Hope for our future, I'm convinced, lies in this sort of local, grassroots internationalist organizing:
Ted Glick, of Truthout:The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.
The USSF sends a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing US Policies at home and abroad.
We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world
Another World is Possible!
. . . there is an important initiative underway that has the potential to advance a different kind of unity- and alliance-building process across lines of race, culture, issue and geographic region - a process that we desperately need: the United States Social Forum, happening in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27th to July 1st.I'm sure Murray Bookchin would have approved.
Organizing toward this event was initiated by Grassroots Global Justice, an alliance of over 50 grassroots organizations representing people of color and low-income communities in the US. Over the last couple of years, it has been putting the pieces in place to make this major event possible.
. . .
This first national social forum in the US is coming at a particularly auspicious time. Bush, Cheney and the Republicans are on the defensive, struggling to maintain support for their agenda of wars and occupations for oil and empire abroad and, at home, the destruction of basic constitutional rights and cutbacks to education, health care, Social Security and other human needs. Yet there is also widespread, popular dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and with corporate, big-money domination of both major political parties.
Jerome Scott and Walda Katz-Fishman, leaders of Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, a key group within the leadership of the US Social Forum process, recently summarized its importance in this way:
"The social forum process was initiated by social movements of oppressed and exploited peoples in the Global South; and no one group in the US 'owns it.'
Second, the social forum is being brought home to the US by grassroots organizations - with people of color and low-income-led organizations in the leadership.
Third, the social forum is a convergence process of all our fronts of struggle; it is multi-issue and multi-sector, and inclusive of all who are struggling for justice, equality and peace
Fourth, the social forum is a space where a broad range of political analysis is welcomed - from progressive to revolutionary.
"This is why the US Social Forum is the place to be this summer if you are a movement builder, if you have a vision of another world, if you want to make it happen!"
Let's make it happen. See you in Atlanta!
(excerpted from Constellations)
16 comments:
While in Atlanta... march on CNN :)
Forget marching on Washington DC, marchin Washington state. Major stuff going on with regard to the Port of Tacoma and protesters trying to block the military from using it.
What's happening in Tacoma is very significant, which of course, is whay we aren't hearing abou tit on CNN. Can't take time away from ANS-syndrome . . .
here's Cynthia McKinney speaking at a March 2 fundraiser for Pacifica Radio station KPFK, in LA:
. . . in order to solve the massive problems this country now has, it can no longer be business as usual for a critical mass of us.
Whether it's the thawing tundra in Siberia or the melting glaciers in Greenland, our contribution to global warming is something that must be dealt with.
Whether it's the massive amounts of money we spend on the war machine or the fact that we still don't know what happened on September 11th, the values and priorities of the American people must be reflected in the public policy we pursue. I do not believe that is the case today and there are specific reasons why.
Just voting isn't enough. Voting is necessary, but it isn't enough to get the kind of change we must now demand. We have to change the structure within which we cast our vote.
We must have a different kind of leadership than is possible now without the kind of change I'm talking about.
This is revolutionary in its impact.
(h/t to Marisacat
McKinney's all right. 8)
While I wouldn't mind seeing her run for office again, her enemies may well live to regret forcing her out. In that vintage Star Wars fashion, she may well end up becoming "more powerful than you can possibly imagine..." ;)
I really like the idea of this social forum - a gathering truly focused on issues instead of politics. I wish them much success!
It's possible CM might well be more effective out of office. In radio interviews, I get the sense that the coalition that elected her intends to continue to be a viable, contentious political force - which is just to say again that she didn't simply appear out of thin air
msX - I may well be the last person in america who has yet to see star wars - much to my wife's amused dismay
Not so fast! I haven't seen the entire movie either, arcturus (although I am a canuck). I've even had a boxed set here for years that I borrowed from a friend (hi Sharon!) which I've never watched.
As for Star Trek. I did see the one about the whales (#37, I think??). That was enjoyable.
well, dayuum, i knew there was a reason I liked ya ;)
the journey itself is home - Basho
I still haven't read any Harry Potter books !!
Neither have I ms xeno. Oh! And I don't have a dvd player yet either.
arcturus:
I nearly share your situation insofar as I am married to a trueblue SW fan and, though I'm told I saw the movies as an incredibly wee tot, my only memory of the first three (or 4-6, for the Lucas loyalists) is a fleeting image of someone encased in a sort of vertical golden sarcophagus.
I've also still not seen Titanic, though this is a cultural deficiency, unlike the SW situation, that I have no plans of redressing.
I just want to re-iterate that these folks need lots of help. There's a page for volunteers that has lots of suggestions - one needn't go to Atlanta. Word needs to get out - esp. to local groups working in your communities. & of course, $$$ are always needed.
Blogs are more or less rant rooms. They're useless as far as activism goes, as the majority of the "left" leaning one's narrow thier message and focus more and more on electing more democrats in a vain and idiotic attempt to force change, as if democrats represent anything other than the MIC and the corporations that lobby and feed them. It's uterly useless.
Hi Super!! How the hell are ya?
MIC...Military Industrial Complex
Hi Leezy :o) I'm okay
What Eisenhower was describing was the U.S. move to a permanent war footing after WWII. The Cold War and the arms race that fueled the R&D and weapons economy. That was something completely new and different to his experience even though the U.S was a fledling imperial power during his rise through the military and into politics. Gunboat diplomacy and all.
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