CONSULTATION RESPONSES
Latinas and Latinos for Social Change
PO Box 1279
Cambridge, MA 02238
Phone: 617-290-5614
Email: Webpage:
Category of work: Latino organizing
Mission:
1. Our committee opposes and fights against all forms of oppression and exploitation, including racism, sexism and homophobia.
2. In the short term we struggle to better the living condition of Latin Americas who reside in the USA. We defend the rights of all people to be allowed to live with human dignity, individual freedom with social responsibility and labor with fair pay.
3. Our committee is in solidarity with all struggles carried out in Latin America and the Caribbean against economic, social, cultural and political injustice. In all cases we make clear the connections between those struggles and our own.
4. As we support the freedom struggle of all Latin American and Caribbean peoples, we oppose imperialist intervention in all of its forms throughout the world.
5. We establish that we are willing to exercise these principles actively and permanently using all means at our disposal.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
We understand that the migration of Latin American workers to the U.S. come from the countries that are participating in the World Social Forum. It is therefore necessary to make contact with progressive, leftist and grassroots organization in Latin American countries to address this matter. It is important that these organizations educate the workers who are desperate to emigrate to the U.S. about the real conditions they will find once they get here. This is a condition of illegality, discrimination, persecution and exploitation.
In particular it is important that those worker who arrive to the U.S. from Latin America with political consciousness don't get lost in the midst of the difficulties of the migratory process and that continue their contributions to social change.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
We must make use of all mechanisms of communication and coordination available, such as:
a) Joint media efforts through publications and alternative media
b) Conferences
c) Networks for action
d) Joint programs and campaigns
e) Action coordination meetings in different countries
f) The WSF as an annual place of evaluation and planning of action for the upcoming year
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Two main concerns that can be transformed into action:
1. We need to establish links with Latin American and Caribbean organizations that struggle against U.S. military expansionism in the world. In particular, we want to work with those who work to close down the existing U.S. military bases in their own countries. We can learn from the successful experience of the people of Vieques, Puerto Rico, who with the support of people from all over the U.S. where able to kick out the U.S. Navy target practice base there and begin the environmental, social, cultural and economic rescue of the island and surrounding environment.
In the same spirit, we should coordinate and cooperate with all anti-war movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, not only because Latinos are a large contingent of soldiers in the U.S. armed forces, but also because there is a trend developing whereas Latin American and Caribbean countries contribute their armies to support the U.S. intervention in the world, such as is the case of the Army of El Salvador that now has troops in Iraq.
2. The amount of "illegal" workers in the United States has reached about 8 million people. This is the size of many Latin American countries. These undocumented workers live in the U.S. outside of the law, persecuted, discriminated, abused and exploited. They are however an important source of labor for the U.S. economy. The criminalization of immigrant labor is not only a U.S. experience. It happens everywhere in Latin America.
We must make effort to stop the criminalization of immigrant workers by developing an International Immigrant Workers Rights Act whereas all workers, regardless of their nationality and citizenships are granted the possibility to work in any country where his services are needed. Their function as workers would fall under the labor laws of the country of employment and their rights would be protected by those laws.
Our effort would consist of drafting such act, then promoting and obtaining acceptance of its precepts by all major unions in all Latin American and Caribbean countries. Once this is achieved the next step would be to incorporate the Act into the immigration laws of all countries, and eventually, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights incorporate it as an accepted Act in the United Nations.
Massachusetts Global Action
33 Harrison Ave, 4th floor
Boston, MA 02111
Phone: 617-338-9966
Email: Webpage: www.massglobalaction.org
Category of work: Other
Workers Rights, Immigrants Rights, Anti-
Mission:
Massachusetts Global Action is an organization dedicated to challenges the negative effects of corporate globalization in Massachusetts. We work with individuals and organizations around the state to reverse the privatization of public resources, to expand the social safety net, to shift the tax burden away from individuals and back to businesses, to create good jobs for all with living wages and full benefits, to help develop economic alternatives to the existing model of "winner-take-all" capitalism, and to save the environment for future generations. We will do this as a membership organization and as the hub of a network of like-minded organizations. We will encourage progressive social, political, economic and cultural activism for a better state, nation and planet.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
We have participated since 2003 in the World Social Forum process (starting with our predecessor organization, Campaign on Contingent Work). We will benefit from the WSF by working with progressive allies from around the world concerned about issues as diverse as water, immigrants rights, corporate campaigning, etc. For example, since the Porto Alegre forum in January 2005, we have deepened on participation in the international campaign targeting Coca-Cola. More locally (and globally), we will be using the WSF 2006 process to advance our work on immigration by work with other pro-immigrant groups and by connecting national struggles with those of immigrants in Massachusetts.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
We will help build the USSF 2007 process by attending WSF and organizing regionally during 2006 and 2007 in the United States' Northeast and Canadian maritime provinces. In addition, we will work with allies from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America at the WSF meeting in Caracas to host a number of panels, etc. In the longer term, strategic partnerships will continue to be built through joint campaigns, exchanges, action alerts, solidarity campaigns, etc.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
That the WSF participants support a regional forum in the US northeast and Canadian eastern provinces during 2006 and actively build the United States Social Forum process toward a successfull forum in 2007.
