with 3 or more non-landlord dwelling units) may only see rent hikes of $20 annually for at least the next two years; essentially freezing the rent for thousands of tenants in the state’s fourth largest city.

Comrades, compañeros from Movimiento Cosecha, and neighbors all across Elizabeth are responsible for this win but our fight is not yet over. As of July 28th, an organized group of landlords have sued the City and our petitioners in an effort to nullify the amended ordinance. We’re confident in our defense of the ordinance both on the merits of the nearly 800 petitions collected and the constitutionality of imposing such caps on rent, and soon we’ll level any legal challenge to the cap. Just recently, on September 19th, we won the first of the several challenges to our rent cap and the City’s passage of the ordinance. Show up and support in our remaining court appearances to defend the cap this fall.

Like our comrade New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has said and done through his campaign, we’re fighting the affordability crisis from within, and Trump’s attacks on democracy from Washington. Moreover, we’re building a movement powered by the working class, and one that can withstand any legal, political and constitutional challenge.

We encourage neighbors to join, donate, and volunteer at freelizabeth.com to help us build the tenants’ movement, defend from legal challenges, and win universal suffrage in such a key city for the movement for socialism.

Written By Allison Claire Chang

San Mateo County Opts In to Regional Funding Measure

Follow-up to Get on the Bus: Retaking Bay Area Public Transit

Bay Area public transit notched a generational win for operational funding thanks to grassroots organizers and transit advocates. Throughout 2025, Peninsula DSA (PDSA) in suburban San Mateo County engaged transit riders and activists to save light rail Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART, 178,000 weekday riders) and commuter rail Caltrain (37,000 weekday riders) from looming fiscal cliffs and severe service cuts.

In partnership with Transbay Coalition, PDSA organizers reached people via many channels, including PDSA’s social media; flyering BART and Caltrain stations and talking to riders; posting to r/BART and r/Caltrain on Reddit; mobilizing PDSA chapter members via email, text messages, and our own Discord server; and a successful coalition rally during rush hour at a major transit hub in Millbrae. Our underlying message to transit riders? Demand San Mateo County opt in to SB 63!

PDSA identified SB 63, Senator Scott Weiner (District 11) and Senator Jesse Arreguín (District 7)’s 2026 five-county regional funding measure, as a priority campaign for our chapter. The Senate bill authorizes a 2026 citizens ballot initiative campaign to raise new funds to sustain BART, Caltrain, Muni (San Francisco), and other transit agencies in the Bay Area as they continue to recover their pre-COVID ridership. The tens of millions of dollars in new dedicated revenue would save these fixed-rail operators from massive service cuts that would render them virtually unusable.

The importance of maximum funding

But of course there’s a catch: Politicians chose to give both Santa Clara County and San Mateo County, the two wealthiest counties of the five, the option to decline to participate in the group project or opt in at a lower tax rate than the other three counties. Transit riders like us immediately understood exactly how important it is to get maximum funding for our county, which relies on Caltrain for more than just Giants games and has six BART stations, including an essential stop at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).

But transit riders aren’t the decision makers in San Mateo County. That’d be SamTrans, the county-wide bus system, or more specifically, the nine members of the Board of Directors. To save BART and Caltrain, PDSA members and allies attended the monthly SamTrans Board of Directors meetings to push them to think beyond San Mateo County’s borders and invest in regional transit for the people through SB 63. Our consistent pressure tactic—whether in person, via Zoom, or by email—was making well-coordinated public comments in support of opting in to a progressively funded regional funding measure.

Comrades and allies used our time at the podium to share personal transit stories and educate the Board members, most of whom never use transit, on how transit cuts would negatively impact local SamTrans riders and San Mateo County residents. We also took the opportunity to push for funding SB 63 with a gross receipts tax (0.112% tax on the top 2% of businesses) instead of a regular regressive sales tax (of ¼ or ½ cent) that would hit low-income SamTrans riders the hardest.

Final Showdown with SamTrans

The August 6 SamTrans Board meeting, when the Directors voted on SB 63, was highly unusual. Chair Jeff Gee refused to hear or discuss any public comments focused on the gross receipts tax, despite the hundreds of emails on that topic that we had encouraged transit riders to send to the Board of Supervisors and other influential political bodies. PDSA member Marc S used his public comment to gesture to gross receipts anyway: “The proposed sales tax, compared to other tax options, might not even prevent all cuts. Participating in SB 63 today is the bare minimum [to] address the San Mateo County residents' need for affordable, safe, and equitable transit both within the county and around the Bay Area.”

