Upcoming Events

Tuesday, May 6 (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Reading Group for “The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth” (Zoom)

Wednesday, May 7 (6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): New Member Happy Hour (In person at Zeitgeist, 199 Valencia)

Thursday, May 8  (5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.): Education Board Open Meeting (Zoom)

Friday, May 9  (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Saturday, May 10 (1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Outreach and Training (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Sunday, May 11  (9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.): Hygiene Kit Assembly with Labor Board and Homelessness Working Group (In person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 12  (5:50 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.): Socialist in Office + Electoral Board Meeting (Zoom)

Monday, May 12  (6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Tenderloin Healing Circle (In person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate)

Monday, May 12  (6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Homelessness Working Group Regular Meeting (Zoom and in person 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 12 (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Labor Board Meeting (Zoom)

Wednesday, May 14 (6:45 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.): May General Meeting (Zoom and in person at Kelly Cullen Community, 220 Golden Gate and on Zoom)

Thursday, May 15  (7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.): Immigrant Justice Working Group Meeting (Zoom)

Sunday, May 18 (5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Capital Reading Group (Zoom and in person at 1916 McAllister)

Monday, May 19 (6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.): Ecosocialist Bi-Weekly Meeting (Zoom)

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

Events & Actions

New Member Happy Hour

Join us for our New Member Happy Hour starting at 6:30PM at Zeitgeist (199 Valencia Street). Learn more about DSA SF’s upcoming projects, find out how to plug in, or just socialize with socialists! Also open to old members, regular folks and the socialism-curious. Members running for DSA National Convention delegate will also be there to answer questions about their questionnaires, so members should come through, too!

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Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is running a Fundamentals of Workplace Organizing course weekly in May (see below for schedule). We’re getting a group to take the course together and benefit from in-person discussions and activities,. If you’re interested, fill out the form here and join the #ewoc-fundamentals-2025 channel in Slack! The goal is to have more people learn organizing skills, both for your own projects and for organizing with EWOC.

Sessions run every week from 6:00-7:30 p.m. on:

• Wednesday, May 7
• Tuesday, May 13
• Wednesday, May 21
• Wednesday, May 28

The Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is a project of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to build a distributed, grassroots organizing program to support workers org

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No Appetite for Apartheid Canvass

We will be holding our next training and canvassing for No Appetite for Apartheid this Saturday, May 10! We’ll be meeting at 10:00 a.m. at 522 Valencia to do training. After the training, we will divide up into groups to visit stores in the Castro and Noe Valley (and maybe restaurants and cafes too!) and discuss de-shelving and boycotting Israeli products!

If you’ve already trained and you just want to canvass, feel free to show up at 11:30 a.m. at 522 Valencia to get a turf. If you are able to provide transportation for people from the training site to the canvassing location, please indicate that you RSVP here.

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Hygiene Kit Assembly

Keeping the May Day spirit alive, we have a Hygiene Kit Assembly planned on Sunday, May 11 in partnership with the Homelessness Working Group. We’ll assemble hygiene kits to distribute to our homeless neighbors and talk about ways to come together in community. People experiencing homelessness are systematically left out of political decisions that impact them, and we’ve invited members of local unions and community members to have conversations with us about this disparity at this event. All ages welcome – this event is kid friendly.

Sunday, May 11
9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
1916 McAllister

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Office Hours

Co-work with your comrades! Come to the DSA SF office and get your DSA work or work-work done, or just hang out. We’ll  be at 1916 McAllister from 12:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m. on Fridays.

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May Day Reportback

This week the world celebrated International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day, to mark the anniversary of the 1886 United States general strike to demand an eight-hour workday. To celebrate this historic day, the Labor Board, in collaboration with other chapter bodies, mobilized chapter members to attend a slate of events focused on immigrant and workers’ rights.

