Bi-Annual Report to YCL National Council

As expected, the upcoming 2008 Elections have already taken center stage, and nearly every issue we struggle for hinges on them in some way. Now we have the opportunity not only to strengthen the Democratic majority, but also to elect a Democrat as president—setting a real path to end the war, secure jobs, and improve access to quality schools.

YCL NATIONAL COUNCIL MEETING BI-ANNUAL REPORT

October 6-7, 2007
New York, NY

POLITICAL CLIMATE

As expected, the upcoming 2008 Elections have already taken center stage, and nearly every issue we struggle for hinges on them in some way. The new Congress was successful in getting legislation to set a timeline for troop withdrawal, the Employee Free Choice Act, increased funding for the Pell Grant discussed and even passed. Last month, Bush was even recently forced to slash federal subsidies to private student loan lenders, and place $20 billion into federal aid programs, including Pell Grants. Even now, Congress is discussing the DREAM Act—a small step forward to securing access to higher education for immigrant youth. But most acts of Congress in 2007 failed to overcome the Bush veto. Now we have the opportunity not only to strengthen the Democratic majority, but also to elect a Democrat as president—setting a real path to end the war, secure jobs, and improve access to quality schools.

It is important to note here, just as we did at the last NC meeting that our vision is not clouded when it comes to Democrats. We understand their capitalist nature, and don’t view them as a people’s party. A simple assessment of the Democratic presidential candidates’ proposals will yield a complex combination of progressive and conservative ideals.

But even though the ultra-right is in retreat, kicking and screaming and even calling Hillary Clinton’s half public-half private healthcare proposal “socialist”, they still haven’t been defeated. As Communists, we have to finish the task of isolating the ultra-right and completely removing them from power—using the Democrats to finish the job.

And we should recognize that the debates in the election primaries already far exceed the level of discussion of past elections. Never in our lifetimes have all the Democratic candidates competed so hard for the labor vote, postured over who’s more against the war in Iraq, or fought to have the best universal healthcare plan.

Though we are not a door knock away from socialist revolution, the political tide has definitely shifted in our favor. Sam Webb, the national chair of the Communist Party always reminds us that though socialist revolution often seems long in the distant future, we must never underestimate how quickly things can change. The outrage of working people and youth over the lack of jobs, under-funded schools, and what feels like a never-ending war in Iraq is building, and we find among young people an ever-growing need to fight back.

The youth vote will again be a decisive feature of these 2008 elections. So important is the youth vote that ABC News reports that Democratic front-runners Edwards, Clinton and Obama have all hired youth-voter coordinators for their campaigns. What should worry us, however, is the lack of more coordinated youth vote mobilization activities in the absence of a strong youth vote coalition, like the one that existed in 2000 and 2004. This is something we may consider pushing our allies to reconsider.

In addition to engaging in basic voter mobilization, we should also force ourselves into the ideological battle to convince youth why this election is so important. Though our generation’s anger builds given the attacks on our futures, our over all sense of urgency is fickle.

It is our job to keep the urgency of acting now, in the 2008 Elections and afterwards, front and center in every discussion.

The Bush Administration and their Republican successor hopefuls have no intentions of leaving Iraq. If given any leeway, they will invade Iran and who knows where else—making the military the most viable option for youth with no access to education or jobs. They will continue to support Israeli aggression in Palestine, and Lebanon. They would continue to cut public funding for schools and financial aid, destroying the very system of public schools and the quality of education with No Child Left Behind. They will continue to curb our efforts to win secure, good-paying jobs. They will continue to bail out the banks and finance capital when it’s our homes and our families’ homes they are taking away in the housing crisis.

If we let up now, content with the victories of 2006, not only would we miss an incredible opportunity, but we’d be giving the ultra-right license to stick around and even get stronger.

