On the national stage, Republicans are moving to secure minoritarian rule through redistricting efforts in Texas and Missouri. Through this anti-democratic effort, Republicans are poised to pick up six seats in Congress. This November, Californians have the opportunity to challenge these power grabs by passing Prop 50. If passed, the ballot measure will redraw five Republican-held congressional districts in California (CA-1, CA-3, CA-22, CA-41, and CA-48), making them more competitive and friendly to a potential DSA challenger.

Failing to redistrict in California while Republicans redistrict in Texas will cement Republican minoritarian rule in Congress for the foreseeable future and provide a blank check to the Trump administration to continue carrying out their violent and extremist policies. Further, it is likely the 2030 census and subsequent redistricting will heavily favor Republicans in the electoral college through 2040.

Socialists can’t sit this one out! As a national organization, we have a mandate to run five congressional candidates in 2028. Prop 50’s new map further opens the door for DSA challengers in the 2028 cycle. One of these five must come from the West Coast. California has been hit hard by the Trump administration through ICE raids, defunding of social programs, and attacks on healthcare and trans folks. The Golden State is a destination for people seeking a better life. It has been misrepresented by status quo Democratic Party machine politicians who seek only to secure their own power and wealth. We need a 2028 candidate who can fight the fascist right and fully expose the contradictions of the inept Democratic Party apparatus. 

California DSA and chapters endorse Prop 50

On August 23rd, California DSA voted to endorse Prop 50 and create a statewide working group charged with building a DSA canvassing and comms program around the initiative. California DSA will also bottomline a statewide public webinar providing a socialist analysis of why we have arrived at this political moment and how we can emerge from it, and coordinate a DSA Day of Action for participating chapters.

Chapters across the state are throwing down to get Prop 50 passed. Sonoma endorsed Prop 50 on August 25th and is currently looking into doing joint canvasses with their local Working Families Party (WFP). DSA-LA just endorsed the measure locally by majority vote at their September chapter meeting, and has electoral working groups spinning up for the 2026 cycle that can use this as an early exercise. San Diego and Silicon Valley DSA are also exploring endorsement at their upcoming chapter meetings this weekend. Pending endorsement, San Diego DSA is tentatively planning ten canvasses with a target of 2000 doors knocked before election day.

We are only six weeks away from election day, so this will be a relatively short campaign. Aside from passing Prop 50, the primary objective of the CA DSA Prop 50 campaign is to recruit our neighbors to DSA and strengthen our field programs. 

Fascist threat

This ballot initiative is a vehicle to have organizing conversations in our communities about the threat that the fascist right poses to multiracial democracy. As democratic socialists, we want an economy that is democratically controlled by working people and we run candidates who work to advance tenant protections, immigration justice, and the power of organized labor. 

Redistricting is a defensive tactic, and while it will reduce Republican expansion if passed, this measure alone is radically insufficient to respond to the aggregate moment. To respond at scale, we need to organize. This six-week effort gives us an opportunity to ask people to get involved in campaigns that will help involve them as agents in building collective power. DSA members can motivate folks at the doors to not only vote yes on Prop 50, but engage in a longer-term strategy to combat the right by joining DSA.

To join the CA DSA working group, fill out this interest form: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/california-redistricting-working-group-interest-form/

California DSA has recently voted in favor of supporting Proposition 50, a proposal to redraw California’s districts that is self-evidently aimed at creating enduring structural Democrat electoral supremacy in California, in the form of creating and sending materials to chapters throughout the state, and encouraging these chapters to quickly launch campaigns over the next seven weeks. We dissent from this endorsement and reject its strategy, and lay out a rebuttal to the argument for endorsement.

What Does DSA Really Stand To Gain from Prop 50?

In the piece laying out the argument for the endorsement, CA DSA and Groundwork caucus member Chris K. called Republican gerrymandering in Texas a “calculated assault on democracy” and “the Right’s most powerful weapon for locking working people out of politics.” While he claims to have “no illusions about the party establishment and what it wants out of this,” he argues that gerrymandering can be used in California as a counterweight to Republican gerrymandering elsewhere in the US, especially in Texas. This illustrates the defining political mistake of the DSA Right: mistaking the goals of the Democratic Party for the goals of DSA. 

