Wednesday, September 9 at 6 pm

Events & Actions

Tuesday September 8 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Ecosocialism Working Group Bi-weekly Meeting (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

Wednesday September 9 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM) DSA SF General Meeting (in person at Kelly Cullen Community 220 Golden Gate Ave and on zoom)

Sunday September 13 (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM) What Is DSA?(in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday September 13 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group (on zoom)

Sunday September 13 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) Working Class Gender Liberation (Provisional) Working Group (in person at 1916 McAllister St, front room)

Monday September 14 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle (in-person at Kelly Cullen Community 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday September 14 (6:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Homelessness Working Group (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

Monday September 14 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Labor Education Committee Meeting (zoom)

Tuesday September 15 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Social Housing Working Group (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

Wednesday September 16 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

Thursday September 17 (5:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Phonebank for Prop I (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday September 17 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) Education Board Open Meeting (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

Thursday September 17 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Organizing Mindset Training Series (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday September 18 (5:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Movie night: The Battle of Chile Part One (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday September 19 (11:00 AM – 2:00 PM) Prop B x Prop I Lit Drop (in person at Rochambeau Playground Park, 238 25th Ave)

Saturday September 19 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) HWG Food Service [New Location!] (in person at Patricia’s Green Picnic Area, 499 1/2 Hayes St)

Sunday September 20 (3:00 PM – 5:00 PM) Canvass Workers with SF EWOC! (in person at William McKinley Monument, the Panhandle)

Monday September 21 (5:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Yes On I – Social Housing Working Group Lit Drop (in person, location TBD)

Monday September 21 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) SF EWOC Local Meeting (in person at 1916 McAllister St and on zoom)

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Yes on B Lit Drops!

Prop B has TWO lit drops this weekend, including a joint event with Prop I. We’ll be in:

• Cole Valley (Grattan Playground) on Saturday the 12th at 11AM
• The Castro (Eureka Valley Rec Center) on Sunday the 13th at 11AM.

We need your help to get the word out about what a public bank can do for SF before ballots drop! RSVP here

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Organizing Mindset Training: Basebuilding 101, How to Have an Effective Organizing Conversation

Every Thursday at 7PM from Sep 17 through Oct 8
DSA SF Office – 1916 McAllister St

Talking to people is central to effective organizing, but how do you embark on an organizing conversation? Organizing Mindset Training is a four-part event series that goes in depth into every aspect of the organizing conversation so that it’s a sharpened and ready-to-use tool for any campaign. After this training, participants will:

• Learn about the differences between organizing, advocacy, and direct services/mutual aid
• Understand of the role of an Organizing Committee and carrying out an organizing strategy
• Overview the Organizing Conversation and get in-depth practice for each step
• Develop the ability to have multiple successive organizing conversations with a person, with the goal of getting them more involved in your organizing

Attendance of all four sessions isn’t required, but it is encouraged! RSVP HERE

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Organizing Mindset Training: Basebuilding 101, How to Have an Effective Organizing Conversation

DSA SF movie nights are back with The Battle of Chile! We will bring to life the heroic struggles of the working people of Chile and Salvador Allende’s presidency in the lead up to the US-backed fascist coup of Sept 11, 1973. These films will give us a glimpse into a powerful class-wide grassroots movement which won the country’s highest elected office and controlled vast sectors of industry and community networks on the ground.

Join us on Fridays Sept 18, Sept 25, and Oct 2 in the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St. Snacks and soft drinks will be provided. Bring a friend! RSVP Here

I love the Hearts of Pine. Been to my share of games. Have spent hundreds of bucks on gear. I’m on a first name basis with one of the owners. And I appreciated the statement they made last month calling for accountability after ICE murdered Johan Sebastian Guerrero Duran.

All that said, the city of Portland should not carve out an exception to our working waterfront zone in order to allow them to build a $50 million dollar soccer stadium on land protected for marine-based industries.

Why? Well, soccer stadiums can operate anywhere. Cargo ships, barges, trawlers, and tugboats cannot. Nor can the longshoremen and women, stevedores, harbor pilots, and deckhands who service them. They need deep water ports, which is what the western waterfront provides.

As background, a couple weeks ago, the Hearts of Pine announced they had put Cassidy Point, the westernmost corner of our waterfront, under contract to build an 11,000 seat soccer stadium. That sale is contingent on the city approving a carveout to our longstanding protections for marine-based freight and industrial uses, which need access to the deep water of the harbor.

