Let us be clear at the outset that we feel the time spent on responding, once more, to Hazel’s polemic on the shortcomings of California DSA would be better spent on doing some actual work against the actual problems that beset the working class and the socialist movement in California. Nitpicking infighting of this nature has not often served to advance socialist goals and this case is no exception. The world is burning, fascism is rising, and a contrived controversy doesn’t help with addressing either.

Hazel, without talking to anyone in CA DSA leadership, published a critical piece about our experiment in state structure in Democratic Left. When we responded in California Red to address what we saw as incorrect information in that piece, it meant that as far as we were concerned, she got her say, we got ours, and that should have ended matters. But apparently not. We are now publishing her response to our response. Unfortunately, she did not in her new critique actually address our main points, choosing instead to launch a debate over what she considered her conclusion versus what we understood it to be.

She claims that thanks to her intervention while serving as co-chair for a year the organization has improved: “I authored the resolution that scaled back CA DSA’s ambitions and successfully agitated for it to pass because I expected it to help in exactly the ways it did.”

One of us (Fred) was on the state committee at the time Hazel proposed her resolution, which in its first iteration simply attempted to shut down the state org entirely. Why did she try to do this? It may have had something to do with the fact that she found herself on the short end of eight-to-one and seven-to-two decisions time after time.

When that failed she amended it to reduce the number of positions on the state committee from nine to five, which would have had the effect of crippling what little volunteer capacity the leadership body possessed. The majority voted to replace that amendment with another that reduced the body from nine to seven—not because we felt it would have improved our ability to work, but in recognition of the reality that not enough people wanted to do this pretty thankless, under-resourced work, and we needed to have a quorum at our state committee meetings.

Her resolution had exactly nothing to do with the improvement of California DSA’s work. The ARCH campaign in 2024, which she claims as an example of her leadership, was already clearly viewed by our chapters as an important priority, and the state council’s vote to make that official for the state body occurred on the basis of that understanding, not due to her resolution.

Similarly, her claim that “as a result, involvement in CA DSA has largely increased” has no basis in reality. Renewed involvement came not from her effort to reduce the footprint of CA DSA but from a quite different source, months after she had left CA DSA leadership—Trump’s election, which lit a fire beneath members looking for a place to stand and fight. California DSA 101 statewide zoom presentations went from a dozen or two people in attendance before November 2024 to 60-75 attendees in each of the next several meetings after the election.

She refers us to the Red Star caucus document claiming the national DSA more closely resembles an NGO than a fighting socialist organization, and states her belief that staffing is less important than a member-driven organization. This is a sleight of hand argument, since California DSA is not the national, has no staff, doesn’t function like an NGO, and is (unfortunately) probably in no danger of finding the resources to staff up any time soon. Further, we agree with her that if we could muster sufficient activism from our membership to do without staff we’d go that way. Who wouldn’t? The more important questions to consider here are, “what are the factors that impede such enthusiasm for socialism in the masses”, and “how do we turn that around?”

She wants us to reflect on how we failed to measure up to the “vision document” she cites that supposedly was guiding CA DSA. That document, a two-page provisional sketch of the organization’s goals, was drafted by the exploratory committee for a California DSA in January 2021, more than a year before the organization officially existed. It was superseded by subsequent documents developed by the first state committee, much more ambitious in scope, which as we stated in our critique of Hazel’s DL article, were produced before fully understanding the obstacles in our path. This is reminiscent of Hazel’s omission in her DL piece, when in criticizing the lack of use of our political action committee (PAC) account, she left out the context that it wasn’t created by CA DSA but a prior ad hoc chapter-led campaign in 2018, which we inherited as CA DSA without institutional memory of what needed to be done to maintain it properly. And true, it wasn’t used while she was on the state committee. Why? Because 2023 wasn’t an election year. She didn’t respond to these corrections in her new piece.

California DSA is not some bureaucratic monolith needing to be deeply critiqued. It is an experiment in socialist democracy, the first state level DSA structure, put together in a moment of peak activism (post Bernie campaigns, during the pandemic and support for the BLM movement, and a very active tax the rich ballot measure, Prop 15, in 2020, which led to ad hoc coordination of our chapters statewide) with the high hopes that such enthusiasm for action from its membership might serve as the basis for a permanently active statewide presence.

That hopeful moment passed, and peak activism receded—not just in DSA, but in all organizations of the left and the broader progressive sphere. This is always a danger for the left when the Democrats are in office: Too many people think, “Oh, we elected these people; now they will take care of things.” This was the mistake activists made in demobilizing after Obama’s election, and the same thing, compounded by the pandemic, that happened in Biden’s term of office.

California DSA was created to say the opposite: no matter who’s in office we need to continually push them from below to do the right thing, which takes a mass socialist movement beyond the electoral moment. We had hoped the state organization might make a contribution to that perspective and that effort. If that hope has not yet been fulfilled, let’s recall that this is the first attempt in the country at a state DSA structure; it is just three years old; and we are not just trying to push California politics to the left; now we’re fighting fascism. Let’s get on with that task.

Thousands of DSA members across the state of California came out to local events on June 14, dubbed “No Kings Day”, swelling the ranks of protests from San Diego to Eureka. Here are a few snapshots drawn from the organizing of our local chapters.