Prop 50 makes perfect sense from the Democrats’ perspective. Of course Democrats want to minimize Republican footholds and shape the American political map in ways that maximize the electoral power of their (shrinking & demoralized) base. To lend our endorsement to a measure designed in their party’s interest, not ours, is to sacrifice our independence and organizing efforts without gaining any leverage.

Indeed, if we truly have “no illusions” about what this is, then we must admit it is very likely that Governor Gavin Newsom will use this redistricting process to engineer mid-layer support for his 2028 presidential campaign. Prop 50 provides him and his allies with another mechanism for consolidating their networks of patronage, rewarding loyalists, and structuring the political field to his benefit. Why align with that now unless we aim to be junior partners in the Democrat presidential campaign in 2028? As most recently shown in Minneapolis, it is an error to assume that the Democrat party will not strike against us as soon as we pose a threat to their capitalist base. 

In his piece, Chris K. says “this moment gives us a chance to both take a realpolitik move to reduce the GOP advantage from Texas gerrymandering and to agitate and push beyond the rigged two-party system,” but we can’t be simultaneously agitating against a rigged two-party system while supporting one of the parties rigging it. Chris also suggests that we demand more fundamental reforms in CA such as proportional representation, which gerrymandering is designed to decrease. The confusion of the author’s politics illustrates the contradictions in our endorsement, and those contradictions will not be lost on the working class of California.

But let’s also be clear on what we’re advocating for: if the DSA wants to credibly demand an expanded democracy, our demand cannot be for “fair” electoral maps under capitalism, an idea which itself is based on liberal assumptions of political rights. It must be for a new kind of political system entirely—one in which workers control their workplaces, communities, and governments directly, not one in which capitalists shuffle district lines to their advantage.

How Our Experience in the Central Valley Shapes Our Position

North Central Valley DSA (NCVDSA), a small chapter which organizes in four counties throughout rural California, has experienced steady growth since 2022, and it owes its growth to working class Californians who reject partisan divides in favor of class war. The palpable disdain for both Democrats and Republicans can be seen both within and beyond the electoral context, and there is a critical demand among rural Central Valley workers for an alternative to the capitalist two-party system. In 2024, dozens of NCVDSA members participated in the CA DSA ARCH campaign, canvassing voters who spoke of the hardships they’ve faced for generations; astronomical rent increases, abandoned public transportation projects, extreme land subsidence, unbearable drought, unbreathable air. These attacks on Central Californians are often bipartisan, conducted by politicians who switch-hit between D and R on a whim. Many NCVDSA ARCHers felt like we were fighting on two fronts: convincing our neighbors that, while not a panacea, these propositions would be an important tool to help the working class, while at the same time convincing them that we were not sent by the Democrats, which would have instantly lost us credibility.

If we support Prop 50, we will set back our own work throughout California towards showing up as an alternative to the capitalist two-party system. Rejecting Prop 50 does not mean ignoring the real frustrations people feel about Republican gerrymandering. On the contrary, it is an opportunity to connect those frustrations to a broader critique of capitalist politics. We can explain to workers why both Democrats and Republicans manipulate district lines, why neither party is truly invested in their empowerment, and why only socialist politics can deliver real democracy.

California DSA’s Fundamental Political Error: Identifying the Democrats’ Goals with DSA’s Goals

Broadly, we understand CA DSA to be operating on the notion that the current primary contradiction in the United States is Trumpism, and the primary task before us as DSA is to stymie Trump. But we cannot take such a myopic view of the struggle between capital and the people: Democratic capital cannot save us from Republican capital and we cannot organize the working class through building the personal brand of Gavin Newsom. Our organizing work throughout California’s East Bay and Central Valley regions has made it clear to us that DSA must win the support of the working class regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof.

The mission of DSA as an organization is not to push the Democrats into action to defeat the Republican Party. Our class enemies are just as powerful within the Democratic network as on the Republican side, and losing sight of class antagonisms is a huge political error. Our mission is instead to organize the broad working class and win political power on their behalf. It is not possible to achieve this goal by playing by partisan rules, and only appealing to those members of the working class who are already committed to voting for Democrats.