Center for Marxist Education
550 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-354-2876
Email: cmebook_bookmarx@yahoo.com Webpage: http://www.bookmarx.org
Category of work: Other
Political organizing, education, coaliti
Mission:
We provide forums for discussion and education around today's political issues, from a Marxist perspective. We operate a Marxist bookstore and distribute the People's Weekly World newspaper as well as the monthly Political Affairs. Although many of our volunteers are members of the Communist Party, the CME is not "Communist Headquarters" per se, but an organization that seeks to build broad coalitions among community groups, trade unions and concerned citizens in efforts to effect progressive social change.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Because we are an organization that believes in the necessity of building broad coalitions with a perspective of progressive social change, it would benefit CME to be part of a broad-based effort such as WSF. The more organizations we encounter, the more a general sharing of ideas and cooperative action can take place.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
CME volunteers often participate in other coalitions, without demanding that they participate in CME. As such we maintain a non-sectarian approach to political organizing. We believe that building unity among a broad variety of coalitions around specific political issues is an excellent way to organize. For example, we have in many cases brought community groups together to campaign for progressive candidates for local offices (e.g., Boston City councilors). Also it need be said that while most of our volunteers are Marxists, we do not "browbeat" people with our political ideology. If in the course of coalition activities people want to learn more, we share more. However our focus is to work together toward common political purposes, goals, and objectives. For example, this writer intends to become part of the Boston delegation (sorry I missed the 10/22 meeting but I will try to be there tomorrow although I might be late due to a work-related meeting). Representing the CME, this writer is 100% committed to making WSF in Caracas a success.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
We propose that broad-based coalitions based on a spirit of unity and cooperation are the way forward in bringing about social change. While hundreds of small organizations make small differences in small locales, when brought together larger differences are possible. We share the WSF's vision that another world is indeed possible--a world without oppression, exploitation, environmental degredation, racism, sexism, heterosexism. We propose to be a part of the debate over how to replace capitalism with socialism, with recognition that different countries with different cultures will likely go about it in different ways (i.e., the Soviet experience of socialism was vastly different than the Cuban experience, which was vastly different than the Chinese, Vietnamese, or even today's Venezuelan revolution). We do not advocate building a world that mimics the "old soviet model," but a world that builds egalitarian socialist societies based on the needs of each country's culture. This writer intends to attend WSF in Caracas and looks forward to the experience.
Axis of Logic
161 Harvard Avenue, #2
Boston, MA 02134
Phone: 617-787-3498
Email: les@axisoflogic.com Webpage: www.axisoflogic.com
Category of work: International solidarity
Mission:
Advancing the Bolivarian revolution through means of alternative media on the Internet.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Growth in readership and general traffic on our website; finding new dynamic writers; finding volunteer, bilingual translators and other volunteers to help build Axis of Logic.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
Meeting interested parties at the WSF; presenting our work at the WSF; inviting others to participate in our work; sponsoring Venezuelan youth leaders for speaking tours in U.S. high schools, colleges and universities.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Ideas for presentations and panel discussions for the Boston Delegation at the World Social Forum 2006
1. Explore ways to partner with Venezuelans to bring the Bolivarian Revolution to the U.S.
a. Educating people in the U.S. about the concept of revolution.
b. Informing people in the U.S. about the positive results of the revolution.
c. Use of printed literature, the Internet and House parties and conferences to educate and inform.
d. Use of SKYPE conferences between Venezuelans and people in the U.S.
e. Overcoming corporate/government propaganda about the revolution.
f. Participating in Bolivarian social programs in the U.S. (Mission Miracle; Discounted Heating Oil)
g. Sponsoring tours of Bolivarian youth for speaking engagements in U.S. colleges and Universities.
h. Sponsoring tours for U.S. youth in Venezuela.
2. In panel discussion, explore the reasons why the U.S. population lags so far behind Venezuelans in revolutionary thought. (I've found that this is very much on the minds of people in Venezuela. i.e "Why are people in the U.S. so much asleep?)" and ways for the 2 populations to help each other.
3. Sponsoring and hosting revolutionary speakers for speaking tours in the U.S.
a. Venues for speakers (college campuses, Venezuelan conferences, progressive churches, etc.)
b. Reasons for visa restrictions imposed by the U.S. on Venezuelans
c. Need for a database of approvals and denials by the U.S. Embassy.
d. Strategies for overcoming the restrictions?
