The website for National Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
October 03, 2018
New SDS joins the call to #CancelKavanaugh 's nomination and for emergency protests this coming Thursday, Oct 4th! We say no to sexual violence and the hatred of women demonstrated by Trump and the Senate Republicans, and we demand that they cancel Kavanaugh's nomination. Protests and actions will turn the tide. Mobilize at a campus near you! View some flyers below made by chapters having actions on Thursday! #IBelieveHer #MeToo #CancelKavanaugh
October 01, 2018
OCTOBER 20th-21st, 2018: 13th ANNUAL SDS CONVENTION
This year's convention is going to be in Salt Lake City. The theme is "Struggle, Solidarity, Strike!"
Register:
To Give a Workshop:
To Table For Your Organization:
We are going to hear from SDSers and community organizers about:
A. Strike Fever! Labor and Student Solidarity, featuring a public school teachers who went on strike in 2017 from the New Jersey Education Association, a rank-and-file trade unionist from the Teamsters Local 222, and a rank-and-file member of AFSCME in the wake of AFSCME vs. Janus.
B. Opposing Police Crimes, Deportations, and War by the Brown Berets in Salt Lake City, the Jacksonville Community Action Committee, and speakers against war and occupation in Palestine.
C. Organizing 101, by new chapters at the U of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and U of North Florida, veteran chapters at the U of Utah and U of Minneapolis, about organizing in a big city, a small town, places with many forces, or places with no other progressive forces.
July 29, 2018
SDS Condemns the Anti-Choice SCOTUS Ruling on California Law (National Institute of Family and Life Advocates vs. Becerra Attorney General of California)
On June 26, 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled against a California law that would have restricted anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers" that notoriously discourage pregnant people, especially women, from getting abortions under the guise of “counseling.” This law would have ensured that these centers inform people about clinics that could provide free or affordable, safe abortions. Instead, the SCOTUS ruled that the centers did not have to provide this life-saving information, as it “violated the First Amendment rights” of the “crisis centers.” SDS views this as the SCOTUS permitting attacks on women and other non-men’s reproductive rights and their ability to control their bodies.
July 19, 2018
SDS CALLS FOR THE REUNION OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES AND LEGALIZATION FOR ALL
The Trump Administration instituted their “zero-tolerance policy” that criminalizes immigration and prosecutes anyone who attempts to cross the border illegally, in hopes to “establish lawfulness” in the immigration system. This means that adults, including asylum seekers running from violence and poverty, are criminally detained then deported. Since then, they have escalated their policies to separate children from their families without a clear and efficient system that would reunite them once criminal proceedings are over. As a result, more than 2,300 minors have been separated from accompanying adults. New Students for a Democratic Society rejects this xenophobic approach to immigration, and we demand the reunion of these families and legalization for all 12 million undocumented immigrants.
After significant push back from people all over the country in the form of protests and media coverage, President Trump signed an executive order that continues to criminally prosecute every person who crosses the border but will allow children to be detained along with their parents on June 20th. This was portrayed as a victory by the media but there is no language detailing how the Department of Homeland Security intends to reunite the children already separated. In fact, all evidence points to the DHS, border enforcement, and ICE detaining both parents and children from now on.
Furthermore, it does not address the root problem: the zero-tolerance policy that criminalizes the poor and vulnerable, and keeps them detained and awaiting trial so that the White House can justify racist laws and discrimination. Additionally, child welfare service companies and private contractors make profit off these detentions.
The Trump administration say that separations and deportations must happen because immigrants cost the US more than they bring in. But this is a lie. Undocumented immigrants do untold, massive amounts of labor in horrible conditions, and big business owners - like the ones who support Trump - reap the profits. By keeping immigrants' status in flux and criminalizing immigration, employers continue these atrocities without accountability. Long-time guest worker programs force undocumented Central American immigrants to work for poverty wages, typically through the H-2b guest worker visas, on farms or "under the table" in restaurants, resorts, or hotels. Many are forced into domestic servitude or work long hours cleaning houses, being poisoned by toxic chemicals. They are not paid as much as other workers, they cannot receive benefits or fair hours, and they cannot receive legal protections from horrific exploitation, abuse, and sexual assault. Ironically, the DHS expanded the H-2B visa program in 2017 while restricting other diversity visas like the H-1B.
