Dear USSF Writers’ network,
This is the first of numerous bi-weekly memos to encourage and support your efforts to get the word out about the United States Social Forum in Detroit June 22-26, 2010.
Remember that we’re aiming to get people taking about the issues behind the US Social Forum as well as the event itself, and we recognize that reaching mainstream media outlets is difficult. So we will continue to try to get letters to editor, op-eds, and essays/analyses published in a variety of media sources- mainstream as well as movement media, professional newsletters, blogs, and other sources. Be creative and prolific at hitting the various places where people can communicate about important issues.
We will continue to offer support and to search for ways to help enhance our communication with the wider public. We welcome suggestions and input from you as well, and we will be working to improve our wiki site to make it easier to use, and you are welcome to edit the wiki site if you wish.
There are a few background resources included on the wiki page, and updates or suggestions for other good resources are welcome.
Below are a few suggestions of story lines to inspire some writing about the USSF and its concerns-- you are welcome to use/build upon these in your writing.
Remember, please send your stories/links: to ussfwriters@gmail.com.
Thanks!
Sociologists without Borders & USSF Communications Working Group
SUGGESTIONS FOR TIMELY STORIES/OP-EDS/ LETTERS:
Labor Day weekend
Now is a good time to recall the contributions of the labor movement to social justice and to the U.S. Social Forum while raising awareness about the conditions of workers in this country and around the world. United for a Fair Economy and IPS have issued their annual Executive Excess report, which you can find at http://www.faireconomy.org/executiveexcess
Some highlights:
· Average incomes of CEOs of the largest U.S. companies last year were over $10 million--344 times the pay of the average U.S. worker.
· The average U.S. worker must work more than 30 years to earn just the value of the perks of top executives.
· While the banks have gotten their bailouts and are beginning to see profits again, workers remain imperiled. Obama’s promise of an Employee Free Choice Act to help workers realize their human right to join trade unions is still unrealized.
People’s Response to G-20 Meeting on Financial Crisis
On September 24-25, finance ministers of the G-20 countries (which make up the majority of the global economy) will meet in Pittsburgh to discuss how to address the economic crisis. There are many voices missing from this table.
The G20 agenda competes with efforts in the UN to bring a more unified and comprehensive global perspective to the crisis. Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank and now a leading critic of the global financial order, now chairs a commission in the UN to address the global financial crisis. He believes the "Group of 192" UN members should be leading these discussions.
Popular voices and proposals for alternatives to economic globalization have also been marginalized by the mainstream media and in policy debates. One of the days of the U.S. Social forum will focus on popular responses to the global economic crisis, including both the visions of what alternatives might better address the needs of the world’s people and the means through which these alternatives can be achieved.
Jobs with Justice a leading organization in the US Social Forum process, has called on groups across the U.S. to take actions during the week of September 24-October 1 to demand a real economic recovery for working people. Despite the billions spent to bail out the banks and provide economic stimulus to the U.S. economy,
§ Workers are losing their jobs, homes, healthcare, & retirement security;
§ The bailed-out banks continue to award executive bonuses while refusing to finance jobs and evicting renters and homeowners through foreclosures;
§ Corporations still “own” Congress & are continuing with “business as usual” by blocking measures like health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act
For information on local actions and the JwJ campaign, see http://www.jwj.org/recovery/
Katrina Anniversary and Financial Crisis
The anniversary of Katrina should serve as a reminder to the larger issues our society now faces, as more people are likely to experience some of the loss, hardship, and government neglect that Katrina survivors continue to struggle with. Our elected officials have not been attentive to the needs of many of the most vulnerable members of our society. Instead, policies aimed at fostering economic growth have favored the interests of corporations and developers who have little concern with the well-being of the larger society.
The titanic of the global economy is sinking, and the bankers, CEOs, and other elites have landed safely in their emergency yachts. They are working in isolation to hammer out new strategies to ensure that they can continue to sail. In the meantime, the rest of us are scrambling for limited and inadequate life-rafts. The USSF has helped give a voice to Katrina’s victims, and it is now a space where people who are clinging to life rafts and drift wood are working to build a new boat that can keep afloat those people who have been left out by the neoliberal model of economic globalization.
Upcoming anniversary of September 11-- Two stories about our world
Since September 11, 2001, political leaders have sought to promote a particular story about our world. In this story, the world is a fundamentally dangerous place, where people who are different from us pose threats, and where our nation is in constant competition against many unseen and elusive enemies. We are reminded of this story almost daily, as we hear of changes in the “alert status” determined by the Department of Homeland Security, and as news media make terrorism and terrorists the focus of their saturation coverage.
The other story is about how people working outside of governments are coming together to demonstrate that another, more cooperative and just world is possible. In the very same year as the 9/11 attacks, the World Social Forum began in Porto Alegre Brazil. The World Social Forums have mobilized hundreds of thousands of people around the world, celebrating a story about a human community that is very capable of cooperating to promote a common good. Diversity is a strength, not a threat in this story line. And no single nation can ‘go it alone’ on our shared planet. The World Social Forum and its national, regional, and local counterparts demonstrate that far more people are ready to devote enormous amounts of time and energy to helping find new ways to address the many problems our human community faces. While it takes just a handful of people to make a ‘dirty bomb,’ it takes scores of people working over many months and even years to organize effective meetings for the tens of thousands attending the largest social forums. This is surely a story that is far more newsworthy.
“Another World is Possible, Another U.S. is Necessary”
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