The zone was first put in place in the late 1980’s after a developer transformed Central Wharf into a string of 150+ high-end condos (now called Chandler’s Wharf). The backlash to that development led to a citizen referendum in which Portlanders voted 2-1 to freeze all non-marine development on the water side of Commercial street.

That zoning has been modified carefully over the years, and only after extensive input from those working the piers. Those modifications have allowed for a certain percentage of non-marine uses, mostly on the upper floors of old or new structures, in order to provide some economic diversity. 

Overall, the amount of space in Portland that marine business can use is decreasing. But for the western half of the waterfront, where the Hearts of Pine want to build their stadium, there’s been some real growth in marine industries. 

Eimskip, a shipping company, moved into the International Marine Terminal at the beginning of the western waterfront in 2013. Around the same time, Portland Yacht Services turned 23 acres of what was fallow land into a thriving boat restoration and storage business. And between those two sites, a massive cold storage facility was built. 

This has meant hundreds of new good-paying jobs, doing exactly the work that can only be done on the waterfront. A real success story of how protecting land for its best community use, not simply its most profitable return for an investor, can help everyone.

But Cassidy Point was recently purchased by a multi-billion dollar out-of-state hedge fund. Those investors have reportedly been trying to make a quick buck by flipping it. Apparently, both the Maine Port Authority and Eimskip had been interested in buying it before the hedge fund, because they had wanted to expand commercial shipping to that area.

But my guess is the hedge fund managers know that if they could find a buyer who would seek to rezone the property out of its protected status, they could exponentially maximize their profit (some estimates say eliminating its protected status inflates the value ten times). That’s where the Hearts of Pine came in. 

When I was mayor, Portland developed a comprehensive plan where groups from all across the city came together to discuss what we wanted to see for Portland by 2030. Fully 91% of Portland residents surveyed at the time supported “continued protections for Portland’s working waterfront.” That is why two of the plan’s major goals for the waterfront are the “ … mitigation of market trends that could compromise the balance between marine industries and competing development,” and “recognize and reinforce waterborne transport of goods and people as foundational to our community.”

Even in our most recent overhaul of our building code, the waterfront protection zone, in its entirety, was kept intact.

So, what to do? Clearly we love our soccer team. And if the owners want to spend their own money building a new stadium, they certainly have that right. But, as I said above, soccer stadiums can go anywhere. They could put it out on Riverside Street (hey, if it is good enough for our homeless shelter, it should be good enough for soccer). Or maybe next to 295, just up from Cassidy Point, where there are huge swaths of land near going unused. The Hearts of Pine owners said they actually looked at 12 viable sites.

But wherever it goes, it should not go on the waterfront. Supporting the home team matters, but in this case, the home team I side with are the women and men who need the waterfront to make a living.

***

This story was originally published by The Beacon, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from the Beacon, sign up for the free Beacon newsletter here.

The post Portland’s working waterfront is no place for professional soccer appeared first on Pine & Roses.

Are you interested in becoming the best organizer you can be? Do you want to expand socialism here in Milwaukee, but are unsure of where and how to start? Have you been involved but feel like the project did not go anywhere? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the Milwaukee Socialist Organizer Class is for you! 

This eight week program will focus on holistically teaching you to be an unstoppable organizer who builds socialism, changes hearts and minds, and impacts our city.  You will learn direct action organizing, as defined by Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists, in which we organize actions, campaigns, and tactics to “1) win real, immediate, concrete improvement in people’s lives . . . 2) Give people a sense of their own power . . . 3) Alter the relations of power.” 

Interested individuals will register (Click here, which is due by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, October 4th, 2026), be contacted, and begin attending classes.  DSA membership is not required to participate, but is encouraged. 

This education program will be a combination of in-person events with virtual events if necessary. Each unit will be roughly a week, with a week break in the middle of the program. Each unit will consist of classroom-style instruction in the unit topic (no more than 2 hours, which will be in-person on Monday nights from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.), field work in organizing (which will be at least 3 hours and consist of having conversations, moving people to action, and building infrastructure for a strong socialist movement involving several types of campaigns), and time for personal reflection. Each participant must commit to the entire program and, unless excused, attend every unit instruction, and field work session.  Missing more than three classes and field work sessions may result in removal from the program.  

