Update from the Young Democratic Socialists
www.ydsusa.org
post far & wide


July 4th, 2006
Declare your independence from the corporate right-wing!


In this YDS EMAIL UPDATE you will find:                                      
                                    1) AUG. 11-13, NYC: YDS SUMMER CONFERENCE!
                                    2) MEXICO'S ELECTORAL CRISIS: LEFT LOST?
                                    3) THE SOUL OF SOCIALISM
                                    4) A LOOK INSIDE THE LABOR MOVEMENT
                                    5) NEW PDF RESOURCES FROM DSA ON-LINE
                                    6) PRESSURE CONGRESS TO END IRAQ WAR
                       
      
_______________________________________________________________
 


1) AUG. 11-13, NYC: YDS SUMMER CONFERENCE!
Make plans to attend YDS' summer national conference and activist retreat in NYC!  You can expect a fun, informative, and empowering weekend gathering from Aug. 11-13 before the fall semester begins.  We're getting commitments from people to attend now.  Each YDS Chapter and Organizing Committee should aim to have at least two participants at the conference.  If you have any questions, need help with travel arrangements or raising funds, please contact us ASAP.  Free housing in NYC is available!

Flyers available here: www.ydsusa.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/yds_summer_conference.pdf


2) MEXICO'S ELECTORAL CRISIS: DID THE LEFT LOSE?
This past Sunday, Mexicans went to the ballot box for a historic election whose final results are still unknown.  The popular leftist PRD candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) looks to be narrowly behind in the ballot count (by most accounts, though there have been charges of fraud), though both AMLO and his right-wing, business-backed opponent have claimed victory.  The outcome of the election will have a substantial impact on the lives of Mexico's poor and working-class, could shift the relations of power between U.S. and Mexico, and could contribute to the resurgent Left throughout Latin America.  Below we offer some articles providing context for the election and Mexico's political reality:

Mexico's Left Turn
Bush won't cheer a progressive win in Mexico's presidential election, but the rest of us should.
by Mark Engler (a friend to YDS whose articles can be found at: www.DemocracyUprising.com)
www.commondreams.org/views06/0630-30.htm

Mexico's Labor Rebels
by David Bacon (DSA member, labor journalist and author of The Children of NAFTA)
www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20060717&s=bacon

Practice your Spanish:
National Network of Youth for ALMO: www.jovenesamlo.org.mx
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD, a member of the Socialist International): www.prd.org.mx

 
3) THE SOUL OF SOCIALISM
The following are clips from Ron Aronson's essay in the summer issue of New Politics.   Aronson is a DSA organizer in Detroit and author of After Marxism, among other titles:

IF ONE OF THE GREAT SOCIALIST LEADERS of a century ago could see us now -- Debs, say, or Luxemburg -- he or she would certainly be puzzled by the state of the world. In every direction they would be able to see struggles for liberation or the fruits of such struggles: of those with whom they would immediately be in solidarity, such as women, former slaves, indigenous people, former colonial people, and racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. Their hearts would be gladdened by the ways in which our world has been changed by such movements, but they would be shocked by the fate of socialism.

BEDROCK SOCIALIST VALUES, absorbing a fuller and more urgent sense of equality and embracing diverse social movements across the globe -- in this we can begin to discern the soul of 21st century socialism. Yet something more is needed -- a specific response to 21st century capitalism's drive to render people passive, to pass them through the sieve of the market, to wrap them in a cocoon of corporate-controlled consumerism and media. Today's global capitalism quite deliberately attacks social being itself and renders democracy meaningless. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, "There is no society, only individuals." Her "individuals," of course, were devoted to their own self-interest, and, in the neoliberal order she helped initiate, private profit. With the market becoming the central social institution and much of the rest of the social world privatized, social life was removed from social control.

