by Jean Allen

A few weeks ago on Chapo Trap House (#1051), the hosts interviewed Tim from the podcast All Lawyers Are Bastards, and his conclusion was notable in how often I’ve heard permutations of it:

“It’s very hard for me to envision right now without a really severe legislative reform, a Congress in the next 8 to 10 years that’s really capable of doing anything of note, right? And that’s one of the ways the Supreme Court’s able to kind of create this space for themselves is they just kick things over to Congress and say, ‘it’s Congress’ responsibility to do this, not us, right?’ And so that’s when they decide not to act. But that does mean that Congress is probably not going to be able to create new federal legislation that carves themselves out a unique role, right? And if they do that, they’re probably not going to be able to effectively craft legislation that actually curtails those rights. So I think working in local municipalities and states can be one area where I think you can see a little more change.”

This is the logic that I have seen consistently throughout my life (that it is not realistic for any systemic change to happen), but it is rare to see it all laid out like this. My parents’ generation loved the bumper sticker slogan – “think global, act local.” Yes there are big global problems that we are increasingly connected to, but really, you have the most power locally. Like everything in our postmodern world, this is a strategy that is always new, always obvious, but it can never be said to have been tried and failed. By my sister’s apartment there is a dangerous intersection. After almost a decade of organizing, it finally has a stop sign. That is the “stuff” you get done at the local level if your goals are in any way opposed or even orthogonal to capital. I know people who have spent their whole political lives defending a few acres of wetlands, or trying to get speed bumps installed on one residential street, or trying to get the police of a village to be marginally more accountable. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has made 998 billion dollars, reactionary politics have been on the rise everywhere, hot wars are returning to global life, and the world seems destined to careen towards an unmanageable level of heating. “Act locally” has failed as a project.

I do not mean to diminish this kind of work. “Act locally” is a truism for a reason. But I want to focus on the elision here. An elision is a linguistic term for the omission of a syllable in speech, like saying you’re ‘gonna’ instead of ‘going to’. There is an elision between ‘think global’ and ‘act local’ – don’t waste your time on any kind of big demands. We are totally, abjectly powerless at the systemic level. In Rochester a 75-25 vote in support of the Police Accountability Board in our 2019 referendum has been eaten, slowly, by the court system. A half decade earlier, the insurgent mayorship of Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, MI, tried to raise local minimum wages, only to have that power stripped from him by the state legislature. Any success at any point within our system requires the acceptance of the whole rest of it, requires super-majorities and the base for sustained legal fights; because the government that we have been taught is meant to serve us,  is actually tremendously stacked against the empowerment of the working class. 

That system has not served any of us in the whole of our political adulthoods. And just as ‘Capitalist Realism’ accepts that “it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism”, there is an American Realism which accepts, to a greater or lesser degree, the perfection/permanence of the US constitution, and restricts its political project to fit itself within the disciplinary grounds of that system. 

I said this in June’s newsletter reviewing a folk album: ‘domination has a blast radius’. Constantly elliding over our total powerlessness at the level of the system is bad for us. Watching 17 years of protest movements be responded to with total indifference from the government which ‘serves us’ is not just a rational problem – it’s something that fucks up our ability to feel empowered in the rest of our lives. That’s to say nothing for the twisted kind of person who really gets into this. There is a kind of attitude developed within our schools and ‘intelligencia’ which says: any call for systemic change, any focus on how unrepresentative our government is, can be seen as the product of a lack of civics education. This person has come to love our system, which gives so many opportunities to explain the suffering it doles out, because obviously anyone with an issue simply does not have enough education to know that their suffering is actually justifiable, is actually fine. 

There is a popular tendency on the left right now that holds that this is only a problem of will – that if we win hard enough, this all goes away. To that perspective this is all nonsense, since nobody cares about our system of government anyways. I get this perspective, but even while we fight for bread and butter demands, I think it’s important that we say the thing the rest of our political punditry, including many of our comrades, elide:

“The government we have been taught is meant to serve us, actually disempowers working-class people, and that is wrong, and the world does not have to be this way.”

This is argued in DSA’s new program, which says our enemy is “not just this or that cop, judge, or president, but the entire anti-democratic structure of our society. We are workers fighting to transform society: to win the battle for democracy, draft a new constitution, and create a democratic socialist republic.” I think this is important, because the first part of empowering ourselves is recognizing that we have been disempowered, and training ourselves to see the disempowerment of ourselves and our fellow workers as a moral outrage rather than something to be ideologically explained. Because at the end of the conversation the Chapos had with Tim, Will spelled out what this perspective really means:

“[The] best you can hope for [is the] complete collapse of the United States, both as a government, and a country. So maybe some sort of natural disaster, or [something].”

