The Denver Democratic Socialists of America (DDSA) echoes national DSA’s condemnation of the American-Israeli aggression against Iran. These unprovoked strikes have already killed at least 85 people at an elementary school for girls, the images of blood-stained backpacks mirroring the carnage and unrestrained slaughter of Gazan children we have all witnessed for the last two years. This is not coincidental – the brutality inflicted on Palestinians was never going to be limited to the land between the river and the sea, but was a step towards normalizing a more unmasked version of American imperialism around the world. From the unlawful abduction of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela to the brutal blockade against the Cuban people, from Palestine to Iran, we are witnessing a dying empire lashing out in desperate attempts to reinforce its might around the world, for the benefit of a ruling class and no one else.  

This is a time for radicalization, organizing and action. While our unhoused neighbors suffer on Denver’s streets, our immigrant neighbors fear ICE raids and the working class struggles more than ever, there is always money for another imperial war. The insatiable hunger of the military industrial complex means that our ruling class will never address the needs of the people for health care, housing and child care. The oppression and carnage waged abroad in our names will turn into increased surveillance, incarceration and political targeting at home. We condemn the Trump administration for their arrogant, reckless aggression and also condemn the cowardice and tacit support for war against Iran from Democratic Party leadership, who have demonstrated that they are beholden to the interest of their donor class over the needs of working people.

DDSA mourns the lives lost in the American-Israeli attacks and demands a cessation of hostilities against Iran, a withdrawal of military assets from the Persian Gulf and the region, an end to unilateral coercive measures against Iran, and a return to diplomacy on the part of the United States. We call on the people of Denver to organize and participate in mass mobilizations against the attacks on Iran, contact their representatives in Congress and demand that they vote for the Iran War Powers Resolution, and join Denver DSA and its Internationalism Committee as we continue to struggle against American imperialism in West Asia and beyond.

No to imperialist war, yes to the sovereignty of the Iranian people! No war but class war!

Click here to contact your representative: NO WAR WITH IRAN! Support the War Powers Resolution!

Early this morning, the US and Israel struck Iran as people in the region woke up to siren calls and explosions. One of their targets was an all-girls elementary school […]

Film bridges gaps that emerge when working primarily with theoretical text. Reading helps us develop a shared language, shared frameworks, […]

The People’s Tribunal for Justice in Palestine and the Demilitarization of Mexico Reaches Its Verdict By Seth Garben February 23, […]

Author: Serge S.

Artwork can carry many meanings. Sarah Selan, the artist behind the recent Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) exhibition What is Violence?, hopes that people can see the deeper meaning underneath the surface of her paintings and take action to end the genocide in Palestine. 

Her paintings consist of saturated dark backgrounds, figures of civilians forming protective barriers against ICE, interference with weapon manufacturers and other actions that highlight state hypocrisy when it labels direct action and peaceful resistance as “violence”. 

Selan has personally tasted the arbitrary nature of the government when she was charged, along with ten others, for her alleged involvement in a Nov. 2024 protest. According to the allegations, several buildings and landmarks at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) were smeared with red paint, including a statue of retired chemistry teacher “Doc Oc.” 

The action, which the school claims caused $400,000 in damages, was in response to the CWRU and CIA’s continued work with institutions in the genocidal state of Israel. Students have long demanded the university cut ties with the country.

As part of her punishment, Selan was ordered by The Cleveland Institute of Art to show what they categorized as “better” ways of protesting. She did, but she did it in her own style.

“To be frank, the assignment from the school felt a bit condescending,” Selan responded in a written interview. “I was told that I was fighting a good fight, but the way I was fighting is not acceptable. My instructions were to introduce ‘better’ protest ideas from people I do not believe want us to win in the first place. I wanted to use this opportunity to display the difference between peaceful protest and non-disruptive protest. The vandalism was a peaceful protest. Nobody got hurt or was threatened with violence.”

“That being said, it was a disruptive protest,” she added. “People who equate disruption with violence fail to realize that a protest without disruption gives no reason for demands to be met, and no reason for anyone to pay attention to what you are fighting for.”

The paintings remain unfinished. The reason why, Selan said, was to emphasize that the fight for liberation is never over, but also a way to honor the memory of those artists murdered in Palestine by Israel. 

“The first is that the revolution is never really over. The fight for global liberation is never really over,” Selan wrote. “We have miles to travel against our oppressors as we work to gain the freedom of ourselves and our neighbors. I wanted to portray that these acts against us are in progress, as are our acts of resistance against them.”

