Another World Is Happening NOW!

by tiny/PNN

What is Access, What is Action? How do we truly include all voices in strategy building so we can also create models of long-term change?

I reflected on these questions as POOR Magazine poverty, race, disability, youth, migrant and indigenous scholars prepare to collaborate with other organizers locally and globally at the upcoming National Day of Action on January 26th 2008, a day of shared resistance of peoples in poverty the world over, an action sponsored by the US Social Forum.

My reflections brought me back to July 2007, and another story I wrote called, Another World or Another Mistake? - which attempted to document the phenomenal struggle that POOR Magazine poverty, race, disability and youth scholars faced when we traveled to Atlanta to collaborate with other media justice organizers on the Ida b Wells Media Justice Center at the US Social Forum.

"Another world of media production is possible!" was our quixotic motto; a world of media production not bought, sold and controlled by the same folks who always write, translate and produce our stories, the stories of poor folks of color locally and globally. We would establish a space like POOR has in San Francisco where media production is collaborative, where normally top-down structures of media making are shared and horizontal. Suffice to say, the creation in Atlanta of these other worlds of media production required a cross-organizational, cross-movement struggle we didn't expect. The space we were assigned, despite clear and year-in-advance requests to the contrary, wasn't accessible or safe; most of our time in ATL was spent trying to acquire a pace we could actually use for the inclusive, indigenous circle of revolutionary media production that we strove to create, that is necessary to have all voices heard and understood.

I wrote my first piece in the heat of the moment, immediately upon our return to the Bay Area, and although that piece stands as a testament to our disillusionment with certain facets of the ATL experience, the reality is that POOR's struggle in the Media Center detracted our attention away from the many positive things that flowered there.

The USSF was a very powerful event of strategy building, a tremendous logistical community-building coup for the "scattered left," and a meeting of people, organizations and popular fronts that could never have taken place in quite the same way were it not facilitated in quite the way it was.

Therefore as POOR Magazine scholars prepare to join POWER, St Peter's Housing Committee and other Bay Area organizations at a vigil at Dianne Feinstein's house in solidarity with the Green Ribbon Campaign which was launched by activists fighting for affordable housing and Reconstruction for Black and working people of New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast, on the powerful National Day of Action on January 26th I want to share with readers some of the powerful work that was presented at the USSF in July, and will be highlighted across the globe on the upcoming National Day of Action.

Beginning with some of the most grassroots organizing projects such as Direct Action for Rights and Equality who is doing performance art at the flea market in Providence, RI to protest gentrification and express solidarity to stop the demolition of public housing in New Orleans and Domestic Workers United who is launching a state legislative campaign for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights with a press conference and convening of domestic workers in New York City�

To the Georgia Citizens Coalition on Hunger and Project South who are organizing a poor people's caravan through historic sites in Atlanta, ending in a Poor People's Assembly, and The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights who are holding a press conference at their national conference the week of January 18th in Houston, Texas, and the New Orleans Folks and Black Workers for Justice are also requesting that organizations do actions targeting Louisiana Senator David Vitter, the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate in general to stop the destruction of public housing and demand passage of the Gulf Coast Recovery Act, SB 1668.

And, New York City AIDS Housing Network is organizing an action for the right to housing for people living with AIDS, Portland Jobs with Justice is doing street theater in the mall on the Colombia free trade agreement, Power U Center for Social Change, is organizing a naming ceremony and a reclaiming land away from corporate developers in the Historic Black community of Overtown, (Miami, FL,) or Southwest Workers Union who are organizing a march to the Alamo calling for Human Rights for All in San Antonio, Texas. All of these powerful groups of resistance fighters will be joined by several hundred more organizations that will hold press conferences in cities in Cuba to the Philippines

When POOR Magazine finally did acquire a space in Atlanta (by any means necessary) we were able to create some truly revolutionary media collaborations and relationships with poverty scholars across the nation such as Jim Anderson from Buffalo, New York, who is organizing to fight the closure of community hospitals in the US and Jay Toole, a woman dealing with shelter abuse in New York City. As well as media relationships such as Free Speech TV, Paper Tiger TV, Alternet and Race, Poverty and The Environment

As we continue to resist the ongoing repression of globalization, neo-liberalism, criminalization and displacement it is urgent for us to truly collaborate, listen and respect each others work and resistance. Another world is happening, and to ensure we are all part of the effort we must ALL see , hear , be a part of or link up with all the crucial organizers, and poverty scholars from the rest of the planet many of whom were at the USSF, who were and are doing truly revolutionary things, and in fact actively taking part in the creation of this crucial "World" we all know must happen, can happen and is happening.

For more information about the USSF schedule of action go on-line to www.ussf2007.org If you are in the bay area please join the Vigil at Diane Feinstein's House on Saturday, January 26th @ 3:00 pm 2460 Lyon at Vallejo in San Francisco. To read more of POOR Magazine's poverty , race and disability scholars written by folks who experience these positions first-hand go on-line to www.poormagazine.org