DSA San Diego has adopted food sovereignty as a 2025 Priority Campaign, and the work is already rolling forward! Read more. [...]

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DSA San Diego condemns the blatantly unlawful detention of Mahmoud Khalil by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Read our statement. [...]

Read More... from DSA San Diego’s Statement on the Illegal Detention of Mahmoud Khalil

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Upcoming Events

Tuesday, March 18 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Abolish Rent Reading Group – Session 2 (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, March 19 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): What Is DSA? (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, March 19 (6:45 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenant Organizing Working Group (Zoom)

Thursday, March 20 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group (Zoom)

Thursday, March 20 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigration Justice Priority Working Group (Zoom)

Friday, March 21 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Maker Friday (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, March 22 (10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach (522 Valencia)

Saturday, March 22 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Food Service (In person at Castro & Market Sts)

Monday, March 24 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, March 24 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly (Zoom)

Monday, March 24 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, March 24 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, March 26 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Intro to Socialism (Zoom)

Thursday, March 27 (5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, March 29 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialism Reading Group: Ten Myths About Israel (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, March 30 (12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.): Spanish for Organizers (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, March 30 (1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Know Your Rights Canvassing (Meet at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, March 31 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.

Events & Actions

Maker Friday: Zine Edition

Join us for Maker Friday on March 21 at 1916 McAllister from 7:00 p.m. to 9 p.m.! We’ll be doing a free zine-making workshop with Tenant Organizing. Come make some art and connect with comrades. All levels are welcome, see you there!

No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach

Come and canvass local businesses with the Palestine Solidarity and Anti-Imperialist Working Group! No Appetite for Apartheid is a campaign aimed at reducing economic support for Israeli apartheid by canvassing local businesses to boycott Israeli goods. On Saturday, March 22, we’ll be doing a training on how to talk to stores in the neighborhood, then going out and talking with stores together. Meet at 522 Valencia at 10:00 a.m. and we’ll debrief after canvassing at 2:00 p.m.

Homelessness Working Group Food Service

Join the DSA HWG for a food service on Saturday, March 22 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Castro and Market Streets. We’ll be serving food for our unhoused neighbors and the larger community. Sign up here to cook, serve, or otherwise help out! Questions? Email homelessness@dsasf.org.

Spanish for Organizers

Join the Immigrant Justice Working Group for Spanish for Organizers! Come learn and practice basic Spanish phrases for organizing. All skill levels welcome. We’re meeting on Sunday, March 30, at 12:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. See you there!

Can’t make it to Spanish for Organizers or are feeling extra inspired to encourage turnout? Come through for our Turnout Tuesday on March 25 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. We’ll be making calls and sending texts to let folks know about the Spanish for Organizers training. RSVP here.

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.

by Lara

Flus, colds, and covid are not the only scourges feverishly flaring up again: fascism and anti-intellectualism are political poxes scarring the soul of our society. While you should not underestimate their potential for devastation and death, know that you are not defenseless and you are not alone. 

Metaphorical contagions and actual contagions are a large concern, particularly now with the appointment of RFK as Secretary of Health and Human Services, layoffs and information suppression at the Center for Disease Control, and withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization. Though not widely reported on by mainstream media, protests against the Trump regime have erupted in all 50 states and abroad. When viral pandemics occur, we isolate ourselves to protect each other, but to achieve the same result with these metaphorical contagions, we must do just the opposite. We need to come together to resist these plagues.

Fortunately and unfortunately, these ailments aren’t new. We have been inoculated against what may be to come throughout history—our body (of people) has learned to fight this fever before. Though the virus has adapted to new circumstances—technology—over the years, so too can we. The infection vector may have mutated but our resiliency remains, though it is likely to be tested in the time to come.

Toxoplasma gondii is a non-viral parasite to many warm-blooded beings, including felines—whose guts are the only known place where T. gondii are able to reproduce. Incredibly, this single-celled microbe is able to alter the brain and behavior of rodents, causing them to be attracted to—rather than afraid of—the scent of cat urine, increasing the odds of the infected rodent being eaten by a cat and thus allowing for the multiplication and spread of T. gondii. 

