Youth Activists Come Together to Build a Movement for Student Power

By Sarah Jaffe, AlterNet

19 August 12

Student organizers from around the country (and the world) gathered in Columbus to help build a unified, strong student movement, learn from one another, and take action.

'm on a bus with about 50 student organizers as it pulls out of Union Square in New York and heads for the highway, for Columbus, Ohio and the National Student Power Convergence. I have a tiny zine of "pocket chants for your daily taking-of-the-street needs" in my hand, and someone's stuck a red square-the symbol of the Quebec student movement, adopted by US students for their own organizing-on the window above my head.

My fellow passengers, one by one, introduce themselves to the crowd by name, preferred gender pronoun, where they go to school, and four words to explain why they're on the bus. The answers range from "To build student power" through "Direct action gets goods" to "State smashing queer glitter."

Some of these students know each other and are veterans of several campus battles together, fighting tuition hikes and policing on campus, calling for better access to education and questioning the corporatization of public schools. Others are meeting for the first time. The bus was organized and chartered by New York Students Rising, a coalition of student groups and unions from City University of New York and State University of New York schools.

They're undergrads and graduate students, even high school students, a couple of professional organizers and trainers who'll be speaking at the convergence. I'm the only journalist, and might be the oldest person on the bus aside from the driver.

The convergence we're heading for was pulled together by these students, as well as organizers from Ohio State University (where the majority of the panels, trainings, discussion groups, and arguments will take place) and a few professional organizers. The tagline on the website is "demand the future" and the hashtag used throughout the weekend (and punned on frequently) is #HereUsNow.

These are student organizers who work on climate justice and fight fracking in their backyards; they work on campus to build student unions and they come together to fight statewide tuition hikes. They lead divestment campaigns in solidarity with communities facing foreclosure and struggle to hold their universities accountable to campus workers and to workers overseas who make branded apparel in sweatshops. Some of them were activated by Occupy, others have been activists for years.

They're about to spend five days together, sleeping, for the most part, on one of two church floors, eating food cooked by volunteers in shifts (vegan and gluten-free options available), sharing deeply personal stories, as well as tactics and strategies for winning long-term battles against people who have much more money, power, and who are taken much more seriously in the media. They will drink and dance and stay up til all hours planning direct actions.

And they will inspire us older folks to put aside our learned cynicism and have some hope for the future-hope for real change that's brought about through years of hard work.

Building Student Power

"The country we grew up in is not the country we want to grow old in," reads the letter at the beginning of the conference's info packet. "Our generation is the most diverse, tech savvy, socially minded generation in our nation's history, and we refuse to allow our future to be sold to the highest bidder. We have no choice but to step up and provide moral leadership for the entire country."

The convergence started with a greeting from author Naomi Klein and a keynote talk from Joshua Kahn Russell of 350.org and the Ruckus Society, challenging students to move beyond organizing with the "righteous few" and work to include more and more people.

This would prove to be a theme throughout the weekend-seasoned organizers pushing students to move beyond what Russell called "self-expressive actions" and what labor organizer Stephen Lerner called "feel-good civil disobedience" into real movements with real power. Keron Blair of the Midwest Academy noted that you don't win simply by being right-you win by getting enough people being right with you so that you can build real power.

Getting a fractured progressive movement to agree on anything can be nearly impossible-it's hardly just college students who wind up siloed and isolated, burned out and despairing. The convergence alternated between workshop blocks where smaller groups chose between multiple options to learn press basics or to analyze power on campus, to discuss student debt (full disclosure: I was a panelist for the student debt discussion) and student unionism, and large group trainings and assemblies where climate activists and radical anti-capitalists, feminists and LGBTQ organizers came together to learn and support one another.

The students had to struggle to overcome differences between them-not just political differences, but differences of race and class and gender and identity. They came together immediately to set rules and boundaries for the communal sleeping spaces , but tensions erupted in some of the sessions anyway. But unlike meetings and gatherings in one's home space, the students here had to work through those differences to continue to share space and work together-and they did so by sharing their personal stories.