East Bay

East Bay DSA brought out members to several events. Chapter co-chair Juan Canham told California Red, “I think it's a moment when our chapter’s commitment to using a diversity of strategies to combat fascism really came together, allowing us to be active on many fronts. As a chapter that encompasses a multitude of political tendencies it's not often that everyone is active at once but everyone I know in the chapter was active in some way on Saturday, some attending multiple events.”

EBDSA sent a sizeable contingent to the “No Kings” march in Oakland. The Oakland action went far beyond what the official organizers expected in terms of turnout. The sun was out, the vibes were good, and “the members spoke to a lot of people fed up with Trump, about how we have to defeat Trump but also the entire rotten system that brought him to power.”

On Friday night EBDSA got word from organizations it is working with that ICE had sent mass text messages to migrants in immigration court proceedings to report the next day Saturday at the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) office in SF or face an “infraction. Canham said, “ISAP is a private company that runs ICE’s alternatives to detention program. It is not located in a government building. Weekend reporting is unheard of. This could only mean one thing: mass arrests.”

He added, “With little notice, and despite already being committed to three other actions on Saturday, we decided that this was critical work and sent out the call to our entire list, with the caution that we did not know how this was going to go down (earlier in the week a peaceful protest outside of the ICE office in San Francisco resulted in arrests). At 7 am on Saturday many in the chapter answered the call prepared for the worst, but between us, community and faith groups there was sufficient turnout to deter ICE and SFPD from escalating. This ended as a successful 2-day community picket where ISAP didn't even try to open the office and ICE weren't visibly present. Instead 50 plus migrants were welcomed by lawyers who gave them help with their cases.”

All of this was occurring on the same day as a previously scheduled EBDSA event, a Labor Notes Troublemakers school that the chapter had been organizing for months with a coalition of unions in the East Bay. It brought together several hundred union members, labor activists, and local officers, to build solidarity, and share successes, strategy, and inspiration.

Marin

Marin DSA worked with a local immigrant rights group to organize a “No Kings, No Oligarchs” rally in downtown San Rafael attended by over 1,500 people. The rally featured many speakers, including chapter members who talked about defending social programs for seniors and working people, protesting the genocide in Gaza, and defending democracy by fighting oligarchy. The chapter partnered with other local organizers to speak about workers rights, protecting immigrants in our community from ICE, and US imperialism. Marin DSA co-chair Curt said, “It was the largest protest our chapter has ever organized and the second largest protest in Marin County since Trump took office.”

Anaheim

Orange County DSA sent a team to Anaheim No Kings Day, where one of the chapter co-chairs give a speech about how direct action is necessary and the Democratic Party gives no hope for liberation, and distributed chapter literature.

San Jose

Silicon Valley DSA comrades joined the San Jose “No Kings” rally. An estimated 12,000 people attended. One of the featured speakers was the chapter’s Rheanna, who reminded the crowd of recent events like Trump’s firing of scientists, the militarization of the local police department, and the incursions of ICE. She said, “We are going to build a movement so big so deep and powerful that no president, no King, no fascists will stand against us.” She invited the crowd to come to the next SVDSA meeting and get trained up in rapid response to be able to protect themselves and their neighbors. “Remember, we keep each other safe!” she said to cheers. [see video of her speech]

Peninsula DSA

Peninsula DSA, situated south of San Francisco, sent members to events in Pacifica, Colma, and San Mateo as well as to the big demonstration in San Francisco, to show up in solidarity and talk up DSA. Allison C reported, “We got 25 people to sign up for our newsletter, plus more folks scanned the QR code off our palm card. We definitely plan to bring more flyers (we passed out 100 plus) and signage next time.”

Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Melville House, 2023, by Yanis Varoufakis

“What’s in a word?” is the title of Chapter 2 of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, where Yanis Varoufakis notes, “It is tempting to think that it does not really matter what we call the system we live in. Technofeudalism or hyper-capitalism, the system is what it is, whatever the word we use to describe it. Tempting perhaps, but quite wrong. Reserving the word ‘fascist’ for regimes that genuinely fall into that category and refraining from using it to describe regimes that, however nasty are not fascist, matters hugely.”

Varoufakis is fully aware of the odd angle—at least from a more traditional Marxist perspective—from which he is approaching the topic of his latest book. He argues that capitalism, the dominant mode of production on earth for the past two hundred years, has been replaced—not, as hoped for through generations of the left, by socialism, but by a new type of economic structure he has dubbed “technofeudalism”, and which, he says, is turning out to be even more ruthless, destructive and difficult to dislodge than capitalism.

Varoufakis, a former finance minister in Greece during the radical phase of the Syriza government, frames his analysis with the story of how his father introduced him, as a child, to understanding capitalism through the development of the forces of production throughout history, beginning with the Iron Age. By the time Varoufakis is an adult, his father poses the question to him that becomes the starting point for the book: “Now that computers speak to each other, will this network make capitalism impossible to overthrow? Or might it finally reveal its Achilles heel?”

This engaging approach of a dialog with his father, a touchstone throughout, serves the book well, keeping things relatively simple and straightforward as Varoufakis lays out his picture of the new mode of production. At the center is his understanding of the transformation that tech capital (which he renames “cloud capital”) has inflicted on humanity: the conversion of billions of us into “cloud serfs” willingly albeit unconsciously volunteering to labor for nothing to reproduce cloud capital for the benefit of its owners. 

