U.S. Social Forum: Another World is Possible
Defend Immigrant Rights
U.S. Social Forum: Another World is Possible
Another U.S. Is Necessary!
The U.S. Social Forum was successfully organized in Atlanta from June 27-July 1. It brought together a broad range of organizations that included collectives representing the many faces of the American people: Native Americans, Mexicans, Arabs, Asians and immigrants from all lands, African Americans, workers, women, youth and seniors, all united in demanding that Another World is Possible and Another U.S. is Necessary!
A main highlight of the event was the opening march through downtown Atlanta, where an estimated 10,000 marched and rallied. Banners, signs, dance and music showed the militant spirit of all to fight for rights and together win change in the U.S. The Forum also emphasized the stand to oppose U.S. chauvinism and stand as one with the peoples of the world against U.S. imperialist aggression. Whether speaking of defending the rights of Native Americans, Katrina survivors or immigrants, or the rights of the peoples of Iraq and Palestine, the demonstration and forum stood firm with the resistance of all.
A main focus of activities was organizing work targeted at the government and building organization among the people. Six main themes were addressed through nearly 1000 workshops and plenary sessions. These themes included: Gulf Coast Reconstruction in the Post-Katrina Era; War, Militarism and the Prison Industrial Complex; Indigenous Voices: From the Heart of Mother Earth; Immigrant Rights; Workers’ Rights in the Global Economy, Liberating Gender and Sexuality: Integrating Gender and Sexual Justice Across Our Movements. The interconnected character of these issues and the crises of U.S.-style democracy with its genocide, repression and empire building were brought out in the many activities. Workshops, presentations, performances, debates and plenary sessions all contributed to providing a space for exchanging experience and making links. Various collectives also organized caucuses to bring together organizers focused on issues such as immigration.
Various groups organized buses and caravans to the Social Forum. Three busloads of Katrina survivors and organizers from New Orleans joined the march, bringing their dancing and drumming with them. The Freedom Caravan, with eight buses and thirteen vans also marched. The Caravan left from Albuquerque, New Mexico and traveled through 7 cities on the way to Atlanta, building ties and adding people as it addressed immigrant rights, defending Native peoples and environmental issues.
Hundreds of anti-war activists and groups also participated, including many vets and military families. A resolution denouncing the war crimes of Bush and Cheney and calling for their impeachment was among the many resolutions passed.
Native peoples were present in force, as main speakers and organizers of workshops. Representatives from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians welcomed everyone. Representatives from the Western Shoshone, as well as those from Hawai’i and Alaska also participated. All spoke to the genocide against Natives and to their unvanquished spirit and stand in defense of their rights and the rights of all and of Mother Earth. They, like representatives from all the many collectives emphasized, that “It will take all of us standing together,” to bring the change necessary. It was in this spirit of strengthening common work and together building another world that the Forum concluded.
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People’s Freedom Caravan Mobilizes for Social Forum
The Peoples’ Freedom Caravan, organized by the Southwest Workers Union, stopped in 7 cities across the southern United States as part of organizing for the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. At the various stops it worked to support numerous community struggles for human rights and justice. The Freedom Caravan started in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its stop in San Antonio, Texas, was representative. Participants in the caravan marched in solidarity with the local movement for immigrant and workers rights. Stopping at the office of Senator John Cornyn, marchers, including international delegates, called on Congress to provide just immigration reform that legalizes all, keeps families united, protects worker rights, supports a living wage and creates a friendly demilitarized border region. Participants demanded that the funds currently building walls and imprisoning families instead fund sustainable reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, a focus of the Caravan. A delegation continued on to Tyler, Texas to protest the inhuman Hutto prison camp and demand freedom for the detained women and children.
The San Antonio community joined in sharing their history, culture and struggles. Local representatives, including many youth, joined the caravan for the rest of the trip through the south and the convergence at the U.S. Social Forum. Participants discussed proactive ways to address the problems of poverty, globalization, environmental contamination and racism. Rejecting a democracy that prevents access to the decisions that affect the lives of workers and national minorities, the caravan mobilized to unite people across racial, cultural, geographic and language barriers and to organize for rights-based solutions. The participants brought out that it is part of efforts to empower people to create the social change necessary to bring about another U.S.