It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of America’s undemocratic institutions. But accepting these premises only leads to doomerism, rather than action. In order to fight for stop signs, and speed bumps, and wetlands, we need to clear the anti-democratic road blocks.

The post The Elisions of American Realism first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Bosses will argue that full-time employees are simply contractors to cut benefits and save money. Here's how to tell if you're misclassified.

The post How to know if you’re misclassified appeared first on EWOC.

The health coverage cliff, the budget gaps, the bureaucratic siege on families like mine all have the same fundamental answer: the New York Health Act.

The post There is No Affordability Without Healthcare appeared first on Democratic Left.

By: Tony A

ANDOVER – The yard signs for hometown candidate Daniel Koh are thick in this suburb north of Boston, as the six-way race for the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District enters its final weeks. A passerby might be curious to ask: “Who is paying for all these signs?”

At least financially, Koh is dominating the field, with over $4 million raised as of the most recent filing deadline. And as the campaign would have it, his campaign is largely funded and backed by labor.

The Massachusetts AFL-CIO, as well as a near majority of local unions, have endorsed Koh, including AFSCME Council 93, the International Association of Machinists, NAGE SEIU Local 5000, SEIU Local 888, Teamsters Local 25, UNITE HERE NEJB, and the Massachusetts Building Trades Union as well as many of its members including, IBEW Local 103, IBEW Local 104, IBEW Local 2222, IUPAT DC 35, Laborers Local 22, Laborers Local 175, Laborers Local 88, and more.

I’m proud to stand with labor, and I’m proud to have labor standing with me.

Hear directly from labor leaders on why they’re backing our campaign pic.twitter.com/w3Bko5JdAf

— Dan Koh (@dank) August 11, 2026

It is likely that many unions see Koh’s frontrunner status as a deterrent to endorsing other challengers. If labor leaders think Koh’s win is inevitable, the incentive to support different, more progressive candidates diminishes. 

Only a handful of unions have declined to genuflect before him. UAW International and SEIU State Council have backed candidate and State Rep. Tram Nguyen (D-Andover), a member of UAW Local 2320 from past work as a legal aide. The National Education Association and the Massachusetts Teachers Association endorsed candidate Mariah Lancaster.

Boston DSA formally recommended against moderate candidates Koh, Nguyen, and financial technology executive John Beccia, but declined to recommend any progressive challenger. 

For better or worse, Koh is the labor candidate. Given Koh’s resume, this labor coalition is disappointing, but unsurprising.

He’s a former protege of Boston’s ‘labor mayor’ Marty Walsh, and served as Mayor Walsh’s chief of staff before following him to the U.S. Department of Labor. Koh also served in the Biden White House, where he was deployed to Michigan to negotiate with the Uncommitted Movement during the presidential primary on the administration’s behalf. There, negotiations were described as “tense,” and Koh and the Biden administration left without conceding any ground in their facilitation of the Gaza genocide.

His loyalty earned him the ‘MSNBC Trifecta’ of endorsements: Former President Joe Biden, Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Executives & AIPAC Dollars

Labor isn’t the only movement funding Koh.

Koh has received criticism for taking the maximum allowable donations from a Palantir executive and from sports gambling websites, among others. 

Koh has not received funding directly from AIPAC. But at least 68 donors donated to both AIPAC and Dan Koh’s campaign. Their combined donations to AIPAC total $206,395.

These donors include Josh Kraft, of the Kraft family, as well as executives at Apollo Asset Management, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs. At least 29 of these donors reside out of state, while only five live in the 6th District.

Because receipts are only available through the June 30 filing deadline, the total Koh has received is likely larger. 

The AIPAC-overlapping total is small relative to Koh’s overall haul, but sizable relative to the budgets of his progressive opponents. The $183,700 figure exceeds half of the total campaign funds raised by all of the race’s three progressive challengers, Beth Anders-Beck, Jamie Belsito, and Mariah Lancaster.

The donations are a blaring warning signal for the type of Representative Koh intends to be: business as usual, corporate, bland, and likely to continue the technocratic facilitation of extractive and genocidal American wars abroad. 

The unwitting alliance between labor unions and supporters of America’s most vilified lobbying arm is an indictment of the current state of labor’s electoral orientation: a movement on the defensive, with endorsements rarely democratically decided, and inclined to back establishment figures who prioritize incremental worker concessions over progressive candidates who might shift political leverage from capital to labor. 

If you’re driving by a Koh yard sign, remember it was likely paid for by AIPAC-linked donors, a labor union, or both.

Tony A is a contributing writer to Working Mass and a resident of Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District. 

The post Dan Koh, Labor’s Candidate in MA-06, took over $180,000 from AIPAC Donors appeared first on Working Mass.

