The following remarks were delivered by councilmembers Mary Lupien, Stanley Martin, and Chiara “KeeKee” Smith in explanation of their votes against the proposed budget, which dedicates more than 25% ($160 million) to the Rochester Police Department.

Mary Lupien; East District: I view budgets as moral documents. The staff did a great job putting it together, it’s a lot of work. My not supporting the budget has nothing to do with the amount of work that was put in, it’s the policies and decisions that come from the top. This budget does not go fast enough or far enough, and it does not meet the moment. I recognize that we’re facing a difficult fiscal reality, and that resources are limited, and that hard choices had to be made. But if every department is being asked to tighten its belt, to reduce staffing, and do more more with less, why does that expectation seem to apply to everyone but the Rochester Police Department?

Every year the RPD gets their biggest budget ever. Which, to be honest, doesn’t even matter, because every year they overspend their budget, so they really just get unlimited money. We continue to budget for vacant police positions that have gone unfilled for years, even as other departments that provide direct services to residents are forced to make cuts. We know that nearly half [of] the police department is eligible to retire in the next five years. At some point we have to ask whether budgeting for these positions that we cannot fill, is the best use of our limited dollars.

Meanwhile, we continue to underinvest in violence prevention programs, like Advance Peace, that have already demonstrated success. Pathways to Peace, Advance Peace, and our other non-police interventions, in cooperation with the police department, have helped to significantly reduce violence. Yet we still treat these investments as secondary rather than essential.

And we also continue to underinvest in housing during a housing crisis. Every year that we postpone the investments that would help us repair underlying problems, the challenges grow harder to solve and the costs grow higher.

There are many positive elements in this budget, and I appreciate, again, the work that went into it. But I cannot support a budget that continues to prioritize maintaining the status quo, over making the investments necessary to meet the dire challenges in front of us. 

Stanley Martin, At-Large: So, I’d like to start by saying thank you to the administration, Director Warren, all the different departments that work together to put this budget together. And of course, a huge thank you to our staff, James, Jenn, Dacy, Adrien, Clerk Washington, everyone who helped to this work and who continues to take care of this city.

It’s not surprise what my vote will be tonight. It is going to be a no. As many of my colleagues before me have mentioned, I am deeply concerned with the amount of money we spend on policing. This year, we are spending $190 million on policing. That includes pensions, that includes positions that are vacant with no reasonable expectation to ever fill those positions. To me, it’s hard to understand how in one breath we’re saying we have a budget deficit, we’re struggling to make ends meet; and in the next breath we fund police at the highest amount they have ever been in the history of this city.

My no vote is also because I feel that this budget fails to take care of some of the people who keep us safe. We heard a lot of the issues around safety when it comes to security guards need for certain equipment to feel safe. When I walk into this room and I see security guards around, I feel extremely safe. I see how they de-escalate. And I would like for the folks who are on the front lines to be paid equitably in the same way other departments on the front lines are getting paid.

Finally, it is my deepest hope that within my time on this council, I will see a budget that equitably invests in alternative responses, rent supports, supports for people who simply can’t make ends meet because of inflation and all the other issues we’re seeing in this country. My no vote does not critique, again, any of the important work so many folks in this city are doing. But for me, this budget just fails to meet the majority of the needs of our community. 

Chiara “KeeKee” Smith, At-Large: Like my colleagues, I also want to acknowledge all the great work that everyone in this city does every day to make things run smoothly, especially the work that was done around the budget – Again, Jen, James, Dacy, Adrien, Clerk Washington, and the rest of the staff. Thank you guys so much for being available and for answering questions as needed. Budgets are more than numbers; as Mary said, they are moral documents. And they tell a story of what we value as a city. They show our residents who we invest in, what challenges we are willing to confront, and what kind of future we’re working to build. They are records that will tell stories of what we held important.

I have heard a consistent message from residents across our city. People want safe neighborhoods, but they also want stable housing. They want mental health support for those in crisis. They want opportunities for young people. They want clean neighborhoods. They want violence prevented before it starts. They want us to address the conditions that create crisis, not simply react when someone gets hurt.

When I was running for office, people were not asking for larger police budgets. They were asking why families were struggling to keep a roof over their heads. They were asking why young people lacked positive opportunities. They were asking why neighbors facing mental health challenges have nowhere to turn. They were asking why the same communities continue to carry the heaviest burdens of the city’s drug crisis, while being ignored when they asked for help.

I support public safety and I respect those who have chosen a career in law enforcement. But public safety is bigger than policing. Public safety is when a child has a safe place to sleep; when a family can afford to stay housed; when someone in crisis receives care and support. It begins when young people have access to hope. Residents have been clear – they want greater investment in prevention. They want stronger support for programs like violence prevention initiatives such as the PIC program, such as the Action Team, and trusted community organizations already doing the work of healing, the escalating conflict and supporting families before emergencies happen.

I am also concerned that this budget does not provide a clear path forward for Peace Village, or another meaningful alternative for our unhoused neighbors. Our communities are strained. Residents are frustrated. The people living there deserve dignity, and the surrounding neighborhoods deserve solutions.

As elected officials, our responsibility is not simply to fund systems. It is to listen to the people we serve, especially those whose voices are often overlooked. When I look at this budget through that lens, I cannot support it. I’m asking us to have a broader vision of public safety. One that includes housing, mental health prevention, intervention, and community. One that recognizes enforcement alone cannot solve challenges rooted in poverty, trauma, disinvestment, and a lack of opportunity. I respect those who may vote differently, and I remain committed to working with my colleagues to move Rochester forward. But my first obligation is to the residents who have trusted me with this role, and those whose needs are the greatest. For this reason I will be voting no on this budget. 

* * *

The DSA difference means prioritizing people’s needs over the maintenance of class order and pursuit of profit. Investments in affordable housing, accessible food, and adequate mental health resources are investments in public safety. A better world is possible.

Make a difference with DSA. Join today: dsausa.us/join

The post Why Did Democratic Socialists Vote ‘No’ On Rochester’s Budget? first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

by Rich J.