Last year, only 34% of California’s eligible voters voted for the Democratic presidential candidate. If we aim for a strategy that alienates the near supermajority – 66% – of eligible voters who didn’t vote Democrat, then we will forever limit our horizon to being a minor advocacy group in the Democrat sphere. It’s our responsibility as scientific socialists to assess our terrain more clearly if we want to create a better world. DSA chapters in California and throughout the country are learning how to organize folks who do not vote Democrat, and supporting Prop 50 would present a significant setback to this work.

What Would Organizing the Broad Working Class Look Like?

Imagine, instead of endorsing Prop 50, the DSA aimed at agitating along class lines, communicating simply and clearly that both Democrats and Republicans are rigging the electoral system and disregarding their working-class base. We could point out how working-class communities of color, immigrant neighborhoods, and rural towns alike are carved up by politicians. We could argue that true representation will never be achieved through bourgeois redistricting, but through building worker power independent of both capitalist parties. We could use this moment not to strengthen the Democrat hegemony in California, but to destabilize it, and to create openings for DSA to win.

The Democratic party is the weakest it's been in our lifetimes. The working class correctly views the Democrats as failing to fight back against Trump in any meaningful way, but simply fighting Trump to gain electoral ground without actually addressing the demands of the working class will not resolve the heightening contradictions in this country’s politics. We reject the idea that aligning with the Democrats’ belated attempt to win back some of its loyalists will do anything other than undermine DSA’s principles and ideological independence, and we strongly urge California DSA to reconsider its endorsement. California chapters across the state understand that DSA must grow, develop, and thrive at the expense of the Democratic party, and we may be forced to reassess our continued support of a state organization that increasingly works against the goal of creating an independent socialist party.

Andrew T and Ian H’s argument (“Against the California DSA Endorsement of Prop 50”) showcases their disdain for our bedfellows in the campaign, particularly Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democratic Party: “To lend our endorsement to a measure designed in their party’s interest, not ours, is to sacrifice our independence and organizing efforts without gaining any leverage.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not fond of Gavin Newsom or the neoliberal wing of the DP. In this way we’re all on the same page. But understanding where and why we disagree requires a much bigger picture than T & H draw for us.

Let’s talk about bedfellows. In making their arguments against Prop 50 they line up with right wing billionaire Charlie Munger—who has spent tens of millions of dollars in California elections opposing progressive tax measures while supporting union-busting initiatives. Munger, in a New York Times op ed, acknowledges the Texas redistricting measure that gives five more Congressional seats to the Republicans is wrong. But his weak argument is that two wrongs don’t make a right, ignoring the likely outcome: Republicans will stay in control of the House of Representatives. Of course he ignores that: it’s his desired outcome—a far right billionaire who wants to keep other far right billionaires in charge. Also on the anti-50 side: the California Republican Party and former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who makes a similarly limp argument that gerrymandering is wrong anywhere and everywhere. 

No abstract morality, please

In other words, Munger, Schwarzenegger and Republican leadership make an abstract moral argument against Prop 50, masking their real motivations:  their support for the consequences of Prop 50 going down to defeat, which are concrete and political and just fine with them.

T & H tell us that California DSA is mistaken in its support for a measure that aims to offset Trump’s dangerous gerrymandering chess move in Texas. As socialists of course they offer different reasons for their position than the billionaires do. But the level of abstraction that they offer here is pretty much on the same plane. I’ll address three problems with their opposition to Prop 50.

The problem is fascism

Nowhere in the article’s 1400 words do the authors utter the word “fascism”. This is its central flaw. All the rhetoric about building socialism by winning over the broad working class, and polemicizing against working with the class-betraying Democratic Party, etc., misses a key concept: fascism is far worse for the working class—day to day, and in the long run—than a society that retains basic democratic rights. It’s the slide into fascism that’s at stake here. On this the authors have nothing to say. 

