April Labor Branch Newsletter: The Resistance to Trump is beginning – Protest Saturday & other events
5 steps to becoming a staff organizer within your union
If you think that you would like to be a staff organizer, here are five important steps you can take.
The post 5 steps to becoming a staff organizer within your union appeared first on EWOC.
Johnson City Survivors Were Ignored Because the System Protects Men Like Sean Williams
Ronan Farrow’s March 24, 2025, New Yorker article on the case of Sean Williams, one of America’s most prolific sexual predators, exposes more than just individual evil—it reveals systemic rot. For years, Williams drugged, raped, and recorded assaults on dozens of women and children in Johnson City, Tennessee, while local police ignored, dismissed, or even enabled his crimes, according to Farrow’s reporting. Federal prosecutor Kat Dahl’s efforts to hold him accountable were met with obstruction, retaliation, and eventual firing.
Police as Enablers, Not Protectors
From the beginning, the Johnson City Police Department (JCPD) appears to have treated Williams with alarming deference. When Mikayla Evans fell five stories from his apartment—an incident suggesting foul play—officers delayed securing evidence, allowed Williams to tamper with security footage, and left his apartment unsupervised, according to the New Yorker article. Later, when Dahl pushed to investigate rape allegations, detectives are alleged to have shrugged off victims, mocked her concerns, and slow-walked warrants. Their indifference wasn’t accidental; it was systemic.
Williams himself claimed he bribed officers through an ex-girlfriend, Alunda Rutherford, alleging payoffs to avoid scrutiny. While these claims are contested, the JCPD’s behavior fits a pattern: according to the audit by the Daigle Law Group, between 2018-2022 officers failed to even interview suspects in 69 out of 105 rape cases with identified perpetrators, routinely closed sexual assault investigations prematurely, and ultimately paid a $28 million settlement to survivors—a tacit admission of systemic failure.
Class, Power, and Impunity
Business owners like Sean Williams get treated as a special class of people that are better than the rest of us. He wasn’t just some lone criminal—he was a wealthy businessman embedded in local power structures. His depredations were open secrets, his drug trafficking an unspoken perk for those who turned a blind eye. Even while evading arrest, he moved freely, exchanging texts with one prominent real estate agent, according to court records, and selling at least three properties in Johnson City. This is how class operates under capitalism: connections and capital buy impunity, while working-class victims—especially women—are disbelieved, shamed, or ignored.
The police’s contempt for survivors reflects broader societal problems. Victims like Briana Pack and Kaleigh Murray were dismissed as unreliable—too drunk, too traumatized, or too “uncooperative.” When Dahl warned that Williams might be targeting children, Chief Karl Turner brushed her off. Compare this to how police treat petty theft or drug use among the poor: relentless pursuit, brutal enforcement, and prison time. The system punishes regular people while shielding predators who operate with money and influence.
The Failures of “Justice” Under Capitalism
The JCPD’s internal report admitted systemic failures—interrogating victims like they were suspects, closing rape cases without investigation—but no high-ranking officials faced consequences. Instead, the city has agreed to pay $28 million in an attempt to bury accountability under legal settlements.
This isn’t unique to Johnson City. Across the U.S., police departments resist oversight, budgets balloon while social services starve, and survivors of sexual violence are gaslit by the very systems allegedly intended to protect them. The Williams case is extreme but not exceptional—it’s the logical endpoint of a capitalist system where justice is commodified and power and wealth flow to those who already have the most power and wealth.
Johnson City Needs a People’s Budget, Not a Bigger Police Budget
According to the Tennessee Lookout, City Manager Cathy Ball “has had the power to initiate an internal affairs investigation for the past two years that could scrutinize the actions and conduct of those implicated in the Williams case, including herself.”
Instead, Ball ordered any internal investigation be put on hold until the resolution of the class action lawsuit, court records show. That lawsuit is settled. What now?
Change won’t come from polite requests. It will take organized tenants, workers, and survivors showing up at town halls, budget meetings, and elections to demand justice.
For a start, we are calling for community-based Town Halls to discuss this issue, as well as future issues, where the Johnson City Commission can listen to us without the strict limits that city commission meetings place on our time and our experiences, where only twelve people can speak for a total of three minutes each. We need to have a say in what happens next.
But transparency and dialogue are not enough. There is also the question of money. At the time Dahl filed her federal civil complaint in June 2022, the city budget granted police $15,526,561 of the General Fund. The current city budget, drafted by Ball’s office last year and approved by our current mayor and three of our sitting commissioners, increased that figure to $19,370,928. That’s a raise of nearly four million dollars for a police department whose malpractice is set to cost us tens of millions more, to say nothing of the harm it facilitated.
The choice before Johnson City is about priorities.