4. Bolivarian Revolution and the Alternative Media
a. Strategies for the Alterative Media to support and advance the revolution?
b. Need for voluntary translators.
c. Developing internet links between U.S. and Venezuelan Websites.
d. Developing e-mail partners among U.S. and Venezuelan revolutionaries.
e. A Clearinghouse for bilingual Bolivarian literature.
f. Organizing actions against corporate media propaganda about Venezuela.
5. The Global Corporate Empire
a. Neoliberalism and transnational corporations.
b. Imperial strategies and rules for commerce.
c. The World Trade Organization and Violations of National Sovereignty.
d. Bolivarian alternatives for CAN (Community of Andean Nations): Mercosur - NAFTA and ALBA.
6. Imperial Interference in Domestic Affairs of Venezuela
a. Economic interference.
b. Meddling with Venezuelan elections.
c. National Endowment for Democracy and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
d. The threat of a military invasion.
- by U.S. forces
- by paramilitary forces
- by U.S.-backed Central and South American
Countries
- Plan Colombia, FARC and the U.S. "War on Drugs"
7. "The American Dream" - A presentation and discussion for the youth
a. Myths of the American Dream (education, employment, materialism, cost of living and freedom)
b. Discrimination and Risks to immigrants and people of color.
c. Lifestyles promoted in the news and entertainment media.
d. Destruction of the extended family and social cohesion.
e. U.S. individualism and culture.
8. Intercity Relations - Venezuela and the U.S.
a. Forming relations between Venezuelan and U.S.cities.
b. Developing cross-cultural programs between cities.
c. Hosting individuals and groups between cities.
d. Developing trans-national organizations for cultural enrichment.
July 26th Coalition of Boston
POB 470706
Brookline, MA 02447
Phone: 617.566.2861
Email: info@j26.org Webpage: www.july26.org
Category of work: International solidarity
Mission:
see websites:
www.july26.org
www.freethefive.org
CubaSolidarity.com
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
We would like to re-establish the umbrella organizations of the Central America Education Fund (CAEF).
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
We would like to reactivate LACASA with organizations such as July 26th Coalition in Support of Cuba, Latino/as for Social Change, MLK Bolivarian Circle of Boston, Committee in Support of Human Rights in Haiti, and other groups in formation in Boston around solidarity work with Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Brazil, Honduras,etc.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Educate and build opposition to campaigns AGAINST Cuba and Venezuela.
Keep pressure on Washington AGAINST counterrevolutionary activities aimed at Cuba and Venezuela.
Promote the successes of the Cuban and Venezuelan Revolutions in areas:
affordable healthcare, housing, education, culture and living costs, for all.
Bolivarian Circle of Boston, Martin Luther King, Jr.
3 Copper Beech Circle
West Bridgewater, MA 02379
Phone: 508-559-6090
Email: cbmlkboston@hotmail.com Webpage: http://www.circulosbolivarianos.org/
Category of work: International solidarity
Mission:
Our mission in the US is to inform the American public what is really going on in Venezuela and to improve the cultural and educational relations between our two countries.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Our organizations would greatly benefit from an international grassroots cooperation through the Social Forum. It is with these connections that we can perform our goals. An international connections would open opportunities for exchange of ideas and experiences that we can share with the community here, as well as bringing speakers and performers here to improve our educational campaign.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
With the use of technology we can have organizations with common goals keep in contact via the internet and telephony services. The Social Forum is the gate where many of these organizations cross and is this opportunity that we must take advantage of, networking in an organize manner would be the ideal result from the Social Forum.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
The Boston proposal must be an invitation to share information from the experiences here in Boston and to seek other alternatives from other area of our continent that have resolve, or are working on similar problems. Problems of housing, labor rights, immigrant rights, civil rights, electoral rights, women rights, minority issues, etc.
Project Voice, AFSC
2161 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02140
Phone: 617-661-6130
Email: gcamacho@afsc.org Webpage: www.afsc.org
Category of work: Undocumented workers
Mission:
Project Voice is a national initiative of the AFSC. Its purpose is to strengthen the voices of immigrant-led organizations in setting the national agenda for immigration policy through grassroots collective struggle for economic, cultural, social, and political rights.
