Mayor-President Sid Edwards and the Metro-Council are currently debating how to proportion the parish's budget. You know that the Baton Rouge police have a history of abuse and violence, and you know that the best way to prevent crime is to fund communities through social programs, homelessness support, good jobs, parks, transportation, schools and other people-centered approaches. The police can only respond to crime, but we can have a safer city by tackling the root causes. Hiring more police officers or paying them more will not address these problems, and they could make them worse.

In this bonus episode, we keep the mics rolling with Kelly Latimore as we discuss icons, Bonhoeffer, and subversive religious practices.

Enjoy your October National Political Committee (NPC) newsletter! Our NPC is an elected 27-person body (including both YDSA Co-Chairs) which functions as the board of directors of DSA. This month, join our Fall Drive, hear about organizing across the country, and more!

And to make sure you get our newsletters in your inbox, sign up here! Each one features action alerts, upcoming events, political education, and more.

• From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom
• Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash. Help Elect Socialist Candidates!
• Saturday 10/25 Fall Drive Phonebank Kick Off — Special Guest Bhaskar Sunkara
• RSVP for International Migrant Rights Working Group ICE Watch Training Tuesday 10/28
• AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Collective Meetings Tuesday 10/21 and Thursday 11/13
• Convention results
• Apply to Join the Democracy Commission (DemCom) 2025–2027! Deadline Extended to Friday 10/31

From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom

Hot Socialist Summer has come to a close for 2025, but as the temperature drops this fall, organizing across DSA is heating up! 

DSA is at a pivotal moment, where the genocide in Palestine and the failures of the Democratic Party to mount meaningful opposition to the Trump administration, the oligarchy, and the rise of the far-right is motivating tens of thousands of people to build a mass, socialist organization in the United States. According to a Gallup poll, support for socialism is at an all-time high among Democratic voters. DSA’s presence at mass actions like the No Kings protests last weekend show how many people are ready for a fighting alternative to the catastrophic status quo. 

All across the country, people are being inspired to believe that building a powerful socialist party is possible — and that they can be a part of it. Just this past month, DSA has surpassed 80,000 members in good standing, our highest membership peak to date! DSA now has better organization, more political development, more vibrant internal democracy, and more radical ambitions coming to fruition than ever. We have more DSA members contesting elected office while operating together as socialist blocs, from Missoula, Montana, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Portland, Oregon. We are more embedded in the labor movement, we are more functionally part of social movements, we are more deeply internationalist — and thus are even better positioned to motivate and sustain a new membership surge.

We are just weeks away from Zohran Mamdani’s election for mayor of New York City — a democratic socialist mayor in the highest executive office in the heart of global capital! — and chapters across the country are throwing down for their locally and nationally-endorsed campaigns as Election Day nears (and you can, too, even if you’re not in a city with a candidate – jump on a Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash phonebank and help push these candidates across the finish line)!

State power is just one piece of DSA’s strategy — we’re also… 

• Building out our support network for Starbucks Workers United and helping chapters across the country to connect with their local SBWU organizing units as the holiday rush draws near
• Showing up in solidarity with the Cuban people, with a delegation we just sent to Havana of 40 DSA elected leaders and rank-and-file members from chapters big and small across the country to deliver hundreds of pounds of solidarity aid, learn about the achievements and challenges of Cuban socialism.
• Ramping up the pressure on Avelo Airlines as they continue to profit off mass deportations via ICE contracts, both with a consumer boycott and with pressure campaigns to kick them out of airports
• Continuing to build out resources and new fronts in our boycott against Chevron, a primary BDS target, as we continue to stand firm for Palestinian liberation
• And so much more!

As we continue the fight for working class freedom everywhere — from down the block to the other side of the globe — we know that as DSA, we must be bigger and stronger by many orders of magnitude. DSA is and will always be a dues-funded organization, where organizing new members increases our people power, allowing us to deepen and expand our base as we fight to oppose US military aggression and free Palestine, prepare for major political interventions toward midterms, organize toward May Day 2028, and so much more. DSA now has more members in good standing than ever before — and we’re turning the heat up higher with our just-launched Fall Recruitment Drive, with a stretch goal of reaching 100,000 DSA members by the end of this year! 

We’re rooted in struggle, blooming in solidarity — and together we’ll keep growing democratic socialism throughout this fall. Read on for more about how you can plug into the Fall Drive — and sign up for phonebanks with special guests, to help us reconnect with lapsed members to rejoin DSA in this crucial political moment!  Watch this space for more information about how you can get involved at the chapter level, or by taking on your own recruitment campaigns among your coworkers, neighbors, and friends.