Many Americans walked towards the mouth of a predatory beast, allowing for the spread and growth of more hateful policy, with little instinct for self or collective preservation, when they voted against their own interests this past national election. 

Make no mistake, all Trump voters voted against their own interests, for when one individual is oppressed, all are negatively impacted because the oppressed individual will not be able to freely and fully participate in society. Though billionaires are benefitting from the current regime, more people seem to be recognizing the dangers of a system that allows for the accumulation of such inordinate, concentrated amounts wealth-–and it may ultimately lead to changes in societal structures that advance such inequality and the exploitation that makes it possible (which is in its own way parasitic).

“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world for indeed, that’s all who ever had,” has been attributed to author and anthropologist Margaret Mead. Dr. Mead purportedly considered the first sign of civilization to be a 15,000 year old healed broken femur, which would have required six months’ rest to mend and protection from others to survive the process. 

Part of being a part of a functioning society is caring for your fellow beings, which can take many forms. It may be calling out bigoted behavior. It may be wearing a mask to protect others. It may be bringing a meal to a lonely or hungry neighbor or treating the unhoused like what they are: human beings, deserving of dignity and compassion, as we all are. 

It may be many things but at the heart of them all is our imperative to hold fast and care for each other and protect the vulnerable. With the potential for AI to become conscious (and few regulations limiting data being used to train it and the stealing of data by DOGE) and necrotic tendrils of fascism seeping through rich soils, it is critically important that we retain what makes us compassionate. 

Parasitic capitalism needs to feed on people to survive. Viruses require host cells to replicate. Don’t be a host cell for hatred. Push back against authoritarian and exploitative systems. We are the immune system. Let us overwhelm the forces of evil, the ways bees might swarm around an enemy, extinguishing it with our collective power, warmth, and energy (Note: I am not advocating for violence against individuals, but rather the abatement of ideas and policies that violate human rights). Though the rodent cannot be uneaten, we can work to prevent future rodent consumption, predators from taking office, and parasites from propagating. 

Viruses have fundamentally altered evolutionary history, accounting for ~8% of our genome. Though they have undoubtedly had detrimental and sometimes fatal consequences, often overlooked are impacts that have ultimately been favorable. Indeed, a virus gave rise to the formation of the mammalian placenta, allowing for greater nutrient transfer from mother to progeny. We cannot overlook the devastation viruses have caused nor should we gloss over the good they’ve given rise to. How will you resist this pestilence? What goodness will you grow in its wake?

Love always, 

Lara

The post Inoculation first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

A St. Patrick’s Mass on Irish Republican Struggle and a Legendary Troublemaker

By Andrew S.

The typical Bostonian understands St. Patty’s Day as a flurry of green clovers, the smell of ale, and the stench of whatever is left the next morning. But over a century ago, a different saint incited a commitment to faith in radical trade unionism and socialist struggle. James Larkin landed on the shores of New York City after a memorable act of furious labor organizing in Belfast and Dublin, unaware of the impact his New World Tour would bring to American labor. Hoping to be one of the Four Horseman sending American capital to a long-anticipated doom, Big Jim Larkin’s stateside legacy marks an undeniable contribution to the struggle of early American socialism. For St. Patty’s Day, we ask you to sit for a brief mass on this Saint of Struggle: Big Jim.

The Belfast Strike of 1907

England was not the easiest place to grow up Irish. James Larkin was born to Irish migrants from occupied Ulster in the slums of Liverpool on January 21, 1876, then forced to give up formal education to look for work as a teenager. Any other detail is debated; various biographers and journalists toss around myths about his birth that never seem to add up with Larkin’s own claims. Despite the background of poverty, or maybe because of its hardship, the Larkins constituted a political household forged in the fires of labor and Irish republicanism.

Anti-Irish sentiment burned hot in England. Irish workers faced everything from spontaneous ambushes at the end of the school day to legislative bills punishing the Irish on accounts of “drunkenness”. Jim Larkin emerged from this era seething with outrage after witnessing the oppressive conditions birthed from the evils of British capitalism. Larkin joined the troublemaking wing of labor before the term was popularized. After waging vicious quarrels during odd jobs for English bosses, surviving bouts of regular unemployment, Larkin sailed for Ulster at the beginning of 1907. He leaped from the frying pan of Liverpool to the fire of Belfast. There, Jim Larkin cut his teeth as a radical unionist during his involvement in the Dockers’ and Carters’ Strike of 1907. 

