Chapter & Verse: a summary of chapter news for July and August 2025

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Author: Geoff B

Disclaimer

I am a licensed Mental Health Counselor and will be discussing mental health and potential mitigations for some of neoliberalism’s most insidious impacts on one’s psychological state.  Still, none of what I mention here is medical advice and, if you are struggling, please reach out to the appropriate mental health or crisis services provider.

Additionally, while aspects of neoliberalism can affect and/or exacerbate psychological issues, the reality is that any mental health difficulty is influenced by a multitude of biopsychosocial factors, so even if capitalism falls overnight and tomorrow’s brilliant dawn heralds the beginning of the socialist utopia, you should still definitely talk to your doctor before chucking your Lexapro in the trash.

The Issue

Neoliberal Capitalism is wrecking our mental health and is a major contributor to stress, depression, burnout, and nihilism.  

First, it’s important to lay out what exactly I am talking about when addressing neoliberal capitalism, the driving economic force globally since the tawdry, mid-80s affair between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a type of liberalism which favours a global free market without government regulation, with reduction in government spending and businesses and industry controlled and run for profit by private owners.”  On its surface, the definition is dry, boring, and seemingly innocuous.  The most harmful aspects of neoliberalism, however, are seen in what it smuggles in, just under the surface: competition decides what or who is right; government market intervention is inherently destabilizing; humans are consumers; everything should be commodified; inequality is not just fair, but a virtue, as everyone, in the end, gets what they earn.  

The financial and societal impacts of neoliberalism are clear to anyone paying attention. Extreme concentrations of wealth and power and catastrophic levels of inequality are pushing the most people into poverty, marginalization, and disenfranchisement. Just as damaging are the erosion of education systems and the weakening of trade unions.  Then, of course, there are the financial catastrophes:  From the Savings and Loan crisis in the mid-80s (all roads lead back to Ronnie) right through the 2008 Housing Correction to the ongoing post-pandemic inflation, the neoliberal system delivers a regular drumbeat of financial devastation for the common person alongside incredible opportunities for the upward redistribution of wealth.  At this point, it is probably overkill to discuss the details of the numerous neoliberalism-induced wars, famines, and episodes of pestilence during that same period.

What doesn’t get enough press, however, is the psychological toll that all of the above takes on us as individuals.  We struggle to stay financially afloat.  It becomes difficult to envision a bright future for ourselves or our children.  We are algorithmically corralled into isolation, consumerism, and disinformation – all designed to prop up the system.  If one dares point these negative outcomes out, the system responds, “You didn’t grind hard enough, it’s your own fault,” or “You’re just being a snowflake.”  But the truth is, the impact is substantial, measurable, and not grounded in personal failing.  

The so-called deaths of despair – suicide, drug and alcohol overdoses, and alcohol-related liver and coronary disease – have doubled in the US since the 1980s and tripled since the post-war 1940s.  The World Health Organization reports a 13% increase in reported mental health disorders over the past decade, indicating that domestic and global mental health trends coincide.  

Some of the most worrisome examples of the damage done by a capitalistic system supercharged by neoliberal policy are the impacts on young people and children.  For example, Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, lays out a compelling argument that unregulated social media algorithms are directly responsible for the rapid increase in rates of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders in teens.  (It would be dialectically biased for me to not mention, in their defense, that the algorithms monetizing our kids have driven some very healthy returns for investors.) 

The Solution

Recognizing the impact of the Neoliberal Capitalist system can be overwhelming.  There are, however, viable methods of engaging with the system in healthy, purposeful, and self-preserving ways.  While perhaps not a panacea that guarantees bliss in an oppressive system, we can use practices and tactics found in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to reclaim some peace of mind.  

ACT, in a nutshell, is the idea that: 1) the current situation is, the feelings arising from one’s existence in the situation are, and that one can accept those realities and the associated emotions without needing to endorse them; and 2) one can make a commitment to values-driven action to drive change.  In practical terms, this can be understood in three overarching action items:  Mindful Participation, Solidarity/Mutual Aid Building, and Efforts towards Change.

Mindful Participation

Despite our misgivings, despite seeing the injustices and the ugliness of the current system, our participation in it is (nearly) unavoidable.  (I say “nearly” because while becoming a cave-dwelling hermit is still technically possible, it seems unnecessarily extreme and the WiFi sucks.)  We live, mostly through no fault or choice of our own, in a world where the rent has to be paid, shopping has to be done, and, if you want to hedge against starving in your senior years, saving for retirement in an IRA or 401k is unavoidable.  

We can, however, participate in ways that are mindful of our impact and as aligned as possible with our ethical values.  Employers can be found that are more ethically tolerable than others.  Mortgage payments, rent, and banking are unavoidable, but we do have some level of choice in who we do business with.  And, despite still being embedded in an oppressive system, ethically focused investments can have fewer negative impacts on our world than purely profit/return-driven investing.  We may not be able to step out of the system, but we can certainly be mindful of how we participate and evaluate our actions through the lens of our ethical and moral framework.  Consider it behavioral harm reduction.

There can be a sense that participation is inherently collaboration, making the acceptance part of ACT a bitter pill to swallow.  We can string together two ideas from Michel Foucault (don’t mistake respect for his philosophy as an endorsement of his alleged – ahem –  unsavory behavior in his personal life).  First, he wrote, “Power is exercised through networks, and individuals do not simply circulate in those networks; they are in a position to both submit to and exercise this power,”  and in a related quote, “Where there is power, there is resistance.”  That is to say, resistance can only exist within a system of power.  

Our aforementioned hermit may have avoided the ethical pitfalls of participating in a corrupt system, but fails to take advantage of the power for resistance that is intrinsic to the system itself. (For example, the message of this essay is much more effectively delivered using a MacBook and the internet than it would be sending it via smoke signal from an ideologically-pure cave.)

Creating Solidarity/Mutual Aid

Nearly 1200 words into this and I haven’t brought out the big guns of theory, so let’s rectify that.  Karl Marx, posits in The German Ideology, “Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible.”  Herein lies the first of the two aspects of commitment that we can examine: the recognition that not only are we not alone in our suffering under this system, but that we will only emerge victorious by combining forces and assisting one another.  (After all, as they say, you can’t do socialism without being social, baby!)

Like in our evaluation of mindful participation, we need to parse this through our ethical framework, as well as our individual capacity.  What counts as helping or community building is nearly endless.  If you’re outdoorsy, organize a hiking group; if you’re proud of those baking skills honed during lockdown, bring some cookies to your neighbors; if you can swing it, donate to a worthy local cause.  One of my personal commitments to community building, as a further example, is to always engage the numerous people with whom I have micro-interactions (think cashiers, Uber drivers, receptionists) in a way that shows I see them as a person, not just as a robot performing a public-facing task.  (Sometimes, they look at me like I’m a weirdo.  Sometimes they spend five minutes giving me the down-and-dirty details as to why they’re having a bad day.  So, if I am ever late to a meeting, it’s probably the latter, and certainly not my predilection for losing track of time.)

Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that community building and helping are two-way streets.  None of us are in the position to always be the helper.  Solidarity is likewise strengthened when one reaches out and asks for needed help.  

