For the last six months, Starbucks Workers United union delegates have been hard at work hammering out a contract that will benefit over 10,000 Starbucks workers. For three days out of each month, delegates travel to a central location to negotiate the details of the new contract.

Up until recently, delegates and Starbucks corporate have been addressing non-economic changes, which includes things like dress code and store culture. They have now moved on to economic changes, which includes anything that has a financial impact, such as healthcare or pay.

With the shift to economic negotiations, the stakes are higher than ever and Starbucks union members are prepared to fight. The local unionized Starbucks on 20th Street is counting on Birmingham DSA’s support. Subscribe to Birmingham DSA’s e-mail bulletin to stay connected with ways you can show up for Birmingham and Tuscaloosa’s Starbucks workers.

Thorn West: Issue No. 223

Last week, several explosive and destructive wildfires erupted across LA County. Over 25 casualties have been reported, and many thousands of homes have been destroyed in and around the communities of Altadena and Palisades Park. DSA-LA has put together this evolving emergency resource guide, containing news and organizing opportunities.

State Politics

• In response to the devastation of the ongoing wildfires in LA County, Governor Newsom has proposed a 2.5 billion aid package. Newsom also called for the suspension of some environmental laws that he argued would impede rebuilding.
• Newsom also published an open letter inviting incoming president Trump to tour the areas devastated by wildfires. Trump has incoherently blamed environmental conservation policy for causing the fires, and threatened to withhold disaster relief.
• On Friday, the Governor released an early draft of the proposed budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year. Though drafted before the wildfires, the budget forecasts a small and unexpected surplus after two years of heavy shortfalls.

City Politics

• LA Public Press breaks down the controversy surrounding recent budget cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department. Many departments experienced cuts after hundreds of millions of dollars were committed to raises for LAPD officers. More granular breakdown here.
• Former mayoral candidate and real estate billionaire Rick Caruso, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Mayor Karen Bass’ handling of the fires, hired private firefighters to protect his Palisades mall while local public hydrants ran out of water.
• In response to the wildfires, Los Angeles has extended the filing period to register as a candidate for Neighborhood Council elections, and also made it for Neighborhood Councils to issue monetary grants to local nonprofits.

Housing Rights

• The wildfires have been followed by rampant price gouging on rent, as landlords attempt to profit from the devastation. While citizens have responded by collaborating on a rent-gouging spreadsheet (here), the State Attorney General has vowed to investigate and prosecute landlords in violation of the price gouging laws; violations can also be reported here.
• A motion from Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez would reintroduce COVID policies mandating a blanket temporary rent freeze, as well a moratorium on evicting tenants affected by the fires, but the city council postponed voting on it.
• LA Public Press documents the work of unhoused communities and advocates in developing networks of mutual aid during the wildfires.
• Grist puts the recent fires in the context of the rapidly rising cost of homeowner insurance in California, and the recent state attempts to regulate and reform the market. Meanwhile, The New Republic debunks the myth that insurance companies are being “forced” to raise rates, rather than using disasters as an opportunity to maintain and increase profits.

Immigration

• In neighboring Kern County, Border Patrol agents conducted a massive raid, targeting agricultural workers for detainment and deportation – a return to the practice of frequent workplace raids carried out during the first Trump administration.
• Capital & Main explores how immigrant communities mobilized local relief efforts to help navigate the wildfires.

Local Media

• As false information about the wildfires is proliferating, The Institute for Nonprofit News is offering grants for local independent news sources covering the wildfires.

Environmental Justice

• Climate protesters with Sunrise Movement LA rallied outside a facility operated by oil company Phillips 66, and 16 demonstrators stormed the facility’s office building. The protestors demanded that the oil industry accept financial responsibility for the damages caused by current wildfires.
• Why does climate change lead to more dangerous wildfire seasons? Not only because of the longer dry seasons, but also because of the wild swings between drought and heavy rain.
• KCRW conducted a panel discussion (available in English and Spanish) on the impact of the wildfires on air quality in Los Angeles.

