by Ethan Rhodes

Racial terror and removal have returned from the backroom to the front display here in the US, with the Trump Administration’s much-flaunted acceleration of crackdowns on internal immigrant communities – most of them Latin American or Caribbean. Since Trumpism has retaken executive office, interior deportations, immigrant arrests, and prolonged detentions have skyrocketed. The Trumpists have preempted and post-hoc justified the according breakup of families, brutality of ICE, and degrading standards of living in immigrant concentration camps with the propagation of a rhetorical climate of nativist and dog-whistle racist dehumanization. Rightfully, many working-class Americans of conscience have been in an uproar. Uprisings have occurred, and counteraction has been organized, from Los Angeles to Minnesota – and even here in Rochester.

In customary duplicity of face and of word, however, the anti-socialist forces of liberalism have been attempting, to some success, to hijack the uproar. The liberals have moved to mold immigrant solidarity into a docile shape, which does not present a material threat to the social rule of capital or to the core of its deportation regime. On the rhetorical front, they have kept quiet about the draconian deportation politics of the Democratic presidencies – from Roosevelt to Biden – which they so exalt, and they have mischaracterized deportations as the result of the pure machination of one man in Trump and one party in the GOP, rather than as a dual mechanism of capital, to dupe labor into racial division and dispose of its surplus. On the tactical and strategical fronts, they have practiced dancing and holding carnivals before immigrant detention centers rather than really closing them down, and they have limited the question of long-term change to operational reform of the deportation regime at the expense of its abolition.

This article sticks to the rhetorical front of the hijacking, the contamination, with the goal of bringing attention to one of its more overlooked aspects. In addition to exonerating themselves and the capitalist mode of production through attributing immigration crackdowns only to the Trumpists, the liberals have invented a “pro-immigrant” appeal which centers a supposed “national character” of the US. As early as 2024, the Democratic National Convention wrote in a statement, “America is a nation of immigrants… Their sacrifices and belief in the unlimited possibilities of the American Dream help propel our nation to adhere to our foundational ideas of opportunity and equality.” For another example, the California Democratic Party states on its website, “California is the most diverse state in the nation and reflects the foundation of America’s strength… We know that we can strengthen America’s borders while upholding our values by honoring the tradition of providing a safe place for immigrants seeking a life of freedom and opportunity.” Leader of Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer introduces his immigration position on his website, “We are a nation of immigrants…”

In such an appeal, immigration crackdowns should not be opposed simply because they are inhumane or because the mixing of cultures is benign, but because they are specifically contradictory to “the essence of America.” Diversity and the extension of refuge to the needy do not improve America; they improve only America. They are specifically and uniquely American, and simply that is why immigration crackdowns are wrong.

Socialists must oppose such a sensationalist-nationalist “melting pot” exceptionalization of the US. Of course, we must maintain a pro-immigrant stance and work. But rhetorically, we must ground them not on a “special national trait,” but on the moral and practical need for constant solidarity with other regular, working people, regardless of their national origin or phenotype.

For one, the flat truth is that diversity and immigration are not unique to the US. Rudimentary geography reveals that. Almost all countries are “diverse.” China – likely our bourgeoisie’s greatest current specter – is home to Han, Zhuang, Hui, Mongolians, Tibetans, Uyghurs, and many other ethnic groups. Mexico – one of our two most intimate neighbors – has as a fundamental process in its history the mixing of cultures, namely Indigenous and Spanish, called “mestizaje.” Iran – against which our bourgeoisie’s military has been aggressing – is a mosaic of Persians, Gilakis, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Balochis; Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Baha’is. Furthermore, many countries are diverse specifically through formative immigration, if one could call it that. Into Australia have come British, Irish, other Europeans, Chinese, South Asians, West Asians, and North Africans; into South Africa Dutch, British, other Europeans, Indigenous Africans from the north, and South Asians; into Argentina Spanish, Italians, Irish, French. Additional examples abound.

