Kick-ass Ontario YCL School

1. YCL IN ACTION
2. SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE
3. REBEL YOUTH - DELAY
4. ALERT: IWD
5. DEMONSTRATE FOR PEACE

1. YCL IN ACTION: KICK-ASS ONTARIO YCL SCHOOL

About twenty students and young workers, employed and unemployed, came to Hamilton's Solidarity house from Oshawa, Toronto, Guelph, Kitchener, Burlington, Hamilton, and Niagara to spent a day and a half reading, discussing and debating ideas about youth and revolutionary struggle today.

Highlights:

- Sessions on: the financial crisis, dialectics, revolution, and racism/sexism/homophobia
- Good debates and discussions about politics and the youth movement
- Great food, good movies!
- at the end of the school, the YCL had six new members!

An article will appear in the next issue of PV. Read more and see photos:

http://ycl-ljc-activists.googlegroups.com/web/YCL%20School%20a%20succ...

2. WFDY SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE

In the coming week, between February 22 and March 1, the World Federation of Democratic Youth and several of its member organizations will once again be visiting Palestine. At the same time WFDY will visit Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, with the purpose of meeting the Palestinian people that live in Refugee Camps. The visit aims to contact with the suffering youth of the occupied lands of Palestine, in Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus, expressing the anti-imperialist youth’s solidarity towards the brave struggle that the Palestinian youth faces everyday, not only in the sieged, bombed and destroyed Gaza, but all over the Palestinian territories.

Read more WFDY news:
http://www.wfdy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/wfdy-news-jan_feb-2009...

3. REBEL YOUTH – DELAY

Because of a number of politically important events happening at the same time with the YCL (and some delay in getting final edits from writers) RY magazine publication has been delayed. Our original goal was December-January. We are currently looking at late Feburary-March as we plan to get the magazine out of the printers within the next two weeks. Thank you again to all the writers who have contributed to the magazine. The challenge is on to start your distribution motors locally and get ready for the issues arriving in the mail by mid-March.

4. INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

International Women’s Day is coming up soon! The YCL will be sending greetings of solidarity to the women’s movement and all who resist exploitation, oppression, violence and war. This will be a significant date of political importance.

Now is the time to google “International Women’s Day + [your community]” and see what actions you and your YCL club can join!

For almost a century, IWD has been a day to unite and mobilize for the right to vote, reproductive choice, labour rights, protections against violence, improved social programs, and opposition to homophobia, racism and xenophobia. But today, decades of hard-won gains are under
fire from profit-hungry corporations, reactionary fundamentalist groups, and right-wing governments. The defense of women's equality rights is an essential part of the struggle to stop the Harper Tory/corporate attack on working people and to defeat the Harper government at the polls.

5. APRIL 4: DEMONSTRATE FOR PEACE!

Canada and NATO out of Afghanistan

Worldwide demonstrations during the NATO Summit

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will mark its 60th anniversary on April 4 and 5, 2009. At the same time, demonstrations will take place all over the world calling for an end to NATO’s war in Afghanistan. The Canadian Peace Alliance and the Collectif Échec à la
guerre are calling for pan-Canadian demonstrations on April 4 to demand an end to the NATO-led occupation that has already killed thousands of Afghan civilians and threatens to bring war to the entire region.

Read More: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/en/April42009.html

A time of sharpening struggles

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. YCL IN ACTION
2. NEW WFDY SITE
3. CC OF CP: A TIME OF SHARP STRUGGLES

1. YCL IN ACTION

YCLers in Ontario are planning a school in Hamilton this Friday-Saturday, Jan. 20-21 covering topics including an introduction to Marxism, youth struggles and the Financial Crisis. For more information, email ycl.onta...@gmail.com

YCLers in Winnipeg recently interviewed student activists about the fight for lower tuition fees in Manitoba. Read their story here:

http://rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.com/2009/02/student-action-federa...

Several YCL members of the Trail BC club are also members of a Death Metal Band (!!) called Domination Obliteration. They have been fundraising for the YCL by selling Rebel Youth and donating $1 of every CD sold to the YCL! Even if you don't like death metal, support them by joining there facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Domination-Obliteration/23381027342?ref=mf

2. NEW WFDY SITE

The World Federation of Democratic Youth, of which the YCL-LJC is a member, has released a new and flashy site, includes statements, a map of all member organizations, and the October, November, and December WFDY newsletters featuring short updates from revolutionary, anti-imperialist youth in southern Africa, Egypt, India, China, Bolivia, Venzuela, Nepal, Greece, Jordan and Palestine. Check it out at www.WFDY.org

3. CP ON FINANCIAL CRISIS

For the first time since the financial crisis broke, the Central Committee of the Communist Party gathered in Toronto recently. A wide-ranging political report was adopted which is now available on the site our Google group. Highlights include:

(*) The coming year will be a time of sharp challenges for the working class, and tremendous new opportunities to build the Communist movement.

(*) The present downturn is not "just another cyclical crisis." "What
distinguishes the current crisis from previous [is the] the role of speculative capital."

(*) "What unites the ruling class is the desire to overcome the crisis at the expense of the working class."

(*) This is happening directly through lowering the cost (price) of labour, the principal target of which is the organized labour movement...

(*) …And indirectly, through the use of public revenues (the bulk of which come from the pockets of working people) to insulate investors from losses and prop up sagging profits.

(*) For the working class, "neither prescription is acceptable. With respect to so-called `stimulation' financed by public revenues and/or deficits, the issue is not `stimulation' as such, but rather what types of stimulation, whose interests they serve."

(*) The report was sharply critical of the tendency by some labour and social democratic leaders to yield concessions rather than to mobilize for a stronger fight-back:

(*) For example, NDP leader Jack Layton, speaking to the Toronto Board of Trade in January said "It's that courage of the Canadian people which makes our country strong... It's that kind of courage workers will need to take a pay cut so your friends at the plant can keep their job."

(*) On the contrary, said CPC Leader Miguel Figueroa, "Canadian workers need to replicate the examples set recently in Europe where millions have taken to the streets across Greece, France, Germany and elsewhere with one unifying message: `We did not create this economic crisis, and we're not going to pay for it!'"

For more, check out:

http://groups.google.ca/group/ycl-ljc-activists/files
and download "CC Report - 2009-02.pdf"