Students for a Democratic Society - Recent changes [en]

List of chapters starting up or inactive

BritReed — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 02:57:48 GMT

Southwest Region:

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	*'''Denton SDS''' [Inactive]		*'''Denton SDS''' [Inactive]
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		+	*'''Huntington Beach SDS''' [Inactive]

Main Page

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:34:12 GMT

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	To see the major pages on the wiki, most of which still need to be written... go to the [[Table of Contents]]		To see the major pages on the wiki, most of which still need to be written... go to the [[Table of Contents]]

		+
		+	'''Note:''' any changes and/or links which are not connected to SDS will be immediately removed. (i.e. links to lingerie and porn sites.) Don't do it.

	[[FAQ]]		[[FAQ]]

News Archive 2008

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:32:20 GMT

Blanked the page

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-	~~[http://www.ck-wholesale.com ck underwear]~~	+
-	~~[http://www.ck-wholesale.com calvin klein underwear]~~	+
-	~~[http://www.ck-wholesale.com Calvin klein]~~	+
-	~~[http://www.sh-massage.org shanghai escort]~~	+

List of SDS Chapters

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:11:22 GMT

Africa:

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	=United States=		=United States=
		+
		+	List of chapters in the United States.

	==Mid-West Region==		==Mid-West Region==
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	**Email: OklahomaSDS@gmail.com		**Email: OklahomaSDS@gmail.com
	**Site: http://oklahomasds.wordpress.com		**Site: http://oklahomasds.wordpress.com
-

	=Africa=		=Africa=

-	*~~'''~~Sierra Leone ~~SDS'''~~ [Active]	+	*[[SDS Sierra Leone]] [Active]
	**Email: sdssierraleone@yahoo.com		**Email: sdssierraleone@yahoo.com
	**Phone: 232.77.930830		**Phone: 232.77.930830

SDS Sierra Leone

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:09:34 GMT

Created page with '==Introduction & Background== The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS-SL) was formed in February, 2009 to reach students by students through education and research for the pr...'

New page

==Introduction & Background==

The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS-SL) was formed in February, 2009 to reach students by students through education and research for the prevention of the spread of violent conduct and cultic practices in tertiary institutions in Sierra Leone. SDS is an independent, voluntary and non profit making organization; a radical multi-issue student and youth organization working to build power in our schools, colleges and communities. We are entirely student and youth-led.

SDS main focus is sensitization and advocacy for student responsive strategies that would promote peaceful co existence among students, enhance and uphold human rights principles (including gender, women and children's rights), democracy and the rule of law.

The spate of violence in our various higher institutions of learning is increasingly alarming. The issue of the 'black-man and white-man' concepts/camps in our tertiary institutions is now based on barbaric acts such as forceful initiations including torture, forceful sex ect. sometimes with fatal consequences.

Students' union elections in almost all tertiary institutions are often marred by violence due to political interferences among other reasons. The culture of violence has equally spread to secondary schools, as students' confrontation with the police (especially during inter secondary school competitions) always occurred....

==Our Mission==

The SDS-SL strive to enhance and uphold human rights and principles and democratic values by promoting respect, tolerance and youth development activities within out various campuses and secondary schools.

==Our Vision==

To ensure that students and young people play meaningful roles in the development of our nation through democratic standards and human rights principles.

===Our Aims and Objectives===

*To encourage and enhance peaceful co existence amongst students.
*To encourage students to realize and uphold basic human rights principles and democratic values.
*To encourage students to actively involve in the fight against corruption and impunity.
*To encourage and spread the spirit of volunteerism amongst students.
*To initiate, coordinate and facilitate activities and help seek means by which young people including students could be empowered.

====Our Program of Interventions====

*Non violent campaign
*Human Rights and Rule of Law promotion
*Gender and women's rights
*Anti corruption drive

====Our Approaches====

We Strive to achieve our aims and objectives through the following:

*Advocacy and lobby
*Awareness raising
*Coordination and collaboration
*Monitoring

====Our Values====

Our core values are:

*Volunteerism
*Integrity
*Patriotism

=Our Contacts=

*'''Postal:''' C/o Cemocracy Sierra Leone, 23 Percival Street, Freetown
*'''Email:''' SdSSierraLeone@yahoo.com Vision.sl50@yahoo.com
*'''Tel:''' (+232) 77 930 830/ 76 656672/ 77 42 8802

List of SDS Chapters

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:39:03 GMT

Africa:

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-

	Suggested Rules: To keep things more organized, try to keep to the same formatting and include at least one contact email. Also, try to keep the regional lists in alphabetical order when adding your chapter. Move inactive chapters to [[List of chapters starting up or inactive]]		Suggested Rules: To keep things more organized, try to keep to the same formatting and include at least one contact email. Also, try to keep the regional lists in alphabetical order when adding your chapter. Move inactive chapters to [[List of chapters starting up or inactive]]
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	___Total Chapters Listed as of 08/31/2010		___Total Chapters Listed as of 08/31/2010

		+	=United States=

	==Mid-West Region==		==Mid-West Region==
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	**Email: Hick Nolme- white_striper187@yahoo.com, Keith Montes- keithmontes@gmail.com		**Email: Hick Nolme- white_striper187@yahoo.com, Keith Montes- keithmontes@gmail.com
	**Website: http://www.sdscalifornia.org/		**Website: http://www.sdscalifornia.org/
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		+	==Pacific==
		+
		+	*

	==Southeast Region==		==Southeast Region==
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	**Email: OklahomaSDS@gmail.com		**Email: OklahomaSDS@gmail.com
	**Site: http://oklahomasds.wordpress.com		**Site: http://oklahomasds.wordpress.com
		+
		+
		+	=Africa=
		+
		+	*'''Sierra Leone SDS''' [Active]
		+	**Email: sdssierraleone@yahoo.com
		+	**Phone: 232.77.930830

Main Page

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:46:43 GMT

Changes to the SDS Wiki:

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	**which include		**which include
	***Funk The War		***Funk The War
-	***[http://www.mrsviagra.com/ viagra en ligne]
	***Consensus		***Consensus
	***Direct Democracy		***Direct Democracy

Main Page

Joemaurice — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:48:41 GMT

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	**which include		**which include
	***Funk The War		***Funk The War
		+	***[http://www.mrsviagra.com/ viagra en ligne]
	***Consensus		***Consensus
	***Direct Democracy		***Direct Democracy

Organizing Resources

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:56:16 GMT

Zines:

Show changes

SPfAE Resources

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:52:26 GMT

Tactical:

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	It makes little sense, then, to think of the university as an ivory tower in Arcadia, as either idyllic or idle. “Work hard, play hard” has been the over-eager motto of a generation in training for… what? - drawing hearts in cappuccino foam or plugging names and numbers into databases. The gleaming techno-future of American capitalsim was long ago packed up and sold to China for a more years of borrowed junk. A university diploma is now worth no more than a share in General Motors."		It makes little sense, then, to think of the university as an ivory tower in Arcadia, as either idyllic or idle. “Work hard, play hard” has been the over-eager motto of a generation in training for… what? - drawing hearts in cappuccino foam or plugging names and numbers into databases. The gleaming techno-future of American capitalsim was long ago packed up and sold to China for a more years of borrowed junk. A university diploma is now worth no more than a share in General Motors."
		+
		+