T & H want to 

…be clear on what we’re advocating for: if the DSA wants to credibly demand an expanded democracy, our demand cannot be for “fair” electoral maps under capitalism, an idea which itself is based on liberal assumptions of political rights. It must be for a new kind of political system entirely—one in which workers control their workplaces, communities, and governments directly, not one in which capitalists shuffle district lines to their advantage.

Well, OK, comrades, we’re with you there. We just fail to understand how greasing the skids to fascism now accomplishes anything on the road to socialism in the future. Please spare us the obvious: yes, it’s a capitalist society, and the Republicans and Democrats are the twin parties of capital. The Democrats are no friend of the working class, etc. We are well aware of all that. That’s not what this is about. 

These arguments read like a Maoist screed from the 1970s. In that unfortunate decade, competing left grouplets promoted slight variants on a rigid belief in their party line combined with hallucinatory expectations for revolution around the corner. This deadly combination delivered irrelevance for this section of the left in regard to actual working class struggles and ultimately brought about the implosion of the Maoist left. (If you are unaware of these events and the parallel danger now, read Max Elbaum’s Revolution in the Air.) Making this mistake today—arguing for revolution in the abstract, while stepping aside from the opportunity to block fascism and build alliances with progressive forces (and no, I’m not talking about Newsom or neoliberal Dems) is inexcusable, given that the history is available for anyone to know, should they care to.

Hidden accelerationism?

Perhaps there’s a hidden accelerationist view at work here—the belief that the worse things get, the better for the revolution. Since presumably we’re all historical materialists, let’s look at the evidence in history. In no advanced capitalist country has this ever worked out. The closest the argument comes to such a picture in the United States is the Great Depression, which eventuated in the rise of the industrial unions and the social democratic gains for the working class of the New Deal—not revolution. This occurred on the back of the strongest labor movement the country has seen. 

 At the moment we simply don’t have a labor movement like that, or anything like the balance of forces to bring about a contemporary equivalent of even this important but relatively modest advance for the working class. And no clear way to get there—unless it’s the anti-fascist movement that is cohering slowly around us. Prop 50, which may well carry all the neoliberal baggage T & H claim, is nonetheless one of the tools in that movement. 

Andrew T and Ian H say, “The confusion of the author’s politics illustrates the contradictions in our endorsement, and those contradictions will not be lost on the working class of California.”

Contrary to the authors assertions, it’s improbable that “the working class” will put DSA under a microscope and stand in judgment of our actions anytime soon. That class conscious, for-itself working class has yet to construct itself, and steps in that direction are more likely to be earned by an anti-fascist movement utilizing every reasonable tool at its disposal, including Prop 50, than by proclaiming moral purity and standing off to the side of the battle. 

 Where’s the labor movement?

That’s because there is another word missing from their argument:  labor.  It is DSA policy, and a categorical belief of most DSA members, that we stand shoulder to shoulder with unions in their struggles. We don’t do so uncritically. We enter into coalition work with eyes wide open, understanding the often rightward drag of labor leadership as well as the passivity of the rank and file in too many unions. Nonetheless organized labor remains the central tool at the disposal of the working class. Like any tool it may be used well, badly or not at all. For Ian H and Andrew T apparently the favored choice is “not at all”.

The California labor movement is all in on Prop 50. It knows that with a Congress rubberstamping Trump’s anti-labor agenda (destruction of federal workers’ collective bargaining rights, stacking the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union administrators and staff, etc.) conditions for the working class will only grow more dire. Prop 50 is a unifying campaign for labor action between now and November. That provides socialists the opportunity to work together and engage in constructive dialog with union activists as the campaign unfolds; to build mutual respect between union activists and DSA members; and ultimately, between unions and DSA—an opportunity unavailable to those abstaining from the struggle. 

What is the alternative to Prop 50 offered by Andrew T and Ian H? Their example is the organizing work done in the central valley by one of our chapters in 2024, which they describe as conducted by “dozens” of comrades during the ARCH campaign for housing propositions 33 and 5. The comrades canvassed working class voters and learned that a) they have big problems, caused by capitalism and b) they don’t like the Democrats. The chapter has grown, they say, because working class Californians “reject partisan divides in favor of class war”. With all due respect to the hard work of canvassing in working class neighborhoods, California’s central valley contains seven million people, and the growth of a local DSA chapter by “dozens” doesn’t quite get to the scale of what we are facing, nor does it allow for generalizations about what “the working class” wants or doesn’t want. Again, our analysis should be concrete, not abstract.