Flat truths asserted, note that all those last three countries with histories of formative immigration are settler-colonial. Would not congratulating Australia – through its holocaust of the Aboriginals; South Africa – through its apartheid Boer and British occupation; Argentina – through its government-commissioned whitening – for having achieved “diversity through immigration” be a poor choice of words? The liberal “pro-immigrant” exceptionalization of the US is precisely that. It obscures the nature of diversity and “immigration” in the history of the US. The first “immigrants” to this country were world-eating land robbers from the British Isles, and the close seconds were involuntary, brought on ships from Africa. The exceptionalization whitewashes such white supremacy and imperialism as simple “immigration,” which socialists can never do. We must stand with immigrants on the basis of the fraternity of the international working class, and with that comes open admission of, and advocacy for restitution for, a past without such a fraternity.

As for the immigrant groups which have come after – Mexicans, Chinese, Italians, Ashkenazi Jews, and so on – they have never been accepted into the US because it is some benevolent land of milk and honey with golden streets and warm arms ready to embrace, as the poet Emma Lazarus naively rhetoricated in her famous ode to the Statue of Liberty, “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” They have been allowed in – and have been accordingly excluded – only insofar as mostly white-owned capital has sought cheap labor, and duped its white labor into racial paranoia. These later immigrants have been packed onto farm trucks, used as fodder on railroads and in factories and sweatshops, forced to endure demeaning hours, workplace tyranny, sweltering heat and biting cold, low pay, and slums as homes. When they have rebelled, they have been fired, beaten, lynched, deported, or excluded. We can celebrate their endurance without proffering a false honor to the country which only begrudgingly took them in to exploit them.

Finally and doubtless most importantly, the telos of the “melting pot” exceptionalization is to imbue the American working class with arrogance, to make it self-congratulatory for an open-door diversity which never was. As Marx and Engels wrote, a precondition of socialism is advocacy for the fraternity of workers of all peoples of the world, which requires national modesty in favor of the fervor of class loyalty. The exceptionalization which the liberals push is not customary pride in the productive communion of different cultures in a country. It is supremacist nationalist emotionality: “America is the best country for immigrants; that is why the acceleration of crackdowns is wrong.” It is tacit denial of a bad white-supremacist, settler-colonial past, and bourgeois arrogance.

Socialists can stand against nativism and racism – in all their forms, whether overt or covert and liberal – and dare to struggle for immigrants persecuted, as they should for all members of the working class, without sacrificing national modesty and internationalism. These alone make for a united working class at home and abroad, which, in precisely its unity, can unlock the achievement of socialism. When they are sidelined or dropped for patriotic attachment to the bourgeois nation as some exceptional character, the socialist cause is disarticulated.

The post The Liberal Attempt to Contaminate Immigrant Solidarity with American Exceptionalism first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

Perspectives on base, superstructure, and nonhuman exploitation.

The post Animal Liberation and Capitalism appeared first on Democratic Left.

Note: posts by individual GMDSA members do not necessarily reflect the views of the broader membership or of its leadership and should not be regarded as official statements by the chapter.

Photo Credit: Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Eighty of our neighbors, including fifty-five hard-working members of Teamsters 597, are losing their jobs.

On June 17th, the Dairy Farmers of America announced plans to “idle” their Saint Albans City facility. The effects of this idling will be catastrophic and will ripple out across Vermont and the Northeast: dairy farms will be forced to shoulder the financial cost of transporting their raw milk to facilities in faraway New York or Massachusetts where it will be mixed with milk from other farms during processing; markets will see distribution and supply of their dairy products change; local companies that produce dairy products, including Ben and Jerry’s, will grapple with supply chain alterations and changes in milk quality; the plant itself on Federal Street will sit empty save a skeleton maintenance crew; and most importantly, eighty employees will become jobless. The decision follows years of DFA slowly undermining farmer co-operatives throughout the Northeast with anticompetitive, antitrust monopolization that’s left local farmers struggling to break even while DFA reaps the spoils. Now we’re all hung out to dry. 

Franklin County deserves better. Vermont deserves better. Our friends and neighbors, the hard-working members of Teamsters 597, deserve better.

