Help grow Rebel Youth magazine

Dear friends and comrades,

By now many of you will have seen a copy of the new issue of Rebel Youth magazine. Lot's of positive feedback has been streaming in from around the country as Clubs begin the important work of distribution. This is the eighth issue of Rebel Youth that we have published, and we are proud to say that our magazine is continuing to improve as is the level of participation from YCL members and friends in the process of producing the magazine. This issue carries lots of really great content including coverage of the coup in Honduras, socialist democracy in Cuba, the struggles of young workers and students around Canada, and more.

Rebel Youth is starting to become more and more well known amongst progressive youth. With our goal of new issue to be released in January, and a fast approaching December 1st submission deadline, we have a two-fold task in front of us in the coming month.

First of all, it's time to distribute and aggressively promote Rebel Youth. YCL Clubs around the country will be busily ensuring that Rebel Youth gets into the hands of rebel youths. This issue should also be the issue that really starts to build our subscription base in a significant way, an absolute necessity in the process to building Rebel Youth into a regular and self-sustaining publication. You can help too!

We ask our members, friends, and supporters to purchase a subscription to Rebel Youth. It's only $12 for one year and every cent helps us to ensure the continued and improved publication of the magazine. Please consider how you, or your Club, can help. Do you have a subscription? Have you sold any subscriptions?

Fundraisers are another great way to raise money for Rebel Youth. You might
be surprised how many people will help us publish Rebel Youth if given the opportunity. It doesn't have to mean renting a hall and holding a huge event, even small events and small amounts raised make a difference.

Secondly, there is no time to lose in preparing content for the next issue. The YCL is in the process of creating and seeking out content for issue number nine. The deadline for content submissions is December 1st which will leave just over one month for proofreading, editing, layout and printing. All of these can be time consuming so it is very important that content is submitted on time in order for us to stay on track!

Content can include articles on local, provincial, federal, national or international issues. You can submit cultural content or reviews of music, movies, books etc. as well as art, poetry, letters to the editor, you name it. Write while you fight! YCL Clubs should discussion what they can do to make this coming issue an success. But it's not limited to members, we welcome the submissions of all our readers. Send your submissions to rebelyouth@ycl-ljc.ca

With issues eight and nine we are building on the frequency of the magazines publication. It's up to all of us to continue to drive this process forward by distributing and raising the profile of the magazine, raising the funds, collecting the subscriptions and contributing to the collective process of creating and publishing the magazine.

Another way to help Rebel Youth magazine is to read and promote the Rebel Youth blog, which contains a wealth of great, frequently updated content. The blog's readership is growing and you can help! It can be as simple as posting a story on the blog to your Facebook profile. Check out the Rebel Youth blog at http://www.rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.com/

Rebel Youth is Canada's only Marxist-Leninist, pan-Canadian, bi-lingual,
youth and student magazine. Whether you are a YCL member, a subscriber or frequent reader, or a fellow activist, we look forward to hearing from you and invite you to help us build the magazine that fights for peace, jobs, education, and socialism on every page and in every issue!

In solidarity,

Stephen Von Sychowski
Rebel Youth Content Editor

Demand Climate Action

1. IN THE NEWS: Activists demand climate action
2. YCL IN MOTION
3. INTERNATIONAL
4. RY BLOG: Highlights

ACTIVISTS DEMAND CLIMATE ACTION
Al Jazeera English
Oct. 25, 2009

Thousands of people have gathered for protests in more than 180
countries, calling for international action to curb the emissions
causing global warming. The International Day of Climate Action
focused on the number 350, referring to 350 parts per million (ppm) of
CO2 in the atmosphere which some scientists say must not be exceeded
to avoid runaway global warming.

Read more: http://tinyurl.com/yjyy6m6

1. Why are people around the world rallying around a scientific
data-point? Do you think debate around climate change has shifted in
the past five to ten years? How or how not?
2. The article notes that “industrialized” countries are not willing
to establish ambitious targets. Many commentators in the corporate
media however point to China and India’s economies as the emerging
culprit for global warming. What do you think?
3. Is climate change related to imperialism? What is at stake for
working people?

YCL IN MOTION

YCLers in BC have been busy postering up a storm and making new
recruits in Kamloops and Prince George. The YCL is also active
supporting a fledgling youth committee for the local anti-war
coalition, including promoting and participating in a conference
organized by the World Peace Forum in Vancouver.

YCLers in Ontario are starting planning on a November Young Worker’s
conference in Hamilton at Solidarity House. Proposed topics include
the situation of young workers across Canada and Internationally,
struggles of the unemployed, and the Communists in the Labour
movement.

INTERNATIONAL

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to US President Obama has produced
commentary from many peoples. We present here links to the World
Federation of Democratic Youth’s statement
(http://tinyurl.com/yhxfe9w) and commentary by Fidel
(http://tinyurl.com/yjcgded).

The YCL-LJC news bulletin will be carrying announcements about the
meeting of Worker’s and Communist Parties in New Delhi next month.
Miguel Figueroa, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, will be
attending the meeting which is to examine “The international
capitalist crisis, the workers’ and peoples’ struggle, the
alternatives and the role of the communist and working class
movement."