Even in this era of opposition, the Bush Administration has taken every opportunity to maintain power and push their regressive policies through fear and intimidation. Throughout the country, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has implemented raids in the homes of immigrants and even native-born workers to scare them into silence and inaction. Some immigrant youth have refrained from going to school in fear that their families will be gone when they return home.

New Haven, CT became the first city to offer a municipal identification card to aid immigrants in obtaining drivers’ licenses to get to work and provide for other basic needs. But the act was promptly (36 hours later) followed by an ICE raid that displaced 34 people. We should find ways to better support immigrant youth in these emergency situations.

Immigrant youth aren’t the only ones that have been under extreme attack by backwards policies. Anyone that thought the civil rights movement ended in 1968 because “we won” got a wake up call over the summer after the arrest of 6 Black high school students in Jena, Louisiana after a fight instigated by white students hanging a noose. The case of the Jena 6 catalyzed student walk-outs at high schools and colleges across the country, revitalizing a Black youth movement long subdued in the quagmire of street violence and insecurity.

The Communist Party’s recent conference on African American Equality in St Louis raised specific questions of how to re-engage Black youth given the high incarceration rates, high unemployment rates, and high drop out rates, igniting a productive discussion throughout the Party and YCL.

One thing we should discuss as the YCL is how we can better engage in this upsurge, helping to sustain it beyond what will hopefully be the release from jail of the final member of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell. We can play a productive role in highlighting who the real enemy is, far beyond the District Attorney, and we can raise the issue beyond this case to highlight the super-exploitation of Black youth, in the South and otherwise. What is more, we can help do so in a way that strategically brings more people to our side, unlike some groups which opt to play a more alienating role. We, of course, are not dogmatically against confrontation, but we recognize the need to engage in tactics that will unify people and bring others into the fight…not isolate them. We should find ways to insert this into the discussion around the Jena 6 and other struggles.

If that wasn’t enough to give youth a sense of urgency, the contract being discussed by General Motors (GM) and the United Autoworkers (UAW) should. In addition to including a 2-tier system of wages and benefits where newer, younger employees do not receive the same access to pensions and healthcare that their older counterparts do, it also sets a horrible precedent for employers not covering workers’ healthcare. As a trend-setting industry, this could have an incredible impact on workers’ ability to demand company-funded healthcare everywhere. We can find proof of this in how fervently the rest of the labor movement came out in support of the Autoworkers, despite past divisions between the UAW and other unions. In addition to struggling for universal healthcare through the government, it is important for us to agitate our generation now on employee healthcare coverage, before they forget what it was like not to have to pay for your own healthcare.

The Autoworkers’ strike also shows us how important it is for Communists, and in particular young Communists, to see these jobs as viable positions and take them on in order to struggle with the unions during these battles. Further, there will be more fights with the other auto companies, including Ford and Chrysler. We have to be ready, and help others within the youth solidarity movement and young worker movement ready themselves for a fight.

Still, it is significant that the UAW leadership began to recognize the importance of international solidarity in a time like this. GM has plants all over the world, making it impossible to make real gains with the company in the United States without being on the same page as workers elsewhere in the world.

After all, the world climate has been shifting against global capitalism and the on-going drive of working people into the bottomless pits of poverty, starvation and hopelessness. There simply comes a point where people won’t take it anymore, and we see this in the demonstrations in Burma, the resilience of people in Darfur, the organization of youth in Palestine, and so on. Efforts to build a Latin American bloc against US Imperialism, pushed by Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, has not only stopped damaging “free trade” policies, but has also re-opened discussions about alternatives to capitalism…if not socialism.

Despite the ultra-rights desperate efforts to demonize progressives by dropping the s-bomb, the word “socialism” is making appearances at more dinner tables in the United States since pre-Cold War times. We have to encourage this, and further elaborate. Though most in the youth movement are still far from identifying themselves as socialists, many are still curious. They want to know what we’re talking about specifically, and how it would solve the problems we face. The Youth Bill of Rights is one tool we can really use for this, without overwhelming young people with ideological jargon that may turn them off.

