Get In Their Face

Release Date: February 28, 2026

Hello Comrades,

I’ve loved unions for years. As a card-carrying socialist, I’ve known that there is no power stronger than labor power, and that a labor strike is the most effective weapon the working class has against the bourgeoisie and ruling class. But until now, it was knowledge I had, a theoretical framework of the world based on readings and studies.

On Friday, Jan. 30, I called in sick to work. I was one of over 1,000 teachers throughout the Tucson Unified School District who participated in the huge sick-out strike, leading to several schools (including the high school I work at) closing down classes for the day.

We were far from alone. In addition to our city’s teachers, dozens of local businesses closed their doors for the day, including Slow Body Beer Co, How Sweet it Was Vintage, Presta Coffee, and Tucson Thrift Shop, as part of a nationwide day of action to shut down commerce in support of our comrades in Minneapolis.

A week before, one of my students told me she would not be in class for a few days on account of her family’s fear about immigration enforcement, a truly horrific thing to hear from a student that I have committed myself to teach. Every day, I go into work with the goal of helping my students thrive and feel safe. It is a betrayal for our government to stop them from being able to learn safely.

I was consumed by despair when I heard this from my student, and so far I’ve only found one thing that can help me get over it: standing up and fighting back. The thousands of people in our city who didn’t show up to work on the 30th didn’t just stay home. We gathered together and marched in the streets in opposition to ICE and the Trump administration, in one of the largest single-day demonstrations in Tucson’s history.

In Catalina Park, students stood up to speak in front of myself and my fellow teachers. They reminded us that we are fighting for their future, their ability to be free from government tyranny. I saw signs that had dozens of different slogans, from the serious and urgent to the witty and silly, all sharing one clear message: ICE’s attack on immigrants and Americans must stop. I felt the energy of a crowd of comrades from all over the spectrum of Tucson politics, united in their opposition to the regime and the murders it has committed.

(Tucson teachers gather in Catalina Park for speeches before marching to join the rest of the protest at the Federal Building downtown. January 30, 2026) 

One day of marching was not enough to end ICE’s reign of terror or force the president to resign. We all knew it never would be. Nevertheless, it showed politicians in Tucson and across the country that the people are opposed to what is happening. We are not going to sit back while the ghouls who run the Department of Homeland Security try to do in Tucson what they’re doing in Minneapolis. If they do, they can expect a well-organized and unflinching response.

But perhaps the best thing that a protest like this accomplished was showing us, the people of Tucson, what kind of power we have. For years, I’ve heard radicals calling for a general strike to fight against the broken system that we have. Perhaps to my shame, I have written that off as wishful thinking — general strikes are really hard and require a level of organizing and political involvement that even most politically active people in this country are unprepared for. But I was proven wrong. After just a few weeks of federal occupation, Minneapolis was able to organize multiple one-day general strikes that have forced the feds to, at least partially, back down.

I don’t know what is coming for us next. Does this attack on Minneapolis represent the failed overreach of an overconfident regime? Or, is it a preview of the horrors that will soon be inflicted across the US and around the world? But I know one thing: Whatever is coming for us, we are ready to fight back. I know that my colleagues among Tucson’s teachers are ready to stand up for our students and our community. I know that the local businesses of Tucson are ready to fight to maintain the city we love. And I know that activists, from our own DSA to our allies in groups like PSL, Indivisible, and Derechos Humanos, are fired up and ready to go. I know that not a single person of the thousands who marched in downtown Tucson is going to go home and give up after spending one day taking action. There will be more actions, taken by the people of Tucson, in the future and it is our responsibility as DSA to help point people in the right direction. We’re ready.

What Can I Do Right Now?

1. Come to our general meeting on Saturday at 2pm at the Ward 6 office

February is almost over, and that means our next general meeting is coming up this Saturday, Feb. 28, at the Ward 6 office. Since our last meeting, we are proud to have welcomed a brand new Steering Committee, with a whole new set of Tucson DSA leaders ready to do everything they can to build socialism here in Tucson.

