Lisa Holton

A week ago Thursday, MARCH in Minnesota, a pro-queer, anti-racist, multi-faith group put out a call to clergy around the country. A week later, more than 600 of us–Buddhist monks, rabbis, Hindu leaders, Muslim leaders, Christian ministers and Catholic priests, Interfaith ministers, and atheists – were sitting together in the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis preparing for two days of action. 

I come to you today with a heart that is both broken and hopeful. And I also come with specific messages from the brave folks in Minneapolis. 

First, Minneapolis is an occupied territory. I am not using that language lightly–it is not a metaphor, it is not hyperbole. It is a fact. A violent, lawless military force, sent by an authoritarian leader, has Minneapolis under siege. The mainstream media coverage is not coming close to telling the truth about what’s happening. You don’t even need to see an ICE agent on the ground to know this. You can feel the fear and terror in the air–it’s palpable. Businesses are boarded up because immigrants are scared to be seen running them. Schools are half-full because parents are in hiding. 

Second, the good people of Minneapolis are responding with courage, resilience, creativity, and love. The media keeps talking about protesters, and of course there are protests. But I was asked by local clergy to tell you that the main response on the ground right now is community protection. Hundreds of bags of groceries have been delivered to people afraid to leave their houses; medications have been procured; organized groups are walking kids to school whose parents are in hiding. Car patrols are in constant motion,  meant to disrupt ICE kidnappings.  These are being carried out not only by long-time activists and organizers, but by everyday people who care about their neighbors. They are organized; they are committed; they are in it for the long haul. 

Intimidation, state violence, and oppression are not new to our Black and Brown community members; they are a daily constant. And let’s be clear – that is exactly who is being targeted. At this moment, in Minneapolis, people are showing up and coming out to stand with and protect their neighbors who are under attack.

They are also exhausted. And they need our help. Here are some things you can do:

• Send money. Do research and find local, on-the-ground organizations who are doing this work. 
• If you are on social media, talk about what you are hearing and seeing. Tell the truth to combat the false narrative. As folks on the ground have asked: “Eyes not Lies.” 

The Minneapolis organizers reminded us of the difference between symbolic action and disruptive disobedience. Symbolic action–like protests–have their place, but they alone are not going to get us anywhere. We all need to think about where we are plugged into the pillars of power–business, government, education–and how we can disrupt those pillars.  If you are at all connected to politicians, even local ones, call them and ask what they are doing. Tell them you don’t care that they don’t represent Minneapolis because we are all Minneapolis right now. We all represent Minneapolis. 

Local organizers and citizens are focused on Target because it is based there, and because it is complicit. Target is letting ICE agents come in and kidnap their workers. You might think, well it doesn’t matter if I boycott Target because I’m only one person. True, but what if your faith community asks  every community to which it’s connected to boycott Target? What if you ask every one of your colleagues to boycott? The message from our Minneapolis neighbors is that we all need to be much more aggressive in our nonviolent disruptions, while always making sure that those of us who are white are learning from, supporting, and following the movements led by endangered communities who have been waging this war for decades.  

My final message is the most important one: We need to lead with love. We need to keep our broken hearts soft and open.  Systematic violence is meant to cause fear, hatred, and despair.  Minneapolis is fighting back with love – love for their neighbors and love for their country.  On Friday, we stood at the airport in negative 20 degree weather supporting over 70 local clergy who were arrested protesting Delta Airlines’ complicity in the kidnappings and deportations. And as we stood there we sang, “You need to put one foot in front of the other, and lead with love. I know you’re scared; I’m scared too. But I am here, right next to you.” 

We need to mobilize and stand with Minneapolis as we continue to stand with our immigrant neighbors here and with all endangered communities across the country.  

Let’s lead with love. 

Lisa Holton is an interfaith minister who currently serves as a community minister at Judson Memorial Church and volunteers with the NYC-based mutual aid organization Mi Tlalli.

Matthew Nelson

First, I feel held by Judson. You have sent texts, emails, and messages on social media of support and solidarity. I feel held.

After a day of empowering witness, resistance, protest, march and a general strike, despair hit again quickly with the murder of Alex Pretti. But let me tell you stories of hope:

• Clergy flew in from all over the country–they were protesting at the airport, at corporate offices, and marching
• One of the wealthiest suburbs of Minneapolis is organizing food drives and deliveries to immigrant families. This is a community that stopped coming to downtown Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd
• The general strike asked people to not shop, not work, and not go to school. The roads in the Twin Cities were empty on Friday. Businesses had closed “in solidarity with our community”
• In my lowertown neighborhood of St Paul, we have quickly organized to help businesses understand their rights and how to keep employees and customers safe, to pressure public officials, to communicate needs, and to offer rapid response to ICE activity
• Even after the murder on Saturday, Minnesotans came out with candles on street corners, in windows, and gathered in neighborhood parks to share their grief, their anger, and songs of hope
• Addendum: January 26: The latest story of hope: Our new mayor is encouraging us to shop at ethnic markets, because their customer base is afraid to go out. I went to our local Super Mercado and was greeted at the locked door by two white women. After they assessed my intentions, I did my shopping. This is what community protection looks like for our neighbors and businesses in Minnesota!

And through all this, you have cared, supported, and loved us in Minnesota. I feel held.