For even more ways to get plugged into DSA, scroll down! We will see you in the fight!

Yours, 

Megan Romer and Ashik Siddique
DSA National Co-Chairs

Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash. Help Elect Socialist Candidates!

It’s 3 weeks till election day and we’re 6.5k short of our goal! It’s been a hugely successful year for the DSA’s National Electoral Commission and our fundraising campaign, and we’re hoping to have a new crop of socialists in office to show for it.

But taking out the capitalist trash won’t be possible without YOUR help. Corporate money is flooding into our races across the country in this crucial final stretch. We’ve set a goal of raising $100,000 before election day to ensure our slate has the support it needs to win and we’re just a little over $5,000 short! Can you donate to our slate to support a socialist running for office?

Saturday 10/25 Fall Drive Phonebank Kick Off — Special Guest Bhaskar Sunkara

Be part of the Growth and Development Committee’s nation-wide membership drive! Our strength is rooted in solidarity and in our communities. Let’s work to build deep roots in our local communities, reach out to lapsed members to renew, and bring thousands more into the struggle together! Join us for Fall Drive phonebanks to talk with lapsed DSA members about renewing their dues. We’ll kick off Saturday 10/25 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT with special guest Bhaskar Sunkara!

And you can join calls throughout November:

• Saturday 11/1 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT
• Wednesday 11/5 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT with special guest Meagan Day
• Wednesday 11/12 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Saturday 11/15 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT
• Wednesday 11/19 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT with special guest Adam Hochschild
• Saturday 11/22 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT

RSVP for International Migrant Rights Working Group ICE Watch Training Tuesday 10/28

ICE agents have been escalating their presence in our communities, and that means that we need to get together with our neighbors and come up with plans to make sure we are protecting ourselves and our communities from their harassment.

People all over the country are trying different things. Many communities are coming up with ways to observe ICE and to inform neighbors of their rights, all things that every person has a right to do under the Constitution.

Join DSA’s International Migrant Rights Working Group and NDLON on Tuesday 10/28 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT to hear from NDLON organizers about the Adopt a Corner program, and from DSA organizers who are actively running ICEWatch and Adopt a Corner programs in their local chapters.

AfroSocialist and Socialists of Color Collective Meetings Tuesday 10/21, Thursday 11/13

Hello comrades and cousins! Interested in joining a collective for AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color? 

Join AfroSoC for for upcoming General Body Meeting (GBM) to be in community with socialists of similar identity, culture and politics. The next GBM will be Thursday 11/13 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT.

If you are new to AfroSoC, we encourage you to attend our upcoming New Member Orientation tonight, Tuesday 10/21 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT. Questions? Reach out to AfroSoc@dsacommittees.org.

Convention results

The 2025 Convention Results Compendium and Minutes are officially approved by the 2025-2027 National Political Committee (NPC)! You can view these results and minutes here.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as our new NPC got onboarded and settled into their roles. As a reminder, there are Overflow Agenda items from the Convention that the NPC is still working through. These can be viewed in the final compendium. We hope to take up a majority of these items during our October 19th virtual meeting as well as our November 8th and 9th NPC in-person meeting in Denver, Colorado. 

We hope that all comrades who got sick following Convention are doing well. If you think you may have contracted COVID and have not already let us know, please email dsacon@dsausa.org with the subject line “Convention COVID Reporting” so we can continue to track and plan for future events. Please do not reply back to this email for this purpose.

Apply to Join the Democracy Commission (DemCom) 2025–2027! Deadline Extended to Friday 10/31

Apply to Join the Democracy Commission (DemCom) 2025–2027! The deadline to apply is Friday 10/31. Authorized in 2023, the Democracy Commission (DemCom) developed reforms to strengthen democracy across DSA. Its proposals were overwhelmingly adopted at the 2025 Convention, and the body has now been reauthorized to support chapters and the NPC in implementing them.

DemCom will assist with chapter rechartering and bylaws review (2025–2027), visit chapter meetings to support implementation, report regularly to members and the NPC, develop best practices in tandem with chapters, and promote democratic governance. 

There are open seats on the Commission. Please fill out the form here to apply. The application deadline is Friday 10/31. Commissioners are expected to attend regular meetings (8PM ET, Monday evenings, plus some weekends), work with chapters to implement reforms, and report on progress and challenges.

The post From the National Political Committee — Fighting For Working Class Freedom appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

DSA is proud to endorse Frankie Santos Fritz for Greenbelt Mayor & City Council!

