| Dear friend, I knew about Chuck Kaufman years before meeting him, and I learned about the Nicaragua Network and the Alliance for Global Justice well before getting involved. Back in the 80s and 90s, I suddenly lost my job because of anti-war activities. I was a minimum-wage worker, so the blow was pretty hard. A retired anthropologist helped me through that period by hiring me to sort old papers he had in disarray. He also asked me to read letters asking for contributions and advise him on where he should give. There was a group of organizations that always stood out. They were not just pleas for contributions but much more than that. Their letters were informative, with strong anti-war, anti-imperialist analysis. Inspiring without BS. They taught. They mobilized. I always advised my old benefactor to give. At some point, I saw that all these letters not only looked alike but also came from the same address. Campaign for Labor Rights, 50 Years Is Enough, The Nicaragua Network, and others. I did not know it then, but these were all written by Chuck Kaufman. By 1998, the various parts became the whole, and the Alliance for Global Justice was born. Back in 2002 and 2003, during the lead-up to and then the resistance to the Second Gulf War, I was focused on solidarity with Iraq and opposition to the sanctions since the beginning of the first Gulf War, and I was thus one of the main local leaders of our mobilizations in Tucson. At one point following the invasion in 2003, I was a bit depressed. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the rightward turn in Nicaragua at that time, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I was sunk with a feeling that everything I was doing was fighting against something—but very little fighting for. Then, I heard about some intriguing figures: Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti. I saw the movie The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on cable TV. Wow, I wanted some of that! I wanted to be part of something that wasn’t just resisting and fighting back against the right but with a vision for the future, something that was building a New World! I started looking and one name kept coming up: the Alliance for Global Justice. So, I dug deeper: they were standing up to Capitalism and its wars. AFGJ was one of the founders of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition and regularly endorsed, helped plan, and participated in significant anti-war actions. But what really reached me is that anytime I found anything in English or US-based about Hugo Chávez and Venezuela, AFGJ was almost always part of it, and they saw a bigger picture. They talked about all of Latin America and the emerging 21st Century Socialism and the need to not just act in solidarity with the region but to study, learn, and bring home this vision. I finally got in touch with Chuck in early 2004, and soon I was a regular volunteer, coordinating working groups against US electoral interference in other countries. By the summer of 2007, I was AFGJ staff. Chuck asked me to start writing some of these letters, and he would show me how. But I’d already been studying his incredible letters before I ever met him! I hope that occasionally, my letters are a quarter as informative and inspiring as his. And this is where it gets painful in a personal way. It is with deep sorrow that I tell you that this could be one of the last, if not the last, of these letters. AFGJ is currently under attack because of our Latin American work, our solidarity with Palestine, and our opposition to the genocide in Gaza. We have been deplatformed by the corporations that process online financial activities. One foundation after another has closed its door to us, citing false allegations. What are we to do if foundations won’t fund us and if our access to contributors is blocked online? We must turn directly to you and ask that you take out pen and paper and send us your tax-deductible contributions. |
| Click here to read the full letter! Alliance for Global Justice 225 E 26th St Ste 1 Tucson, Arizona 85713 202-540-8336 afgj@afgj.org |
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