In a small municipal park at the corner of South and Alexander, there is a statue of city namesake Nathaniel Rochester. The space itself is more of a neighborhood garden, a place where residents hang out, and the bronze statue of Nathaniel Rochester hangs out with you. He is seated, though his legs are a little too long for his body, resting on his cane, and smiling as if at a private joke. It’s a bronze you could imagine sidling up next to and listening to amusing stories of early, rapidly-growing Rochesterville. 

The built environment is our daily background. Our public spaces are places we pass through or hang out in, not regard with deep contemplation. But that very passivity is what makes public symbols so potent. They provide unassuming legitimation for the official history of a place and its extant structures of authority. Nowhere in Nathaniel Square Park will you find mention that Nathaniel Rochester built his town on land recently conquered from the Seneca, or that he did so with the coerced labor of slaves he brought here from Maryland. 

In the port city of Trieste, Italy, in 2019, citizens unveiled their own bronze statue depiction of a thoughtful-looking man. Gabriele D’Annunzio was a modernist poet, still highly regarded in Italian literary circles, and the statue captures that facet of the man. It shows him cross-legged, deeply concentrating on reading an open book, while leaning on a pile of still more books. It is exactly the kind of commemoration one would expect to see of a respected author. 

For the citizens of Rijeka, Croatia, however, Gabriele D’Annunzio’s legacy is not that of a renowned author. It’s that of a fascist occupier. Or, more accurately, if the citizens of Rijeka remember his name at all, they associate him with a fascist occupation. In the opening scenes of Croatian filmmaker Igor Bezinović’s Fiume o Morte!, which screened at the Little Theater earlier this year, he interviews passersby, and most people on the street don’t recognize the name Gabriele D’Annunzio. Determined to reframe the memory of D’Annunzio, Bezinovic sets out to humorously film a historical recreation of the man and his occupation.

In 1919, D’Annunzio led a few hundred demobilized Italian soldiers in a takeover of the disputed former Habsburg city then known as Fiume. Allied negotiators at Versailles had promised the port to the new Yugoslav state, to the chagrin of the city’s powerful Italian minority. The city’s Italians cheered D’Annunzio’s coup and celebrated him as a man of action who would force the Italian government to take on its nationalist responsibility to annex Fiume. For D’Annunzio and the coterie of young adventurers who gathered around him, however, Fiume was to be the revolutionary center of a utopian society of work and art and generative violence.

D’Annunzio was in the orbit of Italy’s fascist movement and, through his Fiume adventure, framed much of fascism’s aesthetics. Photographers thoroughly documented his 15-month occupation, and the imagery they produced was largely of shirtless young men posing heroically and brandishing weapons. This bravado performance of masculinity was an explicit critique of bourgeois liberalism, which they saw as effete and degenerate. Only strong men, willing to use force, could regenerate the insipid culture of the bourgeoisie.

The images of D’Annunzio and his followers are easy to mock. Bezinovic cheekily restages their historical photographs as filmed tableaux with amateur local actors. He casts a series of men to portray D’Annunzio himself mock-heroically in his uniform, giving speeches, throwing orgies, and working on his poetic constitution. The director’s only criteria for casting his seven D’Annunzios is that they be bald and middle-aged.  The effect is to enunciate the buffoonish character of the whole cocaine-fueled occupation. D’Annunzio’s self-conceived heroism dissolves into the ordinary, the boring, the common.

And here the subversive memory-making at the heart of Fiume o Morte succeeds in its goal. The fascists who followed D’Annunzio imagined themselves as supermen bending the world to their will. A few shells from an Italian battleship ended their whole Fiume adventure. Its participants went on to another project to bend the world to their will. A couple of meathooks in a town square ended their Italian fascist project. But, given the continued popularity of D’Annunzio, whose palace is a well-attended tourist attraction in Italy, it is evident that the fascists refuse to remember their failures. In Fiume o Morte!, with its unapologetic lowbrow approach, making art with and by normal Croatian people, Bezinovic makes an antifascist movie about fascist failure. D’Annunzio would have hated it. 

The post Fiume o Morte: Anti-Fascist Memory Making first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Foreign atrocities and domestic repression share a common racist logic. Movements that recognize the connection may be best positioned to resist both.

The post Trump’s Wars, Foreign and Domestic, Extend a Long Imperial History appeared first on Democratic Left.

The private jets, limousines, and tanned vacationers coursing through Atlantic Aviation’s exclusive lot mask a grim reality. Every Tuesday and Friday, the private company facilitates the transportation of residents detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in and out of Las Vegas. They sometimes come, and sometimes go, chained at the wrists, waist, and feet, shuffling single file between white caged-windowed buses and unmarked aircraft supplied by major commercial airlines.

Taylor Swift’s $54M Falcon 7X

Canadair Jet ICE plane by @buffysphotography

The members of Las Vegas Democratic Socialists of America (LVDSA) demand that Atlantic Aviation terminate contracts with DHS and immediately end its participation in these flights. With support from the Habeas Flight Watch Network, LVDSA’s Abolish ICE Campaign is taking steps to ensure they do. LVDSA is conducting habeas flight watches and hosting a National Day of Protest against Atlantic Aviation on June 27th.

Located at Harry Reid International Airport, Atlantic Aviation reserves its runways and hangars for the luxury jet set. No doubt, the private company enjoyed a boost in positive press when Taylor Swift chose to park her private jet at Atlantic upon breezing into town to celebrate Travis Kelce’s Super Bowl LVII victory. Today, the company promises to whisk World Cup spectators to games in style, offering gourmet in-flight dining and wrap-around concierge services. Unsurprisingly, it does not flaunt its frequent flying of ICE victims among its first-class services.

While Atlantic Aviation caters to celebrities and sports pros to rake in profits, they are also fattening their bottom line on the injustices our neighbors suffer. People are rounded up based on their skin color, language, and clothing, exploited by the city’s shady 287(g) agreement, and targeted by Flock AI mass-surveillance technology. Denied due process, they are deliberately displaced in the expanding network of concentration camps and the routes that connect them. We are taking action for the victims, their families, and the attorneys who are unable to secure their clients’ habeas rights.

