Popular education is a method of teaching that centers the voices of students starting from their unique perspectives and situations.

The post How to use popular education to build worker power appeared first on EWOC.

This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups. 

Welcome to Vol. 8 of the monthly round-up! The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

MADSA Annual Convention a Success

The chapter held our annual convention on the evening of Friday March 20th and the full day of Saturday, March 21st. MADSA members elected new leadership for the coming year, voted to continue many working groups, and debated and passed resolutions that will shape how the chapter does its work this year and beyond. Below are 3 key themes from this year’s convention.

1. Organizing Everyday People, Especially Labor

This convention passed several exciting proposals around mobilizing everyday worker power. One was a major resolution setting clear goals around a “rank and file” worker organizing strategy. In short, key goals include: increasing organizing discussions in people’s unionized and non-unionized workplaces; taking specific actions to help existing unions become more active and socialist; taking steps towards a mass labor action on May 1, and building further potential for mass labor actions; and leveraging MADSA’s worker power for building new unions, pulling existing union members towards socialism, and building coalitions within and between unions. The resolution emphasizes a move away from convincing formal labor leadership, and towards supporting rank-and-file workers in taking concrete steps for socialist organizing in their specific context.

The convention also ratified a Community Defense Working Group, which will be taking the main role in guiding MADSA’s STRIKE ICE OUT actions. The group will emphasize community education, non-violent neighborhood mobilizing, mutual aid, and strike preparation. Specific goals for the working group include providing materials and trainings, doing administrative tasks for maintaining neighborhood group chats across the city, encouraging in-person meetings between neighbors, disseminating information from other reliable sources (Voces, MTI, and Comite Sin Fronteras), supporting tenant organizing, and helping build towards a May 1st major labor action / general strike.

2. Electoral Work

Members voted to continue the Program Working Group, which is developing a formal platform with the key viewpoints and priorities of MADSA as a chapter. This work will be helpful in guiding MADSA’s collaboration with political candidates, and when deciding how to prioritize projects in the face of unprecedented growth in membership. 

Members also passed a resolution to build DSA’s capacity as an independent political party. The resolution included a continuation of this past year’s electoral work, while also adding features like additional political education in the “off-season,” and collaboration with the Labor Working Group around research and explicit support of policy that improves labor rights.

Lastly, members passed a resolution reaffirming the chapter’s commitment to Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism. This resolution mandates that any program, platform, and/or candidates endorsed by MADSA “must support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, refrain from any and all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups, pledge to oppose legislation that harms Palestinians and support legislation that supports Palestinian liberation.”

3. Improving Chapter Functions

Lastly, several convention items focused on improving the running of our chapter. A spirited discussion took place around the accessibility of meetings. One particular area of concern has been disability access, including – but not limited to – variable masking requirements at different meetings. Another topic was improving support for working parents within the chapter, who face additional barriers to participating in regular meetings. On Saturday, members discussed a proposal and an amendment around accessibility issues, and they ultimately decided to table the final vote until the April general membership meeting.

Several resolutions did pass related to the running of the chapter, including: 

• Changes to certain chapter rules and processes, including standing meeting rules;
• Creating a cohort model for welcoming and onboarding new members to the chapter;
• Creating some editorial practices and increased structure for Red Madison, to improve responsiveness and to foster more participation in the publication. 

A resolution around creating a process for formal coalition-building with external groups did not pass, after significant discussion and debate. 

MADSA Attends “No Kings”

Members of the chapter recently attended the No Kings protest on March 28th, with the goal of being a visible socialist presence, handing out materials, and talking to interested crowd members about action steps for being politically engaged and effective. In preparation for the march, MADSA had organizing meetings, an art build on 3/27, and a crowd canvassing training emphasizing “NO ICE, NO WAR, NO BILLIONAIRES!” 

Several MADSA members gave speeches at the protest! You can see them here, and shorter clips will be posted on Instagram in the coming week.

