Welcome to our June issue. You’ll find Upcoming Events, coverage of chapter activities, and articles on the threat of deportation, the value of protests, Rochester’s budget, gardening, Socialism 101, and more. Want to contribute? Submit to bit.ly/SubmitRedStar, or reach out to get involved with our communications committee by emailing steering@rocdsa.org.
Month: May 2025
Demands Aren’t Enough
By Brent
Over the last 9 years we’ve seen some of the biggest protests in this country’s entire history. Just a couple weeks ago (at time of writing) five MILLION people rallied as part of the nationwide “Hands Off” rallies. I attended the one here in Rochester, which had over 3,000 in attendance. I do not intend for this piece to be a polemic, but to share critiques that both apply to this rally and others like it to consider ways to move beyond the streets toward an organized mass movement.
Riots and Protest in the Home of Frederick Douglass
by Jean Allen
The protest of May 31st 2020 was probably the most militant protest I’d been involved in in the city of Rochester. People who had been studying up on the Hong Kong protests arrived in multiple blocs, chants were directly oppositional to the police and repeated by a crowd large enough to make downtown Rochester’s streets seem small.
This changed when we marched to the Public Security Building.
B is for “Bourgeoisie”
by Gregory Lebens-Higgins
The very institutions that support the cohesiveness and maintenance of the bourgeoisie are being destroyed in its race to suck up remaining profits from the public sector. Meanwhile, the resentment of the petit bourgeoisie is increasingly unstable in its support for the destructive policies of Trump.
Metro Justice delivered Organizational Sign on Letter at Speak to Council, calling on City Reps to Fund a Phase 1 study with reserved funds, responding to Public Power Report Cards
by Rochester for Energy Democracy
While Rochesterians continue to struggle with out of control bills and shut offs, Metro Justice and allies delivered a Replace RG&E Organizational Sign On Letter for City Leadership at the Speak to Council session Thursday evening.
Getting Grounded: Join UAWG
By Liz Henderson
So far this spring has been cold and rainy. When the soil is wet and cold, seeds that are not treated with chemical fungicides can rot, so organic gardeners hold off until the soil warms up (or, as Petra Page-Mann of Fruition Seeds suggests, when the phenological signs are right, as in the old-timey wisdom that the time to plant corn is when the oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears.) Also, you do more harm than good if you walk on wet soil, packing it down with your weight so that shoots have trouble emerging. If you think of garden soil as a living community, you will treat it with appropriate care.
LGBTQ+ Rights Are Under Attack. What Do We Do?
by Skye
Black trans lives are under attack! What do we do?
We fight back! Indigenous trans lives, immigrant trans lives, homeless trans lives, all trans lives—our siblings, in identity and in class, are scapegoats for the fascists. And if we will have any hope of protecting the whole queer community, we must start with our trans brothers and sisters, and our non-binary siblings.
Batavia Rally for Palestine
by Jeremy
Eventually it came to light that McCarthy’s witch hunt was unsubstantiated, and he was criticized by colleagues and the public at large. McCarthy was on the wrong side of history, and if this administration continues to detain and deport legal residents for their political views, they will be on the wrong side of history as well.
Who do we want to be?
Across this country, we are watching the destruction of our democracy unfold in real time. The Trump administration is not just coming for immigrants. It is coming for difference and for dissent. For working people. For the systems we rely on—public education, healthcare, the justice system, free speech. They are coming for us. This is not just political. It is existential.