Despite our small size, we have a lot of people to reach. And the changing political tide presents us with an opportunity to reach them now more than ever.


OUR SPECIFIC TASKS

As stated, our role continues to be building the broadest level of unity both within the youth movement and between the youth movement and other struggles—in particular the labor movement. We’ve made a lot of progress in doing this, and have some strategic opportunities for further success.

We’ve doubled our dues-paying membership and continue to develop a new generation of leaders that will continue to further build our organization in the upcoming period. In the process, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves, how to strengthen the organization, and how to strengthen the youth movement over all. Every successful event or action seems to open the door to more opportunities to expand our influence and our capacity.

In getting specific, I’ll outline what we’ve accomplished in our 3 primary areas of struggle: peace, jobs and education. I’ll also highlight our hopeful elections plans for 2008. I’ll close on our internal efforts to strengthen our membership base and build the YCL. Throughout the report, I’ll attempt to give a picture of both the opportunities we see and some of the barriers we’ve run into along the way.

PEACE

We continue to mobilize youth for peace nationally in coordination with the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (or NYSPC) and locally through other forums. As you are already aware, we were able to mobilize over 75 YCL members from Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, DC & Maryland, Connecticut and Virginia to the January demonstrations in Washington, DC called by United for Peace and Justice. Several YCLers, including 2 of us from the national staff, managed to stay through Monday to engage in lobbying efforts.

As a part of this, we were able to call a meeting of youth organizations outside of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition to draft a Youth Agenda covering issues such as jobs, healthcare, education, and the environment among others—and all in the context of the war. Though originally this was used as the basis for youth lobbying the new Congress, it is now at the root of a voter guide, with corresponding questions for all presidential candidates to answer. Local coalitions can use the guide as a template for engaging local candidates on youth issues. As of now to our knowledge, it is the only youth centered voter guide being circulated before the deciding primaries, and it is our hope that this will be the impetus for presidential candidates to respond.


We’ve also been able to better coordinate clubs within the YCL that do peace work through consistent conference calls and speaking engagements. For the October 27th demonstrations we hope to mobilize YCLers to at least 4 of the 10 major sites: Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and New York. By having a club leader or national staff person participate in the regional discussions, we hope to mobilize area clubs to each of these demonstrations as a way to bring new youth around and have solid YCL visibility.

One thing we have struggled with is an inability to engage more national youth organizations explicitly in NYSPC. Many national youth organizations are close to us as the Young Communist League, but are often alienated by other members of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition due to frequent opposition to elections and legislative work. This is good for the YCL’s visibility and reputation, but does not help us in uniting the over all youth movement.

We have had limited success engaging these groups, not as members of NYSPC, but in conjunction with NYSPC when dealing with elections and other youth issues. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just informs us that NYSPC cannot be the primary forum through which we engage the youth movement in elections. I’ll get to how this allows us to put more focus into some of the other coalitions we’re working with as we get to other areas of work from our Action Plan.

The broad movement for peace remains strong, and to maintain this momentum we should look into these relationships between the national youth peace movement and the local activity most urgently so the youth voice is not muted or divided in the process of bringing the troops home.

JOBS

As you’ll remember, we kicked off 2007 with a National Roundtable on Jobs. YCLers representing young workers and trade unionists, union organizers, and student-labor solidarity activists were present. In addition to making minor suggestions on YCL programming, the roundtable, now an official workgroup of the YCL, laid the groundwork for exploring ways to establish a national network for young workers.

There is a lot of room for increased organizing among young workers in the United States. Currently, the rate of young workers organized into trade unions remains steady at 5%, the lowest of all age groups. This can be attributed in part to the ultra-right’s aggressive attack on trade unions and workers’ rights in general, blurring both the nature and necessity for trade unions as early as middle school civics class.

