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The Digital Omnibus needs to be defeated.

Robert Blatchford (1851 – 1943) was an English socialist and editor of The Clarion, which sprang up a number of socialist cultural organizations including the National Clarion Cycling Club, hiking clubs, and theater groups.

In Merrie England, first published in The Clarion, Blatchford writes to the “practical working man,” John Smith of Oldham, making the case for socialism. The book is written in an accessible and humorous style. It was said that “for every convert made by ‘Das Kapital,’ there were a hundred made by ‘Merrie England.’”

I’ve paid my $5 a month to DSA since about 2020, attending one General Meeting but always ending up finding one reason or another not to really get involved. After moving to Detroit this summer, I pulled up the Detroit DSA Events page and told myself it was time to stop sitting on the sidelines. I’d spent years agreeing with the principles, nodding along online, but I wanted to actually meet people and be part of the work.

Organizing 101 felt like a good first step — a way to connect what I believe with what I do.

At its heart, Organizing 101, based on the Labor Notes book Secrets of a Successful Organizer, is about connection. The series introduced the foundations of union organizing — how to move from appreciating the idea of a union to the practical, everyday skills we need to bring people together and build solidarity in our workplaces. Before Zoom calls and printing stickers, organizing begins with talking to your coworkers.

Standing on Woodward Avenue, trying to hold a poster that read “Solidarity with Starbucks Workers” in just the right way so the wind wouldn’t take it out of my hand, I smiled and waved along with my comrade, KC, as the first car turned in. As the car started to get into the line for the drive-through, the driver stopped and rolled her window down and asked what was going on.

“There’s a strike happening!” I answered, as KC stepped forward, handing the woman a small flier. We explained that Starbucks stores across the country were striking for a better contract, and that we were asking people to consider getting their coffee elsewhere for the duration of the strike.

“Hell yeah. I can absolutely go somewhere else today,” the woman responded, looking up from the flier. She exited the drive-through line, drove around the building, and honked and cheered as she turned back into the main road.

Although not every interaction for the rest of the day was as positive as the first, the community responded resoundingly positively. Some people in the drive-through line refused to roll their windows down, and others walking into the store took longer paths around the parking lot to avoid walking by us, but a truly surprising number of people were interested in hearing about the union.

Although many of the people that we spoke to had already paid for a mobile order and did not want to go through the process of cancelling, they enthusiastically said that they would not come back until after the strike was over. Those that had yet to put in an order were excited to chat through options for local coffee shops nearby after hearing about the strike.

In general, people seemed curious and willing to engage. Many had not heard about the strike and wanted to hear about the demands of the workers. One woman we spoke to told us that she was part of a union, and that her union had just won a new contract, so she was happy to help others do the same.

Cars driving by honked and waved when they saw us standing outside the shop. Over a dozen people decided to go somewhere else for the day, and even more pledged not to come back. We ran out of fliers in about an hour, and I headed home feeling more connected to my community, hopeful about the future, and confident that Starbucks workers would get the contract that they deserved.

In the past few years, labor unions have reached a level of popular support that they hadn’t seen since the 1960s, but many people still have a stereotypical view of labor unions as being only possible for certain types of jobs. As fewer Americans are employed in things like manufacturing, the image of what a union job can be also needs to change. The current strike action by Starbucks Workers United (SBWU) is not only an opportunity for workers to fight for their own dignity and a fair contract, but also a great opportunity to demonstrate to a receptive public that workers in different sectors can successfully organize and improve their material conditions.

If my experience is any indication, many people that are headed to Starbucks are people that would have little opportunity to engage with the labor movement otherwise. Many people simply didn’t know that Starbucks workers had a union, much less that Starbucks Workers United was on strike. By standing in solidarity with SBWU during this strike, socialists can engage more working class Americans who are already sympathetic and help convert popular support to tangible wins.

As someone who is newer to the chapter, getting involved was very easy. Simply join the Labor Working Group Slack to get updates from the DSA Starbucks solidarity committee and find an action that you are able to attend. As noted, the community has been largely receptive, so don’t be scared to come out and speak with your neighbors about how they can help!

To support Starbucks workers, commit to boycotting Starbucks for the duration of the strike by signing their No Contract, No Coffee pledge, or donate to the strike fund.

Last week, congressional candidate George Hornedo attended an event organized by local organizations The Big Homie and Allies for Humanity and hosted at the Central IN DSA office. Afterwards, he made an Instagram post giving a shout-out to CINDSA and the event organizers. We would like to clarify that this was not a DSA event and that Central IN DSA has absolutely no relationship with Mr. Hornedo. George Hornedo, who would not commit to rejecting AIPAC money, is a staunch Zionist, a belief counter to the core values of DSA. In fact, on his website, Mr. Hornedo has accused DSA of being antisemitic terrorists due to our anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine principles. Given this strong perspective on DSA, we find his praise of our chapter surprising. If anything, it seemed his main goal in attending the event was an attempt to access our voter access network (VAN) records for his campaign, which the democratic party has denied him access to. Mr. Hornedo also proposes deregulation for crypto and the expansion of the data centers driving up the energy bills of ordinary people, benefiting corporations to the detriment of working and impoverished people. If George Hornedo truly wished to help hungry Hoosiers, he would advocate for policies that give money to working people, not corporations and genocidal regimes.