How does this happen? As we switch on our computers, access the web, and lend our eyeballs to cloud capital we hand them a free gift. By clocking our clicks and following our eyeballs, the tech corporations are able to refine their targeting of our wants and desires continuously; the individual cloud serf decisions add up to mass analytics that guide ever more focused algorithms for pitches and sales individualized just for us. Cloud capital, in the form of corporations like Amazon and Apple, does continue to employ workers (“cloud proles”) in their brick-and-mortar facilities and extracts surplus value from them the old-fashioned way: through the labor process and capital accumulation. But the bulk of wealth collection now occurs, Varoufakis asserts, on platforms that have replaced markets on the web. He calls this form of wealth accumulation “cloud rent”.

Yes, he says, these platforms look like markets. But markets—as in exchanges of goods and services, and a key part of the definition of how capitalism functions—are the lesser part of what happens here, on sites he calls “cloud fiefdoms”. The bulk of the income for cloud capital comes from extraction of rent from the mostly modest-sized capitalist app developers who have to use the platforms to sell stuff to us—at an average cost to the developers of thirty percent of the transactions. The people who sell things on the platforms Varoufakis terms “vassal capitalists”.

All of this represents for Varoufakis a process that looks a lot more like how wealth was accumulated during feudalism—through ground rent, with serfs handing over a portion of what they produce on the land lent to them by its owners, feudal lords—than in capitalism, where surplus value is extracted through the difference between wages paid to the worker and the larger amount the worker generates for the capitalist.

Varoufakis’s explanation of how we got here relies on a reworking of the marxist understanding of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. During the centuries-long emergence of capitalism out of feudalism the two modes of production were intertwined and coexisted. But eventually one part (surplus value production, creating profit) became dominant and the other (rent) operated in the shadows cast by its giant rival. Yet, rent survived, and ultimately and opportunistically today has taken on a new and monstrous form. In this way technofeudalism represents the revenge of the undead rent over profit. As Varoufakis puts it, “cloud capital is overpowering terrestrial capital, sucking cloud rent increasingly out of the global value chain” (169).

Interspersed within the more abstract discussion of the comparative dynamics of feudalism and capitalism are useful explanations of various recent real world developments. Like David Harvey, Varoufakis has a knack for making Marxist political economy understandable and clear. (The book helpfully includes an appendix where he defines all his terms.) Where did this cloud capital power come from in such a startlingly short period? Two sources: the enclosure of the internet commons, or privatization of what started out a public resource; and the massive transfers of public funds to private hands following the 2007-8 crash and Great Recession. The combination of the two created the primitive accumulation of cloud capital, which “differs from other kinds of capital in its ability to reproduce itself at no expense to its owner, turning all of us into cloud serfs.” But that’s not the only way it reproduces itself.

With the banking implosion of 2007-8 two things happened. The national central banks determined these businesses were too big to fail, so they shoveled huge amounts of cash to them. But to balance all this money-printing, their governments imposed austerity on the working class. Since the masses were in no position to buy new product lines, capital invested in non-productive enterprises like real estate and the stock market—and tech. Since there was no risk to the investment, having come from free central bank money, profit was optional. Hence the proliferation of startups and tech companies with soaring valuations while returning no profits for years.

Varoufakis spins a number of provocative implications out of this picture. In his final chapter he proposes what a new economy and society would look like if we could construct one free of profits and rents. But he also informs us that getting from here to there is a daunting challenge, larger than the one we faced under the rule of capital, which at least for a time gave us the opportunity to construct social democracy from class consciousness and union power. With technofeudalism, the proliferation of precarious employment, shrunken unions and the dispersal of community, social democracy is currently impossible, says the author. Organizing the working class is still necessary, but not sufficient. Now we need to build a bigger, broader alliance with all willing partners.

Like any analytic or political tradition, Marxism needs to renew its categories and rethink its presuppositions as the world changes in order to remain relevant and accurate. Technofeudalism represents a serious effort to accomplish this necessary task. I am not fully competent to assess the diagnostic picture Varoufakis presents in this book. For one thing, I don’t have the statistical chops to determine if the amount of value being removed from the global capitalist system by cloud rent has actually surpassed the volume of worldwide profit generated by labor for capital.

Solving this single equation should decisively answer the question as to whether Varoufakis is correct in his central argument. If you’ve made it through Volume One of Capital, that—along with not having slept through late neoliberalism—is really all the reader needs to follow the discussion in Technofeudalism. But following the discussion and being able to assess its correctness are two different things.

Whether his answer is correct or not, Varoufakis has asked the right questions in a book that plumbs some of the murkier depths of how our world works today.

Events & Actions

Tuesday, July 22 (8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.): ICE Out of SF Courts! (San Francisco Immigration Court, 100 Montgomery St.)

Tuesday, July 22 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Social Housing Reading Group: SF Analyst’s Report (Zoom)

Wednesday, July 23 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tech Worker Reading Group: You Deserve a Tech Union (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, July 23 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Independent Outreach (Meet at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, July 24 (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Thursday, July 24 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, July 25 (5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Electoral Education: Zohran x DSA’s Victory (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Friday, July 25 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): Maker Friday: Zine Edition (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Saturday, July 26 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Excelsior Know Your Rights Canvassing (Meet in person at Silver Ave & Mission St)

Saturday, July 26 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Cuba Reportback (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, July 27 (1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.): Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (In person at Raimondi Park, 1800 Wood St, Oakland)

Monday, July 28 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Socialist in Office (SIO) Subcommittee Regular Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, July 28 (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, July 28 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board x Divestment Priority Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Tuesday, July 29 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Wednesday, July 30 (6:45 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.): Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (Zoom and in person at Radical Reading Room, 438 Haight)

Thursday, July 31 (5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Thursday, July 31 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Office Hour (Zoom)

Saturday, August 2 (12:45 – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Outreach and Outreach Training (Meet in person at 1916 McAllister)

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

ICE Out of SF Courts!

