U.S. Social Forum Writers Network September 18, 2009
The following is a bi-weekly communication to members of the U.S. Social Forum Writers Network who have committed themselves to the work of helping spread the news about the USSF, which will be held in Detroit June 22-26, 2010. Writers agree to submit at least one piece of work per month to a local or national newspaper, community or professional newsletter, internet blog, or other media source.
Below are suggestions of possible “hooks” for stories that can reach diverse audiences we seek to mobilize for the USSF and the movements participating in it. Please feel free to use these ideas to help get the USSF message out and to support the social movements behind the U.S. and World Social Forum process.
If you have ideas for future USSF writers communications, please send them to ussfwriters@gmail.com .
HELP BUILD THE WRITER’s NETWORK: Please distribute the call for participation to other organizations and individuals
Thanks!
- Jackie Smith, Sociologists without Borders and member of the USSF Communications Working Group
USSF Organizers Continue to Build Momentum for June Forum
The organizational machinery of the second U.S. Social Forum seems to be running like a well-oiled machine compared with the ground-breaking (and back-breaking) work done by those organizers who helped bring the World Social Forum process to the United States in 2007. This is not to say that the work has been easy. Organizers are trying to create new structures to facilitate communication and cooperation across groups that are not used to speaking to each other—much less working side-by-side.
Members of the USSF National Planning Committee are spread across movements ranging from immigrant rights to anti-racism to feminism, labor, environment and youth justice. They hail from all parts of the country, and one thing they share is that most come from and work with people who are most adversely affected by the global economic system. So they don’t have lots of rich friends or extra cash on hand to host such as large event. And most of the organizers are adding USSF work to their already insane work schedules. But they do have passion and commitment, as well as strategic smarts that lend credence to Detroit Local Organizing Committee organizer Maureen Taylor’s aspiration to bring 30,000 activists to her city this coming June.
Unlike the first USSF, organizers now have at least a portion of the budget for the Detroit Forum in the bank, and they are working to hire a handful of organizers to take on the job done last time around by just one paid staff person, Alice Lovelace. The working group structure has built upon the experiences of the Atlanta USSF, and the technology team has vastly improved the group’s ability to use the internet to assist with organizing conference calls and working group coordination.
New groups are also applying to join the National Planning Committee, and organizers have been working to set up structures that are most effective at getting the work done while also ensuring that all participants—particularly those most marginalized and adversely affected by current economic and political structures—have a voice.
So the train is slowly moving out of the station towards the second U.S. Social Forum, and what is needed now is for more engines to jump in and pull us forward against the formidable resistance to social change in this country. More details on the who, what, when, and most importantly, the “how-to-get-involved” are at http://www.ussf2010.org.
Uncivil Health Care “debate” in U.S. signals need for larger changes in public discourse and culture. This is what the Social Forum is all about
Former president Jimmy Carter criticized the recent vitriol and public spectacles at town hall meetings on health care reform and the outburst by South Carolina Senator Joe Wilson during President Obama’s address to the Congress as racist. Carter said statements such as calling Obama a "Nazi" are not just "casual outcomes of a sincere debate" over the president's health care proposals. He said it is "deeper than that." Clearly the latest round of “debate” on health care has generated more heat than light, and given the urgent needs of so many Americans, it’s time for far more serious reflections on the real options for improving access to basic health care. After all, without health care, people can’t contribute to the economy or to the larger life of the community. That is why world leaders made access to health care a basic human right, expressed in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.udhr.org/UDHR/default.htm). Community leaders and organizers from around the United States have been working hard to create a space where people around the country can come together for dialogue, debate, mutual learning, and to build movements for a more just society. What is planned is the country’s largest “town hall meeting,” where an anticipated 20-30,000 people are expected to come engage in honest and open dialogue over the major conflicts and crises of our time. Participants, not elected officials, set the agenda and terms of debate. This means that options—such as the single-payer model or even the limited “public option” put forward by the Obama administration--that are resisted by corporate elite aren’t rejected out of hand, as they tend to be in Washington. The aim is to build alliances and common understandings that are needed to generate popular pressure for change. As the social forum’s slogan attests: “Another world is possible, another U.S. is necessary.”
If we are to see real reform of our health care system, more advocates of social justice need to get involved. The USSF offers a possibility for mobilizing a broad alliance for reforms that will address the urgent health care crisis in this country.
G-20 Meeting on Global Financial Crisis Starts September 24 in Pittsburgh —Opposition to “Cult of Market” moves from Movement to Elite Circles
As the leaders of the world’s richest countries prepare to gather in Pittsburgh to plan a response to global financial crisis, civil society groups are amassing their own forces and ideas. But now some of those in power are singing tunes that sound more like those being sung behind the barricades that have insulated leaders from the crowds of protesters that have shadowed global financial meetings over recent years. French President Sarkozy is taking on the “cult of the market,” and proposing that leaders devise new measures of economic health. “[T]he definition would be expanded beyond traditional gross domestic product (GDP) models to include measures of well-being and what Sarkozy describes as "the politics of civilization." These include environmental sustainability, the quality of public services and the amount of time citizens of a country have to meet family responsibilities.…” Such arguments have long been made by social movements opposing neoliberal economic globalization, including many of the groups preparing to gather in Detroit this June….
For more on Sarkozy position, see article in The Nation
More G20 Info on Early September USSF Writers Memo: Early September-Labor Day 2009
Important events on the horizon that might serve as “hooks” to talk about the USSF and the movements participating in it.
o September 15 marked the opening of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly. The organization was formed to “end the scourge of war.” Obviously some new ideas are needed if it is to succeed in its job.
o September 24-25 G20 leaders meet in Pittsburgh to address economic crisis (see above). They’ll be met by global social justice activists.
o September 24—Special summit session of the UN Security Council to address nuclear non-proliferation questions. Will nuclear states begin to take steps towards disarmament that are essential to the larger effort to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons?
o December 7-18—United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen—World leaders debate how to respond to climate change. Many scientists and politicians see this conference as crucial to curbing the most disastrous effects of global warming. Activists are threatening to disrupt the convention if leaders don’t step up their commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.
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