As the opening plenary closed at 10:30 AM, attendance had begun to swell as more people arrived, grabbing coffee and mingling a bit before having to decide which of the next simultaneous panels they would sit in on. In the morning session, panels consisted of “Organizers in Office,” which focused on experiences and lessons learned by elected politicians with leftist organizer backgrounds and featured State House Representative Grayson Lookner, Portland City Councilor Wes Pelletier, and Boston DSA Co-Chair Bonnie Jin. Other attendees chose between two guided discussions. One, entitled “LGTBQ+ are Under Attack, Here’s How We Fight Back,” was led by Marianne M-W and focused on recent and potential upcoming political battles here in Maine, strategies to consider, and how folks could get plugged in. The other guided discussion was a round table on the “ABC’s of Socialism,” led by Rose D. and Beckham O., which went over the basic framework of the political theory, as well as addressed some misinterpretations often spread by conservatives.

At noon a free lunch was offered, the spread including a few varieties of sandwiches prepared by volunteers, small bags of chips, apples, granola bars, bottled water, coffee, and for those with a sweet tooth a few boxes of cadbury chocolate bars and twizzlers were donated by a friendly organization. As is typical of day-long conferences, almost like a changing of a shift, it was around this time that some attendees headed home while others arrived for the first time to catch the afternoon program.

At 4:30, everyone reconvened for the closing plenary. With only ten days having passed since Zohran Mamdani’s big mayoral win in NYC elections, leftists in Maine and across the country were wondering what they could learn from his campaign’s victory. To help share those lessons with attendees, the plenary featured two DSA National Political Committee members, Megan Romer and Eleanor Babaev (Eleanor had also personally volunteered on Mamdani’s campaign). To give a Maine perspective, Maine DSA Co-Chair Todd Chretien joined them on stage, and the discussion was led by Dwight W. of Maine DSA. 

The post Maine DSA Holds Solidarity Conference in Lewiston appeared first on Pine & Roses.

by Leo Neustadt

Personally, I’ve been vegan for almost a decade. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my entire life. I’ve picked up and put down so many hobbies, played around with my gender expression, and had just shy of a million jobs, but being vegan is by far the most consistent thing about me.

Recently, my partner and I spent a weekend at Vegan Basecamp. A lovely couple living in Las Vegas plans a few trips a year to camp and hike in different parts of the southwest, and they pamper their guests with amazing homemade vegan meals. During our weekend in the Coconino Forest in Sedona we had breakfast tacos, soy curl “chicken” with roasted veggies, and the best tofu scramble I’ve ever had. I’d never been around so many vegans before, it was so eye opening. It was so nice to be somewhere for an entire weekend without having to worry about what I could or couldn’t eat.

This experience made me feel more committed to my veganism than ever before, and I hope by the end of this article, you’ll want to join me.

The reasons I’m vegan have evolved over time, built on one another. It started out as a new year’s resolution with an old friend back in 2015. She had put out the call for anyone wanting to go vegetarian with her, and I said screw it, I’ll try anything once. January 1st, 2016 rolled around and I gave up steak, chicken soup, and Starbucks sausage egg & cheese sandwiches. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and that was definitely helped by another friend, who was raised vegetarian, earlier posing the question, “what’s the difference between eating a cow and eating a dog?” I couldn’t finish the piece of steak I was eating that night.

I hadn’t thought much of being vegetarian other than “yeah, I guess I love animals a lot.”

March 31st, 2016. I woke up that morning, and texted my dad asking if the pretzel challah he brought home every Friday had eggs in it. He said no and I was so happy. I was going vegan that day.

I hadn’t thought much about going vegan either, it just felt like the right choice. Only after deciding to go vegan did I look into the benefits of it. I used to watch a YouTuber who shared how easy it was to be vegan. Her favorite thing was talking about eating plates of potatoes. I graduated to Google searches and documentaries. I remember watching the classics, Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy, and What the Health, and reading countless articles. I learned about environmental impacts, health benefits, and simply treating living creatures with care and respect.

How veganism connects to socialism is clear to me: we care about ending exploitative labor, we care about reproductive justice, and we care about the environment. I could go on forever, but those are the points I think connect to plant-based eating the most. I believe the base of all of our values is that we care about dignified life for even those we don’t know.

Let’s talk about exploitative labor and reproductive justice.

I think we can all agree that the current systems of labor, production, and reproduction are despicable.

Workers toil away at jobs that are meaningless. Jobs that don’t pay them enough to rent a one bedroom apartment on their own anywhere in America. Jobs where they’re as replaceable as a toothbrush. As socialists, we’re fighting every day to change this by unionizing against our bosses and corporations to demand what we’re owed: higher wages, better benefits, and more say in how our workplaces are run.

The capitalist system (and by extension the American healthcare system) do not care about cis women, who carry the burden of continuing the existence of our species. Women are repeatedly mistreated and undermined by healthcare professionals and left to die in case of emergencies when abortions are critically necessary. And when a baby is born into poverty, the mother is to blame and receives minimal or no assistance, with total disregard of the conditions of her circumstances. I’m honestly not sure what we as socialists are doing about this.

These conditions aren’t necessarily equivalent, but they are comparable to the way livestock are treated. Male cows that survive past infancy and don’t become the veal in your stew are repeatedly molested for their sperm. Female cows are forcibly impregnated to keep their hormone levels at a certain level to constantly produce milk, just so you can keep falling for the propaganda of growing big and strong with that not-so-sexy mustache. We’re the only species on earth that consumes the breast milk of another mammal, pretty weird and gross. Cows, pigs, and chickens are kept in abhorrent conditions, all squished together, getting almost no sunlight, and are only kept alive long enough to get as much fat on their bodies as possible before their lives are violently ripped away from them.

Animals don’t have the ability to advocate for their conditions. How is this dignified life for those we don’t know? Why should we allow animals to be assaulted and slaughtered day in and day out just so you can have a chopped cheese from the bodega? Personal gain via the exploitation of another living being is antithetical to socialist values.