RY BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

1. Special focus on Honduras

The Honduran coup regime has hires the services of Chlopak, Leonard,
Schechter & Associates, a Washington DC based public relations firm,
to clean up its image.

http://tinyurl.com/ry-honduras

2. The spirit of Hip Hop thrives in Cuba

Loud chunks of laughter are erupting from around the theatre. The
music is blaring hard and heavy, and every track is received like an
anthem — hands are thrown into the air and girls stand on bench seats
to dance…

http://tinyurl.com/ry-cuba

3. Campaign to free Ahmad Saadat:

As actions across Palestine and around the world in support of
imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat continue, the
illegitimate Israeli occupation military court in Bir Saba today
extended Sa'adat's isolation for six additional months.

http://tinyurl.com/ry-saadat

Access to education is our right

DROP FEES, RAISE WAGES
UNITE AND FIGHT!

YCL Toronto, Oct. 09

Maybe you are a student in high school worried about the cost of college or a trade. Perhaps you’re a young single parent anxious about rising student debt and the future for your child. You could be a second-year university student, angered by your loans disappearing into ridiculously over-priced books, a recent grad getting collection agency calls, or a young worker blocked from education by low wages or layoffs.

We live in a very rich country. But tens of millions of people are struggling against an economic crisis we didn’t make, while our right of access to post-secondary education is stolen.

Fewer and fewer people can afford post-secondary education -- and unless we rise up in a bold, united campaign we'll get a dangerously worsening deal. A major think tank recently said universities should raise fees by 25%, under the pretext of the recession. Some University Presidents (like at UofT) openly call for fee deregulation, mass privatization and reduced access, reflecting big business’ view, provincial governments, and the Harper Conservatives: US-style education, for rich kids only.

Despite the economic crisis, most corporations are posting huge profits. Meanwhile, prices keep rising -- tuition 4x faster than inflation. Wages don't keep up. Not one penny of bail-out money has been called back, but government wages a dirty campaign demanding industrial and unionized workers surrender hard-fought pension and wage gains.

The growing gap between the rich and the poor exposes a class system, rotten with racism and sexism, where tuition fees are yet another user fee on a service that should be free.

MYTHS & FACTS

"Students can afford to pay more."

Fewer youth are going to school because of rising fees. A Sept 09 report described "pools" of working class high school students who can't go to college. Money is the main barrier to access.

"We can't afford to reduce fees."

It is a question of priorities. The imperialist and war in Afghanistan, rejected by Canadians, has a 20 bil. price tag. Cut military spending in half! Troops out now! Reverse the steady reduction of corporate taxes and raise business tax (students in BC will soon pay more in tuition than corporations pay in tax). And nationalizing Canada's energy industry could eliminate all fees and pay for accessible public child care.

"Education is a privilege"

This is a snobs argument. The UN Declaration of Human Rights says education is a right and should be free where countries can afford it (and it is in capitalist Norway and socialist Cuba). That right cannot be denied us.

"Let the market decide"

That means putting the decision into the hands of big business. The economic crisis shows the market has failed. Corporations need an educated workforce but they don't want to pay for it. Nor do they need everyone to be educated: for example all this talk of "cheapening" or "inflation" of degrees is the capitalist class talking about their agenda. Education is not a commodity.

"Campaigning won't do anything"
Students in Quebec blocked an aggressive attack on access in 2005 through mass action united with labour. The history of tuition fee reductions (like in Newfoundland today) is a tale of protests and petitions. Struggle is the only way forward and it needs *you* to be strong, broad, diverse, and militant enough to win.


DROP FEES – RAISE WAGES

The YCL supports the CFS reduce or Drop-Fees campaigns. Today, over a million are unemployed. Youth unemployment is a record 20 per cent. Few can get Employment Insurance. Comprehensive policies based on people’s needs not corporate greed are urgent: raising minimum wage (we say to $16!), EI access (eliminating all barriers, covering everyone for the full duration of unemployment at 90% of former earnings) and jobs (ie. a green industrial plan & plant closure legislation with teeth, massive affordable housing and infrastructure construction). Access to education from cradle to grave is a universal fight, a fight for equity and anti-racist campaigners, for the women's movement, and for our class, the working class. We can't limit the battleground to campus.

Across the country students are fighting with allies to reduce tuition. These are serious and genuine efforts. It needs you to grow, to make our sentiment for lower fees resonate with government. We can't just lobby. There must be an expanding and broadening fight back and tactics moving the most people forward – assemblies, more demos, sit ins, or walk outs.

LIFT THE CAP NOW!

Racist policies against Aboriginal students hurt the entire movement. Education is a human right – and for First Nations a treaty right. But in ‘96 the Federal government imposed a 2% cap on all basic core services funding increases breaking the Treaties. Rising numbers of Aboriginal youth seek degrees. 50%+ of the aboriginal population is under 25. There are long waiting lists for First Nations youth to attend post-secondary; non-status and Metis people don’t get any funding, while facing the same racism. We must lift the cap (and take emergency action to improve Aboriginal peoples social & economic conditions; full recognition of sovereignty and self-determination for aboriginal nations.)

