People's Assemblies Network

21 July 2013
by pa-webgroup
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Indonesia – Youth Assembly of Via Campesina

Declaration of the 3rd International Youth Assembly of the Via Campesina 
 8th and 9th June 2013 – Jakarta, Indonesia
Watch the pictures of the Youth Assembly! 

We are young peasants, members of the Via Campesina, people with different cultures and languages from over seventy countries in five continents, who are in Jakarta, Indonesia, to celebrate the 3rd International Youth Assembly and the 20th anniversary of the Via Campesina.

 As young peasants, we are the present and the future of sustainable agriculture, which can sustain the world and cool Mother Earth. Having analysed and reflected generally on the global political and economic situation, we would like to express our deep concern about the current development crisis, which is causing many impoverished and marginalised communities to be expropriated of the territory, land, water and forest goods on which they depend for their livelihood. There has been an increase in the number of forced displacements and evictions of young peasants, and an increase in hunger and poverty.
 For this reason, to restore the dignity of peasants and agriculture itself, and to encourage a holistic concept of food sovereignty through agro-ecology, we, as young peasants, will continue to fight against:
 

  • Neoliberalism, capitalism and imperialism, which divide peoples and prevent them from uniting to rebel, while their sovereignty as peoples and nations is being destroyed. A patriarchy that oppresses women and the independence of young people.
  • Industrial agriculture and land grabbing directed by multinational corporations and local and national government, which destroys ways of life and the cultural heritage of peasants, also causing the forced displacement of young peasants in rural areas.
  • All types of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) including Transnational Partnership Agreements (TPAs), Economic Association Agreements and agricultural policies imposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). These agreements destroy the agricultural base that provides local communities with secure, healthy and culturally appropriate food, and they violate peoples’ right to plan and control their food systems.
  • Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and patents on seeds, species and biological diversity.
  • Privatisation of natural goods such as territory, land, woods and water, which causes forced displacement of peasants and original peoples, endangering their livelihoods.

We demand that states and governments recognise, comply with and regulate food sovereignty in the constitutions of all countries as a basic human right. We also demand that the organisations and authorities that are involved and have responsibility take the following action:

  • Put food sovereignty into practice by implementing holistic agrarian reform, and broad-based agroecological reform in the area of fishing and silviculture, to ensure equal access to natural goods for young people, particularly young women.
  • End land grabbing and conversion in the name of development following the “Green Economy” model of agricultural food production, and production of bio fuels and monocultures that are structural causes of climate change and the energy crisis.
  • Protect and promote traditional seeds and the knowledge and wisdom of our peasant communities.
  • Promote a model that favours people, led by peasants and in accordance with the agroecological and indigenous model.
  • Ensure market access for poor and marginalised people and a fair price for their products, keeping the WTO out of agriculture.
  • Ensure that young people have access to a secure future, both in rural and urban areas, also promoting sustainable job opportunities for young people to reduce migration to urban areas.
  • Stop criminalisation of protest, repression of social movements, murder and extermination of young peasants, while respecting human rights and those who defend them. They must also condemn militarisation, which is worsening living conditions for the poor in our regions, and establish an education system that supports young people who want to be peasants.
  • Dedicate a greater proportion of the budget to agricultural sectors to support young people in production, and education and access to technology in rural areas.
  • Provide a space for representation of young people in leadership and create a suitable environment to empower and support them, so they can show that young people can bring about change in agriculture.

In addition to these demands, we also make the following commitments:

  • We will create solidarity between regions that put alternative models into practice in opposition to the neoliberal model, in accordance with the principles of complementarity and cooperation to overcome social inequality.

 

  • We will set up an accessible political group for young people and practical people’s education on peasant and ecological agriculture.

 

  • We will promote communication between young people from different organisations and creation and strengthening of people’s alternative communication networks that will be political, creative and transformative.

 

  • We will strengthen the coordination of young people’s activities at a regional and global level.

 

  • Political participation and training for young people in organisations and genuine prominence.

 

  • We will coordinate political, social and cultural alliances and relations between young people from rural and urban areas around the world for social change and transformation.

 

  • We will create and strengthen spaces for political and technical training in the area of agroecological production and local markets with social justice.

 

  • We will show solidarity with all peoples who are involved in resistance and struggles for their right to life and their freedom anywhere in the world.

 
The Youth of the Via Campesina will fight for Food Sovereignty! 

21 July 2013
by pa-webgroup
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Frankfurt Oct 25th – 27th

Blockupy

Keep moving / Let’s meet in Frankfurt!
Invitation to Blockupy’s European Action Conference
 
October 25th to 27th in Frankfurt/M.
 
 
Against the European austerity regime, against the rule of the EU-Troika, for the Europeanisation of our resistance and for real democracy: Blockupy 2013 - they were intense and powerful days of collective action and resistance. Our many disobedient actions highlighted the ways in which the politics of crisis and impoverishment affect our lives and the lives of millions of people around the world.
 
The police’s planned assault on our international demonstration aimed to negate those victories and to split the coalition that achieved them. Those who bear the political responsibility for the attack could not allow a huge international demonstration to walk right past the ECB, in the very country whose government is so centrally involved in pushing a politics of impoverishment in Europe. They meant to demoralize and split the movement, but we stand strong in our solidarity and our unity: an attack by the police on one part of our demonstration is an attack on us all. It was our unity that turned the police’s attack on our movement into a political disaster for the representatives of an authoritarian crisis politics. Repression and police brutality should have been a demonstration of strength, but in reality they only reveal how nervous those who seek to further deepen the cycle of impoverishment and exclusion in Europe, a cycle that can no longer be democratically legitimated, and which therefore has to be imposed with ever more authoritarian means.
 
We are determined to go ahead and prepare further actions in Frankfurt and at the European Central Bank – this exposed nerve of the European crisis regime, where protest obviously hurts and is therefore undesirable. The continuous, strong and diverse protests on squares in Europe and beyond clearly show that the resistance against the social effects of the crisis politics, against the impoverishment and hopelessness to which they condemn millions of people cannot be separated from the resistance against the curtailing of democratic rights – they are necessarily linked. The want capitalism without democracy, we want democracy without capitalism.
 