	*'''The New Radicals in the Multiverse''' by Carl Davison		*'''The New Radicals in the Multiverse''' by Carl Davison
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	In deepening that understanding of social reality, we must always remember that “The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking this is isolated from practice is purely scholastic question.” Too often we are bogged down in theoretical disputes when the only way we can answer those questions is in practice, in political experimentation, in action. This is why we must remain open on many political questions. But this is not to say that we should only “Do what the spirit say do.” The concept of practical-critical activity (I.e., praxis) is three-sided: we must act, then reflect on the activity, and finally criticize the activity. The progress of action, reflection, and criticism must be repeated again and again. The body of knowledge ever changing and expanding, that grows from this process emerges as an ideology. Finally, the process is historical; it develops over a period of time.		In deepening that understanding of social reality, we must always remember that “The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking this is isolated from practice is purely scholastic question.” Too often we are bogged down in theoretical disputes when the only way we can answer those questions is in practice, in political experimentation, in action. This is why we must remain open on many political questions. But this is not to say that we should only “Do what the spirit say do.” The concept of practical-critical activity (I.e., praxis) is three-sided: we must act, then reflect on the activity, and finally criticize the activity. The progress of action, reflection, and criticism must be repeated again and again. The body of knowledge ever changing and expanding, that grows from this process emerges as an ideology. Finally, the process is historical; it develops over a period of time.
	It is for these reasons, as well as the fact that we are young and politically inexperienced, that we must emphasize an on going practical-critical activity over and above any allegiance to theoretical certitude. I hope that my following remarks on theory, strategy, and tactics will be taken in this context. All my assertions come from a limited experience and, as such, are open to criticism, revision, and the acid-test of political practice."		It is for these reasons, as well as the fact that we are young and politically inexperienced, that we must emphasize an on going practical-critical activity over and above any allegiance to theoretical certitude. I hope that my following remarks on theory, strategy, and tactics will be taken in this context. All my assertions come from a limited experience and, as such, are open to criticism, revision, and the acid-test of political practice."
		+
		+
		+	*'''Toward A Student Unionism''' by Jasper Conner
		+	**Read Onscreen: http://www.lizardelement.com/unionism/unionisminsidewebread.pdf
		+	**Download at: http://www.mediafire.com/?2ocamvokevnirm9 [http://www.mediafire.com/?5jxoo0701rfjq2d Download Cover Here]
		+	***Description: The current crisis of capitalism confronts students with a rising cost of education and a drastic decrease in the real-world returns from a college degree. Not only is it harder to afford college, but we’re coming out if with more debt and fewer job opportunities. It seems like a four year degree only qualifies you to become management at Wendy’s instead of a fry cook.
		+
		+	Students are organizing on campuses across the country, but we are a divided movement at best. Since the collapse of the student movement in the 70s, most campus activism has taken the form of single issue groups. There are the environmentalists, the labor solidarity organizations, the identity based justice groups, feminist collectives, and a growing number of radical anti-capitalists, sometimes all organizing on one campus but rarely together supporting each other. While it’s great to see all this organizing, it’s disheartening to see our different organizations having such difficulty working together. Even when we do coordinate our work on a local level, our national networks are often very reluctant to do so.
		+
		+	Even the militant resistance that is pooping up against budget cuts and tuition hikes is disconnected. The fiscal situation in California is not unique. States across the country are cutting funding to schools, and university administrators are using these budget cuts to hike up tuition (hikes that will remain long past the current depression) and to cut essential services and programs that students fought for in the past (African-American Studies, queer studies, sexual assault resources, to name a few.) While students in California are launching an amazing response to these hikes, there seems to be little connection with students engaged in the same fight over here on the east coast. Students at University of DC just lost a fight against a 100% tuition increase, making one of the most affordable colleges in the country out of reach for many. Students at the University of Maryland are fighting to keep their Office of Diversity afloat, and are gearing up to confront cuts to Women’s Studies and African American Studies programs. While all of these campuses are fighting nearly identical campaigns that spawn from the same “crisis”, there is almost zero coordination beyond individual campuses.
		+
		+	If we are to address our common crisis as students, as current and future workers, as people living on this planet, we need to focus on building our power. Students are fighting amazing campaigns, but if we want to hold onto these changes, we have to organize beyond individual policy changes at our respective schools. We must organize for institutional power over our universities and create a way of holding onto that power. Progressive policy changes are great thing on our campuses, and they should be fought for, but they should be fought in the context of building student power at our own school and across the country. Building student power means gaining more and more control over our colleges and the devisions that affect us as students. In the end, student power means a student-run educational system. It’s our education- we should control it.
		+
		+	To ensure that our local victories do not become isolated pockets of progress and resistance, to ensure that our work spreads, we must find ways to coordinate our campus efforts with other schools in our area. Movements grow not only by example, but when we actively engage people and share our resources and hard earned lessons. Becasue so many education policy decisions are made by state governments, we need to coordinate our work on a statewide level in a way that foster cross campus solidarity and still encourages local initiative. And if we ever want to seriously push for universal education, we have to have a student movement that coordinates on a national level. Coordinating efforts should never mean that local campus organizing becomes merely an extension of some larger campaign because this sort of strategy can’t support long haul organizing. We need coordination that is mutually beneficial to everyone involved.
		+
		+	If we want to create radical change at our colleges, change that addresses economic and cultural facets of our life, we need to move toward Student Unionism. We must move towards a Student Unionism that is run by the rank and file of students, that fights alongside of the faculty and workers, that acknowledges and seeks to empower the historically oppressed, and that seeks to revolutionize our educational system and the world.
		+
		+	===Tactical===
		+
		+
		+	*'''Occupation: A Do-It-Yourself Guide'''
		+	**Download at: http://www.mediafire.com/?0ydbuo9mchh7tru
		+	***Description: "We do not want to wait any longer. We cannot afford to wait any longer.
		+
		+	This pamphlet is a guide to immediate action. It explains how to occupy buildings, with particular attention to universities. That is not because we believe students at the university have a special role to play, or because occupations are the only tactic we use. It is simply we are at the university, we have occupied a building and we begin with what we know.
		+
		+	Occupations are a common tactic used at universities and other workplaces around the world. In 1999, students occupied the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the largest university in Latin America. In 2006, students occupied universities throughout France to repeal the CPE amendment. In 2008, workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago. In 2009, workers occupied the Ssangyong car factory in South Korea, holding it for two months and fighting a pitched battle against the police. These are but a few examples.

	=Reference Material=		=Reference Material=
	-		-

Solutions to common problems

BritReed — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:12:21 GMT

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		+	This page is here to help you out to find '''solutions to common problems''' that you and your chapter may run into. We are continuously updating this page. If there are problems or questions that you and your chapter are running into which you cannot find answers to on this page, please feel free to email students4democraticsociety@gmail.com with those questions.
		+
		+
	==Problems with School Administrators==		==Problems with School Administrators==
		+
		+
	===School Recognition===		===School Recognition===
	'''What do I do if my school refuses to officially recognize my chapter as a student organization?'''		'''What do I do if my school refuses to officially recognize my chapter as a student organization?'''
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	***Getting on to schools might be a bit more difficult		***Getting on to schools might be a bit more difficult
	***Fundraising will become more interesting (since you won't be able to get it from a school)		***Fundraising will become more interesting (since you won't be able to get it from a school)
		+
		+
		+	==Problems Organizing & Communicating Outside of Meetings==
		+
		+	===Websites===
		+
		+
		+
		+	===Listservs===

List of SDS Chapters

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:57:43 GMT

Mid-West Region:

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	*'''Shaker Heights HS SDS''' [Active]		*'''Shaker Heights HS SDS''' [Active]
-	**Email: ~~Sophie Shiloh- lellowsubmarine~~@gmail.com	+	**Email: sds.shaker@gmail.com
	**Website:		**Website:

Join SDS

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:31:37 GMT

Observations, Experience & Advice:

New page

'''Join SDS'''- Becoming a part of Students for a Democratic Society is fairly easy.

==Find a Chapter Near You==
One of the first things that you might want to do is to check to see if there is a chapter in your area.
You can see which ones are near you by checking:

*[http://www.newsds.org/?q=node/12 The National SDS Chapter Map]

or

*[[List of SDS Chapters]]
*[[List of chapters starting up or inactive]]

On both the map and the (active) chapter list, you will be able to find contact information for each chapter. If you run into problems feel free to contact students4democraticsociety@gmail.com.

'''Note:''' At the moment, we are working on updating both the map & the chapters list so that they'll show all active & inactive chapters more clearly. We're also getting the contact information up to date. Sorry for the inconvenience.

==Create a New Chapter==

If you find that you do not have a chapter in your area, or that there was one previously, but is now inactive, and you'd still like to be apart of SDS, we encourage you to start a new chapter in your school or area.
Though the task might seem a bit daunting, don't fear. There's lots of people who will be there support you and help you when you need it.

If you decided you'd like to start or reform a chapter for your school or area, please go to the [http://www.newsds.org/?q=node/11 Start A Chapter] page of the NewSDS.org website.
This is a pretty important as it will allow us to:

*Know that your chapter exists
*Gain contact information for both the [[List of SDS Chapters]] page on the wiki as well as for the [http://www.newsds.org/?q=node/12 Nat'l SDS Chapter Map]
**which will help persons looking to connect with a chapter in your area find your chapter. This will also make it easier for media and other organizations whom are trying to get in contact with your chapter get in contact with you.
**This will also allow us to be able to contact your chapter about nat'l things. (i.e. Calls for National Days of Action, Nat'l Conventions, Conference Calls, Ratifying Proposals, ect.)

===Vision Documents===
If you are starting up or reforming a chapter, we also ask you all to look over the Vision Documents. These Vision Documents were voted on via consensus and ratified at the 2007 National Constitutional Convention at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan. Within these documents hold standards, principles, and principles of unity which all chapters collectively stand on.

*[[Who We Are, What We Are Building]]
*[[Principles of Unity]]
*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]
*[[Local Organizers Come First]]
*[[Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities]]

===Start Up Help & Resources===

We are constantly trying to make it easier for new chapters to get started. So we have provided a few online resources which will help you get started:

*[[Solutions to common problems]]
**This page will have most of the answers to the problems you might come across. However, if the answer to the questions you have are not up there, please feel free to email: students4democraticsociety@gmail.com. We will try to answer your questions there. This will also help us to update & add on to the wiki page above.

*[[Organizing Resources]]
**This page has downloadable Fliers, Posters, Pamphlets, Handouts, Tri-folds, Leaflets, and Zines ranging on topics of Accessible Education, Anti-War & Militarization, Political Philosophy, '''Organizing''', Tactics, Classism, Feminism & Sexism, Health, Legal Support, Racism, Security Culture, Sexual Liberation, and more. Generally chapters create their own resources. However, form time to time when creating material, it's nice to have examples to reference for inspiration. The majority of the material on that page was either created by SDS chapters; however 95% of the material on there were handed out at the 2009 Regional SDS NE Convention in Rochester, NY at the University of Rochester. Feel free to take what you wish. Download, Print & Distribute.