A common sight, in the early morning hours, in many Southeast Asian countries, are the columns of orange-clad Buddhist monks, winding their way through dense Bangkok neighborhoods or remote Laotian villages.  The faithful line the road, waiting their turn to fill the alms bowls, so as to generate good karma. But, according to Buddhist philosophy, you know who is really racking up the karmic merit points…the monks, by providing those villagers with an opportunity for giving and generosity.

Efforts towards Change

The final leg of the ACT stool we’re crafting is a commitment to collective action aimed at systemic change.  There can be some overlap here with our community building, but these acts are more overtly political; more intentionally designed to upset, alter, or rework the system itself.  

Constructing a new society demands focused, strategic, and coordinated effort.  Plenty of hard work is required. Something as revolutionary as a just and democratic society won’t materialize from thoughts and good vibes.  Luckily, the range of activities that qualify and move us forward is wide and deep.  

-Have you gone to a general meeting and voted on something?  You are a change agent and absolutely pushing us towards a better future.  

-Have you worked a phone bank or marched in a protest rally?  You are a legitimate paradigm-shifting Rock Star.  

-Have you logged in to a DSA meeting via Zoom, listening and learning, trying to find where you can plug in to the organization?  Well, my friend, you are a warrior for humaneness and should regard yourself as such!   

As a warrior, you should certainly become familiar with the sage advice from everyone’s favorite Prussian General, Carl von Clausewitz, “Wearing down the enemy in a conflict means using the duration of the war to bring about a gradual exhaustion of his physical and moral resistance.”  Every action that chips away at neoliberalism, no matter how small, matters.

The Wrap-Up

I am of the opinion that there is plenty in this world to inspire wonder and amazement, but concede that it sometimes feels like we are living through the worst timeline.  We have borne witness to a steady decline in fairness, equality and the political agency of the common person.  We have seen and experienced financial exploitation, social oppression, and the continued concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.  The modern age has driven a sense of psychological brutalism and strategic isolation.  

Dogged, collective action is the singular means by which a more just and humane future society can be won.  But, the strength required to carry out this action cannot exist without individual psychological resilience.  Our ability to protest, organize, or lead is directly tied to our capacity to keep ourselves from succumbing to the immediate pressures of a brutal system.  The coping skills and survivor mindset that can be cultivated with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy tools can not only make the day-to-day more bearable but also increase our ability to stay in the fight.  

None of the actions suggested by the ACT framework are momentous.  They can be executed in small chunks, step-by-step, inch-by-inch.  Even if we’re moving an inch at a time, we’re still gaining ground, and, in good time, will arrive at a better place, personally and as a society.  I am truly optimistic about that.

The post Acceptance, Commitment, and Class Struggle: Maintaining Resilience During Late-Stage Neoliberal Capitalism appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America.

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Delegates from around the country gathered for DSA's 2025 convention in August.

The post Red Atlas: A National Convention appeared first on Democratic Left.

Before DSA, I was a socialist without an organizing home. We have a responsibility to strengthen the institutions that give our organizing staying power.

The post We Need to Build DSA as an Institution appeared first on Democratic Left.

By: Joanne Coutts

This article was originally published in Riverwise magazine.

By April 2020, as the world grappled with the harsh reality that the COVID pandemic was not going to be over quickly and that not everyone who contracted the virus could be saved, I had been volunteering to provide humanitarian aid in the Sonoran Desert surrounding Ajo, Arizona for about two years.

I was also grappling with another harsh reality: no matter how much water I put out in the desert some of the people crossing were still going to die. In the end, although the capacity for providing humanitarian aid remained solid all through spring and early summer of 2020 and we put out a lot of water, that summer came to be known in the humanitarian aid community as the “Summer of SAR” (Search and Rescue/Recovery). Perhaps because, or in spite of the pandemic, people continued to cross the border. The heat rose. The monsoons never really came to the west desert around Ajo. And the calls to the volunteer SAR line kept on coming.

Simultaneously, around the U.S. white activists were being asked to and beginning to question narratives of “white saviorism” in their work. For me the intersection of the reality that I could not put out enough water to save everyone’s life with the conversations surrounding white saviorism sparked an internal questioning of how I might reconsider my relationship to providing humanitarian aid. I very much wanted to move towards a perspective of solidarity — of recognizing, highlighting, and foregrounding the partnership of equals between U.S.-based volunteers and people crossing the desert in an inequitable place and time.

Solidarity takes many forms. It means not victimizing, disenfranchising, or denying the agency of people crossing the desert in our narratives of the border. For me, this includes not using or co-opting their stories, their experiences, or their deaths in my own quest for personal or community resolution and redemption. It means taking to heart the guidance of Gangula activist Lilla Watson, who reminded us that “If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time… But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” It also means telling the story of my own experiences, thoughts, and feelings to give a glimpse into why I choose to show up for humanitarian aid at the so-called U.S./Mexico border. The following is an excerpt from a journal I kept for a week in April 2020.

The only experiences we can know, stories we can tell, thoughts and feelings we can share, are our own. (Not necessarily. Solidarity also means being able to empathize and use that understanding for advocacy when others can’t. This means being able to understand how to tell stories without co-opting them for transactional purposes). Perhaps something like: For me, this means not just using the stories of others or co-opting their experiences and pain to fuel my own needs for resolution or redemption, but understanding deeply that my own liberation is connected to that of everyone’s, and providing through my own experiences a way for others to understand why I show up for others in the way I do.

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Today was a chill day. It was a logistics day because we have received a waypoint (GPS coordinates) in the Bryan Mountains from one of the SAR hotlines of a person who was left behind by his group about a month ago.

There are many reasons (blisters, dehydration, exhaustion, death to name a few) that cause groups to leave one or more of their members behind. Sometimes, when we find someone who has died, I think about what the rest of their group could have gone through having to leave that person behind. I think about how clear and distinctive water drop locations seem in my mind in the moment. How quickly the image loses focus. How when I try to describe them to other volunteers, I forget details. Does this happen to groups? Do people tell themselves they are going to get help? Feel that the spot is ingrained in their memories? Only to find that when they call the SAR hotline and try to recall the location it has vanished like a dust devil into the enormity of the desert.

None of us has ever been to the Bryan Mountains. We will have to hike 11 miles from the nearest road, the Camino del Diablo, just to get to our search area. In addition to completing a thorough search, we will also take the opportunity to explore the area and try to understand how people are traveling through it. To accomplish all this, we are spending the weekend out there.

I feel that no one is interested in the details of my food, camping, COVID safety and truck preparations. So, I am going to take this opportunity to share something I get in my feelings about.

That something is — items left in the desert by people traveling. Generally, I believe in the principle of “leave no trace.” I pack out my trash and pick up water bottles that we have left in the desert at our drops. But, when it comes to items left behind in the desert by people traveling, I definitely do not pick them up and pack them out. Why not?

