By Sean Mullins

We often think of the work we do to build socialism as a struggle. Of course it is, but could we also think of it as a game? If it is a game, then is there a rule set we must follow? Or are we allowed to make our own rules?

Finally, is it more important to “win” at the game of socialism, or should we be far more concerned about how it is we go about playing the game? Every game is a system, you see. Much like the system that we oppose and wish to deconstruct completely.

Years ago I joined DSA for the same reason many people do. I learned how messed up our world truly is and I felt compelled to do something about it. Joining was pretty easy. I clicked on a few website buttons and eventually I showed up for my very first general meeting. I met a few people, I gave an introduction speech, and eventually I got plugged in to Slack. Before long I learned about our chapter’s basic structure, which revolved around working groups which all had a specific type of organizing in mind. I went to some meetings, and a few socials, and of course also did a bit of canvassing.

All of that was the easy part. It was a path that had already been paved for me, in a sense. But then, after trying out a few things for a few working groups, I eventually had to answer the question that had been lingering in the back of my head. Why am I really here? Or more specifically, what can I as an individual offer an organization like ours? I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t super smart, and I certainly didn’t have tons of connections. I was also disabled both mentally and physically. Disability by definition limits the choices we have for the things we are capable of doing.

I eventually recalled a passage from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” Saul used the analogy of painting a single leaf for a lifetime, to describe the frustration every activist eventually feels. The work we do tends to feel very small and insignificant sometimes. Particularly if we never allow ourselves to step back and view the “tree” we’re working on as a whole. Because what if you weren’t the only one painting a leaf?

If we consider the tree to be DSA as an organization, or better yet the overall cause that is socialism, then there are an awful lot of leaves and branches indeed. It’s easy to see how one might spend a lifetime on one leaf/project or one branch/organization/chapter.

And so I knew then what I had to do. I had to find “my” leaf. I had been wandering aimlessly around the tree looking for where I might start painting. But once I began to consider what I was most comfortable with, skilled at, or passionate about, I immediately considered my obsession with table top gaming. I had amassed a decent collection of games, I had devoted an entire YouTube channel to playing them, and I had even hosted numerous game events in the past for other groups. “Why doesn’t our chapter have a game night?” I wondered aloud. I had found my leaf, and now it was time to start painting.

Have you found your leaf yet? It’s okay if you haven’t. It took me over a year to find mine. Sometimes it doesn’t jump right out at you. And it doesn’t even need to be a unique trail that only you can blaze, or a thing you alone can create. But if you’re like me, you may initially doubt the importance of the leaf you end up choosing. Given the material conditions that we find ourselves in, I legitimately wondered if I was just “wasting time” by trying to sit around and play games with my comrades. I mean the world is literally on fire, after all (among other things). Was I Nero grabbing a fiddle?

BOUNCY CASTLE COMMUNISM

One of the main reasons I’m writing this article is another article that a comrade shared with me. I found it so interesting that I shared it in the membership engagement Slack channel. This sparked yet another conversation and in fact we had an entire meeting revolve around the concepts discussed in this article! It poses a very simple question. Why is the left no fun? We have fun all the time, of course. But how often do we truly consider the relationship between fun and our organizing work? The article wonders why we don’t have “bouncy castle communism.” Why aren’t we trying harder to have truly inclusive communal activities that right-wing groups so often have? What about carnivals, or theater groups, or baseball leagues?

The article makes clear that there was once a time when socialists understood the true power of just… being social. They knew that social activities weren’t just a nice thing to have, they were an essential element of this thing we call organizing. They knew that in order to get the working class to show up, you need bouncy castles for their kids to play on, you need baseball games for them to enjoy, and you most certainly need to show them a good time rather than just have a bunch of meetings and the occasional trip to the bar.

These socialists even started coming up with and continued to refine a hard set of rules for how their socials should ideally be conducted in order to get the most out of them. They absolutely wanted to educate the working class and galvanize them into action, but they also knew they needed to give folks a reason to stick around long enough for any of that to happen. Education does take time, after all. And action doesn’t come from nowhere. We must have a why, and that why needs to be compelling enough to keep moving us forward regardless of the cost.

Would you like to get to know your comrades a little better? Would you like to bond over shared interests? Do you love playing games? There are all sorts of ways to get involved in game night! You could come to one of our events, which are usually on the last Saturday of the month at Pandemonium Games and Hobbies in Garden City around 4pm. If you dig game night after trying it out, there’s a bunch of ways to stay tapped in. We do have a games channel on our chapter Slack, which is a great place to make suggestions or ask questions. You can also just DM me as well of course.

The MDDSA game night will always strive to be a highly inclusive and welcoming event, as any socialist event should be. No matter who you are, no matter what games you prefer to play. Any feedback is always welcome too! And please remember that if games aren’t the leaf you want to paint, then you can always find your own. Or you can help another comrade with their leaf! Just know that it is a part of this tree that we call socialism. Painting this tree may take our whole lives, and our children may need to pick up a brush someday too. But we will all paint it for the same reason. We believe in a better world which is possible. Solidarity forever.