We demand the Johnson City Commission freeze the police budget and invest funds where they belong: in public trauma care for survivors, affordable housing to stabilize families, and mental health responders and mediation teams that replace police where appropriate. These aren’t radical ideas—they’re what happens when we put victims before wealthy business owners.
Change won’t come from polite requests. It will take organized tenants, workers, and survivors showing up at town halls, budget meetings, and elections to demand justice. The money exists. The power exists. The people must come together and demand it.
The Unwilling Guardians: Why Liberal Opposition Falters Against Fascism
When fascism ascends, the conventional opposition often proves surprisingly ineffective, even complicit. This paradox becomes comprehensible when we understand not just political theater but the underlying material interests at play.
The established opposition shares more with its supposed adversaries than with the working people it claims to represent. Both mainstream parties ultimately serve as different management teams for the same economic system. While they disagree on methods and rhetoric, they agree on fundamentals: the primacy of profits over people and the necessity of maintaining existing class relations.
This explains why resistance proves tepid. Meaningful opposition to fascism requires challenging concentrated power—both political and economic. Yet the liberal donor class, its leadership’s personal wealth, and its institutional inertia all align against such confrontation. They fear genuinely popular movements more than they fear their ostensible rivals.
Historical evidence confirms this pattern. In Weimar Germany, the right-liberal German People’s Party and left-liberal German Democratic Party supported various authoritarian consolidations in the name of anti-Communism. The former backed the declaration of martial law in Prussia that helped clear the way for Hitler’s rise, and the latter’s deputies even backed the Enabling Act that granted Hitler dictatorial powers in 1933.
In Italy, liberal parties sought accommodation with Mussolini rather than alliance with labor movements. In Chile, centrists undermined Allende before embracing Pinochet. In each case, property proved more sacred than people.
The theatrics of political conflict mask this deeper unity. Congressional hearings produce sound bytes but rarely consequences. Speeches condemn excesses while budgets fund them–witness Biden’s expansion of prison facilities. Legal challenges drag through courts staffed by identical interests. Electoral campaigns promise transformation but deliver continuity.
Meanwhile, those proposing systemic change—democratizing the economy, redistributing power, prioritizing human needs over profit—are branded dangerous extremists. This framing serves a dual purpose: it distances the opposition from more forceful alternatives while positioning them as the reasonable middle ground in a fabricated spectrum.
The left is particularly threatening because it names the root causes that mainstream discourse obscures. It connects political authoritarianism to economic dominance. It reveals how “normal politics” laid the groundwork for fascist acceleration. It demonstrates that defending democracy requires extending it into workplaces, communities, and economic planning.
The liberal opposition’s vulnerability stems from its contradictions. It cannot mobilize popular energy without raising expectations it has no intention of fulfilling. It cannot articulate a compelling alternative while committed to the system generating the crisis. It cannot build effective solidarity while serving interests fundamentally opposed to collective power.
Most crucially, it cannot win by seeking the approval of institutions already compromised. Courts packed with ideologues, media owned by billionaires, electoral systems designed to diffuse popular will—these will not save us. Yet the opposition remains institutionally incapable of moving beyond these channels.
In this light, the demonization of the left serves a critical function. By positioning leftists as equally extreme as fascists, the opposition justifies its own inadequate middle path while delegitimizing the very forces most committed to substantive resistance.
The lesson is clear: we cannot outsource our defense to those who benefit from the same system as our opponents. True opposition must come from below—from organized communities unbound by the constraints of electoral calculation or donor appeasement.
The path forward demands independent organization, material solidarity, and the courage to envision a world beyond the false choices offered by those who would rather manage our descent than risk the emergence of genuine democracy.
The Anatomy of Fascism’s Rise: Why Early Intervention Matters
Fascism doesn’t emerge fully formed but follows a recognizable developmental trajectory. Understanding this progression is crucial for effective resistance
In its embryonic stage—where we find ourselves now—fascism begins with a crisis of legitimacy. Democratic institutions still function but are systematically delegitimized. The judiciary is branded as partisan. Electoral processes are declared corrupt. Media becomes “enemy of the people.” This manufactured crisis creates the justification for “extraordinary measures” to “restore order.”
The second phase—consolidation—occurs when the previously unthinkable becomes routine. Independent agencies are purged and restaffed with loyalists. Civil servants are replaced with partisans. Legislative powers shift to executive orders. Courts are packed or ignored. This phase relies on public exhaustion and normalization—each transgression generates less outrage than the last.
Next comes the targeting phase. Initially focused on politically vulnerable groups—immigrants, minorities, leftists—it creates a template for persecution that can be broadened. The legal framework established against “extremists” becomes applicable to progressively wider circles of opposition. This phase depends on divide-and-conquer tactics, assuring each group that they are safe while others are targeted.