Matthew Nelson is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He is retired from a career in nonprofit management and philanthropy. He is now based in St Paul, Minnesota but continues to be a proud member of Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

Erica Poellot

I am writing on the plane returning home, overwhelmed with hope by what I have witnessed this week. More than 600 other faith leaders from beyond Minnesota responded to the call to stand in solidarity with our siblings in Minneapolis who are being disappeared by ICE: to patrol the neighborhoods where children are being separated from their families, detained, and used as bait; to talk and pray with the neighbors standing vigil in the neighborhoods where mothers are being murdered. 

We flew in Wednesday afternoon, and were greeted with Midwestern love and warmth by our colleague and friend Matthew; a magical Minneapolis love that would appear again and again with each person we met. 

En route to our downtown hotels, we drove past the site where Renee Good was executed by ICE agents; a couple of weeks into the new year following a year where over 32 people died in ICE custody. As we drove past what could have been any suburban neighborhood just after the evening commute, I was struck by the weight of the silence in the air. Next to the memorial site, a single person tended a fire that burned in the dark, the only other light coming from holiday decorations still hanging on homes and trees up and down the street.

The next day, we met this silence again, this time in the Lake Street district as clergy paired off to patrol the neighborhoods for ICE agents, stopping to speak with the one person we encountered, a young woman standing watch across the street from the high school to help keep her neighbors and neighbors’ children safe. She said they had been told that clergy were coming to support them and suggested that we might find others to be in conversation with at the grocery store on the corner, the only business open in the immediate area, secured behind locked doors and flanked by security officers. Once we were inside, the silence and below freezing temperatures gave way to friendly conversation in Spanish, and neighbors gathered around the delicatessen counter from which they offered us cups of sweet, warm leche de arroz.

The silence that figured so prominently the first days in the city was hard to even recall in the days that would follow. Friday morning, we supported our MN-based clergy colleagues in an act of non-violent civil disobedience at the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport. At the organizers request, clergy from out of town were asked to not risk arrest, so as to ensure that the full body of legal resources could be made available to local clergy who had been leading this critical work for decades and would carry this work on long past our departure. The air that day was rich with protest songs, prayers, and the recitation of the many names of people terrorized and disappeared by ICE during this administration.

The spirit of song and embodied protest and prayer would continue throughout the weekend, as clergy joined crowds of Minnesotans in the tens of thousands in the streets, at post-march rallies, and actions in the public square across the whole of downtown.  Presence was felt as song, as prayer, and it eradicated the silence.

This journey was a chance to use our lives and relationships in follower-ship: to “stand between the powers of the world and our most vulnerable neighbors,”  to witness with this body of mine– recently resurrected– and testify that this love and connection, this interdependence, is always ours. This love belongs to all.

Erica Poellot is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), and serves as the Minister of Harm Reduction for the national UCC. She is the founder and executive director of Faith in Harm Reduction and a member of Judson Memorial Church in NYC.

The post Minneapolis Diary: This is What Community Looks Like appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

This past November, baristas turned up the heat in their campaign to unionize Starbucks by launching a nationwide multi-week strike to win a first union contract. Their escalation came after nearly four years of challenging shop-by-shop organizing across the country, Starbucks’ relentless union-busting tactics, numerous unfair labor practice violations filed against Starbucks at the National Labor Relations Board, and months of contract negotiations that brought the Unfair Labor Practice Strike that DSA has been supporting over the last 2 months.

DSA Los Angeles has been shoulder-to-shoulder with Starbucks workers in Los Angeles County for four years as they have worked meticulously to unionize stores across the region. The chapter has organized sip-ins, mass calls, panel discussions, and has turned out for rallies and pickets. Our consistent solidarity with Starbucks Workers United has helped the chapter build meaningful relationships with rank-and-file, member leaders, and staff organizers. These relationships and the trust that comes with them have been incredibly important during the ongoing strike, as DSA-LA has been the primary community partner supporting these striking baristas who are engaged in their longest work stoppage to date.

Over the last 2 months, DSA-LA members have walked the picket line at various stores, blocked delivery vehicles from making deliveries to Starbucks stores, and fed striking baristas throughout December with financial support from the Labor Solidarity Fund of DSA’s National Labor Commission. DSA-LA Socialists in Office, like City Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez, and LAUSD School Board member Dr. Rocío Rivas have been out walking the picket lines and rallying supporters during the strike, and DSA-LA-endorsed candidates like Marissa Roy, who is running for LA City Attorney, have used their platform to elevate a key action everyone can do to support Starbucks baristas: do not buy anything from Starbucks during the strike! 

Isabella S., a rank-and-file member of Starbucks Workers United and a DSA member, explains better than anyone the value and impact of DSA’s strike solidarity: 

Without community support much of our efforts as striking workers becomes moot. In order to effectively make change at Starbucks we need support from the community to pressure the company to return to the bargaining table by divesting their money from Starbucks and convincing others to not cross our picket line. DSA members have been among the most dedicated and inspiring supporters to join our picket. DSA-LA members help set up our picket, amplify our voices, and put into context what our actions are all about. Their support energizes me, makes me feel less alone, and demonstrates the power we can have if we show up as a community for each other. No one needs to struggle alone.

While in some areas across the country, Starbucks baristas have paused their strike activity and shifted to other tactics to advance the contract campaign, Los Angeles remains a key area for continuing the open-ended strike. As with any open-ended strike, there are challenges. Starbucks Workers United in Los Angeles is grappling with Starbucks escalating its use of scab labor at stores that have been shut down for nearly 2 months due to successful striking. This has meant that Starbucks baristas and DSA-LA have had to be flexible and adjust to changing dynamics on the ground, and explore additional tactics and avenues to bring the pressure on Starbucks to agree to the union contract that Starbucks baristas deserve. In January, a large contingent of Starbucks baristas went to the Los Angeles City Council to elevate their fight for a union contract and to demand that Los Angeles pass a Fair Work Week ordinance that includes workers at companies like Starbucks, Subway, Taco Bell, and other fast food chains that are often exempted from such ordinances. Councilmember Soto-Martinez, a DSA-LA Socialist in Office, is a proud champion for the ordinance Starbucks baristas are demanding in Los Angeles. 