This, then, is our promise: that ‘normality’ will not be returning to the heart of the European crisis regime, not in Germany, or, more precisely, in Frankfurt. Blockupy will return in 2014. We will be there, in the city, for the opening of the ECB’s new headquarters, with days of action and many other initiatives that we want to discuss and plan together. The Blockupy 2013 days of action were one step on the path towards becoming part of a huge, common European and global movement. We want to continue walking this path together with you: we want to talk about our respective struggles, want to have a strategic debate about whether Blockupy 2014 can be a common point of crystallisation, how we can develop our collective strength, how to intervene into the situation, how to create practical opportunities.
 
To discuss all this, to make it happen together with our friends, colleagues and comrades from all over Europe, we therefore invite you a European Action Conference in Frankfurt on the weekend October 25th to 27th. We want to have lively discussions about strategies and approaches, want to kick off an international and participatory European preparatory process for the Blockupy mobilisation and against the planned opening of the new ECB in 2014.
 
Over the course of the summer we’ll send some more detailed thoughts, about the structure and location of the action conference – but do save the date, and tell others who haven’t been involved before about it. Let’s come together!
 
We look forward to this process, to your ideas and your energy,                                                            the Blockupy coordination                                                                                                       
(Frankfurt/M., July 18th 2013)

14 July 2013
by medioambientesol
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Charla Movimiento Quiexadas: de la lucha obrera a la medioambiental

lunes 15 a las 18hs en plaza del Carmen El movimiento de los “Queixadas”. fué un movimiento no violento de los años 60 de los trabajadores de la fabrica de cemento de Perus, un distrito de la periferia de Sao Paulo, lucharon por sus derechos laborales de los trabajadores, y que hizo escuela. Posteriormente el [...]

9 July 2013
by medioambientesol
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Medioambiente Sol 15m, viernes 12 de julio en El Ateneo de Madrid a las 19,30h.

MESA REDONDA SOBRE INCINERACIÓN Y GESTIÓN DE RESIDUOS. Medioambiente Sol 15m en colaboración con la Sección de Medio Ambiente de El Ateneo Literario, Científico y Artístico de Madrid realizará una mesa redonda el viernes 12 de julio a partir de las 19,30h. para tratar los efectos negativos de la incineración de residuos y la alternativa de un Plan de Residuos Cero [...]

8 July 2013
by pa-webgroup
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Global Comms Fora / Hub Organising

(1) @hubmeeting2013 Barcelona September 13-15, 2013
(2) Global Comms Platform 27.6.13 and on
How we connect our struggles and create global change 
(3) Agora99 –  Autumn Rome Meeting 
 
(1) @hubmeeting2013 Barcelona September 13-15, 2013
 
Pre-Call to participation:
This year, in Turkey, Egypt and Brazil, the metropolitan strike has been used as a tool by the many people who are claiming new rights and a real democracy, reasserting its presence globally. We would like October 15, 2013 to be a territory inhabited and shared by many, constructed collectively, once the proposals to attack corruption and financial capitalism, not only symbolically, but also materially through specific practices, have been defined. We believe that this can only come about if the multiple networks, social movements and processes which in this common cycle of struggles are challenging the arrogance of financial power come together and discuss these issues. Thus, our proposal is to build, together, a meeting with working days to address the implementation of new forms of social protest in the week dedicated to the fight against debt and austerity of October 15. We would like to invite you to prepare these days with us, which will be the 4th edition of the Hub Meeting.
 
Objective: 
To work on the construction of the social strike for the week of October 15, 2013, where “social strike” means a generalized strike outside the traditional labor framework of the official trade unions, etc. 
The new paradigm of expropriation of the common wealth, based on the process of financialization of the economy and the limitation of access to knowledge/information, calls for new antagonistic forms and actions. The action must impact the flows and processes of the things that create value to affect the enemy. Blocking businesses, schools, universities, means of transport, etc. could be a starting point for the building of new institutions beyond the job market, for universal citizenship. 
Moreover, people living precariously, paperless migrants, pensioners, students, the unemployed, interns… are groups in themselves, and are precisely those most affected by the material conditions of existence, who cannot participate in the typical strikes. We must be able to think up inclusive and open forms of mobilization and action that promote empowerment and participation in them. 
This meeting will serve to organise actions that can be replicated in different places, and share mechanisms and methods to create actions, participate in them and spread them, taking into account the each territory’s specific characteristics. The aim is to construct a new kind of imagery to define new human, economic and social relationships that will help to transform the power relationships between governments, financial powers and society.
 
With love,
 
WHERE: Barcelona, La Dispersa http://ladispersa.net 
WHEN: September 13-15, 2013
Twitter: @hubmeeting2013
website: coming soon
 
Last Hub Meeting 2013 statement: http://hubmeeting20a.wordpress.com
 
(2) Global Comms Platform
How we connect our struggles and create global change
 
75-80 activists participated to the online forum held on 27 June 2013. 
 
You can find the minutes and the working document coming out of the forum here:
 
And here:
 
(3) Agora99 Autumn Rome Meeting
 
Following last monday’s meeting on the next Agora99: 
Minutes here  http://titanpad.com/ypeDU0e8Rf (thanks vica!) 

It was agreed to write a common text to call for the agora, to be published on 99agora.net.
We wrote a first draft, based on the old FAQs for the Madrid meeting: 
Here the pad: http://agora99roma.titanpad.com/faqs 

The dates proposed for the 2013 meeting in Rome are October 4-6(first weekend of october) or November 1-3 (first weekend of november). 


The deadline to close both the text and dates is mid-july.

Next mumble meeting (mid-july): 
doodle: http://www.doodle.com/229hg4fxqc7hc97m 
proposed agenda: http://agora99roma.titanpad.com/midjuly-mumble

8 July 2013
by pa-webgroup
1 Comment

Turkey’s Protest Forums – Towards a New Political System

After Protests, Forums Sprout in Turkey’s Parks

Ed Ou for The New York Times

Crowds gathered at Abbasaga Park in Istanbul in late June. Anti-government protests have dimmed after an intense crackdown, but Turks continue to gather each night in dozens of parks across the country to brainstorm about ways to get politically organized.

By SEBNEM ARSU

Published: July 7, 2013 

ISTANBUL — More than a thousand people sat quietly in a stone amphitheater at a park here on a recent mild summer evening, keenly listening to dozens of Turks who took the floor, one by one, to speak their minds.

 “I have never done this before, talking to so many people,” Muge Cevik, a computer engineer, said timidly as she stood on a stage barely lighted by street lamps at Abbasaga Park, trees casting a shadow over the audience.

