Events
MAY DAY – A May Day rally is scheduled for Friday, May 1 at Union Square in NYC, demonstrating in favor of pro-worker (and pro-immigrant) reform and against the worker repression of raids and deportations, foreclosures and bank bailouts. Participants assemble at noon at 14th Street & Broadway.
PROGRESSIVE – The Progressive Magazine (founded 100 years ago by Robert La Follette) celebrates its anniversary with a conference dedicated to the progressive movement, then and now, May 1-2 in Madison, WI
PARTY – The Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles is having a 20th Anniversary party on May 2, 2009 to celebrate two decades of vibrant movement building and to help launch the next 20 years and more.
EDUCATION FORUM – The 2009 Rouge Forum, "Education, Empire, Economy & Ethics at a Crossroads" is scheduled for May 14-17 at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Keynote speakers include Staughton Lynd (activist, historian, lawyer), Greg Queen (teacher), and Rebecca Martusewicz (eco-justice educator and scholar)
GREEN FEST – The Chicago Green Festival, a joint project of Global Exchange and Green America, is scheduled for May 16-17 at Navy Pier. Speakers, panel discussions, presentations, and tables will be offered.
NYC MEDIA – The 6th Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference is scheduled for Saturday, May 30 from 9 AM to 6 PM at Hunter College. There will be workshops, skillshares, and panel presentations.
BIKING – Join Bikes Not Bombs Sunday, June 7 (rain-date June 14) for their 22nd annual Bike-A-Thon and Green Roots Festival in Boston, Massachusetts.
WOMEN – The annual conference of the National Council for Research on Women is scheduled for June 10-12 at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC. This year’s theme is "Igniting Change: Activating Alliances for Social Justice."
LABOR – The Pacific Northwest Labor History Association’s 41st annual conference, A Year in Labor Heritage: When Workers Rise, presented in collaboration with the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies, is scheduled for June 12-13 at the Seattle, WA Labor Temple.
JUNETEENTH – Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Events honoring the sufferings of Africans, as well as celebrations of the triumphs and progress of African American communities, are scheduled in towns across the world on June 19.
CO-OPS – The Annual U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives Member Meeting is scheduled for June 20 (optional activities on June 19 & 21) in Madison, Wisconsin.
CARAVAN – From July 3-17, the 20th annual Pastors for Peace Caravan for Peace will travel across the U.S. and Canada collecting aid and educating about the unjust blockade, before an orientation in Texas from July 18-23, followed by travel to Cuba. People can participate locally by attending or hosting local events, donating materials, or traveling along.
ANTI-WAR – A National Antiwar Conference is scheduled for July 10-12 at La Roche College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
MEDIA – The 11th annual Allied Media Conference will be held July 16-19 in the McGregor Conference Center at Wayne State University in Detroit. Participatory workshops and skillshares will emphasize DIY alternative media to advance visions of a just and creative world.
COUNTER-RECURUITING – A National Counter-Recruitment and Demilitarization Conference is scheduled for July 17-19 at Roosevelt University in Chicago, with practical training and discussions about how to oppose militarization and promote nonmilitary alternatives.
EASTERN CO-OPS – The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, Democracy Works: Worker Cooperatives, Labor Solidarity, and Sustainability, is being held from July 31 to August 2 at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
ORGANIZING – An intensive three-day workshop "Community Organizing for Deep Democracy" is scheduled for August 7-9 hosted at the Democracy Unlimited Headquarters in Eureka, California. Emphasis is on the analysis and strategies needed to dismantle corporate rule.
ECONOMICS – The Union for Radical Political Economics 4-day workshop/retreat with papers and workshops, formal and informal, is August 15-18 at Camp Deer Run in Pine Bush, New York.
BOOK PROGRAM – The Prison Book Program sends books to prisoners. It currently has over 2,000 book requests waiting to be filled, but only enough cash to mail about 300. Please consider making a donation, large or small.
ECOLOGY – The Global Justice Ecology Project’s 56-page booklet, Changing the Flow: Water Movements in Latin America, is available for download from their website. The booklet was produced by a variety of grassroots environmental groups to distribute at the corporate co-opted World Water Forum in March.
