The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are joining calls demanding the release of Islamic Society of Milwaukee president Salah Sarsour after nearly a dozen ICE agents detained him on March 30.

Sarsour is a community leader. He is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., where he has lived for decades with his wife and family without any criminal record. ICE’s ongoing terror tactics in our communities over alleged foreign policy threats and flimsy constructions of legal status continue to harm more Milwaukee families than any of the agency’s now-displaced victims.

“ICE and the Trump administration are attempting to instill fear and division,” Milwaukee DSA co-chair Andy Barbour said. “We must stand together in solidarity, using our might as the working class to oppose the violence directed at our communities.”

Milwaukee DSA recognizes the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) role in violently suppressing political dissent in the U.S., especially when that dissent concerns support for the Palestinian struggle. We see clearly the danger posed by Sarsour’s detention in the so-called “land of the free” over a decades-old conviction by a foreign military court with a more than 95% conviction rate and a history of torture and abuse.

“Our hearts go out to Salah Sarsour and his family as he faces illegal and inhumane detention,” Milwaukee DSA co-chair Autumn Pickett said. “We reaffirm the call of DSA leaders like gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong and District 3 alderman Alex Brower to abolish ICE.”

Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting against imperialism for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

Over the Christmas and New Year holidays, I re-watched the films of George Lucas’s Star Wars science fiction franchise. Although Star Wars is very well-known, it also has been almost 50 years since it first came out, so a quick synopsis is that it starts with a galaxy under the rule of a democratic but ineffectual government called the Galactic Republic. Internal strife and an outbreak of civil war lead to a politician, Palpatine, being able to seize absolute power and install himself as Galactic Emperor. The formation of the Galactic Empire inspires the rise of the Rebel Alliance. Over the decades, the franchise has produced nine films, which have a timeless quality, showing little awareness of current political and cultural trends but being archetypical enough that many of its themes can be applied to contemporary challenges.

The drivers of the story are individuals who are sensitive to a semi-sentient spiritual force (i.e., the Force). The concept of the Force is influenced by animism and eastern mysticism (George Lucas identifies as a “Buddhist Methodist”). The Force is variously described as being generated either mystically by all living things or by special cells in the body called midi-chlorians. Those born sensitive to the Force can sense the feelings (empathy) and thoughts (telepathy) of others as well as control matter through telekinesis. It seems also that mastery of the Force can be attained either through controlling one’s passions or embracing them fully. The latter leads to the “Dark Side of the Force.”  

At the start of the franchise, this Force has become the focus of two diametrically opposed religious orders of light-saber wielding warrior monks. The Jedi seek to control their desires to focus their use of the Force toward duty and selfless service to others in order to bring peace and justice to the galaxy. The Sith, on the other hand, embrace the Dark Side of the Force and use it to accumulate power for themselves. Palpatine turns out to be a Sith who almost destroys the Jedi through the help of the Jedi-turned Sith Anakin Skywalker, who is renamed Darth Vader when he becomes a Sith. Darth Vader betrays the Jedi but at the end of Episode VI turns back to good and gives his life to save his Jedi son, Luke Skywalker, and defeat Emperor Palpatine. Vader could be seen as a sort of dark messiah who overcomes evil through self-sacrifice after turning good. 

In re-watching the films, I was interested in the ways that both the Jedi and the Sith play a significant role in transforming the galactic civilization. The Jedi act as guardians of the Republic, safeguarding peace and justice. When the greedy Trade Federation attempts to invade the peaceful planet Naboo to exploit its natural resources in Episode I, the Jedi are called in to negotiate with the Trade Federation, though negotiations turn out to be short. When a league of separatists (instigated by the Sith) begins to threaten the Republic, the Jedi intervene at the First Battle of Geonosis in Episode II, albeit with the help of a clone army. It is also ultimately a Jedi who defeats Galactic Emperor Palpatine in Episode VI and restores peace and freedom to the galaxy.