The mature phase arrives when institutional capture is complete. Elections continue but without meaningful choice. Courts exist but rarely rule against power. Media operates but within narrowed boundaries. Dissent becomes criminalized rather than merely delegitimized. By this stage, resistance requires extraordinary courage as the costs become increasingly severe.
The final phase occurs when external constraint is removed entirely. Violence becomes state policy rather than rhetorical excess. Economic crisis or international conflict typically provides the pretext for this transition.
Socialist analysis reveals what liberal frameworks miss: fascism isn’t merely authoritarianism but a specific response to capitalism in crisis. When profit rates decline and class consciousness rises, sections of the capitalist class turn to fascism to suppress labor movements, eliminate social programs, and redirect class anger toward scapegoated minorities. The “traditionalism” of fascism serves to reinforce hierarchies necessary for capitalism’s continuation under increasingly unstable conditions.
This developmental understanding explains why early intervention is most effective. Each stage builds upon the previous one, creating conditions that make subsequent resistance more difficult. The window for relatively low-cost opposition narrows dramatically once the consolidation phase advances. Institutions designed to check power cease functioning when they become captured.
Today, we stand at a critical juncture. Democratic guardrails bend but haven’t yet broken. Public assembly remains legal. The press faces intimidation but not wholesale suppression. Elections face delegitimization but haven’t been suspended. This moment—when fascism remains vulnerable, when its developmental path can still be disrupted—is precisely when collective action carries maximum impact.
Solidarity across targeted groups, mass non-compliance with unjust directives, protection of vulnerable communities, defense of democratic institutions however imperfect—these actions can effectively halt fascism’s developmental momentum. History shows that fascism can be stopped, but rarely once its institutional capture is complete.
The time to disrupt this progression is now, while we retain the power to do so. n
Reclaiming Rural Politics: Democratic Socialism & Appalachian Values
In the rolling hills and close-knit communities of Northeast Tennessee, there beats a heart that has long valued mutual support and a deep connection to place. These Appalachian values—so often misrepresented in national narratives—align more closely with democratic socialism than many might realize. As our region faces mounting challenges from corporate exploitation and political forces that seek to divide us, reclaiming our political voice means recognizing this natural alignment.
Long before corporate interests reshaped our economy, Appalachian communities thrived on principles of interdependence. Barn-raisings, seed-sharing, and care for neighbors in need weren’t just traditions—they were survival strategies that recognized our fundamental interconnectedness. When disaster struck, it wasn’t rugged individualism that saved lives—it was community solidarity.
These practices reflect the core of democratic socialism: the understanding that we prosper together or suffer alone, and that an economy should serve humanity rather than the other way around.
For generations, outside corporations have extracted Appalachia’s wealth—coal, timber, labor—while leaving behind environmental devastation and poverty. They promised jobs but delivered exploitation.
This experience mirrors the fundamental critique that democratic socialism makes of capitalism: that this profit-driven system inevitably values extraction over sustainability and shareholder returns over community wellbeing. The democratic socialist vision—where economic power is democratically controlled by communities—speaks directly to Appalachians who have seen the alternative fail them time and again.
Appalachian religious traditions have long emphasized care for the vulnerable and the moral imperative to create a more just society. The biblical instruction to “love thy neighbor” manifests in concrete acts of community support that reject the notion that our worth is determined by our productivity or wealth.
These values find natural expression in democratic socialism’s commitment to guaranteeing dignified lives for all through universal healthcare, living wages, and robust social programs—not as charity but as recognition of our shared humanity.
Many have forgotten that Appalachia has a proud history of labor militancy and economic radicalism. From the Mine Wars to wildcat strikes, our ancestors understood that economic justice required collective action against concentrated power.
Today, we have an opportunity to reclaim this heritage by organizing around issues that matter to rural communities: affordable healthcare, sustainable jobs, quality education for our children, and freedom from corporate domination.
The path forward isn’t about imposing urban political frameworks on rural communities. It’s about recognizing the democratic socialist values already embedded in Appalachian culture: mutual aid, community resilience, skepticism of concentrated power, and the belief that everyone deserves dignity.
The future of Appalachia depends not on submitting to exploitation in the name of “progress,” but on reclaiming our political voice based on our deepest values. Democratic socialism doesn’t ask us to abandon what makes our communities special—it invites us to fulfill their greatest promise.
Putting Treats on the Altar
This piece may be more than what some are able to hear today. I implore you to center yourself on our shared belief that a better world is on the horizon and we will not be oppressed forever. There is a path forward without capitalism and oppression, and we will destroy their systems in our venture forward. Our collective future relies on our ability to critically release our relationship to capitalism as it stands along with the nefarious tendrils it extends into what may seem to be our fond companions.
