Red Madison

Tag: Socialism

  • Monthly Round-Up – January 2026

    Monthly Round-Up – January 2026

    This article is written by a DSA member and does not formally represent the views of MADSA as a whole or its subgroups. 

    Welcome to Vol. 6 of the monthly round-up! The content in this publication overlaps significantly with our DSA newsletter and monthly General Membership Meetings. To sign up for the newsletter or check out an upcoming General Membership Meeting, visit: https://madison-dsa.org/events/

    MADSA Endorses Fran Hong for Governor

    Cheers erupted in the January 28th General Membership Meeting when over 100 people voted in favor of endorsing Francesca Hong in the upcoming Wisconsin gubernatorial race. The air in the meeting was electric and attendance was the largest in recent chapter history. Comrades engaged in rousing debate during the discussion block, on factors including election timing, chapter capacity, trust in structures of power, the opportunities and drawbacks that come with campaign organizing work, and the potential representation of socialism in WI. Ultimately, the chapter expressed readiness to put work into this campaign. 

    As the District 76 State Representative and a member of the Wisconsin Legislative Socialist Caucus, Fran has championed democratic socialist policies like universal childcare, public education and healthy school meals for all, paid family leave, and an Economic Justice Bill of Rights which guarantees the right to a unionized job. She continues to run as a proud democratic socialist on a platform of economic justice and workers’ rights. This campaign also means a huge opportunity for community-building; people will be connecting across Wisconsin through door-to-door canvassing, phone banking, town halls, and other volunteer opportunities during the campaign. The chapter looks forward to meeting new people, discussing the issues that matter to them, and promoting policies for building working class power. 

    Chapter Prepares for Upcoming Annual Convention

    The DSA follows a deliberative democratic decision-making process, empowering all members to have a say in local and national DSA action. The process has many benefits, including feeling a higher sense of ownership in the projects of the organization, building leadership and speaking skills among members, encouraging critical thinking, modeling active participation in decisions that impact us, maintaining a sense of accountability in leaders, and being able to focus on several areas based on the abilities and desires of membership. As our chapter has grown in size, we’ve seen new working groups, changes to the bylaws governing our chapter, expansion of certain roles, and lots of lively discussion in-person and in our online channels! We’ve been seeing more debate as well, which is a sign of healthy engagement.

    We have an opportunity for more change as our annual chapter convention is approaching. The dates have been finalized for March 20th and March 21st, 2026. The convention plays a huge role in chapter work for the rest of the year. At the convention, you will:

    • Hear reports from working groups in our chapter;
    • Vote on continuing existing working groups (rechartering);
    • Vote on new bylaw amendments and chapter resolutions (starting new campaigns, working groups, projects, etc.);
    • Vote for leadership positions – executive co-chairs, administrator, treasurer, communication and membership coordinators, “at-large,” Solidarity Captains, and the Community Accountability Committee (“CAC”). 

    There are several preparation meetings scheduled before the convention, where people can co-work on resolutions and get feedback. Here is the timeline leading up to convention:

    • Resolution Writing Workshop 1 – January 14th, which already took place this month!
    • Resolution Writing Workshop 2 – February 12th 6:30-8:30pm at Social Justice Center.
    • Due date for All Convention Materials – February 20th.
    • Due date for Amendments to Proposals – March 10th.
    • March General Meeting – convention agenda will be discussed – March 11th.
    • Convention Friday March 20th 6-9pm + Saturday March 21st 10am-4pm.

    Click here to see the full Convention Guide and/or RSVP – all members are strongly encouraged to attend so that they can participate in leading MADSA’s next steps for 2026!

    ICE Out: Working Towards Community Safety

    Alongside hope for Fran’s campaign, and focus for the upcoming convention, people’s hearts are burning with fear, sadness, and rage around state violence inflicted in the name of unjust “immigration enforcement” and protest “crowd control.” We are witnessing senseless deaths and extrajudicial kidnappings – flagrant human rights violations. 