There have been strong, labor-led projects to consolidate a base of young workers in the past. However, these projects generally fizzled, having not been taken on whole-heartedly by the youth themselves. Our aim here is to attempt to build similar organization among young workers, but established and led by young workers themselves; both organized and unorganized.

We’d like to do this by exploring the establishment of an organization with the purpose of educating young workers’ about the issues, aiding in their search for union jobs/apprenticeships, and building a local base of young workers combined with the creation of a coalition to immediately add the voice of young workers’ in support of vital campaigns for workers’ rights on a national level.

This idea alone has opened the doors for us to talk to and build relationships with a variety of organizations, both within and outside the labor movement. We aim to get some initial feedback before taking any definitive next steps. Though we want to cast a wide net for young workers, we want to move strategically and with the resources lined up to really make something happen.

It is important to note that having a member of the YCL now working for the CP Labor Commission has been incredibly helpful in this area of our work. She’s helped us to maintain consistent communication and coordination with the Party Labor Commission on this ambitious plan, and moved us forward in the most strategic way.

None of this should infer that we’ve abandoned the student-labor solidarity scene. We still actively participate in the Economic Justice Action Coalition (or EJAC) facilitated in most part by the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), which as most of you know is a joint project of the US Student Association and Jobs with Justice. Ideally, this forum will coordinate youth days of action around immigrant rights, bring a student voice to back the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and mobilize students around other labor issues.

We would like to do more to engage our local clubs in these actions. We weren’t as successful last year as we have been in past years at coordinating student-labor solidarity on campuses in conjunction with SLAP’s National Student-Labor Week of Action. But we do have youth engaged in student-labor solidarity in general at Mizzou and the University of Minnesota. We’re hoping that we can make this one possible way to build the YCL on campuses in the upcoming year.

EDUCATION

We’ve been weak on higher education work nationally, in large part due to our lack of campus clubs right now. But recent developments give us hope that this will change. First of all, many of our high school members graduated last year, and have now disbursed themselves at campuses across the country. From the Milwaukee YCL alone, we now have club builders at the University of Minnesota, Alverno College, Brown University, and NYU. And the YCL Milwaukee still exists if you can believe it, with active high school, campus and young working members. This club is just one of the examples of new possibilities at college presented by high school members graduating and remaining active. YCLers in Connecticut and New York have had similar developments. This has impacted how we approach our education work.

First on campuses, we held a successful conference call of YCL campus club builders on August 30th with unexpectedly high participation—folks from about 12 campuses were present. Through a fall speaking tour covering issues from the Youth Bill of Rights and the Elections to reporting back on Cuba, we’re hoping to catalyze small collectives in at least a few of these schools in order to strengthen the YCL presence on campus. If approached correctly, some of these collectives can grow into strong YCL clubs.

In the meantime, we are proposing to maintain a quarterly conference call of our college student members, inviting USSA’s Legislative Director to discuss key issues and current events within the struggle for access to higher education. As noted in the 2008 Plan of Work, we hope to specifically focus on the DREAM Act and legislation that would make college accessible for immigrant youth. We plan to kick this off with a campus organizing training facilitated by USSA this November for our student members and potential members as approved by our 2007 Plan of Work.

In the realm of public education, we successfully held our National Roundtable on Public Education last month with young teachers, high school students, and youth workers present from the YCL membership. In addition to suggesting minor updates to the 2008 Plan of Work, the roundtable is proposing to institute itself as an official workgroup of the YCL—meeting annually or as needed to address issues of public education, work with educators within the Communist Party to develop a real program for public education, and assist the national staff in building relationships with local high school youth councils and like organizations in hopes of giving high school students a stronger voice in the process. As always, our goal is to strengthen coordination between teachers, students and parents, and we feel our role is to do this by lifting up the student voice, and helping them relate to the other groups.