A team of flight watchers from LVDSA and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) meets outside Atlantic’s runways with cameras, documenting the arrival and departure of ICE victims. The goal is to capture footage of the individuals getting on and off buses and planes— their faces, clothing, and shoes—so that their families and lawyers might find them. A Habeas Flight Watch Network volunteer flight dispatcher keeps the team notified of the ETAs for Las Vegas-bound ICE flights, and, just like commercial flights, these schedules are subject to frustrating last-minute changes.

Friday, June 12th, is no exception. At 6:44 am, our Las Vegas flight watch team receives an ETA from the dispatch: today’s flight arrives from Fort Hood via Reno on a Canadair CRJ-200 operated by Air Wisconsin; it’s scheduled to land at 12:22 pm. We set up early in case the plane arrives ahead of schedule, which happens. Stationed outside the Atlantic Aviation fence with cameras and tripods, we learn the flight is delayed until 12:51, then 1:13. It is now over 100 degrees.

Buffy Taylor, a member of PSL, sighs and walks under a tiny tree in the lot’s perimeter for a sliver of shade.  She’d arrived on her bike, a duffel bag containing several ice-cold water bottles and her Canon T7 strapped over her shoulder. “I’ve been tracking and photographing planes for years as a hobby, and I figured I could help people find their family or friends and expose the illegal actions of the government,” she explains. “Put my skills to good use.” By the time the team receives their final status update – ETA 1:21 pm – their phones are overheating, and Taylor’s waters are hot to the touch.

As with other Las Vegas ICE-related activity, the arrival of the ICE plane is quiet and understated. Our team learns it has touched down on Atlantic Aviation’s Runway 19, the same one used to welcome visiting celebrities. Moments later, a dull gray aircraft, serial number N455AW, devoid of any colors or logos except a tiny US flag, rolls toward us before turning slightly to let a taxiing private jet by. We can’t believe our luck– we now have a clear view of the plane’s stairway, the white prison bus, and the stretch of pavement between them.

When its doors open, four men in neon vests spring to action, neatly setting about 20 bright orange bundles in a row on the ground.  “Prison jump suits?” I ask Taylor.

“Nope, their personal belongings.”

Uncertain whether people are held prisoner on the plane, on the bus, or both, and seeing no movement from either, we focus on the four yellow-vested staff bustling about, bounding up and down the airplane stairs. Are they Atlantic ground crew? ICE agents? They eventually form an assembly line between the bus door and the plane’s stairway. Finally, the victims step off the bus, stooped and resigned, shackled at the wrists and feet, a long chain linking them at the waist.

Taylor abandons her tripod and darts around on foot, zooming in on captives, as I dictate a physical description of each man boarding the plane after he is frisked from head to toe. Twenty-two in all, mostly young, 20s and 30s, though one man appears to be old, perhaps in his 70s. Once the last has boarded, a pilot inspects the plane’s exterior as the caged-windowed bus slowly drives off the tarmac. We wonder about the victims, whether they’ve eaten or used the bathroom, and what they must be thinking.

As we spot the white bus exiting Atlantic’s parking lot, Taylor sprints, zigzagging through parked cars, and snaps photos of the bus’s driver and license plate. “It’s astonishing how many people have to be complicit for this to happen,” observes Audrey Hines, a co-steward for LVDSA’s Abolish ICE Campaign.

Not all habeas flight watches are this successful. Some sessions have yielded pictures of the plane or bus—still helpful—but no people. Other times, planes and utility vehicles have arrived unexpectedly, suddenly blocking the view. Organizers leave hot and exhausted, but determined to catch useful images on the next one. “Each new flight watch has the potential to help even one person, help one family be reunited, so it is so worth it,” says Hines.

“Even if we don’t have the best shot, we keep trying— you kind of feel like a spy,” adds 19-year-old Mikey LaFrambois, a lead organizer in UNLV’s Young Democratic Socialists of America.

Hopefully, these ICE flight watches won’t last too long. On Saturday, June 27th, at 6 pm, LVDSA is joining the National Day of Protest against Atlantic Aviation and other airlines abetting ICE activity. We are hosting a protest outside Atlantic Aviation, in a united demand that they cancel their contracts with DHS and the federal government. We stand in solidarity with cities around the country that are speaking up. We salute Dallas, a World Cup host city whose organizers and faith leaders are taking Atlantic Aviation to task for courting wealthy ticket holders while preying on the powerless. As Rev. Neil Thomas, lead pastor of Cathedral of Hope, noted on June 10, 2026:

As people arrive for the World Cup and other major events, we will proudly showcase our city as a place of hospitality and opportunity. Yet, at the very same time, through these very same airports, on these very same streets, within sight of celebrations, immigrant members of our community are being removed from their homes and families. This contradiction forces us to ask difficult but necessary questions about who we are as a city.

Atlantic Aviation caters to the indulgences and excesses of billionaires while actively participating in and profiting from the crimes against our neighbors. All professional athletes, celebrities, and customers using Atlantic Aviation’s services are part of the problem. Pilots transporting victims of ICE arrests, ground staff loading cargo —all are agents in perpetuating this nightmare.

In solidarity with local immigrant rights efforts, we urge readers to demand that Atlantic Aviation terminate these inhumane flights. This company will be held accountable for its actions.

By Jill Glass, LVDSA Abolish ICE Campaign Co-Steward

Images by Buffy Taylor @buffysphotographs 

References

American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. (2026, April 8). ACLU of Nevada files notice of appeal to continue challenge of LVMPD 287(g) agreement with ICE. https://www.aclunv.org/press-releases/aclu-of-nevada-files-notice-of-appeal-to-continue-challenge-of-lvmpd-287g-agreement-with-ice/

American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin. (2026, April 2). Racial profiling rampant after Supreme Court ruling. https://www.aclu-wi.org/news/racial-profiling-rampant-after-supreme-court-ruling/

Atlantic Aviation. (2026, June). World Cup. https://www.atlanticaviation.com/world-cup/

Balas, R. (2026, January 17). Inside Taylor Swift’s $54M Dassault Falcon 7X: 2026 Eras Tour & flight tracking controversy. The Flying Engineer. https://theflyingengineer.com/taylor-swifts-private-jet-inside-look/