The recent antigovernment riots, which began with a sit-in at an Istanbul park scheduled for demolition and grew to encompass the grievances of millions of Turks disillusioned with their government, have largely faded after an intense crackdown about three weeks ago. Now, Turkey’s parks have become safe places to gather and speak freely, with people arriving each evening in dozens of parks nationwide to discuss what happens next.

Their movement is driven by concern about what critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan call his autocratic tendencies, the growing influence of religion in state institutions, and government intrusions into private life, like legislation to regulate alcohol use.

Turkey’s opposition parties are widely viewed as ineffectual, and in the absence of credible institutional opposition, the largely youthful demonstrators have taken to what they call “people’s forums” to create a different platform for dissent.

The forums, an unprecedented exercise in grass-roots democracy in a country with no tradition of public assembly, are not affiliated with any political party. Organically evolving, and with no leadership, they aim not to form a new political party but to structure a new political system. At the very least, participants say, they are a way to keep up the pressure on Mr. Erdogan’s administration.

Those attending them say a heavy-handed police response to the protests — tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets were used to disperse crowds, and four people died — has united them despite political, sectarian, ethnic and social differences.

“Those with or without head scarf, Marxist or communist, believer or not — we walked all together, and should continue to stand for each other,” said a man wearing a black T-shirt, speaking on another recent evening to a crowd of nearly 100 men and women in Ortanca Park in Ferikoy, an Istanbul neighborhood. “I am here on behalf of revolutionary Muslims, and we are determined to ruin the government’s game, end their exploitation of pious people.”

Those in the crowd did not applaud, but instead fervently waved their hands in the air, following a sign language now common in these forums. Crossed arms mean “no” or disapproval; arms moved in a rotating motion mean “wrap it up” for those who speak too long. The gestures, adopted from those used at matches by a fan club for a local soccer team, are used to avoid disturbing the public during the late-night forums.

Ms. Cevik, in Abbasaga Park, is one of thousands who show up each evening to brainstorm about ways to get politically organized around basic principles like democracy, equality and human rights before local elections in nine months. “Istanbul is the heart of Turkey,” she said. “We should be able to send at least one independent candidate of ours from this city to Parliament in upcoming elections.”

A large crowd waved hands to applaud as she turned the stage over to an older man who wanted to share his experience in Turkey’s long struggle for democracy after at least three military interventions. “We do not have time to lose,” said the man, who identified himself only as a 58-year-old “democracy veteran.” “Young people should get engaged in politics and try to win over government supporters.”

Many of the speakers in Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, have withheld their names as the police continue to track down protesters. More than 75 people have been formally charged with violating the law on public protests during the riots, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, based in Istanbul, said in a report late last month.

Also last month, the Turkish Ministry of Communication contacted Twitter and Facebook, seeking copies of messages that users in Turkey exchanged during protests — a request that both companies declined, news reports said. And the transportation ministry planned to form a special unit to monitor social media for crimes committed online, a pro-government newspaper, Yeni Safak, reported Tuesday.

Twitter and Facebook are still the main tools of information exchange among protesters, who have accused Turkey’s mainstream news media of censorship and failing to adequately cover the uprising. So around 200 people who converged on a green slope in Kugulu, or Swan, Park in Ankara waved their hands for Unver Coskun, an electronics engineer, when he suggested reaching out to the elderly to inform them about political conversations on social media sites.

“We need to safeguard ballot boxes, link with other forums, create lists of volunteers who would contact elderly people or others that do not use the Internet,” Mr. Coskun said.

Close to midnight on a recent Thursday, couples, parents and children filled benches in the bowl-shaped Kugulu Park — which protesters had used as a base until the police pushed them out of their tents and removed their banners and posters.

Two young women sat close to a small artificial lake that a large family of swans had inhabited before they were moved to a safer location, along with a couple of ducks, out of fear that they would die of exposure to tear gas fired by the police.

“I hope that these forums will serve some purpose,” said one woman, a public worker with dark hair and a beaded short-sleeve top. She chose to watch the forum from a distance.

“At work, it is a different world — they have the power and treat us as a minority. They run the office like a religious institution, with prayer breaks and Koran readings.”

Mr. Erdogan is still popular among conservative Muslims, who see him as a savior from the rule of the elitist secularists, and officials of his pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party have dismissed criticisms of autocratic or religiously oriented government policies. They have labeled the protesters internationally driven conspirators, or even terrorists.

“We stood together, listened to each other,” said Fatma Ozdogan, 24, an architect who joined the Abbasaga Park forum. “From now on, the Parliament, political actors, will be obliged to listen to the voice of their people.

“The protests, and now the forums, will be the game changer in Turkey’s political life.”

Re posted from NY Times

1 July 2013
by pa-webgroup
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London General Assembly Statement on Police Abuse of Power

Where we stand

The women who are bringing this case, and Occupy London, believe that:

where we standThere are no circumstances in which it would be acceptable for an undercover police officer to engage in intimate relationships with either targets or members of the public under the guise of their undercover identity.

The fact that this has taken place repeatedly, despite being morally wrong and unjustifiable, shows that within the police forces in the UK there exists:

  • institutional sexism – women have been used to shore up undercover identities, without regard for those women’s right to a private life (whilst men have been affected, evidence so far shows that it is primarily women’s lives that have been abused in this way).
  • institutional prejudice against members of the public who engage in social justice and environmental campaigning, including a disregard for their human rights.

Both these forms of institutional prejudice must be challenged and stopped; each has reinforced the other.

We call for:

    • a clear and unambiguous statement that the abuse has ceased, and will never, in any circumstances, be permitted.
    • the past to be thoroughly and openly investigated, so that the damage may be acknowledged, those responsible may be held to account, and that as a society we may come to terms with what has happened, heal the wounds that have been inflicted and be confident that the practice has ceased.
    • action and change to prevent these human rights abuses from ever happening again, including stronger support for whistle-blowers and greater protection for rights of association and expression.

Until these things happen, we have no reason to believe that these abhorrent abuses have stopped, or that the police acknowledge their actions are wrong, and that they must change.

We come from different backgrounds and have a range of political beliefs and interests, and we are united in believing that every woman, and every person, has a right to participate in the struggle for social and environmental justice, without fear of persecution, objectification, or interference in their lives. We welcome allies who wish to engage with the above issues in this spirit of democratic empowerment.

The eight women bringing this legal action are doing so to highlight and prevent the continuation of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers. 

