[WSF-Discuss] Report: US Global Press Conference in Atlanta, GA

[Marina Karides]

Real Talk: The GDA and the State of the Nation

By Marina Karides
USSF Documentation Committee


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.

Alice Lovelace, lead USSF organizer and poet, set the mood claiming  
that this press conference was a place to talk “to talk about what is  
happening in the real lives of real people.” The conference set in  
the Auburn Library of Atlanta, the day after the nation celebrated  
Martin Luther King Day, brought together movement builders from  
around the US working on key political issues including immigrant  
rights, the right to return of Gulf Coast residents, the poverty,  
violence, and the racist imprisonment of young people, and the loss  
of political freedoms.

The press conference was highly charged with criticism of the US  
government’s failure to meet the needs of its population and marked  
how deeply connected US internal conditions were with the violence it  
wrought abroad. Sandra Robertson, speaking for Georgia Citizens  
Coalition on Hunger, described the dwindling of people’s economic  
resource in Georgia and lack of governmental assistance available to  
the poor and low income despite the fat wealthfare checks being cut  
for the corporate elite. The Poor People’s Caravan and Assembly on  
January 26 in Atlanta will draw strength and participation from the  
multiple groups participating regionally.

  Links were clearly made in speakers’ presentations between the  
poverty and violence within US borders and outside of them. Monica  
Garcia, of the Southwest Workers Union, spoke to the immediate  
violence along the US-Mexican border and the resistance in the region  
to the vicious construction of a wall that will divide families and  
communities but porous to corporate greed. Ajamu Baraka, speaking for  
US Human Rights Network, spelled out US responsibilities abroad:
“ . . . this nation state is deeply implicated in the affairs of  
countries around the world from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe from Columbia  
to Haiti to Nepal to Serbia in the systematic and persistent violence  
of people around the world.” Presenting clear and concrete figures on  
the expansion of US empire, Allison Budschalow, from American Friends  
Service Committee, discussed the proliferation of US military bases  
here and abroad and her organization’s concern with the widening net  
of the US economic reach through military expansion.

The absence of mainstream press was not lost. After thanking the  
Independent Media for its presence, Emery Wright from Project South  
pointed to the absence of corporate media at the event and its lack  
of focus on “real issues in this country or in the world.” The  
continued absence of US media at key political moments in US history  
such as the USSF (despite organizers attempts to cajole them) are  
expected but always striking as the history of the people, their  
history, is missing from their daily view of news on their TV screens.

The solidarity of US activists and movement organizations with the  
rest of the world was a bright light to the grim descriptions of US  
imperialism. Cindy Wiesner the political coordinator of Grassroots  
Global Justice, positively remarking on “the advancement of the globe  
and US social movement acting together in a more coordinated fashion”  
reminded us of the alliances of justice that WSF process has helped  
to foment around the world.






Marina Karides, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
2912 College Avenue
Florida Atlantic University
Davie, FL 33314
tel. 954-236-1053
fax. 954-236-1150
mkarides at fau.edu



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