First, I do not consider these items to be “trash.” I think of these items as artifacts, tools that people have made a conscious choice about, for example, pantouflas. Pantouflas are carpet slippers that people wear over their shoes to cover their footprints and make it harder for Border Patrol to track them. Like pottery, or other cultural artifacts that you see in museums, pantouflas have a cultural relevance to life in the Sonoran Desert in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Second, I see these items as providing signs and guides for others traveling through the desert. They might help someone to navigate the easiest way through an area. This is especially true when there are multiple apparent canyons going into a mountain range. Some of the canyons will dead end or lead to high cliffs. By following the signs of other travelers, people may be able to identify which canyon leads through the mountains. Items can also identify safe or unsafe places to rest depending on what they are or how they are arranged. For instance, randomly left clothing and blankets can indicate a safe place to sleep, but a circle of camouflage clothing, accompanied by small Kirkland water bottles can indicate a detention site — that is a place where a group has been arrested by Border Patrol.

Third, sometimes items can be reused, a water bottle that has recently been left can replace one that is leaking, or it could be cut in half to make a bowl for eating the beans that we leave or to collect water from rain or a natural rock tank.

I have ideological reasons for not picking up items too.

I want people visiting the desert to see the impact of Prevention through Deterrence on people and on the land. Sometimes the number of items can be overwhelming. Every water bottle, every tuna packet, every backpack, blanket, jacket, pair of jeans, shoe represents someone who has traveled through the heat and surveillance to save themselves or to search for a better life. It is hard to believe that anyone could see the endurance and resilience that these items represent and not feel compassion for their fellow humans.

Finally, there is the hypocrisy of the land managers, who complain vociferously about the environmental impact of items left behind by travelers in a desert that is, and since 1941 has been, an active military training ground. We find all kinds of military trash, from bullets to tow darts, flares, and even full-size missiles. The military says it is too hard to collect their trash because of the terrain and distances they must travel to pick it up. Usually, I am all about community rather than individual responsibility, but as the military has dropped more “trash” in the desert than anyone else and as it is militarization of the desert that is causing people to travel through wilderness areas leaving items behind, it is, perhaps, the military’s responsibility to clean it up.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Summer is coming! Knowing that we had an 11.2-mile hike just to get to our search location in the Bryan Mountains, we left Ajo in the afternoon for the 40ish-mile drive to camp in the Agua Dulce Mountains so that we would be up and walking by 5 a.m. tomorrow.

By 7 p.m. in the evening, everyone was at the campsite. We ate dinner, then planned for the next day’s search around the campfire.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

This morning, we woke up to a beautiful desert sunrise. There was little time to enjoy it. We had a long hike and the heat of the day was coming. We loaded our packs, wolfed down some breakfast and set off across the San Cristobal valley towards our search location in the Bryan Mountains.

I know full well that when I talk about Search and Rescue/Recovery to people who have never participated in it in the Sonoran Desert, the term conjures up images of helicopters, well organized lines of searchers, 4-wheel drive trucks, drones, and high-tech navigation equipment. For us, however, SAR is a complex, messy tangle of information of varying degrees of accuracy and relevance and random groups of people walking on foot using handheld GPS units and distinctly low-tech walkie-talkies.

Normally on SAR we would walk in a line, each person spaced 50 feet apart. We would have a left and right line anchor on either end and a line manager in the middle making sure that we are all walking at the same pace and that everyone is accounted for when we go through washes or thick desert brush. Today, because we had such a great distance to walk just to get to the search area, we used a restricted administrative road — a road that the public is allowed to walk on but only the various arms of Law Enforcement are allowed to drive on — as the fastest way to travel across the valley. This strategy gave us more time to do a proper search once we got to the Bryan Mountains.

And we walked and walked, and it got hotter and hotter, and we walked some more. We stopped chatting and kept walking. After about five hours of walking, we hunted for lunchtime shade and ate and then started walking again. Finally, at about 2 p.m., after seven hours of walking, we arrived at the waypoint we had been given where the man we were looking for had been left behind. And there was nothing but desert. We did not find any sign of the man or any sign of his group.

Like the desert itself, information for SAR can be an illusion. Time, space and distance look different from different places. A slight rise in the terrain or a wash with tall trees can make a mountain look closer or a valley look narrower than it really is. Also with SAR, one piece of information, such as a waypoint, can seem larger and more important than it is. Another piece of information that might seem small and insignificant can lead the search team to the correct place.

Just because we found nothing at the waypoint, we did not immediately decide that there was no-one or nothing to be found.

We rested, unpacked our packs, and set up camp. Then, somewhat refreshed, we set out with only essential items, water, a little food, GPS, marking tape and walkie talkies for a line search of the area north of the waypoint. We spread out with the west line anchor on the lowest slopes of the Bryans and the east line anchor (me) on the fringe of the San Cristobal valley.

We walked slowly, checking under palo verde and mesquite trees, looking in washes and stopping to investigate items left behind in the desert. Our line moved deliberately and thoroughly north for just over an hour. Then we stopped, the sun was starting to set, and the Bryan Mountains threw a big shadow over the valley. It was time to turn back to reach our camp before it got dark. We bumped the line out to the east to continue our search as we went southward. I moved about a quarter mile out towards the center of the valley and the west anchor, moved to about the line that I had taken coming North. We returned in the same methodical way that we had come.

We did not find the person.

Days like these in the desert bring up so many questions. There are obvious logistical ones like: Was the waypoint wrong? Did we look in the correct directions? Where should we look tomorrow? How much time should we spend doing general exploration to gain information that might be helpful for future SARs? There are also emotional questions: Is it OK if we do not find the person? Is it OK if we laugh, tell stories, and generally enjoy each other’s company while we are on a SAR? Is it allowable to love and appreciate the beauty of the desert while looking for someone who has died in it?

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Back in the day when I had a steady income, I used to play Texas Hold ’Em. Not particularly well, but I was an almost decent recreational player. Aside from the obvious benefit of occasionally winning money, I learned a lot from the game which I have applied to my life as an humanitarian aid volunteer.

Texas Hold ’Em Poker is, according to Annie Duke, and I concur, a game of “decision making under conditions of incomplete information.” What counts is the quality of the decision regardless of its outcome. Hold ’Em also requires you to take the long view, to accept that the universe owes you nothing. Just because you have patiently folded bad starting cards for hours does not mean you now deserve to get dealt pocket Aces. Poker teaches you to maintain a Zen state of detachment, to hold the outcome you are looking for lightly and accept that it may or may not come.

All these lessons apply to doing humanitarian aid work in the Sonoran Desert. Not that people’s lives in the desert are a “game” in the frivolous sense of the word. Clearly there is nothing frivolous in the disappearance of thousands of people as a result of “Prevention through Deterrence.” It is a “game” in the sense that to recover the disappeared and deliver supplies to help people keep themselves alive requires strategy, adapting to change and trying to think as both your allies and your opponents might think, to aid the former and outsmart the latter.

Our SAR this past weekend required using all my poker skills.

We began the search with a waypoint. In the context of the Search and Recovery, a waypoint is very little information. With no corroboratory information, such as the starting location of the group, their destination, how long they had been walking before they left the man behind, which mountains they had passed or were headed towards, a waypoint is almost no information at all. In this situation of incomplete information, the first decision is, “do we go out and look for this person at all?”