We stand in solidarity. 

Ends

You can take a stand with them by signing up to the above statement – using the contact form below.

25 June 2013
by Robbie Griffiths
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Assemblies emerging in Turkey: a lesson in democracy

By Jerome Roos On June 19, 2013

First published on ROARMAG.org

Post image for Assemblies emerging in Turkey: a lesson in democracy

The protesters are starting to counter-pose their own direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state.

 

Something quite amazing is happening in Istanbul. In addition to the silent “standing man” actions around the country, people’s assemblies are slowly starting to emerge in different neighborhoods across the city. As in Spain, Greece and the Occupy encampments before, the protesters in Turkey are starting to counter-pose their own form of direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state. If there was ever any doubt, this shows how deeply intertwined the global struggles truly are.

As the state launches its merciless witch hunt on protesters, activists and Tweeters, thousands of people are starting to gather in dignity in various public spaces. As Oscar ten Houten reports from on the ground in Istanbul, the Beşiktaş Assembly in Abbasaga park, which has been going on for days, tripled its number of participants on Tuesday night, with a total of ten popular assemblies taking place in Istanbul alone and at least one more in Izmir. As Oscar writes on his great blog (which he started at the occupation of Puerta del Sol in Madrid in 2011):

These meetings have nothing to do with Taksim Solidarity any more. They are spontaneous initiatives by local people who are fed up with Erdogan’s disregard for the Turkish citizens, their rights and freedoms, their history, beliefs and traditions. … We arrive in Kadıköy, and truly, I couldn’t believe this was happening. Well over two thousand people were gathered on the green, to express their anger with the government’s eviction of Gezi, and to share their hope for a better Turkey. Like anywhere else, it was a cross section of the population, which included all races and creeds.

Interestingly, the members of the popular assemblies in Turkey use the same hand-signs as the indignados, indicating that some of the methods were directly inspired by the real democracy protests in Spain. This, in turn, seems to confirm the idea we raised very early on in the Turkish uprising, and a claim that many Turkish activists have been making from the very start: namely that this movement is not just a local or national protest, but part of a global struggle against the subverted nature of representative capitalist democracy and for realdemocracy and total liberation.

What, then, is real democracy? Obviously it’s difficult to have a straightforward answer to such a complex question, seeing that different people will interpret the idea (and the ideal) differently. It is quite easy, however, to identify what it is not. Democracy stands for the rule of the people. As a result, when corporate interests and religious delusions begin to dominate government, that is not democracy. In fact, when a small elite of elected politicians is delegated to speak on behalf of the rest, that is not the rule of the people but their representation.

Illustration: map showing 35 active popular assemblies in Istanbul

The worldwide experiments with direct democracy — in the form of horizontal self-organization through popular assemblies, decentralized mutual aid networks, thematic working groups, and so on — provide a glimpse of what another world could look like. Of course, none of this is to say that the protesters have a blueprint in hand for the ideal revolutionary society; but they are actively testing and trying out different models to see how large groups of people can effectively organize themselves without hierarchical and centralized leadership.

Last year, when shooting our first ROAR documentary – Utopia on the Horizon – in Athens, we interviewed Manolis Glezos, the 90-year-old Greek WWII resistance hero who is currently an MP for the coalition of the radical left. Glezos experimented with direct democracy when he was the mayor of a village on the island of Naxos. Even though Glezos still believes that a parliament controlled by popular forces can help activists on the ground, he insists that the citizens’ revolution as such cannot proceed if the people do not organize themselves from below.

So what about the popular assemblies in Syntagma Square, Puerta del Sol and Zuccotti Park? Was that real democracy? When we asked Glezos, he looked at us with an amused smile on his face, and — to our great surprise — just said: “No. This is not democracy. How can a few thousand people assembled in a square claim to speak on behalf of the millions that live in the region? This is not democracy — it’s a lesson in democracy. If this movement wants to survive, its direct democratic models will need to spread to the neighborhoods and to the working places. Only then will we start seeing the emergence of a genuinely democratic society.”

What Glezos is saying, in other words, is that for direct democracy to work, the assemblies need to be radicalized and extended into the working places in the form of workers’ self-management, as in the inspiring case of the Vio.Me factoryin Greece. Obviously, none of this will be enough to overthrow the capitalist state as such; but it is a starting point to help engage people in different forms of decision-making, different forms of production, and different ways of being, thinking and interacting. In a word, it is about building the social foundations of self-organization that will allow us to replace the oppressive institutions of the capitalist state when the time comes.

But there is something more. The direct democracy of the squares is also about saying that we cannot wait for some distant revolution to overthrow the capitalist system. We are currently facing a global humanitarian tragedy, an ecological disaster and a profound social and political crisis. We have to act now. We cannot rely on corporate elites to do this for us. We cannot trust in political representatives to take the process ahead. The only ones we can trust are ourselves. We, the people, will have to carry this revolution forward. Starting now.

Still, on a more humble level — yet perhaps the most important of all — we should be careful not to fetishize direct democracy. At the end of the day, the assembly is a very simple phenomenon: it is about ordinary people craving to be heard and to have a say in their lives. Assemblies are a way to allow those who have been shut up for years to finally stand up in dignity and to speak their voice — and be heard. It is about recovering our collective sense of humanity from the rapacious claws and unrepresentive institutions of the capitalist state.

As such, the assemblies are a beautiful and crucial form of social engagement and political participation. In the future, they may well be expanded to cover more and more segments of the population. But even in these moments of elation, when we see the people taking matters into their own hands and enactingreal democracy in the places where they live and work, we should stay realistic: this is only just the beginning. The capitalist state survives, and creating our own parallel society is not enough. We must self-organize, and then push our quest for autonomy outwards to eventually encapsulate all of society.

Luckily, there is hope that such radical aspirations may not just be a pipe dream. In a sign that this leaderless movement is already deregulating the violent flow of authority unleashed by the Turkish state, the increasingly desperate government is doubling down on the repression, arresting random people who were sighted at the protests or who sent out “provocative” Tweets, and even threatening to send in the army. As Oscar puts it, “the authorities still don’t understand what’s happening. They look for leaders, people to corrupt or to eliminate. But there are none. We are not an organisation, we are a world wide web. We are the people on the threshold of changing times.”

