Encuentro: a Peoples' Global Action infopoint in New
York City

New York City is joining Peoples' Global Action!

We are popular educators, anti-war and palestinian
solidarity organizers, prison abolitionists, and
anarchist academics — in short, we are rebels...

New York City may have Wall Street, hundreds of
corporate headquarters, and the largest police force
in the world, but it is also home to diverse
communities, beautiful cultures of resistance, and a
legacy of radical struggle. We live here in this major
metropolis of the North with all of its resources
(both material and cultural) and it is from here that
we join Peoples’ Global Action (PGA).We hope to contribute to PGA by facilitating links
between local and global struggles, bringing together
activists and organizations that can benefit and learn
from each other's struggles and triumphs. We are
inspired by the principles, structures, and
achievements of social movements throughout the world
and through popular education hope to share these
dreams, lessons, and experiences with local organizers
and communities. Through salons, fundraisers,
actions, and other encounters, we will open pathways
of communication to strengthen our global resistance.

For starters, this February and March of 2005 we are:

* Facilitating a workshop on Peoples' Global Action at
the National Conference on Organized Resistance> in
Washington, D.C. (February 6th).

* Hosting a salon bringing together Palestinian and
Acehnese solidarity organizers to share strategy and
struggle (February 13th).

* Throwing a benefit party for the Via Campesina
Tsunami Relief Campaign
(March 26th).

Please get in touch!

Email us at nycencuentro@yahoo.com (we hope to be
reachable at "encuentro@riseup.net" in the near future!)
or you can send mail to:

Encuentro

c/o Bluestockings Books

172 Allen St.

New York, NY 10002

Peoples’ Global Action is the network that put out the
call for global actions against the 1999 World Trade
Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle and
includes hundreds of organizations ranging from
peasant movements in Brazil and India to labor unions
in Argentina and Canada, indigenous peoples, farmers,
fisherfolk, immigrants, squatters, environmentalists,
anarchists, autonomists, and rebels from every
continent, united by a set of shared principles (see
below). It remains a fulcrum of resistance, even as it
is engaged in a process of reformulation now that
global elites have reacted to our movements' successes
by trying to plunge the world into a nightmare of war
and genocidal violence. At this time, we feel it's
absolutely crucial to fill in a major missing piece in
this planetary network and build PGA here in the very
heart of empire.


Hallmarks of Peoples’ Global Action:


1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism
and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and
governments that promote destructive globalization.


2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and
discrimination including, but not limited to,
patriarchy, racism and religious
fundamentalism of all creeds.
We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.


3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think
that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased
and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational
capital is the only real policy-maker;


4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience,
support for social movements' struggles, advocating
forms of resistance which maximize respect for life
and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the
construction of local alternatives to global
capitalism.


5. An organisational philosophy based on
decentralisation and autonomy.