Sean Mullins has been a DSA member for two years and is a member of the Detroit Democracy Coalition. He is a member of the Member Engagement Committee.

Rolling the Die for Socialism was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Buffalo DSA is saddened and angered to learn that ICE agents murdered another man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, in Houston.

This tragedy is unfortunately not surprising. It is just the latest act of cruelty from ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies enacting the Trump Administration’s fascist agenda. Western New Yorkers saw this inhumanity firsthand after CBP killed Nurul Amin Shah Alam through their neglect and disregard for his life, but we also see it in day-to-day operations, which have not slowed down. Community responders such as BIRD report weekly kidnappings by ICE agents, and watchdog organizations continue to speak on the horrible conditions inside the Batavia Detention Center.

These murders and countless other human rights abuses expose ICE as agents of terror.

Federal agencies such as ICE have always had free reign to scapegoat immigrants and minorities, and categorize our neighbors as “threats,” all while greedy capitalists, in both mainstream parties, refuse to provide basic necessities for us.

ICE should have never existed. There is no way to reform what is, and always has been, a violent group of murderers. Abolishing ICE is the only option.

We urge our members and the broader community to stand up to ICE’s terror as much as you are able to safely, and remain informed for yourselves and your neighbors. Campaigns, organizations, and resources include (but are not limited to):

• Buffalo Immigrant and Refugee Defense (BIRD): A community response group dedicated to monitoring ICE and CBP activity in the greater Buffalo area. If you see ICE/CBP active in WNY, call or text 716-222-2190
• Evict ICE 250: A campaign dedicated to the removal of ICE field operations from 250 Delaware Avenue, where the wealthy Jacobs family profits off of detention and human suffering
• Justice for Migrant Families of Western New York: An organization that works to support migrants’ human and civil rights
• New York Immigration Coalition: An advocacy coalition that shares important updates and resources, including Know Your Rights materials, throughout the state
• [For DSA Members] DSA International Migrant Rights Working Group: A national working group in DSA helping train and support local DSA chapters in defending local migrant communities

Recently, I attended a talk by an employee of a major AI company about work they were doing with the island nation of Tuvalu to help Tuvalu become the world’s “first digital nation.” Because of its extremely low elevation (4.6 m or ~15 ft at highest elevation), the island nation has been quite vocal about climate change-induced sea level rise and its impact on their land. For example, one of the videos shown during the talk was of an island chief standing in ocean water, pleading for the world to act on mitigating climate change.

Tuvalu has a long way to go before it becomes a digital nation, however. During the talk, we learned that the island nation currently does not even use digital spreadsheets, and data is entered into spreadsheets by government employees by hand on ruler-drawn paper. The Internet is available on the islands but only at certain times of the day and it is mostly used for entertainment.

Another challenge is that most of the people of Tuvalu don’t see the need to update to the latest technology. When casually asked about AI by employees of the partner company, many of them just responded, “What is the point?”  This is not to say that there was no interest in AI. After all, the Tuvaluan government is working with U.S. tech companies to digitize the nation. The local attitude toward AI, however, is a largely practical one. Tuvaluans want to use AI to improve government administration, education, and the quality of life on the islands. AI and other digital tech do not seem to be transforming their everyday lives in the same way that it is in the United States. For example, Tuvaluans still have most of their conversations with humans and generate their own written content without outsourcing it to AI.

The focus on AI for human development in Tuvalu is common, though not uniform, across the Global South, including in Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. At a related event, I talked to a former tech worker from Silicon Valley who now builds houses in Puerto Rico. When I asked them about how they saw the adoption of emerging technologies in Puerto Rico and where it would go, they responded that technology like AI is largely behind the scenes. Human relationships are in the foreground, while the Internet (being used to answer homework questions or for enjoying TikTok before bed) is in the background.

The increasingly dominant narrative in contemporary Western and other Global North conversations around tech is that technological development will lead to increasing alienation as large corporations and authoritarian governments use advanced digital technology to surveil their citizens and keep them distracted. This is also seen as a prelude to the emergence of posthuman superintelligences that will enslave or wipe out humanity. This vision of the future is described in the cyberpunk science fiction genre. 

A counter-narrative to grim cyberpunk scenarios is the solarpunk genre, where technology–such as robotics, cybernetics, and biotechnology–is used in a way that integrates humans with each other and nature. Cities are decked with vegetation and powered by renewable energy, and robots are used to free humans of repetitive labor so they can spend more time building relationships, creating art, and being in nature. Another feature of solarpunk fiction is that advanced technology is behind the scenes. The environment tends to look fairly low tech, despite being potentially much more advanced than the modern day. For example, it might look indistinguishable from a rural village apart from the massive solar panels or the humanoid robot walking by. Examples of this genre include Becky Chambers’s novels Psalm for the Wild-Built, Prayer of the Crown Shy, and Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. 

This raises an interesting question. Could a solarpunk-like scenario emerge from the Global South? Currently, the vast majority of AI development is done in the Global North and in countries like China, but it is also not clear how long this rapid development is sustainable with the increasing need for data centers and its strain on both water supplies and critical mineral supplies. 

