[EN] This page shows documents, images and links to material about WSF 2008. They were found by WSF Office outside of the 800 Action Spaces. As an action participant, you are invited to edit reports that'll be displayed in their country page.

[FR] Cette page montre des documents, images et des liens portant sur FSM2008. Ils ont été trouvés par le bureau du FSM en dehors des 800 Espaces d'Action. En tant que participant à une action vous êtes invité a rédiger des compte-rendus qui seront montrés dans leur page pays.

[ES] Esta pagina ensena documentos, images y lazos sobre FSM 2008. Fueron encontrados por la oficina del FSM fuera de los 800 Espacios de Accion. En tanto que participante, es Usted invitado a editar informes que seran ensenados en su página de país.

[PT] Esta página mostra documentos, imagens e links sobre o FSM 2008. Foram encontrados pelo escritório do FSM fora dos 800 Espaços de Ação. Como participante do FSM 2008, você está convidado a editar o seu relato, que será também visualizado na página do país.

Atlanta - We're Making Noise

 The People's Caravan rocked and rolled thru Atlanta January 26 on the Global Day of Action. The caravanistas confronted the familiar local faces of global oppression in the "city too busy to hate." They told the World of Coke "another world is possible." They told the city jail to "tear down the walls." They posted eviction notices on the doors of the Atlanta Housing Authority, which has been demolishing public housing." The Capitol steps usually frequented by reactionary Georgia legislators and lobbyists became the People's Plaza and the polling site for the People's Ballot. AND ALL THIS WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, thanks to people's music by Cakalak Thunder Drum Corps and the Atlanta Sedition Orchestra.



Video in: http://www.wsftv.net/Members/Artemis2008/videos/Global_CaravanFINAL5.mov/view

 2008/01/26 / Artemis Productions

http://www.wsftv.net/Members/Artemis2008/videos/Global_CaravanFINAL5.mov/view

San Francisco - Immigrant Groups Continue Western Union Boycott

San Francisco - As people around the world participated in the Global Day of Action, immigrant groups around the country are demanding Western Union change its business practices to improve the lives of millions. The Transnational Institute for Grassroots Research and Action (TIGRA) network coordinated boycott actions in over a dozen cities around the country, including New York, Providence, Minneapolis, Houston, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Chicago.

Over thirty community members joined together to picket in front of P&S Liquor Store, one of dozens of Western Union agents in the Mission District. Featuring the Brass Liberation Orchestra, passersby joined the lively music and singing in support.

 + in: http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/7021

 2008/02/20 / youssef.swan / Blog WSF

http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/7021

Atlanta - Real Talk: The GDA and the State of the Nation



The United States is in the midst of a media blitz on the presidential nominees for the two dismal parties. While the possibilities of a woman or an African-American as president offers some hope that change is on its way in the belly of the beast, the real movement for justice taking place in the US was reflected in the Press Conference on the Global Day of Action (GDA) held on January 22 in Atlanta, Georgia. As it was in Press Conferences taking place all over the globe including Zurich, Switzerland; Fortaleza, Brazil; Recife, Brazil; Natal, Brazil; Belem, Brazil; São Paulo Brazil; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Chennai, India; Mumbai, India; Erbil, Iraq; Rome, Italy; Brussels, Belgium; Mexico City, Mexico; La Habana, Cuba; Ramallah, Palestine; Manila, Philippines; Seoul, Korea; Beirut, Lebanon and Barcelona, Spain—all a response to the Global Call to Action made by the WSF.



+ in: http://swunion.blogspot.com/2008/01/global-day-of-action-in-atlanta.html

 2008/01/26 / Marina Karides

http://swunion.blogspot.com/2008/01/global-day-of-action-in-atlanta.html

Atlanta caravan protests broad array of issues

On Jan. 26, the streets of downtown Atlanta were the backdrop for a creative “march on wheels” as decorated flatbed trucks filled with chanting, drum-beating, sign-waving people of all ages and various communities across Georgia brought a message of struggle against poverty, racism, war and injustice. The eight-mile route encompassed sites of ruling-class power and popular opposition.



