In case you missed Campus Progress and The Nation's National Youth Journalism Conference this past July, fear not. One of the morning plenary panels on media and politics was featured in a recent episode of RadioNation with Laura Flanders. You can check out the podcast here featuring Michael Tomasky of The Guardian, Chris Hayes, Betsy Reed, and Amy Alexander of The Nation, and moderated by Daniella Leger of the Center for American Progress.
Kantipur is reporting that manufacturing workers of three of the largest tea estates in Nepal have taken over the factories and have started to run them again without management.
DHANKUTA, Aug 3 - Workers of three big tea estates, which remained closed for the last three weeks due to disputes between the management and workers, have forcefully took control of the processing factories and resumed operations.
The factories of Gurash Tea Estate, Kuwabashi Tea Plantation and Joon Tea Garden were taken into control by the workers on Friday and started tea production from Saturday.
Gopal Tamang, president of All Nepal Trade Unions Federation, a trade union closely affiliated with the Maoists, said the workers have resumed tea production and also started collecting tea leaves from the garden. He said the workers were forced to ‘capture’ the factories after the managements refused to initiate dialogues to end the deadlock and added that the takeover will continue until the managements agree to talk.
The tea estates were closed three weeks back after tea workers started protest programs demanding wage hikes, permanent appointments, and medical insurance, among others. The managements of the tea estates have been refusing to sit for negotiations citing insecurity.
This scenario is hardly a new one on the world stage. Less then a decade ago workers across Argentina did the same, taking possession of factories that their owners refused to run. This will be the first real test of the newly-elected Maoist government in Nepal - how will they respond? Read More »
South by Southwest (known as SXSW) is an annual interactive festival of film, music, art, and culture held in Austin, TX. For the third year in a row, they are giving the public a chance to weigh in on what panels they would like to see at the festival.
Campus Progress submitted a panel idea entitled "A New Wave? Iraq and Dissent in Cinema," which talks about the impact of Iraq War documentaries (event based on this panel held at NYU). While the online voting only counts for about 40% of the final decision, your vote could help bring us to the huge audiences at Austin next March! Read More »
Alex Cornell du Houx, a friend of Campus Progress, an Iraq War veteran, a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, and an outspoken leader for progressive causes, has just been featured in Newsweek Magazine.
He has spoken at the last two Iraq Action Camps sponsored by Campus Progress, and the students in attendance loved his passion and frankness when speaking about his experiences serving as a Marine in Iraq.
Read his story and watch a video here. We're thrilled that he's continuing his activism and getting recognized for it.
Get involved in our Iraq Campaign to bring a safe end to this war by clicking here.
A new video from the Enough project with Ryan Gosling and John Prendergast discussing genocide in Darfur and what you can do to help stop this crime against humanity.
On August 13, 2008, Washington progressives were mesmerized by the Campus Progress, Reel Progress and HBO premiere screening of The Black List, Vol.I in Washington, DC. The overflowing theater cheered as director/producer Timothy Greenfield Sanders and interviewer/producer Elvis Mitchell introduced the project, and continued to cheer, laugh, and nod in agreement throughout the screening. The film features compelling interviews with actor Chris Rock, former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, media mogul Sean Combs, and other prominent African Americans.
In the Q&A after the film, attendees challenged Sanders and Mitchell on everything from their choice of talent, to the effectiveness of an all African-American cast. There was unanimous praise for the film's exceptional visual quality. The scheduled 30-minute Q&A did not satisfy the eager audience--they demanded the director and producer's attention for an additional 45 minutes. Mitchell and Sanders finally escaped after the building’s security insisted that the building had to be vacated.
See for yourself what all the fuss is about when HBO airs The Black List, Vol.I on August 25 at 9:00 pm (EST).
Don’t have HBO? No fear. Request a screening of this amazing documentary on your campus by emailing Campus Progress events at speakers@campusprogress.org.
Click here if you want to get involved in Campus Progress’s efforts around College Affordability, or become a Student Representative for the 2008-2009 school year.
Want strengthen the progressive movement on your campus, bring engaging speakers and films to jumpstart dialogue, and engage in activism on local and national issues?
Then join the Campus Progress Student Network for 2008-2009! We’re currently still accepting applications to join the 100-student team of Student Representatives from the across the country who work with the staff and resources of Campus Progress to advance progressive causes at the local level and make their voices heard on the issues they care most about.