Belfast labor was divided between the Protestant and Catholic working classes. Protestant workers enjoyed more spoils than their Catholic counterparts while craft sectionalism drove many Protestant unionists to conservative politics. Under the auspices of the National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL), Larkin aimed to unite Belfast’s 1500 carters and 3,100 dockworkers, one thousand of whom were already card-carrying members. His efforts were remarkable. Within three months, every carter was unionized and a total of 2,900 dock laborers had joined the union – over 93% of the workforce. 

The union, proud of its results, asked for voluntary recognition from the ten companies employing dockworkers in Belfast. Only three refused – Lancashire and Yorkshire, London, and North Western and Midland. They were the biggest and most powerful companies on the dock. 160 dockworkers, mostly Protestant, initiated a strike with Larkin at the helm. Within a month, the strike exploded exponentially as 8,000 workers joined Larkin’s uproarious meetings.

Despite Big Jim’s efforts, the strike ended in ruin. Local industrialists hailed troops from the seat of English colonial rule at Dublin Castle to shut down the strike. The NUDL’s secretary believed it necessary to chase a settlement. After vicious fights with scabs, Larkin criticized the settlement and dockworkers rioted across the city in August, with some millworkers sacrificing their lives in the capitalist violence that ensued. The carters, whom Larkin had persuaded to organize a sympathetic strike, agreed to a contract and pulled out – leaving dockworkers stranded and isolated. Larkin changed his position in the wake of the spontaneous combustion of the violence and its horrible ends. Yet, while some viewed the strike as a catastrophic loss, one thing was certain: the Larkinism was a hefty threat to the ruling class in Ireland and Britain.

The ITGWU and The Dublin Lockout of 1913

After defeats in Belfast in 1907 and Cork in 1908, Larkin was still more motivated to pave social change through radical trade unionism. In 1909, Larkin formed the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). Two years later, as he turned to the pen, he founded the The Irish Worker and Peoples’ Advocate (colloquially shortened to the Irish Worker) covering strikes, protests, and workers’ opinions. ITGWU and the Irish Workers’ League agreed to print the paper. Within weeks of initial print, over twenty thousand copies were being sold per weekly edition. James Connolly, the legendary Irish socialist, was working in 1912 as Belfast organizer for ITGWU, a year before his large Role in the Lockout.

Each of Big Jim’s organizing projects was crucial to the Dublin Lockout of 1913. Dublin’s economic scene was marked by poverty. Housing conditions were heinous as thousands of cities lived in tiny tenements, women were packed into infamous laundries, and the contraction of tuberculosis among workers was a whopping fifty percent. William Murphy, Ireland’s most renowned capitalist, was friendly with most unions except for Larkin’s radical ITGWU as he insisted on crushing the union to bits throughout the city. On August 26, 1913, members of the ITGWU went on strike. Within twenty-four hours, the police responded with violent skirmishes. Four days later, James Connolly declared class war on behalf of Irish trade unionists in The Irish Worker founded by Big Jim.

Larkin was at his physical limit. Stressed, strained from tensions within the union, and health flailing, Larkin was thrown in jail by police officers who ambushed him on his return home during the evening of the very first day of the general strike. Upon his release from jail in mid-September, Larkin immediately set sail for Manchester to call attention to the situation from British trade unions and organize a sympathetic strike. His persistent verbal attacks on the British labor aristocracy left him unpopular with some labor leaders he tried to sway to the persuasion of ITGWU’s cause. His efforts halted on October 26 when English rulers put him on trial for sedition.

Upon his early release on November 9, Larkin traveled around the working class havens of South Wales and northern England and convinced some thirty thousand workers to strike in solidarity with ITGWU workers across the Irish Sea. The effort sparked international news amongst socialist figures; Big Bill Haywood, in Paris at the time and a future comrade in arms, raised funds for the strike in Ireland. Even Lenin wrote about the class war rising in Dublin, calling out Larkin’s efforts by name. Nonetheless, the Dublin Lockout ended in January 1914 with a crushing loss for the Dublin working classLarkin. Irish workers returned to work after five months of strikes, British trade union leaders aired their grievances around Larkin’s persistent ad hominem attacks on them, ITGWU ejected him from his responsibilities to the union, and his loved ones grew distant. Dejected, Larkin took up an offer from ‘Big Bill’ Haywood: a New World speaking tour. 