+ in: http://www.workers.org/2008/us/atlanta_0214/

 2008/02/06 / Dianne Mathiowetz / http://www.workers.org/2008/us/atlanta_0214/

Videos from Atlanta

The People’s Caravan rocked and rolled thru Atlanta January 26 on the Global Day of Action. The caravanistas confronted the familiar local faces of global oppression in the "city too busy to hate." They told the World of Coke "another world is possible." They told the city jail to "tear down the walls." They posted eviction notices on the doors of the Atlanta Housing Authority, which has been demolishing public housing." The Capitol steps usually frequented by reactionary Georgia legislators and lobbyists became the People’s Plaza and the polling site for the People’s Ballot. AND ALL THIS WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, thanks to people’s music by Cakalak Thunder Drum Corps and the Atlanta Sedition Orchestra



+ in: http://www.ciranda.net/spip/article2163.html

 

 2008/01/30 / http://www.ciranda.net/spip/article2163.html

Philadelphia - Homeless families from PPEHRC/KWRU join families of Iraq war dead and veterans to protest war and poverty



In observation of the Global Day of Action, poor and homeless families, children, students, teachers and other members of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), a founding member and leading organization in the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) in the USA held a Candlelight Vigil today in the freezing cold at Philadelphia's City Hall.

2008-01-26

Jennifer Cox

US - Rent Campaign Launch Finds Global Resonance

The January 26 launch of the Real Rent Reform Campaign coincided with a global day of action called by the World Social Forum. The mobilization, with thousands of events on six continents, echoed the WSF’s prior day of action in February 2003 against the impending Iraq war.

 As part of their global “Act Together-Housing for All!” campaign, the Habitat International Coalition, the International Alliance of Inhabitants, and the Local Authorities Forum encouraged their international networks of tenant activists to press demands for decent, affordable housing. IAI coordinator Cesare Ottolini called Jan. 26 “an excellent opportunity for those fighting against evictions and for the promotion of housing security, against privatization and liberalization of the sector, for the development of the public housing service, against speculation and corruption and for the right to dignified housing at fair prices.”

 Tens of thousands seized the opportunity. Besides massive convergences addressing housing alongside other issues in France, Mexico, and elsewhere, the mobilization included a forum demanding “Safe Shelter for All” in Dhaka, Bangladesh; a rally for housing rights in Odintsovo, Russia; and a march in Fortaleza, Brazil celebrating “Water and Land as Human Rights.”

 In Atlanta, the site of the first U.S. Social Forum last year, the Georgia Citizens’ Coalition on Hunger mobilized 400 low-income participants to protest at the Atlanta Housing Authority. They then marched to the state capitol in a Poor People’s Day Caravan and Movement Assembly for health care, affordable housing, and an end to homelessness.

 Low-income and homeless Philadelphians organized by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union held a candlelight vigil outside City Hall to claim their human rights to health care, housing, food, and education. They then marched through rush-hour traffic to join Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace in a vigil outside a U.S. Army recruiting station.

 Led by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance coordinated several actions opposing the destruction of New Orleans’ public housing and supporting rent control. The largest was in San Francisco, where 200 tenant activists rallied outside Rep. Dianne Feinstein’s mansion requesting her support for the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act. That bill would guarantee the replacement of all public housing destroyed by New Orleans’ federally administered housing authority and require it to open roughly 3,000 units within 90 days.

 In New York City, Community Voices Heard members held a New Orleans-style funeral march, complete with a band. Dressed in black, they carried a coffin from Hillary Clinton’s Midtown campaign office to a Barack Obama rally in Columbus Circle, demanding that the candidates address Gulf Coast reconstruction, housing, jobs, and other issues affecting low-income Americans.

 Finding decent, affordable housing is rarely easy for working people anywhere, but the world’s slumlords and gentrifiers have never made it more difficult than when their nasty enterprises face no organized resistance. As we mount this resistance locally, Met Council and its allies in the fight to win home rule, end vacancy decontrol, save Mitchell-Lama and Section 8, and really reform the rent laws clearly stand in good company.

