Op-Eds

Op-eds

Organizing Tools and Tips

By Michael S., member of Red Star Caucus Organizing is hard and time consuming. DSA has 100,000 paper members but the “activist layer” of people who actually Do Stuff is maybe 1/10 that size. There simply aren’t that many of us, and there’s a lot of work to go around. This results in burnout, I’ve …

Conflict in China: 1949 to Now

A Reading List by the DSA SF Education Committee. Introduction As working people of the world continue to suffer from multiple intersecting armageddons, there currently appears to be no organized force in existence capable of toppling global capitalism, much less ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, growing interest in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and …

The San Francisco School Board and the Public’s Trust

A recent arrival to my email inbox urged support for members of the San Francisco School Board currently facing threat of recall. The Board has been the object of substantial, mostly unwelcome national attention over the past few years. Having previously voted to remove a WPA-era mural of George Washington from the high school bearing …

The Capitol, policing, rhetoric, and the Left

The January 6 failure of the Capitol police to block the entry of a mob bent on reversing the result of the presidential election altered many perceptions. Some Americans were seeing QAnoners in the light of day for the first time. Some scattered newly woke Republicans even decided they now wanted to give Donald Trump …

The Abandoned Working Class

Despite Biden’s victory, and Republican declaration as a new working-class party, both parties represent the interest of capital. In turn, lower-income voters continue to distrust both parties and remain significantly disengaged from the political process. The supposedly objective media paradigm frames the economy as a unitary thing thus obstructing working-class consciousness. For example, the generic …

Who are you speaking up for, Speaker Pelosi?

The new Democratic Administration has not even begun and Nancy Pelosi has already lost ground. A leader, who apparently cares about results before everything, supports a new stimulus bill worth less than half her previous demand. Democrats and the new Biden Administration need to make it absolutely clear whose side they are on. With mounting …

Donald Trump wants to withdraw from Afghanistan? I support that.

Before he is extracted from the White House, it appears that Donald Trump may try to implement all of the bad ideas he didn’t get around to in the past four years – attacking Iran, drilling in the Arctic, with others no doubt to come. There is one of his lame duck proposals, however, that …

A 180 Million Dollar Smokescreen: Whom Is California’s Prop 22 Actually Protecting?

by Allison Tielking What Are AB5 and Prop 22? The 2020 election has commanded the nation’s attention in an unprecedented way, with thousands of brands, corporations, and influencers chipping in to ensure that their users vote. Prop 22, one of dozens of California propositions on the ballot, has generated statewide discussion. Although AB5 and Prop …

San Francisco Must do More to Stop COVID-19

Despite rave reviews and pats on the back from national media, San Francisco’s response to the coronavirus crisis can only be described as inadequate. While it may be true that we have avoided the severity of the outbreaks seen in Southern California and New York, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Generic shelter-in-place orders and …

Nancy, Do You See Us?

Nancy Pelosi is our representative, we need to make ourselves heard so that she understands how dire this moment is.

Outsourcing Curiosity

AirBnb and other ”sharing economy“ platforms are seeking new sources of revenue by monetizing our desires.