The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.15           April 20, 1998 
 
 
Los Angeles YS Built On Action And Study  

BY HEATHER MARTIN AND MIKE BROUMAS
This column is written and edited by the Young Socialists (YS), an international organization of young workers, students, and other youth fighting for socialism. For more information about the YS write to: Young Socialists, 1573 N. Milwaukee, P.O. Box #478, Chicago, Ill. 60622. Tel: (773) 772-0551. Compuserve: 105162,605

LOS ANGELES - Young Socialists in Los Angeles have organized a weekly class series at Occidental College on New International no. 7, which includes the article, "The Opening Guns of World War III." The class was formed following a rally of 150 held late February at that campus to protest Washington's war plans against Iraq. Four people who attended the rally have also participated in the class and carried out activities with the YS since.

In addition to the class at Occidental, the Young Socialists has also held a class on the same topic at the Pathfinder Bookstore. Teresa Harris, a young worker at United Airlines, attended that class because "I wanted to know what was going on in the Middle East," she said. Harris purchased New International no. 7, Is Biology Woman's Destiny? by Evelyn Reed, and Socialism and Man in Cuba by Ernesto Che Guevara. She later attended a conference in Los Angeles entitled "Welcome Back from Cairo, Havana and Kosovo"

Selling Pathfinder at UFW march
Members of the Los Angeles Young Socialist chapter attended a march and rally in San Fernando of about 300 people March 29 to commemorate the anniversary of the death of César Chávez and to support current farm workers' struggles. The action was called by the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. The march went from Brand Park to San Fernando Park. At the culminating rally at San Fernando Park, a Pathfinder table staffed by Young Socialists and others attracted workers, students, and youth. Three copies of The Communist Manifesto and two copies of the New International magazine, along with a number of other books, were sold at the rally. Two people bought subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial and one signed up for the Militant.

Building report back from Kosovo, Havana
The Los Angeles YS, with help from a regional Young Socialists team from Seattle, also helped to build the April 4 report back from Kosovo, Cairo, and Havana.

Sara Hunt, an 18-year-old student at Occidental who had helped to organize the February protest opposing Washington's war moves against Iraq and had participated in the YS class on New international no. 7, attended the conference, as did two other Occidental students.

Hunt said that she had been "looking at various socialist groups" and that she was attracted to the Young Socialists because they "are open to questions." Hunt also explained that she has "gone through different processes of being angry at the system," but that it was important to realize that capitalism "was the real core of the problem." Hunt has bought copies of The Truth about Yugoslavia: Why Working People Should Oppose Intervention and New International no. 7.

Two students from UC Santa Cruz attended the conference. One of them, Inger Giffin, bought a number of Pathfinder titles including Che Guevara and the Fight for Socialism Today by Mary-Alice Waters, Malcolm X Talks to Young People, To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' against Cuba Doesn't End by Guevara and Fidel Castro, and a subscription to the Militant. "This is exactly what I've been looking for," she said. These ideas "are powerful tools."  
 
 
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