Fletchers summation of the USSF - Detroit, seemed pretty accurate in my experience as a participant, panelist, distributor of "People’s Tribune" and author of a small booklet: "Detroit." The hard numbers on participants range from 15,000 to 20,000 as the result of the computers crashing after 16,000 had registered. This event was a massive undertaking involving hundreds of dedicated people. What struck me most profoundly was the age and gender composition of this gathering. The majority seemed to be under the age of 30 and female. The labor movement in America is female, multi-lingual with its cutting edge merging into brown. The Social Forum - Detroit, expressed the face of the New American Revolution: proletarian revolution. The essence of a new form of the proletariat is its growth in unison with the growth of a new technology regime tossing our existing system into crisis and antagonism. Society cannot go back to the old industrial era where the working class movement was riveted to smoke stack industry and the industrial union form. Nor, can society stand still. The system of capitalism has entered antagonism based on revolution - qualitative changes, in the means of production rather than simply the conflict inherent in consumption capacity of the workers, due to their status as wage laborers. Under conditions of revolutionary change all sections of society began the attack upon the system from different direction in an effort to impose a new vision and purpose on society. The Social Forum embodied all these various tendencies generally from the old historic "left wing" of the political equation. At least it would seem as such at first glance. I would say that the Social Forum - Detroit, expressed a broad cross section of an anti-fascist ideological and political current. And that the traditional dichotomy of left and right is not useful. WL.
In a message dated 7/2/2010 9:27:51 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, cb31...@gmail.com writes: The US Social Forum: The Anti-Tea Party Experience The African World The US Social Forum: The Anti-Tea Party Experience By Bill Fletcher, Jr. - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Black Commentator July 1, 2010 http://www.blackcommentator.com/382/382_aw_anti_tea_party.php _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