The post Wildfires Devastate Los Angeles County Communities appeared first on The Thorn West.

By Mack K., Birmingham DSA

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably worried about how the next four years will go. The good news is there’s still hope. Fascism’s greatest tool may be to seed fear and mistrust among the people and weaponize us against each other. But every single one of us has the most powerful weapon in our arsenal to fight it off – radical empathy – and it’s important now more than ever.

Many people are saying it’s time to cut off and go no-contact with Trump supporters. I don’t entirely disagree with that sentiment. There is some value in shaming those who won’t listen to logic, empathy, or reason – but only when efforts of logic, empathy, and reason have been exhausted.

In the article A Time for Radical Empathy - Transforming Society, Terri E. Givens says radical empathy is “moving beyond walking in someone else’s shoes and requires taking actions that will not only help that person but will also improve our society.” He goes on to emphasize the importance of practicing empathy, not merely having it, and breaks down the path to gaining radical empathy into six steps:

1. Willingness to be vulnerable.
2. Becoming grounded in who you are.
3. Opening yourself to the experiences of others.
4. Practicing empathy.
5. Taking action.
6. Creating change and building trust.

I find implementing these steps incredibly useful when engaging with people across the political aisle, because building a mass movement and changing hearts and minds will require talking to the people you disagree with. The goal of the capitalist machine is to divide us and pit us against each other – so to fight it, we must strive to do the opposite. We have to bring people in and create the community we want not only with people who already think like us but with people who are already right next to us.

Meeting People Where They’re At

It is important to meet people where they are at; In Alabama, a lot of times that means Trump supporters. I believe those of us who were raised conservative but have already begun our journey of deconstructing the propaganda, patriarchy, and white supremacy are in a unique position to help others do the same.

Speaking from experience, it takes effort for someone who grew up in a majority-conservative environment to not end up the same way. In the South, Republican is the default, and I imagine many rural areas across the US are similar. In my family, conservative talk and culture was encouraged while anything outside of that was decidedly… not. For me, it was having queer and POC family members, and being bisexual myself, that stopped the conservative mindset from ever truly setting in for me.

But for a lot of the people I grew up around, they didn’t have personal connections to marginalized groups that pushed them to challenge those views in any way. For example, I was 18 the first time I brought up communism to my stepdad. At the time, I didn’t know enough about anything to truly have that discussion how I would now and have since, and at one point, I asked him to define communism for me. He responded, “communism is when the state is holding a gun to your head.”

But I believe that most people, at the root of it, just want to feel safe and feel like they have autonomy over their lives. I try to go into conversations with conservatives with this mindset instead of one that views the person as someone whose values wish harm on others, and allow it to inform my perspective on why they may have formed the beliefs they did. A lot of right-wing extremist views are born out of fear, and holding space and empathizing with that fear is the key to building trust and showing them a path towards meaningful, positive change.

Meeting people where they’re at is the only way to change people’s minds, and we owe it to each other to make sure that we are all working off of the same set of facts and information when discussing critical issues in urgent times like these. If you do have the opportunity to have a civil discussion about politics with a conservative or centrist who’s ready to talk, keep in mind that both sides of the conversation are likely going into this with opposing narratives. Your goal going into the conversation shouldn’t be convincing: It should be understanding, with both sides explaining what they believe and why without turning it into a debate, no matter how much we may feel like our side is the right one. Even if you still disagree at the end, you’ve gained a perspective you otherwise wouldn’t have known.

Avoiding Jargon

It is a known fact that there is a literacy problem in America, and with that comes a research problem. Not knowing how to properly research a topic or find credible sources leads people to fall down the alt-right pipeline. Sometimes teaching people how to do that is where the deconstruction work starts. This can range from showing people how to properly fact-check and spot AI-generated propaganda, to informing them of what an oligarchy in America looks like and the dangers of monopolization, to helping them find and discern reputable sources with something like a media bias chart.

