Fight Fascism/Build Socialism: Intro to the GRDSA
Are you fed up with rising rents, low wages, climate inaction, and billionaires hoarding more while we struggle with less? You’re not alone — and you’re not powerless.
We would like to invite you in learning about Democratic Socialism to our Mass Intro event that we are holding on July 27th at the DAAC! Our chapter has existed since 2017 and among other things, we have focused on issues including Labor, Housing, Trans rights, the Environment, Medicare for All, and fighting for the working class in general.
We will have tacos, speakers, and music that we can all sing along to. Come celebrate Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City Mayor’s Democratic Primary and help build our own Socialist movement in West Michigan.
This event is perfect for:
✅ Newcomers curious about what democratic socialism really means
✅ Anyone ready to get involved in building a better, more just world
✅ Existing members looking to reconnect or bring a friend
Together we can create a better world for all of us if we all work towards building our chapter and collaborating on future projects and events.
Solidarity!
The post Fight Fascism/Build Socialism: Intro to the GRDSA appeared first on Grand Rapids Democratic Socialists of America.
The Deaths of Capitalism
by Gregory Lebens-Higgins
Asked in the abstract, much of the American electorate supports social welfare policies like universal healthcare, reining in corporate and private wealth, and democratic control that extends from the workplace to the government. But when such programs are framed as “socialist,” many still turn up their noses in disgust.
Socialism remains the big, scary “S” word—an idea good on paper but bad in practice (as I was taught by high school teachers and college professors). Socialism retains an association with authoritarianism and scarcity buttressed by Cold War propaganda. On the other side of the coin, the negative externalities of capitalism are rarely attributed to their mode of production.
Deaths of Capitalism
Countless workers died while building America’s capital foundation. They died extracting raw materials like coal and timber. They died manufacturing commodities in factories. They died building bridges and railroads upon which commodities and raw materials travel. And they died while shipping these goods to market.
Others were condemned to miserable lives, suffering from horrible working conditions and at risk of debilitating injury. In the mines, workers were exposed to coal dust and acquired black lung. In textile mills, machines claimed fingers and arms. In meatpacking plants, workers’ flesh even became part of the product, according to muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair.
Many of these risks still exist in the workplace today, or have been exported to workers in the imperial periphery. When trying to fight for better conditions, workers are confronted by the violent repression of the employer and the state.
If they are injured, workers lack reliable access to healthcare. They are either underinsured, or experience service delayed by understaffing and unnecessary bureaucratic complexity. (Insert:limitations seen in response to COVID crisis)
Capitalism transforms workers into the mere appendage of a machine built to accumulate profit, precipitating alienation throughout the populace. Bodies inquiring for meaningful stimulation are forced to do dull work. How many “people of equal talent [to Einstein] have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops,” pondered evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Deaths from alcohol and suicide attest to our crisis of loneliness. Yet mental illness is frequently stigmatized and criminalized, and access to mental health resources is limited.
Under capitalism, products are created for exchange value, often with their use as an afterthought. Many products simply don’t work, as consumers are injured by defective and malfunctioning products. Others expel significant externalities not accounted for by the market, but measured in opioid overdoses, traffic fatalities, and tons of carbon dioxide.
When the rate of profit cannot be maintained at home, capital goes in search of new markets, and the very nature of capital requires endless expansion. Imperial wars for resources occur among developed nations, while the working class of impoverished nations suffers from the theft of resources, competition from foreign goods, and exploitation and repression by colonizing businessmen and their armies.
The invisible hand is stained red with these atrocities, yet too few see capitalism as the root of the problem. These deaths are metabolized by the system, waved away by the ruling class or calculated as the mere balance of costs and benefits. Capitalism exposes everyone to a warlike competition for superiority where all is justified.
Deaths of Socialism
In The Black Book of Communism, all of the deaths occurring in 20th century socialist regimes are laid at the feet of Marx. Filled with hyperbole and distortion, such accounts fail to situate these states in their historical context, and ignore the role of Western capitalism itself in achieving such results.
Many socialist countries were created in the wake of devastating wars and colonial regimes. The Bolsheviks revolted during a world war that left nearly 3 million Russians dead. Less than a quarter-century later, countries forming the Soviet Union suffered another 26 million deaths. Vietnam suffered under French colonial rule and Japanese occupation prior to the uprising of the Việt Minh. Cuba, China, and others fit similar patterns.
