Despite the US focus, I think this will be of interest to several of you on
this discussion group. Apologies for possible cross-postings.

For those interested in related reading, I recommend the following:

David Korten's WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD (1996, Kumerian Press, West
Hartford, CT)

Ed Finn  "The Corporate Strategy" CANADIAN FORUM July/Aug '96: 6-8.

Linda McQuaig SHOOTING THE HIPPO  (1995, Penguin)


------------forwarded message  (from CD4URBAN listserv--------------

Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 19:19:08 -0700
From: Michael Bettencourt <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The Alliance Convention

Please read the following press release about the Founding Convention of
The Alliance.  If you have any questions, please contact the National
Office.
--
Michael Bettencourt
"Beware of enterprises that require new clothes."
96 Elm Street
Somerville, MA 02144
[log in to unmask]


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

TO:    All those interested in changing the course of the
       nation and of history

FROM:  The Alliance

RE:    "Taking Back Our Lives and Our Democracy": The Alliance's
       Founding Convention, November 21 - 24, 1996, in Hunt, Texas

>From November 21 -24, 1996, The Alliance, a grassroots membership
organization formed in response to a call put out by Ronnie Dugger last
year, will
hold its Founding Convention at the Mo Ranch Conference Center in Hunt, Texas
(near San Antonio). Activists, concerned citizens, and representatives from over
forty local Alliance chapters formed around the country will convene to take up
the fight for economic and social justice against the overweening power of the
corporations.

To register, contact The Alliance for a registration form and brochure.
Registration is $150; The Alliance is also in the process of creating a
scholarship
fund to help those unable to pay the full amount.  The deadline for
registration is
November 1, 1996.  Accommodations and meals will be available, and child care
will be provided.  The Alliance can be contacted at

Kati Winchell, National Coordinator
The Alliance
P.O. Box 1011
North Cambridge, MA 02140
Telephone: (617) 491-4221
Fax: (617) 259-0404
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web Site: http://www.igc.org/alliance

The Call
The Alliance emerged in response to Ronnie Dugger's "Call to Citizens: Will the
Real Populists Stand Up?" which appeared in The Nation on August 14/21, 1995.
Dugger wrote that "we are ruled by big business and big government as its paid
hireling, and we know it....Corporate money is wrecking popular government in
the United States....The big corporations and the centimillionaires and
billionaires
have taken daily control of our work, our pay, our housing, our health, our
pension
funds, our bank and savings deposits, our public lands, our airwaves, our
elections, and our very government.  It's as if American democracy has been
bombed....This is a call to hope and action, a call to reclaim and reinvent
democracy, a call to the hard work of organizing ourselves into a broad national
coalition...to reconstitute ourselves into a smashing new national force to end
corporation rule."

A year and a half later, after more than 4000 people have responded to Dugger's
"Call," from every state, and after forty local Alliances have formed, the
Alliance
is convening to found itself as a national movement.

Program Highlights
The convention will feature speakers, presentations, and workshops all designed
to foster dialogue about and action aimed at restoring to the people
control over
social and economic decisions in their lives.  Speakers will include
* Jim Hightower (crusading talk show host)
* Molly Ivins (author and syndicated columnist)
* Lawrence Goodwyn (author of The Populist Moment)
* Howard Zinn (author of A People's History of the United States)
* David Korten (author of When Corporations Rule The World)
* Jane Anne Morris (corporate anthropologist and co-founder of Democracy
Unlimited)
* Ronnie Dugger.

Members of The Alliance's National Task Forces have been engaged in a study of
nine issues, and they will make presentations at the Convention.  The issues are
education, the environment, food and agriculture, health care, the media,
alternative economics, campaign finance reform, economic insecurity, and the
Fourteenth Amendment and corporate "personhood."  In addition, three National
Work Groups will also present their proposals for a mission statement, a
constitution and by-laws, and an affiliation agreement between local
Alliances and
the national organization.

Historical Context
A century ago the Texas hill country gave rise to the American Populists, a
political and social movement that challenged the corporations for control
of the
nation's wealth and spirit.  The Populists, believing that the power of
corporations
was destroying the ability of the people to govern themselves, worked to build a
democratic economic system: they organized cooperatives, educated themselves
on the issues of the day, published a myriad of newspapers and broadsides, and
organized disparate groups into a unified cultural and political force.

It is time to raise this challenge to corporate power again, and once again
it is
rising from the Texas hill country.  Come and participate in the first step
toward
taking back the political, economic, and social power which is rightfully our as
American citizens.  Come to the Founding Convention and play a part in making
history.

The Alliance is open to all.  We reject exclusionary, racist, violent, or
xenophobic
strains that attempt to work their way into Populism.
-------------