The last week in June 2007 -- June 27th through July 1st to be exact -- Atlanta, Georgia will be the site of the first-ever US Social Forum. The website of the US Social Forum declares:

The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression. The USSF will provide space to build relationships, learn from each other's experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and bring renewed insight and inspiration. It will help develop leadership and develop consciousness, vision, and strategy needed to realize another world.

The USSF sends a message to other people's movements around the world that there is an active movement in the US opposing US policies at home and abroad.

We must declare what we want our world to look like and begin planning the path to get there. A global movement is rising. The USSF is our opportunity to demonstrate to the world Another World is Possible!

The effort is connected to the World Social Forum, which has grown to be a global response to the global neoliberal agenda. The global slogan is, "Another world is possible." Already millions of people around the world have participated in previous social forums, and the World Social Forum in some form of fashion has touched every continent inhabited by human beings. People gather stimulated with the vision that there is another way besides a global system driven by profit over the needs of people.

Truth be told, the social forum movement comes late to the US, and US activists have not participated broadly in the manifestations of the Social Forum in other parts of the world. Radicals around the world looked to the US with some expectation that US anti-globalization activists would get a clue and do something... Though coming late in the organization of the US Social Forum, activists in the US have ambitiously tackled the effort to build the social forum. Already thousands of people have participated in the process on a regional level with regional social forums and organizing committees. There has never been a way to capture what the Social Forums are as an event. They are not conferences. They are not demonstrations. They often don't end with any concrete resolutions or plans. Yet people still come. Very often they are at least an inspirational gathering for people who have been involved in the various social movements.

There are some themes that seem to flow through these gatherings. Themes around participatory democracy, grassroots organizing, opposition to corporate globalization, human rights, environmental justice, etc.

People will be coming from the trenches of many diverse movements like the workers' movements, women's movement, anti-death penalty movement, the environmental movements and the queer movement, to name a few. Many will be coming with an understanding that the oppressions and exploitations that they are fighting are rooted in white supremacist, patriarchal capitalism. Others may not come with that understanding. Some participants may hold the vision that another world is a world that still fits into a more "humane" way of living under capitalism.

The very broad nature of the social forum movement is paradoxically a strength and a weakness. Various class forces, various ideological viewpoints, and various visions will converge in the social forum. Out of the cacophony that is a characteristic of such a manifestation the question that we need to ask is: Can a harmonious vision of another world emerge? And I'm not talking about a dawning of some Aquarian age. There is often a tinge of New-Age naiveté that also appears at some of the social forums.

The regional forums have been different expressions. Some, like the South East Social Forum held in Durham, NC, were overwhelmingly composed of working-class people of color. Likewise, the Southwest Social Forum, which gathered on the crest of the powerful upsurge for immigrant rights in the US, was also overwhelmingly composed of Latinos and other oppressed nationalities. Other social forums in other parts of the country were composed of anti-war activists, Greens, etc., and some were more academic and conference-like in their approach.

This hodge-podge of vision and views can be off-putting for some radicals who find themselves rooted in some of the classical movements of the left. They might hesitate to show up to something like the US Social Forum. That would be a mistake because this moment may be an opportunity to strike a note for change.

I believe we don't have the luxury of the general statement, "Another world is possible." Another world is possible, true. Not only is it possible. Another world will eventually emerge. There is no guarantee, though, that world will be qualitatively better than the world that we live in now. The global situation is such that that other world could be even more hellish and nightmarish than the one we live in now. That might be reason enough to show up to what may be one of the biggest gatherings of forward-looking people outside of an anti-war demonstration or other protest. The difference is that here is an opportunity for people not only to say strongly what they are against but what they are for.

Socialists have an opportunity and indeed the responsibility to say, "Yes, another world is possible, and that world is one where the system based on profit and exploitation has been overthrown and the foundations of a society focused on the needs of humanity can be established." We can say that a socialist world is possible. Organized socialists will probably not be alone in saying this at the Social Forum. We must respectfully take the message a step further. We must state not only where we must go but how we believe we can get there.

We also have the opportunity at the US Social Forum to strongly put forward our vision of not only where we are going but how we will get there. We in Freedom Road (FRSO/OSCL) contend that the need for a revolutionary party in the US must be placed on the agenda. A party rooted in the struggles of exploited and oppressed peoples here in the US. A party that can articulate the various movements that often run in their separate currents. We need a revolutionary party that will stand up against white supremacy and unite the working class in the fight for the self-determination of oppressed nations within these borders. We need a revolutionary party that will be mindful of its responsibility in the heart and belly of the beast. We need a revolutionary party that is the organized and conscious expression of the movement of movements for another world, for a socialist world. We will be at the US Social Forum to say just that in our own way.

Neither the organized socialist left in its size and composition nor the left as it is found in the number of small community-based organizations, foundation supported NGOs, and other formations in and of themselves and by themselves bring about the shift of balance that will challenge the hegemony of the ruling class.

I hope that socialists, both members of organizations and individuals, come to the Social Forum. I hope that the socialists will participate in the Social Forum in a non-sectarian, non-hegemonic way. I hope that socialists show up to learn from the various movements that will converge at the Social Forum. I hope that socialists show up not merely to gobble up new members for their organizations or to sell their quota of newspapers, but to point to something that hopefully is beyond any one existing organization. I hope that socialists show up not to get on soap boxes to harangue and chastise people for not following whatever vanguard they purport to be, but that they show up to dialog with and listen to all the leftists and radicals who will be in Atlanta around which way the left should go to realize another world, a socialist world.