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Program Subgroup Meeting Notes

09.14.09

Present:

  • Leslie: Ithica, NY. Youth Media and Prison Abolition
  • Jackie: Maryland. Women of Color United
  • Walda: Maryland. League of Revolutionaries for a New America
  • Jerome: Atlanta, Georgia. League of Revolutionaries for a New America
  • kiran: Chicago. NASCO, US Solidarity Economy Network


Agenda:

  1. Introductions & Check-ins
  2. Online form process and where we’re at with that
  3. Consulta Process
  4. Next Call:
  • Whole Group: Mon, Sept 21, 9pm EST
  • Program Subgroup: Mon, Sept 28, 9pm
  • Call-in: 712-432-9998
  • Access Code: 841125#
The new online form timeline:
  • This timeline is connected to the timeline of the consulta process. We need the wording for the tracks for our form, and we won’t have that until the consulta process is completed. Our new timeline looks like this:
  • Consulta out mid Oct.
  • Consulta ends end of November.
  • Workshop proposal forms out mid December
  • Large publicity push for proposal forms early January


Description of the consulta process What it is, who participates in it.

  • About launching and publicity. It is our first major national public launch
  • Attempt to consolidate work plans and timelines so we’re in a coordinated place with our work
  • About clarifying the themes and axes of the USSF
  • It’s really important that we’re all on the same page, so we can figure out how to use it to further NPC work goals
  • The tracks will influence convergence and coordination in workshops
  • Right now, it is being worked on by folks from Program & Culture, Outreach, PMA, Communications, Technology
  • An education/outreach tool. Idea is to take to the groups we want to work with. We all need to be thinking about how to use it.
  • It’s a consultation.
  • Who will be involved in the consulta: The NPC and it’s member organization, the anchor organizations, the local organizing committee and the local community, specific groups in the movement whose voices and feedback we want to solicit. It will be available to the public at large on our website.
  • This process is used in developing the WSF.


Feedback:

  • Consulta can be confusing. We could call it the Consulta/consultation process.
  • We remember the wording for the themes of the days differently, based on our conversations at the NPC meeting in Detroit
  • Day Two: Connecting Detroit and the U.S.
o We remember this being not so much about connection as it was about local struggles— of Detroit, of the Rust Belt, and of the Great Lakes Region, including Canada
  • Day Three: Connecting U.S. and International Social
o We remember this as US and International Responses to the Multiple Global Crises. So, how are groups in the US and internationally responding? How are they working together. However, this would allow folks to focus on responses to the multiple crises
  • Day Four: Solutions, Alternatives, and Vision: Confronting and Combating Neo-liberalism
o About visions for the future, not so much about combating as it is creating and visioning
o The focus on neo-liberalism seems very specific
o Remember this as strategies and visions for the future
o Possible wording: Solutions, Alternatives and Visions for the Future
  • About wording: The form mentions that specific wording feedback isn’t important. While I understand we aren’t looking for nit-picking, it was highlighted that we re looking for feedback on how different movements are framing themselves, what words they are using to describe themselves.
  • Jackie, Women’s Working Group Feedback
o Worried about level of intersectionality in the themes. Too many intersectional themes.
o Came up with four sections: 1. identity 2. movement building 3. governance/democracy 4. earth
o See Women’s Working Group Suggestions at end of Document
  • Leslie:
o Also worried about the level of intersectionality. Had difficulty figuring out how we fit in.
o Having 12 things is a lot. Maybe have fewer options.
o Where is colonialism? The US is a colony. What about indigenous people? Puerto Rico?
  • Where are prisons/repression?
  • Question of popular education, transformative education
  • Question of healthcare. State health care.
  • Themes that are focusing on local, national, international sound good, but we think it’s going to be problematic for how people see themselves in it. We need to think: What are the issues we want to lift up in particular?
  • Jobs, poverty, housing are missing. People who do work around this are going to have a problem with this.
  • The days separate workshops with the local/national/international themes. Doing this with tracks may be repetitive. What we’re missing is ways to identify issues—the movement isn’t there yet. We need to think about this more: How do we meet people on their issues and move them to a movement space?
  • We will bring this feedback to the call on Monday so we can talk about this as a whole group.

WWG RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ORGANIZING TRACKS

  • Proposal that the tracks be ordered in four sections:
o Identity (individual and population, transformative healing, )
o Movement Building (resistance, movement building, media/culture, communications etc)
o Governance(Democracy, governance, economics, imperial and neo-liberal policies)
o Earth/Ecology Justice (ecology and biodiversity, environmental justice/climate justice etc).
  • In this blend we can have the overriding themes of intersectionality and future movement: they all affect each other, so how will we move on them locally, nationally, internationally? This may also help people to find a way “in” to the workshops (not be overwhelmed by lots of structure/divides).
  • Furthermore we are suggesting intersecting relationships as a broad framework:
o Individuals' relationship to the movement
o Within movement and between movement politics
o Governance /Democratization /economics/etc
o Earth intersecting with People, Movements, and Governance


Return to Program/Culture WG main page.