With every week that goes by, it has been inspiring to see Starbucks baristas continue to take the bold and brave step of refusing to go to work until they are afforded the respect they deserve. These Starbucks baristas are in an open fight with a multi-national mega-corporation led by a greedy capitalist billionaire, and for that, their struggle is our struggle. DSA is proud to stand with Starbucks Workers United one day longer, one day stronger.

On December 6, 2025 on a partly cloudy morning when the sun was just starting to peek out and make itself known, community organizers and members from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), SEIU locals United Service Workers West (USWW) and 221, San Diego DSA, Indivisible San Diego, and a significant number of other community and labor organizations did not gather at the usual protest spaces of Waterfront Park or the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building. Instead we rallied in the heart of La Jolla, California— a high-end coastal enclave of luxury hotels, designer boutiques, and some of the most expensive homes in the county. In the curated scene of Ellen Browning Scripps Park, ACCE organizers in their signature yellow shirts filed into the park ready for a morning of chanting and marching. 

On this statewide day of action, 300 San Diegans proudly declared that the existing priority of “billionaires first” was unacceptable and we demanded an agenda of “People Over Billionaires.” Determined to not just be a crowd yelling at the clouds, we took the message right to their doorsteps. Neither La Jolla nor Ellen Browning Park were picked at random. In fact, the march route was carefully planned to ensure that the protest passed the home of the richest man in San Diego, Joe Tsai, founder of the AliBaba group and owner of several WNBA teams, as well as that of Andrew Viterbi, a co-founder of Qualcomm. While they try to insulate themselves from realities on the ground and the real life pain that they cause while enriching themselves, we decided to make ourselves heard, loud and proud.

A vibrant community space

Armed with yellow safety vests, flags, bullhorns, and inflatable costumes, community members from all over the county rallied around an impromptu stage and pop-up tents to hear speeches from community organizers working in a plethora of activist spaces from tenant organizing and labor unions to migrant rights and anti-surveillance work. Mariachi Cali scored the rally, performing familiar cultural anthems and providing customized intro and outro music for each speaker, transforming a manicured park into a vibrant community space.

After a number of speeches—including from Kyle Weinberg (director of the San Diego Educators Association), Ramla Sahid (Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, representing the Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) Coalition), and Tazheen Nizam (San Diego director of the Council on American Islamic Relations), it was time to take the streets. San Diego DSA had taken the initiative to provide safety marshals for this action, and after a quick but substantive safety brief with an SEIU 221 organizer the yellow vests were ready to take the streets. 

The route was only about two miles, starting on Girard Street right in front of Ellen Browning Park and up a small incline where our differently-abled comrades set the pace. We turned on to Prospect Street where stunned residents met our chants with intermixed looks of uncomfortable skepticism and support. Then we hooked a u-turn heading north and marched north past a number of high-end art galleries, jewelers, and eateries. Spirits were high as we passed diners with a look of shock that our protest dared to interrupt their brunch activities on a cool Saturday morning. Further down the road, we turned left onto Coast Boulevard and headed back towards the park, but not before occupying the mouth of Coast Walk Trail for a proud display of Latine culture. El Arcoiris del Sur, a local Baile Folclórico group, performed to the tune of the Mariachi band and gave their progressive take on Mexican cultural classic performances such as the Jarabe Tapatio. This closed us out before returning to Ellen Browning Park for a feast of burritos provided by USWW and tacos provided by ACCE. 

An ACCE organizer from the People Over Billionaire coalition assured us that there are more of us than there are of them and this will not be the last time the wealthy communities of San Diego get reminded that a community of workers makes the city run.

INTRODUCTION

Climate change is the issue that looms over all others. A livable planet is prerequisite to every policy goal. Without one, nothing else matters. Yet humanity has generally failed to meet the moment. Our addiction to growth, creature comforts, and heavy industry — most pronounced in the West — is driving us to the abyss. We live for the day, and forfeit tomorrow. As a result, our planet is hurtling toward irreversible tipping points — and may have already passed them. 

Our recklessness has eliminated entire species of animals and insects critical to our ecology, created countless climate refugees in parts of the world having already endured generations of colonized existence, and cost us billions (if not trillions) of dollars. Yet the political class has done little to mitigate this crisis. Many summits have passed. Task forces have convened. And what we have to show for it is the Paris Agreement— an unambitious, largely unbinding pledge that’s proven ineffective.

Climate change is a global problem. As such, it calls for international collaboration — especially between the world’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China. So far, that has been lacking. America has been all too happy to jettison cooperation for a policy of saber rattling and encirclement. Not only is the United States continually announcing the construction of new bases in the Asia-Pacific region, it pushes forward in a Cold War logic of seeking to humiliate China rather than honoring its basic needs and interests. Infamously, America sacrificed climate talks through Nancy Pelosi inflaming tensions over Taiwan and blatantly violating established precedent in US-China relations. Unfortunately, this has become the norm. The Americans would seemingly rather destroy the globe if it means winning a few political skirmishes with China and the Chinese people.

