2003 - July

The U.S. invasion of Iraq is wrong and must be condemned. Unfortunately, the large American peace movement could not stop the war in Iraq. We must understand that our movement prevented this war as long as we could and this itself is a victory. We know this war is only a manifestation of an ultra-right political agenda formulated by the Bush administration...

"Something's wrong." That is the only possible conclusion we can make when we think about recent events. We organized mass rallies, neighborhood and school vigils, speak outs, and cultural events, the largest student strike in our country's history, and we proved that the majority of youth in this country opposed Bush's war plans.

The bulldozer that ran over and killed Rachel Corrie was a D9 Caterpillar made in America and paid for by part of the 5 billion dollars of tax money the U.S. gives to Israel each year as ‘aid.’ She was a 23-year-old college student from Washington state.
Rachel died trying to prevent the demolition of the home of Samir Nasrallah – trying to protect one small piece of land in the poorest city in one of the most devastated places in the world: Palestine.

Affirmative action policies that have provided for people of color and women greater access, though imperfectly, to higher education and many government programs have long been considered one of the most meaningful accomplishments of the civil rights movement.

What’s going on when radio show hosts go on a rampage smashing the Dixie Chicks? How about when federal agents harass family members of Michael Farenti’s band “Spearhead�? Or when the famous Picasso painting “Guernica� is covered at the United Nations when Colin Powell spoke? What’s up with MTV releasing a statement that they would not air videos because of their political content?

After a three-year struggle for union representation at the Chicago-based Azteca Tortillas, one of the nation’s largest and most successful tortilla producers, 63 employees won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election on April 12, 2002, and became members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1159.

It was only a few days after the first march organized by Uptown Youth for Peace and Justice on December 14, when we started making plans for the January 18 anti-war demo in Washington, D.C.

“New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone� by Raquel Rivera primarily focuses on the Puerto Rican presence in hip-hop since its inception. Oftentimes hip hop is associated strictly with African Americans and ignores the African diaspora in its entirety. Rivera points out the socioeconomic commonalities among African Americans and Puerto Ricans especially in the South Bronx (the birthplace of American hip hop).

Back in the year 2000, many things were different. September 11 had not occurred yet. The planet was not embroiled at that time in a far reaching “war on terror.� The economy, while it was slowing down, had not sunk as low as it has now. The list of differences goes on and on, so much so that it almost seems like it was a different world.

Young Communists Organizing on the Front Lines

It’s no secret that George W. Bush’s environmental record is less that perfect. His actions show that he not only fails to place the environment among his top priorities, but that he profits from his environmentally unfriendly policies by receiving donations and benefits from offending corporations.

A debate is raging throughout the broad movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights: Is the U.S. government’s “War on Terror,� including the war on Iraq, an issue that the LGBT movement should address?

I became interested in Cuba when I started reading more books and watching less TV. It was in a magazine that I first saw an article about the US/Cuba Exchange project. I finally decided to talk to the coordinator of the project. At first, I thought I was just going on a vacation, but I was interested because I really wanted to go to Cuba.

On October 26, 2001 only 45 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, Congress passed a 342-page document titled the United States of America Patriot Act (USAPA). Understand family; this joint is a longstanding law enforcement wish list that had been rejected several times before by Congress with names that sounded like “The Surveillance Act� during Reagan and papa Bush’s years in office.

Hip-hop was born in New York but if you talk to most young people in São Paulo, Brazil they’ll tell you that they feel like it belongs to them.

One day a group of ten year olds walked into a bookstore on the south side of Chicago. They looked around at the different books. One young boy saw the book Always Bring a Crowd: The Story of Frank Lumpkin, Steelworker, by Beatrice Lumpkin. The boy recognized the name Frank Lumpkin, and when asked where he had learned it, he responded, “In school, we learned about Martin Luther King, that woman who sat down on the bus, and Frank Lumpkin.