Members of the 2026 Steering Committee are:

• Co-Chair - Lee Z

• Co-Chair - Liz W

• Secretary - Jayleigh O

• Treasurer - Brayton B

• Communications Coordinator - Noah J

• Mutual Aid Coordinator - Christopher D

• Labor Coordinator - Hava B

• Research Coordinator - Kenrick E

We also are happy to welcome Russ S and Chad H as Harassment and Grievance Officers and Ethan A as the chair of the brand new Electoral Committee. There are still vacancies for two positions - Onboarding Coordinator and Field Coordinator, so if you are interested in getting involved, let someone on Steering Committee know.

Beyond welcoming our new team, Saturday’s meeting will include planning for some exciting upcoming events, a discussion on how to move forward on our plans for community defense, and a report back from the first official meeting of the brand new Electoral and Socialists in Office Committee.

2. Vote NO RTA Next

Earlier this month, Tucson DSA announced that we oppose RTA Next and encourage our community to vote no on Propositions 418 & 419. We believe that Props 418 and 419, like Prop 414 (the proposed sales tax increase that voters overwhelmingly rejected last March) will do more harm than good, by taking hundreds of millions of vital tax dollars out of Tucson to widen roads in wealthier suburbs.

RTA Next won't create safety on our roads, which are some of the deadliest in the country, and it will not fix our serious pothole problem, despite false advertising saying otherwise. Read more from City Council Member (and DSA member!) Miranda Schubert on why Tucson can do better than RTA Next.

Ballots must be mailed back by March 3 and can be dropped off in-person through Election Day on Tuesday, March 10.

3.Table for Public Power at the Peace Fair

If you want even more DSA on Saturday, we could definitely use your help canvassing for Public Power at the Tucson Peace Fair in the morning or early afternoon before our 2 p.m. general meeting. The annual event in Reid Park is always full of Tucsonans and is a great opportunity to reach out to the residents of our city.

You don’t need any canvassing experience to participate! We’ll be there to help you.. There are two shifts - 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., and we could use volunteers for both.

4. Discuss readings on Labor with the Tucson DSA book club on Sunday

We are doing something a little different this month for the book club. Instead of reading a whole book, we have selected several articles on the topic of labor, from several different authors, to read and discuss. You can find the full list of articles with links and even a downloadable epub document here.

Even if you don’t get a chance to read all of them (or any of them), we’d love to have you at our book club meeting to use the articles as a jumping off point for a broader discussion of labor and what we can do to improve worker power in Tucson.

Because of some rescheduling issues, the event will be held at the house of Jared , the book club coordinator, at 5 p.m. on Sunday. Reach out to the book club coordinator here or rsvp to the event on Discord to get the address.

We are also gearing up to spend March reading Marx, and will be choosing several articles by the original Socialist Daddy, so come discuss at the meeting what articles you’re interested in reading.

5. Get ready for more protests, and more actions

As discussed above, the brazen brutality in Minnesota and Venezuela that started this year with a bang has led to people around the country rising up and fighting back. While we do not know all the protests and other direct action events that will come in the next few weeks, either through DSA or in collaboration with other Tucson activism groups, we can guarantee that there will be more, and that many of them may come at short notice.

As part of our general meeting today, we will be discussing the plans of our new community-defense working group. We are also working on planning a Know Your Rights training for protesters in cooperation with the National Lawyers Guild at a time to be determined in March.Stay tuned to our Discord, and be prepared to mobilize quickly if that’s what is needed to fight back.

6. Work out with your comrades

The modern American fascist movement has become inextricably tied to toxic fitness culture, but we’re not gonna let those weirdos monopolize the joy of fitness with friends. You can join us at our new, weekly Socialist Workouts, every Sunday at 9 a.m. at La Madera Park! Come if you’re a fitness nut or if your idea of a marathon is watching a whole season of TV. Let’s get stronger together!

