Organize the South

If you attended the US Social Forum, then you probably met your share of wackos. If you submitted a workshop proposal, then you probably are getting email from said wackos. One of them is Rick White, and, to answer my question, he's a public relations guy in Atlanta. He may or may not be a wacko, but he's definitely a spammer and possibly a bit of a hack.

White works for a public relations company called Alisias. One of Alisias's clients is the Atlanta Housing Authority. Other Alisias clients included the Lamar Willis Foundation, When I googled him and the company I came upon an email exchange related to the technology of the US Social Forum. The spamming came to light before the forum as evidenced in this blog by Ana. Apparently, Rick believes it's OK to keep spamming.

I emailed him a list of questions back on January 1, but haven't heard from him. I'm putting the full email below. What can we learn from this? 1) the Atlanta Housing Authority doesn't know good public relations from a hack job. 2) spam doesn't work for politics (but maybe for viagra sales). Most important, though, is 3) anything you put on the internet stays on the internet.

Here's the email sent to Rick White:

• Can you confirm you work for the public relations firm Alisias?
• Is the Atlanta Housing Authority one of your clients?
• Did you pull down emails from the Social Forum website? Are you sending email bursts to this list on behalf of AHA?
• Were you hired by Alisias to attack the Forum? If not, what were you hired to do?
• Were you asked by the USSF technology group to stop spamming?
• Did you make an agreement to delete emails pulled off the USSF site? Did you delete those emails?

Poor People's Day has been an annual event in Georgia for more than 25 years. For one or two days low-income people, workers, organizations, and others from around the state have gathered together to share information and to make voices heard at the state legislature. Past events have seen us block the governor's office, bum rush a state legislator backing a pro-poverty bill, hold press conferences on misuse of funds, pack a committee meeting, and other fun stuff.

This year things are a little different, but the intent is still the same. Saturday, January 26 we will have the People's Assembly. Folks from around the state will caravan from the capitol to the assembly site, stopping at sites of local struggle. Join us!

You can also make your voice heard now. We have launched the People's Ballot, a chance for anyone living in Georgia to rank their issues in priority. Care about raising the minimum wage? Bringing US troops home? Something else? Put it on the ballot. You can get a copy of the ballot by going online at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=elK_2fGeRF3KqSAu32l0qdJA_3d_3d

or you can call the Georgia Citizens' Coalition on Hunger at 404.622.7778 for a hard copy by mail. Lastly, you can email me at this site and I'll send you a pdf of the ballot.

More information on the Caravan and the Assembly are below.

What: A Poor People's Caravan and People's Movement Assembly
When: Saturday, January 26th, 2008 - The World Social Forum's Global Day of Action
Where: The Caravan will take place in Downtown Atlanta, passing by significant sites of struggle. Then we will rally at the Capitol and travel together to the Hunger Coalition to participate in the first ever Poor People's Movement Assembly.
Who: Grassroots folks from all over the State, educators, organizers, community-based organizations, community members, familiesŠfolks building Another World!

In the spirit of the Poor People's March on Washington 40 years ago, we are taking to the streets with a powerful caravan. In the spirit of bringing together movements from all over the country this summer at the first US Social Forum, we are bringing GEORGIA together for a Poor People's Assembly to demand action & create a more unified vision. In the spirit of bridging local struggles to global movements, we are answering the World Social Forum's call for Global Days of Action. Atlanta is one of the first US cities standing with people from all over the world on this day of action, January 26. Join us.

By now the atrocious vote to privatize Grady is general knowledge. What I find interesting is this story by the AJC about how state legislators think they are the ones getting a raw deal.

Right off the bat the story shows the AJC slant towards privatization. The first sentence reads, "On a day when Grady supporters should have been triumphantly plotting a bright future for the rescued hospital..." Apparently it's objective fact that 1) the day was triumphant, 2) the hospital was "saved," and 3) supporters of the hospital are pro-privatization. In hockey getting 3 goals is s called a hat trick, but at the AJC it's just called journalism.