Such antagonism is incredibly distressing. As the world’s two largest emitters, the two powers should be working together to prevent and even reverse ecological breakdown. Quite literally everything depends on it. Instead, the U.S. has continued its ravaging of the environment for short-term economic gain when in fact, it should not only be working with China, but learning from the ways it has mitigated carbon emissions over the last few decades. It is clear Washington will not lead us into a more sustainable future. Beijing might.

UNCLEAN HANDS

In the 10 years since negotiators drafted the Paris Accords, the United States has been an unmitigated climate disaster. Less than a year after drafting, Americans elected a president who called climate change a Chinese hoax. Trump, once assuming power, began his regime by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The United States stood alone as the only “major emitter… to repudiate the agreement.” Of course, Trump was not done. He then moved to the domestic front. Trump allowed oil and gas drilling in wildlife refuges, coastal waters, and other formerly protected areas. A particularly sweeping executive order directed all federal departments to eliminate any rules restricting energy production. Further orders sought to accelerate “approval and construction of fossil fuel projects by limiting state environmental reviews.” And this just scratches the surface. A Pulitzer-winning environmental reporter described the first Trump administration as a “relentless drive toward fossil energy development.”

During those dark years, the White House suppressed “climate and related science” to conceal the harm of its boneheaded policies. The administration infamously “edited a major Defense Department report to downplay its climate findings.” It altered the contents of government websites to reduce public access to scientific data. While hiding the truth, Trump also muddied the waters via his own “climate denial and denigration of renewable energy.”

After him came Joe Biden, who supporters heralded as the first climate president. It was not to be. He let the world know early on that environmentalism was categorically not “his thing.” In March 2021:

Biden approved the Willow Project — an Alaska oil drilling venture of appalling scope. The development includes 200 oil wells connected by multiple pipelines.

Under Biden, the Department of Interior “auctioned an Italy-sized chunk of the Gulf of Mexico for drilling.” Biden also reopened “massive tracts of the Gulf for extraction.” Amazingly, the rate at which his administration approved oil permits actually outpaced Trump. Not to be outdone, Trump’s second term has arguably been the greatest calamity of all.

In Trump’s first 100 days this year, he instigated more rollbacks of environmental rules than during his entire first term. After Biden reentered the Paris Agreement, Trump again withdrew. He has earmarked massive expanses, including in the Arctic, for new drilling. After erroneously declaring a national “energy emergency,” Trump exempted dozens of coal-fired power plants from clean air rules. He also blocked “the approval of new solar projects and wind turbines, which he has called ‘ugly’ and ‘disgusting.’” In September, Trump revoked the $7,500 federal tax credits for electric cars. Analysts fear this could spell “big trouble” for the industry and, by extension, the environment.

The pace of destruction has been frenetic. On March 12th alone, “Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency… announced 31 actions” revising pollution standards projected “to save 200,000 lives.” The agency’s head, whose job is to protect the environment, celebrated “driving a dagger into the heart of… climate change.” And the worst is likely yet to come. “[T]he pressure on our regulatory system and our democracy will… ramp up,” said Michael Burger, a climate law scholar.

STARK CONTRAST

In addition to their climate malfeasance, radicalized Republicans are rabidly sinophobic. Relative to the current administration, previous American diplomats were sometimes more neutral on China. Just two years ago, special envoy on climate John Kerry advocated “genuine cooperation” between America and China on environmental issues. “China and the United States are the two largest economies in the world,” he stressed. “It’s clear that we have a special responsibility to find common ground.”

Naturally, the backlash from what became the new guard was fierce. Republican representative Michael McCaul of Texas criticized Kerry’s willingness to negotiate, labeling China “not an honest broker.” McCaul’s colleague Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, representing the far-right Freedom Caucus, attacked Kerry for caring about climate change at all. Perry dubbed global warming “a problem that doesn’t exist.” He then accused the scientific community of “grifting” — lying for pecuniary gain. Of course, this is not just false but highly hypocritical. If anyone is grifting, it’s Perry himself. His denialism probably has something to do with the massive bribes he gleefully accepts from the fossil fuel industry. Unfortunately, inmates like him are now running the asylum.

But the rot has infected members of both parties. Yes, Kerry has had lucid moments. But, overall, he too has a deeply flawed climate record. Under Barack Obama, Kerry abetted an administration which took “disastrous steps that worsened the climate crisis.” This included lifting “the ban on exporting crude oil… thanks to… multiyear lobbying efforts… by… industry groups.” Kerry was hardly a bulwark against special interests trying to destroy the environment.

Kerry also actively supports fracking, which belches methane — one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases — into the atmosphere. Moreover, as recently as 2020, Kerry led the advisory council of a bank that dumped massive sums into fossil financing. That’s not all. Kerry is notoriously weak on climate mitigation funds, insisting the United States can’t afford to assist the developing world. While special envoy on climate under Joe Biden, he said “under no circumstances” would America pay any climate reparations. This contradicts the advice of experts, including economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, who see reparations as necessary for ecological justice.

Yet, in a country as environmentally disastrous as the United States, Kerry seems like a climate hawk. America is history’s worst carbon emitter by far. Today, it ranks among the top per capita emitters according to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The United States also finds itself toward the very bottom of the Sustainable Development Index (SDI).

Compare that to China. UNEP data shows that China’s per capita emissions are 40% less than America’s. China also ranks 21 spots above the United States in the SDI. And the country is taking considerable steps to further green itself.

