Lessons to Be Learned From the USSF
Or organizing on a large scale

First I will admit the idea of a national Social Forum is a good idea as it gave activists a chance to see that issues related to their own communities are part of a nationwide if not global crisis. The Social Forum also gives those groups who are engaged in similar struggles opportunity to network with one another to provide for a larger data base of answers
to issues concerning their struggles whether it be gentrification, immigrant rights, living wage and other labor issues, health care or environmental concerns to name just a few of the problems being ignored by our so-called political and economic leaders. However, that is where the point is missed about grassroots initiatives and the Social Forum itself. Let me explain to those of you liberal minded activists who still haven't got it. If you are organizing large national grassroots
campaigns that are based on a democratic process and are outside the mainstream political process hence the term grassroots and are making strides towards your goals then you have shown you do not need the politicians! So stop validating the continual existence of a power structure that will not provide any real relief for issues that are afflicting so many within our populace. The politicians have shown time and time again where their interest lie and that is in the beds of the corporate pimps and not with the working people of this country. And politicians especially have no concerns of the issues confronting the working poor, the unemployed, the underemployed or the homeless.

Second, most of the workshops were totally useless in the fact that most had the same theme running through them and connected to an overall issue of poverty or class struggle and each cause was diluted because these connections were not made by the panels hosting them and would have been better served had they communicated with one another and consolidated their efforts to provide the bigger picture of these class struggles. Workshops dealing with issues of race, homosexuality, militarization and immigrant rights could have well be consolidated into a single workshop for each issue And I totally fail to see the point of a workshop entitled 'Shadow Government: The First 100 Days' what is this a RNC convention? Then most of the workshops I attended were not educational in the sense you didn't get anymore information than one could glean from going to an organizational website perhaps news to the single-minded activist but for a
platform revolutionist such as myself not very useful. By Friday afternoon I was very much disappointed in the productivity of the Social Forum and spent the remainder of the time at the local info shop Madrats where I found people who had made the connection of the various struggles of the working class as indeed Capitalistic class struggle and were involved in building
community resolutions along class lines. Later that evening I attended a concert featuring members of the Riot Folk in a collective warehouse space End Of The World which is a very revolutionary concept of putting on shows in a tolerance free space for the purpose of raising funds to assist people with medical expenses, rent assistance and other every day issues
where there may be little or no relief from the political process of the status quo. So while the Social Forum looked to Atlanta for historical reference of the past it paid scant attention to those in Atlanta actively putting together the foundation of a civil and class movement today.

Third, most of us left the Social Forum lacking a what's next? Other than networking for individual liberal based activism for specific issues what did the Social Forum leave behind in Atlanta and what did everyone take with them to move forward for real progressive social change in this country? Nothing. The major issue with the Social Forum is it lacks a unified political identity to insist that "another U.S. is necessary much less that a New South is needed." What would I like to see from the U.S. Social Forum? People organizing in the right direction to directly challenge the existence of the current political status quo not mere reactionary language. Liberal movements are good at mobilizing mass amounts of people who are fed up to demand change from representatives too reluctant to make any changes but do very little to directly challenge and oppose through the same democratic grassroots efforts the status quo itself. Grassroots organizations who have shown they can make strides without the political process continue to validate a system by making demands instead of implementing changes. One more time the system needs you, you do not need the system. The system exist only because of the will of the people and the people right now are fed up with the system on all levels not just the Federal Executive Branch but the people are fed up all the way down to their local councils for failing to address issues that effect us all. And if there is cause for grassroots organizations to exist because of the reluctance of fat cat politicians to move off of their asses to do the things the grassroots organizations are doing for themselves than do yourself a favor pal and remove the system that affords leaders to do nothing. Otherwise the work these organizations are doing in their communities will not only get harder to do in the long term what ground made will eventually become unmade by the political process.

Loire
Tempe, AZ.