In this case the answer to that question was “yes.” It was “yes” for some practical reasons. First, we had the capacity in terms of people ready, willing and able to mount a search. We also had a bigger picture motive of exploring an area (the Bryan Mountains) that none of us had ever been to before. It was also “yes” for existential reasons, even if we did not find him, the very fact of looking demonstrated that this man was a person worth looking for. That seven people hiked 22 miles to look for him (even though we do not know his name or family) hopefully went out into the universe and he and they got a moment of a sense that some people cared.

As we got closer to the waypoint the sense of expectation grew. It is human nature to get excited when you feel you are close to achieving your goal, especially one that has required the exertion of a great deal of physical and mental effort. Here is where poker comes in again: the fact of expending the effort does not equate to deserving the expected outcome. The person we were looking for was not at the waypoint. That does not invalidate the decision to look for him. It does not invalidate the effort expended. It is simply the unexpected result of a good decision.

Next we did a grid search, now a Zen poker mindset is most needed and hardest to maintain. You have been sitting at the table for hours, you have been getting dealt Queen/Three off suit for hours. You want something to happen. You envision Aces or Kings coming your way as the cards are dealt and you peek at the corner of the cards, Q3 again. This happens to me a lot on searches. I have been walking for hours, looking under trees for hours and I want to find the person. I start to imagine finding them under the next tree, in the next wash, over the next saddle. I look and there is still just the desert. I tell myself to let go, to hold the thought of the person lightly, to think about something else. Sometimes that works after a fashion. Sometimes I become so focused on trying to hold the person lightly I end up clinging to them tighter than ever.

Back in Ajo tonight, looking at the stars, I remember that this is a “long game.” I believe that the universe knows we looked for this man and I believe that one day, if we all hold him lightly and constantly enough, he will be found.

Now say his name aloud:

“Desconocido.”

“Presente!”

Epilogue

Reading this four years later brings back memories of the beautiful community we shared in the desert during the height of the COVID pandemic. How special it was to be able to walk with that group out to the Bryan Mountains. There are parts that I still agree with and parts where my thinking has changed since 2020. It would be a sorry thing if my thinking had not grown and evolved in the intervening years.

I continue to be drawn back to Ajo every year by my frustration at the inhumanity of U.S. immigration policy. And by my need to do something, anything to contribute to ameliorating the devastating human costs of “Prevention through Deterrence” I am also drawn by my desire to just be in the desert. I don’t know if I am any closer to resolving how to be in genuine solidarity with people crossing the desert. I cannot imagine the external pressures and internal strengths that would get me to pack just one backpack and leave behind the life and home I have built for myself. I do not like to think of people crossing the desert as “needy, desperate migrants.” I believe that humanitarian aid work and the language we use to describe it must recognize the agency, need and determination as well as the desperation in people’s journeys. As we move deeper into our technological and AI age, I become ever more acutely aware that people crossing the desert today are the vanguard. We will all be learning from them in a future where all our liberation is bound up in the freedom of people to move across “borders.”

My favorite day’s writing is Thursday, the day I talk about items left behind in the desert. I still stand solidly behind my arguments for not picking up items left by people traveling. I wince a little when I read that I wrote the words “leave no trace” and “wilderness.” When people say those words to me now my hackles rise. What wilderness? The Sonoran Desert has always been a place of people and communities and travel. Humans and their movement are as much a part of life in the desert as pronghorn, pack rats and saguaros.

The intervening years have also added another layer of complexity to my relationship with humanitarian aid. I have been thinking and learning about the relationship between our work with the Sonoran Desert’s Indigenous O’odham himdag (way of life) and the land itself. Today, I try to think of humanitarian aid as the current iteration of a centuries old desert culture of giving assistance to travelers and caring for water sources. It feels important to me to be in solidarity with land and water as well as people. The Sonoran Desert once provided water for travelers naturally. Now it is unable to do this on its own due to climate change and the never-ending thirst of cities like Phoenix, Tucson and Buckeye. The honor of creating and caring for water sources is an opportunity to try and practice valuing and learning from Indigenous ways of living with the land and to reestablish and rebalance my relationship with my human, plant, animal, mountain, rock, and water relatives.

Joanne Coutts is an independent cartographer and activist whose practice is centered on the connections between our relationships with land and water, and commitment to humanitarian aid and solidarity in response to climate change. Her current projects use counter-mapping to support humanitarian aid at the so-called US/Mexico border and contribute to efforts for water rights, and rights for water, in Detroit. She is a member of Metro Detroit DSA.

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In Search of Solidarity: Reflections on a Weekend of Search and Discovery in the Sonoran Desert was originally published in The Detroit Socialist on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Kids in Vermont have gone back to school. On their first day after the summer vacation, Windham County students may have expected to say hello again to their usual bus drivers, but that'll have to wait. Travel Kuz, the supervisory union's transportation contractor, has locked out members of Teamsters Local 597 and brought in scabs.

Bus drivers and monitors responded to their bosses' refusal to bargain by organizing pickets. On Wednesday, Travel Kuz sent them a cease-and-desist letter, calling a demonstration at Brattleboro Union High School "unlawful" and "unsafe." Local law enforcement disagreed.

The Teamsters want Windham Southeast superintendent Mark Speno to pressure Travel Kuz to end the lockout and have encouraged allies to contact him. Tell Speno (802-254-3730, mspeno@wsesdvt.org) to support the transportation workers' fight for fair wages and benefits. You can even attend the next school board meeting.

Follow Local 597's Facebook page for the latest updates. An injury to one is an injury to all.

And speaking of the Teamsters, you may see some of them in Burlington at the Labor Day Solidarity March, Rally & Picnic. Dozens of unions and activist organizations (including Green Mountain DSA) have endorsed the event.

You can help us get ready by joining us at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington) today (8/30) at 4 p.m. to create art for the rally. Feel free to bring materials.

We expect a massive turnout for the rally itself. Meet us at Battery Park at 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept 1. Labor Day belongs to workers.

Unfortunately, as the schoolkids already know, Labor Day also means that summer is over. Thanks for the memories – here are a few shots from our chapter's barbecue at Oakledge Park.

GMDSA MEETINGS & EVENTS
🚲 In order to avoid a conflict with the Labor Day rally, GMDSA's Urbanism Committee will meet on Tuesday, Sept. 2, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

👋 Find out how you can help our Membership Committee improve recruitment and involvement in our chapter on Thursday, Sept. 4, and Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🧑‍🏭 Our Labor Committee will hold its next meeting on Monday, Sept. 8, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🔨 Talk about your job and learn about shop-floor organizing from peers at Workers' Circle (co-hosted by the Green Mountain IWW) on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, including Sept. 10, at 6 p.m. at Migrant Justice (179 S. Winooski Ave., Burlington).

🍿 Socialist Film Club will host another backyard screening in Burlington on Friday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m. Please email us for more information if you're interested.

🗳️ The next meeting of our Electoral Committee will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 6 p.m. on Zoom.

🤝 GMDSA's East Branch and West Branch will come together for a general meeting on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 11 a.m. at Montpelier's Christ Episcopal Church (64 State St.), with an optional orientation for newcomers at 10 a.m.

🍉 Our Palestine Solidarity Committee will meet on Monday, Sept. 29, at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

STATE & LOCAL NEWS
📰 GMDSA-endorsed state senator Tanya Vyhovsky (Chittenden-Central) toured Ukraine, meeting with activists, politicians, students, and trade unionists.

