High-Energy Gathering Fires Up A New Generation of Activists in U.S. Left and Social Movements By Carl Davidson Keep On Keepin' On! When 15,000 vibrant and politically engaged people gather in one spot for five days and organize themselves into more than 1000 workshops, dozens of major plenaries and late night parties across five major cultural hot spots, no one article can claim to give a full account and get away with it. But an event on that scale livened up Detroit, Michigan during the week of June 22-26 at the US Social Forum, when Cobo Hall and several nearby universities were buzzing with thousands of people trying to shape a new world. 15,000 Attend Detroit Social Forum I won’t even try to capture it all. I’ll just affirm the common conviction that it was a major happening on the left and a huge success, an inspiration and an affirmation of hope that progress is being made towards a better future. Then I’ll humbly offer my take on it. We’ll start with some highlights and, for those who aren’t familiar with the Social Forum movement, offer a few explanations.

If in 2001 the World Social Forum was "the birthplace of global civil society"-namely all social groupings between the public realm of the state and the private realm of the family-what should it be when that society grows up a bit? Many feel that a change is needed. Explaining her absence from the 2006 WSF, Arundhati Roy said "[it] has now become very NGO-ized [non-governmental organizations]...it's just become too comfortable a stage. I think it has played a very important role up to now, but now...I think we have to come up with new strategies."