If you want to build a word that serves working people, not corporations JOIN DSA! dsausa.org/join

At the 2025 DSA National Convention, Democratic Left hosted a writing workshop for members which focused on writing chapter reports. We will be publishing reports from over a dozen states over the coming weeks. You can find the first collection, focusing on immigrant-rights campaigns here.

Twin Cities DSA by Aaron Wagner

MAPE, the largest union of Minnesota state workers, has endorsed Twin Cities DSA-endorsed state senator Omar Fateh for Mayor of Minneapolis. Typically the union stays out of municipal elections, but makes an exception for members and former members. After the TC-DSA Labor branch learned that Fateh was a former member they pushed the union’s PAC to endorse. The large number of DSA members in MAPE ensured that the endorsement was debated. This work bolstered the reform efforts inside the union that DSA members are spearheading. This shows that electoral and labor work inform and help one another.

Columbus DSA by Catherine Pearce

Columbus DSA is rebuilding its political momentum by forming its first campaign since early last year. Our campaign, Democracy in Columbus, will be supporting this momentum by building the skills of our members to regularly participate in organizing actions as well as creating an amendment to our city’s charter to create real districts in our city. This amendment will make it so that our city council members will actually be representative of the districts they elected for. This will make it easier for the future of not only electoral work in our area, but also the long term development of our members.

NYC-DSA by Josh Youngerman

NYC DSA is running Zohran Mamdani for mayor. The reason for running him is that there is a chance to elect a democratic socialist. After winning the democratic nomination, we are beginning the process of knocking on doors for the General Election. This furthers the socialist movement because by electing Zohran mayor, we can gain traction to elect more Socialist mayors around the country.

Tampa DSA by Magalys Oro-Fernandez

Tampa DSA is a medium-sized chapter that has been growing in response to our country’s current political landscape. We are organizing around public transit because just as our chapter has been growing, so has our city, and our total car-dependency has never been more apparent. Our fare-free campaign is quite ambitious, a lesson in and of itself, teaching us how to slow down in order to accelerate our socialism. The transit campaign helps further the socialist movement because there’s few symbols as democratic as the bus: a vehicle for the people, child or elder or in between, funded by the people’s taxpayer money to benefit their community and natural environment.

Delaware DSA by Philip Bannowsky

A divided chapter struggles to unite around a cultural commemoration of the Nakba. Members promoted this event to give representation to Palestinian voices and to engage diverse organizations around a key issue. They organized by asking various state organizations to cosponsor and recruited artists to perform their own and Palestinian work. Some learned that we needed more control over participants while others learned to avoid bureaucratic quibbling. Some believed the project advanced militancy while others learned to build broader coalitions independently.

Indiana DSA by Jackie H.

Northwest Indiana DSA stands as an attempted oasis within a heavily dispersed & alienated population. NWI is a group of small rust belt cities with no central metropolitan area- a challenge that strains the limited capacity of our small chapter. At NWI DSA we work to effectively mobilize our capacity by joining with other grassroots struggles like with our local Palestine actions, and leading smaller activities where able to grow our chapter and build a community presence. The latter strategy is embodied by our upcoming medical debt buy-back campaign, where our chapter will raise a relatively small amount of money to relieve a large multiple of debt for the struggling indebted healthcare receivers. We also strongly value political education, and have seen great success in developing members with our chapter reading group and interactive presentations.

Rochester DSA by Gregory Lebens-Higgins

Rochester DSA is a healthy and growing chapter. One of our ongoing priority campaigns, run by our City Vitality Working Group in coalition with allies, is called Grant’s Pass Resistance, premised on opposition to the Supreme Court ruling legalizing the criminalization of homelessness. The campaign is built around awareness and outreach. Speak to Council sessions are used to voice support for public housing and social welfare policies, while outreach bridges the gap with the community we aim to serve. An important lesson has been the formation of coalitions—when working in coalition, it is important to maintain an organized democratic space (a la Robert’s Rules), just as within chapter deliberations. Often, this requires DSA representatives stepping up, as other groups may lack structure. In Rochester, this coordination introduces allied organizations to DSA’s democratic principles of organizing, and organizing with the homeless population expands our definition of the working class.

A major defence partnership signed by the US and Saudi Arabia is expected to fast-track arms sales to the kingdom, of which the F-35 warplane is just one component, current and former US officials told Middle East Eye on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The conversation has changed from 'we will see' to 'yes, but how and when'," one person familiar with the deal said. The White House announced on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman signed a new Strategic Defence Agreement (SDA).

The details are being hammered out by officials in the US government. A former senior US official familiar with the ongoing process confirmed to MEE that the agreement will put Saudi Arabia far ahead of other Gulf states and US partners in terms of wait times and negotiations for sophisticated US weapons.

"The Saudis have received Trump's go-ahead to get the best in defence technology," the former official said.

OQB @a_goofy_dragon@sh.itjust.works

LIVE: 13 killed in Israeli air attack in Lebanon; air strikes in Gaza | Gaza News | Al Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/11/19/live-13-killed-in-israeli-air-attack-on-refugee-camp-in-lebanon

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#Palestine #Gaza #Israel #Lebanon @palestine@fedibird.com