There is a simple action DSA can take to dramatically change the relationship between the United States and the genocidal regime in Israel.

Start talking about their nukes. Openly, aggressively. Denounce Israel as a rogue nuclear state.

Since Israel began developing its nuclear program in the 1950s, its nuclear capabilities have remained the subject of longstanding secrecy and diplomatic silence. The U.S. government has refused to acknowledge Israeli weapons for a variety of reasons; a big one is that a Presidential determination would trigger the stiff sanctions in Sec. 102(B) of the Arms Export Control Act.

By acknowledging and denouncing Israel’s nuclear arsenal, DSA can force political recognition of these weapons and inspire action, such as imposing sanctions on Israel. Furthermore, the non-recognition of Israeli nuclear weapons creates a political asymmetry in which Iranians become the “bad” guys for wanting to deter Israeli nuclear aggression. If Iran wanted to acquire such weapons, it would not be doing so in a vacuum as though a bunch of mavericks had suddenly introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East for the first time. Israel already possesses them and is obsessed with destroying the Iranian state. In other words, the public logic of the aggression against Iran, which was launched with the atomically thin justification of denying Iran nuclear weapons, depends upon the continued non-recognition of Israel’s own nuclear arsenal.

The imperialist line is even more absurd given that at least until the February 2026 U.S. assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran had a fatwa (a religious ruling) against building such weapons. Moreover, what is known of Israel’s nuclear policy is that it is alone in the world in continuing to contemplate weapons use against its non-nuclear neighbors explicitly.

Yet, this is not the half of it. Israel’s nuclear arsenal helps explain several otherwise puzzling aspects of the U.S.-Israel “special relationship.”

Why does the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv exercise such extraordinary influence over U.S. policy? Why do countries around the world, despite widespread disgust at Israeli and American genocide and aggression, have been unwilling or unable to forcefully intervene? Why do the weaker nations of the world allow international law to be discarded so casually? What would be needed to stop Israel for good?

The Israeli nuclear arsenal is a key under-discussed factor. The U.S. socialist movement, including our elected leaders, is not anywhere near where we need to be in terms of formal influence over public policy around these issues, yet this shouldn’t mean total silence. We have a bully pulpit from which to speak, and we must engage all levers of power to stop the genocidal Israeli grab for lebensraum.

U.S. support for Israel cannot simply be explained by some timeless affinity with Jewish people, given the history of U.S. antisemitism. There are sticky factors that are tying American imperialism to this specific colonial outpost, and a big one is the bomb.

Nuclear containment with flowers

The American state consists of both a rational part and an ideological part. There must be something that is firmly convincing the rational actors to let the ideologues have their way. Israel is a tiny nuclear state with a huge victim complex that is highly militarily vulnerable should its subsidies be cut off. It is unique in that it is the only nuclear state that is not formally acknowledged. A formal admission by the U.S. that Israel is nuclear-armed would trigger domestic sanctions and begin major reorientations in the region. Of all the countries that have acquired nukes after the 1967 Non-Proliferation Treaty cutoff (the DPRK, India, Israel, and Pakistan), Pakistan and the DPRK are subject to sanctions. India was subject to stricter sanctions, but craftily cut a deal with the U.S. in 2008, and more of those sanctions are being removed. Israel alone has avoided sanctions entirely. Apartheid South Africa, a nuclear collaborator with Israel, also attempted this trick, but when the Afrikaner regime finally collapsed, they dismantled their small stockpile of nuclear weapons to avoid letting them fall into the hands of Black Africans.

Notwithstanding the occasional slip-up, U.S. politicians do not acknowledge Israel’s nuclear status, and Israeli politicians are usually (but not always) oblique about it. This suppresses most official discussion of nuclear policy around Israel, though academics and journalists will sometimes speak up on the margins. Congresspeople do not discuss the issue publicly since it goes against the U.S.’s unofficial but rigid nuclear policy position of strategic ambiguity regarding Israel’s weapons program. It is a strange game where everyone knows the truth but does not speak it out loud, leaving Israel’s status suspended in the air.

It is thought that Israel has boosted fission nuclear weapons and potentially untested thermonuclear and neutron bomb designs based on research data from its collaborations with France and South Africa. Modern boosted fission weapons are an order of magnitude more powerful than the two comparatively simple and morally shocking 15-20 kiloton city killers that America detonated in Japan. To give a sense of proportion, while American nuclear arsenals have had bombs up to 25 megatons in the 1960s, our modern strategy focuses on a greater number of lower-yield weapons in the hundred kiloton range. For the most part, this strategy is more efficient at destroying a given area than a larger bomb of equivalent strength (though the big ones are still useful when used with inaccurate missiles).

In order for a research program to develop reliable weapon designs, it is crucial to obtain accurate explosive test data. Despite U.S. denials, it is likely that Israel collected test data in partnership with South Africa; a part of a test sequence was observed in the 1979 VELA satellite incident when a break in the cloud cover revealed a tell-tale double flash over the Southern Indian Ocean. Seymour Hersh wrote there were three tests, and the one that was caught by VELA was a low-yield nuclear artillery shell according to multiple unnamed Israeli government sources in his 1991 book “The Samson Option.” (Hersh, p. 271)

Said French nuclear physicist Francis Perrin, who participated in discussions about building the reactor, “We thought the Israeli bomb was aimed at the Americans….  Not to launch it against America but to say, ‘If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation, we will require you to help us. Otherwise we will use our bombs.'” (Hersh, p. 40). There is an unfortunate realist logic to Israel’s nuclear policy. Since the country is so small, it cannot absorb a ground invasion force the way Russia, for example, has been able to historically. Therefore, since it is nuclear-armed, Israel has implied it will use its nuclear weapons in a first strike against non-nuclear states should it fear for the life of the state.

A nuclear attack in the region would slaughter innocent people in the hundreds of thousands, millions, or tens of millions in a horrific manner. Additionally, Israel is located in an energy-rich region with critical shipping lanes. Such an attack would likely target economic targets like oil fields across the Middle East, obliterate them, and contaminate them with radioactive fallout. Shipping lanes would be disrupted, with ports destroyed or even tight geographic features like the Suez Canal could be damaged. Firestorms started by nuclear explosions could smoke into the stratosphere, which would linger for some time. The reduced sunlight would degrade agricultural output over a wide area (an effect termed “nuclear autumn”), creating famines that could be even more deadly than direct war damage.

This is the kind of power the Tel Aviv Reich wields. It helps explain why the international community has barely lifted a finger to help the Palestinian people in the midst of a genocide where one 2025 projection estimates 680,000 Palestinians may have already perished from all causes. In addition to all the direct sticks and carrots American diplomats have undoubtedly deployed behind closed doors, they can also appeal to reason: You wouldn’t want them to go nuclear, would you?