Still, the funniest part of the story is reading about all the poor, defenseless politicians who are outraged (outraged I tell you!) at being given a demand. "I have no intention of signing an unenforceable document that seeks to bind the state to a specific, annual appropriation," said Gov. Perdue. House Majority leader Jerry Keen hinted the deal puts everything back at square one. These drama kings are reacting to the privatization resolution that requested the hospital get state money. Imagine that? A public hospital serving poor people from across the state getting public money from across the state. Shocking, isn't it?

Hopefully, the community can still kill this plan before it goes forward. It look likes the state wants a private hospital that makes money for campaign donors. That is the free-market system at work. The poor, apparently, are free to die.

I know that holiday is over and we're all moving into Christmas. However, this is a really well-written piece and I couldn't let it go. Happy Holidays.

Why We Shouldn't Celebrate Thanksgiving
By Robert Jensen
Posted on November 22, 2007, Printed on November 27, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/68170/

After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built into Thanksgiving Day, I published an essay in November 2005 suggesting we replace the feasting with fasting and create a National Day of Atonement to acknowledge the genocide of indigenous people that is central to the creation of the United States.

I expected criticism from right-wing and centrist people, given their common commitment to this country's distorted self-image that supports the triumphalist/supremacist notions about the United States so common in conventional politics, and I got plenty of such critique. But I was surprised by the resistance from liberals, including a considerable number of my friends.

The most common argument went something like this: OK, it's true that the Thanksgiving Day mythology is rooted in a fraudulent story -- about the European invaders coming in peace to the "New World," eager to cooperate with indigenous people -- which conveniently ignores the reality of European barbarism in the conquest of the continent. But we can reject the culture's self-congratulatory attempts to rewrite history, I have been told, and come together on Thanksgiving to celebrate the love and connections among family and friends.

The argument that we can ignore the collective cultural definition of Thanksgiving and create our own meaning in private has always struck me as odd. This commitment to Thanksgiving puts these left/radical critics in the position of internalizing one of the central messages promoted by the ideologues of capitalism -- that individual behavior in private is more important than collective action in public. The claim that through private action we can create our own reality is one of the key tenets of a predatory corporate capitalism that naturalizes unjust hierarchy, a part of the overall project of discouraging political struggle and encouraging us to retreat into a private realm where life is defined by consumption.

So this November, rather than mount another attack on the national mythology around Thanksgiving -- a mythology that amounts to a kind of holocaust denial, and which has been critiqued for many years by many people -- I want to explore why so many who understand and accept this critique still celebrate Thanksgiving, and why rejecting such celebrations sparks such controversy.

Once we know, what do we do?

At this point in history, anyone who wants to know this reality of U.S. history -- that the extermination of indigenous peoples was, both in a technical, legal sense and in common usage, genocide -- can easily find the resources to know. If this idea is new, I would recommend two books, David E. Stannard's American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World and Ward Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide. While the concept of genocide, which is defined as the deliberate attempt "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group," came into existence after World War II, it accurately describes the program that Europeans and their descendants pursued to acquire the territory that would become the United States of America.

Once we know that, what do we do? The moral response -- that is, the response that would be consistent with the moral values around justice and equality that most of us claim to hold -- would be a truth-and-reconciliation process that would not only correct the historical record but also redistribute land and wealth. In the white-supremacist and patriarchal society in which we live, operating within the parameters set by a greed-based capitalist system, such a process is hard to imagine in the short term. So, the question for left/radical people is: What political activity can we engage in to keep alive this kind of critique until a time when social conditions might make a truly progressive politics possible?

In short: Once we know, what do we do in a world that is not yet ready to know, or knows but will not deal with the consequences of that knowledge?

The general answer to that question is simple, though often difficult to put into practice: We must keep speaking honestly, as often as possible, in as many venues as possible. We must resist the conventional wisdom. We must reject the cultural amnesia. We must refuse to be polite when politeness means capitulation to lies.

I have not always been strong enough to meet even these basic moral obligations. Most of us in positions of unearned privilege and power would be wise to avoid pontificating about our moral superiority and political courage, given our routine failures. Can any of us not point to moments when we went along to get along? Have any of us done enough to bring our lives in line with the values we claim to hold?

Still, we need to help each other tell the truth, even when the truth is not welcome.