There’s an old Marxist-Leninist tweet from a gadfly who went by the name of Phil Greaves: 

“Star Wars is fascist, Harry Potter is fascist neo-feudal dreck, selfie-obsession is fascist, British soap operas are fascist, sci-fi is generally fascist, ironic detachment is fascist, porn is fascist. Masscult under imperialism is inherently fascistic. Sorry to spoil your ‘fun’.” 

And the mad lad who has since protected his tweets replied to himself soon after:

“One day people will ask: ‘How did Anglo-Americans not see their own fascism?’ And part of the answer will be: ‘Because they were entertained by it.’” 

The point Greaves is getting at is how the current moment attempts to overwhelm you as an individual with spectacle at all times, and to hypnotize you in a way. It is easier for the state to alienate you and keep you locked into regular consumer behavior if you are watching ambivalently, without thinking, allowing yourself to be immersed in something whether it be the new Avatar film, alcohol or drug abuse, or porn addiction. Think about how the so-called algorithm induces schizophrenia in you as a subject. You first see a selfie from your friend back home for the holidays, and next, you see an ad for a political candidate paid by a subsidiary of AIPAC. Then you see from the news account of your choice Palestinian bodies mutilated by either our government’s or Israel’s. Then you see a meme that you have to Google in order to understand. In mere seconds, you have hopped around the world, and your attention has shifted again, again, and again. 

The problem here is one of immersion. These media objects, whether we talk about the Marvel Cinematic Universe or virtually-augmented point-of-view porn, like cigarettes, come in regular enough doses to give you your fix, and yet something feels missing. Mark Fisher calls this condition “depressive hedonia.” 

Here’s Fisher in chapter 4 of Capitalist Realism: 

“Many of the teenage students I encountered seemed to be in a state of what I would call depressive hedonia. Depression is usually characterized as a state of anhedonia, but the condition I’m referring to is constituted not by an inability to get pleasure so much as an inability to do anything else except pursue pleasure. There is a sense that ‘something is missing’ – but no appreciation that this mysterious, missing enjoyment can only be accessed beyond the pleasure principle. In large part this is a consequence of students’ ambiguous structural position, stranded between their old role as subjects of disciplinary institutions and their new status as consumers of services. In his crucial essay ‘Postscript on Societies of Control’, Deleuze distinguishes between the disciplinary societies described by Foucault, which were organized around the enclosed spaces of the factory, the school and the prison, and the new control societies, in which all institutions are embedded in a dispersed corporation.”

Regarding that last line, in the new MCU film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Zendaya’s character gets offered a good job, but she turns it down because it’s for an evil corporation. Her friend asks if all corporations are evil. She says “Yes.” In the context of the film, this is one of the things Peter Parker loves about her: her ethical moral compass. But in the reality the film exists in, this line is ironic by being a product of Disney, whose name is interestingly missing from both the front and end credits. Zendaya’s character’s refusing to work for a corporation is proven to be hypocritical, as the actress has chosen for the better part of a decade to work almost exclusively for them. And yet, when she kisses Tom Holland, her real-life boyfriend, the audience applauded nonetheless. 

The Soviet film theorist Lev Kuleshov wrote in his landmark piece of film theory “The Principles of Montage”: 

“The artist’s relationship to his surrounding reality, his view of the world, is not merely expressed in the entire process of shooting, but in the montage as well, in the capacity to see and to present the world around him. A variety of social encounters, a class struggle takes place in reality, and the artist’s existence within a particular social class influences his world-view. Artists with differing world-views each perceive the reality surrounding them differently; they see events differently, discuss them differently, show them, imagine them, and join them to another differently. Thus, film montage, as the entire work of filmmaking, is inextricably linked to the artist’s world-view and his ideological purpose.” 

If we take this as true and look at the dominant mode of filmmaking in America and the West in the past 50 years since the end of New Hollywood with the release of Jaws and Star Wars (pick your poison), it’s obvious that the dominant mode of filmmaking has been immersion. When James Cameron’s Avatar was released and pushed forward the trend of 3D and fully digital spaces, the main point of praise was how ‘immersive’ it was. With Avatar: The Way of the Water, this was taken forward with new, technically difficult footage never before possible, both with underwater 3D footage requiring technological advancement allowing each piece of the human face to be recorded in a liquid environment where facial features are distorted. 