Not everyone is tuned into the same conversations we are – A lot of people are too busy to even be tuned into any conversation – and when we on the left use theory or academic words as shorthand for our ideas, the other person often has their own connotations surrounding those words. Using jargon around those who aren’t as tuned into our ideas often leads us to have to take time from the conversation to break down their misconceptions and lay out what we actually mean. Remember: we’re fighting against allegations of elitism on the left (that have a semblance of truth), as well as the effects of the 20th century communist/ socialist red scare and right wing propaganda against left wing ideals.

What I’ve found to be more useful to bring non-socialists into our discussion is to explain topics and policies as I talk about them. I find it best to leave charged words out of the conversation in favor of breaking down academic language into colloquial terms through a perspective that meets them where they are at. Talking about Socialism to a heavily propagandized American is scary. But talking labor rights to a blue-collar worker? Not as big of a minefield. Taking a more indirect route to explaining theory allows non-socialists to get an understanding of your beliefs without feeling like they need to refute you on principle and be on the defensive for the rest of the conversation — which substantially limits how productive any conversation can be.

Because of these factors, building a mass movement towards socialism might feel like a slow process. If the person you are talking to has similar ideas about socialism and communism to my stepdad all those years ago, then expecting them to become a socialist after one or two conversations isn’t a reasonable expectation. It will require multiple conversations to build trust and bridge understanding. It’s important to create an open dialogue where they can feel free to ask questions and be exposed to our true goals without fear of judgement for them to see that we aren’t the evil boogeyman republicans make us out to be.

Class consciousness is the ultimate goal, and using the language of the working class is your friend when it comes to connecting with people of any political background. We’re all living through the problems caused by the ruling class, so pointing out the problems shouldn’t be an issue. But endless propaganda from the right has people coming to ignorant conclusions about why those problems are occurring.

However, through all these suggestions, I think it’s important to note: Be mindful of who you spend your energy on. If nothing you’ve said over the past decade has made a difference to your MAGA-crazed relative, then maybe your energy is better spent on other people, and cutting them out of your life might be the answer to your sanity.

Breaking the Floodgates

We need to get comfortable working with difficult people and people who don’t perfectly match our personal revolutionary standards and politic— That isn’t to say we should sacrifice our ideals and continue along the “lesser of two evils” track dominating establishment politics in America; it’s been established that that approach does not work.

I say this as a reminder that in the river running towards freedom, we’re all swimming towards the same ocean. No one part of the current will flow at the same pace as the rest; even those right beside each other won’t completely be in sync. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re all trying to somehow find sea level, pushing against the barriers between us and freedom however we can.

For a dam to hold, it needs floodgates to release enough pressure so it doesn’t crack under the weight. All it takes is enough water moving in the same direction to cause fission. The dam, in this scenario, represents capitalism, and I want to discuss a few of the many different floodgates used to regulate the pressure.

The first floodgate is an old one, one I’ve related back to a quote from Juvenal, a poet in Ancient Rome: “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” Keeping the masses entertained and fed has been a strategy of the owning class for centuries to keep the populace complacent so they’ll turn a blind eye to what is being done to them.

In recent years the cost of living has skyrocketed while the minimum wage has been left untouched. No one can afford to buy groceries anymore, much less a house, and the subscription model is trying its best to squeeze every last nickel and dime out of us. In other words, the bread and circuses have been shrinking.

The second floodgate is the implementation and enforcement of market regulations and social welfare services. The shift at the end of the 20th century towards neoliberalism, trickle-down economics, and deregulation was, I believe, the start of capitalism’s final chapter. Pure capitalism incentivizes the accumulation of resources for personal gain, ultimately leading to the monopolization of industry and oligarchy in its final stages through deterioration of these social welfare services and regulation of corporations. It’s only been the implementation of the regulatory market and social programs that’s mitigated the cannibalistic nature of capitalism and allowed it to survive this long. Yet, the average American today has been conditioned through negative stereotypes to view these programs as an unnecessary use of funds against the backdrop of democratic capitalism, where the idea sold is that anyone can buy their way to a better life.