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Meanwhile, vulture private contractors receive a cut of the pie. Microsoft has a contract with ICE in order to modernize their tracking technology. Private prison corporations like GeoGroup and Corrections Corporation of America benefit from ICE bed mandates, that require 34,000 detention beds to be available every day. This profitability incentivizes these corporations to lobby for harsher immigration reform, as evident from reports of CCA spending $10,560,000 in quarters where they lobbied on issues related to immigrant detention and immigration reform between 2008 and 2014. Child welfare companies also saw their profits soar from the housing and transportation of these separated children. Much of this includes grant money directly from the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Profits have gone from 74.5 million dollars in 2007 to 958 million in 2017. The program Southwest Key alone has received $1.39 billion in grant funding from the federal government to house the detained children, but were exposed recently for keeping children locked in cages.
On June 26th, a California federal judge ordered the reunion of all minors under 5 years of age to their guardian within 14 days and all minors to be reunited within 30 days. SDS supports this ruling and calls for legalization for all 12 million undocumented immigrants. We want undocumented people to have the ability to drive, purchase housing, go to court to defend themselves against nightmare employers, and to work free of those guest worker programs that perpetuate nightmare conditions. We want the reinstitution of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to continue the education of hundreds of thousands of youth regardless of their immigration status.
We call for a greater opposition to the zero-tolerance policy by the people. This system creates more harm and gives powerful corporations a vested interest in maintaining it additionally calls for greater opposition to the zero-tolerance policy by the people. This system creates more harm and gives powerful corporations a vested interest in maintaining it.
As SDS, we say:
Legalization For All!
Families Belong Together!
End the Deportations!
#nodeportations #legalizationforall #endchilddetention #endfamilydetention #abolishice
After significant push back from people all over the country in the form of protests and media coverage, President Trump signed an executive order that continues to criminally prosecute every person who crosses the border but will allow children to be detained along with their parents on June 20th. This was portrayed as a victory by the media but there is no language detailing how the Department of Homeland Security intends to reunite the children already separated. In fact, all evidence points to the DHS, border enforcement, and ICE detaining both parents and children from now on.
Furthermore, it does not address the root problem: the zero-tolerance policy that criminalizes the poor and vulnerable, and keeps them detained and awaiting trial so that the White House can justify racist laws and discrimination. Additionally, child welfare service companies and private contractors make profit off these detentions.
The Trump administration say that separations and deportations must happen because immigrants cost the US more than they bring in. But this is a lie. Undocumented immigrants do untold, massive amounts of labor in horrible conditions, and big business owners - like the ones who support Trump - reap the profits. By keeping immigrants' status in flux and criminalizing immigration, employers continue these atrocities without accountability. Long-time guest worker programs force undocumented Central American immigrants to work for poverty wages, typically through the H-2b guest worker visas, on farms or "under the table" in restaurants, resorts, or hotels. Many are forced into domestic servitude or work long hours cleaning houses, being poisoned by toxic chemicals. They are not paid as much as other workers, they cannot receive benefits or fair hours, and they cannot receive legal protections from horrific exploitation, abuse, and sexual assault. Ironically, the DHS expanded the H-2B visa program in 2017 while restricting other diversity visas like the H-1B.
'
Meanwhile, vulture private contractors receive a cut of the pie. Microsoft has a contract with ICE in order to modernize their tracking technology. Private prison corporations like GeoGroup and Corrections Corporation of America benefit from ICE bed mandates, that require 34,000 detention beds to be available every day. This profitability incentivizes these corporations to lobby for harsher immigration reform, as evident from reports of CCA spending $10,560,000 in quarters where they lobbied on issues related to immigrant detention and immigration reform between 2008 and 2014. Child welfare companies also saw their profits soar from the housing and transportation of these separated children. Much of this includes grant money directly from the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Profits have gone from 74.5 million dollars in 2007 to 958 million in 2017. The program Southwest Key alone has received $1.39 billion in grant funding from the federal government to house the detained children, but were exposed recently for keeping children locked in cages.
