Democracy Uprising
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      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

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      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

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Democracy Uprising

  • About
    • About Mark Engler
    • About Democracy Uprising
  • Books
    • This Is An Uprising
    • How To Rule the World
  • Topics
    • All Book Reviews Environment Essays / First Person Global Economy Immigration Labor Latin America Social Movements Religion U.S. Politics / Elections War / Militarism
      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Blog

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      2023-2025

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Social Movements

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Social Movements

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Book Reviews

      The Pan American

      Book Reviews

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Book Reviews

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Book Reviews

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Book Reviews

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      Book Reviews

      Ordinary Outrages

      Book Reviews

      No Better Place

      Book Reviews

      In God’s Country

      Environment

      Why Wendell Matters

      Environment

      The Gulf at the Gas Station

      Environment

      Climate Disobedience

      Environment

      Farming the Everglades

      Environment

      The Winter of the Climate Denier

      Environment

      Climate of Change: An “Inside-Outside” Strategy Against Global…

      Environment

      Provoking an American Climate Crisis

      Environment

      The Real “Farmer” Story: So God Made High-Fructose…

      Essays / First Person

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      Essays / First Person

      On the Price is Right

      Essays / First Person

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Essays / First Person

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      Essays / First Person

      Republicans Among Us

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      New York Says “No”

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      The Sideshow Rebels

      Essays / First Person

      A Week in New York

      Global Economy

      Meet the Bailout’s New Slush Fund for Corporate…

      Global Economy

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Global Economy

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Global Economy

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Global Economy

      The Godfather of Microcredit

      Global Economy

      Capitalism as Catastrophe

      Global Economy

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Global Economy

      The World Is Not Flat

      Immigration

      When Undocumented Activists Infiltrated ICE

      Immigration

      The Children of Intervention

      Immigration

      Immigration Economics: An Interview with Professor Giovanni Peri

      Immigration

      Science Fiction From Below

      Immigration

      Four Ways of Looking at an Aztec Eagle

      Immigration

      Treated Like a Criminal

      Immigration

      When Sanctuary is Resistance

      Immigration

      The Massive Immigrants Rights Protests of 2006 Are…

      Labor

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      Labor

      Democrats Won Power in Several States. Will They…

      Labor

      The Case for a Social Distancing Wage

      Labor

      The Seattle Protests Showed That Another World Is…

      Labor

      Reviving the General Strike

      Labor

      Jeff Bezos Has Enough! It’s Time for a…

      Labor

      There’s Still Power in a Strike

      Labor

      The Amazon Effect: Sweat, Surveillance, Exploitation

      Latin America

      How movements can maintain their radical vision while winning…

      Latin America

      The Pan American

      Latin America

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      Latin America

      The Children of Intervention

      Latin America

      Against Shithole Nationalism

      Latin America

      The Last Porto Alegre

      Latin America

      Kissinger Is Not Our Friend

      Latin America

      Even If You Have Nothing to Hide

      Social Movements

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      Social Movements

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      Social Movements

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      Social Movements

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      Social Movements

      How to make sure your disruptive protest helps…

      Social Movements

      Why protests work, even when not everybody likes…

      Social Movements

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      Social Movements

      Strategy is a Craft

      Religion

      In God’s Country

      Religion

      Reverend Billy’s Holiday Shopocalypse

      Religion

      Toward the “Rights of the Poor”

      Religion

      The Pope and the Poor

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      Will the Next Pope Embrace Liberation Theology?

      Religion

      Remembering Romero

      Religion

      John Paul II’s Economic Ethics

      Religion

      Against the God of Free Trade

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      It’s going to take multiple strategies to win…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      A new wave of movements against Trumpism is…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Harold Washington’s lessons for taking on a political…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Strategy is a Craft

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      Think #MeToo didn’t make a real difference? Think…

      U.S. Politics / Elections

      This new model for upholding labor law may…

      War / Militarism

      Does It Make Sense to Protest a President…

      War / Militarism

      Lessons from the Pledge of Resistance

      War / Militarism

      Is Rambo Still A Republican?