2008-02-07

 Joe Carton - http://www.metcouncil.net

Miami - Miami’s Global Day of Action:

The organizations that participated in the United States Social Forum (USSF) took very seriously preparations for the Global Day of Action, January 26, 2008. Many of the organizations that made up the USSF National Planning Committee (NPC) of the USSF assisted in the development of GDA events within their organizations, cities, or along particular issues. With regional affiliations developing among groups that were once strangers or worked independent of each other learned of each other and in many cases united, a national self-recognition of the grassroots emerged from the forum in Atlanta. This identity, based in unitary struggle against the tentacles of global capitalism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, and gentrification and deeply connected to struggles for justice in communities around the world, moved the Global Day of Actions forward.



+ in: http://www.ciranda.net/spip/article2152.html

 

 2008/02/04 / Marina Karides / http://www.ciranda.net/spip/article2152.html

Portland -  Global Day of Action in a freezing rain



A small, solid group of more than 50 activists braved the freezing rain in downtown Portland, Ore., USA, on January 26, 2008 during a rally against the Colombia Free Trade Agreement that took place as part of the "Global Day of Action."  After handing out leaflets and hearing from representatives of the Oregon Fair Trade Campaign, Oregon Sierra Club and Portland Central America Solidarity Committee, the group particpated in a made-for-the-web street theater action.  Check out the info below...

 

An activist shot in Pioneer Square!!???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQjEhqZmvrk



Not exactly.  Check out this fake, funny video of a television reporter covering a drive-by shooting in the City of Roses.  He gradually learns that it has something to do with the latest Bush administration trade deal -- and that The Environment, Family Wage Jobs, Food Safety and more are now all under attack.



Watch the video “Another Deadly Trade Deal” on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQjEhqZmvrk



This was a made-for-the-web street theater piece put together by labor, environmental and human rights advocates during a rally against the Colombia Free Trade Agreement that took place in Portland, Oregon on January 26, 2008 as part of a “Global Day of Action.” 



When you’ve watched the video and want to learn more about the Colombia trade deal -- and how you can help stop it -- visit: http://www.citizenstrade.org/orftc-colombia.php



Please help spread the word by posting the video on your sites and forwarding this email wherever appropriate!



 

 2008-02-12

Arthur Stamoulis - http://www.citizenstrade.org/orftc-colombia.php

Atlanta -    Evictions High on Atlanta Agenda



ATLANTA, Georgia, Jan 26 (IPS) - Some 400 activists from Atlanta, Georgia and around the U.S. South gathered for a People's Movement Assembly Saturday, in solidarity with the Global Day of Action organised under the World Social Forum process.



+ text on: http://www.ipsterraviva.net/tv/wsf2008/currentNew.aspx?new=1040

 Matthew Cardinale / terraviva / http://www.ipsterraviva.net/tv/wsf2008/currentNew.aspx?new=1040

Vermont - March and other actions

2008-02-01

Jonathan Kissam /  http://wsf2008.net/pt-br/node/6379

 

2008-01-28

IMC-US / http://indymedia.us/en/2008/01/29764.shtml

San Francisco - Bay Area Residents Demand Justice in New Orleans!







More than 200 protesters crowded the street in front of Dianne Feinstein's estate Saturday afternoon calling for an end to disaster capitalism and neo-liberalism New Orleans, Louisiana.



Protesters were participating in the World Social Forum's Global Day of Action, which brings together national and international movements for human rights, economic and social justice and was part many of nationwide solidarity actions for Gulf Coast recovery.



+ text, photos and video: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/27/18475237.php

2008-01-27

Katrina Solidarity / Indybay / http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/27/18475237.php

New York - Low-Income New Yorkers Hold New Orleans Themed Funeral March

On Saturday, January 26th, low-income New Yorkers who are also members of Community Voices Heard held a New Orleans style funeral march to highlight the crisis facing low-income people that have been displaced from their homes in New Orleans and around the country.



+ text and pictures on: http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/6240

2008-01-29

Mike Selick / http://www.wsf2008.net/eng/node/6240

Atlanta - People's Caravan



The People's Caravan rocked and rolled thru Atlanta January 26 on the Global Day of Action. The caravanistas confronted the familiar local faces of global oppression in the "city too busy to hate." They told the World of Coke "another world is possible." They told the city jail to "tear down the walls." They posted eviction notices on the doors of the Atlanta Housing Authority, which has been demolishing public housing." The Capitol steps usually frequented by reactionary Georgia legislators and lobbyists became the People's Plaza and the polling site for the People's Ballot. AND ALL THIS WITHOUT MISSING A BEAT, thanks to people's music by Cakalak Thunder Drum Corps and the Atlanta Sedition Orchestra.

