Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

US SOCIAL Forum to bring 20,000 people to Atlanta in 2007

The U.S. Social Forum is related to the World Social Forum

The WSF is the main or one of the main groups behind the massive demonstrations we have been seeing here and in other parts of the world. They are affiliated with Castro and Chavez among others. This is a huge movement.

-Am

US SOCIAL Forum to bring 20,000 people to Atlanta in 2007
National leaders convene to plan historic gathering


What: Press briefing on United States Social Forum
Who: National Coordinating Committee for the US Social Forum; social justice leaders from across the US who work on issues including environmental justice, poverty, racial justice, immigration, and workers’ rights.
Where: Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, 477 Peachtree Street
When: April 4, 2006 -10:30am



Members of the Local Host Committee will be joined by the National Coordinating Committee and local supporters. The National Coordinating Committee is charged with making the United States Social Forum areality. Among the speakers presenting are Colin Rajah, Tom Goldtooth, and Ruben Solis, members of the National Planning and Coordinating Committees. The briefing will include a diversity of groups representing the multi-ethnic populations of the U.S., and the wide range of social and economic issues facing grassroots communities today.



Under the banner of ‘Another World is Possible,’ tens of thousands of community organizers, trade unionists, students/youth, NGO representatives, elected officials and social movements gather every year for the World Social Forum held in locations around the globe including Brazil, India, and Venezuela. The WSF was created to provide an open platform to discuss alternatives to globalization defined by multi-national corporations and the governments of the wealthiest nations in the world.



The World Social Forum (WSF) model is spreading around the world and a wide range of grassroots organizations and networks have announced the location of the first U.S. Social Forum (USSF) - Atlanta, GA. 20,000 participants are expected to convene June 27-July 1, 2007 in Atlanta to build a broader national movement for social justice around the world. “The U.S. South and especially Atlanta welcomes the opportunity to host the first U.S. Social Forum at this critical juncture in the development of our movement for social and economic justice,” said Jerome Scott of Project South, one of the lead organizations on the Atlanta host committees.



“For us immigrants, the growth of our new communities here have been met not only with repressive policies, racist backlash, abuse and exploitation in the workplace, and scapegoating for socio-economic problems suffered by working class communities, we now also have to face state policies that ask to further extract from our already burdened communities. For instance, Georgia SB 529 seeks to suck up immigrant’s hard-earned income by taxing our remittance wire transfers to our families back home. We are displaced by US economic policies, harassed and kept in a state of constant fear to ensure a cheap and disposable labor supply for US corporations. Immigrant communities in GA and around the country challenge all these, and we say “No Taxation Without Representation.” -Colin Rajah (National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chair Program Working Group)



In an endorsement letter for Atlanta’s proposal, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin writes, “As the birthplace of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Atlanta has a very proud history of promoting and celebrating human rights. It is a history we continue to appreciate and build upon for the future. Serving [as] the host city for the US Social Forum is a continuation of our legacy.”



Currently, the region is home to new immigrant-groups from Latin America, Africa and Asia. Many of these new immigrants are political or economic refugees whose situation is the result of corporate globalization. National planners hope that holding the USSF in Atlanta will encourage the region's newly emerged bottom-up movement building, and that it will significantly impact the rest of the country.



Alameda County, although relatively progressive in health care, still provides only "a safety net designed to catch people so they don't die on the street," Iton said. Yet covering everyone under a single-payer health plan would cost less than the county now pays on last-minute, emergency-room care for the indigent.



“American Indians in this country continue to face environmental and economic injustices. The energy policy of America is built upon treaty violations and at the expense of the rights of tribal people. The nuclear power industry has mined and processed the uranium ore that feeds the nuclear power plants causing the contamination of our lands and the deaths of Indian miners and processors. Now the industry wants to dump its nuclear waste on Indian lands. Our network of American Indian and Alaska Native community-based organizations are participating in the proposed US Social Forum in 2007, to mobilize Americans to get educated and take action.” -Tom Goldtooth (Executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Midwest Regional Representative)



“The political moment in the United States brings four important intersections: the war in Iraq, Indigenous Artic drilling, Katrina survivors and US-Mexico border & immigration issues. In fact, all four issues are under the Department of Defense and Homeland Security.” - Ruben Solis (Southwest Workers Union, Southwest Regional Representative) The US Social Forum is an important symposium for the people most affected by neo-liberalism policies in the U.S. to share and learn from each other’s struggles. “Another world is possible and we must begin to envision it now,” said Scott.

For Immediate Release

Contact Alice Lovelace, USSF National Lead Staff Organizer
Ph. 404.819.7863
Fx. 404.622.6618
Email: [e-mail]
www.ussocialforum.org



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