Which leads me to the third floodgate: the American dream itself. It’s a dream that’s presented as achievable for everyone (though that has never been true). But the fact that even a handful can realize the “white picket fence” dream is enough to convince everyone else who can’t make it that they just aren’t working hard enough. The bootstraps mentality is a lot harder when you don’t have any boots or money to buy boots, or a store close enough to buy the boots even if you did have the money. Many people forget that the so-called “Golden Age”of the American middle class in the 1950’s occurred during a time when market regulations were strict and the wealth tax was high. However, doing those same things today is now considered radical.

When the gates of opportunity shrink down to the eye of a needle, the people are no longer complacent. We need to utilize this energy as an opportunity to bring people into the anti capitalist movement through radical empathy. The cracks in the dam’s foundation formed years ago; it’s only a matter of time before it breaks. We all just have to push.

Nosferatu demands we critically examine our social order and how it has deluded social relationships. What demons have we summoned and what would their pact demand of us?

How do we further the power of working-class Alabamians? On Saturday, January 4, 2025, over 35 DSA and YDSA members from Birmingham, North Alabama, Montgomery, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, and even Jackson, Mississippi, came together at Saturn in Birmingham for No Impostors!, the first-ever Alabama DSA/YDSA statewide conference, to answer this question.

A few opening remarks from Birmingham DSA co-chair Jason K. were followed by keynote speaker, RWDSU organizer, and former BAmazon Union worker-organizer Isaiah Thomas. In his speech, Isaiah discussed how an organizer is not just a leader leading the people out of capitalism…but a person bringing the power of labor together for everyone to move forward.

Following the keynote speech was DSA’s “Building a Mass Working Class Organization” training, facilitated by Birmingham DSA member Chris I. In this training, members learned more about DSA’s goals, discussed the loneliness of individualist thinking, and looked at key features and strategies of other socialist organizations.

During this training, Alabama DSA and YDSA leaders met in Saturn’s upstairs loft space for a first-ever statewide leadership meeting. Here, we shared our goals for the meeting, discussed what’s working and needing improvement in our chapters and organizing committees, and plotted next steps for making our infrastructure stronger.

After a break, training and leadership meeting attendees rejoined each other for a discussion on electoral organizing in Alabama. Facilitated by Birmingham DSA members Haley C. and Chris N., the discussion covered the state of the Alabama Democratic Party and how we can build working-class power in Alabama via elected office. At the end of the discussion, attendees split into groups to think critically on organizing an electoral campaign in Alabama that builds working-class power.

Jason K. closed out the conference with thank yous and thoughts on using what we discussed to build socialism in Alabama and Mississippi. Attendees continued sharing thoughts and building connections over dinner and drinks afterwards.

Want to join us for our next Alabama DSA/YDSA conference? Subscribe to our e-mail bulletin to get updates on our next statewide gathering.

A brisk recap of the 2024 Metro DC Democratic Socialists' local convention.

The end of World War II marked the beginning of an unspoken era in our history: the baby scoop era. Conservatives, obsessed with an idyllic 1950s America that never really existed, are trying to force us back into a baby scoop era. Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning.

THE Baby Scoop ERA

By Saige S

The nuclear family — the idea of a working dad, a stay-at-home mom, and their children — is one of many family structures that has existed in American and world history. Compared to other family structures, particularly multigenerational households, a nuclear family is relatively easy to uproot and move around according to the changing needs of capitalist production, making it the favored family structure of capitalist countries and the bourgeoisie that rule them. In the post-war era, an ideology of hyper-atomized, pure-strain nuclear families came to predominate in the United States. This concept of family, which is still with us today, roots itself in white supremacist patriarchy by centering white, heterosexual nuclear families and othering alternative family structures.