The environmental impacts of the animal agriculture industry vs eating a plant-based diet are a no-brainer. You’re about to be hit with lots of quotes and sources, so bear with me, I can’t be making these claims out of thin air.

According to an article published in February 2023 by the British School in The Netherlands (BSN) titled One Burger And Its Effects On Our Environment, it takes, on average, about 2,400 litres, or 630 gallons, of water to produce a single burger. That includes the water used to feed and hydrate the cows. The next paragraph shares that it takes about 90% less water to produce soy. “If that one beef burger would be replaced by a plant-based burger, over 2,000 litres of water would be saved”

In an article from The Salt Lake Tribune, from March of 2023, the subhead reads, “Hay and alfalfa feed beef and dairy production and support rural life, but together, they soak up two-thirds of Utah’s water.” The article continues, “Alfalfa and hay account for 68% of the 5.1 million acre-feet of water diverted every year in Utah, Lozada’s research has found. That means it takes 1.38 acre-feet, or about 450,000 gallons, to produce a ton of alfalfa — about as much water as two Utah homes typically use in a year. (An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre of land with one foot of water.)”

Water may seem like an infinite resource given how vast our oceans are and how many bodies of water there are across America, but the Colorado River is drying up because Arizonans need their precious golf courses. Most water requires a process of purification before it can be safely consumed. So many neighborhoods historically and currently inhabited by people of color deal with lead in their water pipes, which our sorry excuse for a government doesn’t prioritize. Imagine if we diverted the water we use for growing feed crops and raising livestock to hydrating humans, especially our most vulnerable and ignored communities? That would be pretty socialist of us.

In 2020, the National Library of Medicine published a study titled Animal Agriculture and Climate Change in the US and UK Elite Media: Volume, Responsibilities, Causes and Solutions. It opens with, “Animal agriculture is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 14.5% of global emissions, which is approximately the same size as the transportation sector.” In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC) suggested a policy to reduce or entirely cut out animal products from our diets. “Animal products have been estimated to contribute more to GHGs [greenhouse gases], deforestation, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and unhealthy humans, than plant-based foods…meat-eating is calculated to contribute almost four times as much to GHG emissions as a plant-based diet (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).”

Back to the BSN article, “Cows release high levels of methane as a by-product of their ruminant digestive systems, which poisons our environment. Research shows the production of 1 kilogram of beef emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to a medium-sized petrol car driving over 100 kilometres” (about 62 mi).

Climate change is an actively destructive problem, and it’s only being exacerbated every day due to government inaction to regulate polluting industries. We know that we as individuals aren’t responsible for reversing the effects of climate change. Switching to paper straws doesn’t erase the fact that oil giant British Petroleum popularized the concept of the carbon footprint in the early 2000s to shift blame for their immense environmental damage onto the individual consumer. Only the worst offenders have the power to act and make any meaningful change. However, the less meat we as a society consume over time, the less of a demand there will be for the production of meat, lowering the emissions and use of water.

“A global shift to a plant-based diet could reduce mortality and greenhouse gases caused by food production by 10% and 70%, respectively, by 2050…The World Health Organization says, ‘Reducing livestock herds would also reduce emissions of methane, which is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide,’ ” says the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in an article titled A Vegan Diet: Eating for the Environment. “The methane emissions of five of the largest meat corporations and 10 of the largest dairy corporations—which include JBS, Tyson, and the Dairy Farmers of America—is equal to over 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint, according to a report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Changing Markets Foundation.” How insane is that?

America is the worst example of capitalism and the free market. We’re destroying our planet so your favorite fast food joint can keep their freezers stocked. The majority of areas around the world facing the repercussions of rapid climate change are poor, working class communities, and that’s no accident.

I think a major area lacking in the Green New Deal Campaign Commission is how it plans to address Big Oil and Big Beef in the long term, two of the planet’s worst polluters. Yes, there’s some amazing projects and campaigns that have come out of the GNDCC. Chapters are fighting for public power, working to enhance public transportation so we can rely on our cars less, and building more physically and visually green spaces. These are all great steps for short term management, but the climate crisis will continue to worsen unless we address the problem at the root cause. This can look like many things. We can continue to push for more federal oversight to end oil drilling. We can build a more robust nation-wide, nationalized train system that can replace planes and cars. We can organize the animal agriculture industry to move away from slaughterhouses and towards more planting of plant proteins. The demand for meat is so bad that so far this year, we’ve imported 2,252,694 metric tons of beef from around the world. We need to invest in more growing of drought-tolerant, protein rich legumes like lentils and garbanzo beans.

Back in 2022, New Zealand proposed a tax on livestock emissions, but it’s since been scrapped due to nationwide protests from farmers raising concerns over their livelihoods and a push from a center-right government coalition. Of course, we as socialists best understand the need for selling labor to survive as long as we live under the capitalist system, so I would never advocate for the complete and total stripping away of jobs. I think the best way to go about this would be with a transition from meat to beans. Start planting beans alongside feed crops. Let your cows and pigs and chickens live longer under humane conditions and only use them for food when their lives are coming to an end. If livestock were allowed to reproduce naturally, we’d have less of them, and less GHGs. We can reward our meat farmers with government subsidies via seeds to produce more plant-based proteins. Farmers can still be farmers, they’ll just be producing a different crop that won’t cause the planet to burn down. As for the dairy industry, learn how to make plant-based milks and cheeses! Plenty of companies have figured it out, and do it very well. Butcher shops and delis can learn how to make different meats out of tofu, seitan, and whatever else they’d like to experiment with. One of my favorite eateries that I so dearly miss in New York is Seitan’s Helper, a fully vegan deli with the most amazing house-made meats and sandwiches, and they’re always busy. There’s so many reasonable solutions.

I’m not even going to get into over-fishing or the personal health benefits of eating a plant-based diet, or this article would be another 3 pages long. I’ll simply leave you with a final thought.

