“Never in my wildest imagination, did I think I would ever see something like this in the United States,” Carlos Torres, a Chilean refugee now living in Canada told me half way through the forum. The sentiment was repeated again and again by Latin American visitors who were there as emissaries from the World Social Forum (WSF). It was radical, it was militant, it was feminist, it was anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist, it was queer, it was loud and lively and it was brimming with love, kindness and a deep sense of solidarity. The slogan of the USSF was “Another World is Possible, Another US is necessary.” It was interpreted both as another U.S. and another “us” meaning the left has to reinvent itself. And it was a major step forward for the World Social Forum movement.

The idea of a U.S. social forum came from a couple of people who went to the 2001 WSF in Brazil and then brought a few more with them in 2002. They formed a group called Grassroots Global Justice and began the process of organizing a U.S. Social Forum, firmly in the WSF spirit. One of them Fred Ascarate, then with Jobs for Justice, now with the AFL-CIO, explained to the opening plenary that “It took this long because we wanted to do it right by building the necessary relationships among the grass roots organizations and ensuring the right outcomes.” And the right outcomes were to create the conditions to unite the disparate grassroots people’s movements around the U.S. across race, age, sector and region. They got the idea from the WSF but they took it beyond where anyone else has managed to go, except perhaps in Mumbai.

In Nairobi, poor people demanded a significant place in the WSF planning process and in Atlanta, they had one. The National Planning Committee represented what they call national and regional “base-building” groups, whose base is mostly poor and working class people. It seemed to this observer that the forum shifted the balance of power on the American left to the poor and oppressed from the middle class. Time will tell what impact this will have. Every plenary focused on building alliances among the myriad of grass roots movement across the United States. Most emphasis was on a “black-brown” alliance to combat the racism that divides African Americans from their Latino and immigrant brothers and sisters. But there was a lot of focus on student/ labour alliances and environmental issues were completely linked to social justice issues. Support for gays, lesbians and transgendered people who have been major targets of the Bush administration seemed universal. The forum ended in a People’s Movements Assembly, where various regional and issue caucuses presented their resolutions. Several new national networks were formed and the bonds of solidarity were deeply forged among those who are usually divided.

People left with the commitment to organize social forums in their regions, cities and neighbourhoods. Over the course of the week, the social forum became a synonym for creating a movement of movements everywhere. “People are asking me when Atlanta has ever seen something like this “Jerome Scott of Project South and veteran Atlanta activist speaking of the opening march. “I’ve been reflecting on that and my answer is Atlanta has never seen anything like this. The Civil Rights movement was mostly African American and last year’s May 1 st (immigration rights) demo was mostly Latinos but this march was the most multi-national action I have ever seen. It was beautiful.” Most of every one of the 900 workshops over four days was filled to the brim with activists who were sharing strategies in everything from food security to community/labour alliances to a new taking back our cities movement against gentrification. The plenary speakers were majority women, people of colour, and young people. There was not a single left-wing star among them. In a culture obsessed with celebrity, the organizing committee decided they didn’t need any, even the good ones. None of the big NGO’s in the United States were on the planning committee.

The idea that foundation- funded, majority white, centrist and Washington dominated NGO’s and think tanks have hijacked the left was present throughout the forum. These groups were welcome to participate but not in a leadership capacity. Another extraordinary feature of the forum was the role of indigenous people who led the opening march and participated on several panels as well as their own plenary. Much of the vision came from them. After talking about the melting of the glaciers, Faith Gemmill from the REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Land) in Alaska said, “Our people have a prophesy that there will come a time in the history of humanity when people are in danger of destroying ourselves. When that time comes, a voice will arise from the North to warn us. That time is now. I was sent here to give you part of our burden to speak up now against the greed.” And Tom Goldtooth who represents the Indigenous Environmental Network on the national planning committee said, “”We must talk from the heart and shake hands with one another.