...to register to vote in the September 9, 2008 Congressional and Council Primary Elections. You can register at www.dcboee.org. Remember, if you do not vote then you also lose the right to complain.
Campus Progress Action, our sister organization, went to the Virgin Music Festival this weekend to get people involved in the I’m Voting For campaign, and in the progressive movement in general.
They collected over 100 video testimonials, let hundreds of people know about Campus Progress and Campus Progress Action, had dozens of people paint what they were voting for on the graffiti wall, and had Foo Fighters guitar player Chris Shiflett visit the booth to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.
Check it out:
If you are having trouble loading the slideshow, click here.
SPOILER ALERT: The endings to 3 films are revealed in this blog.
I just finished watching Lust, Caution and I have to say—I am utterly sick of stories of underground resistance crumbling as a result of a woman’s actions. It’s really a tired formula: A female protagonist is involved in a subversive political movement, is depended on for a key element of some act being carried out, and at the last minute reveals the plan because her emotions get the better of her. I am tired of women being portrayed as the ultimate betrayers. And I am also angry that these consistent portrayals seem to reinforce the idea that women cannot help but develop emotional attachments and are therefore unreliable and unfit for work that demands clear-headedness.
Reviewing Entertainment Weekly interviews with the candidates, Marc Ambinder expresses surprise that
In some ways, Obama has the tastes of a 72 year old man; McCain has the tastes of a 47 year old whippersnapper. Who knew?
At risk of sounding cynical, why should we be surprised when Obama associates himself with Dick Van Dyke and McCain associates himself with Usher? Isn't this what candidates often do in interviews - try to address potential vulnerabilities and convince more people that they're more like them than they realized (that is, when they're not focused on doubling-down on their perceived strengths)? That the guy smeared as a secretly foreign terrorist fist jabber touts an old white guy and the really old white guy who can't use a computer touts a rapper seems to make a lot of sense. Same reason around election time we often hear more from Democrats about their love of guns and Jesus and from Republicans about their love of Black people and the environment.
A C-SPAN clip from this week’s Young America’s Foundation conference came to my attention. YAF VP Patrick Coyle gave a speech claiming, astonishingly, that progressives are intent on stifling the speech of conservatives, and he specifically mentioned Campus Progress. If progressives, Coyle asked, are “so truly confident of their domination of the college campus, they would not try to stop speakers. They would say that we should go ahead and bring in their one conservative speaker… but they are so threatened.” Coyle continued by noting that Campus Progress is seeking “to train a new generation of so-called progressive leaders. Each year they hold a conference much like this one, and they have also started a campus lecture program to bring in even more liberal speakers to college campuses.” Coyle said that conservative students should go to progressive events and speak out.
Patrick, get real. Who is confident, and who is threatened?
Campus Progress invites conservative speakers to speak at our events -- like TownHall’s Amanda Carpenter, who appeared at our annual conference this summer, and Trent Lott, who spoke at one of our campus events this year with Tom Daschle. We invite conservatives to be interviewed on our website, like David Horowitz. Our interns cornered Ben Stein and convinced him to make a promo video for us. All these conservatives were gracious and interested in genuine debate on important issues. We admit young conservatives to our national conference as attendees, and we admit reporters from conservative publications like National Review to cover our conference. We have repeatedly denounced actions by people on the progressive side to shout down conservative campus speakers, throw pies in their faces, or otherwise interfere with honest, open debate.
Meanwhile, what has YAF done? The very YAF conference at which Patrick Coyle was speaking has repeatedly shut out Campus Progress-affiliated young people as attendees and journalists. This year they refused to admit our intern Chenwei Zhang, even after Amanda Carpenter herself called YAF, cited her positive experience at the Campus Progress conference, and urged YAF to be open minded. In 2006, when pressed after excluding a CampusProgress.org reporter, Julie Siegel, YAF said it would not admit a reporter from The Nation, whose contributors since 1865 have included Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, John Steinbeck, and Franklin Roosevelt. YAF also ejected a reporter from the venerable Washington Monthly for the crime of also posting on the CampusProgress.org blog.
Patrick, do you actually believe what you are saying? Have you checked in with your colleagues Mr. Custer, Mr. Mattera , and Mr. Robinson, who have repeatedly barred Campus Progress from the doors of your events?