Frankie is a longtime local organizer and branch leader with Metro DC DSA. He is a proud member of a union family and plans to introduce a collective bargaining ordinance to cover the city workforce. Frankie is also a member of the Greenbelt Home Inc housing co-op and is championing laws to empower tenants who wish to convert their communities to cooperative or social housing.

Frankie plans to expand rent stabilization protections to cap annual rent increases with the rate of inflation. He is dedicated to supporting federal workers who are under attack from DOGE and the federal administration. His top transportation priority for the next term would be getting the long-promised Capital Bikeshare station built at the Greenbelt Metro Station and getting it stocked with numerous E-Bikes.

Check out the rest of Frankie’s campaign priorities!

This is a special meeting of the GRDSA Chapter to consider a proposal to endorse and support several ballot initiatives.

We will have reps from each campaign to give a brief presentation and answer any questions. Then chapter members will present a proposal to endorse and circulate these petitions as a chapter.

Michigan for the Many (M4M) is an alliance between the MOP Up Michigan (Money Out of Politics) and the Invest in MI Kids (wealth tax to fund education).

Rank MI Vote (RMV) would amend the Michigan Constitution so that we would use Rank Choice Voting (instant runoff) for elections.

Join us Sunday, October 19, 4pm, on Zoom to hear how these initiatives can empower the working class of Michigan.

The post Special Chapter Meeting: Campaign Proposal Town Hall appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

The following article is the result of a visit to the People’s Republic of China to participate in celebrating China’s 80th Anniversary of its victory over Japanese fascism. Dee Knight and DSA China Working Group coordinator Anlin Wang were part of a five-person self-organized delegation of DSA members.

Beijing buzzed with excitement on September 3, as leaders of friendly countries poured into the city from around the world. They came to celebrate China’s 80^th anniversary of defeating Japanese fascism in World War II and to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Summit meeting. It was an impressive display of “unity in multi-polarity” featuring Russian President Putin and Indian Prime Minister Modi, as well as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, among about two dozen others.

With participation of most southeast Asian members of ASEAN, as well as the “stans” of central Asia, China was literally surrounded by the representatives of countries representing well over four billion people and nearly half the world economy. Another prominent participant was President Pezeshkian of Iran, which maintains close economic and military partnerships with both Russia and China.

The New York Times called Beijing’s Victory Day parade on September 3 “a defiant warning to its rivals.” The awesome display of China’s military might at the V-Day parade lent “a menacing tone” for Western leaders and media. CNBC said Xi Jinping made “a thinly-veiled swipe at Trump’s global tariff campaign” when he said “shadows of Cold War mentality and bullying have not dissipated, with new challenges mounting.”

CNN offered a more measured tone, quoting Xi: “I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system… We should continue to dismantle walls, not erect them; seek integration, not decoupling.” CNN added that “Xi’s vision pushes back against the foundations of a US-led world order, opposing alliances like NATO.”

Russian President Putin commented to Russian media after the summit that “The SCO is not designed to confront anyone. We do not set ourselves such a task. And… during the discussions and bilateral meetings, there has never been anything that could be described as a confrontational beginning during these four days.”

In kicking off the SCO Summit, Xi said “We should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world, and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and make the global governance system more just and equitable.”

How defiant is that? (Strange that advocating “universally beneficial and inclusive economic organization” can actually be considered a death threat for the US-led “rules-based” system.)

The massive military display at Beijing’s V-Day celebration left little doubt that China would never allow itself to be bullied again. More than 35 million Chinese were killed in Imperial Japan’s invasion and occupation of their country from the early 1930s to the end of World War II in August 1945. That’s even greater than the USSR’s loss of 27 million from the German Nazi onslaught. Together those numbers prompted Trump to say “Many Americans died in China’s quest for victory and glory. I hope they are rightfully honored…” 

Through the summit, we can see the past and future in contention for a world that’s striving to break away from overwhelming U.S. domination and unipolar rule. 

The “American Century”

The US lost about 420,000 soldiers in World War 2, according to the National WW2 Museum. But it assumed the role of overall victor, launching “the American Century” along with a global war against communism. It has maintained occupation troops in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Guam and other Pacific islands – all of which are deployed today against China, just as NATO (and its “defensive alliance” against the Soviet Union) continues to threaten Russia. Which side is threatening and destabilizing? It depends largely on your point of view.