Stephanie Rivera, a Rutgers student and participant, wrote of her experience:

On our last night, we did a workshop that really dipped into our personal lives. And like one of the students there said in regards to workshop, "So many people who come into activism carry so much pain." This statement could not be any more true. The stories shared were enough to bring almost all of us to tears. We all know pain, and I think that is why we strive to make this world better. I strongly believe that what has almost killed us all is a fire that burns to keep us doing what we do. I often thought to myself at the convergence, "If there was any group of people I would want to start a student revolution with, it would be with these very people in this very room."

Too often, issues of gender, sexuality, race and identity are kept separate from the main group, placed in side discussions that don't reach those who really need to learn. While the students did organize a queer caucus and a people of color caucus, they also brought these issues to the large group discussion and worked through them together, building a stronger base for their movement.

International Solidarity

2011 saw revolutions around the world, led by students working side by side with workers and the unemployed, but in 2012 the movements that captured the world's imagination were started and led explicitly by students. In Quebec, student unions struck against tuition hikes and won over the support of the province when the government cracked down with Law 78, banning protests without prior permission and locking the students out of their universities. In Mexico, students stood up against a corrupt election and are challenging their country to live up to its promises of democracy. And in Puerto Rico, technically part of the US but mostly ignored by its media, students rose up and struck against tuition hikes and privatization and are being threatened with prison sentences.

Representatives of each of those movements joined the US students in Ohio to share their stories, inspire and debate strategy, and build international solidarity.

"It's important, it's an international fight for education; with the globalized world we require international cooperation with movements, not only the US but also Latin America, Spain, African countries," Arturo Cuevas-Bautista of Mexico's Yo Soy 132 told AlterNet.

Emilie Joly from CLASSE, the largest coalition of student unions in Quebec, told the students that she wanted to make them "professional complainers." Organizing about small things, she pointed out, proves that tactics work and allows for small wins that build momentum-the Quebec student strike was built over years and has spread to the general population, inspiring a movement against neoliberalism and privatization all over the province. In Mexico, what started as a student-led protest against rigged elections and media corruption has galvanized the population and brought hundreds of thousands into the streets.

"If you're fighting for the same thing you can all work together," Valeria Hamel of Yo Soy 132 said. "Letting everyone in society organize, you don't have to be radical to organize and to protest."

Action!

Of course, you don't gather hundreds of student radicals in one place without planning some direct action. A group of participants in the conference, many of whom had never met beforehand, came together to plan an action at Obama's campaign headquarters in Columbus, to call the campaign's attention to the issues that matter to young people today.

In 48 hours (and very little sleep) they pulled together a march, rally signs, and speeches for representatives to give outside of the office on different issues: student debt, prison and immigration, state violence, LGBTQ issues, and the climate.

No representative from the Obama campaign came out to speak with the students, but they were able to take over the streets for their march to the offices, and a few police officers threatened arrest but mostly let them say their piece. The ubiquitous "Here, us, now," turned into a chant for the street, became "Hear us now!" a demand to those in power.

"I think we all learned a lot in the process, because none of us really knew each other beforehand, we were just learning together," said Aislinn Bauer, a former student from Hampshire College who was part of the action. She pointed out that students are not apathetic, that they're organizing to reclaim their future from the wealthy, from corporations, from politicians who can't be bothered to come to them. Students who, four years ago, might have been part of the Obama campaign are now organizing outside his headquarters to hold him accountable.

Demand the Future

The last afternoon of the convergence was dedicated to future planning-for another convergence, for mechanisms for staying in touch, for coordinated days of action around the country and the world. Students broke into working groups to plan, collect contact information, and then came together to share steps, as around the edges students on their way out the door hugged, said goodbyes, exchanged contact information. The #hereusnow hashtag on Twitter filled up with reflections and thank-yous.

Angus Johnston, a CUNY professor who runs the site studentactivism.net, posted his thoughts, including, "Trust is a risk worth taking" and "Sharing stories is life-altering."

