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NEW PROGRESSIVE LEFT MOVEMENT
SAN FRANCISCO: ANNOUNCING THE FIRST CONFERENCE
FOR THE CITY'S NEW PROGRESSIVE LEFT MOVEMENT
FOR THE CITY'S NEW PROGRESSIVE LEFT MOVEMENT
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 St.
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 slues 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. Draft papers along the lines of this call to discuss at the conference are welcome.
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 Patty'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 stag 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: noncitizens 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.
Organizing Committee Meetings Every Saturday at 6 PM
If you're interested in participating, please call (1415) 452-9992 , Or e-mail to: alternative @sbcglobal-net
Initial list of endorsers: Frontlines newspaper; Immigrant Rights Movement (MDI); trade union activists in ATU, SEW and other unions; Mission District Greens; Left Party; Immigrant Labor Organizing Committee; SFBayview newspaper; Arabs Building Community; All Islanders Gathering As One (AIGA-1); Maurice Campbell, chairperson Bayview Hunters Point Community First Coalition; SF Green Party; Conscious Sound Collective, SF; Seiji Carpenter, pollster and others.
Please, fill in the form below to be included in our list of endorsers.
FILL OUT AND MAIL / FAX / E-MAIL YOUR REGISTRATION FORM TODAY! V
SPACE IS LIMITED SO WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND REGISTERING NOW, WELL IN ADVANCE OF THE CONFERENCE. 0 Yes, 1 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.
Name: Telephone:
Address: e-mail:
City: ZIP CODE: (Your e-mail will be included in the Discussion list-server for the confe ence)
For more information and/or send your registration: Make checks / money orders to: FRONTLINES
Telephone: (415) 452-9992 OR (510) 289-8375 (provisional account) and send to:
FAX: (415) 337-5113 3311 Mission St., Suite 25,
E-Mail: alternative [at] sbcglobal.net San Francisco, CA 94110
t` Organizing Committee____
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 St.
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 slues 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. Draft papers along the lines of this call to discuss at the conference are welcome.
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 Patty'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 stag 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: noncitizens 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.
Organizing Committee Meetings Every Saturday at 6 PM
If you're interested in participating, please call (1415) 452-9992 , Or e-mail to: alternative @sbcglobal-net
Initial list of endorsers: Frontlines newspaper; Immigrant Rights Movement (MDI); trade union activists in ATU, SEW and other unions; Mission District Greens; Left Party; Immigrant Labor Organizing Committee; SFBayview newspaper; Arabs Building Community; All Islanders Gathering As One (AIGA-1); Maurice Campbell, chairperson Bayview Hunters Point Community First Coalition; SF Green Party; Conscious Sound Collective, SF; Seiji Carpenter, pollster and others.
Please, fill in the form below to be included in our list of endorsers.
FILL OUT AND MAIL / FAX / E-MAIL YOUR REGISTRATION FORM TODAY! V
SPACE IS LIMITED SO WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND REGISTERING NOW, WELL IN ADVANCE OF THE CONFERENCE. 0 Yes, 1 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.
Name: Telephone:
Address: e-mail:
City: ZIP CODE: (Your e-mail will be included in the Discussion list-server for the confe ence)
For more information and/or send your registration: Make checks / money orders to: FRONTLINES
Telephone: (415) 452-9992 OR (510) 289-8375 (provisional account) and send to:
FAX: (415) 337-5113 3311 Mission St., Suite 25,
E-Mail: alternative [at] sbcglobal.net San Francisco, CA 94110
t` Organizing Committee____
For more information:
http://www.sf-frontlines.com
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How to escape your brainwashing
By “El Observadora”
Let’s put ourselves in the context of France in 1943. Fascist French are collaborating with the occupying Nazis. The world is in flames and the struggle- especially in France looks dismal at best. But then civil society comes alive. People demand that the Germans not test cosmetics on animals. They even demand that the Nazis not test animals in their research for better gas chambers. Other groups spontaneously form guerrilla bands and sneak into gardens at Versailles and plant vegetables and fruit trees. They boldly declare that this garden is part of the eco-bloc, a powerful symbolic testament to the world they will soon sprout everywhere and other groups declare that the new gardens are a permaculture free state.
The next day thousands of people march in Paris with giant beautiful puppets and colorful signs proclaiming a carnival against genocide. The newly formed Verte Party insists it be allowed to debate with the Nazis and the collaborators. Brave people sneak up on panzer tanks and throw blood on them. People on the coast occupy ancient trees that the Germans were attempting to cut for their fortifications. Thousands of people join these actions demanding only that they be told what kind of economy and structure they will have once they get rid of the Nazis.
Then the problems start. Some of the greens- Los Vertes – refuse to march with Socialists because they eat meat. The New Phage bloc refuses to march with the communist because they call the Nazis heartless assholes. The anarchists refuse to march with anyone because they don’t want to be part of an organization and it makes more sense to liberate – the minds – in your neighborhood and be pure. Then in the big meeting to decide on the economic program that the people are demanding to know about, just when agreement is close a large, Jewish pagan writer decides to block the proposal under consensus rules and after three hours of debate everyone goes home grumbling.
The Germans find all of this so refreshing and positive that they decide to invade England immediately. When England falls the US and USSR sue for peace and the world ends up developing about like it has today.
Is there a moral to this? Do you think that the French Resistance was wrong to fight the Germans with bullets instead of love? Do you think the US is nicer than the Nazis? Do you think the 30 million people (mostly children) who die each year from war, starvation and easily preventable disease are just stupid. Is it their fault they aren’t stock brokers or computer programmers. Maybe you think they are genetically inferior or the unfortunate victims of progress…
Maybe you are a closet nazi collaborator – Someone should give you a hair cut... before its too late…
Are you listening yet? Can you express your feelings, your thoughts or your way out of this little problem?