Such a situation as outlined above would be much worse for the economy than the current self-induced crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, one might think that American planners would attempt to mitigate the risk of nuclear war—and mitigate it they do. You can see this in their harsh and unrelenting treatment of Iran, where they constantly talk about preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon. While I don’t believe this is their only motivating factor, nor that their treatment is justifiable on a moral or legal basis, it is true that they routinely set back Iranian nuclear chemistry capabilities with varying degrees of effectiveness.

Iran bears American aggression because they do not possess a nuclear weapon. During the Korean War, North Korea had about 20% of its population wiped out in the 1950s by American aggression and was constantly antagonized until they acquired a nuclear deterrent and now appear to be safe. By contrast, Libya surrendered its nuclear program, and its leader Gaddafi was sodomized with a bayonet after America secured the safety of a militant insurgency from the air. Three different countries contradicting American interests, three different nuclear statuses, three different outcomes. Iran has nuclear potential and is resisting; Libya surrendered and was defeated; the DPRK succeeded and is secure. That doesn’t mean acquiring a nuclear weapon is some unalloyed good. It defers one immediate state-wide risk for a potentially wide-area or world-wide one that gets bigger with each country that acquires them.

Israel offers a mirror perspective to examine. They already possess nuclear weapons. If America treated Israel like we do Iran, such as by routinely assassinating their citizens and invading their airspace, Israel would probably perform a nuclear strike, so that approach is ruled out. If Iran treated Israel like America treats Iran, that too could trigger a nuclear launch. Hence, Iran is very careful about calibrating its actions and signaling its position in the escalation ladder when it does act.

It’s not in America’s interest for Israel to wage nuclear war in a highly sensitive region. So how does America “contain” Israel? With flowers instead of swords, in what is frequently termed a “bear hug.”

America provides a conventional security guarantee to avoid existential Israeli anxiety that stems from their extensive history of criminality and territorial vulnerability. The word “anxiety”  is important because Israeli anxieties may become detached from reality, but America’s military commitment must scale with them lest they launch the nukes. After Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, the settler-colony’s paranoia has become all-consuming, attacking everyone and everything around it viciously and without conscience. The Israeli public’s blood lust gives Nazi Germany a run for its money—in 2024, 73% of the citizenry, amidst a horrific slaughter of children, thought that the job the military was doing was “about right” or “not far enough.” With Israel’s international reputation in tatters, and with Israel’s domestic politics stabilized by expansionary war, they are attempting to complete and solidify their conquests with all possible haste, hoping that all will be forgiven, or at least tolerated, in the gleaming light of victory. American military commitments have paced Israel’s expansionist aggression and genocidal revenge.

In 1956, when the Dimona research facility was still in its early phases, Bertrand Goldschmidt, who was present at a meeting of the  French Atomic Energy Commission, shared,: “…They [the Israeli delegation] said that when the Americans will realize we have  a nuclear capacity, they will give us the guarantee of survival. All this was decided before the  Suez Affair.” (p. 39) To put it crudely, Israel has America by the balls, and America is smiling.

Lest you think this is an exaggeration, in the chapter “Nuclear Blackmail” of “The Samson Option,” during the 1973 Yom Kippur War Israel was losing badly, and their military was threatening to collapse for lack of supplies. Henry Kissinger was considering letting Egypt bleed Israel a bit and then have the two sides settle for peace on more balanced terms. Instead, the Israelis raised a nuclear alert and forced him into an immediate conventional arms resupply.

In a second incident, during the first Gulf War, Hersh describes how in response to Iraqi truck-mounted Scud missiles that were rumored to be loaded with chemical weapons, Israel raised a nuclear alert that lasted for weeks and visibly pointed its nuclear launchers at Iraq. In response, America offered money, patriot missile batteries, and marked Scud launchers as priority targets. It turned out the Scuds were conventionally armed. (Hersh, p. 318)

The attitude of John McCone, CIA Director in 1961, was reported by Walt Elder, an executive  assistant to the CIA, as, “He thought an Israeli bomb would lead to escalation and then you  could just cross off oil from the Middle East for years.” (Hersh, p. 106)

In February 1968, just before Israel had completed its first bomb, according to Schlomo  Aronson, Henry Kissinger said to a group of Israeli scholars that the United States would not  “lift a finger” to help in case of a Soviet missile attack—right after Israeli intelligence learned that four Israeli cities had been added to Soviet nuclear targeting lists. (Hersh, p. 177)

There is also a historical coincidence that occludes the nuclear aspect in some discussions of the America-Israeli relationship. Around the time Israel acquired its first nuclear weapons, the country also fought and won the Six-Day War. This was the moment Israel proved itself to America and the Zionist lobby started to become included in major decisions. Anti-semitism went from highly prevalent to a no-no. Due to this timing, aggressive containment of Israel’s nukes was never on the table (though there was substantial but ineffective pressure for  IAEA inspections of the Negev Nuclear Research Facility).

Thus, containment with flowers was born. All the incentives align—and while American planners inside think-tanks and the military may not have particularly wanted Israel to get a nuke (though they pointedly looked the other way according to Hersh), American Zionist businesspeople with close ties to the U.S. government helped finance Israel’s acquisition of nuclear technology from France. France agreed to sell Israel a nuclear reactor in exchange for help retaining French Algeria as well as due to mutual nuclear collaboration with scientists when France was building its own weapon.

While sending conventional arms to Israel helps forestall imminent use, it is something of a band-aid. Israel is still a tiny state that is unable to absorb land invasions. This causes considerable existential anxiety. If Israel were territorially bigger, this anxiety would be reduced  (and it would have more natural resources, making it more self-sustaining). Thus, there is at least one rational basis for at least some U.S. planners to support the “Greater Israel” project to take over the Middle East even though there is no possible legal or moral justification for this concept.

Another dismal aspect to consider is that based on the disclosures by Mordecai Vanunu, Israel likely has advanced “clean” neutron weapons that have vastly reduced fallout compared to standard designs. (Hersh, p. 199-200) This has serious implications because it increases their willingness to use nuclear weapons in proximity to nearby population centers – such as Gaza.

