Monthly Newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America

Welcome to the December issue of Rochester Red Star. This month, you can read statements from candidates for ROC DSA Steering Committee and Hearing Grievance Officers, notes from our outgoing Steering Committee, and a report from our Genesee County branch.

The issue also includes essays on topics including Democratic Party structure and strategies, farmers confronting the elimination of SNAP benefits, American exceptionalism, and more. Our newsletter contains upcoming events and coverage of chapter activities.

Interested in contributing? Send submissions to bit.ly/SubmitRedStar, or get involved with our Communications Committee. Reach out to steering@rocdsa.org and join DSA today!

The post Rochester Red Star | December 2025 | (Issue 20) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

¡No Pasarán!: a book about coalitions
Logan W. Cole

Matt Christman’s account of the Spanish Civil War shows that he is one of the great popular historians even if he doesn’t want to be. Though it eschews the conventions of other history texts, like sources, you will understand more about history writ large from Christman’s brief sketch of this short slice of time in Spain, including the fraught Republican left-liberal alliance and fleeting post-war glimpses of a better world, than Yuval Noah Harari’s or Jared Diamond’s entire careers of failed attempts to formulate histories of everything. Christman’s gift is the ability to simultaneously accept what is true about Fisher’s Capitalist Realism while embracing the optimism of the collective.

Crazy Like Us: putting psychology on the couch
Jade Inverarity

In this book, globe-trotting journalist Ethan Watters shows how American (and by extension, imperialist and capitalist) “mental illness” has infected the whole world. He likens four examples of cultural erasure to endangered species: a rift between spiritual possession and schizophrenia in Tanzania; a response to disaster in Sri Lanka that fails to map onto our individualist notions of PTSD; disordered eating in young Hong Kong women; and mass-marketed depression wracking Japan. These stories’ villains are well-intentioned aid workers, researchers failing to examine their “objectivity”, and the naked greed of Big Pharma. All reveal the classist and white supremacist underpinnings of psychology.

An Indigenous Peoples’ History: looking in the mirror
Gregory Lebens-Higgins

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reframes the settler-colonial takeover of the North American continent. Pushing back against narratives of an industrious people expanding into untamed territories, Dunbar-Ortiz tells the story of existing First Nations—tied together by intricate trade routes and cultural practices, with complex governing structures, cities and villages, and wildlife management techniques—that are carved apart by unrestrained violence. We learn the identities of various tribes: Powhatans, Cherokee, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee, Muskogee, and many more; following them as they are pushed West—sometimes more than once—by European whites greedy for land. The story of genocide unfolds not as an event in the past, but as a continuous and ongoing structure. Yet we are also introduced to movements of resistance and liberation that are reclaiming the future from this legacy of capitalist-driven destruction.

The post Impressions (November 2025) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

By: Kristin Daniel

[Editor’s note: Detroit and Huron Valley DSAers fanned out across the metro area November 22 to support Starbucks workers — especially those on strike — in our biggest labor solidarity action since picketing with the Marathon Teamsters last year. DSAers picketed and leafleted at Starbucks in Ypsilanti, on 8 Mile, in Royal Oak, and on the East Side, with groups of comrades self-organizing to hold down the lines. The struck store in Ypsilanti has been completely closed since November 20, with management giving up on trying to reopen.

[As the national Starbucks strike continues, check DSA’s Labor Working group Slack for future actions.]

As the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) unfair labor strike continues into its second week, hundreds more baristas from over 30 additional stores have joined the picket line nationwide. The Carpenter Road location in Ypsilanti is the first location in Michigan to officially join the strike, and more locations in Southeast Michigan are planning to join the strike in waves over the next few weeks.

“We’re going to have a bunch of stores around here also joining the fight,” noted Topanga Hass, a barista, strike captain, and bargaining delegate from Carpenter Road. Topanga has been helping to coordinate strategy.

SBWU is on strike demanding a fair first union contract and protesting more than 700 unresolved unfair labor practice charges. Damien, another strike captain, said at their location, “management has been kind of a nightmare. Lots of really direct as well as subtle ways with the different union-busting tactics, and just straight-up incompetence.”

$96 MILLION FOR CEO

This strike is in part attempting to address the fact that Starbucks has a higher CEO-to-worker pay gap than any other business in the S&P 500; baristas are demanding higher take-home pay. The median Starbucks worker makes $14,674 a year, while Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol was granted a $96 million pay package for 2024.