On the bus back to New York, the NYSR crew held their own debrief session, sharing their highlights and criticisms, planning next steps for their own state and region, and continuing, as they had all weekend, to dig deeper into the ways that issues intersect, into the little oppressions that make working together difficult, and coming up with solutions to take the next step.

Traffic jams and a bus driver switch made the bus ride take a full 13 hours, most of which was overnight, but there was little complaining. Four nights of little sleep on church floors might have taken their toll on everyone's mood, but these students were willing to deal with much more in order to push their movement forward.

Pundits often ask why American students are so apathetic, why they're not involved, why they're not striking and revolting the way students in other countries have been. There are many answers to that question, but the students at the National Student Power Convergence were anything but apathetic. They were fiercely engaged, willing to debate points of theory or organizing strategy for hours on no sleep, willing to speak up in front of hundreds of their peers to tell deeply personal stories, to ask for respect for their feelings and lives, willing to risk arrest to call the President to account, and most of all, willing to work overtime to create a space for all of that to happen, and where everyone was fed, supported, and respected.

Occupy Wall Street might be quiet for now and the country's attention focused on the upcoming elections, but the student movement didn't take the summer off, and will be heading back to school with new tools and tactics to resist corporatization of their schools, to fight for greater access, to help reclaim the future for all of us.

Mitt Romney's Tax Returns: The 'Voter Fraud' Theory

By MS Bellows Jr., Guardian UK

19 August 12

There has been much speculation about why Romney refuses to disclose earlier tax returns. Could it be as simple as an address?

riday's exchange of letters between the election campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, in which Romney rejected Obama's offer to drop the tax return issue if Romney will produce just three more years' records, has moved the long-simmering brouhaha over Romney's tax returns back to the front media burner. Romney has only produced two tax returns so far. That's many fewer than any presidential candidate has disclosed in decades, setting up the hearsay accusation disseminated joyfully by Harry Reid (who may or may not actually believe it) that Romney is afraid to tell voters that he sometimes pays no taxes at all. (Romney has answered that, saying he has never paid less than 13% in taxes on his income.)

Meanwhile, Romney appears to have escaped relatively unsinged from the apparently unrelated revelation that he may have committed voter fraud in January 2010, when – despite not owning a house in Massachusetts and having given every appearance of having moved to California – he registered and voted in the Massachusetts special election to replace the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy. Given the GOP's ongoing use of the "voter fraud" fable to justify modern Jim Crow laws and its highly-publicized persecution of the voter registration group Acorn, an actual case of felony voter fraud committed by the Republican nominee could have been a big story – but Romney was able to tamp down the flames by claiming, not very credibly but also not disprovably, that he and Ann actually were living in their son Tagg's Belmont, Massachusetts basement in 2010. Without proof that Romney lied about where he lived, there's no felony – and no big national story.

Many (many, many, many, many, many) theories have been advanced to explain why Romney keeps refusing to produce any returns prior to 2010, ranging from "voters might learn he's wealthy" (which voters already know) to "he underpaid his church tithe" (doubtful).

None of them is really satisfactory, because none of them posits Romney concealing any facts more harmful than the blowback he is getting for not producing more returns. The problem may be that all of the prominent theories (with a couple of under-noticed exceptions) assume Romney is trying to conceal facts about his finances. Like the purloined letter pinned prominently in plain sight, what Romney's really hiding might be something more mundane: the home address written on the top of the tax form. That address that might reveal a connection between the "tax returns" brouhaha and the "voter fraud" fizzle – which may be the strongest explanation of all. Here's why.

Tax returns require taxpayers to state their residence address, and the Romney returns already produced, although partially redacted, state clearly that they lived in "Belmont, MA 02478" in 2012 (tax year 2011) (pdf) and 2011 (tax year 2010) (pdf):

But the Romneys, arbitrarily, refuse to disclose a copy of the returns they filed in 2010 or 2009 (for tax years 2009 and 2008) – which, perhaps not coincidentally, bracket the time period when Romney allegedly committed fraud by voting in Massachusetts when he actually resided in California. So here's the question: did Romney put his son's basement's address on the returns he filed in 2009 and 2010? Or did he truthfully use his real (non-Massachusetts) address, thus implicating himself in voter fraud?