One shouldn’t assume that just because our government supports Israel and doesn’t publicly mention their nuclear capability doesn’t mean the military doesn’t make certain considerations for it. Despite my longstanding serious grievances with the U.S. military, I don’t think they would like other countries to be freelancing nuclear war. Therefore, the deployment of naval vessels and bases around Israel possibly has a dual purpose. If Israel plays along, we use those assets to protect their territory and reduce their existential dread. If they launch nuclear missiles, those assets can be used to try to shut down their remaining launch capability, and in certain lucky cases, perhaps shoot down an impulsive limited launch, particularly if there was forewarning. If that shut-down capability is used, the “special relationship” would be over, so if there are such plans, they would only be used as a last resort. Even if they are in place, I’m not confident that the realists would win the argument over the ideologues. According to Hersh, Israel has missiles, bomber aircraft, long-range nuclear artillery shells, suitcase nukes, and nuclear landmines—it is not possible to stop them if they are really determined to use their capability.

containing nuclear apartheid

How can the Israeli war machine and settler-colonial project be stopped? There are some unfortunate facts. The first is that no state will intervene militarily in Israel’s territory in a way that seriously scares them for fear of inciting a nuclear strike. Conventional missile attacks have a much more limited capacity to ignite that kind of fear—air power alone is generally insufficient to overthrow a government. Iran, Lebanon, and Yemen have launched missiles and rockets, but no military has dared to cross the border to assist the internal Palestinian Resistance since the first day of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, when resistance fighters streamed out of Gaza. The focus has been instead on containing and punishing Israeli aggression in very measured ways.

The safest strategy is to aid in causing the nuclear-armed apartheid state to collapse internally via economic sanctions. However, so long as nothing is done about the nukes, they can continue to get away with applying the Dahyia doctrine of total destruction wherever they attack. The unfortunate truth is that it would take decades for a tough sanctions regime to start to make a dent in their nuclear capability.

One should not expect the apartheid regime to fall quietly. When the victory comes, it is plausible that, as in the South African case, the Israeli government would destroy their own nukes rather than hand them over to Palestinians as part of shared democratic governance. We can expect the revolutionaries to have to make hard and swift decisions to attempt to avoid the worst. In the United States, we will need to do our part to support the new Palestinian government.

Speak the Truth about Israeli Nuclear Weapons

Iran historically did not want a nuclear weapon, but given the current unprovoked assault on Iran and the reality of Israeli nuclear weapons, and with their biggest opponent, Ayatollah Khamenei, assassinated, they would be foolish not to consider acquiring a deterrent. In response to this situation of its own making, the U.S. is considering providing civil nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, so if Iran were to acquire a deterrent, Saudi Arabia might not be too many years behind them. This is a nightmare of nuclear proliferation that could cause other countries at odds with these powers to become interested in their own capability. The risks to the region and the world would keep increasing.

There could be some positives if Iran obtained nuclear capability. For example, they could extend their nuclear umbrella to Lebanon and Gaza, much as the U.S. does for NATO allies; this would do much for curbing Israeli excesses and would give the Palestinian resistance much-needed relief from the constant onslaught of the occupation forces.

An Iranian deterrent would secure the safety of Iran from invasion, provide the Palestinians with a lifeline, and contain the Greater Israel project. It might even open the door to the fall of apartheid Israel. However, these positives would come at the risk of a two-sided nuclear war in the Middle East with all that entails—including the risk of entangling other nuclear powers.

The root cause of this situation is Israel’s behavior, the fact of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and the actions of the United States. This can all be avoided if Israel were to denuclearize, which will only be possible if the United States insists on it.

What is our contribution? DSA can immediately help by talking about Israeli nukes officially and pointing out the difference in how Israel and Iran are treated on this issue. This will impede American aggression against Iran and give Iran a political lifeline.

I suspect that some DSA congresspeople have been reluctant to speak on this issue because of the nuclear gag. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has for years maintained a very controversial position of supporting defensive weapons such as interceptor missiles for the Israeli military but not offensive weapons like guns, tanks, bombs, etc. These defensive weapons, of course, allow the Israeli military to commit crimes without taking a hit back. Recently, in concert with the Israeli government signaling they’re okay with it, she has adopted the finely threaded position that defensive weapons are good, but Israel has to pay for them. It is hard to know what someone is truly thinking, but one very charitable explanation for AOC’s bizarre position is a credible fear of Israel starting a nuclear war.

U.S. government officials have been reticent to talk about Israeli nukes for the entire duration of the program, even within the confines of the intelligence agencies. On March 26, 2026, Rep. Ilhan Omar was interviewed on the subject of Israeli nukes:

“We’re able to talk about what kind of nukes we have. We have always been able to talk about the nukes that exist with our allies. The fact that we can’t have a discussion on Israel’s nukes, whether they have it or whether they tried to acquire it, and how much they have… it tells you that the level of fear that exists in Washington when it comes to questioning anything Israel and its army is doing.”

On May 5th, she and thirty of her colleagues, led by Rep. Joaquin Castro, presented a letter to Sec. of State Marco Rubio demanding clarity on Israel’s nuclear capability in stark terms, yet still hedged their language in terms of possibilities rather than a frank acknowledgement.

She came close, but Ms. Omar and her colleagues stopped short of recognizing a reality that has been evident for decades. She did not break the taboo.

Nonetheless, there is momentum on this issue. Breaking the taboo will have impacts on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It will rearrange nuclear policy in the Middle East. It will refocus attention on the real reason for the aggression against Iran: ensuring Israel retains nuclear supremacy over its neighbors.

My fellow comrades in the DSA, it is important that we continue to raise the banner of Palestine every chance we get and build pressure to disarm Israel. It is clear that this is a central challenge of our time. We must be able to push boundaries. We must defend the humanity of Palestinians and support the fall of the apartheid state as quickly as possible.

We must talk about denuclearizing Israel.

reference

Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. 1. ed., 2. print, Random House, 1991. ISBN 0-394-57006-5

In remarks on the House floor, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib contrasted the goals of democratic socialists with Republican policies that immiserate Americans.

The post Tlaib responds to House Resolution Condemning Socialism appeared first on Democratic Left.

Hey, comrade! The latest edition of the Pinellas DSA newsletter is here!

August was another exciting month of base building and growth for our chapter. In fact, we concluded the month with an exciting milestone: we’ve now officially had more than 100 new and prospective members of Pinellas DSA attend an orientation this year!

Of course, that’s just one of the highlights we’ve got to talk about. Read on to learn more about what we’ve been keeping busy with!

August Highlights

As I’m sure you’re aware, our Dump Duke campaign has been steadily gaining traction for well over a year now. But, our members decided this month to launch two additional campaigns for our chapter to undertake — the DeFlock St. Pete initiative and the No On 3 campaign. We’ll provide more details about each of these new campaigns below.

Looking beyond The Bay — unfortunately, despite knocking over 41,000 doors and making over 750,000 calls the campaign to elect our comrade Oliver Larkin to congress down in Broward County was unable to overcome the nearly $3 million raised by Zionist reactionary and self-styled “DeSantis Democrat” Jared Moskowitz. But, the big story on election night was the incredible upset pulled off by Jacksonville DSA member Angie Nixon to win the Democratic nomination for the US Senate! Angie’s campaign caught the pollsters off guard, winning a commanding victory against Alex Vindman. We’ll be following Angie’s campaign closely over the next two months!

