Scenes of repression and resistance in Minneapolis.

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The U.S. behaves as if it will always be on top of the world. Its leaders once knew that nothing lasts forever.

The post The World Turns Upside Down appeared first on Democratic Left.

By: Stanley Fogg

This report is based on the transcript of Notes from Inside the Siege: A Report from Frontline Resisters in the Twin Cities. It has been rewritten and condensed for clarity, while remaining true to its substance and content, standing as a testament to the texture and experience of the eve of the general strike. The piece uses alias names and places to preserve the anonymity of those on the frontline in Minneapolis.

Facilitator:

… We’re going to kick it off with a conversation with a few members that are out there in the streets fighting directly, rapid response activists that are keeping their ear to the ground, paying attention to what’s going on and getting there as quickly as possible. 

Why don’t we start by having people introduce themselves—who you are, and what brings you to the call tonight?

Former Baggage Handler:

I’ve been in Minneapolis for about thirty-five years. Thirty of those I spent as a baggage handler: Northwest Airlines first, then Delta. We lost our union back in 2000, and I’ve been trying to build it back ever since. That work never really stopped. I’ve been involved in the union movement for a long time, and more recently in the workers actions around January 23rd. 

Alongside that, I’ve been doing rapid response: showing up where needed, protecting churches where people go to get food, places ICE has been targeting. It’s all connected. Labor. Survival. Defense.

Teachers Unionist

We’re organizing because we believe capitalism is the root problem. Not one of the problems, the problem. It’s what’s producing the conditions we’re living under right now. And we believe another system is possible. But that doesn’t happen without workers resisting. The front line has to be the multiracial working class: hourly workers, regular people, the ones who actually keep everything running. They don’t just need to be included in this fight. They need to be leading it.

I’m an Educational Support Professional in Saint Paul Public Schools. I’m part of a fighting union. We signed on to the strike actions; not school walkouts, but coordinated resistance: don’t work, don’t shop. And I’m proud of that. I’m proud to be in that union. A lot of my siblings are in the room tonight, and that matters to me. It really does.

Facilitator:

I want to pause on something you said, about being excited. Because it’s important that people on this call hear this clearly: even in the middle of despair, there is a thread of hope running through this moment. What we’re seeing is people gathering, choosing solidarity, showing up for each other in real ways. And that matters not just here, but across the country. Yes, this is serious. Yes, the stakes are high. But there is also love here. There is community being built in real time. People are recognizing a shared struggle and choosing to face it together. That kind of solidarity is rare, and it’s powerful. And the response we’re seeing— the speed, the care, the courage — is inspiring people far beyond Minnesota. There is real power coming out of this state right now. Real energy. And it’s having an impact nationally.I want to name that. And I want to thank you for it.

Parent Organizer

My name is ____ and I’m the sanctuary school team lead for Moonlight Palace High School through Minneapolis Families for Public Schools. It’s a parent organization, and it’s grown fast. At this point, we’re talking about two to three thousand parents across the district, connected to roughly fifty schools. What began as a loose network is now a structure.

We run patrols. We have a mutual aid arm that’s active now: food support, rent support, and other forms of direct assistance. I’ll speak more about that as the night goes on. Outside of this work, I’m also a professor and a writer. But here, I’m speaking as a parent. And as a parent, it’s terrifying. I have a ninth grader and a second grader. The idea of ICE engaging with your children, or anyone’s children, at school or near a school is something that sits in your body. It doesn’t leave. That fear is what pushed us to move quickly.

We built a rapid response patrol group. We use encrypted communication, secure platforms, because safety matters at every level.

When she speaks, there’s a pause before each sentence, as if she’s confirming that what she’s about to say is real. As if she’s still checking whether this is all a nightmare. And then, as she continues, her voice steadies. The picture sharpens.

The groups are large, really large. Some focus on commuting, others on dispatching, coordination, logistics. It’s layered. Distributed. Intentional. And it’s happening because it must.

The patrols around the schools were the first thing to move. Once the surge hit in December, that was where the energy went immediately. Teachers stepped in, families stepped in, and the reason it worked is because the relationships were already there. Minneapolis Families for Public Schools had been aligned with educators through the contract negotiations that had just wrapped: smaller class sizes, stronger support for ESPs, special education resources, the real material conditions that make schools function. We had stood together then, deliberately, and that mattered. Because when this new reality arrived, this crisis… we weren’t starting from zero. We weren’t introducing ourselves. We were already in a relationship, already trusted, already moving together.

