By Luis Feliz Leon and Jane Slaughter

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has won a second four-year term, with an overwhelming lead in member balloting for the union’s top officers.

The election was a referendum on the new fighting direction Fain has taken the union by leading 2023’s Stand-Up Strike against the Big 3 automakers, other bold contract fights, and new organizing campaigns.

It marks the second time members have voted for their top officers in the union’s 91 years. UAW members voted to switch to a one-member-one-vote system in December 2021.

Fain received 68 percent of the vote, against five opponents. His nearest competitor, incumbent vice president Rich Boyer, had 13 percent.

Fain ran as part of the United UAW slate. His slate-mate for secretary-treasurer, Brandon Campbell, also garnered 68 percent, against two rivals including incumbent Margaret Mock.

The slate’s candidates for the three vice president spots appeared on track to be elected with 19–25 percent each in a field of 11 candidates. (VP candidates needed 16.7 percent to win.) The slate also won all the regional director races that it contested.

The sweep means that the slate will hold all the seats on the union’s International Executive Board except for one regional director.

Fain won a majority of the vote in most locals, from assembly plants to legal services, and a plurality in almost all the rest. Boyer, who heads the union’s Stellantis division, won just two of the union’s dozens of big locals: Local 140, Warren Truck, his home local, and Local 1700 at Sterling Heights Assembly Plant, both near Detroit.

Turnout was low and similar to the 2022 election, with a little over 10 percent of the union’s 400,000 active members and 600,000 retirees returning their mail ballots. (Retirees vote on top officers in the UAW.)

While some expected Fain’s strongest support to come from the higher education and legal aid locals on the East Coast, turnout there was down by more than half from 2022, with fewer than 2,000 ballots mailed in. Turnout was up in Local 4811 at the University of California, which went 75 percent for Fain, but still only 2,500 of 60,000 members there voted. As in the last election, it was members in the big manufacturing locals that were key to Fain’s victory.

Perennially online candidate Brian Keller had 7 percent of the presidential vote. As the ballots were counted he took to Facebook Live to swear at members for 30 minutes and call them “morons” for not voting for him.

MOTIVATORS

In phone interviews with a dozen members, auto workers cited pensions and post-retirement health care as their key motivators for backing Fain. They also raised concerns about tackling automation and job security.

But the biggest issue was the better contracts the UAW has won since Fain took office.

“Infighting” between Fain and his opponents on the outgoing International Executive Board — Rich Boyer, Margaret Mock, and Mike Booth — came up, but people drew widely different conclusions, with many repeating the phrase Fain “isn’t perfect.” Jeep worker Megan Fagan in Toledo said some members have checked out due to the internal drama, reinforcing the cynical view that not much has changed.

For most, though, disagreements at headquarters were not of interest or on their radar. They looked at their pay stubs and voted accordingly.

Boyer, Mock, and Booth came together to form the Integrity Slate but failed to offer a counter to Fain’s focus on fighting the companies and launching new organizing drives. Boyer’s main pitches in his campaign statement in the UAW magazine were to lower union dues and reduce the staff at union headquarters.

“Fain and his slate are the only ones that have a real program for the future of the union,” said historian Nelson Lichtenstein, author of Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit. “You’d think the other people would have come up with something aside from they want to reduce dues, which means basically cripple the new organizing.”

“The members chose Fain, despite the Monitor’s best efforts to create turbulence, because we’re ready to fight for retirement health care and protection from A.I. layoffs in 2028,” said Gary Chynoweth, vice chair of the reform network UAW Member Action, in a statement. “Our work now is to keep helping members step up as leaders in a union that’s ready to fight.”

KEEP ON TRACK

UAW Local 551 member Candyla Brown is one of 5,000 workers at Ford’s assembly plant in Chicago. She said she backed the United UAW slate to keep the union on track in 2028, to win pensions, post-retirement health care, and pay bumps that keep up with inflation.

To win these demands, “we need strong leadership,” she said. “We had a good experience with the 2023 strike, and I’ve been watching the new organizing efforts,” she said. “I think the UAW has come a long way since Fain got into office.”

She said organizing in the South is a bright spot. Volkswagen workers in Tennessee voted to join the UAW in 2024, becoming the first unionized foreign-owned auto assembly plant in the South.