The role of the Jedi is not limited to politics and society. It is also implied that they play a role in the accumulation of knowledge and the advancement of science. The Jedi Library on the urban planet Coruscant contains all knowledge known by the galactic civilization. In the Expanded Universe, which contains novels and games created by fans to expand on the canonical films, there are Jedi researchers who specialize in specific scientific fields, including archaeology, linguistics, geology, astronomy, and biology.

Other than the obvious role of the Sith in creating the Galactic Empire, it is also implied that the Sith actively encourage capitalistic exploitation and extractivism. In the recent Disney Star Wars spinoff shows such as Andor, Imperial officers talk of “profit.” A major plot element of Andor is the Galactic Empire inciting unrest on the planet Ghorman to create pretense for genocide so that the Empire can remove the current  population and strip-mine the planet for a valuable mineral, kalkite.

Intriguingly, the Sith never appear to indulge in the luxuries that come from ruling an empire. Their lifestyle remains austere and monastic. In this way, they resemble Karl Marx’s description of early capitalists in volume I of Capital. The capitalists see themselves only as profit-making machines and shun indulging in the profits for the sake of luxury because that would make them less competitive. In this way, the Sith resemble the ideal capitalist. They have made exploitation and oppression for their own sake a calling as much as the Jedi have made peace and justice a calling.

The actions of the Jedi and the Sith are reflected in real-world religious orders. Because it is my background, I will focus on examples from the Christian tradition.  One specific example is the Jesuits, who have a mixed history both in opposing and reinforcing imperialist oppression and exploitation at different times. An example of the latter is the role of the Jesuits in the Spanish conquest of Guam in the 17th and 18th centuries, where Jesuits acted as agents of Spanish colonialism, encouraging militarization, forced Catholicization, and replacement of the Indigenous culture with European culture. In contrast, the Jesuits have also been advocates and protectors of Indigenous people in Latin America, trying to shield them from the worst excesses of Spanish and Portuguese imperialism during reduccion (forced relocation). 

More recently, Jesuits have worked to oppose European and U.S. imperialism in Latin America as shown by figures such as Ignacio Ellacuria in El Salvador and Ernesto Cardenal in Nicaragua. Jesuits have also distinguished themselves through their work as scientists, such as the planetary astronomer Guy Consolmagno and his work on meteorites, and activists for global peace, such as anti-Viet Nam war activists Daniel and Philip Berrigan (a Josephite).

It is less common for religious orders to make specific social causes their primary mission in the way that the Jedi, but there are modern examples, such as the multi-faith Order of the Sacred Earth which was founded specifically to advocate for protection of the environment and lacks connection to a specific religious tradition.

In this way, the order of the Sacred Earth draws on both science and faith to work toward justice and peace. Lutheran theologian Thomas Hoffman has proposed the concept of exomissiology, the investigation of possible dialogue with extraterrestrials about religion in a way that resists imperialism and colonialism, preserving cultural diversity and autonomy. 

Today, most religious orders are in decline, but members of religious orders continue to inspire real social change. Historically, religious orders have been at the cutting edge of mysticism and spiritual development. Religious orders are likely to continue to have an influence on the direction of spirituality and religion even if they are no longer as influential as they were in the past.  

Throughout history, religious orders have played both the role of the Jedi in being guardians of peace and justice and agents of social and scientific progress and of the Sith as agents of oppression and exploitation, shaping the course of their respective religions. Modern religions must decide whether they will choose the path of the Jedi or the Sith. Our future may depend on it.

The post The Jedi, Religious Orders, Social Progress, and the Advancement of Knowledge appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

Purpose

The Moderation Appeal Procedure provides a step by step process for members if they disagree with a moderation action. 