“The second reason was that I often found myself emotionally stuck,” she added. “What right do I have to make art when I should be out fighting? What lottery have I won to find myself in a situation where my punishment for disruption is art while others face death?”

“It was difficult to get the work done in time because I did not deserve the opportunity to make it in the first place,” she concluded. “The greatest artists have been killed by Israel during the genocide. The most creative minds sit in jails and prisons in the United States due to situations outside of their control. To me it serves as a reminder that the best art has never been made because we killed the beautiful people who would have made it.” 

Selan said that the school’s reaction to the protest shows the institute’s true stances on human rights, and she hopes that students continue to call for divestment. 

“I have no doubt that a day will come in the future where both institutions will boast that their students contributed to an encampment to end the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Selan wrote. “They will use it to draw in future applicants to come be a part of a historic campus with deep roots in liberation.

“They punished the brightest minds their schools have ever seen to promote their beliefs of hatred and bigotry. They work with groups that exterminate an entire group of people just to line their pockets. I condemn their hypocrisy and hope that as students continue to push for divestment, we will transform these institutions into respectful academic organizations that inspire calls for global liberation, instead of suppressing them.” 

Selan said that being an organizer as a student comes with its own limitations. When people graduate, movements slow down, and future participants can lose the memory of what worked and what didn’t in previous encampments.

She added that student organizing can only go so far, and for real progress to be made, the skills and experience developed among the encampments need to be put back into the community. 

“Student protesters have always been some of the most powerful voices in the activist community,” Selan wrote. “From anti-war movements to civil rights, our students are strong. That being said, we can not put the weight of the revolution on their back. 

“I am proud of the students who were able to achieve divestment through their encampments, but that cannot always be the case. There is a lot of pressure to change campuses that have been rooted in imperialism and oppression for decades, but most students will only be around for 4 years. These movements can take decades to achieve change and that can be an overwhelming thought to a lot of young people.”

“Do not take this to mean that campus-based issues aren’t worth fighting for,” she continued. “But rather as a reminder that even if you do not achieve what you hope to in your time at an academic institution, you are making progress towards personal growth and a strong community.” 

When asked for her final thoughts, Selan said that her future will be rooted in activism, and in a way, she can thank the state for that. 

“The vandalism and my alleged involvement changed my life,” Selan wrote. “I was thrown in jail, received death threats, and was forced to pay for damages that were obviously inflated. Despite all this, I have grown as an organizer and will hold these experiences with me forever. They will inspire not only my art, but everything I do in my life. I am grateful for my journey, and I am right where I want to be.” 

The post “What is Violence?” by Sarah Selan Highlights the Hypocrisy of the State When Faced With Action appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

Developers of a new app called Uniform hope that workers will use it to organize anonymously, but this is not how unions are won.

The post There’s no app for organizing appeared first on EWOC.

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By: Maritza S

CAMBRIDGE, MA – In early February 2026, Lamplighter workers filed for union recognition for their bargaining unit of 30-40 workers encompassing the front of house, production, sales, kitchen, and pepita. They face an imminent election on Friday, February 27.

On February 22, Lamplighter workers drummed up support by inviting their regulars and relational networks to a union solidarity day across their two taprooms, both a show of support and a chance to inform community members of the campaign and its oncoming actions.

Lamplighter workers are organizing with Local 1445 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), a union of 11,000 in Massachusetts concentrated in the food packaging, grocery, cannabis, and retail industries. Recent UFCW 1445 victories include the 2025 UMass Memorial workers’ ratification of a 3-year contract in Worcester and other shops joining the union’s ranks – particularly in brewing and cannabis. 

Working Mass spoke with a worker with Lamplighter Brewing the day before the solidarity day:

WM: When were you hired at Lamplighter?

Gabe (Worker): I was hired in July 2024  I love working at Lamplighter, to be honest – it’s a really great place to work. It’s a really good community. The front of house team is a really lovely team and I’ve recently been working a little bit in production, too, and I like working with those guys as well. 

WM: What inspired you to get involved in organizing in the union?

Gabe: It’s just one of those things where we as a team were looking to have a greater say and stake in the business as a whole.

[He paused] 

We all really love being a part of the Lamplighter community, and I would say there were some things that we noticed that made us feel like we needed to collectively bargain in order to have a more secure future at Lamplighter as it grows and develop and grow and develop together.

WM: What were the top demands or issues that you and your coworkers experienced? 

Gabe: I think demands around job security and then also better benefits and of course, more secure and better pay. 