As a result of this destruction, and their underdevelopment by extractive imperial regimes, socialist states were formed with inadequate means of production. Contrary to popular belief, Marx appreciated capital’s capacity for developing the means of production. The problem, however, is the direction of such development for profit rather than human need. These developing countries lacked the material basis for socialism.
Where they did succeed, socialist states were obstructed by coordinated Western repression, seeking to deny any challenges to the hegemony of capitalism. These states were targeted with blockades, sanctions, and monetary entanglements that devastated their economies. Propaganda blaming socialism fanned the flames of coups, backed by intelligence agencies and corporate moral support. To ward off land reform, the United Fruit Company lobbied U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to manufacture the 1954 coup in Guatemala. The CIA helped overthrow Salvador Allende’s socialist government in Chile in 1973. Countless examples abound.
Despite these challenges, socialist states made impressive achievements in areas of education, housing, healthcare, and production capacity. Cuba achieved near-total literacy within years of the revolution, and now exports doctors worldwide. The Soviet Union rapidly industrialized, increasing steel production by as much as 400% during the first and second five-year plans. China’s economy is currently performing similar feats.
These achievements, and the violence of capitalism, do not excuse all the actions of these regimes. We can and should criticize Stalin’s senseless purges, the repression of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and genocide by the Khmer Rouge, all performed in the name of nominal “socialism.” These are not events to be ignored or defended, but a warning against the sacrifice of our ideals.
Real Socialism
We are not confined to the socialism of the past. The socialism of DSA is being constructed in a new historical context. As an organization that centers democratic practice, we have the opportunity to construct socialism as we see fit. It is up to us to make democracy accessible to all, and to prioritize freedom from want and oppression.
The arrival of socialism signals an end to imperialist wars and deaths of necessity. It means a rise in workplace safety and quality of life. It is an opportunity to address social issues that are ignored by private capital.
History is not static—capitalism is not sustainable, and its horrors demand a response. The important thing is that WE define the response, rather than a ruling class that will only relinquish power upon the final destruction of the world.
Reactionaries use fear of change to discourage challenges to existing hierarchy. They warn of perverse consequences from the fight for justice. Such fearmongering is counterrevolutionary. The socialist movement thrives from hope informed by action. The working class must reclaim the world we have built.
The post The Deaths of Capitalism first appeared on Rochester Red Star.
No Kings
Americans are taught to venerate July 4th as a turning point not only in the history of the Americas, but in human history itself. It supposedly represents the founding of the first modern republic, a nation destined to lead the world into an unparalleled golden age of freedom.
At one time, celebrations of the Fourth of July also included some celebration of universal rights. These include the idea that the United States is defined by its constitution, that there are some things that the government shouldn’t be allowed to do, and that every person is entitled to basic rights under the law. It also included the idea that democratic governance is a good in itself, applicable not only to those living within the borders of the United States, but of everyone in the world yearning to breathe free.
Next year, America will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The celebrations will be overseen by Donald Trump, the single most selfish, myopic, and authoritarian man ever to hold the office of President of the United States. They will take place in the context of his active attempts to destroy American democracy and remake it in his own image.
To the degree that the United States was ever a ‘revolutionary’ republic, that promise is now a distant memory. Any pretext of universalism that one existed (in spite of the many serious flaws of the American experiment) is gone. Republicans have replaced it with a ‘blood and soil’ conception of what it means to be an American, and Democrats are so preoccupied with civility politics that they abandoned the question of what it means to be an American decades ago.
The Independence Day holiday is still inexorably tied to the existence of the United States of America as a nation-state, and to the current policies of its leadership. Furthermore, it can never be extricated from the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade and indigenous genocide, which loom large over any founding myth of the United States. The national founding holiday of the United States of America will never be a day celebrating universal human freedom. That is why, as socialists, we must look to other inspirations for our struggle.
***
Three centuries ago, the European concept of a ‘state’ was inextricable from the concept of its sovereign. In the traditional understanding, the Christian god granted the absolute right to rule a territory to a hereditary monarch. A few exceptions to this rule existed, but they were mostly carved out to protect the traditional rights of institutions such as the Catholic Church and powerful merchant guilds. The concept of a state that derived its legitimacy from a universal idea like self-governance was laughable, and apologists for absolutism openly scoffed at the idea that a state could exist independent from a monarch as anything more than a short-lived and chaotic experiment.