This is the tenth time this program has been offered, and it is back by popular demand! The instructors have updated and revised the course to make you even more prepared to lead in socialism.  

Due to the nature of this program, we are only offering class in-person.

Time commitment per week: 

Time commitment per week:
Unit instruction: + 2 hours
Organizing work: + 3 hours
Miscellaneous tasks: + 1 hour
Total time per week = 6 hour

Weekly Schedule 

Class will be conducted on Monday evenings from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. and held at Central United Methodist Church (639 N 25th St, Milwaukee, WI 53233). Class will be in-person.   

Field work will be held at regular intervals over the week, with options to organize at several points during the week: 

(tentative schedule, subject to change . . .) 

Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.

Sundays 12:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. 

Mondays 5:30 until 8:30 p.m. 

Program Timeline: 

Sunday, October 4th, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.:

Application deadline – Apply Here!

Monday, October 5th, 2026:

Start of eight week program ( class held, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.), held at Central United Methodist Church (639 N 25th St, Milwaukee, WI 53233)

Monday, October 12th:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, October 19th:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, October 26th:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 2nd:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 9th:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 16th:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 23rd:

Class will be held from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Units

Each unit helps to answer the question: what is organizing? 

Welcome: what is organizing?

• Get to know participants and instructor
• Define scope of class and intentions 
• Determine goals and desired outcomes 

Organizing is one-on-one Conversations

• Learn the 7 point organizing conversation 
• Practice the conversation and its elements 

Organizing is building the committee and the campaign 

• The importance (or not) of the committee
• Power Mapping the campaign 
• Strategy Chart 

Organizing is holistic productivity 

• Traction versus distraction 
• Time management and its importance
• The Reverse Calendar 
• Overcoming blocks to action

Organizing is a mindset 

• Acknowledging hurdles and setbacks 
• Failure is a great option
• Develop a practice to keep you going

Organizing is raising money and managing it

• Why money is OK 
• How to bring energy and money to your campaign 
• The basics of campaign budgeting and finance 

Organizing is communications

• What does “messaging” mean? 
• The power of media 
• Writing workshop

Organizing is bringing it all together

• You’ve got momentum – now what? 
• Recap of unit themes

Reviews

Here is what previous students have to say about the Milwaukee Socialist Organizer Class: 

“[Before the class] I had no idea about the actual work of organizing.  Now I feel confident that I would be able to become a leader in a campaign setting . . .” 

“I loved the practical application of socialism . . . [and] I loved the far-reaching application of some of the class content.” 

“This is a great way to move into the world of socialism. . . thank you so much for offering this course” 

“This [class] is a great first step for anyone looking to start organizing . . .” 

“I radically grew in my comfort around being upfront and simply being able to approach a complete stranger with a potentially controversial topic.” 

“New organizers and experienced organizers can benefit from this class.” 

“Generally speaking my confidence level just interacting with people about socialism has gone through the roof.  I have been given a phenomenal overview of how to organize and I feel confident that I can find out what works best for me in the future.”  

“It was great to grow as an organizer within the confines of a welcoming community/instructor.” 

“I feel more confident organizing outside of an electoral context.”  

Meet your instructors: 

Alex Brower

Alex Brower is a labor leader, socialist organizer, and Milwaukee’s 3rd district Alderman as a DSA endorsed elected official, serving on the City of Milwaukee Common Council. Professionally, Alex has been the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, which organizes union retirees, in addition to other organizing roles with UFCW, SEIU, WisDems, and Wisconsin Jobs Now. In his organizing work, Alex has saved jobs from privatization, helped workers win a union voice on the job, defeated a temp agency, organized against a proposed iron-ore mine, helped bring comprehensive sex education to Beloit Public Schools, and won workplace healthcare for many uninsured MPS Substitute Teachers. As an MPS substitute teacher and former Milwaukee Rec. Department instructor, Alex brings a host of experience teaching others. Alex has also been a candidate for Milwaukee City Comptroller and School Board, running both times as a socialist. 

Andy Barbour

Andy currently serves as a chapter co-chair of Milwaukee DSA. His DSA involvement began  in the spring of 2023 as a regular volunteer for the Power to the People campaign, Milwaukee DSA’s now three-year-old campaign to replace We Energies with a publicly owned utility. After sharpening his organizing skills through regular canvassing and phone banking, he became a leader in the organization and has been closely involved in many DSA campaigns and projects. He’s been a consistent organizing force throughout his entire involvement in DSA. Andy currently also serves as chair of the Power to the People Working Group, though he’s previously held half a dozen other leadership roles in the chapter. Notably, he previously acted as deputy campaign manager of Alex Brower’s successful campaign for Common Council, where he oversaw the entire field operation.

