After months and months of planning, and weeks of the Ruckus team doing on-the-ground prep here in Detroit, the 2010 U.S. Social Forum is finally under way!

It all officially started off yesterday with the big Opening March down Woodward Ave, the main thoroughfare through Detroit, ending at Cobo Hall with the Opening Ceremony.

Ruckus’s team has been working hard to prep for the big actions this week, by building art, banners & props, preparing chants, street theatre and choreography, coordinating overall action plans, logistics, security, tactical comms & media, recruiting volunteers and participants, and making sure everyone in Detroit knows about the actions and comes out to support!

We’ve had art-building workshops every day for the last week in various churches and community centers throughout Detroit, where youth and adults from different neighborhoods have come through to build their own pieces for the Incinerator Action, as well as help build a mass of tall sunflowers, as well as one giant sunflower, and a giant mock-incinerator (come help us tear it down on Saturday!).

In addition to all the action prep, our folks are already running non-stop facilitating workshops, trainings, and Peoples’ Movement Assemblies, coordinating overall USSF security, and helping with the Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus! It is an action-packed, fast-paced, high-energy week, to be sure.

This morning Democracy Now aired an interview with Ruckus Director Adrienne Maree Brown, the National USSF Coordinator, about the Forum, Detroit, and the Allied Media Conference.  Check it out!

Here’s what’s coming up:

TODAY, JUNE 23:
10-12 Creating a Tactical Spectacle, and Rehearsal for a Restaurant Workers Defense Flashmob (Cobo W1-51)

12-1 Incinerator Action Art Build- come join the “Sunflower Greenhouse” to build more giant sunflowers for Saturday’s big action! (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

1-3:30 Bannermaking for the Friday action against Chase Bank (anti-foreclosure, in solidarity with southern tobacco farmworkers) (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

1-5:30 Tar Sands Peoples Movement Assembly (Cobo W2-70)

1-5:30 Take Back The Land Workshop (incl NVDA trng) (Cobo D2-08)

6-9:00 Nonviolent Direct Action (NVDA) Training for Incinerator Action Volunteers (you don’t have to sign up ahead of time!) – Cobo W1-51

6:39-9:00 Opening Plenary, featuring Adrienne Maree Brown and Carla Perez (from Ruckus and Movement Generation) discussing Ecological Justice

6-10:00 Flashmob Rehearsal! If you want to join a fun, creative, participatory action to defend local restaurant workers (tomorrow night), come to this rehearsal and plug in! (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

THURSDAY, JUNE 24

10-12:00 Direct Action Strategies for Climate Justice and Community Resilience (Cobo DO-7A)

10-12:00 Boycott Divest Sanction Israel Workshop

12-1:00 Action Art Building (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

1-5:30 No More Marches, No More Rallies! Workshop (Cobo Do-03B)

1-5:30 Take Back the Land Peoples’ Movement Assembly (Cobo D3-19)

5:30pm Meet at Joe Louis Statue in Cobo Hall to head out for the Flashmob! (attend rehearsal Wednesday night at 6pm in Michigan Room!)

6-9:00 Nonviolent Direct Action (NVDA) Training for Incinerator Action Volunteers (you don’t have to sign up ahead of time!) – (Cobo W1-51)

6-10:00 Incinerator Action Art Build (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

6-8:00 SmartMeme Re:Imagining Change Book Launch Party (Majestic: 4201 Woodward)

8:30pm-2am Indigenous Environmental Network & EMEAC Fundraiser (Magic Stick: 4201 Woodward)

FRIDAY JUNE 25:

9:45am-12pm Action Against Chase Bank (anti-foreclosure, in solidarity with southern tobacco farmworkers) – meet at Grand Circus Park & Woodward, across from the Central United Methodist Church

12-1:00 Action Art Building (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

1-5:30 EcoJustice: Clean Air, Good Jobs & Justice Peoples’ Movement Assembly (Cobo D3-28)

3:30-5:30 Transforming Power Workshop (TWW-5)

5:30-10pm Final Incinerator Action Art Build! Come learn the chants, choreography, and put the final touches on props, action plans, and volunteer roles! (Cobo Basement: Michigan Room)

9pm-2am Leftist Lounge Party – Eastern District

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

7:30am Volunteers gather

9:00-12:00 Clean Air, Good Jobs & Justice! Action against the largest Waste Incinerator in the world! Meet at 5201 Woodward Ave by 9:00am to march and plant sunflowers in the community along the way to stop the incinerator!