Going vegan is not as costly as people think it may be. Sure, if you’re shopping for specialty products, that can certainly raise your grocery bills, but beans are cheap as hell, and frozen fruits and veggies are just as nutritious as fresh ones. For people on the go, most of my favorite frozen meals can be found at Trader Joe’s for really affordable prices. Oats are one of the most affordable foods out there, and they make an excellent breakfast with whatever flavors and toppings you’d like.

For some resources on going vegan, I recommend checking out Meatless Mondays and PeTA. I know PeTA’s got a bad rap, but their campaigns still hit.

If you want to get some of my personal favorite recipes for a complete meal on a budget, you can shoot me an email at leo.98.neu@gmail.com. I’m always happy to help anyone cut out animal products from their diet.

When you’re at the Thanksgiving table this year, consider what kind of torture the turkey in front of you went through, just so you can have dinner.

It can feel impossible to keep up with every DSA chapter across the country, even for our most active members. Luckily Democratic Left has you covered with chapter report updates from coast to coast. This round will cover chapters with campaigns for LGBTQ rights and international work. 

The post Fall 2025 Chapter Reports: LGBTQ Rights and International Campaigns appeared first on Democratic Left.

As the attacks on federal workers escalate, and the necessity becomes clearer for disruptive mass action that confronts the oligarchs, the East Bay DSA / Federal Unionists Network (FUN) / Fighting Oligarchy campaign has accelerated its solidarity activities in support of federal workers and begun building the infrastructure needed for mass action. The FUN campaign is linking this work to the DSA National Labor Commission May Day group. Through organizing trainings, social gatherings, canvasses at federal buildings, and turnout to mass events, the campaign is organizing toward May Day 2028.

Because the campaign has relationships with key labor organizations and Bay Area resistance groups, is organizing turnout for mass actions, deepening our solidarity work connecting local and federal labor struggles, and is the priority campaign for the EBDSA chapter, it is well-positioned and resourced to contribute to the local organizing necessary to build a May Day 2028 event at the required scale.

On the front lines

It’s increasingly clear that federal workers are on the front lines of the oligarchy’s plan to impose a fascist regime. The oligarchs serve and profit from Trump’s corrupt “personalized authoritarianism.” The fascist and oligarchic program depends on transforming and controlling the federal workforce— to place all federal government workers under the ideological and personal control of Trump. Billionaires benefit economically through privatization and government contracts, as these oligarchs influence policy and executive decisions. 

Here are key elements of the authoritarian oligarchy:

• Elon Musk owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of US households and has been granted a $1trillion paycheck;

• The Top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 93%;

• Concentration of ownership is unprecedented: A handful of multi-national corporations in healthcare, transportation, financial services, and Big Tech determine what is produced, how employees are treated and the prices we pay;

• Three Wall Street firms—BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street—are major stockholders in 95% of S&P 500 corporations. (Bernie Sanders, “Fighting Oligarchy,” 2025)

As socialists we assert the right of workers to make the economic and political decisions that determine our lives, so we must organize against the oligarchy that destroys workers’ power. Through the FUN campaign we show solidarity with federal workers and oppose the attacks on them.

The attacks on federal workers include forced work without pay during the government shutdown, furloughs, lay-offs, and elimination of all collective bargaining rights for Veterans Administration workers. FUN campaigners hear stories about these attacks when they participate in weekly canvass outside federal buildings.

Turnout focus
A focus of the campaign this Fall has been turnout to mass events. These included a Labor Day event in Richmond that FUN activists helped organize, and at which two federal workers spoke. Thirty DSAers participated and five hundred workers rallied and marched, led by the United Teachers of Richmond and Contra Costa Central Labor Council.

With more lead time and a multi-pronged organizing program, including one-on-one recruitment, phone banks, and digital outreach, the FUN/Fighting Oligarchy campaign generated an even larger turnout of DSAers to the No Kings action on October 14th. Over one hundred members participated in Oakland, where a sea of “Fighting Oligarchy” signs were distributed and a federal worker spoke. The campaign brought class politics to this big tent event.

The FUN campaign participation in these events reflects the campaign’s objectives to help shape the politics of the Bay Area resistance movement and to link federal and local struggles. At the No Kings event, FUN joined contingents from SEIU 1021 and the Alameda Central Labor Council. As with the Labor Day action, the chapter’s FUN campaign organized the chapter to endorse No Kings.

"Our campaign contacted the lead organizers for No Kings 2 in Oakland and asked them to feature a speaker from the FUN," said Richard Marcantonio, a campaign co-chair. "Our request was initially declined—in fairness it was a late ask and a short speakers list—but as the event approached, the FUN's Bay Area organizing committee chair was invited to speak. Coming in the midst of the government shutdown, her remarks were powerful."

A primary objective of the campaign is to organize federal workers, for which the canvasses at federal buildings are an important tactic. In addition, experienced EBDSA organizers help train federal workers to recruit their co-workers to the Federal Unionist Network. Most recently, a "conversations with co-workers” workshop on November 9th addressed how joining the FUN is a key to combat the frustrations of how federal workers are treated in the workplace. These are ways for DSAers to help grow the FUN. 

Josh Z, a leader in the Federal Unionists Network described the impact of these trainings: “The organizing trainings provide an important opportunity for federal workers can come together, to discuss our goals and intentions and how to best protect and fight to expand critical civil services. They also provide an opportunity to bring in federal workers that are new to workplace activism and build more solidarity and strength in the federal sector.”

Social events are also part of the organizing program, in the form of federal worker happy hours organized by the Federal Unionist Network and supported by the FUN campaign, and monthly “Union Takeover” nights at a local bar where workers from different unions gather to build solidarity.

To Josh, “The FUN is about a democratic movement of rank-and-file federal workers across unions and agencies. The social events provide opportunities to meet more federal unionists, to learn about the issues and challenges that are being faced across agencies and helps us to build community.”