Some left-wing filmmakers, like the undersung Paul W.S. Anderson, have attempted to work from within the system, creating movies with revolutionary politics like Resident Evil: Retribution, which features images like that of a private military group falling beneath the superstructure of an old Soviet base, being crushed by the very simulacra they used to poison the world. But Anderson, too, like Cameron, was victim to the desire to immerse the audience and give us our dopamine fixes. He even used technology from the state to lull audiences into a kind of stupor, turning shots meant to recall to the viewer the torture at the hands of the fascists in Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom into images meant to entertain the viewer. He used NASA cameras shooting upwards of 10,000 frames per second for very beautiful slow motion photography. There’s surely a joke to be made from the old Maoist Jean-Luc Godard’s line about cinema being the truth at 24 frames per second, updated to 10,000 lies per second through social-democrat Paul W.S. Anderson’s cinema. 

There’s a bizarre video that came out in 2012 featuring Marxist filmmaker Michael Haneke and CIA plant John Krasinski in the Hollywood Reporter where Haneke explains how Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is an incredibly manipulative film because of how it turns the Holocaust into entertainment. We, the audience, begin to fear whether the characters will be gassed or not. The gas of Auschwitz is turned from a real historical object into a literary device, another example of Chekov’s gun. Haneke’s films, by contrast, are cold and impersonal. His first theatrical feature, The Seventh Continent, spends ten minutes following a family getting out of bed. We don’t see their faces, instead their feet as they tie their shoes and their hands as they eat. This is a Brechtian approach to filmmaking, meaning Haneke is using the distancing effect. He wants the audience to be at a remove from what he is presenting, and instead the audience thinks about it instead of being immersed in whatever world is being shown. 

His films echo the words of the great Soviet filmmaker and film theorist Sergei Eisenstein, who wrote in “A Dialectical Approach to Film Form”: 

“Step by step, by a process of comparing each new image with the common denotation, power is accumulated behind a process that can be formally identified with that of logical deduction. The decision to release these ideas, as well as the method used, is already intellectually conceived. The conventional descriptive form for film leads to the formal possibility of a kind of filmic reasoning. While the conventional film directs the emotions, this suggests an opportunity to encourage and direct the whole thought process as well.”

This is a mode of filmmaking that rejects emotional manipulation alone and instead wants the audience to deduce the logic of the material reality being presented. When you go to the movies, you interact with filmed reality. It’s ultimately a kind of materialistic art, when you look towards its essence. But in America, from the big studios down to micro-budget filmmakers here in Chicago, there is a push towards immersion. We filmmakers are entertained by the studios, and so we aspire to work for the studios, just as naïvely as the working man believes that one day he, too, will be a billionaire. Audience members broke box office records recently watching the new, fascist Spider-Man movie. What’s troubling is that there aren’t many alternatives. I Want Your Sex, from Queer New Wave icon Gregg Araki, demands an attention to the roles shown and the characters’ class relations, but its obvious ideology attacking hedonism appears to have been lost on the critical masses who praise it for its explicit sex scenes in a puritanical era. Yet the sex scenes and the context of the characters show that the puritanical approach is more ‘correct’ than the perspective espoused by Olivia Wilde, even though her words appear alluring. She roofies Cooper Hoffman’s character, explicitly grooms him, and abuses him. Somehow this is lost on many viewers. 

When talking about contemporary socialist films, not a whole lot of names pop up here in the Americas. Boots Riley comes to mind immediately, but the question quickly arises if his filmmaking is even particularly socialist. His individual opinions are, yes, but the form of it all? Even if his characters in I Love Boosters end up cheering a general strike, the form of his film still relies on immersion. The film form is still capitalistic to the core, from its production model to how the movie moves from shot to shot, even if its main plot device is a dialectical materialism device. This just appropriates left wing language for the sake of corporate profit. 

So then, what is to be desired? 

We must, as filmmakers, keep the audience at a remove from the world of the film, and we as viewers must leave the film world that we watch at a distance and reject any parasocial emotions that fill inside of us. We must desire to be challenged formally and accept that we might be bored from time to time. Sometimes, we might even desire to be bored. 

Later in chapter 4 of Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher says: 

“Ask students to read for more than a couple of sentences and many – and these are A-level students mind you – will protest that they can’t do it. The most frequent complaint teachers hear is that it’s boring. It is not so much the content of the written material that is at issue here; it is the act of reading itself that is deemed to be ‘boring’. What we are facing here is not just time-honored teenage torpor, but the mismatch between a postliterate ‘New Flesh’ that is ‘too wired to concentrate’ and the conning, concentrational logics of decaying disciplinary systems. To be bored simply means to be removed from the communicative sensation-stimulus matrix of texting, YouTube and fast food; to be denied, for a moment, the constant flow of sugary gratification on demand. Some students want Nietzsche in the same way that they want a hamburger; they fail to grasp – and the logic of the consumer system encourages this misapprehension – that the indigestibility, the difficulty is Nietzsche.”