Procedure Steps

1. Discuss in direct messages with the Moderator, and other Moderators, about why the moderation action was taken.
2. Review applicable policies: Online Code of Conduct, Internal Communication and Moderation 
3. If you belive that moderator(s) have a pattern of wrongful moderation which targets:
   1. you specifically 
   2. a particular political view within the “Big Tent” of DSA 
   3. persons based on protected class listed in Resolution 33

Then contact the HGO(s) via grievance.mkedsa@gmail.com  to discuss and/or file a formal grievance HGO(s) will follow Procedure: Harassment and Grievances. Consult this procedure for more information about the grievance process

4. If, after pursuing (1) and (2) you believe that a post of yours was wrongfully moderated, but this moderation was not part of a pattern of targeted wrongful moderation, then you should contact the HGO via grievance.mkedsa@gmail.com and include:
   1. “moderation appeal” in the subject line.
   2.  Information about the post that was moderated
   3. Screenshots of your discussion with the moderators  
   4. Your concerns relative to the policies (see 2) 
5. HGO(s) will review the moderation decision.
   1. HGO(s) should assess if the situation would be more properly handled as a grievance and take appropriate action if so. 
   2. HGOs can access deleted messages in the deleted messages channel of Discord.  
   3. HGO(s) may reach out to the member if more information is needed
6. HGO(s) will discuss the reasoning behind the moderation action with the Moderator(s) who made the moderation action. 
7. HGO(s) will assess the moderation action based on the applicable policies related to community standards 
8. HGO(s) will inform the members and Moderators of the assessment. They may further pursue any of the following as appropriate:
   1. re-educate member and/or Moderators about MKE DSAs applicable standards and polices
   2. Instruct Moderators to reverse the moderation action
   3. Instruct removal of “strikes” against a member
   4. any other appropriate actions or recommendations 

Popular education is a method of teaching that centers the voices of students starting from their unique perspectives and situations.

The post How to use popular education to build worker power appeared first on EWOC.

By a Comrade

This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups. 

Welcome to Vol. 8 of the monthly round-up! The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

MADSA Annual Convention a Success

The chapter held our annual convention on the evening of Friday March 20th and the full day of Saturday, March 21st. MADSA members elected new leadership for the coming year, voted to continue many working groups, and debated and passed resolutions that will shape how the chapter does its work this year and beyond. Below are 3 key themes from this year’s convention.

1. Organizing Everyday People, Especially Labor

This convention passed several exciting proposals around mobilizing everyday worker power. One was a major resolution setting clear goals around a “rank and file” worker organizing strategy. In short, key goals include: increasing organizing discussions in people’s unionized and non-unionized workplaces; taking specific actions to help existing unions become more active and socialist; taking steps towards a mass labor action on May 1, and building further potential for mass labor actions; and leveraging MADSA’s worker power for building new unions, pulling existing union members towards socialism, and building coalitions within and between unions. The resolution emphasizes a move away from convincing formal labor leadership, and towards supporting rank-and-file workers in taking concrete steps for socialist organizing in their specific context.

The convention also ratified a Community Defense Working Group, which will be taking the main role in guiding MADSA’s STRIKE ICE OUT actions. The group will emphasize community education, non-violent neighborhood mobilizing, mutual aid, and strike preparation. Specific goals for the working group include providing materials and trainings, doing administrative tasks for maintaining neighborhood group chats across the city, encouraging in-person meetings between neighbors, disseminating information from other reliable sources (Voces, MTI, and Comite Sin Fronteras), supporting tenant organizing, and helping build towards a May 1st major labor action / general strike.

2. Electoral Work

Members voted to continue the Program Working Group, which is developing a formal platform with the key viewpoints and priorities of MADSA as a chapter. This work will be helpful in guiding MADSA’s collaboration with political candidates, and when deciding how to prioritize projects in the face of unprecedented growth in membership. 

Members also passed a resolution to build DSA’s capacity as an independent political party. The resolution included a continuation of this past year’s electoral work, while also adding features like additional political education in the “off-season,” and collaboration with the Labor Working Group around research and explicit support of policy that improves labor rights.