The outcome of Prop 50, if it prevails in November, will be to possibly prevent the Republicans from stealing the 2026 congressional elections by redrawing districts in Texas. There’s no guarantee that that will end the matter; other factors will be in play. But without Prop 50 the fascist Republican Party will more than likely stay in control of Congress. Don’t like neoliberal Dems? Neither do I. Don’t like progressive tax-averse Governor Newsom? Neither do I. Don’t like gerrymandering? Me neither. I’m voting and working for Prop 50 because I like fascism even less.

Finally, T & H are factually wrong about Prop 50’s content, which, they assert, is “self-evidently aimed at creating enduring structural Democrat electoral supremacy in California”. Well, no, it expires in 2030. It is a temporary tactic (not a “strategy” as T & H would have it) to forestall a manipulated outcome on behalf of fascism while Trump is in power. T & H’s arguments are wrong on fact, wrong on the way forward. Please follow the lead of California DSA’s State Council and support Prop 50.

Events & Actions

Tuesday, September 23 (8:00 AM – 4:30 PM): ICE out of SF courts! (in person at 100 Montgomery St)

Tuesday, September 23 (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, September 24 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): DSA SF Tech Reading Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, September 24 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM): Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (Zoom and in person at 438 Haight St)

Thursday, September 25 (5:30 PM – 6:30 PM): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, September 25 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, September 26 (8:00 AM – 4:30 PM): ICE out of SF courts! (in person at 100 Montgomery St)

Friday, September 26 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Kashmir: Partition, Nationalism, and Global Fascism (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, September 27 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM): Physical Education + Self Defense Training (in person at William McKinley Monument)

Saturday, September 27 (1:30 PM – 3:30 PM): Divestment Strategy Session (1916 McAllister St)

Sunday, September 28 (2:00 PM – 4:00 PM): Market Street Transit History Tour (1 Ferry Building)

Sunday, September 28 (5:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Capital Reading Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, September 29 (5:00 PM – 6:30 PM): EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing Training (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, September 29 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, September 29 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Tuesday, September 30 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice Healing Circle (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, October 1 (6:30 PM – 9:00 PM): New Member Happy Hour (in person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, October 2 (7:30 PM – 9:30 PM): “Housing the City by the Bay: Tenant Activism, Civil Rights, and Class Politics in San Francisco” – TOWG Reading Group (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, October 3 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Social Housing Q&A with Seattle Organizer(s) (location TBD)

Saturday, October 4 (10:30 AM – 12:00 PM): DSA SF x EBDSA: No Space for ICE Canvassing (In person at Portsmouth Square Park, 745 Kearny St)

Saturday, October 5 (5:30 PM – 7:15 PM): HWG Reads “Capitalism & Disability – Selected Writings by Marta Russell” (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates. Events with a are especially new-member-friendly!

---

ICE Out of SF Courts!

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 and Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM at Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery. We need all hands on deck. The 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM window is when we most need to boost turnout, but if you can’t make that please come whenever works for you. 1 or 2 hours or the entire time! We’re also holding orientation sessions for folks, but that is not required to attend. See the Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation event for more details.

---

EWOC: Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is running a Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing course weekly in September (see below for schedule). Just like we did back in May, we’re getting a group to take the course together and benefit from in-person discussions and activities (at 1916 McAllister). If you’re interested, RSVP here! The goal is to have more people learn organizing skills, both for your own projects and for organizing with EWOC. The final session is from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM onMonday, September 29.

If you have any questions, reach out to labor@dsasf.org.

---

DSA SF Homelessness Working Group Reads: Capitalism & Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell

Join DSA SF’s Homelessness Working Group as we read through Capitalism & Disability: Selected Writings by Marta Russell. We’ll be meeting every other Sunday evening starting in September for 4 or 5 sessions at 1916 McAllister. The next session is Sunday, October 5. For more info, register here: bit.ly/martacd and check the events calendar for latest details.