The illusion of redefining Thanksgiving

Imagine that Germany won World War II and that a Nazi regime endured for some decades, eventually giving way to a more liberal state with a softer version of German-supremacist ideology. Imagine that a century later, Germans celebrated a holiday offering a whitewashed version of German/Jewish history that ignored that holocaust and the deep anti-Semitism of the culture. Imagine that the holiday provided a welcomed time for families and friends to gather and enjoy food and conversation. Imagine that businesses, schools and government offices closed on this day.

What would we say about such a holiday? Would we not question the distortions woven into such a celebration? Would we not demand a more accurate historical account? Would we not, in fact, denounce such a holiday as grotesque?

Now, imagine that left/liberal Germans -- those who were critical of the power structure that created that distorted history and who in other settings would challenge the political uses of those distortions -- put aside their critique and celebrated the holiday with their fellow citizens, claiming to ignore the meaning of the holiday created by the dominant culture.

What would we say about such people? Would we not question their commitment to the principles they claim to hold? Would we not demand a more courageous politics?

Comparisons to the Nazis are routinely overused and typically hyperbolic, but this is directly analogous. These are fair, albeit painful, questions for all of us.

Left/liberals who want to claim they are rejecting that European-supremacist and racist use of Thanksgiving and "redefining" the holiday in private clearly avoid the obvious: We don't define holidays individually -- the idea of a holiday is rooted in its collective, shared meaning. When the dominant culture defines a holiday in a certain fashion, one can't pretend to redefine it in private. One either accepts the dominant definition or resists it, publicly and privately.

Of course people often struggle for control over the meaning of symbols and holidays, but typically we engage in such battles when we believe there is some positive aspect of the symbol or holiday worth fighting for. For example, Christians -- some of whom believe that Christmas should focus on the values of universal love and world peace rather than on orgiastic consumption -- may resist that commercialization and argue in public and private for a different approach to the holiday. Those people typically continue to celebrate Christmas, but in ways consistent with those values. In that case, people are trying to recover and/or reinforce something that they believe is positive because of values rooted in a historical tradition. Those folks struggle over the meaning of Christmas because they believe the core of Christianity is experienced through the people we touch, not the products we purchase. In that endeavor, Christians are arguing the culture has gone astray and lost the positive, historical grounding of the holiday.

But what is positive in the historical events that define Thanksgiving? What tradition are we trying to return to? I have no quarrel with designating a day (or days) that would allow people to take a break from our often manic work routines and appreciate the importance of community, encouraging all of us to be grateful for what we have. But if that is the goal, why yoke it to Thanksgiving Day and a history of celebrating European/white dominance and conquest? Trying to transform Thanksgiving Day into a true day of thanksgiving, it seems to me, is possible only by letting go of this holiday, not by remaining rooted in it. If there were a major shift in the culture and a majority of people could confront these historical realities, perhaps the last Thursday in November could be so transformed. But that shift and transformation are, to say the least, not yet here.

For too long, I ignored these troubling questions. To get along, I went along. I buried my concerns to avoid making trouble. But in recent years that has become more difficult. So, this year I want to acknowledge my past failures to raise these issues and commit not only to renouncing Thanksgiving publicly but also to refusing to participate in any celebration of it privately.

The choices: Make people comfortable by engaging or by disengaging

Obviously there are people in the United States -- indigenous and otherwise -- who do not celebrate Thanksgiving or who mark it, in private and/or in public, as a day of mourning.

Also obvious is that there are people who may not have a family or community with which they celebrate such holidays; it's important to remember that there are people on such holidays who are alone and/or lonely, and to them these political questions may seem irrelevant.

But for those of us who do get invited to traditional Thanksgiving Day dinners, how do we remain true to our stated political and moral principles? I think we have two choices.

We can go to the Thanksgiving gatherings put on by friends and family, determined to raise these issues and willing to take the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics. Or, we can refuse to go to such a gathering and make it known why we're not attending, which means taking the risk of alienating those who want to enjoy the day without politics.

This year, I've decided to disengage and explain why to the people who invited me. These are people I love, yet who have made a different decision. My love for them has not diminished, and I trust the conversation with them about this and other political/moral questions will continue.

Once I make that decision, of course, I also have the option of participating in a public event that resists Thanksgiving. I'm not aware of one happening in my community, and because of commitments to other political projects, I didn't feel I could organize an effective event in time for this Thanksgiving Day. But on the assumption that others may feel this way, I have started thinking about what kind of public gathering could make such a political statement effectively, and in the future I hope to find others who are interested in such an event locally.