At Daimler Truck in North Carolina, Jon Greene, president of Local 3520, said Daimler has staffed up its labor relations personnel in preparation for another showdown, and corporate HR has been closely following the election. “We tripped them up with the last contract,” said Greene. “It wasn’t any more of that friendly bargaining that had been happening over the years with International, so we caught them off guard.”

RENEWED MANDATE

With a renewed mandate, the pressure is on Fain’s team to organize members to step up when contracts expire at the Big 3 automakers on May 1, 2028.

In 2023, the companies were caught off guard, accustomed to a sedate strike, if any, and modest union demands. When the union launched a spreading strike against all three companies at once, with more plants walking out week by week, company bargainers were blindsided. They gave up more in that one contract than they had in the previous four contracts combined.

They will likely be better prepared for May Day 2028. Unions may face another obstacle in 2028 — in an election year, Democratic politicians traditionally bring heavy pressure not to rock the boat, fearing blame from voters. In 2023, though, a poll found 78 percent of Americans supported the UAW’s strike.

Some expensive union demands were left on the table last time: pensions and retiree health insurance for workers hired after the big concessions of 2007–2009, and protections against mandatory overtime and automation.

Flush with victory in fall 2023, Fain urged other unions to line up their contracts with the Big 3’s, for a united assault on corporate coffers.

Domanick Moss, of Local 1853 at General Motors’ Spring Hill, Tennessee, assembly plant, said he backed United UAW because it built a broad coalition and set a goal of preparing for a potential May Day 2028 general strike.

“I think that we have a solid ground laid in terms of how we’ve been connecting with other unions,” Moss said. “If enough of us go on strike, we could get more attention on universal health care. I would like to see Medicare for All and the PRO Act passed. I would like to see consequences for corporations doing rampant automation.” (The PRO Act would make it easier for workers to organize and secure contracts.)

GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF UAW

The election results are a sharp rebuke to the government-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, whose original mandate was to oversee clean-up of the endemic corruption that sent 13 union officials to jail.

Barofsky developed a strong antagonism to Fain when the UAW Executive Board passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in late 2023, which the monitor said could be seen as “antisemitic.” Fain resisted Barofsky’s attempts to reverse that stance. Ever since, Barofsky has issued a series of reports criticizing Fain and siding with his opponents on the Board. Some UAW members who followed the drama drew cynical conclusions, but apparently most voters found Fain’s actions spoke louder than the monitor’s words.

Barofsky’s mandate is set to end in early 2027, but the consent decree keeps open the possibility of extending the monitorship. If Barofsky’s previous behavior is any indication, he may push to stay in place longer.

Fain’s opponents made much of the monitor’s reports, which accused Fain of misdeeds including retaliating against Boyer and Mock, after he relieved them of some of their major responsibilities. Opponents spent most of their energy attacking him personally and detailing their own grievances, rather than talking about the direction of the union. Their campaigns did not have much reach.

Fain, on the other hand, reminded members of the union’s achievements and tried to keep the disagreements from looking personal.

Despite encouraging leadership at the top, the UAW has a long way to go to become a member-driven union that consistently takes on the boss. While Fain has charted a new direction, much of the union bears the scars of decades of concessions, or is still stuck in the old, company-friendly ways of operating. That includes seeing the union structure as a career ladder, a way to get off the factory floor.

Years of one-party rule means that the bench of members able and willing to push the union in a new direction is still shallow. That has the potential to change in locals where the International has brought big resources for contract campaigns and strikes.

The UAW Member Action network is slowly working, through education and trainings, to build up the bench. After this election, it looks like the UAW will continue to be back in the fight.

{A longer version of this article appeared in Labor Notes and Jacobin.]

UAW President Shawn Fain Wins Mandate in Reelection Victory was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A rural, wine-producing area is exposed to new ways of thinking as like-minded socialists find each other — and win.

The post New Chapter in Walla Walla, Washington appeared first on Democratic Left.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15: GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA ANNUAL CONVENTION

Green Mountain DSA’s annual convention will take place on Sunday November 15th at the Socialist Labor Party Hall (46 Granite St) in Barre, VT.

The convention will run from ~11:00 AM until the late afternoon. You can participate in-person or virtually. More details to follow.

For planning purposes, please register in advance here: https://greenmountaindsa.solidarity.tech/green-mountain-dsa-annual-convention

Submit resolutions or bylaws amendments here BEFORE NOVEMBER 1st: https://forms.gle/J7h8XDZHCyTTsbGk8

Make nominations for chapter officers and committee chairs here: https://forms.gle/mJYoXD4qtGku47he9

The convention bulletin will be published in early November.

AG CLARK MUST DROP THE CHARGES; GMDSA STANDS WITH WILLISTON PROTESTORS AHEAD OF SHUT DOWN ICE WEEK OF ACTION

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

• Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

Last week, Vermont’s Attorney General Charity Clark brought charges against 13 people who took non-violent direct action in front of an ICE surveillance facility in Williston. Clark boasts on her website and social media of the lawsuits her office has brought against the Trump administration and highlights the importance of “battling federal overreach.” Yet, as our communities fight back against the monstrous activities being committed by ICE, Clark’s choices have displayed her commitment to “order” over justice, as Dr. King describes.

Read the rest of the statement on our website at: https://greenmountaindsa.org/statements/ag-clark-must-drop-the-charges-gmdsa-stands-with-williston-protestors-ahead-of-shut-down-ice-week-of-action

Read our other two statements released this month re: UVMMC and Molly Grey here: https://greenmountaindsa.org/statements

GMDSA-ENDORSED CANDIDATES WIN BIG IN VERMONT THIS SUMMER: HELP GET THEM OVER THE FINISH LINE NOVEMBER THIRD!

This summer, Green Mountain DSA-backed candidates showed that socialist and working-class politics can win in Vermont. But winning a primary is only part of the fight. On November 3, our endorsed candidates will face voters in the general election, and they need our help to finish the job.

Elections are not a substitute for organizing, but they are one arena where organized working people can challenge the power of landlords, bosses, corporations, and the wealthy. Every door knocked, voter contacted, volunteer recruited, and conversation with a neighbor helps build the organization we need beyond Election Day.

Over the next month, GMDSA members will be canvassing, making calls, spreading the word, and working alongside our endorsed candidates across Vermont. Whether you have been organizing with us for years or have never canvassed before, there is a place for you in this work.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Help us send working-class champions to Montpelier.

Sign up: https://forms.gle/q4FFyFo4XKxxfEiv5

TAX THE RICH: MONTPELIER AND WINOOSKI CANVASSES FOR TOWN MEETING DAY 2027 BALLOT QUESTIONS

Working Vermonters are being squeezed while the richest continue to benefit from tax cuts paid for by cuts to healthcare. Medicaid and ACA subsidies are on the chopping block, putting tens of thousands at risk. This is a choice. We can let working people carry the burden, or we can demand that the wealthiest pay their fair share.

We are calling on the Vermont Legislature to pass legislation that raises taxes on the richest 5 percent, taxes wealth proceeds, and invests that revenue into affordable and accessible healthcare for all. Half measures are not enough. Policies that only target the top 1 percent or shift taxes around without raising new revenue will not meet this moment.

Sign up to help us collect signatures on our Tax the Rich ballot petitions (advisory questions for the Town Meeting Day Ballot in Montpelier and Winooski)!

Winooski -- Saturday, October 10, 1-3 p.m. @ 53 Lafountain St.

Montpelier -- Saturday, October 17, 1:30-3:30 p.m. @ Christ Episcopal Church (64 State St.)

Sign up: https://forms.gle/dEngxC4rR9giKGx27

GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MONTH IN REVIEW

Change rarely arrives all at once. More often, it is built through dozens of small acts: a conversation at a door, workers standing together on a picket line, neighbors meeting one another for the first time, or someone deciding they are ready to organize.

September gave us plenty of those moments.

Across Vermont, Green Mountain DSA members joined workers, candidates, organizers, and community members in building power together. We gathered at the Labor Day Festival of Resistance, supported the continued growth of socialist organizing in Southern Vermont, stood alongside Healthy Living Workers United, marched with our endorsed candidates at Pride, and knocked doors for both our electoral work and the Tax the Rich campaign.

Just as importantly, we spent time together. We talked, marched, laughed, organized, and strengthened the relationships that make sustained political work possible.

No single march, canvass, meeting, or campaign builds socialism. The work accumulates. Every conversation creates another connection. Every campaign develops new organizers. Every act of solidarity reminds workers that they do not have to face bosses, landlords, politicians, or the wealthy alone.