12:00-5:00 Final National USSF Peoples’ Movement Assembly and USSF Closing Ceremony (Cobo Hall)

Ruckus is working with the Zero-Waste Detroit Coalition and GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) to take it to the streets on the last day of the U.S. Social Forum and show the world that Detroit truly is Solution City!  We don’t need the world’s biggest Waste Incinerator burning our jobs and ruining our health – we need Clean Air, Good Jobs, and Justice!

Join the People of Detroit on Saturday, June 26 for a Rally, March & Mass Demonstration to End the World’s Biggest Waste Incinerator

Action begins at 9:00am at 5201 Woodward Ave, Saturday June 26.  See website for details.

Pulling off an action this big takes a LOT of work, so come help us prepare by building puppets, signs, banners, choreographing street theatre and dance, and more!  Preparations are underway already here in Detroit – come join us!

Friday, 6/18:

1:00-8:00pm  Action Art Build at YES Farm: 5149 Moran Ave

Saturday, 6/19:

10:30am-1:30pm Youth Workshop & Action Art Build: Keminy Recreation Center

1:00-8:00pm  Action Art Build at YES Farm: 5149 Moran Ave

Sunday, 6/20:

1:00-8:00pm  Action Art Build at YES Farm: 5149 Moran Ave

Monday, 6/21:

1:00-8:00pm  Action Art Build at YES Farm: 5149 Moran Ave

Tuesday, 6/22:

(Join the USSF Opening March 3-5pm!)

Wednesday, 6/23:

12:00-1:00pm  Sunflower Greenhouse/Action Art Build at Creativity Lab Action Convergence Center in the Cobo Hall Michigan Room

6:00-9:00pm  Nonviolent Direct Action Training for Saturday Action Volunteers: Cobo Hall W1-51

Thursday, 6/24:

(Join our No More Marches, No More Rallies workshop to explore how to stretch and push the boundaries of old tactics and innovate fun, creative action tactics!)

6:00-9:00pm  Nonviolent Direct Action Training for Saturday Action Volunteers: Cobo Hall W1-51

Friday, 6/25:

1:00-5:30pm  EcoJustice: Clean Air, Good Jobs & Justice Peoples’ Movement Assembly – Cobo Hall D3-28

5:30-10:00pm  Action Art Build & Final Action Prep! at the Creativity Lab Action Convergence Center in the Cobo Hall Michigan Room

Saturday, 6/26:

ACTION!
Meet at 5201 Woodward Ave by 9:00am!

WANT TO VOLUNTEER FOR THE ACTION? Contact action@cleanairgoodjobsjustice.org

We need people to help distribute flyers, and sign up to be peacekeepers!  Join us!

Ruckus is working with Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-Michigan) to support a local campaign to defend restaurant workers.  If you’re in Detroit, come participate in a fun and participatory action to support the workers!

We’re meeting TONIGHT 6/18 at 6pm at the ROC-MI office – 2727 2nd Ave Ste 148 – to help plan the action, then there will be REHEARSAL Wednesday 6/23 at 6pm in Cobo Hall.  Please attend to get more details about how to participate in the action!

See below for more info.

Stand Up For Restaurant Workers’ Rights

Restaurant workers and members of ROC-Michigan are organizing and have filed a federal lawsuit against a local restaurant claiming they are owed over $125,000 in stolen wages as well as violations for discrimination and illegal retaliation. Since January, the restaurant workers and their supporters have been holding weekly pickets outside the restaurant, which have received local and national press attention.

During the U.S. Social Forum, come stand with a multiracial group of immigrant and non-immigrant restaurant workers demanding just treatment on the job!

We’ll be taking action Thursday 6/24 to defend workers’ rights. In order to participate in this action, please come to rehearsal in the Creativity Lab Action Convergence Center in the Cobo Hall Michigan Room from 6-10pm Wednesday night, 6/23, then meet at Cobo Hall at 5:30pm on Thursday, 6/24.