24 June 2013
by pa-webgroup
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Greek Self-Run Public Radio / TV Assembly Resolution

General Assembly Resolution of the workers in the Music Ensembles of #ERT [EN-FR-ES-AL-GR]

psifismata-mousikon

General Assembly Resolution of the workers in the Music Ensembles of ERT

1) Self-run public radiotelevision, open to the major problems of the tortured society.

2) ERT is to become a real democratic means of expression of the popular desire for Democracy and Freedom.

3) There should be an elected Board of Directors, revocable, voted directly by the Greek people. This Board will undertake the safekeeping of polyphony and pluralism on the basis of Democracy and National Independance, as mentioned in the 1730/87 establishment law of ERT S.A.

4) Reactivation of ASKE (Representative Assembly of Social Control), of the Supervisory Board which will control and oversee the Board of Directors of ERT.

Every Greek citizen should have access and an inalienable right to communicate his opinion, his problem to the public radiotelevision.

The Music Ensembles as always undertake to elevate the feeling of the Greek people through art, tradition, the Greek character and culture which, throughout the political changeover, have been brutally hit by every sort of political mechanism which, in combination with the trash of private television, have ruined every value-based background of our society.

We will not allow them to abolish the Music Ensembles of ERT, an oasis of civilisation, the last bastion of culture and intellectual uplift.

The workers of the Music Ensembles

 

Résolution adoptée par l’assemblée générale des ensembles musicaux (orchestres et chorale) de l’ERT

Ils demandent :

1. un audiovisuel public autogéré et ouvert aux grands problèmes de la société éprouvée.

2. que ERT devienne un moyen d’expression réellement démocratique des désirs populaires pour la Démocratie et la Liberté.

3. un Conseil administratif révocable, élu directement par le peuple grec et qui serait chargé d’assurer pluralité et pluralisme, basés sur la Démocratie et l’Indépendance Nationale selon la loi fondatrice de l’ERT S.A. (1730/87).

4. réactivation de l’ASKE, Conseil de supervision qui serait chargé de contrôler et de superviser le Conseil Administratif de ERT.

Tout citoyen Grec devra avoir accès et le droit incontestable de faire connaître tout point de vue et tout problème à la Radiotélévision publique.

Les ensembles musicaux entreprennent, comme toujours, d’élever les sentiments du peuple grec au moyen des arts, de la tradition, de la grécité et de sa culture, qui depuis la chute de la dictature ont été durement frappés par tous les mécanismes politiques et partisans qui alliés aux ordures des chaines de télévision privées ont détruit toute base des valeurs dans notre société.

Nous ne les laisserons pas anéantir les ensembles musicaux de l’ERT, une oasis de civilisation, un dernier bastion de culture et d’élévation intellectuelle.

Les Ensembles Musicaux de l’ERT

 

Votación de la Asamblea General de los trabajadores en los Conjuntos Musicales de ERT.

1. Radiotelevisión Pública autogestionada y abierta a los grandes problemas de la sociedad griega.

2. Que ERT sea un verdadero medio de expresión del deseo popular para la Democracia y la Libertad.

3. Que haya un Consejo Administrativo electo, revocable y votado directamente del pueblo griego y responsable para asegurar el pluralismo y la polifonía en base a la Democracia y la Soberanía Nacional como, además, se menciona en la ley fundacional de ERT número 1730/87.

4. Reactivación del consejo supervisor que controlará y supervisará el Consejo Administrativo de ERT.

Cada ciudadano griego tendrá acceso y derecho incuestionable de comunicar su opinión y postura en la Radiotelevisión Griega.

Los Conjuntos Musicales como siempre se encargan de enaltecer el sentimiento del pueblo griego a través del arte, la tradición, la identidad Helena y su cultura, afligida cruelmente desde la transición hasta hoy por cada tipo de mecanismo político y partidario que, en combinación con la basura de la televisión privada, intentó destuir todos los valores éticos y la conciencia de la sociedad griega.

No les vamos a dejar anular y destruir los Conjuntos Musicales de ERT, un oasis de cultura, uno de los últimos vestigios de la producción cultural y espiritual en nuestro país.

Los trabajadores en los Conjuntos Musicales.

 

Rezolutë e mbledhjes së punonjësve në asamblet muzikore të Radiotelevizionit publik (ERT). 

1) Radiotelevizion Publik i vetë-menaxhuar dhe i hapur për problemet e mëdha të shoqërisë.

2) Të bëhet ERT-i një mjet i vërtetë demokratik i shprehjes së aspiratave të popullit për Demokraci dhe Liri.

3) Të zgjidhet një Këshill Drejtues i votuar drejtpërdrejt nga populli grek. i cili do të sigurojë polifoninë, pluralizmin në bazë të demokracisë dhe të pavarësisë kombëtare, siç thuhet edhe në Ligjin themelues 1730/87 të ERT A.E.

4) Riaktivizimi i këshillit mbikëqyrës, i cili do të monitorojë dhe do të mbikëqyrë Këshillin Drejtues të Radiotelevizionit Publik (ERT).

Çdo qytetar grek (qoftë edhe një) duhet të kenë qasje dhe të drejtë të patjetërsueshme, për të paraqitur pikpamjen ose problemin e tij në Radiotelevizionin Publik.

Ansamblet muzikore si gjithmonë do të ndërmarrin rritjen e ndjenjës së popullit grek nëpërmjet artit, traditës, helenicitetit dhe kulturës së tij, e cila gjatë gjithë periudhës pas juntës është goditur brutalisht nga çdo lloj mekanizmi politik, partiak që në kombinim me mbeturinat e televizionit privat shkatërroi çdo sfond të levave në shoqërinë tonë.

Nuk do të lejojmë shkatërrimin e ansambleve muzikore të ERT-it, një oazë e kulturës, një bastion i fundit i kulturës dhe i ekzaltimit shpirtëror.

Punonjësit në ansamblet muzikore.

 

Ψήφισμα Γενικής Συνέλευσης εργαζομένων στα Μουσικά Σύνολα της ΕΡΤ.

1)Δημόσια Ραδιοτηλεόραση αυτοδιαχειριζόμενη και ανοικτή στα μεγάλα προβλήματα της χειμαζώμενης κοινωνίας.

2)Να γίνει η ΕΡΤ ένα πραγματικό δημοκρατικό μέσο έκφρασης των λαικών πόθων για Δημοκρατία και Ελευθερία.

