1) END OF SEMESTER CHECK LIST                      
                           2) MAY DAY: PARTY FOR WORKER'S RIGHTS!
                           3) ALBERT EINSTEIN: SCIENTIST & SOCIALIST
                           4) THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM       
                           5) DEFENDING MEXICO CITY'S LEFTIST MAYOR
                           6) FINAL CALL FOR YDS JOB APPLICANTS
                           7) STOPPING THE "NUCLEAR OPTION" ON TWO FRONTS

1) END OF SEMESTER CHECK LIST
For some of you, this is the last week of classes.  Others have a few to go before the semester lets out.  It's always important with student activism to carry momentum through the summer break.  What follows is a check list of items to consider before your pack up your books, head home and lose the opportunity to meet face-to-face with other YDSers on your campus:

CONTACT INFO: Make sure you have the summer contact information (including email and telephone) for everyone in your group, including those you hope will be involved in the YDS chapter at your school come next fall.  Please send us this contact info so we can keep our records up to date, and can follow up with folks about our summer and fall activities.

YDS SUMMER CONFERENCE: Make plans to attend YDS' summer national conference and activist retreat.  The final details about location and date are being worked out now, but you can expect a fun, informative, and empowering weekend gathering in August (most likely Aug. 12-14) before the fall semester begins.  Get commitments from people to attend.  See if you can raise funds from your school to help offset travel costs.

COORDINATING COMMITTEE: At the annual summer conferences, YDS elects a new Coordinating Committee (CC) that provides political leadership and logistical support for the organization.  Please consider running yourself or identifying others in your chapter who could run for office.  We encourage those who plan on running to attend the summer conference, though you can also run in abstentia.  CC positions are open to all YDS members, including those not currently in chapters.

ORGANIZING PLAN: If you are involved in a YDS chapter or organizing committee, please draft an overview of how your group is doing, what you've accomplished, any problems you might have run into, what you hope to do in the future, and how national YDS can support your efforts.  We hope to work with you over the summer to gear up for the fall semester.  We'll also be developing new literature, campaign materials and our soon-to-be launched blog.  If there are resources you would like to see YDS create or you would like to offer to help develop them yourself, please let us know.


2) MAY DAY: PARTY FOR WORKER'S RIGHTS!
This Sunday, May 1st, is the world-wide annual celebration of working-class struggle, otherwise known as May Day.  Never heard of it or seen a demonstration in the U.S. to commemorate this tradition that has lasted over 100 years?  You're not alone.  The story of May Day is one of those strange ironies of American political history.  The holiday was born here in the United States with trade unions and the socialist and anarchist movements organizing for the 8-hour work day.  Yet to this day, May Day is all but forgotten in this country of its origin.  Radical organizing has largely been written out of "official" American history and purged from the popular consciousness. 

It's time once again to celebrate May Day as our holiday... a tradition that belongs to everyone fighting for a better world that is free from capitalist exploitation.

Some YDSers are organizing May Day parties on Saturday night or Sunday.  There may already be a local May Day celebration to join up with in your area.  Or you can organize your own.  Contact YDS if you would like a sample flier to use or additional May Day related information to pass out.  The following article is a start:
 
Mayday: A Promise So Hopeful
From the archives of the DSA's quarterly magazine, the Democratic Left.  Written by Paul Buhle (author of Taking Care of Business, and editor of The Encyclopedia of the American Left)
http://dsausa.org/dl/sum2k/13.html


3) ALBERT EINSTEIN: SCIENTIST & SOCIALIST
Einstein's revolution enters second century.  During the "miracle year" of 1905, Albert Einstein published five ground-breaking papers still sparking innovations 100 years later.  Yet amidst all the glorifying articles written and international symposiums being organized to mark this anniversary, one startling fact remains absent: Albert Einstein was a committed democratic socialist.

Really, a socialist?  How is it that Time magazine, off all places, could issue its December 31, 1999 issue heralding Einstein in its cover article as "Person of the Century" if this were true?  Simple.  When covering figures such as Einstein, most establishment publications make sure to gloss over their political convictions or ignore them altogether.  It's a successful white-washing technique that has been used to strip other democratic socialists, from Helen Keller to Martin Luther King, Jr., of their true radical characters and enduring legacies. 

The Time magazine article in question went so far as to state that Einstein's "humane and democratic instincts are `an ideal political model for the 21st century' [a quote from Harvard physicist and historian Gerald Holton], embodying the very best of this century as well as our highest hopes for the next. What more could we ask of a man to personify the past 100 years?"  If this were an assessment of Einstein's entire contribution to humanity, the preceding statement would be a powerful endorsement of socialism! 