The work doesn’t announce itself. It starts with noticing patterns—where time opens and closes, where people linger because they have no choice. Lunch periods. Bell changes. Crosswalks. Bus shelters. The ordinary choreography of a school day becomes a map of risk. ICE doesn’t need spectacle anymore. During a surge, they adjust. They pass slowly. They wait. They take. That knowledge changes how you look at a street. It turns attention into responsibility.

Sound became our language. The whistle is small, almost ridiculous, until you hear it echo. Until one becomes three, then ten. Until car horns answer. It’s not panic, it’s our community’s presence. A code that says: you are not alone, and you are not unseen. At that moment, the neighborhood wakes up. Windows open. Doors unlock. Fear loosens just enough to move.

The school became the spine of the response. It already held trust. It already held relationships. It already belonged to everyone. From there, everything branched out: patrols, calls, deliveries, rides. Mutual aid didn’t appear as an idea; it appeared as a necessity. Families stopped leaving their homes. Children stopped showing up. Silence became a signal.

The phone calls mattered. Someone asking, without judgment, what was needed. Food was the first answer. Always food. Then rent. Then utilities. Then transportation. The needs stacked faster than the resources, but the asking itself cracked something open. Two hundred families said yes, not because they wanted help, but because there was no other option left.

Pairing people changed everything. Ally families matched with families under threat. Not institutions helping clients, but neighbors helping neighbors. Hyper-local. A block away. A knock at the door. Bags of food carried by hand. Frequency mattered more than quantity. Showing up once wasn’t enough. This was about continuity. About proving that help wasn’t temporary.

Money complicates things. It always does. Protecting teachers meant rerouting responsibility. Parents stepping forward. Funds moved carefully, deliberately. Food first, because hunger can’t wait. Rent next, because eviction erases everything else. The numbers sounded large until they met reality. Ninety thousand dollars barely dents the need. Systems weren’t built for people without paperwork. Aid requires time. Time is the one thing people don’t have.

Transportation became another frontline. Parents were being taken at pickup and drop-off, moments meant to be safe. So rides were organized. Names were logged. Trust was formalized. In some schools, parents walked children who weren’t theirs, because safety had become communal. In buildings where most families are targeted, attendance itself became an act of resistance.

None of this is clean. None of it is finished. There are rules we’re still learning, barriers we’re still hitting, nights when the math doesn’t work. But there is movement. There is coordination. There is care that refuses to be abstract. What holds it together isn’t ideology, it’s that it’s struggle unfolding around our daily lives. The fact that we live here. That these are our children. That disappearance is not theoretical.

This is what it looks like when people accept that no one is coming, and decide to stay anyway.

That just gives you sort of the window into what’s going on here. 

Facilitator:

You mentioned witnessing people being taken, kidnapped. For many of us, this is something we only see on a screen. Can you speak to the emotional terror of witnessing that in your own community? Not even being the one taken, but seeing it happen to your neighbors. What does that do to a person? What kind of insecurity does it introduce into your life?

Parent Organizer:

Last Saturday morning, my dog woke me up. She heard a noise outside. I live in what’s now the epicenter of ICE activity in the Twin Cities, it’s 6:40 a.m. I looked out my window. I heard them before I saw them—two agents, laughing. Then, I saw them handcuffing two of my neighbors.

I couldn’t see who they were. There were two cars parked outside. And immediately I knew – because by then I understood how fast they work – that they had already been there too long. I wasn’t fully awake. I was in my pajamas. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could, grabbed my phone, and told myself: don’t stop, don’t think, don’t put on a jacket. It was freezing. I just put on my slippers and ran out into the snow and ice because I knew I had to document whatever I could: photos, video, anything.

The second they saw me, they shoved the people into the car and sped off. I thought I hadn’t gotten anything useful, but I did catch the license plate on one of the cars. I sent it immediately to the large rapid response group in my area.

At any given time, there are probably eight hundred to a thousand people on that thread. And they’re serious. Within two minutes, they responded. They confirmed it: this was an abduction. These were the details. They ran the plates – because they have a database – and told me those agents had been terrorizing the neighborhood since 6 a.m. They were already gone. They were now in another neighborhood.

Because I posted, two neighbors came to my house about an hour later. I hadn’t met them before. We talked. I had to be honest—I’m tapped out. I have a full-time job. I’m already organizing at multiple levels. I can’t take on block organizing too. But just knowing each other mattered. Being on the same page mattered. Knowing where each other lives mattered.

More than a week later, those same neighbors contacted me again. They asked if I had any new information. They still didn’t know who had been taken or where they were. That’s another layer of terror. The disappearance doesn’t end when the car drives away. It lingers. It expands.