Join us this month of October for a spooky themed month of building solidarity and pushing for a better Vermont for all.

WE’RE BUILDING A FAMILY-FRIENDLY GMDSA

Green Mountain Democratic Socialists of America is working towards making our organization more accessible to parents and guardians. In August we were approved to receive a chapter Growth and Development grant from DSA national to help with this effort, among other priorities. You can help us by letting us know if you would benefit from childcare being offered at our general meetings.

Please fill out our Childcare Needs Survey: https://forms.gle/6Mq1KHWGrc3QgLGv8

UPCOMING GREEN MOUNTAIN DSA MEETINGS

Our Labor Committee meets on the second Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom, including Monday Oct 12.

Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted with the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Wednesday Oct 14 at 6:00pm at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Av in Burlington).

Our Electoral Committee will meet again on Wednesday Oct 14. The electoral committee meets at 6:00pm on Zoom.

GMDSA's branches will come together for our monthly general meeting on Saturday Oct 17 at 11:30 a.m. at Christ Church (64 State St in Montpelier). Newcomers are encouraged to show up at 10:30am for an optional “DSA 101” orientation. Everyone is welcome to join for coffee hour with snacks and discussion at 11:00am prior to the start of the general meeting.

Our Tax the Rich Working Group will meet on the first and third Sundays monthly, starting Sunday Oct 18 at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Monday Oct 19. The Membership Committee meets on the 3rd Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday Oct 26. The Palestine solidarity committee meets on the 4th Monday of every month at 6:00pm on Zoom.

Our Communications Committee will meet on Monday Oct 26. The communications committee meets on the last Monday of every month at 7:00pm on Zoom.

Our Steering Committee meets on the first Monday of every month at 7:30pm on Zoom, including Monday Nov 2. All members are welcome to participate in the meeting discussion, only members of the steering committee can vote.

Tuesday Nov 3 is ELECTION DAY. Stay tuned to learn where you can poll-stand with our endorsed candidates and celebrate with GMDSA and our newly elected socialists in office after the polls close. Check the GMDSA calendar and the campaign volunteer form.

Our annual chapter convention is Sunday Nov 15 at the Socialist Labor Party Hall (46 Granite St in Barre). This is the most important GMDSA event of the year!

Add our Google Calendar - Check out our website - Follow us on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and BlueSky

IMPORTANT DATES THIS YEAR

• GMDSA October General Meeting: Saturday October 17 in Montepelier

• General Election: Tuesday November 3

• Next GMDSA Convention: SUNDAY NOVEMBER 15 in Barre, at the Old Labor Hall!

• Next DSA National Convention: August 2027 (Date TBD)

Gen Z is warming to socialism though they’re not ready to be labeled. This and more in Red All Over, Democratic Left’s occasional round-up of media coverage.

The post Trump Wants a ‘Generation of Capitalists,’ Gen Z Has Other Plans appeared first on Democratic Left.

By organizing statewide to back State Rep. Shaun Scott’s push to tax the rich, DSA had an impact much larger than its legislative delegation. The state's socialists-in-office committee discussed the experience at a recent retreat.

The post Washington DSA Chapters Turned One State Rep Into a Big Budget Win appeared first on Democratic Left.

How San Diego Tenants Went on Strike Over Their Utility Bills – and Won

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

The tenants at the La Suzanna building in San Diego were recently hit with a massive increase to their cost of living. The landlord brought down on them a “change” to the way they would be billed. This scheme is referred to as RUBS, or “ratio utility billing system”, and it’s just another way for landlords to squeeze blood from a stone, separating utility costs from the rent and passing the burden of payment onto the tenants. Some tenants in the building reported their utilities going up from $60 per month to over $450!

So what did the tenants do? They fought back by first going on RUBS Strike, a tactic we’ve seen play out in numerous locations across the country. The landlord retaliated by sending them a nearly $4000 bill for trash collection! The tenants negotiated but the terms were far more favorable to the landlord and they were ultimately rejected. The tenants then got in touch with the Tenant Councils of San Diego, an ETOC cadre tenant union, and formed a tenants’ association, the La Suzanna Tenant Council.

Finally able to negotiate collectively, they got the utilities capped at $100 per month in a year-long agreement. However, the flight clearly doesn’t end there as future negotiations will likely push for more utility money year over year. This shows the need for sustained, politicized tenant unions and communities of strong solidarity in our buildings; just the kind of thing you’ll get at the ETOC cohort training sessions!

