Plenary Dialogues
Español
KEY MOVEMENT BUILDING MOMENTSSocial movements grow in power and influence because organizers and activists seize the moments that confront them. In the last few years, progressive organizers and activists have experienced critical opportunities to build a more vibrant and effective movement in the United States. We have enjoyed some successes; and we have suffered many setbacks. As organizers, activists, and movement builders we have not yet drawn the lessons from these experiences to develop plans for moving forward. The U.S. Social Forum will shine the light on six key movement building moments to learn the lessons. These six struggles - Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina Era; War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial Complex; Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother Earth; Immigrant Rights; Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our Movements; and Workers' Rights in the Global Economy - are not the only important issues facing the movement today. They are deeply interconnected and related to all the crises in our communities within today's reality of globalization and repressive neoliberal policies - growing poverty; multiple oppressions rooted in class, race, nationality, gender, sexuality, ability, and age; environmental destruction; and increasing militarism. Through workshops, presentations, performances, and debates during the U.S. Social Forum we will explore all these critical issues and their interrelationships. The U.S. Social Forum is highlighting these six struggles in plenary dialogues because they represent key movement building opportunities for organizers and activists in this country. These struggles and the lessons learned inform all of our work. They inspire us to develop a critical consciousness and a bold vision. These struggles, when connected strategically, form the basis of a powerful movement to challenge the legitimacy of U.S. empire, and to help build a cooperative world of peace, justice, equality, solidarity and self-determination. Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina EraThursday (June 28th) The destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposes the historic forces of genocide, slavery, and militarism, as well as widespread exploitation, white supremacy, and sexism. The total devastation demonstrates the environmental crisis facing the world; and highlights local, state and federal governments' abandonment of low-income communities and communities of color, including immigrant communities, and their women, children, elders, and disabled. The ongoing struggle to win the right of return for all displaced people and the right of working people to return to their jobs, including in the public sector and especially in the public schools, points to growing struggles against gentrification and massive privatization - the right to housing, education, health care, to all public services, and the right of workers to collective bargaining in their workplaces. These struggles also point to the need for new strategic alliances among organizations in the African American, Indigenous, immigrant and other communities of color, and among working people, women, and queer communities to make our vision of Gulf Coast reconstruction a reality. Speakers: Moderators: Cultural Artists from New Orleans War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial ComplexThursday (June 28th) When the U.S. government launched the "War on Terror" and established the Department of Homeland Security, this meant an increased use of military might by the government against all critics of U.S. domination - at home and abroad. Today, the United States continues to flex its murderous, military might all around the globe. Meanwhile, under the guise of security, local, state and federal governments pump more money into building more prisons, detention centers, and border walls, and directing an increasing number of police and agents to the streets to conduct raids and to squash the peoples' opposition. As the U.S. government threatens to invade, bomb and sanction more countries, and as more and more people in the United States are thrown into prison or Speakers: Moderator: Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother EarthFriday (June 29th) Indigenous identity has developed through the history, culture, spiritual relationship, treaties and inherent rights of the Indigenous Peoples to their land. From Alaska, to Hawaii, to other areas of Turtle Island including the southeastern region, the impacts of colonization and neo-colonialism in the United States are deep and often devastating. These impacts are manifested in today's organizing work in and outside of Indigenous Nations, communities, organizations and individuals. The road of destruction related to U.S. dependence on a fossil fuel regime and its link to climate justice and human rights is critical in this organizing work. We will share models of organizing strategies and how they facilitate movement building and collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizing. Speakers: Moderators: Performers: Immigrant RightsFriday (June 29th) Since 9/11, immigrant communities around the United States have experienced increased and intensified oppression from repressive local, state and federal legislation, law enforcement, and racist right-wing vigilantes. Following swift passage of the infamous "Sensenbrenner bill" - HR4437 - by the House of Representatives, millions of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets in unprecedented mobilizations across the country in the Spring of 2006 and again in 2007 to denounce the growing repression and to reclaim the rights of immigrant communities. Immigration policy deeply impacts civil liberties, human rights, and workers' rights, affecting families, education, health care, and labor, wages, and working conditions for all working people, both immigrant and U.S.-born, in the U.S. These historic mobilizations have demonstrated the resurgence of a grassroots immigrant rights movement. It is vital, as we move forward, to recapture what are the principles that unite us, how to overcome the ones that divide us, what strategies are needed to really push for policies and legislation that recognize and protect immigrant rights; and how immigrant communities can play a role alongside other communities and working people in the larger social and economic justice movement in the U.S. Speakers: Moderator: Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our MovementsSaturday (June 30th) Gender and sexual oppression have adversely affected our communities throughout history, and have too often divided our movements for economic and racial justice and equality. In recent decades the right-wing in the United States rose to power on the backs of women and gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirit, and transgender people. Gender and sexuality are used as wedge issues to drive our communities apart. In the face of institutional and domestic violence, including growing political repression and poverty, women and gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirit, and transgender people have resisted - defending our rights, our dignity and our safety - and in the process, have created new models of organization and of justice. But the question still remains: How do we challenge gender and sexual oppression in all its expressions so that our communities and our movements can come together to fight for and win economic, racial, and gender and sexual justice, and human liberation? Speakers: Moderator: Workers' Rights in the Global EconomySaturday (June 30th) Workers in the United States and around the world are suffering under the impact of neoliberal globalization. U.S. workers, both inside and outside of trade unions, are under assault. Recent court decisions and right-to-work laws make it increasingly difficult for workers to organize. Factories and capital move quickly around the globe, yet workers migrating to the U.S. in search of work are treated as criminals and are forced to live and work in fear. Policies of deregulation and privatization concentrate power in the hands of corporations and employers. Labor-replacing technology - robots and automation - increasingly displace workers from production and distribution processes and set in motion the "race to the bottom." Outsourcing and offshoring are forcing global wage levels down, and cutting the health and safety protections for workers and the environment. These shifts in the global economy and assaults on workers have led to the creation of new worker organizing methods and new forms of organization. New strategies to build working-class power have emerged, along with new opportunities for solidarity with workers around the world. Speakers: Moderators: |