Calendar

• Saturday, February 28 @ 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.: Tucson Peace Fair canvass at Reid Park

• Saturday, February 28 @ 2 p.m.: February General Meeting at Ward 6 Office

• Sunday, March 1 @ 9 a.m.: Socialist Workout at La Madera Park

• Sunday, March 1 @ 5 p.m.: Book Club Discussion at Jared’s house

• Sunday, March 8 @ 9 a.m.: Socialist Workout at La Madera Park

• Sunday, March 8 @ 11 a.m.: Social at Revolutionary Grounds

Revolutionary Quote of the Week:  

“What excuses would you tell yourself

If this ever happened to you?

Well I live in a city of heroes

I know what I would do”

- Billy Bragg, “City of Heroes”

Moments of crisis come with all sorts of strange features. In our country defined by mass media, the battle against fascism has taken all sorts of forms, from US Olympic athletes speaking up about ICE to screeds against the regime on a subreddit dedicated to drumming on cats like they're bongos. As the government tries to smother dissent, dissent grows like weeds in the sidewalk.

One of the most consistent features of cultural resistance has always been protest songs. The causes of socialism and anti-fascism are no strangers to the joy of singing together, from Italian anti-fascist anthem “Bella Ciao,” to Pete Seeger's legendary union sing-alongs, to the Staples Singers’ “Freedom Highway”.

We still don't know the full shape of this moment of resistance, but luckily the heroes are already getting their theme music. Bruce Springsteen, who's been fighting for the working class and progressive causes since before I was born, released “Streets of Minneapolis,” a somewhat cheesy if refreshingly direct celebration of the actions of the anti-ICE coalition of the Twin Cities. While, as a Jersey boy born and raised, I am physically incapable of dissing the Boss (the only boss I respect!), I have to admit that Bruce's song, while sweet, lacks the umph of his most powerful political statements. For the real anthem for our nation in crisis, I prefer the original punk rock socialist, Billy Bragg.

Coming out of East London, Billy Bragg has also been singing about socialism since before I joined the population of this planet. With anthems like “There is Power in a Union” and “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward,” his slightly nasal working class English accent has been proclaiming the rights of the workers for decades. His cover of Mother Jones’ union classic “Which Side Are You On,” with more hard-charging electric guitar and lyrics about the 1984 English coal miners strike, is my own favorite protest song.

So, of course, because Billy Bragg is the man, he has released a new song. He’s not from Minneapolis, but he imagines himself side-by-side with the wonderful and brave people of the North Star State in his song.

Beyond current events, Bragg reaches into history, calling upon Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, “First They Came,” in which the German pastor recalls how he had been too timid to speak out when the Nazis came for communists, trade unionists, and Jews, meaning that there was no one to save him when the Nazis came for him as well. Bragg begins his song talking about how “the ghost of Martin Niemöller/ haunts the halls of history.” He continues on to show how the familiar story of a society that fails to stand up against evil can inform our actions today: “In Dachau, Martin Niemöller/ Suffered for his complicity/ But in this city of heroes/ We learn the lessons of history.”

When we think of the struggles of the past, it becomes too easy to either fear we’re doomed just like our forerunners, or to compare ourselves unfavorably to the icons of past resistance. Too often we look at the endgame of the Nazi takeover of Germany and feel that this round of fascism is impossible to stop. Or we overcorrect in the other direction, fearing that our current round of activists couldn’t stand up to the amazing power of the 60s Civil Rights organizers or other great movements of the past.

But Bragg’s story gives us a better way of looking at history: learning from mistakes. We know what happened to Martin Niemöller and we have read the poem he wrote. We know what our enemies are capable of, we know what happens if we don’t stand up, and we know what has and has not worked in the past. We will make many mistakes, just as any historian of the Civil Rights Movement will tell you those heroes did as well.

But we have this benefit of history. We have a chance to learn from their mistakes and from our own. The path between our present crisis and a beautiful future is impossible to see through the dark wood. But we know that a path is there, because we have seen others walk it. We will make mistakes, but we will learn from ourselves too.

And, as Billy Bragg so eloquently sings, “When they came to my neighborhood/ I just got in their face.”

Fight on, heroes of this city,

The Sonoran Socialist 🌹🌵