Solidarity is a Weapon! Benefit for Marie Mason NYC June 7 A special video for the June 7th Day of National Resistance Against the Green Scare Derrick Jensen Acclaimed environmental writer, author of ‘Culture of Make Believe’, ‘A Language Older Than Words’, ‘Endgame’, and other works. Jensen discusses the recent state repression of activist groups (the “Green Scare”), the state of the environmental defense movement, and the fate of our planet. All proceeds will benefit the legal fund for Marie Mason and other recently arrested environmental activists. This is part of the June 7th National Day of Resistance Against the Green Scare. If you cannot make this event but would like to donate to the legal fund, you can do so at http://freemarie.org. JUNE 7, 7PM $5–10 donation requested FUSIONARTS, 57 Stanton Street, Lower East Side NYC (between Forsyth and Eldridge, two blocks from Bluestockings). F at 2nd Ave

SEIZED Critical Art Ensemble Institute for Applied Autonomy June 7 to July 19, 2008 Opening Reception: Saturday, June 7, 8–11pm Admission is FREE Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202 Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is pleased to announce the exhibition SEIZED by Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) and the Institute for Applied Autonomy (IAA). The exhibition premieres Saturday, June 7, 2008 from 8–11pm and the opening reception is free and open to the public. The exhibition will remain on view through July 18, 2008. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 11am to 6pm and Saturday, 1–4pm. Following the four year long ordeal of CAE founding member and University at Buffalo Art Professor Steve Kurtz—accused by the Justice Department of “bio-terrorism” and later indicted on charges of mail fraud for procuring harmless bacterial cultures for use in an educational art project—SEIZED presents the artworks behind this case which has attracted worldwide attention and propelled an international arts community to rally to Kurtz’s support and on behalf of freedom of expression.

Will you join us in the middle of a whirlwind? In the Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements A one-off online journal of theory, art, activism and organizing out now! Coordinated by: Team Colors Collective Published by: The Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press In the Middle of a Whirlwind (Whirlwinds) inquires into current organizing efforts in the United States, and through that process, assembles a strategic analysis of current political composition as a tool for building political power. Whirlwinds’ strategic context is this summer’s RNC and DNC protests; through these documents and the discussions that erupt from them we hope to directly impact the anti-Convention organizing. In a larger sense, and in the long-term, Whirlwinds is intended to provide a set of useful documents for contemporary radical organizing. Each essay and interview addresses the issues of movement, working class power and composition, and/or gives strategic insight into organizing, and the strengths and weaknesses of current movement/s in the U.S.

Utah Phillips: May 15, 1935 – May 24, 2008 John Pietaro Utah spoke directly to each of us in that filled auditorium on April 24 of this year. It didn’t matter that it was his disembodied voice, speaking over a cell phone held up to a microphone, held aloft by Pete Seeger, one of the event's headliners. The strength of Phillips' message message was as clear as the vitality in his tone. I was happy to be there to hear Utah's response to our benefit concert on his behalf, happier still to witness the warm exchange between he and Seeger, another elder of fighting the good fight. But this room on that sunny spring day in Rosendale New York was dedicated Utah Phillips; we'd all come with the intention of helping this man who’d been there for the greater “us” for decades. Utah told us of his life and plans for the future. Sure, he sounded tired, but none could accept that Utah would not get through this challenge. He told us so. None would believe that he would pass away just about a month later. Damn, at least we can say that it took a lot to silence Utah. But the echo of his work rings loudly, as sonorous as the music onstage that day from Pete, Dar Williams, Redwood Moose, Sarah Underhill, Norm Wennet, Bill Vanaver, my own Flames of Discontent and others.

Memories of “Popular Power” in Venezuela’s Economy * From false co-management and cooperatives to the deceitful EPS, we present a balance of what has happened in Venezuela after at least 7 years of pretending to build a socialist economy, where the available data and verifiable facts belie the failure of the Chavez administration.

Seeking Autonomous POC to Make Something New Are you interested in founding an organization of people of color united around anti-authoritarian politics? Over time, many collectives self-identified with APOC (Anarchist People Of Color) have come and gone. New autonomous people of color are getting involved. Interest in seeing something more consistent is a common refrain. What could be needed is an organization that helps strengthen and build collectives, supports activists and puts out a coherent vision for the present and future as autonomous people of color.

Linguist Noam Chomsky Gives Students Lesson in Free Thinking Emily Krone, Daily Herald Staff http://tinyurl.com/4qcvs3 In a second-floor classroom at a Carpentersville [Illinois] high school, one of America's most renowned free-thinkers warned about 40 assembled students that the American public school system conspires to blunt their creativity and engender their obedience. Via speakerphone from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, linguistics professor Noam Chomsky told Dundee-Crown High School students that a two-tiered educational system exists: While the elite attend schools that promote critical, independent thought, the masses attend schools that train students to pass tests and follow orders. The system evolved after the Industrial Revolution, Chomsky said, when the ruling elite recognized the need to transform independent artisans and farmers into pliant factory workers. Today as then, Chomsky said, the imperative is the production of a docile work force that will perpetuate the status quo.

Christian Fundamentalists Promote Child Abuse Manuals Following the murder of 4-year-old Sean Paddock, the truth about Child Abuse, Christian Fundamentalists and homeschooling is coming to light. Books and dvd's promoting severe physical violence against children are being pumped out by the religious right.

“Forging a Black Liberation Agenda for the 21st Century” Black Radical Congress, June 20-22, 2008, St. Louis, Missouri With the launch of the Black Radical Congress (BRC) in 1998, a current of optimism rippled through the social justice movement. In the tradition of other black political gatherings such as the National Negro Congress, the National Black Political Convention and other more recent ones, the BRC set out on a mammoth challenge to build unity within the Black Liberation Movement (BLM) and consensus around the Freedom Agenda.

New Radical Subjectivities: Re-thinking Agency for the 21st Century The University of Nottingham, UK Friday, September 19th, 2008 Keynote Speaker – Professor Peter Hallward (Middlesex University) This one day conference for postgraduate students and early career researchers explores recent articulations of subjectivity and political agency in critical theory and cultural studies. The continued ascent of neo-liberalism and economic globalisation, along with postmodern and poststructuralist theorising around subjectivity, potentially sets a dangerously de-politicised subject against the expanding forces and inequalities of contemporary capitalism.