Proposal for Workshop/Panel at USSF, Sat June 30th
Local Democracy: Changing National and International Policy at the Local Level

The movement toward "Municipal Foreign Policy" --local communities taking direct action on foreign policy initiatives--is on the rise. Examples from the 1970's and 1980's include Divestment from South Africa campaigns and Nuclear Free Zone ordinances at the local levels. More recently we have seen the internet facilitate the huge movements to curtail the USA PATRIOT ACT and the war in Iraq through such vehicles as Cities for Peace and the Bill Of Rights Defense Committee. Another exciting current campaign is generating city-based resolutions to prevent a war in Iran.

Local-based foreign policy initiatives appeal to grassroots, local democracy advocates. The municipal level is the closest to the people, offers the most direct and participatory form of democracy, and is made up of the most demographically diverse and progressive elected officials in the U.S. The potential for positive change is ripe for organizing.

Activists! We need You! Get Involved! Join local democracy experts, leaders from some local resolution efforts and foreign policy experts as we step forward into the direct democracy world of creating national and international policy at the local level.

The workshop will consist of a short panel, laying out existing frameworks and examples of municipal foreign policy, at home and abroad. We will then quickly become a roundtable with brainstorming around:
1. your experiences with locally-based national and international policy-making
2. vehicles for change
3. engaging existing efforts
4. possibilities for new avenues

We hope to create and connect community-based working groups to relate Lessons Learned from their experiences with these type of efforts, to teach and learn how to get resolution and policy efforts under way in communities, to link citizen/activists with locally-elected officials and to create a Municipal Foreign Policy Training Day within 6 months of the USSF, bringing in many organizations and activists to the movement.

Speakers and facilitators will include:

Nancy Talanian, Director, Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Juscha Robinson, Liberty Tree
Karen Dolan, Cities for Progress and Institute for Policy Studies
Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy
Joe Moore, Alderman Chicago City Council

We plan to come away with a working understanding of Municipal Foreign Policy with which we can engage locally-elected officials as well as grassroots activists.

We will provide handouts. We do not at this time have a Spanish translator, though English speakers who are also fluent in Spanish speakers will be participating.