Author: Megan R

One of the most contentious and confusing debate blocks at the 2025 Convention was the international section, specifically deliberation on the resolution titled For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA (R22) and the agendized amendment titled Align With the BDS Movement (R22-A01).

For context to anyone who is not plugged into DSA’s founding story:

“Whereas, and antithetical to the DSA’s contemporary principles and policies, DSA’s founding merger was heavily predicated on ensuring that the DSA would uphold DSOC’s position of supporting continued American aid for Israel’s Zionist colonial project, as explicitly noted in our organization’s founding merger documents (e.g., Points of Political Unity) and by Michael Harrington himself in his autobiography;”

– Anti-Zionist Resolution (#12), which was referred to the National Political Committee (NPC) from the 2023 National Convention

Members of DSA have been organizing within our democratic structures to course correct since the very beginning and that effort has been documented since at least 2019 (see passed resolution #35, speaker lineup). Organizers who are passionate about Palestinian liberation have devoted themselves to the steady and demanding work of changing minds of our comrades in DSA. We have come a long way as an organization in solidarity with our Palestinian comrades, despite what external reporters would like to imply. This progress is laid out neatly in the “whereas” clauses of R22 which details not only the statements made over the last few years, but also the working groups created, campaigns run, and strategies defined. 

Much of what we passed during this convention will support our Palestine work, such as the formal commitment to the “independent party surrogate” electoral strategy. It would have been great to also pass the Electoral Discipline resolution, which would reduce the damage that could be caused by chapter electoral program fiefdoms by providing a framework for chapters, but that will resurface in 2027!

The R22 Anti-Zionist resolution in particular was the culmination of more than two years of dedicated effort to confirm our commitment to being an explicitly anti-Zionist organization.

“Make DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis” was originally brought forward for consideration at the 2023 National Convention but was referred to the NPC for a decision. In the last two years, many chapters have voted to adopt variations of this resolution locally, including our own chapter! (See the text differences in both resolutions here.)

“[Since] March 25th 2025, 54 DSA chapters representing over 30,000 DSA members have passed their own versions of the “Make DSA an Anti-Zionist Organization in Principle and Praxis” resolution, enshrining locally both membership expectations and electoral endorsement conditions of principled anti-Zionism that has provided a necessary, material counter-weight to the Zionist lobby for progressives running for local office.”

– For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA, which passed at the 2025 National Convention

Fun Fact: Our 2023 chapter delegation had a fuzzier political divide on this topic (4-2-2 split for delegates, 8-3-2 for candidates) than our 2025 chapter delegation did (7-1-4 split for delegates, 10-1-4 for candidates), bringing our delegate candidate support for Anti-Zionist measures up to 90% from 72% just two years ago. This is a testament to our political development as a chapter! 

In the intervening years, alongside the local approach, organizers for an Anti-Zionist DSA strengthened the resolution by building a positive vision of what we can and should be doing as an organization to support Palestine liberation.

During convention, there were a lot of myths being circulated, most notably a flyer distributed by a non disclosed political faction.

Fortunately for our comrades in the Springs of Revolution faction who wrote R22, and for DSA’s external reputation on Palestine, deliberation on R22 and its amendment was split across two days. This gave the resolutions authors and Palestine organizers a chance to correct the rumors that had been so carelessly and cynically spread the day before with the distribution of a fact sheet.

Comparing the Options

In order to demystify the text of R22 as it compares to our local Anti-Zionist resolution and clarify what the amendment would have changed if passed, we’ve compiled a side-by-side comparison below, along with links to the full text for both, highlighting key differences. (This comparison will focus on the “resolved” clauses of the texts, which constitutes the binding portion of a resolution or amendment.)