    Socialists know that the horrors we are seeing today are not the result of one mad leader (nor his cabinet), but the result of over a century of festering capitalism, racism, and imperialism concentrating wealth and power to the few. MADSA released a statement, and is ongoingly deliberating on what our medium- and long-term role will be in supporting communities around safety and immigration rights in the face of escalating political violence. The previous section noted the highlights of our deliberative democracy structure, but the major drawback is that decisions tend to move more slowly than in a “top-down” structure. While that work is ongoing, MADSA and its members have organized and participated in several actions in January, and will continue to do so:

    • Members participated in the Ice Out Solidarity Vigil on January 9th after the killing of Nicole Good, as well as the following Ice Out rally on January 10th.
    • Members participated further in an Ice Out rally on January 25th in response to the killing of Alex Pretti. Member Sam D. gave a speech – click here for a link with captions. 
    • Members participated in an ICE Week of Action building up to a January 30th walk-out + march and the January 31st Madison Anti-ICE Community Meeting organized by MADSA. This included Know Your Rights training, group discussion, opportunities to generate concrete political demands, and information about next steps to build networks of community support. Organizers will continue to meet around this work. 
    • Members are also building to a national general strike on May Day, which will include demands around safety for immigrant communities and communities of color.

    Additional Organizing

    Other important efforts this month included the following:

    The Labor Working Group is launching the Madison Organizing Institute –a 12-week long course designed for anyone who wants to build or strengthen a union in their workplace. The course will teach you about your organizing rights, skills for talking to coworkers, developing demands, and more. Click here for the link to sign up.

    No Appetite for Apartheid announced a launch party scheduled for February 7th, 6-8pm at James Reeb on E. Johnson. This event is open to the public, stating: “The goal of the No Appetite for Apartheid campaign is to make Madison a more ethical place to shop by removing all grocery items complicit in the violence against Palestinians.”

    A member announced an Artists’ Planning Meeting for February 1st with the goal of adding art programming to the upcoming Convention, and overall increasing art and music engagement in the chapter.

    MADSA has been more in touch with Milwaukee DSA in light of recent organization work, and the latter chapter published a podcast episode about successful labor organizing in Milwaukee. Listen to it here! 

    Social Events

    We continue hosting recurring social events – New Member Orientations, DSA 101, Coffee with Comrades, and the Rosebuddies program. We also look forward to various canvassing opportunities and electoral campaign-related events in February and beyond. 

    Protest Song of the Month

    For January, I present the Song of Choice by Peggy Seeger. This song uses an extended metaphor of dormant seeds to represent fascism, and urges the listener to pull the weeds before it’s too late. A snippet:

    “Early every year, seeds are growing

    Unseen, unheard, they lie beneath the ground.

    Would you know before the leaves are showing

    That with weeds all your garden will abound?

    If you close your eyes, stop your ears,

    Hold your mouth, how can you know?

    The seeds you cannot see may not be there;

    The seeds you cannot hear may never grow…

    In January you’ve still got the choice,

    You can cut the weeds before they start to bud!

    If you leave them to grow higher, they’ll silence your voice

    And in December you may pay with your blood!”

    And that concludes our monthly round-up!

  • Can MADSA Make Better Possible? Francesca Hong and Madison Area DSA’s Electoral Strategy

    The past decade of the Democratic Socialists of America has been defined by shockingly successful moonshot campaigns that catapulted socialism into national conversation, leaving organizers scrambling to meet the moment without sacrificing their principles. First, we had Bernie’s 2016 presidential campaign and its 2020 encore, and then just a few months ago, Zohran Mamdani shattered expectations with his election as  mayor of New York City. Now, it might be Wisconsin’s turn: MADSA member and State Rep. Francesca Hong announced her bid for Governor at our September General Meeting. Since then, there has been widespread debate in the chapter, but one thing we all seem to agree on: this race could be a huge opportunity for socialists in Wisconsin. The question is – are we ready?

    MADSA members have been thinking about this race in the context of our preference for “cadre campaigns,” where we slowly and deliberately build our organization from the ground up by sending candidates into office who are drafted to represent DSA’s politics in office. I believe this is the best strategy for building our independent electoral apparatus, and laying the groundwork for a party – but it’s not the only strategy. In some ways, our relationship to Fran’s campaign might look more similar to the Bernie campaigns, where DSA reverse-engineered a socialist organization out of an electoral campaign. The comet’s going to pass whether we like it or not, and we know people are already watching it. We also know that the only thing that can win socialism is a mass working class organization, so we need to make sure that when people look around with new eyes, they find us and the movement we’re building. That means the question of whether this race will advance the class struggle can only be answered by our ability and willingness to rise to the occasion and build that movement.

    In my mind, the decision to get involved in any electoral campaign (or other organizing project) should come back to three simple questions (distilled by comrade Marianela D’Aprile):

    1. Does it make more socialists?
    2. Does it build the power and organization of the working class? 
    3. Does it build the power of DSA? 

