YCL events this month

1. Red Star Club discussion of Provincial Convention documents
2. 17th WFYS meeting
3. Historical Materialism Pt. 2 - CHANGED DATE!
4. YCL BC Summer Camp
5. Strike solidarity
6. Slam the Gate on the G8
7. Left Film Night: Plunder, The Crime of Our Time


1. Red Star Club discussion of Provincial Convention documents - TONIGHT

The Vancouver YCL (Red Star Club) will meet on June 21st to discuss the documents of the upcoming Provincial Convention which will be held on July 30th.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126087964092238

Convention Documents: http://www.ycl-ljc.ca/images/bcconvention2010/bulletin1.pdf

Facebook Convention event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109441745747202

2. 17th WFYS meeting

The 17th World Festival of Youth and Students will be held this December 13-21 in Pretoria, South Africa!

The World Festival of Youth and Students is the biggest gathering of anti-imperialist youth in the world. It is organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students. The last festival brought together over 16,000 youth for a week of workshops, forums, cultural performances, music festivals, and more.

The second meeting of the Vancouver Festival Preparatory Committee will be on June 24th, 7pm, at 706 Clark. Dr.

If you are interested in attending the 17th World Festival of Youth and Students this December in South Africa, please attend, or contact us for more information.

3. Historical Materialism Pt. 2

Part two of our study groups on historical materialism will be June 25th at 7pm at the Centre for Socialist Education (706 Clark Dr.). If you couldn't make it to part one, fear not, you can still join us for part two and get caught up. Reading material will be Historical Materialism by Maurice Cornforth.

Read Historical Materialism for free online: http://leninist.biz/en/1971/HM147/index.html

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=events&s=1#!/event.php?eid=119955984703471

4. YCL BC Summer Camp

Once again this year the YCL will hold its annual summer camp on the sunshine coast, from July 31-August 2. Last year the camp was the largest yet since efforts began to re-found the YCL several years ago.

The camp is open to both YCL members and other youth who are interested in learning about the YCL, and about socialism. Participants will enjoys both education and fun at our beautiful Sechelt location near the beach.

This year the camp will be preceded by our BC Provincial Convention (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?invites&eid=109441745747202) at the same location on July 30th. All members are encouraged to attend and guests are welcome.

Educational topics this year include:
- Capitalism, the environment & climate change. Why working class power is the only solution to environmental crisis.

- Racism & the national question in Canada.

- Reform & revolution: what is social democracy, communism, revolution, and the role of the state.

Further information including camp program will be available shortly. If you would like to attend the camp or want more info, e-mail ycl_bc@ycl-ljc.ca

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126087964092238#!/event.php?eid=104877929547930&ref=mf

5. Strike solidarity

The Vancouver & District Labour Council Young Workers Committee is planning another strike solidarity events this month. We encourage young workers including our members to attend and show solidarity with their sisters and brothers on strike at Extra Foods in Maple Ridge. Please see the link below for details.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126087964092238#!/event.php?eid=106541796059751&ref=mf

6. Slam the Gate on the G8!

The YCL endorses the following event:

A Rally & March in Opposition to the G8/G20 Summits

******************************************
Saturday, June 26th, 2010 @ Noon
Grandview Park

(Commercial Drive, between William and Charles St.)

Bring noise makers, banners, water and friends!
******************************************

Come join us as we march in solidarity with the thousands protesting the G8/G20 Summits in Toronto and around the world. Let’s send a loud and clear message to the G8/G20 elite that we wholly reject their unaccountable meetings. We know their decisions will only lead to further economic and social disparity, promote exploitation environmental degradation and colonization.

From June 25 to 27th, the so-called ‘leaders’ and bankers of the twenty richest countries are gathering in Huntsville and Toronto for closed door meetings. The outcome of this summit is predictable: more of the same. More trade deals that benefit only multinational corporations. More threats to the existence of the worlds most vulnerable. More impoverishment. More addiction to the consumption of energy – dirty or clean. More economic policies that value profit and expansion over community and health. These are the policies that brought us to the crisis now facing the world economically, politically, environmentally and socially.



We say NO! We say that a better world is possible, there is an alternative! Add your presence and voice to the thousands in Toronto and millions around the world demanding a new vision of social and environmental justice. Change the System, not the Climate!


