An official statement from Radical Elders

At the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden this past Sunday, October 27, the comedian who opened the event made outrageous statements including calling Puerto Rico a “garbage island”. What makes this act of racist aggression all the worse is that the rally was held on the 50th anniversary of the Day of Solidarity with the Independence of Puerto Rico event at that same Madison Square Garden. It was the largest demonstration in favor of Puerto Rican independence in this country’s history and it filled the 20,000 seat Garden with diverse people (more than half Puerto Rican) who witnessed at four hour action of art, music, dance and speeches…famous artists and entertainers (like Jane Fonda and Ray Barretto) and major activists including a huge contingent of singers and drummers from the American Indian Movement.

We of Radical Elders know all this because several of our members were involved in the year-long effort to organize this momentous and historic action.

The Trump campaign not only steps on the date but they kick off their event insulting the country and people of Puerto Rico. It’s a monstrous affront to history, to dignity and to human interaction. As one of the organizations in our movement that holds our movement’s history, we denounce this despicable display of racist aggression.

Radical Elders is a national organization of left-wing activsts over the age of 55. We are an intentional organization with women and people of the global majority comprising the majority of our leadership.

info@radicalelders.net

www.radicalelders.net

We’re going to use our annual membership meeting this year to talk about what happened in the elections and what we should be doing now. It could be the most important conversations we’ve ever had as a membership. We’ll also be handling some annual business. Let’s get together and talk about what to do.

You have to register:

Register for Nov. 9 Conversation

We gathered on September 18, 2024 to talk about the U.S. elections. We heard three panelists’ presentations: veteran activist and analyst Bill Fletcher Jr.; Vice-Presidential candidate Melina Reimann Abdullah; and Rising Majority National Director Loan Tran.

Then we broke up into smaller groups and talked about what we’d heard and what we think. These are the central points of that conversation based on notes from those groups.

If we actually believe we can win this struggle and fundamentally transform this society, we must view these elections tactically and make tactical choices about them.

Our priority, as a movement, is to stop fascism/authoritarianism (represented by the Trump campaign) from taking over the government and that means we must elect Kamala Harris President. Our organizing will be easier under the Democrats neo-liberalism than fascism.

Some of us are opting to support a third party effort; most of us indicated we would be voting for the Democratic Party ticket.

In every group, there was concern about what comes after the election.

Many participants expressed concern about possible complacency after a Harris victory: “we averted a total disaster so we can go back to business as usual.” The consensus seemed to be for our movements to keep pushing and organizing.

One objective that resonated in several groups was to end the electoral college, seen as a fundamentally archaic and un-democratic institution.

There was support for the “united front” approach advanced by Rising Majority’s Loan Tran and discussion as to who would comprise such a front and how it might be organized.

Finally, there was discussion about what Radical Elders itself should be doing. All groups believed we should be expanding our relationships and activities. One group felt we should identify community based groups with which to partner in order to broaden our reach: faith institutions, service organizations and other grassroots groups.

There was a general consensus to continue to recruit to and expand the Radical Elders organization but that this effort be more organized and planned. One group suggested we do this through a “pilot program” based in a few cities where we have groups of members.

In general, all groups expressed the need to continue the conversation in RE and in our movements.

The June 21 – 23 Take Back Tech II conference in Chicago — sponsored by Mijente and Media Justice — drew over 400 activists and Radical Elders was there with a highly successful and well-attended workshop. Our reps spoke about the impact on technology on elders and its potential in our struggle. Then the attendees broke up into conversation groups to discuss what RE should be doing. Radical Elders leaders Ana Juarbe, Maritza Arrastia, Alfredo Lopez, Makani Themba and Angel Roman (left to right) led the workshop.

A delegation of some 20 members of Radical Elders assembled at the main gate to Columbia University at noon on April 30 at 116th Street and Broadway, and remained for several hours after making a statement in support of the students inside the University’s locked down main quad.

Radical Elders Members Dave Lindorff, Jose Alfaro, and Estela Vazquez spoke, as well as Tom Goghan of Move the Money-NYC. Members came from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and the New York metropolitan area.