    I believe that Fran and her campaign team want the answers to be yes, but I don’t think it’s entirely up to them– it’s up to us. There’s a very real chance that we get to live in a world where Fran runs as an extremely open socialist everywhere, endorses all of our downballot candidates, uses her platform to uplift DSA’s priorities, and encourages people to join DSA at campaign events. In that world, we are firing on all cylinders for most of 2026. We’re running her canvasses in Madison and across the state, including in districts where we don’t have enough of a footprint to run downballot candidates, and using them to recruit like crazy – since we’ll be the field leads, and hosting the after-canvass cookouts. We’ll be expanding our membership, expanding and deepening our coalition relationships, and building internal infrastructure – and potentially building toward a statewide DSA legislative campaign. Win or lose, a race like this can change the landscape of WI politics for the better, and build DSA’s capacity to take on state-level policy fights – and other struggles – in the future. Some of it will be on Fran, but a lot of it will come down to whether or not MADSA and our comrades around Wisconsin have the capacity to use this campaign to make more socialists, empower our class, and build our organization.  For the record, I want to be convinced, because I fear the gravitational pull of a statewide race will be too much to resist for the majority of the chapter. We might as well try to get the best endorsement situation we can.

    Below I’ve laid out my understanding of the state of the race, our relationship with Fran and her campaign, and the chapter’s strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I propose what an ideal campaign would look like, and what commitments it will take from Fran AND from MADSA to get us there. If we don’t feel like those commitments are possible, then we shouldn’t endorse. If they are, we may very well be foolish not to.

    Some context: as the co-chair of the chapter and active member of the Electoral Working Group, I have been privy to many conversations about and with Fran. I have also been involved in several DSA campaigns, including as a DSA rep to a campaign coalition team. There are definitely aspects to this campaign and our political terrain that I don’t have insight into, and I encourage other comrades to elaborate upon or argue with what I’ve laid out here. I do think this reflects the gist of the conversations about Fran’s campaign in EWG, and I hope this will be a useful framework for chapter members thinking about this huge decision in the coming weeks. Thank you to comrades Wesley, Justin, Adithya, Athnie, and others for your contributions!

    The Fran We’re Dealt

    In assessing this race, it’s helpful to understand MADSA’s current relationship with Fran. It is true that Fran is not a homegrown cadre, drafted by our organization to represent us in the Assembly as part of our political strategy. Despite this, we maintain a positive, but limited, relationship with her, and she behaves in office as we’d hope any socialist would – introducing legislation like the Economic Justice Bill of Rights, elevating the demands of organized labor and social movements, and taking the fight to the Democratic Party when necessary. To be frank, I think the reason we’re so distant is that for most of Fran’s time in office, MADSA hasn’t had the electoral or legislative capacity to build the relationship to the point where it would have been mutually beneficial.

    Some background: Fran was elected in 2020 at the top of a crowded field that included at least one other DSA member, Marsha Rummell. (MADSA did not endorse in that race, but did endorse Fran’s current chief of staff, Nada Elmikashfi, for State Senate District 26). After the election, Fran joined DSA. Fran was re-elected in 2022 and again in 2024, which is when MADSA endorsed her for the first time and about when she joined the WI Legislative Socialists Caucus. We didn’t get involved in the field for her 2024 State Assembly race, as she was a popular incumbent with no primary challenger. Instead, we endorsed on paper and threw our weight behind another race that needed more capacity, Maia Pearson’s unsuccessful challenge to incumbent Rep. Shelia Stubbs. I believe it was a mistake not to get more involved in Fran’s campaign, or at least bring her into greater communication with the chapter, as doing so would have given us more opportunities to deepen our working relationship. 

    Despite this, she was involved in MADSA’s 2024 priority campaign: Free School Meals for MMSD, and played a crucial role in connecting that local coalition to a state-level one. Occasionally, Fran has attended chapter and working group meetings and participated in DSA events, most notably the YDSA Organizing Fair shortly after the 2024 election, and the Hands Off Medicaid Town Hall earlier this year. We have reason to believe that she’d be willing to have a stronger relationship with us, if our chapter 1) had more capacity – and a strategy – for state-level legislative work and 2) had a formal communication channel with Fran and her office that could keep her in the loop on chapter priorities and facilitate her giving regular reports to MADSA membership. As a popular and highly-motivated activist Assemblywoman, Fran has a lot of political capital – much more than MADSA. She also has a lot of voices in her ear, and unfortunately, we haven’t been strong enough to earn a place amongst the loudest ones. 