In the first four months of 2023, China added a whopping 62 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity. No other country has made comparable strides, with 80 percent of China’s new power capacity coming from renewable sources. China alone accounts for over 35 percent of all global investment in the transition to clean energy in 2021. These facts have led scholars, including the University of Michigan’s Tom Lyon, to remark that “green is everywhere in China.”

Rather than resting on its laurels, the Middle Kingdom is upping the ante. Even otherwise unsympathetic observers, including the capitalist press, cannot help but marvel. The Economist recently acknowledged that “[t]he scale of the renewables revolution in China is almost too vast for the human mind to grasp.” By the end of last year, “the country had installed 887 of solar-power capacity — close to double Europe’s and America’s combined capacity.” In 2024, it deployed over 24 million tons of steel to build new wind turbines and solar panels. This “would have been enough to build a Golden Gate Bridge on every work day of every week that year.”

Yet there is great room for improvement. Despite historic expansions in clean energy, China remains heavily dependent on dirty sources for its energy demands. Coal still comprises a majority of its energy production. Air pollution is consequently a major problem in Chinese cities. Sulfates fill the skies, typically tracing to coal and fuel oils. Their concentration peaked in the early 2010s, which commentators dubbed an “air-pocalypse.” But China got serious. As The Economist reports:

[C]hemical devices were installed to remove sulphur from the flue gases pumped out by power stations. These steps, along with others, greatly improved air quality in Chinese cities. Its citizens’ lungs are much the better for it, and their lives the longer.

But China’s “war against pollution” is far from over. When it comes to the most harmful particulate matter, China still vastly overshoots World Health Organization standards. This causes a slew of health problems including even premature deaths. Much of the blame for that, however, lies with the United States and its rich allies. As Roger Bybee, a Milwaukee-based freelance writer, explains in his article ‘Scapegoating China,’ “U.S.-based corporations, their contractors, and other Western multinationals… are responsible for a majority of China’s fossil-fuel effluents.” Economist Rob Larson makes a similar point in his book Bleakonomics. American multinationals, he writes, play a “crucial role in exporting polluting industries.” Consequently, residents of major Chinese cities often wear face masks to avoid inhaling harmful amounts of toxic smog.

But at least they wear them, rather than turning masks into a political maelstrom — as was, embarrassingly, the case here. The Trump administration demonized masking and vaccines, continuing its push against the latter to this day. China, meanwhile, treated the pandemic with requisite seriousness. It was easily the world’s largest producer of personal protective equipment, generously exporting excess supply to help other countries cope. While COVID ravaged America, and arguably still does, China conquered it — with a tiny fraction of the death rate. On public health, Beijing showcased its immense superiority.

Many have dubbed tensions between these two great powers, the United States and China, a “New Cold War.” This New Cold War mirrors the old one. In years past, for all its flaws, the Soviet Union led on guaranteeing basic social rights. Citizens enjoyed free college and healthcare alongside universal housing which basically abolished homelessness. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s Western counterparts — namely, the United States — spread death and destruction abroad as greed ran rampant domestically. The difference could not have been clearer. 

We see this contrast today too. As the United States descends into fascism, embracing old ways of thinking, China is revolutionizing itself for humanity’s betterment. The Middle Kingdom is greening industry, innovating technologically, and continues opening itself to the outside world. For all its flaws, chief among them cowardice (or indifference) amid Zionist criminality, China is leaping into the new age. In the New Cold War, it is plainly the preferable option. The choice is between civilization and barbarism. Socialists the world over should act accordingly.

LESSONS

There is much to learn from China’s successes. For one, they show the power of innovation. A common narrative in the West is that China is merely an appropriator, and not an originator. China, the story goes, ruthlessly poaches Western technology with little regard for intellectual property because it cannot solve problems itself. But “any doubts about China’s ability to produce… innovative solutions have been disproven with its rapid uptake of green technology.”

Look no further than its booming vehicle industry. Over the years, more than 500 electric car companies have sprouted in China. Although, for efficiency’s sake, that number is rapidly falling due to consolidation. China manufactures over 70% of the world’s electric cars and accounts for 40% of global exports. This is thanks partly to generous government subsidies and otherwise supportive policies to buttress that critical sector.

And that brings us to another common Western common narrative. It is the idea that capitalism promotes innovation better than any other economic system, with socialism paling in comparison. Yet China’s immense environmental progress was produced by a careful series of five-year state plans guiding a largely socialist economy. The ruling Communist Party does not allow the country to fall prey to the anarchy of the market. Its planning outlines $16 trillion of investment to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. A particularly noteworthy proposal is China’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan. It “aims to vigorously develop green finance… and integrate biodiversity data into… environmental disclosures and sustainability reports.”

There is a lesson here for the United States. More state intervention in the economy can work wonders, and breathe new life into this decaying power. The tools to do so already exist. One is the Defense Production Act, a congressional response to Harry Truman’s 1950s call to supply the Korean War effort. Today, the Defense Production Act is a powerful tool in the presidential arsenal to mobilize private industry to fulfill social priorities. 

Namely, “the executive branch could use the Defense Production Act… to accelerate the clean energy build-out.” Importantly, it could do so while bypassing Congress and subfederal authorities and “without regard to the limitations of existing law.” The ability to override contrary “federal, state, and local laws that privilege corporate short-termism” is bursting with promise.

But none of that matters absent the requisite political will. The United States remains committed to the path of climate doom. A bold transition to renewables is not on the horizon. The Green New Deal, though blindingly necessary, is nothing more than a few bits of paper. America is refusing to face the growing environmental crisis that threatens organized human life as we know it.