Our events kicked off on Sunday, April 27th with a Know Your Rights canvass in partnership with the Immigrant Justice Working Group. DSA members handed out  multilingual red cards and asked local businesses to hang flyers in their windows. It was powerful to see so many neighbors and businesses standing in solidarity with the immigrant community.

In place of the Labor Board’s regular Monday meeting, we held an education event focused on the history of May Day. We screened “We Mean to Make Things Over: A History of May Day,”  a documentary co-produced by members of East Bay DSA. The Education Board facilitated a discussion about the documentary and shared several political cartoons from the late 19th  and early 20th centuries.

On April 29th we turned out dozens of comrades to Maker Tuesday in preparation for the May Day rally. With everyone’s help, we made hundreds of  DSA buttons, flyers, and red cards, and assembled goodie bags to bring to the rally.

Though Thursday May 1st didn’t mark the end of our May Day events, it certainly was a high point in understanding how we can come together in solidarity for workers and immigrants alike. The San Francisco and East Bay chapters formed a large contingent at the rally where comrade Hazel W and socialist-elected District Supervisor Jackie Fielder gave empowering speeches about how every struggle is part of the connected fight for freedom, dignity, and justice. Thousands of workers, immigrants and people from all walks of life marched from San Francisco City Hall to the ICE building. We will fight back, and when we fight, WE WIN!

Interested in continuing the fight for workers’ and immigrants’ rights? Come to our next May Day events:

• Sunday, May 11 – Hygiene Kit Assembly from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at 1916 McAllister. RSVP here.
• Tuesday, May 20 – Socialist Night School on Salting from 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. at 1916 McAllister. RSVP here.

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Socialist in Office Reportback

At the Socialist in Office meeting on April 28, the electoral board discussed several items

• Supporting legislation for a Tenant’s Right to Pay to prevent evictions due to nonpayment after delinquent payments are resolved
• Opposing the SFPD & Sheriff Overtime Budget
• Upcoming hearing on the Four Pillars model for overdose prevention on May 16 
• Supporting unhoused families facing evictions from shelters after 90 days
  • There will be a rally in support of the families with Faith in Action on May 12 at 4:00 p.m. at City Hall. Please come to support! 
• Potential attacks on housing-first policies for permanent supportive housing (PSH) by legislation requiring 25% to be sober housing

If you would like to be involved in these conversations, join the electoral board on Mondays at 6:00 p.m. via Zoom and find us on Slack at #electoral-discussion.

Behind the Scenes

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

To help with the day-to-day tasks that keep the chapter running, fill out the CCC help form.

An interview with the local group Presente! ME about their organization’s history and mission helping new Mainers, and current concerns regarding national attacks on immigrant communities.

The post Maine Mural: Presente! ME appeared first on Pine & Roses.

For the last few months, Nature’s Treatment of Illinois (NTI) has been attempting to buy a plot of land owned by the city of Rock Island, IL to build a cannabis dispensary and truck stop on a 10-acre site located adjacent to the Milan Bottoms. The Milan Bottoms includes over 3,500 acres of wetlands that […]

The following remarks were presented by DSA-endorsed mayoral candidate and current City Councilmember Mary Lupien at the “Day of Action” on April 19.

We are living through a time of profound crisis—and profound possibility .

Across this country, we are watching the destruction of our democracy unfold in real time. The Trump administration is not just coming for immigrants. It is coming for difference and  for dissent. For working people. For the systems we rely on—public education, healthcare, the justice system, free speech. They are coming for us. This is not just political. It is existential.

This is not about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about the one percent versus the rest of us.

Because while we were grieving, while we were locked in our homes, while we were just trying to survive the pandemic—a historic transfer of wealth took place. Billions of dollars left our pockets and lined the bank accounts of the wealthiest few. That wasn’t a side effect. That was the plan.

It is still the plan.

And at every level—national, state, and local—we see the same tired lie being sold to us: that if we just give more to the wealthy, eventually the money will trickle down to us. When will we learn that trickle down economics doesn’t work.