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH: DeFlock St. Pete

More than 100 community members came out to the Barack Obama Library in St. Pete on the morning of Saturday, August 15, for the initial interest meeting for the new DeFlock St. Pete initiative.

If you’re not familiar, Flock cameras are AI-enabled surveillance devices capable of tracking the movements of vehicles and people across an entire community. This private company, made possible with investment from Peter Thiel and other authoritarian elites, is creating vast collections of data about where you go and when you go there, all with no democratic input from the public. And, they’re just one of the vendors attempting to expand the surveillance state into our communities.

We maintain that these devices are tools of racial and class violence. And, the people of St. Pete clearly agree — turnout for our campaign launch event was overwhelming. In fact, we had at least two dozen community members who unfortunately were turned away due to capacity issues. But, that immense response just goes to show that resistance to AI-enabled surveillance devices in our community is a winning issue that our members were right to begin organizing around.

The DeFlock St. Pete campaign is going to be voted on for endorsement by the chapter at our next General Body Meeting. If endorsed, we will ramp up the campaign under the purview of our Socialists in Office Working Group. If you want to learn more about this new campaign, check the Discord and be sure to mark the next Socialists in Office Working Group meeting on your calendar on September 30!

Click here to learn more about the DeFlock St. Pete campaign

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH: No On 3

Property taxes are a vital source of revenue for local governments in Florida. The taxes paid by property owners fund emergency services, libraries, transportation, flood infrastructure, schools, and many more of the services we all rely on every day, and represent the only form of progressive taxation in Florida. But, the far-right state government are insistent on trying to eliminate this vital lifeline for our communities by pushing Amendment 3, which will dramatically increase the homestead exemption, thereby cutting billions of dollars annually in tax revenue to our local governments.

In response, we announced the launch of our No on 3 campaign at a kickoff event Thursday night at the Clearwater East Community Library in Clearwater. The campaign is an effort to educate Floridians about Amendment 3, and raise awareness of its potential consequences for local governments, public services, and communities across Florida.

This initiative will be focused on educating the public and driving turnout to ensure that Floridians collectively say “No on 3!” this November.

Click here to learn more about the No on 3 campaign

Upcoming Events

We have more than a dozen political events, working group meetings, and social outings scheduled in September. You can always view our full calendar of upcoming events, along with the most up-to-date times and locations, on our website: pinellasdsa.org/home.

PDSA September General Body Meeting

Sunday, September 6 from 2:00–4:00pm. Barack Obama Main Library (3745 9th Ave N. in St. Pete) or on Zoom. RSVP here for updates or to attend via Zoom.

Health Justice Working Group Meeting

Monday, September 7 from 6:30–8:00pm. Zoom only! See the Discord for the Zoom link.

International Solidarity Working Group Meeting

Tuesday, September 8 from 6:30–8:00pm. Zoom only meeting; here is the Zoom link.

Canvass at The Portland Apartments

Thursday, September 10 from 6:00–7:30pm at The Portland Apartments (300 8th St N. in St. Pete). Inform tenants of the power of collective action and to encourage them to attend a tenants meeting where they can tackle issues facing the property together.

“No On 3” Canvass — North County

Saturday, September 12 from 10:00am — 1:00pm. Location TBD; check Discord for more details.

Dump Duke Canvass

Saturday, September 12 from 10:30am — 1:30pm. Meet at Wildwood Park (tentatively).

PDSA Steering Committee Meeting

Sunday, September 13 from 7:00–8:30pm. Location TBD; check Discord for more details.

DSA Political Program Meeting

Monday, September 14 from 6:30–8:00pm at Allendale UMC (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Meet in the Hybrid Room to discuss Workers Deserve More and develop the chapter’s political program.

Canvassing at The Morgan Apartments

Tuesday, September 15 from 6:00–7:30pm. Canvassing at the Morgan to keep tenants informed on the campaign to prevent another slumlord by pressuring the City of St. Pete to purchase the Morgan and turn it into city-owned public housing. Meet in front of the Family Pak & Ship (2822 54th Ave S. in St. Pete).

“No On 3” Phone Bank

Wednesday, September 16 from 6:00–8:00pm. Check Discord for more details.

Housing Working Group Meeting

Tuesday, September 22 from 7:00–8:30pm at Allendale UMC (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete). Joint meeting of the Pinellas DSA Housing Working Group and St Pete Tenants Union to decide action on tackling the exploitative capitalist housing system. Zoom link.

Interest Meeting & New Member Orientation

Saturday, September 26 from 2:30–4:00pm at Barbara S. Ponce Public Library (7770 52nd St N. in Pinellas Park). RSVP here.

“No On 3” Canvass — North County

Sunday, September 27 from 10:00am — 1:00pm. Location TBD; check Discord for more details.

North County Meeting

Sunday, September 27 from 1:00–2:30pm. Location TBD; check Discord for more details.

International Solidarity Working Group Meeting

Monday, September 28 from 6:30–8:00pm.Zoom only meeting; check Discord for more details.

“No On 3” Phone Bank

Tuesday, September 29 from 6:00–8:00pm. Check Discord for more details.

Socialists in Office Working Group Meeting

Wednesday, September 30 from 6:30–8:00pm. Meeting location will be available in Discord.

2nd Annual Tri-Chapter Social

Saturday, October 3 from 12:00–5:00pm at John Chesnut Sr. Park (2200 East Lake Rd S. in Palm Harbor). Meet comrades from Tampa DSA and Pasco-Hernando DSA for a potluck in the park! RSVP here.

PDSA October General Body Meeting

TENTATIVE: Sunday, October 4 from 2:00–4:00pm. Allendale UMC (3803 Haines Rd N. in St. Pete) or on Zoom. RSVP here for updates or to attend via Zoom.

NOTE: All dates and times are subject to change, so check the website regularly for updates!

If you would like to create an event on the Pinellas DSA calendar, please contact the Steering Committee no later than two weeks prior to the requested event date. You can always check the Pinellas DSA website for our full chapter calendar and email us with any questions at dsa.pinellas@gmail.com.

We hope to see you at some upcoming events!

Follow us on social media:

Instagram: @pinellasdsa
Twitter: @pinellasdsa
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Facebook: facebook.com/pinellasdsa
YouTube: @pinellasdsa

An occasional round-up of media coverage of DSA.

The post Socialism’s Summer Isn’t Over — And Neither Is the Media’s Fascination appeared first on Democratic Left.

DSA has had a string of spectacular electoral victories. With success comes greater media attention, growing membership, and new challenges. One of the most important questions is how to build broad unity that can achieve transformative policies. And how do we criticize each other and political allies without falling into sectarian purism where differences overshadow what we hold in common and disrupt working together?