The social attitudes brought on by this rising ideology especially stigmatized  “unwed” motherhood, “illegitimate” children, fertility issues, choosing not to have children, and divorce. Single white women were pressured to give up their infants, often by sending them away to maternity homes. These women were looked down on for failing to meet the expectations of white supremacy and patriarchy, and social workers viewed them as “abnormal” and “breeders”. The phrase “Baby Scoop era” was coined to describe the resulting increase in non-relative infant adoptions from the end of World War II until the 1970s.

Maternity homes, many of which were religious, were known for strict rules, exploitation, and an isolating environment of shame and grief, and oppressing vulnerable single mothers. Women sought out maternity homes for support or were pressured into entering against their will, but more than 80% of them had surrendered their babies for adoption by the mid-1960s. While many of these homes shut down during the 1970s, Jerry Falwell opened his own “Homes for Unwed Mothers” during the Moral Majority movement.

Rickie Sollinger, author of Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade, describes,

“For white girls and women illegitimately pregnant in the pre-Roe era, the main chance for attaining home and marriage… rested on the aspect of their rehabilitation that required relinquishment… More than 80 percent of white unwed mothers in maternity homes came to this decision… acting in effect as breeders for white, adoptive parents, for whom they supplied up to nearly 90 percent of all nonrelative infants by the mid-1960s… Unwed mothers were defined by psychological theory as not-mothers… As long as these females had no control over their reproductive lives, they were subject to the will and the ideology of those who watched over them. And the will, veiled though it often was, called for unwed mothers to acknowledge their shame and guilt, repent, and rededicate themselves.” Sollinger differentiates this era from those before, where “Black single mothers were expected to keep their babies as most unwed mothers, Black and white, had done throughout American history. Unmarried white mothers, for the first time in American history, were expected to put their babies up for adoption.”

Records from the era show that demand for white infants, an appetite for trimming welfare, and a desire to punish unwed mothers inspired adoption agencies to develop an array of devious or coercive methods for separating mothers from their children. One social worker, Georgia Tann, became infamous for kidnapping newborns by telling mothers that the child died shortly after birth and would be (“buried” free of charge). By paying off lawyers, judges, social workers, and nurses she was able to remain undetected for two decades, profiting the whole time from the sale of infants to rich couples. Despite her horrible legacy of child trafficking, she created the closed-adoption model largely still used today. 

The Baby Scoop era’s maternity homes inspired the creation of “crisis pregnancy centers” when an anti-abortion activist in Hawaii fought unsuccessfully against the passage of the country’s first law legalizing abortion. The following year, he and his wife opened their home as a maternity home and counseling center for people with “crisis” pregnancies. He later created a string of over 200 anti-abortion centers in more than 60 cities.

The decline of the adoption industry is often attributed to a falling fertility rate. This is linked to various factors, including the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, the legalization of artificial birth control and abortion, and increased federal funding to family planning services for young and low-income folks. These factors worked together with other social and political reforms of the era like no-fault divorce, the legalization of interracial marriage, and women winning the right to open their own bank accounts. Along with Roe v. Wade, these reforms brought the Baby Scoop era to an end, but the social and political forces that created it were never really dealt with. Although single mothers and “illegitimate” children face less overt stigma, conservatives have been very successful at connecting social problems like poverty and crime to more abortions and more divorces, to fewer adoptions and fewer (white) babies, and, ultimately, to women’s health and women’s independence. If the rollback of a half century of reforms continues on this track, we may well see a second Baby Scoop era.

To fight back, it isn’t enough to highlight the cruelty of Republican policy — we must investigate the social attitudes and power structures around race, gender, and capital that brought us to this point. When conservatives shake their fists over a declining birth rate while the population grows, we must ask whose fertility rate is declining? Which industry is benefiting and which is losing money? Which narratives are being upheld and which are being challenged? Who is benefiting from this system and who is being exploited?