The other case… I don’t know. I hope they’re okay. I truly don’t know where they are. With how fast people are being moved, they could already be out of the country. And then just yesterday we learned that a man from Minnesota died in a detention center in Texas. So this isn’t theoretical. It’s fatal.

In early December, I witnessed my first abduction just sitting at a traffic light near a transit stop. It completely shattered me. I was crying. I was a mess. I remember telling people that day: I’m just going to be a mess today because I can’t process this yet.

That’s what it does. It breaks your sense of safety instantly. And once that breaks, it never fully comes back.

She continued:

It is like this uh, this sense of reality that we have just has got to be just instantly shattered and then you move into this new world where things that you took for granted, like “you don’t have to watch your back” are no longer true any more. 

Facilitator:

You mentioned politicians trying to help, and in doing so putting themselves in positions of heightened risk. One of the things we do as a working class is something different: we take that risk and distribute it. We spread it across the population so no single person is fully exposed, and so the most vulnerable people carry no risk at all. We hold that risk together. And there’s no other way to do this. That’s the power of working people.

That’s where the inspiration comes from. That’s where the solidarity comes from. That’s where the positive energy you spoke about at the beginning of the call actually lives—seeing that power in motion. It’s the power that’s been taken away from us. Sometimes it’s power we’ve given up willingly. 

But it’s also the power that can save us, if we stay on this path—if we keep unlocking these connections, building these networks, learning how to communicate securely, and spreading information through decentralized systems. You’re right: nobody is coming to save us. But we do have the power to save each other.

[The Facilitator turned to the Teachers Unionist] You mentioned that one of the things that inspired you most through all of this was watching different groups come together—coalescing, overlapping, taking action in ways no one person, no one organization, and no single group could have accomplished alone. Can you talk about what you’ve seen and experienced in that cross-group solidarity?

Teachers Unionist:

Thank you so much for that description, because honestly, one of the most inspiring things I’ve experienced in the last couple of weeks is how fast everything has shifted. Renée Good was murdered less than two weeks ago, and it feels like the city has completely changed.

Minneapolis remembers the uprising. We learned a lot then—about what worked, and about what we needed to do better. When the uprising happened after the murder of George Floyd, the infrastructure we’re relying on now simply didn’t exist yet. And I think one reason it does exist now, and why it’s developing so quickly, is because we’ve already been through COVID and the uprising together.

That collective experience changed people.

After George Floyd was murdered, a lot of folks felt the energy disappeared. I spent time at Floyd Square, and there was real disappointment. People would say, Where did everyone go? Hobbyist protesters showed up at the beginning, but then there was this sense of abandonment. But the truth is—they didn’t disappear. They’re here now. They learned how to recommit. They learned how to stay with the work.

The night Renée Good was killed, people walked. Everyone walked. In droves. Thousands and thousands of people moved toward the place where she died. There were probably ten thousand people standing in the streets. It was freezing cold. People were holding candles. There were speeches. The crowd was so large that someone could speak on one side of the space and a chant would rise somewhere else and ripple across in waves. It was enormous.

As a socialist, that moment mattered to me. We need a mass movement. People had been comfortable for a long time. Now we’re not. That’s a terrible thing. It’s painful and destabilizing. But it’s also what pulled us together.

The Saturday after Renée was killed, there was another march that lasted for hours. I don’t even know how many thousands of people were there. The only thing that felt comparable was the march to the Third Precinct the day after George Floyd was killed.

After that march, we were invited to a rapid response and patrol meeting at [Teacher Unionist]’s house. Thirty people showed up—people we had never met before. What we shared was geography, a deep hatred of ICE, and a commitment to decency for everyone in this city. That mattered.

Her voice glimmered with hope:

What inspires me most is seeing how all these different networks are forming and overlapping. There’s a rapid response network tracking license plates. A mutual aid network delivering food. Patrol groups. Parent networks. All these pods coming together into a larger ecosystem. It makes me believe we can actually do this, because we’re drawing on everyone’s intelligence and solving real problems together.

At my school, we’re trying to replicate what Minneapolis Public Schools built with their parent network. That network was instrumental in winning the contract—parent pressure really matters. As [Teachers Unionist] said, schools are the heart and soul of our communities. Even though they aren’t always open gathering spaces, they still anchor everything.

Another crucial part of this emerging ecosystem, especially around the day of action on the 23rd, the no school, no work, no shopping action, has been faith communities. They’ve stepped into a central role. Faith spaces can open their doors. People can gather there. You don’t have to worship. You don’t have to agree. But the space itself matters, and many of these communities want to lend themselves to the movement.

