Students for a Democratic Society

On Wednesday October 7, students on 26 campuses across the United States protested eight long years of war against and occupation of the people of Afghanistan. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a nation-wide student organization committed to activism for peace, justice and equality, organized the protest.

Read the full reportback on our Anti-War Blog - http://sdsantiwar.wordpress.com/

Rochester SDS has received a great deal of media attention for the violent repression of the Funk the War they organized as a part of the Day of Action.

This is the statement that Rochester SDS created as well to document what happened:
"On Wednesday October 7, 2009 Rochester Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) called for a protest of 8 years of war and occupation in Afghanistan. This protest was coordinated in conjunction with other chapters of SDS throughout the country as a national day of action. At
5:30pm the march left from Washington Square Park and headed up to Main Street in downtown Rochester. At Main Street, the march headed west.

Demonstrations mark 8th anniversary of Afghan War–demand immediate U.S./NATO withdrawal

Students on 25 campuses across the United States will protest eight long years of war against and occupation of the people of Afghanistan, on Wednesday October 7. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a nation-wide student organization committed to activism for peace, justice and equality, are organizing the protest.

“We are outraged by the daily loss of life and devastation caused by the U.S. military in Afghanistan,” Daniel Ginsberg-Jaeckle, a member of SDS in Milwaukee, WI. “For eight years this occupation has brought nothing but misery, poverty and suffering to the Afghan people. The U.S. and NATO need to get out now.”

The protests come on the heels of the largest loss of life for U.S. occupation forces in a year. On Sunday October 4, anti-occupation fighters in Afghanistan killed nine U.S. soldiers in a series of attacks. So far, 869 U.S. troops are dead in Afghanistan since the occupation began in 2001 – with over a quarter of those killed in the past ten months alone. There are over 4,000 U.S. wounded.

U.S. and NATO occupation forces do not keep track of civilian casualties, but many estimate that U.S. air strikes and gunfire have killed tens of thousands of Afghanis. Just last month, U.S. air strikes killed over 90 Afghan civilians in the northern Afghan village of Omar Kheil. A similar strike in Farah province on May 4 this year killed 147 civilians.

“The U.S. occupation is a disaster for Afghanistan, just like it is for Iraq. The Afghan people will never have stability and peace until the U.S. leaves”, said Stephanie Taylor, a member of SDS at the University of Minnesota.

The organizers of the October 7th protests note that the war and occupation of Afghanistan is linked to U.S. interests in controlling strategic energy resources and markets in central Asia. Jenae Stainer, an SDS organizer in Tuscaloosa, Alabama explains, “Our government wants to keep us ignorant about the real reasons and true costs of war both at home and in Afghanistan. That is why organizing to stop the war is so important.”

Organizers of the October 7th actions say they will continue to initiate demonstrations to protest the occupation of Afghanistan until all U.S. and NATO forces leave the country. “We will keep speaking out and organizing to support the people of Afghanistan in their struggle for independence from U.S. occupation,” said Ginsberg-Jaeckle. “We will continue to demand that the U.S. government stop spending money on war and occupation, and fund people’s needs here at home, including education, housing, jobs, and healthcare.”

U.S. Out of Afghanistan Now!

Fund Education, Not Occupation!

The SDS Anti-War Working Group exists to help coordinate national SDS anti-war activity. For more information, please contact Daniel Ginsberg-Jaeckle at 608-658-5480. More information, reports, and organizing materials are available on the SDS Antiwar Working Group’s homepage at http://sdsantiwar.wordpress.com.

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This fall's Northeast Regional Convention will be hosted by Rochester SDS on the campus of Rochester University. This convention has been combined with the Northeast Action Camp - meaning that there will be lots of excellent workshops and skill sharing alongside discussions about strategy and collective liberation.

It's especially important that new members and new chapters come to regional conventions - it's the best way to link up with other SDSers in your area, learn the nuts and bolts of student organizing, and learn from veteran organizers!

Click here to register, and click here to learn more!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contacts:

Kelly Besherer
774-269-2856
Carnegie Mellon University student
Radical Student Alliance member

Sheila Hubbard
412-523-8851
University of Pittsburgh student
Students for Radical Change and Liberation member

Alex Lotorto
570 - 269 - 9589
lotorto@riseup.net
Students for a Democratic Society organizer
www.studentpowerinthefaceofempire.wordpress.com

STUDENTS AND YOUTH G-20 RESISTANCE DEMANDS 'FREE AND EMANCIPATING EDUCATION FOR ALL'

Local and regional young people are converging this week in Pittsburgh to oppose the G-20 summit and demand accessible education as a human right.

