US Social Forum: ‘We’re Living a Nightmare Called Katrina’
ATLANTA - Under the banner, “If another world is possible, another U.S. is necessary,” 10,000 civil society activists gathered in Atlanta, Georgia Wednesday for the beginning of the first U.S. Social Forum.
A spin-off of the annual World Social Forum, the USSF aims to “send a message to other people’s movements around the world that there is an active movement in the U.S. opposing U.S. policies at home and abroad”, according to organizers.
During the first plenary session on the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Katrina, held in a large auditorium at Atlanta’s Civic Center Thursday, Jerome Scott of Project South said, “The whole question of the [U.S.] Gulf Coast and the response the government had… pulled the covers on all the evil things that exist in this country.”
A few thousand people attended the first plenary, and at one point several hundred Hurricane Katrina victims stood up to show their presence.
“We thought this was one of the most important issues we could have here at the first U.S. Social Forum,” said Scott, whose group educates and trains community leaders.
“They’ve got the media saying Gulf Coast recovery is slow. It’s not slow. It’s a massive privatization scheme,” added Monique Harden of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights.
“The only people locked out of homes not damaged were public housing residents,” Harden said of New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, killing at least 1,836 people and causing more than 81 billion dollars in damages.
“We have to understand our history,” stressed Mwalimu Johnson, 70, of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana.
Johnson spoke of the influential economist from the U.S. Revolutionary War era, Adam Smith, who said “Civil government is instituted as protection for the rich against the poor,” in his book, “Wealth of Nations”.
“That’s important because… the areas I was dealing with, how could the government allow this to occur? The idea is, the government is responsible to the elite. You don’t have to wonder why the government allowed it to happen,” Johnson told IPS.
“They systematically performed genocide behind the guise of a disaster,” Johnson said.
“The hurt that I feel for New Orleans, point blank murder,” Sharon Harshaw of the Mississippi group Coastal Women for Change said at the meeting.
Speakers and audience members emphasized that Hurricane Katrina is also symbolic of so many other problems people face in the U.S. and around the world, day to day.
“If you’re working in criminal justice, you’re talking about Katrina. If you’re talking about health care, you’re talking about Katrina. If you’re talking about housing, you’re talking about Katrina. We’re living in a nightmare called Katrina. The source is a backwards, capitalist, racist system,” one audience member said in public remarks.
The first day of the USSF began with a massive parade throughout downtown Atlanta under a scorching hot sun.
Hundreds of organizations were represented in the march, and equally, hundreds of issues cropped up on banners and signs, including workers rights, sexual orientation equality, peace, impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, compassion for immigrants, and preserving public housing, just to name a few. Large street puppets also made appearances.
The march route was changed just weeks before the Forum, when the City of Atlanta and police denied the requested permit. USSF organizers and the city came to an agreement which kept the protesters marching on downtown’s visible Peachtree Street, but gave in to the city’s wish to not go by City Hall.
A hundred public housing residents and advocates from Atlanta and Chicago still held a rally, however, at City Hall, one hour prior to the USSF parade. Just yards away, thousands of USSF attendees stood around during that hour, oblivious to the public housing residents — only a short block away — who were pleading to save their homes.
Despite removing the City Hall action from the original USSF march route, USSF organizers made little effort to publicize the public housing issue being addressed only meters away.
The march kicked off with several speeches, including by civil rights movement veteran Joseph Lowery of Atlanta.
“Our national dilemma today is not technical retardation but moral deficiency. We have a moral deficiency in establishing priorities when putting our technological advances to work for the common good,” said Rev. Lowery.
“We continue as a nation to put corporate greed above social needs and we insist on relying on militaristic solutions to political and moral challenges,” Lowery said.
“We have sacrificed the ideals that could make us great, on the altar of our ambition that can make us big; but big is not the same as great,” Lowery said.
“We have sown the wind of mean-spiritedness toward the poor, and lack of humaneness toward the stranger at our door. There is something terribly wrong with our system of economics and values when we have disparities, when any handful of people have more than they’ll ever need while millions have less than they will always need,” Lowery said.
“We are torn asunder by the erosion of our civil liberties,” he added. “We are damaged by the misconception that might makes right and that we can resolve every conflict by sending smart bombs on dumb missions.”
Several marchers told IPS they were excited about the Social Forum, which runs through Jul. 1.
“I’ve never seen any diversity like this [at any other event]. It’s not just white folks. I want to see groups like this keep coming together and growing. The diversity in this crowd is like nothing I’ve seen in another march. The more mixing the better,” said Randy Aronov, an Atlanta area activist.
However, diversity of agendas also presents some challenges to having concrete gains come out of the USSF.
“It’s a difficult thing to get these people, very passionate about specific issues, to organize around a single focus. It would be good… [to have some goals with a] smaller focus,” said Rev. Lauren Cogswell of Atlanta’s Open Door Community.
“It can bring hope, you’re not alone. Especially in the South, in the city of Atlanta. It’s [usually] that same 40 people that show up to every protest,” Cogswell said.
Copyright © 2007 IPS-Inter Press Service
We need one of these every month.
Yes a gathering every month in every major city.
Stay adamant, stay peaceful and rational… and SPEAK OUT to promote justice and show the world that there are Americans who are not programmed with Evil like the Bush Junta Cult and its sheep.
But shun hostile, drunk, or tweaked-out participants… beware the old CIA trick of planting belligerent outsiders in the gatherings to create violence (or burn flags) to justify police confrontation or arrests, and make the gatherings look ‘Un-American’.
It is most effective to display American flags respectfully and show the people you are trying to impress the reality that you are patriotic protestors critical of an unpatriotic government.