We must deny immediate satisfaction to contemplate ideas, to depict ideas, and to challenge the viewer to try to understand them. In Angela Schalenec’s Passing Summer, a writer goes up to a publisher who is disappointed at her reliance upon elliptical sentences. He says something like, ‘at some point, I just wanted to read a normal novel. Do you not want to be understood?’ And she says, “I want to be understood.” And yet Schalenec, in each of the films she has made since that 2002 film, has not removed her own elliptical, naturalistic, and difficult narrative decisions. She wants to be understood, but she doesn’t want to do so by leaving her principles at the wayside. 

And so, neither must we, as socialists. 

The post Realism or Resisting Immersion? appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Updated with election night remarks from Larkin and Broward County DSA co-chair and Larkin campaign manager Zach B.

The post Election Night Live Blog: Larkin Concedes, “The Fight Continues” appeared first on Democratic Left.

A statement of the Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, July 2026. En español a continuación.

What is happening in Ecuador is a coup conducted without tanks. Its weapons are electoral councils, tribunals, and prosecutors, and its result is the one every coup seeks: a government that no longer has to face its opponents on equal terms. In a single week of July, the government of President Daniel Noboa closed three of the channels through which Ecuadorians contest power, each time by a lawful-looking decision of an ostensibly neutral body.

On July 15, the National Electoral Council refused to release the forms citizens need to gather signatures for a recall of the president, a right written into the constitution, ending the effort before anyone could sign.¹ Days earlier the Constitutional Court had refused even to hear the appeal of the Citizen Revolution, the largest opposition force, against its own suspension, citing a rule that blocks review during an election period, which is the only period when the suspension bites.² Then the electoral tribunal suspended AMIGO, the movement under which Citizen Revolution candidates had arranged to run, one day before the deadline to register alliances.³ Throughout, Noboa litigated against the recall aimed at him before the very council deciding whether it could proceed.⁴

This is not a seizure of power in the night. It is the steady conversion of the referees, the electoral council, the courts, the prosecutor, into instruments of the incumbent. Each step survives inspection on its own. Together they let a president choose his opponents.

It did not begin with paperwork. During last autumn’s national strike against austerity, security forces killed three protesters and charged demonstrators as terrorists.⁵ And it is not only Ecuador’s affair. Ecuadorians voted in November 2025 to reject foreign military bases; the United States deployed personnel to Manta anyway, and by July the chief of U.S. Southern Command was in Quito reviewing Noboa’s security plan in person.⁶ Our own government has set aside a vote of the Ecuadorian people, which places a particular duty on socialists in the U.S.

To the citizens’ platform Revoca EC and the attorney Washington Andrade; to Leonidas Iza, acting as president of Ecuarunari; to the peasant, labor, and teachers’ organizations, FENOCIN, the FUT, the Frente Popular, and the UNE, who filed the second recall petition against austerity and the agreement with the International Monetary Fund; and to every rank-and-file member of the Citizen Revolution whose party the electoral tribunal has barred from the ballot: we see you, and we stand with you.

We do not write to instruct anyone in Ecuador how to conduct their struggle. We write to affirm a principle that stands above any single party’s fortunes: the recall belongs to the people, not to a party, and the right to appear on a ballot cannot depend on the incumbent’s convenience. The government suspended its largest opposition without ever proving the charge, because it timed the suspension to the one period when the courts are barred from reviewing it. A case that cannot survive review is not a case. It is a tactic.

DSA members: raise Ecuador where you are. Bring this statement to your chapter, and demand that your own representatives end the U.S. military and police cooperation that underwrites this repression. The local elections of November 29 will test whether Ecuador’s doors are narrowed or shut. Doors closed by law can be reopened by law, but only while some remain open, and solidarity is one of the things that keeps them open.

The recall is not a party’s weapon. It is the people’s. From Quito to Chicago, our struggle is one.

1. El Universo, July 15, 2026.

2. Primicias, July 15, 2026.

3. La República, July 17, 2026.

4. Qué Noticias, July 8, 2026.

5. El Universo, October 23, 2025.

6. International IDEA, November 2025; La Jornada, July 18, 2026.

---

Sobre el Ecuador: cuando los árbitros se suman a un equipo

Declaración del Comité Internacional de los Socialistas Democráticos de América (DSA), julio de 2026.

Lo que ocurre en el Ecuador es un golpe sin tanques. Sus armas son los consejos electorales, los tribunales y la Fiscalía, y su resultado es el que persigue todo golpe: un gobierno que ya no tiene que enfrentarse a sus adversarios en igualdad de condiciones. En una sola semana de julio, el gobierno del presidente Daniel Noboa cerró tres de los canales por los que los ecuatorianos disputan el poder, cada vez mediante la decisión, en apariencia lícita, de un organismo supuestamente neutral.

