Events

CAGJ announces plans for December Teach-in!

CAGJ is excited to announce that plans are shaping up for our fall teach-in “Confronting the Food Crisis: Cultivating Just Alternatives to the Corporate Food System.” 

The free event will take place Friday, December 5th and Saturday, December 6th and will feature hands-on workshops and panels that help us to Understand Corporate Control and Build Just Alternatives with respect to local and global food systems. Saturday will be held at Seattle Central Community College and Friday’s location will be announced soon!

We could still use lots of help with planning of the teach-in! If you are interested, please email Teresa at fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org

Movies in the Park!

Community Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ) and Lettuce Link invites one and all to our annual Movie in the Park!

Featuring “The Greening of Cuba” and “Zapata’s Garden”

When: Saturday, September 13, 2008, 7:00 PM Rain or Shine!

Where: Marra Farm 9026 4th Ave S. (Located in the South Park Neighborhood, just south of S. Cloverdale and 5th Avenue S.) The film will be shown in the Lettuce Link garden, in the NW corner of the farm. Driving and bus directions are listed below. Street parking is available, but carpooling is highly encouraged!

Suggested donation: $10. (No one turned away for lack of funds). Bring blankets, your kids, and snacks or a dessert to share! We’ll have freshly roasted corn and drinks available!

Films:

“The Greening of Cuba”

A Food First film that profiles Cuban farmers and scientists working to reinvent a sustainable agriculture, based on ecological principles and local knowledge rather than imported agricultural inputs. In their quest for self sufficiency, Cubans combine time-tested traditional methods with cutting edge bio-technology.

“Zapata’s Garden/ El Huerto de Zapata”

Shot and produced by indigenous men and women video makers in the Autonomous Municipaltiy of Emiliano Zapata, this video looks at the new society that the Zapatista’s are building. Zapata’s Garden shows how this new municipality is fighting the effects of globalization and government corruption through their work in their collective garden. Community members talk about the importance of collective work in building this new society.

The Community Alliance for Global Justice is an organization of volunteers who contribute their skills, time and money to work for a just local and global economy.

Driving and Bus Directions:

Southbound – from 99 via First Avenue South Bridge

Southbound from I-5

BUS ROUTES # 130, 132, and 60:

Food Politics Teach-In

CAGJ will be holding a teach-in on food politics, along with a film series, on December 5th and 6th.  We’d love for you to be involved, and will need help planning starting in August.  If you’d like to help out, send us an email!

News

CAGJ announces plans for December Teach-in!

CAGJ is excited to announce that plans are shaping up for our fall teach-in “Confronting the Food Crisis: Cultivating Just Alternatives to the Corporate Food System.” 

The free event will take place Friday, December 5th and Saturday, December 6th and will feature hands-on workshops and panels that help us to Understand Corporate Control and Build Just Alternatives with respect to local and global food systems. Saturday will be held at Seattle Central Community College and Friday’s location will be announced soon!

We could still use lots of help with planning of the teach-in! If you are interested, please email Teresa at fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org

“Battle in Seattle” premieres Sept 19: help build the People’s History of the Battle of Seattle!

On Friday September 19 “Battle in Seattle”, the major-motion picture about the WTO protests, will finally open in Seattle and other cities. The film is director Stuart Townsend’s first, and stars Andre Benjamin, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Channing Tatum, and Charlize Theron in a fictionalized account of the week of protests, including some archival footage. Many organizations are helping to promote the film nationally, including Citizen’s Trade Campaign and Global Exchange.

CAGJ invites you to:
*See the film - It opens at the Neptune Theater in the U-District and at the Uptown on Queen Anne. Visit the “Battle in Seattle” Film website and trailer.

*Help to create and amplify a People’s History of the Battle of Seattle told by the people, groups and movements who participated and made it happen! This project was launched at the 2007 US Social Forum to create a space where “social movements can tell our own stories, reclaim our own histories, and publicly fight damaging myths of our movements past and present” (read ”A Call to Social Movements to Reclaim Our History” below)

We need your help! You can…

1. Share YOUR story from the 1999 protests on the recently created website, “The Real Battle in Seattle”. It is easy to contribute!
2. View the Seattle WTO People’s History! You can browse postings by date, or subject or author. The website also includes information about the WTO and social movements organizing for global justice.
3. Help spread the word:

-Contact CAGJ if you would like to pass out post-cards about the project at one of the upcoming screenings: call 206.405.4600
-Tell your friends, colleagues, & families about this People’s History Project!

4. Learn more about the film and response, including the Seattle WTO People’s History Project:

-Read “The Battle for Reality”, by David Solnit, a key organizer of the protests in 1999.

-KUOW interviewed CAGJ’s Director, Heather Day, about the film the day after its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival. They wanted to talk to someone who had been involved in the 1999 protests who had attended the premiere. Hear the interview, and Heather’s critiques of the film (It starts about 45 minutes into the program - you can quickly fast forward to hear it). Note: this link must be pasted into the address bar in order to work!
http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=15000

-KPFA Hard Knock Radio in the Bay Area interviewed Heather Sept 17 (it starts about 10 minutes into the program):

-See/hear David Solnit and Stuart Townsend on Democracy Now 9/18.