Cleveland’s Anti-Zionist Resolution	National Anti-Zionist Resolution (R22)	R22-A01 (p. 247 in Compendium)
Opening “resolved” clause: “Therefore, be it resolved, the Cleveland DSA chapter denounces the organization’sZionist roots and reaffirms its commitment to being an anti-racist, anti-imperialist organization by explicitly committing to being an anti-Zionist chapter– in both principle and praxis;”	Opening “resolved” clause: “Therefore, be it resolved, that DSA shall make organizing in solidarity with the Palestinian cause a priority until Palestine is free, unequivocally affirming our commitment to ‘al-Thawabit’, the principles originally set by the Palestinian National Council in 1977 and repeatedly reaffirmed since, which are the Palestinian people’s right to resistance, the Palestinian right to self-determination, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland from the river to the sea;”	First edit, which comes off as a hostile amendment because it seems to negate all following text: “proactively aligning all national DSA candidates with the organization’s previously established expectations affirming that these commitments as detailed in this resolution must hold true for all candidates endorsed by national DSA or a DSA chapter“
Red lines for endorsed electoral candidates (identical): – Public support of the BDS movement. – Refrain from any/all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups (examples provided). – Pledge to oppose legislation that harms Palestinians (examples provided).  – Pledge to support legislation that supports Palestinian liberation (examples provided).	Red lines for endorsed electoral candidates (identical): – Public support of the BDS movement. – Refrain from any/all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups (examples provided). – Pledge to oppose legislation that harms Palestinians (examples provided).  – Pledge to support legislation that supports Palestinian liberation (examples provided).	Removes red lines for candidates with the following edits: – Changes all “shall”s to “may” in the text related to candidate red lines. – Inserts carveouts for local chapters to continue to endorse candidates who do not meet our standards on Palestine.
Inclusion of red lines in endorsement questionnaire: “our local chapter’s candidate questionnaires will include a question that inquires about the candidate’s position on BDS;”	Inclusion of red lines in endorsement questionnaire: “any candidate questionnaires used to determine national and local endorsements must inquire about the candidateʼs position on BDS and should include further scrutiny on the candidate’s commitment to Palestinian liberation;”	N/A – see above
How red lines are enforced: “potential candidates who cannot commit to the aforementioned basic expectations will be disqualified from endorsement by the Cleveland DSA at every level”	How red lines are enforced: “potential candidates who cannot commit to the aforementioned basic expectations shall be deemed, by the National Electoral Commission as well as any relevant approving bodies at the chapter level, as ineligible for endorsement by DSA or a DSA chapter;”	N/A – see above
Education of endorsed candidates: “upon receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation, endorsed candidates who do not commit to the aforementioned basic expectations will have their Cleveland DSA endorsements swiftly revoked;”	Education of endorsed candidates: “upon receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation, endorsed candidates who fail to continue to uphold the aforementioned basic expectations after being endorsed and/or taking office, shall have their DSA endorsements revoked locally and/or nationally as applicable;”	N/A – see above
Coalition Partners & Strategy: – Collaborate on educational materials for endorsed candidates alongside “trusted Palestine Solidarity movement partners in the grassroots (e.g., Palestinian Youth Movement).”	Coalition Partners & Strategy: – Directing the Palestine Subcommittee of the DSA’s International Committee to expand the reach of the Stop Fueling Genocide Campaign.  – Endorsement of, and outreach to support the Palestine Solidarity Working Group’s No Appetite For Apartheid campaign (Note: PSWG is a coalition partner, not a body within DSA).  – Endorsement of the Palestinian Youth Movement’s Mask Off Maersk campaign. – Commitment to build labor support for an arms embargo campaign through the Labor for an Arms Embargo working group within the NLC, taking inspiration from Mask Off Maersk and No Harbor for Genocide. – Commits our organization to convene an Arms Embargo Organizing Committee, preferencing members who have coalition relationships or have participated in efforts such as the Arab Resource & Organizing Center’s Block the Boat project (which is also referenced on the BDS Movement website). – Allocates IC Palestine Subcommittee and NEC support to chapters working on ballot initiatives based on the International Apartheid-Free Community Campaign.	Coalition Partners & Strategy: – Removes all references to our valuable coalition partner, the Palestine Solidarity Working Group. – Removes the endorsement of coalition partner PSWD’s No Appetite For Apartheid campaign and replaces it with endorsement of “the BDS movement’s boycott of Israeli wine and produce.”  – Narrows the language to encourage chapter-level campaigns “such as the Boycott War Profiteers’ campaign against the sale of wine from the Israeli Occupied Golan Heights at PCC Community Markets.” – Softens language around encouraging chapter campaign development with edits such as replacing “identify” with “consider.”-
Expectations for Members: Automatic expulsion of members who: 1. have consistently and publicly opposed BDS and Palestine, even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation, 2. be currently affiliated with the Israeli government or any Zionist lobby group(s), or 3. have provided material aid to Israel.	Expectations for Members: Upon a two-thirds NPC vote,  expulsion of members who: 1. have consistently and publicly opposed BDS and the Palestinian cause (examples given), even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation,  2. be currently affiliated with the Israeli government or any Zionist lobby group(s) (examples given), or  3. have knowingly provided material aid to Israel (examples given).	Expectations for Members: Entirely removes this section.
Member Reinstatement: Members are considered for reinstatement annually if the general body votes to accept their reinstatement on the basis of a written statement provided.	Member Reinstatement: Not specified, but the expulsion is not automatic.	N/A – see above

Read my speech against R22-A01 delivered on the Convention floor!