Therefore, the global masses — especially in developing nations, which are most at risk — look to China for vision and leadership. And the reason is clear. In staking our collective future, Beijing — and its commitment to expanding green energy — is a safer bet and steadier hand. There is no debate. And there never was.

Among the goals of the DSA Religion and Socialism Working Group are the following: to help members of the religious community who may be suspicious of socialism to understand what democratic socialism is and its relationship to various faith traditions and to help leftists who may be suspicious of the religious community to appreciate what religious socialists have to contribute to the movement. To that end, I hope some of us in the working group will share our own spiritual journeys that led us to socialism. As a Christian pastor and theologian, I am happy to share mine. 

Two Christianities 

First, let me be clear that there are actually two religions called “Christianity” that operate in the United States. There is the Christianity of the enslavers and there is the Christianity of the enslaved. They are not the same. Our nation began with the genocide of the First Nations and the enslavement of African people as a source of unpaid labor. This  was done by people who called themselves Christian. In order to justify their actions they developed a theology of white supremacy.  They constructed theories of race that claimed  Africans were inherently inferior to those of European descent. 

They developed “biblical” interpretations such as the myth of Ham. In their preaching to enslaved people they emphasized obedience above all, never liberation. In an attempt to prevent enslaved people from discovering the real contents of the Bible they published what were known as “slave bibles” that removed the liberating content such as Exodus, the prophets, the teachings of Jesus, and more. Contrary to the actual teachings of Jesus, they emphasized the salvation of individual souls for the afterlife, never bodies in this life. They saw sin as the result of individual choices, not social systems.  

Similarly this Christianity interpreted wealth through a quasi-Calvinist lens as a sign of divine election. (In his Institutes, Calvin claimed that the blessings of material wealth may be a sign of divine election or pre-ordained salvation but he also said that we cannot ever be sure of that. Sadly his Puritan followers rarely noted that nuance.) Wealth and poverty were ordained by God. To further support this theology, they wedded slaver Christianity to capitalism.  Private ownership was part of the divine order and included the right to own human beings. The heirs of this theology are still with us in the more blatantly white supremacist forms of white evangelicalism and  the MAGA movement. But even much of liberal or progressive theology still suffers from its influence. 

Yet even from the beginning, there was another form of Christianity in the United States, the Christianity of the enslaved. Beginning with what was known as the “Invisible Institution,”  this was the Christianity of liberation. Long after the enslavers had gone to sleep at night the enslaved would engage in a whole different form of worship. Meeting secretly, they would tell each other the stories of the Exodus, of God’s people breaking free from slavery, about the words of the prophets promising liberation, and of slavery itself as an evil God condemned. (For more information about these two wildly different Christianities, see Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The “Invisible Institution” in the Antebellum South.) The heirs of this theology are also with us today in some black churches and in Black Liberation Theology.  

My Journey from Liberal to Liberation Theologian

My own U.S. Christian journey began as a white woman born in the 1950s into a segregated white middle-class home. My grandparents were fundamentalists whereas my parents were what was then known as modernists and now would be called liberals or progressives.  The theological debates that I was exposed to were part of a conflict within white Christianity that began earlier in the century known as the “fundamentalist- modernist controversy.” Conversations around our dinner table centered around questions of faith versus reason. Was the Bible the literal word of God to be read as an inerrant text or was it a human production? Are miracles such as virgin birth, bodily resurrection, etc. to be understood literally or as metaphors? Was the world literally created in seven days as Genesis has it or was Darwin right about evolution? Can religion and science be reconciled? 

All of these issues are still alive in our country today, but none of these debates address what I would call our foundational sins of genocide and slavery. The white liberalism that I was raised with was designed to address concerns about reason and progress not questions of race or economic class.

When I moved to New York City where I eventually attended Union Theological Seminary, my thinking changed. I had the enormous privilege of being able to earn my Ph.D. in theology with the late Dr. James H. Cone, widely known as the father of Black Liberation Theology, as my academic mentor. I learned that, for him and for the much larger community he represented, what mattered was not the problem of faith versus reason but the problem of the non-person in society. For him that meant black people. He conceived of blackness as both literal and ontological. It was literal because, worldwide, oppressed people were more likely than not to have darker skin than others. But it was also ontological in that it was a state of being oppressed. In this way the principles of Black Liberation Theology could also be applied to other oppressed groups such as indigenous people, Asians, women, LGBTQIA+ people, and more. In other words, all of what we now call intersectionality is rooted in white supremacy and God is a God of the oppressed not a justifier of the oppressor. (For more about blackness as the state of being oppressed, see James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed.)

That is why my faith practice centers on anti-racism. For me, spiritual growth means learning how life as a white woman in the United states has led to an internalized whiteness, how that whiteness has created malformations in my spirit, and how I might begin to grow past it, even while knowing that the work will never be complete in my lifetime.

My work as a liberation theologian involves teaching and learning in the global South (currently in Liberia and Burma) as well as in the city of New York. Having witnessed what  oppression does to God’s children I cannot grow closer to my God without doing my part to try to end that oppression. For me spiritual practice involves not only prayer and meditation but social activism, doing what I can to work toward a better world where oppression ends and all people can thrive. 

From Liberation Theologian to Democratic Socialist 

That yearning for a better world brought me to democratic socialism. In my conversations with Cone about socialism he made it clear that he was not a Marxist. He had two reasons for that. First, he was suspicious of all white Eurocentric sources and second, he found that Marxist historical materialism did not account for the role of black culture and experience in empowering black people for liberation. (In this respect it should be noted that he differed from Latin American theologians such as Gustavo Gutierrez for whom Marx was a major philosophical source.)

