The Activist

// The Online Magazine of the Young Democratic Socialists //

Archive for the ‘Features’ Category

Let’s Keep This Going

By Chris Maisano • Nov 13th, 2008 • Category: Features

Watching election results by oneself in a hotel room is never a good way to spend an election day. Especially in Ohio in 2004. Unfortunately, that was the situation I found myself in four years ago. At the time, I was working as an organizer with the Service Employees International Union in Ohio. We had […]



Bah! Humbug!

By Adrian Bleifuss Prados • Nov 12th, 2008 • Category: Features, U.S. Politics and Issues

POST-ELECTION STATEMENT FROM COMRADE Q.
Dear Friends,
I regret to inform you that our initiative to encourage Nader voting in so-called “swing states” failed to garner much support from the American working class. Instead, in a terrible defeat for those of us struggling to build a revolutionary alternative to bourgeois politics, a significant majority of middle-to-low-income […]



YDS Chapter Fall Reports

By YDS • Oct 25th, 2008 • Category: Features

YDS Chapter Fall Reports

The dawn of a new academic semester is upon the Young Democratic Socialists. While many of our twenty plus chapters and organizing committees have just begun their activities, The Red Letter was able to catch a few stories of the great work already happening on campus. Please enjoy the mini-reports […]



Report Back From the Socialist International Congress and IUSY Regional in Greece

By Guest Author • Sep 19th, 2008 • Category: Features

Written by former YDS National Organizer, David Duhalde

23rd Socialist International Congress

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the only US member of the Socialist International (SI), an over century old global association of over 150 left-wing and center-left political parties and organizations. I was fortunate be a member of the DSA delegation at […]



Community Organizers Fight Back

By lshapiro • Sep 5th, 2008 • Category: Features

Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah […]



Students of the World Unite

By Nate Nelson • Aug 31st, 2008 • Category: Features

Forty years ago in a social and political climate not unlike our own, Columbia University erupted in student protest. Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) occupied several administrative buildings to protest racial discrimination, the university’s support for the military-industrial complex, and total domination of university governance by corporate administrators. This spark soon ignited a wildfire […]



Joe Biden: The Best the Left Could Hope For

By Nate Nelson • Aug 24th, 2008 • Category: Features

He’s no Bernie Sanders or Dennis Kucinich, but Joe Biden is probably the best
the left could have hoped for Barack Obama to pick as his running mate. A Biden
pick means that the next Democratic White House will be relatively free from
significant influence by the center-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
This would not have been true if […]



Report Back: YDS Socialist Summer Retreat

By YDS • Aug 22nd, 2008 • Category: Features

Picture Gallery from the Retreat
The 2008 Socialist Summer Retreat held between August 8th and 10th in Wurtsboro, New York exemplified the resounding success of the work YDS and its activists have done over the past two years. Forty-five youth and students participated from places as far away as Colorado, Nevada, and Texas, including delegations of […]



A Story From a Small Bar in Ohio

By Guest Author • Aug 14th, 2008 • Category: Features

This summer I have had the “opportunity” to bartend at a small, corner bar in a rural, Ohio town.  It’s a nice little place – the kind of place where a reference to “regulars” and “patrons” can be assumed as synonymous.  It’s dark and usually quite, decorated with mask-donning mannequin heads, a cash register from […]



Democratic Socialist Solidarity and the Farm Workers’ Struggles

By Guest Author • Jul 25th, 2008 • Category: Features

Democratic Socialist Solidarity and the Farm Workers’ Struggles

The ties between American democratic socialism and the struggles of farm workers have existed for over a century. Since the founding of the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1901, democratic socialist ideals have been often found at the root of farm workers’ struggles. The Socialist Party […]