The social force that broke the back of this idea was not the American Revolution. The idea of a merchant republic was familiar to those in Europe during that time, and the notion that the British colonial government of America would be replaced by an oligarchy of wealthy merchants and slave owners was considered radical but not inconceivable by the powers of the Old World.
The more revolutionary project was the one that started in France in 1789. It grew from a demand for equal formal representation for the Third Estate (largely comprising the French middle class) into a radically new conception of what a ‘state’ should be. The storming of the notorious Bastille prison on July 14, 1789 marked a watershed moment in human history. For the first time, the destruction of the old, absolutist European order became not only possible, but inevitable.
The French Revolution was not only a political revolution, but a social one. It sought not to make peace with the old European order, but to abolish it entirely. Its experiments in radical democracy, secular government, and an unyielding demand that the powerful answer for their crimes served as the inspiration for two centuries of popular resistance to colonial, monarchical, and oppressive forms of government.
Over the next two centuries, popular uprisings and mass movements around the world dismantled the power of monarchy to dominate human affairs. This was most notable in the periods following the two world wars, when revolutionary and anti-colonial movements toppled monarchs and freed peoples from foreign dominion. Today, over 80% of the world’s governments have abandoned hereditary monarchy, and a significant portion of the remaining countries maintain a monarch only as a constitutional symbol with little or no political power.
***
The French Revolution informed and influenced nearly every leftist movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Karl Marx called it “the most colossal revolution that history has ever known.” During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks were intimately familiar with the details of each stage of the French Revolution. They openly considered themselves the successors to the radical left-wing Jacobin faction, for whom the American socialist magazine of record is named.
The modern French Fifth Republic also traces its roots back to 1789, but the ideals of the period represent something far greater, and we can celebrate the history of republicanism without having to defer to nationalist propaganda or a founding myth. Nor do we as socialists have to apologize for the revolutionary violence of the early French republicans. As noted American humorist Mark Twain wrote in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court:
There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
As free people, it is our right and responsibility to choose what to celebrate in this world. The principles of self governance, universal human rights, freedom from arbitrary rule, and anti-monarchism are the basis for modern socialism. Even as we confront the new horrors of a global system in crisis, we must also remember and celebrate the victories that have brought us to this point. There is no better time to start than right now.
Vive le monde républicain.
The post No Kings appeared first on Midwest Socialist.
San Francisco is About to Defund Solutions to Homelessness
After a late-night session on June 26, the Budget & Appropriations Committee of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is moving forward with a set of proposed resolutions regarding the budget. This includes one key provision proposed by Mayor Daniel Lurie to reallocate tax revenue raised from 2018’s Local Measure C, a.k.a. “Our City Our Home” or just Prop C. Besides likely being illegal – per the city attorney – this move would remove funding for a popular and successful housing program addressing homelessness in San Francisco.
In 2018, hundreds of activists came together with over a hundred endorsers in a political upsurge to fight for a durable solution to homelessness in San Francisco. DSA San Francisco formed a key part of this coalition, with DSA members occupying positions at every level of the campaign, from signature-gathering to running the field operation. We saw something revolutionary in Prop C: the ability to address homelessness at its root by funding permanent supportive housing.
Prop C implemented a gross receipts tax on large businesses, with the revenue going into a special city fund. It also specified that this fund be used for four things, in proportion: at least half for permanent housing, at least a quarter for mental health services, up to 15% on homelessness prevention, and only up to 10% for temporary shelter. This isn’t an afterthought: Prop C was built around the Housing First approach, which argues that homelessness and the constellation of issues that often surround it — drug use, mental health crises, and poverty — are best resolved by providing housing, not by temporary half-measures.
Prop C has faced challenges before. In 2018, before its passage, it received unprecedented pushback from the mayor at the time, London Breed, in an astounding statement where she highlighted the “lack of accountability” in her own administration and claimed that housing people without homes would worsen homelessness by “funding services for residents from other counties”. (San Francisco’s Point-in-Time count has continued to show that around 60–70% of the homeless population was most recently housed in San Francisco, before and after Prop C’s passage). She also raised the possibility of it being blocked by business interests: “if it passes, Proposition C will likely immediately become part of an ongoing lawsuit to invalidate it and similar signature-driven tax measures passed earlier this year.”
San Francisco’s voters approved Prop C with a 61% majority, but former Mayor Breed’s prediction came true and an anti-tax organization sued the city, claiming that special-purpose taxes require a ⅔ supermajority. This blocked Prop C spending until mid-2020 when the California Court of Appeals reaffirmed voters’ power to set taxes on businesses with citizen-initiated ballot measures.