ICE Out Efforts Continue

MADSA continues to coordinate information about trainings and events, and neighborhood group chats, via the Strike Out ICE hub. Check it out here, and keep your eyes out for the newsletter in your inbox! 

A major next step in the process is the Madison Worker’s Assembly on April 4th. This is an opportunity for the community to come together and reflect on goals and strategies for mass labor action.

Additional Organizing

Other important efforts this month included the following:

• Labor Working Group hosted a Strike Studies event on 3/2; the next one is on April 6th.
• MADSA hosted a panel discussion titled Against Empire: A Socialist Conversation on Imperialism on 3/26 – a topic that is especially relevant given current events.
• MADSA held an Affordable Housing Panel, featuring local organizers and elected officials on 3/27 – video here!
• The Program Working Group had an event on one of the planks in MADSA’s developing platform – public transit! This took place on 3/31.
• There was a one-off reading group on 3/23 focusing on two short texts by Alexandra Kollontai, focusing on the intersection of Marxism and feminism. 

And coming soon:

• MADSA is starting to prepare for another Queer Liberation March, with a meeting planned for 4/4.
• DSA made plans to attend the upcoming May Day Strong Solidarity School, preparing for a May 1st day of mass labor action / general strike – this is scheduled for April 11th.

Social Events

We continue hosting recurring social events – DSA 101, Coffee with Comrades, and the Rosebuddies program. MADSA Run Club is making a return on Sundays as the weather warms up!

Protest Song of the Month

For this month’s song, have a 1913 tune by Joe Hill, We Will Sing One Song.

• Video here of a modern cover.
• More about Joe Hill here.

And that concludes our monthly round-up!

“The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity.” – Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Writing is one of the most important inventions in human history. It allowed us to build civilizations, to coordinate social structures across vast distances, and to fuel humanity’s social, political, and scientific development into the modern age. Thanks to the written word, we can read the exact thoughts of scholars who lived many thousands of years ago, communicate complex ideas to millions of people, and build the democratic political movements capable of remaking society for the benefit of working people.

It has never been more important to preserve and expand our ability to write and communicate clearly. Original writing is now being severely devalued by a current of anti-intellectualism, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and an unprecedented public disinvestment in education. This is why Midwest Socialist wants to encourage Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in the greater Midwest to develop their own skills at writing and communication.

Learn, Learn, and Learn Again

During the heyday of the democratic socialist movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, deep engagement with Marxist theory was considered a prerequisite to leading workers in their struggle against oppression. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, Antonio Gramsci, and countless others spent years developing tomes of political theory while they organized tirelessly to overthrow capitalism. They did not see organizing and theorizing as two separate activities, but as two integral parts of the same effort.

In the twentieth century, socialist governments considered mass political education an essential step in building a post-capitalist society. In 1961, Cuba sent 250,000 educated people into the countryside to teach millions of poor workers and campesinos to read, virtually eliminating illiteracy on the island within a few short years. The methods developed during this campaign served as an example for the entire Global South, and the model was successfully implemented in other countries around the world.

Socialist states with highly literate populations took this idea a step further. In East Germany, government-sponsored programs established spaces to encourage workers to express themselves creatively, including through prose and poetry. These programs would have been considered wasteful and useless in a capitalist society, but the socialist government of that country saw value in the political development of the working class through creative pursuits.

Closer to home, universal public education is one of the greatest surviving accomplishments of the working class movement in the United States. The collective knowledge of humanity is our birthright as working people, and it is our responsibility to engage with these ideas and educate ourselves.

A Hollow Education

The relevance of political broadsheets and hand-printed pamphlets has declined precipitously in the last hundred years, but the necessity to write clearly and convincingly has not. We live in a time when a significant percentage of young Americans are falling behind in school, when college students at our nation’s most prestigious universities are incapable of reading a whole book, and when AI is taking away the livelihoods of creative and intellectual laborers on an unprecedented scale. In this context, reading, writing, and learning have taken on new significance.