The For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA resolution expanded our organizational support for Palestine beyond these red line additions. The end of the Standards and Orientation section, a positive vision is laid out for work we engage in as an organization: 

Be it resolved, that DSA shall continue to organize chapters and national bodies to act as meaningful partners within the Palestine solidarity movement, prioritizing campaigns and organizing approaches that:

1. Directly undermine material support for Israel, respond to priorities identified by the Palestinian solidarity movement, and correspond with strategic organizing sectors where DSA is well-positioned to contribute (e.g. logistics and higher education);
2. Build an organized mass base of support for Palestine and engage a range of political and mass organizations, communities, and economic sectors, thus bringing working-class people together through joint struggle and strengthening our local and national coalitions, particularly with Palestinian-led organizations;

Protect our movement and build resilience against state and Zionist repression;

– For a Fighting Anti-Zionist DSA

Following that section is an entire section dedicated to coalition work, referencing coalition partners (included in the middle column in the table above) and identifying where new democratic decision-making bodies must be formed to succeed in the work ahead of us. 

The disinformation being widely circulated during convention, combined with the misleadingly named amendment led to tension and confusion among the delegation. Ultimately the debate concluded in a close passing vote of 675 (56.3%) to 524 (43.7%). We would have liked to see a more comfortable margin like a supermajority (60%) or two-thirds support, but given the situation we understand how voters were misled. 

We are proud that DSA has rejected its founder’s Zionist politics and are hopeful about moving forward to support Palestine with these promising campaigns and coalition partners.

The post DSA is an Anti-Zionist Organization! appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Retail workers often face some of the worst trends in employment, but they're uniquely positioned to put pressure on their bosses to get what they deserve.

The post How to organize a retail union appeared first on EWOC.

Thanks to all who attended the Labor Day rally in Burlington, one of countless major protests across the country on Sept 1. We were proud to stand side-by-side with so many unions and activist organizations demanding an end to America's oligarchy.

Vermont's labor movement is growing more powerful, unified, and assertive. Right now, in St. Albans, workers want their milk money.

They also want shorter workdays and better health and retirement plans. Last week, members of Teamsters Local 597 went on strike against their employer, the Dairy Farmers of America. The processing plant, which supplies Cabot and Ben & Jerry's, brought in scabs.

If you can, please show your solidarity with the workers, as several Green Mountain Democratic Socialists already have, by joining the 24/7 picket line at 140 Federal St., St. Albans City, VT 05478. You can even ask them about donating to their strike fund.

Sept. 1 in Burlington
Sept. 27 in St. Albans

And if you want to help build working-class militancy across the country, join DSA. In Vermont and everywhere else, we are fighting to organize workplaces, win elections, and advance a better world for all.

With that in mind, please consider marking your calendar for our next general meeting (10/11). Details below.

GMDSA MEETINGS AND EVENTS
🚲 Our Urbanism Committee will meet on Monday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🔨 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted by the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Oct. 8, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

🤝 GMDSA's East and West branches will come together for another general meeting on Saturday, Oct. 11 at 11 a.m. at Burlington's Fletcher Free Library (235 College St.), where we'll continue last month's discussion about forming a chapter-wide priority campaign for 2026. Newcomers can show up at 10 a.m. for an optional orientation.

🧑‍🏭 Our Labor Committee will meet on Monday, Oct. 13, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🗳️ The next meeting of our Electoral Committee will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

👋 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

STATE AND LOCAL NEWS
📰 Striking school bus drivers in Windham County returned to work, subsequently ratifying a new union contract.

📰 A Burlington musician has launched a campaign to become Chittenden County sheriff on a promise to refuse to carry out unjust eviction orders.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

By: Rodney Coopwood

The Illusion of Choice

What Americans call political diversity is actually ideological uniformity. Turn on any news channel, scroll through any political debate, and you’ll see the same tired performance: conservatives versus liberals, Republicans versus Democrats, each side convinced they represent fundamentally different worldviews. But here’s what I’ve come to understand as a socialist looking at this spectacle from the outside — they’re all playing variations of the same tune.