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

The Mediterranean sun beat down upon the dusty limestone streets of Jerusalem, casting sharp shadows across a city fractured by imperial occupation, grinding poverty, and rigid social stratification. On the surface, the Roman peace—the Pax Romana—reigned supreme. But beneath that veneer lay a harsh economic reality: wealth was concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, temple elites exacted heavy tributes, and the margins of society were choked with day laborers, widows, and orphans always on the brink of starvation.

Yet, among a clandestine gathering of believers who had recently embraced the resurrected Galilean teacher, a radically different world was being born.

Luke, recording these events in the Book of Acts, captures a moment in human history where the fundamental rules of survival were rewritten. Standing in the courtyard, watching these Jesus followers unburden themselves of their deeds, scrolls, and surplus wealth, one could hear the quiet hum of a new social order taking shape. This was not merely a spiritual revival; it was an embryonic blueprint for a democratic socialist society.

The Abolition of Destitution: Reclaiming the Commons

To walk among the early Jerusalem believers was to witness something entirely alien to the ancient world: the total eradication of destitution. Luke writes in Acts 4:34–35:

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

When property owners liquidated their estates, they were enacting structural redistribution. As Luke notes, “no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but everything was held in common” (Acts 4:32). In modern political economy, this mirrors the core tenets of democratic socialism: the belief that the material prerequisites of life—housing, food, security—are human rights, and that surplus capital must answer to human need rather than private hoarding. The Jerusalem church instituted a micro-economy where wealth was stripped of its power to oppress, ensuring that basic human dignity was guaranteed for every member of the community.

Participatory Democracy and the Feminist Critique:

Solving the Crisis of Equity

Eventually, every radical movement faces an administrative crucible, and the early church was no exception. As the community grew, cracks began to show. In Acts 6:1–7, a serious crisis of equity erupted: the Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jewish widows were being systematically overlooked in the daily distribution of food in favor of the Hebrew widows.

In any other ancient institution, this administrative failure would have been handled from the top down by an autocratic ruler issuing decrees. But the apostles’ response anticipated the core mechanisms of participatory democracy.

They did not hide behind closed doors to draft a corporate fix. Instead, as Acts 6:2 records, “the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples.” They brought the systemic failure directly to the people, acknowledging that administrative power belonged to the community. They established a transparent, democratic process:

• Decentralization of Power: Authority was shared rather than hoarded at the top.
• Community Vetting: The broader assembly was tasked with selecting leaders from among themselves—traditionally recorded as men of good repute, full of the Spirit and wisdom—to manage the communal treasury and welfare distribution.
• Accountability: The newly appointed administrators were directly accountable to the public they served.

However, a critical historical and feminist lens—championed by contemporary theologians and scholars such as Meggan Watterson—forces us to look closer at who was actually doing the heavy lifting of survival and community care. Watterson’s work on alternative and marginalized early Christian texts (such as Mary Magdalene Revealed and The Girl Who Baptized Herself) underscores how patriarchal structures often whitewashed or edited out the active, frontline leadership of women.

While the canonical text of Acts tells us that male deacons were appointed to solve the Greek-speaking widows’ crisis, feminist biblical scholarship suggests that women were the vital connective tissue of these early house-church economies. They were the ones hospitality-girding, networking, and sustaining communal life on the ground. The actual survival of the community depended heavily on women’s unrecognized or under-reported labor. The distribution to widows was not merely a top-down handout managed by men, but a grassroots crisis solved because marginalized voices—the neglected Hellenistic widows—refused to be rendered invisible and demanded systemic equity.

Voluntary Association vs. Coercion: The Philosophical Bridge

Critics often point out a fundamental tension when comparing the Jerusalem church to modern democratic socialism: the early believers operated through voluntary spiritual devotion, whereas modern socialism often utilizes state legislation, public policy, and taxation to achieve equity.

There was no Roman legion, no temple police, and no state decree forcing citizens to liquidate their assets. The redistribution in Acts was entirely voluntary. 

Yet, despite the difference in enforcement mechanisms, both systems seek to move human society away from a predatory, survival-of-the-fittest ethos toward a cooperative commonwealth. While democratic socialists use the lever of the democratic state to shield citizens from the predations of unregulated capital, the early church used the power of communal solidarity to achieve that same goal: a society where no one is left behind to suffer the indignity of poverty.