Organized by the Vancouver Community Mobilization Network Contact: van.mobilize@gmail.com

On the web: http://vcmn.resist.ca/

SEE OUR PROMOTION VIDEO here: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/video/3636


Endorsed by: Friends of UBC Farm, UBC Social Justice Center, Vancouver Climate Justice, Purple Thistle, Justicia for Migrant Workers, No One Is Illegal - Vancouver, Ugnayan ng kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (Filipino-Canadian youth alliance), SIKLAB (Overseas Filipino workers organization), Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group, Council of Canadians - Delta Richmond chapter, Streams of Justice, VANACT, Solidarity with Anti-Olympic Convergence Arrestees, Young Communist League.


7. Left Film Night: Plunder, The Crime of Our Time

Next Left Film Night: Sunday, June 27, 7 pm, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver

"Plunder: The Crime of Our Time" (directed by Danny Schecter, USA, 2010, 100 minutes) explores how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity, uncovering the connection between the collapse of the housing market and the economic catastrophe that followed. It argues that the wrong doing committed by a few individuals distracts from the real story, implicating the institutions that financed and profited from fraudulent sub prime lending. These firms recklessly put trillions of dollars and the world economy at risk.

No war with Korea! For a made-in-Canada foreign policy of peace!

Central Executive Committee, Young Communist League of Canada
May 2010

Canadian youth and students should be quick to reject and denounce the war mongering stance taken by the Harper Conservative government with regards to the crisis forming between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea since the Mach 26th sinking of the Cheonan naval vessel.

In a statement released on May 24th, Harper announced the government’s intention to impose harsh sanctions, to support South Korea in a “decisive response,” which did not rule out military action. The statement also condemned the DPRK for “egregious violation of international law,” and “blatant disregard for international law,” statements are darkly ironic coming from a Prime Minister and a government implicated in war crimes and torture in Afghanistan.

Harper’s hypocrisy becomes further evident when considering the recent attack by apartheid Israel against the Freedom Flotilla which left several dead and dozens more wounded. The attack on the Flotilla, a group of unarmed boats bringing desperately needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, has incited no condemnation from the Conservative government. While quick to condemn supposed attacks and violations of international law by the DPRK, Harper is unwilling to criticize violations by Israel against the Palestinian people or their supporters.

Little evidence exists to implicate the DPRK in the sinking of the Cheonan. In fact South Korean sources, including the Defense Ministry, have made statements that no North Korean vessels in the area at the time of the attack. Despite this, the South Korean regime, backed by Washington, have presented the case as open and shut with the DPRK implicated in the crime.
The current Korean crisis is part and parcel of the cold war waged by US imperialism, South Korean ruling class, and their allies against the DPRK since the armistice which “ended” the Korean War in 1953. The demonization of the DPRK as part of an “Axis of Evil,” and as a “threat,” is ludicrous when placed beside the reality of the DPRK, a poor country struggling for survival against hostility and economic sabotage by the US and its allies. The goal of this campaign is to achieve the total collapse of the socio-economic system in place in the DPRK and the reunification of Korean on a capitalist basis under US hegemony. It is also interesting to note that fortunes are to be made in arms contracts by keeping tensions high in the region, and that these tensions provide the only excuse for the presence of thousands of US troops in the region including in South Korea and Japan.

Harper’s slavish parroting of Washington’s warmongering threatens to entangle Canada in a new military conflagration on the Korean peninsula. Such a conflagration would be an imperialist war for the benefit of multinational corporations and arms dealers which could cost innumerable lives.

The Canadian working class, youth and students, must categorically reject Canadian involvement in aggression towards the DPRK as they rejected Canadian involvement in the invasion of Iraq. What is needed is an independent and made-in-Canada foreign policy based on peace, disarmament, friendship, and sovereignty. It’s time to run the war mongering Harper Tories out of office and to fight for a new future for youth which is not based on imperialist war and plunder.

YCL BC eBulletin June 2010

To read the June 2010 eBulletin click here.

To subscribe to the eBulletin e-mail ycl_bc@ycl-ljc.ca

YCL BC Convention 2010 - Discussion Bulletin #1

The first discussion bulletin for our upcoming BC Provincial Convention is out now! Check out the following link to read the bulletin. In this bulletin you will find the Call to Convention and other convention discussion documents such as the Political Report and the Plan of Work.

