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Taking Sides: Democratic Socialism and American Politics -- by Daraka Larimore-Hall
Democratic Socialism: Theory, Strategy, and Vision -- by Joe Schwartz
Towards a Socialist Theory of Racism -- by Cornel West

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Activist Agenda 2007-2008

On August 12, 2007 YDS adopted the following two issues as their national activist projects.

EDUCATION IS A RIGHT–NOT A PRIVILEGE: CAMPAIGN AGAINST STUDENT DEBT

College, in the popular imagination, is still seen as both a time of freedom and experimentation, and as the gateway to future economic opportunity. Yet young people today are increasingly working harder and taking on debt just to get a degree whose value is increasingly open to question. Skyrocketing tuition costs are pricing many of America's working class youth out of a higher education while saddling millions of students and graduates with unmanageable debt burdens.

As government financial aid and grants are cut, students fall victim to predatory corporate lenders offering high interest loans. It comes as no surprise that student activists have set their sites on these scandal-ridden, for-profit companies. In addition to countering this rampant corporate greed, student activists are targeting the policy-makers who undermine the promise of affordable higher education for all.

As democratic socialists, we seek to explain how this crisis has developed, and how the ideal of universal higher education has come into conflict with the priorities of the neoliberal "free-market" ideology which currently dominates American politics. We seek to build support for what powerful student unions, socialist movements, and progressive governments have achieved in much of the world: the universal right to higher education, often provided to students free of charge. We suggest that in addition to being an important part of fighting for social justice and equality in the present day, a robust, democratic, accessible public education system can be part of the fight for a world which is not based on exploitation and economic inequality—a world beyond capitalism.

YDS is committed to educating and mobilizing youth and students to confront the student debt crisis and to increase access to higher education.

There are several things YDS chapters and activists can do:

1) Educate fellow students. Organize teach-ins and outreach efforts on campuses to highlight how for-profit lenders, budget cutbacks, and privatization are exacerbating the student debt crisis.

2) Build a coalition. Reach out to other clubs on campus, the student government association and community allies, to protest tuition hikes and predatory lenders.

3) Pass legislation. Team up with national organizations such as the United States Student Association, Campus Progress and members of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition to pass legislation, such as the reauthorization of the "Higher Education Act".

4) Connect the dots. Host public events and discussions illustrating how student loan profiteering and the under-funding of schools are part of a larger right-wing assault on the public sphere and our standards of living. Make the case for the socialist alternative: universal high-quality public goods financed though progressive taxation.

Expanding the Fight for Economic Justice: Immigration, Foreign Policy and Worker's Rights

After a full year of YDS' Immigrant Rights Project, it is clear that our work to promote immigrant rights is necessary and important. The compromise immigration proposal in Congress this summer (while supported by many immigrant rights advocates, particularly those with an inside-the-beltway relationship with institutions of power) was rejected by many other immigrants and their allies, including the Young Democratic Socialists. We believe that the proposed bill compromised far too much and would have created, among other things, an even more unbalanced economic relationship between capitalist institutions and everyday people, both here and abroad, than currently exists. This outweighs the fact that most political analysis believe that the Democratic Party will not take up the issue of immigrant rights for several years, even if they win the White House and maintain their power in Congress.

If YDS believed in a primarily electoral path to justice, we would simply pursue a new national project. However, as socialists committed to true democratic politics, we believe that the fight for reforms is as much about empowering, positioning and preparing working people for the next fight as it is about winning any particular election or enacting needed legislation. It's about organizing! The right knows this, and indeed the compromise bill emboldened a vocal right wing grassroots such as the Minutemen. The Right wing base, led by the reactionary media outlets and commentators such as Lou Dobbs and hard right elected officials, will continue to demonize immigrants and lay the groundwork for punitive local policies.

This drumbeat for deportation compliments Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the country, which have dramatically increased in the last year and targeted workplaces where workers have demanded better working conditions or wages. The Right's rhetoric demonizes immigrant women, justifies the separation of parents without papers from their American children, and blames immigrants for wasting public resources in schools and hospitals. Such rhetoric ignores the facts that 1) undocumented immigrants pay billions more into Social Security and Medicare than they take out and 2) immigrants collectively pay more in taxes than they consume[1]. Now that capital's primary goal of a massive new guest worker program failed through the compromise bill, corporate interests are likely to push for this and other policies through individual legislation. Immigrant communities terrorized by ICE attacks on their workplaces, their homes, and even the shopping centers they frequent are fighting back, but they need solidarity from allies now more than ever.[2]

Our role as democratic socialists is thus to organize our communities to side with progressive forces on immigration. The time is now to fight back against the scapegoating of immigrant workers. Our job as socialists is to educate our peers about the true culprit behind economic insecurity and depressed wages: the capitalist system of exploitation. The Young Democratic Socialists nationally and locally must mobilize young people to support the rights of all workers, undocumented or not. This is especially important for chapters outside of major immigrant communities. We must be the allies of immigrants where their voices are often neglected. In addition, it is up to socialists to argue that as long as capitalism is the dominant global economic system, and capital flows across borders without regulation, migration will be a fact of life and immigrant workers will be simultaneously exploited and blamed for native workers' economic woes.

For these reasons, YDS will carry over our Immigrant Rights Project into another year. In our first year, YDS discussion groups explored the economic, racial and other aspects of this issue, and YDSers mobilized for Mayday protests and other events. In our second year, we hope to reflect on lessons learned and build on our experiences to have an even stronger national project that every YDS local supports and actively carries out. YDS must use the Immigrant Rights Project as a method to unify our voice, build alliances, and create a greater presence for ourselves on the Left.

[1] San Diego ACLU, Immigrant Fact Sheet, http://www.aclusandiego.org/issues_item.php?cat_id_sel=001&sub_cat_sel=000005&article_id=000025

[2] In April ICE agents in full military garb, carrying M-16 rifles locked down a shopping mall in a large Mexican American neighborhood in Chicago and questioned shoppers and vendors, demanding to see papers for everyone before releasing them. The community responded immediately, with a crowd gathering outside to protest.

Suggested Activities (in addition to those proposed last year):

Activism

o Volunteer (or fundraise) for a state or local pro-immigrant initiative (or against an anti one)
o Offer solidarity to a day laborer center in case they need people to help them monitor Minutemen or other anti-immigrant activity
o Volunteer at (or fundraise for) an immigrant worker center
o Organize a counter-demonstration when the Minutemen come through town
o Table or hold a study break and have students write letters to their elected officials or make calls to politicians? offices
o Build a coalition and campaign to get your campus to cancel their contract with Burger King (national campaigns)
o Support the workers or workers? union on your campus, since many are often immigrants
o Invite a moderate Democrat to speak on campus and grill them on their immigration stance (co-sponsor with Democrats)

Public Socialist Education

Internal Political Education

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Karl Marx

Eugene V. Debs


Martin L. King, Jr.


Rosa Luxemburg

Michael Harrington


Olof Palme


Mother Jones


Nelson Mandela