On June 26th, a California federal judge ordered the reunion of all minors under 5 years of age to their guardian within 14 days and all minors to be reunited within 30 days. SDS supports this ruling and calls for legalization for all 12 million undocumented immigrants. We want undocumented people to have the ability to drive, purchase housing, go to court to defend themselves against nightmare employers, and to work free of those guest worker programs that perpetuate nightmare conditions. We want the reinstitution of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to continue the education of hundreds of thousands of youth regardless of their immigration status.
We call for a greater opposition to the zero-tolerance policy by the people. This system creates more harm and gives powerful corporations a vested interest in maintaining it additionally calls for greater opposition to the zero-tolerance policy by the people. This system creates more harm and gives powerful corporations a vested interest in maintaining it.
As SDS, we say:
Legalization For All!
Families Belong Together!
End the Deportations!
#nodeportations #legalizationforall #endchilddetention #endfamilydetention #abolishice
July 02, 2018
SDS SAYS NO TO WAR WITH IRAN
New Students for a Democratic Society says no to war with Iran and no to National Security Advisor to Trump John Bolton’s statements about pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015. SDS also sees the signs of heightening aggression against Iran in further statements by the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and Trump himself, where they threaten war with Iran if Iran were to continue their nuclear program. We want to take a firm stance against this position.
The US and its cronies (namely the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) have continued to pressure Iran for over three decades with some of the most restrictive sanctions in the world. The US’ initial plans for Iran included regime change, but they have been smashed by the strength of the Iranian Revolution. George W. Bush’s claim in January 2002 that Iran was one of three nations that make up a so-called “Axis of Evil” (together with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iraq), opened up a new chapter of escalating tensions between the two sides. Iran’s support for anti-imperialist and counter-hegemonic movements in the Middle East could no longer be tolerated, particularly their ardent defense of Palestine against the apartheid regime of Israel.
The most recent upsurge in regime change rhetoric in respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a particularly new development in US foreign policy. Iran has been a target of US and European imperialism for the better part of the last 70 years. In 1953, the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a US and UK sponsored coup. This illegal action ushered in a 27-year period of dictatorship under the Shah. The popular uprising in 1979 led to the ouster of the US-backed puppet government and the creation of the Islamic Republic as we know it today. This declaration of the self-determination of the Iranian peoples was met from the West by a wave of harsh sanctions aimed at crippling the revolution in its cradle. In addition, the incoming Reagan State Department did everything it could to aid and assist the Iraqi side in the near decade-long Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988. Despite the odds being stacked against it, Iran prevailed in the conflict and remained steadfast in its independent vision for national and regional development. This was and has remained their cardinal sin.
Unfortunately for the US imperialists (monopoly billionaires), direct confrontation with Iran was off the table after a simulation predicted a defeat for the US military in the case of war. Another, possibly more important factor strengthening the case against direct intervention is the fact that Iran controls as much as 35% of the global oil supply transported by sea through the Strait of Hormuz. Much of US foreign oil imports from the other Gulf Coast countries travel through this area. With the ability to shut this down at a moment’s notice, Iran had a powerful strategic deterrent.
As such, the US began devising a way to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. Later in 2002, a British think tank called the Chatham House released a document detailing how the US and its partners could shift its oil reliance away from the Middle East and toward West Africa. (Coincidentally, this was the same year that the terrorist group known as Boko Haram was founded.) A second approach has been adopted along the way involving the small country of Yemen and, more specifically, its control of the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait--an alternative to the path taken by Gulf Coast oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Taking advantage of internal strife, a coalition led by the US and Saudi Arabia began an assault on Yemen in March of 2015. Thanks to the valiant resistance forces in Yemen as well as the utter incompetence of the Saudi military, this plan has yet to bear fruit for the imperialists.
New SDS supports the US staying in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and the G5+1 countries (US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) in 2015 - otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal - due to the lifting of the sanctions on Iran. That said, we recognize that this did not truly signal a cessation of hostilities on the part of the US. Instead, it represented a tactical shift from open hostility to an approach that was more covert and less easily targeted by the anti-war movement. By fomenting public discontent with their government, the US government hoped to push reactionary sections of the people of Iran to topple the revolution, allowing for the establishment of a puppet regime. This is evident in the recent media response to the relatively minor protests that took place in Iran early this year where the coverage largely misrepresented the issues and the response of the Iranian government. In fact, Bolton has recently stated to the press that he wishes for the success of the Mujahedeen Khalq in toppling the Iranian government.