For more information:
Southwest Workers Union
www.swunion.org or call 215-755-0348 or 215-755-0348 (direct)
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Katrina Organizers at USSF
Build Gulf Coast Self-Determination and Reconstruction Movement
Organizers defending rights of Katrina survivors and New Orleans and Gulf Coast workers and residents played an active role at the U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta. Below we reprint content from the People’s Hurricane Relief Coalition on some of the problems addressed in the workshops presented (see peopleshurricane.org)
They Left Us Here to Die:
Hurricane Katrina, Ethnic Cleansing and Neo-Liberalism
This presentation exposed the systematic program of ethnic cleansing taking place in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The Black majority of the regions, particularly in New Orleans, are being denied the human right to return to their homes by the government on all levels. Rather than adhering to the human rights standards and international treaties that govern the process of relief, resettlement, and reconstruction for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), or its own laws and policies, such as the Stafford Act or the “USAID Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons Policy,” the U.S. government has fundamentally chosen a neo-liberal, free-market solution to guide its policy of recovery, resettlement, and reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
We Are Our Own Liberators:
International Tribunal and Self Determination in the Gulf Coast
This workshop focused on the struggle of oppressed peoples in the Gulf Coast to rebuild their own communities, fight for the right of return, and confront racism and human rights violations of the United States government. It will focus specifically on the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that is seeking to charge the U.S. government with numerous crimes against humanity, particularly against Black communities, committed before, during and after the Hurricanes. The Tribunal will be held in New Orleans August 29 – September 2, 2007.
Stop the High Rent:
Housing Is A Human Right
This workshop focused on one concrete aspect of the struggle for the right to return that is taking place in New Orleans currently. The workshop presented the work of the Tenants Rights Working Group of the Peoples Hurricane Relief fund and explored the issue of rental price-gouging in New Orleans following the government organized disaster after Katrina.
You Can’t Kill the Spirit:
Solidarity Organizing in the Movement to Rebuild New Orleans
“You Can’t Kill the Spirit” brought together leaders from organizations based in and outside New Orleans to share reflections and lessons on how social justice activists from around the country are supporting the struggle for New Orleans and building grassroots power. The panel explored goals and strategies of New Orleans based groups and those nationwide as they work to strengthen their unity and consciousness to advance the struggle for rights.
Say What? A Dramatic Reading & Discussion of Government Lies
Against the backdrop of a video display of the inhumane treatment of Gulf Coast residents during and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this session began with a spoken word piece that introduced the human rights abuses perpetrated by the U.S. government in its efforts to privatize communities and public services in the Gulf region.
Following the spoken word, a dramatic reading exposed the audience to the lies told by the government in little known reports about human rights and the Gulf Coast reconstruction. The government has submitted these reports to United Nations’ officials, who monitor the federal government’s compliance with treaties that protect the human rights to life, non-discrimination, and racial equality. The dramatic reading presented the outrageous statements made by the government, which ignore human rights protections for Gulf Coast residents struggling to return, rebuild, and recover. People from the Gulf Coast, whose human rights continue to be violated, presented their responses to each statement by the government. These responses highlighted the interrelationship of the many struggles for justice, including the right of return, racial justice, workers’ rights, immigrant and migrant rights, environmental justice, children’s rights and quality public education, anti-violence, voting rights, reform of the prison system, community self-determination, and economic justice.
The Future of the Black Liberation Movement:
Katrina and the Gulf Coast, the Black Belt South, and the Black Nation
A conversation initiated by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, Black Workers for Justice, and the Labor/Community Strategy Center. The panel was aimed at engaging a constructive discussion to advance a movement for Black self-determination and a multi-racial Reconstruction movement, centered on strengthening the on-the-ground struggles in the Gulf Coast—and major urban centers of resistance throughout the U.S. This conversation served to situate the struggle for Black self-determination in an anti-imperialist and internationalist perspective. It addressed efforts to build a Reconstruction Movement, the tactics and demands needed to unite forces throughout the Gulf Coast and throughout the U.S. The workshop utilized the experience of on-the-ground social movements that are the foundation of African American self-determination—including the struggle of Black women, workers, prisoners, all oppressed nationality communities, and demands for environmental justice and Black political power.
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Raza Educators Say No to the DREAM Act
(The DREAM Act has been included in the various immigration bills in Congress and still may be passed as a separate bill in the coming period. It is designed to provide an estimated 75,000 young undocumented youth per year to the Pentagon, using the bribe of citizenship. For those that accept, there is no guarantee of citizenship, while there is a guarantee of being sent to Iraq to kill and be killed for imperialism. --VOR ed.)