Immigration Policy Tracking Project. (2025, April 8). Reported: ICE contracts with commercial airlines to facilitate deportation flights. https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-ice-contracts-with-commercial-airlines-to-facilitate-deportation-flights/

Instagram. (2025). Post by @habeasflightwatch [Instagram post]. https://www.instagram.com/p/DYXLGP7AI7E/

Lexington Alarm. (2026). Habeas Flight Watch. https://lexingtonalarm.org/habeas-flight-watch/

Schilken, C. (2024, February 9). Will Taylor Swift be able to park a private jet for Super Bowl? Vegas airports are full. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2024-02-09/super-bowl-private-jets-parking-las-vegas-airports-49ers-chiefs-taylor-swift

Velotta, R. N. (2016, May 18). Jet Suite to offer luxury travel between California and Las Vegas. Las Vegas Review-Journal. https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/jet-suite-to-offer-luxury-travel-between-california-and-las-vegas/

ICE takes 240 from Clark County jail under new pact; ACLU fights deal. (2026, March 11). Las Vegas Review-Journal. https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/ice-takes-240-from-clark-county-jail-under-new-pact-aclu-fights-deal-372339

By: Chris Brady

SOMERVILLE – On May 20, Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson joined the Greater Boston Labor Council (GBLC) for their municipal legislative breakfast at the Somerville Armory. There, he gave a speech supporting unions. 

Somerville worker Kate Bossingham testified during a May 28 City Council meeting that after the breakfast, which was presumably paid for with GBLC workers’ union dues, Wilson returned to City Hall to join a layoffs meeting with members of Somerville Workers United (SWU). According to Bossingham, two days later, Wilson notified the City that layoffs had been completed. Thirteen workers were laid off, a majority of which came from the city’s Health and Human Services Department, while sixteen vacant roles were cut.

Two unions stand as both survivor and bulwark of resistance against the mayor’s austerity. Somerville city workers are split in representation between Somerville Municipal Employees Union (SMEU) and recently organized Somerville Workers United (SWU) – AFSCME 93. Both unions are fighting for contracts with SWU fights for management recognition. Even as the mayor cuts union workers, the city has enlisted former Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steve Tolman to assist with negotiations.

“I cannot say strongly enough that we cut positions, not people,” Wilson said in a statement, citing a $5.4 million budget deficit for the move.

The mayor may cut positions, but it was people with positions who lost their jobs: stability, future, even food on the table.

“We don’t disappear on people” – until we do

Emily Mayernik, a licensed mental health counselor for the city, was in one of those positions cut by the mayor’s decree. In that role, Mayernik indicated to Working Mass, she provided support and community programming to children and families in the social services team. 

“I worked with immigrant families. I worked with people experiencing major mental health concerns,” said Mayernik. “I worked with vulnerable people.”

Mayernik was a SMEU member. The process for layoffs, as she understood, was that the city must notify the union before a layoff of a bargaining unit member. A negotiation process would follow; staffing cuts generally adhere to processes outlined in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

According to Mayernik, normal procedure was not followed. The city laid off an SMEU colleague on May 20 and notified SMEU only on May 21, the day after, while at the same time informing the union that Mayernik would be laid off the next day. Mayernik reports that SMEU sent a cease and desist letter to the city – which was ignored. 

Mayernik was informed on Thursday morning to report to HR that afternoon, where she was dismissed. Despite her requests for time to close out her work, Mayernik said she was forced to go home immediately after that meeting, even though she still had active cases and patients relying on her.

“This is really unethical,” Mayernik said, arguing that the goodbye process is essential given the vulnerable populations that she served. 

“We don’t disappear on people. That’s not acceptable behavior.”

She clarified that she did not object to the layoff itself, but specifically the rushed process and norm-breaking ‘ghosting’ that is tantamount to malpractice in her profession. Mayernik believes this endangered some of Somerville’s most vulnerable people.

 “I just disappeared.”

Equity professionals were also caught in the mayor’s crosshairs. Luis Q, previously a Strategic Planning and Equity Manager with the city and a worker-organizer with SWU hired during the administration of Ballantyne, was among the laid off. It is unclear if his occupation, with DEI initiatives entering the culture war, or work with SWU contributed to his layoff.

SWU not yet recognized

Back at the breakfast of the Greater Boston Labor Council, according to Somerville sustainability planner Josh Eckert-Lee, the mayor told a SWU organizer he was “excited to meet with [them].”

Wilson had ignored the previous two requests to meet with SWU, effectively dodging requests for voluntary recognition of the nascent union. Later that same day, Wilson initiated layoffs, which included three organizing committee or core organizers of SWU. 

Eckert-Lee argued that “a fair amount of these layoffs could absolutely be seen as retaliatory.” 

Somerville City Council voted unanimously to recommend endorsing voluntary recognition of SWU at the May 28 meeting.

Eckert-Lee believes that Wilson enjoys the clout associated with speaking highly of labor, but “when it comes time to walk the walk,” the mayor found it easier to cut people, particularly those with more ‘controversial’ roles like Luis’s. 

In a statement to Working Mass, Wilson said he met with SWU in late May. The mayor cited competing union petitions filed with the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations (DLR) as the reason he has not yet granted voluntary recognition:

There are currently open petitions filed with the DLR by two unions claiming the right to represent some of the positions involved here. In this situation, we’re required by law to remain neutral as to which union should ultimately represent these employees.

Wilson added that once the DLR resolves the representation questions, meaning SMEU and SWU, the city will engage with workers and their designated representative. Eckert-Lee indicated, regarding the DLR decision, that “this is all new and being actively sorted.”

But the request for the Mayor to meet with workers remains.

The mayor’s comments neglect that his administration has agency outside of deferring to legal bureaucratic institutions, or that it is fairly common for workers to dual-card across multiple unions, meaning a focus on this distinction is avoidance of actual action – like voluntary recognition.

Eckert-Lee said:

We’re organizing because we want to serve the city well. It becomes much harder to do that when we have no agency in advocating for ourselves.

There will be more layoffs in three months, workers believe. In the coming weeks of budget management, and coming days of negotiations with SWU, the mayor has a choice. Will Jake Wilson continue to smile at one labor crowd while cutting the other? Will Jake Wilson actually support the workers he champions to the GBLC or continue his anti-labor austerity till held accountable? 