In the eleventh hour, California Assemblymember Diane Papan was given the floor and used her time to advertise her own overreaching amendment to SB 63 that called for “accountability” regarding how other counties would spend the funds at their transit agencies, while repeating misinformation about how BART operates and railing against “taxation without representation”—the Boston Tea Party was mentioned. (Note: San Mateo County would already have a seat on BART’s Board of Directors, and the vote and oversight Papan desires, if politicians hadn’t opted out of the network in the 1960s!) “The fiscally conservative rhetoric came from the fact that none of these board members seem to know there are citizens of San Mateo County who rely on transit to get around,” said Becca W, a PDSA member who publicly commented. “But now with this public pressure, they are well aware.”

Even so, PDSA’s s organizing efforts paid off. The SamTrans Board voted 8-1 to opt in to SB 63 to raise new revenue to fund the transit agencies in the five-county Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, and San Francisco. (The one dissenting vote was Jackie Speier.) SamTrans opted in at the higher ½ cent sales tax rate, a huge win considering they had been leaning toward opting out of the measure before our campaign kicked into gear. The public records of their official correspondence shows SamTrans received more than a hundred emailed public comments specifically in support of SB 63, exceeding their average inbox haul by a factor of ten.

Coordinated Public Transit Is the Way Forward

Assuming the citizens’ ballot measure is approved by a simple majority of voters in November 2026, the five-county Bay Area will have a new shared revenue source for maintaining current levels of service for public transit. Because Bay Area residents and visitors cross county borders all the time, it only makes sense that we plan and fund projects together. Robust public transit networks will be key in building a green future where a polluting private car is no longer the only viable option for getting around San Mateo County.

Of course, with inflation and tariffs, even more money will be necessary if transit operators are to deliver faster, rider-friendly, affordable, and coordinated service around the region. Though the gross receipts tax didn’t make it into the final bill, keeping Bay Area transit operational with an assist from wealthy San Mateo County allows PDSA organizers the space and time to plan our next strategic move to win better (and eventually free!) transit for all.

Allison Claire Chang

Allison Claire Chang is a writer, editor, Peninsula DSA Steering Committee member, and community organizer or public transit. She can be reached at allison.c.chang@gmail.com

Written By Taylor Brown

Coordinated banner drops at 25+ sites escalate DSA boycott targeting Chevron’s Israel portfolio

DSA chapters from Seattle to San Diego joined dozens of autonomous pro-Palestine and Climate Justice groups on August 29 to stage a coordinated banner drop at more than 25 locations across the West Coast. The action grew out of the escalating boycott of Chevron, linking everyday fuel purchases to the company’s role in enabling human rights abuses in Gaza.

“The genocide in Gaza involves many actors,” said Tim Husarik, a San Diego DSA member. “Chevron is among the most complicit—profiting from destruction—so building support for boycott, divestment, and sanctions is essential in the imperial core.”

The banner drop

Chapters unfurled banners and handed out flyers urging neighbors to join the boycott and to ask Chevron franchise owners to press corporate leadership to end business in Israel. Local actions were autonomous, but timing and messaging were coordinated to maximize visibility and underscore a sustained, multi-chapter campaign. “The banner drop was a good tactic,” said Bonnie Lockhart, an East Bay DSA member. “Small groups could pull it off with a few people, and larger groups could span multiple sites or draw a crowd on an overpass to create drama and space to plan next steps.” These banner drops are part of the broader #StopFuelingGenocide campaign, of which our national DSA International Committee is a leading coalition member. The coalition has staged protests in more than 20 U.S. cities at Chevron gas stations, refineries, and corporate offices. At stations, volunteers have asked drivers to fill up elsewhere and sign the boycott pledge—an effort that has drawn tens of thousands of consumer commitments since launch.

Why Chevron and why now

According to the American Friends Service Committee, after acquiring Noble Energy in 2020, Chevron became the operator of the Tamar field and a major partner at Leviathan, making it Israel’s largest natural gas producer. In 2023, the company earned an estimated $1.5 billion from these projects while Israel collected roughly $820 million in royalties and fees. About 71 percent of Israel’s electricity that year came from fossil gas, with roughly two-thirds supplied from Tamar under contract to the state-owned Israel Electric Corporation through 2030. Chevron also operates and partially owns the East Mediterranean Gas (EMG) pipeline, which links Israel and Egypt. The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has since elevated Chevron as a strategic boycott target in light of its role in operating Israel’s gas fields and exporting to regional markets. Electricity generated from Chevron-supplied gas powers military bases, prisons, police, and illegal settlements via the Israel Electric Corporation. Control over generation and transmission has repeatedly been used against Palestinians through exclusionary service and punitive restrictions. Offshore, the Israeli Navy has tightened Gaza’s maritime blockade in part to secure the Tamar rig and the nearby EMG pipeline—further devastating coastal livelihoods.