3)Να υπάρξει αιρετό Διοικητικό Συμβούλιο,ανακλητό,ψηφισμένο απ΄ ευθείας από τον Ελληνικό λαό όπου και θα αναλάβει την διασφάλιση της πολυφωνίας,του πλουραλισμού στην βάση της Δημοκρατίας και της Εθνικής ανεξαρτησίας όπως άλλωστε αναφέρεται στον 1730/87 Ιδρυτικό Νόμο της ΕΡΤ Α.Ε.

4)Επανεργοποίηση της ΑΣΚΕ,του εποπτικού συμβουλίου όπου θα ελέγχει και θα εποπτεύει το Δ.Σ. της ΕΡΤ.

Κάθε ΄Ελληνας πολίτης (έστω κι ένας) θα πρέπει να έχει την πρόσβαση και αναφαίρετο δικαίωμα να κοινωνήσει την άποψή του το πρόβλημά του στη Δημόσια Ραδιοτηλεόραση.

Τα Μουσικά Σύνολα όπως πάντα αναλαμβάνουν να ανυψώσουν το αίσθημα του Ελληνικού λαού δια μέσου της τέχνης,της παράδοσης ,της Ελληνικότητας και της κουλτούρας του, όπου σε όλη την μεταπολίτευση χτυπήθηκε βάναυσα από κάθε είδους πολιτικού ,κομματικού μηχανισμού που σε συνδυασμό με τα σκουπίδια της ιδιωτικής τηλεόρασης κατέστρεψε κάθε αξιακό υπόβαθρο στην κοινωνία μας.

Δεν θα αφήσουμε να καταργήσουν τα Μουσικά Σύνολα της ΕΡΤ, μια όαση πολιτισμού, ένα τελευταίο προπύργιο κουλτούρας και πνευματικής ανάτασης.

Οι εργαζόμενοι στα Μουσικά Σύνολα.

Source: http://realdemocracygr.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/5-languages-general-assembly-resolution-of-the-workers-in-the-music-ensembles-of-ert/

21 June 2013
by Robbie Griffiths
1 Comment

The People’s Assembly Against Austerity London 22 June

DEMOCRACY AND DECISION-MAKING: FIXING OUR BROKEN POLITICAL SYSTEM

Session: 12.45pm – 2pm

EMMANUEL CENTRE
9-23 MARSHAM STREET
LONDON SW1P 3DW

Social movements such as Occupy have recently brought alternative models of decision making and an anti-systemic critique into the public eye. As a complement to resisting cuts, privatisations and all out attacks on the welfare state this sub-assembly will examine how the People’s Assembly might develop a programme of demands to fix our political system while also building a participatory alternative. Its format will be a combination of brief presentations on key reforms and a more participatory discussion about how to take forward a democracy reform programme and building local People’s Assemblies.

The planned structure for the session at this stage is as follows:

Part 1 12.45pm – 1pm
Invited presentations (3-5mins per speaker) and feedback on

(1) What reforms are necessary to fix our broken political system ?
(2) How can grassroots People’s Assemblies ( ie in local communities, workplaces, places of study etc) make these demands and an alternative system into a reality ?

Part 2 1pm-2pm

Faciliated Open Assembly discussion on questions

(2) How can grassroots People’s Assemblies ( ie in local communities, workplaces, places of study etc) make these demands and an alternative system into a reality ?
(3) How are we to build local Peoples Assemblies?
(format TBC)

Speakers: Mark Barrett (Peoples’ Assembly Network) – Natalie Bennett (Green Party) – Loz Kaye (Pirate Party UK) – Naomi Colvin (City Reform Group) – Corinna Lotz (Agreement of the People, Campaign for a 21st Century Constitution) – Bill Greenshields (Peoples Charter)

 

20 June 2013
by pa-webgroup
1 Comment

Assemblies Emerging in Turkey

Assemblies emerging in Turkey: a lesson in democracy

By Jerome Roos On June 19, 2013

Post image for Assemblies emerging in Turkey: a lesson in democracy

The protesters are starting to counter-pose their own direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state.

 

Something quite amazing is happening in Istanbul. In addition to the silent “standing man” actions around the country, people’s assemblies are slowly starting to emerge in different neighborhoods across the city. As in Spain, Greece and the Occupy encampments before, the protesters in Turkey are starting to counter-pose their own form of direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state. If there was ever any doubt, this shows how deeply intertwined the global struggles truly are.

As the state launches its merciless witch hunt on protesters, activists and Tweeters, thousands of people are starting to gather in dignity in various public spaces. As Oscar ten Houten reports from on the ground in Istanbul, the Beşiktaş Assembly in Abbasaga park, which has been going on for days, tripled its number of participants on Tuesday night, with a total of ten popular assemblies taking place in Istanbul alone and at least one more in Izmir. As Oscar writes on his great blog (which he started at the occupation of Puerta del Sol in Madrid in 2011):

These meetings have nothing to do with Taksim Solidarity any more. They are spontaneous initiatives by local people who are fed up with Erdogan’s disregard for the Turkish citizens, their rights and freedoms, their history, beliefs and traditions. … We arrive in Kadıköy, and truly, I couldn’t believe this was happening. Well over two thousand people were gathered on the green, to express their anger with the government’s eviction of Gezi, and to share their hope for a better Turkey. Like anywhere else, it was a cross section of the population, which included all races and creeds.

Interestingly, the members of the popular assemblies in Turkey use the same hand-signs as the indignados, indicating that some of the methods were directly inspired by the real democracy protests in Spain. This, in turn, seems to confirm the idea we raised very early on in the Turkish uprising, and a claim that many Turkish activists have been making from the very start: namely that this movement is not just a local or national protest, but part of a global struggle against the subverted nature of representative capitalist democracy and for realdemocracy and total liberation.

What, then, is real democracy? Obviously it’s difficult to have a straightforward answer to such a complex question, seeing that different people will interpret the idea (and the ideal) differently. It is quite easy, however, to identify what it is not. Democracy stands for the rule of the people. As a result, when corporate interests and religious delusions begin to dominate government, that is not democracy. In fact, when a small elite of elected politicians is delegated to speak on behalf of the rest, that is not the rule of the people but their representation.

The worldwide experiments with direct democracy — in the form of horizontal self-organization through popular assemblies, decentralized mutual aid networks, thematic working groups, and so on — provide a glimpse of what another world could look like. Of course, none of this is to say that the protesters have a blueprint in hand for the ideal revolutionary society; but they are actively testing and trying out different models to see how large groups of people can effectively organize themselves without hierarchical and centralized leadership.

