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IPPN
PO Box 1041
Bloomfield, NJ 07003
(973)338-5398
indpol@igc.org
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Welcome to IPPN:
Building a unified, independent, progressive
alternative to the corporate controlled, two-party, economic/political system.
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  Join activists working to promote Independent Politics as the Independent Progressive Politics Network hosts its 7th Summit on Independent Politics during the US Social Forum. Beginning Friday morning at 10am with an opening discussion of achievements, opportunities and challenges facing third and alternative party activists, we will spend time talking, debating and thinking together to yield recommendations and organizing strategies for the near and long
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 George Friday on the radio!
From WORT in Madison, Wisconsin, we have this intervju with IPPN Co-Ordinator George Friday.
It was originally broadcast on March 14, and is well worth a listen.
To download the file, right-click here, and choose "save target as".
Click the logo to visit the WORT website.
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IPPN Welcomes George Friday!
It is with profound joy and respect that we welcome George Friday as our new National Co-Ordinator. With an activist "career" spanning the decade of the nineties to today, we know she will bring experience, passion, and a vision that will greatly benefit our organization. Below is an excerpt from George's vision for United for Peace and Justice:
"I don't know everything. I know my vision is not the only one in the room. A room where you value different voices and can create a dynamic collective vision. A vision that expands as our numbers swell without losing the clarity that can still connect each of us to that unique image that fuels our commitment, passion and joy for justice. A room where folks know they can keep their sense of self, feel their vision is real as they are moving forward together. As a result of feeling part of the whole, of the community, they are willing to ante-up all their real resources, building the strength of, and not primarily taking from, the coalition.
I can help us remember to have some fun, stay upbeat, energized and spiritually fed - embracing the potential moments of joy instead of purposefully collecting all the misery- of which there is always plenty. I bring the learning from the moment in my early teens when our house burned down. For once my dad had a good paying job and there was actually some money in the bank - I finally had a room of my own for like nine days. My granma was hovering around the threshold of the burned remains of what had been my door. I was sitting on the floor of what was left - beyond tears. She let me feel the depths of my sorrow and despair.
Then she spoke up, reminding me that as bad as it may feel, we got work to do! As the song goes, we have so much to do we must move slowly."
Welcome, George. We look forward to doing great things together.
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U.S. Social Forum Being Held Next Summer
Why a U.S. Social Forum?
Progressive forces in the United States have not been able to mount an effective national response to issues such as the Gulf Coast tragedies, corporate scandals, government corruption, war, attacks against migrants, deregulation, corporate welfare, a widening gap between the rich and poor, a deteriorating education system, monopolization of the media, privatization of public resources, a ballooning federal deficit and attacks on our civil liberties. In the face of these enormous challenges the progressive movement remains fractured along geography, race, class and issues. The nation’s largest labor federation split, and union membership is at its lowest point in decades. Churches, once a backbone of the civil rights, peace and environmental justice movements, have lost strength due to scandal within the Catholic church, declining membership and the rise of the religious right. Grassroots community-based organizations represent a growing sector, but are severely under-resourced. This lack of political strength demonstrates the clear need for greater convergence among progressives and for spaces in which progressives can begin to come together and articulate our vision for "another world."
The US Social Forum will provide this space. It will be the largest gathering of progressives in over a decade, drawing participants from different regions, ethnicities, sectors and ages. Community-based organizations, Indigenous nations, unions, academics, policy and advocacy organizations will be able to come together for dialogues, reflection and to define future strategies.
The purpose of the USSF is to effectively and affirmatively articulate the values and strategies of progressive civil society in the United States. Those who build towards and participate in the USSF are no longer interested in simply stating what social justice movements "stand-against," rather we see ourselves as part of new movements that reach beyond national borders, that practice democracy at all levels, and that can articulate the world we want. The USSF provides a first major step towards such articulation by bringing together the new movements.
For more information go to http://www.ussf2007.org.