Rachel [Barnhart] is right. The democrats have failed us at the national level by leaving the working class behind and as Randi [DiAntonio] said—catering to the corporate class and political loyalists. And that couldn’t be more true locally. We feel it every day.

At the federal level that looks like defunding the department of Education, social security and Medicaid; and giving tax breaks to Trump’s rich friends. On the state level, it looks like giving $1 billion to Elon Musk to build a solar panel factory that didn’t live up to its goals. Locally that looks like spending tens of millions of dollars of Covid relief money on big flashy projects meant to lure outside residents and business investment while benefiting corporate real estate campaign donors. 

So now is the time to reject that broken logic. To draw a hard line in the sand and say: public money must go to public good. Period.

We’ve come to rely on systems, but let’s be honest: those systems were never meant for us. Not in their current form. They’ve been hijacked to give us just enough to survive—while funneling everything else to the top.

So it’s time to reimagine. Rebuild. Resist.

But here’s the truth we don’t always talk about: Resistance is hard. This is a marathon, not a sprint. After the excitement of today wears off and we’re alone with our fear- it can feel overwhelming. Especially when it feels like everything is happening at once.

That’s why we need to talk about self-care and community care—not as luxuries, but as necessities. Because you can’t pour from an empty cup. You can’t fight for the future if you’ve forgotten how to feel joy in the present.

Staying connected to our hearts is an act of revolution. Finding beauty, sharing laughter, caring for ourselves and each other—that’s what makes us human. And if we lose sight of that humanity, then what exactly are we fighting for?

This is a moment to reevaluate our priorities—not just as individuals, but as a society. What do we want to build? Who do we want to be?

Because it’s not enough to raise our voices. We have to show up—with courage and clarity—for the people who are most in danger.

Right now, the focus might be on immigrants, but we know this administration’s aim is broader. It’s about silencing protest, punishing difference, and dividing us to maintain control.

And looking around this crowd, we have to ask: why don’t we see more marginalized people here? Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s a sense that we haven’t shown up for them in the ways they’ve needed.

We have to sit with that.

We have to confront the uncomfortable truth that these systems—white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism—they continue because we participate in them, even passively. Even when we don’t mean to.

So let’s make a commitment, right here and now, to do better. 

To examine our role. To hold each other accountable. To build something truly diverse, equitable, inclusive—truly just. Because justice isn’t a checklist. It’s a way of being. It means recognizing that my liberation is tied to yours. That none of us are free until all of us are free.

This is our time to resist with everything we’ve got.

To love with everything we’ve got.

To build with everything we’ve got.

Not just against something—but for something better.

Let’s fight for a world that honors every life.

Let’s fight for joy, for connection, for each other.

Let’s be brave enough to imagine what’s possible—and bold enough to make it real.

The post Who do we want to be? first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

The Nevada landscape is not the same as the federal landscape. In Congress, we know that power players like Big Pharma and AIPAC run the show. Here in Nevada, it’s the Chambers of Commerce, the Nevada Realtors, the Retail Association of Nevada, mining companies, and big casinos. Labor unions get a slice of the pie, like prevailing wages for new construction and raises for public workers, thanks to their generous donations, with most progressive bills existing due to union backing.

During this legislative session, these power players have run the show. In a published statement, Sandra Jarauigui stated that her bill was watered down by Nevada Realtors, who then decided not to back it anyways. This bill, AB280, would limit rent increases for senior citizens to 10% (now 5%) for one year before sunsetting in 2026. That’s right, a one year long rent stabilization bill, that would allow landlords to immediately raise it to any number they want again when it expires in December 2026. This would conveniently be months before the end of the next legislative session and leave them without protection for over six months, even in the event that a second bill is passed.

Retail Association of Nevada, or RAN, has been loudly opposed to Attorney General Aaron Ford’s anti-price gouging bill, even publishing a condemnation of the bill in their monthly newsletter. They lobbied against it, pushing legislators to vote down the bill. Unfortunately for RAN, if you want legislators to take a politically ugly position such as this one, you’re going to have to pay them the big bucks. Only 3 Democrats voted against the bill: Duy Nguyen, Venise Karris, and Joe Dalia. All 3 of them received the maximum donation of $10,000 from the Retail Association of Nevada. They were the only Democrats to do so.