📰 Protesting the Trump administration, Vermonters and Quebecois gathered at the US-Canada line in an expression of international solidarity.

COMMUNITY FLYERS

The Democratic Socialists of America International Committee (DSA IC) unequivocally condemns the “peace” plan brokered by President Donald Trump between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We call on the United States to immediately reverse course and ensure that any peace agreement is finalized with full consequences for Azerbaijan’s officials for perpetrating a genocide against the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh). This means ensuring the right of return for Artsakh Armenians, recognition of their right to self-determination, and prosecution for crimes against humanity by Azerbaijan’s ethno-supremacist government under Ilham Aliyev. 

Nearly two years ago, Azerbaijan finalized a brutal assault on the de facto autonomous region of Artsakh, besieging, starving, and ultimately expelling the native Armenian population. As the world first saw in 2020, this assault was made possible by U.S. complicity in the actions of two of its allies, Turkey and Israel. Despite State Department Acting Assistant Secretary Yuri Kim assuring the world that “the United States will not countenance any action or effort—short-term or long-term—to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the United States did exactly that.

Despite Azerbaijan’s documented and numerous crimes against humanity, its occupation of sovereign Armenian territory, and its genocide of Artsakh’s Armenian population, administrations of both major parties have now acquiesced to this regime’s demands. This includes repeatedly waving Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act to send American tax dollars to arm the Azerbaijani military. The shameful situation can be explained by the geopolitics of the South Caucasus. 

Turkey, for its part, continues to engage in vehement denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and uses fascistic, hyper-nationalist rhetoric both at home and in its foreign policy. Towards Azerbaijan, this means advancing Pan-Turkism, which largely scapegoats Armenians as an inferior and sub-human people worthy of extermination in order to create a contiguous Turkic nation. Both Turkish President Reccep Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Aliyev have, for instance, publicly praised the actions of the perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and their immediate underlings repeatedly advance the idea of “completing” the task. However, support for Azerbaijan from U.S. allies neither starts nor ends with Turkey.

Israel, since the fall of the Soviet Union, has cultivated a deep relationship with Azerbaijan. Reports suggest that Azerbaijan continues to be one of the top three energy suppliers of Israel. In exchange, Israel sells weapons to and tests developing systems in partnership with Azerbaijan’s military. In fact, around 70 percent of Azerbaijan’s weapons are reported to come from Israel. In 2020, Israeli drones were a key factor in Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenian forces protecting Artsakh. It is likely for this reason that Israel also proudly denies the Armenian Genocide even today. Furthermore, Israel views Azerbaijan as a key geostrategic asset to gain leverage, intelligence, and supremacy over Iran, with a number of Israeli bases being hosted close to the Iranian border.

The U.S.should not sacrifice Artsakh’s Armenians on an altar to these two genocidal allies. Assisting Azerbaijan in whitewashing genocide in exchange for oil to flow from Baku to Europe and Israel and to further Pan-Turkism is criminal. As socialists, we recognize that the dignity of any people should not be contingent on their value to global capital. Tragically, this peace plan does exactly the opposite: subjugating Armenia at the expense of profit, Pan-Turkism, and Zionism. The Armenians of Artsakh have been indigenous to the region for millennia, with some of the Armenian people’s earliest cultural heritage originating in the area. Their right to self-determination is inalienable and the right of return for the over 100,000 forcibly displaced people must be part of any U.S. brokered peace along with release of prisoners of war, political prisoners, and withdrawal from occupied lands.

This injustice is compounded by the provision for a 99-year, privatized lease on a transit corridor for Azerbaijan that would cut through the Armenian region of Syunik. Profiteering on a route that will likely be used by Turkey and Israel to supply weapons to Azerbaijan to use against Armenia or Iran. The creation of such a route also calls into question Armenian sovereignty, as the corridor would potentially cut off Armenia from its only friendly neighbor, Iran.  

This would undeniably be an extension of American neo-colonial power into Armenia that, as history suggests for 99-year leases, any future Armenian government will find incredibly difficult to get out of. Troublingly, U.S. diplomatic history is checkered with interventions into smaller, less powerful countries to uphold such strategic trade routes and enrich private enterprises. This includes the Panama Canal in Panama, United Fruit in Guatemala, the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government, and the military takeover of Chile. This history must not be allowed to repeat itself in Armenia. Instead, the United States must go back to the table and reverse the genocide of Artsakh Armenians. 

Democratic Socialists of America’s International Committee stands with oppressed people around the world fighting for liberation against imperialism, racism, and capitalism. From Palestine, to the Congo, to Sudan, to Armenia and Artsakh, and beyond, we recognize that these struggles are interconnected. In solidarity with comrades around the world, we strongly condemn this reprehensible proposal and call on the US government to change course.

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Ամերիկայի Միացյալ Նահանգների Սոցիալիստ Դեմոկրատների Միջազգային Կոմիտեն (DSA IC) անկասկած դատապարտում է «խաղաղության» այն ծրագիրը, որ միջնորդեց նախագահ Դոնալդ Թրամփը Հայաստանի եւ Ատրպէյճանի միջեւ։ Մենք կոչումէնք անում Միացյալ Նահանգներին որ անմիջապես փոխել ընթացքը եւ ապահովել, որ խաղաղության որեւէ համաձայնագիր կնքուի միայն այն դէպքում, երբ Ատրպէյճանի պաշտօնյաները կ’ենթարկուին լիարժէք հետեւանքներու՝ Արցախի (նաեւ յայտնի իբրեւ Լեռնային Ղարաբաղ) բնիկ հայության դէմ իրականացրած ցեղասպանության համար։ Սա նշանակում է ապահովել արցախահայության վերադարձի իրաւունքը, նրանց ինքնորոշման իրաւունքի ճանաչումը, նաեւ Ատրպէյճանի էթնօ-գերազանցական վարչակարգի՝ Իլհամ Ալիեւի գլխաւորությամբ, մարդու դէմ ոճիրներու համար դատապարտումը։

Մօտ երկու տարի առաջ Ատրպէյճանը աւարտեց դաժան յարձակում Արցախի փաստացի ինքնավար շրջանի վրայ՝ պաշարելով, սովամահ անելով եւ ի վերջոյ արտաքսելով բնիկ հայ բնակչութիւնը։ Ինչպէս աշխարհը տեսաւ 2020 թուականին, այս հարձակումը հնարաւոր դարձաւ Միացյալ Նահանգներու մեղսակցությամբ՝ իր երկու դաշնակիցներու, Թուրքիոյ եւ Իսրայէլի գործողութիւններուն։ Չնայած Պետդեպարտամենտի Ժամանակաւոր Օգնական Արտգործնախարար Յուրի Քիմը վստահեցրեց աշխարհին, թէ «Միացյալ Նահանգները պիտի չհանդուրժեն որեւէ գործողութիւն կամ փորձ՝ կարճաժամկէտ թէ երկարաժամկէտ,՝ էթնիկ զտումներ կամ այլ ոճիրներ իրականացնելու համար արցախահայության դէմ», Միացյալ Նահանգները գործնականում ճիշդ այդ բանն արեցին։