One of the boycott’s innovations is to tie the human rights abuses in Palestine to the growing devastation of climate change. Chevron’s investment in Israel not only enables genocide, but it also contributes to the broader degradation of the planet. Long-term supply contracts and new pipeline capacity lock in fossil dependence through at least the 2030s, crowding out renewables and delaying decarbonization. The same chains that power military bases and settlements in Israel also contribute to the heat waves, wildfires, and floods facing communities around the world.

Franchisee strategy

The campaign focuses on Chevron’s franchise network as a locally rooted pressure point. Petitions delivered to station owners make a neighbor-to-neighbor ask: sign a letter urging Chevron to exit Israel and post a statement condemning the company’s role in genocide. Franchisees who sign the letter and post a notice will not be picketed, keeping pressure focused on Chevron’s corporate decision-makers rather than small business owners. A parallel sign-on letter from franchisees frames the issue as brand and revenue risk—boycotts and protests harm independent operators—pressing corporate leadership to end the practices that generate that risk.

What’s next

The boycott will continue until Chevron ceases operations in Israel and ends business practices that enable human rights abuses in Gaza. That means sustained station outreach, more franchisee sign-ons, and visible actions that grow the boycott’s base. Since October 2023, Chevron has repeatedly shut the Tamar field and scaled back exports; expansion at Leviathan and proposed pipelines have been halted or postponed, and Egyptian buyers have sought alternatives. The company’s own filings warn that future impacts on production and revenue remain uncertain—uncertainty we aim to leverage through neighbor-to-neighbor organizing. To build momentum, the coalition is coordinating additional action that links Palestine solidarity groups with climate-justice, labor, and Indigenous organizers—using station-level outreach to pressure corporate, fighting for a more just and sustainable future.

West Coast coordination of actions will continue, and we urge CA DSA comrades to get involved. As Eddie Vcelikova of DSA Los Angeles put it, “I found it really inspiring to think that a car could drive from Orange County to Bakersfield and hit four banner drops, all about how Chevron is complicit in genocide. I think these organized actions show power. The unified message is hard to ignore.”

To learn more about DSA’s Stop Fueling Genocide campaign and to join the West Coast Boycott Chevron coalition, contact climate-action@eastbaydsa.org

Taylor Brown

Taylor Brown is a member of East Bay DSA.

Written By Brenna Silbory and Mike Van Gorder

Enriching the wealthy owners of for-profit companies at public expense is central to the current administration's vast, inhumane, racist, frequently illegal, and economically reckless deportation machine. Among those receiving this federal largesse are private charter airlines, which appear to be profitably relocating individual ICE detainees up to twenty times each, all over the country, for no apparent reason other than to immiserate them and thwart their legal representation.

But in a huge victory for a national boycott campaign undertaken by multiple DSA chapters and other organizations, one ICE-sub-contracted deporter, budget flyer Avelo Airlines, is abandoning all of its normal commercial flights on the West Coast, previously a core part of its business.

Unusual Commercial Exposure

Before its contract with ICE, Avelo's prior business model had it simply selling individual commercial tickets to willing passengers in over 50 smaller, "secondary" public airports in the normal fashion. It launched service between southern California's Burbank and northern California's Santa Rosa in 2021. By contrast, other airlines colluding with "ICE Air" are little-known private charter companies like Global Crossing Airlines (aka Global X) and Eastern Air Express, which, when they aren't tormenting deportees, quietly fly sports teams and rock bands between gigs. Like extraordinarily profitable immigrant detention center operators CoreCivic and GEO Group, these entities don't exactly appeal to a broad customer base. This made Avelo a unique target.