SBWU’s demands could be met with just the cost of a single day’s sales, but Starbucks claims that workers are adequately compensated when benefits are included. However, many baristas are scheduled just under the number of hours required to qualify for benefits. “I can’t save money. I’m not paying bills properly. It’s really hard,” said Angie, one of the striking baristas.

Besides unfair labor practices and low wages, the baristas at Carpenter Road are fighting for fairer scheduling. Isabella, a barista and shift supervisor, said, “We tend to have the issue of getting either less hours than what we want or more hours than we want.” This, paired with the fact that “a lot of [the baristas] are definitely overworked, and this store specifically has been really understaffed,” has led to high turnover.

Angie explained that many baristas have multiple jobs or are also students, and the inconsistent and unfair scheduling makes it unsustainable to stay at Starbucks: “They’ll hire people, have them put in their availability, and then schedule them outside their availability, so those people quit.” These scheduling issues have also led to constant short-staffing, where the baristas are “expected to have one person do the work of five people for very low pay…the newer people get overwhelmed by how much is going on and they quit.” When baristas have tried to resolve these issues directly with management, they are typically swept under the rug and ignored.

Many baristas want to draw attention to how many of their concerns also impact customers. Understaffing leads to longer wait times, but some problems could be even more dire. Angie said she has seen many baristas “being threatened for calling out sick, which happens a lot, which is a massive problem because by health regulations you can’t come in when you’re throwing up, when you have the flu. Some people were pressured to come in when they had Covid.”

Similarly, disabilities are not being handled appropriately, according to workers. Damien said, “At our store specifically, our previous manager, who just left, was making a lot of moves against individuals who were using their disability support and various accommodations. She was being incredibly harsh or downright demeaning regarding how those were implemented and made a point to absolutely put on blast the individuals who needed those accommodations, for no reason. It was very cruel.”

SCORCHED EARTH UNION BUSTER

The union has filed over 125 unfair labor practice charges, leading the National Labor Relations Board to declare that Starbucks “engaged in a scorched earth campaign and pattern of misconduct in response to union organizing at its stores across the United States.”

Still, the baristas at Carpenter Road and across Southeast Michigan are ready for the fight. The experience has led to a palpable feeling of solidarity. “Working with the union has been awesome. It’s been great to be a part of this and learn more about community building and being able to gather around with my fellow workers and being able to support them,” Damien said.

When asked what she wants the public to take away from the strike, Angie said she wanted everyone to realize that “the working class deserves better. Baristas deserve better. Everyone deserves to be paid better, better working conditions, and the union should be supported, always.”

To support the union and the baristas on strike, consider some of the following action items proposed by the baristas:

• Do not cross the picket line. Do not purchase coffee, gift cards, or any other product from Starbucks during the duration of the strike. Spread the message to friends and family; use social media to advertise your stand.
• Sign the No Contract, No Coffee pledge so that the baristas can demonstrate public support while in negotiations.
• Financially support SBWU baristas striking in Ypsilanti via GoFundMe.
• Join local actions, including pickets, sit-ins, and rallies. Stay tuned for Detroit DSA’s next support action.
• Stay up to date through social media (@sbworkersunited on social media and @carpenterroadswu on instagram for the Ypsilanti location).

Kristin Daniel is a member of Metro Detroit Democratic Socialists of America.

Brewed for Solidarity: DSA Starbucks Strike Support Gains Steam was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Elizabeth Henderson

Even with predictions of a colder winter than usual, the creative efforts of local farmers will make it possible for us to buy locally grown fresh and stored food. The Public Market and the Brighton Farmers Market stay open year-round.  In November the Brighton market moves from the parking lot at the high school (1150 Winton Road) to an indoor space (1435 Westfall Road). A few exceptionally skilled farmers, like Schenk Homestead in Naples, have figured out how to grow greens year-round using hoop houses.

At the Public Market, you need to look sharp to find the local food. Though resale vendors predominate with produce from wherever, there are many area farms like Mason’s in Williamson, a major supplier of organic greens for Wegman’s with hundreds of acres of IPM fruit, Lagoner Farms in Williamson, Moss Family Farm, one of the few African-American-owned farms in our area, and Small World Foods that sells fermented foods made from local ingredients and also carries vegetables and mushrooms from other farms. Bolton Farms sells hydroponic produce, not as tasty as soil-grown, but fresh in the dead of winter. For meat eaters, there are some small local meat producers – Clearview sells beef and some produce, Heiden Valley Farm and Fisher Hill Farm have chicken and eggs, Seven Bridges sells beef, pork and chicken. I always stop to see what Alexander, a lone African-American homesteader, has to offer – unusual greens he grows himself and wild-crafted foods like ramps or sassafras that never make it to stores.

