Democracy Convention 2013

All the activism energy came together today for a “Rally to Derail Fast Track and Stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership” that began at 12:45 p.m. on the State Street steps to the Capitol.  The rally featured speakers representing a range of groups and activism work, but they were all united by the fight against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 

with Erica Krug, Dan Walkner, and Susan Freiss

A small, intimate session with local teachers and elementary students.  Daniel Walker, a high school teacher at Madison East, and Erica Krug, an elementary school teacher at Lake View Elementary, discussed how their classes collaborated to organize a community drive to ban plastic bags.

Friday August 9, 2013. Democracy Convention

I came in a bit late. A full room. A Mexican American man, Richard Monje, was posing questions to a panel of four African American men.

Shamako Nobel, who works with the Hip Hop Congress, was saying “in this country black life does not matter. The ‘founding fathers’ gave us 3/5ths of an identity. We have to get over 500 years of indoctrination. Whites go into foreign countries and treat people in the way that they’re used to treating black men.”

 A CALL TO ACTION FOR A NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE -                                                              Carol Urner and Ellen Thomas  (WILPF)

 
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”-Alice Walker

I attended “Should Obama be Impeached?” first thing Weds. Night. This was not part of the Democracy Convention, but a sort of spin off from the Veterans for Peace Conference, running concurrently in a nearby hotel.

WI VfP member BUZZ DAVIS framed the discussion: America needs a revolution; shall it be bloody or peaceful? Should we impeach all three: Bush, Obama, Cheney? Is Obama continuing Bush’s crimes?

How many of you really believe that we can change the current system?  Not marginal change.  Not small, subtle change.  Deep, systemic, radical change.  Gar Alperovitz, Keynote Speaker at yesterday’s Opening Plenary for the Democracy Convention, asked the audience to honestly ask themselves this question.  In order to realize an alternative to the current system, Alperovitz discussed, we must firmly believe that we have the power to change the system.