El 15 de julio, el Consejo Nacional Electoral se negó a entregar los formularios que la ciudadanía necesita para recolectar firmas por la revocatoria del mandato del presidente, un derecho inscrito en la Constitución, poniendo fin al proceso antes de que alguien pudiera firmar. Días antes, la Corte Constitucional se había negado incluso a conocer el recurso de la Revolución Ciudadana, la mayor fuerza de oposición, contra su propia suspensión, invocando una norma que impide la revisión durante el período electoral, el único período en que la suspensión le duele. Luego el Tribunal Contencioso Electoral suspendió a AMIGO, el movimiento bajo el cual habían acordado inscribirse las candidaturas de la Revolución Ciudadana, un día antes del plazo para inscribir alianzas. Durante todo el proceso, Noboa litigó contra la revocatoria dirigida a él ante el mismo consejo que decidía si podía avanzar.

No es la toma del poder en la noche. Es la conversión paulatina de los árbitros, el consejo electoral, las cortes, la Fiscalía, en instrumentos del oficialismo. Cada paso resiste el escrutinio por separado. Juntos, permiten que un presidente escoja a sus adversarios.

No empezó con el papeleo. Durante el paro nacional del año pasado contra el ajuste, las fuerzas de seguridad mataron a tres manifestantes y procesaron a manifestantes por terrorismo. Y no es solo un asunto del Ecuador. Los ecuatorianos votaron en noviembre de 2025 en contra de las bases militares extranjeras; Estados Unidos desplegó igual a su personal en Manta y, para julio, el jefe del Comando Sur estaba en Quito revisando en persona el plan de seguridad de Noboa. Nuestro propio gobierno ha desconocido una votación del pueblo ecuatoriano, lo que impone un deber particular a las y los socialistas de este país.

A la plataforma ciudadana Revoca EC y al abogado Washington Andrade; a Leonidas Iza, en su calidad de presidente de la Ecuarunari; a las organizaciones campesinas, sindicales y docentes, la FENOCIN, el FUT, el Frente Popular y la UNE, que presentaron la segunda solicitud de revocatoria contra el ajuste y el acuerdo con el Fondo Monetario Internacional; y a cada militante de base de la Revolución Ciudadana cuyo movimiento el Tribunal Contencioso Electoral ha excluido de la papeleta: les vemos y estamos con ustedes.

No escribimos para indicarle a nadie en el Ecuador cómo conducir su lucha. Escribimos para afirmar un principio que está por encima de la suerte de cualquier partido: la revocatoria pertenece al pueblo, no a un partido, y el derecho a aparecer en la papeleta no puede depender de la conveniencia del oficialismo. Un gobierno que suspende a su principal oposición en la única ventana en la que las cortes no mirarán no ha ganado una discusión. Se ha negado a tenerla.

A las y los afiliados de DSA: levanten el tema del Ecuador donde estén. Lleven esta declaración a su sección, inviten a estas organizaciones a hablar directamente con nosotros y exijan a sus propios representantes que pongan fin a la cooperación militar y policial estadounidense que sostiene esta represión. Las elecciones seccionales del 29 de noviembre pondrán a prueba si las puertas del Ecuador se quedan estrechadas o cerradas. Las puertas cerradas por la ley pueden reabrirse por la ley, pero solo mientras algunas sigan abiertas, y la solidaridad es una de las cosas que las mantiene abiertas.

La revocatoria no es el arma de un partido. Es la del pueblo. De Quito a Chicago, nuestra lucha es una sola.

The post On Ecuador: When the Referees Join a Team appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

It’s a big week for the Prop I!

Last week we build a lot of momentum with our kickoff in Dubose Park, and front page story in the Examiner.

This week has a couple opportunies to keep the energy going:

• Thursday August 20 from 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM there’s a Phonebank for Prop I – Affordable Housing Guarantee Act at 1916 McAllister St
• Friday August 21 from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM there’s a Yes on Prop I – Letter Writing & Pizza Night at 1916 McAllister St

See you there!

Events & Actions

Tuesday August 18 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Social Housing Working Group (online and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday August 19 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) What is DSA? (1916 McAllister St)

Thursday August 20 (5:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Phonebank for Prop I – Affordable Housing Guarantee Act (1916 McAllister St)

Thursday August 20 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) Education Board Open Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Thursday August 20 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Immigrant Justice Regular Meeting (online and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday August 21 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Yes on Prop I – Letter Writing & Pizza Night (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 22 (11:00 AM – 2:00 PM) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing [ETOC] (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 22 (2:30 PM – 5:00 PM) Picnic in the Park (Mission Dolores Park, picnic area by the playground)

Sunday August 23 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group (online)

Sunday August 23 (5:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Socialists for an Affordable Bay Area: Fundraiser and Social (East Bay Community Space, 507 55th St, Oakland)