If you arrive towards the closing of the Public Market, you can get bargains as some vendors sell off what is left at lower prices. The Flower City Pickers collect the leftovers, sort through them to give some to Food Not Bombs to cook and give away, and some to food pantries. They welcome volunteers.

Or maybe you have purchased a freezer or built your own root cellar to store food you grow or purchase!

On-going farming crisis

For Thanksgiving each year, the National Farmers Union publishes a chart with photos of various foods showing what percentage of the final price shoppers pay for food at a store or restaurant is received by the farmers or ranchers who grew the ingredients.  The percentage goes down every year – in 2025 it is 15.9%.

Local farms that sell directly to you get the full price. That is why cutting out the middleman has been so important to keep smaller farms going.  During Covid, financial support for food-growing farms (as distinct from livestock feed or ethanol farms) increased.  This spring, the feds cut over $1 billions from programs that were purchasing locally grown food for food banks and schools. That has been a hard blow for many NY farms.  Cuts to SNAP payments will hit the farms too with some area farms selling as much as 20% of their production to people who pay with SNAP.

The current administration’s unhinged tariff games are devastating the soy and corn farms that occupy so much of US farmland.  These farms depend on export, especially to China. Half of the soy beans are exported.  Only a small percentage of either corn or soy ends up as human food – most goes for livestock feed and ethanol.  The tariffs are raising the price of things these farmers have to buy – fertilizer, equipment, while overproduction has brought market prices down.  A painful squeeze that will put farms out of business. Corn farmers, if they can sell their corn, are losing money with every bushel. The Republican plan to make up for loss of sales with special subsidies will keep some of these farms in business.  In NY, only 20% of the farms qualify for them since they do not extend to fruit, vegetable or most livestock farms.

Here is a quote from a soybean farmer writing in early October:

A reporter called last month about China not buying US soybeans. At the time, US soybeans were $2 below Brazil soybeans at the ports, which covered China’s 20% retaliation to Trump’s fentanyl & April 2nd tariffs.

Brazil soybeans $12 + 0% tariffs = $12  US soybeans $10 + 20% tariffs = $12

Not buying despite the same after tariff price as South America sure looks like a boycott, except, just months ago, that tariff almost became 145%.

US soybeans $10 + 145% tariffs = $24.50

About 1/2 of every US soybean crop has to be exported, and a $2 discount to non-US soybeans may not be enough to get that done, even with the EU delaying their own 25% soybean tariff over April 2nd.

A friend asked how all of this affects a farm.

Like all trade wars, the rest of the world’s tariffs subtract from farm income, and our tariffs add to farm expenses.

$2 X 50 Bushel per acre = $100 less farm income.

Add up to 55% chemical tariffs, fertilize tariffs, 50% steel tariffs, and uncertainty on tariff rates, and if we’re not winning, we may be tied at $100 per acres in added farm expenses.

Add $100 less income and $100 more expenses and that’s a $200 per acre per year hit at a time farmers are already in the hard years of the normal grain market cycle.

Next month, I will write about farmer resistance and solutions!

The post November 2025 Getting Grounded: Local Sources Amidst Farming Crisis first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

As the opening plenary closed at 10:30 AM, attendance had begun to swell as more people arrived, grabbing coffee and mingling a bit before having to decide which of the next simultaneous panels they would sit in on. In the morning session, panels consisted of “Organizers in Office,” which focused on experiences and lessons learned by elected politicians with leftist organizer backgrounds and featured State House Representative Grayson Lookner, Portland City Councilor Wes Pelletier, and Boston DSA Co-Chair Bonnie Jin. Other attendees chose between two guided discussions. One, entitled “LGTBQ+ are Under Attack, Here’s How We Fight Back,” was led by Marianne M-W and focused on recent and potential upcoming political battles here in Maine, strategies to consider, and how folks could get plugged in. The other guided discussion was a round table on the “ABC’s of Socialism,” led by Rose D. and Beckham O., which went over the basic framework of the political theory, as well as addressed some misinterpretations often spread by conservatives.