ELECTIONS

Our draft 2008 elections plan is very similar to what we completed in 2006, asking YCL clubs to engage in local, in-district work coordinated with Districts of the Party. The main addition is that we’d like to propose another Midwest Summer Project in St Louis, MO. However, this project would differ from what we did in 2004 in that it would be a shorter period of 1-2 weeks, and would serve as a hands-on training ground for YCLers to build confidence and basic skills in electoral organizing; going door-to-door and working with a friendly campaign, ensuring that YCLers and our allies have a good experience and leave motivated to do in-district elections work. We would also like to implement more consistent voter registration, possibly in conjunction with targeted national efforts. We have had initial discussions with the Political Action Commission of the Party, but we will further outline details once the National Council amends and approves the plan.

Nationally, there is a concern given the absence of the Youth Vote Coalition (went under before 2006 elections) and Rock the Vote (much less active than before). Both of these structures coordinated youth organizations on a national level by jointly fundraising and delegating areas for each organization to focus on turning out the youth vote. Of equal concern is the possibility that the League of Young Voters and the US Student Association will have less funding to pay youth a small stipend to take off work/school for a period of time to help turn out the youth vote in key areas, as they have done in past years. We hope to initiate discussions with these organizations in addition to groups like Black Youth Vote and Voto Latino to figure out if there are any points of coordination or if we need to work to establish that now—before it’s too late.

BUILDING THE YCL

With regards to building the YCL, much has been accomplished. Again, we doubled our dues paying membership and hope to double that again this year through focused club building and campus expansion. We now have a clear understanding that the overwhelming majority of these new members must come through our existing and new clubs. The 2008 membership drive should find every member with a minimum recruitment goal of 1 person. If everyone can recruit at least 1 person, we can double our membership. Club leaders should consider adding meeting agenda items where members can discuss their attempts to recruit individuals, barriers and opportunities that came up, and identify what the club can do to bring people closer. These collective discussions are imperative to demystifying the recruitment process and helping new members become active recruiters.

We also hope to recruit by building new clubs, particularly on campuses. This is in part what the 2007 fall speaking tour hopes to catalyze, and what we hope to continue into 2008.

We’re nearing the double mark on Dynamic subscribers, and we hope to double it again next year. Again, we’ll do this through the clubs and targeted promotion. One thing we are looking into is boosting our on-line presence, allowing people to quickly respond to articles and being able to post articles more frequently. Even if this does not automatically increase subscriptions, it will definitely increase our pool of readers.

All of this demonstrates that we can grow exponentially when we have a solid plan and a good list. 2008 will be denoted with the slogan, “let no youth go un-asked”, with recruitment becoming a standard practice of all members.

We’ve also experienced growth in consolidating our membership and new leaders. Our 2007 National School in Chicago was one of the most successful schools in recent YCL history. The Chicago PWW and Party office opened up their space to house the 21 participants for the entire 8 days, and as usual the Chicago YCL club was an incredible host—loaning members to teach classes, help with logistics, and even take us to a White Sox game!

The 2007 school built on the success of last year’s school and added many new activities. We were able to have a tour and presentation at the Haymarket Labor Memorial in downtown Chicago with a presentation from the Illinois Labor History group. We also got to participate with the Party at the Bud Billikin Day Parade in Chicago’s historic African American community, handing out PWW’s and watching the parade itself.

As always, we held classes explaining our approach to fighting racism and sexism, to discuss why class isn’t just another “ism”, and to better articulate Marxism and our world view. We were also able to hold skills building workshops to help people strengthen the work of their club in addition to the ideological classes. These included how to facilitate effective discussions, how to build coalitions on campus or in neighborhoods, and how to make a budget and fundraise within a club.

The age range of participants at this year’s school, with a majority between the ages of 18 and 20, was noticeably younger than in previous schools, and the demographics were much more diverse when it comes to race and nationality. This is a better reflection of our general membership and recent growth. In many ways, this defines the necessity of our schools in helping to build dedicated leadership who will be around the YCL, and the Party, for years to come.