Monday August 24 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle (Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday August 24 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) SF EWOC Local Meeting (online and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday August 25 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday August 26 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (online and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday August 27 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM) Emergency Planning Training (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 29 (11:00 AM – 2:00 PM) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing [ETOC] (1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 29 (3:00 PM – 4:30 PM) Decolonization Studies (1916 McAllister St)

Sunday August 30 (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM) What is DSA? (Bayview Branch Library, 5075 3rd Street)

Monday August 31 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (online and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

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Letter Writing & Pizza

Join us Friday night 8/21 at 6pm at the DSA Office (1916 McAllister) for some good old fashion analog letter writing to thank our donors of the Yes on Prop I, the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act campaign, over dinner as we handwrite thank you cards and letters that we will send to donors with campaign buttons or bracelets! RSVP here! 

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Picnic in the Park!

Join your friendly neighborhood socialists at Dolores Park on August 22 from 2:30 PM to 5:00 PM for an afternoon hanging out in the park. Great for families and new members! Bring snacks to share and a blanket! Meet in picnic area by the playground.

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Bay Get Ready: People’s Assembly

As we approach the November election, the possibly of the Trump administration causing chaos to the electoral process and stealing the election is a real possibility. The attacks on our democracy have already started. 2026 is the most expensive election cycle yet for advertising from the worst people on earth. AI, AIPAC, and crypto Super PACs have spent more than $180 MILLION to influence voters this election cycle. We say hands off our election! In the event that the Trump administration tries to hijack the midterm election, it is important that organizations across the Bay Area be prepared for the possibility of ICE at the voting polls and the need for mass action to stop an election steal.

This coming Saturday, August 22nd, at Mission High School in SF, Bay Resistance along with East Bay DSA, SF Rising, SEIU, and AROC are sponsoring an event on how to organize around the plan to defeat MAGA in the midterms and defend democracy through mass noncooperation should an election steal take place. Even if you have attended one of the Bay Resistance mass trainings before, this training will be different and specific.

Doors open from 9-10. 
The main training is 10 – 12:30.
RSVP at: https://bit.ly/massassembly

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Apartheid-Free Bay Area

Join us on Sunday, August 23rd as we continue to canvass stores in support of Palestine! We will be canvassing the Excelsior and other nearby neighborhoods. We will meet outside the Wells Fargo on Ocean Ave and Mission St, where there will be a brief training before we split into canvassing groups.

Please RSVP here as we’ll need an accurate headcount! Those with cars and/or Spanish skills would be especially welcomed, and we’ll be grabbing lunch afterwards if interested!

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Decolonization Studies

Come join your friendly neighborhood socialists for study time! We’re reading from a collection of texts chosen to elevate our understanding of decolonization, reading is done beforehand and participants are invited to the office for a monthly in-person facilitated discussion. Please feel free to come to the session even if you’ve only partially completed the readings!

RSVP here (Decolonization Studies – DSA San Francisco Organization)

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Beach Day with Palestine Solidarity Working Group

Join the Palestine Solidarity Working Group at Ocean Beach on August 29 at 2:00 PM as we play some games and enjoy some time on the beach together! We’ll have snacks/drinks and a volleyball net, and of course we will be snagging a bonfire pit for the vibes. Please bring whatever you’d like to roast over the fire and come learn more about our work with Palestine!

RSVP for Beach Day via Partiful

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

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Reportbacks

DSA SF In Print

Our comrades Annie R and Hazel W were featured in Sunday’s issue of the SF examiner in an article about DSA SF and our work on Prop I.

Read the full article here

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Yes on I Field Kickoff

On Sunday, over 70 San Franciscans came out to Duboce Park for the Yes on Prop I Field Kickoff! We canvassed over 35 commercial corridors across the city to put up “Yes on I” signs to spread the word about the measure, and put up over a hundred window signs. This was an incredible first day and start to a long field season for the Yes on I campaign, thanks to everyone who joined! Let’s keep the momentum going all the way through the election.

If you didn’t make it out, that’s okay! We have plenty of events coming up, check out the calendar at yesonisf.com/events.

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July EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing: Final Reportback

On August 4th DSA SF had its final Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing course for the summer. A 4 part series, this final course taught a group of 10 people about how to inoculate your colleagues against the boss for the campaign. We learned of the many ways union busting will happen, and how we can protect our colleagues against these fear driven campaigns with solidarity. We also heard from our colleagues in the course on how they themselves have experienced some of these union busting tactics. Check out the EWOC Captive Audience bingo card to see how many union-busting tactics you’ve seen firsthand!

