Why should you go to the U.S. Social Forum?

For the social justice movements, Katrina made it clear that we were not organized enough, nor strong enough to offer front line assistance to the grassroots communities most impacted by the natural and manmade disaster.

For this nation, government neglect and ineptitude became transparent as we watched desperate people beg for rescue, for food, water ... any type of assistance. Meanwhile, Republican opportunism, cronyism, and greed were blatant as evidenced by the naming of Halliburton as a no-bid contractor to clean up a devastated New Orleans. This was done even as they were under investigation for fraudulent billing and mismanagement of millions of tax dollars while performing some of the same tasks in Iraq.

For people across the globe, Katrina revealed the soft underbelly of the beast. We saw television news coverage that stood in stark contrast to the standard programming that normally presents the United States as the land of the rich. Instead, people watched in horror as the institutionalized nature of USA racism and classism was revealed, and shown to be alive and thriving in the waters of Katrina.

It is important that we understand we are all living our own personal, social, and political Katrina's.

The U.S. Social Forum: In the beginning ...

According to Michael Leon Guerrero, who is emerging as the U.S. Social Forum historian, it all began in June 2003 at a meeting of the WSF International Council (IC) when Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) decided to begin the discussion among USA organizations about a U. S. Social Forum. Two meetings were convened in 2004 to begin the discussions around policy, advocacy, and solidarity among the groups who agreed to support the gathering.

Some of the objectives set were to be intentional in outreach to grassroots groups working in communities of color and representing working class people, and in figuring out how to make this gathering a part of movement building. In 2005, to acknowledge the impact that social and political struggle in the South have had on this nation, Atlanta was selected as the site for this historic gathering.

Why should people come?

The most compelling reason I know to attend this social forum is to raise your consciousness about the diverse social and economic movements in this country, so as to better see the world through a frame of social activism.

We live in a world where corporations are afforded more privileges than people. We live in a world where the cry for corporate globalism hides the destruction that runaway capitalism visits on the poor and landless masses. Even working class people and most of the middle class are negatively impacted by this move to force poor and struggling countries to open their markets to corporate capital, often at the risk of forcing homegrown businesses to close, farmers to abandon their land, and pushing more and more people into poverty.

Another reason to attend is to network, dialogue, share a meal, commune, and reason with people who would normally not be in your circle or on your radar. Organizations involved include CARE and Amnesty International, labor unions like AFL-CIO and Jobs with Justice, and grassroots organizations like Chinese Progressive Association and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

20,000 organizers and activist from across this country and around the world in one place for you to learn from and share with -- that has to be tempting.

How will one benefit?

The USSF represents a rare opportunity to gather with others from outside our normal circle of usual suspects. Instead of being among folks who tend to all think like us, we will be with people from every ethnic group in this country, working on every conceivable issue, some who view the world and the work/worth very differently from us.

It is exciting to be among people who will possibly challenge us to make our work relevant to the local, regional, global world beyond our world.

How Will One's Community Benefit?

When we grow as organizers we bring a larger sense of community and connection to each other and global movements. We understand better how we can connect to serious issues as we work with others working for social change. Organizers and cultural workers can gain an integrated sense of self as part of an historical movement in this nation for social change. The U.S. Social Forum offers us an opportunity to deepen our interconnectedness as a community.

By posing questions, conducting workshops, offering arts based dialogue, and sharing our process and stories, we have the opportunity to be in community with organizers who seek a deeper understanding of the role art can play in creating community and moving people to embrace change.

Making another world possible?

The final day of the U.S. Social Forum will include an assembly of social movements in the United States. Through this process we plan to collect a calendar of activism that will let us support each other's work at a national level. We will demonstrate how our issues all intersect. Hopefully, people will be inspired to strengthen our social and political connections, and campaigns.

In 2008 there will not be a World Social Forum, so the IC has called for a series of global days of action. This offers an opportunity to create integrated, powerful actions that demonstrate to this country and the world that we are united with each other and with other global movements as we work towards an end to persistent poverty and homelessness, for a livable wage, for free and secure sources of water, for protection of the environment, to reform the criminal and juvenile justice systems, and make forward movement around the countless other issues that represent ways people and groups are working to create another world.

18 months before America elects another U.S. President people are asking if the forum is a springboard into strong political activism. Will it inspire us to create a third party? Will it energize communities to ask harder questions of those running for electoral offices? Will we learn strategies for holding these people accountable to our communities and our needs?

What is possible following the U.S. Social Forum is dependant on the level of commitment and participation people and groups invest in the social forum process. This is the world's largest open space; a gathering of civil society to educate each other, share our visions and create strategy for true and lasting change.

If another world is possible, another United States is necessary!

A longer version of this story originally appeared in InMotion magazine.