Public schools are under attack in the U.S. Compounding the damage of decades of chronic disinvestment, Republicans and Democrats alike have established charter school systems across the country that take state money to fund academies – often with reactionary pedagogical mandates –  and predatory, unstable for-profit schools through “school voucher” programs. These efforts take away resources from public schools and leave students behind. This is in addition to the current administration’s broad anti-intellectual right-wing attacks on science, history, tolerance in the classroom, and the basic principle that education should serve students rather than the state’s extremist political agenda.

Furthermore, all modern forms of mass media are deliberately constructed to turn working people into passive consumers of carefully curated political messages that shut out the possibility of radical change. They shamelessly promote unjust and insane wars, give billionaires and their servants unlimited airtime and space to advance their own agendas while marginalizing progressive voices, attempt to smear left-wing candidates for public office, and turn people away from transformative social and political structures.

AI is just the most recent extension of the centuries-long effort to control what working people know, think, and feel. A recent meta-study by the Brookings Institute highlights the dangers of using this untested technology in classrooms. Evidence is mounting that students and adults alike suffer a “cognitive debt” when they over-rely on chatbots to perform intellectual tasks, rendering them incapable of the basic skills needed to function in society and sharply limiting their ability to develop any kind of meaningful political consciousness.

This is why Midwest Socialist does not accept AI-generated writing and strongly discourages the use of AI writing programs. For too many, an ‘AI-assisted’ piece of writing is the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. It is an excuse not to engage with ideas, a way to treat essays and creative writing projects as problems to be solved, published, and put away as quickly as possible rather than an exercise in critical thinking and creativity. In this context, the adage “if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it” takes on new meaning.

At a time when it appears possible to offload every intellectual exertion to an unthinking machine, engaging with ideas seriously and honestly is quickly becoming a revolutionary act in itself. Despite all the hype from tech companies, working people are still quite skeptical that AI will benefit society in the long run. We can consciously reject the implementation of technologies that don’t serve the needs of the working class.

Why We Write

“Our task is to make thinkers out of fighters and fighters out of thinkers.” – General Gordon Baker, revolutionary educator

All progressive transformation finds its energy from the creative labor of working people. To give an example from American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the face of the New Deal and arguably its most important champion, but he did not implement it. It required legions of skilled, educated, and competent artisans, craftspeople, engineers, laborers, administrators, artists, writers, and countless others working toward the unified goal of transforming society. We are going to need millions of engaged, curious people eager to work to better society. We will build the future we deserve through a combination of organizing, community building, and unshakable solidarity.

Right now, none of those efforts are where they need to be. In the context of economic stagnation and repression at home and abroad, the fight for a better world can at times feel hopeless. Individual action is not enough to reverse the long-term trends of illiteracy and intellectual shortcutting that have plagued our society for decades. We need robustly funded schools, mass political education, a media not beholden to private interests, and an economy that fosters creative pursuits as more than products to be packaged for consumption. But that effort starts by building our own capabilities, collaborating with others, and working tirelessly to create and sustain the kinds of unapologetically socialist institutions that will build a better society.

There’s a reason every child is taught to write essays in school. Writing teaches us to organize our thoughts, to engage with primary sources, and to express ourselves clearly and succinctly to a wide audience. These skills are essential to any political movement. We cannot rely on capitalist-controlled media and obsequious AI to do our thinking for us.

If it is indeed true that every cook can govern, as the old saying goes, then any DSA member can write. Not every single person must become a journalist, theorist, or polemicist. There are a million ways to contribute to our struggle. But if you wrote stories on lined notebook paper in the fifth grade, composed multi-paragraph social media posts in response to articles you see online, or simply have had ideas and perspectives on our work and movement, we want to hear from you. 

If you would like to write for Midwest Socialist, contact us through our Google form. Be sure to read our Editorial Policy before submitting. We publish op-eds, articles about leftist history, interviews, left-wing reviews of recently released media and leftist classics, and other forms of writing, and we are particularly interested in original journalism about events happening in the Midwest.