Չնայած Ատրպէյճանի բազմաթիւ եւ փաստագրուած ոճիրներուն՝ մարդության դէմ, Հայաստանի ինքնիշխան տարածքներու գրաւումը եւ Արցախի հայության ցեղասպանութիւնը, երկու խոշոր կուսակցութիւններու վարչակազմերը զիջած են այս վարչակարգի պահանջներուն։ Սա ներառում է բազմիցս հրաժարվել Freedom Support Act Section 907-ի, որպէսզի ամերիկյան հարկատուներու գումարով զինեն Ատրպէյճանի բանակը։ Այս ամօթալի կացութիւնը բացատրելի է Հարաւային Կովկասի աշխարհաքաղաքականությամբ։

Թուրքիան, իր հերթին, կը շարունակէ մերժել 1915-ի Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւնը եւ օկտագործում է ֆաշիստական, գերէթնիկ-ազգային հռետորաբանութիւն թե՛ ներքին, թե՛ արտաքին քաղաքականության մեջ։ Ատրպէյճանի հանդէպ, սա նշանակում է առաջ տանել Պանթուրքիզմը, որ հիմնականում հայութիւնը կը դարձնէ քաւության նոխազ՝ իբր անարժէք ու ենթամարդկային ժողովուրդ, որուն ոչնչացումն անհրաժեշտ է «միացյալ թուրանական ազգ» ստեղծելու համար։ Թուրքիայի նախագահ Ռէջեփ Էրդողանը եւ Ատրպէյճանի նախագահ Ալիեւը անգամ բազմիցս հրապարակավ գովեստներ յղած են 1915-ի ցեղասպանության իրագործողներուն, իսկ անոնց անմիջական հետեւորդները կրկին ու կրկին առաջ կտան գաղափարը «ավարտին հասցնելու»։ Սակայն Ատրպէյճանի հանդէպ ամերիկյան դաշնակիցներու աջակցութիւնը չի սահմանափակուիր միայն Թուրքիայով։

Իսրայէլը, Խորհրդային Միության անկումէն ի վեր, խորապէս զարգացուցած է խոր յարաբերութիւններ Ատրպէյճանի հետ։ Զեկոյցներու համաձայն, Ատրպէյճանը կմնա Իսրայէլի երեք խոշոր էներգամատակարարներէն մէկը։ Փոխարենը, Իսրայէլը զէնք վաճառում է եւ համատեղ համակարգեր կփորձարկէ Ատրպէյճանի բանակի հետ։ Իրականում, որ Ատրպէյճանի զէնքերու շուրջ 70 տոկոսը հասնում է Իսրայէլից։ 2020-ին, իսրայէլյան անօդաչուները վճռական դեր խաղացին Ատրպէյճանի յաղթանակին՝ Արցախի պաշտպանական ուժերուն դէմ։ Հաւանաբար այս պատճառով Իսրայէլը մինչեւ այսօր հպարտությամբ կժխտէ Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւնը։ Աւելին, Իսրայէլը տեսնում է Ատրպէյճանը որպէս կարեւոր աշխարհագրական ռազմավարական ակտիվ՝  Իրանի դէմ լաւագոյն լծակներու, հետախուզական եւ ռազմական գերակայության համար՝ տեղադրելով բազում ռազմակայաններ Իրանի սահմանին մօտ։

Միացյալ Նահանգները պէտք չէ զոհաբերէ Արցախի հայութիւնը այս երկու ցեղասպան դաշնակիցներուն զոհասեղանին վրայ։ Աջակցիլ Ատրպէյճանին՝ ցեղասպանութիւնը սպիտակեցնելու համար՝ նավթը Բաքուէն դէպի Եւրոպա եւ Իսրայէլ հոսեցնելու եւ Պանթուրքիզմը առաջ տանելու նպատակով, հրէշաւոր ոճիր է։ Որպէս սոցիալիստներ, մենք ճանանչում ենք, որ որեւէ ժողովուրդի արժանապատուութիւնը չպէտք է կախուած լինի անոր արժէքէն համաշխարհային կապիտալի համար։ Ցաւօք, այս խաղաղության ծրագիրը ճիշդ հակառակնէ անոգմ՝ ենթարկելով Հայաստանն շահ շահոյթին, Պանթուրքիզմին եւ Սիոնիզմին։ Արցախի հայերը բնիկ են այս երկրամասին մէջ հազարամեակներով, ուր հայ ժողովուրդի ամենահին մշակութային ժառանգութիւններէն ոմանք ծագած են։ Անոնց ինքնորոշման իրաւունքը անօտարելի է, իսկ բռնագրաւուած 100,000 մարդոց վերադարձի իրաւունքը պէտք է լինի որեւէ ամերիկյան միջնորդությամբ խաղաղության հիմնաքարը՝ զինուորական գերիներու եւ քաղբանտարկյալներու ազատ արձակման ու օկուպացուած տարածքներու ազատման հետ միասին։

Այս անարդարութիւնը աւելի կխորանայ այն դրությամբ, որ 99 տարուան վարձակալությամբ, մասնաւորեցուած «կորիդոր» պէտք է տրամադրուի Ատրպէյճանին՝ անցնելու Հայաստանի Սիւնիքի մարզէն։ Սա կը դառնայ շահագործումի ուղի, որ մեծ հաւանականությամբ պիտի ծառայէ Թուրքիոյ եւ Իսրայէլին՝ զինելու Ատրպէյճանը Հայաստանի կամ Իրանի դէմ։ Աւելին, նման ուղիի ստեղծումը կասկածի տակ կը դնէ Հայաստանի ինքնիշխանութիւնը, քանի որ «կորիդոր»ը կարողանա կտրել Հայաստանը իր միակ բարեկամ հարեւանէն՝ Իրանից։

Սա անկասկած պիտի դառնայ ամերիկյան նեօ-գաղութատիրության երկարաձգում Հայաստանի մէջ, որ, ինչպէս պատմութիւնը ցոյց ե տալիս 99 տարուան վարձակալութիւններու պարագային, որեւէ ապագայ հայկական կառավարության համար չափազանց դժուար պիտի լինի վերացնելու։ Խիստ մտահոգիչ է, որ Միացյալ Նահանգներու դիւանագիտական պատմութիւնը լի է փոքր եւ տկար երկիրներու նկատմամբ միջամտութիւններով՝ նման ռազմավարական առեւտրական ուղիներ ապահովելու եւ մասնաւոր ձեռնարկութիւններ հարստացնելու նպատակով։ Սա ներառած է Փանամայի ջրանցքը, «United Fruit»-ը Գուատեմալայում, Իրանի ժողովրդավարօրէն ընտրուած կառավարության տապալումը եւ Չիլիի զինուորական յեղաշրջումը։ Այս պատմութիւնը պէտք չէ կրկնուի Հայաստանի մէջ։ Փոխարէնը, Միացյալ Նահանգները պէտք է վերադառնան բանակցութիւններու սեղան եւ դադրեցնեն Արցախի հայության ցեղասպանութիւնը։

Ամերիկայի Միացյալ Նահանգների Սոցիալիստ Դեմոկրատների Միջազգային Կոմիտեն (DSA IC) կանգնում է աշխարհի բոլոր ճնշուած ժողովուրդներու կողքին՝ ազատագրության պայքարին մէջ՝ դէմ կայսերապաշտության, ռասիզմին, եւ կապիտալիզմին։ Պաղեստինէն մինչեւ Կոնգօ, Սուդան, Հայաստան եւ Արցախ եւ անդին՝ մենք ճանաչում ենք, որ այս պայքարները փոխկապակցուած են։ Համաշխարհային ընկերներու հետ համերաշխությամբ, մենք վճռականօրէն կը դատապարտենք այս անպատշաճ առաջարկը եւ կը կոչենք Ամերիկյան կառավարութիւնը փոխել իրենց ընթացքը։

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Air Canada was forced back to the bargaining table after thousands of flight cancellations and hundreds of thousands of passengers were stranded.

