[diggers350] Fwd: Mayday2000 Global Day of Action against Capitalism

[The Land Is Ours]

>Please forward, send to mailing lists, print, photocopy, distribute,  and 
>circulate as widely as possible!.
>
>Mayday 2000
>Global Day of Action, Resistance and Carnival against
>Capitalism
>
>(Information as of February 28, 2000;
>see www.lobster1.dircon.co.uk for translations.)
>
>May 1 will be the next Global Day of Action against
>Capitalism after June 18 and November 30 last year.
>Many groups around the world are preparing for this
>event, in recognition that the capitalist system,
>based on the exploitation of people, societies and the
>environment for the profit of a few, is the prime
>cause of our social and ecological troubles. May 1
>will offer a perfect symbolic and real opportunity to
>build up our struggles against it. Activists in New
>York are planning to close down Wall Street, and in
>London there will be a four-day long carnival against
>capitalism. Other major cities involved are Sydney
>(Australia), Toronto, Vancouver (Canada), Liverpool,
>Manchester, Sheffield (England), Berlin, Hamburg
>(Germany), Auckland (New Zealand), Boston, Chicago,
>Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San
>Francisco, Seattle, and Washington (USA). The
>international contacts list, which is growing every
>day now, includes groups and coalitions in 17
>countries and more than 50 cities around the world. In
>addition, May 1 has been endorsed as a Day of Action
>by the Peoples?Global Action (PGA) international
>conference in India in August.
>
>May 1 proceeds from the successes of the previous
>Global Days of Action against Capitalism on June 18
>and November 30 last year, and expands on them in the
>same spirit. Through those Days of Action our networks
>grew, we learned much, and we saw many new people
>engage themselves. May 1 will continue this process of
>building up a strong, bold, and creative grassroots
>movement against the exploitation and oppression of

>people, communities, and the environment, and for
>solidarity, co-operation, grassroots democracy, and
>ecological sustainability. It will foster networking
>and shared organizing within our communities. For
>since diverse issues often can be considered from
>point of view of a comprehensive critique of the
>capitalist system, May 1 will be a good opportunity
>for bringing separate struggles and actions together.
>While also raising awareness about local and global
>issues, and about their interrelationship, the Day
>will increase global solidarity. The Day will thus
>facilitate mobilization for large-scale actions, which
>can have an empowering effect on individuals and
>communities alike.
>
>As on previous occasions, people of different
>movements and different countries will therefore join
>forces on this Day against the social, political, and
>economic institutions of the capitalist system.
>Workers, the unemployed, students, trade unionists,
>peasants, the landless, fishers, women groups, ethnic
>minorities, indigenous peoples, peace activists,
>environmental activists, ecologists, and so on will
>work in solidarity with one another in the
>understanding that their various struggles are not
>isolated from each other. The simultaneous occupation
>and transformation of the capitalist social order
>around the globe ?in the streets, neighbourhoods,
>fields, factories, offices, commercial centres,
>financial districts, and so on ?will strengthen
>mutual bonds at the local, national, and international
>levels.
>
>As before, the Day will be organised in a
>non-hierarchical way, as a decentralised and informal
>network of grassroots groups that employ
>non-authoritarian, grassroots democratic forms of
>organisation, struggle independent of the social,
>political, and economic institutions of the capitalist
>system, and seek to effect change directly through
>their own action. Each event or action will be
>organised autonomously by each group, while coalitions
>of various movements and groups can be formed at the
>local, regional, and national levels. Each group
>chooses autonomously how to take part in the Day,
>whether for instance to campaign against the entire
>capitalist system as such or to concentrate on a
>single issue or aspect of it. A strategy that may be
>useful at the local level is that various groups
>co-operate in creating a surrounding atmosphere of
>carnival and festivity as a setting for their various
>actions.
>
>Examples of conceivable actions are:
>strikes - demonstrations - critical mass bike rides -
>carnivals - street parties - reclaiming streets,
>government land or office buildings for non-commersial
>and good activities - marches - music - dancing -
>speeches - handing out flyers - banner hangings -
>distributing community controlled newspapers - street
>theatre - building gardens - handing out free food -
>mock trade fairs - offering no interest loans outside
>major banks - solidarity actions - pickets -
>occupations of offices - blockades and shutdowns -
>appropriating and disposing of luxury consumer goods -
>sabotaging, wrecking, or interfering with capitalist