Chris Brady is a member of Boston DSA and an editor of Working Mass.

The post The Wilson Cuts: Somerville Mayor Lays Off Union Organizers, ‘Disappears’ Mental Health Counselors appeared first on Working Mass.

Finn Green works for the U.S. Post Office as a rural carrier associate in Ojai, California. On a typical Monday, Green and other rural postal carriers deliver Amazon packages for hours without overtime pay. When mail volume is higher, such as days following legal holiday weekends and holiday seasons, carriers are ordered to prioritize Amazon parcels over Express and Registered mail, USPS’s most expensive products. Only after completing the Amazon deliveries may carriers return to their regular route to deliver USPS mail.

Amazon’s recent statement about its relationship with the U.S. Postal Service is a carefully constructed narrative. Since 2013, USPS has delivered Amazon packages through a program colloquially known as “Amazon Sundays.” The contract was up for renegotiation this year, and the stakes were high. Amazon brings in $6 billion in annual revenue to the Federal agency on the brink of bankruptcy. The 2026 negotiated contract resulted in the USPS delivering 80% of amazon packages it had previously handled, an outcome USPS had no real power to refuse. Amazon, for its part, calls this a “longstanding partnership.” The relationship is not as mutual as Amazon suggests.

Amazon’s relationship with USPS is that of an independent, dominant tech corporation leveraging a financially strained public institution whose survival depends on the multi-billion dollar contract. Green explicitly pushes back on the idea that Amazon is “saving the day,” and  instead suggests that Amazon is also dependent on USPS for rural and last-mile delivery, where private logistics are too costly to replicate. Although Amazon presents as a high‑tech delivery giant, its ability to promise cheap, fast, and near‑universal shipping is absolutely reliant on USPS’s public infrastructure and labor. 

USPS provides the tools necessary for Amazon’s success through long-established delivery routes, legally mandated universal service obligations, and a national workforce capable of reaching rural regions. Amazon’s role is not that of a benefactor, but of a dominant customer whose logistical operations are actively reorganizing a public institution through the slow process of death by a thousand cuts. In Green’s words, “Amazon has us by the balls, basically… the system is rigged, where it’s like Amazon sets the metrics of what we have to hit, and if we don’t hit it, they can withhold that money.” These pressures flow downward through USPS operations and dictate how carriers prioritize their workload.

Workers are further exploited through the rural route evaluation system. Under this system, rural carriers are assigned a fixed number of paid hours for a given route, based on standardized assessments of expected workload. Actual working time often far exceeds the hours assigned to an evaluated route, particularly during periods of high mail or Amazon package volume. Rural carriers work many additional hours beyond their evaluated time and do not receive corresponding pay or lunch breaks. Carriers are not allowed to return to the post office with any undelivered mail, meaning they must complete their full route no matter how long it takes. Delaying the mail is a federal violation. A carrier who does not complete an assigned route risks a fireable offence.

USPS maintains records of both evaluated hours and actual hours reported by carriers. While carriers are required to complete full delivery routes under penalty of discipline,  compensation is only addressed under specific thresholds instead of actual working hours. This means that although labor law requires hourly workers to be paid for every hour worked, the reality of combining the rural route evaluation system with delivery enforcement normalizes unpaid labor. 

Union leadership allegedly delays addressing any structural problems. When Green raised concerns with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA), representatives acknowledged that the rural route evaluation system can result in carriers working unpaid hours without breaks. While NRLCA representatives admit the system is unfair, it is nevertheless authorized by the union contract and tied to the rural carrier’s pay structure. 

Carriers are disillusioned with the union’s perceived complicity in these exploitative practices, and the working conditions for a rural carrier makes participating in union activities or holding management accountable practically impossible. The immediate labor crisis is a bureaucratic nightmare, and feeds into a growing sense among workers that privatization is inevitable. “Here is a workforce that is unionized, but the unions aren’t strong enough,” explains Green. And Amazon knows it.

In 1970, postal service workers won protections after initiating a strike without leadership approval, but striking against the Federal government remains illegal for USPS workers to this day. Alongside the 1970 workers strike, the postal system was restructured to operate more like a self-funded business, largely cutting off taxpayer support and relying instead on revenue from postage and services. USPS kept its public mandate to deliver mail to every address in the country, including rural and remote areas, six days a week. This created a contradictory system: USPS must remain financially independent while still delivering to addresses that private carriers won’t touch because they aren’t profitable.

Rather than being dismantled outright, USPS is repeatedly pressured through funding cuts, declining mail volumes, and a unique congressional requirement to pre-fund retiree health benefits. The breakdown of USPS isn’t by accident. Recent reports of USPS suspending pension contributions and projecting bankruptcy are presented as evidence of institutional failure, even though these crises are engineered by policy choices. Today, Trump claims there is no money to properly fund USPS while allocating billions of tax-payer dollars into the war in Iran and overall military spending.

Trump has repeatedly signaled support for privatizing the USPS. If this happens, Trump could use Federal pressure on private postal operators to influence mail-in ballots. According to a recent report, nearly 1 in 3 Americans voted by mail in 2024. If mail-in ballot responsibilities became dispersed within the corporation, Amazon could use the opportunity to control and influence elections. This is not outside the realm of possibility. In an Amazon facility in Alabama in 2021, security guards were seen unlocking a USPS mailbox where employees were casting union election ballots. The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union accused Amazon of controlling the “mechanics of the election,” including pressuring workers to use the company-requested USPS mailbox to submit their ballots. 

If the USPS were to shut down, millions of people across the country would lose a universal public communication system that delivers mail, ballots, stimulus payments, and essential goods to every address at a flat rate. Without the USPS, private carriers will lose money delivering to remote rural areas, and won’t have any incentive to do so. This will disproportionately affect rural communities and people living below the poverty line, particularly Indigenous peoples and Tribal Nations already dispossessed by U.S. colonial structures. 

Amazon’s integration into USPS operations is not a good faith partnership. The agency is expected to function as both a universal public service and to prioritize efficiency and optimization set by Amazon, at the expense of its workers. “People can see it coming,” warns Green. “They can see that if Amazon takes priority, it turns a federal workforce into a private workforce for a for‑profit, multibillion‑dollar company.”

