Yesterday, Thursday, May 22, the De Anza student body Elections Committee confirmed a financial grievance against the United Students Coalition.

In filling out their election campaign budget report, USC made a mistake and left $3 out of their financial assessment.

The elections committee ruled that this constituted “premeditated” theft of school funds and plan to punish USC by discarding 10% of votes cast for them.

A 3% victory is considered a “landslide” in DASB elections. No candidate has ever beaten another by more than 5%. The discarding of 10% of USC’s votes is therefore an effective disqualification from the race.

The De Anza Student Senate is supposed to be modeled on the United States Congress and other republican forms of administration. However, when American candidates, or candidates in other countries, are convicted of electoral fraud, they are punished financially or criminally. No one has ever had an arbitrary number of their votes discounted, because that would be completely undemocratic. This decision by the DASB Election Committee is a slap in the face to everyone who voted in the recent DASB elections, for USC or any other candidate or bloc.

We have one more chance to appeal to overturn this decision. Students for Justice entreats any and all De Anza students to attend the Senate meeting this Wednesday, May 28, at 3:00 PM, in the De Anza Senate Hall (which is in the bottom floor of the Campus Center, better known as the cafeteria building) to stand in protest against this ludicrous, undemocratic maneuver. We will be making signs ahead of time, at a time and place to be posted here when it is decided. Everyone is invited to make their own signs, too! Please stand with us!

De Anza on Thursday, May 1st will be the site of a rally with campus workers, student artists and speakers, faculty members, a guest DJ and an open mic. We will be gathering at 10:50 AM around the L Quad fountain. Those of us who are able will then bus/carpool to downtown San Jose for the annual march, which is at 3:00 (we’ll be leaving campus at 2:00). We demand an end to the slave-like “illegal” status of millions of American workers, to the occupations of foreign countries, the rape of the environment, economic attacks on students and workers, ethnic cleansing in New Orleans, and the brutalization of poor people in the United States.

We invite any and all students, faculty, staff and community members to join us and let their voices be heard. If you, your club, union or some other organization would like to speak/perform at the rally at De Anza, please contact us on this website so we can get you on the lineup!

Get your class to march and stand in solidarity with us! Bring your friends! Help us publicize and organize this event! Join Students for Justice!

History of International Workers’ Day:
On Tuesday May 4th 1886, the fourth day of a strike for the eight-hour day which had begun May 1st, Chicago police attempted to disperse a crowd of striking workers. Police spies planned to set off a bomb and blame it on the strikers, but they clumsily set off the explosives early and one of them was killed. The police then began firing wildly into the crowd, many of them accidentally shooting each other. Seven police officers and an unknown number of civilians were killed, almost all of them by police bullets.

The violence was blamed on eight anarchists who had organized the rally. None of them were linked to the bombing or violence, but since they believed in a revolution, four of them were executed by hanging - for thought crimes.

Since then, May 1st has been a day of international protest by the workers’ movement in order to demand workers’ rights, workers’ power, and an end to imperialist wars. It became almost forgotten in the USA, the country of its origin, for some time, and was replaced by “Labor Day” so as to cut US workers off from our brothers and sisters around the world.

Thanks to the efforts of the immigrants’ rights movement and rank-and-file union workers, May Day is finally making a comeback in the United States!

As we enter into the fifth year of the illegal occupation of Iraq, faced with the loss of almost 4,000 US soldiers and many times more Iraqi civilians, not to mention $3,100,000,000 of our money. We are told by our corporate-backed political leaders that we must spread “democracy” to the farthest corner of the globe: a cruel joke to anyone who has witnessed the police terrorism of our “republican” government. Meanwhile healthcare, education, and our democratic freedoms have taken a backseat to the racist War on Terror, which has, even in the words of many conservative pundits and and government officials, ruined the reputation of the United States and strengthened fundamentalism in the Islamic world. It is in these conditions that a coalition including De Anza Students for Justice, other progressive clubs and like-minded students and activists, has decided to enact a student walkout against the war. Join us at 11:45 AM between the Multicultural Center (MCC) and new building construction site, near Parking Lot B. The march will end at around 12:30 in the Main Quad for a series of musical and artistic performances, student speakers and an open mic.

Students for Justice is excited to be working with South Bay Mobilization in bringing journalist, media critic, and antiwar activist Norman Solomon to De Anza. As an anti-war activist, Solomon was arrested with De Anza instructor Rich Wood in 1984 for obstructing railroad tracks in Vancouver, Washington, in order to block a train carrying U.S. Department of Energy cargo bound for the U.S. Naval submarine base in Bangor, Washington. As a media analyst, Solomon has been a longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), and also the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts which works pro-actively to provide alternative sources for journalists.

Thursday February 28th at 6:30 pm
Conference Room A in the De Anza College Campus Center (See campus map)

We will be protesting the new military Recruitment Center, known as the “U.S. Armed Forces Career Center,” in Mountain View. Please bring your own anti-war/counterrecruitment signs if possible.

This event is sponsored by the Raging Grannies Action League, who will hold street theater entitled “Raging Granny Career Advisors.”

Friday, February 15th from noon to 1 pm
Location: New Military Recruitment Center,
Corner of El Camino Real & Grant Road
Mountain View, CA