Two to three million federal workers is a huge workforce, and as Josh pointed out: “If we could get organized, we would have a tremendous amount of power and influence, and getting to know each other is a key part of starting to build together.”

Election night watch party for Mamdani

Combining the social with the political and coalitional, the FUN campaign joined with the electoral committee of EBDSA to organize an election night watch party that turned into a full house roaring celebration of DSAer Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election. 

Dani H, organizing lead for the FUN campaign, who built turn-out for the watch party, commented that “the electric energy and over 200 people who turned out to watch Mamdani's historic win proves the Bay is ready to take on a campaign of this magnitude.” Dani also noted that we have to remember who this victory belongs to—"the people of New York.” She reflected on the feeling in the room: “It was a joy to be in community that night with so many people ready for change, and I hope to see each and every person who attended activated in the fight to elect candidates who work for us, not the billionaires.” The joint was rocking with pride and solidarity, the result of one-on-one recruitment of members and non-members. Short speeches included a pitch to join the FUN. 

Inspired by the momentum of Mamdani’s victory, the campaign is gearing up for more mass action, outreach to federal workers, one-on-one recruitment, and increasing the organizing chops of EBDSA.

The FUN campaign urges DSA members around the state to join them as they build toward a big action on May 1, 2026, and ultimately toward a General Strike on May Day 2028. Along the way, let’s keep the struggles of federal workers front and center, including the VA workers fighting to re-gain their union rights.

DSA chapters around the country have come a long way since I joined in 2020. With our local electoral project, DSA Los Angeles has elected four (of 15) members to the LA City Council, a council member in Burbank, and two members to the LAUSD school board. We also aided in the passage of rent control in Pasadena and a mansion tax in LA city.

Even with our huge successes over the last five years, it has been awe-inspiring to watch New York City DSA’s electoral project over that same period. Though Zohran Mamdani’s ascendance is often described as meteoric, DSA members know it was the result of almost a decade of tireless work and focus.

Early in 2025, I decided to celebrate my birthday in late October by taking a trip with my partner to New York City. It felt miraculous that our trip would be just two weeks before one of the most important elections of my lifetime.

Hello, New York

On our third night in Williamsburg, three floors above the audible din of honking and chatter, I sat on the bed in our tiny hotel room, with its two coat hooks for a closet and showerhead that hung almost directly above the toilet, and opened Mamdani’s campaign site. The plan was to canvass the next day in North Brooklyn with my friend, Álvaro López, an NYC-DSA member and coordinator of their electoral committee. 

Shortly after selecting a preferred time, date, and region for a canvass, I received an automated notice that I’d be assigned a precise kickoff location and two canvassing leads. The promised confirmation came just a few minutes later.

The training

The subway station near our hotel had ambient music playing throughout the platform, with accompanying vocals that sounded like Shakira falling over and over into a manhole. The sound aptly mirrored my nervous energy waiting to board the L train toward my shift the next morning.

Once a group of about 15 people gathered at our designated kickoff location, two field leads began to hand out file folders with a script and literature to each volunteer. With literature in hand, one of the leads asked our group to share why we were out canvassing that day. A woman spoke of how she’d just met Zohran the previous week, and their conversation was so inspiring that she immediately signed up for a shift. I also raised my hand to share my story.

I was canvassing that day, as an Angeleno, because the race for New York’s mayor was bigger than one city. People around the country were waiting in anticipation for proof that organized people can beat organized money, and I was there because Zohran, with his incredible team and army of volunteers, had reminded us that we can do more than hope for a better future. Not since Bernie Sanders’ Nevada primary victory in 2020 had I felt such optimism. 

The training was very similar to the canvasses we hold in DSA-LA, which start by modelling a typical conversation with voters. Each interaction should start by asking the voter about their needs, connecting those needs to Mamdani’s platform, and asking whether they would be voting for him. In closing, we work together with each person to craft a plan to vote on or before election day. Once being assigned turf, you are also added to a WhatsApp Community thread for your neighborhood. The Bushwick thread alone had almost 1,000 members. WhatsApp Communities are useful because they allow organizers to create unique group chats for each locale, and quickly call on volunteers to show up for a canvass.

The doors

I’ve canvassed in California, Nevada, Arizona, and now New York. In each of these places, it’s hard to overlook how much working class people are suffering. My conversations in Bushwick, with the exception of a few charming New York accents, were almost identical to those in other states. I wish there wasn’t a familiarity in each cracked wall, stained carpet, and dank hallway. Working people all over this country are crushed under the weight of their expenses, neglect of their landlords, and exploitation from their bosses, and they know they deserve better. Each person emitted an almost visible electricity when they learned I was canvassing for Mamdani, and were anxious to vote for someone who promised them more than the status quo.

Each time a volunteer records an interaction, or lack thereof, they paint a clearer and clearer picture on the canvas that makes up the campaign. I was humbled to be a small stroke in what we now know was a masterpiece.

An end, a beginning

As we wrapped up our shift and made our way to a local restaurant for lunch, we passed another canvass that was just getting started a few blocks away. It’s hard to describe the scale of the operation there without seeing it for yourself. 

On our walk, Álvaro would point to different street vendors and describe their daily routines. He noted how a repaved triangle now attracted local elders, and as a family packed into a van on the curb, he would thoughtfully identify the origins of the patterns that made up their traditional dress. In that short walk I learned about a myriad of communities that had immigrated to this part of Brooklyn, and how those people keep New York alive. Despite media narratives about democratic socialists, our movement is made up of people who know so much and care so deeply about the communities around them. With purpose and conviction, and without compensation, they spend much of their time anonymously fighting to make their neighbors’ lives better.

On election night back home, I joined DSA-LA members packed into bars and venues across the city to share a potentially historic night together. Polls closed in New York and cheers erupted as people hugged, screamed, and jumped in excitement at the declared victory of a democratic socialist 3,000 miles away. Not long after, our own voters delivered an absolute blowout with the passage of Prop 50 in California. In a year marked by devastating fires, military occupation, and unrelenting ICE raids, it felt so damn good to celebrate something.