Any questions? 

Contact Alex Brower at milwaukeedsa@gmail.com 

Apply now!

Apply here, or copy and paste this URL into your web browser: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdHWjPHXDlq2lhQVDsFLGZPW26-pqCh0KY7j-KHdA930zHgTA/viewform?usp=dialog

Two new books document how U.S. media enable the Gaza genocide.

The post Complicit Coverage appeared first on Democratic Left.

HAPPY LABOR DAY: A FESTIVAL OF RESISTANCE WITH VERMONT MAY DAY STRONG

This Labor Day, join Vermont May Day Strong and your friends, neighbors, and fellow workers for a Festival of Resistance. We'll have free food, music, activities, tabling, and a few brief speeches from Vermont workers standing up against the Trump regime and the billionaire class. Whether it's healthcare workers fighting for safe staffing at UVM Medical Center, Healthy Living workers resisting anti-democratic union busting, or migrant workers organizing for their right to dignified work free from attacks by ICE and Border Patrol, Vermont's workers are standing up, pushing back, and doing so together. The Festival of Resistance is an opportunity for us to celebrate the organizing we have done, the power we continue to build, and our past and future victories.

All are welcome at this family-friendly event TODAY — Monday September 7 at 3:00pm at Battery Park in Burlington

Learn more

TAX THE RICH: MONTPELIER AND WINOOSKI CANVASSES IN SEPTEMBER: LOOKING AHEAD TO TOWN MEETING DAY 2027 BALLOT QUESTIONS

Working Vermonters are being squeezed while the richest continue to benefit from tax cuts paid for by cuts to healthcare. Medicaid and ACA subsidies are on the chopping block, putting tens of thousands at risk. This is a choice. We can let working people carry the burden, or we can demand that the wealthiest pay their fair share.

We are calling on the Vermont Legislature to pass legislation that raises taxes on the richest 5 percent, taxes wealth proceeds, and invests that revenue into affordable and accessible healthcare for all. Half measures are not enough. Policies that only target the top 1 percent or shift taxes around without raising new revenue will not meet this moment.

Sign up to help us collect signatures on our Tax the Rich ballot petitions (advisory questions for the Town Meeting Day Ballot in Montpelier and Winooski)! 

We’ll be hitting the streets in Montpelier from 10-12 on Saturday September 12 and then in Winooski on Saturday September 19, from 1-3pm launching from 53 Lafountain St.

Sign up

GMDSA-ENDORSED CANDIDATES WIN BIG IN VERMONT THIS SUMMER: HELP GET THEM OVER THE FINISH LINE NOVEMBER THIRD!!!

Congratulations to all of our endorsed candidates!

The Electoral Committee is working on organizing to support our socialists seeking office to grow DSA and give working people a true voice in Montpelier. Stay connected with GMDSA to learn about future opportunities to canvass and phonebank with us before November!

Volunteer for Alexander Bobella’s campaign here. (Franklin County State Senate). Saturday canvass/lit drops starting the 12th — Stay tuned for more details!

Volunteer for Matt Gile’s campaign here. (Winooski)

Volunteer for Adam Franz’s campaign here. (Burlington)

Volunteer for Jeffrey Peterson's campaign events here. (Burlington)

Volunteer for Tanya Vyhovsky's campaign events here. (Chittenden Central State Senate)

GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MONTH IN REVIEW

August this year we celebrated victories at the ballot box as all of our Socialists in Office won their Democratic primaries, then celebrated another milestone together at our 3rd annual summer cookout celebrating 300 Member Party!

We marched with workers on the picket line, joined our neighbors in advocating for the release of Pastor Steven Tendo, and kept doing what socialists do every month: organizing our workplaces and communities, building solidarity, and fighting for a Vermont that works for working people.

Another month down. More organizing ahead. Solidarity forever.

WE’RE BUILDING A FAMILY-FRIENDLY GMDSA

Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America is working towards making our organization more accessible to parents and guardians. This month we were approved to receive a chapter Growth and Development grant from DSA national to help with this effort, among other priorities. You can help us by letting us know if you would benefit from childcare being offered at our general meetings.