In early April 2025, Avelo announced its ICE deportation flights would begin the following month. The backlash was immediate. The Association of Flight Attendants/Communications Worker of America called out the inhumane nature of these deportation flights, which compromise passenger safety, and stated "We cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”

In Connecticut, where Avelo had deep financial ties and reportedly 24% of its operational capacity, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition launched a Change.org petition against the airline that quickly went viral, and began protesting at Connecticut's Tweed New Haven Airport. State Attorney General William Tong expressed alarm in a letter sent to the airline, writing:

"These are flights where people—men, women and children—are shackled in handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons, where [...] people soil themselves because they are denied access to bathrooms. These are flights to dangerous jungle prisons in El Salvador and Guantanamo, where chained, bowed and shaved men are paraded before cameras for propaganda videos. These are flights flown overseas in direct defiance of court orders to return, and operated pursuant to a questionable declaration of war subject to active legal challenge. These are flights carrying terrified international students, snatched off the streets of their college towns for daring to protest. These are flights ordered by an administration that has sought to eliminate birthright citizenship—the core constitutional principle that has given me and so many others our futures in this country."

Avelo refused to confirm to AG Tong that it would comply with court orders, refrain from these human rights abuses, guarantee passenger safety and well-being, or honor birthright citizenship. "It is clear all they intend to do is take state support and make money off other people’s suffering," Tong lamented, noting that in Connecticut (as elsewhere), public funds subsidized the company's presence.

Soon after, DSA International Committee's Migrant Rights Working Group began boycott organizing, toxifying Avelo's brand, creating a useful chapter toolkit and launching a letter campaign to Avelo executives and financiers. Other early adopters of the boycott campaign included Siembra North Carolina and chapters of Indivisible and 50501 around the country.

The West Coast Fights Back

Here's my (Mike’s) take on the events in Burbank:

We knew after that second asteroid strike of an election that fascism was coming to our country, but it was still a shock to see it naked and brazen in our own neighborhoods. It was in early spring, as ridiculous displays of force and cruelty rounded up dozens of our neighbors, when DSA-LA members like me first heard about Avelo's ICE contract. Hollywood Burbank Airport was Avelo's largest West Coast hub. Burbank is a progressive, artsy town full of union stagehands and animators. Like everywhere else cool in America, it has become prohibitively expensive and has produced a robust community of tenant activists in response. It was in a Signal thread on this topic that I pitched my fellow activists, “Y’all, we have to protest against the fascist airline in our backyard.” Three other angry Burbankers agreed with me and we picked the following week for an action at the airport, putting out a general call to the community to stand against a company trying to profit from human rights abuses. We expected a modest turnout.

On April 18, well over a hundred people came out to the Burbank Airport on a Friday at noon, in the middle of the workday. Local elected officials, DSA-endorsed candidates for office (I’m proud to have been one!) and activists from a half dozen local organizations turned out. We got a constant stream of honks and support to about six middle fingers per hour. Somebody mentioned that we should do it again, so we made it a biweekly protest for Friday at noon. Another community group started an entirely separate regular protest on the weekends; both protests had substantial community attendance. And so it went for months, hammering Avelo, while across town another boycott took on Tesla and Elon Musk. We had a clear demand made against a clear antagonist – cancel the ICE contract or get the hell out of our town.

Meanwhile, following Santa Rosa airport protests by Sonoma DSAers and others, Avelo suddenly announced on May 1 it was ending service there. And in Oregon's capital city, Salem DSA's Labor Working Group developed its own boycott pressure campaign, holding four well-attended public rallies at the airport and town hall, as well as a petition and letter-writing campaign.

Back in Burbank in June, we watched ICE hurriedly shuttle more victims across the tarmac and onto unmarked charter flights. Protests at federal facilities provoked an absurd and violent overreaction from the LAPD on June 8 (you may have seen the five torched Waymos), and LAPD shot some reporters in the back with “less lethal” munitions that are designed and mandated to be fired at the ground. I helped provide first aid to a man who was shot with a tear gas canister at point blank range while he committed the supposedly threatening act of pulling to their feet someone who had fallen.

We deserve real justice for these sickening abuses of force, and we certainly deserve justice for the state-sponsored terrorism hiding behind masks, Oakley sunglasses and government-issue rifles, but such justice is some distance away. Avelo Airlines, in contrast, was right there. So we kept protesting.

Surprise From Behind the Redwood Curtain

California Redwood Coast Humboldt County Airport (ACV) is a small commercial airport notable for its fog, lush and verdant scenery, and alternative to driving three to five hours on winding rural roads to get to a city larger than the Eureka/Arcata "metropolitan" area, population roughly 40,000. Only Avelo and United offer flights here.