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2008-01-27

Artemis Productions

Boston - Report of GDA

We had a great event and action.

The Community Church of Boston was packed to hear Orlando the Colombian Mine Workers' President speak. Avi Chomsky also spoke. We had post cards against the Colombian FTA that were signed and will be delivered to Kennedy, Kerry, and Congress (the post card campaign has been going on for a while and we have collected hundreds). Finally AFSC staff, Gabriel Camacho, led a march (funeral procession with a coffin) from the Church to the Colombian Consulate where Gabriel gave a speech.

On Tuesday representatives from AFSC and the Greater Boston Latin American & Caribbean Coalition will visit Kerry, Kennedy and others. This actions were part of the World Social Forums Global Day of Action on the 26th. Orlando will also be visiting Brown University were students had organized a picket when Colombia's ambassador visited.

Congratulations to Boston organizers!

 USA / Boston / https://www.ussf2007.org/en/GDA_Boston / 27.01.08

Vermont - Building a Movement for Worker Justice





About 300 people attended a conference on "Building a Movement for

Worker Justice" organized by the Vermont Workers' Center/JWJ on

Saturday, January 26, 2008 at the Univ. of Vermont in Burlington.



At the conference, a workshop on "Lessons from the Verizon Stop the

Sale Campaign & Next Steps in Universal Broadband Access in New

England" was attended by about 35 people.



Pictures from the conference and the workshop are posted at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/randwilson.aflcio/BuildingAMovementForWorkerJustice



Handouts from the workshop included:

-- Update for state legislators and the public on Verizon Transfer of

Assets to FairPoint Communications



-- The proposed FairPoint purchase of Verizon's properties would place

consumers, workers and communities at risk (report)



-- Stip with NH PUC staff fails to ensure high speed internet, lets

Verizon "off the hook" (press release)

-- Copy of full page stop the sale ad from NH

-- Speed Matters: High Speed Internet for All (brochure)



-- Dover, NH AT&T organizing victory (press release)

-- Broken Promises: Verizon neglects its commitment to provide good

jobs and quality service (report)

-- Support Verizon Business Technician Terry Skiest (flyer) 

2008-01-28

Rand / Claire Coutreille

New York - Se Rent Campaign Launch Finds Global Resonance

By Joe Catron

The January 26 launch of the Real Rent Reform Campaign coincided with a global day of action called by the World Social Forum. The mobilization, with thousands of events on six continents, echoed the WSF’s prior day of action in February 2003 against the impending Iraq war.

As part of their global “Act Together-Housing for All!” campaign, the Habitat International Coalition, the International Alliance of Inhabitants, and the Local Authorities Forum encouraged their international networks of tenant activists to press demands for decent, affordable housing. IAI coordinator Cesare Ottolini called Jan. 26 “an excellent opportunity for those fighting against evictions and for the promotion of housing security, against privatization and liberalization of the sector, for the development of the public housing service, against speculation and corruption and for the right to dignified housing at fair prices.”

Tens of thousands seized the opportunity. Besides massive convergences addressing housing alongside other issues in France, Mexico, and elsewhere, the mobilization included a forum demanding “Safe Shelter for All” in Dhaka, Bangladesh; a rally for housing rights in Odintsovo, Russia; and a march in Fortaleza, Brazil celebrating “Water and Land as Human Rights.”

In Atlanta, the site of the first U.S. Social Forum last year, the Georgia Citizens’ Coalition on Hunger mobilized 400 low-income participants to protest at the Atlanta Housing Authority. They then marched to the state capitol in a Poor People’s Day Caravan and Movement Assembly for health care, affordable housing, and an end to homelessness.

Low-income and homeless Philadelphians organized by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union held a candlelight vigil outside City Hall to claim their human rights to health care, housing, food, and education. They then marched through rush-hour traffic to join Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace in a vigil outside a U.S. Army recruiting station.