This isn’t the first time that DFA has engaged in antitrust action: a 2020 lawsuit filed against DFA by Food Lion LLC and the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperation Association claims that “DFA’s conduct threatens to and will result in antitrust injury as it tends to and will substantially lessen competition.” A lawsuit filed closer to home in Vermont two years later, S.R.J.F Inc vs. DFA, argues that “over time, DFA has taken predatory and exclusionary actions to position itself as the sole conduit for Northeastern dairy farmers to get their raw milk to market, and to control Northeast raw milk processing capacity, the only market into which Northeast dairy farmers can sell their perishable product.” Other examples of DFA seizing regional dairy industries abound, and a dairy processing plant in Connecticut currently faces similar unexpected closure.

This also isn’t the first time that DFA has proven itself a bad neighbor. Poor working conditions and unfair treatment from management led Teamsters 597 members to strike in October 2025, picketing on Federal Street late into the night. And ongoing discussions with Saint Albans City Council regarding rotten smells coming from the facility hit their most contentious note days before announcement of the plant's idling. DFA has proven itself more concerned with controlling our industry for their own gain than in supporting us, the dairy farmers, employees, and community members that call Vermont home. 

We all deserve better than an idling plant and hard-working union members without work, and we can’t allow monopolistic corporations with no regard for Vermont to strangle our dairy industry. We need legislators that use statute to create an economy where we can all succeed. We need laws that protect employees, to build strong participatory unions with greater investment from employees, and a pivot to co-operative worker-owned businesses over monolithic corporations without accountability. Our farmers and dairy workers deserve fair pay for the dairy products they produce instead of scraping by. Franklin County deserves better than a vacant DFA plant and the disruption of our dairy industry. And DFA needs to amend for the harm they’ve caused to our community and to the members of Teamsters 597.

On Wednesday, July 8, on day 54 of the National Peace Walk, two of us headed down Bradford Quarry Road in Alamance County, NC, toward Saxapahaw. The heat was oppressive. We had made a morning stop already at a church to refill our water reservoirs, taking a minute to tell a passerby about this nationwide pilgrimage that began in Brooklyn almost two months earlier. He remarked, as most tend to, that it seemed like a lot of walking. I tried, as I usually do, to downplay the physical challenge, as it is always made worthwhile by the spiritual nourishment of meeting with community at our destinations. Still, I had just bought a new set of insoles to replace the ones that I had walked to tatters, and I wasn’t sure how far this new two liters of hose water would get us. 

An hour later, Luther Livermon, a friend-to-be, slowed his car next to us and welcomed us to rest and refill at his house, a few yards down the road. When we arrived, we were officially introduced to Luther; his wife, Karen; and the two nurses who are her caretakers. Karen lives with dementia.

 Luther told us about his plan to eventually offer his 75-acre farm to Teepa Snow, a world-renowned specialist in care for those living with brain-change. Luther hoped that this offering would create a sanctuary for specialized care, as well as stewardship of the natural world, which could weather the impending changes of our society. He spoke on all of this unprompted, not aware yet that a core mission of our pilgrimage was to meet with communities working actively to create resilience through mutual aid in the United States. 

Luther also had posted signs along his farm’s frontage for the Preserve Alamance Coalition, an effort by Alamance County residents to halt the clearcutting of mature forest for construction of 1000 units of low-density housing by developers. A local friend and walk organizer, Krysten Voelkner, had coincidentally planned to meet us at the exact time we visited Luther’s farm, giving the two of them an opportunity to be introduced as neighbors and allies in the struggle to protect local forests and water. 

The simple, grounding activity of walking has led to many encounters like these. Our visit with those on Luther’s farm that morning was an affirmation that this project is one of making a path toward continual serendipity, walked by those who are ready to encounter it. 

Last fall, I was part of the organizing committee for the Quaker Walk to Washington, and the work that has continued from this act of public witness now has me on a pilgrimage bound for Minneapolis. Throughout my life, my tendency to be drawn toward egalitarian communities has kept me in overlapping circles of Quaker and socialist groups. 