Lastly, members passed a resolution reaffirming the chapter’s commitment to Palestinian liberation and anti-Zionism. This resolution mandates that any program, platform, and/or candidates endorsed by MADSA “must support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, refrain from any and all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups, pledge to oppose legislation that harms Palestinians and support legislation that supports Palestinian liberation.”

3. Improving Chapter Functions

Lastly, several convention items focused on improving the running of our chapter. A spirited discussion took place around the accessibility of meetings. One particular area of concern has been disability access, including – but not limited to – variable masking requirements at different meetings. Another topic was improving support for working parents within the chapter, who face additional barriers to participating in regular meetings. On Saturday, members discussed a proposal and an amendment around accessibility issues, and they ultimately decided to table the final vote until the April general membership meeting.

Several resolutions did pass related to the running of the chapter, including: 

• Changes to certain chapter rules and processes, including standing meeting rules;
• Creating a cohort model for welcoming and onboarding new members to the chapter;
• Creating some editorial practices and increased structure for Red Madison, to improve responsiveness and to foster more participation in the publication. 

A resolution around creating a process for formal coalition-building with external groups did not pass, after significant discussion and debate. 

MADSA Attends “No Kings”

Members of the chapter recently attended the No Kings protest on March 28th, with the goal of being a visible socialist presence, handing out materials, and talking to interested crowd members about action steps for being politically engaged and effective. In preparation for the march, MADSA had organizing meetings, an art build on 3/27, and a crowd canvassing training emphasizing “NO ICE, NO WAR, NO BILLIONAIRES!” 

Several MADSA members gave speeches at the protest! You can see them here, and shorter clips will be posted on Instagram in the coming week.

ICE Out Efforts Continue

MADSA continues to coordinate information about trainings and events, and neighborhood group chats, via the Strike Out ICE hub. Check it out here, and keep your eyes out for the newsletter in your inbox! 

A major next step in the process is the Madison Worker’s Assembly on April 4th. This is an opportunity for the community to come together and reflect on goals and strategies for mass labor action.

Additional Organizing

Other important efforts this month included the following:

• Labor Working Group hosted a Strike Studies event on 3/2; the next one is on April 6th.
• MADSA hosted a panel discussion titled Against Empire: A Socialist Conversation on Imperialism on 3/26 – a topic that is especially relevant given current events.
• MADSA held an Affordable Housing Panel, featuring local organizers and elected officials on 3/27 – video here!
• The Program Working Group had an event on one of the planks in MADSA’s developing platform – public transit! This took place on 3/31.
• There was a one-off reading group on 3/23 focusing on two short texts by Alexandra Kollontai, focusing on the intersection of Marxism and feminism. 

And coming soon:

• MADSA is starting to prepare for another Queer Liberation March, with a meeting planned for 4/4.
• DSA made plans to attend the upcoming May Day Strong Solidarity School, preparing for a May 1st day of mass labor action / general strike – this is scheduled for April 11th.

Social Events

We continue hosting recurring social events – DSA 101, Coffee with Comrades, and the Rosebuddies program. MADSA Run Club is making a return on Sundays as the weather warms up!

Protest Song of the Month

For this month’s song, have a 1913 tune by Joe Hill, We Will Sing One Song.

• Video here of a modern cover.
• More about Joe Hill here.

And that concludes our monthly round-up!

“The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity.” – Karl Marx, “Estranged Labour,” Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

Writing is one of the most important inventions in human history. It allowed us to build civilizations, to coordinate social structures across vast distances, and to fuel humanity’s social, political, and scientific development into the modern age. Thanks to the written word, we can read the exact thoughts of scholars who lived many thousands of years ago, communicate complex ideas to millions of people, and build the democratic political movements capable of remaking society for the benefit of working people.

It has never been more important to preserve and expand our ability to write and communicate clearly. Original writing is now being severely devalued by a current of anti-intellectualism, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and an unprecedented public disinvestment in education. This is why Midwest Socialist wants to encourage Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in the greater Midwest to develop their own skills at writing and communication.