Big Jim’s Years in the United States

Big Jim showed up in the United States with bravado and a rally at Madison Square Garden of 15,000 workers. Now a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Big Jim’s arrival was welcomed by some American socialists and deeply distrusted by others. The Socialist Party of America (SPA)’s right wing punished him for his syndicalism to slow his tour, but he persisted right until he joined the Western Federation of Miners organizing in Butte, Montana.

The Easter Rising struck Ireland when Big Jim was in the United States. Since he had begun resettling his family in Chicago, Larkin missed the escalations leading up to 1916 back in Ireland and craved what he believed was his rightful place in the Irish resistance. His fury didn’t stop him from continuing labor organizing in the United States. Larkin became a proponent of an uprising in the United States after Jack Reed returned from Russia with the details of the unlikely Bolshevik success against warmongering rulers in Russia. Larkin supported the Communist Labor Party that split from the SPA in the exodus of ten thousand members that eventually grew to the fifty-thousand strong that constituted the Communist Party, USA.

Larkin’s departure from the United States was as bitter as his arrival. Broke, hounded by a Red Scare,  Larkin left in 1923 for Ireland. His impact was ambiguous and promises of socialist victory in the United States unmet.

A Final Prayer

From 1923 onward, Big Jim was trapped by his own egocentrism. The positive qualities that Larkin honed as an organizer – defiant, ruthless, and blunt – would run dry in contrast to his crippling insecurity. Upon arriving back in Ireland, Larkin denounced the ITGWU to split the union for status. That signaled the decline in his organizing career. 

Despite his shortcomings, his grandeur, his unadulterated fury, and the bridges he burned to serve his ego, Jim Larkin remains a towering and mystifying figure in the lineage of organizing. Who has heard of such a man who could organize thousands of men in a matter of months, or even thirty thousand Welsh and Liverpool workers hundreds of miles away to strike out of pure solidarity? Hater of theory, lover of literature, Catholic nationalist, and Christian devotee, Jim Larkin was one of our best missionaries for socialist struggle. His righteous anger to never bend in the face of brutal exploitation raised millions of organizers in waiting to their feet – taking control of their lives and futures. 

Let us embody his spirit this St. Patrick’s Day. 

Andrew S is a member of Boston DSA.

References

Emmet O’Connor, Big Jim Larkin

Emmet Larkin, Jim Larkin

Press release from UW-Madison YDSA

We are so pleased and proud to announce that three of our candidates have won in the ASM elections Wednesday night — Gabo Samoff for College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and Student Finance Services Committee, Bobby Gronert for College of Letters and Science and Student Finance Services Committee and Tristan Englemann for College of Engineering (five seats total).

These wins signal that students are dissatisfied with the university and Trump crackdowns on free speech on our campus, that students will not settle for university complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine or any other attacks on marginalized students, faculty or workers by the Trump administration — attacks on undocumented and foreign students, trans and reproductive healthcare, layoffs and cuts to university workers. We say socialism beats fascism.

We want to thank everyone who chose to support us in the elections and let you know we are here to fight for and with you. We will do everything in our power to resist repression and encroachments upon ALL students and faculty, fight for justice on our campus and everywhere and are excited to work with you very soon. Let this be a reminder that we are not powerless, and we still win in the darkest of times; a better world is possible. We are only getting started, let’s celebrate this win and keep up the fight!