===Observations, Experience & Advice===

'''Note:''' Below is taken from a message written by an SDS member who was a part of reforming [[Chicago SDS]] in the fall of 2009. These are their observations, experience and advice.

... My chapter has a lot of people from different SDS chapters from across the country so we kind of do a blending of different things from each as well as our own. Billy and I were the ones the originally began the chapter. I had no experience in anything SDS at the time other than the extent of the history on the organization, so Billy was a big help. He's originally from Rochester SDS.... So we took a lot of basic ideas of setting up the chapter from theirs.

Something that they do, and we incorporated into our agendas each meeting is that we do "Check Ins" at the start of each meeting, we have everyone say their name, (and because both rochester sds and chicago sds are city wide and not affiliated to any particular college), college, and we ask a general question like "what's the craziest thing you've done?" or "what are you most looking forward to winter break" or just any question to help everyone further get to know everyone. Idk, it's pretty sweet, I like doing that a lot... but you don't have to do that if you all don't want to. Sometimes we don't do the name/college thing if everyone already knows everyone, but the question is always fun.

We've also incorporated Check Outs too. It's kind of like check ins... we go over again who's supposed to be doing what/what needs to get done before the next meeting, and then also how everyone felt the meeting went (or if we need to do something to improve the meeting/experience for next time... like make sure that everyone gets to speak next time, or make sure we stick to the agenda or make it more fun, idk).

I think in most chapters, they're really into creating a community, and an environment that is comfortable and safe for people to talk about things/ideas no matter how crazy or radical they are. Since SDS is also very much into protesting and demonstrating and sometimes people might be down for civil disobedience and direct action, it's important to have close bonds with people in your chapter. It's easier to stand firm with people if their you're friends and not just "someone in the same organization as you." Different chapters do different things to try to create a community. I know Milwaukee sds has unofficial meetings in a local bar/pub on thursdays. My chapter has our meetings at my place and we cook dinner every meeting (food has a way of really bringing people together) and we generally try to hang out outside of SDS too (I'm pretty close with the members of my chapter and their some of my best friends now). Rochester SDS I know hangs out outside of SDS a lot and they also plan events at their community space The Flying Squirrel. But every chapter does it a bit differently; everyone does what works for them best.

For me, starting a chapter without ever really having contact with anyone from SDS (outside of Billy) was pretty daunting. It really helped me a lot to meet other people from chapters across the country. It helped give me prospective to what SDS was like, gave me confidence in what I was doing, I met a lot of really awesome people and it gave me a broader sense of community. It was and is also really awesome because it I continuously gain new insight on ideas as well as ideas for actions, tactics, and things that are going on in the world & country. So idk, I'd personally recommend reaching out to other chapters/nationally whether that's by going to the national/regional conventions and workshops or getting involved with the nat'l sds work (I'll warn you though that nat'l sds work can get pretty intense depending on what's happening. I'm involved with it, but i know others that stay away from it and focus only on their chapter's stuff)....

We also found out that a good way to stay in contact with your members is to create a listserv. That way if everyone is on break or it's just in between meetings and someone has an idea or of you're planning an action and you need to do stuff outside of the meeting, it's easy for everyone to share that information since they get it through their email or they can just check the actual listserv for the updates/information. We set ours up via google groups, but i think the northeast has a special listserv server thing/site for that, but i could be mistaken. We also set up a website so that people interested in our chapter or w/e could go there for updates about what we're doing or whatever have you. I know that a fair amount of chapters have used Wordpress.com for this since it's pretty user friendly and easy to update. I think the nat'l sds site is actually made via wordpress. Others use blogspot or even just a facebook group. here's a few diffrent chapters websites to give you an idea:

*DC SDS: [http://www.dc-sds.org DC-SDS.org]
*Milwaukee SDS: [http://sds-mke.blogspot.com/ SDS-MKE.Blogspot.com]
*Chicago SDS: [http://sdsofchicago.wordpress.com SDSofChicago.wordpress.com]
*UNC-Asheville SDS: [http://uncasds.wordpress.com/ UNCSDS.wordpress.com]

But yeah, that's pretty much all the advice/knowledge I have for setting up chapters for right now at least.

==Other Pages to Check Out==

*[[SDS National Structure]]
**Because the structure of SDS is different than most national organizations, we encourage you to look over this page so that you can gain a greater understanding of how SDS functions on both on a nat'l level as well as local.

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:45:45 GMT

Get Involved:

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-	*[[List of SDS Chapters]]	+
-	*[[List of chapters starting up or inactive]]	+

	==Get Involved==		==Get Involved==
-	* [~~http://www.studentsforademocraticsociety.org/?q=node/11~~ Join ~~sds~~]	+	* [[Join SDS]]
	* [[List of Listservs]]		* [[List of Listservs]]
	* [[SDS on Facebook]]		* [[SDS on Facebook]]
		+	*[[List of SDS Chapters]]
		+	*[[List of chapters starting up or inactive]]

	===National Working Groups===		===National Working Groups===

Port Huron Statement

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:59:23 GMT

New page

The '''Port Huron Statement''' was/is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Mich., a community north of Port Huron.

It should be noted that the current SDS organization does not operate under the Port Huron Statement but has ratified other vision statements which the organization now uses.

=Background=

Some critiques of the Port Huron Statement appear to be based on the authors' view of the SDS and its various militant factions as they subsequently evolved in the late 1960’s, rather than the nature of the organization at the time the statement was drafted. Therefore, the best way for one to interpret the Port Huron Statement is to read it and make up one’s own mind.

The SDS began as “a derivative of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID). In order to appeal to a broader coalition expanding beyond its labor origins, the organization grew into the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) so as to draw in other activist groups, such as the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was at the front lines of the civil rights movement.

=Port Huron Statement=

===Introduction: Agenda for a Generation===

We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.

When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world; the only one with the atom bomb, the least scarred by modern war, an initiator of the United Nations that we thought would distribute Western influence throughout the world. Freedom and equality for each individual, government of, by, and for the people--these American values we found god, principles by which we could live as men. Many of us began maturing in complacency.

As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First, the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation, symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry, compelled most of us from silence to activism. Second, the enclosing fact of the Cold War, symbolized by the presence of the Bomb, brought awareness that we ourselves, and our friends, and millions of abstract "others" we knew more directly because of our common peril, might die at any time. We might deliberately ignore, or avoid, or fail to feel all other human problems, but not these two, for these were too immediate and crushing in their impact, too challenging in the demand that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution.

While these and other problems either directly oppressed us or rankled our consciences and became our own subjective concerns, we began to see complicated and disturbing paradoxes in our surrounding America. The declaration "all men are created equal..." rang hollow before the facts of Negro life in the South and the big cities of the North. The proclaimed peaceful intentions of the United States contradicted its economic and military investments in the Cold War status quo.

We witnessed, and continue to witness, other paradoxes. With nuclear energy whole cities can easily be powered, yet the dominant nation-states seem more likely to unleash destruction greater than that incurred in all wars of human history. Although our own technology is destroying old and creating new forms of social organization, men still tolerate meaningless work and idleness. While two-thirds of mankind suffers under nourishment, our own upper classes revel amidst superfluous abundance. Although world population is expected to double in forty years, the nations still tolerate anarchy as a major principle of international conduct and uncontrolled exploitation governs the sapping of the earth's physical resources. Although mankind desperately needs revolutionary leadership, America rests in national stalemate, its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound instead of informed and clear, its democratic system apathetic and manipulated rather than "of, by, and for the people."

Not only did tarnish appear on our image of American virtue, not only did disillusion occur when the hypocrisy of American ideals was discovered, but we began to sense that what we had originally seen as the American Golden Age was actually the decline of an era. The worldwide outbreak of revolution against colonialism and imperialism, the entrenchment of totalitarian states, the menace of war, overpopulation, international disorder, supertechnology--these trends were testing the tenacity of our own commitment to democracy and freedom and our abilities to visualize their application to a world in upheaval.

Our work is guided by the sense that we may be the last generation in the experiment with living. But we are a minority--the vast majority of our people regard the temporary equilibriums of our society and world as eternally functional parts. In this is perhaps the outstanding paradox; we ourselves are imbued with urgency, yet the message of our society is that there is no viable alternative to the present. Beneath the reassuring tones of the politicians, beneath the common opinion that America will "muddle through," beneath the stagnation of those who have closed their minds to the future, is the pervading feeling that there simply are no alternatives, that our times have witnessed the exhaustion not only of Utopias, but of any new departures as well. Feeling the press of complexity upon the emptiness of life, people are fearful of the thought that at any moment things might be thrust out of control. They fear change itself, since change might smash whatever invisible framework seems to hold back chaos for them now. For most Americans, all crusades are suspect, threatening. The fact that each individual sees apathy in his fellows perpetuates the common reluctance to organize for change. The dominant institutions are complex enough to blunt the minds of their potential critics, and entrenched enough to swiftly dissipate or entirely repel the energies of protest and reform, thus limiting human expectancies. Then, too, we are a materially improved society, and by our own improvements we seem to have weakened the case for further change.