Learn, Learn, and Learn Again

During the heyday of the democratic socialist movement in the first two decades of the twentieth century, deep engagement with Marxist theory was considered a prerequisite to leading workers in their struggle against oppression. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Eugene Debs, Antonio Gramsci, and countless others spent years developing tomes of political theory while they organized tirelessly to overthrow capitalism. They did not see organizing and theorizing as two separate activities, but as two integral parts of the same effort.

In the twentieth century, socialist governments considered mass political education an essential step in building a post-capitalist society. In 1961, Cuba sent 250,000 educated people into the countryside to teach millions of poor workers and campesinos to read, virtually eliminating illiteracy on the island within a few short years. The methods developed during this campaign served as an example for the entire Global South, and the model was successfully implemented in other countries around the world.

Socialist states with highly literate populations took this idea a step further. In East Germany, government-sponsored programs established spaces to encourage workers to express themselves creatively, including through prose and poetry. These programs would have been considered wasteful and useless in a capitalist society, but the socialist government of that country saw value in the political development of the working class through creative pursuits.

Closer to home, universal public education is one of the greatest surviving accomplishments of the working class movement in the United States. The collective knowledge of humanity is our birthright as working people, and it is our responsibility to engage with these ideas and educate ourselves.

A Hollow Education

The relevance of political broadsheets and hand-printed pamphlets has declined precipitously in the last hundred years, but the necessity to write clearly and convincingly has not. We live in a time when a significant percentage of young Americans are falling behind in school, when college students at our nation’s most prestigious universities are incapable of reading a whole book, and when AI is taking away the livelihoods of creative and intellectual laborers on an unprecedented scale. In this context, reading, writing, and learning have taken on new significance.

Public schools are under attack in the U.S. Compounding the damage of decades of chronic disinvestment, Republicans and Democrats alike have established charter school systems across the country that take state money to fund academies – often with reactionary pedagogical mandates –  and predatory, unstable for-profit schools through “school voucher” programs. These efforts take away resources from public schools and leave students behind. This is in addition to the current administration’s broad anti-intellectual right-wing attacks on science, history, tolerance in the classroom, and the basic principle that education should serve students rather than the state’s extremist political agenda.

Furthermore, all modern forms of mass media are deliberately constructed to turn working people into passive consumers of carefully curated political messages that shut out the possibility of radical change. They shamelessly promote unjust and insane wars, give billionaires and their servants unlimited airtime and space to advance their own agendas while marginalizing progressive voices, attempt to smear left-wing candidates for public office, and turn people away from transformative social and political structures.

AI is just the most recent extension of the centuries-long effort to control what working people know, think, and feel. A recent meta-study by the Brookings Institute highlights the dangers of using this untested technology in classrooms. Evidence is mounting that students and adults alike suffer a “cognitive debt” when they over-rely on chatbots to perform intellectual tasks, rendering them incapable of the basic skills needed to function in society and sharply limiting their ability to develop any kind of meaningful political consciousness.

This is why Midwest Socialist does not accept AI-generated writing and strongly discourages the use of AI writing programs. For too many, an ‘AI-assisted’ piece of writing is the end of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. It is an excuse not to engage with ideas, a way to treat essays and creative writing projects as problems to be solved, published, and put away as quickly as possible rather than an exercise in critical thinking and creativity. In this context, the adage “if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I can’t be bothered to read it” takes on new meaning.

At a time when it appears possible to offload every intellectual exertion to an unthinking machine, engaging with ideas seriously and honestly is quickly becoming a revolutionary act in itself. Despite all the hype from tech companies, working people are still quite skeptical that AI will benefit society in the long run. We can consciously reject the implementation of technologies that don’t serve the needs of the working class.

