Events
WOMEN’S STRIKE– International Women’s Day, March 8, has also been a day of protest, education, and direct action to redress the ongoing oppression of women who do two-thirds of all the world’s work—most of it without pay or formal benefits and often in slave conditions.
BOOKFAIR – The 2009 Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair will take place on March 14-15 at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.
ECONOMY – The first annual Forum on the Solidarity Economy: Building Another World is scheduled for March 19-22, 2009 at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst brings together diverse groups and individuals to share ideas and practices, to forge new connections, and to build a more powerful and cohesive movement for a just, democratic and sustainable economy.
WAR/ECONOMY – The national anti-war group United For Peace & Justice is calling for local demonstrations on and around the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 19 and also to use this event to mobilize for a "National Mobilization to End War and Fund Human Needs" on April 4, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic "Beyond Vietnam" speech and his assassination.
FEMINISM – Visions in Feminism is holding its annual conference in Washington, DC on April 4. The group seeks to merge feminist theory and praxis and engage both academic and activist discussion. This year’s conference theme is Pushing Boundaries: Queering Feminism & Queer-ying our Communities.
IMMIGRATION – The 4th National Grassroots Immigrant Strategy Conference is scheduled for April 10-12 at the UIC College of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. The conference will focus on building multi-ethnic, multi-constituent, broad-based grassroots immigrant rights movements run by de-centralized volunteer-based community-rooted immigrant rights activists.
LEFT FORUM – The 2009 Left Forum is scheduled for April 17-19 at Pace University across from City Hall. This year’s theme is Turning Points and features discussions, workshops, and tables.
ANTI-NATO – Planning and mobilization is underway for protests and peace alternatives during NATO’s 60th anniversary celebration on the French-German border in April 2009.
PROGRESSIVE – The Progressive Magazine (founded 100 years ago by Robert La Follette) celebrates its anniversary year with a conference dedicated to the progressive movement, then and now, May 1-2 in Madison, Wisconsin.
PEACE – A World Peace Conference is being planned for May 26-31 in Taos, New Mexico. Featuring participatory planning and engagement, the conference is intended as the first of a continuing series of peace conferences to galvanize viable actions and fulfill the Hopi prophecy that we are the people we’ve been waiting for.
Organizations
BOOKS – Better World Books is a private venture with a mission to collect books (many destined for landfills) and sell them online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.
GAZA – Longstanding peace organizations like StopTheWall are facilitating solidarity actions and demonstrations around the world in response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza under Israel blockade and following Israel’s illegal attack.
SOLAR – EuroSolar is accepting applications and proposals until July 31 for the annual European Solar Prizes in several categories for outstanding projects and individual achievements towards the use of renewable energy.
VOLUNTEERISM – Volunteers for Peace offers more than 3,000 community service opportunities in more than 100 countries, including the U.S., offering grassroots exchange, educational, and work programs.
DVDs
OCCUPATION – In Occupation 101, the root causes of the Israeli occupation of Palestine are explored, from 1880s immigration to the "separation barrier," detailing current life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States, and the major obstacles to peace.
TORTURE POLICY – Torturing Democracy tells the inside story of how the U.S. government adopted torture as official policy in the aftermath of 9/11.
SHADOW GOVERNMENT – Secrecy is a documentary that provides a visual essay about the costs, benefits and history of the vast, invisible world of government secrecy.
Books
BUNNISTA – In the new comic collection Bunnista Gets Evicted, Part 1, political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan explores financial crisis.
CHINA – The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy by Minqi Li postulates that the decline of a hegemonic U.S. will erode the foundations of exploitation upon which world capitalism lies.
MARX – In Ethical Marxism: The Categorical Imperative of Liberation, Professor Bill Martin offers a new less historical/political economy framework for approaching Marx and radical leftist worldviews.
NOIR – Film Noir, American Workers, and Postwar Hollywood by Dennis Broe "puts the red back in the black" by exploring the parallels between the serious subject matter of some 1940s-50s film with the labor movements and class conflict of the period.
QUAKERVIEW – In Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy, Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver use the core Quaker principle of "right relationship"—interacting in a way that is respectful to all and that aids the common good—as the foundation for a new economic model.
STAYING SINGLE – I Didn’t Work This Hard Just to Get Married: Successful Single Black Women Speak Out by Nika C. Beamon explores cultural stereotypes and stigmas, and the generation of independent women who defy them.
REPORT – The 567-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2009, an annual publication of human rights abuses and trends, was released in February.
RULING CLASSES – In The Rise of the Rich: A New View of Modern World History, historian Peter Gran reframes western-centric narratives by exploring the long history of non-western elites resolving conflicts through negotiations.
ZINES – Microcosm Publishing has released the new Zine Yearbook 9, a collection of the best of the underground DIY ziterati, plus two new reprints of classics in the field: Make a Zine by Bill Brent and Joe Biel and Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture by Stephen Duncombe.
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