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YDS's
Socialist Summer Retreat
Updates and
Deadlines
Here's one more friendly reminder to YDS members and friends about the fun
and exciting Socialist
Summer Retreat coming up this August 8th to 10th. The event will be held
at the Valley
Brook Inn and Cottages, an intimate conference center in New York's Catskills region. The gathering combines such nonpolitical activities such as swimming and sports with activist workshops, intellectual discussions, and strategizing over social justice activities for the coming fall, spring and beyond.
UPDATES
Take a look at our weekend program
and schedule. It's still tentative, so we welcome your questions
and comments. We do intend to cover a range of issues related to student
and youth activism, including labor rights, the educational system, aspects of
exploitation, oppression, and privilege, the environment, the November
elections, and more. On Sunday, we'll vote on adopting our annual Activist
Agenda, which outlines YDS's national priorities. We'll also consider constitutional amendments and elect the coming year's volunteer leadership body. Check out the recent discussion about the pros and cons of renaming YDS to "Campus DSA" on The
Activist here. You can read previous commentary on
the amendment here.
DEADLINES
While the gathering is still some six weeks away, two key deadlines
need to be met, and soon.
The first deals with travel scholarships. This year, we are
asking those applying for financial aid need to answer a brief three-question
application by Monday, July 14th. The questions, found on the registration
form here, must be answered and postmarked or emailed by the deadline to
ensure fairness to those who apply. Applicants will know their allotments
by Sunday, July 20th.
The second deadline is Monday, July 21st, when the
discounted pre-registration fees expire. Pre-registration can save
you up to $50 (or 25%) off regular rates. Please note: pre-registration
fees only apply to those who pay in full or put up a $75 deposit by July 21st
(unless they have applied for a travel scholarship).
YDS can be reached at 212-727-8610 or yds@dsausa.org for all questions and
comments.
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Will the Left Ever Learn to Communicate
Across Generations?
An
Important Lesson from U.S. Democratic Socialist History
 One of the great lost opportunities
of the radical movements in the 1960s was the inability for the New Left to
bridge with the Old Left. Antagonism between the two generations,
who had more in common than each admitted, compromised the Left's
ability to reach its full potential as a movement. One of the key
figures in what many hoped would be an ongoing intergenerational dialog was
Michael Harrington (pictured left), founding chair of Democratic Socialists of
America and the leading socialist in the U.S. from the 1960s until his death in
1989. Historian Maurice Isserman in The
Chronicle of Higher Education retells the story of the squandered
opportunity for understanding that sadly occurred between Harrington and the
then up-and-coming Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) leadership.
In the piece, Isserman quotes Tom Hayden, the political
writer, former California state senator and a leading figure in the 1960s SDS,
as saying he regretted "the extreme overreaction to SDS by its elders [,
which] left me numb to potentially valuable lessons of their
experience." Harrington also was self-critical of his actions in
retrospect. While believing that attitudes he saw as mistaken on the
part of the emerging student left had to be confronted, he came to
understand later that they "cannot be done from a lecture platform, from a
distance. Rather the persuasion must come from someone who is actually involved
in changing the status quo." At the SDS founding at Port Huron, as Harrington
would later confess, he mistakenly "treated fledgling radicals trying out
their own ideas for the first time as if they were hardened faction
fighters."
Today, we think we can learn from that wasted
opportunity. We know that every progressive movement builder of every age
has something to contribute to today's fight for social and economic
justice. And because we all can learn from past mistakes, YDS
recommends that all members and friends read the full text to learn about an
important part of U.S. democratic socialist history.
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Get a Great Documentary Series and Support YDS,
Too
Buy This Brave
Nation and Proceeds Go Directly Towards
YDS
Brave New Foundation and The
Nation magazine teamed up together to produce This Brave Nation, a
six-part documentary series celebrating remarkable champions of the progressive
movement. Now they want you to nominate your heroes.
This Brave
Nation features Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Honorary Co-Chair Dolores Huerta, Tom Hayden,
Bonnie Raitt, Pete Seeger and Carl Pope in one-on-one conversations with rising
progressive leaders and thinkers Van Jones, Majora Carter, Naomi Klein, Ava
Lowery and Anthony Romero. Check out the first episode on here and then be sure to tune in each Sunday through
mid-July to see the other episodes in the
series.
The Nation and
Brave New Foundation are also creating the Brave Nation Award. The award
will be presented to the country's most inspiring young local hero, who will be
chosen from a pool of candidates nominated through an online contest and
selected by the ten featured heroes themselves. Whom do you know that is
making a needed change at the local level? Someone who speaks for those who
cannot? Someone working to make your community a cleaner place in which to live?
Or is it you who is actively working to make this world a more just place? The
Brave Nation Award will recognize one of these admirable
individuals.
We want to be inspired by
YOU. Click here to nominate one of your heroes.
This series will be available
free-of-charge over the internet, but for a $15 donation, you can own two copies
of the series. Thirty dollars gets you five sets, and $50 nets you
10, so it pays to contribute in generously. Keep one for yourself and
donate the other copy or copies to local schools, libraries and young people in
your life. To donate and receive a DVD, click here.
For each purchase, Brave New Foundation will donate
YDS $3.
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Student
Peace Action Network's Summer Convergence
YDS Ally Offers Another Great
Opportunity
WHO: Open to students and youth of all ages and experience
levels. It?s a great way to get involved with Student
Peace Action Network (SPAN) for the first time as well as for existing
groups to get plugged in with others from across the
country. WHAT: The SPAN
Summer Convergence is a national gathering of SPAN chapters and other
students interested in peace and social justice activism. It's a fun weekend
full of sharing skill sharing, strategizing sessions, training, and opportunity
to network with other activists. There's free entertainment,
too! Students and youth of all ages and experience levels are
welcome.
WHERE: Trinity College, Washington D.C
WHEN: July 18th ? 21st WHY: 1) FUN
in Washington, D.C. 2) BUILD student power 3) NETWORK with other
students from across the country 4) LEARN how to be effective activists and
share skills with other students 5) STRATEGIZE, coordinate our campaigns
between schools, and formulate demands 6) BRIDGE THE GAP between the
current generation of young activists and the broader peace
movement REGISTRATION (coming soon): SPAN has online registration
here.
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