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Pre-convention confab thinks big
BY ADAM REILLY
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Say this for the organizers of the Boston Social Forum: they don’t lack ambition. At a press conference in Boston City Hall Tuesday morning, at-large city councilor Felix Arroyo and District Seven councilor Chuck Turner joined local activists to describe their vision for the BSF, which will take place at UMass Boston July 23, 24, and 25, just before the Democratic National Convention rolls into town. Here’s a partial list of they expect to tackle: poverty; health-care access; education; affordable housing; clean air and water; modes of food production; militaristic US foreign policy; discrimination against women, gay men and lesbians, immigrants, and people of color; corporate welfare; and globalization. In other words, the goal — more or less — is total social transformation. "We believe that we can build a better world," says BSF coordinator Jason Pramas. "We’re not sure how just yet." Turner is more specific: "It’s time to build another world. It’s time that we move away from this 400-year legacy of destruction and decay.... Hopefully, [the BSF] can lay an imprint that moves us beyond the compromises and the deals of the past and really begins to affirm the principles of liberty and democracy." Conveners say 3000 participants from labor, nonprofits, activist organizations, and religious groups — as well as the general public — will spend the weekend in "hundreds of workshops, plenary sessions, and giant convocations," a model already used at similar social forums in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, in 2003 and Mumbai, India, earlier this year. Money for the event will come from fundraisers featuring luminaries like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, both of whom sit on the BSF advisory board. Big names committed to appearing at the BSF, meanwhile, include Angela Davis, an author, activist, and former Black Panther who was the Communist Party’s vice-presidential nominee in 1980 and 1984; the prominent African-American intellectual Manning Marable; and Billy Bragg, the British musician and eminent lefty. Pre-registered admission for all three days will set you back $30; students and seniors will pay $15, and some fee waivers will be available. Visit http://www.bostonsocialforum.org/ for more information.
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