Join neighbors, activists, grassroots organizations in resisting ICE abductions happening at immigration court hearings! ICE is taking anyone indiscriminately in order to meet their daily quotas. Many of those taken include people with no removal proceedings.

We’ll be meeting every Tuesday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30  p.m. at Immigration Court at 100 Montgomery. We need all hands on deck, even if you can only participate for 1 or 2 hours.

Social Housing Reading Group

What could social housing look like in San Francisco, and how do we get there? Join DSA SF for a reading of the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report on how the city can build its own publicly owned, deeply affordable housing. We will also read the SF Berniecrats report, Housing for the 99%, which lays out a vision for social housing for all in San Francisco. Join us at 1916 McAllister today (Tuesday, July 22) from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

DSA SF Tech Reading Group

On July 23rd from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., come join DSA SF and Rideshare Drivers United tech workers for our next monthly tech reading group.

We’ll be reading an excerpt from You Deserve a Tech Union by Ethan Marcotte. This event is hybrid with food provided at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister St.

RSVP here to access the link to the reading! See you there!

Electoral Education: Zohran x DSA’s Victory

Join us Friday, July 25 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at 1916 McAllister for an open discussion about the very exciting Zohran campaign, how they did it, and how it’s shaping the national discussion about electoral politics in the United States and in our national organization! .

Audience: EVERYONE! Whether you’re new to movement or been following the Zohran campaign for a while, we hope this will be interesting for us all!

Maker Friday: Zine Edition

Join us for Maker Friday: Zine Edition on July 25 at 1916 McAllister from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.! We will learn how to make zines, brainstorm ideas for them, and make them. All are welcome, no experience necessary, come connect with your fellow comrades while making fun content to pass out.

Know Your Rights (KYR) Canvassing with Immigrant Justice

Join the Immigrant Justice Working Group this Saturday (July 26) for Know Your Rights (KYR) canvassing! We will be distributing red cards and KYR posters to businesses and community members in the Excelsior. Our meeting point will be at the intersection of Silver Ave & Mission St at 1:00 pm. New to canvassing? No worries! There will be a brief how-to training before we go out in pairs or small groups.

Cuba May Day Brigade Reportback at the Office

Join us this Saturday (July 26th) from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the DSA SF office at 1916 McAllister for a reportback from the 2025 May Day Brigade in Cuba! You’ll hear a comrade’s firsthand experience of the socialist program in Cuba, its medical and educational systems, the May Day events that occurred in Havana, the challenges the Cuban people are currently facing, and their revolutionary optimism that we should adopt in the face of our organizing in the belly of the beast.

We’ll be blasting some classic Cuban tunes to get us in the revolutionary spirit, and there will be snacks and refreshments. Hope you can come!

Summer Social(ist) Events!

On Sunday, July 27th at 3:30 p.m. we’ll be going to the Oakland Ballers vs Northern Colorado Owlz baseball game + “Halloween in July Night” (at Raimondi Park) – We will be sitting in the 3rd Base GA2 section. Tickets are $15 each, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds (just reach out to us if you need help buying a ticket!). RSVP here and purchase tickets here.

Support the Blue Bottle Independent Union

Nestlé is one of the biggest corporations in the world charged with decades of human rights violations in the global south. They’re now in our backyard intimidating baristas with surveillance, firing, and bad-faith bargaining. Last week, baristas in four Bay Area locations of Nestlé-owned Blue Bottle presented management with a super majority of union cards and demanded voluntary recognition. Instead, Blue Bottle fired one of the organizers, B.B. Young. This comes at an especially bad time for B.B. since their husband was also recently laid off.

Blue Bottle workers are asking for our support

• Donate at this GoFundMe page 
• Sign the petition to demand that the company voluntarily recognize the Blue Bottle Independent Union
• Join the Blue Bottle Independent Union email list  or follow on Instagram to stay in touch
• If you are an employee of Blue Bottle, fill out this intake form to get involved with organizing the union at your own store

Reports

What You Missed at Last Week’s Electoral Board Meeting

At the Electoral Board meeting on July 17, the Electoral Board discussed several items:

• Legislative updates from the Socialist in Office Subcommittee
  • Please join the new #socialist-in-office Slack channel to receive more frequent updates from the subcommittee!
• An upcoming meeting on  with Jackie Fielder’s office to advance our Divestment priority
• A letter campaign to support Jackie in her sole dissenting vote on the City’s budget which forces austerity and potential future actions such as an op-ed
• A Zohran Mamdani themed discussion event happening this Friday at 5:30 in the office!

If you would like to be involved in these conversations, join the Electoral Board on Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. via Zoom or the office at 1916 McAllister and find us on Slack at #electoral-discussion.

Behind the Scenes

The Chapter Coordination Committee (CCC) regularly rotates duties among chapter members. This allows us to train new members in key duties that help keep the chapter running like organizing chapter meetings, keeping records updated, office cleanup, updating the DSA SF website and newsletter, etc. Members can view current CCC rotations.