So yes, I feel inspired. It’s horrifying, as she said. It feels like living in a war zone. You can’t carry on as usual. The holidays happened during an ICE occupation. It was surreal to be celebrating under those conditions.

It’s inspiring. It’s scary. But if it weren’t this scary, we wouldn’t be where we are now. And we’re learning – fast -how to organize for the long fight, how to take on something this big together.

And to your point about being able to pick up organizing tactics that we’re working with another group of teachers in terms of establishing the parent network, that’s what we’re organizing and that’s what connects. 


That’s the power that it unlocks. It allows a good idea to spread and it allows a bad idea to get squashed really fast and move amongst a lot of people. And, you know, do you mention dealing with the George Floyd protests and, you know, these things are all things that have prime to the population of Minnesota to be more prepared for these events than, say, members in my community, where for us this is an event that’s occurring on TV. 
You know, it’s not something that’s directly impacted our lives, but I know that there’s many members in my community that care and that want to be ready.

Being able to access this information and being able to build these networks, it gives working people, it gives people all across the country a fighting chance. When ICE comes to their city, they will have heard from the people of Minnesota about what works and what doesn’t work, about the things that they need to do to get ready.

Facilitator:

For a lot of people, January 7th – the day Renée Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis – was the first time they really started paying attention to what’s happening here. That killing was captured on video, spread quickly nationwide, and became a flashpoint, drawing comparisons to past police violence in this city and igniting protests locally and across the country.

What many people don’t realize is that you all were already deep in this fight long before that date. You weren’t reacting to a headline, you were living it: raids, rapid escalation of enforcement, daily intimidation in neighborhoods, schools, transit stops, churches, workplaces. The assault on immigrant communities in the Twin Cities had been intensifying since December, weeks before the killing drew national attention.

So when people started to see that tragic shooting and then saw a large call for mass action emerge out of Minnesota – marches, rallies, neighborhood patrols, mutual aid networks – that was not spontaneous from nowhere. It was the culmination of weeks of ground work, community boundary-setting, relationship building, and existing networks already in motion. You had already been organizing patrols, rapid response groups, support circles, union connections, parent groups, educators, neighbors checking on each other’s blocks, legal observers on the ground. That infrastructure made it possible for a broader moment to take shape.

That’s what people are trying to understand now: how a community under assault turned around, found voice and structure, and began to claim some measure of its own defense—not as an abstract idea but as actual living practice in the midst of fear, danger, and loss.

Can you talk a little bit more about what the process of transformation for the people was like?

Former Baggage Handler:

That’s a massive question: how people come together around mass action. How all these groups decide, publicly, that they’re going to do something together. For a lot of us, that’s new. It’s not how things usually happen.

[Person] is here now, my comrade, my brother, a brilliant political and union leader, and we’ll bring him in soon. But honestly, if I’m being real about what’s driving this, it’s hatred. Not abstract hatred. Lived hatred.

I’m older. People my age many of whom wouldn’t consider themselves radical, are out in the streets day after day chasing ICE vehicles, doing community patrols, protecting neighbors, existing in conditions where any one of those actions could get you killed. And if not killed, then pepper-sprayed, dragged out of your car, your window smashed, taken to the Whipple Federal Building, held for eight hours, humiliated, threatened. If you’re a citizen, you’re released. If not, who knows. That kind of intimidation is not rare. And people are still doing it.

Carl was the one who got me connected to marshaling in Saint Paul, when all nine high schools walked out. I used to be a school bus driver there. Those students synchronized their marches and met at the state capitol. There was almost no adult involvement. Just an enormous spirit.

The school I marshaled for had about a thousand students. Most of them were completely underdressed for the weather—but when you’re young, you don’t care. I tried to give gloves to a couple of them. One kid said, What do you think, you’re my dad? I said, No, I’m your granddad. Put the gloves on. And they did.

We marched through Main Street, shutting down major intersections. People stopped their cars. They cheered. They helped block traffic so no one could hurt the kids. I’ve never seen anything like it.

It’s the same thing she talked about with the whistles. You hear one, you run outside. Within a minute, thirty neighbors are there. Ten minutes later, if there’s a confrontation, two hundred people have shown up. It’s wild. Completely wild.

All of that pressure… all that anger, fear, frustration, and hatred—has fed into the unions, into the working class, into the broader population of the Twin Cities. As January 23rd gets closer, this is the conversation everywhere.

He continued:

People talk about structure tests. Well, there are a million structure tests happening every day, in every way imaginable.

