[antiwar-van] Aug 31: Picnic Against Austerity

[Harsha W.]

Picnic Against Austerity!

Struggles against austerity have been lighting up everywhere - from Quebec
to Chile to South Africa, and most notably in Greece recently.

Locally, over one hundred people packed a library room three months ago
for a Keynote Panel Against Austerity. Now we invite you to join us for an
end-of-summer picnic to continue to build our collective conversations and
movements against austerity.

Monday August 31st at 6 pm
Grandview Park, Commercial Drive, unceded xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh,
and Səl̓ílwətaʔ territories, Vancouver.

There will be food and great conversation.

WITH:

Territorial welcome by Audrey Siegl (ancestral name sχɬemtəna:t) from
Musqueam nation.

Harjap Grewal: Harjap Grewal is an antiauthoritarian organizer with
various local campaigns including No One Is Illegal. As a Council of
Canadians - Regional Organizer, he will be speaking on the global economic
crisis and austerity in relationship to free trade agreements.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo: Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a member of the
Lubicon Cree First Nation. Melina will be speaking on tar sands
extraction, Indigenous rights and climate justice.

Peter Prontzos: Peter Prontzos is an anti-war activist. He teaches
political science at Langara College. Peter will be speaking about
anti-austerity movements in Greece.

Jean Swanson: Jean Swanson is an anti-poverty activist with Carnegie
Community Action Project. Jean will be speaking about austerity's impacts
on housing, social assistance and childcare for low-income communities.


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*What is Austerity?*

Governments and the mainstream media say there is not enough money, and
"belts must be tightened". Cuts to social spending and wages ensue, while
fossil fuel companies and other corporations receive subsidies. Unions are
attacked. Indigenous nations are denied inherent land rights and resources
from their lands are extracted. Environmental regulations are reduced.
Migrant workers are forced into even more precarious working conditions.
Vital public services including education, childcare, housing, women's
centers and healthcare are cut, but the prisons and military are
expanding. And all of this is justified by a prevailing atmosphere of
scarcity and fear.

Almost everyone is affected by austerity policies, but we are typically
isolated in our struggles. Unite Against Austerity (
http://www.uniteagainstausterity.ca/ ) is a cross-country effort that
looks beyond the next election and seeks to transform the political and
economic landscape across communities and sectors. By building grassroots
power and solidarity, we want to make it impossible for any government to
implement austerity policies. Unite Against Austerity aims to build an
understanding of austerity policies, and begin to generate a unity (that
is attentive to specificity) across Indigenous, labour, feminist, migrant,
environmentalist, student, anti-poverty and diverse community movements.

Image courtesy: http://thevolcano.org/

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Accessibility: The pathways to the park are wheelchair accessible. The
field house in the park has accessible washrooms with approx 950 mm
doorways. We will make arrangements for elder-friendly seating in the park
for the picnic.

**************

Event sponsored by SmartChange.



-- 
Harsha Walia

Upcoming book "Undoing Border Imperialism":
http://www.akpress.org/undoing-border-imperialism.html
https://www.facebook.com/undoingborderimperialism


https://twitter.com/HarshaWalia
https://www.facebook.com/NoOneIsIllegalNetwork