    Unfortunately, the fact that she has political capital above and beyond MADSA’s means that her decision to run for governor is not an expression of DSA’s democratically-decided strategic priorities. I won’t lie – it’s not ideal that we’re getting involved so late and have so few cadre in the commanding heights of the campaign. As we know from her work in the legislature, Fran is a great fighter, but I think it’s safe to say that this is not a fight MADSA would have picked. If we’d been a factor in Fran’s decision to run for governor, we probably would have come out against it, both because of scale and because of the contradictions inherent to governing as a socialist executive under capitalism. There is a non-zero chance that Fran could win! That does feel like a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it, but we do owe it to ourselves to be serious about what that will entail, before the rubber hits the road. If we’re lucky, we can get some progressive stuff done with her as Governor, but there is a real tension implicit in having to govern, as we’re seeing with Zohran in NYC. We need to make sure having a socialist executive won’t backfire or fracture our movement, and see our role as creating the conditions in which a socialist executive can succeed.

    My belief is that the strength of any socialist elected depends on the strength of the movement that supports them, their ability to elevate movement demands, and how well they communicate back to the movement about the compromises they are forced to make – because there will be compromises. Even if Fran was the ideal cadre candidate in every conceivable way, there would be decisions she’s forced to make where there’s no good option. If we get involved in this race, we should get realistic about what we hope to achieve on the inside, and where she’ll need movement pressure from the outside – both to advance a popular mandate for socialist transitional demands, and to defend that mandate from the backlash of capitalists and their allies in the state and federal government. 

    Can MADSA Meet the Moment?

    While the weakness of the relationship with Fran is partially due to the weakness of our chapter in the past, our chapter is in a vastly different place than it was even a year ago. Our membership has nearly doubled since November 2024, and our active membership, though harder to quantify, feels like it’s quadrupled. Dozens of new members are pouring in every month, bringing new ideas, skills, energy, and enthusiasm. New members are taking on new responsibilities, building an increasingly comradely and democratic culture. 

    We have a chapter that is committed to the ultimate vision of building an independent socialist party, and an Electoral Working Group eager to expand our electoral machine. And in Madison, we can prioritize non-partisan campaigns on a local level, and focus on a vision of building up cadre candidates — leaders developed through our ranks. Our working group is committed to only recommending endorsements for campaigns where DSA will have a significant impact. That vision has driven some skepticism about Fran’s campaign, since it is 1) a Democratic Party primary in a high-stakes general election 2) not a cadre campaign and 3) would require a massive commitment from the chapter, potentially taking away from other cadre candidates. This skepticism has allowed us to take seriously the opportunities and challenges offered by this race, and given us time to build the relationships we need to make it work.

    It has also forced us to take stock of what we have to offer, which at this point in MADSA’s development, could be quite a lot. Thanks in part to our recent local program canvassing, we have at least a dozen people who could be field leads tomorrow, and another dozen who could be running shifts by the end of the month. We have countless more people who could canvass and take on other field volunteer roles, and many who can bottomline town halls, socials, and fundraiser events. This will take a tremendous amount of training and development work, but luckily, we have a strong and constantly improving Membership Engagement Team which is building an onboarding pipeline in conjunction with the Political Education Working Group. We have a good track record of comradely coalition work and connections throughout Madison, and have members with connections to smaller towns and cities across the state, who could help host events, train field teams, and even seed DSA chapters in parts of Wisconsin where we’re still punching below our weight.

    While we bring a lot to the table, some things are still in the oven. Our Electoral Working Group was chartered just a few months ago, and although it is doing great work and holding 20+ member meetings on a biweekly basis, the group has quickly borne the stress of increased attention on DSA. We went from having no endorsement procedure to handling endorsements at four different levels of government in mere weeks, and will need to keep learning and adapting to changing circumstances. As of this week, we’re now officially in the process of drafting a 2026 Political Platform to replace the outdated version from 2021, which will hopefully guide our organizing work for the next year and give some direction to our small but growing stable of policy people. We also have a desire to develop a coordinating structure to build on our Endorsed Candidate Expectations and support communication between our endorsed electeds and the chapter, but no concrete plans just yet.

    All of that information and organizing infrastructure is still getting built, but the foundation is there, and could grow much stronger if we get involved in Fran’s campaign at a high level and bring all of that experience back into the chapter. Both our program/policy work and nascent SIOC team can also help us build a stronger relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI DSA chapters, to the point where we could lead the adoption of a Wisconsin DSA Platform and build campaigns around shared statewide priorities. A statewide race is the perfect foundation for that kind of Wisconsin-wide coordination, and would help us build the organizing relationships we’ll need if and when Fran wins the election (and if she loses, too).