At some schools, it’s constant discussion among educators. At the airport, where I’m still connected to people, half the workforce is immigrant. They’re being harassed just trying to go to work. ICE has abducted people there. Some of these workers aren’t union. They’re calling in sick. And I want to name something important here: in Minnesota, we have the Earned Sick and Safe Time law. You can call in for one day without documentation. You can use it for mental health. And if you’re not stressed living in the Twin Cities right now, you’re not paying attention.

People should use it.

This is going to be successful. Because like any strike, you build up. You test. You climb the ladder. But this ladder has been steep—and nobody planned it. It’s like a car that started rolling on its own.

And that pressure has cracked open institutions that usually don’t move. The Minnesota State AFL-CIO, a pretty conservative operation, has endorsed January 23rd as a no work, no school, no shopping day. Teamsters Local 638 – UPS drivers and warehouse workers – have endorsed it too. Their leadership is conservative. That tells you something.

ICE and Trump’s pressure on this region has fractured old relationships and forced people to connect horizontally. To build networks from the ground up. We’re still figuring out how to strengthen them, how to make them more effective—but they exist now.

We were talking earlier about the Insurrection Act, about martial law, not good things. But the reality is this: the Twin Cities now has a network that can withstand a lot.

That’s the bottom line.

We’re going to win.

Stanley Fogg, who reported on the Notes, is a contributing writer to Working Mass.

The post Inside Minneapolis: General Strike Tactics Under Siege appeared first on Working Mass.

DSA must change to embrace the multi-racial working class — and avoid the historic mistakes of the U.S. Left.

The post Trump’s Attacks on People of Color are a Test for DSA appeared first on Democratic Left.

A conversation with Dylan Whisman, Secretary of DSA Ventura County. Written by Caleb Rickett

Caleb Rickett is a surf instructor, clarity writer, and independent journalist exploring culture, consciousness, and the human relationship with the ocean. He is the founder of Conscious Surfing, a writing project focused on awareness, community, and lived experience. https://conscioussurfing.substack.com

On a clear day in Ventura, I met Dylan Whisman, Secretary of DSA Ventura County, in Plaza Park for the 10th Annual Women’s March — a fitting setting for a conversation centered on working people, public life, and political engagement outside elite spaces.

Dylan explained that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is currently the largest socialist organization in the United States, approaching 100,000 members nationwide. The organization focuses on workers’ rights, union organizing, and electing candidates who represent working-class interests rather than corporate donors.

“Our goal,” Dylan said, “is to organize working people and help them build real power — not just during elections, but in their daily lives.”

Organizing Beyond Elections

Dylan emphasized that DSA’s work goes beyond campaign cycles. He pointed to recent labor movements — including organizing efforts at Starbucks and Amazon — as examples of workers reclaiming collective bargaining power in an economy that increasingly concentrates wealth at the top.

He also noted recent electoral wins, citing Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim and socialist mayor of New York City, as a signal that political alternatives are gaining traction when messaging connects directly to people’s lived realities.

Socialism, Capitalism, and Clarity

When asked about the stigma surrounding the word socialism, Dylan was direct.

“Most people already support the ideas,” he said. “They just haven’t been told that those ideas fall under the label of democratic socialism — things like Medicare for All.”

He argued that modern political discourse often relies on fear-based messaging and media distortion, making it harder for people to understand policies on their actual merits. In his view, clarity — not ideology — is what’s missing.

An Invitation, Not a Demand

For those who feel disengaged or overwhelmed by politics, Dylan offered a grounded invitation rather than a directive.

“Start local. Talk to people. Get involved at a level that feels human,” he said. “Politics shouldn’t feel abstract or unreachable.”

DSA Ventura County, he explained, aims to create accessible entry points for participation — whether through meetings, mutual aid, or community conversations like this one.

Events & Actions

Tuesday, January 27 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday, January 27 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM): EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing Training (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday, January 28 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Social Committee Meeting (zoom)

Wednesday, January 28 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM): Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (zoom and in person at 438 Haight St)

Thursday, January 29 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Education Board Open Meeting (zoom)

Thursday, January 29 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): ICE Out initiatives orientation (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, January 30 (9:30 AM – 10:30 AM): District 1 Coffee with Comrades (Breck’s 2 Clement St)

Sunday, February 1 (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM): No Appetite for Apartheid Training and Outreach  (522 Valencia St)

Sunday, February 1 (11:00 AM – 11:30 AM): Public Bank Lit Drop – Panhandle  (Oak Street & Ashbury Street)