In the past month, non-profit organizations have been using university students to hold rallies and demonstrations in support of the National DREAM Act. The DREAM Act would allow some undocumented students to attain permanent resident status if they meet one of the following criteria:
• A degree from a two or four-year institution of higher education, OR
• Good standing for at least two years at an institution of higher education while working toward a bachelor’s degree or higher,
• Service in the U.S. imperialist armed forces for at least two years.
Since most of these student “activists” meet these requirements, they hope to gain their own legal status by getting this bill passed. Many of the proponents of this bill also emphasize the educational components of this bill, but are purposely ignoring the last and most important criteria: Military Service.
According to research on the education pipeline for Raza students, the vast majority will be forced to legalize by joining the U.S. Armed Forces. We hope that these students and non-profit organizations look past their self-interest and think carefully about the adverse effects the DREAM Act will have on the entire undocumented community and on poor peoples around the world.
Since Proposition 187 was introduced in the 1990’s the Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) has organized and fought for the democratic and human rights of our Gente (people) both inside and outside of the classroom. Here in Los Angeles, A.R.E. has been at the forefront of organizing students and community members to march and fight against racist legislation like H.R. 4437.
In the past year, A.R.E. has also brought awareness to the injustice faced by undocumented students and has been proactive in our efforts to assist these students. This year alone we raised more than $10,000.00 and awarded it in scholarships specifically for undocumented students.
A.R.E. supports the unconditional and full legalization for all our Gente; however, we do not support the DREAM Act because it will do irreparable harm to our community by causing a de facto military draft for our undocumented youth.
A.R.E. will not sell-out all Raza youth so that a few of us can get “legalized” and go to college! The State badly miseducates our youth and the majority of our youth either get pushed out of school or are ill prepared to go to college. According to national statistics for every Raza student who will attend a two or four year college, twenty will not. Under the DREAM Act, this will leave the military as the only viable option for the majority of undocumented Raza youth.
We do not accept the stipulation of military service as a requirement for citizenship. Poor people of color (mostly Africans and Mexicans/Indigenous People) have built this county and have suffered years of discrimination and injustice, but for [government] supporters of this bill, that is not enough — they still wish to push us into their military to fight their wars. [They] are supporting a bill that would force the majority of Raza youth to fight in Iraq and in future imperialist wars.
As progressive Raza Educators, we firmly stand against the DREAM Act. A.R.E. has consistently stood against the militarization of our schools and youth for the purposes of fighting unjust imperialist wars of aggression against other poor people of color. More than 3,500 U.S. soldiers have died since the beginning of the war in Iraq, and tens of thousands injured. With the passage of this bill, the U.S. will fill its ranks with immigrant and migrant soldiers.
Moreover, the U.S. has already placed 6,000 U.S. Troops at the US/Mexican border. Will our Raza youth become U.S. mercenary soldiers who will be forced to point the gun at their own family members when they patrol the border? Will we support the DREAM Act that will force our youth to join the same imperialist military that invaded Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and countless other Latin American Countries?
A.R.E. asks all our Gente to please look closely at the DREAM Act and reconsider your support for a bill that will cause a de facto military draft for our youth.
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Special Order 40 (so40)
Los Angeles Rejects Use of Local Police
to Identify Immigrants
At its regular meeting, the Los Angeles City Council told the Department of Homeland Security in no uncertain terms that it opposes federal efforts to force local police to enforce federal immigration laws. In a 10 to 1 vote, the Council passed a resolution that rejects “any [federal] legislative provision or amendment which would prohibit or pre-empt local ‘separation’ ordinances and similar local regulations such as the LAPD’s Special Order 40.” The resolution is a rebuke from the U.S.’s largest immigrant city to various Congressional proposals mandating that local law enforcement report to federal immigration enforcement.
Special Order 40 has been city policy since 1979. Special Order 40 states that police officers “shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person.” Special Order 40 exempted the LAPD from the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which permits, but does not require, local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officials after receiving training.
In February 2006, in the wake of increased federal efforts to use local police against immigrants, a petition with more than 10,000 signatures was submitted to the council, demanding that it re-endorse Special Order 40. Continued efforts brought about the current resolution that confirms Special Order 40, despite challenges from two lawsuits
One lawsuit relies on an arcane state health statute that appears to require local police to provide the names of undocumented immigrants arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking or possession to federal authorities. The other suit claims Special Order 40 is superseded by state and federal law.
The Council’s resolution may also be a message to the LAPD in light of a May 1 police action in MacArthur Park, in which peaceful protesters supporting immigrant rights were stormed by police officers, beaten, and blasted with rubber bullets and wire mesh “bean bag” bullets.