Ushering in the Second Wave Baby Scoop

Conservatives began chipping away at Roe as soon as they got the chance. Slowly but surely, policy by policy, they decimated abortion access by throwing up compounding barriers over a 50 year span. They went after everything from Medicaid to Title X funding, and they implemented mandatory counseling, waiting periods, parental/spousal consent, and TRAP laws designed to force clinics to close. The anti-abortion movement is rooted in the white supremacist “great replacement” theory, which has driven rising anti-immigrant sentiment and a record number of attacks on abortion in the last decade. The escalating rhetoric surrounding the nuclear family and “traditional” gender roles, as well as the rollback of bodily autonomy, is the patriarchy working overtime to undo decades of progress. 

This assault culminated in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the Supreme Court decision that completed Roe’s death by a thousand cuts. Though nominally their decision was a critique of Roe’s legal basis, the conservative court betrayed their real motives when they argued that safe haven laws are an adequate alternative to abortion and that there was no need to worry about children given up for adoption, because “the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent” (emphasis mine).

Besides the bone-chilling implication that infants are commodities to be bought and sold, the “domestic supply” language suggests that the religious right’s plan to “fix” this problem is a return to the Baby Scoop era, with natural mothers serving as “breeders” for a revitalized adoption industry. This rhetoric also goes back to chattel slavery (using women’s bodies as vessels and their children as commodities to both materially benefit and and idealistically benefit the capitalist class) which is precisely why the 14th amendment was constructed the way it was, as an effort to put an end to that practice. The machinery needed to exploit this infant windfall is already in place in the form of Christian adoption agencies, crisis pregnancy centers, and maternity homes. Jessica Valenti, who has been closely following the anti-abortion movement post-Dobbs, details the “move in anti-choice states to ‘streamline’ the adoption process and terminate parental rights—and the link that has to the anti-abortion movement and their relationship to evangelical Christian adoption agencies. (In short, it’s a racist clusterfuck.) … Republicans there have advanced legislation to implement baby boxes in the state, which most people don’t know allow the state to terminate parental rights. That means people in their most desperate moment, would be unaware that by using the boxes they may never be able to get their babies back—there have been cases of women spending months to years in court battles trying to reclaim their parental rights.”

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

The anti-abortion movement is well aware that abortion today is much safer than it was before Roe v. Wade1, and have renewed their disinformation crusade post-Dobbs. Anti-abortion centers (also known as “crisis pregnancy centers” or “pregnancy resource centers”) spread misinformation about abortion, pregnancy, and target people who might be seeking an abortion. These centers target pregnant people who might be considering abortion by strategically choosing locations near abortion clinics and utilizing SEO in their online advertising by strategically choosing locations near abortion clinics and specifically targeting searches as simple as ‘pregnancy symptoms’ on Google. While search engine optimization (SEO) is a foundational part of online marketing, this allows AAC websites to be towards the top of search results for queries that call for licensed medical advice.

These centers are often affiliated with a religious organization (primarily Heartbeat International, Care Net, and Birthright). People are lured into the center with promises of free or affordable healthcare, but once inside  they are subjected to an anti-abortion sermon, fed misinformation about pregnancy, abortion, and birth control, and directed to religious services like “earn while you learn” programs, private adoption agencies, and maternity homes. Despite being a billion dollar industry, these centers receive generous funding from state and federal programs by posing as healthcare providers.

Maternity Homes

The anti-abortion movement saw the Dobbs decision as the perfect time to open more maternity homes, with the total number of maternity homes increasing nearly 40% during the last two years. There are now over 450 maternity homes across the country. In some states, these homes operate with little regulation from the state. This makes the women who enter them especially vulnerable to financial and emotional abuse through the weaponization of law enforcement and homelessness Unsurprisingly, many maternity homes have affiliations with crisis pregnancy centers and private adoption agencies. 