When it has been allowed to work, Prop C and Housing First have been successful. The city’s 2024 report shows that it has provided more than 5,000 units – a number larger than the current remaining unsheltered homeless population in San Francisco – and that this housing works: “In the Permanent Housing service area, 96% of households retained their housing or exited to other stable housing options”. The contrast with other approaches is stark, and the city’s approach to temporary shelter has been, at best, chaotic: during the pandemic, San Francisco made it difficult for people to self-refer into shelter. On the other hand, Prop C made it possible for many of the residents of the city’s Shelter-in-Place Hotel program to exit to permanent housing.
This is the funding that Mayor Lurie plans to re-allocate to temporary shelter or other programs. As socialists we believe in provisioning the economy based on the needs of the people, not on the whims of startup capitalists or technocratic heirs-turned-mayors, and it’s clear that the urgent need of San Francisco’s homeless population is housing. The people of San Francisco agree. We call on the Board of Supervisors and the mayor to keep this funding permanent supportive housing and to protect Prop C and reject this antidemocratic provision.
Regardless of what happens at the Board today, it’s clear that real solutions can only come from organizing together. This decision is a step back for the city’s democratic processes, but together we can claim this power and demand real durable solutions for the city’s problems. Join DSA to fight for a world that places the interests of the many over the interests of the few!
Weekly Roundup: July 15, 2025
Events & Actions
Tuesday, July 15 (8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.): ICE out of SF Courts (In person at Immigration Court, 100 Montgomery St)
Tuesday, July 15 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)
Tuesday, July 15 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Reading Group: The Housing Question by Friedrich Engels, Part 2 (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Wednesday, July 16 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): 
What Is DSA? (In person at Potrero Branch Library, 1616 20th St)
Wednesday, July 16 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): EWOC: Organizer Toolkit Workshop (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Thursday, July 17 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): 
Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)
Thursday, July 17 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)
Thursday, July 17 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Office Hour (Zoom)
Saturday, July 19 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach (Meet in person for training at 1916 McAllister, then head out to do outreach in the Bayview)
Saturday, July 19 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): Tenant Organizing Canvass (Meet in person at Chan Kaajal Park, 3100 17th St)
Saturday, July 19 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group (HWG) Food Service (In person at Castro & Market)
Sunday, July 20 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Capital Reading Group – Review (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)
Monday, July 21 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Socialist in Office Subcommittee Regular Meeting (Zoom)
Monday, July 21 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom)
Monday, July 21 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)
Tuesday, July 22 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Social Housing Reading Group: SF Analyst’s Report (Zoom)
Wednesday, July 23 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tech Worker Reading Group: You Deserve a Tech Union (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)
Wednesday, July 23 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Independent Outreach (Meet at 1916 McAllister)
Thursday, July 24 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)
Friday, July 25 (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Electoral Education: Zohran x DSA’s Victory (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Friday, July 25 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Maker Friday: Zine Edition (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Saturday, July 26 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Cuba Reportback (In person at 1916 McAllister)
Sunday, July 27 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (In person at Raimondi Park, 1800 Wood St, Oakland)
Monday, July 28 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)
Monday, July 28 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board x Divestment Priority Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)
Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates. Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!
Say NO to Seizing Homes!
Join DSA SF in writing the Board of Supervisors to oppose Mayor Lurie’s RV ban, which threatens to seize the homes of poor and working San Franciscans. Demand real, permanent solutions for our neighbors living in their vehicles. Email homelessness@dsasf.org with any questions.
ICE Out of SF
Join neighbors, activists, grassroots organizations in resisting ICE abductions happening at immigration court hearings! ICE is taking anyone indiscriminately in order to meet their daily quotas. Many of those taken include people with no removal proceedings.
We’ll be meeting every Tuesday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery. We need all hands on deck, even if you can only participate for 1 or 2 hours.
Reading Group: “The Housing Question” by Friedrich Engels
Join us in reading the seminal text on the political economy of housing. Written in 1872, The Housing Question is Friedrich Engels’ critique of the housing market and the solutions promoted by his contemporaries. 150 years later, his work resonates just as much, if not more, with tenants’ current struggles.
This two-part series will have readers discuss the various historical attitudes and debates around housing and apply those lessons to our modern housing crisis.
Join us for session 2 at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St. on July 15th at 7:00 p.m. A full PDF of the book can be found here.