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By: Nate Foster

LOWELL, MA – UMass Lowell (UML) has always had deep ties to American industry. Located in a city that was founded to manufacture textiles during the Industrial Revolution, the university can trace its roots back to the Lowell Textile School in 1895. Integrated into the University of Massachusetts System in 1991, the UML mission statement echoes its predecessor’s founding purpose: preparing students for the American workforce through industry connection. 

Much has changed since the days of the Lowell Textile School. Domestic textile manufacturing is a thing of the past in the mill town, retreating to urban immigrant worker enclaves. Now, UML uses debt to turn students into engineers that leave Lowell to find employment in tech hubs far from Lowell. In the 21st century, students in the former mill town find career and research opportunities in the military and security sectors. And with each passing year of graduates, UML welcomes thousands of new undergraduates each year that are drawn to its trademark programs leading to careers in U.S. tech industries – all five of the highest earning degrees at UML are in computer science or engineering.

These are tech disciplines increasingly dominated by large corporate contractors. These behemoths have come to control increasingly larger portions of the U.S. military in recent decades, with the Department of Defense spending over $431 billion in corporate contracts last year and over $100 million of those funds allocated toward just fourteen university R&D programs. These staggering figures illustrate the integral role the U.S. military plays in research funding for UMass Lowell, which has prioritized institutional connections to the booming military and security markets. Focusing on a growing military industry is a predictable move for UML, given its status as a public university with state funding concerns, a strong research apparatus in engineering and technology, and a student body filled with future industry professionals.

Six-figure opportunities are available to escape the financial hurdles and career uncertainties attached to higher education in Massachusetts. Lowell students are 41% students of color, 39% first-generation college students, and 30% of are pell grant recipients. Incentives for comfortable careers in lucrative defense fields are abundant, which makes the university’s push toward funnelling students with limited options toward these fields all the more insidious. All students have to do in return is join the ranks of the leading U.S. war profiteers, where designing the most destructive technologies in human history is another 9 to 5. 

In Debt? Sell Your Labor to War.

UML is sharpening its military focus at a time when college is historically unaffordable for students in Massachusetts. As a public, state-funded institution, UML is supposed to present an affordable path to higher education for its students. In reality, students at Massachusetts public schools have been missing out on assistance for decades. 

Despite a national 15% increase in state-funded financial aid across the country between 2001-2021, aid in Massachusetts simultaneously decreased by 47%. The cost of attendance for public universities in Massachusetts went up by 59% over the same timespan. With the absence of aid, many students are forced to borrow their access to education: 2001-2021 saw a 105% increase in students taking out loans at public universities in Massachusetts. UML is no exception, as 73% of students graduated with some form of student debt in 2020, with an average debt load of $33,500 per graduate. Debt drags upon students like a chain. 

As financial pressures mount, many students prioritize fiscal responsibility over ethics and passion. Cost-consciousness is accommodated to avoid class-consciousness. Students take lucrative majors that will pay the bills in the future, complete with undergraduate research and networking opportunities for employment after graduation – military-funded jobs for military-funded purposes. Student debt doesn’t just lead to selling out to some corporate position; instead, because of how industry has captured engineering, student debt leads to selling labor to facilitate a smoother, more technologically savvy war machine.

Corporate Recruitment on Campus

UML students are an invaluable resource to the US military-industrial complex. Every fall semester, a campus full of future working professionals keeps its eyes peeled for career opportunities that offer financial stability. These students are at a critical juncture in the recruitment process for war profiteering companies that need college-educated employees and sustained university research systems. 

Industry partnerships are further incentivized by the U.S. government, which provides funding to UML research initiatives that prop up its defense apparatuses. In a DOGE era, when the federal government is slashing one agency and one research fund after another, universities like UML have even greater incentives to do everything to facilitate the most stable research funds and institutional relationships with the institution: those prioritized by the U.S. government itself, in areas deemed critical by the government, like defense. Post-graduation employment rates, an increasingly important metric among powerful college rank lists, also push universities to match students’ skills with market needs dominated by defense. 

Forty-four official UML corporate partners mention servicing various sectors of the defense industry on their official websites, including weapons manufacturing, aerospace, cybersecurity, communications, electronics, robotics, advanced materials and polymers, and energy. UML organizes their corporate partnerships into a tier system, recognizing special proximity to their “premier,” “select,” and “advantage” partners. At the top of the pyramid, both premier partners, Raytheon and Draper Laboratory (a nonprofit company), are active in the military industry.

UML’s partnerships with war institutions for corporate recruitment is blatant. Raytheon, for example, has collaborated with UML to establish the Raytheon UMass Lowell Research Institute (RURI). Located on campus at the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, Raytheon has clearly defined the founding purposes of RURI to be “workforce development” creating a “talent pipeline of new employees trained in additive and microwave technologies.” Raytheon’s UML partnership has been a profound success on both the research and recruitment fronts; the corporation employed over 700 UML alumni as of 2021, far outpacing any of the university’s other corporate affiliates. RURI has also secured numerous research projects with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Raytheon is on the front lines of corporate recruitment into war efforts at UML, but far from the only example of the school’s pipelining. RURI is just one of seven of UML’s listed research centers and institutes and eleven laboratories and research initiatives that work with military contractors or the U.S. military directly. An affiliated nonprofit entity called the UMass Lowell Applied Research Corporation (UMLARC) is explicitly dedicated to securing DoD research contracts. UMLARC is staffed by UML vice chancellors, former U.S. Air Force members, and corporate representatives, and is active through the Northstar Campus, a branch of the UML Research Institute which was established to strengthen university-corporate-government relations in the military industry.

UML has reserved entire sections of land for the pipeline.

Outcomes of War Profiteering in 2025

War profiteering only works when there is war to profit from. Markets surge with the onset of the newest invasion, proxy war, or security concern, as conflict leads to windfall profits for corporate contractors. There is a human cost associated with tying research and career opportunities to such an industry that does not show up on a corporate bottom line or the UML website. 