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MARCH FOR PEACE, JUSTICE AND DEMOCRACY
A war based on lies
Spying, corruption and attacks on civil liberties
Katrina survivors abandoned by government
End the war in Iraq - Bring all our troops home now!
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006, NEW YORK CITY
Unite for change - let's turn our country around!
Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values,
and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. The times are urgent and we must act.
- No more never-ending oil wars!
- Protect our civil liberties & immigrant rights.
- End illegal spying, government corruption and the subversion of our democracy.
- Rebuild our communities, starting with the Gulf Coast.
- Stop corporate subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy while ignoring our basic needs.
- Act now to reverse the climate crisis and end the war on nature.
Our message to the White House and to Congress is clear: either stand with us or stand aside! We are coming together to march, to vote, to speak out and to turn our country around!
April 29th Initiating Organizations: United for Peace and Justice, RainbowPUSH Coalition, National Organization for Women, Friends of the Earth, U.S. Labor Against the War, Climate Crisis Coalition, Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund, National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, Veterans for Peace. For additional endorsers go to website below.
For more information: www.april29.org, 212-868-5545
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United for Peace and Justice
IPPN has been active within the peace movement since right after the 9/11 attacks. We played a key role in forging a coalition which organized the first, major demonstration in April, 2002 in Washington, D.C. against the Bush Administration's militaristic and repressive reaction to that attack. 80,000 people marched on that day.
As United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org) came together toward the end of that year we were active as it organized against the illegal invasion of Iraq, and we have been active ever since. George Friday, a member of IPPN's Steering and Executive Committees, was elected last year to be one of three national co-chairs of UFPJ.
IPPN has worked to help UFPJ strengthen its alliance building work so that, especially on local levels, the peace movement is more consistently anti-racist and therefore more multi-cultural, as well as better connected with labor, community, religious and other groups. This is a core commitment of IPPN that George and others involved with UFPJ have prioritized.
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Popular Education
IPPN has increasingly seen the importance of a "popular education" perspective to the organizing work that our members do. One of our member organizations, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, has been doing organized popular education workshops for years and has developed toolkits and workbooks. To find out more go to www.projectsouth.org.
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IPPN Leader Arthur Kinoy Passes On
On Friday morning, September 19th, just one day before his 83rd birthday,
IPPN founder and leader Arthur Kinoy died of a heart attack at home.
In some ways this was a blessing for Arthur and his family and friends.
He had seen a doctor the day before and it looked as if he had lung
cancer. He had just begun to use an oxygen machine to help him breathe.
Arthur devoted the last 30 years of his life to the cause of building an
independent progressive party, a "mass party of the people" as he called
it in a paper written in the early '70s. He helped to create IPPN and has
been on our national steering and executive committees throughout the
eight years of our existence. He will be greatly missed.
There was a moving and memorable memorial service for Arthur Kinoy on November 16th,
2003 at St. John the Divine Episcopal Church Synod House, 110th St.
and Amsterdam Ave. But
truly, the best memorial to Arthur is to continue the work he was so
committed to of building an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans,
fighting against racism and for a new society based upon justice,
equality and love.
Arthur was a little man with a huge heart of gold. He will not be
forgotten.
(To see a longer piece IPPN Coordinator Ted Glick has written about
Arthur Kinoy go here.
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Independent Progressives Gather at U. of Michigan And Make Plans to Strengthen Movement's Political Impact Going Into 2004, and Beyond
Over 100 activists from 18 states and the District of Columbia, from over
50 organizations, gathered the weekend of July 11-13th, at the sixth
national summit of the Independent Progressive Politics Network in Ann
Arbor, Michigan. The event was hosted by the Green Party of Michigan and
its U-M Student Greens and Huron Valley Greens locals.
A highlight of the weekend was the keynote speech of former Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney. In her speech she quoted the Declaration of
Independence: "When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under
absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
This spirit of resistance pervaded the conference from beginning to end.
Read More
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