Our best chance of success in the face of facism today is looking to our revolutionary predecessors who left us detailed instructions; Malcolm X, a Muslim and Black revolutionary, worked personally on an addiction recovery program in his autobiography. In Malcolm’s youth he relied on the black market of drugs in Harlem and openly admitted to using multiple forms of addictive drugs. Later he identified that the same system he relied on in childhood was designed to keep him and his community under oppression. Malcolm developed a 6-step program for addiction using the following tenants:
- The addict has to admit that he is an addict
- The addict is taught why he used narcotics and alcohol
- The addict is taught that there is a way to stop their addiction
- The addict’s self-image and ego are built up and anchored in self-power
- The addict must voluntarily go through a cold-turkey to break with the drugs
- The addict’s characteristics of hostility and suspicions are addressed
Full of empathy and understanding, Malcolm’s efforts to reduce addiction and abuse were honorable and full of hope.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was also no stranger to the perils of addiction. From an article by Hampton Sides in 2011, King himself struggled with alcohol use, increasing his consumption toward the end of his life to cope with the strain of fighting oppression. In a 1958 advice column King responds to a young man’s submission saying, “Alcoholism is a disease which needs the most expert medical care. A person whom he trusts can probably persuade him to seek this expert treatment… [If] you solve this [problem] each succeeding [problem] will be easier. You have youth, health and strength.”
Fred Hampton, leader of the Black Panthers, aptly referred to the same sickness of addiction as “chemical warfare” and encouraged members to be wary of the role of addiction in their lives and communities. As a party, they endorsed the formulation of Capitalism + Drugs = Genocide, an inflexible equation of the inevitable. In an interview with Rev. Julian DeShazier by the Huffington Post, he says King would hold a similarly wary stance on the war on drugs (before it truly began under the Nixon administration), “When we as a society make something illegal – in this case drug use – we should be very careful. We aren’t just telling people they shouldn’t do something. We are giving ourselves a mandate to arrest them, and very often to put them in jail or prison. The opposite of legalizing drug use is not some vague immediate stage of moral disapproval. It is incarceration.”
For revolutionaries in the U.S. particularly, our past leaders and great thinkers have clearly carved out consistent concerns of how the state relies on addiction to excuse their response of force. Addiction has taken many forms from the opium trade of Eastern Asia to Fentanyl use today, but the message remains the same: it will bring nothing but suffering for you and your community.
From the 2016 publication “Drug War Peace” by the Drug User Peace Initiative, “[Drug law] effectively criminalises people who use drugs themselves, and in some countries it is illegal to even have drugs in one’s bloodstream: it is illegal to be a drug user. People who use drugs are therefore inherently vulnerable to police interference and harassment, being publicly searched, being subjected to invasive strip and
cavity searches, being arrested, and being imprisoned.” In fact, drug related charges account for nearly half of incarcerated individuals at 43.8% representation (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2025). These laws and disproportionate application affects our non-white, non-cis, and non-straight comrades primarily. Our society still struggles with its relationship to alcohol with a whopping 85% of people 18+ who have used the substance at some point – imagine getting 85% of Americans to agree to anything. Beyond who is willing to try it, just under 25% of people 18+ reported that they had participated in binge drinking in the last month (NIH, 2024) and nearly the same rate of people generally say alcohol has caused problems in their family (Gallup, 2024).
Alcohol has obviously been a struggle for the working class and has been a vector for abuse and control over the proletariat, but according to statistics by Dr. Kristen Fuller, MD, “Gen Z is the first generation to take a noticeable stance on abstaining from alcohol… they are known as the ‘sober curious’ generation.” It seems the state’s tool of incapacitation and violence is not as strong over the newest batch of revolutionaries, which begs the question: is alcohol the only front in the war for bodily autonomy in our revolution today? After all, we know that capitalists are nothing if not excellent parasites hoping to squeeze every last drop from us and move on to a new sales pitch easily. In the same way that cigarettes went largely out of style (and exposure to children declined significantly), alcohol may also have seen its heyday and the people may be waking up to the consequences of capitalistic “fun,” Without the ability to use addiction to alcohol, what ploys does Capitalism still have hidden?
One front could be our relationship to caffeine and processed foods. I know this is a deeply personal relationship to a lot of my comrades and many will feel resistant to the concept of forgoing our treats, particularly treats that represent the few ways we still can achieve a little serotonin boost during the day. For many of us food represents control or joy or consistency, and I do not wish to reduce anyone’s sense of control or joy or consistency in the world. But now is the time to consider being more uncomfortable for the good of humanity and free ourselves from anything we cannot produce ourselves. This fact rings true: we cannot rely on the current systems of production and vow to overthrow them. Revolution requires free thinking, uninhibited by our desires and addictions. It is our responsibility right now to take as much control over our selfhood as possible and rid ourselves of any footholds capitalism still has in us.
