Backbone Does Detroit - 2nd US Social Forum By Bill Moyer
07/10/2010
Imagery for Actions & Friendships for Future Collaborations: It was a long drive for our crew. 5,000 miles in a 30 foot truck is no easy road trip. Todd Tollefson with the help of Jared Middle Calf once again brought Serendipity and all the puppets she carried home safely. The whirlwind week of actions and networking, punctuated by short periods of sleep in a variety of floors, buses and beds took a lot of work, but the new friendships, rekindling long time collaborations, and the prospects for new adventures outweighed the hardship and expense. Backbone Campaign provided multiple images for the opening march with a particularly positive response to the Penta-Gone's transformative vision for dismantling empire and building a just and sustainable security. The giant globe returned to the streets with Count Bleed-Ya-Dry to support a Jobs with Justice Rally the next day. Even our big Fish puppet got into the act traveling atop old sturgeon streams with the Matrix Theater's water reclamation celebration. And we ended with a bang - or a POP! - as Backbone augmented the final action against the municipal incinerator with windmills in the parade and a 60 foot helium powered banner flying parallel to the stacks, reading POISON.
Backbone Campaign shared a huge Creativity Lab space in the main conference center COBO hall with our old friends the Ruckus Society, new friends from the Matrix Theater Co. and elsewhere. While there, we helped Veterans for Peace and a local Environmental Justice activists create banners and we led a number of curious volunteers through the build of the giant POISON banner. It felt great to leave windmill imagery and the helium powered banner with Zero Waste Detroit for future use.
A highlight for me was to get to hangout with and be inspired by master social change artists David Solnit and Hector Aristizębal. Their vision, humility, and commitment to making change beautiful is an inspiration, and I felt honored by how they embraced collaboration with Backbone Campaign.
Like Backbone Campaign, the US Social Forum is appropriately shifting activists' focus from DC to We the People. Led by people of color and attended by practically every serious progressive grassroots organization in the country it was not a question of whether to go, but what to bring. Though it was a financial stretch for Backbone Campaign, it was the perfect place to show what we have to offer and build for future collaborations.