Last year, when shooting our first ROAR documentary – Utopia on the Horizon – in Athens, we interviewed Manolis Glezos, the 90-year-old Greek WWII resistance hero who is currently an MP for the coalition of the radical left. Glezos experimented with direct democracy when he was the mayor of a village on the island of Naxos. Even though Glezos still believes that a parliament controlled by popular forces can help activists on the ground, he insists that the citizens’ revolution as such cannot proceed if the people do not organize themselves from below.

So what about the popular assemblies in Syntagma Square, Puerta del Sol and Zuccotti Park? Was that real democracy? When we asked Glezos, he looked at us with an amused smile on his face, and — to our great surprise — just said: “No. This is not democracy. How can a few thousand people assembled in a square claim to speak on behalf of the millions that live in the region? This is not democracy — it’s a lesson in democracy. If this movement wants to survive, its direct democratic models will need to spread to the neighborhoods and to the working places. Only then will we start seeing the emergence of a genuinely democratic society.”

What Glezos is saying, in other words, is that for direct democracy to work, the assemblies need to be radicalized and extended into the working places in the form of workers’ self-management, as in the inspiring case of the Vio.Me factoryin Greece. Obviously, none of this will be enough to overthrow the capitalist state as such; but it is a starting point to help engage people in different forms of decision-making, different forms of production, and different ways of being, thinking and interacting. In a word, it is about building the social foundations of self-organization that will allow us to replace the oppressive institutions of the capitalist state when the time comes.

But there is something more. The direct democracy of the squares is also about saying that we cannot wait for some distant revolution to overthrow the capitalist system. We are currently facing a global humanitarian tragedy, an ecological disaster and a profound social and political crisis. We have to act now. We cannot rely on corporate elites to do this for us. We cannot trust in political representatives to take the process ahead. The only ones we can trust are ourselves. We, the people, will have to carry this revolution forward. Starting now.

Still, on a more humble level — yet perhaps the most important of all — we should be careful not to fetishize direct democracy. At the end of the day, the assembly is a very simple phenomenon: it is about ordinary people craving to be heard and to have a say in their lives. Assemblies are a way to allow those who have been shut up for years to finally stand up in dignity and to speak their voice — and be heard. It is about recovering our collective sense of humanity from the rapacious claws and unrepresentive institutions of the capitalist state.

As such, the assemblies are a beautiful and crucial form of social engagement and political participation. In the future, they may well be expanded to cover more and more segments of the population. But even in these moments of elation, when we see the people taking matters into their own hands and enactingreal democracy in the places where they live and work, we should stay realistic: this is only just the beginning. The capitalist state survives, and creating our own parallel society is not enough. We must self-organize, and then push our quest for autonomy outwards to eventually encapsulate all of society.

Luckily, there is hope that such radical aspirations may not just be a pipe dream. In a sign that this leaderless movement is already deregulating the violent flow of authority unleashed by the Turkish state, the increasingly desperate government is doubling down on the repression, arresting random people who were sighted at the protests or who sent out “provocative” Tweets, and even threatening to send in the army. As Oscar puts it, “the authorities still don’t understand what’s happening. They look for leaders, people to corrupt or to eliminate. But there are none. We are not an organisation, we are a world wide web. We are the people on the threshold of changing times.”

 

Re-published from ROAR :)

19 June 2013
by pa-webgroup
1 Comment

London People’s Assembly Against Austerity

Reasons to be cheerful? Dangerous possibilities for People’s Assemblies

Posted on 

JD Taylor examines dangerous possibilities for the People’s Assemblies – and reminds us that actions speak louder than words. Can the British left be less conservative, and will thePeople’s Assemblies provide the spark that ignites the flame?

 

Reasons to be cheerful? Dangerous possibilities for People’s Assemblies

These laptops and handheld gizmos we spend so much of our time gazing into are highly depressing devices. Take a cursory glance at the news for a quick refresh, if you dare. No doubt there’ll be some fresh new excess of corruption by our homogeneous political establishment, or some new low in welfare cuts, payday lending or NHS privatisation.Racism and suspicious deaths in custody continue to blight the widely-discredited Metropolitan police. Overseas, British soldiers are caught in yet another Iraqi torture scandal or murder. Skim down to the reactionary comments and sigh. Flick to Twitter or Facebook, where some bot has mined your search terms to flog you drunkenness, the consolation of online poker or even the opportunity to share a moment’s digitised intimacy with another lonely soul, at a price. But at least these communication devices are getting cheaper. There’s got to be some distraction from the growing homelessness, boarded-up businesses, poverty, and decay of our communities.

Since 2010 we’ve been hovering in a moment of indistinction. Ask the man or woman sitting next to you what they think of bankers, politicians, or Rupert Murdoch and chances are you’ll receive an expletive in response. The effort’s worth it though, as it underlines a general popular consensus that the power network that controls the national population, one that’s imposing yet another round of tax-cuts for the rich and privatisation of public assets, is one that is deeply unloved. So why is it still allowed to exist and go unchallenged on a daily basis?

In fact something new and exciting is happening. A wide number of separate voices committed to equality, justice and democracy have sprung up and made a good case for a new political movement and organisation. Left Unity and the People’s Assembliesmovements are already gaining popular traction in bringing together communities opposed to austerity. With a number of national assemblies planned over the year, spearheaded by forward-thinking and hard-working figures like Owen Jones, there could be something to be optimistic about.

This all depends on how the assemblies are used. These days the internet gives us all the freedom we might need to bash out our opinions into the idiotic ether of forums and social media. Rabble-rousing and back-patting won’t prevent another unpopular government coming to power or poverty and living standards worsening. If the all-star national People’s Assembly in London on 22 June results in a few thousand people being lectured by the great and the good to have faith in the neoliberal Labour party and wait for their well-paid Trade Unionist cronies to one day maybe even suggest a general strike, then that’s ok. We’ll come away feeling good about ourselves like at the Stop the War marches, and the later TUC-led anti-cuts demonstrations over the last two years, where the same discredited tactics of A-to-B marches and SWP-era petitions were mobilised to spectacular effort.

But I don’t mean to be too cynical, because I really do believe that People’s Assemblies can work, particularly if their goal is communities coming together to seize power of their own affairs and demand justice. This final aspect is crucial. It happened back in Tottenham in August 2011, as angry relatives and residents confronted the police over the death of Mark Duggan. Autthority’s apparent power quickly caved in as a sham, and for three days in England everything felt possible. It also occurred in Tunisia, and later Egypt, as the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi empowered enraged communities to turn out and confront police and government corruption.