This may seem like overmeticulous wonkishness, but the address given on tax returns is a big deal when it comes to proving voter fraud. As Hans von Spakovsky (senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, former Federal Election Commission member, and former DOJ voting-issue attorney, and himself an advocate of the GOP's restrictive voter ID requirements) explained to the Daily Caller:

"Election officials will also look at tax returns as crucial evidence in residency disputes. Where an individual declares himself to be a resident for tax purposes, thus subjecting himself to applicable state income taxes, is usually decisive on this issue."

With that in mind, let's run through the dates, keeping in mind that tax returns are filed the year after the tax year in question (and that Romney's returns, which are exceptionally complicated, likely are filed toward the end of that year: that is, his 2010 return was filed in October 2011):

• In April 2009, Romney sold his longtime Massachusetts home at 171 Marsh Street and appeared to move to La Jolla, California. He did not own a home in Massachusetts again until July 2010. (All of the Massachusetts addresses discussed here end with "Belmont, MA 02478", though one might amuse oneself surmising which address is underneath the Sharpie by the length of the redaction.)

• Sometime in 2009, probably late in the year, Romney filed his 2008 tax return, identifying the address where he lived at the time of filing. He has refused to disclose a copy of that return.

• Sometime in or shortly before January 2010 – that is, not long after he filed his 2008 return – Romney registered to vote in Massachusetts, stating on his voter registration form that he lived in his son Tagg's basement at 18 Greensbrook Way. In January 2010, Romney voted in Massachusetts' special election, which would be a felony if he was not a Massachusetts resident at the time.

• In July 2010, Romney once again became a Massachusetts property owner when he bought a new townhouse at 10 S Cottage Road Unit 3. However, as the owner of several other houses, he still could have resided elsewhere for voter registration purposes.

• Sometime (probably late) in 2010, Romney filed his 2009 tax return. If that return was filed before July and he really was living in Tagg's basement, it should give a Belmont address. If it was filed after July, and Romney truly considered Massachusetts his home, it should give the Cottage Road address. He has refused to disclose a copy of that return.

• On 15 October 2011, Romney's accountant filed his 2010 return, giving a redacted Belmont address (presumably the Cottage Road townhouse) as his residence.

If Romney's 2008 return (filed in 2009, shortly before the January 2010 special election) didn't give Tagg's basement as his address, then Romney clearly didn't consider Massachusetts his home in that year. If Romney's 2009 return (filed in 2010) gives a non-Massachusetts address, despite the fact that he claimed to be a Massachusetts resident earlier that year and had bought a house in Massachusetts in July, then Romney clearly didn't consider Massachusetts his home in that year either. If Democrats hit the daily double – in other words, if Romney declared La Jolla, California to be his home in both years – then Massachusetts prosecutors likely will have no choice but to take a hard second look at their ex-governor. (The Obama campaign's new focus on obtaining only three more years' returns – 2007, 2008 and 2009 – may suggest they're focusing in on this possibility as well.)

A felony voter fraud charge could expose Romney to fines and/or imprisonment, jeopardize Romney's standing with the Michigan State Bar, and – worst of all, in the political sense – would be a mortal embarrassment on the campaign trail, both to himself and to downticket Republicans (especially Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who won the special election in question but is locked in a tight, highly-publicized race against the popular Elizabeth Warren to retain his seat).

So far, none of the reasons advanced for Romney's refusal to produce tax returns seems good enough to justify the political heat his campaign is taking. But if those returns give a non-Massachusetts address, then Romney can't afford to produce them, no matter how much political fallout his campaign faces as a result. All of this is speculation, of course, though it seems at least as plausible as Harry Reid's suggestion that Romney paid no taxes before 2011, but there's only one way it can be resolved: by Mitt Romney releasing those tax returns.