---

Keep Market Street Moving Flyering

Stop the corporate takeover of Market Street! Help spread the word by handing out flyers. All materials provided, just show up!

Join us this Wednesday, September 24th at 5:00 to 6:30 PM at Market St & Davis St. RSVP here!

---

Tech Reading Group with Kickstarter Union Founder Clarissa Redwine

Come join DSA SF and Rideshare Drivers United on Wednesday, September 24 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at 1916 McAllister for our monthly tech reading group. We’ll be reading an article by Clarissa Redwine about the Kickstarter Union Campaign that started in 2016. Clarissa will also be making an appearance on Zoom to answer questions about her experience. RSVP here!

---

Bay Area Palestine Solidarity Reflection and Planning

Missed the People’s Conference for Palestine? Join the Palestinian Youth Movement’s report back on Thursday, September 25th at 6:00 PM at La Peña Cultural Center (3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA)

At the end of August, DSA SF sent five delegates to the historic second People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit. On Thursday September 25th, join Bay Area comrades for Palestine Solidarity to reflect and build on the lessons of the conference.

La Peña Cultural Center (3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA)
  Thursday, September 25
  6:00 PM

This will be an open space of reflection, discussion, and collective planning on how to bring the energy, strategy, and tools from Detroit back home to strengthen our organizing in the Bay Area. Our siblings in Gaza continue to endure bombardment, famine, and occupation. It is our duty to channel the momentum of the conference into action: to confront genocide, challenge imperialism, and grow a movement capable of transforming the conditions that allow this genocide.

---

Immigrant Justice Court Action Orientation

Come one, come all to 1916 McAllister St for our court watch orientation! You’ll learn how we are resisting ICE , how you can help, and participate in a biweekly art build. Bring questions and anti-ICE slogans! This event will take place every-other week on Thursday’s starting at 7:00 PM and the next one is September 25!

---

Kashmir: Partition, Nationalism, and Global Fascism

Nationalism is rising all over the world, and violence as always is accompanying it. Nowhere is the genocidal logic of the nation-state more evident than in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but it is not the only example that we must learn from. The Partition of India in 1947 and subsequent conflicts in South Asia have many similarities, and some important differences. Come join the DSA SF as we investigate the Kashmir Conflict, which flared up violently this spring, and its relationship to Hindu nationalism and the global fascist movement. We’ll be meeting Friday, September 26 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM at 1916 McAllister St.

---

Apartheid-Free Bay Area Consumer Canvass

Let’s build public support for stores that have pledged to go apartheid-free this Saturday, September 27 from 11:00 AM-1:00 PM! We’ll meet at Dolores Park on 18th St and Dolores St.

We will first train you, and then you will put that training into practice by collecting signatures in Dolores Park. RSVP here!

---

Emergency Tenant Organizing Training

This month the comrades in the Tenant’s Organizing Working Group have been attending the Fall 2025 Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) training, offered by the DSA Housing Justice Commission!

In the last ETOC session, comrades learned about the specific tools and techniques that could be used to begin organizing a tenants’ association campaign, how to plan escalation actions to get demands met, and how to successfully keep campaigns from losing momentum.

We hope to see you join us for the upcoming ETOC session 4 on Saturday, September 27 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM either remotely via Zoom or at our watch party at 399 Webster St. at the Embassy. There will be snacks! All are welcome! RSVP here.

Please get in touch with us at tenants@dsasf.org if you’d like to explore the ETOC materials.

---

Market Street Transit History Tour

This transit month, join our Ecosocialist Working Group as we explore Market Street, San Francisco’s main boulevard, through a socialist lens — who controlled the streets, and for what purpose?

We will be meeting at The Ferry Building on Sunday, September 28 at 2 PM. RSVP here!

---

DSA SF Tenant Organizing Reading Group – “Housing the City by the Bay: Tenant Activism, Civil Rights, and Class Politics in San Francisco” 

San Francisco has always had an affordable housing shortage, but solutions outside of the private sector have long been neglected or overlooked. Join us as we learn about the history of one proposed solution: public housing.