The bills are then written, sponsored, and presented by corporate lobbyists. AB523 is a bill written and presented by Uber lobbyists. Several articles refer to this bill as a “settlement” or a “compromise”, we prefer the term “quid pro quo”. Uber launched a nationwide campaign to lower their insurance liability in 2023, as a response to a litany of lawsuits regarding sexual assault, injury, and wage theft. Uber decided to go to war with a key pillar of the Nevada political class: legal services professionals.  Uber presented this bill as a ceasefire. You allow us to carry lower insurance limits, shield us from all liability prosecution, and define drivers as “independent contractors” in law, and we will stop running ads against your friends in the law firms. Howard Watts allowed Uber lobbyists to fast track the bill through the Growth and Infrastructure Committee. It was introduced, heard, and passed in 24 hours. It then passed the floor unanimously. Not a single state lawmaker opposed the bill.

Next up is AJR8, what some are referring to as a desperate offering to Elon Musk. Sponsored by Assembly Democrat and Corporate Darling Joe Dalia, the bill is heavily supported by the Retail Association of Nevada. A reasonable person can assume that the world’s richest oligarch Elon Musk might have something to gain from the bill, due to his continued reliance on Nevada public dollars for his operations. Musk has also been railing against the existing business court in Delaware, because the court increasingly has ruled against corrupt CEOs and Trump-connected henchmen. Musk expressed his desire to establish a business court in Nevada on X.  AJR8 passed the house with 40 votes, with only Assembly Democrats Erica Roth and Selena La Rue Hatch in opposition.

Then there’s SB371, presented by Resorts Association lobbyists on behalf of strip casinos. This bill would increase the penalties for trespassers on the Las Vegas strip. While that might sound reasonable to some, these “trespassers” are mostly homeless people moving from their way down the strip to access the tunnels (a local residence for the unhoused). This bill seeks to “deter” people who have no other choice, by locking them away for three years. Most notably, the bill is sponsored by Nevada Senate Democrat Fabian Doñate and Senate Republican John Steinbeck. Doñate represents one of the poorest districts in Las Vegas, and has seemingly sold out his own constituents. Doñate received the maximum contribution from MGM Resorts in his last election, as well as more than $5,000 in donations from various casino properties. SB371 passed the senate with no opposition.

Lastly, the disappearance of BDR 10-513, rent stabilization. The bill was viciously opposed by the entire corporate coalition, most strongly by Nevada Realtors. The bill was one of only a few bills to not be introduced at all in the session.

In all, the legislative session has been dominated by corporate lobbyists. While their presence is overwhelming — there are 900+ lobbyists in a building with 60 legislators — Nevada state lawmakers have given up on the pretense that working Nevadans have the same influence as their corporate campaign donors. There are no backroom deals between legislators and corporate lobbyists in Nevada, the lobbyists are standing in the middle of the room and loudly declaring “I wrote this bill.”

Neither party stands up against corporate interests. Whether it’s giving away federal lands, lowering insurance rates for Uber, arresting the homeless, or pouring public money into state funded billionaire slush funds, the CEO always comes first in Nevada. Las Vegas DSA wants to see a legislature dominated by worker power, and we will keep fighting until we’ve defeated the corporate giants.

If you want to stay up to date on what bills are making their way through the legislative session and who is supporting them, check out our bill tracker:

…by a reading group member

From November 2024 to March 2025, Madison Area DSA embarked on an ambitious political education project. A reading group formed to tackle Paul Reitter’s 2024 translation of Capital. The challenges of this book were clear and immense from the beginning. Marx’s words measure to a total of 710 pages with over 100 more pages of introductions and endnotes. It tackles a vast array of topics starting with a theoretical analysis of value, a mathematical assessment of the working day, and a historic review of the working class’s conditions across Great Britain. To call this work a magnum opus feels like an understatement. 