President Trump, true to his campaign promise, has blown apart this sham deal and returned to a more brazenly pro-interventionist bent in relation to Iran. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and Trump’s current attorney, recently let slip that the president is totally committed to regime change in Iran. The reimplementation of strict sanctions against the Iranian economy represent unacceptable steps in an escalation toward war with the Islamic Republic.
SDS stands in total opposition to these and all other attempts made on the part of US and Western imperialists and their political lackies to initiate war with Iran! No new sanctions! No US aggression toward Iran!
The US and its cronies (namely the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) have continued to pressure Iran for over three decades with some of the most restrictive sanctions in the world. The US’ initial plans for Iran included regime change, but they have been smashed by the strength of the Iranian Revolution. George W. Bush’s claim in January 2002 that Iran was one of three nations that make up a so-called “Axis of Evil” (together with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iraq), opened up a new chapter of escalating tensions between the two sides. Iran’s support for anti-imperialist and counter-hegemonic movements in the Middle East could no longer be tolerated, particularly their ardent defense of Palestine against the apartheid regime of Israel.
The most recent upsurge in regime change rhetoric in respect to the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a particularly new development in US foreign policy. Iran has been a target of US and European imperialism for the better part of the last 70 years. In 1953, the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a US and UK sponsored coup. This illegal action ushered in a 27-year period of dictatorship under the Shah. The popular uprising in 1979 led to the ouster of the US-backed puppet government and the creation of the Islamic Republic as we know it today. This declaration of the self-determination of the Iranian peoples was met from the West by a wave of harsh sanctions aimed at crippling the revolution in its cradle. In addition, the incoming Reagan State Department did everything it could to aid and assist the Iraqi side in the near decade-long Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988. Despite the odds being stacked against it, Iran prevailed in the conflict and remained steadfast in its independent vision for national and regional development. This was and has remained their cardinal sin.
Unfortunately for the US imperialists (monopoly billionaires), direct confrontation with Iran was off the table after a simulation predicted a defeat for the US military in the case of war. Another, possibly more important factor strengthening the case against direct intervention is the fact that Iran controls as much as 35% of the global oil supply transported by sea through the Strait of Hormuz. Much of US foreign oil imports from the other Gulf Coast countries travel through this area. With the ability to shut this down at a moment’s notice, Iran had a powerful strategic deterrent.
As such, the US began devising a way to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. Later in 2002, a British think tank called the Chatham House released a document detailing how the US and its partners could shift its oil reliance away from the Middle East and toward West Africa. (Coincidentally, this was the same year that the terrorist group known as Boko Haram was founded.) A second approach has been adopted along the way involving the small country of Yemen and, more specifically, its control of the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandab Strait--an alternative to the path taken by Gulf Coast oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Taking advantage of internal strife, a coalition led by the US and Saudi Arabia began an assault on Yemen in March of 2015. Thanks to the valiant resistance forces in Yemen as well as the utter incompetence of the Saudi military, this plan has yet to bear fruit for the imperialists.
New SDS supports the US staying in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and the G5+1 countries (US, UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany) in 2015 - otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal - due to the lifting of the sanctions on Iran. That said, we recognize that this did not truly signal a cessation of hostilities on the part of the US. Instead, it represented a tactical shift from open hostility to an approach that was more covert and less easily targeted by the anti-war movement. By fomenting public discontent with their government, the US government hoped to push reactionary sections of the people of Iran to topple the revolution, allowing for the establishment of a puppet regime. This is evident in the recent media response to the relatively minor protests that took place in Iran early this year where the coverage largely misrepresented the issues and the response of the Iranian government. In fact, Bolton has recently stated to the press that he wishes for the success of the Mujahedeen Khalq in toppling the Iranian government.
President Trump, true to his campaign promise, has blown apart this sham deal and returned to a more brazenly pro-interventionist bent in relation to Iran. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and Trump’s current attorney, recently let slip that the president is totally committed to regime change in Iran. The reimplementation of strict sanctions against the Iranian economy represent unacceptable steps in an escalation toward war with the Islamic Republic.