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

Steve Thornton has been an activist in Hartford since moving there in the 1970’s after graduating from the University of […]

by Liz Henderson

As spring turns to summer, the biodiversity of life bursts forth in all its glory. We stand witness to rebirth in the cycle of life. Add moisture and heat, and seeds, those tiny bits of seemingly dead organic material, sprout shoots and first small leaves. 

In a cold wet spring such as we have had, the baby plants have the capacity to wait for weeks for the right conditions. Then they go for it, growing inches in a day. You can almost see them grow. On a warm, sunny day, an asparagus shoot can add 12 inches in a few hours. A pea or bean plant can send out long tendrils, grabbing whatever string, fence or other plant is within reach, to climb towards the sun sending out the flowers that will become pods of peas or beans. The stalks of last year’s raspberries suddenly send out leaves and clusters of flowers that swifty transform into tiny green-white berries that just as suddenly turn red, then dark purple and swell with sweet juice attracting birds and humans to help spread their seeds. Warm spring breezes pulse with purpose—reproduce, this is your chance.

We live in an exciting moment in the history of the relationship between humans and plants. For millennia, indigenous peoples and peasants have observed plant life cycles closely. To feed themselves and their families year round they had to.  When crops failed, there was no supermarket to turn to. When you focus on growing things, you sense that we are part of the natural order. Agroecology emerged from that awareness. As Robin Wall Kimmerer has written so beautifully about Haudenosaunee gratefulness that Nature provides everything we need as long as we are responsible participants.

A peasant farmer in Mali or a French market gardener did not have a scientific explanation but they knew that plants depend on the soil for nutrients and that you have to replenish what you have taken out. The law of return. Sir Albert Howard, one of the founders of modern organic agriculture, learned about how to make compost and the power of mycorrhizae, soil fungi, from the Indian peasants the British Empire had sent him to teach how to farm. He had the humility to listen to those illiterate  experts in soil health. In this decade, academia is finally giving soil scientists the resources they need to catch up with peasant farmers.

The age of soil science is finally turning attention to the unexplored frontier beneath our feet. I attend regular meetings of the NY Soil Health Association (www.newyorksoilhealth.org) which is open to everyone. Their website is a treasure trove of resources and listings of soil health field days. We will be holding one in Rochester, Sept 16, 4pm – 7pm, at the Lexington Ave, urban farm with a focus on cover crops. If you attend, you will take home cover crop seed for your community garden.

If you have not yet done so, I recommend joining one of the many community gardens in Rochester, most of which are included on this slightly out of date list: monroe.cce.cornell.edu/horticulture/community-gardens-in-monroe-county. If you do not have time to commit to full membership, 490 Farmers has volunteer evenings every week at 5:30 and TapRoot welcomes volunteers for a variety of jobs: sites.google.com/taprootcollective.org/taprootcollective/volunteer. The Urban Agriculture Working Group will be hosting work sessions through the summer at gardens that ask for help. Everyone is welcome to show up! These are the sessions so far:

• Kailee Little Free Library Garden (133 Kenwood Ave. 14611) Thurs, July 24: 1:30pm – 3pm
• Phillis Wheatley Library Community Garden (33 Dr Samuel McCree Way 14608) Tues, Aug 5: 11am – 12:30pm
• Beechwood Beauty (672 Bay St. 14609) Fri, Aug 8: 10:30am – 12pm

Regular participation in a community garden is a way to reduce your food budget a little—but even more, a way to get to know people you wouldn’t meet otherwise. I have volunteered as a sort of organic adviser to the Magnolia St. Children’s Garden for four years. We have work sessions most Saturday mornings from 10 till noon. I grow some of the starts, find materials, and help people who fall behind catch up with care for their bed. My special job is teaching the neighborhood children to orient garlic bulbs and potato seed for harvests we share. No one is in charge of this garden—yet everyone chips in what they can—making a new sign, mowing the paths, or building a new compost system. 

Iletha Clifton, who lives across the street with her 97 year old mother, started it.  Dr. Bill Bayer joined his former patients in growing healthy veggies, found funding for garden infrastructure and brought his church group to mentor children in reading and academic skills. Three of the members collectively share close to 200 years of experience while others are totally new to gardening. A recent Afghani refugee maintains two beds where her focus is tomatoes, peppers and cilantro. This year, Monroe County funded a Food System Outreach Program that paid for garden improvements. Gardens had to make a very specific list of the equipment they needed and then the Cornell Cooperative Extension purchased those items and had them delivered.  Magnolia St. received materials for a new fence to keep the woodchucks out. So far, so good!

Another source of gardening information and inspiration is Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY (www.soulfirefarm.org). On top of their series of how-to videos, they have made a film of lead farmer Leah Penniman’s book Farming While Black. The Rochester Black Nurses Association and the Food Policy Council (FPC) are hosting a special showing of the film Farming While Black  on Thursday, July 10 at 6:30pm at The Little Theater in Rochester. Here is a link to the trailer. After the film, there will be a panel on the theme Cultivating Wellness: Mental Health Support Through Farming and Gardening. Panelists include Koi Mendez (local land steward and food justice organizer), Melanie Funchess (Director of Mental Health and Wellness at Common Ground Health), and Katie Nuber (Therapeutic Horticulturist). FPC member Dr. Celia McIntosh will be the moderator.

The post Getting Grounded: The Wonders of Biodiversity first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

On July 17th, a vigil was called by local organizers to call attention to the detention of Imam Ayman, a local clergy member detained by President Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Following the vigil, citizens peacefully protested at Roebling Bridge. The protest remained peaceful throughout.