Thursday, June 24th • 5:30 pm
Meet at the ‘Joe Louis’ Statue Inside Cobo Hall on the street level.

We are living in a crazy time right now. While the BP oil disaster is endlessly destroying life and livelihoods, and Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant SB1070 law is raising xenophobia and racial profiling to new heights, people are devastated, but they’re rising up. And Ruckus is working tirelessly to spread the skills and tools our movements need to win these critical fights.

Ruckus folks have been working with communities on the ground in Phoenix and Tucson ever since the day Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law April 23, helping folks prep for the big May 29th Mass Action in Arizona, and to build the communities’ skills and strategy for the long battle ahead. Check our blog update on our work in Arizona!

As for the oil gushing away in the Gulf and steadily spreading, the only way to prevent the next big disaster is by forcing all the Big Oil and Big Energy companies to end their destructive, short-sighted, profits-based operations before it’s too late. That’s why we’re dedicating our annual action camp this year to developing a cadre of advanced-level action-ready climate and ecological justice activists who have what it takes to give Big Energy companies the boot once and for all! Stay tuned for more info about our Advanced Action Boot Camp for Eco-Justice, September 15-21, in Minnesota!

We stay on the grind – get involved today, or donate to support our efforts.

After months and months of work it is finally time. The 2nd US Social Forum is upon us and Ruckus has gone all in to make it an incredible action-packed week that exemplifies what we believe our movements are capable of at this time.

We wanted you to understand why we have given so much time and energy to the USSF process.

For us, the idea of being a part of a process that was born in the global south was very strategic, since it absolutely feels like the issues we are facing in the U.S., and in the west, are beyond our capacity to resolve in isolation. Ruckus commits completely to the global struggle against the mentality of “profits over people”.

In addition, the way the U.S. has embodied this process has been to have grassroots and indigenous groups centered in the planning, visioning and execution of the work, which aligns with the direction Ruckus has been growing in.

We see the forum as a way to bring the Ruckus toolbox of strategic action planning and training to a broad, intersectional, radical body of likeminded folks in Detroit and nationwide.

Here’s our entire schedule, and here’s a few highlights:

- We are supporting the largest action of the forum, an action to shut down the Detroit incinerator and demand “Clean Air, Good Jobs and Justice 4 All” led by Zero Waste Detroit. We have also found ways to support the other actions approved by the local community.

- We’re engaging in the movement building People’s Movement Assembly process, helping to advance the practice of justice as it relates to the environment and the economy. We expect the PMA process to be the major way we engage the declarations of the US Social Forum in the future.

- And we are offering two groundbreaking trainings: the first, with Training for Change, which demands us to push the boundaries of our creativity in actions; the second, with guest Imani Uzuri, to bring back our practice of freedom songs and sounds.

We are rising up to this movement moment, and we invite you to rise up with us.

Since Arizona’s sb1070 got signed into law by its governer, Ruckus has been on standby, ready to dispatch folks to throw down with our comrades in Arizona. (Don’t know about sb 1070? Read Up ) When it was first signed into law we dispatched a Ruckus team member to Arizona to assist with the demonstrations in reaction to the signing of the bill.

Three weeks ago, I was dispatched to Arizona, to provide support for the May 29th national day of action against sb1070. I was dispatched to support tactical conversations in lead up to the 29th as well as just throwing myself in to be another pair of much needed hands. I quickly learned some of the complexities of the situation: how others states are watching Arizona as a testing ground for such laws in their state, how local undocumented families are becoming more and more afraid to live in Arizona despite the law not yet taking effect while other undocumented families are taking bolder steps and speaking out against this unjust law, how within the movement against sb1070 there are diverging views of how to challenge the law, and how the racial profiling actually began long ago in that state.

Myself, I am a first generation born in the US. My parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles crossed the border (2 in fact) to give me the life they dreamed of. I couldn’t imagine not joining the actions against such racist laws like sb1070 because for me, they are actions on behalf of the integrity of my family, and every family who for whatever reason has found themselves crossing borders.

There are amazing highlights of the march as well as calls to action and ideas for what you can do on www.altoarizona.com as well as Puente Arizona’s website. Take a moment, read up, but especially TAKE ACTION!