    The State of Play

    It’s been a long few months since Fran first announced her candidacy for Governor, and some of the chapter’s initial apprehension seems to have shifted. Fran has a new campaign manager who is a DSA member, and seems to be drawing a lot of her high-level team from Milwaukee DSA. Several MADSA members are also involved in their capacity as individuals. As a result, we’re seeing improvements in her messaging around “democratic socialism,” which now has pride of place on the front page of her website. There definitely could be a greater emphasis on DSA and recruitment to DSA in her campaign comms, but signs are promising that she’d be willing to work with us to shape her messaging. She has expressed to both Milwaukee and Madison DSA that she’s interested in getting us involved in field organizing in a big way, and sees us a key potential partner in her campaign.

    There are also some external forces that may be affecting some of the positive developments, and could continue to push this campaign more into “socialist tribune” territory. The race is almost comedically stacked with good-enough, labor-friendly, progressive-ish Wisconsin Democrats, and the entrance of Mandela Barnes – a classic “progressive except for Palestine” who’s running like he’ll run away with the primary despite his reputation as a loser – makes it even easier for Fran to distinguish herself as not just another progressive, but the true fighter for Palestine and the only unapologetic socialist. To really take advantage of that opening, Fran needs to run like she’s not afraid to lose – because the way the winds are blowing, that’s the only way to win. If she positions herself hard against the establishment and ready to take the battle to both the Republicans who want to flood our state with masked ICE agents and the Democratic Party establishment that doesn’t have any solution for that or just about anything else, she can win over broad swaths of working class Wisconsinites who are sick of business as usual.

    With these positive developments, it is looking more likely that the campaign will be ripe with opportunities for socialists in Madison and Wisconsin to build our capacities. Specifically, it opens up avenues to 

    1) coordinate and collaborate with other DSA chapters around Wisconsin

    2) recruit and develop leaders in communities where we don’t have a strong presence yet, through field work and through building coalition relationships with other organizations involved in the campaign 

    3) shore up our policy knowledge, deepen our working relationship with the WI Legislative Socialists, and help us develop our state-level electoral/legislative strategy

    4) build up our campaigning capacity for future electoral and other work

    5) and above all, to articulate a socialist politics and a vision for our state that speaks to the needs of working-class Wisconsinites.

    Playing Our Hand 

    Now that we know what cards we’re holding, we need a gameplan. It’s up to the chapter to iron out what our involvement in the campaign could look like, but I think it’s shaping up like this:

    • MADSA grinds to deliver Madison for Fran and builds a city-wide base for her key campaign demands, on the strength of issue-forward slate canvasses for Fran and our downballot candidates 
    • DSA chapters cohere a statewide DSA network to coordinate around the Fran campaign, and work toward an in-person WI DSA conference. That network will:
      • Go absolutely beast mode on field in towns and cities around the state
      • Train up DSA field leads where we have chapters, and send experienced organized to seed and mentor chapters where we don’t
      • ID campaign volunteers to recruit to DSA
      • Host & run town halls on the key issues, and use them to identity volunteers and local leaders & help sharpen our messaging 
    • WI DSA can think about what kinds of campaigns we can lead around issues where Fran’s platform overlaps with ours. If we have that vision in place well before the election, we can bring leaders we meet and develop through the campaign into that work long-term, whether as DSA members or coalition partners.

    I’ve said that the ball is mostly in MADSA’s court, but there are definitely some things we need from Fran and her team to make this possible. At a basic level, that looks like her promoting DSA somewhat regularly, and getting some MADSA people getting involved at a high level in the campaign (especially in field but also in comms, fundraising, etc.). We also need her to commit to endorsements for our down-ballot races, so we can campaign for them as a slate and do joint canvasses in Madison and Milwaukee. Finally, it would be great if we could get Fran to do a little political education work with us while on the trail and in office. Hopefully we can come to a shared understanding of what DSA needs and wants from this campaign, and get everyone, including Fran, bought into the idea that DSA can and will throw down if we think we’re building socialism, but will also work very hard to keep the class struggle on track.

    Can we Make Better Possible?

    I’ve laid out what I think MADSA’s involvement in this race should look like in an ideal world, and what we need from Fran to make it possible. Now I want to lay out concretely what I think we need to put into this race in order to get out what we need from it. 

    First, we need to make sure our heads are in the game. We need the whole chapter locked in on being serious, curious, adaptable, and comradely, and thoroughly committed to constructive communication and organizational democracy. Getting involved in a high-profile race like this means a lot of people are going to be circling us, joining, and wanting a piece of what we have to offer. We need to keep our eyes on the prize (socialism!) and make sure that we’re not falling for any opportunistic pitfalls. This will take rigorous planning and creative problem-solving. Internally, we’ll need to set up a democratic structure that can hold the relationship with Fran and the campaign, but not too close to the chest. There should be opportunities for rank and file MADSA members to get involved in the campaign coordinating structure we develop. This will make this project successful, and can help us lay the groundwork for more democratic, accountable relationships with our member-electeds in the future.