Around 8:30 PM, the Covington Police Department (CPD) arrived in force, with a video captured from the scene showing a response of at least 15 squad cars for a small, peaceful protest. Police ordered protesters to disperse, and as protesters were in the middle of complying, CPD violently broke up the protest, dramatically escalating what had been a peaceful protest into a police attack on protesters. CPD officers were caught on camera firing rubber bullets at point-blank range against peaceful protesters, and arresting those who had complied with the order to disperse. Some of those arrested were brutally beaten, with multiple protesters requiring medical treatment at a nearby hospital. At least one journalist was also arrested by police despite continually signaling their status as a member of the press.

DSA Metro Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky strongly condemns the plain and obvious brutality deployed against this peaceful protest. Through their actions last night the Covington Police Department showed contempt for a peaceful vigil and demonstrated an active desire to cause harm under the cover of “keeping the peace”. These shocking acts are an echo of Donald Trump’s authoritarian streak with the very violence protesters came out peacefully to oppose; one big tyrant emboldens many little ones. This moment along with the police-assisted terror campaign of ICE demonstrates that Americans’ civil rights are limited more and more every day. Given this violent crackdown against peaceful protesters, we call on the Covington authorities to dismiss any and all charges against those arrested at the protest.

The following is the prepared text of a speech delivered at a July 17 rally organized by the Democratic Socialists of America in response to Rush Hospital’s decision to halt gender-affirming care for trans youth. The move, following similar actions by Lurie Children’s Hospital, signals a disturbing trend of Illinois institutions preemptively complying with the Trump administration’s attacks on trans healthcare. Published here with the speaker’s permission.

Hi everyone, my name is Lyra Spencer she/her, and I am the co-chair of the Chicago Chapter of the Democratic Socialist of America. 

I want to first start out by thanking everyone for being here today, including the various organizations that endorsed this event such as the Chicago Teachers Union, the Illinois Nursing Association, Howard Brown Healthcare Workers United, the Gay Liberation Network, the Party of Socialism and Liberation, Socialist Alternative, Illinois Nurses Association, Howard Brown Health Workers United and several IPOs.

Comrades, I wish we were all gathered here under better circumstances. I stand before you today because Rush Medical systems have caved to the pressures of the Trump administration, and have halted accepting new minor patients for gender affirming care. This comes off the heels of Lurie’s Children’s hospital, headed by CEO Tom Shanley, ceasing all gender affirming care for minors. The consequences of these two hospital systems’ actions means that children who need access to life saving treatment will have less options and likely longer waits to receive this life saving treatment. There are now fewer places available in Chicago that provide this life saving care, burdening the rest of the system in Chicago, and ultimately making it more difficult for all trans people to receive the care we so desperately need.

Now how did this happen? We are in Chicago, Illinois of all places. A trans sanctuary city. Is there a law in place that prevents these hospital systems from providing care to all trans youth? In short, no. Earlier this year the Trump administration signed an executive order attempting to ban gender affirming care for those under 19. Almost immediately after that order was signed it was challenged and halted in the courts. Even though this executive order is not law, just this order being proposed was enough for Lurie Children’s to immediately suspend all gender affirming care. Rush followed caving in fear of their medicaid funding being taken away. The reason why these are both so dangerous outside of directly harming some of the most vulnerable children in our society, is because fascism relies on compliance. The more we preemptively comply with fascists, the more we try to conceal ourselves, the more we hide and stray away from confrontation the more power we give them. With that power they become stronger and have an even greater ability to hurt us, our communities, and to bring harm amongst those we care the most about. 

Well comrades it is beyond time that we say enough. It’s time to mobilize, organize, and to unionize. It is time to join organizations like DSA, or the many orgs that are here today. The capitalist Democrats aren’t going to do this for us. The attorney general and Pritzker are letting this all unfold under their watch. No one is coming to save us, so it’s time that we take our liberation into our own hands and fight back against this fascist regime. That means using allies in the state and passing Alderwoman Fuentes’ resolution, which we helped draft to condemn these hospital systems. That also means taking to the streets, like what we are doing right now, to apply direct pressure to these systems. I have to add that this is not a fight we can take on our own, but must be waged through collective struggle. We need to be in organization with our communities and our coworkers in order to resist fascism. Our power lies in working class people standing together and organizing for change. Our power does not come from lawyers nor the good graces of private hospital administrators.

Comrades, the issues we are experiencing today are a direct result of the failures of capitalism. Fascism tries to redirect those failures towards an out group, rather than where it should be which is at the ruling class. It is no surprise that life saving gender affirming care was first limited by two hospital systems that are privately owned and that are non-unionized. This shows the absurdity of healthcare being treated as a commodity and a vessel for private owners to profit from. We must go beyond being on the defense and demand not only that access to life saving gender affirming care be legal and protected for anyone of all ages, but we must also demand that both gender affirming care and all healthcare must be made free at the point of service. It is beyond time that the Illinois government treats healthcare broadly as a human right and makes sure that all of its residents have quality, free healthcare.

