Common Action General Assembly Report

north america / mexico | anarchist movement | news report Thursday February 12, 2009 05:13 by Andrew - Common Action nwcommonaction at gmail dot com

January 2009

The weekend of January 17-18, members of Common Action, an anarchist organization in the Northwest United States, traveled from across the region to convene in Olympia, WA for our third general assembly. Members representing the cities of Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Portland were in attendance.

The weekend of January 17-18, members of Common Action, an anarchist organization in the Northwest United States, traveled from across the region to convene in Olympia, WA for our third general assembly. Members representing the cities of Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Portland were in attendance.

In the four short months since our last general assembly in September, Common Action members have continued their work in neighborhoods and workplaces, focusing on issues of immigrant solidarity, youth and student organizing, and more. Drawing from these experiences, the general assembly was largely devoted to discussions about internal education, identifying the issues that matter most to us as an organization as we continue to organize, learn and grow.

An important topic among our discussions at the general assembly was transformative justice, a radical response to conflict. Together we forged a commitment to learn more about incorporating transformative justice principles into our political practice. This includes a mandate to develop processes of accountability for situations of sexual assault and abuse that involve Common Action. Altogether, these conversations are part of Common Action's developing focus on collective liberation - striving to understand and practice different struggles against racism, sexism, capitalism and other issues in all their complexities and intersections.

Speaking of intersections - another topic for discussion was Intersections, our regular newsletter. Two issues of Intersections have been produced so far, and the general assembly provided a chance to reflect, evaluate and affirm our goals with the project. In 2009, the newsletter will appear quarterly with a print-run of several thousand. The latest issue, with features on education, GI organizing, the Twilight franchise, and more, is due out in March. It will continue to be available on the internet via our website. For a copy of the current issue or information about back issues, contact us at nwcommonaction@gmail.com.

Last but not least, we affirmed our commitment to working with like-minded anarchist organizations. Towards this end, we have joined the effort to create a discussion bulletin with similar anarchist groups. Our work as an associate of http://www.anarkismo.net will also continue.

The work we do in our communities won't stop, the struggles won't stop, and neither will Common Action - now to the future!

Contact us at nwcommonaction@gmail.com or visit http://www.nwcommonaction.org to learn more about us.

**Join the Common Action Announcements listserv at http://groups.google.com/group/nwcommonactionannouncements for the occasional e-mail about sponsored events, publications, reports, and other fun stuff.***