The official RE statement said;

“We want to applaud and honor the courage of the young students at Columbia in the face of a callous and cowardly administration that called in the New York Police to try and crush their peaceful and principled protest, libeling the their denunciation of Israel’s ongoing genocidal collective-punishment slaughter of the Palestinians of Gaza as being “antisemitic.”

By the time we had arrived at the campus with our message, which also made the point that the students were following in the steps of the SDS students and supporters who, 56 years earlier on that same April 30 date, had electrified college campuses across the country by taking over several buildings on the Columbia campus, including the university’s administration offices in Low Library, a sub-group of the encampment protesters had broken into Hamilton Hall and, after barricading the doors, were occupying the building.

We stated publicly to other demonstrators and assembled journalists that we understood the protesting students’ frustration with the university administration’s stonewalling and draconian punishment of many of the encampment protesters and its use of New York Police to bust up their encampment. We said we jnderstood and supported their non-violent action in occupying the building (one of the three that SDS students had taken over in 1968).

Among our group were members who are also affiliated with Jewish Voices for Peace, which also supports the pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia and on other campuses across the country where this latest student activism has rapidly spread.

Our action was noted, including with a photo, in an online update in the NY Times online reporting on the protests at Columbia written by NY times reporter Olivia Bensimon. Here is her update:

“Outside Columbia’s gates on Broadway and 116th, members of a group called Radical Elders are giving speeches. Many of them have been participating in anti-war protests for decades, and some of them are Columbia alumni. Pro-Israel protesters behind them yell that the hostages must be freed, and one, with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders, screams,“No one can hear your lies, Jew Hater!” The crowd chants “Free Palestine” and “Sí se puede!” to drown him out, and N.Y.P.D. officers move him and another pro-Israel protester to a different area.”

This update was accompanied by a photo by Times photographer Ted Heisler, which shows the Radical Elders banner and some of our members holding it.

— submitted by Dave Lindorff

Radical Elders, an organization of over 350 Elders who have been activists and organizers in all the struggles of the past half century or more, and who have banded together to say “We ain’t done yet!” have sent a delegation to Columbia to support the pro-Palestinian protesters and their campus encampment. 

We want to applaud and honor the courage of the young students at Columbia in the face of a callous and cowardly administration that called in the New York Police to try and crush their peaceful and principled protest, libeling the their denunciation of Israel’s ongoing genocidal collective-punishment slaughter of the Palestinians of Gaza as being “antisemitic.”

Undeterred even by arrest, by suspension from the school they and their families paid or borrowed many tens of thousands of dollars to finance, by cancellation of their student jobs and fully paid-for housing, the protesting students have stuck to their tents and their protest. Even foreign student protesters who, once suspended, lose their student visas and face potential deportation, have not backed down. This includes Palestinian students, for whom being deported to their “homeland” in Gaza or the West Bank could be a death sentence.

Their courage and dogged refusal to quit the struggle has rekindled an antiwar movement on hundreds of campuses across the US, just as the SDS building takeovers at Columbia in 1968, 56 years ago today (April 30) ignited the anti-war, anti-racism struggle on US campuses that helped end the US war on Indochina and racist plans for a student gym on public property in nearby Morningside Park.

Some of us delivering this message of support were in the occupied buildings of the campus that year when then-President Grayson Kirk first called NYPD tactical cops with their clubs onto the Columbia campus to brutally drive out and arrest the students holding them. Kirk, who had to resign a few months later, is remembered today as a failure and a traitor to higher education. President Nemat Shafik will fare no better in the history of Columbia. 

The new McCarthyism in Washington, the media and university administrative offices, where the smear of “Anti-Semite!” has replaced the old ’50s and ’60s smear of “Communist!,” in an effort to crush anti-war protest, will be similarly defeated, as courageous people like the students on the quad here at Columbia stand against the war-makers, zionists, racists and imperialists.

Radical Elders salutes you!

We ain’t done yet!