What’s next for the Left of the West?

New York is a dense place, with transit access to huge swaths of the city. Los Angeles, by contrast, is not only larger in area, but hosts everything from dense urbanity to shallow, suburban sprawl, and a connective tissue mostly woven together with expansive highways. Our local chapter’s bounds encompass nearly all of LA County and its 88 different cities.

Despite the differences, there are elements of NYC-DSA’s mayoral campaign strategy that can work here. The chapter’s trust in volunteers and development of canvassing leads all over the city should serve as a model for how we run and scale our electoral projects. The expressive, crafted, and concise visual and verbal communications of Mamdani’s campaign can inspire our efforts here. The discipline to embark on a single, focused campaign brought thousands of new members into NYC-DSA. The use of a WhatsApp community to contact volunteers quickly is a model that we have used with success in DSA-LA’s daily ICE patrols.

For myself, questions still remain. How do we engage in electoral work that builds more power and organization for working class people in LA County and involves all our members? Do we engage in ballot measure campaigns across the county and state? Can we focus our efforts on winning State Assembly seats whose districts span multiple cities and offices hold vast resources from the 4th largest economy in the world?

One thing is certain: NYC-DSA proved that working class people can be the crafters of a future built for us. At 6:34 PM on November 4th, it felt incredible to be a democratic socialist. That feeling can continue as long as we commit ourselves to our work and each other.

Who would you rather see showing up in your neighborhood—heavily armed, masked men, snatching random neighbors peacefully going about their daily business, shoving them into unmarked cars and taking them away to unknown destinations? Or people in puffy fanciful animal costumes, surrounded by a crowd singing and dancing, carrying colorful banners and chanting funny slogans?

People living in a very wealthy neighborhood in San Francisco got the better of the deal on Saturday, November 15 when the second type of group appeared on the streets they call home. But then the rich usually get the better of any deal. This event, however, hinted that the deal wasn’t entirely favorable to them.

Sharpening the message

Looking to sharpen the message of the growing resistance movement, a coalition of labor and community organizations, including East Bay DSA, opened up a San Francisco front for a worldwide day of action, People Over Billionaires, in swanky Pacific Heights last weekend. Although plans to stage parallel actions in Los Angeles and San Diego were washed away by a hard rainstorm and threat of floods, the northern California demo provided enough inspiration for people, and consternation among the rich residents in their fancy houses, to make up for it. (The southern California actions were rescheduled for December 6.)

Members of East Bay DSA, working in coalition with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), SEIU 1021, the San Francisco Labor Council, East Bay Indivisible, Tenants Together and the Oil and Gas Action Network (OGAN), among others, assembled in well-groomed Alta Plaza Park. In front of a boisterous crowd of three hundred, speakers called for taxing the rich, protecting immigrants, affordable housing, supporting federal workers under attack by the Trump administration, and saving the planet from climate destruction. 

Then they marched several blocks through Pacific Heights to the rhythms of the Brass Liberation Orchestra, pausing in front of the homes of Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO; David Sacks, Trump’s crypto and AI adviser; and Shaun Maguire, right wing venture capitalist and DOGE wrecker. The crowd shared chants, songs, and ideas about whether billionaires should exist or not at each home before moving on. Here are a few images and comments from East Bay DSA comrades about their rally and march through one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in California.

Participant comments

David D., a retired union activist said, “Several hundred of us marched around Pacific Heights with banners and costumes and a brass band. We stopped, got loud and line-danced in front of Larry Ellison’s house. Pacific Heights doesn’t get a lot of marches, so a lot of heads turned. Quite a few people cheered us. There were more people of color at this than any anti-Trump event I’ve been to, mostly coming with ACCE.” 

According to Aleigha L., a substitute teacher, “This was my first ever organized march and my first time volunteering! All the people who came seemed very warm, excited, and motivated to get started. Even as a newbie I felt like it was clear what our aims were: to let billionaires know that real people in their city were not okay with their priorities and that we see the very real fallout of their "profitable" decisions. Many people we encountered as part of safety crew [security detail—ed.] were interested in or supportive of what we were doing. Those that weren't were the uber-wealthy who weren't used to seeing their neighborhood reflect the dissatisfaction of the general population. I hope everyone who marched and everyone who witnessed it sees our dedication to improving life for all Americans, and pursuing more empathetic, supportive communities!”

Mo K., a climate activist, noted, “What was impressive was a diverse group of working people coming together on the grounds of the people who are exploiting all of our labor and resources. Taking it to the billionaires was an amazing thing, to be at their doors and say to them we have the power to tax you, we’re taking back the power that’s ours, and you’re not going to get away with living your life, having your dinner parties, pretending that everything is normal while you’re busy destroying our lives and the world around us. To do all of this while being dressed up as squids and orcas and frogs and chickens and in pink, playing wonderful live music, with people’s art surrounding us, it was just joyous.”

And musician Bonnie L. added, “It was great to hear passionate, articulate rank-file union members and actual grassroots organizers speaking the truth that builds working class organization and power. It was fun to march with the participatory culture of our own brass band, flash dancers and street theater. This is the left wing, the class-based wing of the mobilizations that give us energy and hope. But I'd wager lots of us went away from this gathering of a few hundred wondering, ‘how do we build these politics, this working class culture into the current mass mobilizations of tens of thousands—and in turn, into organized power for a socialist future rather than an illusory democracy under Democratic Party leadership’?”

According to its organizers, this will not be the last event of this sort.

After a long campaign, organizers moved the county Board of Supervisors to adopt an Ethical Investment Policy on October 3. There is only one more procedural hurdle before full implementation.

Alameda County has become the first U.S. county to adopt an Ethical Investment Policy (EIP) that effectively prohibits investment of public funds in companies with substantial ties to the occupation and genocide in Gaza, in a major victory for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. At a special meeting October 3, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted in support of an EIP that bars investment in “companies that consistently, knowingly and directly facilitate and enable severe violations of human rights” and also discourages investment in the fossil fuel, private prison, and other socially harmful industries. The Board decided, however, to delay implementation of the policy until it could be reviewed by an outside consultant.

“I’m super excited that we managed to adopt the Ethical Investment Policy,” said Hannah Gramling, who came to the special meeting to show her support for the EIP, along with hundreds of other Alameda residents, many of whom wore keffiyehs and held homemade signs. “We’re a little disappointed that there’s yet another procedural hoop to jump through [before the policy is implemented], but I think this is a huge win for us and for the 18 months of organizing that we’ve done.”

Nikki Fortunato Bas was the only supervisor on the five-member Board to vote against the delay, saying the County should implement the policy immediately as written.

The policy does not explicitly mention Israeli war crimes or the genocide in Gaza, but the Palestinian cause is its central impetus. Its adoption comes as the result of months of pressure from a coalition of Bay Area pro-Palestine organizations, including Bay Area Labor for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), SEIU 1021, and the Divest from Apartheid Campaign of the East Bay Democratic Socialists of America (EBDSA).

In the aftermath of October 7th 2023, BDS organizing in Alameda County has led to a number of municipal divestment measures: in 2024, Hayward and Richmond were the first two U.S. cities to divest from the occupation of Palestine, and the city of Dublin passed an EIP last month.

The Bay Area BDS movement’s first win at the county level came last year in December, when Alameda County Treasurer Henry Levy agreed to sell the County’s $32 million stake in Caterpillar Inc., an American company that manufactures bulldozers used by the IDF to demolish Palestinians’ homes and other vital infrastructure. That decision made Alameda County the first U.S. county to divest from a company because of its role in the genocide.

But a comprehensive EIP is necessary to enshrine that decision as official County policy, as well as to prevent future County officials from reversing it or making new investments in unethical enterprises, said Vish Soroushian, co-chair of EBDSA’s Divest from Apartheid committee. 

“We want to make sure that, going forward, we don’t have classic villains like Caterpillar in our portfolio,” Soroushian said. “And so we want to make sure that there are clear guidelines in place, so that when the next treasurer comes along, they know what they can and can’t do with our public funds.”

Alameda County has historically been in the vanguard of divestment movements in the U.S. In 1985 the County divested from the apartheid government of South Africa, and in 1996, the County prohibited public investment in the government of Burma (now Myanmar) over war crimes committed there by state forces.

“We are hoping that this opens up the floodgates for other counties to go ahead with this work as well,” Soroushian said. “If people are talking about this all over the state, all over the country, and people are inspired to light a flame under their county and state governments, … that’s when BDS is effective. That’s when capital is pulling out of Israel, that’s when we’re really accomplishing what our comrades did decades ago with South Africa.”

It’s taken a variety of tactics–and a lot of perseverance–for the Alameda County divestment campaign to reach this point. After the sale of the County’s Caterpillar bonds, community members continued to pressure the Board, showing up to meetings and submitting public comments in support of the EIP, making hundreds of phone calls, and sending a continuous barrage of emails to members of the Board. 

This pressure was necessary, Soroushian said, to force the Board to follow through on its commitments and schedule yesterday’s vote on the policy, over the objections of aggressive and well-funded Zionist interest groups.

Now, with the board’s decision to delay the policy’s implementation, the pressure campaign will continue. “We’re going to keep organizing to ensure that the review is quick and thorough and comes back for a vote soon–and that the vote is a yes,” Gramling said.

Soroushian and Tim Drew, also co-chair of EBDSA’s Divest from Apartheid committee, both said they were also hoping to channel their campaign’s energy into the Oakland People’s Arms Embargo, a PYM- and AROC-led effort to block Israeli arms shipments through the Oakland International Airport. The embargo would build on the longstanding efforts of union dockworkers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), who for several years have effectively blocked Israeli ships from docking at the port of Oakland.

“If we can draw attention to the fact that FedEx, an awful corporation, is shipping military equipment to Israel using property that’s owned by the City of Oakland, and if we can cause disruptions to that supply chain, it could have a material effect on the Israeli conduct of the genocide in Gaza,” Drew said. “Supply chain disruption causes [Israel] to make fewer flights with their F-35 jets. That means fewer 2000-pound bombs dropped on the civilian population of Gaza.”

The BDS movement has a long way to go, but for now, “It feels good,” Soroushian said. “We’ve been another seed planted on the path towards achieving BDS.”

Reprinted with permission from Bay Area Current. Reporting for this article was supported by Matt Takaichi.

I was canvassing for Prop 50 in Boyle Heights, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in LA, and asked a middle-aged man, “So, what do you think, do you support it?” He looked me in the eye and said confidently, “Well, yes, we have to stop Trump; he just cares about himself and getting rich.”

A few weekends later I canvassed in Cypress Park with a new DSA member. We walked up to our first door and knocked. We were greeted by a middle-aged Latino, who, after turning down the loud cumbia playing on the stereo, invited us to their backyard. He went to get his wife, who gathered all five people in the house so that we could inform them about Prop 50 and get them to vote. She was not eligible to vote, but she wanted her family to. After we shared our information, her husband and the younger family members, in their 20s and 30s, were supportive.

Later in our canvass we spoke to an older Latino couple in their front-yard struggling to harvest a guava high up in their tree. We told them we were canvassing for Prop 50. They cheerfully told us that they had already turned in their ballots. We affirmed how important it is that we stand up to Trump, exchanged some friendly small talk and continued with our canvass.

As the month went on, and election day got closer, there were the endless quick conversations: “Yes, I already support Prop 50.” I found overwhelming support for the ballot measure.  People and progressive organizations were sold on standing up to the MAGA takeover.

My experience with other organizations
My experience working with the Democratic Party and other progressive organizations was very positive.  At first, I did not mention DSA.  The organizers of the canvasses had made a point to say that we could mention our organizations when we canvassed.  After I felt more comfortable and saw that others were talking about their affiliations, I said I was from DSA. No one shunned me or treated me differently.  Overall, I had a very positive experience and found people to be like me.

The events were well run and spirited with many elected officials and people of different ages and races working together to stop the MAGA takeover.  It was good for me to participate in these events.  I was able to connect with progressive activists from other organizations.  Those activists are some of the people DSA wants to be in touch with and to have good, working relationships with so that we can effectively build support for Socialism and progressive causes that will improve people’s lives.

While we figure out what is the best thing to be doing at any particular time to build the Socialist movement, we want to be supporting progressive political causes so that we build trust and history with progressive people and win them over to Socialism.

My Prop 50 Journey
This is a timeline of my experience with the Prop 50 campaign.  As you can see, DSA [all DSA, or specifically DSA-LA?] was slow to get involved, even though there were events for us to join early on in September.

My experience with DSA

California DSA promptly endorsed Prop 50, which was a good start, but structural problems kept us from mobilizing more of our members more quickly. A month after the endorsement there was still no DSA-organized Prop 50 activity for our members. The California Democratic Party and other progressive organizations were already starting their Prop 50 work. We missed out on the opportunity to demonstrate our strength and commitment by quickly joining them.

Our activity did pick up, with our San Diego chapter standing out in their level of participation. But if we are going to be a serious political force, we need to improve. When DSA San Diego endorsed Prop 50 they included concrete goals and steps of how many canvasses and canvassers they were aiming for. This was part of the reason they were successful.
In early September, I drafted a proposal for LA to form a Prop 50 committee. In that proposal, I could have included concrete goals. Had I done that, we might have set ourselves up to mobilize more of our LA members. We should learn from San Diego’s experience.

I’ll be contacting each chapter to find out how their campaigns went. Despite taking some good steps in the right direction, the fact is that we mobilized too few of our members. We missed the opportunity to do more, even though Prop 50 had overwhelming support in DSA-LA and other California DSA chapters, was endorsed by the California DSA leadership and is supported among most progressive California voters.

What is the problem?

How can we get DSA to be a strong, relevant political organization that will be able to have statewide coordinated campaigns that build Socialism, fight MAGA and that can respond to political events?

How can we have a streamlined process that cuts through the delay and inefficiency we DSA activists have all encountered?

What to do Now!

With the upcoming very impactful 2026 elections, we do not want to get ourselves in the same Prop 50 position.  Nationally, this is still very much a problem, evidenced by the inability of the National Political Committee to endorse the latest “No Kings” events or to approve $1,088 for California DSA to use for the Prop 50 campaign.

The NPC did not endorse “No Kings” because US flags (regarded as a symbol of imperialism, despite the context) would be prominent. The NPC voted 14-12 against providing funds for Prop 50 support because gerrymandering and Gavin Newsom should not be supported no matter our current political situation. 

Fascists are in power. They are an immediate and dangerous threat to the progressive movement and oppressed people. Socialists are not close to strong enough of a political force to resist them on our own.  If this dangerous reality is not enough to move our leaders to understand why we need to participate in a broad movement of progressive forces, they should reconsider their positions.

A few conclusions

I want to be part of an organization that has broad popular support—not one where people keep saying, “Why did they do that?” California DSA and all the California chapters have a great opportunity to craft together a statewide campaign that will mobilize as many DSA members and supporters as possible.  

I want to be part of an organization that can use resources in a coordinated way. We can work together developing unity and organizational methods and structures that will be the basis for a statewide organization—a statewide organization that can get rid of a lot of the delay and inefficiency that always seems to happen when we try to do anything.

I want to be part of an organization that can be politically relevant and work with others. To make Socialism a    reality in the US we will need millions of people who understand and support Socialist programs.  

I want a mass socialist organization, not a small sectarian irrelevant one. I know there are others like me who want California DSA and DSA to become that organization as we work together to figure out the role of DSA in the political battles to come.

Please contact me to work together on this very important task.

The following is a summary of an interview John MarienthaI conducted with Silicon Valley DSA officer Jessen Fox on November 9.

Our chapter had a unique experience in working with the local Prop 50 coalition. We endorsed a second, local campaign alongside it:  Measure A, a temporary Santa Clara County sales tax that will expire in five years. Measure A passed by a 57%-43% margin.

Measure A created a 5/8 of one cent general sales tax increase, beginning April 1, 2026, to raise $330 million a year to replace the federal funding cut by Trump and the Republican Congress to the Santa Clara County Health System. Starting with the process of endorsement, our chapter allied with the South Bay Labor Council to do both phone banking and canvassing.

We started with the Communications Committee making daily announcements of phone banking. We also worked with SEIU local 521. We participated in two three-day phone banking blitzes. What made our presence unique was we showed up in specially designed chapter T-shirts that identified us as DSA volunteers. When canvassing we also tabled and wherever we went we brought a small quarter-page flier on our DSA activities. We learned it would be helpful to list upcoming chapter events on the flier and added a QR code that people could scan for more information. Our tabling also allowed local politicians Ash Kalra and Betty Duong to be in the pictures.

Jasmine was responsible for our superlative social media. Many of the Instagram-tagged photos were of DSA members in their unique shirts. On November 1st we had a big push. On election night itself, DSA was recognized by the South Bay Labor Council as one of the larger groups participating in the Measure A coalition. As a result of the campaign, we are also developing a working relationship with SEIU.

Marienthal adds: The capitalist system is stacked against us. Property taxes are more progressive but require a two-thirds vote, which is very difficult to get. Sales taxes are regressive, and as socialists we're generally for progressive, not regressive taxes. Given a choice, however, between our hospital care cratering and a regressive tax we chose the latter.

The horrors of genocide in Gaza and pogroms in other parts of occupied Palestine are finally having some impact on U.S. Democratic politics, local, state and national.

In California, where state party enforcers have continued to block resolutions expressing even mild solidarity, a number of recent developments offer a path forward: 

• In August, persistent written and live testimony over the course of a year led the Rules Committee to approve chartering a new party organization, California Democrats for Justice in Palestine (CDJP). It was swiftly OK’d by consent at an Executive Board meeting the next day. The new group, similar to a caucus but with fewer political and financial constraints, held its initial meeting online in October. The guest speaker was Anthony Aguilar, whistleblower from the phony Gaza Humanitarian Foundation “aid” outfit that shot hungry people as much as it fed them. CDJP will quickly formalize its structure and membership for an in-person debut at the February state convention in San Francisco. Registered Democrats are welcome to read the mission statement and join, showing support whether or not you’re able to play an active role. 

• Folks in Santa Clara County have chartered a Bay area club, Democrats for Palestinian Rights, which has undertaken an ambitious educational and advocacy agenda. One other such club exists, in Sacramento. Statewide CDJP leadership would love to see more spring up around the state.

• Another cheer for Santa Clara: In October, local advocates won overwhelming support in the county party for a resolution that makes no bones about condemning the genocide and demanding an arms embargo. Another one passed the same month in Shasta County.

• Organizers are angling for a pro-Palestine plank in the state party platform that will be adopted at the February convention. Preliminary testimony has been voiced and  proposals submitted, now consolidated as United for Humanity, with negotiation likely in the offing and a possible floor debate/vote. The sign-on deadline has passed for this stage but look for another petition in January. And expect pushback from California Jewish Democrats (known until recently as Democrats for Israel, also an official CDP-chartered body). The renaming is particularly galling to us Jews whom it decidedly doesn't represent!

• Many of the same organizers and others are also in the process of forming a PAC, entirely outside the party, dedicated to getting real progressives—anti-corruption and big money, pro-single payer, pro-Palestine, of course, and more as delegates to the state Central Committee (DSCC). It’s an outgrowth of previous short-term mobilizations to endorse progressives in the biannual ADEMs, in which about one-third of the DSCC is elected—fourteen per Assembly district. It will organize to recruit and support local slates of candidates for the next ADEM opportunity (early 2027, but with organizing needed way in advance), and also for county central committees (another third, on primary ballots in 2028); plus selected left candidates for office who can appoint the final third (until we succeed in reducing that). 

• A quick detour to North Carolina, where similar efforts won passage of a super resolution by the state Democratic Party. We’re comparing notes, and have learned that in that state, the party Resolutions Committee makeup is formed semi-democratically, while in California, every single member of that and other committees is appointed by the party chair! 

On the state Capitol front, a long and frustrating engagement in the state Legislature ended on Oct. 7, with Gov. Newsom signing AB 715, which will crack down on the freedom to teach about Palestine under the guise of fighting antisemitism. Largely a battle for the votes of the mostly Democrat “diversity caucus” members, hundreds turned out in Sacramento to testify at committee hearings. It got a lot of coverage, much of it misleading in asking whether it would effectively prevent antisemitism while accepting false premises about the subject. Here’s an opinion piece I self-published in August after it was first accepted, then rejected by the Sacramento Bee. And here is a recent piece from Jewish Currents that sums up the larger issues really well. Related battles in Sacramento will surely continue.

Meanwhile, Congress may end up being the last bastion of support for Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide, but there’s growing ferment, way beyond what would have been thinkable only a few years—or even one year—ago. While none of the following are likely to pass, they are evidence of change.

• A series of “joint resolutions of disapproval” spearheaded by Bernie Sanders, aimed at stopping some arms transfers to Israel, maxed out at twenty seven supporters – a majority of Senate Democrats – in July. Notably, several large unions, including SEIU and UE, came out in support—evidence of a healthy break from labor’s traditional fealty to U.S. militarism. Even more unions were early backers of the demand for cease-fire in Gaza by early 2024, when it still meant something.

• H.R. 3565, the Block the Bombs Act, continues to attract co-sponsors, now up to fifty six, all Democrats, including twelve from California. It too would stop “offensive” arms transfers—a positive step but based on a phony distinction, as even purely “defensive” weapons enable aggressors to act offensively with more impunity.

• H.R. 2411, to restore funding for UN humanitarian support for Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere, has seventy House backers, all Democrats. 

• Various other bills and resolutions, for instance H.R. 3045, to impose sanctions on violent Israeli West Bank settlers (102 Democrats) have even more support, but notably not from the most consistent supporters of Palestinian freedom like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, presumably because they typically reinforce overall support for Israel and U.S. policy. 

• In the best recent news: On Nov. 13, Tlaib introduced H.Res. 876: Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. It demands adherence to international law, no arms for genocide, sanctions on offenders and more, with twenty (!!!) original co-sponsors (only Ro Khanna and Lateefa Simon from California).  Read it! And prepare to engage in a loud campaign to win more. Here’s a call to action.

This progress in CDP and Congress, limited as it is, clearly reflects a much larger, accelerating shift in public opinion since October 2023. Highlights of an IMEU survey released last month: 72 percent of Democratic voters agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza; only 7 percent support continued taxes going to the Israeli military, with 71 percent opposed; 76 percent support a ban on extending credit to the country through the purchase of Israel bonds; 65 percent support sanctions against Israeli officials, 13 percent oppose. For more such statistics see an August LA Times piece by Prof. George Bisharat.

A final note: The legislation cited has had almost exclusively Democratic support, but public opinion has been evolving in the same direction among Republican voters as well.  A growing cadre of hard right Republican legislators and influencers has suddenly come out in opposition to U.S. support for Israel’s genocide. These include people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Green and perhaps even the late Charlie Kirk. While authentic horror at the sight of mutilated and starving babies may be part of the explanation, wariness is in order when a large part of their rhetoric centers on MAGA’s “America first” ideology, in which support for Israel is seen as an impediment to U.S. world domination generally, and vague or not so vague blame for failed policy is pinned on “Jewish power,” not the interests of large capital, especially the military industry.