The Messy Reality of Commune Life: Ideals vs. Unfinished Chores

It is easy to romanticize the Book of Acts as a utopian snapshot of a society where everyone lived in frictionless harmony. But anyone who has ever been in an intentional community or a cooperative knows that political alignment does not automatically erase human friction. Any commune member can readily testify to the corrosive power of unwashed dishes, passive-aggressive chore wheels, and ego clashes to erode solidarity—even when every member is on the same political and ideological page.

A broader reading of the Christian Bible shows that the early church was plagued by these same dysfunctions. The letters of Paul to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans reveal communities riven by squabbles, socioeconomic elitism (even during the communal Love Feasts or Lord’s Suppers), petty power struggles, and failed attempts at radical solidarity. The Jerusalem church itself eventually suffered severe economic collapse, requiring Paul to spend years organizing a massive international collection across the Gentile churches to bail out the impoverished Jerusalem believers.

The radical sharing depicted in Acts was a messy, high-stakes experiment in human cooperation. The fact that it often fractured under the weight of human selfishness and administrative strain does not invalidate its democratic socialist principles. Rather, it humanizes them. It shows that economic justice is not an automatic spiritual state but a daily, difficult practice of negotiation, accountability, and grace.

From Capitalism to Community

The narrative preserved in the Book of Acts remains a powerful historical and moral provocation. Long before Karl Marx penned his critiques of industrial capitalism or modern democratic socialists campaigned for universal healthcare and housing, a small band of believers in Jerusalem proved that human beings could organize their economic lives around equity, shared labor, and radical care—even if the housekeeping, the gender exclusions, and the internal squabbles made it infinitely more complicated than the highlight reel suggests.

Whether viewed through the lens of divine intervention or sociopolitical history, the early church blueprint challenges every modern economy to answer a timeless, haunting question: Why should anyone suffer in need when there is more than enough to go around?

For further reading:

• Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006.
• Hengel, Martin. Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of an Early Christian Social History. Fortress Press, 1974.
• Kootstra, Paul. “Christian Socialism and the Early Church: Reading Acts in Modern Political Contexts.” Journal of Theological Politics, vol. 42, no. 3, 2018, pp. 145–162.
• Stassen, Glen H., and David P. Gushee. Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context. InterVarsity Press, 2003.
• The Bible. English Standard Version (ESV). Crossway Bibles, 2001. (Specifically referencing Acts 2:42–47, Acts 4:32–35, Acts 5:1–11, and Acts 6:1–7).
• Watterson, Meggan. Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel & the Christianity We Haven’t Tried Yet. Hay House, 2019.
• Watterson, Meggan. The Girl Who Baptized Herself. Hay House, 2024.

The post Democratic Socialist Principles in the Book of Acts appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

By: Liam Noble

BOSTON COMMON – On Saturday, October 3, anti-war protesters and left organizations rallied against the multiple simultaneous illegal wars prosecuted by the United States under the current regime — with a particular focus on the war in Iran. Protestors and local activists including Rabbi Greg Hersh and Tony Van Der Meer gave speeches condemning the loss of life caused by imperialist violence, especially in Latin America and West Asia.

The atmosphere at the protest was one of shared outrage: against the illegal wars of aggression, the insanity of the US leadership, as well as over the deaths of and intentional targeting of civilians. At least two signs carried photographs of dead children, their gravesites, or of family photos from when they were still alive. The message spoke for itself even as many vocalized: “We Want The Murder to End Now.”

The life lost was staggering and never far from the center stage of protest. The number of dead children is particularly chilling: 247+ in Lebanon, 350+ dead children in Iran, tens of thousands of dead in Palestine. More than 220 fishermen in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean have been murdered by the US military in senseless drone strikes. The blockade of Cuba has also been tightened, with the U.S. intercepting $3 million in fuel shipments the week of the rally alone, working people suffering and dying because of the loss of electricity to homes and hospitals. The United States stands also on the brink of potential invasion of Cuba itself.

Increasingly, the intentions of the US empire might be seen as waging a war on life.

One rallying cry in a speech by prominent Massachusetts Peace Action activist Paul Shannon was a cardinal demand: “the state should get pension funds away from murderous military contractors.” This demand to separate state employee investments, or divestment, shows the depth and pragmatism of the struggle.