The first component to begin breaking down is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Because corn is heavily subsidized, HFCS became a popular use of the product due to overproduction, leading to the cheaper sugar swap in many American food products. In a NIH paper, Richard Atkinson, a professor of medicine and nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says, “There are a lot of subsidies for the two things we should be limiting in our diet, which are sugar and fat, and there are not a lot of subsidies for broccoli and brussels sprouts.” For decades people have been warning each other of the seemingly addictive-parallel nature of excessively sweet and processed foods, based on their own experiences and little official scientific documentation. Similarly to the cigarette industry, food is difficult to research without the whims of powerful corporations affecting funding and release of information – what would Coke say and do to a study about how harmful it is to drink Coke? But brave researchers still tried to inform the public and HFCS has become a tumultuous topic, never to be addressed by the government who stayed staunchly invested in its production and use. According to the NIH, “We demonstrate that HFCS can impair dopamine function in the absence of weight gain or increased fat consumption. As reduced dopamine function has been implicated in compulsive behaviors and reduced energy expenditure.” In essence, HFCS’s effect on us is to make us want more and feel tired.
Feeling tired leads me to the more difficult aspect here: caffeine use and abuse. Capitalism uses exhaustion as a tool of oppression. By nurturing that problem they have offered the solution in the form of caffeine. In a 2014 study by the NIH, “at least 85% of the US population consumes at least one caffeinated beverage per day,” a statistic that seems to hold steady today, but I could not find a more recent official study. In addition to its constant use, caffeine comes with chemical dependency and therefore withdrawal symptoms, which can become severe. In a 2023 study researchers found “Withdrawal from caffeine causes mild to clinically significant distress and impairment of normal functioning. The severity of symptoms vary from individual to individual, and most commonly include a headache, fatigue, decreased energy/activeness, decreased alertness, drowsiness, decreased contentedness, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and feeling foggy/not clearheaded.” The study continues to note the rate of experiencing the most common withdrawal symptom (headaches) is about 50% and the rate of clinically significant distress sits at 13%.
In a Vox article from 2023, author Emily Stewart describes what we all feel to be true: drinking soda is normal and everywhere. It’s an acceptable alternative to alcohol, coffee, tea, even water. There is no environment where cracking open a bottle of Diet Coke wouldn’t be acceptable – even the Oval Office seems to have a high supply. But has anyone else noticed the price increase over the last several decades? From the article, “They’ve been pretty relentless in raising prices over the last few years, really ever since the pandemic. It’s not just Coca-Cola, but it’s PepsiCo and Keurig Dr. Pepper, too. They’ve just continued to raise prices with very little negative impact on their sales volume,” said Garrett Nelson, vice president and senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, a financial intelligence firm. Stewart goes on to explain that the increase in price has been inconsistent with the cost of production. “Shoppers are price sensitive, but they’re not very price aware, meaning most shoppers can’t name the price of more than 10 or a dozen different items that they buy regularly. Diet Coke is one where a regular purchaser of it will know what a good price is,” said Jon Hauptman, the founder and president of Price Dimensions, a retail consultancy.
I understand that the parallel I’m drawing between the alcohol addiction of yesterday’s civil right’s movement and today’s food and caffeine dependency might seem like evidence that I don’t understand true addiction and that we should not compare something so destructive like alcoholism to the mild effects of a missed afternoon pick-me-up, but to that response I would like to pose a question: if this addiction is somehow different, then why can’t we simply forego them? If we feel disruption inside ourselves at the suggestion of giving up a treat, do we really have control over our impulses concerning the treat? I would like to argue that capitalism has achieved something much more nefarious: an addiction so slight and ubiquitous that doesn’t affect our relationships because it is so socially accepted and therefore flies undetected, but remains an unactivated bomb in our hearts. In a scenario where we willingly remain squished under the thumb of caffeine and food reliance, we enslave ourselves to their form of production. It is in direct opposition to our struggle as a working class and has been a tool of colonizers that we must avoid in our communal future.
Sources
“Go after the black man in the mud”- Addiction, Malcolm X, and The Nation of Islam’s 6-Point Recovery Plan for Black People (2021)
https://medium.com/@sharrieff__/go-after-the-black-man-in-the-mud-addiction-malcolm-x-and-the-nation-of-islams-6-point-45d7cb5a4b0c
Revolutionary Discipline and Sobriety by Cliff Connolly (2020)
https://cosmonautmag.com/2020/08/revolutionary-discipline-and-sobriety-2/
Remembering Martin Luther King as a Man, not a Saint (2011)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/remembering-martin-luther-king-as-a-man-not-a-saint/2011/04/01/AFvQjTXC_story.html
Dr. King and the War on Drugs (2016)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dr-king-and-the-war-on-dr_b_9045106
MLK Jr Dear Abby
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/advice-living-12
Human Rights, Stigma, and Substance Use (2020)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7348456/#:~:text=people%20who%20use%20drugs%20need,and%20the%20possession%2C%20purchase%20and
50 Years Since the Panthers Formed, Capitalism + Drugs Still = Genocide
https://www.liberationschool.org/50-years-since-the-panthers-formed-capitalism-drugs-still-genocide/
Drug War Peace, INPUD (2016)
https://www.unodc.org/documents/ungass2016/Contributions/Civil/INPUD/DUPI-Violations_of_the_Human_Rights_of_People_Who_Use_Drugs-Web.pdf
Offense Statistics – Federal Bureau of Prisons
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp
Gallup Alcohol Consumption (2024)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1582/alcohol-drinking.aspx#:~:text=The%20table%20presents%20data%20on,drinking%20and%2030%25%20not%20drinking.