PV combines local and national organizing, popular education, and outreach campaigns to acheive a strategic impact on key immigrant and refugee issues, including legalization, abuse of authority, community relations, workers' rights. human rights, racial profiling, detention & deportation, trade & migration, globalization and dislocation.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Uncover the transnational character of labor migration that will empower immigrant community leaders and mobilizes immigrants who oppose so-called free trade agreements that perpetuates the cause of migration. Immigrant workers recognize the systematic connections of their own experience to the larger economic issues. This will foster cross border solidarity.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
Make connections and strategize with similar goal-oriented U.S. organizations at the WSF. Re-establish contacts and strategize with the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba; SINANTAINAL & SINANTROFAN of Colombia; and the FAT of Mexico. Make new contacts with the Unidad Nacional de Trabajadores of Venezuela. Engage with Bolivarian Circles and Missiones Sociales.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
The reality in both the the northern and southern hemispheres is that the proletriate of the 21st century is the unauthorized worker. Whether the worker is in the infomal sector in ones home country, or is an undocumented worker in the global north, that worker is an active component (actor) of globalization.
In the U.S.A. industires such as hotel, restaurant, hospitality, health care, basic construction, janitorial services, retail, meat processing, and agribussiness depend in large part on a vunerable and desposable work force. These industries reap obsene profits on the backs (literally in some cases) of this super exploited work force. Yet that work force keeps the post-industiral economies healthy.
In the U.S.A. the undocumented worker not only pays taxes but has social security deducted from their pay checks. According to the Social Security Administration's statistics, the Earnings Suspended Fund for 2003 was at $374 billion dollars. These are monies that an undocuemented worker cannot claim because of their status.
To further compelete this cycle of global exploitation the undocument workers' labor, through their megar earnings, supports the economies of the sending countries through remittances. These remittances, offically at hundreds of billions of dollars per annum, keep the economies of the global south afloat.
Workers whether displaced by trade agreements, unemployed, union members, underemployed due to seasonal labor demands, or engaged in the informal sector, must strategized on a continental level. Collectively we have an enormous economic potential, but laws and goverments criminalize low wage immigrant workers, marinalize our human rights, and keep us politically disenfranchised. The so-called immigrant advocates try to sell us into temporary guest worker schemes instead of providing a mechanism for "legalization".
We must set the agenda and carry it out according to the needs of our communities. The WSF is a space where the proletariate of the 21st century can begin these most important discussions.
Reflect and Strengthen
1446 Dorchester Ave. Suite 292
Dorchester, MA 02122
Phone: 857-472-2812
Email: web@reflectandstrengthen.org Webpage: www.reflectandstrengthen.org
Category of work: Other
women's art, culture, and youth empowerm
Mission:
Young working class women from or living in Boston's urban neighborhoods creating and nurturing environments for positive social change through creative expression, political education and community building.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Learn about the social issues Venezuela is dealing with and the revolution that is taking place to address those struggles and make systematic, long-lasting change through people's power.
Build relationships with other grassroots organizations from around the world in order to share strategies, tools, ideas and ways to be active comrades; supporting each other's communities.
Explore women's rights, art, culture and youth empowerment in Venezuela
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
Visit the communities, meet and speak with people who live there and the activists that are implementing the revolutionary changes.
Keep in contact with other organizations that we network with.
Participate in the conferences and workshops the world social forum is organizing.
Hold a series of popular education workshops in the US to raise awareness amongst working-class youth, and people of color about the revolutionary uprising that is happening in Venezuela.
Learn ways that we as people in the U.S. can share our access to resources and what responsibility we hold as the people of our government's foreign policy. (Ex. Learning tangible ways that we can oppose free trade and the exploitation of workers in Latin America. Ways that we can directly funnel resources and support to communities of Latin America along with lessons learned from our people in Latin America which we can incorporate in our own organizing here in the Boston area and U.S.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
As an organization made up of and led by working-class, urban girls and women, predominately of color, we are seeking to build relationships and share strategies/ideas and resources with our comrades in Latin America about how to create a solid base of people's power struggling to end U.S. Imperialism and led by oppressed people (women, youth, people of color, LTGBQ people, seniors, and poor people.)
We plan to use the lessons learned and inspiration that will undoubtedly be nurtured through this experience to use popular education workshops to educate our communities here at home; building power analysis as well as awareness and tools for organizing; art and culture through our street theater group to inspire our communities to be passionate about making change and organizing through the nurturing of regional coalitions and alliances that work together to create unity amongst the social justice organizations and collectively develop plans of action to fight against free trade, war and exploitation of Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and oppressed people in the U.S.
Would a member from your organization attend the WSF 2006?
My name is Zaskya Perez, and I am a 25 year-old Dominican daughter of immigrants from working-class communities of Boston. I am a youth worker and recently have begun to explore my role in community activism. As a part of Reflect & Strengthen, I have been inspired to further develop my power analyses; my critical understanding of the struggles faced by oppressed people, their root causes and perpetrators. As a U.S. citizen, I am committed to learning about the ways that I can use my access to resources in the most resourced country in the world in ways that share it with my comrades in other parts of the world. For example, the gathering of materials to be sent to communities abroad to support their struggle for self-determination and end of U.S. domination; using our access to the US government by voting comrades into positions of political power and voting against imperialist policies that effect our brothers and sisters abroad; educating our communities about the realities of free trade, sweat shop labor and war as well as the exploitation of natural resources in other countries and ways that we can direct our money into "clean" industries that do not exploit people, such as fair trade.
Dorchester People for Peace
41 Brent Street
Dorchester, MA 02124
Phone: (617)282-3783
Email: mikeprok@ziplink.net Webpage: none
Category of work: Political organizing
Mission:
To oppose the war in Iraq and US militarism in general; to build a multi-racial peace movement throughout the neighborhoods of Dorchester; to work against the war at home, including violence, budget cuts, racism, and political repression.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
(1)Developing an alternative yet informed international perspective that runs counter to arguments in favor of US militarism;
(2) Cultivating an alternative vision for progressive change in America;
(3) Forging relationship with people in other countries
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
(A) Exchanges with activists from different countries;
(B) List serves or blogs devoted to specific issues like globalization, terrorism, and sustainable development to promote dialogue and the exchange of ideas;
(C)Electronic discussions about current events;
(D) Joint actions on peace and social justice
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Not sure.
Grassroots International
179 Boylston Street 4th Fl.
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-524-1400
Email: info@grassrootsonline.org Webpage: http://www.grassrootsonline.org/
Category of work: International solidarity
Mission:
Grassroots International promotes global justice through partnerships with social change organizations. We work to advance political, economic and social rights and support development alternatives through grantmaking, education and advocacy.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
No answer.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
Maria Aguiar, Director of Global Programs, informs us that GI will probably send two staff members to the Forum. They will spend almost all of their energies convening with GI partners (groups that they support financially). Several of the partners are affiliated with Via Campesina (international network of landless workers, rural workers and small farmers organizations all over the world, such as all of the relevant Brazilian organizations). Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (LACRO) members are in Via Campesina, and LACRO is the Latin American arm of Via. Via is working with Venezuelan reform and peasant organizations. Via will be coordinating many activities at the Forum, just as it has done in the Porto Alegre Forums.
GI will be organizing reporting back activities in Boston on its own following the Forum, but would be open to participating with us to some extent in our reporting back.
GI also works with the National Family Farm Coalition – NFFC (an association of small US farmers) regarding trade and developing nations trade issues. It is a progressive organizations that lobbies and educates in the US regarding the negative impacts on Latin American agriculture of US aid and trade policies and organizations. NFFC is a Member of Via Campesina. NFFC is Working with Central American farmers. It has sent delegations to Central America, and has done lobbying here regarding trade legislation. NFFC will also be at the Forum.
The themes and proposals GI will be working on will focus to some extent on how all GI and its partners will organizing and working in 2006 and 2007 on US aid and trade policies impacting agriculture and landless workers in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
The themes and proposals GI will be working on will focus to some extent on how all GI and its partners will be organizing and working in 2006 and 2007 on US aid and trade policies impacting agriculture and landless workers in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Among the issues that GI and its partners are working on are:
1) US trade policy and bilateral and multilateral trade agreements attempt to force Central and South American and Caribbean countries to eliminate tariff barriers against US agricultural exports, while maintaining substantial subsidies to US agricultural producers. This enables US grain to outcompete domestic foreign producers, particularly small ones, and put them out of business. For example, the new US—Chile treaty is putting small Chilean wheat farmers out of business. Without US subsidies, the Florida Sugarcane industry would go out of business and be replaced by sugar imports from the south. The US still has quotas on sugar imports in addition to the subsidies. If US cotton wasn’t heavily subsidized, US cotton production would largely cease.
2) US government agricultural commodity aid is designed to provide a market for US agricultural products. The US government pays the US producers market (+ subsidies) prices, then the commodities are provided at low or no-interest loan terms on low prices or is granted for free to the recipient country. The government sells it at a profit legally or on the black market or gives it away, but in any event it is marketed at far lower prices than the same commodities can be produced locally, putting local producers out of business. Recipient countries don’t need US food aid, but need to strengthen domestic production for domestic consumption.
3) Oposition to US government policy favoring privatization of water, and support of Central and South American and Caribbean orgazizations resisting water privatization.
4) US government and corporate repression of independent agricultural unions and landless peasant organizations.