      War / Militarism

      War: The Wrong Jobs Program

      War / Militarism

      The Ascent of Niall Ferguson

      War / Militarism

      Those Who Don’t Count

      War / Militarism

      Six Essays About War and About Peace

      War / Militarism

      The Dangerous Dignity of War

  • Translations
    • All Thai Chinese Deutsch Español Français Italiano Japanese Português Arabic
      Translations

      Jordlösa kombinerar radikala visioner med praktiska reformer (Swedish)

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Thai

      Progressive Good Tidings of 2007 (in Thai)

      Thai

      2006: A Global Justice Year in Review (In…

      Thai

      WTO: Best Left For Dead? (In Thai)

      Thai

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (In…

      Thai

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (In Thai)

      Thai

      The Last Porto Alegre [Thai]

      Thai

      Globalizers, Neocons, or… ? (in Thai)

      Chinese

      泛美洲人 爱德华多·加莱亚诺的世界 (Chinese)

      Chinese

      Why Wendell Matters (in Chinese)

      Chinese

      Globalization’s Watchdogs (in Chinese)

      Deutsch

      Die nicht-reformistischen Reformen von André Gorz

      Deutsch

      Als Martin Luther King seine Feuerwaffen aufgab

      Deutsch

      Mikrokredite: Die Entlassung eines Nobelpreisträgers

      Deutsch

      CAFTA – am besten stillschweigend beerdigen

      Deutsch

      Bush in Mexiko

      Deutsch

      Das globale Duell in Evian

      Deutsch

      Die Rückkehr des Daniel Ortega

      Español

      Hacer Que Nuestras Demandas Sean Tanto Orácticas Como…

      Español

      Las reformas no reformistas de André Gorz

      Español

      ¿Adoptará el nuevo papa la teología de la…

      Español

      Wall Street quiere que les estemos agradecidos

      Español

      Si Las Monjas Se Fueran a una Huelga,…

      Español

      ALEC retrocede; a la derecha le da un…

      Español

      ¿ALEC disgustado ante la pérdida de patrocinadores? Se…

      Español

      La vida en la nación prisión

      Français

      La révolution non-violente a-t-elle échoué en Egypte?

      Français

      Le pari risqué du populisme au Pérou

      Français

      Hong Kong Phooey

      Français

      Bush Nuit Même Aux Compagnies U.S.

      Français

      Le dynamisme du mouvement pour la paix

      Français

      La déroute de l’ALCA dans une Miami en…

      Français

      Ceux qui ne comptent pas

      Français

      La guerre en Irak : une expo des…

      Italiano

      C’è più di un modo per colpire il…

      Italiano

      Richieste dei movimenti: sia pratiche che visionarie

      Italiano

      La strategia di Gandhi per il successo –…

      Italiano

      Le promesse infrante di Obama

      Italiano

      Guantanamo deve sparire

      Italiano

      IL BANK TRANSFER DAY: UN SUCCESSO

      Italiano

      Come il movimento Occupiamo Wall Street si sta…

      Italiano

      Economia tabù

      Japanese

      ガンジーはどのように勝利したのか? (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Truth Versus Superpower (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Bad Business Empire (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Revenge of the Combat Cartoonist (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Bush’s Uneasy Mexican Visita (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Mark Twain in Iraq (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Globalization’s “Lost Decade” (Japanese)

      Japanese

      Hawks Say the Damnedest Things (Japanese)

      Português

      As reformas não reformistas de André Gorz mostram…

      Português

      A vida na Nação Prisão

      Português

      Outro pretexto?

      Português

      Imigração tem efeito positivo sobre emprego e salários

      Português

      O império hipotecado

      Arabic

      Abandoning the World Bank (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Return of Daniel Ortega (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Where’s The Jubilee? (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      The Last Porto Alegre (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Seattle At Five (in Arabic)

      Arabic

      Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty? (in…

      Arabic

      Mexico’s Democratic Transition Still Incomplete (in Arabic)

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2009-2010Blog

Social Forum Moments to Combat Cynicism

by Mark Engler June 25, 2010
written by Mark Engler June 25, 2010
Social Forum Moments to Combat Cynicism

A dispatch for the “Arguing the World” blog at Dissent magazine.

Published in Dissent.


Early on at the U.S. Social Forum, I was struck by the disjuncture between the huge ambition of the assembly and the limitations of the conference’s agenda and slate of decentralized workshops. In their planning statement for the social forum, organizers declared an intention to respond to “a state of national and global emergency” by defining “a direction for what will be the great project of our generation.” Needless to say, that’s a big task for any convention.

Whenever the social forum speaks of itself as the future of the U.S. Left, vexing issues arise: Can any coherent political program emerge from an amorphous, multi-issue assembly? Can we formulate a vision of the Left without more serious participation from key progressive constituencies such as organized labor? Can the collection of radicals and community-based organizations that are present here become a political force with mainstream reach, or are they too self-marginalizing? The answers are not easy to come by, and non-starry-eyed attendees can easily grow wary in contemplating such imposing matters.

Where the social forum thrives, in contrast, is in smaller moments, free of grand pretense. Walking the halls and seeing a seemingly endless stream of organizers, urban gardeners, filmmakers, human rights workers, energetic students, and community activists can be subtly uplifting. Occasionally, the conversations generated within this collection of people can be transcendent.