Gen Z on Alcohol by Kristen Fuller, MD (2024)
https://www.alcoholhelp.com/blog/alcohol-consumption-generations/#:~:text=A%20World%20Finance%20report%20shows,drink%20less%20than%20older%20generations.
Beverage caffeine intakes in the U.S (2014)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24189158/
Food Addiction Statistics
https://olympicbehavioralhealth.com/rehab-blog/food-addiction/#:~:text=Addictive%20eating%20behaviors%20are%20often,addiction%20to%20highly%20processed%20foods.
Caffeine Addiction Study (2023)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430790/
High Fructose Corn Syrup’s Affect on Dopamine Levels (2017)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5747444/#sec014
The Fat of the Land: Do Agricultural Subsidies Foster Poor Health? (2004)
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1247588/#abstract1
Diet Coke Getting Smaller & More Expensive (2023)
https://www.vox.com/money/23979340/diet-coke-price-coca-cola-pepsi-inflation-walmart-costco
The post Putting Treats on the Altar appeared first on Pine & Roses.
Weekly Roundup: April 1, 2025
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, April 1 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): 
Turnout Tuesday for Vision Drive (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Wednesday, April 2 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour at Zeitgeist (In person at Zeitgeist at 199 Valencia)
Thursday, April 3 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom)
Thursday, April 3 (7:00 pm. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigration Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)
Friday, April 4 (12:00 pm. – 5:00 p.m.): Office Hours (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Saturday, April 5 (12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Chapter Local Vision and Strategy Meeting (In person at 518 Valencia)
Sunday, April 6 (1:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.): Surveillance of Palestinian Activism: the 1993 case of the ADL Spy Ring in San Francisco (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Sunday, April 6 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Capital Reading Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)
Monday, April 7 (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Electoral Board Meeting + Socialist in Office (Zoom)
Monday, April 7 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)
Monday, April 7 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)
Tuesday, April 8 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Abolish Rent Reading Group session 3 (In person at 438 Haight)
Wednesday, April 9 (6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): April General Meeting (Zoom and In person at TBD)
Thursday, April 10 (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.): 
Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)
Saturday, April 12 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Training and Outreach (Location TBD)
Saturday, April 12 (1:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.): 
Muni History Walking & Riding Tour (Meet at Kearny & Market)
Monday, April 14 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Healing Circle Tenderloin (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)
Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.
Events & Actions
Office Hours
Co-work with your comrades! Come to the DSA SF office and get your DSA work or work-work done, or just hang out. We’ll be at 1916 McAllister from 12:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m. on Fridays.
Chapter Local Vision and Strategy Meeting
This Saturday DSA SF is hosting a Chapter Local Vision and Strategy Meeting to shape our chapter’s direction in the short-term and long-term. Please join us for lively discussion and take part in building socialism in San Francisco and beyond! We’ll be meeting at 518 Valencia this Saturday, April 5 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Capital Reading Group
DSA SF has started a Marx’s Capital reading group! We’ll be meeting every other Sunday from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister and also on Zoom. We’ll meet on April 6th to cover Chapter 1. We’re reading the new translation published by Princeton University Press. You can also join the #capital-rdg-group-2025 channel on the DSA SF Slack for additional information and discussion!
Behind the Scenes
The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.
To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.
Call your Reps and Tell Them to Let Trans Kids Play Sports
On March 12th, eight state Democrats in Michigan voted for an anti-trans resolution that would hurt trans kids in schools.
HR40 is a non-enforceable resolution that strongly encourages the Michigan High School Athletic Association to discriminate against trans women by following Trump’s executive order to ban trans-women in women’s sports.
Despite it being non-enforceable, this resolution would lead to increased harassment and discrimination towards trans children who just want to play sports with their classmates.
The eight state Democrats who voted for this resolution are Rep. Alabas Farhat, Rep. Peter Herzberg, Rep. Tullio Liberati, Rep. Denise Mentzer, Rep. Reggie Miller, Rep. Will Snyder, Rep. Angela Witwer, and Rep. Mai Xiong.