Since beginning pilgrimage work with Brooklyn Quakers in early 2025, I have literally and figuratively followed a tradition that is older than what is known now as the United States. Quakers have been walking pilgrimages on this continent for nearly four hundred years as an act of peace. This simple act continues to be an effective way to step outside of many oppressive, interconnected systems to meet with friends in true intention. 

Quakerism has always had much to offer fellow socialists. Our historic mode of governance prioritizes long, thoughtful discernment which necessarily resolves in consensus. Quaker governance serves as the basis for the theory of sociocracy. In what was then known as New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant famously banned Quakers from practicing their religion. A 1657 petition called the Flushing Remonstrance was a call by residents of the borough for ratified religious liberty. Over a hundred years later, the petition inspired the Founders to include freedom of religion in the Bill of Rights, connecting Quaker society to this essential feature of spiritual freedom in the United States. 

The National Peace Walk 2026 follows this tradition of publicly expressing faith as an immovable societal foundation, one that weathers all periods of change. Walking to bring this good news to friends extends from a literal and metaphorical lineage that exists both on this continent, and throughout the world. Dozens of folks we have met along the way speak of the Camino de Santiago, currently experiencing the highest number of pilgrims since the 16th century. 

More recently, in our own country, a group of Buddhist monks walked 3,500 kilometers and gained international attention for the cause of peace and understanding. Their walk extended to Sri Lanka after the U.S. phase was finished. The tradition of pilgrimage in the United States in modern times has been upheld by a few notable figures, including Peace Pilgrim, who walked for nearly 30 years, crossing the United States seven times, speaking before crowds and on radio. According to her story, she rested when offered lodging, ate when offered food, and carried nothing except the clothes she wore. 

In the days before the United States. celebrated “America250,” the National Peace Walk finally crossed the North Carolina border, leaving only two days of walking to the next Quaker meeting in Raleigh. Those days in Virginia proved to be a challenge unlike the prior 300 miles between New York City and Washington. The heat and fatigue were factors, but the size and remoteness of Route 1 outside of Richmond were staggering at points. On this section, we could no longer count on a nightly station with Quakers, other faith groups, or communities of people activated toward building peace. We saw instead a kind of cultural blight: towns that had emptied after the dissolution of an unsustainable industry or the construction of I-95/85. In earlier days, when we might have stopped at some center of community for rest and water, there was now just a Wawa store, and then at a certain latitude, a Sheetz. We took our overnight rest on an abandoned porch or in the prohibitively expensive, soulless interior of a hotel room.

The act of intentionally meeting with friends at times can feel utterly inaccessible without acquiescing to a number of oppressive systems, installed by the force of convenience. “America at 250” on its face would like to be a celebration of a unity among states, but the lived reality for most in the Covid-era is an encroaching stasis of isolation, even “post” lockdown. 

The recent work of pilgrimage by NYC Quakers has been a modern effort to transcend these divides and to meet with friends as companions and partners in the realization of a peaceful world. Our intention as walkers is to reach Minneapolis by November, in order to celebrate the work of residents of the Twin Cities to build resilience under the pressure of full-bore state violence. From where we stand now, in Boone, North Carolina, a walk to Minneapolis could seem like an untraversable distance. What is certain, as it has been revealed to us many times over at this point, is that applied faith shared by community will open a way. The serendipity of the journey will be found by those who set out to meet it. 

The post 400 Years of U.S. Pilgrimage: Why This Quaker is Walking Across the Country   appeared first on DSA Religious Socialism.

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Former members of the U.S. Communist Party recount their "Red Lives."

The post Looking Back to Look Forward appeared first on Democratic Left.

