SUNDAY, feb 22: 1st Conference for a New Progressive Left Movement

Please forward, post, copy, circulate widely
First Conference for a New Progressive Left Movement in SF
Sunday, February 22, 2004
@ The Women's Building
3543 18th Street (Between Valencia and Guerrero Streets)
Mission District - SF
REGISTER NOW!
9AM - Registration and Breakfast
10 AM - 5 PM - Deliberations,
panels, discussions, resolutions
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CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE, POINTS OF UNITY AND REGISTRATION FORM

San Francisco: Announcing the First Conference for the City's New Progressive Left Movement

Let's Organize the Left Behind the Matt Gonzalez campaign
Sunday, February 22, 2004
9 AM - Registration and Breakfast served on the premises 10 AM - 5 PM - Conference proceedings
Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street
(between Valencia and Guerrero)

Don’t let the energy and possibilities of the progressive left movement behind the Matt Gonzalez candidacy disappear.

Help organize a new Progressive Left and Independent Movement in San Francisco to participate in community struggles, in the unions, the antiwar movement and to train and select candidates for local Elections.

The conference will include discussions and workshops on organizing around issues affecting immigrants and people of color, trade union work and candidates and propositions for upcoming elections.

We will also discuss how to enhance and support the most prominent points of the Gonzalez campaign's progressive platform.

Position papers and draft resolutions will be forwarded to all registered participants in advance of the conference.

A coordinating body will be voted on at the Conference.

If anything was proven in the Mayoral runoff election, it was that the local Democratic Party political machine is an integral part of the Democratic Party of Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Lieberman et al who mobilized vast resources to support neo-liberal candidate Gavin Newsom and tried to destroy the emerging new progressive movement behind the candidacy of Matt Gonzalez.

If you agree with:

• If you agree with breaking with the bi-partisan political regime of both the Democratic Party’s and Republican Party’s leaderships and creating a new progressive left and independent political movement.

* If you agree to campaign to register voters as Greens, P&FP or decline to state and to set up an ongoing organization unifying Greens, socialists, working class activists and people of color outside the two-party structures.

* If you agree that while working on issues with Democrats (war and peace, some social issues, propositions, etc) is worthwhile, the movement should not waste its energies trying to reform one of the two parties of the ruling elite and thus should not work, support or encourage candidates running as Democrats

• If you agree with raising a local platform including municipal power; non-citizens voting rights; progressive taxation; opposition to war, occupation and the Patriot Act; economic development of working class neighborhoods; reparations for Bayview Hunters Point; tenants’ rights and rent control; workers’ rights; accessible housing for working families, people of color and immigrants; IRV, and neighborhood control through elected neighborhood councils …

• If you agree with choosing progressive left candidates democratically rather than by top-down appointment or self-appointment and having those candidates be accountable to the movement rather than vice versa...

...Then you are encouraged and welcomed to help organize and participate in this critical conference.

SPACE IS LIMITED SO WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND REGISTERING NOW, WELL IN ADVANCE OF THE CONFERENCE.

FILL OUT AND MAIL YOUR REGISTRATION FORM TODAY!


Name_______________________________



Address____________________________



Phone______________________________



E-Mail: ___________________________


(Your e-mail will be included in the Discussion list-server for the conference)

Yes, I would like to be involved in the organizing of the Conference:

Please, find enclosed check/money order for $10 for registration (fees cover space rental, food and materials for the conference. No one will be turned away for lack of funds)

Please, find enclosed a donation of $______ to help with the registration of people who cannot afford the registration fee.

Make checks/money orders to
(provisional account):
Frontlines
3311 Mission Street, Suite 25
San Francisco, California 94110

Initial list of endorsers: Frontlines newspaper; SF Green Party; Immigrant Rights Movement (MDI); trade union activists in ATU, SEIU and other unions; Mission District Greens; Left Party; Immigrant Labor Organizing Committee; SF Bayview newspaper; Arabs Building Community All Islanders Gathering As One (AIGA-1); Maurice Campbell, chairperson, Bayview Hunters Point Community First Coalition; Conscious Sound Collective, SF; Seiji Carpenter, pollster and others. Please, fill in the form above to be included in our list of endorsers.

For more information and/or send your registration:

Telephone: (415) 452-9992 OR (510) 289-8375

FAX: (415) 337-5113

E-Mail: alternative [at] sbcglobal.net

The Organizing Committee Meets Every Saturday at 6 PM

If you’re interested in participate to organize the Conference, call or e-mail us.

If you wish to participate in the discussion of papers and draft proposals (including the platform) for the Conference, join our yahoo group by sending e-mail to:

progressiveleftconference-subscribe [at] yahoogroups.com