How did MADSA respond to the challenge? There are different measures of success that should be considered. Over a dozen members signed up in December to attend the weekly meetings. Attendance dwindled rapidly to a core four members who finished the text earlier this year. We held a majority of meetings in-person at the Social Justice Center, though occasionally some were converted to Zoom due to scheduling conflicts. By the end, a transition from Thursday nights to Saturday mornings was made to facilitate reading group members taking on other active organizing projects on weekday nights. 

The drop in attendance was likely multifactorial. For some members, the scheduled in-person weeknight meetings were inaccessible. For others, missed meetings due to other end-of-year holiday obligations made it difficult to catch up. Because each chapter of Capital references previously introduced concepts, falling behind often meant being left behind. In response, reading group members employed a combination of audiobooks, physical books, and digital ebooks to read the material. This allowed time-strapped members to maximize opportunities to read between sessions. Basically, whenever I had free time this winter, I needed to crack open Capital to stay ahead. 

Sessions originally consisted of facilitated meetings with a self-nominated leader agreeing to summarize key concepts and key vocabulary each week. The decline in membership led to a decline in formal structure. At the conclusion, the four remaining members brought an equal share of questions and key passages to the table for others to review and discuss. This second model reduced scheduling anxiety and remained effective because as members grew to understand and build off of each other’s strengths. In general, a key source of success was having a member already familiar with the text, this member provided valuable context at the beginning of each session and prepared us with signposts to pay attention to when we read the into the next section.

In summary, I believe MADSA should form a Capital reading group every two years to maintain institutional knowledge of the key socialist theories among chapter members. Future reading groups will benefit most from regularly scheduled meetings that do not interfere with the end-of-year holidays. They should also seek to have members who are already familiar with the text to help draw attention to key ideas for new readers. It is worth considering the use of supplemental material, such as David Harvey’s chapter by chapter lecture series, which could reduce entry barriers or help members stay up to date despite occasionally missing a section. However, I believe there is significant benefit to engaging in the written metaphors and analogies Marx uses to explain his concepts. Members relying only on summarized material will miss the humor and jokes very much needed in the socialist vernacular to call out the contradictory monstrosity of capitalism. 

The question of in-person versus video meetings remains up in the air. I invite current MADSA attendees of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism reading group to contribute a follow-up report to Red Madison to help direct the chapter’s burgeoning political education committee on the best practices for maximizing access to important member education. 

Finally, what other key theory should enter the MADSA reading group roster? In addition to reading European socialists like Marx and Lenin, MADSA should make dedicated space for non-European theory exploring the mechanisms of capitalist oppression. Given we organize within occupied Ho-Chunk land in the shadow of a massive land grant university, members would benefit from critical theories of settler colonialism. Reading groups for Fayez Sayegh’s 1965 thesis, Zionist Colonialism in Palestine and La Paperson’s A Third University is Possible represent exciting ways to build the membership’s capacity for material analysis and historical critique.

By Matt Triaszin

The first months of the second Trump administration have been a serious surprise for the global left. It now seems that the American imperial system is deliberately shooting itself in the foot simply to spite its primary international interlocutors. On a local level, Rochester DSA and its allies are on the offensive, eyeing not only a majority on the City Council but the Mayorship as well. This, albeit local, prospect of victory is not to be taken lightly or as an unbridled good. What it means to win on a municipal level for Socialists is well understood historically and current conditions provide several outcomes for electoral victory in Rochester.