Humboldt DSA was still a tiny pre-Organizing Committee, and had never even held a public meeting or tabled at an event, when our anger at the southern California ICE abuses prompted us to vote on June 13 to join the Boycott Avelo campaign as our very first...anything. Part of our reasoning was strategic: we were meeting in a sanctuary city in a sanctuary county in a sanctuary state, so surely here of all places we could find some foothold on the issue? And another part was practical: the toolkit, training and friendly coaching from the International Committee's Migrant Rights Working Group were resources we needed to learn how to do DSA pressure campaigns.

Local DSAer G. Mario Fernandez, a Eureka city councilmember, confirmed that a couple thousand dollars in city funds had recently gone to Avelo tickets for staff travel. Along with other locals, including the more established Humboldt Democracy Connections (HDC), Humboldt DSA began pressuring the council to join the boycott. We contacted them as concerned voters, spread the word personally, online, and while tabling at local events, and wrote an organizational letter to the city council that was picked up and published on July 7 by a local news blog, prompting additional local media coverage.

The next night, on July 8, we waited for hours at a Eureka City Council meeting alongside HDC members until public comment was called on Item I.2, "Use of Avelo Airline". All nerves, uncertainty, and moral clarity, 8 DSA members and soon-to-be members provided half the public comment that night.

Even though the city attorney had expressed liability concerns about the city council voting to join the boycott, after hearing from all of us, Councilmember Fernandez put forward a motion to "Discontinue use of Avelo as a vendor until such time that they are no longer in contract with the Department of Homeland Security to operate deportation [flights]." Then we watched in amazement as councilmember after councilmember publicly declared their disgust at the grotesqueries of the current administration's deportation policies. They ultimately voted 5-0 to pass the motion.

The City of Eureka had just become the first public jurisdiction in the country to join the boycott.

Avelo’s West Coast Retreat

Less than a week later, Avelo announced it would be withdrawing from Humboldt, and ultimately all of its West Coast service by early December. This meant not only Humboldt County and Burbank, but Salem, Eugene, and Medford in Oregon; Pasco and Redmond in Washington; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Kalispell, Montana. After all the public investment in the company by many of these places, Avelo was taking the money and running, as it had done before.

While the company would only attribute its decision to vague economic factors, multiple news outlets connected it to the boycott. One industry publication called it "a major strategic shift away from a geography that has comprised a significant share of its flying". On July 17, its competitor Breeze Airways, under a "Seriously Nice" slogan, announced it would be adding service to Humboldt and several other locales just abandoned by Avelo.

These events galvanized the boycott movement elsewhere. After a relentless campaign where it all began, the City of New Haven finally joined the boycott July 28, prohibiting staff from spending public funds on Avelo tickets or marketing. Its mayor noted, "Travel should be about bringing people together, not tearing families apart." Avelo then dropped service it had only begun providing between New Haven and Portland, Maine three months before.

At DSA's August Convention in Chicago, thirty chapters attended the Boycott Avelo Summit. The work continues all over the country. Marilia M., co-chair of DSA IC's International Migrant Rights Working Group notes:

I've felt really energized by the DSA members leading the Avelo Boycott in their chapters. People are getting really creative with the tactics they are experimenting with. It feels really good to be engaged in a campaign that has a clear path to victory, even if it's only a small win in the bigger picture of dismantling the ICE apparatus. It'll be all of the small victories together that ultimately take down the machinery that profits from the detention of our communities.

On September 17, over sixty DSAers working on chapter communications nationwide attended a communications training focused on the Avelo boycott. An additional victory came the next day when, after continued pressure, on September 18, Humboldt County residents learned Avelo was withdrawing even sooner than previously announced, effective October 20. On September 30, a power mapping workshop will further equip chapters working on the boycott.

As the movement grows within DSA, it is complemented by The Coalition to Stop Avelo, groundavelo.org, groundice.org (which targets aviation fuel providers), and Who's Profiting from ICE, which identifies other deportation machine companies.

We are too rarely afforded opportunities in life for triumph. When it happens, we must savor it so we can draw strength and determination when we face inevitable setbacks. We earned this West Coast victory together, and so shall we earn the next, and the next, and the next.

Brenna Silbory and Mike Van Gorder

Brenna Silbory is a founding member of Humboldt DSA and California Red's Horrible Things Subsubsubcommittee. She writes from unceded Wiyot territory. Mike Van Gorder is a housing policy analyst for the State of California and was the cofounder of the Glendale Tenants Union. He was a DSA-endorsed candidate for Burbank City Council in 2024 and plans to run again.