Call your state Representative and let them know how you feel about their vote! You can find your state Representative here!
If your state Representative voted yes for this resolution, call them to express how disappointed you are and tell them they need to stand for trans rights or you will be voting against them in the next election.
If your state Representative voted no for this resolution, call and thank them for siding with trans people. Encourage them to continue their support and to speak up for the rights of trans people. We need as many people in positions of power to be on our side.
Keep in mind, your state representative does not represent anywhere close to as many people as your US Congress representative. Your call could very well sway them to support trans people going forward, even if they are Republican. In Montana, 29 Republicans changed their mind on an anti-trans bill after Reps. Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell gave impassioned speeches. This goes to show that it is possible to sway state Republicans.
The whole situation was handled so maliciously. Speaker Pro Tempore Rachelle Smit (R-43), a far-right Republican who believes the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, kept cutting off the speeches of Democrats so that her Republican colleagues could speak. The vote was then rushed through the House without letting Democrats finish their speeches. Erin in the Morning provides a copy of the whole situation here.
We must all stand for the rights of trans people!
The post Call your Reps and Tell Them to Let Trans Kids Play Sports appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.
OPINION: Escalating When You’re Under Attack
by Travis Wayne
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not represent the official position of Working Mass.
On Tuesday night, ICE abducted Rumeysa Ozturk. A Turkish national with a valid F-1 visa, Rumeysa is a Tufts grad worker, student activist, and member of SEIU Local 509. She is also a Somerville tenant. After her doxxing by Canary Mission and monitoring her home in unmarked cars for several days, five ICE agents ambushed Ozturk from all directions wearing plainclothes and masks. Thirteen DSA and YDSA chapters across New England released a statement describing ICE as a “Gestapo” secret police.
ICE kidnapped Ozturk for the crime of authoring an op-ed.
Only collective action can protect working-class communities and the rights of our immigrant neighbors — join us in the struggle
— 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗗𝗦𝗔
A joint statement from DSA chapters spanning New England on the abduction of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk pic.twitter.com/EZQeI0DH23
Immediately, the Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at Tufts and the Palestine Youth Movement organized an emergency protest with dozens of other groups – notably unions, like the Tufts Graduate Student Union and Rumeysa Ozturk’s own Local 509. Foot traffic converged across the city as thousands descended upon one site: Powder House Park, the same hill where crowds decided to organize the Minutemen information network that sustained the American Revolution to throw off British rule. Rally organizers were aware of the symbolism. Powder House Square was where one tyrant’s end began; “We are about to do it again,” tour docent Mary Mangan shouted. Boston DSA released a rapid-fire email before 9 AM calling for mobilization to Powder House. In the Somerville DSA branch, we conducted direct outreach to hundreds of active members and supporters to mobilize their relative networks to the square.
The next day, Somerville DSA members showed up at an action organized by Somerville for Palestine in force with a crowd of hundreds shouting freedom slogans surging at police blocking the masses from swarming City Hall for a resolution to divest Somerville from Israeli apartheid.
The mood was as militant as the rally speakers. People called for the abolition of ICE and the release of all political prisoners like Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil. Benny from the ICE Somerville Watch Network shouted “the Democratic Party will not save you! They did not save Rumeysa!” to thunderous applause. One organizer made the audience shout the local ICE watch hotline back. Speakers drummed people to turn out to City Hall to support Somerville for Palestine’s measure to end Somerville investments in apartheid companies the next day, where the council ultimately voted 9-2 to make the task as hard as possible for Palestinian organizers.
Only DSA cadre elected officials Willie Burnley Jr. and JT Scott voted for Palestine in Somerville’s ruling chamber.
Was further escalation possible?
The rally dispersed rather than escalated. Henry De Groot, managing editor of this paper, pointed out that the “rally could have marched to Tufts and launched an occupation until [Rumeysa] is free” and that we “need militant tactics to match our militant mood.” Tech worker Eve Seitchik argued the rally was a “missed opportunity to channel the anger into pressure.”
They’re right. Occupation when media helicopters were already on scene would have fixed national attention on Somerville beyond one news cycle, maintaining attention on the demands of organizers to release Rumeysa Ozturk. That would have created immense pressure on Tufts University, which would face a crisis point as millions of dollars were lost in donations to follow Columbia’s lead in becoming a handmaiden of fascism or fighting against Trump on behalf of Somerville tenants abducted by the secret police. Occupation conceivably could have applied far more pressure on the Somerville City Council to divest from Israel, in the short run, and greater pressure on Tufts to divest and reinstate the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter that Tufts suspended for raising funds for Gaza in the long run. The strategic choice made Rumeysa’s abduction a flashpoint but not necessarily a climax. Further escalation is harder when you have to re-mobilize the masses and then re-stoke their anger.