READ FULL ESSAY: www.wpunj.edu/%7Enewpol/issue41/Aronson41.htm


4) A LOOK INSIDE THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Hard Labor: Change to Win leaders had big plans last year when they left the AFL-CIO to do more organizing. The resolve is there -- but so are all the usual impediments.
by Harold Meyerson (DSA Vice-Chair, writer for Washington Post and American Prospect)
www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11662


5) NEW PDF RESOURCES FROM DSA ON-LINE
Check out the 'Toolbox' page on the Democratic Socialists of America's website for new downloadable PDFs.  Great to print out and distribute:  Justice for Undocumented Workers and a Membership Flyer in Spanish
VIEW / DOWNLOAD:  www.dsausa.org/resources.html


6) PRESSURE CONGRESS TO END IRAQ WAR
The latest from United for Peace and Justice (of which YDS is a member org.):

Congress Begins Moving: Our Work Is Far From Over

While both houses of Congress still lag dramatically behind the people of this country and Iraq in opposing the war, we've recently seen a sharp rise in Congressional willingness to talk about peace. Votes in both the House and the Senate have forced members to go on record on troop withdrawal, permanent bases, and other war-related issues. More members than ever before went on record for peace, or at least against the war without end that Bush has been peddling.

Your calls, faxes and emails, your participation in public protests have all helped to create significant movement in Congress. They voted; now we have to hold them accountable. It is critical that our elected representatives know we are paying attention, and that we will continue to pressure them to take action to end the war and bring all the troops home, now!

Email or phone your Senators and Representative today!

No Permanent Bases
For the second time this year, both the House and Senate have voted overwhelmingly against permanent bases in Iraq. It was a huge victory for the peace movement, with a majority of Republicans voting against the Bush administration.

Bring the Troops Home
On June 15, the House leadership responded to the peace movement's calls for a debate on the war. They gave us a carefully orchestrated series of speeches on a bill that was pure propaganda for the war. The Republican leadership is so afraid of the antiwar movement that they refused to let even Republicans offer alternative proposals to the Bush policy. The only vote they allowed was on a simplistic piece of propaganda "in support of the war, freedom and the U.S. troops."

In spite of the war mongers' best efforts, we can take heart in the fact that 158 members of Congress voted "no" (or lodged a protest "present" vote) to this outrageous political maneuver. Still, 256 members of Congress proved how out of touch they are with the rest of the country by voting to support war without limit.
See if your Representative voted for war without end.

What Does This All Mean?
If you just took the word of the mainstream media, you might think there's been no movement in Congress. But in fact, the change in the Senate has been phenomenal. To understand how far we have come, it is helpful to see where we were just a few months ago, when the only antiwar legislation was a very weak measure asking Bush to come up with a plan on Iraq. That's all, just a plan ... and only two Senators dared to support it!

Two weeks ago, we asked you to contact your Senators and ask them to vote to end the war. Since then, the Senate has voted on three different amendments calling for the withdrawal of troops. Even the weakest of these amendments was stronger than what we have seen previously.

The strongest stand was taken by Senators Feingold, Kennedy, Boxer, Kerry, Harkin and Byrd, who voted to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. A weaker amendment sponsored by Boxer, Kerry and Feingold, calling for the withdrawal of all troops by next summer, got 13 votes. Although neither of these amendments supports the UFPJ position of 'out now,' Senators who voted for them should be thanked, and encouraged to work for an immediate end to the war.

Sen. Levin's non-binding resolution calling for the troops to begin to withdraw by the end of this year got the support of 38 Democrats and one Republican. This considerably weaker amendment still takes the Senate closer to ending the war. Most Senators who supported this amendment will now consider their work on the war done. It is not. They need to be told that a vote for the Levin amendment was not nearly enough.

The votes in the Senate and the House over the last weeks leave the door open to us to push them farther than they have been willing to go before to end the war. We have to make the most of this opportunity to let them know that the peace movement is watching them, and we are not satisfied with theatrics and rhetoric. We will only be satisfied with an immediate and complete withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Write or call your Senators today.

Background
For a more complete summary of Congressional actions on Iraq in the last 2 weeks, please visit our website.



Young Democratic Socialists
c/o DSA 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 505
New York, NY, 10038
office: (212) 727-8610
fax: (212) 608-6955
yds@dsausa.org
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