Who is confident, and who is threatened? Mr. Coyle also repeated the same tired argument conservatives have trotted out since we launched, that Campus Progress is unnecessary, because colleges themselves are the progressive organizing institutions: “What I think the leaders of Campus Progress are forgetting is that if you think about it, there is no reason for them to exist…. Typically, the counterpart to Young America's Foundation is usually the college itself.”
We’ve addressed that argument before. If there was no need for Campus Progress to exist, why do thousands of young people attend our events, participate in our campaigns, contribute to or visit our websites, apply for our action grants and publication grants? We’re not necessary? Yes, Patrick, it is the market working – supply and demand.
Campus Progress and our partner organizations are growing and gaining influence because young people are smart, engaged, and progressive. Working together – progressive groups and young people – we are getting things done: like making college more affordable, preventing efforts by conservatives to regulate the free speech of students and professors, moving campuses and communities toward clean energy, keeping the pressure on to halt genocide in Sudan, working for a stable outcome in Iraq, seeking to end government interference with freedom to marry.
YAF’s budget is seven times that of Campus Progress, but heaven knows how you are spending all that money. My guess is big fees to your speakers and consultants. If I were a donor or board member of YAF, I would start to wonder what the staff was actually getting done to make a difference.
Who is confident and who is threatened? We invite conservative voices, your ideas, and your participation. We want debate and dialogue. You lock the doors and keep us out, all the while muttering about George Soros and announcing, against all evidence, that Campus Progress has no reason to exist. You aren’t fooling anyone. And your movement is in shambles.
As we sit at our little cubicles, completely immersed in our sheltered progressive wonderland, something else magnificent and alien to us is taking place in the halls of the George Washington University. Yep, that’s right; the Young America’s Foundation is putting on their 30th Annual National Conservative Student Conference. I strongly believe that the best way to grow intellectually is to expose yourself to a wide variety of ideas, including those that you may not believe yourself. The National Conservative Student Conference would have been a fantastic opportunity for me to do this. So a couple weeks ago, I decided to register for the conference... Read More »
Award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was kind enough to speak at Campus Progress and The Nation's National Youth Journalism Conference last month in front of a packed crowd of 200 young journalists from across the country. Impressive as always, Mr. Hersh artfully explained some of the keys to becoming a great reporter as well as some amazing national security anecdotes. Some of his comments have been getting press over at ThinkProgress.
Campus Progress Action, the sister organization of Campus Progress, has been working hard on our I'm Voting For campaign. Many of you have already heard of it or even submitted your own video online or filmed a testimonial at our national conference. For those who haven't, check out our website here to learn more about I’m Voting For.
We launched our first "Best Of" press releases this week, emailing the best I’m Voting For videos in each issue category to a huge list of reporters, bloggers, and journalists. We'll update you with any press hits, but we thought you guys might like to see the videos that were selected as the best ones!
Campus Progress congratulates Congress on the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. This legislation takes another small step toward an affordable and accessible system of higher education, and will finally reauthorize the Higher Education Act of 1965.
News leaked recently that the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is drafting a rule that substantially threatens women and families’ access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare. The nationwide outcry against the draft regulation has been enormous; thousands of people have e-mailed the White House or their members of Congress, written letters to the editor of their local newspaper, or encouraged everyone they know to sign online petitions to fight back against the regulation. (If you haven’t yet done so, please click here!)
By last week, over one hundred members of Congress had written letters to the White House to declare their opposition to the draft regulation. That means that the simple action you took to sign a brief online petition added up powerfully to strike a chord with your Congressional members—and convinced them to speak up.
However, the fight against the regulation is far from over. If the rule were to go into effect—which could quite feasibly happen—it would mean that, as soon as two months from now: Read More »
4. The chance to work on important issues like climate change, ending the war in Iraq, college affordability, or making sure that your campus remains a free and open forum for all ideas (even the ones Anne Neal doesn’t like)
I know a lot of people have just graduated and are looking for jobs. Campus Progress hosts a page on our website called "Work in Progress" where we reguarly post recent job opportunities with awesome progressive organizations. Want a job you can be proud of? Check out Work in Progress! And email organize@campusprogress.org if you stumble upon any job openings that you think we should post on our site.
Please remember that Campus Progress' terms of use do not allow promoting or endorsing any particular political party or candidate for office. Posts or comments that do this will be deleted.
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