GI partners:
Brazil
ASSEMA—Association in the Settlement Areas of Maranhao
MST—Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra—Landless Workers Movement
Polo Sindical dos Trabalhadores Rurais—Coalition of Rural Workers Organizations
Mexico
FAT—Frente Autentico de Trabajo—Authentic Labor Front
CAMPO—Centro de Apoyo al Movimiento Pupular Oaxaqueno—Center for the Support of the Oaxacan Popular Movement
K’inal Antzetik—Land of Women
Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights—Comision Mexicana para la Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos
Haiti
Human Rights Platform—Platform of Hatian Human Rights Organizations
MPP—Movman Peyizan Papay—Peasant Movement of Papaye
MPNKP—National Congress of Papaye Peasant Movement
PAPDA—Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development
SOFA—Solidarite Famn Aytian—Hatian Women in Solidarity
Agricultural Missions is organizing a delegation. They are affiliated with the God Box. Solidarity with Central and South American agricultural and trade groups. Their key staff member is in Kentucky or Tennessee.
Jobs with Justice is involved with Grassroots Global. National: Fred Lascarate, Chilean woman. Local: ZNET Mike Albert JPAN JP Action Network, Cynthia.
Centro Presente, Inc.
54 Essex Street, 2nd fl.
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 497-9080
Email: mletona@cpresente.org; mmayorga@cpresente.org Webpage: cpresente.org
Category of work: Immigrant rights
Mission:
Founded in 1981, Centro Presente is a member-driven statewide organizacion dedicated to achieving the self-determination of the Latino immigrant community in Massachusetts. Led and operated primarily by Central American immigrants, Centro Presente struggles for immigrant righta and economic and social justice. As immigrants, we are aware that our past, present and future are intimately linked to our countries of origin. We integrate the provision of basic services and community organizing and leadership development to give our membership voice and build community power.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
Althouh we are a grass-roots organization, our nature as immigrants give us a transnational view of what are the causes of migration. We believe that the world is witnessing migration in unprecedented numbers world wide and that this movement of people is a direct cause of how capital has re-structured world-wide. We believe that the challenges we face in the United States as immigrants (the way we have been criminialized and the way our labor is exploited, to name a few of the challenges) are challenges faced by migrants world-wide. Further, we believe that capital is looking to resolve the contradicion of opening up borders but closing them to workers by granting work permits, or establishing guest worker programs. We are against this, because it would essentially deny millions of people worldwide "citizenship" broadly defined, or the belonging to a state and all the rights, prvileges and responsibilities that that belonging entails. The need to globalize our struggle is obvious.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
We are members of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), and we have been talking about the possibility of organizing (with allies in the struggel) a historic hemispheric summit of migrant communities. As a first step, we would like to convene organized groups of Latino migrants across the world so that we can begin to forge a common vision and articulate a common frame to advocacy.
Nationally, NALACC has a campaing (Keep Our Families Together) that seeks to change the public debate around immigrants. Centro Presente has the responsibility of coordinating efforts locally and state-wide. We INVITE all of our brothers and sisters in Greater Boston/Massachusetts to join us in this campaing. Please contact us for more details as our campaign will go into high gear in 2006.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Migrant Rights are Human Rights. We need to understand migration in our globalized world and therefore globalize our struggle.
Boston- Cambridge Alliance for Democracy
271 Dartmouth Street, #2h
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: 617-266-8687
Email: dlewit@igc.org Webpage: www.NewEnglandAlliance.org ; wwwTheAllianceForDemocracy.org
Category of work: Other
system change
Mission:
The Alliance for Democracy is dedicated to ending megacorporate rule and promoting participatory democracy through education, organization, and nonviolent action.
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
We don't seek benefit our own organization but all parts of the movement. We welcome new ideas, international linkages, and local collaboration with groups of common interest. The model system elaborated in A Common Agreement on Investment and Society (CAIS) can use criticism and detail from sister organizations in Venezuela, Brazil, Canada, and everywhere.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
We would encourage local and regional groups to study the CAIS and related documents, and develop their own versions. That is, develop models of alternative economic systems which facilitate democractic local and regional activity everywhere, and test them as far as possible.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
MODELING “ANOTHER” WORLD
by Dave Lewit
“There is an astonishing gap between the dominant ideology of a ‘self-regulating global free market’ and the reality of tens of thousands of trade-lawyer-constructed regulations—imposed across the world by a fast-moving, secretive process instituting the private demands of transnational corporations as absolute rights—to which elected legislatures everywhere are made subordinate.” So asserts Professor John McMurtry from Ontario, Canada , in his foreword to Wayne Ellwood’s No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization .
Ellwood then encapsulates the consequences: “Gaps between rich and poor are widening, decision-making power is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, local cultures are wiped out, biological diversity is destroyed, regional tensions are increasing, and the environment is nearing the point of collapse.” Civil society activists finally connected the dots when the MAI was leaked by Canadian trade treaty negotiators in 1997. This secret, government-negotiated Multilateral Agreement on Investment was to have been the corporatists’ dream come true—corporations would not only be given free rein but would have the right to enforce their domination over countries which had been trying to balance human and environmental needs with commercial and financial pressures, and to retain their sovereignty. In an uproar, activists from a dozen countries used the internet and successfully pressured their governments to drop the MAI.