Events and Actions

Tuesday July 28 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday July 28 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) EWOC Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing (1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday July 29 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) DSA SF Electoral Board x WFP Happy Hour (Teeth Bar SF, 2323 Mission St)

Wednesday July 29 (6:00 PM – 7:30 PM) Phonebank for the Affordable Housing Guarantee Act (1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday July 29 (6:45 PM – 8:30 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (1916 McAllister St)

Thursday July 30 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM) ICE Out Orientation (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 1 (1:00 PM – 3:00 PM) Immigrant Justice KYR Canvassing – Pacific Heights (Raymond Kimbell Playground Park, 1901 Geary Blvd)

Monday August 3 (6:30 PM – 8:00 PM) Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Tuesday August 4 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Social Housing Working Group (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Wednesday August 5 (5:30 PM – 7:00 PM) Tenant Organizing Working Group Meeting (zoom only)

Wednesday August 5 (6:00 PM – 9:00 PM) Social Housing Happy Hour (MOTHERSHIP, 3152 Mission St)

Thursday August 6 (6:00 PM – 7:00 PM) Education Board Open Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Thursday August 6 (7:00 PM – 8:30 PM) Immigrant Justice regular meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Friday August 7 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Bloody Sugar: the C&H Strike and Justice for Land Defenders in the Philippines (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Saturday August 8 (11:00 PM – 2:00 PM) Fundamentals of Tenant Organizing [ETOC] (in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Sunday August 9 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle Working Group Meeting (zoom only)

Monday August 10 (6:00 PM – 8:00 PM) Tenderloin Healing Circle (Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate Ave)

Monday August 10 (7:00 PM – 8:00 PM)Labor Working Group Meeting (zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister St)

Happy Hour with the Working Families Party

New to organizing? Looking to get more involved? Come to our joint happy hour with the Working Families Party TOMORROW Wednesday July 29th at Teeth Bar, 2323 Mission, from 6:00 – 8:00 PM and meet cool people organizing cool campaigns. The event is all ages AND it’s Teeth’s “Wings Wednesday” so you gotta come out — RSVP here!

Immigrant Justice Know Your Rights Canvassing Event & Social

The Immigrant Justice Working Group will be hosting an ICE Out Orientation session this Thursday, July 30 from 7:00 – 9:00 PM at the office (1916 Mcallister) and virtually over Zoom! This is perfect for if you are interested in learning where to plug in with your local community initiatives and learn how to best utilize your skills, or even just to connect with others if you’re already active!

If you plan to attend either in person or on Zoom, please RSVP here!

Immigrant Justice Know Your Rights Canvassing Event & Social

Join the Immigrant Justice Working Group for Know Your Rights (KYR) canvassing Saturday August 1 at 1:00PM at Raymond Kimbell Playground Park!

We will be distributing red cards and KYR materials to businesses and community members in the Pacific Heights neighborhood.

We will meet at Raymond Kimbell Playground Park on the corner of Geary Blvd. & Steiner St. to receive training and materials before canvassing.

Join us after for a social/debrief session at a local spot and grab food/drinks!

New to canvassing? No worries! There will be a brief how-to training before we go out in pairs or small groups.

Bloody Sugar: the C&H Strike and Justice for Land Defenders in the Philippines

DSA SF is hosting a guest speaker from San Francisco Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (SFCHRP) to discuss the recent events that connect the strike against C&H Sugar in Crockett, California to the massacre of 19 land defenders and activists in Toboso, Negros Occidental in the Philippines. We’ll dive into sugar’s bloody history, learn about the links in the imperialist global supply chain that bind us together in struggle, and discuss what we can do here in San Francisco. 

Join us on the evening of Friday, August 7th in the office at 1916 McAllister St. (RSVP link coming soon!).

Reportback: Tenant Organizing Working Group Provide Support for Socialist in Office Jackie Fielder’s Town Hall

On Thursday, our Socialist In Office Supervisor Jackie Fielder hosted a Town Hall at La Fénix on Mission as part of a D9 listening series. Last Tuesday, DSA members posted flyers throughout the Mission inviting residents to the Town Hall and the Citywide Tenant Assembly in August, and providing information to help tenants know their rights when facing eviction. DSA’s Tenant Organizing Working Group was joined in tabling the event by the Eviction Defense Collaborative, and DSA SF members were in attendance to support and listen to ideas and concerns from working class residents in the Mission.