During the Korean War, from 1950 to 53, the US slaughtered millions of Koreans, and flattened all buildings of more than one story, in a massive bombing campaign. Its threats to extend the war into China were repelled by the mobilization of half a million Chinese to fight alongside the North Koreans. The US war against Vietnam began shortly after the French colonizers were routed in 1954 and lasted until the US too was finally defeated in 1975, at a cost of additional millions of Vietnamese victims and tens of thousands of US troops. Some estimates put the total number of Vietnamese dying from the U.S. war there at over 3 million, a staggering amount of human loss. Both wars were also aimed at China, and China provided troops and weapons to support their allies in both, staving off further ruin and destabilization within their own territory.

The war zones of today, in Eastern Europe, West Asia and the Far East, are continuations of eighty years of US unipolar domination, both militarily and economically. But the way the US is protecting its interests in all three areas has exposed a blunt reality: the constant official refrain that “America is protecting democracy and human rights” is nothing but war propaganda and mythology. For most of the world’s population, America’s leadership has only meant invasion, coups and more death. 

The US: Sponsor and Protector of Fascists

While China and the USSR achieved major defeats against fascism, the US sheltered and rehabilitated Imperial Japan’s fascist rulers, helping them form and maintain the country’s far-right Liberal Democratic Party which has ruled virtually non-stop for 80 years. (The US CIA did the same for the fascists of Ukraine, and have since sponsored them against Russia.) Japan’s rulers have been obstinate in acknowledging their role in the horrors their empire had perpetrated across Asia, refusing  to apologize for slaughtering millions in their invasion and occupation of China. Ditto for Japan’s 35-year colonial hold on Korea, from 1910 to 1945. In both countries the Japanese imperialists were notorious for setting up systems of “comfort women” – sex slaves for Japan’s occupation forces (not very different from the hospitality enjoyed by US occupation forces across Asia today, but a significant contrast to the status of women in China today).

In South Korea, a country formed by Korean collaborators with the Japanese empire,  the U.S. has sponsored a series of military dictatorships in South Korea, until democracy finally broke through in the 1990s. Such dictatorships were aimed at threatening China, most notably in the so-called Korean War, that resulted in an armistice in 1953 but never officially ended, which has kept Korea split in two and maintained a kleptocratic U.S. client state in power in the south for generations to come. In fact, through the armistice deal, the US working with its anticommunist counterparts in South Korea, awarded itself a forever military presence there, guaranteeing “operational control” of the massive Korean military in case of war against the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea (DPRK), China, or both. Such belligerence underscores the significance of DPRK leader Kim standing next to Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi at the V-Day event. It would seem that America’s network of alliances is now being faced with a counter-alliance of groups and nations no longer willing to accept its rule. 

Even the internal politics of South Korea has been scrambled over the last few months. Its new president, Lee Jae Myung, came to power last June, following six months of intense popular struggle to oust the US puppet President Yoon, who was impeached and jailed after declaring martial law, and trying to provoke a war with US backing. When President Lee visited Trump in August, he resisted US pressure for him to join US escalation against China, which is South Korea’s number one trading partner.

The friendly leaders from around the world who joined both the SCO summit and the Beijing V-Day celebration showed that US efforts to surround and threaten China are failing. Most of the southeast Asian countries that make up ASEAN, notably Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia, attended after recent visits to their countries by Chinese President Xi. The significant exception was the Philippines, where the US maintains a military alliance aimed at China. But like in South Korea, the popular movement against US domination is strong, with serious efforts to force the US bases out, and to help US soldiers refuse to engage in a hopeless war that can only lead to needless suffering and death.

The American century, part two, is in a phase of serious reckoning, as China does what the U.S. has never done, which is build alliances rather than simply imposing its will on other nations. 

Remembering When the US Helped China Against Fascism

The week before China’s national V-Day celebrations, there was a special event in the southwestern province of Guizhou, honoring doctors and nurses from the US and European countries who formed an International Medical Rescue Corps. As this Xinhua article reports, “Dozens of foreign medical workers worked alongside thousands of their Chinese counterparts from the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps to save lives and provide medical training under harsh conditions. Today, these foreign medical workers are collectively remembered as the International Medical Relief Corps (IMRC).”

On August 26, a delegation of the descendants of these volunteers attended a commemoration in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province, “to pay tribute to their forebears and mark the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War,” the Xinhua report said.

“As descendants of the International Medical Relief Corps, we are incredibly grateful to you for keeping our ancestors’ memory alive,” said Peter Soyogyi, whose father served in the IMRC. “For them, as international anti-fascists, this was not just China’s war; it was their own. It is essential for future generations to understand the fight against fascism and the struggle for freedom,” he added.

