Thursday June 28th

When the U.S. government launched the "War on Terror" and established the Department of Homeland Security, this meant an increased use of military might by the government against all critics of U.S. domination - at home and abroad. Today, the United States continues to flex its murderous, military might all around the globe. Meanwhile, under the guise of security, local, state and federal governments pump more money into building more prisons, detention centers, and border walls, and directing an increasing number of police and agents to the streets to conduct raids and to squash the peoples' opposition. As the U.S. government threatens to invade, bomb and sanction more countries, and as more and more people in the United States are thrown into prison or subjected to state violence, we have to answer the question of what it will take to stop the U.S. government's war on the peoples of the world.

Sound files from the Gulf Coast plenary:

Daniel Castellanos on black brown solidarity

On Katrina as a capitalist and racist human rights crisis

Dr. Beverley Wright on the transformation of poor neighborhoods into "green space"

The destruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposes the historic forces of genocide, slavery, and militarism, as well as widespread exploitation, white supremacy, and sexism. The total devastation demonstrates the environmental crisis facing the world; and highlights local, state and federal governments' abandonment of low-income communities and communities of color, including immigrant communities, and their women, children, elders, and disabled. The ongoing struggle to win the right of return for all displaced people and the right of working people to return to their jobs, including in the public sector and especially in the public schools, points to growing struggles against gentrification and massive privatization - the right to housing, education, health care, to all public services, and the right of workers to collective bargaining in their workplaces. These struggles also point to the need for new strategic alliances among organizations in the African American, Indigenous, immigrant and other communities of color, and among working people, women, and queer communities to make our vision of Gulf Coast reconstruction a reality.