Anti-abortion proponents respond that modern maternity homes provide housing and financial support. But just like during the Baby Scoop era, these homes are “treating women like criminals“. Residents of maternity homes can be forced to attend morning prayer, may have their phones confiscated at night, and may require a pastor’s approval to enter a romantic relationship. They may also be asked to hand over food stamps to pay for communal groceries, or required to install a tracking app on their phone, and homes have called the police on residents who disobeyed the rules. And while they supposedly exist to support mothers, some homes still prioritize adoptions — ultimately, these homes exist to supply infants to a growing market, and provide yet another node where capitalists can mine profit from vulnerability.

Private Adoption Agencies

Both “crisis pregnancy centers” and maternity homes have ties to private, Christian adoption agencies. These agencies are oftentimes religious. There is no federal regulation of the industry, despite federal tax credits for subsidizing private adoptions (as much as $14,300 per child for the adopting parents). These regulations are made at the state level and vary greatly, and govern everything from caps on financial support to how birth parents give consent to an adoption. Many are a part of the broader religious right and will only work with Christians. A Jewish couple in Tennessee were denied adoption by a Christian state-funded foster care placement agency because of their religion in 2021. While LGBTQ couples can’t be denied the opportunity to adopt a child jointly from a public adoption service, private adoption agencies have reputations for refusing to adopt to same-sex couples. It’s been common for adoption agencies to price babies based on their race, although some states and agencies may use other formulas to determine adoption prices (like sliding-scale or uniform prices). 

Moving Forward Post-Dobbs

This new Baby Scoop likely won’t look quite the same. Unwed mothers aren’t likely to be sent away for breaking social rules. Instead it will be fueled by the housing crisis, barriers to abortion and birth control, privatized and defunded social services, the weaponization of CPS and termination of parental rights. But much like the first Baby Scoop, it will target those living in poverty, in rural communities, young people, and black, indigenous and communities of color. Anti-abortion centers, adoption agencies, and maternity homes are the forefront of the anti-abortion movement, diverting people toward religious services intent on restricting bodily autonomy. Language is one of the first steps in the escalation of a human rights crisis. The combination of anti-immigrant, pro-nuclear family/anti-LGBTQ, and anti-abortion rhetoric used by the religious right show their need to maintain these systems of oppression to hold onto power. The misinformation campaigns and consequent shifting social attitudes will inevitably be used to justify more restrictive laws, all the way up to full criminalization. Many people will suffer, but a few Christian entrepreneurs will grow rich as white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism are further entrenched.

If we want to see a different future, we have to fight the anti-choice movement on every front. We have to organize and educate our communities, sustain each other through mutual aid, and build collective power at work and where we live, through labor unions, tenant unions, and strategic campaigns like DSA’s own effort to shut down Gateway Women’s Care, an AAC in Raleigh. Above all we have to build solidarity between movements and across the lines of gender, race, and class. It feels vulnerable, hopeless, even naive to call for a solidarity that generations before us failed to build, but the fact remains that the power of regular people can only be realized when they’re together — solidarity is our only weapon, and we need it now as much as we ever have.

1.  There have been a number of medical advancements like safe and effective abortion medication, better ultrasound technology, and more accessible and reliable pregnancy tests. Abortion medication has been shown to be as safe as in-clinic procedures (less than a 2% complication rate) and data shows that 63% of abortions in the United States were performed using abortion pills in 2023. There have been technological advancements in the internet and social media, connecting people to resources and information they may not have otherwise known about. Telehealth makes healthcare more accessible and allows people to get services who may not be able to travel for healthcare due to barriers like cost, navigating insurance, ability to travel long distances, finding childcare, etc. ↩︎

A look back at some of the popular ideas and theories developed on the (digital) pages of the Metro DC DSA's home publication.

Dialogic public art reminds the socialist viewer that they have a role to play in breaking the iron grip upheld by corporate greed and murderous ideological formations.

To navigate confusing geopolitical contradictions, socialists should feel grounded, if not consoled, by the framework of dialectical materialism.