Sunday, February 1 (1:00 PM – 2:30 PM): What Is DSA?  (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday, February 1 (1:00 PM – 2:00 PM): SF EWOC Lead Generation Strategy Session (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, February 2 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (zoom and in person 1916 McAllister St)

Monday, February 2 (6:30 PM – 7:30 PM): DSA Run Club (McClaren Lodge)

Monday, February 2 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board x SF EWOC Local Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday, February 3 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Social Housing Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday, February 3 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Public Transit Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday, February 5 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday, February 6 (7:00 PM – 11:00 PM): Comrade Karaoke at the Roar Shack (34 7th St)

Saturday, February 7 (11:00 AM – 2:00 PM): ETOC Session 1 – Social Investigation and the Tenant Movement (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday, February 7 (4:00 PM – 6:30 PM): “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Film Screening (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday, February 8 (11:00 AM – 1:00 PM):  Physical Education + Self Defense Training (William McKinley Monument)

Monday, February 9 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Tenderloin Healing Circle (Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday, February 9 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM): Labor Board General Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Check out https://dsasf.org/events for more events and updates.

SF Public Bank Lit Drop

Please join the Ecosocialist Working Group and the SF Public Bank Coalition for a lit drop event this upcoming Sunday, February 1st at 11:00 AM at the Panhandle at Oak and Ashbury. No experience needed, and coffee and snacks will be provided. RSVP here

Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing Watch Party

Join DSA SF’s Tenant Organizing Working Group for the Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee (ETOC) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing course. We will gather to watch this training over four Saturdays in February. The first session is Saturday, February 7th 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM at 1916 McAllister St.

Reportback: DSA SF SHOWS UP TO SUPPORT MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL AND THEIR FIGHT AGAINST ICE

As the nation grieves over yet another senseless murder by ICE, San Francisco came together this past week with rallies and marches to show unity with our comrades in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The Twin Cities DSA is at the forefront of the fight against ICE, and they are leading the way to help teach us how we can efficiently respond if and when ICE comes to the Bay Area in a massive way.

The Twin Cities called for support this past week with both strikes and public display of protest to let the present fascist government know that we are not going to sit ideally by as immigrants are kidnapped and our citizens are murdered.

Three rallies and marches were quickly organized by various organizations on January 20th, 23rd and 24th. Comrades from our chapter answered the call and showed up to carry our banner and flags, pass our flyers and give speeches. Big thank you to all those that organized and participated!
Aditya, our steering committee co-chair, started off the January 20th event with a great speech to remind us that unity among us is key to defending democracy. Each one of us is needed in this fight against fascism.

As we move into a year of more uncertainty, let’s all continue to show a united front and contribute in whatever way we can to help fight against tyranny and support each other especially our immigrant community.

If you haven’t already plugged into the many ways that San Francisco is gearing up to defend the immigrant community, please join DSA SF’s Immigrant Justice Working Group every other Thursday at our office at 1916 McAllister St. and learn about the many ways our chapter can help guard the immigrant community and make San Francisco a true sanctuary city. The next orientation meeting is this coming Thursday, January 29th 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM at 1916 McAllister St. 

Reportback: Maker’s Night

THANKS FOR MAKING MAKER’S NIGHT AWESOME WITH DSA SF

Behind the Scenes

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

Interested in helping with the newsletter or other day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running? Fill out the CCC help form.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A vibrant community space

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

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

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

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

As Sabrina Fernandes, the Brazilian ecosocialist, puts it, “As much as the current situation is about Venezuela, it is clearly not just about Venezuela.” From the vantage of ecosocialism, the events underway in Venezuela are just the latest chapter in the centuries-long exercise of imperial extractivism that fueled the rise of global capitalism and remains its infernal combustion engine today.

No better introduction to Latin America’s part in this pageant of plunder is Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano’s 1971 masterpiece, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, which Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez gifted to president Barack Obama during his trip to meet with Latin American leaders in 2009. The book told in the clearest terms the violent history of European and then U.S. exploitation of Latin America’s riches: first, silver, mercury, and gold, then sugar, tobacco, coffee, tin, nitrates, bananas and oil.

The plunder didn’t stop in 1971, when the book came out, or in 2009, when Obama read it or, more likely, did not read it.  And here we are, past the first quarter of the 21st century, writing a new chapter with Donald Trump’s strike on Caracas and seizure of oil tankers full of Venezuelan oil sanctioned on his imperial say-so.