Following the commemoration ceremony, the descendants’ delegation and a group of solidarity activists from the US traveled along the famous “24-Zig Road” – also known as the Stilwell Road – which served as a supply line from Burma (now Myanmar) and India for medical supplies to the US-supported Chinese resistance to Imperial Japanese aggression. The road was a joint project of US and Chinese forces, and a symbol of their united efforts against Japanese fascist forces at the time.

US commanding General Joseph Stilwell had many conflicts with Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-Shek, who called for his ouster. Stilwell argued for unified efforts of the KMT and Red Army forces, which led to his replacement.

The descendants’ delegation, and the solidarity group from the US, got a close-up view of the challenges faced by US troops, as well as US and European medical workers, in helping the Chinese resistance to fascism during World War II.

Official US support during World War II for Chinese resistance to fascism was a major factor in defeating global fascism. But the switch to supporting fascism after the war, including up to the present day, poses a challenge to the world’s progressive forces. The existence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization constitutes a giant bulwark in that fight. But the struggle continues, as challenging as ever, as can be seen in the US-backed genocidal assault on Palestine. Just as the world’s progressive forces united to stop fascism in the 1940s, history calls on us to unite even more strongly today. Victory against fascism today may spell the end of imperialism and capitalism, and usher in the common prosperity and shared future the world needs now. China, clearly, in its honoring of U.S. medical teams from the past, and in its willingness to bridge divides between itself and other countries, some who have been less than sympathetic to China such as India, should be taken seriously by those of us studying world events and the trajectory of history. So far, a new world order appears to be possibly forming right before our eyes, a world order promising far more diplomacy than explicit warmaking, a world order led by China and countries emboldened to try a different route than what had been the norm under U.S. unipolarity for generations. The recent summit exemplifies this new possible path that China and other countries are now willing to risk against the terrorism of the West. 

Photo: General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea Kim Jong Un, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and President of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto at China’s Victory Day military parade in Beijing. Courtesy of the government of Indonesia.

When did prisons become the primary method of justice? What future should abolitionists be working towards? In her short but powerful book, Angela Davis carefully maps out the origins of the prison system, explains the haphazard merging of interests that created the Prison Industrial Complex, and uncovers the inner workings of its racist and misogynistic structures that continue to evade reformation.

Join us for a collective conversation using this landmark book! This will be an open discussion. So bring your unanswered questions, your concerns, and your personal stories. Feel free to join even if you didn’t get the chance to read.

The post Greenville Book-Talk: “Are Prisons Obsolete?” by Angela Davis appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.

Baton Rouge DSA joined its youth wing, the Young Democratic Socialists of America at LSU, to stand in solidarity with Students for a Democratic Society's No MAGA President campaign.

The Colorado Springs DSA strongly believes in the power of public education to empower and to liberate. We believe that the best people to decide how and what to teach are professional educators. We have been deeply troubled at the consistent interference from the extremist school board in District 11 of Colorado Springs as they deprive teachers of the very agency that allows them to excel. Their decisions are becoming ever more concerning. No novels in high school English classes. Pages physically cut out of health textbooks. And just last week we understand they cut from the curriculum the incredible abolitionist, writer, and orator Frederick Douglass.

Instead of cutting Douglass from the curriculum, we choose to live by his words, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.” We choose to unite with Charles Johnson, a union-endorsed candidate for the school board in D11. We know that he is trying to do right, even as the allies of the extremists now vying for seats on the board play into the shameful, racist tradition of painting Black men as criminals by sending out a mass text showing the mugshot from Charles’s 2020 arrest. True to what we know of him, he was guilty only of, as John Lewis loved to say, making good trouble.

In 2019, a good friend of Charles, De’Von Bailey, was shot in the back and killed by the Colorado Springs Police Department. Charles organized for greater accountability for the department. At COS DSA, we know that Black history is fundamental to American history. Maybe if these extremists spent more time studying it instead of erasing it, they would know how predictable it was that Charles was then singled out for arrest by CSPD. But they don’t know, and we suspect they just don’t care.

We stand in solidarity with Charles Johnson. Charles has been a friend to many of us who are organizers and activists in Colorado Springs, and we know him to be kind and insightful. A product of D11 himself, his commitment to teachers and students in the district is an inspiration. As the Colorado Springs Education Association prepares to strike on October 8th, we call on everyone able to show teachers their support by joining them on the picket line and by standing with Charles and the rest of the union-endorsed school board candidates come the November election. Their only goal is one we all surely share; outstanding public education in this city we love.