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It’s all in the name – Democrats first, Socialists second (if at all). If you want to see what the DSA is really all about, just have yourselves a long, steamy gawk at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s about sucking the blood of the Left by tempting us with fake “progressive” politicians who insist that the DNC is an institution worth saving and wasting our time and energy before zombifying the People’s movements and shuffling them off to the Movement Graveyard. But, hell; my peeps at the Socialist Equality Party and WSWS lay it out a lot better in words than I can at the moment. Here’s a couple of points from the SEP’s Ninth Congress Resolution re: the DSA, Jacobin Magazine & ilk:

16. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the initial beneficiary of this radicalization. But the DSA is not a socialist party. It is a faction of the Democratic Party, and its principal role is to block the development of an independent political movement of the working class, to capture the movement toward socialism and confine it within the framework of the capitalist two-party system. Wherever it holds office, this function is on display. In New York, Mamdani governs in coordination with the Democratic establishment and the Trump White House, imposing austerity on the workers who elected him, while DSA-aligned officials preside over the destruction of public education and expanding police budgets across the country.

17. The DSA’s central claim, that the Democratic Party can be transformed from within into an instrument of progressive change, is refuted by all historical experience. It is also exposed by the party’s own response to the DSA’s electoral victories. The Democrats’ “centrist” wing has issued a manifesto reaffirming that its members are “capitalists” and launching a new witch-hunt against the party’s own left.

– “The drive to dictatorship and the political radicalization in the United States”, Resolution of the Ninth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US),
posted at the World Socialist Web Site 20 August 2026

…and here’s a quick rundown of DSA escapades over the last year or two:

> Jacobin’s defense of the Trump–Mamdani pact and the capitalist state
> How the Democratic Socialists of America helped sell out the Philadelphia municipal workers
> After NYC elections, Jacobin offers services of DSA to Democratic establishment, union bureaucracy
> Jacobin advises union bureaucracy on how to respond to wave of contract rejections
> Ocasio-Cortez says pro-Palestinian demonstrations should be ‘shut down’

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(Full title: “Proposed Iran War Memorial Wall With Off-Ramp Bouquet”)

There’s something stiffening out there right now, but it sure as hell isn’t Pete’s “resolve”, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Along with this particular concept, I’m thinking of something a bit broader in scope, perhaps with the Wall as the centerpiece of a Donald J. Trump Iran War Memorial Park, with the Wall as a centerpiece overlooking a large Reflecting Pool in the shape of the Strait Of Hormuz and, in the Pool – in the spirit of JFK’s Eternal Flame – an Eternal Algae Bloom in loving memory of the 18 (at the moment) brave troops who laid down their lives for Democracy™ or affordability or some shit.

Then, maybe, on the other side of the Reflecting Pool, a small marble amphitheater with a UFC cage for celebratory matches on Veterans’ Day, Fourth Of July, Memorial Day…?

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Dear Liberal Amerika: SHUT the HELL UP about the 2024 election. Just shut the goddamn hell up RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Your party supported fascism and genocide even though it meant defeat, and now they’re collaborating with fascists every chance they get. Hell, they just nominated a goddamn Nazi-tattooed ex-Blackwater merc and Abu Ghraib prison guard to the Senate.

So, don’t talk to me about the 2024 election, about my refusal to vote since 2004, about my utter lack of respect or faith in Democracy™ or any other American institution. Just SHUT THE HELL UP, Liberal Amerika.

More Peak Liberalism here (Feb 2017), here (May 2017), and here (Apr 2019).

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Just the other night, I learned of the passing of my friend and comrade, photographer Laura Sullivan – a.k.a. “Isis” – earlier this month.

I first became friends with Isis and her husband-to-be Michael Sullivan (a.k.a. “the Cubster”) in the late summer of 2007, when Isis and I were on the editorial board of the DC Independent Media Center and working together in the DC IMC’s foto/video workgroup.

Along with our comrade Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People’s Project, Isis was covering the neo-fascists before it was cool. Under the collective pseudonym “Town Hell Posse” she, Daryle, Michael and I covered Ron Paul rallies in Philadelphia and Tea Party batshittery at rallies on Capitol Hill, and at healthcare town halls in Reston, among other zaniness.

Isis showed me the impact – and fun – of not holding the camera straight up and down all the time; she was a staunch proponent of what they call the “Dutch Tilt” in the business – or what Isis used to call the “Batman Angle”.

She got me to loosen up on my newsreels, to let go of the “straight” approach – to editorialize, to use music, irony, cynicism and sarcasm more in my storytelling style.

In 2010, Isis and I had the honor of being asked to leave the DC IMC editorial board for being “too radical”. No, seriously. Too radical for the IMC.

Thanks so much, kiddo; it was too fucking grand.

“Great Caesar’s Ghost!”
–Perry White.

“Information Age of hysteria
is calling out to Idiot America!”
–Green Day.

(continue reading…)

Continue reading "Laura “Isis” Sullivan, Photographer: an Appreciation" »