If this report is correct, the behavior of the leadership of the USF perfectly describes why we on the left fail so often and so miserably.
Even before thousands of highly-conscious, motivated activists came to Atlanta for the WSF meeting, the leadership had already cut a deal with the local police so that Forum attendees would do nothing (and probably not even know about) what appears to be a legitimate local grass-roots grievance.
When the local group went ahead on their action anyway, the WSF people either actively ignored them or did not know about them.
Despite all the moving testimony and wonderful debate at the forum, this failure to ACT WITHOUT A PERMIT, negates much of the good that was done.
If we have to ask permission from our oppressors and have to get permits that won’t offend them, exactly how in the hell are we going to change anything? This is what we rightfully slam the jelly-fish of the Democratic Party for.
Could someone who attended the Atlanta WSF please clarify this report. Please tell me that I am reading this wrong. Please.
tj! they’ll give you a permit to march, then change sh!t around to see how active you are.
you are right. WE ARE GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD!!!! one marching permit at a time.
i don’t have a solution for this crap, but the idea that ‘legality’ is the confines in which we should stay seems ridiculous. i mean what is the principle issue that progressives are up in arms about (whether they realize it or not): it’s property vs. human life.
you read about any action in the MSM in the US and their only concern is **property damage**, and secondarily any **illegal** action. you can protest the destruction of an entire country (eg iraq) but don’t mess w/somebody’s starbucks!
way too many people fetishize this whole “legal” thing. partially cuz they are scared of the consequences. but jeebus h. christ! the civil war was over a “legal” issue (slavery), and the civil rights movement was over legalized jim crow bs, and every antiwar action has been against a “legal” war, so…..
so…..exactly
The protests recently of the Germans and Italians prove the Europeans aren’t afraid to actively get out and protest. Their police aren’t as brutal towards them as American police are during protests here. Interesting.
yes, it is a shame that the locals were ignored either through ignorance or intention but… the marchers were there and that is the important thing. People gathering together to show the world that the American people are not walking in step with this adminstration.
stepfour June 30th, 2007 5:24 pm
We need this outside the White House every day like the Orange revolution in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005…..
“Katrina the Hurricane” did not have to turn into “Katrina the Disaster” followed by “Katrina the Debacle”.
First, there is a good chance that global warming will result in a greater risk of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic. The most rational policy would be to take this into account, and to start reinforcing levees and planning for more Katrina-like events.
However, this would mean that the current government would have to publicly accept the reality of global warming. If the government starts planning for the effects of global warming, no fossil fuel PR agent is really going to be able to deny the facts any longer.
Second, if the levees had been strengthened then they wouldn’t have been breached and most of the damage could have been avoided. Scientists and engineers had been begging for funds to do this for years.
Third, the Lousiana National Guard should have been present with their high-water equipment (both were in Iraq). They could have saved thousands of lives.
Fourth, our government is corrupt and incompetent. They installed a greeter for the Saudis as head of FEMA (Brown), who had no idea of how to respond to a disaster. You had Bush playing guitar and Rice buying stiletto heels while people were dying in their attics.
Compare the US response to Katrina with that of Cuba. Cuba was able to evacuate ALL of their citizens from the hurricane’s path, AND their pets, and had no fatalities. After the hurricane, when it became clear what a disaster New Orleans was, Cuba volunteered to send hundreds of doctors with backpacks of medical supplies to help - an offer which was declined by Bush, as were many other offers of assistance from other countries. Why? Fear of embarrassment?
So, the social forum seems to have some nice ideas, but the real problem is a corrupt and incompetent government that is completely in the grip of international corporate interests, and doesn’t care about what happens to American citizens, or to the rest of the planet’s people.
tj, you are right we are way too mesmerized by staying “legal”. We’ve been sold a bill of goods and we’ve bought it willingly. It’s great to get together to try to figure out what to focus energy on, but here we go with the “free speech zones” all over again. Would love to know why the group was not allowed to march by City Hall. Were the cops afraid the group would try to break in or somethng?!!
Michael “Good Job Brownie” Brown actually does a Sunday afternoon talkshow here in Denver on http://www.850koa.com Trent Lott recently commented on the power of talk radio. The left needs to better utilize those forums (left and right-wing shows) to speak their minds.
By the way, most right-wing shows don’t screen dissenting callers out. Progressives, who have never called in, are always saying that. I’ve made hundreds of calls to right-wing shows. Only a few screen out dissent or leave you on hold endlessly.
I don’t think getting a permit is such a bad thing. If others feel being in the streets without one is a better way to go, then do it. Others would rather have something more organized to avoid tear gas, traffic issues and so forth.
The “black block” was always arguing the permit issue. That’s fine, although, I never saw them organize a permitless march themselves. They’d just criticize those who had organized the only march there was. Not a very constructive approach to me.
The Italian cops totally brutalized several WTO protests about 4 years back. They stormed into one building many were sleeping in and just went berzerk.
Sometimes European police are ok with protests, other times no.
I tried to find stories about the forum, so I searched and only found a few. Atlanta Journal had several dating up to 6/29, but they trashed the meaning by using language arts to deflate what they are trying to accomplish.
It wouldn’t matter if they marched up Peachtree St., the media will ignore it!
The media will only notice a protest that is authorized by the corporate interests unless they can report crime and discredit it. The protest should be to boycott or block the media and the corporate sponsors.
The msm needs a kick in the butt.
tj , “If we have to ask permission from our oppressors and have to get permits that won’t offend them, exactly how in the hell are we going to change anything?”
We win the war by avoiding it, what your oppressors really want is for you to give them an excuse to take you out of the game.
remember Gandhi’s strategy for bringing the giant machine of British rule to a halt. nonviolent noncooperation would achieve the goal.