Which Group has the Rose
“Which Group has the Rose?” Reflections on David Montgomery’s 1992 lecture at Connecticut DSA 1199 Strike Support Event I met a Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG) organizer, a late hippy, with ponytail, moccasins, and a Health Care Workers District 1199 T-shirt at the Fall 1981 University of Connecticut student activity…
A Socialist Sport Straying From Its Roots: Soccer and Capitalism
There is perhaps no greater socialist sport than what we Americans call soccer. It’s a game that requires minimal equipment: a ball and a large space to play with markings for where to score suffices, removing barriers of pay-to-play. The teamwork inherent in play equalizes all players in the match. …
Organizing for abolition in Hartford, Connecticut
Abolition seeks to abolish oppressive and harmful systems like prisons, policing, borders, and, more broadly, capitalism as a whole. Crucially, abolitionists don’t seek to replace these systems with similar systems that are slightly less harmful, like “prisons-lite” or “reformed cops.” Rather, abolitionists seek to make the reasons these systems came…
May Day in Connecticut is Proof of Labor’s Power
While May Day—and the movement for labor power—is gloriously internationalist in its register, Connecticut in particular has seen one of the more violent and precarious shifts in what labor seems to entail. Over the past century, industrial factory floors like the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in New Haven and Scovill…
De-Fanging A Non-Violent Collective Action
De-Fanging A Non-Violent Collective ActionHow ‘Friendly’ Cops & Corporate Local Media Undermine Anti-ICE Messaging On June 3, hundreds of demonstrators from the CT For All coalition staged a non-violent, escalatory action in front of the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building in Hartford, CT. Police were restrained, calmly redirecting traffic around…
The New Bedford Textile Strike: A Socialist Historical Analysis
Across social strata, across racial lines, state lines, and even across party lines, our people- and therefore our movement- are suffering. a senile pedophilic god-king hunches over the United States’ hospital bed (no insurance doesn’t cover it) like a vulture, crowing about whatever tasteless nationalist eyesore or human rights violation…
1776, or Earlier?
What we make of the American Revolution—and what we can do with its memory—is to a great deal determined by the milestones we choose to narrate it. 1776 is the obvious choice, and the Declaration of Independence isn’t a bad place to start if you actually read the entire thing….
Jasper McLevy, and the Perils of Electoralism for the Sake of Electoralism
Jasper McLevy, and the Perils of Electoralism for the Sake of Electoralism: An Abridged History of the Socialist Party in Bridgeport Authors: Angelo B and Liam C Apart from local history buffs or election-obsessed politicos, few people know of the 24-year period where a socialist mayor reigned in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s…
Speech at the New Haven Anti-War With Iran Protest, March 1st 2026
My name is Jason, I am a Teamster and a member of the CT Democratic Socialists of America. Iran is the latest victim of a capitalist class that knows time is running out: as the pressures of climate change and the mass migration it has caused bears down on them,…
On Film and Political Education
Film bridges gaps that emerge when working primarily with theoretical text. Reading helps us develop a shared language, shared frameworks, and analytical clarity. Film brings those ideas closer to actual life. For some time now in Hartford, we’ve been facilitating reading groups organized around the edited volume, Abolition & Reconstruction:…