Conservatives, liberals, and even libertarians aren’t offering different philosophical frameworks. They’re offering different flavors of the same ice cream: liberalism. The marketing makes them seem distinct, even opposed, but strip away the branding and you find they all believe in the same core values — just different approaches to achieving them.

This confusion runs so deep that when progressives push for reforms like universal healthcare or wealth taxes, they get labeled as “radical leftists” when they’re actually just trying to make the existing liberal-capitalist system function closer to its stated ideals. True leftist positions — like worker ownership of the means of production or democratic economic planning — don’t even register in mainstream political discourse because they fall outside the artificially constrained liberal framework that defines America’s political vocabulary.

Unmasking the Liberal Consensus

At their very core, conservatives, liberals, and libertarians all operate within the classical liberal tradition that emerged from the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. They all accept:

• Individual rights as the foundation of society
• Private property as sacred and natural
• Market relations as the default way of organizing economic life
• Constitutional government with checks and balances
• The basic legitimacy of democratic institutions (though they may disagree on their scope)

The differences people get so heated about are really just different emphases within this shared framework. Conservatives might say they want minimal government interference in the economy while liberals want more regulation, but both accept that the economy should be organized around private ownership and market exchange. Libertarians take classical liberalism to its logical extreme, but they’re still working within the same philosophical boundaries.

When I say this is about marketing, I don’t mean the policy differences are trivial — they have real impacts on people’s lives. What I mean is that the ideological packaging makes these tactical disagreements appear to be fundamental philosophical divisions when they’re really just different management styles for the same basic system.

Libertarianism perfectly illustrates this point. Libertarians present themselves as radically different from both conservatives and liberals, advocating for minimal government and maximum individual freedom. But libertarianism is actually what you get when you push liberal principles of individual rights and limited government as far as they can go while still maintaining private property and market relations. The libertarian’s “radical” position of eliminating most government functions isn’t a departure from liberalism; it’s liberalism without the moderating influences that other liberals accept as necessary to manage capitalism’s contradictions. This is why libertarianism sits even further right than conservatism — conservatives at least accept some government intervention as necessary, while libertarians want to strip it down to almost nothing.

Here’s where American political discourse gets it fundamentally wrong: liberalism isn’t the “left” — it’s the center of the political spectrum. In mainstream American conversation, “liberal” gets treated as synonymous with “left-wing,” but this is a profound misunderstanding that distorts our entire political vocabulary.

The real political spectrum runs like this: To the left of the liberal center, you have progressivism (what Americans often mistakenly call “liberalism”), then socialism, then communism, then anarchism. To the right of the liberal center, you have conservatism, then libertarianism, then far-right extremism.

But American discourse compresses this entire range into a false binary where “liberal” means left and “conservative” means right, completely erasing actual left-wing positions from the conversation. When Americans say someone is “liberal,” they’re usually describing what should properly be called progressive — someone who wants to reform the liberal system to make it work better, not someone who wants to replace it entirely.

This linguistic confusion isn’t accidental. It serves to make the liberal framework appear to encompass the full range of legitimate political thought, when in reality it represents just the center position with some variations to either side.

The Structural Contradiction

Here’s where it gets interesting from a theoretical standpoint. Capitalism developed as a purely economic system focused on market relations and private ownership. But any economic system needs a political and social framework to sustain it, and liberalism provided that framework for capitalism.

The problem is that these two systems have contradictory logics. Liberalism promises political equality — the idea that all individuals have equal rights and equal say in democratic governance. But capitalism requires economic inequality to function. Someone has to own the means of production, someone else has to sell their labor. Capital needs to accumulate, which means wealth concentrates. The system literally cannot work without creating and maintaining class divisions.

This isn’t some unintended side effect –- it’s structural. Political theorist and historian Roy Casagrande describes how liberalism essentially became capitalism’s philosophical framework, providing the ideological justification for a system that contradicts liberalism’s own stated values.

Even early Enlightenment thinkers who developed liberal theory recognized this tension. They understood that capitalism’s tendency toward inequality could undermine political equality, but they believed this could be managed through institutions and reforms rather than by questioning the economic system itself.

The Evidence: When Theory Meets Reality

This contradiction isn’t just theoretical — it plays out in concrete ways that affect real people’s lives.

Black Americans provide the clearest example of how formal political equality coexists with systematic economic exclusion. Despite decades of civil rights legislation, anti-discrimination laws, and diversity initiatives –- all liberal solutions — the racial wealth gap has barely budged. Median Black family wealth remains about one-tenth that of white families. This isn’t because liberal reforms haven’t been implemented, but because they address symptoms while leaving untouched the underlying system that created and maintains these disparities.

