Our new meeting times will on Tuesdays from 12:30 till 1:30 in the Santa Cruz Room.

The Santa Cruz room is located in the Campus Center. Here is a map of the campus: http://deanza.edu/map/

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!

SFJ has voted unanimously to endorse the United Students Coalition in their bid for De Anza’s Student Body government.

This was not an easy decision, as many of us have friends in the other electoral blocs. But we are convinced that United Students is the most diverse, will be the most accountable to student opinion, and act most diligently to change things for the benefit of students and workers, out of the available choices. Our confidence in them is not based on the showmanship of their campaign, but a longstanding working relationship in which they have proved themselves as capable and democratic leaders.

DASB was once a progressive force through which students were empowered and positive changes at De Anza accomplished. Without the past alliance of SFJ, MSA and MEChA in DASB, the Intercultural Studies Department might no longer exist. In the past couple years, however, due to the lull in activity by the progressive clubs, student empowerment through DASB has not been the case - student government has been dominated by business majors, motivated primarily by the chance to get a nice position on their transfer applications, and they have squandered the student government’s $1 million annual budget. The United Students, on the other hand, have a sincere desire to improve student life at De Anza College by putting their time and the school budget to the service of the student body as a whole.

Please take a moment out of your time this week (Monday, May 12th-Friday, May 16th) to vote for all of the United Students candidates during DASB elections. The stakes are high - this vote will determine whether we have an activist or a self-interested DASB for the entire next year!

The slate is as follows:

#3 David Hinault - President

#3 Yoon Minn Lai - Executive Vice President

Patrick Ahrens - Student Trustee

#20 Mohammad Shirazi - VP of Diversity and Events

#27 Anna Shevchenko - VP of Student Services

#17 Alan Okida - VP of Marketing

#7 Roger Arce - VP of Budget and Finance

#15 Robin Claasen - VP of Administration

#12 Andrei Fomenko - VP of Student Rights

#46 Amir Pourshafiee - Senator

#30 Emma Cruz-Montoya - Senator

#45 Jeff Noon - Senator

#37 Vijay Veeramachaneni - Senator

WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

The politics of community service in the US

By Nancy Hanover
4 August 2008

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“Under Socialism all this will, of course, be altered. There will be no people living in fetid dens and fetid rags, and bringing up unhealthy, hunger-pinched children in the midst of impossible and absolutely repulsive surroundings. … Socialism, Communism, or whatever one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and ensure the material well-being of each member of the community….” (Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism)

Americans live in increasingly troubled times. Hunger, foreclosures and poverty are all around. Begging on city streets, a phenomenon that became much less common in the 1990s, is again becoming ubiquitous in urban centers. Not since the Great Depression has the gap between the rich and the poor been so visible and extreme.

The growing poverty and inequality has been fueled in part by the decay and virtual collapse of the labor movement, which has left working people almost powerless in the face of the onslaught on living standards and social conditions.

Social and political stability requires that the political establishment at least feign concern with these social problems, however. The mass media, schools and other institutions have campaigned for increased charitable giving and volunteer efforts to help the growing number of “disadvantaged.”

Young people in particular have been targeted for enlistment in volunteerism. With little or no political experience or historical frame of reference, they are told that they can make a difference one good deed at a time. To further encourage this outlook, community service has in many cases become a requirement for high school graduation, while many colleges and universities give substantial weight to hours of service in their decisions on admissions. Community service centers have been added to university student affairs divisions to meet the demand for placement, and many graduates, unable to find jobs, sign up for a year or two of government-sponsored volunteer work. Read the rest of this entry »

An article recommended by Rich Wood about Youth Activism.

Here is a short excerpt:

I just got back from a two-week campus speaking tour during which I had the privilege of hanging out in a women’s center at a Catholic college, eating bad Mexican food with Mennonite feminists, and chatting with aspiring writers and activists at a college in which half the students are the first in their families to experience higher education. I heard the stories of transgender youth in Kansas City, jocks with food addictions in Jacksonville, and student organizers who are too overwhelmed to address all the world’s problems in Connecticut.

When my plane finally landed with a resounding bump at LaGuardia, I felt totally inspired by the earnest enthusiasm that beamed out of almost every student I encountered — and also terrified that the university system is sucking the life out of them. At the risk of biting the hand that feeds me (I am usually paid to speak, in part, by student organizations and women’s centers), I have to attest that the institutionalization of activism on college campuses seems to be a key culprit in the absence of visible youth movements in this country.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/20/5339/

10 Days That Shook Olympia

For 10 days, anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington have slowed down and for two different periods of 12 hours or more, stopped the flow of military weapons and military cargo that were unloaded from a Navy ship that had returned from Iraq. For 24 hours a day, we have used a variety of tactics and actions. They have included sitting in front of trucks carrying Stryker vehicles and other military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia, building barricades on the roads where these military vehicles were traveling, anti-war demonstrations through the streets of Olympia and vigils, downtown. A hearing was held at City Hall, last Sunday, November 11th, 2007 to document the excessive police force used against people who participated in these actions. We testified at the Olympia City Council and at a hearing of the elected Port Commissioners demanding that they take a stand opposing the U.S. war against Iraq by not letting our Port be used to transport war supplies. About 500 people have taken part in some or all of these protests.

From http://www.counterpunch.com/bohmer11152007.html

Peter Bohmer has been opposing the imperial actions of the United States since the 1960s. He is a longtime member of the faculty at The Evergreen state College in Olympia, WA

Read the rest to see the youtube links!
Read the rest of this entry »