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On the Need for Energy Democracy

The capitalist exploitation of nature and labor are two sides of the same coin. The labor process is always something in which humans and nature participate. It is in the very fibers of nature that labor becomes congealed as value that can be captured by capital, the commodity becoming a vessel through which labor-power is quite literally extracted from human bodies. Yet, just as humans come to see themselves as distinct from the natural world, we also come to see capitalism as distinct from the extractive economies through which it feeds on the planet.

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What Socialists Can Learn from Community Lawyers

As Huey P. Netwon put it in his 1968 interview with The Movement, our goal is “...a people’s revolution with the end goal being the people in power.” Socialism is the people in power — not lawyers, coders, politicians, or union bureaucrats. Those us of us that have the privilege of working within and understanding the various systems that support and reinforce capitalist rule cannot win socialism through use of those skills alone. We have to use those skills to serve the people, not to advance our own position in the movement.

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Psychology for Socialists, Part 3: Know your enemy.

“Psychology for Socialists” is a multi-part series designed to introduce people to findings and theories in Psychology that are relevant to socialism and activism. The tools that fascists use to stoke fear, sow division, and demand obedience are taking advantage of aspects of the human mind that, without any malicious intent or really any control at all, can shatter friendships, schism organizations, and lead to types of toxic behavior we see in leftist organizations.

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#DonateYourVote2018 and AACC Endorsements

This year, members of Boston DSA have participated in the #DonateYourVote campaign through Emancipation Initiative's Ballots Over Bars campaign. The #DonateYourVote campaign partners an incarcerated person who has had their voting rights stripped away by the state, and a freeworld volunteer who will vote as their partner would. This year, 165 people volunteered to donate …

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No More Pinkwashing – Capitalism and Cancer

The neoliberal narrative that has been constructed around breast cancer is one of individualism, one where the disease “is a consequence of personal rather than societal failings”. The scientific evidence presented to uphold this narrative is one of reductionism and determinism - we are told that cancers are caused by aberrations in our DNA and these aberrations are mostly due to our “bad luck.” Awareness about breast cancer should be a priority; however, awareness will not achieve anything unless it is framed in the context of how capitalism propagates this terrifying disease.

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Silence Is Betrayal

A group of people detained by ICE in Massachusetts—some of whom were on hunger strike last month—co-wrote a lengthy letter to us detailing their perspectives on detention: the conditions inside the jails, the exploitation of the incarcerated, and the hypocrisy of American values.

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Libertarian Socialism and the LSC: An Introduction

Members of Boston DSA are currently working to form a Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LSC) chapter. The central goals of the caucus include ending capitalism, horizontalizing power structures, and replacing vanguardist, centralist approaches to organizing and ideology with decentralized, consensus-oriented decision-making systems.