Our four-part reading group will meet every other Thursday at 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM hybrid in person at 1916 McAllister and Zoom with RSVP to discuss John Baranski’s book “Housing the City by the Bay”. The next meeting will be Thursday, October 2nd.

If you wish to join please 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 publishing the weekly newsletter. Members can view current CCC rotations.

Interested in helping with the newsletter or other day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running? Fill out the CCC help form.

In this conversation, iconographer Kelly Latimore talks art, flourishing, protest, and spirituality, naming some practices for nourishing our spirits as we pursue justice in a toxic and demoralizing political climate. Check out his art at https://kellylatimoreicons.com

Salt Lake DSA condemns the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Since DSA does not advocate political assassination, it was unsurprising to learn that Tyler Robinson is not associated with DSA.

We do not believe political assassinations bring us a single step closer to socialism. Instead, it creates a fearful, retributive, violent political climate which endangers workers and therefore lowers our ability to engage in activism. Charlie Kirk was a racist, sexist, white supremacist supporter of the capitalist class but workers are not convinced of socialism because of his murder.

The kind of transformative political change we need will come about when the vast majority of workers understand the nature of class society—currently dominated by capitalists and their allies in the two-party system—combined with the level of worker organization necessary to take political power from this ruling class. We do this by winning reforms which protect and advance our ability to organize: The right to live without the constant terroristic threat of deportation; to free speech without state persecution; to basic bodily autonomy and gender affirming care; to organize labor unions and bargain fairly; to affordable housing, childcare, healthcare, and education. In essence, reforms to protect workers from the systemic, daily violence of capitalism, the pursuit of profits over people’s well-being, and to show all workers the unjust nature of class society.

Trump extends his political violence on the working class in Utah and nationally with tens of billions of funding to turn ICE into an oppressive force to terrorize migrant communities and eradicate freedom of speech, while simultaneously shredding Medicaid, Medicare, and our remaining social services. Of course Trump wants to distract us from his snowballing Epstein political crisis.

Trump is using Kirk’s assassination as an excuse to crack down on our rights to organize for socialism. To be clear, the oppressors of the working class will use any excuse to do so. What matters is that Utah workers witnessing this crackdown know who their allies are in defending our Constitutional and democratic rights. That they learn, with certainty, that the capitalist class is their enemy, using the flimsiest excuses to try to crush those fighting for a better future.

We recognize that violence will continue in this society with no reasonable gun control and an unaffordable physical and mental healthcare system. Regardless, do not give in to the mindset that there are individual solutions to our social problems. Instead, grow your working class consciousness. You are not alone; together we are the working class that can create a humane, socialist society.

Our organizing will not stop. Socialism is necessary, but not guaranteed.

A better world is possible. Join Salt Lake DSA.

 

 

The post Statement On the Assassination of Charlie Kirk first appeared on Salt Lake DSA.

Note: posts by individual GMDSA members do not necessarily reflect the views of the broader membership or of its leadership and should not be regarded as official statements by the chapter.

GMDSA Co-Chair Joe Moore on the recent B-2 flyover. Photo Credit: Northrop Grumman/U.S. Air Force

---

On the afternoon of Saturday, September 20, a B-2 “Spirit” stealth bomber flew low over Montpelier on its way to Norwich University. The 2 p.m. flyover was scheduled to coincide with the kickoff of Norwich’s homecoming football game. 

The B-2 is a heavy bomber designed to carry a large payload, including up to sixteen 2,400 pound B83 nuclear weapons - each one with a potential yield 80 times that of the Hiroshima bomb. At about $2 billion per plane, the B-2 is the most expensive military aircraft ever produced. In terms of both cost and destructive capacity, the F-35 pales in comparison. 

I happened to be standing in the parking lot behind Montpelier’s Christ Episcopal Church when I heard the low roar of the B-2 overhead. It was a terrifying sight to behold from directly below. Its unique angular profile makes it immediately recognizable as a nuclear-capable stealth bomber. With only 19 in existence, the B-2 is a rare sight in most places, not to mention the skies over Vermont’s capital.  

