G8 / Ottawa / June 2002: A Smashing Good Time

Take it to the capital!:
Because your days are numbered you rich parasites

*** NOTE: This third callout contains general information about the Consulta, a revised draft agenda (including Radical Tours of Ottawa), and NEW information about a panel event entitled "Solidarity on the Front Lines: a discussion on Diversity of Tactics" that will be held at the University of Ottawa on Saturday evening. This email also includes registration and billeting forms. If you haven't yet done so, please fill them out and return them to takethecapital@tao.ca and g8housing@yahoo.com respectively AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. See you in Ottawa. ***

On June 26&27, 2002, the Group of Eight (G8) will retreat to the hills of Kananaskis for their annual Summit. In accordance with decisions made by the assembly at the Northeast Regional Consulta, which was held on February 16&17 in Ottawa, activists in the Northeast region have been organizing and mobilizing regionally and locally for "Take the Capital!", two days of resistance to the G8 in Ottawa on June 26&27. "Take the Capital!" actions will be undertaken in solidarity with demonstrations and actions against the G8 in Alberta and worldwide.

As mandated by the first Consulta, a second Northeast Regional Consulta Against the G8 is being convened for May 25&26, 2002, in Ottawa. The "Take the Capital!" Consulta is intended to provide a space for the "Take the Capital!" organizing committee to share information about the organizing process to date. It will also be a context in which affinity groups and organizations seeking to get involved in "Take the Capital!" can plug into the basic framework of events planned for June 26&27, share their own action plans to the extent that that is useful and co-ordinate actions collectively and effectively if they so choose. Special Consulta events will include Radical Tours of Ottawa and a long awaited panel on Strategy and Tactics.

Primarily for sharing information and co-ordinating the "Take the Capital!" actions on June 26&27, the second Consulta is part of an an ongoing regional effort to reinforce local anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-oppression networks of resistance.

The Consulta is being called on specific political and organizing principles. Those principles are:

• an analysis that emphasizes a clear anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist position against globalization and war;
• a clear emphasis on anti-oppression organizing and education;
• a focus on local organizing, as opposed to just going from one big protest to another
• trying to make genuine links between "anti-globalization" issues and local organizing efforts;
• active support and solidarity for initiatives like the Ontario Common Front's economic disruption campaign, or the recent squat project in Montreal;
• a respect for a diversity of tactics, and showing solidarity with the full scope of resistance in our communities;
• distrust and skepticism of lobbying efforts, emphasizing instead grassroots organizing, popular education and mobilizing;
• organizing in a non-hierarchical, anti-authoritarian fashion, as well as within the framework of anti-oppression analysis and action.

Organizations, affinity groups, collectives and individuals in agreement with the above principles are encouraged to attend the Consulta. The Consulta is explicitly aiming to build on the above basis of unity, and not to fundamentally alter the main political and organizing principles. However, the principles will be elaborated and expanded, as part of public popular education work. The organizers of the Consulta and of the "Take the Capital!" actions have also adopted the hallmarks of the Peoples' Global Action network (as modified and accepted at Cochabamba, Bolivia in September 2001).