Ecosocialists see the global threats and challenges posed by the ecological crisis as interwoven with and inseparable from the geopolitical and economic crises of late capitalism. Accordingly, we don’t spend much time speculating on the personal motives of Donald J. Trump. Nor do we dismiss him as an incompetent buffoon, a “malignant narcissist,” with delusions of grandeur and incipient dementia. The project he represents is deadly serious and backed by a powerful coalition of forces and will cause untold human suffering in the years ahead even if, in the best case, it is reversed by a future administration.

Trump represents a powerful coalition of forces that are doubling down on what Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective identify as “fossil fascism” in White Skin, Black Fuel, their panoramic 2021 survey of the rising international far right. White Skin, Black Fuel explores how the right’s traditional racism, nationalism, nativism, and militarism have been melded in our era with climate denialism and an undying commitment to fossil fuels.  

To paraphrase Fernandes, as much as the current situation is about oil, it is clearly not just about oil.

A central goal of the Trump Administration is to lock us into a genocidal and ecocidal race in which corporations and oligarchs hope to come out on top. They know that large majorities do not want what they offer so they are ready to bring conflict, chaos, and war, an environment in which believe they can thrive. In support of this dystopian vision, Trump seeks to “move quickly and break things,” in the jargon of his Silicon Valley tech-bro allies.

This means stamping out any effort to mitigate the impact of laissez-faire capitalism on the ecology of planet Earth. Trump has made no secret of his devotion to the fossil fuel, aiming to thwart any efforts in the United States to move towards renewable energy. Shortly after he took office in 2025, Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency.” The strategic goal is to fast-track expansion of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear infrastructure. The U.S. is departing from international climate efforts that include every other nation in the world. He is dismantling the U.S. scientific effort to study climate change. The Trump Environmental Protection Agency plans to reverse that agency’s finding that ever-increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere endanger human health – the legal foundation for all government efforts to limit carbon emissions.

“Oil we should’ve taken back a long time ago”

Even though the United States is now the leading producer and leading exporter of oil, Trump has suggested that boosting oil production in Venezuela is a U.S. priority, and he is expecting U.S. oil companies to follow his lead.

“The oil companies are going to go in, they are going to spend money, we are going to take back the oil, frankly, we should’ve taken back a long time ago,” Trump declared at his press conference announcing the abduction of Nicolás Maduro. “A lot of money is coming out of the ground, we are going to be reimbursed for everything we spend.”

There’s a lot to unpack here. Trump makes no attempt to dress up his scheme to exploit Venezuela’s oil industry in any language suggesting a nobler purpose such as spreading democracy. Trump’s claim that Venezuela’s oil belongs to the United States is imperialism without apology. “What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine, too.”

But despite Venezuela’s impressive reserves, the amount of oil produced by Venezuela is relatively minor – less than a million barrels compared to U.S. production of nearly 14 million barrels per day. It will take a Herculean effort to rebuild the petroleum industry in the challenging topography and economics of the Orinoco Oil Belt.

Oil industry experts scoff at the idea that Venezuelan crude will experience a sudden resurgence. Despite some enthusiasm from Chevron execs, U.S. oil companies are not ready to play the grand role assigned to them by Trump. Not only is there currently an oversupply of oil on world markets, but the potential for prolonged political instability makes Venezuela “uninvestable” in the eyes of ExxonMobil. the largest U.S. oil company. Fossil fuel infrastructure to bring Venezuelan oil production back to its peak during the Chavez years when upwards of 3.5 million tons flowed daily could take a decade to build and cost as much as a trillion dollars. Return on investment would need to play out over a secure 35 or more years of production. Political stability is sine qua non.

Although the Maduro government without Maduro may be ready to cut a deal with Trump, it seems certain that political stability is not coming any time soon. The Trump Administration has little real interest in, nor is it capable of, running the country. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth are not ready to squeeze in duties as Venezuela’s proconsuls, reprising Paul Bremer’s disastrous stint in Iraq after the U.S. “victory.” Trump jazzed up his biography on his TruthSocial to give himself the title of “Acting President of Venezuela,” but, he, too, is likely to be otherwise occupied. Rather, the administration will probably let political struggles within Venezuela play out however they will with the U.S. bullying whoever is in power to orchestrate concessions that include cutting off Cuba’s supply of oil and generally allowing the U.S. to dictate terms and conditions for sale of Venezuela’s oil to the rest of the world. Trump’s rhetoric has suggested that the U.S. will simply help itself to some of the oil Venezuela “stole” from us.