So, what will I do on Thanksgiving Day this year? I'll probably spend part of the day alone. Maybe I'll take a long walk and think about all this. I'll try to be kind and decent to the people I bump into during the day. I'll miss the company of friends and family who are gathering, and I'll try to reflect on why I've made this choice and why this question matters to me. I'll think about why others made the choices they made.

But this year, whatever I do, I won't celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm going to let that parade pass me by.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and the author of, most recently, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007).

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/68170/

GLOBAL WOMEN'S STRUGGLES FOR DEMOCRACY
A Lecture & Discussion with Selma James & Andaiye

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25th, 11:30am
ATLANTA FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE
701 West Howard Avenue
Decatur, Georgia
Location information contact: 404-377-2474 or afmquakers@hotmail.com

The Onyx Foundation: is excited to announce co-sponsorship, with the Atlanta Friends Meeting House, of a lecture by pathbreaking Feminist Movement theorists and activists Selma James and Andaiye. They are touring the United States to mark the 35th anniversary of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, which Selma James founded, and to speak to anti-sexist, anti-racist and anti-war women and men in North America.

Selma James is an activist, author, strategist, critical thinker, women's rights and anti-racist campaigner, colleague and partner of C.L.R. James. In 1972 she founded the International Wages for Housework Campaign, and has coordinated the Global Women's Strike since 2000. She is the co-author of The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community (1972), and author of Sex, Race and Class (1974), both classics, and also co-author of The Milk of Human Kindness (2002). Ms. James is a dynamic and exciting speaker who impresses audiences with the depth of her understanding and the scope of her interests. She has worked with democratic struggles in Venezuela since 2002.

Andaiye is co-founder and international coordinator of Red Thread (RT) in Guyana. RT began as a self-help income-generating group bringing low-income women together across violent racial divides. It has always given a voice to all grassroots women: Indo- and Afro-Guyanese as well as Indigenous. Andaiye is the author of The Valuing of Unwaged Work, an analysis of the cost to women in the Caribbean of structural adjustment policies. She represented CARICOM at the United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, leading the negotiations which resulted in the agreement among governments, including the U.S. government, to measure and value unwaged work. In 1979, she was also a founding member and leader of the Working People*s Alliance in Guyana along with activist and historian Walter Rodney, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.

Once again a southern state is a national laughingstock. This time we get to thank Gov. Perdue who led a prayer for rain on the capitol steps. Asking for God's help in ending the drought wouldn't have been on my top 10 ideas of things to help Georgia right now. You know what would be number 1 on that list? A water plan. Maybe God will give Perdue one. Can we bow our heads?

It did rain that night, more than an inch in some places. This would be more impressive if weather forecasting hadn't been invented. You see, rain was forecast before the vigil. Check out the last paragraph in the UPI story cited above. If you're interested, here's a good site analyzing the rainfall. Still, in the off chance this works, here's my prayer for Georgia:

Dear God (or Allah, or Goddess, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever),

Please help Georgia survive idiotic politician unable to manage the basic functions of governing.

Please help the people of Georgia deal with stupid elected officials who, instead of doing their job, instead engage in photo opportunities designed to deflect attention from the fact they haven't been doing their job.

Oh mighty Lord (or insert whatever here), please grace us with the patience to accept the stupid people we cannot change, the stupid politicians we can change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

And would it kill you cut the Falcons some slack?

Well, no, I'm not really almost famous. However, I am a regular contributor to the Movement Vision Lab Blog. My first article, Banging Heads Against the Wall: Why the Peace Movement Won't Stop the Occupation of Iraq, is about...well it's about why the peace movement won't stop the occupation of Iraq. More to the point, I guess, it's a critique of anti-war strategy.

The Movement Vision lab is a project of the Center for Community Change. They are attempting to start a progressive dialog on a number of topics and have asked organizers and activists from around the country to contribute essays. They wanted some controversy, and I guess that's why they asked me. I've written a few essays for them and they will be posted over the coming few weeks. Please take a few moments to check out the site and maybe post a comment or two. Thanks.