ELIMINATE FEES: THE YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE’S CAMPAIGN

To really win advances in favour of students and all the working people, we need to drop fees altogether, create a system of grants, and abolish loans and all student debt. This international fight has seen encouraging developments in Germany, South Africa, and across Latin America just this year.

We must also expel corporate profiteers and the military from our campuses -- directing research towards benefit of peace and people’s needs, not profit.

And we need to guarantee the right of students to organize without interference -- contrary to the escalating dangerous attack on student unions, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Public Interest Research Groups, and Palestinian solidarity groups orchestrated by the Harper Conservatives, in collusion with top various university administrators, and the police, sometimes bringing in unwarranted and heavy-handed disciplinary and legal charges against activists.)

Lobbying and November’s mass demo can and should grow into a bold, broad, united mass struggle brining the pressure of all youth, parents, trade unionists against the government, and powerful big business. Through united, militant struggle, bigger demands can be won.

ABOUT THE YCL

As capitalism enters another dangerous time of crisis the demand for a better alternative that puts people and the environment before profits is echoing around the world. Now is the time to join the fight back!

The Young Communist League – la Ligue de la Jeunesse Communiste is Canada’s oldest organization of revolutionary youth. Formed in 1923, we struggled against the Great Depression, sent brigades to the Spanish civil war, resisted the cold war, and rallied for peace and nuclear disarmament. We fought racism, sexism, homophobia. We helped build today’s student movement.

Today, the YCL-LJC is made up of school and community clubs across the country, including Quebec, campaigning for immediate anti-war and pro-youth policies. We publish Rebel Youth Magazine three-times a year, and members of the Canadian Peace Congress, Canadian Network on Cuba, and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. We fight for real change and for socialism.

Economic Recovery? LOL!

1. IN THE NEWS: ECONOMIC RECOVERY?
2. YCL IN ACTION
3. INTERNATIONAL
4. RY BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

Please note that we have recently had a virus hit our email list. This
has been a one-time problem and we are investigating it with google
groups. Please disregard messages not sent from the YCL-LJC.

1. ECONOMIC RECOVERY? FOR WHOM?

Sam Hammond, Peoples Voice

It used to be in earlier society that a cobbler made shoes. After the
rise of capitalism with its class exploitation, relations of
production and market competition, the manufacture of shoes occupies
thousands of people. This is because capital, in its drive to cheapen
production costs and dominate markets, accelerates a division of
labour into smaller and smaller units, each with lesser but more
specialized skills. In turn, this accelerates the competition of
labour, the competition between workers, especially in an environment
where there are large pools of surplus labour (the unemployed) banging
at the doors of workplaces and offering cheaper rates than those
already inside. It is precisely this phenomenon that drives capital to
cheapen labour and create unemployment.

Read more: tinyurl.com/y9ecyah

For discussion:

1. Do you think the economy is getting better? How is the "recovery"
impacting you and your friends?
2. What do you think of the claim that rising unemployment and
recovery can co-exist? Does it make sense? why or why not?
3. The article ends: "As a class, what do we need to resist and
maintain ourselves? Competition or co-operation? Cannibalism, raiding
and exclusion, or unity and inclusion" That is the question that begs
for a debate. What do you think?"

2. YCL IN ACTION

YCLers in British Columbia have been joining the protests against the
HST - Harmonized Sales Tax - which will unfairly make working people
pay more for goods and services. The YCL has issued a statement which
is on the ycl-ljc.blogspot.com site.

The LJC-Q is now out on the streets selling copies of Jeuness
Militante, which has now published its second issue. Check out a copy
online: http://yclljc-magazine.blogspot.com/

Members of the YCL Ontario are getting ready for the 2nd Tri-lateral
peace conference, bringing together delegates from Mexico, Canada,
Cuba and the United States. The conference is taking place Oct. 2-4th
in Toronto. The slogan is Unity for Peace, solidarity, sovereignty,
and the rights of working people. Because of the important speakers
and travel costs, the conference fee is quite high -- but join the YCL
delegation, help out in the kitchen, and get in for the price of a
donation! All progressive youth welcome. For more details see:
http://www.canadianpeacecongress.ca/upload/Trilateral%20Registration.pdf
Last week Rebel Youth magazine went to the printers. The plates were
burnt this week and by next week copies will have arrived in Vancouver
and Toronto for cross-Canada distribution!

3. INTERNATIONAL

Read three statements by the World Federation of Democratic Youth
about the situation of the young communists in Jordan, the Philippines
and Bahrain: http://ycl-ljc.blogspot.com/

4. RY BLOG HIGHLIGHTS

- Fast way to pressure the Canadian government on Honduras
- Free Mohamed Now! (Palestine prisoner solidarity)
- Remembering Antonio Agostinho Neto, Angolan Patriot