A quick and filthy rundown of what the Bush agenda has meant for young people. The main issues at stake come Election Day:
Young Women’s Right to Choose: Bush’s policy on abortion ups the attacks on basic medical services for women, especially young women. He is currently proposing new ways to deny minors reproductive rights and freedoms, including standard medical procedures, without notification of their parents. If re-elected, Bush will likely appoint Supreme Court Justices that will reverse the Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal. The million-plus march in Washington on April 25 proves that the US public demands a right to choose. Go to www.choiceusa.org for more information.
Affirmative Action: The Bush agenda also threatens affirmative action and civil rights protection. The Bush administration filed a brief supporting the legal challenge to affirmative action in admissions at the University of Michigan last year. He’s the first president to come out for limiting civil rights since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bush has also repeatedly refused to meet with the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus. Go to www.civilrights.org for more information.
Public Education: Bush ran as “the education candidate� but has done more to undermine education than just about anyone in history. He is proposing $23 million for drug testing in public schools while many schools in the country don’t have enough funds for text books, classes are overcrowded, and there are teacher shortages. His “No Child Left Behind� law punishes schools for “failure� without providing funds for achievement. The law also makes public school students vulnerable to military recruitment. Go to www.rethinkingschools.org for more information.
Higher Education: The country’s campuses are in fiscal crisis. Bush’s massive tax cut for the wealthy added up to broke public universities and community colleges. Bush and his rightwing counterparts in the Congress then went after immigrants and foreign students, unleashing a wave of suspicion on campuses, even forcing schools to turn over lists of students from Arab and Muslim countries. And there is more competition than ever for grants, scholarships and seats in classrooms. Go to www.usstudents.org for more information.
War and Peace: The US is flexing its military might all over the world with overt and covert interventions in Venezuela, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cuba, just to name a few. Bush also unilaterally pulled out of the ABM nuclear treaty and cancelled nonproliferation agreement in Korea, leading to a new arms race. Under the guise of the “war on terrorism� the US has extended (perhaps overextended) its tentacles around the world and made the world an even less safe place. Go to www.nyspc.net for more information.
Criminalizing Youth: Bush also seeks to continue the criminalization of youth. He favors creating a national “gang registry,� which will justify more police brutality and harassment for youth of color and could stigmatize youth organizing as “gang-related� activity. Bush has also been outspoken about harsher sentences to “rehabililitate� youth—this from the “hanging governor,� who sent Gary Graham to the electric chair for a crime he likely did not commit. Go to www.criticalresistance.org for more information.
Greg King is an activist and a student in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a member of the National Council of the YCL.
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