Jennifer Weppler and Tiffany Schwabacher, Student Organizers at the College of Staten Island

New York, NY - April 30, 2007. Student organizers at various schools are organizing fasts and other events as part of a week of action against the Iraq War. Events will run from April 30 through May 4th.

As the new Congress works to appease the President with another $100 billion for occupation, students are organizing to demand an end to the war and challenging the Congress, not the Iraqis, to stand up. At over twenty schools around the country students will be showing their opposition in a Hungry for Peace week of action, with several of the schools participating in a 5 day fast.

In New York City the action is taking place at the College of Staten Island - student organizers will be distributing arm bands and buttons on campus and announcing the names of local soldiers KIA since 9/11. Students plan to draw the outline of the US on a large white sheet and put the number of those killed in each state. They also going to put the names of the casualties on posterboards so that the memorial will be visible from far away on campus. Student protesters will be meeting at the World Trade Center Memorial on campus on Monday (4/30) 9-5, Wednesday (5/2) 2:30 -3:30 and Thursday (5/3) 1:25- 3:30. The hours on Wednesday and Thursday are designated club hours where no classes are held. Members of the Fossella Five will be meeting with the students at the Thursday observance.

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(Photo Montage: www.billayers.org)

Chicago, IL - from www.billayers.org

DEFEND WARD CHURCHILLDear Colleagues,In Brecht’s play Galileo the great astronomer sets forth into a world dominated by a mighty church and an authoritarian power: “The cities are narrow and so are the brains,” he declares recklessly. “Superstition and plague. But now the word is: since it is so, it does not remain so. For everything moves my friend.” Intoxicated with his own radical discoveries, Galileo feels the earth shifting and finds himself propelled surprisingly toward revolution. ” It was always said that the stars were fastened to a crystal vault so they could not fall,” he says. “Now we have taken heart and let them float in the air, without support… they are embarked on a great voyage—like us who are also without support and embarked on a great voyage.” Here Galileo raises the stakes and risks taking on the establishment in the realm of its own authority, and it strikes back fiercely. Forced to renounce his life’s work under the exquisite pressure of the Inquisition he denounces what he knows to be true, and is welcomed back into the church and the ranks of the faithful, but exiled from humanity—by his own word. A former student confronts him in the street: “Many on all sides followed you with their ears and their eyes believing that you stood, not only for a particular view of the movement of the stars, but even more for the liberty of teaching— in all fields. Not then for any particular thoughts, but for the right to think at all. Which is in dispute.”The right to think at all, which is in dispute—-this is what the Ward Churchill affair finally comes to: The right to a mind of one’s own, the right to pursue an argument into uncharted spaces, the right to challenge the church and its orthodoxy in the public square. The right to think at all.

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New York, NY - April 18, 2007. Elaine Brower, Tom Good, Sally Jones, Ben Maurer and Barbara Walker were arrested on March 23, 2007 in Congressman Vito Fossella’s office. Their crime? Reading the names of the (US) war dead aloud and demanding a meeting with their representative so they might discuss the extreme positions he holds on the Iraq War. These 5 activists are charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. They are demanding Fossella drop all charges and agree to a meeting.

Show your support - tell Fossella to drop the charges and meet with his constituents. Sign the online petition: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/fossfive/petition.html

[written by the ucf sds journalistic anti-collective]

Orlando, FL — April 11, 2007. On April 11^th 2007, SDS at UCF along with the Walk Out Now Coalition staged a mass student, faculty and staff walk out against the war in Iraq. A banner encouraging students to walk out of their bomb factory, a.k.a. their university, was dropped from the main entrance parking garage. The banner drop was the first of a new wave of diversity of tactics employed by Orlando students to voice their growing frustrations with the ongoing occupation of our campus and nations abroad by the military industrial complex. At 1:00pm students across campus walked out of their classrooms and assembled in front of the Student Union. At the Student Union, participants rallied with drums, banners, signs, and high spirits. Local Code Pink activists came to campus in solidarity with the student movement, bringing a life-size G.W. Bush dummy and several signs. Food Not Bombs was also on hand passing out flyers about the recent political arrest of a downtown FNB activist. SDS members briefly addressed the crowd, speaking out against the war and the university?s direct connections to the military industrial complex through large military research grants.

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Members of Peace Action in a candlelight procession
(Photo: Thomas Good / Next Left Notes)

Staten Island, NY - April 12, 2007. Peace Action Staten Island assembled at pro-war Congressman Vito Fossella’s office last night and from there processed north on Amboy Road in a visually stunning candlelight procession - eventually arriving at Fossella’s home. PASI members paused to read the names of some of the US war dead aloud and then resumed the procession. Shortly before they arrived back at Fossella’s office the marchers were accosted by a senior police officer, Deputy Inspector Thomas Delahanty - commander of the 122 Precinct, who was very angry (organizers speculate that Fossella, home from the Congress, had called in a complaint). Delahanty made some inappropriate remarks and then the procession continued. Aside from the one incident the entire event was very calm, respectful and orderly. Coverage in the Staten Island Advance was sympathetic and organizers were pleased with the event. A number of MDS (Movement for a Democratic Society) members marched with their friends in Peace Action.

