R68 Call for Community Meeting to organize for DNC, January 19, 10 am, Four Winds

CALL FOR COMMUNITY MEETING
TO ORGANIZE FOR THE DNC
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19
10 am
FOUR WINDS SURVIVAL CENTER
5TH & BANNOCK, DENVER

It is now 2008. The Democratic National Convention will be here in eight short months. Thousands of activists will come from around the country. Denver justice and peace groups need to prepare for them, as well as for our own events.

Recreate 68 has laid some of the groundwork. We have assembled legal and medical teams, we have raised First Amendment issues in the corporate media, and we are helping to create alternative media. We have been in contact with a number of groups around the country who will be part of organizing and will be mobilizing people in their areas to participate in events next August. We have been meeting with representatives of the Mayor’s office, the Denver Police Department, the Secret Service and Denver City Council to ensure that officials respect protesters’ rights. We are making plans for a Festival of Democracy and other events leading up to and during the convention.

R68 believes the excitement and energy generated by this major event in our city can and should be used as a catalyst to bring new people into existing social change organizations, to involve more people in mass political activism, and to empower people to create community-based alternatives to a failed two-party system.

The events and demonstrations during the DNC can and should be used to build a broader movement that will last well beyond the convention itself, a movement that will build connections among organizations and different constituencies. The experience of working together for this major event will carry over past the convention to allow different constituencies to work together, and support each other, in the coming years.

To accomplish this, we must all begin working together and supporting each other now.

We can’t and won’t pretend there have not been divisions within the progressive community. The reasons for those divisions must be addressed and dealt with. But we are all working toward the same end, the creation of a different kind of society, one in which the needs of the people are not subordinated to the desires of a corporate elite.

The opportunity presented by the DNC is too important for us to allow those divisions to prevent us from working together on this major undertaking.

The projects that R68 has begun are a part of that undertaking. The legal, medical and media infrastructure we are putting in place will be available to support any and all progressive groups and causes. But there is a lot more that needs to be done.
We would like to invite anyone and everyone who is interested in organizing for the DNC to join us for a community consulta Saturday, January 19, 10 am, Four Winds Survival Center, 5th & Bannock, Denver. This will be an opportunity for a free, frank exchange of views as we start working together for August 2008 and beyond.

This meeting is part of the weekend events organized by R68 and Unconventional Action, but intended primarily for Denver-area activists and organizations.

Questions? buildingbridges@mindspring.com or rockymtn.spags@att.net.