Some would have us believe that Americans feel contentment amidst prosperity--but might it not better be called a glaze above deeply felt anxieties about their role in the new world? And if these anxieties produce a developed indifference to human affairs, do they not as well produce a yearning to believe that there is an alternative to the present, that something can be done to change circumstances in the school, the workplaces, the bureaucracies, the government? It is to this latter yearning, at once the spark and engine of change, that we direct our present appeal. The search for truly democratic alternatives to the present, and a commitment to social experimentation with them, is a worthy and fulfilling human enterprise, one which moves us and, we hope, others today. On such a basis do we offer this document of our convictions and analysis: as an effort in understanding and changing the conditions of humanity in the late twentieth century, an effort rooted in the ancient, still unfulfilled conception of man attaining determining influence over his circumstances of life.

===Values===

Making values explicit--an initial task in establishing alternatives--is an activity that has been devalued and corrupted. The conventional moral terms of the age, the politician moralities--"free world," "people's democracies"--reflect realities poorly, if at all, and seem to function more as ruling myths than as descriptive principles. But neither has our experience in the universities brought us moral enlightenment. Our professors and administrators sacrifice controversy to public relations; their curriculums change more slowly than the living events of the world; their skills and silence are purchased by investors in the arms race; passion is called unscholastic. The questions we might want raised--what is really important? can we live in a different and better way? if we wanted to change society, how would we do it?--are not thought to be questions of a "fruitful, empirical nature," and thus are brushed aside.

Unlike youth in other countries we are used to moral leadership being exercised and moral dimensions being clarified by our elders. But today, for us, not even the liberal and socialist preachments of the past seem adequate to the forms of the present. Consider the old slogans: Capitalism Cannot Reform Itself, United Front Against Fascism, General Strike, All Out on May Day. Or, more recently, No Cooperation with Commies and Fellow Travelers, Ideologies Are Exhausted, Bipartisanship, No Utopias. These are incomplete, and there are few new prophets. It has been said that our liberal and socialist predecessors were plagued by vision without program, while our own generation is plagued by program without vision. All around us there is astute grasp of method, technique--the committee, the ad hoc group, the lobbyist, the hard and soft sell, the make, the projected image--but, if pressed critically, such expertise in incompetent to explain its implicit ideals. It is highly fashionable to identify oneself by old categories, or by naming a respected political figure, or by explaining "how we would vote" on various issues.

Theoretic chaos has replaced the idealistic thinking of old--and, unable to reconstitute theoretic order, men have condemned idealism itself. Doubt has replaced hopefulness--and men act out a defeatism that is labeled realistic. The decline of utopia and hope is in fact one of the defining features of social life today. The reasons are various: the dreams of the older left were perverted by Stalinism and never re-created; the congressional stalemate makes men narrow their view of the possible; the specialization of human activity leaves little room for sweeping thought; the horrors of the twentieth century symbolized in the gas ovens and concentration camps and atom bombs, have blasted hopefulness. To be idealistic is to be considered apocalyptic, deluded. To have no serious aspirations, on the contrary, is to be "tough-minded."

In suggesting social goals and values, therefore, we are aware of entering a sphere of some disrepute. Perhaps matured by the past, we have no formulas, no closed theories--but that does not mean values are beyond discussion and tentative determination. A first task of any social movement is to convince people that the search for orienting theories and the creation of human values is complex but worthwhile. We are aware that to avoid platitudes we must analyze the concrete conditions of social order. But to direct such an analysis we must use the guideposts of basic principles. Our own social values involve conceptions of human beings, human relationships, and social systems.

We regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love. In affirming these principles we are aware of countering perhaps the dominant conceptions of man in the twentieth century: that he is a thing to be manipulated, and that he is inherently incapable of directing his own affairs. We oppose the depersonalization that reduces human being to the status of things--if anything, the brutalities of the twentieth century teach that means and ends are intimately related, that vague appeals to "posterity" cannot justify the mutilations of the present. We oppose, too, the doctrine of human incompetence because it rests essentially on the modern fact that men have been "competently" manipulated into incompetence--we see little reason why men cannot meet with increasing the skill the complexities and responsibilities of their situation, if society is organized not for minority, but for majority, participation in decision-making.

Men have unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity. It is this potential that we regard as crucial and to which we appeal, not to the human potentiality for violence, unreason, and submission to authority. The goal of man and society should be human independence: a concern not with image of popularity but with finding a meaning in life that is personally authentic; a quality of mind not compulsively driven by a sense of powerlessness, nor one which unthinkingly adopts status values, nor one which represses all threats to its habits, but one which has full, spontaneous access to present and past experiences, one which easily unites the fragmented parts of personal history, one which openly faces problems which are troubling and unresolved; one with an intuitive awareness of possibilities, an active sense of curiosity, an ability and willingness to learn.

This kind of independence does not mean egotistic individualism--the object is not to have one's way so much as it is to have a way that is one's own. Nor do we deify man--we merely have faith in his potential.

Human relationships should involve fraternity and honesty. Human interdependence is contemporary fact; human brotherhood must be willed, however, as a condition of future survival and as the most appropriate form of social relations. Personal links between man and man are needed, especially to go beyond the partial and fragmentary bonds of function that bind men only as worker to worker, employer to employee, teacher to student, American to Russian.

Loneliness, estrangement, isolation describe the vast distance between man and man today. These dominant tendencies cannot be overcome by better personnel management, nor by improved gadgets, but only when a love of man overcomes the idolatrous worship of things by man. As the individualism we affirm is not egoism, the selflessness we affirm is not self-elimination. On the contrary, we believe in generosity of a kind that imprints one's unique individual qualities in the relation to other men, and to all human activity. Further, to dislike isolation is not to favor the abolition of privacy; the latter differs from isolation in that it occurs or is abolished according to individual will.

We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance by power and uniqueness rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, and creativity. As a social system we seek the establishment of a democracy of individual participation, governed by two central aims: that the individual share in those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life; that society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation.

"In a participatory democracy, the political life would be based in several root principles: that decision-making of basic social consequence be carried on by public groupings;

that politics be seen positively, as the art of collectively creating an acceptable pattern of social relations;

that politics has the function of bringing people out of isolation and into community, thus being a necessary, though not sufficient, means of finding meaning in personal life;

that the political order should serve to clarify problems in a way instrumental to their solution; it should provide outlets for the expression of personal grievance and aspiration; opposing views should be organized so as to illuminate choices and facilitate the attainment of goals; channels should be commonly available to relate men to knowledge and to power so that private problems--from bad recreation facilities to personal alienation--are formulated as general issues."

The economic sphere would have as its basis the principles:

"that work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival. It should be educative, not stultifying; creative, not mechanical; self-directed, not manipulated, encouraging independence, a respect for others, a sense of dignity, and a willingness to accept social responsibility, since it is this experience that has crucial influence on habits, perceptions and individual ethics;

that the economic experience is so personally decisive that the individual must share in its full determination;

that the economy itself is of such social importance that its major resources and means of production should be open to democratic participation and subject to democratic social regulation."

Like the political and economic ones, major social institutions--cultural, educational, rehabilitative, and others--should be generally organized with the well-being and dignity of man as the essential measure of success.

In social change or interchange, we find violence to be abhorrent because it requires generally the transformation of the target, be it a human being or a community of people, into a depersonalized object of hate. It is imperative that the means of violence be abolished and the institutions--local, national, international--that encourage non-violence as a condition of conflict be developed.

These are our central values, in skeletal form. It remains vital to understand their denial or attainment in the context of the modern world.

===The Students===

In the last few years, thousands of American students demonstrated that they at least felt the urgency of the times. They moved actively and directly against racial injustices, the threat of war, violations of individual rights of conscience, and, less frequently, against economic manipulation. They succeeded in restoring a small measure of controversy to the campuses after the stillness of the McCarthy period. They succeeded, too, in gaining some concessions from the people and institutions they opposed, especially in the fight against racial bigotry.

The significance of these scattered movements lies not in their success or failure in gaining objectives--at least, not yet. Nor does the significance lie in the intellectual "competence" or "maturity" of the students involved--as some pedantic elders allege. The significance is in the fact that students are breaking the crust of apathy and overcoming the inner alienation that remain the defining characteristics of American college life.

If student movements for change are still rarities on the campus scene, what is commonplace there? The real campus, the familiar campus, is a place of private people, engaged in their notorious "inner emigration." It is a place of commitment to business-as-usual, getting ahead, playing it cool. It is a place of mass affirmation of the Twist, but mass reluctance toward the controversial public stance. Rules are accepted as "inevitable," bureaucracy as "just circumstances," irrelevance as "scholarship," selflessness as "martyrdom," politics as "just another way to make people, and an unprofitable one, too."

Almost no students value activity as citizens. Passive in public, they are hardly more idealistic in arranging their private lives: Gallup concludes they will settle for "low success, and won't risk high failure." There is not much willingness to take risks (not even in business), no setting of dangerous goals, no real conception of personal identity except one manufactured in the image of others, no real urge for personal fulfillment except to be almost as successful as the very successful people. Attention is being paid to social status (the quality of shirt collars, meeting people, getting wives or husbands, making solid contacts for later on); much, too, is paid to academic status (grades, honors, the med school rat race). But neglected generally is real intellectual status, the personal cultivation of the mind.