View Photos From The Action…

Letter to The Nation, regarding Christopher Phelps’ “The New SDS” (April 16, 2007). Reprinted from the Monthly Review: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/dohrn050407.html

Bernardine Dohrn at the SDS Regional, Providence, April 2006
(Photo: Thomas Good / Next Left Notes)

The Nation
Chicago

Christopher Phelps has written a timely but ultimately disappointing
article about the vibrant and growing student movement. He transforms the
tough challenges of movement-building into a set of tepid formulas about
what not to do. The new wave of student activism in America and around
the world is a hopeful development worthy of our active participation and
respect. Yet Phelps focuses on the sectarian divides of the MDS
generation rehearsing old political grudges or offering simplistic
“lessons” from the New Left, rather than highlighting the steps forward
and the common ground between radical organizers.

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ORLANDO, Fl. - April 5, 2007. Orlando activist and Food Not Bombs participant Eric Montanez was arresteded for violating Orlando’s “large group feedings” ordinance. This ordinance was passed last summer and bans the public distribution of food to a number of 25 or more individuals in over 40 parks in downtown Orlando within a two-mile radius of City Hall.

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Providence, RI - April 6, 2007. MDSers have announced a “Port of Providence” Conference to be held on April 15th, 2007 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Radical historian and MDS Inc, Board member Paul Buhle, who is a senior lecturer at Brown, said: “A relaxed discussion will follow two days of the SDS Comic Show, a traveling roadshow installation designed to help promote the new comic book format history of SDS.” The SDS graphic history book is in the style of the very popular “Wobblies” trade paperback. Buhle reports that the MDS conference is intended to be a chance for MDS organizers to talk about how to get active chapters going, across the US.

There will be speakers at the event, including a number of familiar faces, but discussion will follow each presentation. The event is intended to be very focused on building MDS and it’s various projects - including Radical Education (REP), SDS Legal Defense, Radicals In The Professions (RIP) and community organizing. There will also be discussion of recent direct action done in concert with other activist organizations including Voices for Creative Nonviolence and the War Resisters League. A schedule for the event has been announced:

9:00-9:45 am, coffee hour/recovery from hangover, Saturday night’s party
9:45 Greetings to SDS/RI, Brown SDSers
10:00 Collective document, “‘America and the New Era,’ rewritten 1963 SDS overall perspective
11:00 “After the Demonstrations: What SDS Needs from MDS” by Senia Barragan
11:30 Manning Marable, MDS/SDS and the Color Lines
12:30 lunch on your own
1:15 Organizing experiences of MDS/SDS, local and national, fleshly and web, by Devra Morice, Jay Jurie and Tom Good
2:30-conclusion, “Structure and Strategy,” presentations by Bruce Rubinstein and Al Haber

There is no admission charge and the event is open to the public. It is being held in Room 106 in Smith-Buonano Hall at Brown University in Providence. Anyone seeking more information can contact [email protected]

Ann Arbor, MI - April 3, 2007. This just in (12:30 pm Eastern Time):
At this very moment, students have taken over Mary Sue Coleman’s office, demanding that University of Michigan cease the use of sweatshop labor. They will not leave until the president agrees to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, a plan which would allow the University to go sweat-free while continuing to be a top manufacturer of college apparel.

Come show your support of these 11 students, who are risking arrest to help make this a sweat-free campus. There will be a RALLY at NOON at the CUBE calling for an end to U - M sweatshops.

If you want to help out right now, you can call the President’s office and ask that she adopt the DSP. The number to call is (734)764-6270. For more information, go to www.uofmsitin.com.

REBELS WITH A CAUSE: A collective memoir of the hopes, rebellions, and repression of the 1960s. by Helen Garvy. 260 pages, photos and illustrations throughout.

The book, adapted from the documentary film of the same title (but including much more material), is built on interviews with members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), the largest student organization of the Sixties. The interviews are woven together to present a passionate look at a decade where a generation lost its innocence — and helped transform America.

Interviewees: Jane Adams, Bill Ayers, Carolyn Craven, Carl Davidson, Bernardine Dohrn, Alice Embreee, Dick Flacks, Todd Gitlin, Carol Glassman, Juan Gonzalez, Alan Haber, Casey Hayden, Tom Hayden, Mark Kleiman, Sue Eanet Klonsky, Sharon Jeffrey Lehrer, Steve Max, Jeff Shero Nightbyrd, Carl Oglesby, Robert Pardun, Judy Schiffer Perez, Bob Ross, Vivian Leburg Rothstein, Mike Spiegel, Elizabeth Stanley, Marilyn Salzman Webb, Cathy Wilkerson, and Junius Williams.

To order a copy: www.shirepressandfilms.com