    Secondly, we need to be ready to grind. This campaign only works if we are all in, and have a large proportion of the chapter ready to do the work – not just canvassing, but learning how to lead canvasses and phonebanks, cut turf, run events, fundraise, and do campaign comms. Having people learn those skills will build up our chapter’s capacity for future fights, but will also take countless hours of chapter member time away from other things we could be doing. If our members, and especially our electorally-inclined members and leaders, are not excited to do that work, they should say so, so we don’t overpromise and underdeliver. We’ll also need to be everywhere all the time, and be representing DSA in a positive way in coalition spaces, at canvass kickoffs, at campaign socials, and at the doors – and then, we’ll need to be identifying potential recruits like crazy and making sure our follow-up game is on point. This campaign gives us a great opportunity to talk to people in Madison and around the state who haven’t heard of DSA, and may be outside of our usual recruitment circles, and we should make sure we’re bringing them into a healthy and welcoming chapter with lots of ways to get plugged in. On top of the campaign work, we’ll need a summer of socials, trainings, and political education. 

    We also need to invest in our relationship with Milwaukee DSA and other WI chapters, and make sure we’re building member-to-member social ties and space for political discussion and creative collaboration, not just top-down coordinating bodies. A centralizing priority with such high stakes will be a great opportunity to do any repair work that needs to be done, and to start to articulate what a statewide DSA Program could look like. 

    Finally, we need to get aligned internally – or at least start the conversation – about what we want to see from Fran’s administration, and who we’d like to see in it. We need a sense of what we think we can accomplish with a woman on the inside, and what issues we expect to have to push her on from the outside.

    That’s a lot to think about, but luckily, we have some time. As of today, Fran is still in the petitioning process, and will have a questionnaire, an interview, and another candidate forum for her to tell us what she thinks. At the same time, we need to be talking amongst ourselves about what we think we can realistically deliver, how much we’re willing to sacrifice to do it, and whether we think it’s worth it in order to make more socialists, grow DSA, and build the power of the working class to defeat capitalism and win social, economic, and political democracy for all. I believe in our chapter’s democracy and our ability to make a strong, empowered, democratic decision about this endorsement, and I look forward to continued discussions about this over the weeks and months to come.

  • Why Socialists Should be Vegan

    by Leo Neustadt

    Personally, I’ve been vegan for almost a decade. This is the longest I’ve ever stuck with anything in my entire life. I’ve picked up and put down so many hobbies, played around with my gender expression, and had just shy of a million jobs, but being vegan is by far the most consistent thing about me.

    Recently, my partner and I spent a weekend at Vegan Basecamp. A lovely couple living in Las Vegas plans a few trips a year to camp and hike in different parts of the southwest, and they pamper their guests with amazing homemade vegan meals. During our weekend in the Coconino Forest in Sedona we had breakfast tacos, soy curl “chicken” with roasted veggies, and the best tofu scramble I’ve ever had. I’d never been around so many vegans before, it was so eye opening. It was so nice to be somewhere for an entire weekend without having to worry about what I could or couldn’t eat.

    This experience made me feel more committed to my veganism than ever before, and I hope by the end of this article, you’ll want to join me.

    The reasons I’m vegan have evolved over time, built on one another. It started out as a new year’s resolution with an old friend back in 2015. She had put out the call for anyone wanting to go vegetarian with her, and I said screw it, I’ll try anything once. January 1st, 2016 rolled around and I gave up steak, chicken soup, and Starbucks sausage egg & cheese sandwiches. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and that was definitely helped by another friend, who was raised vegetarian, earlier posing the question, “what’s the difference between eating a cow and eating a dog?” I couldn’t finish the piece of steak I was eating that night.

    I hadn’t thought much of being vegetarian other than “yeah, I guess I love animals a lot.”

    March 31st, 2016. I woke up that morning, and texted my dad asking if the pretzel challah he brought home every Friday had eggs in it. He said no and I was so happy. I was going vegan that day.

    I hadn’t thought much about going vegan either, it just felt like the right choice. Only after deciding to go vegan did I look into the benefits of it. I used to watch a YouTuber who shared how easy it was to be vegan. Her favorite thing was talking about eating plates of potatoes. I graduated to Google searches and documentaries. I remember watching the classics, Forks Over Knives, Cowspiracy, and What the Health, and reading countless articles. I learned about environmental impacts, health benefits, and simply treating living creatures with care and respect.