The specter haunting DSA seems to be the possibility of socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) joining the presidential primary. Positions within the organization range from enthusiastic support, to begrudging inevitability, to outright opposition. But the debate over AOC is just the tip of the iceberg. As DSA grows and fields more and more candidates, the question of which progressive and socialist voices to support will turn into a constant question.

In this article, I want to draw on personal organizing experience that helped develop my ideas on coalition building. This account comes from my years as a labor activist, first as a steelworker, then as a teacher. 

Politics in the Steelworkers Union

I worked at the U.S. Steel South Works Mill in South Chicago in the late 1970s and early 1980s until deindustrialization hit with full force. At the time I belonged to the October League, a Maoist formation with cadre concentrations in five major mills in the Chicago and Indiana region, and other mills throughout the country.

Ed Sadlowski, a militant leader and head of the Midwest District 31, was running an insurgent campaign for union president. The national union leadership were typical conservative and corrupt bureaucrats. Sadlowski had created a lot of energy and excitement, although he eventually lost the election. But the October League had refused to support him because he wasn’t a “true revolutionary leader.” We defined him as a social democrat, and social democrats had to be exposed and removed so communist leadership could emerge. This type of sectarian and ultra-left purism led to our isolation within the entire militant wing of the union. At the time I was working in a tobacco factory in Louisville, but a year later when I got a job at South Works I saw our organizing efforts were in shambles. Cadre had even stopped going to union meetings, which they called a “circus of opportunists.”

There were about eight different communist organizations at South Works, but only one militant left caucus, which was led by Alice Puerala. Alice was widely respected throughout the mill where she had been working for about 20 years, first as a Socialist Workers Party cadre, and now as an independent leftist. For sectarian reasons none of the eight communist groups were part of her caucus. I began supporting her shortly after going to work. We won the next election and she became union president. At that time, she was the only woman president of a basic mill with over 6,000 workers. I became editor of the union paper, convinced a fellow cadre to join efforts to organize with her, and Alice served two terms as president. None of the other groups joined in.

I had some differences with Alice, most practically with her rocky relationship with a new militant Black caucus, with whom we had forged an alliance. And of course we had our feet in different historic left camps: Trotsky and Mao. But we built a solid and warm working relationship based in the fight for better working conditions, a broader anti-corporate militancy, and the need for multi-racial solidarity. These same conditions were present in the Sadlowski campaign, though our purism and drawing red lines over sectarian issues prevented unity. Each of the other communist groups had their own red lines that kept them at arms-length from Alice, resulting in little to no influence in the union for most of those organizations.

When I look at DSA today with its many caucuses, some with their own red lines when it comes to AOC, I think back to the mill and the difference between being isolated or effective mass organizers. The key to this was understanding how the majority of steelworkers viewed Alice as a militant leader as opposed to our own narrow view based on our own tendencies. Today I see the same disconnect between how millions see AOC and the complaints held dear by some in the DSA. As for the October League, the persistence of ultra-leftism in other areas of organizing eventually lead to its demise.

The Faculty Association at DeVry University

After a stint in the Harold Washington administration, I, along with others, were quicky purged when Daley became mayor. I went on to be a teacher at DeVry University. There had been a faculty association at DeVry that had fallen into hibernation but was being revived, and I decided to run for Chair. There were only fifty faculty members, and I lost the election by four votes. But the count found that our ballot box had been stuffed with more ballots than there were faculty. So we held the election again, and it ended in a 25-to-25 tie.

The humanities department teachers were solidly progressive/Left, majorities in the other departments were conservative, male and white. Instead of fighting for Left dominance and splitting the faculty, I went to my opponent (Lowell) and suggested we act as co-chairs. Lowell was an older white engineer living in a small town 40 miles west of Chicago, at the top of the seniority list, and probably a Republican. But we both wanted the faculty to have a stronger organized voice, and we had different goals that didn’t conflict. Lowell wanted formal bylaws and a more structured faculty association; I was interested in putting out a newsletter focused on working conditions and school issues. We agreed to work together, and it united the faculty.

Unity resulted in a number of important victories. We reduced class sizes, reduced the number of classes faculty had to teach each semester, won sabbaticals, got the administration to expand the library by letting teachers order thousands of new books, and equalized wages between departments, which meant a raise for humanity teachers by thousands of dollars. When the administration met with the faculty, we were able to present a united front and coordinate demands between departments. DeVry Chicago quickly gained a reputation as the most militant campus in the DeVvry network, and one which national administrators dreaded to visit.

I was openly known as a leftist and to many a Marxist. An administrator told me they knew I was a communist. But they never succeeded in isolating me or other Left faculty members because we stayed grounded in the concrete demands of teachers and the concerns of students. Left leadership successfully set a tone of confrontation and militancy based on achievable demands that benefited all teachers.

We could have taken the path of defining conservative teachers as our opponents, creating red lines and purity tests, and emphasizing differences. Instead, we built a solid coalition, and won significant changes, respect for the Left, and room to bring innovative programs to the school. These included faculty workshops on Freire pedagogy, bringing in Left academics for guest lectures, and inviting anti-war Iraq veterans to speak to students.

The challenge for the Left is to unite broadly, to aim our main blow at the principal enemy. The Left has a sad history of sectarianism towards each other and towards our progressive and liberal allies. We are coming to a period in which the DSA may have the possibility to grow into a mass party of the working class. To do so I believe we must broaden our politics, build our coalitions, avoid abstract slogans, and welcome all friends and allies in the struggle to transform our country. 

This is the best manner to popularize our political vision, win people to a socialist platform, and expand our membership. Coalitions don’t undercut our message, they magnify it. We thrive in the soil of mass mobilization and movement building when we stay rooted to the urgent demands of the working class and consciously build our organization.

The post Coalitions Make the Left Stronger appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Pinellas County Democratic Socialists of America Launch ‘No on 3’ Campaign in Opposition to Amendment 3, Warn of Grave Threat to Local Services

The Pinellas County chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America announced the launch of their ‘No on 3’ campaign at a kickoff event Thursday night at the Clearwater East Community Library in Clearwater. The campaign is an effort to educate Floridians about Amendment 3, and raise awareness of its potential consequences for local governments, public services, and communities across Florida.

Amendment 3 would substantially increase Florida’s homestead exemption for property taxes, from the current $50,000 to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, while also reducing the annual assessment cap for non-homestead properties from 10% to 5%. The amendment would take effect January 1, 2027 if approved by at least 60% of voters on the November ballot.

While the amendment would provide tax savings to some homeowners, the revenue loss would be deeply felt by local governments. Data from the Florida Revenue Estimating Conference projects that the changes would reduce local property tax revenue by approximately $12 billion annually on a recurring basis [1]. Meanwhile, the amendment provides no dedicated state funding to replace that lost revenue. Lawmakers have also failed to propose an alternative source of funding to cover the shortfall.

The nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute estimates that counties could experience revenue losses of up to 24% if property taxes on homesteads were eliminated, while the Florida League of Cities has estimated an average loss of nearly 38% of municipal property tax revenue under a full elimination scenario [2][3].

“Property taxes are the most progressive form of tax in Florida. The revenue from property taxes account for the majority of the funds used by cities, counties, and other local agencies to provide essential services like fire departments, EMS, parks, libraries, homelessness aversion services, and public transportation,” said Lacey Lingelbach, one of the organizers behind the ‘No on 3’ campaign. “Not only are local government services at risk of being cut, but many local governments are also contemplating raising fees and sales taxes to make up for the revenue loss. Additionally, there are 680,000 to 730,000 workers in the State of Florida at risk of unemployment since property taxes fund local positions. Amendment 3 would result in a significant increase in Florida’s unemployment rate.”

Floridians are facing an affordability crisis, which makes the desire of homeowners to want relief from rising property taxes understandable. But, Amendment 3 does not make those underlying problems disappear. Instead, it shifts the burden onto local governments and leaves communities to figure out how to pay for the essential services that Floridians depend on. Ultimately, those costs will likely trickle down to renters and consumers as taxes on rental and commercial properties increase.

Amendment 3 would also undermine local governments’ autonomy in determining how any property tax revenue that is collected may be spent. Under the proposed amendment, local governments would be required to direct any revenue toward specified categories including public safety, education, infrastructure, natural resource projects, debt service, employee retirement benefits, and government operations. This represents a top-down power grab from the state, significantly restricting local decision-making and the ability of communities to set their own priorities. Organizers with the ‘No on 3’ campaign assert that Florida needs to address the rising cost of living without undermining the ability of our cities and counties to govern themselves and provide essential services.

“Eliminating property taxes is not a tax break, but a tax shift. Working people will inevitably end up paying more through sales taxes and higher fees, often to private corporations for services that are currently public, or by losing services they rely on like road maintenance, parks and libraries, disaster relief, and public transit,” Lingelbach added. “Additionally, property tax elimination does nothing to address the root causes of financial stress in Florida, like increasing property insurance premiums, higher flood and disaster insurance premiums, unaffordable housing, rising utility bills, and increased healthcare costs… [Amendment 3] is a tax break for the wealthy. It will cause irreversible effects for local services and widen the affordability gap in the state.”

Organizers behind the ‘No on 3’ campaign believe Floridians deserve a clear understanding of both the potential tax savings and the potential costs to local communities before voting on the measure.

“We have created a multi-prong strategy to educate residents in Pinellas County on the detrimental impacts of property tax elimination. We plan to host multiple phone banks and canvassing events, share educational materials online, and host a town hall event with St. Petersburg City Councilmember Richie Floyd,” Lingelbach said.

For more information, to arrange an interview, or to connect with a campaign spokesperson, contact the Steering Committee of Pinellas DSA at dsa.pinellas@gmail.com. Visit https://www.pinellasdsa.org/home to learn more about our chapter, and to see how you can get involved.

[1]: https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/florida-property-tax-amendment-ballot-language-summary

[2]: https://www.floridapolicy.org/posts/roughly-18-5-billion-at-stake-for-florida-counties-school-districts-and-municipalities-if-property-taxes-on-homesteads-are-eliminated-think-tank-finds

[3]: https://www.flcities.com/propertytaxstudy/

By AJ

When I left full-time employment in 2019 I had never heard of war tax resistance. I knew about conscientious objection to participating in war, but as someone who did not want to join the military (and whom the military would not want) it felt as though there was no concrete way for me to voice my opposition to war, the military as an institution, and the outrageous amount of money they receive from our federal tax payments. It turned out that one of the side effects of my semi-retirement and greatly reduced income was that I became a war tax resister by default.

A brief history of war tax resistance

War tax resistance is often associated with the Quakers. Participation by individual Friends and entire Quaker meetings in war tax resistance as part of their peace testimony has ebbed and flowed over the centuries. One of the strongest periods of Quaker war tax resistance was during the American Revolutionary War. In 1776, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting came to consensus that “a tax levied for the purchasing of drums, colors, or for other warlike uses, cannot be paid consistently with our Christian testimony.”

Quaker active war tax resistance rose again following World War II, as part of the Peacemakers movement, which formed in response to the horror and devastation caused by the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continued throughout the Korean, Vietnam and Cold wars. The Peacemakers bought together Quakers, Catholic Workers, Methodists, Presbyterians, agnostics, and atheists to publicly share practical information on war tax resistance. This work led to real results during the Vietnam War when popular war tax resistance reached its peak with artists, university professors, and thousands of comrades who refused to pay federal income taxes and the federal telephone excise tax, which was earmarked specifically for war expenses.

The momentum for war tax resistance among U.S. Quakers carried through the end of the Vietnam War and into the Cold War. In the early 1980s some Quaker Yearly Meetings assisted their employees in resisting war taxes by not withholding income tax from their paychecks, some instructed all their members to resist war taxes, and some set up programs to help their war tax resisting members deal with any legal consequences.

During the 1990s and the early 2000s participation in war tax resistance waned significantly. Much of the focus of those who oppose war taxes moved towards the electoral goal of establishing a Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act through legislation in the U.S. Congress, with the goal of offering conscientious war objectors a place to pay their income taxes where the money would not be used for military purposes. The Peace Tax Fund Act has been introduced four times (1992, 1995, 2017 and 2021). The current iteration of the bill, H.R. 4529, introduced in July 2021, is still languishing in the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Interest in war tax resistance recently spiked again in response to the U.S. kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, ongoing U.S. military support for the Israeli genocide in Palestine, and the killings of small boat crews in the Pacific by U.S. forces even before the beginning of the U.S./Israel war on Iran and Lebanon. In January 2026, more than 110,000 people visited the NWTCC’s website and conversations on the subject on Reddit receive thousands of views and hundreds of comments.

A brief outline of the costs of war today

As participation in war tax resistance has dropped precipitously, the percentage of our federal income taxes spent directly and indirectly on war, weapons, and the military has increased dramatically. The 2026 Department of Defense budget is $2.08 trillion. This accounts for nearly half of government discretionary spending and is more than the defense spending of the next nine countries combined. In addition, since October 2023, the Biden and Trump administrations and Congress have sent $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel with which it prosecutes its ongoing genocides in Palestine and Lebanon. The U.S. government’s commitment to funding war shows no signs of abating. The War Resisters League’s recently published “Where your income tax money is going” pie chart estimates that 58% of the 2027 federal budget will be spent on past or present military.