The success of this school came in addition to our 2 regional schools, the first one in the Midwest last March and the next one for Northeastern clubs scheduled for November. We are proposing 2008 regional schools in the Southwest (either in Los Angeles or Tucson) and in the South, hopefully in Tennessee.

We also held a successful Dynamic Writers’ Workshop, training new contributors to our magazine and to the PWW this past June. Participants came from every region, and had a wide age range. Most have already contributed to the magazine in some way.

In further strengthening our cadre, the Coordinating Committee has proposed a new addition to the National Council. The composition of the NC has changed over the period since the Convention as expected when the life circumstances of some of our members change. All of this is a positive thing, and reflects the dynamic nature of our leadership in addition to the rapid growth of our organization.

In addition to the Coordinating Committee proposal, the International Committee will propose an addition as well to strengthen discussions and our relationship with our fraternal organizations in Latin America.

We mobilized a notable contingent to the 38th Venceremos Brigade to Cuba, and most of you have read the report-back in the PWW. We went down with 9 and came back with 13, and are now using this trip to schedule report-backs at campuses around the country in hopes of building the visibility of the YCL and new clubs, both on campus and otherwise.

In all of this, we are still struggling to improve our Spanish translation and consistent release of fact sheets and educational materials for our club members. But we hope to continue improvement.

We are excited about participating in the upcoming CPUSA Party/Press Building conferences, and figuring out how to better coordinate our growth and efforts. We understand that we’re in a large period of change and adjustments will have to be made. We’re excited to play a positive role in the conversation in this initial period.

Regarding our finances, we did well. If we continue with our current spending practices, we should end the year slightly under budget. This doesn’t mean we stuck to it perfectly, however, as we had unforeseen charges in International travel, fundraised a little less than expected, but also spent less in other program areas to make up for these developments.

We are in good shape, and well equipped to move forward and grow in the next period. The climate is ripe for us. We simply have to take full advantage.

SUB-REPORTS

YCL MEMBERSHIP REPORT

CLUB REPORTS

UPTOWN YCL
The Uptown YCL club has experienced steady growth over the last year; now with 18 active members, we've been able to deepen our work in several areas, including peace, workers rights, elections, and health care.

Peace
Our club has for some time made peace work a priority. Earlier this year, we organized a successful weekend retreat that re-founded Uptown Youth for Peace and Justice - a coalition started by our club along that includes several youth and student groups in Harlem and the Bronx. We're currently working with the coalition to build a youth and student conference on counter-recruitment, slated to take place in January.

We're also planning sign-making parties for the upcoming regional NYC march against the war on October 27th.

Young Workers
Delivery workers in NYC, the majority of them young immigrants, face some of the most dangerous working conditions in the city, yet they're typically illegally paid less than $2 per hour. We've recently decided as a club to mobilize support for striking delivery workers at Saigon Grill in NYC and attend their weekly pickets.

Health Care and Elections
We're planning a health care discussion for either November or December where we'll invite NYC YCL club members and potential recruits. We hope to have a health care specialist come and present information on the health care crisis and what we can do as individuals and a clubs to support single-payer health care.

We've also scheduled a series of club educationals around electoral work in preparation for our electoral efforts next year.

Club Structure
And lastly, we've standardized our meeting times and days, and we've developed a functioning leadership collective.

MILWAUKEE YCL
Our club is making transitions. Many of our members went off to college out of Milwaukee leaving us a lot of work. We have begun to create a solid city-wide (not campus) based YCL. This way we don’t have to re-build our club every time someone graduates. Our first meeting since we started this initiative went very well and created much excitement and many goals. Our club is focusing on the immigration movement as well as public education this year. We also plan to create a youth coalition to collectively work on youth issues.

