Dave’s Wanderings

I recently finished some traveling and thought I’d write about some more interesting aspects. First I went to Houston for an Affiliates’ board meeting. Not much to report except that the movement is growing rapidly – a new group every month or so. We are in the process of disbanding the board and creating a more grassroots-led model with less overview from the other Maryknoll entities.

Then I went to New Orleans. I was there with other members of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA), a huge coalition of coalitions around the Americas that especially focuses on trade. We created some parallel events to the meeting of the three North American presidents (the 3 Amigos) who were meeting to further along the SPP – Security and Prosperity Partnership – which is a very hidden deepening of NAFTA. They are negotiating through executive means, so there is absolutely no information given even to our Congresses about what is happening in the negotiations. The SPP sets up working groups of the governmental departments together with the North American Competitiveness Council, which is composed of 10 corporate representatives from each country. If you’d like more info on the SPP, let me know and I’ll send you more details.

The events we set up were very good for starting to address the racism and inequalities within the HSA. We met a lot of local leaders and got a good understanding of what has happened since Katrina. I think New Orleans represents the worst and best of the U.S. in some ways. The worst in that the government STILL has done next to nothing to help the majority of people who lost their homes. At the same time, it represents the best of the U.S. in that everything that has happened there to improve things has been done through the work of thousands of volunteers that come for weeks at a time together with donations from all over the country that still come in. It’s a shame that we must depend on volunteerism, but good to know that it still exists…

Then I went to Guatemala for a Mesoamerica global concerns meeting and some of the activities related to the 10 anniversary of the death of Bishop Gerardi. Participated in a procession to where he was killed together with hundreds of others. He is still missed by many. The global concerns meeting was a good one with some movement toward possibly working on a common theme throughout the region. Two more likely themes are sustainable food/agriculture and violence. They are starting an Affiliate group in the city. The next Mesoamerica meeting will be after the Americas Social Forum that will be held in Guatemala City in October. We plan to have a lot of Maryknollers and their local partners participating.

The last part of my trip was to NY to get Jesus Leon to the UN for his presentation. But I’ll talk about that in my next post…