Sheriff’s departments in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties have memoranda of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security under Immigration and Nationality Act section 287(g) to scour jails for undocumented arrestees. In addition, in Orange County, police attached with special units may check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of a felony. Sheriff Carona hopes to expand that authority to beat officers, as has been done in other city police and state highway patrol departments across the country, opening the door not only to racial profiling, but to permission for cops in the street to demand proof of identity and citizenship.
The text of the council’s resolution, which was moved from item 33 on the agenda to the consent docket, is as follows:
“RESOLUTION (GARCETTI - REYES - ZINE) relative to legislation that would prohibit local regulations, such as the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Special Order 40, which are law enforcement tools that encourage the involvement of the undocumented immigrant community in police activities.
Recommendation for Council action, SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:
RESOLVE to include in the City’s 2007-08 Federal Legislative Program OPPOSITION to any legislative provision or amendment which would prohibit or pre-empt local “separation” ordinances and similar local regulations such as the LAPD’s Special Order 40 which are effective law enforcement tools which prevent victimization of undocumented immigrants as well as foster participation and involvement of the undocumented immigrant community in police activities and increase the LAPD’s ability to protect and to serve the entire community.
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Raza Educators Say No to the DREAM Act
(The DREAM Act has been included in the various immigration bills in Congress and still may be passed as a separate bill in the coming period)
In the past month, non-profit organizations have been using university students to hold rallies and demonstrations in support of the National DREAM Act. The DREAM Act would allow some undocumented students to attain permanent resident status if they meet one of the following criteria:
• A degree from a two or four-year institution of higher education, OR
• Good standing for at least two years at an institution of higher education while working toward a bachelor’s degree or higher,
• Service in the U.S. imperialist armed forces for at least two years.
Since most of these student “activists” meet these requirements, they hope to gain their own legal status by getting this bill passed. Many of the proponents of this bill also emphasize the educational components of this bill, but are purposely ignoring the last and most important criteria: Military Service.
According to research on the education pipeline for Raza students, the vast majority will be forced to legalize by joining the U.S. Armed Forces. We hope that these students and non-profit organizations look past their self-interest and think carefully about the adverse effects the DREAM Act will have on the entire undocumented community and on poor peoples around the world.
Since Proposition 187 was introduced in the 1990’s the Association of Raza Educators (A.R.E.) has organized and fought for the democratic and human rights of our Gente (people) both inside and outside of the classroom. Here in Los Angeles, A.R.E. has been at the forefront of organizing students and community members to march and fight against racist legislation like H.R. 4437.
In the past year, A.R.E. has also brought awareness to the injustice faced by undocumented students and has been proactive in our efforts to assist these students. This year alone we raised more than $10,000.00 and awarded it in scholarships specifically for undocumented students.
A.R.E. supports the unconditional and full legalization for all our Gente; however, we do not support the DREAM Act because it will do irreparable harm to our community by causing a de facto military draft for our undocumented youth.
A.R.E. will not sell-out all Raza youth so that a few of us can get “legalized” and go to college! The State badly miseducates our youth and the majority of our youth either get pushed out of school or are ill prepared to go to college. According to national statistics for every Raza student who will attend a two or four year college, twenty will not. Under the DREAM Act, this will leave the military as the only viable option for the majority of undocumented Raza youth.
We do not accept the stipulation of military service as a requirement for citizenship. Poor people of color (mostly Africans and Mexicans/Indigenous People) have built this county and have suffered years of discrimination and injustice, but for [government] supporters of this bill, that is not enough — they still wish to push us into their military to fight their wars. [They] are supporting a bill that would force the majority of Raza youth to fight in Iraq and in future imperialist wars.
As progressive Raza Educators, we firmly stand against the DREAM Act. A.R.E. has consistently stood against the militarization of our schools and youth for the purposes of fighting unjust imperialist wars of aggression against other poor people of color. More than 3,500 U.S. soldiers have died since the beginning of the war in Iraq, and tens of thousands injured. With the passage of this bill, the U.S. will fill its ranks with immigrant and migrant soldiers.
Moreover, the U.S. has already placed 6,000 U.S. Troops at the US/Mexican border. Will our Raza youth become U.S. mercenary soldiers who will be forced to point the gun at their own family members when they patrol the border? Will we support the DREAM Act that will force our youth to join the same imperialist military that invaded Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and countless other Latin American Countries?
A.R.E. asks all our Gente to please look closely at the DREAM Act and reconsider your support for a bill that will cause a de facto military draft for our youth.
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