A potent case study in the effects of war profiteering at UML is the school’s participation in Israeli apartheid and mass-murder campaigns via military research for the U.S. defense industry. UML is partnered with numerous U.S. weapons contractors that provide the bulk of arms sales to the Israeli occupation. Most notable are UML partners Raytheon and Lockheed Martin; the world’s two largest arms dealers supply the missiles, bombs, and fighter jets that have seen heightened and indiscriminate use on large populated areas in Palestine, killing tens of thousands of people directly and likely hundreds of thousands more to follow from the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure. Raytheon also helped create Israel’s trademark Iron Dome missile defense system, and provides various other radar systems to Israel; this may raise eyebrows towards RURI at UML, which primarily conducts radar and communications research. Coincidentally, RURI was created in August of 2014, as Raytheon-made bombs were falling on Palestinians during what Israel called “Operation Protective Edge,” a high-tech killing spree of over 2,000 people in just 50 days. 

UML seems disinterested in what its closest industry partner does with its research, and the school certainly isn’t trying to distance itself from Israel. One student profiled on the official UML website as part of the UML Center for Terrorism and Security Studies (CTSS) described his experience studying abroad in Israel: 

Each week was a different topic, including Jihadi terrorism in the Middle East and Israel national security threats. In the morning there were classes and lectures, taught by numerous individuals, including faculty from The University of Tel Aviv and retired generals from the IDF… On the last day of the week they took an all day excursion to locations such as the Syrian Boarder [sic] and the Gaza Envelope. During the free time they has [sic] the ability to travel and would go to places such as Jerusalem, the beach, or the market. This program can be taken as a 3-credit course under a Security Studies elective.

UML promotes a school-sponsored trip to multiple violent occupation zones deemed illegal under international law, described with an enthusiastic sense of adventure that would not be out of place in an advertisement for a Disney cruise vacation. UML students embarking on this trip in the summer of 2017 were learning jaw-dropping “security” tactics; it was just a year later that IDF soldiers were admitting to holding kneecapping competitions while putting down the peaceful Great March of Return demonstrations, which protested Israel’s ongoing illegal blockade of Gaza and denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homelands. Over 200 Palestinians were killed and over 13,000 were wounded by Israel during the demonstrations that took place at the Gaza border fence. One imagines that the bodies were cleaned up quickly, should the next batch of UML CTSS students be sightseeing on their way to Tel Aviv beaches. 

UML understands the potential for public backlash to its controversial institutional connections. This is especially true in the midst of relevant political movements, which bring those connections into uncomfortably sharp focus in the public eye. However, when faced with institutional criticism, UML did not respond with institutional change in any way.

After October 7, UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen issued a single vague 119-word blurb calling for a “swift end to the violence” that managed to avoid naming a single involved state or actor. This abstract position of “neutrality” serves only to publicly distance the school from its proximity to Israel, and stands in profound contrast to the substantial volume of war profiteering opportunities at UML, which obviously indicate a strong partisan stance on the “war” in question. Such a throwaway PR campaign also misinforms students, who are exposed to all of the career specifics of war profiteering and none of its outcomes. It is no surprise that 20 months after Chen’s statement, there has been anything but a swift end to the violence in Palestine, and UML’s cheap one-time message of neutrality crumbles under the weight of its institutional actions as students are funneled into the ranks of Israel’s biggest weapons suppliers. UML’s underlying wants are clear: not a swift end to the violence, but a swift end to the perception of violence by the public or the student body that may implicate the university, or cut its funding.

From Palestine to the Border

The U.S.-Israeli genocide is not the only case of UMass Lowell’s aiding and abetting of state violence. In April 2025, Trump’s second administration revoked a UML undergraduate’s immigration status alongside fourteen other UMass students. UMass administrators condemned the anti-immigration campaigns, but without acknowledgement of its own series of  research centers and initiatives at UML that support the secret police and surveillance state apparatuses sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) itself. 

Only four months earlier, UML unveiled the plans for a new “Cyber Center” on campus in collaboration with the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500 technology company and prime contractor for DHS. SAIC is responsible for AI-based governance and biometric solutions in the U.S. border system – an automation and digitalization of surveillance technologies that can and are deployed against immigrants. UMass President Marty Meehan, who in April 2025 would call the “actions of the federal government” on campus “unprecedented” and “extremely troubling and upsetting”, said the following only five months earlier in December 2024 regarding the UML partnership with a major DHS contractor: 

The SAIC partnership and creation of a Cyber Center is great news for UMass Lowell and the city of Lowell… These developments promise new knowledge and technological advances in a critically important field. At the same time, this collaboration will produce an important pipeline of talent as we develop the workforce urgently needed to join the work of securing our networks and information infrastructure and ensuring their resilience into the future.

For students pursuing engineering and technology careers, this pipeline characterizes futures. Whether through campaigns of aggression using corporate weaponry, violent “security” tactics, or discriminatory federal policies, students are coerced into participation in an industry that uses university research and educated workforces to produce catastrophic real-world outcomes. Hands are wrung and emails carefully crafted when the blowback from those outcomes reaches university doorsteps, but ultimately none of this concern is translated to what UML as an institution actually does with its resources and personnel. When it comes time to announce the newest contract or research initiative, there is nothing but vociferous adulation in LinkedInese from all of the relevant higher-ups in university and industry. 

UML couples full-steam-ahead military investment with empty community assurances, and pipelines and partnerships are elevated over the people who bear their consequences. 

For the Many, Not the Few

UMass Lowell, with the breadth of its involvement in war profiteering, is yet another cog in the expansive U.S. military-industrial complex. The pipeline that creates the next generation of weapons designers and security scholars is at work on campuses across the U.S., embedded in our public schools, supported by the institutions educating the American people. 

The U.S. defense budget balloons every year, yielding more government contracts and subsequent corporate profit maximization. Well-connected to this booming industry, UML gains research funding and corporate connections. Debt-riddled engineering students get pointed towards the lucrative career paths that are spoonfed to them. People are killed at the other end of the newest weapon to hit the market, yet their deaths are never brought up in the classroom where the weapon was conceptualized.  

The solution is education that prioritizes human need and human welfare instead of the weapons supplies of apartheid states: an engineering for the many, not the few. That requires viable STEM and technological alternatives that actually serve the people made available for students, but offering that is difficult without fundamental changes to how the U.S. economy is organized. Careers in military research will be prioritized by students for as long as the military-industrial complex profits through warfare and enlists university help to bolster its workforce and technology. The increased military privatization efforts and cost of attendance spikes of the 21st century have only exacerbated this dynamic.

There is no magical divestment button or replacement industry partnership to give UMass Lowell without addressing the root causes of its institutional decision making. Students and workers must also have far more democratic and empowered control over institutional decision-making, as equal stakeholders in the public institution. Students cannot control their career paths if they have no say in the administration of their universities. Workers who don’t own the products of their work have no way to challenge a boardroom decision to use those products for violent means. War profiteering is not actually profitable for the vast majority of people, and would not take its present form in a democratically organized society. 

With this ultimate goal in mind, many actions can be taken in the moment. Students should continue to organize towards a collective understanding and dismantling of war profiteering on campus, and demand participation in the decision-making processes of their tuition-funded shcools. Universities and corporations that participate in the military-industrial complex and disregard its human cost need to face popular pressure for the damage, for the sake of both students herded into the military industry and the people around the world that suffer for it.

A future of ethical technology-based livelihoods is possible – but only once students are unencumbered by an industry that exchanges bombs for bottom lines. 

Nate Foster is a member of Boston DSA.

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