-Check out “The Battle of the Story of the “Battle of Seattle”, a new book edited by David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit - Publisher: AK Press. “With the World Trade Organization in retreat globally, do we remember the seeds of the anti-capitalist movements that blossomed and, in 1999, brought Seattle to a standstill? This collection confronts the challenges of historical memory. David Solnit recounts the story of his consultation with the Battle In Seattle filmmakers…Rebecca Solnit tells of her battle with the NY Times, challenging their repeated misinformation about the Seattle protests.”  Read more, and order the book here: http://www.akpress.org/2008/items/battleofseattleakpress

5. Watch “This is What Democracy Looks Like”, an excellent documentary that captures the 1999 WTO protests, cut from the footage of over 100 media activists. Call CAGJ to borrow a copy, or order the film here.

The Battle for the Story of Seattle: A Call to Social Movements to Reclaim Our History
“Until the lions have their own historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter.”
—African Proverb

In the fall of 2009, a major motion picture called “Battle in Seattle” will come out in cities across the country. The movie is a fictionalized account based on real events, featuring extensive archival footage. It may shape what most people in the US and around the world think happened for decades to come—unless we speak up. We call for social movements to take action: to reclaim our history, our stories, and our future.

The story of popular resistance to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in 1999 is a story of how people power can change the world. It is a dangerous example for the global elite, and a powerful one for movements.

For eight years, the US corporate media, global elites, and their police have been twisting and marginalizing the truth, in order to invent their own story of Seattle 1999 and the stories of social movements’ resistance and victories. These lies and revisions of history have been used in an attempt to criminalize and repress our protests, movements, and mobilizations.

The movie will be released on the eighth anniversary of the 1999 Seattle anti-WTO uprising and shutdown [note: this release date was planned but did not happen]. It was written by a well-meaning actor-director, but is unlikely to reflect the motives, experience, or thinking of the movements behind the shutdown of the WTO. The potential is high and the possibilities are infinite to interrupt this narrative and claim the history that we helped create.
“The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
—Milan Kundera

It’s time that we in the social movements tell our own stories, reclaim our own histories, and publicly fight damaging myths of our movements past and present. We must intervene in the public understanding of what happened, what is happening, and what it all means. Stories are how we understand the world and thus shape the future—they are part of our fight against corporate power, empire, war, and social and environmental injustice and for the alternatives that will make a better world.

The real story of Seattle 1999 is of tens of thousands of people rising up, taking direct action, and changing history; standing up to corporations and governments and winning; joining with movements around the world in our common struggle against the WTO.

“When it’s truly alive, memory doesn’t contemplate history, it invites us to make it.”
—Eduardo Galeano, Upside Down: a primer for the looking-glass world

Let’s link the 1999 resistance to the WTO in Seattle and globally with building support for today’s resistance that is continuing the fight for global justice on many fronts; against war and occupation for environmental and climate justice; for workers, immigrants, women, and farmers rights, etc. We call for commemorations, public events, performances, media, interventions, interruptions, educational events, performances, screenings, gatherings, and celebrations.

Thanks for making our second SLEE Dinner and Fair a success!

Thanks to dozens of volunteers, hundreds of attendees, farmers, tabling organizations, sponsors and donors, and many others, our second annual Strengthening Local Economies, Everywhere gathering was a huge success! Despite the last-minute date change, the event was very well attended. During the fair, Washington wine, beers, oysters and appetizers were served while over 50 organizations shared information with the public. Nearly 400 guests attended the dinner. Over 70 kind, hard-working volunteers such as yourself came together to orchestrate this terrific event. We feel fortunate to be able to share a vision of a sustainable economy where all of us, from local farmers and small business owners to informed community members, play an integral role.

The delicious dinner was made entirely from produce donated by local farmers and restaurants that use locally grown produce, as well as local fish and food from Portage Bay Café. Diners enjoyed discussions during the meal, which was prepared, as you well know, by our wonderful volunteer chefs, led by Travis English, and served family style. The keynote by Carlos Marentes of Via Campesina and Committee for Immigration Reform and Social Justice was powerful and thought-provoking- look for it on our website soon! We were privileged to have 50 honorary food producer guests at the dinner tables. CAGJ encouraged everyone to become members, or to renew, and to take action to strengthen local economies everywhere. We were also able to share CAGJ’s 3 new programs with guests: the Food Justice Project, AGRA Watch, and the Trade Justice Project.

This year’s silent auction contained over 15 packages with terrific items from garden makeovers to worm bins to gift certificates to local restaurants, and the event closed with an awesome dessert auction! Overall the event raised much-needed funds to help cover expenses and continue working on our three main projects. Most importantly, CAGJ members have been re-energized, and a core group of dedicated volunteers are eager to continue organizing for food and trade justice. We hope you consider yourself one of the energized CAGJ supporters who is ready to engage in change for the better!

We are already thinking ahead to next year’s dinner, searching for an ideal location with great sound and a warm atmosphere. Thanks to the support of organizations and people like you, the event was successful not only economically, but also in that we continued to create a sense of community with a shared vision of a sustainable lifestyle that supports the environment and ourselves.

Check back soon for more pictures from the event!

New Website Launched!

Welcome to CAGJ’s new website! We’re very excited to have launched this new design, with updated functionality and content for all the great projects and work happening right now. Special thanks go to Nathan Rosquist for designing and implementing the site, and to Derek Hoshiko and WebCollective for their help on the project.

The new site is meant to be a place for sharing information, news, and events with our members and the public. We’ll soon have all the different ways you can get involved, action alerts, upcoming events, and more! Thanks for bearing with us as we get everything updated.

Strengthening Local Economies, Everywhere! Dinner and Fair

Garfield Community Center
2323 East Cherry Street, Seattle, WA 98122, in the Central District
Fair at 3pm, Dinner at 5pm