2007 Programs
2007 Programs
Growth, Inflation and Decline
As the housing boom became a bubble that is now bursting, personal debts keep spiraling to new heights. These two problems now combine to put the US economy in a highly vulnerable situation.
The format...
Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures
Sujatha Fernandes will launch her new book - Cuba Represent! - which examines artistic movements within Cuban society such as hip hop culture, film discussion groups, and performance art as providing a...
Be it through the ballot box or direct mass action, Latin Americans have emerged as a formidable challenge to the hegemony of global capitalism and neoliberal ideology. At the moment at least 7 of 10 recently...
Where Have all the Raises Gone?
Real wages have stopped rising since the mid-1970s. This is a profound, historic change for the US. We will discuss why this happened, the resulting deeper inequalities, and their economic implications.
...
Progressive Politics in a Phantasmagorical Age
What practical political lessons can we learn from corporate theme parks, ad campaigns, video games like Grand Theft Auto, celebrity culture, and Las Vegas? Former Brecht Forum board member and long-...
Urgent Tasks for Educational Transformation--New York & Beyond
With the decimation of community-based alternative public schools, an increase in race-based hiring inequities, and continued under-funding, the Department of Education is clearly not working for the City's...
An Introduction for Teacher Activists
Teachers committed to social justice often avoid having anything to do with their union for a variety of reasons. Whether curious about individual professional rights or how to build a large-scale movement, we...
Readings & Remembrances
Ellen Willis, who died at age 64 last November 9, was one of the most admired and influential radical writers of her generation. Her work, published in magazines and newspapers such as the
American imperialism has traditionally ""been made plausible and attractive by the insistence that it is not imperialistic,"" but in recent years, the practice of American imperialism (""we're an empire now,...
By many estimates, the Internet is now comprised of over one billion people who communicate with each other across virtually every boundary. It is unique in human history and unprecedented in the impact it is...
Globalizing neo-liberal capitalism provoked a backlash. Unilateral militarism is one US response. We will discuss the economics of both globalization and the backlash now challenging it.
The format for...
Confronting Challenges Faced by the Anti-war Movement
Come celebrate the release of the Spring issue of Left Turn magazine as we discuss the myriad of challenges facing the US anti-war Movement four years after the invasion of Iraq. Join members of Iraq...
Why, during the 1980s, did many white union members--the so-called ""Reagan Democrats""--sometimes support programs that went against their interests as wage earners? Why, in the late 1940s, were white...
The Battle for Public Perception
Media critics and analysts Andersen and Cohen will discuss the connections between the media and war and the challenges this presents for the left. They will explore how the selection of which stories are told...
A People's History of the Third World
The Darker Nations traces the intellectual origins and the political history of the twentieth century attempt to knit together the world's impoverished countries in opposition to the United States and...
Saul Landau
Botox promoters promise to wipe away wrinkles, the signs of aging--the signs of time passing. Such ""eternal youth"" potions metophorically help erase the very notion of time itself. In a phony world,...
Ecological & Agricultural Perspectives on Israel/Palestine
Joel Kovel & Hilary Martin
Israel began building what it calls the Separation Wall in 2002. Today,the Wall is still under construction, and approximately 10% of the WestBank is due to lie on Israel's side of the wall. In February of...
John Ross
On New Year's Day 1994 a small group of Mayan peasants, led by a charismatic former university professor, grabbed the worldÕs attention by taking over San Cristobel, the capitol of Chiapas, Mexico and...
A conversation with Dr. Nawal el Saadawi, Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan & Bina Sharif with a reading by Sohair Soukkary. Moderated by Barbara Nimri Aziz
Untying the Knots
Max Fraad-Wolff & Rick Wolff
The US economy is changing fast. Corporations consolidate via mergers, outsourcing, and foreign investments; they control or evade state power. ConsumersÕ economic problems grow; unions keep declining; and...
From the 1960s & 70s to the Present
Sheila Cohen & Kim Moody
Join us to celebrate the publication of two new books that look at key areas that have shaped the current realities of working class struggleÑthe concerted assaults on trade unions and the rise of the real...
Anoush Ter Taulian
On January 19, 2007, Hrant Dink, the editor of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly Agos newspaper, was assassinated outside of his newspaperÕs offices in Istanbul. Dink was a frequent target of...
American War and the Financial Logic of Risk Management
Randy Martin
In this significant Marxist critique of contemporary American imperialism, cultural theorist Randy Martin argues that a finance-based logic of risk control has come to dominate AmericansÕ everyday lives as...