SDS stands in total opposition to these and all other attempts made on the part of US and Western imperialists and their political lackies to initiate war with Iran! No new sanctions! No US aggression toward Iran!
March 27, 2018
Students for a Democratic Society Calls for Justice for Stephon Clark
Students for a Democratic Society demands justice for the murder of Stephon Clark by Sacramento Police department. Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot 20 times while he stood in his grandparents’ backyard. Police say he was holding a gun, then they changed their story to say that he was holding a crowbar, before finally it was revealed that he was holding his cell phone. The police also proceed to turn off the audio on their body cameras.
The police have shown that they are not trustworthy. The police shot 20 times; it is absurd that any police officer would be so threatened by a single person that they would need to shoot 20 times. Stephon Clark was a father of two, a one-year-old and a three-year-old. Now two young boys have to live with the murder of their father, a brother has lost a lifelong friend, and a mother has lost her child.
This story is not a new one, as African-American, Latino, and other people of color are frequently killed by the police. Just in 2018 so far, 244 people have been shot and killed by police officers. Disproportionately 25% of them have been African-American despite African-Americans comprising 13% of the US population. In all cases except for a few, those very police walked away with no penalties whatsoever. Justice has been denied so frequently that most people aren’t shocked by this news. Along with the racial discrimination in social and economic institutions (“first fired, last hired” for jobs, being forced to go to more poorly funded schools, etc.), this brutal violence keeps members of these nationalities living in fear, working the poorest jobs, and enduring untold poverty. SDS commends the protesters who marched for days in Sacramento over the weekend and the Sacramento Kings basketball team who demonstrated their support by wearing T-shirts with “#StephonClark” on the backs.
Today we stand with the youth and community members who rally against police crimes and the hundreds of thousands of students in the March for Our Lives Movement saying, “Enough is Enough”. SDS stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Sacramento and calls for an end to police violence and racist gun violence, for the removal of the officers responsible for the murder of Stephon Clark, and for them to be prosecuted for murder. Furthermore, we call for police departments everywhere to be demilitarized and for the formation of civilian police accountability councils, where community members can carry out investigations into police crimes and power can be put into the hands of the people.
The police have shown that they are not trustworthy. The police shot 20 times; it is absurd that any police officer would be so threatened by a single person that they would need to shoot 20 times. Stephon Clark was a father of two, a one-year-old and a three-year-old. Now two young boys have to live with the murder of their father, a brother has lost a lifelong friend, and a mother has lost her child.
This story is not a new one, as African-American, Latino, and other people of color are frequently killed by the police. Just in 2018 so far, 244 people have been shot and killed by police officers. Disproportionately 25% of them have been African-American despite African-Americans comprising 13% of the US population. In all cases except for a few, those very police walked away with no penalties whatsoever. Justice has been denied so frequently that most people aren’t shocked by this news. Along with the racial discrimination in social and economic institutions (“first fired, last hired” for jobs, being forced to go to more poorly funded schools, etc.), this brutal violence keeps members of these nationalities living in fear, working the poorest jobs, and enduring untold poverty. SDS commends the protesters who marched for days in Sacramento over the weekend and the Sacramento Kings basketball team who demonstrated their support by wearing T-shirts with “#StephonClark” on the backs.
Today we stand with the youth and community members who rally against police crimes and the hundreds of thousands of students in the March for Our Lives Movement saying, “Enough is Enough”. SDS stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Sacramento and calls for an end to police violence and racist gun violence, for the removal of the officers responsible for the murder of Stephon Clark, and for them to be prosecuted for murder. Furthermore, we call for police departments everywhere to be demilitarized and for the formation of civilian police accountability councils, where community members can carry out investigations into police crimes and power can be put into the hands of the people.
February 22, 2018
UNF SDS in Jacksonville, Florida, succeeds in getting KKK leader Ken Parker banned from their university, pressuring their administration to create an African American Studies major, and forcing their administration to commit to a plan to increase enrollment of African Americans! #NoHateinOurState #EducationforAll #BlackLivesMatter
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