Below, we have pasted an excerpt from Einstein's "Why Socialism?" essay that appeared in the founding issue of the Monthly Review.  By publishing this article and making similar pronouncements in favor of socialism, Einstein incurred the wrath of the anti-Communist witch hunts that targeted leftists and independent thinkers at the height of the Cold War.  It's worth noting that during the McCarthy era, Time magazine's sister publication, Life, had listed Einstein in a photo spread that looked like a series of wanted posters, as one of the fifty most prominent "dupes and fellow travelers" of communism in the country.  The irony!  It's time to salute Einstein as a scientific genius, as a man vilified by secret FBI files, as "Person of the Century," and as a critical-minded socialist.

Why Socialism? -by Albert Einstein
http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm

"This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service."

4) THE RISE OF DISASTER CAPITALISM       
by Naomi Klein (author of No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and, most recently, Fences and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate)
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050502&s=klein

In August, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction.

5) DEFENDING MEXICO CITY'S LEFTIST MAYOR
In Mexico City, up to a million Mexicans marched Sunday in one of the country's largest demonstrations ever to show support for the city's mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The protest came days after Mexican prosecutors filed charges against Lopez Obrador in a move that could bar the left-leaning populist politician from running in next year's presidential election. Two weeks ago the Mexican Congress - with backing from President Vicente Fox's party -- impeached Lopez Obrador as mayor and revoked his political immunity in an attempt to force him out of the race at a time that he is leading in all opinion polls. Lopez Obrador has vowed to fight the charges from behind bars if necessary in his campaign for presidency .  Lopez Obrador is a leading member of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), the Democratic Socialists of America's sister organization in Mexico and part of the global Socialist International.

Greetings from Mexistan
As democracy goes south of the border, the Bush administration is notably silent.
by Harold Meyerson (DSA Vice Chair and editor-at-large of American Prospect)
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9506


6) FINAL CALL FOR YDS JOB APPLICANTS
We've already received a number of impressive applications for the YDS National Organizer job.  The deadline for applications is this Friday, April 29th.  If you are interested in the position, or know of others who might want to apply, please have them send in their applications ASAP.  You can read the job search post here: http://www.ydsusa.org/organizer_job.html


7) STOPPING THE "NUCLEAR OPTION" ON TWO FRONTS
Bush and the Republicans are on a nuclear rampage.  We must stop them on all fronts.

FRONT #1: JUDGES & THE COURTS
First, they want to re-write laws to make it easier for them to appoint right-wing judges in an attempt to roll back our rights... the so-called "Nuclear Option".  The GOP wants to use the courts to further undermine environmental protections, constitutional liberties, workers rights and other popular advances.  But progressives are fighting back. 

Yesterday marked a year since the historic "March for Women's Lives" brought over one million activists to the nation's capital to protect reproductive freedoms.  Stacking the courts with anti-abortion appointees is part of Bush's regressive agenda.  NARAL Pro-Choice America is helping keep the spirit of the march alive and working to prevent a "nuclear" disaster: http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/rr_march/uwnu734p563t8x

And tomorrow, the liberal group MoveOn, is getting its members across the nation to organize emergency Rallies to Stop the Judicial Takeover. They'll gather in front of courthouses and federal buildings to send a clear message: Americans want fair judges, not extremists appointed to favor corporate interests and right-wing fringe groups.  You can sign up now for a rally in your state: http://www.moveonpac.org/event/judicialrallies/

FRONT #2: THE IRAQ WAR & NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
On the second, more literal, nuclear front, the Bush administration is continuing to undermine global arms control efforts by refusing to ratify major non-profileration treaties and by developing new weapons such as the "tactical mini nukes" and "bunkerbusters".

The Bush administration brought us to war in Iraq because of a supposed threat of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. The whole world now knows this was a lie to justify a war to secure Iraq's oil and geo-political control over the region.
 
The war rages on with tens of thousands killed and maimed, Iraq in ruins, and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted while our schools, healthcare, and other vital services suffer, hitting people of color, the poor and working people the hardest. This May, world leaders, mayors and citizens of dozens of countries are coming to New York. They will meet at the UN to decide the fate of the endangered Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Signed by 189 nations, including the United States, the treaty:
¥ Prohibits non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons
¥ Requires nuclear nations, including ours, to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons
 
The Bush administration threatens war against Iran and North Korea, charging them with violating the NPT, but ignores its own treaty obligations, spending $40 billion a year on nuclear forces and threatening to use them first.
 
The 60th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On Sunday, May 1, tens of thousands of people are marching in New York City to support the call to abolish all nuclear weapons and to bring our troops home from Iraq.

For more on these issues and logistics on the New York City anti-Nuke/anti-war demonstration, please click here: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2788

The march and rally is sponsored by United for Peace & Justice (YDS is a member organization).  If you are going to be in NYC for the demonstration and would like to meet up with other YDSers, please contact us using the following contact information: