WTF is Socialism Anyway???: The Campus as a Battleground of Class Struggle

This workshop will be geared toward younger forum attendees, particularly college students, and will be roughly divided into two portions. The first portion will be a brief summary and history of socialist thought as well as the socialist movement internationally and in the United States. This will help to clarify what the term "socialism" actually means, as opposed to the perversions of the word used in the main stream media. Also, this will demonstrate the socialist movement’s long, proud history with its many achievements that have been taken for granted, such as the end of child labor and the 40-hour work week. The second portion will describe the Democratic Socialists of America as an organization, and more importantly Young Democratic Socialists (YDS) as its youth section. Presenters will describe the types of activism and organizing the YDS chapters engage in on campus, and the importance of campus activism overall. Students who attend this workshop should leave with a good, basic understanding of socialism in theory and practice, and feel motivated to start organizing on their own campus.