The Alliance for Democracy’s Boston-Cambridge and North Bridge chapters were among those activist organizations, mounting the first open conference on the MAI, in May 1997, at Boston College, engaging among others Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) who went on to lead congressmembers to excoriate the Government’s secret negotiating.
But we went further. Within months, we organized a diverse group of 14 ordinary citizens—no specialists in economics, law, or trade—to form an AECD, Alliance for Economic Cooperation and Development (a spoof on the establishment’s OECD). This group drafted a model alternative treaty, which we eventually called A Common Agreement on Investment and Society (CAIS), posted at
www.TheAllianceForDemocracy.org/html/eng/1699-AA.shtml (or just put quotes around “Common Agreement on Investment and Society” and use Google).
Standing the MAI on its head, we created a detailed 30-page, 24-article document which evaluated or eliminated the IMF and World Bank and WTO, and created four new democratic world institutions to support a novel main institution—a great network of autonomous “local system organizations” (LSOs), each human-sized—roughly the size of a county. The concerns of the CAIS are put forth in the Preamble:
WE, AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD, in order to ensure the integrity of the earth and all its inhabitants, to foster the creative and cooperative capabilities of all people, to protect and encourage local economies, to sharpen the productive and adaptive functions and accountability of business organizations as well as public and civic organizations in democratic society, to balance local and international development and trade, to promote fair trade and investment practices, and to ensure that all people share fairly in the fruits of human labor and natural bounty as well as in necessary economic and political effort, do establish this common agreement on investment for all countries.
Those supporting institutions are (1) a popularly elected World Economic Parliament which, among other things, certifies or decertifies transnational corporations for international trade, (2) a Development Assistance Institute which, among other things, takes over IMF’s assets and provides loans, grants, and technical assistance to Local System Organizations, (3) a World Economic and Environmental Court which, among other things, sets the share of profits which antecedent inventors—indigenous peoples, farmers, technologists, scientists, etc.—get from corporate patents and copyrights derived from their work, and (4) a University of Enterprise which, among other things, engages productive and creative citizens to share their knowledge with LSOs and with other units of this highly decentralized and diversified institution. The UN’s Economic and Social Council would play a limited overseeing role, and the UN’s Center on Transnational Corporations—killed by Presidents Bush I and Clinton—would be regenerated to regulate currency traffic and transnational corporations (TNCs) and take them to court if necessary.
The CAIS spells out in almost 200 provisions the functions and relationships among these new institutions and other institutions of a democratic economy focusing on local and regional development, and human and ecological welfare. They constitute a basic alternative system to the IMF, WB, WTO, and other neoliberal agreements and institutions which have maintained the corporatist system characterized in our opening paragraphs. The document has been revised six times, and will continue to evolve with your efforts to create applications and further alternatives. The spreading world crisis highlights key areas that need further development along democratic lines. Here are three (we will leave energy, and public services integrity, for another time):
* Patents and Copyrights . It’s been said that private property is the root of all evil. Any agreement on investment deals with acquiring and retaining property. So-called intellectual property may be the most important form today. If you copy a manufacturing or even a management process that some Patent Office specialist certifies as novel, non-obvious, and useful, you can be sued into oblivion. The same goes for copying a copyrighted computer program or product, although copying of copyrighted songs is so widespread as to demand another way of compensating authors, composers, and performers.
The joker is that corporations often obtain exclusive property rights and deprive the creative people even more than pirates do. Others who are abused include the people or communities who over centuries or decades developed— gratis— plant seeds and folk tunes, for example, from which patented inventions and copyrighted songs are derived. CAIS starts with a 50-50 split of profits with representatives of identified precursors, and lets WEEC judges make adjustments. Further, corporations often monopolize by keeping their patented products or processes off the market at their whim. We need to explore new ways besides licensing contracts—secondary profiting—and the expiry of patents to spread the benefits of compositions, inventions, and discoveries. CAIS would call a low-cost, open, world conference on intellectual property to evaluate practices and to design new rules and enforcements.
* Popular Communications . Another key. We can argue that democracy began with the Athenian elite, but that it took off when Martin Luther used Gutenberg’s invention for printing books in many languages, and put the Bible into millions of craftsmen’s and farmers’ hands to educate themselves—bypassing the priesthood . Now the world-wide internet—as with the narrowing of book publication—is in danger of corporate takeover, backed by government authority. International agreement must stop the spiral of surrogate corporate authority. In addition to world-wide popular assemblies such as a World Economic Parliament, other means to assure public control of education and communication must be developed such as world-wide Media Literacy campaigns backed by international law. CAIS might incorporate universal training in video-making as well as the Oz-revealing education of media literacy campaigning.
