2004 - October

What do we want the next four years to look like?

If you haven’t already considered this question, this is exactly what you should be asking yourself as the November 2nd election draws near. Will we spend the next four years fighting to defend what rights and social programs remain after four years of right-wing attacks from the Republican-controlled Congress and White House? Or will we begin to hold politicians accountable and advance a people’s agenda - an agenda that will expand opportunities and rights in the US?

How many of you have faced tuition hikes in your universities and not received more financial aid?

During my first year of teaching, I saw first-hand how our schools and our government work together to produce students who are under-educated and unable to fully participate in our society.

The protests at the Republican National Convention in New York City have certainly busted one prominent myth - that youth in the U.S. are apathetic about politics or indifferent to the Bush policies. On Aug. 28, over 500 young people gathered at St. Markís Church in New York City to kick off the Books Not Bombs Youth Convergence. The event was organized by the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC), the largest youth-led antiwar group in the country.

Dynamic recently spoke with Bob Libal, an activist with the Not With Our Money campaign in Austin, Texas. On Tuesday, August 31, Bob was protesting the Republican National Convention in New York City when he was arrested and detained for several days.

The following is a quick and dirty list of the main issues at stake for young people come Election Day:

On the Fourth of July YCLers from across the country gathered in St. Louis, Missouri to start working to defeat Bush and the Bush agenda in the battleground states. During the whole month of July in Missouri and one week in Ohio, almost 50 YCLers hit the streets of these key swing states as a part of the YCL Midwest Summer Project.

From June 6-9, delegates from 30 countries representing 50 organizations converged in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia to launch the preparatory process for the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS). The 16th WFYS will take place in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 5-13, 2005, under the slogan "for peace and solidarity - we struggle against imperialism and war."

The Latin American School of Medical Sciences in Havana, Cuba, currently has over 9,000 students from 24 countries, including Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa. Eighty of these students are from the United States. Just a month ago, poor black, Latino and Native-American med-school hopefuls faced the possibility of being stripped of the right to a free education in Havana, Cuba because of regulations that restricted travel to the island.

American recording artist and activist Michael Franti recently traveled to the Middle East. In this diary excerpt, he describes conditions in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip) - Palestinian land that Israel has controlled by force since 1967.

On July 19, as part of a contingent of the 35th annual Venceremos (We Shall Overcome) Brigade, I crossed the US/Canadian border in a direct action challenging the Bush administration’s travel ban to Cuba.

For two years I’ve been a member of a group in Harlem called the Liberation Program. In a group of about 15 young folks, we’ve been active in the fight to stop gentrification in the Harlem community.

In political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal’s new book “We Want Freedom�, he places black liberation in historical context through the history of the Black Panther Party(BPP).

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi was first available in the US last year and is now out in paperback. It has been widely read and reviewed in France where it was originally published in two volumes in 2000 and 2001 Persepolis 2: The Story of A Return is due out at the end of August.

Together now for nearly 25 years, these American punk rock legends have never been shy about their political and philosophical judgements. From their firm stand against the Gulf War to recent songs like “Kyoto Now!� and “Materialist,� Bad Religion has long been a militant voice for peace and progress. This 14th and latest album, The Empire Strikes First, is no exception.

Absent for 12 years, the Young Communist League (YCL) is back on the Canadian political scene. Young members of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) have reestablished the YCL across the country.

Imagine waking one morning to find a major national symbol of your country destroyed by an act of terrorism and your country caught up in a wave of insecurity, xenophobia and blind ultra-nationalism.

This year, the massive annual Notting Hill Festival in London, England is remembering the life and work of Claudia Jones, “mother of the Notting Hill Festival�. In her memory it is being hosted under the slogan of “Freedom and Justice�.