War Tax Resistance: Legal Quagmire or Civil Initiative

In a recent article on war tax resistance, CNBC briefly talks about the increased interest in the practice before getting into full scaremongering mode by listing all the various financial penalties and legal actions that the IRS could take against non-filers, frivolous filers, and fraudsters. In reporting an 11% rise in federal criminal tax fraud cases it fails to note that war tax resistance is not fraud, tax evasion, or failure to file a return.

Over on Reddit conversations on the topic veer between discussion on the logistics of war tax resistance, speculation on the potential legal and financial quagmires that could result, some confusion — or maybe willful misunderstanding — between war tax resistance and general opposition to all taxation, and the moral imperative to do something tangible in response to all the warmongerings.

While it is easy to become mired in the quantitative questions of IRS codes and financial repercussions, successful war tax resistance is built on research, contemplation of qualitative questions about our relationship to humanity and the world we want to live in and community support. Unlike other forms of activism which are often focused on influencing other people’s actions like marches, canvassing, tabling at events, and other outward facing activities, war tax resistance is a quiet, deeply personal type of activism. It grows from a conversation with your conscience.

When I am my best self my conversations with my conscience are informed by my understanding of Civil Initiative rather than my impulse to hide as deeply as I can from the government. Civil Initiative requires that citizens intervene to ameliorate harm caused by their governments, that we build human rights into our way of life, and make protecting them an accepted social standard. For as long as our government continues to wage war on Iranians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Cubans, Venezuelans, immigrants, and indeed almost everyone in the world, war tax resistance is a Civil Initiative that should be the accepted norm. The unquestioning paying of federal taxes for the war machine should become the fringe, outlier position.

How to be a war tax resister

It is important to be clear that war tax resistance is NOT blanket opposition to taxation. Most war tax resisters only withhold a percentage of their federal taxes equal to the percentage of the federal budget spends on the military. Often, they give the money they would have paid in war taxes to local peace, anti-militarization, or other community organizations. Sometimes, they save the money in case the IRS comes knocking on their door or on the door of a fellow resister. War tax resisters also pay their state, local, and real estate taxes.

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee offers resources to everyone who wants to become a resister. Resistance can look as simple as mailing a letter of protest to the IRS when you submit your tax return (note that you cannot email the IRS so letters must be sent via regular mail). It can become as complex as refusing to pay some or all of your federal taxes and informing the IRS directly of your decision and why you made it.

We are all in the position to question our relationship to war taxes. While many of us may not be in a position to accept the risks of more complex forms of war tax resistance, many more of us are than currently do. Each form of resistance has its own risks and rewards, and everyone should think carefully about their capacity for both before engaging in war tax resistance.

Over the past couple of years my relationship with war tax resistance has become more intentional.

There have been ebbs and flows in my capacity to commit to the practice. When I see the cost of gas, groceries, and general living rising, I feel the pressure to take more hours at my job to increase my income. That same pressure arises when I realize I am getting closer to retirement age, when I begin to fear that one day I may no longer be able to work even part-time, and won’t have enough savings for retirement. The pressure to earn more is also subconscious, ingrained through more than 50 years of living in capitalism.

Then I read the news and I am again appalled and ashamed by the actions of my government. My commitment to Civil Initiative comes flooding back. I commit again to keeping my income to a level where I will not be contributing financially to the horror my government is inflicting on the world.

For more information:

National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee https://nwtrcc.org/

Peace Tax Return https://nwtrcc.org/PDFs/PeaceTaxReturn.pdf

War Resisters League https://www.warresisters.org/war-tax-resistance/

War Industry Resisters Network https://wirn.worldbeyondwar.org/

War Tax Resistance: Legal Quagmire or Civil Initiative was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Monthly Newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America

Welcome to the September issue of Rochester Red Star, ROC DSA’s monthly newsletter. This month, we present essays on abolishing the Senate, Canadian militarism, the secrets of a successful organizer, and more. You’ll also find upcoming events and coverage of chapter activities.

Interested in contributing? Send submissions to bit.ly/SubmitRedStar, or get involved with our Communications Committee. Reach out to steering@rocdsa.org and join DSA today!

The post Rochester Red Star | September 2026 | (Issue 29) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

The post Political Cartoons, September 2026 appeared first on Pine & Roses.

As we enter a new age of imperial wars, internationalism is very much back on the Left’s agenda. But what is internationalism? And why does it matter?

The Left’s preoccupation with “internationalism” stems from the fact that its political project has always been tied in some way to what might be called universal emancipation. To emancipate is to free someone or something from a power, and universal emancipation stands for the liberation of everyone from all domination.

The aim of the Left, in other words, is not simply to redistribute wealth, expand state services, or roll back racial discrimination in one’s own country; it is to abolish every form of oppression and domination everywhere. By definition, universal emancipation has to be global or not at all.

A World of States

But the globe is not a single, smooth, uniform space. The people of the world are not subject to a single administrative entity, set of laws, or police force. Nor are they under the authority of an undifferentiated class of rulers.

The planet is instead divided into many distinct political units that have largely taken the form of nation-states. It is precisely these independent nation-states that have assumed primary responsibility for maintaining domination in the world today. This doesn’t mean that the state is the only source of domination, but rather that states are the main enforcers in this inegalitarian world.

Whether one fights racism, patriarchy, or capitalism, one will ultimately have to confront the laws, police, courts, and prisons of the state. Since state power is distributed across so many different nation-states, the fight for emancipation takes the form of a multiplicity of different struggles within and against each of the many different nation-states across the globe.

This is one of the reasons why the Left has historically tended to speak of “internationalism” rather than, for example, “cosmopolitanism.” The term is a reminder that the ambition to remake the world has to take into account the unavoidable reality that the main political units of the existing world order are nation-states. Even in today’s supposedly globalized world, replete as it is with NGOs, military pacts, transnational corporations, and international institutions, the path to the planetary has to pass through a confrontation with the nation-state.

Internationalism is not a moral injunction to help those in need, and neither is it a single ready-made strategy for freeing the world. It instead names the wide range of political problems that emerge from the tension between needing to make change on a global scale and having to strategically take the many nation-states of the world as the primary battlefields.

Border Crossings

No nation-state has ever governed a single coherent populace. This is largely because states were historically imposed on already heterogeneous populations. These people did not cross into the new nation-states; the recently invented borders of these nation-states “crossed” them.

These nation-states can never be hermetically sealed: millions of people regularly traverse their borders, and many countries are home to immigrants from other states. This adds to the fundamental heterogeneity at the heart of every nation-state. Quite a few countries are now largely composed of people whose ancestors were born in other parts of the world.

Since every state is home to a diverse population, meaningful emancipatory change depends on finding ways to bring different people together in common struggle — people who were born in different nation-states, who speak different languages, reside in different places, live in different communities, and care about different issues.

