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Dynamic Magazine
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The quarterly magazine of the YCL
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YCL 8th National Convention May 2006
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Our Future, Our Fight: Youth Beat Back the Ultra-Right!
Young Communist League, USA
Eighth National Convention
May 27-29, 2006 * New York City
Our Future, Our Fight: Youth Beat Back the Ultra-Right
On Memorial Day Weekend members of the Young Communist League, USA refused to sit back while ultra-right attempts to destroy our future by holding our 8th National Convention in Brooklyn, New York. During the weekend, over 250 delegates and guests from Oakland, Chicago, Maine, Providence, Florida, St. Louis, New York and many other communities came together to celebrate the successes of the YCL in the last 4 years and to plan how to move the YCL forward in the struggle for peace, jobs and education for young people.
Convention highlights include:
Convention-goers attended “War and Peace”, an art exhibit and hip-hop performance co-sponsored by Dynamic Magazine, World Up and Upper Playground
Convention-goers demonstrated outside of a Brooklyn military recruitment center demanding money for schools, jobs and not for war
Convention adopted a national Action Plan, a document that provides a foundation for our work over the next 4 years
Convention approved resolutions covering our approach to the struggle of immigrants, the struggle for peace, and aid to survivors of Hurricane Katrina
Convention elected of new National Council and National Coordinator, Erica Smiley
The convention opened with a rousing speech from out-going National Coordinator Jessica Marshall, setting the tone for the rest of the weekend by noting “This country needs a radical youth organization, a strong and vibrant multi-racial organization. The YCL knows that unity is not a secondary vision. We are not victims, we are fighters!” Also addressing the convention were Congressman Major Owens (D-NY) who welcomed us to Brooklyn “on behalf of all the progressive forces of the nation and world”, Jarvis Tyner, executive Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA who reminded us that “Tomorrow is Yours”, and international guests from the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), YCL of Canada, YCL of Greece, YCL of Israel and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador.
Throughout the weekend YCL members and guests participated in workshops on topics ranging from issues such as “Youth and the Poverty Draft”, skills-building sessions on how to get involved in the upcoming elections to ideological workshops highlighting the YCL’s approach to fighting racism, the struggle women’s equality and the fight for democracy.
As we all return home, pumped from the Convention and ready to hit the streets in the upcoming elections, we invite you to join us in the fight for the rights of young people and for a better future for all youth. You can do this in many ways, signing up for the upcoming YCL School where you can dive deeper into the many ideological questions raised at the convention, you can participate in our elections work, and be a part of implementing our Action Plan in so many ways.
But before you do anything, consider joining the YCLUSA.
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Upcoming Events
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2008 Elections
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Check back soon for more information!
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© Jose Venturelli
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Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez once called Pablo Neruda “the greatest poet of the twentieth century—in any language.? This July 12th, festivities around the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the Chilean poet’s birth. In the U.S., the Neruda centennial will be celebrated with the publication of a volume of eighty new English translations of his poems, and a documentary about his life and his words narrated by author Isabel Allende...
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Linton Kwesi Johnson (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
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In the last 25 years Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ) has had a huge impact on poetry and politics in the UK and internationally. His commitment to the rights of Black British people has been paired with a deep appreciation of history and his Jamaican musical and cultural roots...
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Roque Dalton
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Roque Dalton was a Salvadoran poet and revolutionary activist who became one of the most influential voices in the continent during the great upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. Born in 1932, Roque Dalton became involved in literary work and activism while attending the University of San Salvador...
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© Jose Venturelli
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Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you...
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Lenin walks around the world.
Frontiers cannot bar him.
Neither barracks nor barricades impede.
Nor does barbed wire scar him...
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© Jose Venturelli
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Hunger…
I’m hungry for letting that tongue
Weave paths down my
Spine...
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© Jose Venturelli
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I Read the other day
That Four Hundred and Fifty Seven members
Of the United States armed forces
Have died since the beginning…
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Humility has taken me to the epitome of my beginning
Where I grasped my soul
Searching for a cause
There were many faces
But in the end...
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More 2004 - March
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© Jose Venturelli
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The Silent Giants, Argonath of Greed,
Stand holding back the flow of comfort Wealth,
A stagnant dam collecting, drowning Need...
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There is a movement going on, a movement of young people who are realizing the oppressive nature of their society and are dedicating their lives to creating new realities for themselves and their communities. Poetry, in its many forms, is at the heart of this movement, speaking out against oppressive systems and speaking up for self-determination, self-identification and bold visions of alternate realities...
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The United States is a nation built by working people from coast to coast. Every city and town, every road and dam was built by our multiracial, multinational working class. May Day, International Workers Day, commerates an American tradegedy that took place in 1886...
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Over the past ten years, poetry has become an increasingly popular and powerful form of protest in the US, particularly among young people. In the post-Reagan era, with the fall of the Soviet Union, the passage of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) and Gulf War I, the Left was in disarray....
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On February 24, protest Halliburton, Bechtel, and the other corporations that are making millions in Iraq, and speak out for Iraqi workers\' rights and self-determination.
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Our generation will speak out to demand: Funding for Education, Not Empire
We demand the immediate restoration of all funds for public schools and universities cut from local and federal budgets over the last three years, and the reversal of all tuition hikes in the same period. We demand dramatic increases in assistance to low-income youth through Pell Grants, TRIO, and all programs for students in need...
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Cover - 2003/November
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Momentum is building across the globe for the Global Day of Action against War and Occupation on March 20, the one-year anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Iraq.
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Matthew Hall 1984-2003
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At 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 24, someone shot young activist and poet Matthew Hall in the back. The bullet hit vital internal organs, leaving Matthew lying on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in New York City. He was rushed to Harlem Hospital for treatment, but at 4:30 the next morning, in spite of doctors’ efforts and the hope of family and friends, our dear comrade Matthew Hall was pronounced dead.
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Every night is an opportunity to
break night
to vanquish sleep...
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Matthew Hall lived like most
Revolutionaries I know, smiling,
He was a true Revolutionary,
romantically in love with his people.
Only Revolutionaries approach
war & chaos,
death & destruction
with laughter & hope
for possibilities of resistance.
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