by Bill
The recent U.S. Social Forum in Detroit brought together some 10-15 thousand people, a lot of them young, to have conversations and participate in workshops and assemblies devoted to changing the existing rotten capitalist system. The USSF generated much enthusiasm, for the Forum was a huge opportunity for folks for the first time to meet others who were doing similar work in other places. These projects included issues like fighting foreclosures and evictions, school and hospital closings, police brutality and prisons, fetus fanatics, immigration xenophobia, and union givebacks; and building alternative institutions, environmental justice, transformative justice, participatory cultures, radical bicycling, &c. (Altogether there were well over 1000 workshops and assemblies over four days).
However, despite the excitement, the Forum fell far short of what’s necessary to address the current economic and political crisis of capitalism.