Yet the ruling bloc in every country always strives to prevent that unity from being forged. Division is how rulers maintain their domination, and the most effective way to accomplish disunity is to mobilize invented political categories such as race, nationality, or especially citizenship to transform these real differences into insurmountable divisions.

Today the ruling blocs that govern the countries of the world are attempting to neutralize popular discontent by channeling political anger into xenophobic nativism. This strategy can even turn immigrants against one another, including those from the same country. The United States is probably the best example of this, but it is by no means unique.

In this way, one can say that internationalism begins within the nation-state itself. Each nation-state governs a heterogeneous population and legally recodes these differences as ones of nationality. Since these “national” divisions are used to turn people against one another within a fundamentally “multinational” state, effective political work within a nation-state is always already international.

Global Solutions

In addition to impeding unification within a given nation-state, the partition of the globe into national borders, national identities, and nation-states make it much harder to organize a unified movement across borders. Although these sharp divisions do not turn everyone into a xenophobe, they tend to narrow the political horizon in a way that encourages people in any given country to prioritize domestic issues over international ones.

This is especially true in the heartlands of insulated imperialist countries such as the United States, where the political system is designed to cultivate a culture of ruthless individualism. If people in these countries do become politicized, it is often — though of course not always — because developments within their own nation-state have had a direct impact on their lives. Gas prices are increasing, groceries are becoming too expensive, employers are monitoring their social media accounts, unprecedented floods are damaging their home, or immigration police are disrupting their neighborhoods.

These are all legitimate reasons to turn to leftist politics, and they are deeply entangled with global processes. But the internationalist dimensions of these grievances are deliberately obscured. The challenge is to connect the dots.

Those who care about emancipation have to explain that local issues are rooted in a global context, and therefore can only be solved globally. They have to convince people that what happens abroad does affect them, and so their fate is bound up with millions of people they will never meet.

A Plurality of Struggles

Once people choose to concern themselves with struggles elsewhere, there is a great deal they can do to help. In almost every case, those who fight oppression and domination will find themselves sorely outgunned by the ruling bloc in their state. This bloc controls vast arsenals, trained police forces, overflowing war chests, and extensive media apparatuses.

Solidarity can shift the balance of power. It can help comrades fighting in other countries feel that they are not alone. It can spread the word about their struggles, focus the international spotlight on the injustices that they face, and prevent other states from intervening. It can supply them with funds, information, equipment, training, bases, advisers, even volunteers.

The best way to help struggles abroad, however, is not just to provide aid, but also to wage struggles at home. When antiwar activists in the 1960s asked what they could do to help the people of Vietnam, Vietnamese revolutionaries used to say: make revolution in your own country. Che Guevara famously translated this idea as creating “two, three, many Vietnams.” Solidarity is not simply about lending a hand to people struggling elsewhere but multiplying struggles at home.

If the only way to change the world is to wage struggles in the many different nation-states that make up the globe, then the question is how to coordinate this plurality of struggles. Different countries have different laws, histories, popular cultures, intellectual traditions, state systems, organizations, institutions, economies, and political forces. Each country, in other words, has its own distinct terrain of struggle, which in turn informs how struggles there will develop.

This is not to say that struggles in different countries are completely closed off from one another. Those involved in such struggles are almost always aware of one another, and sometimes in touch. But the unification of these heterogenous struggles on so many distinct national terrains into a common international movement is never a given. How can the Left coordinate them?

Internationalism From Above

Leftists are not the only ones who have organized across borders. The ruling blocs of the various states have also historically coordinated their efforts, especially when faced with revolutionary threats.

The challenge of communism after World War II, for instance, compelled the many different ruling blocs of the world to put aside their differences and assist one another. To contain the common threat, they established a number of interstate economic, financial, diplomatic, and military alliances coordinated by the United States.

Many of these rulers willingly accepted US leadership as the primary guardian of the inegalitarian capitalist world order. The United States not only created the conditions for the endless expansion of capitalism, but also propped up vulnerable states fending off liberation struggles, directly intervened against emancipatory movements, and overthrew revolutionaries after they seized power.

The United States is no longer as powerful as it once was, but it is still the dominant military force in the world, and it still has the ability, and will, to intervene anywhere in the world to crush emancipatory struggles. So long as this US-led imperialist alliance exists, emancipatory struggles everywhere will be imperiled.

Even if leftists succeed in bringing down a repressive state, they will still be menaced by coups, sanctions, sabotage, air strikes, and diplomatic isolation. The need to survive these threats will likely force them to adopt draconian measures, which will in turn undermine their emancipatory aims. This might lead them to restrict civil liberties to prevent subversion, reallocate limited resources into defense, and treat dissent as conspiracies organized from abroad.

What, then, must leftists across the world do to successfully hold off the inevitable onslaught of this US-led imperial alliance?

Interstate Rivalries

Although virtually every ruling bloc today is committed to preventing a future without domination, and although these blocs often coordinate to keep emancipatory movements everywhere at bay, this does not mean they are on the best of terms. One of the functions of the postwar US-led imperial alliance was to impose discipline on these constantly competing ruling blocs so that they could better resist the common menace of emancipatory movements. Today that alliance is fracturing, and wars between rival ruling blocs are becoming more frequent.

Moreover, there are some nation-states today that are capitalist, patriarchal, inegalitarian, and in some cases authoritarian but which nevertheless oppose the United States and its imperial alliance. This presents a dilemma for those committed to universal emancipation. On the one hand, the goal of ending all domination requires the overthrow of these inegalitarian states, even if they happen to reject US imperial hegemony. On the other hand, the United States remains the single greatest threat to emancipatory movements everywhere.

Although leftists are presently too weak to decisively intervene in these interstate rivalries, their internationalist commitments raise the question of how they should relate to such thorny political situations. Does supporting popular uprisings against states at odds with the United States inadvertently create pretexts for Washington to invade their countries? Does the need to resist the shared enemy of US imperialism end up giving succor to these inegalitarian anti-US regimes? Is there another way out?

The Problem of Internationalism

The nation-state is incompatible with emancipation. The state’s primary function is to maintain the inegalitarian status quo, which it does by sustaining the ruling bloc, absorbing internal challenges, repressing liberation struggles, dividing the populace, and extinguishing the space for political experimentation. Anyone who fights for emancipation must therefore find a way out of the nation-state.

Internationalism therefore points to a final fundamental strategic problem inherent to emancipatory politics today. As Richard Seymour summarizes: universal emancipation means overcoming the state, but the division of the world into sovereign nation-states means strategically taking those states as the principal site of struggle.

***

This article originally appeared on Jacobin Blog on August 07, 2026. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.

The post The Left Can’t Win Without an Internationalist Vision appeared first on Pine & Roses.