EWOC: Organizer Toolkit Workshop
Join us Wednesday, July 16 from 6:30 p.m to 8:30 p.m. for a workshop held by the San Francisco local of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC)! We’ll be going over how to generate workplace organizing leads and hold organizing conversations. This will be an interactive session for any and all levels of organizing experience. Whether you’re an organizer or volunteer with EWOC or simply someone who wants to start learning about workplace organizing, this workshop is a great place to join the conversation and plan work for the labor movement!
We’ll be meeting at 1916 McAllister Let us know if you can make it! Hope to see you there!
Apartheid-Free Bay Area Canvass
No Appetite for Apartheid is a campaign aimed at reducing economic support for Israeli apartheid by canvassing local businesses to boycott Israeli goods. Come and canvass local businesses with the Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group!
On Saturday, July 19 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., We will be doing a training on how to talk to stores in your neighborhood, then going out and talking with stores together in the Bayview! Meet at 1916 McAllister.
Tenant Organizing Canvass in the Mission
Help us build tenant power in SF! Tenant Organizing Working Group is hosting a canvass the Mission, in partnership with Tenant and Neighborhood Councils. We’ll meet July 19th at 3:00 p.m. at Chan Kaajal Park, near 16th St. BART station, and we’ll walk the neighborhood together, talking to tenants about their housing conditions and how collective action can help. This is a powerful way to build organizing skills and relationships within the community. We will start with a training, so no prior experience is required. Sign up here so we know you’re coming. See you there!
Social Housing Reading Group
What could social housing look like in San Francisco, and how do we get there? Join DSASF for a reading of the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report on how the city can build its own publicly owned, deeply affordable housing. We will also read the SF Berniecrats report, Housing for the 99%, which lays out a vision for social housing for all in San Francisco. Join us at 1916 McAllister Tuesday, July 22 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
DSA SF Tech Reading Group
On July 23rd from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., come join DSA SF and Rideshare Drivers United tech workers for our next monthly tech reading group.
We’ll be reading an excerpt from You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Marcotte. This event is hybrid with food provided at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St.
RSVP here to access the link to the reading! See you there!
Electoral Education: Zohran x DSA’s Victory
Join us Friday, July 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister for an open discussion about the very exciting Zohran campaign, how they did it, and how it’s shaping the national discussion about electoral politics in the United States and in our national organization! .
Audience: EVERYONE! Whether you’re new to movement or been following the Zohran campaign for a while, we hope this will be interesting for us all!
Maker Friday: Zine Edition
Join us for Maker Friday: Zine Edition on July 25 at 1916 McAllister from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.! We will learn how to make zines, brainstorm ideas for them, and make them. All are welcome, no experience necessary, come connect with your fellow comrades while making fun content to pass out.
Summer Social(ist) Events! 
On Sunday, July 27th at 3:30 p.m. we’ll be going to the Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (at Raimondi Park) – RSVP here by July 13th so that we can put in a group order of tickets! Group tickets are are $15 per ticket, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds!
Support the Blue Bottle Independent Union
Support the Blue Bottle Independent UnionNestlé is one of the biggest corporations in the world charged with decades of human rights violations in the global south. They’re now in our backyard intimidating baristas with surveillance, firing, and bad-faith bargaining. Last week, baristas in four Bay Area locations of Nestlé-owned Blue Bottle presented management with a super majority of union cards and demanded voluntary recognition. Instead, Blue Bottle fired one of the organizers, B.B. Young. This comes at an especially bad time for B.B. since their husband was also recently laid off.
Blue Bottle workers are asking for our support
- Donate at this GoFundMe page
- Sign the petition to demand that the company voluntarily recognize the Blue Bottle Independent Union
- Join the Blue Bottle Independent Union email list or follow on Instagram to stay in touch
- If you are an employee of Blue Bottle, fill out this intake form to get involved with organizing the union at your own store
Reports
Physical Education Training
On July 13th DSA SF held its second physical education training. Seven comrades got together in the park to learn and practice basic movement and self defense skills such as falling, quick get ups, rolling, human crutch carries, and basic stance work.
Stay tuned for the next one! If you’re interested in inclusive physical education and self defense strategies, please join #phys-ed on the DSA SF Slack.
Behind the Scenes
The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.
To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.
From Heavy Metal to Socialism: Why I joined DSA
By: Lucas Paschall
My story of joining DSA began with my first memory of any living president. Two shoes–both of which unfortunately missed–were launched at George W. Bush’s head. As a seven-year-old child, I obviously could not have been fully aware of precisely why an Iraqi journalist would do that. From what I did gather through the news I watched, I understood that Bush was a man that did not do great things.