    How veganism connects to socialism is clear to me: we care about ending exploitative labor, we care about reproductive justice, and we care about the environment. I could go on forever, but those are the points I think connect to plant-based eating the most. I believe the base of all of our values is that we care about dignified life for even those we don’t know.

    Let’s talk about exploitative labor and reproductive justice.

    I think we can all agree that the current systems of labor, production, and reproduction are despicable.

    Workers toil away at jobs that are meaningless. Jobs that don’t pay them enough to rent a one bedroom apartment on their own anywhere in America. Jobs where they’re as replaceable as a toothbrush. As socialists, we’re fighting every day to change this by unionizing against our bosses and corporations to demand what we’re owed: higher wages, better benefits, and more say in how our workplaces are run.

    The capitalist system (and by extension the American healthcare system) do not care about cis women, who carry the burden of continuing the existence of our species. Women are repeatedly mistreated and undermined by healthcare professionals and left to die in case of emergencies when abortions are critically necessary. And when a baby is born into poverty, the mother is to blame and receives minimal or no assistance, with total disregard of the conditions of her circumstances. I’m honestly not sure what we as socialists are doing about this.

    These conditions aren’t necessarily equivalent, but they are comparable to the way livestock are treated. Male cows that survive past infancy and don’t become the veal in your stew are repeatedly molested for their sperm. Female cows are forcibly impregnated to keep their hormone levels at a certain level to constantly produce milk, just so you can keep falling for the propaganda of growing big and strong with that not-so-sexy mustache. We’re the only species on earth that consumes the breast milk of another mammal, pretty weird and gross. Cows, pigs, and chickens are kept in abhorrent conditions, all squished together, getting almost no sunlight, and are only kept alive long enough to get as much fat on their bodies as possible before their lives are violently ripped away from them.

    Animals don’t have the ability to advocate for their conditions. How is this dignified life for those we don’t know? Why should we allow animals to be assaulted and slaughtered day in and day out just so you can have a chopped cheese from the bodega? Personal gain via the exploitation of another living being is antithetical to socialist values.

    The environmental impacts of the animal agriculture industry vs eating a plant-based diet are a no-brainer. You’re about to be hit with lots of quotes and sources, so bear with me, I can’t be making these claims out of thin air.

    According to an article published in February 2023 by the British School in The Netherlands (BSN) titled One Burger And Its Effects On Our Environment, it takes, on average, about 2,400 litres, or 630 gallons, of water to produce a single burger. That includes the water used to feed and hydrate the cows. The next paragraph shares that it takes about 90% less water to produce soy. “If that one beef burger would be replaced by a plant-based burger, over 2,000 litres of water would be saved”

    In an article from The Salt Lake Tribune, from March of 2023, the subhead reads, “Hay and alfalfa feed beef and dairy production and support rural life, but together, they soak up two-thirds of Utah’s water.” The article continues, “Alfalfa and hay account for 68% of the 5.1 million acre-feet of water diverted every year in Utah, Lozada’s research has found. That means it takes 1.38 acre-feet, or about 450,000 gallons, to produce a ton of alfalfa — about as much water as two Utah homes typically use in a year. (An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover one acre of land with one foot of water.)”

    Water may seem like an infinite resource given how vast our oceans are and how many bodies of water there are across America, but the Colorado River is drying up because Arizonans need their precious golf courses. Most water requires a process of purification before it can be safely consumed. So many neighborhoods historically and currently inhabited by people of color deal with lead in their water pipes, which our sorry excuse for a government doesn’t prioritize. Imagine if we diverted the water we use for growing feed crops and raising livestock to hydrating humans, especially our most vulnerable and ignored communities? That would be pretty socialist of us.

    In 2020, the National Library of Medicine published a study titled Animal Agriculture and Climate Change in the US and UK Elite Media: Volume, Responsibilities, Causes and Solutions. It opens with, “Animal agriculture is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to 14.5% of global emissions, which is approximately the same size as the transportation sector.” In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC) suggested a policy to reduce or entirely cut out animal products from our diets. “Animal products have been estimated to contribute more to GHGs [greenhouse gases], deforestation, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and unhealthy humans, than plant-based foods…meat-eating is calculated to contribute almost four times as much to GHG emissions as a plant-based diet (Poore & Nemecek, 2018).”

    Back to the BSN article, “Cows release high levels of methane as a by-product of their ruminant digestive systems, which poisons our environment. Research shows the production of 1 kilogram of beef emits 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to a medium-sized petrol car driving over 100 kilometres” (about 62 mi).