Image: The USPS headquarters at 475 L’Enfant Plaza, Washington, D.C. Photo by Tony Webster and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

This article was originally published by jacobin on may 19, 2026. Read the original article here.

Many of us have misconceptions about Black history in amerika… Among the most common lies are that Lincoln freed the slaves, that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves, and that the history of Black people in amerika has consisted of slow but steady progress, that things have gotten better, bit by bit. Belief in these myths can cause us to make serious mistakes in analyzing our current situation and in planning future action.

– Assata Olugbala Shakur

On June 19, 1865, two full years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced the freedom of 250,000 Black people still held in bondage. The freed people named this day Juneteenth, and it has served as a celebration of the emancipation and liberty of African Americans. 

Unfortunately, the end of slavery did not bring equality to the formerly enslaved. Instead, Reconstruction was steered away from its liberatory potential. Four hundred years of slavery was followed by another century of lynchings and Jim Crow segregation. Legal forms of discrimination were outlawed by the Civil Rights Act, but the legacy of slavery continues, limiting Black communities’ access to equitable employment, housing, healthcare, legal and political representation to this day.

The white capitalist class has maintained the exploitation and control of Black workers through economic control and an expanded prison system. Today, the United States has the largest prison population in the world, with a highly disproportionate level of Black prisoners. California was a central part of the massive expansion of the US prison system, at one point embarking on what Ruth Wilson Gilmore described as “the largest prison building program in the history of the world.” Just a few years ago, Californians voted to allow forced labor to continue in prisons.

Here in San Francisco, slavery’s legacy of racial capitalism remains stark as well. The destruction of the Fillmore through so-called “urban renewal” which continues to displace thousands of Black residents and businesses. The brutality of homelessness that falls hardest on Black residents, especially Black women, many of whom have been displaced. The ongoing radiation crises at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and on Treasure Island in historically Black neighborhoods. The Black men and women who are killed by SFPD with impunity. Across the city, Black San Franciscans continue to bear the cost of policies that prioritize profits over people.

From the Haitian Revolution’s victory in 1804, to Juneteenth in 1865, through to today, the fight for Black liberation continues. Juneteenth is a reminder to recommit to the struggle for self-determination for Black communities in this country and around the world. This commitment is all the more urgent today, under the emboldened aggression from white supremacist movements. A better world is possible and it is our duty to win. 

Join DSA.

Resources/recommended reading:

• DSA National Abolition Working Group https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/ and National Abolish ICE WG and local Immigrant Justice Working Group
• “Juneteenth: The Slave’s Cause, the Socialists’ Cause” by John Lewis (DSA NPC member) https://www.dsausa.org/blog/juneteenth-the-slaves-cause-the-socialists-cause/ 
• “Golden Gulag” by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
• “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur
• “Black Reconstruction” by W. E. B. DuBois

DSA must navigate between race reductionism and “anti-woke” backlash to organize the diverse U.S. working class.

The post Socialist Multi-Racial Organizing, not Progressive Neoliberalism appeared first on Democratic Left.

By Victor A. Jiménez

January 23, 2005

I woke up on my aunt’s couch to 12.2 inches of snow and Saturday morning cartoons. Two hours later my grandmother went to another couch in the living room where my mother was sleeping to wake her up, and found her not breathing.

The ambulance came and pronounced her deceased around 12:00–1:00 a.m. At 11 years old, they told me that she had passed away “from a heart attack caused by depression.” In hindsight, that was their way of explaining to a child that she had died due to a drug overdose. Later in life as I saw others around me abuse prescription medication, I came to understand the truth of what had happened. She was depressed and abusing medication prior to the incident that led to her death. That night we were sleeping at my aunt’s house because the lights in our own home were shut off. My mom had struggled financially since my grandmother left for Mexico to retire. My grandmother was back in town specifically to help us find our footing.

April 3rd, 2026

This was my second year going vegan for Lent. I’m not a devout Catholic (I think like many Catholics I’m not great at it). My way of making up for it is going really hard for Lent. Luckily, the 21st century is the best time ever to be sober or vegan. There are a ton of options for me at the UFO Bar, where the Groundworks Caucus of Metro Detroit DSA held a social event. It was really well attended, big Metro Detroit DSA brass, with members from all caucuses present.

This was a month or so into my membership, and my new job. I left a start-up paid field firm to run the field program for a DSA candidate, and it was the best decision I made in a long time. I was so eager to be working on a team again and even more excited to be working on a real campaign.

I’d sat down with a comrade, and we had one of our first conversations. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon– I had my non-alcoholic beverage in hand and my onion rings were crunchy just like I like. I opened wide to chomp down on my vegan smash burger.

My fellow comrade chose that moment to ask me, “So Victor, what does being a socialist mean to you?” I totally froze. Partly because I was caught off guard, partly because the vegan smash burger was falling apart in my hands, but mostly because I hadn’t asked myself that question yet, or put much thought into my answer. Why was I a socialist? And why the hell was I so sure?

I’ve never studied economics, foreign affairs, sociology, or even politics to be honest; I was a communications major. I took a bite to give myself time to think on the fly, I think they could tell I panicked. I’m not known for my poker face. I was surprised because the little thought I’d put into the question before that point did not have any bearing on the conviction of my answer.

There is no reason why any basic human need should not be completely bought and paid for: water, power, internet, housing, healthcare, food, and education. All of these should be public goods, not just for those who need it most, but for everyone. That’s what it means to be a socialist to me.

Any other outcome is a choice by the rich and powerful oligarchy running this country. Who never has trouble finding money for war, or data centers, or warehouses to lock up our immigrant neighbors. After I washed down that first bite I gave a less eloquent version of that answer and we moved onto other subjects, but that question hasn’t left me since.

If this series was called “Why Am I Socialist?” I could just end it right there, but that’s not the question. Why this organization? Well, I’ve worked in campaigns for a while now and I’ve learned to discern a winning strategy from a losing strategy very quickly. I like playing for winning teams, especially when that team also has members who believe in the same principles and values as I do sitting in seats at the highest levels of government.

