We of Students for a Democratic Society are glad to see the APSU College Democrats breaking with the Democratic Party to oppose U.S. attacks on countless innocent people after the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the bombing of Libya, and Obama strikes in Pakistan, and Yemen.
We’re glad that they understand that attacking Syria would create pain, suffering, and death.
We congratulate them for upholding the principle of humanitarianism against this unconscionable attack. Yet, we’re quite confused. It seems their principle of humanitarianism doesn’t correspond to their ability to recognize the truth.
In The All State article titled “Organization Spotlight: College Democrats“ that ran on the 4th they took credit for the most recent campaign we launched against U.S. intervention in Syria.
While we certainly can understand why they would want to take credit for that impressive protest, it was SDS who organized it.
We worked hard chalking, [putting up fliers], tabling, and holding rallies to demand “U.S. Hands Off Syria!” on campus over the past week.
We are confused as to why they didn’t help us in any of the organizing, but are now taking credit for our work. We would be happy to work with them.
Yet, our confusion doesn’t end there. The last edition of The All State stated that the College Democrats organized our campaign against U.S. intervention in Syria yet they weren’t even involved in any capacity.
Staff writer for The All State, Phillip Swanson, attended our rally last Friday, Sept. 6, interviewed us, and assured us that an article would appear about SDSs campaign to demand U.S. Hands Off Syria! in the All State.
Instead, the paper ran an article written by Staff writer Julie Cole Hulsey which bizarrely claimed that APSU College Democrats and its President Ryan Whipkey were responsible for the work we have done. We think that we and the student body deserve clarification. Even so, we hope to work with the College Democrats in the future.
SDS remains the largest anti-war and education rights student activist organization in the U.S. today. We want to further build the anti-war and student movements.
We’re inviting students to come out to the upcoming SDS National Convention hosted here at APSU on the weekend of October 11-13, 2013.
We will hold workshops on everything from building the student movement to LGBTQ liberation, anti-war and more.
We’ll also be bringing in dedicated anti-war activists like Sara Flounders from the international Action Center and immigration activists and hip-hop group Rebel Diaz who will perform on Saturday night. We hope to see you all there. TAS
