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US Social Forum: Activist Stands Ready to Be Part of Big Movement
As many as 20,000 people are coming to Detroit for a massive discussion of social change.
DETROIT - As many as 20,000 people are coming to Detroit for a massive discussion of social change.
First of all, "Yay!" that as many as 20,000 people are coming to Detroit.
Second of all, do not dismiss the grassroots activists, idealists, revolutionaries and community organizers (even Tea Party members inquired about space) who will be in the city for the US Social Forum from Tuesday through Friday. Organizers say it will be the largest gathering of its kind to explore, among many things, improving public education and strengthening the working class.
The forum grew out of the 10-year-old World Social Forum, which was a cry against "the world's elite - a small amount of people, entrepreneurs and government officials - making decisions for the majority of people," said Adele Nieves, a 36-year-old Detroiter who is the forum's media spokeswoman.
"If you're going to make decisions for every majority, then make sure you then do that with poor people's initiatives in mind," she said.
Even if you're not participating, the forum will be hard to miss. It's expected to take over Detroit's west riverfront and will have meetings, workshops and discussions at sites from Cobo Hall to Hart Plaza, from Wayne State University to a USSF Village along the water behind Joe Louis Arena.
An Activist's homecoming
The position of "community organizer" has earned great stature since the election of President Barack Obama.
But back in the day, for Jerome Scott, it meant underpaid activist trying to teach people economic and street smarts.
Scott will be among the throngs gathering in Detroit this week for the US Social Forum and for him, it's also a homecoming.
He grew up the son of a tailor and a waitress in Detroit's old Black Bottom neighborhood, worked in Chrysler plants for 10 years and helped found the League of Revolutionary Black Workers before moving to Atlanta, where he became a full-time community organizer.
He founded Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide, which helped host the last US Social Forum that brought thousands of people to Atlanta. Scott and thousands of activists like him want to get America to focus on solving the problems of the poor, the working poor and the soon-to-be poor.
"You cannot really get significant social change without a large social movement in this country," Scott said.
No different in fervor and size than the rallies that sparked civil rights and environmental improvements, the forum is to give grassroots activists a national demonstration of economic concern.
Yes, participants know that some will roll their eyes and others might question everything from their motives to their collective ability to see past the 1960s.
But Scott, who attended the old Wilbur Wright High School, rightly sees thousands of high school students graduating to lives of poverty and says corporate America cannot be trusted to solve problems that aren't going away.
"I've been involved in social-change work all my life," he said, "and I see the forum as one of those opportunities to talk to literally hundreds or thousands of people that are talking about social change and social justice."
The ideal setting
And what does social justice -- the kind forum attendees hope for -- look like?
"It would look like full employment," Scott said, "people not having to suffer from under- or unemployment, a government that actually serves the needs of the people, that actually looks at how to resolve problems rather than incarcerate such a high percentage of the population.
"We're talking about resolving real everyday problems. ... How do we deal with this whole situation with Detroit?"
There's a question.
Scott isn't coming to Detroit because it is Detroit. But he is glad that this year's forum is being held in a place that speaks to every problem government faces: poor education, high unemployment, the loss of major industry, a place where four out of five eligible voters don't vote.
"I grew up in a Detroit that was a manufacturing city that people with a high school education could get a job you could raise a family on. Those jobs don't exist anymore anywhere. How do we deal with that changing situation when we still have this growing population?"
Monumental change
Scott says the forum may be the beginning of a movement that can literally shift government. He said, for instance, that he concentrated on the other side of Obama's presidential campaign, the one that seems to be forgotten now, the side that said: "I can't do it without y'all -- which meant to me that if we don't put the kind of people in the street that can pressure him to do what has to be done, there's no way for him to do it."
In a country where a community organizer turned junior senator can become president, is it possible for monumental change to begin with revolutionaries gathered in the poorest big city in America? Don't dismiss the revolutionaries. They arrive Tuesday.
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26 Comments so far
Show AllGo Social Forum activists! :-) Change is happening.
This gathering will be successful only if participants go home with the understanding that they will make the progress they aspire to in spite of the Democratic Party and not with any influence or support of the Democratic Party.
I agree with you and take it one step further; it would be awesome if the forum concluded that the progressive/left community must unite and organize a viable third party alternative to the corruption we have now!
I believe so long as we continue depending on the DP, nothing will change significantly. Why would it, when the party is controlled by the very people that are profiting off of our labor, the huge unemployment rate, the prices of commodities forced on us, etc, etc. To expect the democrats to challenge the current economic crisis from an effective position is utter nonsense!
The choice is ours to make. Continue wasting your energy, your money, your hopes and aspirations with the DP or help organize for REAL change!