Although he in fact refused an invitation to join one of DSA’s predecessor organizations, I believe that at heart Cone was a socialist. He had no use for an economic system designed to oppress his people and acknowledged that a just society would have to involve “some form of socialism.” He never specified what form of socialism that would be.  I, however, choose to support democratic socialism with the major caveat that we need to do a much better job with race.

Unlike some of my comrades in the (let’s be honest, still majority white) DSA I will always put race ahead of class in my power analysis. That is because our two foundational sins as a nation, the genocide of the First Nations and the enslavement of the African people, were both racial.

White supremacy and racialized capitalism deprive us all, oppressed and oppressor alike, of our humanity. Internalized whiteness has damaged my soul. Therefore, my own salvation is tied up with learning how to better connect with my fellow human beings and with the earth. That means deconstructing white supremacy and all of its intersections including racialized capitalism. This means moving from the  individualist perspective that all too easily justifies oppression to more of a collectivist point of view, no longer seeing human beings merely in terms of their production value but in terms of their intrinsic worth, no longer seeing myself as one who needs to dominate others in order to have a sense of self but as one whose worth comes from my common humanity with others and as a part of something much greater than all of us, a loving universe created by a loving God in which all souls can thrive. 

This is my story. I hope that my telling it will help others to understand why a person of faith would choose to be a socialist. I hope other religious socialists from other faith traditions will share their journeys as well.

The post A Christian Journey Towards Socialism appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

Atlanta DSA condemns the murder of Renee Good, the violence ICE has brought to Minneapolis and other communities, and the racist, authoritarian immigration enforcement regime that made this killing possible.

On January 7th, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis while she was exercising her right to protest. This comes just days after an ICE agent murdered Keith Porter, a black man, in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. ICE, created within the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11, has long used raids, detention, and deportation to terrorize black, brown, and immigrant communities, facilitating systematic human rights abuses and deaths. ICE does not keep people safe; it cages and kills them. Today, ICE functions as the secret police force of an increasingly authoritarian state, granting masked armed agents sweeping powers to strongarm local governments and surveil, harass, and arbitrarily arrest working-class people.

The murder of Renee Good — an unarmed activist peacefully observing ICE operations — shows an agency that treats public scrutiny as a threat to be eliminated. ICE’s immigration enforcement operations must be halted immediately. ICE must be stripped of funding, its detention network dismantled, its political power broken, and the agency itself abolished. In its place, this country must build a system rooted in unconditional respect for migrants’ human rights, family unity, and free movement—not militarized borders and mass incarceration.

We are reminded of the similar killing of Tortuguita by the Georgia State Patrol three years ago during an extended campaign to protect vital forest and public space. The red thread of violence weaved between local, state, and federal law enforcement on our bodies, especially queer and black and brown bodies, strangles us from Minnesota to Georgia. Our collective resistance inflames these tools of capital because it reminds us that our liberation comes when we are all free.

Atlanta DSA stands in solidarity with Renee Good’s family, with immigrant communities in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and across the country, and with all those resisting ICE violence. Twin Cities DSA is joining a broad coalition of unions and community groups to call for a day of action on January 23rd to shut down the city and demand that ICE get OUT of Minnesota! We encourage our communities to donate to the grassroots organizations on the front lines organizing resistance against ICE, including Tending the Soil in Minnesota and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights. On Tuesday, January 20th, the DSA National Labor Commission is hosting a national call and phone bank in support of the January 23rd day of action.

We call on our members, our labor and community allies, and elected officials to join us in the struggle to defund, disarm, and abolish ICE, and for ICE to leave immigrant communities in Minneapolis and nationwide immediately, because the only people qualified to protect these communities are the citizens, the workers, the parents, and the families who live in them.

This past fall, I watched the fourth and latest installment of the Jurassic World franchise, Jurassic World: Rebirth (hereafter, Rebirth). Jurassic World is a sequel franchise to Jurassic Park, launched by the classic film of the same name in 1993. In the original Jurassic Park, a wealthy businessman, John Hammond, creates a theme park on a remote island with dinosaurs resurrected (or de-extincted) through genetic engineering from dinosaur DNA recovered from prehistoric mosquitos trapped in resin. Hammond invites two paleontologists, Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, to review the park and give Hammond their scientific recommendation to boost his park’s reputation. Unfortunately, the genetically resurrected dinosaurs end up escaping their confines and terrorizing the humans. Jurassic Park has become synonymous with the dangers of the misuse of science, which is explored in more detail in the two sequel films of the original franchise.

The first film of the sequel franchise, Jurassic World (2015), delves more into the theme of misuse of science for the sake of economic profit. A new park is created many years later by the same company, InGen, which starts to create increasingly more monstrous dinosaurs to revive the novelty of the park and increase profit from ticket sales. Eventually, one of the genetically modified dinosaurs, Indominus Rex, gets out and chaos ensues. Themes of animal rights are also implicit in a striking scene in the first Jurassic World film. Vic Hoskins, head of InGen security, portrayed as enthusiastically supporting using velociraptors as weapons of war because they “can follow directions,” convinces the protagonist, Owen Grady, to use the velociraptors to track the renegade Indominus Rex. When the velociraptors catch Indominus Rex, with the human characters watching in the background, the semi-sapient velociraptors and I. Rex communicate with each other and conspire to betray the humans. 

