Peoples Movement Assembly - Towards a Peoples Constitution
October 2020
The moment is ripe for change. A global pandemic has left unprecedented numbers of people without jobs, housing and healthcare. A swell of uprisings against police brutality have further exposed the deeply rooted white supremacy in our institutions. For over ten years, we have been facilitating conversations with People across the US about imagining what constitutional renewal could look like in this country. Now we're leveling up.
Saturday October 24th
10am - 3pm Pacific
1pm - 6pm Eastern
&
Sunday October 25th
10am - 1pm Pacific
1pm - 4pm Eastern
Join us for a two day, virtual, participatory process where we'll:
- Level up our understanding of rights, constitutions, constitutional renewal processes, corporate power, settler-colonialism, and codifying movement demands
- Have participatory small group breakouts to identify the current moment, envision a better world, and begin planning for how to get there
- Build coalitions, build community, share our experiences and ideas
- Synthesize our movement demands in a constitutional framework
- Be bold, visionary, revolutionary, and joyful
RSVP AND REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE
What is a Peoples Movement Assembly?
The Peoples Movement Assembly is a participatory process which came to the US out of the World Social Forum, and has been used by many communities and assemblies for generations.
"The assembly is a constellation of social movement organizations and people that seek to govern themselves.
It is not a network, not a coalition, not an alliance, and not a political party. It is inclusive and not exclusive to one political line or ideology. It is a convergence of social forces.
The assembly process is based on the facilitation methodology of collective critical thinking and analysis, resulting in a synthesis that represents the sum organic total of all of the ideas and commitments. The social movement assembly results in action based on that synthesis.
The assembly is a decolonizing process. The assembly process is based on a theory of change that people can create processes that dismantle colonial and neocolonial systems while at the same time creating a new society.
At the heart of the assembly process is a project to dismantle patriarchy, racism, poverty, capitalism, oppression, exploitation, and violence while replacing those systems with movement governance and liberated institutions.
The assembly creates an open space for people to enter social movements and become active participants and leaders. The assembly is facilitated to encourage maximum participation in order to practice direct participatory democracy at the community level, within particular frontlines, and across social movements.
The assembly is multiracial, multigenerational, multi-ideological, and multi-gendered. The assembly brings all the voices together in a circular fashion and engages the thinking, experiences, and visions of all the participants in order to synthesize and collectively agree on action steps." - PeoplesMovementAssembly.org
Assumptions
This People's Movement Assembly- Towards a Peoples Constitution is a process designed for those who are ready to imagine a better world and a constitution that protects People and Planet, not corporations and profit.
This is not a space to debate if we should renew the constitution, but rather, what's our vision for a Peoples Constitution. The following assumptions are the starting point for this PMA. Please join us if you are at least mostly in agreement with these assumptions.
- The USA is not now, nor has it ever been a functioning democracy.
- The United States was founded on stolen land and built using stolen labor from enslaved people.
- The US Constitution was created by and for the wealthy elite of the era - excluding most people living on the land at the time of its crafting. Specifically, the Constitution was written to protect and represent white men with money and/or land.
- The US Constitution is a property rights document, not a human rights document.
- The US Constitution was used to perpetuate and legalize attempted genocide, white supremacy and racism, male domination over women, and class oppression. It took mass social movements—broad, deep, conscious, organized and educated—to make marginal improvements in this country. With each hard-won expansion of suffrage, the governing elite devised mechanisms to shrink what effect the vote could have.
- Any movement that wants to actually create a new world must create new institutions (including new legal institutions) that meet people's needs without destroying the planet that we depend upon for life itself.
- All law should be contingent on and subordinate to the highest laws -- unalienable rights shared equally by all. Because "unalienable rights" are /should be the things most highly valued by society and immune from regulation / limitation. The establishment, protection and enforcement of Unalienable Rights must be the constitution's reason for being and should direct freedom to govern in all things, in the hands of each community, except wherein a law would limit or violate anyone's Unalienable Rights.
- The constitution of any country at its best reflects its collective inspirations and aspirations. It defines the legal framework of how people structure their society -- politically, economically, and socially. Moreover, constitutions are moral or ethical documents -- designating what is right and wrong -- with profound implications on literally every aspect of the lives of people, their communities, country and the natural world.
- The US Constitution should be renewed or rewritten to account for new generations and circumstances, and should exist as a living document which reflects the challenges and opportunities of the times.
- In order to move towards new systems and a new foundational document, we must be bold and visionary in imagining a better world.
- The ultimate goal of mass movements is not only to change the culture, but to codify movement demands into laws and, more importantly, rights.
Partnering Organizations
Who's RSVPing