Another point I want to touch on is that us trans people are not the only scapegoat of this fascist regime. As we speak, our neighbors are being ripped away from their families and shuttled off to modern day concentration camps. They have gotten so inhumane that they wait till church services, birthday parties, graduations, to tear apart these families and to leave children scared and confused. Whether it’s denying children access to life saving gender affirming care, ripping apart migrant families and leaving children traumatized and orphaned, or slaughtering children indiscriminately in Gaza, this administration has launched an assault on our most vulnerable youth. We need to stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with every group this administration tries to other. These isolation tactics will not succeed because we all deeply understand the sentiment MLK shared which was “an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.”

Lastly, I will leave everyone with this. My family is from rural Mississippi and my father, if he were alive, would be 79 years old this year. He had to drink from “colored” only drinking fountains. My aunts could not use the bathrooms of their choosing and had to use “colored” women’s facilities. Sound familiar? This struggle for civil rights has not gone away and those here who are standing up for trans rights are the successors to that movement, and our cause today is as just as the cause of my father’s generation. Never let anyone who would disparage working class organizing and mobilizing tell you that they would’ve marched with Doctor King, because if that were true they’d be right here today.

In closing we have a lot of work today folks, but we will emerge victorious. We will beat back fascism, guarantee healthcare for all, and Chicago will become the beacon for joint trans and working class power in the United States. That starts today by joining DSA or one of the many amazing orgs that cosponsored this event. 

The post Defend Trans Kids! appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

The following excerpt is from a conversation held in April, shortly after the vigil for Sam Nordquist

JA: I’m Jean Allen, I’ve been a member of ROC DSA for seven years, and I’ve been out as queer for nine years. 

TC: I am Travis Covitz, I am the Political Education chair for ROC DSA 2025. I have been out as transgender for a little over a decade. Where it starts is, did you see the news about the missing posters, or was the first thing you saw about Sam Nordquist the fact that his body was found?

JA: The first things that I saw were calls for vigils before I knew anything about Sam Nordquist or even his death. I feel like it’s such a statement about the state of this country that the decade I’ve been in the left has felt like a long procession of vigils. A speaker at Sam’s vigil said that “every time this happens, we get stronger as a community”. I understand that it’s agitational framing, and it’s important for people to hear when they are scared, but it’s just not true. We are the people who make our communities stronger or weaker, more or less united, and I am not seeing that [community-building] happen mechanically even while I’ve seen an uninterrupted decade of vigils. It doesn’t happen automatically because someone died, and furthermore Sam Nordquist’s death didn’t happen to make our community better, it happened [because he was murdered]. I was happy with the speeches that at least acknowledged that we failed Sam.

TC: Yeah. This is my first time experiencing a local tragedy that became national news—even if just within the queer community. That for me has been a very weird part of this experience. Trying to figure out how I feel and what to do with how I feel. I reached out to some casual acquaintances, and they just …didn’t seem to understand why I was so messed up about it. It’s not that I’m scared that [the events of Sam’s murder] will happen to me, it’s that I feel guilty. And these folks tried to tell me “it’s not your fault,” and I know his murder is not my fault, but I think of myself as a community leader/organizer, and this moment is revealing how many gaps we have [in the Rochester trans community]. How many gaps there are that are not being filled.

JA: And it isn’t your fault, right? But it’s all of our responsibility, in a way. This harm did occur, and ended someone’s life, and is going to reverberate around their family, their close friends, their whole community. I don’t know. I agree with you that people are not taking this seriously. Sam Nordquist was—like you—a political refugee, effectively. You wouldn’t necessarily have left your home state if it weren’t for the increasingly dangerous politics around transness, and-

TC: Well, Sam Nordquist was from Minnesota, which—I think—is similar to New York in terms of legislation protecting trans people passing. For me, being from Arizona, I came to New York because I got into Cornell. And then I came to Rochester because it’s where I was offered a job. Even when I was interviewed for that Guardian article a couple years ago, they asked if I moved here to be safe as a trans person. Well, no. There were these other things that happened and being trans is another layer of how I navigate things. But I still feel a sense of responsibility for the trans community in Arizona for how much easier I have it, being in New York. There are people from my community, people I grew up with, who are still suffering. So I guess that does add a layer of my understanding of Sam Nordquist. Even if he didn’t see himself coming here as him coming here to be safe as a trans person, the bigger narrative that we tell ourselves and the way we make decisions-

JA: You’re absolutely right, and I don’t want to flatten these differences. But I feel that this crisis, that the state is imposing on queer and trans people, is leading to destabilization in a lot of peoples’ lives. While Sam came here effectively looking for love, I feel like that destabilization means a lot of people, for reasons that are going to be far more specific than “I am a political refugee,” will end up coming to NYS or Rochester. Because we’re a Sanctuary City, because NY is considered safe for trans people. And I do not feel that our community is capable of meaningfully supporting those people in this moment. And I do not trust our institutions to do so either. The failure of both of those led to this moment. But there are things we can do to get to a fighting queer community.

TC: Yeah. I guess, going back, part of the reason that I wanted to go to Cornell is because I was told there was a queer Jewish community there. For me that was a big draw. And then I went there and it basically didn’t exist, the trans community had all of its fractures and stuff, I ended up being kind of jaded about that. But the idea of having queer community is really powerful and definitely for me, coming to Rochester, I feel like the only reason that I have the community connections that I do is because I knew it was something I was going to have to fight for and I decided to fight for it. 