This scene could be interpreted as the dinosaurs revolting against the humans to avoid becoming slaves in a biotech military-industrial complex. To drive the point home, Hoskins is eventually eaten by a velociraptor, a common fate of greedy corporate characters in the franchise. The slogan “eat the rich” is literal in these films. 

A pattern throughout both franchises is a dichotomy between the corporate characters interested in profiting off the dinosaurs and those who see the dinosaurs as intrinsically valuable and want them to be left alone so that they can have the best chance of survival. Another example of the former is Peter Ludlow, the CEO of InGen in the second film, The Lost World: Jurassic Park who has a T. Rex transported to San Diego to start a new theme park. In contrast, Hammond is an example of the latter. He is portrayed as an idealist who wants to bring back the dinosaurs to give humanity humility and perspective. 

Implicit in both franchises are different perspectives on the role of technology.  In the former case, exemplified by corporate characters, technology is for extracting value from nature, seen as a warehouse of raw materials for human production and consumption, through exploitation of natural resources. In the latter case, exemplified by Hammond and most scientist characters in the films, technology is to help us to gain humility and perspective on our true place in the cosmos. 

A real-world example of using technology to help us gain humility and perspective from appreciating nature is the famous pale blue dot image of Earth. In 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, on its way out of the solar system, was told to turn its cameras to look back at Earth. Voyager 1 recorded Earth as only a point of light suspended in a sunbeam. In this way, a robotic spacecraft was used to remind us of our true place, small and fragile in a vast universe. 

In the real world, the for-profit company Colossal Biosciences wants to resurrect long extinct animals, such as woolly mammoths, to restore ecosystems and even fight climate change. It could be argued that this is misguided, but it is certainly a mission-driven, not profit-driven, enterprise because there is currently not a business case for resurrecting woolly mammoths.

The challenge is that although many tech startup founders seem to genuinely seek to benefit humanity and the planet, they operate within an economic system that is based on accumulating profit for investors. Many startups interested in sustainable or “eco-friendly” technology are shaped implicitly or explicitly by eco-modernism. Eco-modernism is better than mere capitalist extractivism in its emphasis on environmental sustainability but falls short because it fails to question the underlying assumptions of the ideology of economic growth for its own sake that undermine environmental sustainability efforts. Religion could play a role in shifting from eco-modernism to true ecological solidarity that encourages the necessary structural changes.

Many religious traditions emphasize our connection to the planet and the importance of nature as God’s creation. They also warn against the folly of seeking wealth as the ultimate source of fulfillment. This outlook is common within Indigenous communities. Also, within Christianity, my background, there is a strong tradition of seeing humans as stewards of God’s creation, particularly in the tradition of Saint Francis of Assisi and the work of modern eco-theologians such as  Leonardo Boff and Sallie McFague who have argued that a healthy relationship with nature is essential to a robust spirituality. More recent religious statements such as Laudato Si by Pope Francis II also emphasize the importance of caring for the planet as a human calling and warn against the dangers of environmental destruction in the name of avarice.

Such religious traditions could help to inspire an approach to technology where the main goal is not expanding capitalist production but to remind us of our place in the cosmos, encourage humility and a non-anthropocentric perspective, and improve the wellbeing and flourishing of humanity and the planet. 

A social movement that embodies such a view of technology is the convivial technology movement founded by Ivan Illich, which inspired the creation of human-scaled technologies to promote individual and communal autonomy. Other examples include the indigenous-led Buen Vivir movement in South America, which encourages living in an ecologically sensitive relationship with nature, and the Red Deal, an Indigenous political proposition that includes restructuring the world economy around, among other things, ecological solidarity rooted in an Indigenous worldview.

It could be said that capitalism currently functions as a global religion. Specifically referencing ecology and biotech, do we want a world that looks like Jurassic World, where dinosaurs are exploited for profit often to the endangerment of human beings, or one that looks more like, say the ending of Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, where humans and talking animals together live freely and in peace? It will depend on what we end up worshiping.

The post Jurassic Park, Ecological Justice, and the Technological Future appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

The Baton Rouge DSA chapter passed a ban on the use of generative AI for chapter materials. Emerging AI technologies are extractive tools being used to further suppress the working class. Socialists must make a conscientious effort not to use AI.

 “We are not responsible for the issue. It is not of our seeking. It has been forced upon us; and for the very reason that we deprecate violence and abhor […]

The Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is appalled at the news of ICE agents murdering a legal observer in Minneapolis on January 7. This escalation is just the next in a long string of escalating violence and oppression from ICE specifically and law enforcement in general. ICE has repeatedly demonstrated that they do not protect working people, they serve the fascist regime taking hold of our country to continue advancing their racist capitalist agenda.

Over the last year, ICE has been on a rampage across multiple cities, including here in Columbus. We’ve seen firsthand how their presence makes people feel more scared, not safer. ICE has demonstrated that fear not safety is in fact their goal, and we have seen now where this fear campaign was always headed.

Our chapter has an active campaign to convince local governments not to support federal agents when they inevitably come back to terrorize working residents in Central Ohio once again. This tragic incident is proof that this work continues to be critical. To get involved in the fight, join us at an upcoming meeting to see the work we’re doing to change the way our cities protect immigrants. Check out our calendar of events here: https://www.columbusdsa.org/events/

Also keep an eye out on local channels for other ways to protect our community and show solidarity with those most directly targeted by this regime. This violence is a clear reminder that those who are sworn to protect and serve are not serving us, the people. We must double down on our knowledge that it is on us, the working class, to keep each other and our communities safe, and to do that successfully we must work together.

(see the statement on Instagram)