As a kid, I was eager to find the rock stars that raised some hell. My dad turned me on to an 80’s classic, The Blues Brothers, because of his uncanny impersonations of the character Elwood Blues. My main takeaway from that movie wasn’t that the bad guy Blues Brothers were bad guys: it’s that they were good guys. That translated over to that moment of George W. Bush, despite my lack of awareness of the “War on Terrorism.” The Blues Brothers broke the rules just like that Iraqi journalist. But they were also rock stars.
Since being a rock star was the coolest thing on Earth, it was only natural that come the summer heading into eighth grade, I became the local militant metalhead. You knew that kid in school too: the annoying one who insisted that Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and AC/DC were far superior to the garbage music that other kids were listening to. While those around me cringed both because of this and how bad I smelled, I simply laughed at their lackluster inferiority.
My sense of ego would only heighten when my dad took me to my first concert: System of a Down at Pine Knob. I remember being blown away at their sheer energy: the vocalist’s absurd screeches, the hyper-aggressive down-tuned guitar and bass, and an atmosphere where I felt I belonged. Yes, this was my calling card. My newest fandom was alive and well, and I got home to listen to all five albums, back-to-back. As I am listening to these albums now though, there are things I notice that I previously did not realize about this country in which I live. Lines like the following from my personal favorite, “B.Y.O.B.”:
“Why don’t presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?”
Then there are lyrics from “Deer Dance”, a song which describes the horrors of police brutality in the band’s home city of Los Angeles:
“Beyond the Staples Center you can see America
With its tired poor avenging disgrace
Peaceful, loving youth against the brutality
Of plastic existence.”
One particular lyric that I will never forget is from “Boom!”:
“Four thousand hungry children
Leave us per hour from starvation
While billions are spent on bombs
Creating death showers”
This led me to doing some research into what these words meant. Then came a bombshell that was about bombshells: the “War on Terror,” the killing of millions of innocent people in the Middle East, the wrongdoings of the Patriot Act, and so on. I finally had my answer as to why Bush nearly got domed with shoes, and it enraged me.
Heading into high school, I was determined to spread this word to the students around me, to let everyone know how bad this country sucked. From the genocide of Native Americans to current day, I was furious to hear that our country was doing horrendous things. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 only made things worse. Yet, as I went through high school, I still felt powerless: being black-pilled was a real possibility. I started to take the approach that nothing was going to change.
Fast-forward to a couple of years ago, after the turmoil of 2020, and in the middle of Joe Biden’s lackluster presidency. As I saw how Biden failed with his immigration policy and his wet noodle approach to a conservative Supreme Court, it really began to enrage me how we were supposedly going to be back to “normalcy” and “stability” when the administration was doing anything but. That is when–once again–the power of rock stars began to make an impact. Although this time, they were not wielding a Gibson Explorer with Marshall tube amps. This time, it was one man or woman with a banjo or guitar that went behind a chorus of people. Utah Philips was the first one to introduce me to the world of pro-union music.
Growing up, I had heard of unions, but never really took the time to understand what exactly they did, nor the history of them. But after having Philips discuss the powers of one, then having Pete Seeger describe to me the story of the Harlan County War, then to really dive into what Woody Guthrie meant when he said, “This Land is Our Land,” the pieces came together for me to become a democratic socialist.
As I now indulge in reading more political theory and becoming more of an activist than I could have ever imagined, I figured this would be a good time to explain why joining DSA is so important to me. There are several answers, but to keep you from falling asleep, I will give you my main reason: my hometown. New Baltimore, Michigan, home to about 12,000 people, is a fairly affluent city populated by a conservative community. It is a town where people made their money through the trades: blue-collar jobs that they excelled at. There are “progressives” that would gawk at the idea of living in such a town, where our residents couldn’t possibly be saved. Yet I see a town that can be much different.
Our town cannot stand the rich. While corporatism has practically taken over Chesterfield Township — the city south of us — our town does not like being told the poor are to blame. Of course, there are people here who would not spit in the direction of democratic socialism, but I believe that if we’re going to spread this message properly, it is vital that we begin with the people who are democratic socialists in the making but just don’t know it yet. Everyone has the ability to be a rock star; it’s time that they use that energy and take their power back.
From Heavy Metal to Socialism: Why I joined DSA was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.