Please fill out our Childcare Needs Survey

GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MEETINGS AND EVENTS

 Join Green Mountain DSA and the Vermont May Day Strong Coalition for their Labor Day Picnic: A Festival of Resistance on Monday Sept 7 at 3:00pm at Battery Park in Burlington.

 Our Steering Committee meets on the first Monday of every month at 7:30pm on Zoom, including Monday Sept 7. All members are welcome to participate in the meeting discussion, only members of the steering committee can vote.

 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted with the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Wednesday Sept 9 at 6:00pm at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Av in Burlington).

Saturday Sept 12 at 10:00am in Montpelier, join the Tax the Rich Working Group for the official launch of the TTR advisory question campaign in the City of Montpelier. Canvass will run TBD, with an orientation for new canvassers at the start.

 Our Labor Committee meets on the second Monday of every month at 6:00pmon Zoom, including Monday Sept 14.

 Our Electoral Committee will meet on Wednesday Sept 16. The electoral committee meets at 6:00pm on Zoom. The Electoral Committee will meet on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month until November.

Saturday Sept 19 in Winooski, join the Tax the Rich Working Group for the official launch of the TTR advisory question campaign in the City of Winooski. Canvass will run TBD, with an orientation for new canvassers at the start.

Our Tax the Rich Working Group will meet on the first and third Sundays monthly, starting Sunday Sept 19 at 6:00pm on Zoom. Join to learn about our next stage of organizing as we enter the upcoming legislative biennium and plan for upcoming canvasses across the state.

 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Monday Sept 21. The Membership Committee meets on the 3rd Monday of every month at6:00pm on Zoom.

 GMDSA's branches will come together for our monthly general meeting on Saturday Sept 26 at 11:30 a.m. at Fletcher Free Library (235 College St in Burlington). Newcomers are encouraged to show up at 10:30am for an optional “DSA 101” orientation. Everyone is welcome to join for coffee hour with snacks and discussion at 11:00amprior to the start of the general meeting.

 Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday Sept 28. The Palestine solidarity committee meets on the 4th Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Our Communications Committee will meet on Monday Sept 28. The communications committee meets on the last Monday of every month at 7:00pmon Zoom.

Add our Google Calendar  - Check out our website  - Follow us on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and BlueSky

IMPORTANT DATES THIS YEAR

• Labor Day: Monday September 7

• GMDSA September General Meeting: Saturday September 26 in Burlington

• GMDSA October General Meeting: Saturday October 17 in Montpelier

• General Election: Tuesday November 3

• Next GMDSA Convention: Saturday November 14 in Barre (Tentative)

• Next DSA National Convention: August 2027 (Date TBD)

Plus a plan for universal healthcare in Pennsylvania, a stand with nurses in Boston, and two high-profile mayoral endorsements in this month’s edition of “Chapter and Verse.”

The post Curtain Closing on 2026 Primaries appeared first on Democratic Left.

Photos from the vigil and protests following the murder of Corey Ruiz, July 22–Aug. 4, 2026.

If you’re in one of the photos and would like to be removed, you can contact us through the Submissions page.

As someone with a space science background and a long-term interest in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), I could not avoid the recent film on that topic, Disclosure Day. The film fits within the genre of UFO flicks dating back at least to the classic The Flying Saucer (1950), the first film on the topic. The film’s release also coincides with recent testimonies of government officials claiming that the U.S. government is secretly studying and reverse-engineering extraterrestrial technology and the recent study by NASA on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

In Disclosure Day, the character Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) goes rogue against his company, the Wardex Corporation, a government contractor that works with extraterrestrial technology and experiments on captured extraterrestrials with the goal of reverse-engineering their technology. Kellner, believing his company is on the wrong track, steals a device called the Archive, which. contains records of extraterrestrial technology dating back to the Roswell incident. Kellner is almost caught, but escapes with his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson).

Meanwhile, in Kansas City,  news meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) has an incident where she speaks in an unknown language. Unbeknownst to her, Margaret is speaking in an extraterrestrial language. After this incident, Margaret is pursued by Wardex agents and eventually encounters Daniel. The two eventually realize that they were both abducted as children by extraterrestrials and given complementary powers. Near the end of the film, they team up with ex-Wardex agents to reveal the truth of the existence of extraterrestrials to the world. 