Nationalist Counterprotesters

The anti-war event became tense when counterprotestors arrived.

Persian nationalists, or Pahlavi supporters, carried large flags showing Pahlavi, Trump and Netanyahu shoulder to shoulder, the national flags photoshopped to blend into one another. If nothing else, the display was a true expression of the Pahlavi movement— farce to encourage the waging of the conflict and intimidate the peace activists. A man with a bullhorn, wearing a Persian nationalist flag as a cape, screamed “USA, USA,” in an attempt to drown out the speakers.

When a woman approached him to ask the aggressor to stop, he put the bullhorn in her face and screamed, “Terrorist, terrorist.” A short time later, he tried to enter the crowd and disrupt the event, but some mischievous comrade broke his bullhorn in half, leaving him despondently carrying a broken piece of it in each hand.

At no point could the counterprotestors muster more than two people for their cause.

War Felt at the Gas Pump

The most prominent aspect of the peace protest was opposition to the war on Iran.

The most visible and tangible conflict, the Iran war is a new energy conflict. It is one of many of the wars, the pain of which is felt at the gas pump itself. Diesel, the life-blood of commercial transportation, averages $6.50 in Massachusetts – roughly double what it was at the beginning of the year. While higher gas prices can trigger a decrease in car usage by regular consumers who rely on personal vehicles, diesel is far less elastic: widely used in construction, railways, and trucking, the supply chains themselves are heavily and institutionally reliant on diesel.

Additional shortages of industrial lubricants and petroleum byproducts will continue to have knock-on effects of price inflation. These effects cannot be underestimated; one expert has called the likely impact inflation “turbocharged” beyond record numbers. All of these factors all but assure the international tightening of petroleum supply is likely at the very least to result in a worldwide recession.

In principle, the war itself is a crime, let alone the social murder caused by its externalities, but it’s remarkable to reflect on the incompetence with which it was pursued. The Iran War seems executed on impulse, with no plan. Perhaps initiated under the assumption of a mere three-day war, a weekend war, that the Islamic Republic would capitulate similarly to Venezuela following Maduro’s abduction if the leadership were murdered. Instead, Iran was prepared and immediately struck back on vulnerable American positions. Within a week, Naval Support Facility Bahrain— the logistics headquarters of the US fifth fleet— was destroyed, and will probably never be rebuilt. Subsequently, aircraft carriers like USS Abraham Lincoln were forced to withdraw from the area because keeping them properly supplied proved impossible. The radar sites in the region used to gather early warning and telemetry against Iranian ballistic missiles were also destroyed with drones.

This leaves the US/Israeli axis critically vulnerable to the most effective and well-stocked weapon Iran has: ballistic missiles.

Should the war heat up again (which seems positively inevitable), it is bewildering how vulnerable Israel’s position appears. Buttressed only by ideological fanaticism, the position of the Israeli state itself could become totally unsustainable under concentrated missile fire on its cities, infrastructure, and sensitive military sites. This has not yet come to pass because of the calculations around the potential use of nuclear weapons, and an Iranian desire to show restraint in escalation.

At the rally, a frequent question asked was: “How do you think this will end?” The better question is probably, how will this all end up?

Its corollary answer: In an unfamiliar world. But probably not anytime soon.

The curious position of war protest this year is that the Iran War is very different from the Vietnam War, or the Iraq War, or even the contemporary blockade against Cuba. Iran is a middle-tier power, a nation fighting a war of national defense. This is not an American war against a poorly-organized adversary, or against a near-defenseless civilian population; rather, the conflict is peer/peer between states. In the context of this war, the United States is a weakened country, no longer hegemonic, throwing the last of its strength at an entrenched and prepared enemy with significant moral investment and landed base. The result is that the United States has been decisively defeated and pushed out of the region.

All this is to say, regardless of flareups of the future, the United States lost a war, and lost it badly and quickly. The illusions of American fighting power seemed to have vanished quicker than a glass of neat whiskey left around Secretary Hegseth. What then is the responsibility of anti-war protestors? To champion the cause of peace, of course. And to use their activism to restrain the American military, to prevent other possible wars, to illuminate the foul intentions and terrible crimes; and to delegitimize the wars wherever they are pursued.

Liam Noble is a Boston DSA member living in Somerville and a contributing writer to Working Mass.

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