"Students don't even give a damn abut the apathy," one has said. Apathy toward apathy begets a privately constructed universe, a place of systematic study schedules, two nights each week for beer, a girl or two, and early marriage; a framework infused with personality, warmth, and under control, no matter how unsatisfying otherwise.

Under these conditions university life loses all relevance to some. Four hundred thousand of our classmates leave college every year.

The accompanying "let's pretend" theory of student extracurricular affairs validates student government as a training center for those who want to live their lives in political pretense, and discourages initiative from the more articulate, honest, and sensitive students. The bounds and style of controversy are delimited before controversy begins. The university "prepares" the student for "citizenship" through perpetual rehearsals and, usually, through emasculation of what creative spirit there is in the individual.

The academic life contains reinforcing counterparts to the way in which extracurricular life is organized. The academic world is founded on a teacher-student relations analogous to the parent-child relation which characterizes in loco parentis. Further, academia includes a radical separation of the student from the material of study. That which is studies, the social reality, is "objectified" to sterility, dividing the student from life--just as he is restrained in active involvement by the deans controlling student government. The specialization of function and knowledge, admittedly necessary to our complex technological and social structure, has produced an exaggerated compartmentalization of study and understanding. This has contributed to an overly parochial view, by faculty, of the role of its research and scholarship; to a discontinuous and truncated understanding, by students, of the surrounding social order; and to a loss of personal attachment, by nearly all, to the worth of study as a humanistic enterprise.

There is, finally, the cumbersome academic bureaucracy extending throughout the academic as well as the extracurricular structures, contributing to the sense of outer complexity and inner powerlessness that transforms the honest searching of many students to a ratification of convention and, worse, to a numbness to present and future catastrophes. The size and financing systems of the university enhance the permanent trusteeship of the administrative bureaucracy, their power leading to a shift within the university toward the value standards of business and the administrative mentality. Huge foundations and other private financial interests shape the under financed colleges and universities, making them not only more commercial, but less disposed to diagnose society critically, less open to dissent. Many social and physical scientists, neglecting the liberating heritage of higher learning, develop "human relations" or "morale-producing" techniques for the corporate economy, while others exercise their intellectual skills to accelerate the arms race.

Tragically, the university could serve as a significant source of social criticism and an initiator of new modes and molders of attitudes. But the actual intellectual effect of the college experience is hardly distinguishable from that of any other communications channel--say, a television set--passing on the stock truths of the day. Students leave college somewhat more "tolerant" than when they arrived, but basically unchallenged in their values and political orientations. With administrators ordering the institution, and faculty the curriculum, the student learns by his isolation to accept elite rule within the university, which prepares him to accept later forms of minority control. The real function of the educational system--as opposed to its more rhetorical function of "searching for truth"--is to impart the key information and styles that will help the student get by, modestly but comfortably, in the big society beyond.

===The Society Beyond===

Look beyond the campus, to America itself. That student life is more intellectual, and perhaps more comfortable, does not obscure the fact that the fundamental qualities of life on the campus reflect the habits of society at large. The fraternity president is seen at the junior manager levels; the sorority queen has gone to Grosse Pointe; the serious poet burns for a place, any place, to work; the once-serious and never-serious poets work at the advertising agencies. The desperation of people threatened by forces about which they know little and of which they can say less; the cheerful emptiness of people "giving up" all hope of changing things; the faceless ones polled by Gallup who listed "international affairs" fourteenth on their list of "problems" but who also expected thermonuclear war in the next few years; in these and other forms, Americans are in withdrawal from public life, from any collective effort at directing their own affairs.

Some regard these national doldrums as a sign of healthy approval of the established order--but is it approval by consent or manipulated acquiescence? Others declare that the people are withdrawn because compelling issues are fast disappearing--perhaps there are fewer bread lines in America, but is Jim Crow gone, is there enough work and work more fulfilling, is world war a diminishing threat, and what of the revolutionary new peoples? Still others think the national quietude is a necessary consequence of the need for elites to resolve complex and specialized problems of modern industrial society--but then, why should business elites help decide foreign policy, and who controls the elites anyway, and are they solving mankind's problems? Others, finally, shrug knowingly and announce that full democracy never worked anywhere in the past--but why lump qualitatively different civilizations together, and how can a social order work well if its best thinkers are skeptics, and is man really doomed forever to the domination of today?

There are now convincing apologies for the contemporary malaise. While the world tumbles toward the final war, while men in other nations are trying desperately to alter events, while the very future qua future is uncertain--America is without community impulse, without the inner momentum necessary for an age when societies cannot successfully perpetuate themselves by their military weapons, when democracy must be viable because of its quality of life, not its quantity of rockets.

The apathy here is, first, subjective--the felt powerlessness of ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of events. But subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation--the actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant knowledge, from pinnacles of decision-making. Just as the university influences the student way of life, so do major social institutions create the circumstances in which the isolated citizen will try hopelessly to understand his world and himself.

The very isolation of the individual--from power and community and ability to aspire--means the rise of a democracy without publics. With the great mass of people structurally remote and psychologically hesitant with respect to democratic institutions, those institutions themselves attenuate and become, in the fashion of the vicious circle, progressively less accessible to those few who aspire to serious participation in social affairs. The vital democratic connection between community and leadership, between the mass and the several elites, has been so wrenched and perverted that disastrous policies go unchallenged time and again....

===The University and Social Change===

There is perhaps little reason to be optimistic about the above analysis. True, the Dixiecrat-GOP coalition is the weakest point in the dominating complex of corporate, military, and political power. But the civil rights, peace, and student movements are too poor and socially slighted, and the labor movement too quiescent, to be counted with enthusiasm. From where else can power and vision be summoned? We believe that the universities are an overlooked seat of influence.

First, the university is located in a permanent position of social influence. It's educational function makes it indispensable and automatically makes it a crucial institution in the formation of social attitudes. Second, in an unbelievably complicated world, it is the central institution for organizing, evaluating and transmitting knowledge. Third, the extent to which academic resources presently are used to buttress immoral social practice is revealed, first, by the extent to which defense contracts make the universities engineers of the arms race. Too, the use of modern social science as a manipulative tool reveals itself in the "human relations" consultants to the modern corporations, who introduce trivial sops to give laborers feelings of "participation" or "belonging," while actually deluding them in order to further exploit their labor. And, of course, the use of motivational research is already infamous as a manipulative aspect of American politics. But these social uses of the universities' resources also demonstrate the unchangeable reliance by men of power on the men and storehouses of knowledge: this makes the university functionally tied to society in new ways, revealing new potentialities, new levers for change. Fourth, the university is the only mainstream institution that is open to participation by individuals of nearly any viewpoint.

These, at least, are facts, no matter how dull the teaching, how paternalistic the rules, how irrelevant the research that goes on. Social relevance, the accessibility to knowledge, and internal openness--these together make the university a potential base and agency in a
movement of social change.

# Any new left in America must be, in large measure, a left with real intellectual skills, committed to deliberativeness, honesty, reflection as working tools. The university permits the political life to be an adjunct to the academic one, and action to be informed by reason.

# A new left must be distributed in significant social roles throughout the country. The universities are distributed in such a manner.

# A new left must consist of younger people who matured in the postwar world, and partially be directed to the recruitment of younger people. The university is an obvious beginning point.

# A new left must include liberals and socialists, the former for their relevance, the latter for their sense of thoroughgoing reforms in the system. The university is a more sensible place than a political party for these two traditions to begin to discuss their differences and look for political synthesis.

# A new left must start controversy across the land, if national policies and national apathy are to be reversed. The ideal university is a community of controversy, within itself and in its effects on communities beyond.

# A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social, and economic sources of their private troubles, and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency, and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.

But we need not indulge in illusions: the university system cannot complete a movement of ordinary people making demands for a better life. From its schools and colleges across the nation, a militant left might awaken its allies, and by beginning the process towards peace, civil rights, and labor struggles, reinsert theory and idealism where too often reign confusion and political barter. The power of students and faculty united is not only potential; it has shown its actuality in the South, and in the reform movements of the North.

The bridge to political power, though, will be build through genuine cooperation, locally, nationally, and internationally, between a new left of young people and an awakening community of allies. In each community we must look within the university and act with confidence that we can be powerful, but we must look outwards to the less exotic but more lasting struggles for justice.

To turn these mythic possibilities into realities will involve national efforts at university reform by an alliance of students and faculty. They must wrest control of the educational process from the administrative bureaucracy. They must make fraternal and functional contact with allies in labor, civil rights, and other liberal forces outside the campus. They must import major public issues into the curriculum--research and teaching on problems of war and peace is an outstanding example. They must make debate and controversy, not dull pedantic cant, the common style for educational life. They must consciously build a base for their assault upon the loci of power.

As students for a democratic society, we are committed to stimulating this kind of social movement, this kind of vision and program in campus and community across the country. If we appear to seek the unattainable, as it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable.

Working Groups

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:40:10 GMT

Created page with 'National '''Working Groups''' are staffed with members of chapters, and anyone can join! Each group has a listserv and a representative on the NWC who you can contact for more in...'

New page

National '''Working Groups''' are staffed with members of chapters, and anyone can join! Each group has a listserv and a representative on the NWC who you can contact for more information.

