BY CARLOS HERNÁNDEZ AND CECILIA ORTEGA
LOS ANGELES - There are eight days remaining before the
third national convention of the Young Socialists convenes
here. The work that YS chapters carry out in this final
countdown period to bring as many youth who we have been doing
political work with to the convention will have a lot to do
with the success of the gathering.
Many YS chapters have met young people attracted to socialist ideas at recent picket lines and campus protests against the recent escalation of U.S. imperialism's threats to assault Iraq. Expanding this work by participating in more sales of the socialist press at factory gates, picket lines, literature tables on campus, and by organizing socialist class series is essential in making the YS convention a success.
The Young Socialists will kick off the convention with a welcoming session beginning Friday, December 4, at noon. It will be followed by a report and discussion on the Young Socialists Manifesto: Building a Proletarian Youth Organization Today. These and other sessions will be open to all invited guests (see front-page ad).
In addition to the efforts made by YS chapters across the country and by the national leadership of the Young Socialists to build the convention, the Political Committee of the Socialist Workers Party has urged party members, supporters, and friends of the communist movement to come to Los Angeles to participate in the open sessions of the convention.
One of the main political presentations the second day of the gathering will be given by Mary-Alice Waters, editor of New International, who recently returned from a Militant reporting trip to Cuba. Waters will discuss how working people and their communist leadership in that nation confront the increasingly miserable conditions world capitalism is imposing on the lives of millions of workers and farmers around the world and why Cuba remains at the center stage of international politics for revolutionaries today.
Jack Barnes, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, will initiate political discussion on "Bonapartism and Polarization: Contradictions and Instability of the Leftward Shift in Bourgeois Politics." Barnes will take up the important tasks ahead of the Young Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party in building a proletarian youth organization and party that is politically prepared to take advantage of the opportunities opening up for mass work and recruitment of young workers and students today.
There will be a dinner Saturday evening, which will be an important opportunity for fighting workers and youth to continue their discussions following the political reports.
Saturday's program will conclude with a panel of Young Socialists titled "Bringing Alive the Changing Face of U.S. Politics." The panel will consist of YS members who are carrying out political work in the industrial unions, building the YS on campuses, and working in Pathfinder's print shop to guarantee the production of Pathfinder books.
Young fighters in Los Angeles, Seattle sign up to come
The Young Socialists in Los Angeles has put building the YS
convention at the center of the local chapter's activities.
This includes participating in student-led actions in defense
of affirmative action and organizing classes where both YS
members and youth attracted to socialism can learn and discuss
current politics and the necessity of a proletarian youth
organization.
The Los Angeles chapter organized a class and discussion at Occidental College, focused on Washington's recent moves to carry out a military assault against Iraq. Seven students attended the discussion, where copies of the Militant's front- page articles on these recent developments were discussed.
One of the students who attended is a founder of the Progressive Student Alliance, a group established this year at the college. In addition, she took part in a panel the following day at the Militant Labor Forum entitled "Hands Off Iraq." She talked about what happened last February, when students built campus speak-outs to protest Washington's campaign against Iraq at that time. The YS played an integral part in building those speak-outs, and was invited to participate on the platform.
A class series on New International no. 7, which features "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq" by Jack Barnes, and the Pathfinder title The Truth About Yugoslavia: Why Working People Should Oppose Intervention, was established out of those events.
Several other students who attended the recent class and discussion on Iraq first met the Young Socialists through a "100 Years of Anti-Imperialist Struggle" event at Occidental College in October. One of them is a leader of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance who has been involved in protesting the killing of gay student Matthew Shepard. In addition, the chair of the Black Student Alliance, who gave the main welcoming speech at the anti-imperialist event, is organizing to raise the funds to attend the convention.
Socialists in Seattle are working hard to bring four youth interested in the politics of the Young Socialists to the convention. Two of them are co-workers of a YS member at the airport. As part of protesting the recent developments in the Mumia Abu-Jamal case and Initiative 200, a Washington state ballot measure banning affirmative action, two youths who purchased a subscription to the Militant newspaper are planning to attend the YS convention. Autumn Knowlton, a YS member in Seattle, reported that a Thanksgiving dinner has been organized as part of a fund-raising effort to cover travel expenses. In addition, Knowlton said, a class on the YS Manifesto and Organizer will take place November 25.