Rising to the occasion behind the class conscious slogan, “Workers Over Billionaires”, an estimated half million people across the country transformed what has usually been, in recent times, relatively sparse and insular Labor Day picnics and breakfasts, into robust public manifestations of displeasure with the fascist Trump regime. Marches and demonstrations on September 1 kept the momentum going for mass action following the “No Kings” events of earlier in the summer.

While the numbers did not measure up to the size of the biggest earlier protests, which claimed millions of people in the streets, half a million on short notice, in an event held during the last vacation weekend of summer, is nothing to sneeze at.

Although most unions and labor councils waited until a week or two prior to the holiday to put out the word—reflecting perhaps labor leadership hesitancy due to fears of pro-Trump sentiments within the ranks of some unions—the level of participation should encourage bolder thinking going forward.

Development of the mass demonstration muscle—a tactic too long neglected by the American labor movement—is now underway. Continuous exercise of this tactic will be critical in building toward the May 1, 2028 general strike called for by United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, and a key element in bringing together a broad antifascist movement.

DSA members across the state also answered the call. Here are snapshots from a few chapters of how our members organized to make Labor Day worthy of the name. [The reports have been lightly edited for clarity.]

Sonoma

Reported by Cameron Kaiser: “We hosted a rally and march of around 500 people in the Santa Rosa Courthouse Square under the theme of Workers Over Billionaires. We invited organizations like the Working Family Party, Sonoma County Green Party, and the American Party of Labor to come give speeches alongside us.

“With a wide range of progressive parties, two themes among the speeches were clear: the system has failed the working class, and we are all united in our resistance against fascism and in the fight for the rights of the people. We then marched through the Santa Rosa mall, shouting chants like "El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido", "No justice, no peace", "Si se puede", and "No trump, no KKK, no fascist USA".

“Upon our return to the square, we concluded with more speeches and finally a call to visit the tables of all the organizations present and engage with the movement.”

San Jose

Reported by Tim MacKenzie: “There were two events in our territory on Labor Day. One was a planned 'human chain' protest with 17,000 people from Redwood City to Santa Clara on El Camino Real. I showed up for about an hour and talked with a few people in Mountain View. I used the opportunity to bring up Measure A which our chapter endorsed to save County hospitals, and Prop 50, endorsed by California DSA. You can see some local reporting here.

“We turned out as a chapter for the Labor Day event in San Jose. I wasn't involved in planning, but one of our Labor Working Group co-chairs came to a planning meeting the week beforehand. It came together relatively quickly and was started under the auspices of the May Day coalition we had been part of earlier in the year. The South Bay Labor Council endorsed and had a speaker. There were a few hundred people. It was smaller than earlier 50501 mobilizations in the summer, but still decent turnout.

“About a dozen chapter members came out, and half of us met beforehand at our office in downtown San Jose a few blocks from City Hall where the protest happened. We got our flag and banner and clipboards with sign up sheets and folded some zines together before walking over.

“Representatives of a dozen unions and community organizations spoke at the rally. I went last representing DSA. Here’s what I said.”

Richmond

Reported by Fred Glass: “East Bay DSA faced a choice of several events, and endorsed a rally and brief march held in Richmond, a former industrial town of 100,000 north of Berkeley. Coalition partners included the Richmond Progressive Alliance, which holds a majority on the city council; United Teachers of Richmond; SEIU Local 1021; and the Contra Costa Labor Council, among others.

“Each of these organizations sent speakers to the mic at the rally in front of the Frank Hagel Federal Building, and the crowd of several hundred responded enthusiastically to the skewering of billionaires, fascists, ICE, and Chevron, along with various other plagues afflicting the working class of Richmond and the country.

“Councilmember Claudia Jimenez, a DSA member, reminded the crowd to cheers about last year’s impressive victory over Chevron, whose refinery looms over Richmond and has for a century treated it as a company town. Fearful that a proposed ballot measure would have caused it to cough up a dollar per barrel of oil refined, the corporation agreed to pay the city $550 million over ten years to withdraw the initiative, providing critical funding for city services. But the biggest applause came for a couple of Richmond High School students, who, like their teachers, spoke movingly of the need for adequate resources to enable public education to lift them up.

“Following the rally the crowd gathered itself for a short march around the downtown area.”

Next up for mass demonstrations: No Kings Day on October 18.