A prayer has taken place that this spirit is going to grow. No matter who we are we must demand not reform of a broken system but transformation. We need to organize from the grassroots.” And many did speak from the heart. The plenary on Katrina was stunning to me. While I certainly followed the immediate aftermath I had no idea of the continuing efforts to white wash New Orleans. Dr. Beverley Wright speaking from the floor said, “our parents and our grandparents fought to buy a house to pass on to their family and they are trying to take that away from us when they talk about turning the place we lived in East New Orleans into a green space. They’re not talking about turning the place rich white folks live into green space. “ Another community leader said, “Katrina is both a reality and a symbol. If you work in justice, if you work in health care, if you work in housing, you are in Katrina.” One of the most powerful speeches was from Javier Gallardo from the New Orleans Workers Centre. A guest work from Peru, he explained that when African Americans were displaced, hundreds of workers, like him, had been brought in from Latin America for Gulf Coast reconstruction and their employers names are on the passports. Their ability to stay in the U.S. is dependent on the employer. He said that there is now a practice that when the employer is finished with the workers, he sells them to another employer for $2,000 each. “What is that?,” he asked. “We call it modern day slavery. They want to divide us but the old slaves and the new slaves can join together and together we can defeat them,” he continued to thunderous applause.

The old slaves/new slaves metaphor wove its way through the rest of the forum in the powerful idea of a black-brown alliance, that veteran activists said would transform left- wing politics in the United States and especially in the South where the vast majority of the working class is now black and brown. Another impressive feature of the forum was the handling of conflict. When the Palestinian contingent objected that they were the only group not permitted to speak for themselves in the anti-war plenary, the organizers read their letter of protest to the next plenary. When the report of the indigenous caucus was stopped at the end of their allotted time by the moderator of the Peoples Movement Assembly by removing their mike, they took grave offense and felt silenced. Within ten minutes most of the indigenous people in the room were on the stage with the consent of the organizers. What could have been an explosive divisive moment with a lot of anger and hurt was handled with incredible skill by both permitting the protest and making sure it was interpreted in a way that created unity rather than division.

I had the feeling that a new culture of solidarity was being born, one we tried for in the feminist movement but never quite accomplished. Of course there were weaknesses in the forum. While strongly rooted in the traditions of the Civil Rights movement by the symbolic location in Atlanta and the presence of veteran civil rights activists, there was less discussion of working class or even feminist history.

Yet the impact of those movements were strongly felt in the powerful female leadership present everywhere and the strong emphasis on workers issues and organizing. None of the big environmental groups were present. While the issue of the war and U.S. imperialism had pride of place, the mainstream anti-war movement had little presence. The forum organizers bent the stick quite far towards poor, working class, indigenous, queer and people of colour groups and perhaps this was necessary to create the kind of movement really capable of making change in the United States. In her famous speech at the 2002 World Social Forum in Brazil, Arundhati Roy famously said, “Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. “

It wasn’t a quiet day in Atlanta but I could hear her shouting there, “What do we want? Justice. How will we get it? People Power.”

Particularly with such purposefully inflicted trauma, an effort is made by the perpetrators to sweep the consequences under the proverbial rug, to hide the real impact of human violence and violation. This is even more the case with institutions that are wholly designed to inflict trauma and reap disempowerment on a global scale, such as the US military establishment. We should thus find it unsurprising that while such an institution shirks responsibility for the torture and terror it sows across occupied lands like Iraq, it would also leave behind casualties of trauma within its own ranks.

Bryan's trauma

Bryan Dammon Smith, a Detroit native, is a decorated and disabled veteran as well as husband and father of four. For fifteen years he has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as well as physical disabilities, as a result of his military service; he is currently awaiting trial on capital charges in San Diego, California, scheduled for October.

Growing up, Bryan succeeded in most everything he tried his hand at ? he was a natural leader, always working to improve himself and strengthen his community. Among his many achievements, he was elected class president in high school, competed in the Junior Olympics and was a Reserve Officers Training Core (ROTC) Major. Rather than attend college ? and over the objections of his family ? he decided to join the Marines after high school. Showing immediate promise, he soon received official commendations from his superiors.

During a Special Forces training operation in June 1992, tragedy struck by way of an equipment failure. Eight months into his military service, Bryan fell sixty feet down a cliff and landed head and shoulders first; his back broke in four places, and his knees and legs were severely damaged. He stayed in the Marines for a year afterward, slowly recuperating, working for the chaplain and organizing a regimental choir that performed for the larger community. He was discharged in 1993 after being declared only partially disabled, thus limiting his compensation and access to healthcare. And, like many other veterans, he was left without the job training or resources to make the necessary transition back to civilian life.