“My vote today reflects my commitment to making tough choices and doing my job for the people of Maine,” wrote Maine District 2 Rep. Jared Golden (D) after casting the lone Democratic vote in favor of the Republican House budget bill this week. The budget calls for $485 million additional funding for ICE to feed Trump’s deportation machine—which Golden highlighted affirmatively—and another $6 billion in Pentagon spending. Meanwhile, the bill erases earmarks—making it easier for Trump and Musk to turn appropriations into slush funds—and cuts $13 billion from non-military spending in health, clean water, tribal assistance, FEMA, and more. Pulling a reverse Susan Collins, Golden voted in favor of Trump’s budget, knowing his vote would not be decisive. Trump wasn’t thinking about Golden when he demanded “NO DISSENT” from House Republicans, but Golden answered the call regardless. If it were not for the Speaker Mike Johnson’s razor thin majority, one could be tempted to dismiss Golden’s posturing. And Golden’s vote, which seemed like an anomaly just a couple days ago, has now been endorsed by the most powerful elected Democrat in the country, Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

I have no special insight into Golden as a person. He’s obviously a very smart, likeable, hardworking man, and has about as much Mainer cred as a person can muster. Moreover, he can be surprisingly progressive on important issues. For instance, while Gov. Janet Mills—generally considered several steps to his left—has vetoed bills expanding Wabanaki sovereignty, Golden has supported important tribal priorities. Golden also vocally supports abortion rights and took a lot of heat for changing his position on banning assault rifles after the mass shooting in Lewiston. Credit where credit is due.

On the other hand, Golden famously split his vote during Trump’s impeachment, claiming he “voted his heart.” The pattern continued when he declared he was “OK” with Trump winning in 2024, even as he ridiculed people worried about Trump’s threats to democracy as “pearl clutching.” While condemning Republican State Rep. Laura Libby’s doxxing of a trans athlete, Golden repeated the right-wing trope that “biological males shouldn’t compete in sports against biological girls.” And when small farmers in Maine faced devastating cuts to USDA support, all Golden could muster was that he was “awaiting more legal clarity.”

[Read next: We’ll need popular resistance to defend trans rights in Maine – Pine & Roses]

Golden clearly wants Mainers to believe that he stands virtually alone in willing to make “tough choices.” Whatever you think of Golden the man, his method of trying to bridge left and right is the problem. After all, Golden won reelection by a whisker. His shrinking majority in District 2 and growing appetite for Manchinite posturing in Washington have led to speculation that he is considering a run for the Blaine House in November of 2026. Although it’s tempting to dismiss his chances in a left-leaning Democratic primary, Democratic leaders—and fundraising behemoths—demonstrated their willingness to pull out all the stops to prevent Bernie taking up the banner in 2016 and 2020. Furthermore, Trump has apparently picked Libby to conquer the state for MAGA in 2026 so the potential for the governor’s race to become “national” is real enough. Is Golden hoping he can serve as a rallying point for centrist and Blue Dog Democrats in the party apparatus? Perhaps. And that’s the problem with Golden’s method. Even if he wins, we lose.

So far I’ve stressed the uniqueness of Golden’s political positioning, but he also shares at least one trait in common with Gov. Mills, Sen. Angus King, and the bulk of the most powerful party leaders. That is, for all the latter’s references to Trump as a threat to democracy, they’re still willing to play by the rules. Mills rightfully won accolades for telling Trump she’d “see him in court.” Yet leaving our rights up to the Roberts Court leaves an awful lot up to chance. 

What’s the alternative? When Mills threatened to strip cost of living raises, direct care workers struck and took their message to the legislature, securing a vote in committee to restore the raise. When University of Maine administrators refused to protect international students, unionized graduate students organized a sit in. When Bowdoin administrators refused to honor a student referendum calling for the college to take action to support the people of Gaza, Students for Justice in Palestine organized an encampment. Actions like these are not yet powerful enough on their own to turn the tide, but they do point in another direction.

[Listen to next: Bowdoin College encampment for Gaza.]

Trump will continue his blitzkrieg for the coming months at least. He’s no pushover and we best prepare for a long series of confrontations. There’s no shame in recognizing we are on the defensive for the time being. But the initiatives we take now, be they organizing for May Day in Maine, standing up for our trans siblings, fighting for social housing, defending local farms or nominating candidates who’ve demonstrated they will fight for us in office, will be all the stronger if we take the time to cement relationships, practice open organizing democracy, and welcome new people into our movements.

So what is Jared Golden thinking? It turns out it’s the same thing as Schumer. In their estimation, sacrificing trans people, immigrants, civil liberties, and federal workers unions are just the cost of doing a certain kind of business in American politics. We need something entirely different. 

[Read next: The future of housing is public.]

The post Jared Golden leads, Schumer follows, Trump wins. appeared first on Pine & Roses.