NASHVILLE YCL
The Nashville YCL club has been actively organizing around the Jena 6 case as well a local non-profit Power to the People! We worked with Village Presbyterian Church to send 180 people, 2 bus loads, down to the Jena 6 rally on 9/20. We made a documentary about the rally and are in the process of putting it together. We are planning workshops and discussions in high schools and middle schools on the Jena 6 case. We also planning workshops in high schools and middle schools on a local organizing school that Power to the People! is putting on this fall.

ARKANSAS YCL (Fayetteville)
The YCL in Fayetteville has been in the process of consolidating since the spring NC meeting. The Arkansas club raised enough money to send three people to the National School in August in Chicago and came away with a lot of knowledge and skills that will be crucial to growing the organization in our area. Currently, the club is preparing for Adam's visit later in October, during which time we will hold a public discussion event on the 2008 Elections as well as a YCL recruitment meeting.

DC YCL
Currently the DC YCL is working with C.H.E workers (Community Health Education Workers), an organization that was formed after the closing of DC general, the only public hospital in the area. After the closing, the African American community suffered greatly in the area. The club has been working with C.H.E. through door-to-door education campaign that is giving out information on general health. We are also gathering input during the campaign to find solutions that the community wants and will help to put forward a proposal to the Mayor or DC City Council.

BROOKLYN YCL “Claudia Jones Club”
The Claudia Jones Club focused on building the club through movie screenings last year with some success. We hope to spend the next year doing similar social events, dinner discussions mainly, as our primary recruitment mechanism. We also hope to engage in elections work in Brooklyn.

ST LOUIS YCL
The St. Louis club is currently in a process of rebuilding from the ground up. There has been a lack of vision and discipline, and the club has stagnated as a result. We are examining the possibility of recruiting from the local trade schools. We're also evaluating the potential of building a presence on the St. Louis University campus. Smiley has offered to come through St. Louis on a speaking trip. We're trying to see if we can set up an event at SLU.

CHICAGO YCL
Our club has been very active since the NC last met in Oakland.

Here is a list of things we have been doing since then.

• Participated in tailgating party and Chicago White Sox outing in a fundraiser for the PWW in May.
• Participated in the African American Equality Commission meeting in St. Louis in May.
• Participated in the Dynamic Writers workshop in June.
• In June the Chicago YCL held a successful forum called: From Beat Bop to the Ballot Box, on the hip hop movement and politics.
• Also in June participated in the UFPJ Assembly in Chicago.
• Held a district wide fundraiser/Send-Off BBQ for one of our members who participated in the YCL delegation to Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade.
• Participated in the YCL national school and hosted a BBQ for all the students.
• Organizing and active with the regional committee to mobilize for the Midwest regional anti-war demonstration which will culminate on October 27 in Chicago.
• Members in our club in the suburbs held a Peace Concert and rallied after a march to a Republican congressman urging him to support the troops and end the Iraq war.
• Are gearing up for the upcoming State Rep. elections and have been active with a local campaign knocking doors and petitioning for signatures to defeat an incumbent in opposition to the city's southwest side of independent political movement.
• And we are planning a Revolutionary Costume Party with friends, allies and friends including YCLers from the Milwaukee and St. Louis clubs.

PROVIDENCE YCL
After a period of low activity, the club is back in action—kicking off the fall by mobilizing for the October 27th anti-war demonstrations in Boston, organizing against police brutality, and against the attacks on immigrants via the social security no-match letters. The club is also developing activities with new members at Brown University.