DSA Responds

California DSA chapters have been quick to respond to the attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. DSA issued a call for chapters across the country to stage demonstrations on January 10 “to protest th[e] illegal war and stand in solidarity with the sovereign people of Venezuela.” DSA raised demands including freedom for President Maduro and First Lady Flores, passage of the War Powers Resolution, impeachment of Trump for war crimes, no war for oil, and an end to all sanctions against Venezuela. San Francisco and East Bay DSA joined with the Party for Socialism and Liberation to co-lead a rally and march in San Francisco. Silicon Valley DSA rallied with a coalition of partners and Los Angeles DSA also hit the streets.

On January 10, while many of our comrades were rallying in San Francisco, East Bay DSA members who have been active in confronting Chevron over the years also gathered with hundreds of other community, labor, climate, environmental, and anti-imperialist activists at the gates of the Chevron refinery in Richmond to protest the company’s presence in Venezuela. Chevron is the second largest U.S. oil company and the largest oil refiner and distributor in California. The labor alliance May Day Strong and Indivisible also called for nationwide actions on January 10 to protest the attack on Venezuela and the murder of Renee Good by ICE agents in Minneapolis. May Day Strong urged demonstrators to target Chevron and Citgo, companies set to benefit most by the U.S. assault on Venezuela.

Over the years, East Bay DSA members have repeatedly engaged with Chevron—picketing in support of the 2022 refinery workers’ strike, canvassing in support of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (which has moved the former company town sharply to the left), demonstrating against Chevron’s pollution (which has robbed local residents of healthy air for more than a century), and protesting Chevron’s infamous global record of ecocide, genocide, and corruption.

Most recently, DSA ecosocialists have been active in local organizing around the international Palestinian-led Chevron Boycott. Chevron’s natural gas extraction in the Eastern Mediterranean powers most of Israel’s electricity generation, its war machine, prisons, and illegal settlements. In early 2025, responding to a call by the Palestinian-led BDS National Committee, the DSA International Committee initiated a national campaign to demand that Chevron get out of Palestine. The East Bay DSA Climate Action Committee has been very active in organizing the Chevron Boycott, deepening our ties with other climate activsts through picketing of Chevron gas stations and freeway banner drops, so it was a natural for us to join with activists from the Oil and Gas Action Network and other long-term climate and community allies in organizing a protest at Chevron’s Bay Area outpost on January 10.  

As intended by the BDS National Committee, the intersectional campaign demanding that Chevron get out of Palestine has united activists from several movements that find themselves increasingly aligned around the role of oil and gas in fueling genocide in Palestine and the U.S. war machine everywhere. The experience of the East Bay DSA Climate Action Committee is that the broader climate movement is embracing anti-imperialism, if not yet socialism.

Every anti-imperialist, socialist, and climate activist would do well to become familiar with the 29-page National Security Strategy adopted in November 2025 by the Trump Administration. The document is dressed in fluff designed to satisfy Donald Trump’s insatiable ego (“President Trump has cemented his legacy as The President of Peace”). But underneath the fluff, there is a clear outline of the Trump Administration’s project to reshape the world.

The post-World War II era of multilateral agreements and institutions designed and promoted by the U.S. to serve its interests is over. The U.S. “will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.” This explains the attack on Venezuela as part of a much larger project. Trump’s threats to Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Panama, and Columbia are not random outbursts, but the overt expression of what Patrick Bigger of the Climate & Community Institute calls “unilateralist imperialism for the twenty-first century, a foreign policy of might-makes-right where the U.S. can cajole, bully, and depose governments to seize resources and attempt to claim dominion over the entire Western Hemisphere.”

As for dealing with the energy transition necessary to stave off ecological collapse, the National Security Strategy commits the U.S. to achieving total energy dominance through oil, gas, coal, and nuclear expansion, rejecting “the disastrous ‘climate change’ and ‘Net Zero’ ideologies that have so greatly harmed Europe, threaten the United States, and subsidize our adversaries.”  

As the title of one chapter of Malm and the Zetkin Collective’s study of fossil fascism warns, “Death Grips the Steering Wheel.”

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Help us build power for a world #beyondchevron!

If you want to help pry Death’s hand from the steering wheel, there’s no better place to build the campaign than California. Chevron poisons communities from Richmond to El Segundo, pollutes our politics with massive lobbying at the state and local level, and fuels the climate crisis that threatens our homes and health with fires, floods, and extreme heat. We are building a working-class struggle to challenge Chevron’s nefarious role from Palestine to Venezuela to California.

To learn more about DSA’s Stop Fueling Genocide campaign and to join the West Coast Boycott Chevron coalition, contact climate-action@eastbaydsa.org or fill out this interest form: https://bit.ly/chevboycott

Come and work with us! We have tool kits, experience, and inspiration to share with comrades around the state.