Bryan's personality changed deeply after the fall, and seven years afterward he was diagnosed with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) induced by his accident. Yet it took eleven years from the time of his fall for him to be given full disability, and in the meantime, he suffered from a bevy of symptoms such as continuous pain, severe memory loss, insomnia, nightmares and migraines. At the same time, his mental state worsened without diagnosis or treatment. Despite his physical and psychological wounds, he was expected by those responsible for his accident to fend for himself.

In 1994, Bryan ? who had no previous criminal record ? was arrested and charged with drug and weapons possession (the latter for carrying his Marines-issue billy club in the trunk of his car). He spent nearly nine years in and out of correctional facilities, sent back three times for violating his parole. Each time, he did so by travelling to Detroit, visiting his family and trying to reconstruct his memory and his life.

After getting off of parole in California, Bryan moved back to Detroit to be near his family. He remarried and worked hard to pull his life together, finally receiving disability. In late 2005, he was extradited from Michigan to face charges of felony murder from a 1994 San Diego robbery, in which Tayser El Farra was killed while working at his convenience store. The state of California omitted any mention of the death penalty from their extradition request to the state of Michigan, where the death penalty has never been used and was banned in 1846. This omission perhaps occurred because mention of capital punishment might have led to a request for non-capital charges against Bryan prior to his extradition, based on Michigan Governor Granholm's stated strong opposition to the death penalty.

_{Now, Bryan awaits his October trial date in a San Diego jail, and may very well be sentenced to death if found guilty. The Defense Committee to Free Bryan Smith is not debating the facts of the case at present; we are asking that, rather than the death penalty, he face charges that will result in "life without the benefit of parole" if found guilty. As demonstrated by numerous studies and a pending class action suit in San Diego County, death penalty juries are disproportionately white, male and 'trigger-happy,' with an acquittal rate of only five percent on death penalty cases in that county. We first want out of that mess, and then we can begin to talk about justice.}

The Larger Picture

Bryan's trauma was the result of a training accident, but there are tens of thousands of US soldiers and contractors who will soon be returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, damaged by things they have seen and done. They will need emotional support, therapy, job training and enormous efforts to help them integrate themselves back into society; the Defense Committee hopes to encourage long-term organizing around issues of trauma and recovery, as these needs require resources that we must both demand from the government and organize to provide ourselves as communities. We are up against a system that trains its soldiers to inflict violence ? leaving them traumatized in addition to the targeted communities ? and then drops them back into civilian life without the skills and resources they need.

Beyond Bryan's plight, this is also a fight against larger social injustices, faced by millions of Americans: an appalling insistence on clinging to capital punishment in a world that has largely left it behind; insufficient resources and re-training for veterans, regardless of their ranking; a lack of access to adequate care for physical and mental health issues; and an ongoing genocide in the United States, where communities of color are broken over and over again in hopes that someday they will finally give up and disappear.

If you want to help us resist the government's insistence that it can deny our loved ones their right to exist, please ? talk to members of your community about Bryan's situation. Anyone is invited to help in any way they can, and we are already working with a number of church groups, veterans' organizations, people of color community organizations, progressive/radical groups, and various other groups and individuals. We are currently seeking financial assistance to help pay for the phone calls and copies that make up our day-to-day work, as well as transportation and lodging costs for Sandra, Bryan's mother, who will be travelling to San Diego in the fall and staying about two months for the duration of the jury selection and trial. Any suggestions or other offers of help are much appreciated; checks should be made out to:

The Defense Committee to Free Bryan Smith

P.O. Box 44474

Detroit, MI 48244

We are also asking that those who wish to help write to the San Diego District Attorney, Bonnie M. Dumanis, and ask her to take the death penalty off the table. We encourage supporters of Bryan to contact certain elected representatives in Michigan; ask them to call for non-capital charges for Bryan Smith, a disabled and decorated Michigan veteran suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Remind them that no one deserves the death penalty!

Trauma functions by shattering individual lives and whole communities, and then leaving behind the pieces. We need your help to prevent the possible murder of a mentally ill veteran, a man who had a bright future snatched away from him in the midst of his youth. We invite community members and activists everywhere to join us in this appeal, and to insist that the death penalty does not bring justice to anyone.