This series was my first time facilitating an EWOC course, and was both inspiring and fruitful to help with. EWOC starts you off with a “teach the teachers” course in how to facilitate, and comrades like Caitlin and Tim to help with the facilitation it made it less stressful. Having two of my own Organizing Committee members attend helped to spread some of my knowledge out and empower them to have their own one on one conversations. I believe anyone who is interested in organizing should attend these courses, as they show you tactics you will need and common pitfalls. Finally, nothing is more beneficial that real human experience which is shared through conversations in person.

If you’d like to get involved with the SF local chapter of EWOC, reach out to the lead coordinator Caitlin S. or email labor@dsasf.org. EWOC is a standing topic at meetings of the Labor Working group, which are held every fourth Monday at 7:00pm, both in-person at 1916 McAllister and over Zoom—the next one will be Monday August 24th! Anyone is welcome to attend, and we’re always looking for people interested in workplace lead canvassing, organizer trainings, and volunteer outreach. If you’re interested in organizing your workplace and would like to be connected with an EWOC organizer, fill out the request form here.

If you’d like to get involved with the SF local chapter of EWOC, reach out to the lead coordinator Caitlin S. or email labor@dsasf.org. EWOC is a standing topic at meetings of the Labor Working group, which are held every fourth Monday at 7:00 PM, both in-person at 1916 McAllister St and over Zoom. Anyone is welcome to attend, and we’re always looking for people interested in workplace lead canvassing, organizer trainings, and volunteer outreach. If you’re interested in organizing your workplace and would like to be connected with an EWOC organizer, fill out the request form here.

by Queer Solidarity Group

Note: The following remarks were originally published as a zine to accompany ROC DSA’s 2026 Pride Parade float, featuring a “Gay-o-tine.” The Parade was held Saturday, July 18. See more details and pictures in Notes of the Month.

Why a Gay-o-tine?

In response to the ever-increasing threat every trans person faces for simply being alive, ROC DSA has created the Gay-o-tine to cut through the systems and ideologies that rob trans people of their fundamental right to live in peace.

The first Pride Marches were organized to demand civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community and to fight back against brutal police harassment. It is time for Pride to return to its radical roots. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Trans People Are Under Attack

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is a non-partisan, non-profit NGO that aims to bring immediate action and direct support for communities affected by genocide.

Earlier this year, the Lemkin Institute released their third Red Flag Alert for the USA related to the Trump Administration’s anti-trans initiatives. The Lemkin Institute believes that the United States is in the middle stages of a genocidal process against trans people, with the goal of completely erasing transgender people from public life and from existence in the U.S. and globally.

2025 was the 6th record-breaking year in a row for the number of anti-trans bills across the country, and there was a 45% increase in bills between 2024 and 2025. Kansas Senate Bill 244, which passed in early 2026, invalidated both driver licenses and birth certificates for trans individuals within the state. This essentially leaves trans people with NO valid identification documents.

What does invalidating your IDs mean? You can’t:

• Register to vote
• Open a bank account
• Get a job
• Apply for health insurance
• Travel (driving or flights)
• Obtain new identification like passports

SCOTUS just ruled in West Virginia v. BPJ that states may ban transgender girls from participating in sports at public schools. While this may seem like a limited decision, this sets the precedent to remove transgender individuals from ALL Title IX protections.

Why does this matter? American court decisions are largely determined based on the precedent set by previous court cases. This means that if it is legal for states to ban trans people from one aspect of public life, it is significantly easier to ban trans people from any other public areas, including working certain jobs or accessing public services. 

“But the Gay-o-tine Makes Me Uncomfortable”

You may still be wondering why we chose this symbol as our Pride float. “Isn’t a guillotine a symbol for violence?”

Between May 2024 and May 2025 there were over 900 anti-LGBTQ attacks in the US (that’s an average of 2.5 incidents every day), with 52% of them directly targeting trans individuals. Compared to last year, incidents against trans people increased by 14%.

Political violence is already here and trans people are the target. Our float is made to draw public attention to the fact that trans people are under direct legal and physical threat today!

* * *

DSA is proud to be one of the largest organizations fighting to defend transgender people in the nation and unequivocally stands with the trans community, our community, in the fight for liberation for all, for freedom from domination and discrimination.

If you want to join in our work, please reach out to steering@rocdsa.org. You are our friends and neighbors, and we are all stronger when we stand together against hate and violence. 

Want to…

• Learn more about the Lemkin Institute?
• Check out the ROCDSA website?
• Find local and national organizations advocating for Trans rights?

Check out our LinkTree: linktr.ee/whythegayotine. 

The post There is a Blade Over Our Heads first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

The result? A larger crowd and lots of press coverage.

The post Laura Loomer, State Rep. Attempt to Shut Down Florida DSA Rally  appeared first on Democratic Left.