Kathy Engel
Kathy Engel reads from her new book, Ruth's Skirts, a collection of passionated, committed and lyrical writing that demonstrates the artificiality of the boundaries between poetry and prose, art and...
Annette T. Rubinstein
Franz Mehring, a late 19th century Marxist critic, said that while they live great radical writers are usually ignored but when they are too well known to be forgotten they are belied, their works hidden and...
Speakers TBA
Join us for an introduction to the constellation of anti-immigration forces in the United States--think tanks, interest groups, private foundations, corporations, political action committees, politicians,...
An Evening with Grace Lee Boggs
Grace Lee Boggs is an activist, writer and speaker whose morethan sixty years of political involvement encompass the majorU.S. social movements of this century: Labor, Civil rights,Black Power, Asian American...
Speakers TBA
How do we, as part of a broad anti-imperialist, anti-war, and internationalist left, engage and express real and meaningful solidarity with struggles for justice in the Middle East and North Africa? Despite...
Elizabeth Grant
Elizabeth Grant, PhD, from the New York Historical Society, will present on Early African Settlers in New York, which includes a history of slavery and abolition in New York City, especially how it relates to...
August 23, 1915 Ð January 22, 2007
Edward Boorstein was a life-long revolutionary internationalist from the Bronx who trained as an economist and placed his skills, energy and passion at the service of revolutionary governments in Cuba (1960-...
We will present and screen a documentary made by a group of of 4th and 5th grade students in collaboration with Manhattan Neighborhood Network on themes of borders and inequity
The ÒWar on TerrorÓ and Repression
Speakers TBA
Featuring attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights, as well as anti-war activists and organizers, this event focuses on detention, racism and war, linking struggles for justice in our communities in...
Speakers TBA
Come celebrate the release of the Summer issue of Left Turn magazine (#25) as we get ready to head down to Atlanta for the 2007 US Social Forum. Contributors and editors will discuss the possibilities...
with Author Robert Roth & Readings by Martha Lincoln, Margaret Mercer, Ralph Nazareth, Myrna Nieves & Carletta Joy Walker
4:00 - Reception
5:00 - Readings
Robert Roth's Health Proxy is a dynamic collage of consciousness‰ÛÓbits and pieces of perception, insight, observation, dialogue, interior monologue,...
Food & Autonomy in the City
Laura Kirchner & Representatives of Community Supporter Agriculture
The growth of urban permaculture and organic farming practices has brought the relationship between food and social justice into focus. In this presentation, Laura Kirchner of Fair Food NYC and members of...
Well, What Can We Do About It?
Ajamu Sankofa
Michael Moore's documentary SiCKO exposes this nation's dirty little secret: the 40 million Americans without health insurance in this country. This film has led to a questioning of the private healthcare...
The Brecht Forum invites all who participated in the first US Social Forum in Atlanta, June 27-July 1, and those who would like to hear about it, to come together for an open discussion of what happened and...
Kenyon Farrow & Others TBA
Come join us for a celebration of Black gay writer/activist James Badlwin on the anniversary of his 81st birthday.
A Narrative History of Black Power
Peniel Joseph
The Black Power Movement transformed America's racial, social, and political landscape. Come learn about this movement's heritage and legacy from activist and scholar Dr. Peniel E. Joseph, who will be reading...
S.E. Anderson
Join us to celebrate the republication of Black Holocaust for Beginners. The Black Holocaust - a virtually ignored travesty - killed millions of African human beings from the start of European slave...
A Radical Social and Political History of the Lower East Side
Jim Feast, Sarah Ferguson, Alan Moore, Clayton Patterson & Seth Tobocman
New York's Lower East Side has been pivotal in the development of politically radical practices, lifestyles and thought. This legacy, stretching back to the days of Emma Goldman's residence at the turn of the...
Vivek Chibber
The 20th century was characterized by the rise of two historic forces, the newly emerging American imperium and the global socialist movement. At the turn of this century, socialism is in full retreat, while...
The Promise of Free and Open Source Software
Samir Chopra, Gabriella Coleman & Scott Dexter
Software is more that instructions for computing machines: it enables (and disables) political imperatives and policies. Nowhere is this potential for radical social and political change more apparent than in...
Plus Film Sceening of <i>A Summer Not to Forget</i>
Bilal El-Amine
Bilal Elamine, currently living in Beirut, originally from SouthernLebanon, the former editor of Left Turn Magazine, will talk abouthis personal experince of the July (2006) War on Lebanon and...
An Economist's Travelogue
Michael Yates
The road trip is a staple of modern American literature. But nowhere in American literature, until now, has a left-wing economist hit the road, observing and interpreting the extraordinary range and spectacle...