JA: And for many people they don’t have the time to do that. Or they don’t know, as Sam didn’t know, that the people they’re trusting are not trustworthy. That the community they’re coming into is going to abuse them or hurt them or, in this instance, kill them. And it’s more than the queer community being fragmented, I think we prize our fragmentation and powerlessness. That’s true when we prioritize our disagreements over the unity we need, and it’s true when we prioritize our friendships over the things that actually divide us. I’m thinking about the number of times I’ve seen in queer communities that we allow abuse, misogyny, or racism to continue. Because the bigot is nice and does all sorts of things. 

TC: Or that person has a cool house and lets people come over to hang out. They have resources that they ostensibly share with the community. 

JA: The thing that we are trying to build, a political community that is able to meaningfully support people. I guess what we’re talking about is a political organization, right? What queer people in Rochester need is a democratic political organization that is more important than anybody’s personal clique.

TC: I agree but / and for a lot of people, hearing “political organization,” they don’t necessarily hear what you mean. Or what I mean.

JA: This then becomes “join DSA,” which you should join DSA, but yeah they’d think perhaps of a bunch of other things. What do you mean when you say political organization?

TC: What I think of is programmatic unity.

The post Queer Political Community: A Conversation first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

With the passage of the so-called “big beautiful bill,” the poorest of the poor are being told their shelters are no longer funded, their food pantries won’t take them anymore, and their chronic illnesses will lock them into six-digit debts. All the while, one of the same bill’s provisions allows businesses to deduct the full costs of private jets. This type of prioritization is social murder, and we need to think beyond the corporate media and NGOs to build structures that can fight for the future we can – and need – to win.

As union workers in SEIU protested on the Senate lawn to declare, “these cuts kill.” While NOAA’s proposed 2026 budget closes all federally funded weather and climate research labs, the government’s Earth-destroying military budget is set to exceed $1 trillion. Over 130 people in Texas are dead after experienced National Weather Service staffers were offered severance, and the local government rejected flood warning systems due to cost. Social murder is a term coined by Friedrich Engels to describe the deliberate societal forces that bring about a “murder against which none can defend themselves.” Did these Texans die, or were they socially murdered? When a politician signs a paper forbidding a woman from receiving life-saving medical treatment, is it a passive act of someone dying, or is it violent act of someone killing? This bill is not an outlier. It is a crescendo of the austerity politics that have been cutting off community life supports for decades. We cannot allow any spectrum of debate to include costing out that which kills by omission; we can not cost out the lives of our neighbors, coworkers, or families.

Just a handful of private, multi-billion-dollar conglomerates own 90% of all US federal, state, and local media networks. Due to this, all widely broadcast discussions are framed with an unquestioning loyalty to the root narratives behind these highly-profitable social murder policies. Lively debates are held on just what degree people should have to prove their societal worth to allow them access to a doctor. The imposed scarcity framing this conversation is never questioned. Neither Fox News nor CNN, however, speak of scarcity when this same bill pushes nearly eight times the “saved costs” from food access into militarization. Over a trillion of our dollars will be spent every year imposing mass starvation and death upon all the world’s people this US government declares our enemies. Yet, when this same bill makes our incarceration and deportation machine the third-best funded army on the planet, it is seen as “unprecedented.” In the name of “non-partisanship” and “neutrality,” the corporate media’s coverage builds the public consent for our congresspeople to socially murder tens of thousands of Americans. We cannot let the ruling class define the field in which we fight. We have to meet people where they’re at, but we must do so with organizational media that is unafraid to educate, raise expectations, and make demands.

How did you resist the bill likely to be Trump’s longest lasting impact? More of us than ever before called our senators and marched through our cities. However, with the primary cost imposition being withheld votes and bad press, we can’t leave our struggles behind on the streets. Union density and participation is low, and there are no large scale political parties accountable to the working class and marginalized peoples. The only big institutions our angry public has for our defense are NGOs and nonprofits. These institutions are kept separate along the lines of their single issues, and are not accountable to their members. They’re accountable to donors and philanthropists – themselves unaccountable to a strategy. A nonprofit only has the power to ask you or me to call up a politician and tell their office worker what we think. This is not empowering. Much like a demonstration in the public square, it functions as an appeal to power. The capitalist state, purposed on reproducing itself, defines a democracy such that corporations are people and money is speech. The upper echelons of the political class are loyal to the “speech” that makes each of them more wealthy than you or I will ever be. A withheld vote or day of bad press will never speak as loudly as withheld labor and economic leverage. Actions like a strike or a widespread, disciplined, and targeted boycott take vast, connected structures of accountability. For a long term, winning movement, these are the structures we need.

Communities are weaker than ever. We are torn apart every day by the social murder committed by neoliberal policies – incarcerations, evictions, and social service destruction. These crises are amplified exposures of the everyday, not ruptures from the norm. Without an organized and structured community, all we have is the hope that someone else will do something. It will not save us to have awareness, prayers, and praise for the “resilience” of those who endure once the hurt hits close to home. We need to unite and strengthen the few remaining representational organizations like labor unions. Where there are missing structures that could unite people across currently isolated struggles, we need to create them. Tenants unions, students unions, and debtors unions alike can be built and scaled up across decades. These are the institutions we must join into, struggle with, and lead to form a shared horizon for those whom there is not yet a place to be represented. You can’t create a government truly accountable to the people unless the people have unifying structures that exist to empower them. Only when line cooks, tenants, retirees, students, and all those in between are comfortable leveraging their power and solidarity can we create a new society truly beholden to the people.

The post Trump’s Social Murder Bill Passes – Now What? appeared first on Pine & Roses.