Progressive politics have always been important to me. I’ve been as selective as I can with my employers and I prefer to work for issues over politicians as often as I can. The quality of candidates that this organization has produced in recent years is undeniable and how they govern and show up for their communities has matched how they campaign through and through. Besides the candidates, the party itself is growing exponentially. The influx of new members is bringing new life and creating the opportunity for new initiatives, ideologies, and theories of change to take hold of the party in unexpected ways. This is an environment rife with energy, hope, and purpose; the perfect time to join an organization.

The best thing about DSA isn’t our politics. It’s the outcomes our politics produce. I’m 100% done with case studies and surveys. We know the air is bad and we know it’s because of heavy industry, we know that none of us can afford anything, there is no other way to interpret the rising cost of living and stagnant, undignified wages. There has never been a single survey nor case study needed to decide whether or not to build weapons for the military industrial complex which our tax dollars are propping up at rates which we will never know because the Pentagon has never passed an audit. From what I’ve seen our brand of politics is producing real outcomes, quickly, and unapologetically governing with the radical idea that basic human needs should be met for everyone in our society.

My answer to the question posed by this running series is simple: if DSA electeds made up a significant portion of officials in this country, at every level of government, we might actually live in a world where water, power, internet, housing, healthcare, food, and education were all public goods.

We might live in a world where our power wasn’t shut off in 2005 during the 12th heaviest snow storm in Detroit’s history and in that world my mother and millions of others who are no longer here due to the pain and trauma that capitalism burdens us with might still be here. All of this nonsense is a choice — we need people in office willing to choose differently.

Why I Joined DSA: For the Vegan Smash Burgers was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Enjoy your June 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, get involved with labor organizing, learn how you can fight data centers, sign up for trainings, 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 — Hot Socialist Summer
• Volunteer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)!
• Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Saturday 6/20
• Sign Up for Housing Justice Commission General Meeting Saturday 6/20
• Sunday 6/21 — RSVP for “Whose Power? The Ecosocialist Fight Over Data Centers and Corporate Power”
• Religion and Socialism Working Group Meeting Monday 6/22 — and Sign Up for Our Black Liberation Theology Book Study Group!
• RSVP for Strategic Mutual Aid Training Monday 6/29
• Help Support DSA — RSVP for Growth and Development Phonebanks Starting Thursday 7/2
• Saturday 7/11 — Sign Up for Fundraising Committee Training
• Labor, Labor, Read All About It! New Labor Herald June Issue Out Now!
• National Political Education Commission Applications are Open!
• Congratulations to New DSA Chapters and Organizing Committees — Plus New YDSA Chapters

From the National Political Committee — Hot Socialist Summer

This June, another hot socialist summer is underway, and the contradictions are high as ever. Janeese Lewis George’s win in Washington DC’s primary election this week puts us on track to win a democratic socialist mayor of our nation’s political capital, joining Zohran Mamdani as mayor of the economic capital of capitalism in New York City and adding to our scoreboard in a breakout year for the left. In the same week, Elon Musk just became the world’s first trillionaire. The median American family would take 12,000,000 years to accrue that much wealth.

Trillionaires should not exist, and workers deserve so much more! We have a massive opening to show millions of people what democratic socialism means, and how we can organize to win it together.

On this Juneteenth weekend, we reflect on the enormous struggle it took to achieve the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States after the Civil War — and how the project of Reconstruction was suppressed and remains unfinished to this day. The far right and ruling class have a long-term plan to roll back hard-won civil rights victories like the Voting Rights Act, with recent Supreme Court decisions like Louisiana v. Callais aiming to take us back to the days of Jim Crow and worse. 

They’re working this hard to suppress organized people because we’re building so much momentum on our side. Socialists have a long history of organizing to build Black political power. And the stakes are high for us to defend democracy and deepen our power at every level we can. All across the country, DSA is demonstrating how to organize solidarity across identity differences, around our shared class interests — and win! 

Janeese’s win is a breakthrough in DC because she won every part of the district, except affluent white homeowners, and ran up the numbers in majority black working class neighborhoods. That’s a major shift away from decades of racial polarization fueled by the ruling class, and toward a left mass politics that’s based on the reality of class conflict, as Metro DC DSA helped lay bare. In Atlanta, Mathewos Samson won State House District 58 as a Black DSA cadre candidate in a majority Black district in the heart of the political establishment’s base. That builds on last month’s exciting wins, when Chris Rabb won the deepest blue Democratic district in the country in Philadelphia with unapologetic socialist demands for Black power, and Louisville DSA’s Robert Bell won a Kentucky state house primary. In the weeks ahead, DSA chapters from NYC to St Louis are throwing down to keep racking up big wins and expand working class power against AIPAC, ICE and corporate control of our society.

This month also marks one year of ICE raids since June 6, 2025, when ICE began terrorizing Los Angeles. From LA to Minneapolis to Delaney Hall in New Jersey, in cities across the country, DSA chapters have been among the many grassroots organizations mobilizing everyday people in our communities to stand with our neighbors and keep ICE out. Support for abolishing ICE hit record highs over the past year, and we must keep organizing to make it happen.  

Our greatest tool to win the world we all deserve is organized labor — and on that front, DSA is organizing to rebuild a strong and vibrant labor movement in the United States. At the Labor Notes conference in Chicago last weekend, DSA showed up powerfully with hundreds of members who are organizing their workplaces. DSA members led over 100 panels and workshops. The building trades meetup was led by DSA members leading their reform project, and DSA members participated in the largest gathering of Amazon workers organizing to date. 

Solidarity with organized workers is the backbone of all the great social movement gains of the past century. We reflect on this as part of Pride month. Many DSA chapters celebrate by watching the excellent 2014 film “Pride,” about gay and lesbian activists organizing common cause with striking mineworkers against neoliberalism in the UK in the 1980s. This year, miners in Durham County, England stood in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community when Reform UK threatened local pride celebrations’ funding. This has powerful resonance for us here as trans and queer rights are under attack. DSA is proud to be the one of the largest organizations of transgender people in the country, and we’re organizing solidarity everywhere for a world where all of us are free to be ourselves and take care of each other.