Well…its 1943 France everywhere in the world and this is the response below of the World Resistance: enjoy the read – next year we may allbe in concentration camps like Guantanamo… ah the memories… !
Excerpts from: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1083473,00.html
After a very pleasant afternoon admiring the architecture of the Paris office of the communist party - I can't find any piccies online, but this is the sort of thing Niemeyer does - it was home time.
A tense atmosphere soon built on the train, not least from the fact that all the seats allotted to the 100 or so activists had been TRIPLE booked by Eurostar, leaving a lot of people standing for two-and-a-half hours. It quickly went around that there was a large police and special branch presence awaiting the train at Waterloo, who would be filming and photographing everyone disembarking.
The British ESF contingent struck up a rendition of "We all live in a terrorist regime, a terrorist regime, a terrorist regime" to rouse their spirits. There was no way of ducking the cameras, we had to grin and bear it.
Sunday, 1pm - Let them eat lobster!
Well, that's it. All over and done with for another year, and, as if to match the "morning after the night before" ambience, it's pissing down in Paris.
I want to go to the Paris HQ of the French Communist party. Not because I'm a communist, but because it's a dramatic building by one of my favourite architects, Oscar Niemeyer (who is a communist. And 94 years old, I think). You may have seen the temporary pavilion he designed in Hyde Park this summer if you were in London - otherwise, he's most famous for being the designer of futuristic Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
After the march last night, we dined on lobster (as revolutionaries do) before heading up to the most-hyped party, The Translators' Bash. I suspect this fevered speculation may have had something to do with the fact that all the translators appear to have been perfect specimens of Italian womanhood, but when we arrived (midnight - timing it about right, we hoped), it was just in the process of being closed down by the authorities.
By “El Observadora”
Let’s put ourselves in the context of France in 1943. Fascist French are collaborating with the occupying Nazis. The world is in flames and the struggle- especially in France looks dismal at best. But then civil society comes alive. People demand that the Germans not test cosmetics on animals. They even demand that the Nazis not test animals in their research for better gas chambers. Other groups spontaneously form guerrilla bands and sneak into gardens at Versailles and plant vegetables and fruit trees. They boldly declare that this garden is part of the eco-bloc, a powerful symbolic testament to the world they will soon sprout everywhere and other groups declare that the new gardens are a permaculture free state.
The next day thousands of people march in Paris with giant beautiful puppets and colorful signs proclaiming a carnival against genocide. The newly formed Verte Party insists it be allowed to debate with the Nazis and the collaborators. Brave people sneak up on panzer tanks and throw blood on them. People on the coast occupy ancient trees that the Germans were attempting to cut for their fortifications. Thousands of people join these actions demanding only that they be told what kind of economy and structure they will have once they get rid of the Nazis.
Then the problems start. Some of the greens- Los Vertes – refuse to march with Socialists because they eat meat. The New Phage bloc refuses to march with the communist because they call the Nazis heartless assholes. The anarchists refuse to march with anyone because they don’t want to be part of an organization and it makes more sense to liberate – the minds – in your neighborhood and be pure. Then in the big meeting to decide on the economic program that the people are demanding to know about, just when agreement is close a large, Jewish pagan writer decides to block the proposal under consensus rules and after three hours of debate everyone goes home grumbling.
The Germans find all of this so refreshing and positive that they decide to invade England immediately. When England falls the US and USSR sue for peace and the world ends up developing about like it has today.
Is there a moral to this? Do you think that the French Resistance was wrong to fight the Germans with bullets instead of love? Do you think the US is nicer than the Nazis? Do you think the 30 million people (mostly children) who die each year from war, starvation and easily preventable disease are just stupid. Is it their fault they aren’t stock brokers or computer programmers. Maybe you think they are genetically inferior or the unfortunate victims of progress…
Maybe you are a closet nazi collaborator – Someone should give you a hair cut... before its too late…
Are you listening yet? Can you express your feelings, your thoughts or your way out of this little problem?
Well…its 1943 France everywhere in the world and this is the response below of the World Resistance: enjoy the read – next year we may allbe in concentration camps like Guantanamo… ah the memories… !
Excerpts from: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1083473,00.html
After a very pleasant afternoon admiring the architecture of the Paris office of the communist party - I can't find any piccies online, but this is the sort of thing Niemeyer does - it was home time.
A tense atmosphere soon built on the train, not least from the fact that all the seats allotted to the 100 or so activists had been TRIPLE booked by Eurostar, leaving a lot of people standing for two-and-a-half hours. It quickly went around that there was a large police and special branch presence awaiting the train at Waterloo, who would be filming and photographing everyone disembarking.
The British ESF contingent struck up a rendition of "We all live in a terrorist regime, a terrorist regime, a terrorist regime" to rouse their spirits. There was no way of ducking the cameras, we had to grin and bear it.
Sunday, 1pm - Let them eat lobster!
Well, that's it. All over and done with for another year, and, as if to match the "morning after the night before" ambience, it's pissing down in Paris.
I want to go to the Paris HQ of the French Communist party. Not because I'm a communist, but because it's a dramatic building by one of my favourite architects, Oscar Niemeyer (who is a communist. And 94 years old, I think). You may have seen the temporary pavilion he designed in Hyde Park this summer if you were in London - otherwise, he's most famous for being the designer of futuristic Brazilian capital, Brasilia.
After the march last night, we dined on lobster (as revolutionaries do) before heading up to the most-hyped party, The Translators' Bash. I suspect this fevered speculation may have had something to do with the fact that all the translators appear to have been perfect specimens of Italian womanhood, but when we arrived (midnight - timing it about right, we hoped), it was just in the process of being closed down by the authorities.
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