>infrastructure - appropriating capitalist wealth and
>returning it to the working people - declaring oneself
>independent from capitalism and authoritarian
>governments - setting up grassroots' community
>councils and holding meetings outside city halls -
>setting up economic alternatives, like workers'
>co-operatives - promoting economic alternatives to
>capitalist companies - promoting grassroots based
>forms of community organisation
>
>If you or your group plan to join this Day of Action,
>please let others know as soon as possible, to
>facilitate networking and communication. There are
>several international mailing lists available for open
>discussions and co-ordination (see below). A public
>international contacts list is regularly posted to
>them in order to facilitate decentralized and
>non-hierarchic networking. To have your contact
>information added to it, please contact
><tcjohans at hotmail.com>, indicating (a) the country and
>location in which you plan to take action, plus any
>other information you see fit, for instance (b) the
>name of your group, coalition or yourself, (c) the
>events or actions being planned, (d) your land
>address, (e) email address, (f) telephone number, (g)
>fax number or (h) web site.
>
>There are many things we need to do, to make the best
>of May 1 at the global, local, and national levels. We
>need to spread information about it among as many
>suitable groups and movements as possible. We need to
>spread and share propaganda materials, such as
>leaflets and posters. And, in general, we need to
>share our experiences, thoughts and ideas with one
>other and help each other out. At the local level,
>information about the Day needs to be spread and
>discussed among groups and individuals, meetings need
>to be organized, events planned, leaflets printed and
>distributed, funds raised, laughter and conversation
>shared.
>
>The process of building up our movements can and
>should be continued through further Global Days of
>Action against Capitalism in the future. A suitable
>occasion that has been proposed for next time, after
>Mayday, may be September 27-28, 2000, because of the
>annual meeting between the International Monetary Fund
>(IMF) and the World Bank taking place in Prague, Czech
>Republic at that time.
>
>Any inquiries?or concerns about the Mayday Global
>Day of Action should be directed to other activists in
>your group, city, or country or on the various mailing
>lists, for us to mutually help each other with ideas
>and advise. There is noone in charge or pulling the
>strings for the Day. It will be a radically
>decentralised and non-hierarchic event entirely of our
>own creation in co-operation and solidarity with one
>another.
>
>NEEDED: Translators !!! To make Mayday information
>available in every language, now especially Dutch,
>Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Greek,
>Serbo-Croatian, Indonesian, African languages, Thai,
>and Vietnamese. Ca 1400 words. Translations are
>displayed at www.lobster1.dircon.co.uk/
>
>
>MAILING LISTS (DISCUSSION AND CO-ORDINATION):
>

>ENGLISH (International discussion list)
><mayday2k at onelist.com> Join at
>www.onelist.com/subscribe/mayday2k, or send a blank
>email to <mayday2k-subscribe at onelist.com>.
>
>PORTUGUESE (International discussion list)
><n30-pt at listserv.fct.unl.pt> Join by sending a message
>with the text "subscribe n30-pt" to
><majordomo at listserv.fct.unl.pt>.
>
>NORTH AMERICA (continental discussion list)
><pga-org at lists.tao.ca> To join, send a message to
><lists at tao.ca>. In the body of the message, include
>the following two lines:
>subscribe pga-org
>end
>
>IRELAND (national discussion list)
>Join by sending a blank email to
><no_wto-subscribe at onelist.com>.
>
>NEW ZEALAND (national discussion list)
><NZMayDay2K at onelist.com>. Join by sending a blank
>email to <NZMayDay2K-subscribe at onelist.com> or visit
><www.onelist.com/community/NZMayDay2K>.
>
>UNITED KINGDOM (national discussion list)
><mayday2000 at egroups.com> Join by sending a blank email
>to <mayday2000-subscribe at egroups.com>.
>
>SOUTHWEST USA (regional discussion list)
><ArizonaDirectAction at onelist.com>. To join, send a
>blank email to
><ArizonaDirectAction-subscribe at onelist.com> or go to
><www.onelist.com/subscribe/ArizonaDirectAction>.
>
>Please do set up a list for your own language, country
>or city, if you feel it is needed!
>
>NEWS GROUPS:
>
>MAYDAY 2000 NEWS GROUP (international news group)
>Information surrounding Mayday 2000. (2-4 mess./week)
>To join, send an empty email message to
><globalaction-news-subscribe at onelist.com>.
>
>SOME WEB SITES WITH MAYDAY INFORMATION:
>
>(en) International Lobster Party
><www.lobster1.dircon.co.uk/>
>(en) Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
><http://www.infoshop.org/mayday2000.html>
>(en) WTO Caravan (CANADA)
><http://wtocaravan.org/mayday2k/>
>(en) NEW ZEALAND MayDay
><www.angelfire.com/wv/nzmayday2k/NZMayDay2000.html>
>(fi) (en) FINLAND Mayday <http://go.to/mayday2000>
>(de) GERMANY MayDay
><http://www.freespeech.org/inter/mayday2k/>
>(it) ITALY Mayday <http://www.go.to/mayday2000it>
>(tu) TURKEY Mayday <http://www.antimai.org>
>(en) Mayday 2000 in LONDON
><http://www.freespeech.org/mayday2k/>
>(en) Washington DC
><http://www.disfigurine.com/mayday/>
>
>REFERENCES:
>
>J18 <www.infoshop.org/june18.html> or <www.j18.org>
>
>N30 <http://go.to/n30> or <www.seattlewto.org/n30>
>
>Peoples?Global Action (PGA)
><www.go.to/agp> or <www.agp.org/agp/index.html> or
>contact <pga at agp.org>
>
>Prague, Czech Republic, September 27-28, 2000
><www.destroyimf.org>, <www.bankwatch.org> or
><www.mmf2000.webjump.com>
>
>Please spread this message widely to sympathetic
>grassroots groups, communities, and individuals!
>Translate if advisable.
>
>Let's make this the strongest show of solidarity and
>resistance yet!
>
>
>
>
>
>______________________________________________________
>