Read: Socialism? We Wish, Says Local Group by Carrie Whitaker
Published on Monday, June 21, 2010 by the Cincinatti Enquirer
We would have never got FDR's New Deal if the Socialist and Communist Parties did not include a significant number of Americans. The threat of socialism/communism gave FDR and Congress a huge selling point to justify the New Deal.
More than a half century of brainwashing and persecution has resulted in a much smaller percentage of Americans supporting the Socialist or Communist Parties today.
As long as the Democratic and Republican Parties continue to get 97-98% of the vote in elections, both parties will be 100% beholden to corporate interests.
It will be all for nothing if they can't get it through their brainwashed minds that they must give up on Democrats (as well as Republicans) - still, I'm glad this event is happening, which I was there, and hope such an event will happen here sometime in the future.
So what if a community activist junior Senator becomes President if his policies are to keep the filthy corrupt system intact?? And only tinkers in minor ways with what's wrong with us. And murders people overseas without any remorse?
Yes, we simply traded a white, inarticulate crook for a black, highly articulate crook.
There is no hope for change from anybody who accepts corporate cash, irrespective of their career history or party affiliation.
I hope this goes well. I do. But I'm not sure what "goes well" means. Not sure anyone else does either.
Here's what makes me wonder about these convocations. 20,000 people who are probably all opposed to our depredations against the biosphere are flying, driving, and taking buses to Detroit, where they will increase their footprints for the duration of the conference - being on the road is often much more stress on the environment. 20,000 people who are at least skeptical about capitalism are participating in one of the worst general aspects of industrial capitalism - our increasing velocity through time and space (which is always an apporpriation of the time and space of those who cannot). 20,000 people will get together to figure out what to do, and if each of them spent the same amount of time and money at home, planting a couple of overyielding food perennials, they would accomplish more (40,000 food producing perennials) than will probably come out of this conference. 20,000 people could be making gardens, near home. 20,000 people could be using the same time and resources making worm bins. 20,000 people could be buying someone who needs it a bicycle. If they wanted, this 20,000 could organize the next Gaza flotilla (that nonviolent action has already forced changes on the Zionists).
Instead, I suspect, they will refine some utopian (policy) programs; many will be there to assert the will of their vanguard organizations... and many to recruit to them. I have no faith left for programs, abstractions, vanguards. I hope this isn't the case. I sincerely hope I am wrong. But I went to a lot of things like this; and in the time since, those of us who went could have accomplished a great deal, practically, but most of us have continued the vain business of fetishizing our organizations, bopping from one campaign to the next, and refining/expanding our programs.
You can get high on these conferences. I did. But like all highs, you have to go get more by and by. Meanwhile the material conditions that continually redirect us into the same patterns are unaltered. We don't do that, because we are looking for the magic bullet. But we should, I think. We should make practical, material changes in the built environment... starting with food systems, and debt relief (not the kind that takes decades of policy fighting).
Not dissing the participants. I know some of them, I'm sure. They are amazing, dedicated people, mostly of very good will. And I want to be proven wrong. I want most of the same things they do, beginning with and end to enforced dependency and violence... all violence.
Just a few thoughts.
The opening address at this event needs to go something like this:
The Republicans are about to drive America into a brick wall at 100 mph. The Democrats are about to drive America into a brick wall at 90 mph. Who do you want to be riding with?
Why not do everything? Go to the conference (if you can) AND plant a garden AND make a worm bin AND staying active in other ways.
It can be considered a success if the participants move way beyond electoral politics (and trying to move political decision-making and decision-makers) and focus on social, economic, and environmental initiatives. And then take those initiative back to their communities to act on directly.
Well... I disagree. Because no matter what we try to do electoral politics controls our lives. And more importantly policies remain the same or worse.
I think what politicscorner is trying to point out is that citizenship must go beyond electoral citizenship and transform into active citizenship.
It is so refreshing to read a story like this one. It gives people hope. Maybe the 20,000 will teach at least 2,000 others how, to grow a garden, bike more often, to apply for small business loans, to challenge government policies, etc.
Probably the main thing that will be learned is that people do not have to sit on the side and wait for help, that they can have an influence on their own lives if only they band together, make a plan and activate for change.
Maybe next year there will be 22,000 activists going to a different city.
Revolutionaries? Give me a break. This is the most liberal naive garbage I have read in a long time:
"I can't do it without y'all -- which meant to me that if we don't put the kind of people in the street that can pressure him to do what has to be done, there's no way for him to do it."
Obama was chosen by elite power to subdue exactly the kinds of people that are going to the Social Forum. He is the best class warrior they could have chosen. To believe a word that crosses that war criminal's mouth is to subscribe to the most naive liberal drivel that is designed to *destroy* working class movements.