WM: How did management respond to the unionizing? Have you faced retaliation? 

Gabe: Of course, they declined to voluntarily recognize our union so we will be going to an election and have stated they do not believe that unionization is a good fit, as they described it, for Lamplighter. So I would describe their response as, I would say, negative.

WM: What is the best case scenario of victory? What does that look like? 

Gabe: For me, the best case scenario is a situation where all of the workers at Lamplighter feel they can work without worrying about their job security or how they’re going to pay bills.

This dream is a shared one, but evidently opposed by management.

The February 22 solidarity day at Lamplighter Brewing Co. drove up customer awareness of the union through both passersby and activation of relational networks. More and more people become aware of the union and thus are likely to act in solidarity with workers during moments of higher confrontation during the union election process.

The support of the community is key to the organizing drive at Lamplighter. They have also asked for supporters to leave reviews shouting out the union as they move towards election on Friday, February 27.

Maritza S is a contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post Interview: Lamplighter Brewers Drum Up Community Support Before Union Vote appeared first on Working Mass.

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Article on The Crimson’s website: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/4/4/allston-transience-scrutiny/

Repost from The Crimson, April 4 2025, title image credits to Joanna Lin.

In Part I we described the mainstream political landscape of Los Angeles, the large scale and the major constituencies of the single-party Status Quo Coalition: a wing of wealthy corporate and business Democrats in an uneasy coalition with multiracial liberal democracy blocs of non-profits, labor organizations, and ethnic interest groups. Since publication, another dramatic series of events has shaken up the 2026 Mayoral race in Los Angeles. Center-left Austin Beutner is out of the race following the death of his daughter, while a shocking last-minute announcement from Councilmember Nithya Raman has introduced a new set of challenges for Los Angeles’s DSA chapter to reckon with, sparking hot debate within the membership about the nature of the chapter’s relationship with endorsed Socialists in Office (SIOs). The media comparisons to Zohran Mamdani have only intensified, but the differences between both the candidates and their local political contexts remain stark enough for LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano to take note. 

To help make sense of the moment, we will describe how DSA-LA’s endorsements have evolved in response to the local factors sketched in Part I, and how our victories have in turn begun to reshape that political landscape. DSA’s 2025 National Convention resolutions defined an ideal-but-not-exclusive candidate archetype: the “cadre candidate.” We include some evaluation of our endorsees’ relationships with the LA chapter, as this concept looms large in the post-Zohran DSA environment and colors many chapter activists’ perspective on endorsements. We start with a brief history of the chapter’s electoral endorsements since 2020.

2020

Nithya Raman was modern DSA-LA’s first endorsement for LA City Council, running a 2020 campaign that centered on the city’s wasteful and cruel approach to homeless sweeps and opposing the power of organized landlords. For Los Angeles, Raman was a transformational candidate, the first to unseat an incumbent in a generation. 

Far from a core or “cadre” member, Raman only joined DSA in the leadup to her campaign, and has never been an organizer within the chapter’s ranks. Rather, she joined DSA after co-founding the SELAH Neighborhood Homelessness Coalition. At the time, DSA-LA was organizing across renters and unhoused tenants and against the inhumane policies of the city through campaigns like Street Watch LA and Services not Sweeps. Raman’s campaign was backed by the Services Not Sweeps Coalition that included both DSA-LA and SELAH. Though the vote was contested, her campaign received endorsement from DSA-LA and National DSA, and the chapter ran a robust member campaign in support – but notably, never represented a majority or even a plurality of her grassroots volunteer campaign.

Councilmember Raman’s relationship with DSA-LA, and indeed the broader Angeleno grassroots left, has been strained. At the time of her victory, Raman had made no explicit commitment to ongoing engagement (often referred to as co-governance) with DSA-LA — and no Socialists in Office program yet existed within the chapter to enable such ongoing engagement. Though Raman was consistent in her support for renter protections and a humane homelessness policy, she still shies away from adopting the “democratic socialist” label, and her relationship with the chapter almost broke in 2024 when membership approved a censure over accepting an endorsement from a small pro-Israel Democratic club during her hard-fought reelection campaign.

Regardless of these tensions, the impact of her win on the electoral landscape in Los Angeles is undeniable. Despite the entirety of the Status Quo Coalition (including late interventions by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi) supporting her opponent, Raman’s election began to hint at the electoral influence of the new DSA core constituency: young, multiracial, low and middle-income renters dissatisfied with the city’s neoliberal status quo. That such a constituency could organize and seriously disrupt the city’s comfy electoral order set off alarms among LA’s established powers.

