The Bring the Ruckus website has been updated with the following articles on Palestine:
-Sharon's Gaza Pullout: Not Gonna Happen! A talk given by Tanya Reinhart at the Euro/Palestine concert, Paris, November 6, 2004
-Dispatch from Palestine By Sami
-The Jewish Caste in Palestine By Adam Sabra
-Letters on the Arab-Israeli Dispute in James Forman's The Making of Black Revolutionaries By Matthew Quest
Also included in this update is information about our upcoming Grassroots Prison Campaign, which will send Bring the Ruckus members and interested others to Atlanta, Georgia for up to two weeks in January and February to assist with organizing efforts around specific prison-related issues--and gain valuable political experience in the process. More information about this campaign follows below.
Grass Roots Prison Campaign
In January 2004, Bring the Ruckus (BtR) adopted the Grassroots Prison Campaign (GPC) as a national project. This campaign will bring BtR cadre members and interested others to Atlanta in early 2005 to assist the newly formed coalition Communities United for Action, Power & Justice with organizing efforts around specific prison-related issues. The project offers a chance for people to learn or hone practical organizing skills through on-the-ground political work. It's also a good place for us to test our abstract theories and see how they hold up in reality.
Why Atlanta?
In Georgia, 400,000 people either have been or are in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole. According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, there are 600,000 people on state prison visitation lists. This means 1 million people are directly affected by the criminal justice system in Georgia--a significant potential organizing base, considering that the population in greater Atlanta is 4 million, and there are only 8.6 million people in the entire state.
Who are the organizers, and what is the campaign?
Communities United for Action, Power & Justice is a coalition of organizations and individuals that works to put justice in the criminal justice system. It is a statewide criminal justice reform coalition that keeps those most affected by the criminal justice system (the currently/formerly incarcerated, family members & survivors) at the center of the movement. Communities United is participating in Operation Open Book, the campaign to remove Georgia's state secret status on parole files. Georgia has an exemption in the open records law that keeps all parole information a secret unless the parole board votes to release it, which means the Board doesn't have to justify any of its decisions or even explain how and why those decisions were made. Operation Open Book is about breaking down that wall of secrecy. This demand is the foundation for a larger reform effort, as it isn't possible to hold the Pardon and Parole Board accountable without access to its information.
Bring the Ruckus’s participation, by way of the Grassroots Prison Campaign, will help Communities United build an organizational base early on, of people most affected by the prison system. To do this, we are borrowing a labor tactic called The Blitz. In labor organizing, a mass of organizers visits every worker in a shop in one weekend. The workers can build an organizational base before the boss has a chance to react. We're going to do the same thing but in the community instead of a workplace.
BtR members and other participants will come to Georgia for a minimum of four days and a maximum of two weeks. The dates for the Grassroots Prison Campaign are January 29 through February 13. The tangible goal is to get people most affected by the criminal justice system to turn out for Poor People’s Day on February 9 and 10, which in turn will get them involved in the Open Book Campaign and Communities United. To do this, the ‘blitzers’ will visit prisons to talk to folks coming to visitations as well as parole offices. They’ll go to beauty parlors and check cashing stores. They’ll hang flyers and make phone calls. In short, they’ll organize a good turn-out.
What is Poor People's Day?
Poor People's Day (PPD) is an education and action gathering of low-income people from around the state held the 2nd week of February for the last 24 years. The gathering has a strong education component which explores the links between different issues of coalition members.
PPD is divided into 2 days: Education Day and Action Day. Education Day features a key speaker, plenary gatherings, and workshops on key issues facing Georgians. On Action Day we take it to the streets and speak truth to power. We meet directly with decision makers to move a program that meets the needs of poor people.
The gathering will include a community meeting where those who’ve been reached out to through the ‘blitz’ of the Grassroots Prison Campaign will be plugged into the Open Book Campaign. Recruiting around Poor People’s Day will allow Communities United to rapidly expand its organizing base before the parole board has a chance to react.
Who Organizes Poor People's Day?
The Up & Out of Poverty NOW! Campaign, staffed by the Georgia Citizens' Coalition on Hunger (Hunger Coalition) and Project South, is the umbrella group organizing the event. Beginning in the fall individuals and organizations from across Georgia are invited to planning meetings where all decisions about Poor People's Day are made. These meetings choose speakers, themes, workshop topics, as well as the action for Action Day. The meetings are held at the Hunger Coalition's office and everyone is invited to attend.
Communities United for Action, Power & Justice is part of the Up & Out of Poverty NOW! Campaign because criminal justice reform is an expansion of the struggle for economic justice.
Why is Bring the Ruckus involved?
This project was proposed and accepted by BtR for the same reason anti-prison and anti-police work was proposed and accepted — because we believe this is a point of revolutionary struggle. 65% of those incarcerated in Georgia are poor black men. This campaign involves organizing a strong base of poor people of color. The prison system puts women on the outside trying to survive economic strangulation and men on the inside trying to survive being brutalized. Race and class are front and center. Furthermore, there is nothing abstract about this work. How does the state use the intersection of oppression to advance social control? Look to people’s lived experiences with prisons, the police, etc., and we have a concrete answer. This is a point of revolutionary struggle because it’s a concrete fight that, taken to its logical conclusion, ends in prison abolition. Through a very intentional educational process, people are able to articulate the larger system of social control, analyze its weaknesses, and effectively organize to take advantage of those weaknesses. And they stay involved because they have a good, real reason: the life of someone they love.
Who can participate in the Grassroots Prison Campaign?
Activists who want to gain experience organizing around prison issues are invited to contact Communities United for Peace & Justice to learn more about how to get involved. Keep in mind, however, these three criteria for participating:
1. No drugs, no violence, no exceptions.
2. Participants need to take direction from local folks. This is a Georgia-based campaign. This means taking direction from the local organization about anything from dress to what tasks need to be done to manner.
3. Participants need to commit to campaign first while in Georgia. We want to make sure that all participants have a good experience. However, the campaign comes first. Each participants must agree to put ego aside and put the needs of the campaign first.
Do you want more information? Contact Communities United at communitiesunited at riseup.net or 404-223-6773 or the Atlanta chapter of Bring the Ruckus at atlanta at agitatorindex.org.
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