This page discusses the themes that tie together many of the issues addressed in social forums:

• to promote the development of a common framework to help us identify and analyze the root causes of problems and oppressions,
  
• to encourage historical and international dimensions in our thinking and action,
  
• to encourage thinking and acting that move beyond criticism toward actually building "another world."

Where appropriate, we ask organizers of USSF events to address these Cross-Cutting Themes in planning and carrying out their events.

Identifying and analyzing root causes of problems and oppressions in our world

Corporate globalization, neoliberalism, and imperialism

Since the early 1980s the dominant economic model throughout the world has been neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a global process that serves the interests of big corporations, which in turn influence governments and international institutions such as the World Bank. Neoliberalism connects many burning issues of today — growing inequality; deepening poverty, particularly along racial lines; exploitation of immigrant communities; environmental degradation; footloose corporations; privatization of schools, social services and water; deregulation; the overwhelming of small, local businesses by large chains ("big box" development); the growth of the military-industrial and the prison-industrial complexes; and the Disneyfication of culture. Neoliberalism is the present-day face of imperialism — the exploitation of nations, peoples and our shared environment by wealthier and more powerful countries.

Intersections of oppressions

White supremacy is the ideology of white privilege, power, and rule that developed out of capitalism and imperialism and is embedded in the structures of society in the U.S. and around the world. This institutionalized racism exists within the economic, political, and criminal justice systems and in social and cultural life (education, health care, environmental justice, the media, organized religion, etc). The devastation following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is a concrete example of white supremacy and its connection to economic inequality in U.S. society today. White supremacy and Racism are one example of the multiple forms of oppression faced by many of the world's people today, including oppression on the basis of gender, class, nationality and immigration status, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age and ability, as well as race. These oppressions create inequalities, destabilization, dislocation, and environmental degradation in our communities, and they connect to a common system — capitalism, imperialism, corporate globalization, resource exploitation, and corporate-run media.

Learning from historical experiences and building international solidarity

Past and current struggles

Our struggles today, like the systems that we resist, have roots sunk deep in the past and spread around the world. It is important that we recall stories of past and current resistance, strive to learn and apply the lessons they have to offer, and consider what did and did not work. We work to bring those lessons to today's struggles.

Internationalist perspectives

Solidarity and internationalism in the U.S. means preventing the U.S. government and military — and the international institutions they control — from invading, exploiting, and dominating other peoples, nations, natural resources, and the environment of the world. Internationalism also means learning from other struggles and becoming strong enough to act as an equal partner in building a global movement.

Envisioning alternatives: Another World Is Possible

Building a Movement

How do we create a world with economic and social justice and environmental sustainability? We must recognize that we are part of a global justice movement united in this vision and that we face common challenges and threats. We must build on existing movements, unite single-issue and single-region constituencies, and avoid further splintering of progressive forces. We need to strengthen these movements by building solidarity with our natural allies within the U.S. as well as throughout the world.

Building a social justice movement means educating others and ourselves while using all available resources, including traditional media and the Internet, as we combat the disinformation and the orchestrated distractions of the corporate media. We accomplish this through popular education, the study of leftist political theory, and by learning from the experiences of progressive initiatives and struggles in the U.S. as well as throughout the world, such as the Bolivarian Missions in Venezuela; popular movements in Kerala, India; the Zapatistas in Mexico; and the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil.

What Kind of Future?

What do we mean by "social and economic justice" and "sustainability"? Can we imagine a world that is free of structural inequality, oppression, war, hunger, and illiteracy; a world with universal access to housing, education, health care, information and decent livelihoods; a world in which there is true democratic participation in decision making and where there is respect for diversity and for the environment? What political, social, and economic policies and structures could lead to and ultimately sustain such a world?