Why We Write

“Our task is to make thinkers out of fighters and fighters out of thinkers.” – General Gordon Baker, revolutionary educator

All progressive transformation finds its energy from the creative labor of working people. To give an example from American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the face of the New Deal and arguably its most important champion, but he did not implement it. It required legions of skilled, educated, and competent artisans, craftspeople, engineers, laborers, administrators, artists, writers, and countless others working toward the unified goal of transforming society. We are going to need millions of engaged, curious people eager to work to better society. We will build the future we deserve through a combination of organizing, community building, and unshakable solidarity.

Right now, none of those efforts are where they need to be. In the context of economic stagnation and repression at home and abroad, the fight for a better world can at times feel hopeless. Individual action is not enough to reverse the long-term trends of illiteracy and intellectual shortcutting that have plagued our society for decades. We need robustly funded schools, mass political education, a media not beholden to private interests, and an economy that fosters creative pursuits as more than products to be packaged for consumption. But that effort starts by building our own capabilities, collaborating with others, and working tirelessly to create and sustain the kinds of unapologetically socialist institutions that will build a better society.

There’s a reason every child is taught to write essays in school. Writing teaches us to organize our thoughts, to engage with primary sources, and to express ourselves clearly and succinctly to a wide audience. These skills are essential to any political movement. We cannot rely on capitalist-controlled media and obsequious AI to do our thinking for us.

If it is indeed true that every cook can govern, as the old saying goes, then any DSA member can write. Not every single person must become a journalist, theorist, or polemicist. There are a million ways to contribute to our struggle. But if you wrote stories on lined notebook paper in the fifth grade, composed multi-paragraph social media posts in response to articles you see online, or simply have had ideas and perspectives on our work and movement, we want to hear from you. 

If you would like to write for Midwest Socialist, contact us through our Google form. Be sure to read our Editorial Policy before submitting. We publish op-eds, articles about leftist history, interviews, left-wing reviews of recently released media and leftist classics, and other forms of writing, and we are particularly interested in original journalism about events happening in the Midwest.

If you have an idea that you need help turning into an outline, an outline you need help turning into a draft, or an article you’re wrestling with, our Editorial Board offers Zoom appointments to discuss your ideas and help you build them into a publishable article. The editorial board doesn’t guarantee that every individual article will be published, but we will work with you to build your project into a piece we can all be proud of. Once you’ve submitted a draft, we will make edits and send a final draft ready to be published.

Writing is a skill that takes time and practice, just like learning a language, mastering a trade, or playing an instrument. The only way to improve is to jump right in, and Midwest Socialist is a great place to get started. We look forward to reading your work.

The post Why You Should Write for Midwest Socialist appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

We are excited to announce our first federal endorsement for 2026!

Oliver Larkin is taking on one of the most war-mongering democrats in Congress, and DSA is proud to endorse him. Four Florida DSA chapters have already endorsed on the ground, canvassing and carrying petitions for Oliver. We will no longer allow billionaire-backed democrats to claim that we have to spend billions on war while healthcare is further decimated — we’re challenging them in the primaries with organized people who can’t be bought.

Oliver is part of a slate of candidates in the Socialist Cash Takes Out Capitalist Trash fundraising project!

Date: Sunday, April 19

Time: 12 pm – 3 pm PDT

Location:  The Open Book – The Oaks Mall

556 W Hillcrest Dr, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360

Join the DSA Ventura County book club for discussions about selected readings. If you love history, the written word, or the world around you, then you belong here!

This will be a friendly, inclusive event open to all, regardless of prior experiences or familiarity with the topic.

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026 at 6pm PST

Online Only. RSVP for Zoom Link.

Monthly Steering Committee Meetings are open to members to observe but, generally, only Steering Committee members may vote and participate.

Date: Sunday, April 12 from 9:30 am til 11 AM

Location: Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters – 550 Collection Blvd Suite 130, Oxnard, CA 93036

Come join like-minded comrades for a cup of your favorite morning beverage. These gatherings offer a relaxed space to meet members and find out how to get involved, decompress, talk about the issues we face, and stay connected as we close out the year.

No RSVP needed!