This article attempts to elucidate the “concerns of optimism.” That is, rather than attempting to posit a purely optimistic outcome from the next year of ROC DSA’s operations, I will attempt to assume positive outcomes in our electoral program and then warn against the view that these electoral victories are in and of themselves complete victories. As such, this article is a warning against lack of planning, fatalistic optimism and the assumption that local progressive governance is in and of itself the victory of socialist governance. As such, I will not be discussing the very real possibilities of failure at the beginning of our local electoral campaign. We must remain steadfast against fatalistic optimism and also against the demobilizing effects that such fatalism entails and can be found in history when socialists assume a position of inevitability of their victory or even of victory being complete at the moment of the counting of votes. 

1. Victory on City Council

Amongst comrades, this appears to be the most optimistic hope, remaining an oppositionary, but popular force without wide scale compromise or putting us into statewide and national battles where prospects are significantly worse. I will make this point however: While being a disciplined oppositionary force is needed in the current moment, increasingly erratic decisions from the forces of the Slaver Constitution means that a lack of even municipal aggression on our part could mean that our position is weakened in the long term. We must present a true alternative to the current political landscape, including short term gains for the people of Rochester and its surrounding areas. We cannot back ourselves into the corner of being pure sewer socialists. Not using our powers for the meeting of basic needs will likely mean someone else will. All local programs, however, must be part of a wider, national strategy which places our victory in context and gives us direction. 

2. Total Local Electoral Victory

The next alternative is victory in not only city council races, but in our mayoral hopes as well. While this seems like an unequivocal good, it must come with caution. We have experiences from Socialist or Socialist aligned mayors in Buffalo and likewise the history of the American Socialist movement as a whole. We will immediately be in conflict with the government of New York State, the Federal government and even local agencies, particularly the police. Most importantly on the latter, we will also be at their head. This is a borderline insurmountable contradiction, a position similar to “Abolitionist Slavers.” As such, we in the cadre of ROC DSA must be prepared in a variety of ways. One person does not have the answers here, but as a collective body, we must be ready for a likely result: the failure of our electoral wins to materialize into something greater than electoral wins. Importantly, failure cannot turn into a demobilizing phenomenon, especially after organizing strongly for what seemed like victory. On day one, as a minimum we need to be prepared to explain why certain laws, measures etc. did not succeed. We must set up analyses beforehand, before finding ourselves doing a post-mortem.

3. “Red Rochester”

There is a tightrope to walk for a true local victory however, one which requires careful preparation and an invigorated cadre. This victory results in Rochester being a bastion of the Socialist movement in the United States, a City on the Hill spreading the good news against the tides of reaction and bigotry. Even attaining the “status” of stable Socialist rule in Rochester, in its current miniscule and off chance is not enough. The conception of “Socialism in One Country” failed and so did the bastion of Socialist culture of Red Vienna. In the event of such success, we must be a shining example of victory and not the victory itself, a vanguard showing a possible path forward for our comrades not only in the United States, but areas throughout the world facing similar challenges and conditions. Even the greatest of successes require us to learn from history and our comrades from around the world. We stand on the shoulders of giants and avoiding the pitfalls of the past must be a constant thought in our minds. 

4. The Reality of Local Socialist Governance Historically

I have made several mentions of historical outcomes, none of which were successful in the long term. It is lofty to compare our fledgling movement to the success of the SozialDemokratische Arbeiterpartei Österreich as a mass organization. The SDAP was a party which in 1927 succeeded at taking 42% of the vote in a national election, alongside total dominance of the country’s capital city. Not only did the party succeed in official elections, but they maintained a social and economic plurality over the Austrian Republic’s cultural institutions, trade unions and maintained an armed force, the Republikanischer Schutzbund (Republican Protection League) which at its peak outnumbered the armed forces of the Austrian Republic. The SDAP operated under the assumption that the Republic of Austria was a “neutral plain” which positioned the bourgeois parties and the proletariat into a state of political rather than open warfare. 