The caste system that affects Black Americans operates alongside the class system. When economic downturns happen, Black Americans face distinct and often disproportionate impacts not just because of class position but because of how race and class interact under racial capitalism. Liberal frameworks struggle to address this because they’re designed to treat race and class as separate issues rather than understanding how they’re systematically intertwined.

Native Americans face even starker contradictions. They’re simultaneously sovereign nations and colonial subjects, with formal treaty rights that exist alongside ongoing land theft and resource extraction. The reservation system creates a form of internal colonialism that liberal political theory can’t even properly name, let alone address. How do you reconcile individual property rights –- a cornerstone of liberalism — with collective indigenous sovereignty and traditional land use practices? You can’t, which is why liberal solutions consistently fail to address the root issues.

Latino Americans demonstrate how immigration status creates tiered citizenship that serves capital’s need for exploitable labor. Some have formal rights while others are deliberately kept in precarious legal positions that make them more vulnerable to exploitation. This isn’t a policy oversight — it’s exactly what the economic system requires to maintain cheap labor pools.

Even European social democratic models, often held up as examples of successful liberal reform, reveal these same fundamental contradictions. Sweden’s domestic equality coexists with arms exports to authoritarian regimes. Germany’s strong worker protections rely on exploiting Southern European labor through EU economic structures. The welfare state ameliorates capitalism’s worst effects domestically while often intensifying exploitation elsewhere.

The Progressive Trap

Here’s what’s particularly revealing: every time progressives push for reforms to address inequality, they’re essentially admitting that capitalism doesn’t naturally produce the outcomes liberalism promises.

Universal healthcare? That’s because market-based healthcare creates inequality. Strong labor protections? Because unregulated capitalism exploits workers. Wealth taxes? Because capitalism concentrates wealth. Affirmative action? Because “merit-based” systems reproduce existing inequalities.

Each progressive reform is an acknowledgment that the economic system undermines the political ideals. The more adjustments liberals have to make to capitalism to achieve their stated goals of equality and freedom, the more they’re proving that socialism’s analysis was correct — that you can’t have genuine political equality while maintaining private ownership of the means of production.

This is why liberal reforms, no matter how well-intentioned, keep failing to address root causes. They’re trying to solve systemic problems with tools provided by the same system that created those problems. It’s like trying to fix a broken foundation by rearranging the furniture.

Beyond the Liberal Horizon

Understanding this helps explain why American political discourse feels so constrained and circular. When both major parties operate within the same fundamental framework, when the boundaries of “realistic” policy are drawn by that framework’s limitations, genuine alternatives become literally unthinkable within mainstream political conversation.

Socialism offers something different because it addresses both the economic system and its supporting political structures. Instead of trying to manage capitalism’s contradictions, it proposes replacing the system that creates those contradictions in the first place. Worker ownership of the means of production. Democratic planning of economic priorities. An economic system designed to serve human needs rather than accumulate capital.

This isn’t utopian thinking — it’s practical recognition that the problems liberalism struggles to solve are inherent to the economic system liberalism was designed to support.

Breaking the Frame

The first step toward real political alternatives is recognizing how narrow the current frame actually is. What gets presented as the full spectrum of political possibility is really just different management strategies for the same basic arrangement of economic and political power.

Once you see this, a lot of things start making sense. Why Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on so much when it comes to fundamental economic structures. Why reforms that sound transformative end up changing so little. Why the same problems keep recurring regardless of which party is in power.

We live in a liberal Enlightenment society with capitalism as its economic model. Until we’re willing to question that framework itself, we’ll keep having the same debates, implementing the same types of solutions, and wondering why the same problems persist.

The real political spectrum is much broader than American discourse suggests. It’s time we started acting like it.

This article represents the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of The Detroit Socialist or Metro Detroit DSA as a whole.

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Beyond the Liberal Mirage: Why American Politics Is a Closed Loop was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If those deploring "political violence" are serious about stopping it, let's start with abolishing ICE.

Central Indiana DSA’s Fully Funded, Fully Public Committee unequivocally stands with educators in the face of state repression of their free speech.  In recent public posts to his Facebook page, […]

San Mateo County Opts In to Regional Funding Measure

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

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

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

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

The importance of maximum funding

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

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

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

Final Showdown with SamTrans

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

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

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

Coordinated Public Transit Is the Way Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s next

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

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

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