If you have an idea that you need help turning into an outline, an outline you need help turning into a draft, or an article you’re wrestling with, our Editorial Board offers Zoom appointments to discuss your ideas and help you build them into a publishable article. The editorial board doesn’t guarantee that every individual article will be published, but we will work with you to build your project into a piece we can all be proud of. Once you’ve submitted a draft, we will make edits and send a final draft ready to be published.

Writing is a skill that takes time and practice, just like learning a language, mastering a trade, or playing an instrument. The only way to improve is to jump right in, and Midwest Socialist is a great place to get started. We look forward to reading your work.

The post Why You Should Write for Midwest Socialist appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

We are excited to announce our first federal endorsement for 2026!

Oliver Larkin is taking on one of the most war-mongering democrats in Congress, and DSA is proud to endorse him. Four Florida DSA chapters have already endorsed on the ground, canvassing and carrying petitions for Oliver. We will no longer allow billionaire-backed democrats to claim that we have to spend billions on war while healthcare is further decimated — we’re challenging them in the primaries with organized people who can’t be bought.

Oliver is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

Date: Sunday, April 19

Time: 12 pm – 3 pm PDT

Location:  The Open Book – The Oaks Mall

556 W Hillcrest Dr, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

Join the DSA Ventura County book club for discussions about selected readings. If you love history, the written word, or the world around you, then you belong here!

This will be a friendly, inclusive event open to all, regardless of prior experiences or familiarity with the topic.

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 6pm PST

Online Only. RSVP for Zoom Link.

Monthly Steering Committee Meetings are open to members to observe but, generally, only Steering Committee members may vote and participate.

Date: Sunday, April 12 from 9:30 am til 11 AM

Location: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters – 550 Collection Blvd Suite 130, Oxnard, CA 93036

Come join like-minded comrades for a cup of your favorite morning beverage. These gatherings offer a relaxed space to meet members and find out how to get involved, decompress, talk about the issues we face, and stay connected as we close out the year.

No RSVP needed!

Monday, April 13 at 6:30pm PST (Online)

Join DSA Ventura County’s Mutual Aid Working Group for a planning meeting focused on addressing unmet needs in Ventura County. Bring your big ideas, suggestions for coalition partners, and a desire to stand in solidarity with others. We are cookin’ up some ideas, and will post an agenda on our slack.

Sponsored by

April 2026 Newsletter

Music and the Movement: Sharing Songs

Since the start of the leftist movement, songs have been of paramount importance in lifting spirits and sharing stories of bravery, solidarity, and a better world.

Countless people have been moved in spirit and into action by Which Side are you On, Power in a Union, and the UK Labour Party anthem Bread and Roses. These songs can speak to us still. But many new artists are expressing the spirit of the working class.

So it is my privilege and joy to share my current playlist of modern Folk and Americana inspired songs: DSA Playlist - Recent Americana/Folk‍ ‍If you like Carsie Blanton, she will be performing in Earlville and Naples, NY in June and in Syracuse in October!

New songs that inspire with hip-hop vibes include Cure for Paranoia and DAMAG3.

Please share the songs that inspire you!

Send what inspires you to newsletter@syracusedsa.org for inclusion in next month’s Newsletter.

April 2026 Newsletter

Labor Movement Hero: Mother Jones

by Comrade Alex R

In the midst of a growing nation that was reaching the peak of its industrial development, prosperity, capital gains, and expansion was the projection of American society to the world in the late 19th and early 20th century. Manufacturing, industrialization, and technological advancements characterized the country at this time. However, a vast majority of the country was not benefiting from or living within the prosperity that was advertised. Instead, what was on the forefront of the daily life of workers was the conspicuous wealth inequality, the minimal amount of workers’ rights, unsafe working conditions, and horrid living conditions. In order to be exploited further, many workers were ostracized for organizing, kept largely uneducated, and were purposefully limited in their material possessions to keep them dependent on their employer. 