MISSING CLUB REPORTS
Mizzou YCL
Tucson/Sierra Vista YCL
San Jose YCL
Fresno YCL
Orlando YCL
UT-Knoxville YCL
Philadelphia YCL

MEMBERSHIP & SUBSCRIPTION DEMOGRAPHICS

TOTAL CLUBS: 17

POTENTIAL CLUBS: 19

TOTAL MEMBERS: 243

WOMEN:76
MEN: 152
UNKNOWN:15

PEOPLE OF COLOR:112
WHITE: 99
UNKNOWN: 32

DYNAMIC SUBSCRIPTIONS


TOTAL SUBSCRIPTION DISTRIBUTION: 341

INDIVIDUAL: 136
EXCHANGE, PROMO, LIBRARY: 15
BUNDLE (20): 7
BUNDLE (50): 1
BUNDLE (100): 0

COMMITTEE REPORTS

EDUCATION AND LITERATURE COMMITTEE

* Produced 6 educationals for clubs to use on Peace, Jobs and Youth, Education, Environmental Justice, Immigrant Rights and Cuba Solidarity

* Hosted regional school in Chicago in March

* Hosted a National School in Chicago in August

* Updated Manifesto Study Guide

* Started putting together questions in the “Marxism 101” section of Dynamic Magazine

* Updated website to include a “political education” section where club educationals and study guides are easily accessible

* Started discussions on hosting phone call educationals every other month for YCL members

* Will be putting out an educational on electoral work by Dec.

* Will be putting out a Study Guide on Lenin’s “Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder” by the end of Dec.

* Will be hosting a regional school in Nov. in NYC


DYNAMIC COMMITTEE

* Dynamic has put out four (fabulous) issues: Issue #14/Winter 2006, Issue #15/Spring 2007, Issue #16/Summer 2007, and Issue #17/Fall 2007

* Carried through with the new production plan in conjunction with the PWW (furthering decreasing the overhead). The layout and design work is now done predominantly by the PWW’s designers.

* Reached out to allies and sold ad space for each issue to help with production expenses.

* Launched and completed the first, ever Dynamic Fund Drive. The winner for largest contribution was Orlando, FL!

* Sponsored and been involved with various progressive public events throughout the country.

* Increased the amount of subscriptions by almost double, with many of these new orders being annual bundle subs (with a plan to double this amount by the end of 2007 utilizing a set monthly goal).

* Continued to increasingly utilize, promote, and integrate Dynamic in YCL work and outreach

* Successfully held our first Dynamic Writer's Workshop in years. Turnout was good with enthusiastic participants from throughout the country, most of which have gone on to contribute to Dynamic and become involved with the YCL. Plans are underway to make this an ongoing annual event.

* Our contributor pool has grown significantly with an increasing number of talented writers and artists becoming part of the creative process

* And of course we continue to be leaner, sleeker, and meaner. We plan to keep going strong and reach even more people in the future with increased internet presence, publicity, and circulation.


INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE

* The International Committee has met twice since the April National Council meeting, on May 6th and August 12th. Out of that meeting came 1 proposal to be presented to the National Council.

* We sent a representative to the meeting of the WFDY Commission on Europe and North America (CENA) in Hungary in May 2007.

* The YCL, fully subsidized by WFDY, sent a delegate to the 60th anniversary celebration of the World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas, VZ, where initial discussions were also had about the next festival. No concrete decisions were made, although the report from that meeting is available upon request.

* 9 YCLers joined the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba, and the International Committee proposed follow up report-backs, an article in Dynamic (current issue), a report-back in the PWW (9/6/2007), and requested Ed-Lit compile an educational on Cuba for clubs to do in support of the Brigade (also completed).

* We signed on to a joint statement with the YCL-Canada and the Communist Youth of Mexico (JCM) condemning Bush’s August visit to Canada to push further de-regulation of North American “free” trade.

* We invited a member of the YCL-Canada’s steering committee to the National School in Chicago, and they sent someone.

* We will meet again after the NC meeting at some point before the end of the year to flush out a joint call between the international committees of the YCL-Israel and the Youth of the Palestinian People’s Party. We are also continuing to explore a formal call/meeting between the YCL-Canada and the Communist Youth of Mexico (JCM). If possible, both of these calls would also include sections that are open to the entire membership of the YCL to ask questions and discuss the current political situations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700958.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3167095
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/11714/1/390/
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/11397/1/381

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