* Strategic Nonviolence . The 2000 version of CAIS summarily promotes strategic nonviolence:
23.03. DAI shall fund research and other activities, including education and training, of civil organizations in the development of plans and capability for the reduction and elimination of war, and for the development of strategic nonviolent defense capabilities among communities, regions, and oppressed minorities. Strategic nonviolent defense shall not be limited to defense against military threat or action, but shall extend to nonviolent defense against economic coercion or limitation of human rights by governments, corporations, or other organizations.
With increasingly compromised representative government in the United States , sufficient means must be assured for We the People to evaluate and intervene when the electoral process and balance of powers are greatly corrupted. Just as the UN tries to universalize medical care and illness prevention, so new democratic world institutions as envisioned in CAIS must develop their provisions to help all people realize the power of concerted nonviolent struggle against oppressive forces. Nonviolence education has taken hold in Sweden and Australia . Now it remains to develop strategic nonviolence theory and practice, as in the Australian Brian Martin’s Nonviolence Speaks , and teach it in public schools and public media.
* * *
Other suggested alternatives, such as the International Forum on Globalization’s Alternatives to Economic Globalization , are much in tune with CAIS, but are more narrowly economic and don’t go as far. Suggestions like theirs for reforming international financial institutions serve to amplify the need to conceive better institutions in context, and to take first steps. We believe that having a longer, broader vision—with exemplary detail—will spur essential, even revolutionary, developments.
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Drafted by Dave Lewit, Boston-Cambridge Alliance for Democracy 617-266-8687 dlewit@igc.org
Women's Fightback Network (WFN)
284 Amory Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Phone: 617-522-6626
Email: wfn@iacboston.org Webpage: www.iacboston.org/wfn
Category of work: Other
women's organization
Mission:
WFN is a grassroots alliance of poor and working women, students, immigrants, disabled activists, elders and youth, trade unionists, lesbian, bi- and transgendered people - to protest budget cuts, racism, sexism, homophobia and war. Women and children continue to be the poorest of the poor while the Pentagon budget swells to wage devastating wars and occupations abroad. Women have a crucial leadership place in the struggle for justice, equality and human needs. WFN seeks to organize our sisters to do just that!
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
WFN is affiliated with the International Action Center (IAC) which has relationships with many countries. WFN and the IAC have co-sponsored protests and forums in solidarity with our sisters and brothers from Venezuela to Colombia to Bolivia, from Haiti to Palestine to Puerto Rico and Cuba. As an anti-imperialist organization, we demand that US-CIA wars and occupations cease. We defend the revolutionary struggles of our sisters and brothers worldwide, including the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. We support the World Social Forum as a partner in such cooperation.
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
By continuing the work that WFN and the IAC do and to work towards strengthening our relationships by exchange visits with other women's organizaitons, trade unions, anti-war groups, etc. Our role here in the US must be to defend our sisters and brothers abroad against US wars, demand US troops out now, hands off Venezuela and yes to the Bolivarian Revolution, no to US-sponsored paramilitary death squads and Plan Colombia. We hope to raise the consciousness of working people here to see the direct link between these international struggles and our struggles here against poverty, racism and war.
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Build stronger relations and solidarity with our common struggle for worldwide justice and equality. By bringing eyewitness accounts of the revolutionary advancements made by the Bolivarian Revolution, the movement here can provide a concrete model and vision for the workers and oppressed in this country. We are networking with other women's organizaitons to build an International Women's Day contingent for the anti-war demonstration in Boston on March 18, 2006, marking the third year of the US war & occupation in Iraq. We hope other cities worldwide do the same. (The IAC will be represented at the WSF 2006.)
Emily
47 Halifax Street
Boston, MA 02130
Phone: 6175243982
Email: ejpa@aol.com Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
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Kim
,
Phone:
Email: kim@fairjobs.org Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
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Victor E.
50 McCllure St.
Amherst, MA 01002
Phone: 4132187264
Email: guevfig9@comcast.net Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
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How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?:
Genevieve
28 Rodman st.
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Phone: 6179833925
Email: genhowe@earthlink.net Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
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How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
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Luis
41 Auburn Street #5
Brookline, MA 02446
Phone: 6177344505
Email: melendezluis@acad.umass.edu Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
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Richard
,
Phone: 6177310959
Email: rpicar59e@yahoo.com Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
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Anne
,
Phone: 6176245955
Email: Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
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Paul
100 Mountainview Dr.
Stoneham, MA
Phone:
Email: midblu@comcast.net Webpage: WSF 2006
Category of work: 2006-10-20
0000-00-00
Mission:
Benefit from international grassroots cooperation through the WSF:
How do you envision such cooperation could be carried out?:
What proposal would you like the Boston Delegation to take to the WSF 2006?: