If you are interested in participating in an organization that believes and practices decentralized and democratic decision making, then you should check out Chicago Students for a Democratic Society. Attached to this article is the provisional Chicago Students for a Democratic Society mission statement for anyone who may have heard about us but wanted more information.

The Midwest SDS convention held in Ann Arbor, MI this weekend was a great success. The outline of a regional constitution was created and will most likely be voted on in another convention in March most likely to be held in Ohio. The proposals adopted by this convention embodied the spirit of the new SDS as a participatory organization where networking between chapters allows for a collective strength while limiting the creation of a alienated hierarchy. We adopted that there shall be different working groups to focus on tasks such as chapter support through facilitation and organizing trainings, press outreach, communication with other regions and between chapters and administrative duties such as financing bail money, making pins etc. This set a great groundwork for a Midwest organization but also for the National constitutional convention to be most likely held in Chicago.

In terms of Chicago we are holding quite a few meetings and actions soon, and once the Iraq Research Project is completed we will take the city by storm, holding many, many teach-ins and presentations on leaving Iraq, creating the critical groundwork for a sustainable campaign of radical action against the war machine.

We are having a meeting after an informal discussion of *Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology* by David Graeber.
Tuesday January 9th at 6pm -
Harper Hall, room# 125 1116 E. 59th St (on the Midway), Chicago,

We also have endorsed the January 11th action and will have another meeting after it at 6pm at Federal Plaza for anyone interested in attending.

Next week there will be a meeting of anyone interested in the Iraq Research Project at 1736 West Division at the Alliance bakery, 7:30 Sunday, January 14th. More information on the Iraq Research Project can be found at groups-beta.google.com/group/chicagosds

The IRP is our attempt to create a group of organizers who will hold teach-ins about immediate withdrawal from Iraq across Chicago's many communities. It is an outreach program that will go beyond just colleges and expand to high schools, churches and community centers. Please help by joining the google group and help draft our collective document on our wikipedia page, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Research_Project

If you are a student, youth or fellow traveler please contact chicagosds (at) gmail.com for more information on how to start a chapter or join an existing chapter. If you are a member of an existing organization that has the same vision of a more participatory democracy come to a meeting and ask your organization to affiliate with the SDS network. As a decentralized network local chapters have autonomy and city-wide decisions are made collectively. Any work that does not have to do with policy creation is either done by volunteers or elected secretaries. We hold phone conferences every other week to keep chapters in touch and have meetings at least twice a month.

You'll definetly be hearing from Chicago SDS soon.

Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win.