Disclosure Day fits in with recent films in which the extraterrestrials are portrayed in such a way to make them seem more mysterious. This includes films like Arrival (2016) and Interstellar (2014) where the extraterrestrials are portrayed as mysterious, even godlike, but ultimately benevolent and films where the extraterrestrials are portrayed as malevolent or Lovecraftian, such as the 2016 film adaptation of The Three Body Problem, a science fiction novel by the Chinese author Cixin Liu. In a post-secular world, it could be argued that godlike extraterrestrials, whether benevolent saviors of humanity or Lovecraftian monstrosities, are an example of the current appetite for the re-enchantment of the world.

One of the ways this type of re-enchantment overlaps with politics is a curious left-wing political tradition that sees advanced extraterrestrials as playing a key role in advancing human progress. The Argentinean revolutionary Juan Posadas, founder of Fourth International Posadism, wrote an essay in 1968 arguing that spacefaring extraterrestrials, being more technologically advanced than humans, would also need to be more socially advanced and therefore socialist. Posadas believed that the socialist countries should call upon extraterrestrials to help them in the fight against capitalism. 

Another example of a space religion that significantly influenced left-wing movements is Russian cosmism. Russian cosmism was founded by the Russian Orthodox mystic Nikolai Fyodorov, who was also a mentor to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of Soviet and Russian spaceflight. Fyodorov believed that science would one day resurrect the dead and that space colonization would be required to make room for everyone who was to be resurrected. 

Russian cosmism was initially suppressed in the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, it continued to influence the Soviet space program. The initial Soviet headstart in the space race with launching Sputnik 1, the first satellite, into space in 1957 and launching the first human, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, into space in 1961 were both hailed in the Soviet Union as the victory of socialism over capitalism, proof that space exploration was intrinsic to progress.

While Russian or Soviet cosmism did not necessarily involve extraterrestrials, it did form the background of Soviet speculation about life on other planets. This included science fiction authors, such as the Russian revolutionary and scientist Alexander Bagdonov, who wrote Red Star about a Martian civilization that had achieved socialism. It also included scientists, such as the astronomer Nikolai Kardashev, the inventor of the Kardashev scale, which classifies hypothetical civilizations by energy capacity output, and the astronomer Iosif Shklovsky, the pre-eminent SETI research scientist in the Soviet Union and co-author of the book Intelligent Life in the Universe in 1966 with the U.S. astronomer Carl Sagan.

Like their U.S. counterparts, Soviet scientists and science fiction authors interested in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence showed an openness to learning from intelligences other than their own. In the NASA report Anthropology, Archaeology, and Interstellar Communication,  extraterrestrials are referred to as the “ultimate others” in an essay by Ben Finney and Jerry Bentley. This perhaps unintentionally echoes more traditional religious movements that emphasize hospitality and love of “the other.” The late Pope Franics wrote about “the sacred ground of the other” in his apostalic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

An older example of such thinking in religious contexts is the tradition of Marguerite Porete (c. 1258-1310), a medieval mystic and member of the Beguines, an all-female quasi-monastic lay religious order that was part of the larger heretical Brethren of the Free Spirit. The Brethren were known for antinomianism and libertinism, but also a form of radical hospitality and egalitarianism that is described by the situationist author Raoul Vaneigem in the book Movement of the Free Spirit as a precursor to later revolutionary and socialist movements.

Porete, in her book The Mirror of Simple Souls, taught that a person needed to go through stages of increasing self-denial and realization of God’s love in order to become truly free to submit to the Holy Spirit. One stage of this was to see God as the ultimate other. In seeing God as the ultimate other, the person would then become more open to the other in general and be able to truly love others. 

The current political scene not just in the United States but around the world is defined by increasing hostility toward the other as well as hostility toward immigrants and refugees across the United States; Europe; and, recently, South Africa and Australia. The underlying issues behind these conflicts are complex and solutions are still unclear. But one thing that is clearly needed is greater openness to embracing and cooperating with the other to create a world that is less unequal and more peaceful, one in which we can solve problems such as the climate crisis and the risk of misaligned artificial intelligence. 

Perhaps an encounter with the ultimate other, whether divine or extraterrestrial and whether good or bad, would enable us to have better encounters with the “others” who live next to us and are not all that different from us in the cosmic scheme.