At noon a free lunch was offered, the spread including a few varieties of sandwiches prepared by volunteers, small bags of chips, apples, granola bars, bottled water, coffee, and for those with a sweet tooth a few boxes of cadbury chocolate bars and twizzlers were donated by a friendly organization. As is typical of day-long conferences, almost like a changing of a shift, it was around this time that some attendees headed home while others arrived for the first time to catch the afternoon program.

At 1:30, folks again had their choice of three different presentations. A panel on “Building Rank-and-File Strength” featured two union organizers as speakers, Leo Hilton with IBEW and Amanda Gavin with UMaine Grad Workers affiliated with the UAW. The discussion focused on the speakers’ experiences through the lens of the rank-and-file strategy of organizing, thoughts on socialists’ role in unions, and a fruitful Q&A portion with the audience. At the same time, a panel on “Capitalist Sexism v. Socialist Feminism” was being helmed by Maddie C, Remedios, and Marianne M-W, discussing the ongoing sexist repressions tolerated under capitalism, and what socialist feminism means and how it offers liberatory solutions. But the panel that caught the most attention during this session was “Challenging the Borders of Empire from Maine to Gaza,” featuring Faisal Khan from the Carolina Peace Center and Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, and Christopher Claar of the Maine Coalition for Palestine. Located at the stage, Khan and Claar discussed the concept of empire, America’s bloody role in promoting it, and the ongoing campaigns to end genocide, oppose imperialism, and push for the end of Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinian lives and theft of Palestinian land.

At 4:30, everyone reconvened for the closing plenary. With only ten days having passed since Zohran Mamdani’s big mayoral win in NYC elections, leftists in Maine and across the country were wondering what they could learn from his campaign’s victory. To help share those lessons with attendees, the plenary featured two DSA National Political Committee members, Megan Romer and Eleanor Babaev (Eleanor had also personally volunteered on Mamdani’s campaign). To give a Maine perspective, Maine DSA Co-Chair Todd Chretien joined them on stage, and the discussion was led by Dwight W. of Maine DSA. 

The post Maine DSA Holds Solidarity Conference in Lewiston appeared first on Pine & Roses.

by Leo Neustadt

Personally, I’ve been vegan for almost a decade. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my entire life. I’ve picked up and put down so many hobbies, played around with my gender expression, and had just shy of a million jobs, but being vegan is by far the most consistent thing about me.

Recently, my partner and I spent a weekend at Vegan Basecamp. A lovely couple living in Las Vegas plans a few trips a year to camp and hike in different parts of the southwest, and they pamper their guests with amazing homemade vegan meals. During our weekend in the Coconino Forest in Sedona we had breakfast tacos, soy curl “chicken” with roasted veggies, and the best tofu scramble I’ve ever had. I’d never been around so many vegans before, it was so eye opening. It was so nice to be somewhere for an entire weekend without having to worry about what I could or couldn’t eat.

This experience made me feel more committed to my veganism than ever before, and I hope by the end of this article, you’ll want to join me.

The reasons I’m vegan have evolved over time, built on one another. It started out as a new year’s resolution with an old friend back in 2015. She had put out the call for anyone wanting to go vegetarian with her, and I said screw it, I’ll try anything once. January 1st, 2016 rolled around and I gave up steak, chicken soup, and Starbucks sausage egg & cheese sandwiches. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and that was definitely helped by another friend, who was raised vegetarian, earlier posing the question, “what’s the difference between eating a cow and eating a dog?” I couldn’t finish the piece of steak I was eating that night.

I hadn’t thought much of being vegetarian other than “yeah, I guess I love animals a lot.”

March 31st, 2016. I woke up that morning, and texted my dad asking if the pretzel challah he brought home every Friday had eggs in it. He said no and I was so happy. I was going vegan that day.

I hadn’t thought much about going vegan either, it just felt like the right choice. Only after deciding to go vegan did I look into the benefits of it. I used to watch a YouTuber who shared how easy it was to be vegan. Her favorite thing was talking about eating plates of potatoes. I graduated to Google searches and documentaries. I remember watching the classics, Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy, and What the Health, and reading countless articles. I learned about environmental impacts, health benefits, and simply treating living creatures with care and respect.

How veganism connects to socialism is clear to me: we care about ending exploitative labor, we care about reproductive justice, and we care about the environment. I could go on forever, but those are the points I think connect to plant-based eating the most. I believe the base of all of our values is that we care about dignified life for even those we don’t know.

Let’s talk about exploitative labor and reproductive justice.