Led by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition, the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance coordinated several actions opposing the destruction of New Orleans’ public housing and supporting rent control. The largest was in San Francisco, where 200 tenant activists rallied outside Rep. Dianne Feinstein’s mansion requesting her support for the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act. That bill would guarantee the replacement of all public housing destroyed by New Orleans’ federally administered housing authority and require it to open roughly 3,000 units within 90 days.

In New York City, Community Voices Heard members held a New Orleans-style funeral march, complete with a band. Dressed in black, they carried a coffin from Hillary Clinton’s Midtown campaign office to a Barack Obama rally in Columbus Circle, demanding that the candidates address Gulf Coast reconstruction, housing, jobs, and other issues affecting low-income Americans.

Finding decent, affordable housing is rarely easy for working people anywhere, but the world’s slumlords and gentrifiers have never made it more difficult than when their nasty enterprises face no organized resistance. As we mount this resistance locally, Met Council and its allies in the fight to win home rule, end vacancy decontrol, save Mitchell-Lama and Section 8, and really reform the rent laws clearly stand in good company.

2008-02-07

Joe Catron

Boston - Coalition for Palestinian Rights Protests Gaza Blockade







On Saturday, January 26, a group of Israeli peace activists attempted to deliver food and needed medical supplies through the blockade into Gaza. In Solidarity with this event, demonstrations were held around the world, including right here in Boston--or more precisely, Cambridge. Members of the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights gathered in Harvard Sq. at noon. They numbered well over 100, and stretched a full city block, from Holyoke St. to Dunster along Mass Ave. They stood there in the cold with banners, flags and placards decrying Israel's blockade of Gaza and the latest humanitarian crisis for Palestinians.



+ text and audio: http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/203322/index.php

2008-01-27

Chuck U / art: Erik Ruin / http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/203322/index.php

Philadelphia - Philly Activists Urge Israel to End Gaza Siege, Cite Humanitarian Crisis







At noon last Saturday, January 26th, at least a hundred Philadelphians marched through Center City, from 5th and Market to the Israeli Consulate at 15th and Locust, urging Israel to lift its blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip and to allow a waiting convoy of much-needed relief supplies into the territory. The march, organized by a coalition of local Jewish and secular Israel/Palestine peace and justice organizations, highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where most Gazans have lived without clean water, adequate food, fuel, and medical supplies, and electricity for the past seven months.



+ text and pictures on: http://phillyimc.org/en/2008/02/44402.shtml

 2008-02-01

Al Nakba Committee / http://phillyimc.org/en/2008/02/44402.shtml

San Francisco - Free Palestine!!! End the blockade on Gaza!!! Demolish the Israeli-apartheid wall!!!







ANSWER Coalition called a demonstration in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco to protest the blockade of Gaza by the so-called Israeli “defense force”. This collective punishment has led to the death of hundreds of Palestinians who are in need of food and medicine.



+ pictures and text: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/25/18474890.php

 2008-01-25

Answer coallition / Indymedia / http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/25/18474890.php

Houston - Protest against the siege in Gaza







Saturday Afternoon me and my girlfriend went to the intersection of Postoak and Westheimer to support the protest called for by Palestinians for Peace and the Irish Unity Committee against the recent siege of Gaza by the Israeli regime. We arrived shortly after one, and had a wee bit of trouble finding parking in the bust shopping environment. When we joinged the protest, the turnout was modest, around 20-25 people. I took some photos and held a sign, periodically taking breaks for more photos as more and more folks arrived. When we left there were 100 people.



+ pictures and text: http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/01/62875.php

2008-01-26

RoB / IndyMedia Houston / http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/01/62875.php

Chicago - Hundreds Brave Chicago Blizzard To Protest For Palestine

Despite bitter cold and blizzard conditions, hundreds of concerned citizens rallied on January 29 in front of the Lakefront Theater on Chicago's Broadway Avenue to protest a benefit for Friends of the Israel Defense Force.



+ pictures and text: http://chicago.indymedia.org/feature/display/70331/index.php

 

Chicago IMC / http://chicago.indymedia.org/feature/display/70331/index.php