2022

The impact of the new democratic socialist constituency roared into full force when two new DSA-endorsed candidates, directly inspired and endorsed by Raman, defeated incumbents from LA’s multiracial liberal democracy blocs. 

In 2022, Eunisses Hernandez unseated former Latino-labor stalwart incumbent Gil Cedillo in Council District 1, a rapidly-gentrifying district containing Highland Park, a neighborhood friendly to socialist candidates. Cedillo’s history as a labor leader with SEIU and a champion for undocumented immigrants in the State Assembly had established him firmly on the labor edge of the Status Quo Coalition. His city council tenure demonstrated clearly the compromises and contradictions of his Latino liberal bloc – its flexibility to become an early endorser of Bernie Sanders in 2016 while simultaneously embracing support from real estate and business interests.

Hernandez was also decidedly not DSA cadre, joining the chapter during the endorsement process and with a background in anti-carceral political advocacy, the founder and former director of abolitionist nonprofit La Defensa. In office, she has been among the most outspoken members of the socialist bloc, and has organized in office extensively with the chapter in her district.

Hugo Soto-Martinez, representing Los Angeles’ socialist hotbed neighborhoods in Echo Park and Silver Lake, is the clearest LA example of a cadre candidate. From 2018 until his campaign launch, he organized within DSA-LA in the chapter’s NOlympics campaign, and then its Central Branch as a pandemic-era neighborhood organizer. Council District 13 office staff are active DSA-LA members in the central branch, and a burgeoning district committee is taking shape in CD13 to enable mass engagement among constituents. Importantly, Hugo was politicized in and maintains his primary political home in Los Angeles’ labor movement, particularly UNITE HERE Local 11, a fixture of LA’s powerful immigrant-led service and hospitality union sector with a long history of involvement in municipal politics.

The elections of Soto-Martinez and Hernandez coincided with the LA Fed Tapes leak and signaled a shift in the Status Quo Coalition. Soto-Martinez’s deep labor connections allowed him to win endorsements from a significant portion of Los Angeles’ strongly-incumbent-preferring labor federation. Hernandez’s ties to the broad anti-carceral and abolitionist nonprofit world solidified opposition to police funding as a core value of the newly forming political bloc, which has been repeatedly outvoted on questions to expand LAPD. DSA-LA’s non-electoral campaigns in support of workers, immigrants, and renters are increasingly co-organized with LA’s unions, while organized socialists grow in number and organization among some of labor’s rank and file. Los Angeles’ status quo coalition has begun to slowly reshape itself: DSA and the progressive edge of Los Angeles labor and justice-based nonprofit worlds are coming into connection, and police, landlord, and commercial interests are cleaving in reaction. It remains to be seen how durable or consistently ideological this realignment and its associated movement connections are.

2024

By the end of 2023, DSA-LA had to confront the limits of organizing a candidate as loosely aligned as Nithya Raman. Both a censure and revoking her endorsement were put to a chapter vote, with 60% of votes cast approving the censure, and 40% in favor of revoking the endorsement altogether. The endorsement stood, the chapter mobilized a field campaign, and Raman squeaked out a 50% win in the primary round, avoiding a runoff against LA Police Protective League and landlord backed challenger Ethan Weaver.

Additional endorsements in this cycle focused on spurring growth in the chapter’s San Fernando valley branch: longtime chapter member Konstantine Anthony, who cruised to victory as an incumbent on Burbank city council, and the unsuccessful runs at Burbank and LA council seats for Mike Van Gorder and Jillian Burgos.

2024’s general election added Ysabel Jurado to the city council bloc, a tenant attorney who replaced disgraced labor figure Kevin de León. Jurado, who spent two years as an organizer with DSA-LA’s Power Mass Transit campaign leading into her campaign for office, notably received the support of the LA Fed. It was a startling turnaround for de León, who was previously a poster child for the Eastside ethnically Latino Labor-supported Status Quo Coalition. But mainstream Democrats all the way up to Joe Biden had called on Kevin de León to step down in the wake of the leak; de León responded by not only remaining in his seat, but seeking reelection. The optics of the moment were surely clear to the Fed, and Jurado became the first DSA-LA member in the modern era to secure their powerful endorsement.