The time was ripe for an awakening of the working class and for someone to fearlessly lead them in their fight. As Mary Jones stated, “[These] were the days of sacrifice for the cause of labor (Jones, pg. 14).” Mary Harris Jones (well known as Mother Jones) took on this challenge and has become renowned for major contributions to the labor movement. Among her accomplishments are massively expanding the United Mine Workers of America, helping to eliminate child labor, and co-founding the Industrial Workers of the World (Jones). This does not even touch on the vast number of strikes and demonstrations she led or the countless number of workers she helped unionize. Beyond her renowned fiery speech and relentless toughness, her ability to draw from her own experience and her dedication to fighting for her class molded her into the labor hero she has become.

Mother Jones’ background is a major factor as to why she was such a prominent figure in the labor movement. The trials she faced throughout her life prior to work in the labor movement hardened and emboldened her. As a first generation immigrant from Ireland, Jones witnessed the toil and struggle of her people who had to work to earn passage to North America. Upon arriving, she experienced discrimination based on her heritage and witnessed the toil of her father who worked on the railroads. Additionally, soon after marrying, her husband (a member of the Iron Moulders’ Union) and four children died of yellow fever in the epidemic of 1867 (Jones, pg. 13). This was one of the first moments that Jones has noted as stirring her to action. A startling observation she made was that the victims of this epidemic were “mainly among the poor and the workers [as] the rich and well-to-do” had the means to leave the disease ridden city (Jones, pg. 12). This experience riled her to action as a nurse for her sickly neighbors. Following this, in her work as a dressmaker, she was appalled by the gross discrepancy in wealth as she saw the “poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry” next to the apathetic “tropical comfort” and “luxury and extravagance” of the upper class (Jones, pg. 13). Soon after much of her life was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire and she found herself in the labor movement as a frustrated, hardworking individual with a rising class consciousness. Mother Jones leaned on the trials and lessons she learned throughout her life and used them to formulate a clear worldview that relied on equity, fairness, and justice for the working class. 

Another central tenet of Mother Jones’ work was acknowledging the difference in the experiences of the socioeconomic classes of the time. Rather than turning a blind eye, she embraced these differences and approached the burgeoning labor movement from this lens. Her contempt and vitriol for the wealthy and their government lackeys was inherent to her approach. Speaking largely to groups with limited education and limited social safety nets (including health care, child care, social services, etc.), she was ruthless in calling out career politicians who were clearly bought by the wealthy and passed legislation for their causes. At one demonstration, she expounded about the “prosperity of the rich” being “wrung from the poor and helpless” all while chastising the “legislators [who] in one hour pass three bills the relief of the railways” while bills on labor go untouched (Jones, pg. 80-81). Jones attacked the newspapers who limited coverage of the movement because “mill owners had stock in the papers (Jones, pg. 70).” Intimidation was not an option for Jones and loudly proclaiming her criticisms of the upper class helped to fuel the class solidarity necessary for labor movements to succeed. Beyond this, she confronted many of the top politicians in the country, confronted mine owners, police officials, and every proxy of the upper class without trepidation. All the while, she injected a class consciousness and educated the working class on how to succeed through solidarity.

The principles and beliefs that Mother Jones proclaimed to the masses were essential to her role as a prominent figure in labor history; however, her true impact was not her speeches. It was that she lived her beliefs, fortified the labor movement with more class consciousness, and built solidarity among workers. She engaged in the very labor struggles she spoke passionately about, fought side by side with striking workers, organized all that were willing (and many who were hesitant and reluctant), and wore her label as an “agitator” proudly. The model of Mother Jones is one that teaches us to live our struggle, get our hands dirty, fight in the name of class solidarity, and to stand with our fellow worker in the face of adversity. She reminds us that “there are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery (Jones, pg. 27)” and to be “not afraid to face any thing if facing it may bring relief to the class that [you] belong to (Jones, pg. 87).”

Jones, Mother. The Autobiography of Mother Jones. Edited by Mary Field Parton, Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1925.

The entirety of Mother Jones’ Autobiography can be read for free here. Thanks Alex!

Send your creative work to newsletter@syracusedsa.org for inclusion in next month’s Newsletter.