After attending the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2005, I wrote of some of the small, gratifying encounters that the social forum process sometimes creates:

“Strolling through the forum space could produce rewarding surprises. A colleague, Zeynep Toufe of the Institute for Public Accuracy, told of how, “tired, hot, severely underslept,” she stumbled into an afternoon panel on land rights and the “untouchable castes” of India. She was unexpectedly blown away by the testimony of homelessness and dispossession offered. “It was so uncynical that I didn’t know what to feel,” she reported. And when they burst into songs or chants, she stated, “It was one of the most sincere, the least contrived instances I have ever encountered of people shouting slogans…I tried to explain what a privilege it felt like to be in their presence.“”

Today in Detroit, I asked many people about their experiences of the U.S. Social Forum, and I heard of some similarly worthwhile happenings. One colleague who frequently participates in street theater spoke of attending a “creative action think tank” with other performers that was surprisingly advanced and engaging: “It was two hours full of ideas,” he told me.

Several people mentioned to me that they were deeply impressed by a presentation by New York’s Domestic Workers United. That group recently succeeded in passing a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York State that provides a groundbreaking framework that will allow groups of employees who were previously unprotected under national labor law to organize. A wider coalition of groups working on this issue, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, was formed at the last U.S. Social Forum (held in 2007 in Atlanta) and is now working to expand the New York victory.

A friend who traveled to the social forum with me and who works on anti-foreclosure initiatives was moved by a workshop organized by a Detroit-based group called Moratorium Now. The organization grew out of an anti-war coalition that had built a strong network of community relations. In recent years, they discovered that many of their members were dealing with foreclosure, and they decided that a collective response was warranted.

One of the members whose experience had been a catalyzing force for the group shared her story. A few years ago, she had taken out an unfavorable refinancing loan on a family home previously owned by her parents. After the crash, she lost the house. At the workshop, she spoke of the indignity she felt when police tore her mother’s possessions out of the foreclosed home. She was ashamed that she had taken the loan, even though she desperately needed the money at the time.

Workshop participants from around the country—tenets’ rights and anti-eviction activists from Miami, Toledo, and Chicago—nodded in recognition at the story. They responded by sharing strategies of resistance: How they had generated pressure by live-streaming video of people who were barricading themselves in their homes; how they had shamed Bank of America into backing off planned evictions of families and elderly residents; how legal strategists found a precedent for a moratorium on evictions in Great Depression-era jurisprudence that might be applied today.

My friend told me: “I went in thinking the demand would just be, ‘this is bad, we need to stop it.’ Instead, the groups were incredibly well researched. They had a track record of success that they could share.”

At the U.S. Social Forum, as in everyday political life, you can find plenty of things to feel cynical about. But you can also find people in whose presence it is a privilege to be. Those who leave motivated by that all-too-uncommon experience will rarely regret the effort taken to find it.

U.S. Social ForumWorld Social ForumDetroitDomestic Workers United
Mark Engler

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century.

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The Author

Mark Engler is a writer based in Philadelphia and an editorial board member at Dissent magazine. His latest book, written with Paul Engler, is entitled This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century (Nation Books). Mark’s full bio is available here.

Latest Articles

  • Could we be entering a ‘movement moment’ against Trump?

    April 10, 2025
  • Trump’s backpedaling shows he’s not invincible

    March 19, 2025
  • It’s going to take multiple strategies to win under Trump 2.0

    January 31, 2025
  • A new wave of movements against Trumpism is coming

    November 9, 2024
  • How to make sure your disruptive protest helps your cause

    August 9, 2024

Mark’s Articles Appear In:

  • Dissent
  • The Nation
  • The New Republic
  • N+1
  • Salon.com
  • The Los Angeles Times
  • Waging Nonviolence
  • Boston Review
  • The Atlantic
  • Rolling Stone
  • The Guardian
  • In These Times
  • TomDispatch
  • New Internationalist
  • Yes! Magazine
  • Audubon Magazine
  • Jacobin
  • Mother Jones
  • Le Monde diplomatique
  • Grist Magazine
  • Rebelión
  • The San Francisco Chronicle
  • The Progressive
  • Newsday
  • openDemocracy
  • Truthout
  • Christian Science Monitor
  • Dollars & Sense
  • Progreso Semanal
  • Chicago Reader
  • Sin Permiso
  • Baltimore Sun
  • The Ecologist
  • TruthDig
  • Asia Times
  • Sierra Magazine
  • Labor Notes
  • New Politics
  • The Catholic Worker
  • The Des Moines Register
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email

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