= Proposal for workshops at the Left Forum =

== The Internet: Humanity's Revolutionary Initiative ==

The Internet is a mass movement, one of the largest and most international in human history. Over a billion people have invented, continuously developed, defended and protected its technology while using that technology to communicate and collaborate with each other in ways that are unprecedentedly deep and revealing.

While a reason for optimism and celebration, the Internet's spectacular growth in size and social importance raises questions for our political movements: How and why did it happen? What about this movement is unique? And what is its potential future? The answers will help us define how we can work within the Internet as a force of and for revolution.

Internet organizers from various progressive organizations will lead an audience discussion on the topic.

== A Collaborative Democracy Workshop: Building a Hemispheric Economy ==

How do we rebuild the Hemisphere's economy?

In the last two years, people at Social Forums, conferences and other gatherings all over the Hemisphere have participated in May First/People Link's Collaborative Democracy workshop to experiment with democratic collaboration, the use of Internet technology to facilitate it, and the power and challenges inherent in real democratic exchange. The workshop is extremely popular and participants frequently comment about how enjoyable and "revealing" it is.

Using May First/People Link's Collaborative Democracy software, workshop participants will break into small groups of four or five people and put together a program of economic rights for our Hemisphere. This workshop is part of a year-long program of "consultas" that are building towards an on-line Hemispheric economic People's Congress in 2010.