Editor’s note: This article is excerpted from a longer version called “Help to Plan and to Create a third US Social Forum,” written by the USSF Accountability and Coordination Team (ACT).
The U.S. Social Forum National Planning Committee met in Philadelphia March 8-10, 2013 to continue to build the road to a Third U.S. Social Forum. Hosted by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), the gathering brought together 75 individuals from more than 40 grassroots organizations. The group agreed, there is an urgent need for a third US Social Forum (USSF III) by 2015. We will support People’s Movement Assemblies and other movement gatherings as principal organizing and outreach tools leading to USSF III.
The USSF is nested within the World Social Forum (WSF) process which first convened in 2001 in Brazil and imagines, proclaims and demands—“Another World is Possible!” Social Forums are an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Humankind and between it and the Earth.
More than 15,000 people attended the first USSF in 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2010, over 20,000 people came together for USSF II in Detroit, Michigan. USSF III (location to be determined) will be a new and different Social Forum to continue to create the necessary new world together!
USSF leaders write this about the urgent need for USSF III. “We live day to day in crisis and struggle. For the first time in history we are experiencing a rapidly deepening crisis of global capitalism affecting millions in the US and billions world-wide —producing austerity policies and massive permanent unemployment and poverty, unimaginable climate, ecological and social destruction, and intensifying political attacks, repression, and the threat of fascism and war everywhere. At the same time, resistance, activism and organizing are on the rise across all continents, sectors, and fronts of struggle.
This moment requires a huge and unified social movement in the U.S. with millions of politically conscious people to ensure victory for the arising social motion in the interests of the oppressed, exploited, and dispossessed—to protect the earth and affirm life. The U.S. Social Forum can play a role in pushing forward strategic U.S. movement development through the dynamic interrelation of local and regional struggles, and the emergence of a national movement in relation to global movements.
The USSF process is striving to step up and take its place in history by advancing the interests of working class, low-income, and grassroots struggles. The moment is urgent and the opportunities are great.”
There are many important ways individuals, groups, networks and organizations can participate in advancing the work towards USSF III. To find out more information, go to http://wiki.ussocialforum.net/images/3/37/NPC_Membership_Criteria_and_Roles_and_Responsibilities.pdf or email info@ussocialforum.net.