None of this is a mistake by students responding quickly and effectively to new strategic conditions. Instead, these are an illustration of those conditions students now face. One year ago, student organizers especially associated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized mass encampments not seen since SDS’s occupations in the Sixties. Those drew immense national attention, forced Palestine into mainstream discourse, and applied pressure directly on entities both deeply invested in Israeli apartheid and often the largest landlords in their communities: the universities. Now, Columbia University – the site of the second such occupation after Vanderbilt – cowers in fear at the feet of Trump. Desperate to keep $500 million in grants, Columbia willingly assists the new regime in deporting their own students while Tufts suspends its students on the grounds of “gambling” for raising funds to stop a genocide.
The culture of fear that abduction creates, abetted by the complicit universities, acts as a significant disincentive to occupation for student organizers on the frontline. Students historically have the unique capability of organizing high-risk spatial occupations of their own campuses. The broader working class does not occupy the quad alone. Outside organizations only have the leverage to materially assist occupations of university property but lack the political capital to initiate them. Now, however, the regime is curbing the rights students have that enable occupation through the high-profile targeting of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. Fewer people with green cards and even fewer people without papers will take risks that draw attention to the genocide by the Zionist state occupying Palestine. The Trump Administration is actively targeting the Palestine movement, both student and non-student, by blunting an important strategic weapon in our arsenal: campus occupation.
Students will continue to escalate in new arenas for Palestine, but they lead our movement forward despite the higher risks that the new regime has intentionally raised to attack the student wing of the working class.
Class organization and collective risk
Students losing their rights does not make occupation impossible – class disorganization does. The Young Lords occupied Lincoln Hospital, forming relationships with healthcare workers, barricading themselves inside the grounds of their “people’s hospital” to raise attention for healthcare access and conditions in their South Bronx community. The Lords were an effective organization of their immediate working class Puerto Rican community and the Lords’ demands received decades of attention beyond the twelve hours of occupation. Their cadre had capacity to undertake collective risk. We lack that same capacity now. That’s partly because DSA is organized as a mass organization and not a cadre organization like the Young Lords. Generally, that’s to our strength, interconnecting us more deeply with social worlds beyond the organization, but structure isn’t the only reason. Collective risk requires solidaristic trust that’s impossible when organizers act like sectarians instead of comrades.
But DSA’s lack of capacity to take collective risk at the strategic moment occurs at the same time that labor itself remains too weak to take that same level of collective risk. Straightforward solidarity strikes are banned, but more importantly, most people mobilized to Powder House Park were not union members. They weren’t deeply organized nor connected beyond word-of-mouth and group chat. Unions that did mobilize their memberships don’t have a shared movement-wide communications democracy capable of leveraging militant memberships to escalate in coordination with one another. In other words, we need to organize ourselves into unions and organize our unions, not only to contract but with depth, to become militant enough to form the rapid response capabilities we need to protect our communities.
Labor unions can knit together the working class into networks of solidarity capable of mass mobilization, but tenant unions form an essential supplementary bedrock. ICE is abducting people from their workplaces but also their homes. Rumeysa Ozturk was almost home to break her Ramadan fast. Tenant unions, which form class organization at the neighborhood level, connect neighbors and make the solidaristic bedrock of public safety. Neighbors who know each other’s children, who knock doors with each other, who break bread with each other form the bonds of community defense, “[making] the community by defending it.” The fact that tenant unions are on the rise, including the local Greater Boston Tenants Union, but have not reached the level of density across the tenant class needed to defend against ICE onslaught is tragic. We need to organize tenant unions to create the layer of community defense at the neighborhood level capable of protecting tenants like Rumeysa Ozturk. Tenants, organized together, can block evictions by both landlords and secret police.
The only way we defend ourselves as entire communities against ICE is greater class organization. That’s necessary from the workplace to the home to the academy. Unions, along with a coalition of community organizations, were the ones that mobilized the incredible mass mobilization for Rumeysa Ozturk. Unions of both workers and tenants need to deliver know your rights to as many people as possible, but also practical information on raising the alarm as bystanders during ICE abductions and reporting undercover ICE vehicles like Union del Barrio does in South Los Angeles: as organizers there note, ICE patrols in Chevy Impalas, Dodge Durangos, and Ford Explorers. And even as we build the organization needed to take greater collective risks, we need to train each other and as many people as possible to support hotlines for reporting ICE incidents like LUCE in Somerville. Finally, we need to support one another and defend each other – especially student tenants, deeply vulnerable, who have already begun organizing a walk-out under Medford Coalition for Palestinian Liberation as further escalation in their intifada.
Make no mistake; we are all under attack.
Travis Wayne is an organizer with the Greater Boston Tenants Union and co-chair of the Somerville branch of Boston DSA. They serve as deputy managing editor of Working Mass.