In addition to participating as a student and youth contingent in marches and actions organized by Bail Out the People, Bash Back!, Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project, Three Rivers Climate Convergence, and the Thomas Merton Center, a coalition of student and youth groups have created their own messaging and demands for facing down the G-20 leaders. In solidarity with young people around the world, they are demanding key revolutionary changes for society.

The coalition of young people will have a march named "Free and Emancipating for All" along the sidewalk on Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. starting at Carnegie Mellong University to Schenley Park Plaza. Once at Schenley Park Plaza, they will break out into small groups and have a teach-in to develop a proposal for alternative approaches to education called the Pittsburgh Model for Democratic Education.

The students will include three demands to initiate the discussion. First, they demand a society with just, healthy, and sustainable production based on mutual aid that does not allow poverty, the exploitation of workers, or the destruction of the planet. Second, they demand democratic institutions that include the active participation of everyone they affect through forms of direct democracy, especially through schools and community organizations. Third, they demand the right to a free, empowering, and "emancipating" education that emphasizes the importance of social movements, dissent, and combating forms of oppression personally and structurally. This includes practicing, in classrooms and in relationships, emotional support and attitudes that dismantle racism, abuse, homophobia, patriarchy, class oppression, and other oppressive behaviors that divide people from developing peaceful communities.

The students are drawing on the current model of the education industry, to show how schools and even the G-20 do not present a model of the society they would like to see.

Sheila Hubbard, a member of University of Pittsburgh Students for Radical Change and Liberation said, "Principals and college presidents lead authoritarian administrations that completely shut out all but a select few students from deciding policies and changes that affect students the most. Students are scuttled around like products in a factory, not young people with a conscience. Just like many principals and presidents abuse their power, we know that environmental and economic justice will never be imposed from above by elites like the G20. The current education system is a friendly pillar of support for the G-20, just like the corporate media, police and National Guard, and the Pittsburgh G-20 Partnership. To improve, the democratic society we want to see must be modeled in the world's schools, by the students, without the dictatorships of administration figures."

The students also claim that the public, private, and university school system is failing to empower its students.

Alex Lotorto, a member of Students for a Democratic Society and recent graduate of Muhlenberg College, said, "In high schools, students face armed police, disinterested teachers, military recruiters, inaccessible school boards, and segregating standardized tests. At colleges, endowments pay for prisons, wars, and genocide through mutual fund investments, students are indentured by student loans, and the factory-style production of education suits the demands of CEOs and various industries. The incredible rising costs of colleges that claim to be 'not for profit' are forcing more and more young people to pass up their human right to accessible education. This education industrial complex emboldens G20 leaders with confidence our generation won’t see the bigger picture or who’s behind the curtain. It is the G-20 and their International Monetary Fund who advocate the privatization of social services, especially in developing countries in the Global South through Structural Adjustment Programs that, among other catastrophes, decreases access to education and living wage jobs for young people who are left behind in the name of corporate profits."

The final grievance of the students is that they are not taught how to dissent.

Jake Spezio, a member of Rochester Students for a Democratic society, also came to Pittsburgh for the week. Spezio said, "We must practice resistance through trial and error to get it right. In class rooms, students sit through biased lessons and lectures about how the world exists and came to be. At their first jobs, they suffer poor working conditions and are considered disposable laborers or interns. Young people are conditioned not to question, socialized not to dissent. In school, teachers brush over the history of social movements and ignore the domination of European colonialism, corrupt political parties, and the inequities of capitalist markets. In culture, board room marketing executives decide what's hot, what's fun and how young people should want to live. And most of all, we especially don’t learn that the G20 governments are the most violent, militarized, and environmentally destructive institutions in the world. If we can’t question them, what’s stopping them?"

In addition to Wednesdays's march and teach-in, the youth coalition and the local anarchist Break Away Marching Band have coordinated a Radical Caroling procession starting at the intersection of Liberty and Commonwealth immediately after the United Steel Workers and Alliance for Climate Protection event at Point State Park. The coalition will have a contingent in the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project People's Uprising march on Thursday and the Thomas Merton Center People's March to the G20 on Friday.

Maria Lipschitz, a member of the New York University coalition Take Back NYU!, is in Pittsburgh to resist the G20. Lipschitz said, "We are struggling this week, in the face of immense police repression, in solidarity with oppressed people that are denied access to basic human rights around the world by the G20 nations."

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