In both cases, the message was simple: justice, truth, equality. It came attached to a particular enemy: the police or local government, and attached to a particular target: a police station or local town hall. Above all, it possessed a determination to confront and damage that target.

Recent congregations of the British Left have so far lacked that determination, lacked a gut message to attract the wider employed and welfare-dependent working classes to the campaign, and lacked an organisational vision of the movement ahead. The wider number of people are dispirited and bored by idealistic politics and the dubious voice of a white middle-class minority claiming universality. But if certain strategies are seen to be genuinely disrupting the establishment, then this cynicism could be abandoned.

And there are plenty of good tactics that could be used by the new people’s assembles:

  • Put Britain’s enormous number of empty buildings to good use, and protest the further criminalisation of squatting, and the frankly criminal increase of homelessness, through occupations. Provide spaces for communities and run Black Panther style breakfast clubs.
  • Empty police stations and abandoned council estates awaiting demolition/gentrification could provide temporary accommodation for the increasing number of homeless people.
  • Banks now own so much of the nation’s infrastructure – like schools and hospitals – through PFI schemes, it’s a pretty raw deal that they continue to suck up public money, dish out bonuses and thrive whilst collective living standards decline. Occupying and redistributing the contents of their tills would boost community reinvestment.
  • These days the only things being built are pound-shops and supermarkets. Learning from the Andalusian village of Marinaleda and its mayor Sanchez Gordillo, people’s assemblies could set up their own secular food-banks that source their supplies not from well-meaning donations, but collective raids from local supermarkets. “Community Supermarket Sweep” could catch on, uniting young and old and all the family in a fun day out.
  • Parliament Square no longer has a fence around it – a camping trip to coincide with the re-opening of parliament could also be fun. #OPS, anyone?

A final possibility for disaffected Labour councils hit hardest by austerity in the North, and Wales, is to try out ‘Poplarism‘ – that is, a refusal to pay taxes or cooperate with central government. It’s named after the east London suburb and its radical Labour mayor George Lansbury, who in 1921 chose to use local tax-money to provide relief and support for the poor, rather than pay them on to central government. He went to jail briefly, as did many others, but the Poplar Rates Rebellion succeeded once influence and sympathy caught alight, and tax burdens between rich and poor districts were soon equalised by a national government fearing social unrest.

In any case, there could be some reasons to be cheerful. Hard work and passion is already mobilised, and the collective mood of the British people is increasingly one of anger, frustration, and a desire for revenge against bankers and politicians. Public confidence in our political masters is so low that it wouldn’t take much of a spark to ignite a flame that could quickly catch and spread. Bring on the popular revolt.

JD Taylor is a writer and PhD researcher from south London. His Negative Capitalism: Cynicism in the Neoliberal Era was published by Zero Books earlier this year. @jd_taylor /drownedandsaved.wordpress.com

18 June 2013
by pa-webgroup
0 comments

#peoplesassembly against austerity – london june 22

People’s Assemblies can move beyond resistance

 
The powerful response to the call for the People’s Assembly against Austerity on June 22 confirms that the build-up of opposition to the ConDem cuts is reaching boiling point, presenting a unique opportunity to move beyond resistance.  
 
Over 3,000 people have registered for the Assembly, many with the support of the major trade unions. Clearly, people welcome the fact that the Assembly brings together all those fighting against austerity. The support of key figures like Tony Benn, Owen Jones and Ken Loach has helped boost attendance.
 
What is crucial is the perspective for and beyond the Assembly. The draft statement is absolutely explicit about the intended direction of travel, declaring: “We have a plain and simple goal: to make government abandon its austerity programme. If it will not it must be replaced with one that will.”
 
The statement insists that the government’s austerity programme is not “necessary” and that the “banks and the major corporations should be taxed at a rate which can provide the necessary resources”.
 
To that end, there is a call for a national demonstration and civil disobedience towards the end of the year, the building of local Assemblies and a recall of the national Assembly in 2014.
 
In practice, the central demand is based on the notion that this most reactionary of governments is for turning and, if not, that Labour is an alternative. Both are utterly misguided.
 
The ConDems are cutting not simply because they are viciously anti-working class (which they are) but in response to an historic crisis of the financial and economic system, aka capitalism. The dreaded “C” word does not get a mention once in the draft statement, however, which is a major weakness.
 
Its exclusion leads to the idea of restoring the status quo of the welfare state through taxing the corporations as the main policy idea. With key analysts forecasting another global crash, such a policy does not begin to match the gravity of the situation we face.
 
As to installing a government that will “abandon austerity”, the implication is that this is Labour. But Ed Miliband’s party, which is taking shape as New Labour Mk II, intends to continue with austerity and cuts and every day incorporates another ConDem policy.
 
So Owen Jones’ view that “there is a battle to be won in compelling the party to fight for working people” is based on faith rather than judgement. Unions like Unite which bankrolled Miliband’s election have put the pressure on already – and come away empty handed.
The central issue is the fact that the system is broken – economically and politically. A semblance of democracy is rapidly being replaced by an authoritarian, surveillance, security state as the leaks about the US/UK spy network reveals.
 
A minimal amount of time has been found for discussing this crisis of democracy. Yet it is the key to our future. A World to Win and others have campaigned for a network of People’s Assemblies since August 2006.
 
We and others in Occupy and the Agreement of the People for the 21st Century see People’s Assemblies as integral to a strategy for moving beyond resistance towards a real democratic political and economic system in place of the façade we have today.
 
Permanent People’s Assemblies should:
 
-         be inclusive, inviting all sections of the community to be part of their work
-         discuss in depth why there is a global economic crisis
-         draw up, with the help of experts, alternatives to austerity/cuts that go beyond the profit system
-         discuss how to introduce democracy throughout society – in ownership and control of workplaces, land, etc
-         debate the crisis of democracy, where our voices/votes count for very little
-         consider alternative forms of democratic government and self-rule throughout theUK 
-         consider plans to deal with the eco-crisis.
 
People’s Assemblies should not develop into talking shops, but into rival centres of power to a system that has lost its legitimacy and the right to rule over us. That’s the big challenge and we call on others to help us campaign for this on Saturday.
 
Paul Feldman and Corinna Lotz
17 June 2013