I think we can all agree that the current systems of labor, production, and reproduction are despicable.

Workers toil away at jobs that are meaningless. Jobs that don’t pay them enough to rent a one bedroom apartment on their own anywhere in America. Jobs where they’re as replaceable as a toothbrush. As socialists, we’re fighting every day to change this by unionizing against our bosses and corporations to demand what we’re owed: higher wages, better benefits, and more say in how our workplaces are run.

The capitalist system (and by extension the American healthcare system) do not care about cis women, who carry the burden of continuing the existence of our species. Women are repeatedly mistreated and undermined by healthcare professionals and left to die in case of emergencies when abortions are critically necessary. And when a baby is born into poverty, the mother is to blame and receives minimal or no assistance, with total disregard of the conditions of her circumstances. I’m honestly not sure what we as socialists are doing about this.

These conditions aren’t necessarily equivalent, but they are comparable to the way livestock are treated. Male cows that survive past infancy and don’t become the veal in your stew are repeatedly molested for their sperm. Female cows are forcibly impregnated to keep their hormone levels at a certain level to constantly produce milk, just so you can keep falling for the propaganda of growing big and strong with that not-so-sexy mustache. We’re the only species on earth that consumes the breast milk of another mammal, pretty weird and gross. Cows, pigs, and chickens are kept in abhorrent conditions, all squished together, getting almost no sunlight, and are only kept alive long enough to get as much fat on their bodies as possible before their lives are violently ripped away from them.

Animals don’t have the ability to advocate for their conditions. How is this dignified life for those we don’t know? Why should we allow animals to be assaulted and slaughtered day in and day out just so you can have a chopped cheese from the bodega? Personal gain via the exploitation of another living being is antithetical to socialist values.

The environmental impacts of the animal agriculture industry vs eating a plant-based diet are a no-brainer. You’re about to be hit with lots of quotes and sources, so bear with me, I can’t be making these claims out of thin air.

According to an article published in February 2023 by the British School in The Netherlands (BSN) titled One Burger And Its Effects On Our Environment, it takes, on average, about 2,400 litres, or 630 gallons, of water to produce a single burger. That includes the water used to feed and hydrate the cows. The next paragraph shares that it takes about 90% less water to produce soy. “If that one beef burger would be replaced by a plant-based burger, over 2,000 litres of water would be saved”

In an article from The Salt Lake Tribune, from March of 2023, the subhead reads, “Hay and alfalfa feed beef and dairy production and support rural life, but together, they soak up two-thirds of Utah’s water.” The article continues, “Alfalfa and hay account for 68% of the 5.1 million acre-feet of water diverted every year in Utah, Lozada’s research has found. That means it takes 1.38 acre-feet, or about 450,000 gallons, to produce a ton of alfalfa — about as much water as two Utah homes typically use in a year. (An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre of land with one foot of water.)”

Water may seem like an infinite resource given how vast our oceans are and how many bodies of water there are across America, but the Colorado River is drying up because Arizonans need their precious golf courses. Most water requires a process of purification before it can be safely consumed. So many neighborhoods historically and currently inhabited by people of color deal with lead in their water pipes, which our sorry excuse for a government doesn’t prioritize. Imagine if we diverted the water we use for growing feed crops and raising livestock to hydrating humans, especially our most vulnerable and ignored communities? That would be pretty socialist of us.

In 2020, the National Library of Medicine published a study titled Animal Agriculture and Climate Change in the US and UK Elite Media: Volume, Responsibilities, Causes and Solutions. It opens with, “Animal agriculture is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 14.5% of global emissions, which is approximately the same size as the transportation sector.” In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC) suggested a policy to reduce or entirely cut out animal products from our diets. “Animal products have been estimated to contribute more to GHGs [greenhouse gases], deforestation, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and unhealthy humans, than plant-based foods…meat-eating is calculated to contribute almost four times as much to GHG emissions as a plant-based diet (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).”

Back to the BSN article, “Cows release high levels of methane as a by-product of their ruminant digestive systems, which poisons our environment. Research shows the production of 1 kilogram of beef emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to a medium-sized petrol car driving over 100 kilometres” (about 62 mi).

Climate change is an actively destructive problem, and it’s only being exacerbated every day due to government inaction to regulate polluting industries. We know that we as individuals aren’t responsible for reversing the effects of climate change. Switching to paper straws doesn’t erase the fact that oil giant British Petroleum popularized the concept of the carbon footprint in the early 2000s to shift blame for their immense environmental damage onto the individual consumer. Only the worst offenders have the power to act and make any meaningful change. However, the less meat we as a society consume over time, the less of a demand there will be for the production of meat, lowering the emissions and use of water.