The room was packed with constituents who shared questions and comments to a panel including Jackie and representatives from the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Emergency Management, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, SFPD, and SFMTA. Mission residents took the floor and advocated for many important community needs such as funding for peer counselors, mental health and substance use treatment, housing-first policies and funding for affordable housing, and against recent shelter closures and surveillance by Flock cameras. The departments took notes and responded to questions directed at them, including requests for greater transparency and regular reporting. Jackie’s team followed up with residents who still had comments after the event to make sure their concerns were noted.

If you’re interested in showing up to support our Socialist in Office, Jackie’s next Town Hall will be in Portola on Thursday, July 30 from 6:30 – 7:30 PM at the Family Connections Center, located at 2565 San Bruno Ave!

by Elizabeth Henderson

This month’s column will be short – lots to say, but too busy gardening and digging in the dirt to write it down!

New booth at the Public Market! Fresh Farmers Together launched their shared booth in early June. Please visit Shed D on Saturdays from 7:00am to 1:00pm to purchase their freshly picked organically grown produce. The 8 or so farms use the label “Sustainable” because they are not certified organic, although they use organic systems on their tiny farms that range in size from 2 backyards to 6 acres.

Final Hearing on Zoning Alignment. July 13 @ 6:00 pm, Rochester City Hall – final-final hearing on final comments on city Zoning. Us community garden folks will be waiting to hear if the ZAP writers will finally understand the difference between a high tunnel and a row cover!

The Rochester Food Policy Council hopes to hear that the zoners are heeding the call “to read its urban agriculture provisions not only as technical land use code, but as environmental justice policy.” The Food Policy Council comments summarize the Taproot Collective 2024-25 report on their survey of 109 community gardens:

“Rochester’s community gardens are concentrated in neighborhoods that face the greatest combined burdens of poverty, food insecurity, environmental contamination, and disinvestment. The Gardening Together Study found that the majority of Rochester’s 109 documented food-producing gardens serve neighborhoods where, as one grower described it, residents overwhelmingly live below the poverty line, where children may never have seen a fruit tree, and where healthy food – free of chemicals, grown with care – is a form of public health infrastructure, not a hobby.”

“90% of the people in my community live below the poverty level. 90% of the people in my community’s children don’t know how it is to see an apple tree, a pear tree, a plum tree. I want to teach the people in the community how to live off the land.”
Inez Burns-Nixon, Garden of Hope, North Marketview Heights.

The Gardening Together Study’s analysis questions explicitly tested whether gardens cluster in neighborhoods with lower tree canopy cover, fewer parks, and greater food access barriers – the same neighborhoods that bear the most concentrated environmental burdens from Rochester’s legacy of redlining, industrial disinvestment, and infrastructure disinvestment. This pattern is consistent with national research on urban agriculture in rust belt cities, where community gardens function as environmental justice interventions: they green vacant land that would otherwise accumulate pollution and illegal dumping, provide fresh produce in areas that retail markets have abandoned, and build community resilience in neighborhoods where social cohesion has been systematically undermined.”

Pest management field day! July 23 @ 3:30pm – 6:30pm, Foodlink Community Farm [585 Lexington Ave, Rochester, NY 14613]. Join us for a hands-on field day exploring integrated pest management tools for small-scale growing spaces and the opportunity to build community with local growers! This event will focus on best practices for using row covers, biocontrols, trapping, and more. We will highlight a Cornell Cooperative Extension demonstration trial using insect exclusion netting and entomopathogenic nematodes to manage swede midge, an invasive fly that causes damage to brassica crops. We will hear from local growers on how they manage pests on their farms and gardens with a focus on organic management.

You can learn how to set up low tunnels, and there will be tabling by the Food Policy Council, Northeast Organic Farming Association, Taproot, and more.

Please check out the Taproot Collective Facebook and Instagram pages for announcements of workshops and volunteer opportunities through the season.

If you want to participate in a garden, please contact the author of this piece, and maybe she can point you in the right direction!

The post Getting Grounded, July 2026-Out in the Garden! first appeared on Rochester Red Star.