The case of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Nilda Medina & Robert Rabin
Our speakers will address the struggle for justice and peace in Vieques, Puerto Rico in the years since the Navy has stopped itÕs bombing practice on the islandÑincluding the ongoing struggles for...
Behind & Beyond the Icon
Tariq Ali, Chesa Boudin, Juan Gonzalez & Greg Grandin. Moderator: Sujatha Fernandes
6:30: Exhibit Opening & Reception
7:30 pm Forum
Che Guevara, the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary was murdered in Bolivia, with the backing of the CIA, 40 years ago this October. A leader of...
Real Life Encounters With Iraq
Barbara Nimri Aziz. Moderated by Lynne Stewart
In Swimming Up the Tigris Barbara Nimri Aziz allows ordinary Iraqis to speak directly to us. We learn of the breakdown of Iraq's once exemplary medical system, and of needless deaths as a result of poor...
Gerardo Renique
The presentation will focus on the latest trends and developments of Oaxaca's popular movement that have managed to weather successfully one of the most violent repressions in recent Mexican history.
...
Reggie Boorstein, John Gerassi & Joseph Harris
When the photographer Alberto Diaz, known more popularly as Korda, aimed his Leica at Ernesto Guevara in March 1960 he had no idea that the resulting shot would become a famous and instantly recognizable...
Nonviolence & Resistance in the Middle East & Beyond
Ellen Davidson & Judith Mahoney Pasternak
A celebration of the War Resisters League 2008 Peace Calendar and a reportback and slide show by Ellen Davidson and Judith Mahoney Pasternak on their recent trip to Palestine as part of a delegation meeting...
Refugees from the War in Iraq
Hiba Dawood, Robert S. Eshelman & Richard Rowley. Moderated by Ash Rao
As a direct result of the US war and occupation an estimated 2 million Iraqis are now refugees. Another 1.5 million are internally displaced, living in camps without water, electricity or medical services....
Max Fraad Wolff & Richard Wolff
Analysis of turbulent economic times and their implications for US and global income, wealth and growth. Presentation followed by Q and A.
Jane Franklin, John Gerassi, Michael Smith & Leonard Weinglass
Our panel will lay out the specifics of what we know about the CIA's involvement in the murder of Che Guevara and trace the links between the CIAÕs actions and continuing attacks on the Cuban Revolution.
Joaquin Mauricio Chavez, Sujatha Fernandes, Forrest Hylton & Others TBA
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez once remarked that the nineteenth century was the century of Europe, the twentieth was the century of the United States, and the twenty-first is to be the century of Latin...
Bhairavi Desai & Ed Ott
In the 21st Century, conventional trade union organization has no longer proved to be sufficient for responding to the assaults on a labor force that is now fragmented into a variety of traditional and non-...
Herb Boyd, Elombe Brath, Joan Gibbs, Joseph Harris & Rosemary Mealy
Africa was a major arena for Ernesto GuevaraÕs work of the early 60s. Not as well known as his activities in Latin America, CheÕs actions in Africa, which culminated in his personal participation in the...
A Conversation on Successes & Challenges
Hye-Jung Park, Nan Rubin, Martha Wallner & Betty Yu
From the Media Reform Conference in January, through the U.S. Social Forum in July, and at a host of regional gatherings, FCC hearings and grassroots media trainings in between, this is an exciting year for...
The Long (and Contentious) Strategic Journey of the US Left
Mark Solomon
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong
Come Meet Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a leading clinician/researcher on the effects of Agent Orange on the women and children of Vietnam. Dr. Phuong is the Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Medical...
Real vs Bogus Solutions
Patrick Bond, Mitchell Joachim, Jessica Lee & Elaine Matthews
Norman Finkelstein
Embattled professor and penetrating analyst of the Middle East, Norman Finkelstein will examine the roots of the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the prospects for peace.Ê
How a U.S. Police State Is Being Built
Clark Kissinger, Roberto Lovato, Michael Smith & Others TBA
Our panel will discuss the near completion since 911 of the infrastructure for a police state in the United States--including its legal and ideological apparatus.
Left Perspectives on the Current Political Economy
Participants in a Reading & Writing Group
Our panelists will present ideas, drawn from their just-completed study group on James and Grace Lee Boggs classic work, Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century. They will present some reflections...
Greg Wilpert
On December 3rd, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez suffered his first electoral defeat in nine years and 12 nation-wide votes. How did this happen and what does this mean for the continuation of the Bolivarian...