Posted by By Samantha Jacobs
The United States Congress does not represent the people of the United States or their interests. On September 16th and 17th in Washington D.C., a new type of congress will convene. The People’s Congress of Resistance, which will give a real voice to the workers and oppressed communities who’s demands are regularly shut down and silenced by the U.S. Congress of millionaires.
The Trump agenda is an outright attack against workers, the poor, and oppressed communities, and the Democratic Party is not stepping in to fight back. Unrestrained capitalism has left the working class on the defensive, forced to resist deep cuts being made to basic services.
Instead of tax money going to fund things that will benefit the working class, such as health care, housing, education, or jobs, most of the national budget goes into the military industrial complex to fund endless wars that the people do not want.
The People’s Congress of Resistance rejects both capitalist parties, and instead seeks to bring together an assembly of genuine grassroots organizers, activists, and resistors from around the country to create a new Congress of working class communities who are fighting back.
It is time for the people to work together and claim the power that they already have. The People’s Congress of Resistance is a place for the sharing of knowledge and tactics from the direct experience of individuals who lead the resistance in their communities. It’s a place for workers to come together and develop a shared vision of what a society that is truly by and for the people would look like.
The People’s Congress of Resistance aims to create a strategy of nationwide mobilization to defeat the reactionary Trump agenda, which threatens to destroy the major reforms workers were able to win through grassroots struggle, and demand an end to class war against all workers, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ population, Muslims, the Black community, Native communities, and so many more. The Congress will also be an organizational tool to coordinate the ongoing resistance and act as a platform that can protect the social and political rights of all people.
Efforts to build the People’s Congress of Resistance have already begun and will continue over the coming months. Local assemblies all over the country are being launched in order to determine what issues are most important to the working class and what will be brought before the new People’s Congress of Resistance.
Through direct democracy, people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, and ages will finally have their voices lifted and will have true representation at the People’s Congress of Resistance. A few of the initial conveners will include Professor Jared Ball of Morgan State University; Dennis Banks, co-founder and National Field Director of American Indian Movement; Juan Jose Gutierrez, coordinator for Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition; Dr. Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, co-directors of Popular Resistance; Professor Vijay Prashad, author and journalist; Eugene Puryear, Stop Police Terror Project DC; Gloria La Riva, Party for Socialism and Liberation; Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition; and many more. We hope that you will join us on September 16th and 17th in Washington, D.C. at the Blackburn Center at Howard University. This is what democracy looks like!
For more information or to register for the People’s Congress of Resistance please visit: http://www.congressofresistance.org
Samantha Jacobs is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and activist in Chicago.
The Forge News 