“A global shift to a plant-based diet could reduce mortality and greenhouse gases caused by food production by 10% and 70%, respectively, by 2050…The World Health Organization says, ‘Reducing livestock herds would also reduce emissions of methane, which is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide,’ ” says the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in an article titled A Vegan Diet: Eating for the Environment. “The methane emissions of five of the largest meat corporations and 10 of the largest dairy corporations—which include JBS, Tyson, and the Dairy Farmers of America—is equal to over 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint, according to a report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Changing Markets Foundation.” How insane is that?

America is the worst example of capitalism and the free market. We’re destroying our planet so your favorite fast food joint can keep their freezers stocked. The majority of areas around the world facing the repercussions of rapid climate change are poor, working class communities, and that’s no accident.

I think a major area lacking in the Green New Deal Campaign Commission is how it plans to address Big Oil and Big Beef in the long term, two of the planet’s worst polluters. Yes, there’s some amazing projects and campaigns that have come out of the GNDCC. Chapters are fighting for public power, working to enhance public transportation so we can rely on our cars less, and building more physically and visually green spaces. These are all great steps for short term management, but the climate crisis will continue to worsen unless we address the problem at the root cause. This can look like many things. We can continue to push for more federal oversight to end oil drilling. We can build a more robust nation-wide, nationalized train system that can replace planes and cars. We can organize the animal agriculture industry to move away from slaughterhouses and towards more planting of plant proteins. The demand for meat is so bad that so far this year, we’ve imported 2,252,694 metric tons of beef from around the world. We need to invest in more growing of drought-tolerant, protein rich legumes like lentils and garbanzo beans.

Back in 2022, New Zealand proposed a tax on livestock emissions, but it’s since been scrapped due to nationwide protests from farmers raising concerns over their livelihoods and a push from a center-right government coalition. Of course, we as socialists best understand the need for selling labor to survive as long as we live under the capitalist system, so I would never advocate for the complete and total stripping away of jobs. I think the best way to go about this would be with a transition from meat to beans. Start planting beans alongside feed crops. Let your cows and pigs and chickens live longer under humane conditions and only use them for food when their lives are coming to an end. If livestock were allowed to reproduce naturally, we’d have less of them, and less GHGs. We can reward our meat farmers with government subsidies via seeds to produce more plant-based proteins. Farmers can still be farmers, they’ll just be producing a different crop that won’t cause the planet to burn down. As for the dairy industry, learn how to make plant-based milks and cheeses! Plenty of companies have figured it out, and do it very well. Butcher shops and delis can learn how to make different meats out of tofu, seitan, and whatever else they’d like to experiment with. One of my favorite eateries that I so dearly miss in New York is Seitan’s Helper, a fully vegan deli with the most amazing house-made meats and sandwiches, and they’re always busy. There’s so many reasonable solutions.

I’m not even going to get into over-fishing or the personal health benefits of eating a plant-based diet, or this article would be another 3 pages long. I’ll simply leave you with a final thought.

Going vegan is not as costly as people think it may be. Sure, if you’re shopping for specialty products, that can certainly raise your grocery bills, but beans are cheap as hell, and frozen fruits and veggies are just as nutritious as fresh ones. For people on the go, most of my favorite frozen meals can be found at Trader Joe’s for really affordable prices. Oats are one of the most affordable foods out there, and they make an excellent breakfast with whatever flavors and toppings you’d like.

For some resources on going vegan, I recommend checking out Meatless Mondays and PeTA. I know PeTA’s got a bad rap, but their campaigns still hit.

If you want to get some of my personal favorite recipes for a complete meal on a budget, you can shoot me an email at leo.98.neu@gmail.com. I’m always happy to help anyone cut out animal products from their diet.

When you’re at the Thanksgiving table this year, consider what kind of torture the turkey in front of you went through, just so you can have dinner.

It can feel impossible to keep up with every DSA chapter across the country, even for our most active members. Luckily Democratic Left has you covered with chapter report updates from coast to coast. This round will cover chapters with campaigns for LGBTQ rights and international work. 

The post Fall 2025 Chapter Reports: LGBTQ Rights and International Campaigns appeared first on Democratic Left.