The Austrian state however, was not this neutral site of combat between evenly positioned titans of mass politics. It was a repressive apparatus which situated the proletarian parties (though primarily only the SDAP) as a plurality against bourgeois and allied interests (namely peasants and the petit bourgeois). The SDAP, by positioning itself as the defender of the Republic, found itself constantly ceding ground to forces uninterested in democratic principles. Likewise, the national government was hostile to the project of Red Vienna, meaning that the Socialist project was hamstrung not only by right wing terror campaigns and increasing police repression, but by a financial war which the SDAP parliamentary plurality could not fight through legalistic means. 

The lesson to be learned for ROCDSA is that we: (1) Cannot treat any level of the American state as “ours” and (2) Cannot go into the next period of our activity with the simple plan of passing local laws as if they are value neutral propositions. All of history disagrees. We must be ready to be a vocal opposition even if we are locally in power and prepared for showdowns we cannot win. Being able to articulate that the American state is hostile to not only our intentions, but to the interests of the working class in an effective manner is of the utmost importance. We cannot become impotent by virtue of dissolving ourselves into either a “progressive coalition” which is ultimately hostile to socialist politics, or dissolving ourselves into economistic reformism. Our victory (in the local sense) must be understood as a demand for expanding democracy and the beginning of a larger battle for it. A local victory which does not demand a new state of affairs is a temporary one at best and victory without being prepared for losses, tactical retreats and setbacks is one which assumes that we are only moving by the laws of history. A fatalistic, even suicidal strategy which would bury us before we are born.

These are mostly optimistic possibilities, even slim ones, but ones that we can win. We must, however, never for even a second forget that one battle does not win the war and the war to remake society in a democratic, humane, socialist form will be a long one. One which requires us to understand that the decisions we make have consequences that require introspection, thought and the activity of all of us in these processes.

Solidarity Forever,
Matt Triaszin

The post On the Prospect of Victory first appeared on Rochester Red Star.

This May Day, we gather in a moment of rising pressure. The bosses exploit us, the politicians sell us out, and the system demands our silence. In a city and country where labor action is far too rare and organizing faces constant resistance, it can be easy to feel isolated. May Day reminds us that we are not alone. We stand in a global tradition of struggle and solidarity, one that has always grown strongest in the face of repression. Rooted in the demand for basic rights – from the eight-hour workday to healthcare and housing for all – May Day is our yearly call to keep fighting back.

This tradition belongs to us all – workers, tenants, students, and everyone struggling for a better future. Across the country, workers are reclaiming their power, forming unions, making their voices heard, and building something better. We can and must embody that spirit here in Madison. As capitalism decays our world around us and threats to our lives and livelihoods escalate, our task is clear: build working-class power and wrench back our wealth from the bosses and billionaires.

Let this May Day be a reminder: the future is not yet written. We create it. With courage, with care, and with each other, we organize – not just for survival, but for dignity, for justice, and for the world we know is possible. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it starts when ordinary people come together. Whether it’s supporting the next generation as they walk out of school, preparing for a 2028 general strike, or spending a spring day talking socialism with comrades in the park, every step forward counts.

Below are a few ways to get involved this May Day and beyond to help build our power – no experience required. All you need is the belief in a better future and a willingness to stand in solidarity against the ruling class. Let us plant the seeds for a stronger movement, together.

• Thu. May 1, 9am – East + West High School Walkout
• Thu. May 1, 7-8:30pm – May Day Mass Meeting & Panel Discussion: The Road to a General Strike
• Fri. May 2, 3pm (or Thu. May 1, 9:30am in MKE) – A Day Without Immigrants & Workers Rally
• Sat. May 3, 10am-1pm – Family Friendly Spring Park Social
• Sat. May 3, 2-3:30pm – New Member Orientation
• Sat. May 10, 6pm – Hands Off Medicaid! Town Hall

Monthly Newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America

Welcome to the first anniversary issue of Rochester Red Star! For one year, Red Star has provided monthly coverage of ROC DSA activities, advertised upcoming chapter events, and published insightful articles that explore capitalism’s multifaceted attack on the world and our vision for a better future.

The post Rochester Red Star | May 2025 | (Issue 13) first appeared on Rochester Red Star.