=List of Working Groups=

*[[Alliance Building Working Group]]
**Description: The Alliance Building WG works to create alliances with other like-minded organizations.
***Status: Inactive
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[Anti-War Working Group]]
**Description: The Anti-War WG coordinates national mobilizations against U.S. imperialism.
***Status: Active
***Email: sdsantiwar.wg@gmail.com
***Listserver:
***Website:

*[[Chapter Communications Working Group]]
**Description: Chapter Communications keeps in contact with the over 120 SDS chapters to ensure clear communication between chapters and with the national structure.
***Status: Active
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[Fundraising Working Group]]
**Description: The Fundraising WG raises money so SDS can do what it needs to do!
***Status: Pending
***Email:
***Listserver:
***Website:

*[[Media Working Group]]
**Description: The Media WG handles all national media for actions, conventions and stories news outlets want to do about us!
***Status: Inactive
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[National Legal Support Working Group]]
**Description: The National Legal Support Working Group supports all SDS chapters and members who are fighting legal and administrative oppression.
***Status: Inactive
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[National Convention Organizing Working Group]]
**Description: The National Convention Organizing WG organizes the annual SDS national convention.
***Status: Inactive
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[Student Power for Accessible Education Campaign]]
**Description: The SPFAE WG helps chapters coordinate their SPFAE campaigns and carry out national actions.
***Status: Active
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[Training Working Group]]
**Description: The Training Working Group organizes internal SDS trainings and action camps for SDSers to build new skills giving and receiving workshops.
***Status: Inactive
***Email:
***Listerver:
***Website:

*[[Visibility Project]]
**Description: The Visibility Project works to make national SDS work visible so everyone knows what's going on and how to plug in!
***Status: Active
***Email: students4democraticsociety@gmail.com
***Listserver:

*[[Website Working Group]]
**Description: The Website WG designs and maintains the SDS website and wiki.
***Status: Active
***Email:
***Listserver:

*[[Welcoming Committee]]
**Description: The Welcoming Committee helps people who want to start chapters get their groups off the ground.
***Status: Active (ish)
***Email: students4democraticsociety@gmail.com
***Listerver:

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:41:56 GMT

Binding Principles: Vision Documents:

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	*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]		*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]
	*[[Local Organizers Come First]]		*[[Local Organizers Come First]]
		+	*[[Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities]]

	==SDS News==		==SDS News==

Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:40:43 GMT

Created page with ''''Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities''' -This vision document was passed at the 2007 National SDS Constitutional Convention. ==Vision Document: Student Solidarity w...'

New page

'''Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities''' -This vision document was passed at the 2007 National SDS Constitutional Convention.

==Vision Document: Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities==

Whereas, students live, study and work in and around communities, and what happens on campuses affects what happens in communities;

Whereas, students often represent only one part of the university or school campus community, which is made up of workers and students, and workers and student-workers are too often invisible to students and student activists;

Whereas, many universities act and corporations, exploiting workers on campus and dominating the lives and communities of people beyond, and students can either contribute to this exploitation or fight it;

Whereas, too often students come into communities as outside allies or through gentrification and try to organize without creating meaningful and sustainable connections with residents or the people and groups organizing from within these communities;

Whereas, students cannot build power and cannot advance in struggle alone, but only when accountable to and in solidarity with workers and communities, now

Therefore be it resolved, that Students for a Democratic Society will commit to organizing where they are, practicing solidarity with workers and communities, and

Be it resolved, that SDS will actively build connections with peoples and movements organizing in communities around issues affected by and affecting students, respecting the experience and recognizing the leadership of those in struggle, and

Be it resolved, that SDS will develop analysis and practice around issues relevant to workers and communities which include students, issues surrounding workers' rights, gentrification and expansion, public housing and education, and the corporate control of peoples' lives, locally and globally, and

Be it resolved, that SDS organizing will be consistently relevant, responsive and accountable to those most directly affected by the systems and institutions which SDS aims to oppose and transform.

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:37:12 GMT

Binding Principles:

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	*[[News Bulletin]]		*[[News Bulletin]]

-	==Binding Principles==	+	==Binding Principles: Vision Documents==
	*[[Principles of Unity]]		*[[Principles of Unity]]
	*[[Who We Are, What We Are Building]]		*[[Who We Are, What We Are Building]]
	*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]		*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]
		+	*[[Local Organizers Come First]]

	==SDS News==		==SDS News==

Local Organizers Come First

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:34:49 GMT

Local Organizers Come First - This vision document was passed at the 2007 National SDS Constitutional Convention.

New page

'''Local Organizers Come First''' - This vision document was passed at the 2007 National SDS Constitutional Convention.

==Vision Document: Local Organizers Come First==

All SDS chapters organizing actions within a given location will look to local community organizations throughout the process of organizing, and will discuss the involvement of the community and discuss the potential impact of the action in the community.

All SDS chapters that plan actions which fall into the vicinity of a local SDS chapter will, in the spirit of solidarity and respect, meet with that local chapter well beforehand to negotiate matters of tactics, march routes, and other logistics. SDS chapters look to local chapters for guidance and leadership as well as knowledge of local geography, ordinances, targets and community issues. Every participating chapter has influence in the organization of an event. Local chapters carry a weighted influence.

Should there be no SDS chapter within the area of the action being planned, or should the chapter feel as if it is not connected enough with the community to make decisions in that community, the plans will be delayed until research into local organizations with whom to work has been done.

Who We Are, What We Are Building

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:30:37 GMT

Who We Are, What We Are Building-This document is the new SDS's vision for the organization.

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	Our actions will be strategic, fitted to a collective purpose, a direction, and a need. Strategy is a lens with which we will approach our organizing. We will have a clear sense of our goals, and evaluate how our actions move us toward them. We will always act with respect to the community and context in which we find ourselves. We will always think about how to build our organization, develop new allies, and support other movements.		Our actions will be strategic, fitted to a collective purpose, a direction, and a need. Strategy is a lens with which we will approach our organizing. We will have a clear sense of our goals, and evaluate how our actions move us toward them. We will always act with respect to the community and context in which we find ourselves. We will always think about how to build our organization, develop new allies, and support other movements.