If Global North economies were to hit the infrastructural and supply chain limits of AI development, strategic social activism could force a shift to a slower development of AI focused on artificial narrow intelligence or narrow AI. Narrow AI is trained for specific tasks, like drug discovery or environmental monitoring. These smaller, task specific models are more likely to provide direct benefits to people while being more environmentally sustainable and without the risk of replacing or wiping out humanity, as is the case with artificial general intelligence (AGI). Focus on narrow AI for specific beneficial tasks would also be resistance to the current race for AGI happening among a few U.S. companies and possibly between the United States. and China. 

Currently, the part of the world most likely to focus on narrow AI is the European Union with its AI regulatory regime. The EU has been criticized by AI advocates in the United States as being too slow. While the European approach has its shortcomings, it is an example of an AI regulatory regime that has the potential to develop AI in a way that still is safe and benefits humanity and the planet. 

This may also be a viable path for countries of the Global South. European AI development is currently dependent on U.S. Big Tech in critical ways because most of the European AI applications are dependent on U.S. models and cloud infrastructure. On the other hand, much of the Global South is yet to develop AI infrastructure. This may provide fertile ground for developing models from scratch that represent a resistance to AI capitalism driving the development of U.S. and Chinese models. I talked to at least one group doing this in Lebanon. 

Despite their potential usefulness and the likely sincerity of the good intentions of their creators (at least in the case of Anthropic), centralized U.S. models like chatGPT or Claude are trained to produce capital for investors, not to benefit humanity or the planet. A coordination of smaller models built around specific social needs rather than profit, and owned by communities or by a network of smaller socially-oriented companies, or perhaps individually owned, might be a way to create an AI-powered future that also resists capitalism. This would of course require a specific set of values to be trained into such models. This is where religions common in the Global South, such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, could play a role.

Although other religions have resources for developing counternarratives to AI capitalism, my background is in Christianity, so I will focus there. The recent papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, and liberation theology are specific examples of theological roadmaps to provide motivation for an alternative, liberatory pathway for technological development. Liberation theology has inspired revolutionary movements in Latin America, such as the early Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Interestingly enough, there have also been attempts to develop a liberation theology specific to the Pacific Islands, which is directly relevant to the predominantly Christian nation of Tuvalu. 

Could liberation theology inspire a similar revolutionary movement in the realm of technological development where oppressed and marginalized people are able to use technology to improve their situation? Technology that works for integral human liberation where each community implements technology enabling their own liberation would be consistent with the pope’s vision of communities working together to each build their own section of the walls of Jerusalem.

The post Solarpunk, Liberation Theology, and the Future of the Global South  appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

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Greeting to our comrades in the United States. In the past, you have been members of the International League of Religious Socialists, the longest-lived socialist organization in Europe. For its centennial Congress, the ILRS met in Barcelona in April and also participated in the Global Progressive Mobilisation Conference that brought together 5,000 people from trade unions, social democratic and socialist parties, and movements fighting for justice and peace.

During the ILRS Congress I had the honor of being elected president, along with an 11-member executive committee. In my home country of Norway, I am the leader of Kristne Arbeidere (Christian Labour), an independent organization within the Norwegian Labour Movement.

The ILRS is an organization for reflection and action that brings together national organizations of religious people who channel their political commitment through socialist and social-democratic parties. The member organizations are for the most part Christians, but membership is not limited to one faith. As Europe has become multifaith, so has the ILRS. Our hope is to expand beyond eurocentrism.

We don’t believe in religious states, but we believe in practicing our faith and taking the values of our faith out to the people. Faith that does not influence our attitudes toward other humans, becomes a dead and dormant faith. 

Our member organizations want to build bridges among communities and parties committed to policies in favor of peace, social justice, the care of the planet, gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights. We live in an unsafe world, and much of what the labor movement has built is threatened by right-wing populism and right-wing extremism.

In its Constitution, the ILRS states that one of its primary aims is “to reduce the historical prejudices and to overcome the traditional prejudices between religious believers, religious communities and the socialist movement.” 

Religious socialists choose to believe in a future that is good for people. The labor movement has always been working with faith in the future, and we will continue to do so. I believe that goodness triumphs over evil, that solidarity triumphs over selfishness, fair distribution triumphs over injustice, love triumphs over hatred,  and dialogue and peace triumph over war.

We are happy to have reopened communication with the Religion and Socialism Working Group in DSA and we hope to continue dialogue with you.

The world needs us more than ever!

The post Letter to U.S. Religious Socialists appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

Frederick Douglass’s classic oration, given on July 5, 1852, 174 years ago tomorrow, in Rochester, New York, is an essential text for any celebration of America’s holiday of independence. At a time when those in power in this country consistently attempt to remove or minimize the proper–indeed, in an important sense actually patriotic–acknowledgment and reflection upon our country’s injustices, Douglass’s words still cut to the heart of the American story. Between the festivities of the day, find the time to read the whole thing here and join with other DSA members, civil rights activists, conscientious religious believers, and all others of good will to resolve that Douglass’s example of agitation and prophecy will never, ever, perish from the earth, or lay ignored and in vain.

The post “What, to the American Slave, is Your Fourth of July?” appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.