The Provincial Committee encourages all YCLers to read these documents, to discuss them in
their clubs, and to submit to the upcoming bulletins. Submissions to the discussion bulletin can be changes, or additions to the convention documents, resolutions for discussion/adoption at convention, or simply your thoughts on a topic that you would like to see League.

Submissions should be sent to ycl_bc@ycl-ljc.ca

Finally, now is the time to start thinking about your attendance at convention. This year convention is followed up immediately by our annual summer camp at the same location. Members are encouraged to do whatever they can to make sure they are able to attend these events. E-mail us if you have concerns or need assistance to help ensure you can attend. Guests are also welcome to attend both events by invite. If you are interested in attending, please contact us to register.

Read Bulletin #1 here!
http://www.ycl-ljc.ca/images/bcconvention2010/bulletin1.pdf

May 2010 eBulletin

Follow the link to this months YCL BC eBulletin. So be added to the list, e-mail ycl_bc@ycl-ljc.ca

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/445432/1adc218ff5/1623005193/6c0c9d641e/

Militant Greetings for May Day 2010

Central Executive Committee, Young Communist League of Canada

The Young Communist League of Canada extends greetings of solidarity to the working people of Canada, and especially to young workers, on May 1st – International Workers Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, when police opened fire on workers protesting for an eight hour working day.

Today young workers must consider what kind of future is offered to them by our current capitalist socio-economic system.

Late last year, youth unemployment hit a 30 year high. While media reports trumpet “economic recovery,” in reality there is recovery for the capitalists but not for the vast majority of youth, women, aboriginal peoples, and workers. Unemployment remains high and those jobs which do exist are increasingly “McJobs” with minimal pay, no benefits or job security, and part time or casual hours. The process of deindustrialization is worsening this situation rapidly, while eroding Canadian sovereignty. Major ecological problems, especially global warming, are getting worse. And if the solution gets in the way of the drive for profits, it is not considered.

To the unemployed and underemployed youth, the government offers no jobs except the dangerous lure of military recruitment for education or a career. Canadian involvement in the disastrous imperialist occupation of Afghanistan has cost well over $18 billion dollars while Canada’s military budget is expected to run over $21 billion this year alone. 142 Canadian soldiers have died as have well over 32,000 Afghans. War is no solution to the problems faced by young workers.

Meanwhile, Federal and Provincial governments continue to carry out an all-out offensive on working and living conditions at the behests of their corporate masters. The recent Harper budget is a case-in-point. The Harper Conservative budget, passed with the complicity of the Liberals, provides for more of the same – tax breaks for the rich, and more spending on war, while cutting social programs, and ignoring the need for spending on education, environmental protection, job creation and other needs of working people.

All this part of a general offensive of capitalism against the interests of the working class, aimed at maximizing profits and salvaging this decrepit and crisis-ridden system through imperialist adventures abroad, lowering of working and living conditions at home, and eliminating the hard won victories of the past. In other words, this is an offensive against the future of the youth.

As in 1886, today the only path forward is struggle. All other paths lead only to an ever-worsening future for the country, and the world, that today’s youth will inherit. We salute the struggle of workers and students in Quebec, where protests have sprung up against the reactionary Charest Liberal budget, including one demo of 75,00 workers and another of 15,000 people including many students. We support the growing demand for a general strike. We stand in solidarity with workers who are fighting for their livelihood, such as the Sudbury Steelworkers who are defending their jobs from the union breaking efforts of Vale Inco. We note the efforts of young workers who have fought in campaigns for increased minimum wages, better on the job safety, and more.

What is needed is to unite all the various threads of resistance against the anti-worker offensive, to defeat it, and to reverse it in order to go on the offensive for progressive reforms which will benefit the working class including young workers.

Ultimately, we stand firm in our analysis that the capitalist system cannot be made to serve the interests of working people. It cannot cherish nature. Only socialism, a system in which the working people hold all economic and political power, can provide a real future for youth and students in Canada and the world. This is the future we fight for.

Jobs not bombs!
People not profits!
The youth are the future, the future is socialism!

YCL BC eBulletin April 2010

To read the April 2010 eBulletin online, visit http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/445432/1f210aafcf/1623005047/6c0c9d641e/

Please e-mail ycl_bc@ycl-ljc.ca to subscribe.