The post Disclosure Day and the Ultimate Other appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

By Kevin Szczesny

To get clean Porta-johns in our workplace, construction workers at the Marriott site in downtown Detroit marched on the boss. Workers from at least seven unions of the building trades were represented, with zero union staffers or officers present. Many union halls were in support of the action, but the work and the application of leverage were entirely rank-and-file driven.

As an active member of IBEW Local 58 (Electrical Workers), I often hear from sympathetic organizers who “can’t imagine how hard it must be” organizing in a largely conservative and obstinate workforce. Our campaign is a contribution to the death of that narrative, and an answer to the universal follow-up question about how these shop floor conversations go in detail.

Day One on the job, as I met my 50 or so fellow electricians, I was immediately overwhelmed with warnings that the bathrooms were going to be unsanitary. I knew before the end of my shift that the issue was widely felt, and every electrician already had the same idea: we wanted the cleaning schedule changed from twice a week to three times a week. I had a long conversation with the steward about what efforts were already in progress to correct the issue.

The first instinct of a construction worker is to “drag” (quit), drive over to the union hall, and pick up a new job. As expected, there was a steady trickle of drags and conditions on site had not improved. OSHA had been called and walked the job soon after my arrival, only to say that the number of bathrooms was up to their standard.

The electrical contractor had been notified, but because the bathrooms were for all of the trades to use, our bosses didn’t feel it was their responsibility to pay for additional cleaning. The local IBEW contract only gestures vaguely to “sanitary facilities,” and protects us explicitly should we leave site to find a “sanitary” facility. This clause was exercised regularly, but no one could say for sure whether the boss was even aware we were leaving.

Over time, smaller issues would pop up and get resolved quickly with small actions. Sweeping compound to control toxic dust, unprecedented changes in break time, trades doing the work of other trades out of convenience: these were things that were easily managed by the steward with one or two voices in support. I got involved with a couple pushes and so was asked to fill in for the steward while he was out for a few days.

When I walked the job to make sure everyone had my number, more than half the conversations touched on the bathrooms. I then introduced myself to the stewards from the other trades, who all encountered the same comments from their members. The idea was formed to take the issue above our bosses and straight to the general contractor (who hires out each trade and is responsible for the job site at large).

A letter was written titled “Unacceptable Bathroom Conditions,” which opened politely and assumed the boss was ignorant of the problem. The letter referenced the impact on our work and a widespread feeling that we were not being treated with respect by the contractor. We suggested that the person responsible for scheduling use our bathrooms for a week, to better assess the need for more cleanings and a wash station. We gave one week for a response.

Every worker who was presented with the letter signed immediately, but reactions were mixed. Most people felt like they would just laugh at our demand, but were interested in the idea of swarming the bosses’ trailer at lunch and forcing them to read it in front of us.We fielded many suggestions, from delivering the letter and going home to tipping over Porta-johns on the way to the boss, and we told our coworkers that if our response date came and went without change, we would be coming back around “to have a different conversation.” This demand had to be made collectively and clearly first so that any future action would be naturally tied to the lack of clean facilities, and we had to start our escalation low enough that further demonstrations would be felt.

Many of our one-on-one talks were focused on assuring the workers that we would circle back for an escalation if the letter went ignored. “This is only the beginning”, “they probably will ignore this or lie, but we need to show that we’re all on the same page first,” “dragging only leaves behind the people who can’t quit with shitty conditions,” etc. We warned of possible counter-strategies from the boss and stressed the importance of demonstrating solidarity, especially across the trades, above all else. We also left out the officers at the hall and our reps on purpose, though we did inform them. We had a lot of conversations about the power in the hands of the rank-and-file. “Every member is a steward” has become sort of a slogan for us.

In the end we had 105 signatures and roughly 35 folks across four trades who gave up their lunch break to deliver the letter. The contractor read that letter, was brought outside to look at us, and immediately conceded to our terms.

Maybe they didn’t know how bad the bathrooms were, maybe they didn’t know how widely and deeply felt the issue was on site, or maybe they figured it was fine to ignore. All we know for sure is, when a seemingly small fraction of us came together with the backing of three times as many signatures, it didn’t matter if we had the hall behind us. We are the union, the working people who don’t walk away from a job which doesn’t satisfy us, and our demands have been met.

Kevin is a trade unionist and has been a member of the IBEW for two years and DSA member for five.

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Organizing from the Bottom: IBEW’s Fight for Sanitary Facilities was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.