A deep sense of unease at finding myself directly below a weapon of mass annihilation quickly turned to anger. At that moment, I was surrounded by the tents and canopies of Montpelier’s unhoused population. Dozens of Vermonters were forced to seek refuge in the Church parking lot following the end of the state's motel housing program on July 1 and Montpelier City Council’s ongoing ban on camping in “high sensitivity areas.” The juxtaposition of the $2 billion B-2 flying low over a cluster of makeshift shelters erected on parking lot asphalt could not have been more stark.

This one plane alone could have paid for the construction of 10-20,000 additional units of housing – not to mention clinics, schools, childcare centers, and other socially useful infrastructure. At $2 billion, one B-2 represents just under one-quarter of Vermont’s entire state budget. Its presence in the skies over our communities is both an affront and a timely reminder that the existence of poverty and homelessness in America – the wealthiest county in the history of the world – is not an inevitability. It is a social choice. 

While gratuitous displays of military power have become commonplace at U.S. sporting events, we should remember that those machines that inspire feelings of awe and pride in many Americans are weapons of mass destruction that inspire terror in most other places around the world. For the thousands of refugee families who have resettled in Vermont after fleeing wars abroad – including U.S.-launched wars – low-flying bombers are not associated with patriotic pageantry. They are associated with death and devastation. 

Norwich University is a private military college, but its leaders should consider its responsibility to the community and region in which it is embedded. Football is enjoyable on its own. The University doesn’t need to subject Washington County residents to the presence of weapons of annihilation for the purpose of “entertainment”. 

The Brach’s factory closure hit working families in Chicago. To fight back, these families took the struggle from the shop floor and made it international.

The post Chicago labor’s fight against child slavery in Côte d’Ivoire appeared first on EWOC.

We don’t have to do this alone. We don’t have to FEEL alone. Socialize and organize because we’re in this together, fighting for a better world!

The post Fighting apathy and algorithms appeared first on EWOC.

This week, the residents of the Sunset District removed Joel Engardio from the Board of Supervisors. DSA SF didn’t lead the recall, but we didn’t try to stop it. Engardio is anti-worker, pro-cop, landlord-first, and fully backed by GrowSF and the real estate elite. He ignored the demands of working-class residents and DSA members in D4. He has been a mouthpiece for the owning class, and we won’t be sad when he’s gone. Good riddance.

Joel Engardio never represented the working class. In his three years in office, he introduced a paltry 32 pieces of legislation (DSA SF member and D9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder has already authored 21 pieces in her 10 months in office), none of which addressed the affordability crisis strangling this city’s working families. Instead, he backed a budget that cut funding for violence prevention in the Mission, slashed emergency shelter for survivors of domestic violence, defunded immigrant legal services, and eliminated good, unionized city jobs.

While working-class people are struggling to survive, Engardio pushed for money to pad the pockets of the police. He backed increased overtime for SFPD just months after an independent audit found a pattern of rampant abuse of overtime funds by the cops. 

He voted to strip money from Prop C (Our City, our Home), directly undermining the will of the voters and reducing the city’s ability to build desperately needed affordable housing. Capitalism cannot solve the housing crisis, and Engardio’s votes have made it worse.

As Engardio is well aware, the right to recall is not just a procedural tool, it’s a weapon. And like any weapon, it must be wielded with discipline. We believe it belongs in the hands of the working class, and the working class alone.

We’ve seen how recalls can be used as weapons by the right. Just ask our comrades in Seattle, where big business tried (And failed! Three times!) to unseat Kshama Sawant. These efforts failed because she was deeply rooted in labor and class struggle. 

A recall against a socialist organizer is an attack on the people, and the people will respond. A recall against a reactionary with no genuine base? That’s a very different story.

Unfortunately, our billionaire Mayor Lurie will not replace Engardio with a champion of the working class. But to whoever does get appointed, may you learn from Joel’s sorry tale: If you stand for nothing, nobody will have your back. 

If you want to build a working class movement with substance, join DSA.