Don't get me wrong, there are good people going there, but the danger they face is not from the outside, but from within. Namely, those people that still believe in reformist politics, that believe that this system can be changed from within, and that the people who own the country give a shit about the poor, and that they can be nicely persuaded by logic and reason to change their ways.
No.
This is class warfare, and the language of resistance needs to change to reflect the reality. The longer that "community organizers" and so-called unions, and liberal "media" activists continue to ask nicely, they will lose. The first thing that has to change is their language, and the second thing that has to change is their actions.
Develop a revolutionary consciousness. Develop direct action strategies. Believe you can win.
Excellent points--perfectly delivered.
Progressives, liberals and the fake left are getting suckered. Yet again.
"I can't do it without y'all -- which meant to me that if we don't put the kind of people in the street that can pressure him to do what has to be done, there's no way for him to do it."
It's scapegoat the victims time.
For an excellent read on this that cuts through the crap--check out David Walsh's essay here:
http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/iso2-j19.shtml
Walsh writes:
"Socialist Worker asked, “Why has Obama been such a disappointment …?” and first noted that he “never was a maverick or a reformer.” The real culprit turned out to be the American people. The editors didn’t say this directly, blaming the unions and other elements, but this is what they meant when they wrote that “the biggest forces in the Democratic Party’s base have completely failed to hold Obama’s feet to the fire.”
Yep
In my experience the system rarely changes from within.
Hell...how many crooked city councils are run by contractors and bankers for their own profit?
We can't even get off our butts to clean up our small cities and towns.
It is class warfare and if you want to see a good model of how a decent country can be run...check out Costa Rica.
It's not perfect but I still like it.
You are right Birdie: Costa Rica is not perfect and getting worse every minute. The Tico affluent and Investor types are trying their best to turn it into and look of southern California. Overbuilt, overpopulated, and full of expats looking for investment deals to screw the newest bunch of tourists and transplants. It was really nice in 1973-1975 when I lived there. I left it as I found it. What you say about class warfare is as true there as it is here. To bad.
This will only be successful if folks come up with real, tangible ideas that can be implemented at the local level. Spending 4 years of my life involved deeply in progressive politics, I highly doubt it would happen.
Its great together sing Kumbaya and pat ourselves on the back about we 'knew' Obama was going to betray the Left, only (name your lefty stalwart) can lead us and bitch about war. We can all then come on Common Dreams and blog about it was wonderful to meet with fellow travelers.
And it will all be absolute B.S. if we continue the way we have been -- sitting on our asses and complaining about how the world won't change instead of engaging the world and make it change. Or worse, coming up with nonsensical ideas in a hard left vacuum and wondering why people who actually work on changing things think we're well-meaning idiots.
If the Civil Rights movement was as inept as today's Progressive movement, I'd probably be a janitor dreaming of becoming an engineer instead of an engineer.
Its another kettle of fish to get off our duffs and get involved in electoral and local politics. Its not that the electoral process has failed -- its that we don't actively engage enough in electoral politics, thinking that one sole act (getting Obama or Clinton elected) constitutes political involvement.
I support the ideals of the US Social Forum, but I honestly have lost faith in most progressives to do anything constructive. We need to be less like the Green Party and more like the Tea Party -- forcing changes we want to see instead of passively complaining about the change we don't see.
I agree with everything you say Cappa
But people will come around when it hits them a wee bit harder in their pocket book.
That's just the way things go.
We became too rich and complacent and the think tanks and their buddies took full advantage.
Now we have a global economy so who cares about us?
We are just going to have to start from scratch like they did in the 1930's and kick some booty.
The only way to do that as I can see is to take to the streets and refuse to go to work.
Birdie, I'm just curious as to how probable you think refusing to go to work would be today. What exactly is the sentiment of the err, working class in contemporary America?
the full employment movement?
you want to kill the world faster?
Neither do i understand why social justice would "look like" full employment. This one is undeveloped at best, and quite selfish at worst.
Please please please
If you can agree on one thing...CALL A GENERAL STRIKE AND THEN DO IT AGAIN.
They only thing that hurts the big boys is hitting them in the pocket book.
This tactic is what ultimately broke the backs of the robber barons and got the children out of the sweathouses.
I wish I could be there to add some fire to the discussion.
Good luck
and many blessings to all of you!
In order to succeed, a general strike needs to have a large support network between the working people who will enact it and support it. At the time general strikes came into being, people were knit by proximity. The suburbs were created to undo the support networks for working class unity & to provide the appearance of stability, prosperity & social advance. All that is coming undone, and we have to learn how to do small strikes again first, and knit together those who are being assailed & dispossessed.
There's substantial urban farming in Detroit, and people moving there because "farm" land is so cheap since motor city fantasies failed. Really liked the BBC film "Requiem for Detroit", which you can get online - ends on a positive note!
Andrew
www.RadicalRelocalization.com