The four-person bloc of Socialists in Office has achieved policy wins, most recently leading the way for city council to respond to years of organized pressure by the Keep LA Housed coalition. Tenants in rent-stabilized housing have won significant relief from exorbitant rent increases for the first time in 40 years, as well as codified anti-harassment provisions. A focus on services over sweeping encampments has shown promise in lowering the horrific rate of unsheltered homelessness in the city, though the scale of the problem remains overwhelming, and the economic outlook under Trump increasingly bleak. Major labor-backed initiatives to increase wages for tourism workers were passed over fierce opposition from LA’s tourism industry. The socialist bloc can often win alignment from progressive council members, but sometimes functions as a distinct minority that takes dissenting or protest votes, particularly regarding police funding.

This alone is a departure from norms in city government. Since at least the early 2000s in the wake of Los Angeles’ last charter reform, Los Angeles City Council established an ever-growing culture of consensus, under which items were only brought to a vote once they had overwhelming support. Under Council President Herb Wesson prior to Nithya Raman being seated, council consistently held a 99.9% unanimous vote rate. Though these habits are beginning to break, the expectations of “executive consensus” among LA’s “mini-mayors” remains a source of conflict between movements and their candidates.

2026

In the 2026 endorsement cycle, new candidates resemble the mix of longtime DSA organizers and movement allies that characterize NYC-DSA’s endorsed candidates. Challenging Los Angeles’ most conservative incumbent in Council District 11, Faizah Malik is public policy attorney for progressive policy shop Public Counsel, and like Raman and Hernandez, joined DSA-LA as a part of her preparation to run for office. 

Estuardo Mazariegos, running against termed-out councilmember Curren Price’s hand-picked successor in Los Angeles’ most impoverished District 9, is a director in the community organizing, base-building NGO Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). A member since mid-2020, he served for a time as a coordinator for DSA-LA’s South Central-Inglewood branch. These two candidates were both leaders on behalf of their employers in the successful Los Angeles rent stabilization campaign alongside DSA-LA, building trust and goodwill.  

Marissa Roy, our endorsed candidate for city attorney, may have the tightest links with the chapter: a member since 2021, she strengthened her organizing skills through leadership in electoral working groups, while also being a regular participant in DSA’s political decision-making. Roy is also involved in various non-socialist political organizations around Los Angeles – most notably the Working Families Party (WFP), but also including the circuit of Democratic Party clubs and progressive Democrat-affiliated political organizations like the California Women’s List. On the strength of her legal career, which kicked off with campaigns to end worker misclassification and wage theft in the Port of Los Angeles, Roy has secured endorsement from the LA Fed, as has Faizah Malik.

If the increasing willingness of Los Angeles Labor to support democratic socialist candidates for municipal office heralds a realignment of LA’s historic powers further towards a politics of class— of tenants and workers against landlords and bosses— this realignment is ongoing and incomplete, with Estuardo Mazariegos splitting labor support in his race with two other challengers. It has also triggered a backlash. Los Angeles’ business associations, typified by the anti-DSA PAC “Thrive LA”, has singled out Eunisses Hernandez as their top target this cycle, while drafting another business challenger to Hugo Soto-Martinez, forcing DSA to split our resources in defending multiple candidates. But in response, labor at large is backing a massive independent expenditure to support the re-election of Eunisses Hernandez as well as the insurgent Faizah campaign.

A left-labor political pole

To date, conditions in Los Angeles have incentivized a focus on LA city council rather than state legislative seats. The imperative to win those seats has primarily surfaced candidates who sit at the intersections of DSA with other elements of Los Angeles’ existing movement and progressive networks. The significant power of LA’s council seats has allowed DSA-backed council offices to win major policy victories, while also complicating messaging as movement and candidates try to build shared inside-outside tactics and strategies, with all the contradictions that effort entails. These victories have brought DSA-LA increasingly into alignment with the left wing of organized labor and Los Angeles’ robust nonprofit sector, aiming to sow the seeds of a left-labor political pole mobilized against Los Angeles’ committed capitalist interests.

Of course, winning a campaign is only the very beginning for a socialist in office— everything changes when an upstart “outsider” begins to experience the pressures of the “inside”. This has profound implications for organizers, as winning powerful positions with outsider candidates cannot be decoupled from the practice of political coordination, democratic decision-making, and an empowered chapter membership actively engaged in the institutions of civil society. Our core belief is not in any given candidate, but in the transformative power of a democratic socialist organization – one that emphasizes a deep commitment to the twin goals of member political education and member democracy.

In our next piece, we will do a closer examination of key players and electoral strategies among DSA and the Angeleno left, as well as the challenges facing DSA-LA as the organization navigates governance and mass organizing in the newly-forming left-labor political landscape.