All this and more is why DSA chapters are growing quickly everywhere from Kansas City, Missouri, to Sonoma County, California. People all over the country want to protect ourselves, our families, and our neighbors. We can do that through the power of our democratic mass organization. We must keep organizing to bring more of our friends, coworkers, and neighbors as DSA members, scale up our work, and build the power to win what we all deserve!

Solidarity,

Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer
DSA National Co-Chairs

Volunteer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)!

Do you have workplace organizing experience? Do you want to help workers connect with their coworkers, build power, fight the boss, and unionize? Well, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) needs YOU!

Every summer EWOC hears from hundreds of workers who are fed up with the status quo. We need organizers who can coach them as they build relationships, organizing committees, and campaigns. Is that you? Sign up today!

Learn New Skills! Sign Up for a Growth and Development Committee Training Starting Saturday 6/20

Check out the Growth and Development Committee’s upcoming trainings! Our core curriculum of trainings spans topics from meeting facilitation to membership engagement.

And are you interested in taking on a leadership role in your DSA chapter? Already in a position of leadership. but looking to up your game? Attend the June Leadership Intensive Saturday 9/12–Sunday 9/13. RSVP today.

Sign Up for Housing Justice Commission General Meeting Saturday 6/20

RSVP for the Housing Justice Commission (HJC) General Meeting Saturday 6/20 at 2pm ET/1pm CT/12pm MT/11am PT! In this meeting, we’ll cover the HJC Steering Committee elections, the HJC Liaisons program, and the Summer Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) training. Join us!

Sunday 6/21 — RSVP for “Whose Power? The Ecosocialist Fight Over Data Centers & Corporate Power”

Join the Ecosocialism Transition Committee, DSA organizers and Special Guests Astra Taylor and DSA elected Kristen Gonzalez Sunday 6/21 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT to discuss the fight for a working class ecosocialism!

This call will address the deeply felt and growing opposition to data centers, and DSA’s current chapter work on the issue. Hear speakers and a panel of chapter organizers on the common roadblocks, tactics, and strategies this work shares with other vital areas of DSA’s Ecosocialist chapter work — like resistance to polluting and community-destroying industries, base-building initiatives, and building green infrastructure under the ongoing Building For Power Campaign!

And in July, we’ll have a discussion-based call on the broad sweep of DSA’s Ecosocialist work, the formation and goals of the Ecosocialism Commission, and becoming a member. Stay tuned for more details!

Religion and Socialism Working Group Meeting Monday 6/22 — and Sign Up for Our Black Liberation Theology Book Study Group!

The monthly meet-up of the DSA Religion and Socialism Working Group will be Monday 6/22 at 8:30pm ET/7:30pm CT/6:30pm MT/5:30pm PT. Sign up here to find out what your comrades of faith are doing and how you can be part of our project.

Starting in July, the Black Liberation Theologians group will launch an 8-session study of “Sisters in the Wilderness” by womanist theologian Delores Williams. This text centers the story of Hagar as a lens for Black women’s survival, God-talk, and liberation.

Because this text speaks from and to a particular community, this space is being held specifically for Black members. We’ll wrestle with questions such as: What does the cross mean for people who have been forced to carry it for others? Who is God to the woman in the wilderness? What does survival demand of us theologically? Fill out the form here to sign up.

RSVP for Strategic Mutual Aid Training Monday 6/29

Join DSA’s Mutual Aid Working Group (MAWG) Monday 6/29 at 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT for a strategic mutual aid training. Hear answers to questions like:

• What makes a mutual aid project strategic for a chapter?
• How does mutual aid put socialist ideas into practice?
• How can we use mutual aid to integrate into our communities?

RSVP for our training and learn from the experience of the Mutual Aid Working Group!

Help Support DSA — RSVP for Growth and Development Phonebanks Starting Thursday 7/2

Join the Growth and Development Committee (GDC) for a July phonebank!

• Solidarity Dues phonebank Thursday 7/2 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Recommitment phonebank on Thursday 7/16 at 7pm ET/6pm CT/5pm MT/4pm PT
• Solidarity Dues phonebank on Sunday 7/19 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT

Saturday 7/11 — Sign Up for Fundraising Committee Training

Join the Fundraising Committee on Saturday 7/11 at 5pm ET/4pm CT/3pm MT/2pm PT for a fundraising training on the basics of fundraising as a chapter.

Labor, Labor, Read All About It! New Labor Herald June Issue Out Now!

The June issue of the New Labor Herald, DSA’s National Labor Commission (NLC) bulletin, is out NOW!

In this issue, you’ll find a Q&A from two labor council delegates; a Democratic Left article on DSA’s Strike Ready campaign; a college professor’s breakdown of AI in the classroom; a reportback from the May Day Strong conference in St. Louis; and a book review of Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott’s Motown and the Making of Working-Class Revolutionaries. And get updates from NLC subcommittees and how you can get involved!

Please print and share the New Labor Herald in your chapter labor formations! And email nlc@dsacommittees.org, subject line “Bulletin Submissions,” to contribute as a writer or share comments with us.

National Political Education Commission Applications are Open!

DSA’s National Political Education Commission is becoming an open commission, which means all members in good standing can apply to join. If you educate, research, or write, apply NOW to help grow and improve DSA’s political education!

We’re aiming for a diverse commission, so we especially encourage non-men and comrades of color to join us. To participate in our first meeting and nominate or run for the steering committee, you must apply by Saturday, August 15.

Congratulations to New DSA Chapters and Organizing Committees — Plus New YDSA Chapters

A warm welcome to the latest DSA chapters and Organizing Committees!

New DSA Chapters

• Shasta County, California
• Fort Wayne, Indiana

New DSA Organizing Committees: 

• North Mississippi, Mississippi
• Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
• Bowling Green, Ohio
• Skagit County, Washington
• Heart of Iowa, Iowa
• Evansville Riverbend, Indiana

New YDSA Chapters

• University of Texas Austin
• University of Tennessee Knoxville
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts
• Cerritos College, California
• Evanston Township High School, Illinois
• North Dakota State University

The post Your National Political Committee Newsletter — Hot Socialist Summer appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).