-	Strategic action is not ~~a â€œlineâ€ â€“~~ not a mandated set of rules, but a shared orientation. Strategic action looks different in different places. Our strategy will guide our tactics ~~â€“~~ not the other way around. Tactics are like a toolbox. If you are building a house, you need different tools at different times ~~â€“~~ sometimes you need a hammer, other times you need a screwdriver. But you need those tools to be part of a strategy if you want to build the house. More than any tactic for its own sake, we are committed to strategic action to win our goals.	+	Strategic action is not "line" - not a mandated set of rules, but a shared orientation. Strategic action looks different in different places. Our strategy will guide our tactics - not the other way around. Tactics are like a toolbox. If you are building a house, you need different tools at different times - sometimes you need a hammer, other times you need a screwdriver. But you need those tools to be part of a strategy if you want to build the house. More than any tactic for its own sake, we are committed to strategic action to win our goals.
		+
		+	===We will all be leaders and mentors.===
		+
		+	We want organizations and movements that create the space for new folks to learn how to organize and take action. Mentorship must occur intergenerationally between SDSers and movement elders and veterans, as well as internally among SDSers of various levels of experience. We especially value such relationships between people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We view every new member of our group as a peer-mentor, someone to learn from, as well as encourage and teach.
		+
		+	We believe in collective leadership. We reject leadership that centers on individuals whom others blindly follow. Instead, we will strive to create a space where everyone can develop the skills and analysis to be an empowered change maker. We will strive for leadership development that pushes everyone up. We can all be leaders in a way that the different talents, skills and experience we each bring will be used for the good of the group.
		+
		+	If we are all leaders, we must each take responsibility for our choices and think about the group as a whole, not just ourselves. It is on us to develop each other's leadership to see the potential in one another and encourage it. We will build one another up, and we will support each other in becoming leaders and taking on responsibilities.
		+
		+	We are learning from the past. We will reinvent our movement.
		+	Younger generations, without realizing it, often re-invent ways of organizing and thinking about change that have been tried before. As SDS, we will ground ourselves in a real sense of our organizing history, valuing the lessons of the movements that have come before us.
		+
		+	We are committed to a process of asking questions about past social movements and organizations. We will ask why and how the movements of the past have succeeded or failed. We will study each situation so that we are ready to build a stronger movement than ever before. To this, we will add our creativity and our own insights. If we hope to win, our generation must engage in a process of reinvention, on its own terms.
		+
		+	We can mobilize the collective memory of generations of organizers, dissidents and revolutionaries, living and dead, "Old Left"and "New." We will not try to imitate and relive the past, but we will learn from it, improvise and imagine new meanings for our time and place.
		+
		+	We will also give our movement a new creativity in its form and direction, in its adversity to oppression, and in its construction of another kind of politics that hastens a better and more beautiful world. We will reimagine a politics of liberation, liberating our own imagination from the constraints imposed on it by the present system and by the past. If we hope to win, our generation must engage in a process of reinvention, on its own terms.
		+
		+	==What We Are Building==
		+
		+	We affirm that our organization will be:
		+
		+	===1. An Organization That Makes Connections===
		+
		+	Students for a Democratic Society will make the connections between students and peoples' struggles, and between "issues" and the bigger systems of which they are a part. We will ground our work in an understanding of how our issues intersect, how our struggles are connected, and how to actively question and creatively approach those things that separate us. We recognize the importance of fighting injustice on multiple fronts. We know that individual struggles are never won alone.
		+
		+	We are struggling to change a society which depends upon multiple and reciprocal systems of oppression and domination for its survival: racism and white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, heterosexism and transphobia, authoritarianism and imperialism, among others. In order to create enduring change in such a society, SDS will take on these systems by nourishing interconnected and mutually sustaining struggles of liberation. We will consciously and effectively target systems of oppression through collaborative struggle rooted in concrete organizing. We will expand our understanding of issues often viewed as singular to include a more complex analysis of how peoples' struggles are related and interdependent.
		+
		+	As we fight to end the wars we see every day, we will also fight against the unseen wars of empire, power and profit against people, especially poor and working people. Our common life will only be reclaimed through organized resistance, through local struggles linked together. We will come to know our friends and allies, and make ourselves real friends and allies to the struggles of other peoples.
		+
		+	===2. An Organization for Collective Liberation===
		+
		+	Oppressed people are at the forefront of movements for liberation. We understand that our work must target structures of domination in order to build powerful diverse movements for change. We realize that lines of power cut deep in our society, and we must be grounded in the work of combating systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, heterosexism, transphobia, and the many other forms of oppression thoughtfully and strategically.
		+
		+	We realize that having a verbal commitment to this work is not enough. We must be doing this work. We are committed to learning how oppression operates and how we can transform it. We are committed to leveraging whatever resources we as students and individuals have, thoughtfully, respectfully, and transparently, for the benefit of larger communities and movements.
		+
		+	We believe the campus must be opened, and the character of both university and education in society fundamentally changed from its historical role as the "Ivory Tower" bastion of privilege. We commit to the fight for access to education and higher education, because they are not privileges but rights, and because reparations for bias in admissions owing to systems of oppression are long past due.
		+
		+	We commit to changing the character of education and to affirm the necessity of Ethnic, Women's, Queer, and African/a studies departments as correctives to the historical bias of academia. We further affirm that curricula in general must be challenged as to both their means and their ends. Education must liberate society from, and not perpetuate, the condition of domination by a select few.
		+
		+	We are committed to listening to, learning from, and amplifying the voices of oppressed communities and their allies. On our campuses, we will prioritize workers' rights, gender justice, affirmative action other and issues relevant to oppressed members of our communities. We commit to changing the function of the university, to ensure that the university is not above the community but an accountable part of it, and to ensure respect for workers' rights, for freedom of inquiry, and for the rights of students.
		+
		+	We are committed to listening to, learning from, and amplifying the voices of oppressed communities and their allies. On our campuses, we will prioritize workers' rights, gender justice, affirmative action other and issues relevant to oppressed members of our communities.
		+
		+	We know that peoples not traditionally recognized as part of the student movement have always been and still are organizing, at the forefront. We recognize that activism and knowledge is not the sole province of a particular demographic; nor is the struggle left simply for the oppressed to take up. Everyone has a duty to listen; everyone has a duty to act.
		+
		+	We will challenge the standards and scripts of activism and action that do not account for the experiences of peoples engaged in struggle, and will give action power by recognizing the diverse and significant ways in which people resist and combat oppression daily. Ordinary people are continuously resisting in extraordinary ways. We will recognize and support acts of resistance that empower people, whether or not such acts fit nicely into an activist mold.
		+
		+	===3. An Organization in Solidarity and With Accountability to Others===
		+
		+	As Students for a Democratic Society, we see our work as grounded in strong human relationships. We seek to build relationships on solidarity and trust, standing together and recognizing others' struggles as our own. SDS will not simply proclaim itself in solidarity, but actively practice solidarity with communities, workers, oppressed peoples, and all allied movements in struggle.
		+
		+	We will build strong movements where we live that can both combat oppression at home and offer meaningful support to other movements and communities, here and around the world. Our solidarity will be locally rooted and nationally/globally linked. It will be solidarity across borders, and solidarity against borders.
		+
		+	Our solidarity will be horizontal, shared below. It will subvert and transform the present relations of power. It will build mutual aid between movements, communities, and peoples in revolt, and freedom and autonomy from the powerful. In order to win, we have to be able to rely on each other's solidarity.
		+
		+	As Students for a Democratic Society, we will also strive to be an accountable organization, one that recognizes, respects, and responds to the collective agency of those struggling for liberation. We affirm our commitment to making our organizing actively accountable to the communities it occurs in and to the people organizing from within these communities. We declare ourselves ready to respect the experience, recognize the leadership of, and actively support the struggles of those directly affected.
		+
		+	===4. A Democratic Organization for a Democratic Society===
		+
		+	As Students for a Democratic Society, we believe that it has to be up to people themselves to decide what their common life and their society is going to look like, work like and act like. In a society where all power over people's lives has been taken out of their hands and placed in the hands of the few, the rich and the powerful, this may seem like an impossible dream, but it can and must be made a reality.
		+
		+	As Students for a Democratic Society, we demand and practice nothing less than direct democracy in which everyone participates and nobody dominates. We reaffirm liberation movements' historic call for "All power to the people." We reclaim power, in the feminist sense, as "power with," not "power over." People must be free, and have the resources they need, to democratically determine the conditions and shape the possibilities of their lives.
		+
		+	We understand that we cannot really be free until all are free, until the means of a free life belong to everyone. We will therefore fight for autonomy and self-determination, alongside the communities most affected, for all of us who have been systematically denied it: For workers' power in the workplace, for youth and student power in the schools, for empowerment of communities of color, of all genders and sexualities, and for peoples' control over their own lands and the policies that affect them and their own lives.
		+
		+	===5. An Organization That Practices Participatory Democracy===
		+
		+	In SDS, participatory democracy is synonymous with direct democracy. We understand direct and participatory democracy to mean that all members of SDS have a right to meaningful participation in decision-making within their organization.
		+
		+	People have a right to participate in decisions proportionate to the degree they are affected by them. Everyone is encouraged to access channels to decision-making, and those who do access them will be held accountable to the rest of the organization.
		+
		+	We are committed to a process that ensures that all voices get heard. We are committed to setting up our organization in such a way that those with limited time and limited resources can all participate. If our organization is open only to those who can sit in endless meetings, it is not a participatory organization. If our spaces do not nurture diverse voices, they are not democratic spaces. Accountable, recallable delegation can be democratic. Roles and responsibilities can be democratic.
		+
		+	Participatory democracy must be horizontal, empowering, and organized.
		+
		+	===6. An Organization that Values Autonomy and Accountability Among Ourselves===
		+
		+	Autonomy and accountability go hand in hand. Local chapters know their needs and communities best, and they can best respond to their local conditions. We affirm a value of self-determination and self-governance. Autonomy is about building room for local experimentation and diversity.
		+
		+	Autonomy means little, however, without accountability. Without accountability, "autonomy" becomes reactionary. We are an organization because we are stronger together than individually. SDS chapters are accountable to one another and to SDS collectively. Being accountable means consulting with each other and offering positive, constructive critique, in a way that assumes the best about every SDSer. It means respect, and it means compromise for the good of the group. It means approaching one another as allies to build with.
		+
		+	In SDS, we will organize locally according to our own needs and the needs of our communities. At the same time, we will organize them in a way that is conscious of, and contributes to, the larger collective project we are engaged in together as Students for a Democratic Society. We will be accountable to our common goals, values, and commitments. We will be accountable to each other. Only through collective struggle will we win.
		+
		+	==Conclusion==
		+
		+	Beyond our shared visions and principles, we are striving to build a certain culture in SDS. A culture can't be written down on paper and approved at a convention. It must be made every day, every time we interact with each other.
		+
		+	If we really do want to win a new society, and really are committed to long-haul struggle, our organizations and movements must support us as whole people. They must be fun, nurturing, accepting, and positive.
		+
		+	We commit to supporting each other in our work for personal and collective transformation. We will see one another as allies, even when we disagree, and we will work to find common ground. We understand that we are on the same team, one that welcomes debate and dissent, and one that's responsible to itself and to others.
		+
		+	We commit to building mutual support and trust in one another. That can be difficult, but we are up to the task. We recognize that politicization is a process. We know we all come into this organization with different kinds of understanding and experience. We will support each other in this process. We will meet one another where we are, and move forward together.
		+
		+	As Students for a Democratic Society, we will launch a project of renewal and reinvention. We will renew the Left and reinvent the way we organize. We will make our organization useful, accessible and intersectional. We will make our organization relevant to people's lived experiences, easily understood and widely applicable, and aware of the complexity and interconnectedness of peoples' struggles.
		+
		+	We will practice solidarity and work towards freedom and self-determination for communities and peoples. We will strengthen a revolutionary form of unity, from below and to the left, that recognizes our differences and builds our collective power.
		+
		+	Every positive change that appears to come from the powers above actually comes from below, through the struggles of "ordinary" people, writing our own history. We will draw our ink and prepare to write a new history together. Our generation does not have the luxury of cynicism. We do not have a scarcity of imagination. Resisting and rebuilding, remembering and reinventing, we will help make the world anew.