ESSAYS – The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation invites submissions to the 2009 Daniel Singer Prize competition, up to 5,000 words, on the topic: "The global economic crisis has revealed capitalism’s inability to meet the needs of the vast majority of the world’s population. Given the experience of the last century, how can a case for socialism be made?" Deadline is July 31.
LIBERTY – The American Civil Liberties Union has released a comprehensive report, Reclaiming Patriotism, examining widespread abuses under the USA PATRIOT Act. They also have a newly re-launched site dedicated to repealing the worst offending provisions of the law.
GANGS – The new documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, chronicles the rise of drug gangs in South Los Angeles, from a community suffering racial injustice to one of self-destruction.
LABOR – The new documentary The Red Tail traces the perverted outcomes of the corporate globalized economy, starting with strikers at Northwest Airlines to outsourced jobs to China, all while exposing the transnational exploitation by owners and managers of workers and communities.
MUMIA – The producers of In Prison My Whole Life, a personal investigation into the Mumia Abu-Jamal case, are now offering discounted DVDs for sale.
ANARCHISM – Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt is a two-volume set examining anarchism’s democratic class politics, its vision of a decentralized planned economy, and its impact on popular struggles in five continents over the last 150 years.
ART – In Arts For Change: Teaching Outside the Frame, Beverly Naidus looks at the motivations and challenges of teaching socially engaged arts and creating art that matters.
CONSUMERS – In Prosperity For All: Consumer Activism in an Era of Globalization, social historian Matthew Hilton offers an international history of consumer activism, highlighting the 1980s deregulatory transition towards "choice" over "access" and the dilemmas of today in equity and sustainability.
CRISIS – In World in Crisis, Gabriel Kolko describes a historic transition now underway, as the U.S. loses its dominance and new technologies undermine traditional military and economic powers.
FOOD – The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability by Lierre Keith is part memoir, part nutritional primer, and part political manifesto that "challenges everything you thought you knew about food politics" while offering a critique of the entire grain-based agricultural system.
JESUS – In Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century, James G. Crossley applies the Herman/ Chomsky propaganda model to examine how Christian origins scholarship has been influenced by its political and social settings, especially today amid an Orientalist "clash of civilizations" paradigm.
JOBS – In Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times, Andrew Ross surveys the new topography of the global workplace and finds an emerging pattern of labor instability and uneven development on a massive scale.
PAMPHLET – Prison Round Trip is a 28-page pamphlet on how to keep one’s sanity and political integrity behind bars, written by Klaus Viehmann after he completed a 15-year sentence for his involvement in urban guerrilla activities in Germany, with a preface by political prisoner Bill Dunne, held by the U.S. government for over 30 years now.
REPRESSION – The 3rd edition of The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders: U.S. Intelligence’s Murderous Targeting of Tupac, MLK, Malcolm, Panthers, Hendrix contains newly uncovered details of the FBI targeting generations of radical black leaders, from Richard Wright to rap artists.
SATIRE – Retail Anarchy: A Radical Shopper’s Adventures in Consumption by "stand-up economist" Sam Pocker is a satirical look at the marketing madness of consumer culture in the U.S. and strategies for survival and subversion.
RESISTANCE – In Why Do You Kill? The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance, unembedded reporter Jürgen Todenhöfer gives firsthand accounts from behind "enemy" lines of Iraqis fighting off foreign invaders.
SOUTH ASIA – In South Asian Cultures of the Bomb: Atomic Public and the State in India and Pakistan, edited by Itty Abraham, the seldom explored nexus of nuclear issues, nationalism, and civil society in the public sphere in both India and Pakistan is explored.
THEORY – Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War by Gopal Balakrishnan examines three political perspectives (Tocqueville’s "liberalism," Schmitt’s radical right, Althusser’s Marxist left) for their insights on state power and civil society, democracy, and class.
UNDERGROUND – In Arm the Spirit: A Woman’s Journey Underground and Back, Puerto Rican independence activist Diana Block traces her political development before and after her clandestine resistance, from the 1960s to the 1990s.
WOMEN PRISONERS – Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women examines daily battles against appalling prison conditions and injustices while documenting both collective organizing and individual resistance among women incarcerated in the U.S.
Email Zaps (short announcements) of events, new releases, ongoing campaigns, etc. to [email protected].
