FIGHT BACK
CONFERENCE
|
L.A. FIGHTBACK
CONFERENCE
Sat. Jan. 24
1 pm to 7 pm
|
Sat. Jan. 17 - NYC
12pm – 6pm
Public School 41, 116 West 11th St. NYC
INVITED GUESTS/WORKSHOPS/ACTION PROPOSALS
CHALLENGES AND ACTION PROPOSALS TO BE TAKEN UP (PARTIAL
LIST):
- BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE FIRST: A FIGHTBACK PROGRAM
- COMBINING A STRATEGY OF MASS ACTION AND DIRECT ACTION
- THE NEXT PHASE OF THE FIGHT AGAINST FORECLOSURES AND
EVICTIONS
- OPENING THE FIGHT FOR JOBS OR INCOME NOW: CHALLENGING ORGANIZED
LABOR TO DO MORE
- RECRUITING AN ARMY OF ORGANIZERS
- APRIL 3 AND 4TH, 2009: PROPOSAL FOR MASS MOBILIZATION ON WALL
STREET ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF DR. KING’S
ASSASSINATION--Some peace activists are planning peace mobilizations,
possibly on Wall Street, in New York City on April 4th. This is a good
idea. A better idea is to mobilize for two days including Friday, April 3, when
the New York Stock Exchange, businesses and banks are open and workers are
there.
- MAY 1, 2009: ON INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY--Mass
mobilization for immigrant and all workers’ rights. How can we
strengthen participation and solidarity, especially now?
- SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2009: MARCH ON THE PENTAGON--on
the sixth anniversary of the war and occupation of Iraq
WORKSHOPS AND BREAKOUTS (LIST IN FORMATION)
- THE ROLE OF YOUTH IN THE FIGHTBACK
- UNITING THE COMMUNITY WITH ORGANIZED AND UN-ORGANIZED
WORKERS
- THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT AND THE STRUGGLE VS. THE WAR AT HOME: FORGING
A NEW RELATIONSHIP—Hear voices from the growing GI and
Veterans’ Resistance Movement, End the occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.
- STOP THE WAR ON GAZA, DEFEND THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION
STRUGGLE!
- THEY SAY CUTBACK–WE SAY FIGHTBACK: The growing
struggles against cutbacks, tuition increases, transit fare hikes, layoffs, and
more
- CREATING AN ARMY OF ORGANIZERS
- IMMIGRANT WORKERS’ RIGHTS: FIGHTING RACISM IS THE KEY TO
SOLIDARITY
Dear activists and organizers:
In 2009, more and more lives are going to be devastated by the biggest
global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
This crisis is the challenge of a lifetime to those of us who have made a
commitment to fight for people’s economic and social rights. What
we do, or fail to do will prove decisive to the coming battle over whose
interests in society shall prevail--the needs of the people, or the greed of
the super-rich few who insist that their profits always come first.
The Bail Out the People Movement invites you to come together
in New York City on Sat., Jan. 17, 2009 and help plan the fightback. If
you live in the western part of the U.S., we invite you to come to our West
Coast Fightback Conference in Los Angeles on Sat., Jan. 24, 2009.
How fitting it is that we meet on the anniversary of the 80th birthday of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. If ever there was a time to remember King’s
legacy of struggle against war, racism and for economic and social justice,
now is such a time!
That Barack Obama will become president on Jan. 20, realizes a
measure of King’s dream. But depression- level joblessness, evictions and
foreclosures made worse by cutbacks, war, bigotry and racism are not a dream,
but a nightmare.
The nightmare is borne out in the numbers: $1 trillion for
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $8 trillion to bail out the biggest and richest
banks and bankers, while millions lose their jobs, homes, healthcare, ability
to go to school, and sink into life-threatening poverty.
There is the promise of a “Stimulus program that will
create or save some jobs.” But the stimulus will be a drop-in-the-bucket;
it’s expected that one million jobs will be lost per month in 2009 in the
U.S.
It is up to the people to fight for the right to jobs or a
living income, along with a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions, as well
as no escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
No election or president, however historical and inspiring, can be a
substitute for a mass movement in the struggle against war or for social and
economic rights.
Let’s take inspiration and example from some recent and
current struggles like those of the Republic Glass and Doors Co. workers in
Chicago who occupied their factory to fight for their rights, or the workers at
the Smithfield meat processing plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina, who fought
for and won a union. Or the students at New York City’s New School
who held a successful sit-in. Or the youth in Greece who are fighting
police terror and economic oppression. The lessons of these struggles are that
we will need to utilize both mass action and direct action in the fightback
ahead of us.
Join with activists in New York and from across the
country: If you are an anti-war activist, a union organizer, a
student activist, or someone who first became excited about politics because of
Obama’s campaign, or if you face losing a job, a home, the ability to go
to college, healthcare, or a pension—and you are ready to unite and fight
back--
let’s come together and determine what we can do to help
give birth to a desperately needed fightback movement.
Pre-register for the conference -
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/bailoutpeopleendorse.shtml
Endorse -
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/bailoutpeopleendorse.shtml
See list of endorsers -
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/mlkconfendorsers.shtml
Donate -
http://bailoutpeople.org/donate.shtml
Sponsored by:
The Bail Out the People Movement
55 W. 17th St., Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10011
212-633-6646
www.BailOutPeople.org