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:56:11 GMT

Binding Principles:

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	==Binding Principles==		==Binding Principles==
	*[[Principles of Unity]]		*[[Principles of Unity]]
-	*[[~~SDS Vision~~ Statement]]	+	*[[Who We Are, What We Are Building]]
		+	*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]

	==SDS News==		==SDS News==

Who We Are, What We Are Building

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:55:56 GMT

Created page with ''''Who We Are, What We Are Building''' This document is the new SDS's vision for the organization. It is a revised and combined version of several vision proposals that were pres...'

New page

'''Who We Are, What We Are Building''' This document is the new SDS's vision for the organization. It is a revised and combined version of several vision proposals that were presented at the new SDS Constitutional Convention, held at Wayne State University in Detroit from the 27th & 30th of July.

=Who We Are, What We Are Building=

===Introduction===

As Students for a Democratic Society, we want to remake a movement - a young left where our struggles can build and sustain a society of justice-making, solidarity, equality, peace and freedom. This demands a broad-based, deep-rooted, and revolutionary transformation of our society. It demands that we build on movements that have come before, and alongside other people's struggles and movements for liberation.

Together, we affirm that another world is possible: A world beyond oppression, beyond domination, beyond war and empire. A world where people have power over their own lives. We believe we stand on the cusp of something new in our generation. We have the potential to take action, organize, and relate to other movements in ways that many of us have never seen before. Something new is also happening in our society: the organized Left, after decades of decline and crisis, is reinventing itself. People in many places and communities are building movements committed to long-haul, revolutionary change.

SDS can play a vital role by redefining the student and youth movement and how it relates to others. Yet we have a choice ahead of us: We can do what has been done before - reinvent the wheel with the same old cycles- or we can build something new together, something informed by our past and grounded in a vision of what the future might look like. We envision the new SDS in the light of the second alternative.

SDS will forge itself through its actions and speak for itself with its own collective voice. In this statement of organizational vision, we want to highlight the most hopeful ideas and practices in SDS, offering a sense of what our organization might be and what it can offer others. The concepts below are building blocks for our organization.

Here, we begin to evoke our visions for the movement we want to make, but that is not enough: As Students for a Democratic Society, we will work to actually bring it about.

==Who We Are==

===We are here to win.===

We really believe we can create a more just society. It is possible, and we can do it - therefore we have a responsibility to do it. Our activism is not simply a matter of "fighting the good fight," or of insularity or purity, but instead is grounded in the day-to-day reality of what it takes to build a movement that can win concrete objectives and ultimately transform society.

===We Are in it for the long haul.===

Realizing that we can win, we think about what it means to be involved in long-haul struggle, and what it really means to do this for life. We believe there is more to a movement than taking to the streets for a day. We are building our power over the long haul. This helps give perspective on our goals and how we achieve them. We think about how we want the movement - and SDS - to look in five years, in ten years, in twenty years. We think about what we need to do now to get there. We will keep our eyes on the prize.

===We are organizers.===

As Students for a Democratic Society, we will dedicate ourselves not just to activism, but to organizing. Activists are people who take action to make change in society. Organizers are activists who also work to bring many other people into movements. They help build organizations and spaces that engage and activate new people.

As organizers, we try to meet people where they are, listen to their concerns, and help to amplify their voices. As organizers, we constantly reach out to new people and build alliances wherever we can. As organizers, we strive to see the big picture - not simply our own viewpoint and agenda. We collectively take responsibility for the direction of our organizations and groups. SDS will build a culture of organizing, in which we are always reaching out to people, working with them, building alliances, and creating empowering spaces to make change together.

===We will be relevant.===

Our actions will be relevant to a context, a community, a target, and a movement. We believe change will be made by many, many people working collectively, not by an elite "vanguard" or a crew of professional activists. Real change is made by mass movements, and we see Students for a Democratic Society as part of a mass movement for social change. We will therefore organize around issues that provide tangible, concrete gains to meet real needs in our campuses and communities.

In order to be relevant and build power, SDS must grow. We have to continually grow in numbers and chapters, as well as in our capacity and the depth and sophistication of our organizing. We will continually reach beyond existing circles, building our base and expanding our scope. We will not allow ourselves to become activist cliques, nor allow our movement to be limited to one culture or subculture.

We seek to be an organization that students and youth from all walks of life can see themselves joining. We seek to build an organization with which groups and communities in struggle can ally themselves. We will strive to be inclusive and accessible.

We will present ourselves and our ideas in a way that captivates the political mainstream, instead of alienating it and marginalizing ourselves. A large majority of young people in our society are ready for change. We will appeal to the positive values already commonly held in our society and demonstrate how they are antithetical to our current system.

To build the movement, it is crucial that we maintain humble and open-minded attitudes. Elitist attitudes discourage new voices and ideas. We take seriously the way activist language, attitudes, and subcultures have been alienating and intimidating and kept us marginal. We can be ourselves while being mindful and attentive to the needs of others in their communities, respectfully, without putting appearances above and beyond the goals of changing society.

===We will be strategic.===

Our actions will be strategic, fitted to a collective purpose, a direction, and a need. Strategy is a lens with which we will approach our organizing. We will have a clear sense of our goals, and evaluate how our actions move us toward them. We will always act with respect to the community and context in which we find ourselves. We will always think about how to build our organization, develop new allies, and support other movements.

Strategic action is not a â€œlineâ€ â€“ not a mandated set of rules, but a shared orientation. Strategic action looks different in different places. Our strategy will guide our tactics â€“ not the other way around. Tactics are like a toolbox. If you are building a house, you need different tools at different times â€“ sometimes you need a hammer, other times you need a screwdriver. But you need those tools to be part of a strategy if you want to build the house. More than any tactic for its own sake, we are committed to strategic action to win our goals.

Ratification Committee

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:41:55 GMT

2007 Detroit Michigan:

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	At the 2007 National Convention, 9 proposals were put up for ratification:		At the 2007 National Convention, 9 proposals were put up for ratification:

-	*Who We Are, What We Are Building	+	*[[Who We Are, What We Are Building]]

-	*Statement on Totalist Politics	+	*[[Statement on Totalist Politics]]

-	*Local Organizers Come First	+	*[[Local Organizers Come First]]

	*[[Principles of Unity]]		*[[Principles of Unity]]

-	*Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities	+	*[[Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities]]

-	*Provisional National Structure	+	*[[Provisional National Structure]]

-	*The Member & The Chapter	+	*[[The Member & The Chapter]]

-	*Communications	+	*[[Communications]]

-	*Creation of an Official SDS News Bulletin	+	*Creation of an Official [[SDS News Bulletin]]

Statement on Totalist Politics

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:35:55 GMT

Statement on Totalist Politics:

New page

The '''Statement on Totalist Politics''' is a vision document which was ratified and passed at the 2007 National SDS Constitutional Convention.

==Statement on Totalist Politics==

'''As Students for a Democratic Society, we hold a commitment to:'''

1. Totalist Politics, meaning, that we commit to understanding and paying serious attention to race, class, gender, sex, sexuality, age, ability, and authority without elevating any but instead recognizing the intrinsic importance of each, and their entwinement, and understanding that we must confront the totality of human oppression;

2. Embodying in the present the values and institutional features we want to see in the future societyâ€“that is, having our organization, structure and practice directly reflect and exemplify to the highest degree possible the change we wish to see in the world;

3. Rejecting either advocating or employing any structures or policies that embody authoritarian, racist, sexist, heterosexist, or classist elements such as hierarchical divisions of labor or authoritarian decision making procedures that structurally elevate some classes or constituencies above others in influence and conditions;

4. Embodying in our organization and working towards in society, the value of participatory self-management whereby everyone has a say in the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent in proportion to the degree to which they are affected;

And, 5. Taking strategy seriously. We are united on the principle that our work should serve to accomplish our goals, strengthen our organization and movements, expand popular democratic control over all aspects of the society at large, and lead us on a path to social transformation, all while prefiguring the world we wish to live in.

Explanation: This document seeks to put issue a concise statement regarding our commitment to combating oppressions in a manner which struggles against each but though doesn't elevate any in terms of "importance". In other words, the point of this document is to state our commitment to combating capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and tyrannical forms of government- and the oppressions that each of them cause, in a manner in which treats each of them with equal seriousness and commitment.

Principles of Unity

BritReed — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:08:55 GMT

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	# '''We want transparency and involvement in community interactions with businesses and other institutions.'''		# '''We want transparency and involvement in community interactions with businesses and other institutions.'''
	# '''We want the end of all wars of aggression, imperialism and the socio-economic and political structures that support and profit from them.'''		# '''We want the end of all wars of aggression, imperialism and the socio-economic and political structures that support and profit from them.'''
-
-	~~=Ratification=~~

Students for a Democratic Society - Recent changes [en]

List of chapters starting up or inactive

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News Archive 2008

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Student Solidarity with Workers & Communities

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Local Organizers Come First

Who We Are, What We Are Building

Table of Contents

Who We Are, What We Are Building

Ratification Committee

Statement on Totalist Politics

Principles of Unity