    Climate change is an actively destructive problem, and it’s only being exacerbated every day due to government inaction to regulate polluting industries. We know that we as individuals aren’t responsible for reversing the effects of climate change. Switching to paper straws doesn’t erase the fact that oil giant British Petroleum popularized the concept of the carbon footprint in the early 2000s to shift blame for their immense environmental damage onto the individual consumer. Only the worst offenders have the power to act and make any meaningful change. However, the less meat we as a society consume over time, the less of a demand there will be for the production of meat, lowering the emissions and use of water.

    “A global shift to a plant-based diet could reduce mortality and greenhouse gases caused by food production by 10% and 70%, respectively, by 2050…The World Health Organization says, ‘Reducing livestock herds would also reduce emissions of methane, which is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide,’ ” says the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in an article titled A Vegan Diet: Eating for the Environment. “The methane emissions of five of the largest meat corporations and 10 of the largest dairy corporations—which include JBS, Tyson, and the Dairy Farmers of America—is equal to over 80% of the European Union’s entire methane footprint, according to a report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the Changing Markets Foundation.” How insane is that?

    America is the worst example of capitalism and the free market. We’re destroying our planet so your favorite fast food joint can keep their freezers stocked. The majority of areas around the world facing the repercussions of rapid climate change are poor, working class communities, and that’s no accident.

    I think a major area lacking in the Green New Deal Campaign Commission is how it plans to address Big Oil and Big Beef in the long term, two of the planet’s worst polluters. Yes, there’s some amazing projects and campaigns that have come out of the GNDCC. Chapters are fighting for public power, working to enhance public transportation so we can rely on our cars less, and building more physically and visually green spaces. These are all great steps for short term management, but the climate crisis will continue to worsen unless we address the problem at the root cause. This can look like many things. We can continue to push for more federal oversight to end oil drilling. We can build a more robust nation-wide, nationalized train system that can replace planes and cars. We can organize the animal agriculture industry to move away from slaughterhouses and towards more planting of plant proteins. The demand for meat is so bad that so far this year, we’ve imported 2,252,694 metric tons of beef from around the world. We need to invest in more growing of drought-tolerant, protein rich legumes like lentils and garbanzo beans.

    Back in 2022, New Zealand proposed a tax on livestock emissions, but it’s since been scrapped due to nationwide protests from farmers raising concerns over their livelihoods and a push from a center-right government coalition. Of course, we as socialists best understand the need for selling labor to survive as long as we live under the capitalist system, so I would never advocate for the complete and total stripping away of jobs. I think the best way to go about this would be with a transition from meat to beans. Start planting beans alongside feed crops. Let your cows and pigs and chickens live longer under humane conditions and only use them for food when their lives are coming to an end. If livestock were allowed to reproduce naturally, we’d have less of them, and less GHGs. We can reward our meat farmers with government subsidies via seeds to produce more plant-based proteins. Farmers can still be farmers, they’ll just be producing a different crop that won’t cause the planet to burn down. As for the dairy industry, learn how to make plant-based milks and cheeses! Plenty of companies have figured it out, and do it very well. Butcher shops and delis can learn how to make different meats out of tofu, seitan, and whatever else they’d like to experiment with. One of my favorite eateries that I so dearly miss in New York is Seitan’s Helper, a fully vegan deli with the most amazing house-made meats and sandwiches, and they’re always busy. There’s so many reasonable solutions.

    I’m not even going to get into over-fishing or the personal health benefits of eating a plant-based diet, or this article would be another 3 pages long. I’ll simply leave you with a final thought.

    Going vegan is not as costly as people think it may be. Sure, if you’re shopping for specialty products, that can certainly raise your grocery bills, but beans are cheap as hell, and frozen fruits and veggies are just as nutritious as fresh ones. For people on the go, most of my favorite frozen meals can be found at Trader Joe’s for really affordable prices. Oats are one of the most affordable foods out there, and they make an excellent breakfast with whatever flavors and toppings you’d like.

    For some resources on going vegan, I recommend checking out Meatless Mondays and PeTA. I know PeTA’s got a bad rap, but their campaigns still hit.

    If you want to get some of my personal favorite recipes for a complete meal on a budget, you can shoot me an email at leo.98.neu@gmail.com. I’m always happy to help anyone cut out animal products from their diet.

    When you’re at the Thanksgiving table this year, consider what kind of torture the turkey in front of you went through, just so you can have dinner.

  • Reading Group Report Back: Karl Marx’s Capital

    …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.